Monday, September 30, 2013

9/30/13

My ankles are doing well, more or less. I hate have the brace, wrap, and cane, but its necessary. Both of my ankles swell like balloons everyday, which is annoying. I dont like having cankles!!

So the story for this week. I lied last week. Just kidding, I didnt lie. But last week around 4 in the afternoon, our district leaders called us, and said that me, and Hermana P were being emergency transferred (emergency transferred is basically just a transfer out of regular transfer times, nothing more). And that Hermana M was going to start training in the area. So Hermana P and I were transferred so that we could open a new area in Magnolias. We are the first sister missionaries that this stake has ever seen. We share about 1/8 of the ward with the zone leaders. Our zone leaders are AWESOME, and we see them multiple times a day. They live around the corner from us. I love this area too. The members WANT to help us in any way possible. I love the people here. I feel a connection, and I dont ever want to leave. As well, we have basic dominion over all of the single moms in the ZONE, which is so cool. The members give us lots of references. And as well, we basically have nothing to work with. Just ourselves and the scriptures. We dont have pamphlets, area books, nothing. Its a little frustrating because the pamphlets are what we work with on contacting.

Thank you Aunt Wendy for your support and concern!

I almost cried when I read that Grandma Shirley had to put her dog down :( but she is in a better place. Dont you all worry. Thank you for the picture of her and her dogs, its nice to get those.

We didnt get to see the womens conference, and I am not sure that we will ever see it either. Im sure it was good though :)

I love you all so very much, stay safe!!

Love Always,
Hermana Heather

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

9/23/13

This week has been extremely LONG to be honest. I was sick Sunday through Tuesday, and recouped on wednesday. I did stuff on monday, but sunday night I had a fever, and then tuesday I threw up. And I had a bad cold. It was not a good few days. My companions couldnt go anywhere tuesday because i was sick, and there were no members to leave me with. I literally slept all tuesday, and the afternoon/evening of monday.

The sisters day was fun. We played "minute to win it" games, ate KFC (yum! no rice!) and chatted. Basically thats all we want to do. Lol. It was nice to talk with all of the sisters, and the sisters that were in my district in the CCM (oh, all of the sisters in my district at the CCM were lima north sisters, and then our two elders went to cochobamba bolivia).

Transfers were two weeks ago, so we have four more weeks left in this transfer. Transfers go by so quickly. it makes it easier for me to think in transfers. not as depressing. Because next transfer is christmas time! So for me it is really close. Not three months away, which is more true. lol.

My ankles are doing well. i almost think being sick was a little bit of a blessing, because my left ankle isnt swelling NEAR as  bad as it was before (that was the first sprain). I think resting it for those three days was really good for them. My right ankle tends to hurt more. I cant move it completely like it should, but the doctor did say at least 6 weeks to heal, and its only been almost 3. So patience.... :/

The flooring in peoples homes... depends. Cement, tile, laminate. No carpet. Carpet does NOT exist here. Rugs I rarely see either. I miss carpet... I miss being able to walk around in just socks, or even bare feet in the house. But here, its just so dirty. I miss clean things. I miss my cleaning supplies. I think you would die with how gross things are here. I understand now why papa loved paraguay, but would never want to live there. Hahaha.  Peru is nice for now, but I really dont want to live here permanently.

V* is doing well. She attended all three hours of church this sunday! And the young womens leader said that she is super good, and participated a lot. So that is exciting. We are still working on her mom for permission.

We have another girl, A*, who is 14 years old, and has a STRONG testimony of the gospel, and is so excited to be baptized. Last week she talked to her dad, and he said no. She came in the room with tears streaming down her face. She was so heartbroken. We told her she needs to respect her dad, and he doesnt understand what is baptism. I suggested for her to share what she is learning with us. That is what papa likes to know. What are we learning, why things are important to us.

We dont have much support from the ward here. The bishop doesnt do much. He is the head, and if he used the power, he could move the ward to bigger and greater things. But he doesnt. During meetings he plays with his phone, answers it, does other things. Doesnt pay attention or respect when other people are talking. It is frustrating. Not much is progressing in this ward. And it is disheartening for us. So many less actives, and people dont do anything. And I am not sure if home teachers exist around here either... i think they would help a lot with the less actives. We cant work to activate the less actives AND baptize more people. The numbers are so low here. It is really frustrating, and we are trying to do everything to up the numbers, but they are so low.

This morning I was thinking, if I were to go home now, the way I am right now, I might actually be very different. I dont notice it, but I think I am. I am starting to like to have CLEANLINESS. Because nothing is clean here. I understand the need to clean, but I have nothing to clean WITH. Its frustrating. I also want to cook my own food. I am tired of rice. And I still have over a year to go with the rice (rice. Everday. half of the plate). Potatoes arent that bad, I rather like them. But the rice. No. No more after this....hahahaha.

Love you to the moon and back!
Hermana Heather

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

9/16/13

I am doing all right. My ankle hurts every now an again, and the first ankle likes to start swelling, so thats fun. I have been a little sick with a cold the past few days (ok, a lot) hahaha. And I finally remembered about the cold pills I brought. So I am on those currently. My psyche is alive. I have issues trying to say what I mean, and in spanish, sometimes i freak. Sometimes I understand a lot and other times I understand NOTHING. And it is hard to respond, because I dont have the right words. in english I like to use more pretty words, a littler ¨bigger¨ but I cant in spanish. It drives me NUTS. I am not sure how I feel about being gone for 3 months already... Often i feel like I am just going to go home tomorrow, or see you all soon. its kind of weird. But it is also good. I dont think about the length of time till I see you all again, because I get depressed. But when I think about it more in transfers (6 weeks) or differently, its ok. I feel like I am coming home soon!

We have one investigator named V, and she is 13 years old. She is so cute, and loves to read, and play volleyball. She is reading the book of mormon pretty fast. Right now we are preparing her to be baptized at the end of this month, the 28th.  In one of the prayers she said last week at the end of the lesson, she prayed that she could be a missionary too. So cute! Her mom is stubborn though. She wants her daughter to wait awhile before baptism, and doesnt want her to be a missionary, or wants her to put other things first. We are pretty sure she is not understanding the difference between being BAPTIZED and being a MISSIONARY. They are two TOTALLY different things. You dont HAVE to be a missionary. its a choice, not an obligation (for the girls at least). But V's mom will just talk and talk and talk and talk. She doesnt really let us say much. She is very loving and likes having us around. But she does most of the talking. Hahaha.

Love,
Hermana Heather

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

9/9/13

Im kind of progressing in my spanish, Im starting to understand more of what people say now. Not all of the time, but some. My spanish is really broken. I know my sentance structure in english wasnt very good, and its worse in spanish. I know what I want to say in my head, but on its way out, it jumbles. I think there is a slight glitch between my brain and my mouth... blah.

Guess what?! I sprained my other ankle this week.... yup! I stepped off of a curb with my good foot (because I have been doing it so I dont continue to hurt the first bad foot) and it was a little bit bigger of a curb, and my ankle buckled and I completely fell. I met with the doctor two days later on friday, and he said it is severely sprained (grade 2 sprain?), but not broken. So thats good news! Lesson, I think I am NEVER leaving my cane. EVER. Haha. I am not sure what I am supposed to learn from this. But I still walk as fast and as carefully as I can. There´s nothing more I can do. So thats been fun. ;)
Sometimes kids like me, sometimes they dont. Initially its funny because they will look at me, and their eyes will get SO BIG, and then they hide their face, and then peak up at me. Its kind of funny.

I wouldnt say there are a LOT of wild dogs here. I think a lot of them "belong" to people. They really lay in front of the door, and they are protective of the house, so we have to be a little careful. There is one dog that we call PANCHO. He likes following us around sometimes. He´s really nice, and does his own thing. There is this one dog though, that I do NOT like. At all. He is bigger, and scary looking, and will come after us. I use my cane to keep him at a distance. Oh, once this past week, we were walking in the manzanas (the mountain area) and there were two dogs that were coming after us, and wouldnt leave us alone. It was kind of scary, because there were two of them, and we were walking downhill, with the dogs behind us. They finally left us alone, but to be honest, I was a little scared. Mostly Im not afraid of the animals here. I like to watch their body language, and I can usually tell if they are being aggressive, friendly, playful, etc. I really like it. I wonder if there is a career in animal behavior... I really love observing and analyzing what they might do next.

Basically, we have about one hour to write the mission president and do our emails. Its a little stressful. Sometimes we get a little more time if we are lucky. Our "assigned time" is 10:45-12:00. More or less. And I believe that we are an hour ahead of you all... we dont have time changes. So when the time changes for you all, I think it will end up being a two hour time difference.

We do not have the schedule cards anymore. Lol. We have upgraded to a little schedule booklet. It consists of 6 weeks (so one transfer) and we get new ones every transfer. So less of a hassle. Dont need to carry around those large cards. Hahaha. One of the members in our ward showed us his missionary "agendas." Phew, Im glad we have our booklet. One of the missionaries in our stake will have to show you sometime.

Our district is great. Right now we have I think 3-4 companionships in the district, about 8 people. More or less. And then in our zone about 8 companionships. Its great. Our district leader is leaving us today:( he is going home. To Bolivia. He is a fantastic Elder, and hes been a really good friend. Just one of those persons that I really did connect with.

An interesting person that we met. Last week we met a guy named Manuel. We were just walking, and he kind of yelled at us "what congregation do you belong to?" well, we took the chance, "church of jesus christ of latter day saints" "when do you guys meet?" "can we leave a pamphlet with you?" "does it have the directions?" so we talked with him for a while, he is a very interesting, loud, person. One of those who likes to be kind of funny. Hna P said that these types of people are hard to work with, because its hard for them to take things seriously. But he was definitely INTERESTING.

I love you all so very much!!

Love Always,
Hermana Heather