"Shout Out" to Cousins who love "Kid History"

Mom here....For those who are curious, Kate said that she does not have her travel plans yet.  I will post them here as soon as I hear from her.  Now to Kate's letter this week...


It´s really hard for me to believe that almost 2 months of my mission are just about gone! I don´t know where they have gone. These weeks are just absolutely crazy busy and I know we do a lot, but I feel like it shouldn´t be October 21st right now.
 

Last week was a little rough with the whole Spanish thing. I was getting a little bit frustrated and feeling like I was hitting a wall and wasn´t able to really learn much more. The last few days especially have been much better and been much more enlightening. I´ve figured out some study habits that I can change and some ways I can feel better about my efforts to learn a language and how to teach the gospel effectively in a new language. I´m so glad I´m learning Spanish and not Japanese or something (I don´t know how you did it Dad).

 

So, we had another apostle come and visit us this week on Tuesday...guess who it was!   Drum roll please..................Elder Richard G. Scott! His talk was SOOOO great! Richard G. Scott told a story in general conference once about how he was able to receive revelation when the Spirit was teaching and then receive more when he prayed and asked to know what more he needed to know. This talk was basically an extension of that. He counseled us to seek learning by what we hear, see, and feel and to ALWAYS keep something to write down those things we learn. Then we need to do those things we learn about and somehow apply it to our lives.

In addition he asked a lot of really good thought provoking questions like:

What are the benefits of being led by the Spirit in your life? (D&C 8:2)

How can I determine if it´s the Spirit or me? (Ether 12:6 - ye receive no witness until after the trial of the spirit)

How can we prove our faith with a new principle?

He talked about how important prayer is when we are seeking revelation. He said that,  “If you are having a difficult time, seek prayer in a way that is unhurried and you will find out how much the Lord loves you and wants to bless you.”

I love being so spiritually edified by someone who has such a strong testimony - he BOLDLY testifies of what he knows and it makes me want to strengthen my testimony even more.

Yesterday in our class we had somewhat of a scavenger hunt. We were learning how to do the command tense in Español and so we went and hid an object as a companionship and then wrote directions commanding another companionship where to go to find it. Ours was very clever - we commanded Elder Pitcher and Elder Cottam to stop and buy us M&Ms out of the vending machine (which they didn´t do by the way - so rude! haha!). We had fun with it and made them get a roll of toilet paper out of a tree outside. Then as we were all taking turns reading the directions that we had written so we could practice different vocabulary, Hermano Van Vliet made a huge deal of acting everything out and it was rather hilarious! When it got to the vending machine, he pulled out an ID card or something, Elder Pitcher took his cue to become a vending machine, Hno VanVliet swiped his card, and he got a pen out of Elder Pitcher´s pocket. It was just really funny at the time...probably because it was so spur of the moment.

Anyway...I digress. My companions are wonderful! We are just all getting along so well - one night after gym we came back to the room and just started being a little crazy - Hna Hildenbrand was singing made up songs and singing like a granny, Hna McGrath started teaching us how to moonwalk (which I´m getting really good at by the way) and I tried my hand at interpretive dancing. We make quite the trio of fun!

We got new hermanas in our room this week! Their names are Hnas. Romney and Lake. They are SUCH sweet girls and seem really comfortable here already. They´´re on a 6 week Spanish program! Can you believe it?!?! They´re turning Spanish into a 6 week program and I´m quite glad that I got here before they started that. I think I´m going to have a difficult time with just 9 weeks. They´re really enthusiastic about it though and I think that they will pass up with their Spanish before we even leave.

Last week at the temple we went and did sealings. It was SO cool!! I had never done that before. We only got to be proxies for children because we´re missionaries but it was just a really cool experience to do something different in the temple. The temple is such a special place. I wish we could go 3 times a week instead of just one. Then again, once I´m in Boston, I don´t know how much I´ll be able to go so I´ll just be grateful for what I have.

Well, my time is short. I must bid thee farewell! ...so...farewell!

LOVE!

-Hna. Palmer

Shout out to all my cousins who love kid history: My teacher Hermano Barrio knows all about kid history and brought it up in class one day and we quoted it for at least 3 or 4 minutes - it was SO much fun but it really made me miss you all!