Saturday, April 2, 2016

Joyce's Espanol

I've been asked quite a few times how my spanish is coming so .... here's a little update on the undertaking.
When we first got here, I thought I had some of the basics down but I soon realized just because you can ask them about themselves (and maybe even have the verbs conjugated correctly) - does not mean you can understand when they start telling you! Sometimes they don't even take a breath until they've pretty much told you their entire life story - or I think that might have been what they were telling me.  It is soooo easy for me to zone out when I loose track  ... can you say squirrel?!?
They love to ask us to bear our testimonies and say prayers.  I think my first attempts sounded something like a two year olds but I swear I was sincere! Using notes really helps me not forget to include important words.  My next goal is to be able to not use notes.
One of the funnier misunderstandings was when Curt and I were praying together right after we got here.  I am really trying to listen as he's praying in Spanish.  I'm putting the gist of the prayer together and then BAM, I'm lost!  Did he just say CHICKEN?  Is he praying for a CHICKEN?  What is going on?!?  Well, come to find out pollo is chicken and apollo is support.  It still throws me every once in awhile but I am glad to know Curt is asking the Lord for support and not for a chicken!
We had a guy driving us around and he told Curt he wanted to talk to me. Curt told him to just talk slow and I would probably be able to understand.  I walked up and the guy just started hollering at me when I couldn't understand what he'd say -slower/louder ... same thing right? We were trying to help a guy with his family history and golly, there were names of people and places that I just couldn't understand.  I usually wasn't quick enough to get the spelling or dates on the first try but we ended up getting things done and he'll be back next week.
There have been quite a few times I want to contribute something to a conversation and by the time I get it all put together a little bit in my mind, that ship has sailed.  Luckily, Curt is able to help me out a lot.  Sometimes he gives me a little breakdown of the conversation, especially if the topic of conversation goes off on a tangent. Sometimes maybe he forgets that I'm not always following, or maybe he was just going to cut me a break -like the time the branch president invited us up in a meeting and he got up without me but the branch president was having none of that business so I bore my testimony too.  We had a lot of fun playing pictionary with the sister missionaries and a family last week.  Curt didn't know the movies and I didn't know how to say anything in spanish. Como se dice ...cloudy with a chance of meatballs?
It's been an adventure, I have a lot to learn but haven't found myself super frustrated with it yet, ackward - YES, confused - YES, misunderstood - YES, wrong - YES but having fun with it - YA, that too!

1 comment:

  1. Love hearing how things are going. Glad u r stii enjoying yourself. So what did they think about another temple in Lima Peru. Way cool

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