Hola Familia,
I speak Spanish! Do I speak it perfectly?.. No. Do I always understand everything?... No. Do I consider myself to have "mastered" Spanish?... Definitely not! Am I fluent in Spanish?... Yes. It's been a tough 6 months of the mission being thrown into a culture which doesn't speak the same language as me... but
it's been the best 6 months of my life. Now that I speak the language it's been really neat actually being able to communicate with people at a new level. I actually understand what people are saying and I know how to respond to people when they talk to me. I am so blessed to be able to speak Spanish. We have a
couple new gringos in the Zone and it's weird to hear them attempt to speak Spanish... I know exactly how they feel and they sound so white. It's hard to believe I was at that point 6 months ago.
Something that's pretty cool about the mission that I didn't think that would happen is that all of the native speakers are learning English. Everyday we have a part set aside for language study and all of the native speakers study English. While I have been studying Spanish, my companion has been learning
English. It's pretty fun to help him out in this way. All the Spanish speakers have English books that they take tests in and are tested by a native English speaker. It's pretty cool. English is tough to teach, turns out I haven't "mastered" English either... as you all can probably tell by my horrible spelling and punctuation.
So we had a Zone Conference and a part of it we did an english exercise in which companionships were put into teams and had to teach a lesson in english. I have to tell you, I am forgetting how to speak english. I couldn't think of simple words such as "our" and "and"... legit my English was pathetic and my whole Zone just laughed at me the whole time. It was pretty funny but its crazy how my brain is functioning now. More times than not I find myself thinking in Spanish as well. It's crazy cool!
We have a new investigador that is actually progressing, actually wants to learn, and actually went to church! His name is Rafael, is 18, and hopefully is going to get baptized... I'll keep you posted.
Everything is going great. I love the mission and thank you all for supporting me.
Con Amor,
Elder Summers
I speak Spanish! Do I speak it perfectly?.. No. Do I always understand everything?... No. Do I consider myself to have "mastered" Spanish?... Definitely not! Am I fluent in Spanish?... Yes. It's been a tough 6 months of the mission being thrown into a culture which doesn't speak the same language as me... but
it's been the best 6 months of my life. Now that I speak the language it's been really neat actually being able to communicate with people at a new level. I actually understand what people are saying and I know how to respond to people when they talk to me. I am so blessed to be able to speak Spanish. We have a
couple new gringos in the Zone and it's weird to hear them attempt to speak Spanish... I know exactly how they feel and they sound so white. It's hard to believe I was at that point 6 months ago.
Something that's pretty cool about the mission that I didn't think that would happen is that all of the native speakers are learning English. Everyday we have a part set aside for language study and all of the native speakers study English. While I have been studying Spanish, my companion has been learning
English. It's pretty fun to help him out in this way. All the Spanish speakers have English books that they take tests in and are tested by a native English speaker. It's pretty cool. English is tough to teach, turns out I haven't "mastered" English either... as you all can probably tell by my horrible spelling and punctuation.
So we had a Zone Conference and a part of it we did an english exercise in which companionships were put into teams and had to teach a lesson in english. I have to tell you, I am forgetting how to speak english. I couldn't think of simple words such as "our" and "and"... legit my English was pathetic and my whole Zone just laughed at me the whole time. It was pretty funny but its crazy how my brain is functioning now. More times than not I find myself thinking in Spanish as well. It's crazy cool!
We have a new investigador that is actually progressing, actually wants to learn, and actually went to church! His name is Rafael, is 18, and hopefully is going to get baptized... I'll keep you posted.
Everything is going great. I love the mission and thank you all for supporting me.
Con Amor,
Elder Summers