April 4, 2010

I've had to buy quite a bit of stuff since i got here. When i first arrived i had to get bedding, pillows, shampoo, conditioner, ped socks($50 yikes!) and all my other living supplies. then i had to get the shoes which are sketchers by the way and are MUCH better. all my blisters are turning into callises so i'm much better now. then i had to get some summer skirts and jackets- we're melting here and most of the skirts i had don't dry thats a problem. then we had to get a bunch of stuff for lessons for investigators. they do really good with visual aids and diagrams and stuff. needless to say its been pricey but i haven't just been shopping I PROMISE! also we are given money for food but thats all it covers and barely that. Not any times we have to eat out when we are going to district council or hygeine products or anything. because we live on the beach there is only one grocery store thats really close and its across the street from the beach so they charge what they want. its pretty expensive and for the first 2 weeks here no one really fed us because they didn't know who we were.

ok so conference was way good definitely all about the family kind of strange because i'm not a mom or a kid at home but it was still really good. i got your package and LOVED it! thank you! i was way excited to get the back pack and i think my watch is on my book shelf. we ate mac and cheese for easter dinner- no one signed up for like the next 5 days. our branch is tiny and they already all feed us once a week. there are only 3 high priests in the branch, yeah LITTLE. A new kid moved into the area this week and we met him at conference. He grew up in Reno and went to hug and wooster. He is Lalo Otuafi's cousin. His dad was president of the first tongan branch in reno- crazy. He asked if i new a stephanie hunter from fallon but i didn't recognize the name. also we don't walk from the islands haha we drive over the causeway. Hermana's mom asked her the same question. you should call and talk to her mom one day. find out if we're related and then let us know. I love my companion she is so fun and just AMAZING in every way. we have tons of fun together. she just said that her family is trumans and bowlers! oh my we just found that out in the library HAHA ok find out and let me know. i'm going to try and send some photos of the area and some kids of people we are teaching and then write some more if i have time LOVE YOU

the sign is for dad of an area we tract in


these are pictures of across the street from my apartment (sooo totally jealous!)

k these ones include a puffer fish- look at the teeth they're horse teeth and they hiss- SO COOL and then my hermana and then me and then the elder that was on our ceiling when we moved in- he's been there for years so we aren't allowed to take him down so we're going to put a sister on the other side of the room for balance (They are actually backwards in order)

these pictures are of the bay across the street and that skyline is all lit at night in different colors- GORGEOUS the next one is our chapel which is also beautiful and then the last is a bone fish
(also backwards)

March 29, 2010

Thats funny that you wrote about the talk by Elder Holland. It's my FAVORITE! I actually spoke about it in sacrament a week or so ago. It is so powerful. I LOVE the Book of Mormon. Me and my companion are starting a program with our spanish branch this week. We found out most of them don't have testimonies of the Book of Mormon and don't read it. Others don't even have a copy in their homes! So sad. We decided we are going to do a reading program. We will read a chapter a day and finish on Christmas day. Sunday we are having a ward potluck and together we will read the introduction, the witnesses and watch the restoration movie. Then as we meet with the members we will talk to them about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon as a family. Each week we will have one day a week that everyone can meet at the chapel and read the chapter together, for those who don't understand it or live alone. Then we will call two families a night to see how their reading went and then each monday we go to a family's for FHE and we will read with them. It's going to take a lot of encouragement and time but i'm really excited about it. I know that it will bring a strength to the branch that isn't here right now.

Something not so exciting is that we have fleas! thats right FLEAS. The senior couple came and drowned our apartment with pesticide stuff and everything was soaking wet (elder welch got a little carried away... it was like dad attacking weeds haha) then they were still here this week so we bug bombed all three rooms- thats a lot of stuff too. and then today we found more! they are here from when the elders lived here because they didn't ever clean. and you can't kill them. Even smashing them doesn't work. We have little bites all over our legs. They itch way bad. BUT... Elder welch is coming back on friday to see what he can do. We'll get them if its the last thing we do haha. At least we aren't the sisters in homestead. They've had cockroaches for 3 transfers. They said they were killing them by the hundreds. They got moved into a new apartment today though. So ours definitely isn't bad.

We meet some STRANGE people but its really fun. There are some people- we haven't met them yet- who live under the bridge by our house. They escaped from an insane asylum and i guess the lady used to walk around in her straight jacket . I really want to see her (Mom may have freaked out a little at this one).

This week has been slow because we are eliminating all of the potential contacts we had from the elders. Some people react different to sisters than elders. We actually met with a recent convert this week who we didn't know anything about. We later found out he's dangerous and we weren't supposed to meet him and salt lake said to stay away. He was nice though. He showed up to church on sunday too and went up for testimonies saying that he had demons in him and he thought that by going up there they would leave him (This one pretty much did freak Mom out). We were in another meeting at that time so we didn't see it. We have so many fun adventures i love it! also- there were some people fishing in the bay the other day and they caught bonefish and pufferfish. i got pictures- they look AWESOME the puffer fish have teeth like a horse and they like hiss at you. i'll try and send them home soon

Right now we are really working on binding the Lord. There are so many promises blessed to us if we desire them and the scriptures tell us how to get them. The Lord is bound when we do what he says, and thats exactly what we are doing. We are searching for specific blessings that we want. we are then looking in the scriptures for everything we can do to bind the Lord in receiving it. Its a really amazing principle.

This isn't the rainy season but when it rains it POURS its the craziest thing. We've had a few days of rain but not many.

Things with my companion are amazing! I love her so much. We get along really well and definitely have the same vision for this area. Something that has really unified us is revelation. We have asked the Lord in some specific things and he has given us both the same answers. It really helps us to move in the same direction. It is really awesome to figure out how to work with the spirit and how he speaks to me. The Lord is very aware of each person in this area.

Tell Mitchell and Kieran i said good job! I wish i could have been there to see it. I hope someone taped it so i can watch it in a year and a half.

I hope you have fun in Idaho! tell everyone i said hi and i love them!

Oh something else really exciting is that i have a tan already- in March! i got burned twice already and i'm about 2 to 3 shades darker than i was when i got here. The bad thing about that is people are starting to thing i'm latin and so i should speak spanish! some lady asked me yesterday if my mom was latin... i said no we're all white and she didn't believe me. I'm gonna be way dark by the end of summer though. so awesome.

I haven't heard from Crystal either (Hint, hint). I've written to her once but she never wrote back. I'm going to try and write to her again today. We have a convert that reminds me So much of her and her story is a lot the same to. I always wonder how she's doing.

Tell H and G I'm so excited for them! that's so awesome. Have they picked out any names yet?

Oh so yesterday we went to M's house- she's a convert that is getting baptized in like a week, she's the one like crystal. We went to her house for dinner and her mom made us honduran enchiladas- so good! they're on corn shells and its meat, potatoes, cabbage, and a red sauce. Loved it. Next time they are making us tripe soup. i'm a little scared about that but i'll eat it. This week a lady made us a fish soup- with the WHOLE fish. scales, eyes, bones, everything. Thankfully we don't eat with members we just pick up the food so we didn't feel so bad not eating it. we let a set of elders eat it and then dumped out the rest. it was crazy. We get some crazy stuff.

This place is a whole different world. There are people from EVERYWHERE. Right now is spring break so its crazy too. In southbeach the clubs and everything open at like 11 in the morning and probably actually never stop. there are so many people and no one has houses. its all apartment buildings. It kind of reminds me of the set up in Italy.