11/12th Birthdays and Callouses on my Knees

My orange sticker to tell everyone I'm OLD!!

Hola!!!
I'm living in the middle of beautiful Mexico, I'm surrounded by palm trees and parrots and so many friends, I'm studying the things that I love for hours every day, AND I'm moving to stinkin' CHILE in less than a week! Plus, it's been dumpin' buckets for the past 24 hours and I just smile and turn my face to the sky because I love it. I probably look wild but who cares! Ya gotta appreciate fully the things that bring you joy. I cannot think of anything better.

6:30 is pretty early to wake up every morning. I'd say. On Saturday, the girls in my room and I decided to get up an hour earlier and go do yoga with Hermana Bennett, the CCM president´s wife. We're all terrible and we were falling over the whole time, but it was such a lovely way to start the day! On the walk back to our casa, I said, "Wow I kinda like waking up early!" Then everyone laughed at me because we wake up early every. single. day. I don't know how we do it, but we're doin' it so it's good.

This week I got my sticker on my nametag which means I'm OLD. Everyone here assumes that when you've been here 6 weeks and have received your sticker, you are sooooo wise and know everything about being a missionary, but holy nuts I still have sooooo much to learn. I'm so excited!!

This week I realized that I have CALLOUSES ON MY KNEES: That is wild! Y'all, prayer is so good. I pray probably 30 times a day and sometimes I feel like that's a little excessive but then I think about what prayer is and I say SHOOT I GOTTA PRAY MORE. You're literally talking to God! And he's listening to you! And he's answering you! Sometimes you just have to look harder! I love prayer. Everyone should do it. It's changin' my life.

I had a prayer answered so so strongly this week. I was struggling big time just being scared of the unknown and maybe not being up to the task that I'm asked to perform. But on Tuesday, we had an amazing devotional. It was by Paul Peipere. First of all, I could feel his love for me the moment I saw him. He just has that face and that light about him. He talked about keeping commitments. The whole devotional was incredible, but what really touched me is this: he said, "We don't ever fully know what we need to do in order to keep our commitments. It isn't clearly lined out for us. But we need to try with all our might to find out... and God will help us know what we need to do in order to succeed." THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR! How did he know? i don't need to know everything! i just need to have faith and try my very best. Ahhhh!! :)

Tuesday was my 11/12 birthday and I made an announcement in class. We celebrated by bringing all our food together and they let me read the first scripture in our Book of Mormon district discussion. So kind. It actually really was. There's not a whole lot that we can do to celebrate here and I was expecting them to go, "Ah cool! Happy 11/12 birthday," but we celebrated and it was tasty. Then that night my roommates and I had a mini spa night (thanks for the masques Mama!) to celebrate and it was allllright!!! Life is good!!

Also, if you want to send me letters THAT I CAN HOLD IN MY HAND, today and tomorrow are your last days to do it! www.missionarypackagemx.com Chop chop! Hehehe :)

I love you guys and I hope that you are happy and smiling and finding the good things in life. Tu sabes que te amo! Hugs! Kisses! 

HERMANA SIEBACH

Spa night with my home girls on my 11/12th birthday--woohoo!