Hey family!
it was so good to see you all on christmas!! I hope you werent worried when I had to say goodbye crying because I was happy! I feel like home doesnt feel that far away and it felt good to talk to you guys because it reminded me that things are still going to be the same with us when I get home! I also felt super grateful for our family! just like, wow, these are the people that I get to spend forever with! Im sooo thankful for that!!!! and nothing else matters, we dont need presents or anything to make the holidays special, its just getting to be with the people you love!
So I will some up how crazy this week has been and so not like any other week! so after christmas we went and starting working super hard on thursday but I had woke up not feeling super good and then the full heat of the summer has finally set in too! it was a 109 degrees yesterday! So we walked a ton on thursday but i started feeling just super weak with body aches and my head was pounding so we came home early at like 6 and i realized that I had a fever but I hadnt noticed because it had been so hot, and then I was super sick all thursday night and literally couldnt get out of my bed on friday, we had to stay the day at home. I cant remember the last time that I was that sick! I didnt know what it was from, the heat or the exhaustion had just finally caught up with me or the holidays, but then Friday the elders called and they were at home sick with the same thing! Elder Hunsaker says that there was an elder he found out who had been sick at our christmas activity and he blames him for us all dying haha
but the craziest news of all came friday night! We got a call from president McMullin and he has called hermana Tomco to be a sister trainer leader for our mission! This is such exciting news because this is the highest position a sister can serve in the mission! its kind of the equivilent of an assistent to the president for the elders! Shes so excited but we were shocked because im only halfway done through my training! so what will be happening is, Im staying in Juan de Salazar and getting a new companion tomorrow morning, Hermana Luz! shes latina by the sound of her name and thats all i know about her but shes going to finish training me! And hermana Tomco is going to be in Campo Grande so shes in the Presidents families ward and shes going to be living in the really really nice part of downtown Asuncion! we have to leave at 5 in the morning tomorrow for asuncion for changes! Im sad to say goodbye to her and a little nervous about the change but I know that president mcmullin is called to lead us and he is making the decisions that heavenly father wants for us! so starting tomorrow, no more english for me at all! haha It will be good, im going to learn a lot faster now.
I will tell you all about the change and my new companion next week! Its crazy how fast things change in the mission and you honestly never know whats going to happen! its a little stressful haha but it keeps us on our toes. And im just going to be here keeping on working hard! I hope you guys all have an awesome News Years! I love you guys so much! Ill talk to you next week!
Love
Hermana Meese
Monday, December 30, 2013
Monday, December 23, 2013
A week in the life of a missionary
Hola family!
This week honestly flew by! we have been working sooo much, we just never stop! right now hermana tomco and I have the highest numbers in our district for investigators and contacts and lessons taught. We were figuring it out the other day too, that we´ve been walking about 12 miles everyday in between visiting all of our members and investigators!
Anyways I will fill you in with some highlights of this week! Monday night we had noche de hogar, with the Lopez family and for the treat I made brownies using grandma albrechts recipe and they loved them soooo much! haha Yanina, the daughter asked me for the recipe and I translated it into spanish for her so that was cool!
Then tuesday we met with our Brazilian family thats super interested and the mom and her two daughters have baptism dates! but then Creosa the mom told us she feels like she cant get baptized yet because her husband Jose´ still hasnt gotten divorced from his first wife in brazil. and him and creosa got married in paraguay so their marriage is valid here but not in brazil but she feels like its not right until they have that done for her to get baptized. so we are praying things work out for them!
Then wednesday was our busiest day, we had sooo many lessons but as we were walking around, everything just was like beautiful to me! I was just noticing all the details of peoples houses and i was just picturing that these places would be like the backdrop for an anthropologie magazine haha me and hermana tomco were just pointing out every little thing we loved as we walked around that day!
oh, we also met this grandma, Liduvenia, and she definitely has a pet parrot that talks in spanish haha and it knows how to chant the chant for Olympia the futbol team! haha it just sits there and goes Par A Guay! ya! ya! ya! and then whistles! haha she lives in like this old farm house, and there are chickens everywhere and she has a well out in front of their house, oh and she has cows that just wander around the house too haha
Thursday, was fun, we had lunch with hermana Limpia, shes a recent convert and guess what we got to eat... rooster haha I didnt know it was until after I ate it, I thought it was like beef but now I can add that to the list of weird things Ive eaten in my life haha
Saturday we hit the wall and were soooo tired. and when we were going to bed that night our neighbors were just blasting their music. Everyone does that here, they have these huge sound systems in their tiny houses haha but when someone listens to music that means everyone else gets to listen too! and the funny thing is they are really into 80s american music here! so saturday night we fell asleep listening to 80s rock haha and they were playing some beatles music too haha
yesterday we got to speak in church again! we have like an average of 60 people in church each sunday and it looks like the missionaries get to speak a lot haha we have soooo many less active members. I think theirs supposed to be about 150 in our ward but everyone is just lazy, they dont feel like walking so they wont come or if its too hot, they wont come or if its raining then no one does anything! haha we are working on just getting people committed. One lady we met with thats less active told us she´d come back to chruch if they dont give her a calling haha so that pretty much sums up what Ive been working on here!
Its crazy how time flies! I cant believe its already christmas! I hope everyone has a wonderful week! love you all! and merry christmas!
love
hermana meese
This week honestly flew by! we have been working sooo much, we just never stop! right now hermana tomco and I have the highest numbers in our district for investigators and contacts and lessons taught. We were figuring it out the other day too, that we´ve been walking about 12 miles everyday in between visiting all of our members and investigators!
Anyways I will fill you in with some highlights of this week! Monday night we had noche de hogar, with the Lopez family and for the treat I made brownies using grandma albrechts recipe and they loved them soooo much! haha Yanina, the daughter asked me for the recipe and I translated it into spanish for her so that was cool!
Then tuesday we met with our Brazilian family thats super interested and the mom and her two daughters have baptism dates! but then Creosa the mom told us she feels like she cant get baptized yet because her husband Jose´ still hasnt gotten divorced from his first wife in brazil. and him and creosa got married in paraguay so their marriage is valid here but not in brazil but she feels like its not right until they have that done for her to get baptized. so we are praying things work out for them!
Then wednesday was our busiest day, we had sooo many lessons but as we were walking around, everything just was like beautiful to me! I was just noticing all the details of peoples houses and i was just picturing that these places would be like the backdrop for an anthropologie magazine haha me and hermana tomco were just pointing out every little thing we loved as we walked around that day!
oh, we also met this grandma, Liduvenia, and she definitely has a pet parrot that talks in spanish haha and it knows how to chant the chant for Olympia the futbol team! haha it just sits there and goes Par A Guay! ya! ya! ya! and then whistles! haha she lives in like this old farm house, and there are chickens everywhere and she has a well out in front of their house, oh and she has cows that just wander around the house too haha
Thursday, was fun, we had lunch with hermana Limpia, shes a recent convert and guess what we got to eat... rooster haha I didnt know it was until after I ate it, I thought it was like beef but now I can add that to the list of weird things Ive eaten in my life haha
Saturday we hit the wall and were soooo tired. and when we were going to bed that night our neighbors were just blasting their music. Everyone does that here, they have these huge sound systems in their tiny houses haha but when someone listens to music that means everyone else gets to listen too! and the funny thing is they are really into 80s american music here! so saturday night we fell asleep listening to 80s rock haha and they were playing some beatles music too haha
yesterday we got to speak in church again! we have like an average of 60 people in church each sunday and it looks like the missionaries get to speak a lot haha we have soooo many less active members. I think theirs supposed to be about 150 in our ward but everyone is just lazy, they dont feel like walking so they wont come or if its too hot, they wont come or if its raining then no one does anything! haha we are working on just getting people committed. One lady we met with thats less active told us she´d come back to chruch if they dont give her a calling haha so that pretty much sums up what Ive been working on here!
Its crazy how time flies! I cant believe its already christmas! I hope everyone has a wonderful week! love you all! and merry christmas!
love
hermana meese
Monday, December 9, 2013
Firstborn in the Wliderness
so the title of this week is what my trainer calls me haha because im her first ¨daughter¨or sister thats shes trained haha I thought it was pretty funny!
anyways! this has been quite the week, its been super physically exausting. I think its safe to say ive never sweated so much in my entire life. Like living in paraguay you just have to be used to sweat running down your face from 6 in the morning until 10 at night.
but anyways i will just start with the first of the week and tell you about everything! last monday night we had family home evening with the acosta family and they live in this huge field with nothing around them and when it got dark, there were fireflies! i died! ive never seen them before and it was so cool! but then the other bugs started to come out and i had like a mini panic attack because they were flying down my shirt and up my skirt and getting stuck in my hair and i couldnt escape! it mustve been quite a sight to see!
Tuesday we had a fun lunch with hermana gomez and she has all these friends that are probably about 80 and 90 and only speak guarani. but this one grandma was sitting there talking to me and pinching me and telling me she wants me to date her son haha I didnt completely understand what she was saying and i heard her say paraguayan and i just replied, i like the people in paraguay theyre really nice! and then she was like my sons paraguayan! you need a paraguayn boyfriend! haha it was so funny! it was also elder hunsakers birthday that day and so we decided to make him chocolate chip cookies! but chocolate chips dont exist here so we went and bought all the packets of rocklets they had at the dispensa. haha rocklets are kinda like m&ms but then brown sugar doesnt exist either but hermana tomco is genius and we made our own with regular sugar and molasses! haha
okay so wednesday we died. it was soooo hot. elder hunsaker got mad at us because we got sunburned because we didnt have hats but you have to have a hat because the sun can make you physically sick here. but wednesday was one of those days that every single one of our investigators appointments fell through. and we had a girl in our ward who was going to take us to the bishops house but she didnt know how to get there so we ended up getting lost for about 2 and a half hours and then on our way home i stepped in an ant pile and i never knew getting bit by ants hurt so bad! they got my whole foot and leg! and then we missed the bus to get home and it was dark so we ran the 45 minute walk home! once again, physically exausted.
but it was all worth it on thursday because we had a conference in asuncion and i finally got your package! thank you so much for all the pictures and notes! it made my day! and mom i dont know how you knew but it is soooo hard to find notebooks here and pens! and i needed some so thank you! on the bus ride home from asuncion all the elders were looking at cades chart of sports stuff and it was so funny some of the elders were like what? the world series already happened?! haha I also got a letter from aunt becky and i was so thankful for that! its exactly what I needed to hear! she just told me her experiences on the first few months of her mission and they were things i had been feeling and it was comforting to know she felt the same way! so that was special!
we met with our super interested family saturday night! we taught them about the plan of salvation and they are so excited about learning! this is what makes it all worth it. the daughter ana victoria, when we walked in started telling us she read like 12 chapters last night out of nephi and then went back and read the intro and testimony of joseph smith and the three witnesses and then the daughters came to church with us again yesterday! they have a baptism date for december 28th! we just need to get the dad interested in learning about it now too so the whole family can do it together! also saturday night they had us eat dinner with them and she made us brazilian food with like rice beans and chicken and pineapple juice and it was soooo good! im so thankful for the people that feed us!
then yesterday was another physically exhausting day. we woke up at 5 so we could make the hour walk to meet an investigator that was going to come to church with us but when she showed up she wasnt home so we made the hour walk back to the church and we just walked and sweated and sweated and walked. haha this weekend here is kinda crazy! yesterday was the day of celebration for Caukupe, shes like a virgin they worship here and in the city of Caukupe is this statue that everyone pilgramiges too and shes supposed to give you a miracle, but its more of an excuse to party. firecrackers go off all hours of the day and everyone just blasts their music and drinks! there were sooooo many drunk people while we were walking home last night haha oh but the best was last night we were like out of food and gonna make some rice for dinner when we got home but as we were walking down the ruta, norma and angels family (the family we baptized) got off the collectivo and were going to anothers members house for family night and norma pulled out some empanadas she had just made and gave us each one! it was honestly a miracle! once again so grateful for the members that keep us fed! she is such a sweet lady!
so thats a week in the life of a missionary in paraguay haha i hope everyones doing good! love you all! the gospel is amazing! especailly seeing how it changes peoples lives! the church is true and the book is blue!
love you all so much!
love
hermana meese
anyways! this has been quite the week, its been super physically exausting. I think its safe to say ive never sweated so much in my entire life. Like living in paraguay you just have to be used to sweat running down your face from 6 in the morning until 10 at night.
but anyways i will just start with the first of the week and tell you about everything! last monday night we had family home evening with the acosta family and they live in this huge field with nothing around them and when it got dark, there were fireflies! i died! ive never seen them before and it was so cool! but then the other bugs started to come out and i had like a mini panic attack because they were flying down my shirt and up my skirt and getting stuck in my hair and i couldnt escape! it mustve been quite a sight to see!
Tuesday we had a fun lunch with hermana gomez and she has all these friends that are probably about 80 and 90 and only speak guarani. but this one grandma was sitting there talking to me and pinching me and telling me she wants me to date her son haha I didnt completely understand what she was saying and i heard her say paraguayan and i just replied, i like the people in paraguay theyre really nice! and then she was like my sons paraguayan! you need a paraguayn boyfriend! haha it was so funny! it was also elder hunsakers birthday that day and so we decided to make him chocolate chip cookies! but chocolate chips dont exist here so we went and bought all the packets of rocklets they had at the dispensa. haha rocklets are kinda like m&ms but then brown sugar doesnt exist either but hermana tomco is genius and we made our own with regular sugar and molasses! haha
okay so wednesday we died. it was soooo hot. elder hunsaker got mad at us because we got sunburned because we didnt have hats but you have to have a hat because the sun can make you physically sick here. but wednesday was one of those days that every single one of our investigators appointments fell through. and we had a girl in our ward who was going to take us to the bishops house but she didnt know how to get there so we ended up getting lost for about 2 and a half hours and then on our way home i stepped in an ant pile and i never knew getting bit by ants hurt so bad! they got my whole foot and leg! and then we missed the bus to get home and it was dark so we ran the 45 minute walk home! once again, physically exausted.
but it was all worth it on thursday because we had a conference in asuncion and i finally got your package! thank you so much for all the pictures and notes! it made my day! and mom i dont know how you knew but it is soooo hard to find notebooks here and pens! and i needed some so thank you! on the bus ride home from asuncion all the elders were looking at cades chart of sports stuff and it was so funny some of the elders were like what? the world series already happened?! haha I also got a letter from aunt becky and i was so thankful for that! its exactly what I needed to hear! she just told me her experiences on the first few months of her mission and they were things i had been feeling and it was comforting to know she felt the same way! so that was special!
we met with our super interested family saturday night! we taught them about the plan of salvation and they are so excited about learning! this is what makes it all worth it. the daughter ana victoria, when we walked in started telling us she read like 12 chapters last night out of nephi and then went back and read the intro and testimony of joseph smith and the three witnesses and then the daughters came to church with us again yesterday! they have a baptism date for december 28th! we just need to get the dad interested in learning about it now too so the whole family can do it together! also saturday night they had us eat dinner with them and she made us brazilian food with like rice beans and chicken and pineapple juice and it was soooo good! im so thankful for the people that feed us!
then yesterday was another physically exhausting day. we woke up at 5 so we could make the hour walk to meet an investigator that was going to come to church with us but when she showed up she wasnt home so we made the hour walk back to the church and we just walked and sweated and sweated and walked. haha this weekend here is kinda crazy! yesterday was the day of celebration for Caukupe, shes like a virgin they worship here and in the city of Caukupe is this statue that everyone pilgramiges too and shes supposed to give you a miracle, but its more of an excuse to party. firecrackers go off all hours of the day and everyone just blasts their music and drinks! there were sooooo many drunk people while we were walking home last night haha oh but the best was last night we were like out of food and gonna make some rice for dinner when we got home but as we were walking down the ruta, norma and angels family (the family we baptized) got off the collectivo and were going to anothers members house for family night and norma pulled out some empanadas she had just made and gave us each one! it was honestly a miracle! once again so grateful for the members that keep us fed! she is such a sweet lady!
so thats a week in the life of a missionary in paraguay haha i hope everyones doing good! love you all! the gospel is amazing! especailly seeing how it changes peoples lives! the church is true and the book is blue!
love you all so much!
love
hermana meese
Monday, December 2, 2013
My second week in Paraguay!
okay i like wrote notes all week to remember everything! haha so i´ll start with last pday. we spent the day in Luque and went to the grocery store which is soooo different! haha you have to check in your backpack at the front door before you go in and there are guys guarding the doors with guns but then to get anything like hygiene like makeup or toothepaste its all behind a counter and you have to get a number and then you tell the lady what you need and she puts it in a bag that has a lock on it and then you take the bag up to the checkout where they take the lock off when you pay haha also, you can pay like half the payment of the groceries and then come back like a week later and pay off the rest haha i was so confused when they asked me how many checks i wanted but thats what they were asking.
so after we had family night with the ayalas, and since their baptism you can totally feel the spirit in their home! i love them so much! i feel at peace when we are there. we sit on their front porch and hermana norma always makes us this yummy smoothie juice thing haha
so then tuesday, we have district meeting! there are 6 of us all together, 4 elders and us and we have to take the bus to the city of Limpio for it. and at it our district leader teaches us things to help us be better missionaries. this week we learned how to teach catholics about why we cant worship the virgin mary. soooo helpful! everyones catholic here and so we talk about this almost every lesson. also we went out proselyting with Clara a girl from our ward thats 15 and she helped us to get to know our area better. this is the only way to do it because some places its just like a trail through the trees and theres no addresses or street names at all so its like go to the yellow house then turn right and then go far until the big tree and turn left haha
the youth in our ward are so awesome! they are friends with us missionaries and always want to help us out!
so wednesday we had rain and oh my gosh. the thunderstorms here are insane!!!!! the thunder is so loud it honestly makes you vibrate and it makes the windows shake! and it just pours! me and hermana tomco are going to go buy some rainboots today! because when it rains its deep mud. all the roads are like sandy dirt so when it rains theres soooo much mud!
on thurdsay hma. tomco got really sick from something she ate so we had to spend the day at the house. she was too sick to get up but i just scrubbed the house so clean the whole day! haha its so old no matter how much i cleaned anything it still looked dirty but at least now I know its like sanatized haha and then about 3 in the afternoon i remembered it was thanksgiving so i make a cake mix we had and later that night we brought it to the elders!
okay now for friday. highlight of the week! we found this family and they just recently moved here from concepcion but before that they lived in brazil. the mom like speaks a mix of spanish and portuguese so its really hard for me to understand her haha but anyways its a family of 6 with a mom and dad, who are married which is a miracle here! and 4 kids that are 18 16 12 and 1 two boys and two girls and they were so ready to hear our message. right from the beginning they asked us, why are there so many churches and the bible says theres only one god and how are we supposed to know which one is true? and the mom told us about how even though they went to the catholic church she didnt have her children baptized when they were babies because she doesnt think theyve sinned and it should be their decision. (this is by the way one of the hardest things for catholics to get past is that theyve already been baptized) so we explained to her the restoration and she was like si o si, este es verdad. yes this is true, definitely true. we gave her a book of mormon and said she would read and pray and then yesterday the mom and daughter came to church with us!!! the dad and son didint because they were pouring the cement for their driveway. they live in a newer house they built themselves. here they are considered chu chi, which means theyre rich. this is especially true becuase they have a car! first person ive met with one here so far! but the mom loved church and she said the whole family is coming back next week!
so after that we went to coordinacion misional at hermanos flors house and oh my goodness, people live in the most humble places. hno. flor is the ward mission leader, has been a member a year now and lives with his wife and 2 kids that are 2 and 6 months. but theyre house is a lean to kind of thing. it has dirt floor and its made out of pieces of thin wood that look like they came off of some packaging for a fridge or something and there roof is made out of pieces of tin and tarp and they have one bed they all sleep on and the house is so small thats all that fits in it. but we sat there and his wife made us matte dulce. matte is this herb drink they drink here we arent aloud to drink the real thing because it can make us sick because were not used to it but with matte dulce they put coconut shavings in the cup and then pour hot milk on it and you take turns passing around the matte cup drinking it, I think its the coolest thing! haha and its delicious!
so then friday we met a menos activo familia, a family thats less active and the moms name is hermana cabrera, they live out in the middle of nowhwere and they speak more quarani then english but hma. cabrera doesnt know how to read so we are going to teach her so then she can read the book of mormon with her family!
so that was my week! time goes by so fast here! i feel like ive learned so much this week and i wish i could record everything for you like the sounds and smells and the feel of the heat for you guys to experience! i will just have to bring you all back here one day! haha love you all so much! i pray for you everyday! talk to you next week!
love hermana meese
so after we had family night with the ayalas, and since their baptism you can totally feel the spirit in their home! i love them so much! i feel at peace when we are there. we sit on their front porch and hermana norma always makes us this yummy smoothie juice thing haha
so then tuesday, we have district meeting! there are 6 of us all together, 4 elders and us and we have to take the bus to the city of Limpio for it. and at it our district leader teaches us things to help us be better missionaries. this week we learned how to teach catholics about why we cant worship the virgin mary. soooo helpful! everyones catholic here and so we talk about this almost every lesson. also we went out proselyting with Clara a girl from our ward thats 15 and she helped us to get to know our area better. this is the only way to do it because some places its just like a trail through the trees and theres no addresses or street names at all so its like go to the yellow house then turn right and then go far until the big tree and turn left haha
the youth in our ward are so awesome! they are friends with us missionaries and always want to help us out!
so wednesday we had rain and oh my gosh. the thunderstorms here are insane!!!!! the thunder is so loud it honestly makes you vibrate and it makes the windows shake! and it just pours! me and hermana tomco are going to go buy some rainboots today! because when it rains its deep mud. all the roads are like sandy dirt so when it rains theres soooo much mud!
on thurdsay hma. tomco got really sick from something she ate so we had to spend the day at the house. she was too sick to get up but i just scrubbed the house so clean the whole day! haha its so old no matter how much i cleaned anything it still looked dirty but at least now I know its like sanatized haha and then about 3 in the afternoon i remembered it was thanksgiving so i make a cake mix we had and later that night we brought it to the elders!
okay now for friday. highlight of the week! we found this family and they just recently moved here from concepcion but before that they lived in brazil. the mom like speaks a mix of spanish and portuguese so its really hard for me to understand her haha but anyways its a family of 6 with a mom and dad, who are married which is a miracle here! and 4 kids that are 18 16 12 and 1 two boys and two girls and they were so ready to hear our message. right from the beginning they asked us, why are there so many churches and the bible says theres only one god and how are we supposed to know which one is true? and the mom told us about how even though they went to the catholic church she didnt have her children baptized when they were babies because she doesnt think theyve sinned and it should be their decision. (this is by the way one of the hardest things for catholics to get past is that theyve already been baptized) so we explained to her the restoration and she was like si o si, este es verdad. yes this is true, definitely true. we gave her a book of mormon and said she would read and pray and then yesterday the mom and daughter came to church with us!!! the dad and son didint because they were pouring the cement for their driveway. they live in a newer house they built themselves. here they are considered chu chi, which means theyre rich. this is especially true becuase they have a car! first person ive met with one here so far! but the mom loved church and she said the whole family is coming back next week!
so after that we went to coordinacion misional at hermanos flors house and oh my goodness, people live in the most humble places. hno. flor is the ward mission leader, has been a member a year now and lives with his wife and 2 kids that are 2 and 6 months. but theyre house is a lean to kind of thing. it has dirt floor and its made out of pieces of thin wood that look like they came off of some packaging for a fridge or something and there roof is made out of pieces of tin and tarp and they have one bed they all sleep on and the house is so small thats all that fits in it. but we sat there and his wife made us matte dulce. matte is this herb drink they drink here we arent aloud to drink the real thing because it can make us sick because were not used to it but with matte dulce they put coconut shavings in the cup and then pour hot milk on it and you take turns passing around the matte cup drinking it, I think its the coolest thing! haha and its delicious!
so then friday we met a menos activo familia, a family thats less active and the moms name is hermana cabrera, they live out in the middle of nowhwere and they speak more quarani then english but hma. cabrera doesnt know how to read so we are going to teach her so then she can read the book of mormon with her family!
so that was my week! time goes by so fast here! i feel like ive learned so much this week and i wish i could record everything for you like the sounds and smells and the feel of the heat for you guys to experience! i will just have to bring you all back here one day! haha love you all so much! i pray for you everyday! talk to you next week!
love hermana meese
One of the rainstorms this week. Jasmine says this picture doesn't do it justice at all though!
!
Hermana Tomco.
Making hot chocolate in a pan because they don't have any pots.
The brownies they made the elders on Thanksgiving.
Washing her clothes!
Hermana Meese and Hermana Tomco eating some street food.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Dont worry family, Im Alive!
all i can say is wow.
these past 5 days have been crazy! okay so Im in the area Juan de Salazar and its right outside of the city of Luque! its about an hour from the mission home and it takes about a half an hour bus ride to come into the city to where we can go to the grocery store and email!
okay let me just describe paraguay. super blue sky, super green trees everywhere, mango trees actually! and red dirt everywhere! its so red! and its soooo hot its 100 degrees all the time and you sweat and sweat some more! it never stops! haha
okay here is the sum up of my week so far...
we left the mission home on wednesday, me and my companion hermana tomco! we are like soul sisters haha we totally have the same style and listen to the same music and im so thankful to have her as my trainer! shes from springville and her dads from seatlle and her mom used to work at snowbird too! haha
anyways pablina, our landlord came and picked us up, shes baptist and has been housing the missionaries in our area for 14 years haha we live in this tiny white house and the elders live pretty close which is awesome and our ward building is about 5 minutes away! our area is huge though, it would take about 2 hours to walk to the other side of it. oh and like no one has cars here, you either walk or ride the bus which drives super fast! haha they start driving before your even on the bus!
our first night we went and met the ayala family! they had been meeting with the past hermanas and they got baptized on saturday! so we were super busy planning a bpatism for angèl norma and alejandro. they are the cutest family ever! i will send you pictures from the baptism!
the people in our ward are super nice! they have helped us so much in getting to know the area and the people in our ward and investigators. (oh yeah by the way, both me and my trainer and new to this area so we know nothing but have been getting help from elder hunsaker, because hes been here about 4 months now)
its been kind of overwhelming trying to keep up with the spanish but i know i just have to be patient with myself. they totally like mumble their words here and sometimes speak in guarani when they feel like it so its harder to understand. also the education is really poor and a lot of people dont know how to read and they also speak grammatically incorrect so im going to come back speaking a spanish that i dont know who would understand haha
the people here are so kind though, they just will be sitting in their front yards drinking matte and they let us come sit down and share a lesson with them, the problem though is that they are lazy and so its hard to get them to commit to something, especially a religion that requires putting forth some effort but they are so humble.
there houses have dirt floors and concrete walls and they dont have windows or doors. we clap outside the front gates, thats the way of like knocking at the door. and we have lunch with the members and they feed us a lot of meat and rice and pasta cooked in oil, its all super fatty and they want to feed us a lot because they feel like they will be blessed for serving the missionaries! also hermana lopez in our ward does our laundry, we pay her a little bit each time she does it so we could do it ourselves but she needs the extra money so she always wants to do it.
another highlight of the week was i got to speak in church on sunday haha i hope they understood me!
also i just need to describe how third world it is here.... we have to burn our trash out back behind our house, the plumbing system is so poor you cant flush toiletpaper down the toilets so you have to throw the toilet paper away but they dont have trashcans so they throw it in the corners of the bathroom stalls, air conditioning doesnt exist haha and you cant shower with the light on or else the shower knobs will electricute you haha
its so different but yet so the same! Last night everyone was out in their front yards eating dinner with their families and playing soccer together and it reminded me of home!
okay ill have more to tell you about next week! its kind of just been busy hectic crazy change in a good way! haha
i love you all and hope your doing good! until next week!
love
hermana meese
these past 5 days have been crazy! okay so Im in the area Juan de Salazar and its right outside of the city of Luque! its about an hour from the mission home and it takes about a half an hour bus ride to come into the city to where we can go to the grocery store and email!
okay let me just describe paraguay. super blue sky, super green trees everywhere, mango trees actually! and red dirt everywhere! its so red! and its soooo hot its 100 degrees all the time and you sweat and sweat some more! it never stops! haha
okay here is the sum up of my week so far...
we left the mission home on wednesday, me and my companion hermana tomco! we are like soul sisters haha we totally have the same style and listen to the same music and im so thankful to have her as my trainer! shes from springville and her dads from seatlle and her mom used to work at snowbird too! haha
anyways pablina, our landlord came and picked us up, shes baptist and has been housing the missionaries in our area for 14 years haha we live in this tiny white house and the elders live pretty close which is awesome and our ward building is about 5 minutes away! our area is huge though, it would take about 2 hours to walk to the other side of it. oh and like no one has cars here, you either walk or ride the bus which drives super fast! haha they start driving before your even on the bus!
our first night we went and met the ayala family! they had been meeting with the past hermanas and they got baptized on saturday! so we were super busy planning a bpatism for angèl norma and alejandro. they are the cutest family ever! i will send you pictures from the baptism!
the people in our ward are super nice! they have helped us so much in getting to know the area and the people in our ward and investigators. (oh yeah by the way, both me and my trainer and new to this area so we know nothing but have been getting help from elder hunsaker, because hes been here about 4 months now)
its been kind of overwhelming trying to keep up with the spanish but i know i just have to be patient with myself. they totally like mumble their words here and sometimes speak in guarani when they feel like it so its harder to understand. also the education is really poor and a lot of people dont know how to read and they also speak grammatically incorrect so im going to come back speaking a spanish that i dont know who would understand haha
the people here are so kind though, they just will be sitting in their front yards drinking matte and they let us come sit down and share a lesson with them, the problem though is that they are lazy and so its hard to get them to commit to something, especially a religion that requires putting forth some effort but they are so humble.
there houses have dirt floors and concrete walls and they dont have windows or doors. we clap outside the front gates, thats the way of like knocking at the door. and we have lunch with the members and they feed us a lot of meat and rice and pasta cooked in oil, its all super fatty and they want to feed us a lot because they feel like they will be blessed for serving the missionaries! also hermana lopez in our ward does our laundry, we pay her a little bit each time she does it so we could do it ourselves but she needs the extra money so she always wants to do it.
another highlight of the week was i got to speak in church on sunday haha i hope they understood me!
also i just need to describe how third world it is here.... we have to burn our trash out back behind our house, the plumbing system is so poor you cant flush toiletpaper down the toilets so you have to throw the toilet paper away but they dont have trashcans so they throw it in the corners of the bathroom stalls, air conditioning doesnt exist haha and you cant shower with the light on or else the shower knobs will electricute you haha
its so different but yet so the same! Last night everyone was out in their front yards eating dinner with their families and playing soccer together and it reminded me of home!
okay ill have more to tell you about next week! its kind of just been busy hectic crazy change in a good way! haha
i love you all and hope your doing good! until next week!
love
hermana meese
Thursday, November 14, 2013
My last Pday in Argentina!
oh my goodness time goes by so fast here in the mtc! Im leaving this tuesday or wednesay for Paraguay! its unreal to think its already been over a month since ive been gone! and I have to start off with some super exciting news! Elder Holland is coming to the CCM this weekend and we are going to get to meet him! on thursday we are going into buenos aires to a stake center where hes going to speak to all the missionaries in the buenos aires missions and including the ccm and so theres going to be like 900 missionaries there! crazy!
Okay so our last full week here has been super great! me and hermana minks started a soccer league with like all the latina sisters haha we play everyday and we get into it! im like dying by the time our games are over haha we started that on friday, and then saturday!
we went proselyting for the last time and it was probably our sketchiest area yet but it was funny because on the bus ride there. there was soooo much traffic and we were looking at the people in the cars and we saw girls with justin bieber shirts on and posters and their faces painted, it turns out that justin bieber was in concert that night in buenos aries! haha anyways everyone we talked to kept telling us to be careful because our eyes are blue and this one guy took our map and told us all the places not to go in that area which was super nice of him! but best part of the day was we went to buy alfajores, (they are like the best treat you can get here in argentina) and we go to this little shop and we wanted to give this shop keeper a book of mormon, he honestly looked like he should be a member, he was so sweet! but right as we were about to give it to him like 3 people came up and we stepped aside and as those people were buying their cigerattes his phone started ringing and hma, minks thought maybe he was too busy but i told her no! satan is trying to keep us from giving this to him! so we waited until everything cleared out and we told him we wanted him to have this book, we explained what it was to him and bore our testimonies about it and he was so thankful he said he was going to read it that night with his wife when he got home! it was awesome!!
so the ccm has been full of spiritual experiences, honestly its all about feeling the spirit all the time but we do have some fun on the side which makes things less stressful. okay our roommates are the best! last night they were singing shakira and teaching us zumba in our bedroom haha they are all super good dancers and they said that its super popular all over south america! right now we have roommates from chile, costa rica, honduras and columbia.
okay and from bad food experience was the other day we were having lunch and it was turkey and it was just like big pieces of meat and then hma. sanders was about halfway through hers when she realized something was in her meat. it was a brain and a spine, she had gotten like the head and back and it was so gross! we thought hma. sanders was going to die, she was like white and she hasnt eaten meat since.
also i have to tell you how much we love our teachers! they are absolutely amazing! they have taught us so much and we were talking with hermano abad the other day and he takes the bus an hour and a half to get to work so he rides the bus 3 hours everyday to come to work and teach us and im so thankful because i think hes the best teacher here! he said hes going to come to the temple session with us today because they just got the new temple movie yesterday here so everyone here finally gets to see if for the first time! woohoo!
okay so that wraps up my week! i think we get to email again on monday to let family know our travel plans! talk to you guys again soon! the church is true! love you!!
Okay so our last full week here has been super great! me and hermana minks started a soccer league with like all the latina sisters haha we play everyday and we get into it! im like dying by the time our games are over haha we started that on friday, and then saturday!
we went proselyting for the last time and it was probably our sketchiest area yet but it was funny because on the bus ride there. there was soooo much traffic and we were looking at the people in the cars and we saw girls with justin bieber shirts on and posters and their faces painted, it turns out that justin bieber was in concert that night in buenos aries! haha anyways everyone we talked to kept telling us to be careful because our eyes are blue and this one guy took our map and told us all the places not to go in that area which was super nice of him! but best part of the day was we went to buy alfajores, (they are like the best treat you can get here in argentina) and we go to this little shop and we wanted to give this shop keeper a book of mormon, he honestly looked like he should be a member, he was so sweet! but right as we were about to give it to him like 3 people came up and we stepped aside and as those people were buying their cigerattes his phone started ringing and hma, minks thought maybe he was too busy but i told her no! satan is trying to keep us from giving this to him! so we waited until everything cleared out and we told him we wanted him to have this book, we explained what it was to him and bore our testimonies about it and he was so thankful he said he was going to read it that night with his wife when he got home! it was awesome!!
so the ccm has been full of spiritual experiences, honestly its all about feeling the spirit all the time but we do have some fun on the side which makes things less stressful. okay our roommates are the best! last night they were singing shakira and teaching us zumba in our bedroom haha they are all super good dancers and they said that its super popular all over south america! right now we have roommates from chile, costa rica, honduras and columbia.
okay and from bad food experience was the other day we were having lunch and it was turkey and it was just like big pieces of meat and then hma. sanders was about halfway through hers when she realized something was in her meat. it was a brain and a spine, she had gotten like the head and back and it was so gross! we thought hma. sanders was going to die, she was like white and she hasnt eaten meat since.
also i have to tell you how much we love our teachers! they are absolutely amazing! they have taught us so much and we were talking with hermano abad the other day and he takes the bus an hour and a half to get to work so he rides the bus 3 hours everyday to come to work and teach us and im so thankful because i think hes the best teacher here! he said hes going to come to the temple session with us today because they just got the new temple movie yesterday here so everyone here finally gets to see if for the first time! woohoo!
okay so that wraps up my week! i think we get to email again on monday to let family know our travel plans! talk to you guys again soon! the church is true! love you!!
Thursday, November 7, 2013
It's already been a month!!!
Hi family!
I saw a letter from you on the stack of mail this morning and we get to open them at lunch! ahhh Im so excited!!!!
okay i´ll start off with last thursday and tell you everything thats happened this week! so last p day night all the elders got in huge trouble because they had a pillow fight haha the president told them how its time for them to grow up because their missiionareis now but sometimes they really still act like their 18 year old selves haha
and then friday was complete downpour all day! the rain just dumped and didnt stop so during activity time we went and played soccer in the rain and just got absolutely soaked! haha and then we went and did service at the hostile! they had us go over and fold all the towels and sheets in the laundry and the guy in charge didnt speak any english but he said my folding was very good and he wanted me to teach the elders how to fold and put me incharge of making sure everyone did it right haha all i was thinking was, mom would be so proud of me right now!
then saturady we went proselyting! we got sent to a different area this time because of what happened with the elders in the last area and this new area was a lot nicer! it almost reminded me kind of corona del mar with the big trees and lots of small houses except it was still a little dirtier than that haha the highlights of the day were that me and hermana minks met a securtiy guard named jesus that knew a ton about the church already and we gave him the address of the church in the area so he can go to sacrament meeting on sunday! we also taught the restoration to a boy that was probably about 15 years old and he stood at his door and listened to the whole lesson and laughed at our spanish and then after our whole lesson, he was like, so where are you guys from? i think he just wanted to talk to us because we're girls from the states haha oh well!
so then things got exciting again on monday, they are remodeling the ccm right now and so they had us move bedrooms so they could redo ours and so we moved down the hall, and then that night when i was in the shower, water starting coming up out of the drain thats in the middle of the bathroom floor soooo fast! by the time i got the water turned off there was like an inch of water acorss the whole floor of our bedroom! so we spent a good portion of the night squeegeeing up water, and then all our latina friends and the other north american groups were all leaving at 4 in the morning the next day for their missions so we got like 4 hours of sleep! and then the next day before class they had us move rooms again, they put all 6 of us american sisters left at the ccm in one room for now while they remodeled the past two days and now we get to move again today! haha good times!
so yesterday there were only 16 of us missionaries total at the ccm until everyone else arrives today! yay!
so that pretty sums up my week and we have like a week and a half more until we will be heading to paraguay! ahhh!! im so excited! love you all! keep smiling! be happy!
I saw a letter from you on the stack of mail this morning and we get to open them at lunch! ahhh Im so excited!!!!
okay i´ll start off with last thursday and tell you everything thats happened this week! so last p day night all the elders got in huge trouble because they had a pillow fight haha the president told them how its time for them to grow up because their missiionareis now but sometimes they really still act like their 18 year old selves haha
and then friday was complete downpour all day! the rain just dumped and didnt stop so during activity time we went and played soccer in the rain and just got absolutely soaked! haha and then we went and did service at the hostile! they had us go over and fold all the towels and sheets in the laundry and the guy in charge didnt speak any english but he said my folding was very good and he wanted me to teach the elders how to fold and put me incharge of making sure everyone did it right haha all i was thinking was, mom would be so proud of me right now!
then saturady we went proselyting! we got sent to a different area this time because of what happened with the elders in the last area and this new area was a lot nicer! it almost reminded me kind of corona del mar with the big trees and lots of small houses except it was still a little dirtier than that haha the highlights of the day were that me and hermana minks met a securtiy guard named jesus that knew a ton about the church already and we gave him the address of the church in the area so he can go to sacrament meeting on sunday! we also taught the restoration to a boy that was probably about 15 years old and he stood at his door and listened to the whole lesson and laughed at our spanish and then after our whole lesson, he was like, so where are you guys from? i think he just wanted to talk to us because we're girls from the states haha oh well!
so then things got exciting again on monday, they are remodeling the ccm right now and so they had us move bedrooms so they could redo ours and so we moved down the hall, and then that night when i was in the shower, water starting coming up out of the drain thats in the middle of the bathroom floor soooo fast! by the time i got the water turned off there was like an inch of water acorss the whole floor of our bedroom! so we spent a good portion of the night squeegeeing up water, and then all our latina friends and the other north american groups were all leaving at 4 in the morning the next day for their missions so we got like 4 hours of sleep! and then the next day before class they had us move rooms again, they put all 6 of us american sisters left at the ccm in one room for now while they remodeled the past two days and now we get to move again today! haha good times!
so yesterday there were only 16 of us missionaries total at the ccm until everyone else arrives today! yay!
so that pretty sums up my week and we have like a week and a half more until we will be heading to paraguay! ahhh!! im so excited! love you all! keep smiling! be happy!
Our North American groups that left
My dance buddy Hermana Olsen that left on Monday!
My roommate Hermana Lanuza from Guatemala
Week 3!!!!
Hola Family!
k crazy week! I have to first start out by telling you about proselyting! holy cow the mtc is a bubble compared to the city! on saturday they took us all out on buses and gave us a map and dropped us off on the side of the road to be picked up in 5 hours where they had dropped us off, and buenos aires is like nothing ive ever seen! it is so dirty, and there are sooo many dogs everywhere! it doesnt smell too good because they dont have anywhere to put trash so they burn it in the street and theres apartment buildings everywhere and they look like there are half built but people live in every single one of them! k it is the most intimidating thing ive ever experienced to walk up to a complete stranger and just try and get them to talk to you, being a missionary, you say hi! people see your tags and they look the other way and pretend your not even there! but dont worry we found a couple people that wanted to talk to us and it was a miracle! first we talked to this grandma and she didnt have any teeth, at all! haha but we gave her a pamphlet about the gospel of jesus christ and asked if we could meet with her again and she gave us her number and her sisters number who lives in paraguay! haha she just kept talking and telling us all about her family! then it was a miracle! i was so nervous, and it had been awhile since anyone had talked to us and i just said a prayer in my head that we would find someone who would want to talk to us and before i even finished my prayer we came around the corner and there was a lady hanging up her laudnry that was probably in her 20s and we stopped and talked to her, her name is carolina and she had never heard of the church before but she was so excited to hear about it! she wanted us to come back again but she doesnt have a phone so we told her we would try and come visit again next saturday! and to some it up we gave away 2 book of mormons, got 3 referals and about 15 contacts where we gave them pamphlets about the gospel!
oh my goodness i wish i could have taken pictures for you! there are honestly horsecarts in the street and on the freeway too! there are people playing soccer in the streets everywhere and its not like anything ive ever seen before. we arent aloud to take cameras proselyting though and we totally learned our lesson about being obedient too because some other elders went out of their zone to eat lunch at a park and one was taking pictures and some guys came up and took all their watches and wallets, but all together they only had about 8 pesos, but there are rules for a reason! its crazy! they were pretty shaken up after that happened. but dont worry im safe!
okay other amazing story is! last p day we were coming out of the temple and our mission presidents were there!!!! they had a 2 hour layover here on their way back to paraguay and so they decided to stop at the temple! so they told us all about what we´re going to be doing once we get there and about the mission! we have such a young mission! over half of the missionaries have only been out 4 months! and its sounds like we´ll most liekly have latino comps because they beg to have a norte americano comp to learn english! and thats okay! that means we learn spanish from them!
okay some little sidenotes are that a sister came up to me thats from peru and she told me that Meese means Cat in kechua, you know the language of the incan people? how cool is that! now they call me hermana gatito (little cat) haha
we had a super good lesson from president eckels on sunday and he told us that how well we work and serve on our mission is going to be a direct reflection of how successful the rest of our life will be, dont worry im working really hard! i also had to speak in sacrament on sunday and gave a talk in spanish and our district had the musical number so i got to sing too. haha fun day!
also the other day during our physical activity, hermana olsen, shes from st. george! we were talking about thriller, happy halloween by the way! anyways we both have danced our whole lives and so during activity we went and danced in the middle of the grass field on the west side of the temple haha we legit were dancing full out and she was teaching me some of her choreography and its been so long since i danced and it felt so good!
oh and we got new roommates! from guatemala, spain, peru, and argentina, they are all so sweet! we get to take pictures on sunday so i´ll send some more next week! the one from guatemala is like a total hipster and our one from spain is obessesed with star wars! haha she has a yoda stuffed doll on her bed!
okay love you guys! i read all your emails but sorry if i havent replied back! its hard to fit it all into 1 hour but i get to print them off so i have time to read them!
talk to you next week!
love hermana meese
k crazy week! I have to first start out by telling you about proselyting! holy cow the mtc is a bubble compared to the city! on saturday they took us all out on buses and gave us a map and dropped us off on the side of the road to be picked up in 5 hours where they had dropped us off, and buenos aires is like nothing ive ever seen! it is so dirty, and there are sooo many dogs everywhere! it doesnt smell too good because they dont have anywhere to put trash so they burn it in the street and theres apartment buildings everywhere and they look like there are half built but people live in every single one of them! k it is the most intimidating thing ive ever experienced to walk up to a complete stranger and just try and get them to talk to you, being a missionary, you say hi! people see your tags and they look the other way and pretend your not even there! but dont worry we found a couple people that wanted to talk to us and it was a miracle! first we talked to this grandma and she didnt have any teeth, at all! haha but we gave her a pamphlet about the gospel of jesus christ and asked if we could meet with her again and she gave us her number and her sisters number who lives in paraguay! haha she just kept talking and telling us all about her family! then it was a miracle! i was so nervous, and it had been awhile since anyone had talked to us and i just said a prayer in my head that we would find someone who would want to talk to us and before i even finished my prayer we came around the corner and there was a lady hanging up her laudnry that was probably in her 20s and we stopped and talked to her, her name is carolina and she had never heard of the church before but she was so excited to hear about it! she wanted us to come back again but she doesnt have a phone so we told her we would try and come visit again next saturday! and to some it up we gave away 2 book of mormons, got 3 referals and about 15 contacts where we gave them pamphlets about the gospel!
oh my goodness i wish i could have taken pictures for you! there are honestly horsecarts in the street and on the freeway too! there are people playing soccer in the streets everywhere and its not like anything ive ever seen before. we arent aloud to take cameras proselyting though and we totally learned our lesson about being obedient too because some other elders went out of their zone to eat lunch at a park and one was taking pictures and some guys came up and took all their watches and wallets, but all together they only had about 8 pesos, but there are rules for a reason! its crazy! they were pretty shaken up after that happened. but dont worry im safe!
okay other amazing story is! last p day we were coming out of the temple and our mission presidents were there!!!! they had a 2 hour layover here on their way back to paraguay and so they decided to stop at the temple! so they told us all about what we´re going to be doing once we get there and about the mission! we have such a young mission! over half of the missionaries have only been out 4 months! and its sounds like we´ll most liekly have latino comps because they beg to have a norte americano comp to learn english! and thats okay! that means we learn spanish from them!
okay some little sidenotes are that a sister came up to me thats from peru and she told me that Meese means Cat in kechua, you know the language of the incan people? how cool is that! now they call me hermana gatito (little cat) haha
we had a super good lesson from president eckels on sunday and he told us that how well we work and serve on our mission is going to be a direct reflection of how successful the rest of our life will be, dont worry im working really hard! i also had to speak in sacrament on sunday and gave a talk in spanish and our district had the musical number so i got to sing too. haha fun day!
also the other day during our physical activity, hermana olsen, shes from st. george! we were talking about thriller, happy halloween by the way! anyways we both have danced our whole lives and so during activity we went and danced in the middle of the grass field on the west side of the temple haha we legit were dancing full out and she was teaching me some of her choreography and its been so long since i danced and it felt so good!
oh and we got new roommates! from guatemala, spain, peru, and argentina, they are all so sweet! we get to take pictures on sunday so i´ll send some more next week! the one from guatemala is like a total hipster and our one from spain is obessesed with star wars! haha she has a yoda stuffed doll on her bed!
okay love you guys! i read all your emails but sorry if i havent replied back! its hard to fit it all into 1 hour but i get to print them off so i have time to read them!
talk to you next week!
love hermana meese
Futbol and the temple aka week 2!
hi family!!!
ahh it was such an amazing week but first i have to start out by apologizing to cade for not saying happy birthday to hiim in my last email! but the day of his birthday i played soccer with all the latinas and i thought he would be proud to know that i have some skills and i owe it all to him! also i was thinking about cade on sunday when he got the priesthood! im so proud! it was special too because our district leader gave us blessings and and it was only his second time but it so special to see all these elders here with the priesthood!
k so last sunday we watched a devotional from elder holland that was from like back in january and elder zwick was there with him! it was so fun to see a familiar face! the hermanas in my district make fun of me because they say i know everyone! haha its so spiritual here at the ccm its amazing! but we also have so much fun too!
at dinner all our latino friends try to convince us norte americanos that it horse meat or ostrich or somehting weird haha and then everyone calls the cook here papa noel because he wishes us merry christmas when he gives us our food! hes the cutest old little man! haha
also i have to give a shout out to halle because she secretly put her favorite stance socks in my bag before i left and i am so thankful for them because you cant walk around barefoot anywhere so when you want your shoes off in your room you have to where your socks and so i wear them like everyday! love you hal!
the other night was so cool with our roommates, hermana miranda from peru was teaching me how to speak kekchua, she said its the language of the incan people of peru! she was like, you know, macchu picchu? and i was like yeah! so now i know how to speak 3 languages kinda haha also that night the hermanas were straightening their hair and the plug on the wall just sparked super big and started smoking, they acted like it was no big deal and me and hermana minks were like, um fire? no bueno!
k so our teachers have been telling us about paraguay and im so happy because apparently the paraguayan people speak super slow compared to other countries, blessing! now we might be able to understand them! also our teacher hermano mirisinkov told us ostrichs run wild in paraguay apparently like its a normal thing! oh man. and also they said the people are so humble that almost everyone joins the church!
okay so sunday president eckels and his family came and spoke to us! he works for the fbi here and his whole family lives in buenos aires and its his calling to be in the mtc presidency. anyways he has three daughters and a boy, and they reminded me of the pixton kids! all super blonde with long hair and they all got up and shared their testimonies about how living in a different country can be hard but we can do it and heavenly father will help us, it was the sweetest thing! it made me cry!
okay now for the highlight of the week! we went to the temple on tuesday! me and hermana minks got to be our roommates escorts too because they were going through for the first time! it was so cool to do a session in spanish and our hermanas told us that they are both the first in their families even before their parents to go through the temple! they cant afford to go to the temple so this is a huge blessing for them! they didnt want to leave the celestial room, and we ended up being the last to leave! the temple is soooo beautiful!
also across from the temple is a hostile where families can come and stay when they travel here to go through the temple and be sealed to their families and now that the temples open its just bustling! there are so many people here! i just realized what a blessing the temple is, i was overwhelmed thinking how easy it is for us to go when these sisters of ours have been waiting their whole life! its humbling.
they all left today for their missions! we all were hugging and crying and now by the end of the day we´re going to have 4 new latina roommates! 3 showed up about midnight last night, they are all from guatemala!
im nervous for this week because on saturday they are taking us out in the city to go proselyting! ahhh! we are finally putting what weve been learning to do to the test! really though, all we really need is to have the spirit with us because when we do, our spanish comes easy and we know what we are supposed to share with our investigators, its amazing.
alright sorry for how random this letter has been!
its so good to hear from all of you, i love you all so much! i hope everyone is doing well! i´ll talk to you next week!
love
hermana meese
ahh it was such an amazing week but first i have to start out by apologizing to cade for not saying happy birthday to hiim in my last email! but the day of his birthday i played soccer with all the latinas and i thought he would be proud to know that i have some skills and i owe it all to him! also i was thinking about cade on sunday when he got the priesthood! im so proud! it was special too because our district leader gave us blessings and and it was only his second time but it so special to see all these elders here with the priesthood!
k so last sunday we watched a devotional from elder holland that was from like back in january and elder zwick was there with him! it was so fun to see a familiar face! the hermanas in my district make fun of me because they say i know everyone! haha its so spiritual here at the ccm its amazing! but we also have so much fun too!
at dinner all our latino friends try to convince us norte americanos that it horse meat or ostrich or somehting weird haha and then everyone calls the cook here papa noel because he wishes us merry christmas when he gives us our food! hes the cutest old little man! haha
also i have to give a shout out to halle because she secretly put her favorite stance socks in my bag before i left and i am so thankful for them because you cant walk around barefoot anywhere so when you want your shoes off in your room you have to where your socks and so i wear them like everyday! love you hal!
the other night was so cool with our roommates, hermana miranda from peru was teaching me how to speak kekchua, she said its the language of the incan people of peru! she was like, you know, macchu picchu? and i was like yeah! so now i know how to speak 3 languages kinda haha also that night the hermanas were straightening their hair and the plug on the wall just sparked super big and started smoking, they acted like it was no big deal and me and hermana minks were like, um fire? no bueno!
k so our teachers have been telling us about paraguay and im so happy because apparently the paraguayan people speak super slow compared to other countries, blessing! now we might be able to understand them! also our teacher hermano mirisinkov told us ostrichs run wild in paraguay apparently like its a normal thing! oh man. and also they said the people are so humble that almost everyone joins the church!
okay so sunday president eckels and his family came and spoke to us! he works for the fbi here and his whole family lives in buenos aires and its his calling to be in the mtc presidency. anyways he has three daughters and a boy, and they reminded me of the pixton kids! all super blonde with long hair and they all got up and shared their testimonies about how living in a different country can be hard but we can do it and heavenly father will help us, it was the sweetest thing! it made me cry!
okay now for the highlight of the week! we went to the temple on tuesday! me and hermana minks got to be our roommates escorts too because they were going through for the first time! it was so cool to do a session in spanish and our hermanas told us that they are both the first in their families even before their parents to go through the temple! they cant afford to go to the temple so this is a huge blessing for them! they didnt want to leave the celestial room, and we ended up being the last to leave! the temple is soooo beautiful!
also across from the temple is a hostile where families can come and stay when they travel here to go through the temple and be sealed to their families and now that the temples open its just bustling! there are so many people here! i just realized what a blessing the temple is, i was overwhelmed thinking how easy it is for us to go when these sisters of ours have been waiting their whole life! its humbling.
they all left today for their missions! we all were hugging and crying and now by the end of the day we´re going to have 4 new latina roommates! 3 showed up about midnight last night, they are all from guatemala!
im nervous for this week because on saturday they are taking us out in the city to go proselyting! ahhh! we are finally putting what weve been learning to do to the test! really though, all we really need is to have the spirit with us because when we do, our spanish comes easy and we know what we are supposed to share with our investigators, its amazing.
alright sorry for how random this letter has been!
its so good to hear from all of you, i love you all so much! i hope everyone is doing well! i´ll talk to you next week!
love
hermana meese
Thursday, October 17, 2013
My first week in argentina!
holy cow you guys! i live in a different country and ive now survived a whole week!
k im just going to start at the beginning and tell you everything. so at the gate in utah i found hermana bennett! she was the one whose family was waiting at the gate and she had been crying so i went and gave her a huge hug and we sat next to each other on both flights! she has never been on an airplane before and she was freaking out kinda haha so there was 7 of us at the airport from salt lake all going to the same mission!
so we get to atlanta and went and got dinner and called home on the payphones then we go to our gate and there are like 40 missionaries at the gate! about 15 of the group are headed to the mtc but the rest were visa waiters that had been instate and are now finally going to their missions! so on the flight there was the cutest little boy that sat behind me and kept peeking around my seat! he was probably 2 and was speaking spanish haha so i didnt understand what he was saying and when we were flying over south america there were thunderstoms and it was crazy to watch from above! the lightening honestly looks purple, but then we got to beunos aires and i like helped 10 missionaries go through customs and immagration because they had no idea what they were doing haha and then we waited for like 2 hours for someone to come pick up this group of 40 of us, the church workers were all confused, i dont think they were expecting the visa waiters! but this guy came up to us that was obviously a member here and was just like, "mormones!" haha he helped us out
so the ccm de argentina is crazy! there are 90 missionaries here and about 30 of them are norte americanos (north americans) and the other 60 are the latinos. the ccm building is right behind the temple, and there is a hostile next door for members to stay at that are coming to the temple and the temple is just a stones throw away! sadly the temple is closed for maitenence for the next two weeks and because i think they are updating it with the new movie! we usually get to go every p day! also the power goes off like once or twice a day and i have yet to have a warm shower here haha and we dont drink water, they give us juice with every single meal haha we eat mostly dishes that are like beans and rice, and for breakfast they make everything with dulce de leche, like these donuts that are so good! they are caramel filled donuts haha but also they serve ham sandwichs for breakfast like its a normal thing, kinda weird haha
we got to the mtc and got our nametags and companions, mine is sister minks! she is from oahu hawaii and shes pretty cute shes not actually hawaiian she if very white haha we get along reallly well, she is really good at spanish because thats her major at byuh and im so thankful because we live in a room of 6 girls so me, hermana minks and 4 latinas and they are so cute! they do not speak a word of english, hermana silva, hermana gonzales and hermana rayos are from nicaragua and hermana miranda is from peru! so we like have to learn spanish if we want to have friends around here so we work really hard and we can now talk to our roommates pretty well. they teach us spanish and we teach them words in english. hermana silva said that at home if you can speak english you can get a better paying job so shes trying really hard to learn.
our teachers here are awesome! they all are from argentina. my teachers for my district are hermano abad and hermano mirisonkiv also hermana guiterezz teaches us sometimes but its so funny because hermano abad is really handsome (dont worry hes married) and when we told our latina roommates that hes our teacher they said that god has blessed him with beauty haha and all the sisters just giggle when hes around! haha also hermano abad said that he was companions with an elder schwarz from alpine! haha he went to bolivia but i told him the schwarz family was in our ward!
also the other day me and hermana minks were sitting at dinner when some of the latino elders came and sat by us and one of them that spoke some english said, my friends are wondering if you would every consider marrying someone from south america and we just laughed and then like 5 minutes later in class our teachers all gave us a lecture on how elders and sisters cant talke to each other! whoops. i think it was our fault! no bueno!
so everyday we have class and learn about the gospel in spanish and then we learn some more spanish and then teach our teachers who pretend to be investigators in spanish and we just speak and learn spanish until we´re brain dead and then do it all over again! dont worry im loving it! i still have days where im like holy cow im on a mission!
also my mission presidents! they are president and sister openshaw and both of their kids are in the laguna niguel stake and i told them i lived there! on sundays president openshaw gives us firesides and we can ask any questions we want and he answers them for us, he knows the scriptures back and forward! i swear he has them memorized. also sundays are fun because they give us orange soda to drink at dinner and sunday nights we get to watch a church movie in english! we watched the joseph smith movie last week and this week i think we get to watch 17 miracles.
also on wednesday they tell us they broadcast the missionary devotional they have on tuesdays at the marriott center so we can watch it but the devotional we watched is old because i totally saw elder jardine in the audience when they were showing the missionaries singing! haha
im in the distrito nefi (nephi district) made up of two sets of sisters and two sets of elders and we are all going to the same mission! we all have class together everyday!
also its really hot humid here and theres no air conditioniing! we just sweat and be hot because we cant do anything else haha
also every single missionary has a missionary somewhere else out in the world its crazy!
sorruy for the randomness!
sorry we have like no time to email! it was so fun to here from everyone! i had so much to say this time i dont know if i will have time to respond back to everyone so tell them sorry! im going to try and send some pictures! I LOVE YOU GUYS! i honestly can feel your prayers, ive been so at peace since ive been here and im so excited for whats still to come!
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