12/28 10: Christmas

This week was Christmas!!!! The best part was definitley skyping with everyone and getting to speak in ENGLISH! Before skype my companion and I were so stressed because the cyber we were going to skype at didnt have cameras, so then we ran over to the other cyber nearby and thankfully they had everything for Skype, a Christmas miracle,haha!After skyping we went to dinner at one of the counselors of our stake and had a delcious meal with their cute family and ALL of the missionaries in our zone in Portoviejo. The dinner included rice, chicken, salad (were not supposed to eat lettuce but most of the missonaries did anyways.,..oops!) and then of course cake! They had christmas programs from the Mormon Tabernacle choir on their tv and it was so festive and great! Then we went to the house of the missonaries in 12 de Marzo to spend Christmas with them since we couldnt leave the house til the 26th. For lunch on Christmas day we had food that a member brought us (rice and turkey ) along with food from Hermana Mancuso (from florida) like stuffing, grazy and cranberry sauce so it was a multicultural Christmas lunch,haha. This week weve been teaching a m,an named ANgel Tobias who is the husband of a member in our ward. Hes this spry (spelling)87 year old, always wears these white suit pants and green button up shirts with the sweetest oxfords haha and he wasalso an engluish teacher so he like to use his english phrases when we visit. This weeks been good and I cant believe its goong to be 2016!!

12/21 9: Feliz Navidad

Feliz Navidad! This week has been great, we went to Guayaquil to go to the temple there and then after there was a "verificacion" for the new missionaries and oh yeah, we had our first baptism!! Our first baptism was on December 19th at 8 pm and it was such a special experience. The person who was baptized was Abraham Laniz, he{s 16 years old and he loves trying to speak to me in English,haha. He was baptized by his cousin, Brian Rezebela, and the next day was confirmed a member of the church by his other cousin, David. Abraham has so much faith and he{s such a great example to those around him. During the baptismal service we made sure to sing plenty of Christmas hymns since Christmas is this week!

. This week we{ve been sharing the christmas message of the church with everyone we possibly can! A lot of people here dont like christmas because of how commercial it is and because there are a lot ofpeople here who cant afford to buy presents so it{s so nice to talk with them and remind them that this holiday isnt about all of these material things but about remembering our Savior and all the things he{s done for us. The people here who have christmas trees go ALL OUT and the tree is covered in tulle and other giant deocrations, you can barely see the tree, haha. Speaking of Christmas..Tuesday after our zone conference I got the two packages from Mom and Dad then Reesa and Dayna!!! I was like a little kid carrying my two packages out of the building (and then into a taxi..a bit of a struggle,haha) 

Also, shoutout to Bart and Lori Tirrell on their anniversary on the 19th! 

Everythings been really great here,weve been doing the usual like eating meals that could feed a family, singing Christmas songs and preaching the gospel! Feliz Navidad!!

12/14 8: Stake Conference

This is really bad but I dont think I´ll have time to write a actual email for everyone today....but this week was really good, and I extended my first baptismal invitation!haha. To a woman named Celina Llanos who hasthese 4 crazy kids and its so funny because shes so monotone so halfway through saying the baptismal invitation she just says si, like oh of course with no expression haha. And the district leader and his companion and a member and there was another hermana with us  so it was so nerve racking to say the baptismal invite in front of 6 other people! And we had stake conference this weekend and on the taxi ride there there was this reddish purplish liquid on one of the seats and i didnt see it when i put my hand on the seat so it was on my hand and i wanted to throw up haha, but the taxi driver said there wasa lady with a cake before us so i hope thats what it was...gross. And we returned to teaching the sanchez family and now they have a chicken and it was just wondering around around when we taught them...i think its for christmas. And they gave us this tyhing called leche de solla (soya)...i dont know, but its delcious! LOVE YOU ALL!

12/7 7: Happy December

First off, I can´t believe it´s already December! This week has been nice and busy, filled with many hilarious moments. One being when there was a bee flying around on our ceiling so Hermana Espinoza tried throwing her flip flop to kill it but it just ended up hitting me in the face...oops! Or when we went to a member´s home to share a message and her and her friend were moving things in their home to the upper level of their house so we joined in! We totes carried a mattress up a flight of stairs as well as a wooden bedframe. It´s been raining here almost everyday and the rain is either really light or pouring, and the first time it pured we used our umbrellas and when we passed by a group of people I heard one of them say ¨theyre not from around here..¨, but in Spanish obviously... And we had a noche de hogar )family home evening) with the Loor family in our ward and it was so great! We got there and there were two plates of food for us! Which was perfect because earlier that mornign we had  to leave our house at 2 30 am to travel to guayaquil for something for h espinozas visa, so we had 8 hours on the bus that day haha. But the dinner the Loor family made us was so delicous, it was rice ) do i even need to writethat) and mani ( this peanut buttery stuff, sometimes it has fish in it..) the message we shared with them was the Christmas message of the church Ha Nacido Un Salvador and its a video that everyone should watch! (attach video aqui hehe) Hope everyone is having a wonderful day, CHAO!!

11/30 6: First Real Rain

This week Hermana Espinoza and I are officially companions! We´ve technically been companions for the past four weeks since my other companion has been sick but we got a call last night (for cambios, when they tell you if you´re staying in the same area or not) and we´ll be in Portoviejo for the next 6 weeks! Hermana Miller and Rojas went to Guayaquil Wednesday morning so it´s just been the two of us in our apartment which has been SO weird. 

     We went looking for people who haven´t been to church in awhile and we found one man, Jorge, and we taught him and he said he couldn´t see but then he lead us across the street (with lots of traffic) and introduced to some guy? I don´t know, we were confused haha. I waas just afraid he was going to walk into traffic, still not sure if he can actually see or not...

     On Saturday we had Intercambios, which is when we swtich companions for a day and so I went to an area called 12 de Marzo and it´s so crazy how different one area is that´s not even 10 minutes away. Me and Hermana Lowe got to help one of people we taught cook and it felt SO good to actually cook because we don´t have much time to prepare actual meals,haha. But the woman we taught asked us to chop this good sized bag of onions and we were definitely crying by the end,ahh. 

       Then that night we went to a baptism and we made a new friend! His name is Jesus and he is this hilarious, chubby, 9 year old Bolivian kid and he sat next to us and told us all about his magnet and his favorite animals (including imaginary ones). Too bad he lives in the Sierra so we won´t be seeing him again. 

       This week´s been good, and we had the first real RAIN! It was in the evening and while we were in a home teaching we heard the rain coming down super hard and we didn´t have umbrellas...so after our lesson we were a bit wet but we´ll make sure to remember our umbrellas next time.And when the rainy season hits here it´s even hotter so I´m crossing my fingers I don´t melt. Have a good week !

11/23 5: Happy Early Thanksgiving

Happy early Thanksgiving! It´s so strange to live somwhere where they dont celebrate Thanksgiving, I didn´t even realize that Thanksgiving was this week until someone mentioned it yesterday. Everyone here started decorating for Christmas a week or two ago so its not too different from the United States, haha. It reminds me of how places like Costco bring out their Christmas things like right after Halloween. 

            This week´s been really great for us, we have 3 new people that we´ve been teaching regularly and this biggest surprise of all...a baptism next month! We had a talent show on Thursday night in the ward with all of the missionaries in our zone and the brother of a girl we´ve been teaching who´s a member told us he wanted to be baptized this week! He´s usually always with us when we teach his sister but we´re going to teach him more in the next few weeks so that he feels more prepared. Hermana Espinoza and I couldnt stop smiling after he told us! Back to the ward talent show - they were mostly musical numbers and our zone of missionaries promised to sing a song but no one had decided what song we were going to sing, so as we were going on stage one of the district leaders told us the song that we were going to sing and no one except like 5 people knew it...and it was really awkward!so we all just kind of stood there and swayed to the music..yikes. 

           We went to a members home for lunch on Tuesday, Mary Demura, and afterwards they were asking me wht kind of food we have in the US for Christmas and they were trying to explain what raisins were in Spanish but it wasnt working...so the husband took to Google and that lead to them looking up all these random foods like peaches, almonds and eventually  a squirrell (?) and asked me how to say them in English haha.Our ward is called La Paz and theres more or less 80 people?  

           I´m becoming more acccustomed to the culture here in Ecuador, things like people walking around with dead chickens in their hand..And theres a bakery right down the street from where we live and Hermana Espinoza and I may or may not be frequest customers...if they had any, we´d defs need a frequent customer card. And to get into the Christmas spirit Hermana Espnioza and I have been singing Christmas songs while walking, well she sings in Spanish and I tell her how to sing it in English so I´ll need to learn them in Spanish soon! 

            Well everything is going well here, have a fabulous Thanksgiving and eat plenty of turkey and cranberries (like thats even a question). ¡CHAO!

11/16 4: Knocking Doors

Another week! This week´s been nice and hot, as always haha. Yesterday was great because a woman we teach (Cosuelo, think back to the birthday cake..) and her son, Jesus,came to church with us! It went really well and we´re teaching her later today. 

       In Ecuador everyone puts their garbage on the sidewalk in the evening and there are ALWAYS these scorungy dogs eating from them. But a few days ago we saw 2 cows eating from garbage bags instead...?haha, I guess it was a nice change from the usual cats and dogs. And then a man came out of his home with a stick and started waving it at the cows to shoow (shoo?) them away. 

       On Wednesday me and Hermana Espinoza worked with the two other elders (Elder Condori and Reynas) to find new people to teach so were knocking doors (well almost every home here has a giant gate in front so we have to yell "Buenas!" or do something else to get their attention) and my companion asked this man at one home for water. So he comes out with a cup of water but the water in Portoviejo is really bad, so it everyones gets those giant things of water (like the ones they uses in those water things that you press the button down on...I dont know why this is so hard to explain..?) and my compaion handed me the glass of water while she and the elders were talking with the man and told me to drink it..but I didn´t know if it was good water so I whispered "esta bien..?" pointing to the water and she shakes her head yeah. So I drink the whole glass of water (hesitantly) , then after we leave the home my companion says "I hope that water was good water.."...PURE PANIC! But I didnt get sick so I dont think it was bad. So far so good! 

       All is well in Portoviejo (except the water) and hopefully we can go to the other computer place so my photos will work....

11/9 3: Cockroaches and Taking the Bus

Hola!! The end of my third week is just around the corner! Living in a foreign country is hard, but it definitely has its perks. Like all of the hilarious/bizarre stories, which I have plenty of for this week. The first one happend a few days ago when I was standing in our kitchen eating a cracker, and then all of the sudden I feel something crawling on my hand..and there´s a giant cockroach crawling on my arm! Probably the grossest feeling ever, and I have no idea where the cockroach came from. But Hermana Espinoza took care of it with a tupperware lid  and of course we had to sing the cucharacha (spelling..?) song afterwards. 

        Yesterday we taught a woman, Consuelo (comfort in English) and there were all of these people in her home for her son´s birthday party so we taught like 10 people,haha. But they were such a sweet family and after we taught them they gave us a slice of birthday cake and wanted us to take a picture with their son while he blew out his birthday candle haha, unexpected (and a little awkward) but they were so welcoming! And me and Hermana Espinoza were on either side of the birthday boy and my companion tried showing him how to blow out the candle but ended up just blowing out the flame,haha. And yesterday was also a good day because I had ceviche for the first time! Definitley one of my favorite dishes here in Ecuador. 

         And last night we stopped by a member´s home, Barbrara, to ask for some water but we ended up talking with her family for awhile and shared the scripture Ether 12 27 (insert scripture..) and I love this scripture because we all have weaknesses but we become better through Jesus Christ and His Atonement and the reason we have struggles in this life is to learn and become better than we were before,not to be perfect at everything from the start. 

    Another fun experience from this week was taking the bus! We usually take the taxis here so the bus is a whole other ordeal. There were not seats so we had to stand and we were holding on for dear life, but I´m pretty sure our legs are strong as steel after that bus ride. 

       Lots of people here have been making these piniata statue things in their homes to sell for New Years because they fill them with fireworks and other things, which is kind of sad because they spend so much time on them! But outside one home there were about 30 dragonball Z (..?) piniatas , like an army haha.I dont know why but Dragonball Z is pretty big here...? Well this week´s been good and I´m (kind of) getting used to the heat and humidty!¡ CHAO!

11/2: Second Week in Ecuador

This week has been crazy and full of surprises,as always. Weve been teaching the Sanchez family who are all members except the father and I love teaching families.theexclamation point isnt working so ill use a ... instead. After we taught him the first lesson we were about to leave then th wife motioned us over to their table which has two giant plates of rice, green stuff insert question mark in parenthesis then a WHOLE fish, eyes and all. It was actually really good and reminded me of washington minus the part of eating a whole fish. Every P Day we go to the mall here and this is definitely the closest ive felt to being in America. They play mostly American music here at the mall, some favorites were Thriller and some Rick Astley...Things are deifinitely different here, like how a lot of bathrooms in peoples homes dont have a normal handle to flush, instead you pour a bucket of water into the toilet, and kissing every woman on the cheek when you greet them, and of course the food... At lunch last Sunday one food we had was this sponge cakey thing made only from corn and peanut butter with pieces of chicken in it. This week has been really good, Ive never been so tired in my life though... Ill have to teach my companion what a piggy back ride is in English....real dot dot dots

10/26: First Days in the Field

Well its out of the frying pan and into Ecuador!! Flying into Ecuador was one of the most exciting things ever!! We left bright and early for the airport at 430 AM and when we stepped off the plane the heat and humidity just hits you haha. Our mission President and his wife picked us up at the airport and then right as we were about to leave my mission president said the person who stamped my visa and all that good stuff wrote down the wrong type of visa so I had to go get it fixed. We stayed in the temple housing the first night and then the next day all the new missionaries and trainers met together and we were assigned our campanions and areas!! My companion is Hermana Rojas and shes from Peru and is so sweet! She also anjoys pretending like shes a cat...haha, anywho, our area is in Portoviejo so we took a 4 hour bus ride after we got our companions and it was so gorgeous to see so many different parts of Ecuador! The other two sisters in our house are Hermana Ospinoza (Bolivia) and Hermana Miller (Minnesota). On my first day in the field we went to a members home for lunch and I couldnt understand anything they said except for when they said I looked like Hermione from Harry Potter, or "arry Potter" haha. Then the next day we went to lunch at another member´s home and they had two girls and they totally reminded me of Layla and Adelyn with their Tangled backpacks and how energetic they were aha. One of them when I dropped a piece of rice on the table picked it up`and ate it in the funniest way aha. Ive never had so much rice in such a short amount of time! The rice here comes in one size, a mountain! Teaching has been good, the people here are so kind and will almost always listen to a short message from us! We got to go to a baptism on Saturday and it was so great! The family of the girl getting baptized sang a song together and it was so sweet!Then yesterday was my first Sunday in the ward and they were all very welcoming and there were lots of Bienvenido s . CHAO!!

10/20: Arriving in Ecuador

Hello family! I have just a few minutes to send you an email to let you know I made it to Ecuador, woohoo!! We woke up at 3AM and the fly went well, it was so gorgoeus right before we landed seeing all these palm trees and hills covered with little houses!! and of course it was super humid right when we got off the plane,haha. The person who wrote stuff for  my visa after we landed messed it up so  I had to go back with secreatries and go to the migracion building near the airport and got to see a bit of Guayaquil! The streets here are hoppin´´, there are street performers just perfroming in between traffic alñong with people selling fruit weaving in etweem cars haha. LOVE YOU ALL!!!

10/15: Last Week in the CCM

This time next week we´´ll be in Ecuador...!! Sometimes I forget that we wont be in the CCM forever so the fact that we´ll be flying out of here tuesday morning is the best feeling. This week the Nortes in my room (Hermana Parker, Beutler and Ely) and I got Latina names from our Latina roommates, and mine in Hermana Torres,haha. I can see it. And then we gave the 4 hermanas in our room American names like Anderson,I think its easier for all of us to just say these names instead....but really haha. We´ve been studying a lot this week, per usual, especially since everyone well be talking to in less than a week will be speaking in Spanish. To survive the long hours of studying and teaching the Hermanas in our district have taken to group shoulder massages and are mastering the art of back cracking. One of my and Hermana Parker´s word of the day for this week is ´humid (moist) and we particularly loved the sentence used in the dictinary="the rich,moist fruitcake is delicious". And yesterday we had orientation for THE FIELD (Ecuador) and its starting to sink in that well be there soon!! Well I hope everyone is doing well, ¡CHAO!

10/6: Touring Bogota, Colombia

Today we toured Bogota, Colombia after going to the temple and it was SO great! Every group at the CCM gets to go on a tour for around 4 hours when they begin their fifth week so its basically our one shot to be touristy.Bogota is so gorgeous and I love all of the green mountains!To begin our tour, we went on this skylift up a mountain (Colombian initiation!) to this church(Monserati) and it was so cool, the little car thing we were rode in was at this crazy angle so you could see everyone below you.We climbed up a bit further where all the good photo spots are and the view was so gorgeous. the pictures dont do it justice. We attempted to ride a llama but our tour guide ( a teacher from the CCM) said we couldnt because of healh reasons..but i think those of us that didnt get to ride it wouldve gladly taken the risk. Then it was souveneir shopping time! It was kind of overwelming to look at ALL the booths then decide which things to get, but I decided on a few bracelets and this awesome Colombia t shirt with a mariachi band (spelling..) on it. Going back to Friday, we went prosleyting at this park/ shopping centre in Bogota for 3 hours and it was great but SO difficult. We definitley dont have the´¨Spanish ear¨¨ yet because even simple things like names sound NOTHING like what they actually are to us, like if we got a referral from someone and they wrote their name down we wouldve never guessed that was their name..but there was this really sweet woman we talked to and she started crying because she was so happy we gave her one of the church magazines and she kissed our hands, it was so sweet. Saturday and Sunday were General Conference!!! So many wonderful talks, some of my favorites were Von G. Keetch (attach link to talk here..) and Gregory Shwitzer. Sunday was also a great day because it was CERAL SUNDAY, and the milk was cold! The milk here comes in these rectangle containers with a guy that looks like David Tenant on it...But the CCM is still going great, the new Latinos get here tonight so thatll be exciting!!

10/1: A Little More About the CCM

9/22: Proselyting For the First Time

9/17: First Email From Colombia

Oh my goodness, where do I begin?! When our districstarted emailing just now it was like a race because we all have SO much we want to tell in just an hour! \i aboslutely LOVE Colombia and am so glad I get to be at the CCM here. So there are 73 missionaries here at the CCM so it's very cozy and so nice because everyone gets to know each other and it's like one big familia! There are 26 Nortes and the rest are Latinos! Me and Hermana Parker's roommates are all Latinos but one of them, Hermana Goosman whos from Bolivia, speaks English and it is SO nice since we obviously aren't fluent in Spanish yet, haha. 

      So our schedule goes like this / we wake up before 6 30, get ready, do personal study in our districts from   7 00 to 8 00 , go to breakfast until 9, study grammar for an hour, study to teach an investigator for an hour, do more language study for an hour, go to lunch, study some more, teach our investigators, go to gym where we can either workout, play volleyball, soccer or pingpong *i usually just run with another Hermana or do ping pong because soccer here is intense....like people have gone to the hopsital for injuries plus the court is on concrete so..* then we shower and get ready again, go to dinner til 6 30, then usually have a lesson and then we do TALL, which a spanish program of the church and we get to repeat words and conjugated verbs over and over and overrrr, so fun! 

         The next best thing other than the people here is defintely....THE FOOD! Holy moly, meal time is like my favorite thing here. Since  I cant share every meal I\ve had here, I\ll just list some favorites_ For breakfast theres almost always this delicious hot chocolate , and its so much better than in America because it actually tastes like real chocolate, if that makes sense..? And theres always these delcious rolls and fruit for breakfast too. Then my favorite lunch would probably be the delicous assprtment of rice (duh( , this soft tortilla biscuit thing, ground meat, DELICIOUS plantain cooked to perfection, and the biggest slash best piece of avocado ever. Then for dinner there was this steak with a boiled egg cooked in the middle with potatoes and rice. And to finish the delicious food segment, the best dessert ever was this macaroon looking thing, it was these two shortbread cookies with thiis orange caramel stuff in the middle rolled in coconut. Need I say more? Oh, and me and Hermana Parker discovered a fun new fruit, I dont know how to spell it but its granadia? Hermana Goosman said they call it Moco Moco in Bolivia because the stuff you eat inside looks like...MOCO. Look it up..

            Almost everyone in our district is from Utah, or as the Latins call it, The Mormon Factory. The first few days we were here we learned how to bear our testimnonies and pray in Spanish, and guess who got called on to say the prayed our third day here right before a meeting with everyone at the CCM...me! Thankfully I did alright!! Our teacher we have everyday for language and other lessons is Hermano Arangos and he is so hilarious! He comes in almost everyday singing ]buen dias, BUEN DIAS!} and awlays says ]can I get an amen?!] when he wants us to be more passionate about what were learning or saying.wve been teaching two investigators.aka  a teacher at the CCM and the CCM President\s wife haha. TEACHING IN SPANISH IS HARD. Our lessons are basically just a page of notes in SPanish and when they ask a question, we just string togethher words and verbs so theyll get the idea. 

        Meetings and Sunday classes here are so great!When we meet in the chapel for church or devotionals or other speakers, the nortes get headphones and one of the teachers translates everything into English for us. ITs funny htough because whenever the speaker says something funny the Nortes laughs are delayed since we dont know what they said until later. Oh, and I love singing hymns here! The Latins just sing with their whole heart and theres no pressure to sing the perfect pitch and harmonize, even though thats great too...haha.

A member of the quorum of the seventy came and spoke to us yeseterday morning and it was such a cool experience. It was Elder Camargo and he spoke about what we nee to do to be successful missionaries and one of my faovirte things he said was that the gospel is a daily effort and diligence is an active thing! Before the meeting started we all lined up and got to shake his and his wifes hand and introduce oursellves to them . 

        This morning we went to the temple and it is so gorgoeus!! We got so many pictures afterward so dont worry...Driving there in the bus was an adventure, traffic here is crazy. You can literally reach your hand out the window and shake hands, high five, whatever you prefer with the car next to you since youre so close. Oh, and our next P Day is on Tuesday because it alternates between Tuesdays and Thursdays here. Thank you so much for all the sweet emails and pictures!! LOVE ALL OF YOU! Chao!!

2: Daily Routine at the CCM and Visit to the Temple

Oh my goodness, where do I begin?! When our district started emailing just now it was like a race because we all have SO much we want to tell in just an hour! I absolutely LOVE Colombia and am so glad I get to be at the CCM here. So there are 73 missionaries here at the CCM so it's very cozy and so nice because everyone gets to know each other and it's like one big familia! There are 26 Nortes and the rest are Latinos! Me and Hermana Parker's roommates are all Latinos but one of them, Hermana Goosman who's from Bolivia, speaks English and it is SO nice since we obviously aren't fluent in Spanish yet, haha.

So our schedule goes like this: We wake up before 6:30, get ready, do personal study in our districts from 7:00 to 8:00, go to breakfast until 9, study grammar for an hour, study to teach an investigator for an hour, do more language study for an hour, go to lunch, study some more, teach our investigators, go to gym where we can either workout, play volleyball, soccer or pingpong *I usually just run with another Hermana or do ping pong because soccer here is intense....like people have gone to the hopsital for injuries plus the court is on concrete so...* then we shower and get ready again, go to dinner til 6:30, then usually have a lesson and then we do TALL, which is a Spanish program of the church and we get to repeat words and conjugated verbs over and over and overrrr, so fun!

The next best thing other than the people here is definitely....THE FOOD! Holy moly, meal time is like my favorite thing here. Since I can't share every meal I've had here, I'll just list some favorites. For breakfast there's almost always this delicious hot chocolate, and it's so much better than in America because it actually tastes like real chocolate, if that makes sense...? And there's always these delicious rolls and fruit for breakfast too. Then my favorite lunch would probably be the delicous assortment of rice (duh), this soft tortilla biscuit thing, ground meat, DELICIOUS plantain cooked to perfection, and the biggest slash best piece of avocado ever. Then for dinner there was this steak with a boiled egg cooked in the middle with potatoes and rice. And to finish the delicious food segment, the best dessert ever was this macaroon looking thing, it was these two shortbread cookies with this orange caramel stuff in the middle rolled in coconut. Need I say more? Oh, and me and Hermana Parker discovered a fun new fruit, I don't know how to spell it but its granadia? Hermana Goosman said they call it Moco Moco in Bolivia because the stuff you eat inside looks like...MOCO. Look it up...

Almost everyone in our district is from Utah, or as the Latins call it, The Mormon Factory. The first few days we were here we learned how to bear our testimnonies and pray in Spanish, and guess who got called on to say the prayer our third day here right before a meeting with everyone at the CCM...me! Thankfully I did alright!! Our teacher we have everyday for language and other lessons is Hermano Arangos and he is so hilarious! He comes in almost everyday singing "Buen dias, BUEN DIAS!" and awlays says "Can I get an amen?!" when he wants us to be more passionate about what were learning or saying. We've been teaching two investigators, aka a teacher at the CCM and the CCM President's wife haha. TEACHING IN SPANISH IS HARD. Our lessons are basically just a page of notes in Spanish and when they ask a question, we just string together words and verbs so they'll get the idea. 

Meetings and Sunday classes here are so great! When we meet in the chapel for church or devotionals or other speakers, the nortes get headphones and one of the teachers translates everything into English for us. It's funny though because whenever the speaker says something funny the Nortes' laughs are delayed since we don't know what they said until later. Oh, and I love singing hymns here! The Latins just sing with their whole heart and there's no pressure to sing the perfect pitch and harmonize, even though that's great too…haha.  

A member of the Quorum of the Seventy came and spoke to us yesterday morning and it was such a cool experience. It was Elder Camargo and he spoke about what we need to do to be successful missionaries and one of my favorite things he said was that the gospel is a daily effort and diligence is an active thing! Before the meeting started we all lined up and got to shake his and his wife's hand and introduce ourselves to them.  

This morning we went to the temple and it is so gorgoeus!! We got so many pictures afterward so don't worry...Driving there in the bus was an adventure, traffic here is crazy. You can literally reach your hand out the window and shake hands, high five, whatever you prefer with the car next to you since you're so close. Oh, and our next P Day is on Tuesday because it alternates between Tuesdays and Thursdays here. Thank you so much for all the sweet emails and pictures!! 

LOVE ALL OF YOU! Ciao!!

 

9/9: Arriving in Colombia

Hello Family! I can¨t believe Im in the MTC! Or I mean the CCM...We got into the Colombia airport last night and after getting our luggage we were greeted by the cutest Hermana with a sign for our group and were greeted with a hug and kiss on the cheek. Driving up to the CCM was kind of a shock because it is SO TINY. There are 5 other Hermanas and 8 or 10 elders that arrived with me. My companion is Hermana Parker and she is really cool!Shes from Utah, or as the Latins here call it, the Mormon factory. Her and I share a room with two Latins, and so when we met it was funny because we all just kind of stood there and laughed because we couldn{t understand each other.So theres the Latins and they call us Nortes haha. Oh, and at breakfast I saw Hermana Barney! It was fun seeing a familiar face here even though I dont know her very well.After breakfast this morning we met together and had interviews with the Presidente and his wife. And after that.... I GOT MY NAME TAG! Totally official now. Its so funny seeing the Latins here try to pronouce my name because it makes no sense with those two Rs and Ls..But everything}s going good here. ADIOS!!

1: Arriving in Colombia

Hello Family! 

I can't believe I'm in the MTC! Or I mean the CCM...We got into the Colombia airport last night and after getting our luggage we were greeted by the cutest Hermana with a sign for our group and were greeted with a hug and kiss on the cheek. Driving up to the CCM was kind of a shock because it is SO TINY. There are 5 other Hermanas and 8 or 10 elders that arrived with me. My companion is Hermana Parker and she is really cool! She's from Utah, or as the Latins here call it, the Mormon factory. Her and I share a room with two Latins, and so when we met it was funny because we all just kind of stood there and laughed because we couldn't understand each other. So theres the Latins and they call us Nortes haha. Oh, and at breakfast I saw Hermana Barney! It was fun seeing a familiar face here even though I dont know her very well. After breakfast this morning we met together and had interviews with the Presidente and his wife. And after that.... I GOT MY NAME TAG! Totally official now. Its so funny seeing the Latins here try to pronouce my name because it makes no sense with those two Rs and Ls...But everything's going good here. 

ADIOS!!