Letters from Meredith...

Hola, amigos y familia! This has been a crazy, busy, great week! First of all, thank you Katy and Grandma Vesa for your letters! My time today is cut short, but I will write you back as soon as I can. Last Wednesday we got two new sisters in our room! They are Hermanas Read and Smart. Such nice girls! We all get along really well. They've both been sick, but getting better now. On Sunday, I was called to be the new coordinating sister in our branch. The old coordinating sister was in the district who left yesterday morning. I was really sad to see them go. You develop really strong attachments in the MTC because you see these people every day! Anyway, as coordinating sister, I'm pretty much like the zone leader of the sisters. There are only four of us, and we're all in the same room, so it's not too hard to keep track of everyone. I do have a lot of meetings, though. I was happy that my branch president thought I was up to the tast. My companion was called to be the music coordinator in our branch. We were both really excited about our new callings. It's fun to be a leader! I think we're entertaining for the new hermanas as we attempt to speak our broken spanish every night in our residence hall. Yesterday I went to a medical training meeting for nine hours! It was a VERY long day, but I learned a lot about hand sanitation, food preparation, and water purification. There was only one other young nurse there. She was going to Nicaragua. The others there were senior missionary couples.The doctor who did our presentation actually created this awesome water that has a built-in filtering system. Each missionary gets one. Later in the afternoon, another doctor took me and the other young nurse into another room and told us about some of the diseases we might see, such as bot fly bites, dengue fever, and other things. He promised us that our missions will use us well and not to be overwhelmed because we will be guided by the Spirit in all we do. I'm still not sure exactly what I'll be doing in Paraguay. They're training me in nursing and teaching, so I'll be able to do both. I guess my mission president will decide where he wants me. Things in my district have been pretty good. The elders get tired easily, but we're all plugging through. Last night, Elder Bruce C. Hafen came and spoke to us about gaining testimonies. I love to be able to hear so many general authorities so frequently. He told us that we have to have the desire to have a testimony and to be worthy of it if we want it to come. He said the three components of testimony are reasoning (seeing experiences that testify of the reality of God and Christ), feelings, and experiences. It was a very uplifting talk. Oh, I've met two of Taylor (Elder Cozzens's) teachers here. They all spoke very highly of him and joked that they would recognize our last name anywhere. Haha. Tonight I have to go to two more hours of nurse training. I got this awesome first aid kit! So neat! Because I had the nursing training yesterday, I missed teaching an investigator in the TRC. My companion and I had practiced our lesson twice last week, though, so I felt good about it. I really love teaching. I love discerning people's needs and concerns and trying to find out what I can teach them that will help them and bring them comfort and peace. It seems so simple, but it's definitely a learned task. Spanish is going well, too. My district has a goal to "Speak Your Language." We try and speak Spanish as much as we can, inside and outside of class. Hermana and I actually do pretty well. Some of our sentences are pretty choppy, but we have fun. Well, I better go. Thank you all for your support! I appreciate hearing from you. I don't have much e-mail time, but you can write our go to dearelder.com to send free letters as long as I'm in the MTC. I would love to hear from you! I love you and pray for you daily! Love, Hermana Cozzens