Hermana Oliphant in Nicaragua: Week four: Choir and Countdown to Leave

Hola!

This week has been relatively boring, since we haven't gotten any new districts, and we won't be getting anymore this week.

But yeah, we've just been studying and learning Spanish. We're all getting excited to head off to the mission field. After being here for a month, we're all excited to teach actual people. And have a senior companion who knows what they're doing ;) At the MTC, you get to learn about two weeks after you've taught someone that you've just entirely screwed everything up. And neither you nor your companion know what you're doing. But it's an adventure. We get to kind of figure out how to do things just to be shot down by our trainer to be showed how it's actually done. I'm looking forward to that.

We've also had some pretty great devotionals this week. I love going and singing the prelude hymns and feeling the Spirit all the time. I know I won't be able to have that constant forced spiritual upliftment once I'm in the field, but hopefully I'll be well versed in how to always have it in my life no matter what happens.

Choir has been my life, basically. But the music is fantastic, and we sound amazing. We sing 4 songs over a period of 4 days, and all the arrangements are perfect. We even get to sing for the sacrament meeting that President Monson is speaking at. President Monson gets to watch me sing. People, this is real life. I'm singing for President Monson.

I've now made a personal life goal to read or listen to every single general conference talk that's available on gospel library. Since I have access to gospel library right now, I'm getting a head start, and starting with the April 1971 session. It amuses me how many references to hippies there are. But I love how the doctrine remains the same, even though the focus and the specific inspiration and revelation is different depending on the needs of the members.

Yesterday, Hna Houghton found out that her grandfather died on Thursday, and she was really upset. All the sisters in our district decided to get together and have a mini devotional and just be there to support her. Some of the Elders in our zone were wondering what was wrong, so Elder Baxter drew us a picture of a heart with a ribbon wrapping around it saying "Smile"and quoted the scripture 3 Nephi 19:25, which I'll put right here for you all :)

"And it came to pass that Jesus blessed them as they did pray unto him; and his countenance did smile upon them, and the light of his countenance did shine upon them, and behold they were as white as the countenance and also the garments of Jesus; and behold the whiteness thereof did exceed all the whiteness, yea, even there could be nothing upon earth so white as the whiteness thereof."

He just wanted us to smile. It was so cute :) it was signed "Elder Baxter, Elder Wahlquist, and Elder Taylor." I have the best zone. We're all just best friends, and it's great. I really am sad to be leaving them all so soon. But we're all going to be doing great things on our missions, and I'm so excited to hear all their stories.

Today has been relatively boring. I wasn't able to go to the temple this morning because of choir practice, which was sad. Especially since the temple is closed next week on my last week that I could possibly go to the temple for the next year and a half. But we get to help do the cleaning that's happening for the next two weeks next pday, so I'm really excited for that :) But yeah, only one pday left. That's a little scary. But I'm so excited.

We also had to move today into the new renovated sister's residence. It was a pain, especially since we literally have only two weeks left here, but oh my goodness this building is so much nicer. It's huge. It's massive. And there's much more closet space and much bigger bathrooms. So even though I only get to enjoy it for a couple weeks, I'm going to enjoy it while I can :)

Thank you everyone for the emails and the love. I'm honestly loving every second here, and I can't wait until I get to go to Nicaragua. I didn't feel this way before, but now I know for sure that I'm not supposed to go anywhere else. Nicaragua is where I need to go. I've been waiting for this feeling the whole time I've been her, and I finally got it this week, and now I can't wait to get out there.

So yeah, thank you again for all the support and love, and I'll talk to you all again next week :)