Hi Everyone!!
Merry Christmas season to you all! I hope you are all getting excited for Christmas! Christmas will definitely be different here, but it’s funny how many things are decorated with Christmas-y décor here despite being a predominately Muslim country. However, they are all used to celebrate the New Year, so it’s funny seeing “Happy New Year” written on the same banner with Santa. We even got some snow here too, so it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas even in this part of the world! I’m looking forward to resting and celebrating Christmas!
These past 8 weeks I’ve been plugging away at language learning! Some days I feel like I still know nothing, and some days I am having full conversations and I wonder why I’m still studying the language! (hahah just kidding). Something this whole process is really teaching me is patience. Coming from a culture that demands efficiency and immediate results, it is definitely hard to get used to this culture with the slower-paced life style. However, more than the cultural differences is the hard work it takes to learn a new language. Waiting and working towards being able to do what I came here to do takes a lot of hard work and patience. Meanwhile, God has been showing me that the best things in life require great time and great care. Meanwhile, there is no need to rush because these things are worth it. And meanwhile, God keeps giving me encouraging moments where I am able to joke around or talk about deeper things with my new friends in a new language! It’s funny how the “meanwhile”, the process of getting where you want to be, is so meaningful and so full of wonderful opportunities as well. Patience is something I’m not very good at, but the results of patience cannot be beat! I can’t wait to know the language much better, but for now this place is wonderful too!