Aloha

Hola mi Familia!

Como estan? Everything is going great here. Lots of hard work, but it's getting a lot better now that I've kind of got the schedule down. So this week my dear dear companion hurt her leg pretty bad. We were playing kickball and someone kicked the ball towards her. She just put her leg out to stop it and the next thing we know she's on the ground screaming. We thought she was faking at first, but then she was bawling. The elders gave her a blessing to calm down because she couldn't even tell us what was hurting. As the boys carried her over to the little shed/room area they have outside, she passed out. Anywho, the paremedics and security all came and it was quite the scene. No worries though, she's okay. We went in yesterday for an MRI (which we got to leave campus for, booyah) and all she has is a bruised bone or something. But on saturday I was in the residence all day again, just studying and reading.

Last Thursday we did a little thing called Teaching Resource Center which is where we actually teach real people... in spanish. It was really intimidating especially since the first people me and my companion taught were kids our age. They just volunteer to come in and then we teach them. It was really scary, but a really good experience because we certainly needed to rely on the spirit. We do that every Thursday now, which I'm super excited about. OH and we saw a guy from "The District 2" here. It was pretty cool.

We do service every Thursday morning at 6 AM, just cleaning the buildings and such. This week we got to use some ghost busters looking vacuums. We got some pictures so hopefully when I get out in the field I can send it to ya'll.

We have now officially gone through 6 different teachers. They just keep changing. First we had a subsitute, then we got our 2 real teachers, and now they are leaving because school is starting, so we have 2 other new teacher, plus a teacher who teaches only on mondays because the Hermano can't come Monday afternoons. We think we keep scaring them off or something. It's good though because it keeps us on our feet and we get to experience a bunch of different perspectives.

Yesterday the fire alarm went off when we were all getting ready in the morning. Someone had somehow set a burrito on fire in the microwave. Gotta love the smell of smoking burrito in the morning. WE all ended up outside, some had to jump out of the shower so they were just in their towels, it was quite the site.

Learning spanish is coming along pretty well. I still have a ton left to learn but I quite enjoy learning it. It's really hard because we are all learning at different rates, so the teacher is teaching things some of us already know and I find myself having a hard time paying attention in class. Apparently they were supposed to give us a test over the phone before we came in to see where we were in spanish and they didn't do that for a couple of us, so we are all now in beginner spanish. But it's all good. I find that learning spanish is a lot easier when you are trying to learn it with the gospel. Like reading your scriptures in spanish, or learning how to teach a lesson in spanish. My companion is getting a lot better, but it's hard when we go into teach our investigators because I feel like I'm saying more then she can.

So this week I have been reading a lot about Charity and Love. There is a great section in preach my gospel called Christ Like attributes. I would highly recommend doing the Charity and love one for a FHE or something. It has great scriptures and teachings in there and it has really helped me. I try to pray everyday that I will have the love that Christ has for others so I can be a more effective missionary now and out in the field. Not only a better missionary, but a better disciple of Christ as well.

I have also been reading "Jesus the Christ" which is amazing. A bit hard to understand at times but great none the less. An "Our Heritage" which I absolutely LOVE. Sometimes I have to stop myself from reading that one because I just end up reading that for my whole personal study. I love reading the stories of the founders of this church and the early pioneers. It is really a humbling experience to read of their stories and the sacrifices that they willingly made for this church. It makes 18 months of missionary work look like a piece of cake, and I am more willing and more fervently ready to go work for the lord when I read of their sacrifices.

I am also working on being 100 percent obedient in all of the rules here. It's sometimes difficult because apparently our Branch President is one of the strictist ones here. But it's great because we get more opportunities to be obedient in the things he tells us to do. It's also good especially if my mission president in the field is strict because I will be used to it.

Thank you so much for the packages and letters. You have no idea how much it makes my day to get things from ya'll. Thank you mom for the clothes too, they were cute. Thanks kids for the package and for the beautiful CTR ring.

Could you please send more pictures of the family :) That would be greatly appreciated. Also Julie Johnson sent me cookies but she didn't have a return address and I would like to thank her, so could you get me that. Gracias.OH and apparently we can have backpacks so I think I will buy one here because they are cheap.

LES AMO!!!!

I miss you all so much!!!!

Love,

Your favorite sister missionary, Hermana Decker :)

Hola!!

Hola!! Thank you so much for all of the letters, it was great to here from you all. Getting a letter is like Christmas here, it literally makes my day. And thank you so much for the donuts! We went to the temple this morning and did initiatories, and decided not to eat in the cafeteria there and ended up just eating the left over donuts you sent for breakfast. Everything is going really well here. I still miss home but It is great to be here learning more and more about the gospel. Hmm... where to start. last Thursday we had this nastiness smell in the building where our classroom is so we all had to go outside for class. There was some kind of sewage problem I'm not quite sure what it was. The Elders are being 19 year old boys, a lot of them are unmotivated and they will end up playing games they made up on the white board for most of our study time. It's getting way to distracting for those of us who actually want to study so we talked to them about it and hopefully they will listen. I am always tired here. It gets ridiculous sometimes how tired I am. We have to do this Spanish thing on the computer and the other day I just passed out right at the computer. Everyone says you'll be tired your whole mission. Yay... Sunday was so good. We get to go on temple walks on Sunday and it was such a nice day. We just went and sat behind the temple and took some pictures. We have no way of printing off pictures here, but some of the boy's went off campus the other day to go get some medicine for the stye in his eye and he printed off some for us so I should be sending you it. I hope ya'll got my last picture. Mary cook, the general young women first counselor came and talked to us in relief society. she talked about us being a light unto the world. It was really good. And then she showed us the youth mormon message "sanctify yourself" and that really brought the spirit. We get to watch a video at the end of Sundays. This Sunday we watched the "testaments" and last sunday we watched a talk by elder Bednar. You get to choose between the movies or a talk. Hermana Flandro was sick on Monday, throwing up all day so I had to stay at the residence in the lounge. I got  A LOT of studying done. Were not supposed to take naps even on P Day so I just studied all day. It was good because I got a lot done and memorized the first vision in Spanish. Everyone is kind of sick here. It just spreads like crazy. I'm a little congested but it hasn't been that bad quite yet. Thank you for sending the coat by the way, it is perfect. Elder Neil L Anderson came and talked to us at our devotional yesterday, it was AMAZING. It so good to here from an apostle. He gave us 9 teachings of President Monson and they all had to do with missionary work. Afterwards we had a testimony meeting as a district as we do every Tuesday and the spirit was so strong. Our district is so amazing and we have all gotten so close. Even the goof offs gave amazing testimonies.

I feel so blessed to be here. It sometimes hits me full force that I am actually a missionary. Most the time we just forget. Spanish is coming along really well. I know that God is helping me with this because there is no way I could know all I do in such a short amount of time. Our lessons for our fake investigators are going really well. Hermana Flandro is getting so much better at spanish but it gets frustrating sometimes because a lot of the people in our class are in beginner level and some of us arent. Apparently they were supposed to check how well we knew spanish already before we came but they didn't for a few of us. Thank you so much for all of your prayers, i pray for each of you every day. Please pray for me to overcome my weaknesses and overcome my feelings of inadequacy. I love you all so so much and cannot wait to see you all and where you all are in 18 months. I hope I will be changed for the better as well. Miss you all!!! Love you so so so much!!!! Les Quiero! Hasta Luego :)

your loving daughter,

Hermana Decker

PS.. please tell grandma thank you for her letter, it was soooo good to hear from her and her letter was so amazing and really made my day.

PSS... I still have 9 minutes left on my time limit on email, so I will get on later to see if anything is on here, but then I can't get on till next wednesday. Send letters!!! :)

For the kids!

I only have 3 minutes left so I'll keep it short. I miss you all so much! Thank you Kate, Brooky, and Bray for sending me a letter, it really makes my day when I get mail. I want you all to know that I love you all and I know without a shadow of a doubt that this Church is Christs church. The spirit is so strong here at the MTC and it's the first place besides home with all of you that I have felt that I am really supposed to be. I love this gospel so much and I know that all you boys will make awesome missionaries someday. Some of you are ahead some of the boy's here at the MTC. Be good and know that you are so blessed to have such great parents! I will write you letters when I have the time.

Love- hermana Decker

First email to Family

 Hola! Everything is going really good. I really think going off to college has helped me make this transition so much easier. It's still hard because I want to call you and tell you everything that is going on! I try to write in my journal every night and I have to bring out my schedule for the day because I forget everything that we did that day because we do so much. The day's here all kind of mesh together it´s hard to keep track. My pdays are on Wednesdays and we only have 30 minutes to send emails, so if any of these seemed rush, it's because I'm trying to get through everything so I can reply to ya´ll. You can send however many letters and emails you want! Please send as many as you want. One thing though, I can only check my email once a week, so it's actually a lot better if you use dearelder because I get those everyday. I am only supposed to write mail and send emails on Wednesday's though so I won't be able to reply as much. But it is so awesome when I get a letter so please please please have everyone send me as many as they want.

Class has been going well. Spanish is hard and I'm trying to get a hang of it. We already have our first "investigator". She's just a teacher here pretending to be an investigator but they through us right into that on friday and we had to teach her the first lesson in spanish! I guess it's good though because It helps us learn. Class is really long though, sometimes our district gets really distracted. We all get along really well and I guess that doesn't work when we have to focus because we just want to talk. The boys are awesome. I forget that they're 19 sometimes but then they do something dumb and I realize how young they are. One of the elders though is super spiritual and really good at getting us all focused. Gym is great! it really gets the stress out and gets me rebooted for the day. we played basketball with some other hermanas yesterday and I got elbowed in the face. now I have a fat lip. The saying is that the days go by slow here and the weeks go by fast and I can testify to that. It's crazy I've already been here a week. I feel so blessed to have such amazing girls and guys in my group. Hermana Flandro is awesome. Sunday was so nice. It was a good break to focus on the Lord and the spirit instead of Spanish. 

Last night really put things in perspective for me though. We had a devotional like we do every tuesday night and a member of the 70 and his wife talked. He talked about why we are here and the need to bring those who have fallen away back to the church. His wife told us to write our families especially our siblings. Afterwards we had a little testimony meeting as a district and it was amazing. I felt the spirit so strongly and I realized how much I could have made a difference in peoples life throughout my life that I didn't have a positive impact on. But now I have this amazing chance to bring others unto Christ and it's amazing! I cannot wait to get out there and teach. I already feel a love fore the people and I havent even left yet.

The girls and I get along super well and we are always laughing. I'm worried I'm going to get fat here because they feed us so well and they give us desert for every meal. I'm trying to eat better. We mostly just have a lot of class during the day, two 3 hour classes and then we have a lot of studying. On Pday today we got to go to the temple which was so nice.

hmm I hope I remembered as much as I could. Oh one other thing. Someone said that some temples don't provide free clothing to the missionaries. Could you check and see if that's the case for Birmingham? thanks! Thanks for the shoes too they are amazing.

I love you! and miss you!!!!!
Love- Masey