Amazing Team! || Day 5 - Monique

Hello, and thank you for reading the team blog! Spanish class has been very challenging, but wonderful as well. It's funny because I've never really needed a study partner for school before, but I'm so incredibly grateful to have Lydia as my study partner and as one of my roommates. We help each other in understanding the different advanced concepts in Spanish and we actually wait to do homework together, which helps a lot!Speaking of the whole team, before I came I thought we would be kind of distant, keeping our space between us, and be a lot more focused on schoolwork and missions activities as opposed to forming relationships. But those presuppositions were completely wrong! It hasn't even been a week yet, but I feel like my team and I are a family (as they themselves have told me several times). When I was feeling down the other night, the whole team prayed for me, and when I was feeling sick and having a really hard time getting to sleep, my two roommates prayed for me again. Both of my roommates, Aria and Lydia, have been such a blessing. Here are some Aria Edwards quotes (don't worry, I showed them to her before blogging them):"This guacamole has a gallstone in it!"(Said to John Shoemaker:) "You didn't eat your carrots?! You'll be blind when you grow up!"(About herself and how quotable she is:) "I tell people they should feel lucky that they aren't paying for this free entertainment."It has definitely been fun, crazy, and challenging. I love what Steven Curry said during a spur of the moment conversation-turned-devotion-time: "Life is an adventure when you walk with the Lord."In my personal devotions, I read from 2 Corinthians 5:1-21 the other day. Verse 13 says, "If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. Either way, Christ's love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life." Verse 20 says, "So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making His appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, 'Come back to God!'"Thank you for all of you who are praying for us, we definitely feel your prayers. It's beautiful how God brought this specific language team together from all over the United States to be here now, together, "for such a time as this". We're learning how to better our Spanish while working together to spread the Gospel to those who surround us. Friday morning we go to the Orphanage to stay for three days and two nights, and I'm so excited! I have the privilege of translating for 2-3 lessons in addition to helping with several other mission related things. May God be magnified and glorified in the team's work, praise be to Him, the author and finisher of our faith!