My Last Day in the CCM! Off to Chile!

Hola mi amorosos!

I cant believe I am leaving here in just 3 and half hours for the airport! It still hasn't totally hit me yet! But I am so excited to see Chile and start teaching real investigators! Soy muy agradacido por todo aprendo en el CCM y todo español aprendo aqui. Although I am not quite sure if I am ready to speak spanish with all the people in Chile... I have a funny story that I want to share about my spanish:

So yesterday I was called to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting (I dont know if I have mentioned this, but every sunday they call on people right then and there to speak without letting them know ahead of time. So you just sit there sweating your skin off, anxiously awaiting your name to be called). So I get up and I give my talk and afterward the Zone president told me he was very impressed with my spanish and the spanish of our whole district. So there I was feeling good about myself and my spanish and all was well with the world. Then, we were eating lunch with the zone presidency and our zone president´s family, and I, being the overconfident person I was, tried to tell his little boys that they were very handsome. Then his youngest boy tells his dad he thought I was speaking french... So yeah now I am not feeling so great about my spanish lol. But I learned something pretty great via the Spirit this week. We were reading in Ether 12 (Quite the coincidence ha Mom?) and we were discussing how Heavenly Father gives us weaknesses that we may be humble. So I realized that Heavenly Father has missionaries learn a new language so that they might be humble. And so when I am bearing my testimony in broken spanish, I can bear it humbly and simply. That allows us to have the Spirit better than anything else. And just like the experience with Brigham Young: a simple and humble testimony is the most powerful. So I know that Heavenly Father will bless me and qualify me for this work and for Chile!

I am sooooooo excited to go teach the people in Viña and to bring the world His truth. I know this gospel is true. I KNOW it, God KNOWS it, and I CANNOT DENY IT! I love this Gospel and I all of you. I pray for all of you EVERYDAY and like 10 times a day! And guess what? Heavenly Father answers our prayers! 

Well, goodbye for now! I'm off to Chile!!!!!!

Adios! Con amor,

Hermana Logan

La Ultima Semana

Hola mi humanos,

Como estan??!! I can't believe its my last week here!! its gone SO fast and I feel like I still have a LOT to learn before I go out to Chile! But its fine because I'm STOKED to see Chile and teach real people! So my flight is on Monday at 11:55 pm which means we are probably leaving the CCM at 7:45ish. The flight is 8 and a half hours-which isn't that bad. I honestly am super nervous because apparently in Chile they speak REALLY fast, drop word endings, and half their vocab is different than the Spanish here...so yay...on a happier note I'm pretty sure I'll get to email again on Sunday or Monday before I leave!

And our district took our district picture and they make these really cool power points with all the districts leaving. I am having them send that to you guys with all our pictures as well. Our district was pretty cool-we dressed up in the Chilean flag colors (red, whit, and blue), held up a Chilean flag, and us girls held a sign saying, "Those Viña Kids," because that's what the Elders always call our district, lol.

Oh and Hma Hones and I taught  a lesson on Sunday about the Book of Mormon. It was pretty awesome, we put all these cards around the room with the "questions of the soul" from PMG pg. 107 and then all the matching scriptures from the Book of Mormon and they had to find all the question with the corresponding scripture. We had them split up into 3 groups and it got pretty competitive, lol. Then we had two people share experiences they've had where the Book of Mormon has answered a question in they had. I thought that I went really well and the spirit was definitely there!

Our notes around the room for our lesson

More notes around the room

Some elders corrected the grammar of a note some hermanas left 

The title of our lesson

I was really reminded of you guys this week because we watched the devotional Elder Holland gave with the Peter and Christ analogy-"Do you love me?" X 3, "Then FEED MY SHEEP," and the Joseph Smith video where Lucy Smith is narrating what we saw at the St. George temple visitor center right before I left. Elder Holland's talk hit me hard! It's So different now that I AM a missionary I LOVED it. Here are a few things that impacted me:

• Listen to investigators with your HEART
• Yes you are "called to serve" but SO WHAT? SO WHEN? FOR HOW LONG??
• NO LESSON YOU GIVE IS GIVEN ALONE
• We are the HOPE OF ISRAEL
• DO YOU LOVE ME?? THEN FEED MY SHEEP! 
• We are called follow HIM FOREVER
• If you serve you mission and then come home and go astray YOU WILL BREAK THE HEART OF GOD HIMSELF
• HOW CAN YOU GO OUT AND TEACH PEOPLE THE IMPORTANCE OF ENDURING TO THE END/OBEDIENCE JUST TO COME HOME AND DO THE VERY OPPOSITE??!!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE Elder Holland??

Also, one of our teachers had us all think of an impactful scripture/chapter/story/experience we've had with the Book of Mormon and we all sat in a circle and shared ours. We were ALL crying, ALL bearing awesome testimonies of how this Book has changed our lives and "pricked our hearts" enough to change. I know that the Book of Mormon has ALL the answers to ALL of our questions! There is NO truer or greater Book in ALL the world! READ IT. PONDER IT. and PRAY -with REAL intent- to know if it's true and it WILL be made known unto you. If any of you have an experience with the Book of Mormon please let me know- our teacher asked us to ask our families for one:)

Also, while reading in PMG this week I came across this quote by Brigham Young about his conversion that I'd love for you guys to read—its on pg 199 (last paragraph) which I just fell in Love with! I know this gospel is true with EVERY cell in my body! And because I have been given much, I too must give! That's why I'm here. To share this message of hope, love, forgiveness, and total joy with the world! I love this gospel and I love each and every one of you, just like Heavenly Father does! 

Con todo mi amor,

Hermana Logan

A Mexican in a sombrero

Me and my friend from college, Elder Bean

4th Week Down!

Hola mis amorosos!

Man, do I love all y'all! I pray for all of you EVERYDAY and hope you feel my love for everyone of you! I have been truly blessed with the best humans in my life! Thank you for all you've done for me and helped me to become the person I am today! Also, thank you for writing me! It always makes my week!

So this week has been kinda crazy! I may or may not have gotten sick... there was-as people are calling it- a huge plague that hit here this past week! There were only 3 out of our 7 Elders who didn't get hit. I was hit with a fever and I couldn't keep anything down for like a solid two days. It make me pretty homesick, too. Missing my amazing, nurturing family and the pleasures of America, but I was so grateful for the Hmas here that took care of me and dealt with my miserable self. Plus my sickness only lasted two days and I am so grateful that I was able to recover so quickly!

But no worries, I am all good:) 

So the sounds of Mexico City are pretty dandy! We got the Hunger Games canon which goes off like 10 times a day at least. They say its the Catholic churches surrounding us-but i don't know what for,. Then of course, there's the blaring horns of traffic/some kind of train/bus horn that crazy long. Lastly, there are fireworks that go off during broad daylight, lol. Oh, and Ron will love this- every Saturday night the hill of houses surrounding us have an ALL NIGHT FIESTA that is still going on when we wake up in morning! 

Oh, and in case you thought mt getting sick was bad luck: NOPE, WRONG AGAIN! (Just for you Andrew:)) I got bleach on my plain black skirt-right on the front where everyone can see! So if you know of anyway I  can fix it, please let me know! 

Ok, now for all things spiritual:

This week we talked a lot about how to know whether you're teaching by the spirit or not. Which I have been struggling with because I know hen I bear my testimony/pray during lessons that its supposed to bring the spirit-but I just wasn't sure if it was truly happening because sometimes you just answer questions and strain to have them understand you and afterwards you wonder if that is impeding the presence of the spirit... son one of our maestras showed us a video from Elder Bednar and I really loved what he had to say:

•  Many of you wonder,"How do I know if what I'm saying or doing is what the spirit would have me say or do. Heres your answer:

QUIT WORRYING ABOUT IT!

• Be obedient, be the best missionary you can and press forward. Everything you need to know is to just DO. Do everything you can- sometimes without really knowing why. And you may not know it at the exact moment it happens- but it IS a spiritual prompting.

And then this morning I came across 2 Nephi Chapter 33 during personal study and I FELL in love with it! Its Nephis last words and I just replaced my name with his throughout the chapter. It was AWESOME! It was EXACTLY how I feel! I want all of you to PLEASE go and read it and then know that is what I want to share with the world! Believe in Christ! Believe in His words-Believe this Book is His word, for he will tell you that these words are His and that they ARE TRUE!

Man I cant believe I only have 13 more days here! THE WEEKS HAVE JUST FLOWN! But Im so grateful for all that I have learned here that I KNOW will help me in the field, for HE SHALL prepare a way for me! 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH!!!! 

Con todos mi amor,

Hermana Logan

Love the Lord!

HOLA everyone!!!!

So I'm going to try to make this short cuz I have a lot of pics to send and they take forever! Plus I can only send two at a time. So I'll start off by answering a few questions and some funny things that happened this week:

• The food here is actually not that bad. Today we had one of those rare occasions of American food, fried chicken! But usually its like some kind of meat or taquitos or something. Its definitely NOT as good as Ron´s cooking- NOT EVEN CLOSE, but its typical cafeteria food. And there is always cereal and a salad bar.
• So it POURS here like every few days! I mean it FLOODS the walkways and grass EVERY TIME it rains. lol. 
• Found out my companion talks in her sleep! Like you can have full on conversations with her! She even sings when asked! Lol. It literally was the funniest thing! 
• So my first investigator turned out to be our new 2nd teacher. So, our investigators are played by our teachers, but they play REAL people(like friends of theirs or something). So now we are teaching two different "investigators" played by our teachers.
• Spanish is coming along, I can understand the majority of what is said, but I don´t speak it too well yet. I sound pretty much like a caveman but I know with a lot of effort it will come!

Okay now for the spiritual stuff from our devotionals this week:

• The apostles spent HOURS upon HOURS upon YEARS to make PMG, so we need to spend at least HOURS studying all that they made for us. 
• in Relief society we talked about the patters on the lord (D&C 52:14) and how we usually follow the pattern of Adam and Eve. We are in the Garden of Eden and then thrust out into the lone and dreary world. Like the MTC was the lone and dreary world but will come a garden of Eden until we are cast out to the lone and dreary world of our mission, etc. Yet the Lord will ALWAYS prepare and provide a way for us to accomplish all we are asked to do and get out of our comfort zones.
• And in another devotional we learned that we need to obey the Lord because we LOVE him. And we must love him BECAUSE HE LOVED US FIRST! BEING HIS REPRESENTATIVE IS A PRIVILEGE SO DON'T WAIST A SINGLE SECOND, FOR HE NEVER DID!

Okay also, this morning we got to go to the temple (visitors center cuz the temple is closed) and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!! 

I LOVE THIS GOSPEL AND ALL OF YOU WITH ALL MY HEART! I have learned SO much in such a small amount of time and I am excited for all that I will learn still. 

con todos mi amor,

Hermana Logan