SEMANA... UHM... FINAL!!!!

So I give up on numbers, but first of all I think you should all know THAT MY VISA WENT THROUGH AND I'M OFF TO THE FIELD ON MONDAY!!!! WOOOOOOT VOY A LA ARGENTINAAAA!!!!!

*smooths skirt* Back to business. So, I'm getting rather lazy as it goes with trying to remember everything that is going on lately, my apologies. In my defense, at the moment my life is in essence wake up, eat, study, class, teach, sleep, repeat. 

In the MTC things are a weird combination of all one and yet somehow all the other at the same time. You feel like you've been here forever, and yet you feel like you just got here. You feel like you've learned nothing, then you look back at where you started. Everything is so simple, yet so hard. You feel so unprepared for the field, yet you are soooo ready just to get out of here and get to work! It's hard to explain. You have no time yet at the same time... No that one is basically straight forward. Your schedule is filled to the brim.

I've come to terms with the fact that six weeks won't make me into Super Hermana. I've done my best and worked my hardest, the rest will come in the field with much work. So this past week has been fairly uneventful in terms of things I can report that won't be much of the same. Entonces, this will basically be my "Things I Learned From the MTC" email!

1. The gift of tongues doesn't just happen. No doubt about it, it's real, but you can't always just ask for it and suddenly speak fluent Spanish. You still have to work for it, and sometimes it seems really hard and you feel like you're learning nothing... Until you see how far you've come and realize that the rate you are learning and comprehending is nothing even remotely close to average. People spend months learning what we've learned in a few weeks. That would not be possible without the Lord.

2. You have literally no time to email in a satisfactory manner. (forever bitter)

3. Living with a companion is hard, but not that hard. Maybe I'm just weird like that.

4. I've learned to love study time.

5. Still working on keeping it simple when teaching.

6. MTC is not the mission. But I'm still so glad I have it.

7. Sitting at home eating is pleasant.

8. L. Tom Perry is very tall.

This list is getting tedious. But yes, we got the opportunity to listen to Elder L. Tom Perry! That man is wonderful. He spoke on being where you are supposed to be and taking care of your companion. What I took from this week is that even when things are hard, they are not nearly as hard as they would be without the Lord. He is always with me. He loves me. I am his precious daughter and I am doing his work. I testify these things are true.

Well, next time you all here from me I will be in Argentina! Buenos suertes to you all, I love you!

Week 4 MTC Sister Ashley Hanks

HOLA!!!!

Man... I've already been in the MTC for a little over a month. That's crazy. I leave in TWO WEEKS!!! I'm both excited and at the same time freaked out, because once I'm out of here that is when the real work begins. Now let us see... Anything eventful? 

Well, as a prelude, in my zone we have a tradition where we don't really talk to the new district until the Friday after they arrive. That Friday they are initiated when that night they are called in for a "zone meeting" and informed that someone in the zone is "going home.";) After we get them sufficiently worried everybody starts shouting this Spanish hymn called "Placentero nos es trabajar", with everyone dropping into shouts and the elders climbing into ear-shattering falsettos. Between each verse everybody screeches, "MAS! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR *gasp* RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAPIDOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

It is basically the best thing ever. And thus the new district is welcomed into the zone! So this past week we got a new district of all elders, and I was designated as the one who was going home. I had way too much fun. All those years of theater have finally paid off! The elders looked skeptical.... Up until the point I started sobbing, with real tears! Sold it! 

At any rate, it was a lot of fun, and I had way too much fun doing it. Although, I did feel a little guilty.

Let us see... I have the best zone, and especially the best district ever! Everybody is just so strong, and we know how to have fun, but when we settle down for discussions and lessons it's just... Awesome! This one elder, every time he opens his mouth the Spirit just... WHOOOOSH! Ha ha our poor elders, putting up with us emotional sisters.;) It'll be so strange not to have all these people in my zone/district, not to mention having a new companion. I can scarcely imagine it! Still, it'll be good.

Our teacher is pretty much the hardest teacher EVER. He does not coddle us in any sense of the word. Still, I'm sure we will all be immeasurably grateful for that once we get in the field. 

We get L. Tom Perry for devotional next week!!!!:D So I am pretty excited for that....

Let's see... The highlight of my week might very quite possibly be TRC. My companion and I taught about faith in Christ. It went really well. Still, why can't teaching our "investigators" (read: teachers) be so smooth as teaching the members in TRC?

For me the most spiritual experience this week was when my companion and I were teaching our investigator and I went to testify of the Atonement. I pretty much lost it. I talked about how through the Atonement Christ didn't just take upon Himself our sins, but also every pain, challenge, sickness, and sorrow we have ever experienced. This is an aspect of the Atonement I think we sometimes overlook. No one understands and loves us better than Christ. If you are ever going through life thinking you are alone, and nobody understands how you feel, just remember that Christ does. He experienced it all, and all because He loves you. I'm reminded of the soldier who lost his ear when Peter was trying to defend Christ following Gethsemane. When that happened, and Christ healed him, Christ had felt the exact pain of that soldier losing his ear. He knew his name. As He suffered the physical abuse and mockery of those who crucified them I can imagine that Christ knew every face, and every pain they have ever faced. Though they reviled against him and treated him so cruelly, He understood them perfectly. And he still loved each and every one of them. I testify that Christ atoned for our sins because He loves us all. I know that through that Atonement we can repent and have eternal life.

I love you all, until next time!

Week 3 MTC

Thus ends week three at el CCM!!! Hola familia y amigos! Thus commences my third attempt at cramming all the many, many, many stories into one puny email in under an hour.:) Heh, heh.... 

At any rate, the question is where to begin... So, I love being on West Campus, even though main campus's facilities are quite nice. However, West Campus gets cooler privileges. For instance, other than going to the temple, main campus missionaries don't get to leave campus. Here, we can go to Brigham's Landing (hellooooo Jamba Juice and Great Harvest!) Not to mention go to main campus as a part of our P-days or devotional. We get to enjoy the walk between campuses, and it is quite great. Have I ever mentioned how much we sisters looooooove being able to wear pants on P-Day?! 

There have been so many great little experiences this past week... As always, my language skills are improving. It is so mind blowing when I go to say something and the words automatically come in Spanish. Somewhat begrudgingly, I am losing all of my Japanese! I'll go to talk to the Japanese speaking missionaries on main campus and Spanish comes out! Well, there goes all those classes.;) Our teacher no longer tolerates English in class unless it is preceded by "Como se dice...".

Here is a prompt my lovely mother has sent me:

"The food here is  mas o menos. Really, it isn't bad, though apparently the orange juice does weeeird things to your body! My favorite meal has been when my companion and I stay in the apartment for breakfast and just eat cereal or something. It's peaceful, comfortable, makes me feel like I'm playing grown up, and the food is trustworthy! ;)  . My favorite thing at the MTC so far has been el Espiritu Santo! I love how being here just makes me want to be better!  I get up at 6:30 am... mas o menos  and do my morning routine. I have umpteen hours of free (study/language study/gym (depending on the day) ) time before lunch and  no really, what is this free time you speak of?  

On Sundays we have the best time eva! We have your typical church activities, but in Spanish, personal study, lots of free time, ice cream, devotional, choir, and films (this week we watched the Joseph Smith restoration video, love it!) .
How is your Spanish coming, it's coming great.  I can already teach a lesson on practically anything in frankly bad Spanish. It is hilarious when our teacher (who is from Peru) cringes from our accents and says, "Ah! Muy gringo!"
I get 60ish minutes of gym time once aday & I usually play volleyball, because that is what my companion loves at the gym.
I get to go to the temple every Wednesday in the morning. Right now I am studying uh... Everything. Language, whatever lesson is relevant at the time, and whatever scriptures also feel right at the time. It is the MTC, studying is pretty much your life.;) and one of the goals we have as a district is to SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE!!!_.
I am sleeping at night, and occasionally during the day.;) I'm only half joking, unfortunately, although since my body clock has adjusted it hasn't been bad! What would be the best care package you could get?  Mas cereal and craisins!:D Pictures of family and friends! A puppy. And I don't know, be creative! Honestly the best thing in the world is getting a package. Scratch that, half the time I'd rather just get a letter, because I really don't have anywhere to put stuff in my luggage!;) Still, yessssss to the above stuff!
One time I have really felt the Spirit here was when gee, what a broad question. Most recently was during the district meeting after devotional. Our speaker was a member of the Seventy, and I all I remember is his name is Carlos, he is from Brazil, and his conversion story was awesome! In the devotional and the meeting afterwards I learned so much. One thing was something I was personally worried for about myself. He told a story about how his first encounter with the church was a ridiculous youth activity where they were playing a game called poor little cat where some poor victim crawled on all fours acting like a cat, and if someone laughed, they had to be the cat. So this Carlos' first impression of the church was very, very weird. BUT he was struck by how, even though what they were doing is really weird, how that had practically nothing and no one at the activity... They all looked so HAPPY. They had a light. And he wanted that. I got two things out of that story. One: we have a light that others can see. Sometimes, especially growing up in the church, ESPECIALLY growing up in Utah, we don't realize what we have and how beautiful it is! Another thing he mentioned was how after he had talked with the sisters how he went home, jubilant, shouting to his parents, "The Church of Jesus Christ! It's back! It's back on the Earth!" Their reactions were unenthusiastic, but young Carlos was beside himself with amazement, "You don't understand! THIS IS THE CHURCH. OF. JESUS. CHRIST!!!!! *insert strangling of the mic here*" Do you realize what a beautiful thing we have? Do we realize that by refraining from opening our mouths and sharing the gospel we could be depriving GENERATIONS, past and future, of it's blessings; simply because we don't think about it or we are afraid of offending someone? Look at what we have. 

The other thing I got out of that story was, now this is weird, I identified with the game. I realize that I have this fear that others will be put off by my oddness, my quirkiness. I'm afraid that people are constantly annoyed with me and subsequently do not want me around. That story made me feel better. I hope that when people see me they don't just see me as annoying or way too happy, too nice or whatever. I hope they see that I am happy. I hope they see the light in me. I hope they see that I am kind and that it is all because of this gospel _.

On that note I am out of time. I love you all! Talk to you next week! Write me! (DearElder.com is a great way to get me letters.) Onward to week 4!

Week 2

Que tal everybody!

Here is my weekly update! While I would love to write you all individually, time here is limited, so as far as updates on how things are going in general go, you'll all be getting a mass email. Still, I plan on sending each of you some personalized messages on the side of the general info. Sorry if emails have not been going up on the blog. When things start going there should be a link on my facebook saying so. If you want any other information (like my address so you can DearElder me or something, hint hint) then you can message my mom through facebook by either my profile or possibly hers.

So I have survived my second week en la CCM (MTC)! This week has just flown by. I honestly don't know where all that time went, other than it has been full and well spent. Studying the language? Well, it's been coming, but I am still by no means fluent. Even so I am STILL amazed by how much I have learned. The gift of tongues is truly amazing. 

West Campus (where I am living) is now almost entirely a Spanish speaking campus. We have a few random languages floating around still (like Finnish, Armenian, and Malagasy) but come next week West Campus should exclusively be for Spanish speakers. We just got a new zone presidency, which at first worried me. Well, not so much worried me, but I was very attached to the elders that just left for Buenos Aires today. They were seriously the nicest elders you could meet, and did a good job at making my district feel welcome. It was more of a feeling of 'who could fill their shoes?' We had a zone meeting with the new presidency the other day, and it was phenomenal! It helps that one of the elders used to do marketing for Vivint.;) But no, really it was fantastic, we were all so fired up after the meeting. Speak Your Language is now a priority, and we are officially (at least in our own minds) the Zone of Thanksgiving, where we are required to write something we are grateful for about our companions everyday in our journal writing. (By the way, my zone is seriously the best, and you cannot convince me otherwise)

There were two things in particular shared in that meeting that stuck out to me. One was "Burn your Ships". When Cortez came to the Americas he burned his ships so there would be no going back. As missionaries we need to do the same thing, put both feet in our missions. 

The other thought was, "Hell is meeting the person you could have become." That thought terrifies me. The longer I am here the more I feel like it was the best decision for me and my personal growth. I truly feel like while I am here I am being shaped into the woman, into the daughter of God I am meant to be. While here the thing I have struggled the most with is diligence. I do my study, sure, but do I throw myself into it fully? Probably not as much as I should. This Sunday and this entire week has been full of experiences that have inspired me to be more diligent, to truly just submit myself to the Lord to a point where I operate on almost a Spiritual Auto-Pilot. I want to get to the point where the words I utter are not my words, but His, to the point where I speak with the voice of the Lamb so all can recognize that I am a servant of the Lord. That has been my goal for this week. Diligence. 

Yesterday we had a district meeting following a fantastic devotional by Elder/Brother? Robbins of the Seventy. The devotional was on opening your mouth, and he related several phenomenal stories of how by simply opening their mouths missionaries were able to do great things, even facilitate miracles. Afterwards in the district meeting we had a powerful discussion, where one of the things said by an elder was, "I need to be the missionary my mom and my sister think I am. I need to be the super hero people think missionaries are." Through the Lord, that is possible. In the scriptures as well as Preach My Gospel, it says that God has the power to change our natures. I know that to be true. With humility and faith, if I give myself completely to his will I know he can truly change me, and all of us, for the definite better.

We have just begun teaching our second and third mock investigators. It was rather funny. We didn't know that our first investigator would be our teacher. So, the evening after we finished teaching our first investigator (who we got a commitment to be baptized and to read the Book of Mormon from, by the way) we were all in shock when he walked into the classroom wearing a suit, tie, and a teacher's name tag. "MAURICIO?!" "Heh heh, no, Hermano Fonda." He is a great teacher though, and it is good, because he got to know us in the teaching element, so I feel like he knows the best ways to help us. 

Our second and third investigators are much more difficult though. Both Hermano Zuzunaga and Hermano Fonda are playing our investigators, as Daniel and Rolando, respectively. We had been warned by the other districts that Hermano Zuzunaga (Daniel) is a hard investigator. He barely opened the door to talk to us, and since he is originally from Peru he speaks very... Rapid Spanish. It was hard, and we didn't get in the door, but still, Hermana Griffiths and I probably taught our best, albeit briefest lesson to date. We were able to get an appointment to meet later this week. Rolando, by comparison, seemed much more difficult. We did get in the door, but he doesn't believe in God, and is very closed off. He agreed to meet again, but we are still trying to figure out the best way to get him to open up. 

Well, that's all the time I have. I love you all, and until next time! Ciao!

I have not been good at getting out the information for Ashley.  I will do better.
Mailing address for Ashley while she is in the MTC for those who would like to write or send packages.

Sister Ashley Lynn Hanks
NOV19  ARG-SAL
2025 N 900 E Unit 933
Provo UT 84602

Part of Sister Hanks first letter home.

So many things to say and so little time!

My first week in the MTC feels like both an eternity and the blink of an eye! My companion's name is Hermana Griffiths and she is a lot like Kelsie. Very quiet at first, and then... BA-BAM! From the moment we've began class our teacher, Hermano Zuzunaga, has yet to speak a lick of English. Esta bien. I'm doing decent at learning the language. My zone is awesome. Apparently me, my companion, and the two other sisters in our district are the first sisters they have had in months. The first few days were very overwhelming. We had our first lesson with a mock investigator on Friday and it was very, very stressful. All of the sisters were crying afterwards. To top it off our entire zone called us in for a zone meeting under the premise on of our missionaries was getting sent home. (Muy mal!) So we went in with all of the elders looking rather aggrieved when suddenly they all broke out into song! Very very loud Spanish song! And.... All of the sisters had a breakdown. We couldn't stop laughing. Or crying... All at the same time! It was pretty great though. Things have been getting better since then. Sundays are the best thing ever! So since I am a Spanish speaking sister I am here for six weeks, and I am living on the West Campus, which is pretty great because our residences are nicer, and more like apartments. Everything is much more open to the air and apparently the food is better.

Elder Ammon Hanks is on the main campus, but luckily I ran into him on Tuesday during choir practice for devotional.:) We were both so excited! We were so frustrated because we didn't know if we were allowed to hug or not, because we are cousins. My companion said it was allowed, so we did... If she was wrong... Well... Oops. We talked a lot and it was awesome. We were addressed by Elder Oaks.:)

Hola from Hermana Hanks!

Hola everybody! This is Hermana Ashley Hanks, and this is my mission blog! Over my eighteen months in the Argentina, Salta mission my mom will be posting my letters to home.:)

Olividate a tu misma y vete a trabajar.