Short n sweet :)

(7/20/15)

Hey fam and friends! This week has been really fun. It really has! The weather is like 2 degrees warmer so I´ll take any improvement I can get.. haha. Funny things that happened this week: I fell off my bike in the middle of the calle while my comp was knocking a door... don´t ask how, just imagine it in your heads and you´ll get a good laugh. Also, I ran into a pole, and lost my shoe while biking, and tambien I was attacked by a tree. It was an entertaining week for my comp :)

We saw a shooting star this week, and the shooting stars here are WAY BETTER THAN IN THE STATES!! I love the sky here!!

spiritual things: I´m opening my mouth more, and therefore... I´m teaching more effectively. I love the people more and more and more!! And I´m understanding more and more too :)

This week I want to invite everyone to build a more sure relationship with God. I´ve talked with God this week more than ever before, and I think that is the most valuable thing I´ve learned so far: talk to God. Pray to Him, all the time. He will always respond, the answer just might be different than expected :)

I´ve had computer problems today, so this is a little shorter, but just know that my health, both emotionally and physically, is doing really well :) I´ve had a little bit of pain in the foot that I was supposed to get surgery on, but I´m hoping that fades away. Either way, I definitely know that I´m in God´s hands, and that He knows best for me :) I love my mission!!

sorry it took so long, but here are some pictures finally! most of them are at the ranch that we ate at this week... it was incredible!

1: it´s really cold here.....

2: my comp and I were trying to take a picture, but the dog kept jumping up and getting in the way... this is the first pure lab I saw here, and I just fell in love with her!!

Love, Hermana Reeve

Appendicitis and other adventures...

(7/13/15)

Well, this week won´t be too interesting because I was on bed rest for almost 3 days! I´ll start with last monday...

MONDAY: so... p-day was weird. I felt really bad for like an hour after emails because I can´t write everyone back AND I couldn´t send photos for the second week in a row... but the rest of the day was nice because we went food shopping and stuff!! We got oreos and dulce de leche, which is like nutella here, but not.... i think it might be better!! haha Anyhoo, I also dyed my hair!! I´m finally brunette again!! Well mostly... Hermana Mickelsen calls it strawberry brond. Our first lesson was with Nacho. Yes, his name is Nacho and it makes me so happy every time I say it. He was baptized in Lujan and when he moved here he turned inactive. His bro died a year ago, so his nephew lives with his fam. His mom is never home, so we always sit outside with them. He has 3 little sisters, and then his nephew. His nephew is 2 and literally the cutest little chiquitito I´ve ever seen in my entire life, and I´ve seen a lot of cute babies. His thick black hair makes him look like the little mushroom guy from Mario Kart!! haha anyway we taught allllll of the little kids too, and we taught them the 10 commandments. Sitting there, surrounded by kids just made me realize how much I want a family of my own and to teach them the commandments and values that I know to be right. It was a sweet moment :) Later, we were looking for an old member and happened to knock on the "wrong" door... the door we accidentally knocked was this guy with for kids, who had just recently gotten them back. He had done drugs and drank a lot, and his wife left him and took the kids too. But he had quit those things so he could get his kids back.. the sunday before, we had fasted to find someone that needed the gospel but didn´t know where to find it. And then we found him, and he said he had been wanteing to talk to someone about this for a while but didn´t know who! Fasting is great!!

TUESDAY-In all honesty, I had a huge page to write about this but ended up just scratching it and making it a short story. Here´s what happened: Went to zone conference, felt sick. Hna Robertson ordered us to go home and rest for the rest of the day, which meant that it was pretty bad, because she is the kind of woman that says to take tylenol and keep pluggin along. But she sent us home, and on the bus on the way home I turned to Hna M and said "I don´t feel good..." and then she handed me a plastic bag and I threw up like half a gallon of stomach fluids, and I also threw up blood. So that was a little scary.. we went back to our house and I slept for a good 8 hours, with a fever that kept climbing until it reached 103.5. Hna Robertson and the mission nurse got really worried because I had stomach pains too. Hermana Gull (the mission nurse) prayed about it and stuff and she said as soon as she prayed she felt it was appendicitis. We took a taxi over to the mission offices so I´d be closer to a hospital, and we stayed there for a day and a half. Not much happened because my fever broke and the pains subsided, so it was most likely appendicitis that just subsided, according to doctors.. who knows, but basically I had to eat rice and cornmeal for a day or so. The last time I was that miserable was when everyone thought I had mono :P but luckily I´m better, and was only out til Friday!!

The rest of the week was really uneventful to be honest, and I didn´t really write in my journal about those days so I´ll just leave it at this: we ride our bikes, talk to people, and try to find people that wanna hear the gospel. All day every day :)

My Castellano is a little better, but still really rough. Keep praying for me, and thank you to those that do pray for me :) I love you all!! I don´t have much time, but here´s my spiritual thought: Read and STUDY st John 15. It´s my favorite chapter in all of ever that ever existed :)

Hermana Reeve

I MADE IT TO MY SECOND P DAY!!!

(7/6/15)
Ok... ok.. ok. This week was a lot better than last week in MOST aspects :) I´ll start with my journal on TUESDAY!!

Martes (tuesday): today we had our first district meeting, and it was a little rough because eeryone could speak castellano and I couldn´t. but after, we had lunch at the church with the elders and this hermano made us pizza... it was INCREDIBLE!! we just worked for the rest of the afternoon and stuff... we weren´t having much success, but then we started knocking on the doors we couldn´t find. we came across this sweet old lady that looked asian and argentine put together haha. her husband had just died of cancer five months ago, and she was really just sad. she didn´t let us help her trim her bushes or even talk about our message, cute we left her with a song "tengo gozo en me alma hoy". She just started crying and everything, and i offered the prayer that we left her with and it was just really beautiful :) I kept having the thought about everyone that day... "he/she is my dear friend". When Dallin left on his mission, in his farewell talk he shared a story about this elder in germany that had a dream one night. I´m really gonna paraphrase because I don´t have time for everything, but basically this elder had a dream that he was in pre earth life with someone he recognized as his dear friend. they had both recieved letters of where they would be called to live in their earthly life, and this elder was just so excited. he was called to grow up in an lds family, be born into the church, and have a very good life. his friend was sad and crying... he asked what was wrong and his friend said sadly, "i will not be so privileged. I will grow up in germany, where my father will die when I am very young. my family will be poor and i will need to start working very hard, very young. I won´t have the gospel of jesus christ in my life. Promise you will find me, and teach me about this gospel that will change my life!" this elder, in his dream, hugged his friend and said "don´t worry, my dear friend, I will find you. I promise I will find you." I had that story in my head the whole day, and i just imagined everyone we talked to as that person that I was supposed to find. It helped me have a better attitude, not gonna lie :) BUT THAT NIGHT WAS THE BEST!!! We had english classes at the capilla with these two old ladies... It had been a long day, but the second I walked in this old argentine lady yells "WHICH ONE IS FROM CALIFORNIA?!?!" I raised my hand and she just ran over and kissed my cheeks and said in a think accent "I LOVE california!!" haha apparently, the elders told their class about me and this lady has been super excited to meet someone from california... hahah ohhh man. i just cracked up! also, funny story... that night, I was in bed, halfway asleep (i sleep all wrapped up in a sleeping bag) and all of a sudden i found myself falling out of bed. The worst part was that I couldn´t even move or do anything because my arms and legs were all zipped up! it was the WORST! I scared my companion so badly.... haha.

Miércoles (wednesday): Hna. M and I got up at stinkin THREE IN THE MORNING. Why? well, we had to travel to ramos majia to get my trametes (papers that say i can legally be here haha)... and we had to take a collectivo and then a train. lemme just tell yall a little about trains. the collectivo (bus) was fine, but the train.... imagine a new york subway, 10 times worse. I was almost touching cheeks with a man and it was so uncomfortable hahaha. On some trains, if you cant squeeze inside, people hang off of the outside. IT IS NUTS. people here are crazy.... anyway, I walk into the mission office and who do I see? Elder Schoonover adn Landon!! haha I think we both kinda yelled a little louder than we should have and shook hands like 5 times. It was hilarious! In the middle of all this, in walks elder sheen with his chill little head nod and such, and then hermana howe! Turns out that we all were getting our trametes on the SAME DAY!! So we all spent the day together as our little mtc fam (well, part of it) together trying to speak in castellano. It was the best thing ever! Hna M and I left at like 2 pm and went home and worked for the rest of the night :)

Jueves (thursday)-well, today we woke up at 3. again. more collectivos, more trains, and more MTC fam reunions! it was great! after like 6 hours of trametes and stuff, hna m and i went to the sisters pench in Ramos Mejia to do weekly planning which takes like 3 hours. It´s really really long.... anyway, that night was hna m´s 1 year anniversary in her mission, so we called in pizza and ice cream and man oh man I have never been more content. Let´s just say I was a really happy camper :)

Viernes (friday): since hna mickelsen is a sister training leader, she had like a 6 hour long meeting the next morning, which is why we stayed the night thursday. During her meeting, we did personal study and practices and we also helped make lunch! I was feeling way sick that day, and I´ll keep it short so I don´t sound like i´m complaining, but I think the cold and humidity just got to me and I was just feeling terrible the whole day. And after that bus ride, I was so nauseaus.... it was gross! I got my first kiss from a guy here though. We were on the train talking with this deaf/mute, and he was so sweet. I gave him a Book of Mormon I had in my bag and he said he would read it and was so excited that before I could do anything he just leaned in! I turned my head and luckily he got my cheek, but it was scary man. Haha the hombres here are really bold... guys make kissy noises at us all the time. anyhoo, the second we walked in the pench, we went out and worked! That´s missionary life for ya haha. So yeah... today was a bit rough, simply because I felt really sick :/

Sábado (saturday):FOURTH OF JULLYYYYYY!!! MERICA!! I represented by wearing a blue sweater, red skirt, and white scarf. I try to be festive ;) this day was beautiful because our hot water got fixed too. God is good, He really is :) nothing much more about the day then that!!

Domingo (sunday): Sunday was just BOMB. we went to church and A) I understood more, B) all the odl ladies love the hermanas, and C) THERE WERE 42 MEMBERS THIS WEEK!! I was sitting in sacrament meeting just thinking wow... the gospel is the same here, in california, in russia, in paraguay, in england, everywhere. The principles are the same!! Also, I´m gonna take a second and be direct with any youth that read this ( i guess it applies for others too): we have it SO. GOOD. In America. You don´t even understand unless you´ve been to another country. The youth really need to appreciate the support system in the church... Here, there are like 5 youth in our branch. In the city, they wake kup at 5:15 to ride their bikes in the freezing cold to go to seminary. Every day is a risk because it is so dangerous in the cuidad. In one branch, mutual was indefinitely canceled because the YW pres decided to go inactive and no one else could fill the position. so yeah... we have it really good. DON´T take it for granted. On another note, I feel a lot better today! I got a blessing from an elder and it really helped me with my physical sickness and some thoughts that I was having that were kind of scary. It helped me put my trust in God a lot more with whatever he has planned for me in the next little while :) After church, we ate with this super fun and adorable couple, the 2nd counselr in the branch presidency, and a recent converso. I have literally never laughed so hard in my life... I understood their Castellano really well, and they were so friendly! as you know... people here eat a lot more. ALOT. And you can´t really say no.... so. It was fast sunday. therefore, we were starving. she made these incredible little pasta noodles with sauce and bread and pollo, and oh man... they were so good. so so good. I made the dumb decision of eating fast, so she just kept filling my plate. Finally it was gone and I just looked at my comp who is totally accustomed to this and whispered "hermana... creo que voy a morir..." which means "I believe I´m going to die...". Apparently the husband heard and just started dying of laughter and saying how it was so sad that I felt so horrible! then he said that he hoped one of the buttons on my shirt didn´t pop off and hit him because the pasta made my stomach swell so much! by this time I was dying from laughter and so was everyone else, and then he started telling how one time HE ate too much and his buton hit someone... that was it, we all just started crying haha. I told him I didn´t believe him and he kept saying "no, inserio!!" Hahaha oh man.. I love the people here. I really started to love them this week :)

I like never have any time to write much about investigators, but right now we don´t really have any progressing ones :/ we met this guy that is around 20 whose father died two years ago, and another 16 year old named alexis. his whole fam is way Baptist, but he is the only one that doesn´t go to church... he reminds me of what I think Joseph smith was probably like at that age :) I can´t wait to have lessons with them!! Everyone else is just kinda dragging along. The people here are a lil bit lazy and are so caught up in the catholic traditions that it makes it a bit hard to share the gospel without them bringing their previous religion up.

Today we´re probably gonna go play some fútbol with the elders (possibly), and I´m kinda way excited. Everyone here loves fútbol and it´s really rubbin off on me!

To all those that have written me, thank you. I read all your letters, but it is so hard to find time to respond. I never understood that until I got here in the mission field! It was so much easier to have time in the CCM for some reason!! Anyway, I love you all, and keep yalls chins up :) Thank you for your prayers, I can feel them :)

Love, Hermana Hailey Reeve

Hola de Argentina!

Hola my amigos y familia!

so... this week has been crazy. Rough, difficult, crazy, confusing, and a whole lot of other things. This letter will be a combination of my journal and my planner, and I´ll start with wednesday! (ps, i´m sorry about capitalization and punctuation, and I´m sorry that i can´t send pictures this week, and I´m sorry that this is so long)

WEDNESDAY

So. I´ve decided that I DO NOT like the ATL airport... at all. why_ because after an almost 5 hour flight, my poor little legs don´t exactly feel like walking 100 trillion miles just to get to my departure gate! haha for reals though--that place is enormous. once I finally got to said departure gate, I realized how starving I was... all i had to eat since morning was cherries, a naked drink, and granola bar. So I loaded up on dinner: beef jerky, trail mix, and life saver gummies. Our flight got delayed til 10:30 m, which was ok because I totally made friends with this adorable lady from el salvador who served her mission in washington dc! so that was nice :) when we finally got on the plane, it wasn´t full, so i snatched the row behind me to lay down on and sleep. the airplane people are really nice to people that have long flights... I got a little rice and chicken dinner, and it would have been good if it stayed in my stomach -_- the second we hit turbulence, I ran to the bathroom and lost all my dinner. So that was lovely :p haha but yeah... I got like 1 hour of sleep. I watched nacho libre and laughed out loud at it all by myself! I probably shouldn´t have done it, because I was set apart, but I kind of didnt realize that until the end... oh well :p I did get to wake up to a sunrise above the clouds though, and it was gorgeous!!

THURSDAY: I got to the airport and somehow my president and his wife missed me, so I was lost all by myself for 10 minutes... it was scary, not gonna lie :( I finally found them and they took me to the temple to walk around, and I got to be outside the argentina mtc too! It was crazy knowing that dallin went there, and now kaitlin hodgson is there too. Haha I seriously felt so weird... anyhoo, after that we went to the mission office, and I met my  new companion from Utah named hermana mickelson. she´s really cool and about 7 or 8 inches taller that me! haha she always calls me hermanita :) after that, our presidente took us out to lunch with his wife, and then we got dropped off at our apartment and took off on bikes. we had a couple visits with people and i literally understood absolutely nothing of what anyone said. Gosh dang Castellano accents. It was rough and I was so happy to get home and go to bed..

FRIDAY: I got to know the area more on friday... and talk about culture shock! part of our area is kinda city ish, but it´s not even considered city compared to the actual argentina cities. Everyone here drives motorcycles more than cars, and the "city" is pretty much more like extremely poor, short building version of brooklyn new york. the other part of our area is ALLLLL shacks and dirt roads. It´s so crazy. We bike through mud all day when it rains, to be honest... and I get so dirty! There are dogs roaming EVERYWHERE and anyone that knows me knows how much I love dogs... but I can´t do anything about it because they all have diseases and are gross and stuff. It breaks my heart :/ it´s freezing here, too, but I´m getting accustomed to that a little bit. The rain goes through everything, even if it is ¨waterproof". Traffic rules barely exist... and our taxi that took us to our apartment from the mission office was an old, beat up car that rocked all by itself. There was a cockroach that I sat on, and it was kinda duck taped together... and the guy was driving at least 50 miles over the speed limit down the middle of the freeway lane. I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE!!! also, EVERYONE KISSES HERE. it´s considered kinda rude of you don´t greet someone with a kiss on the cheek... that´s soooo weird for me to be honest :o we don´t do it to guys but all the women do it and it threw me off the first day when this random lady just grabbed my face and went for it haha. ah man... but yeah... i won´t write much about saturday because it was kind of the same honestly haha :)

SUNDAY:

Sunday was church. I was so excited!!.... and then I got there and I couldn´t understand one word of the lesson, or the sacrament meeting, or relief society. Nothing. I tried so hard to hold back tears, but on the way home I just cried and cried because A) it was raining, and my face was already wet, and B) my companion was ahead of me so she couldn´t see. I wanted so badly to understand Castellano, but I just couldn´t. The only thing that kept me sane was the hymns that we sang... it brought peace, and a lot of it! After church we had lunch with our branch president and his wife. She cooks really well and it was AMAZING!!! I ate ton because dinner doesn´t exist here... so if you don´t eat a good lunch, you are starving by 10:30. the rest of sunday went really well... we taught this woman that grew up in the church but is no longer active. Her best friend is on a mission in bolivia, and that was the only reason she let the sister missionaries into her house about a week before i got here. During the morning planning, I had a feeling that we should share the story of the stripling warriors with her. I had never met this chica before, and I knew nothing about her, but that is what I felt. Hna Mickelson taught her once before, but that´s it. We got there and she was so, so, so cute and happy and energetic! she is one of my favorite people EVER!! I love her so much (fun fact.... uptown funk is playing in english on the radio right now in the computer library. hahahaha oh my gosh I am cracking up). anyhoooo, I started to share with her the story and she just shook her head and chuckled. We asked what was wrong and she said "I don´t believe this... today, someone on facebook talked to me about this story, and then you guys come and teach me about it." She paid attention the entire lesson and almost cried. She even said the closing prayer!! after we left, hna mickelson said "you are inspired. This lesson was different, and it was because we taught that specific lesson that you wanted to this morning. She´s thinking about her life now and it´s because of your prompting." soooo I felt kinda great that even though I can´t really speak very well, the Lord is still using me in some way haha ;)

anyway, that was my week..... a couple other things that are random:

-whenever anyone sees a picture of my dogs, i tell them that blizzards name is Blizzard, and they don´t understand so I have to tell them that her name is "tormenta de nieve" (a storm of snow hahaha)

-my new name is (the triple r´s stand for the rolled sound) "rrr-eh-eh-veh". No one can say reeve so I´ve officially changed my name! hahahaha

-the branch president wants me to train their perrito

-nose goes exists here and it makes me so happy

-minions also exist here and I may or may not have sung the minion song with a little familia on Friday...

-everyone goes nuts over my blonde hair. They don´t believe that it is just from the sun, but they love it

-I tried matte/terere and DALLIN WAS RIGHT!! I love it!!!

-I´m always cold, so when I am at home, I wear sweats, leggins, fuzzy socks, a skirt, a sweater, a jacket, a scarf, and a blanket. and i´m still cold (todd I know you are laughing right now--STOP THAT)

My spiritual thought is short and comes from elder bleak. He said in an email: when you hesitate to stick up for christ, just remember that Christ didn´t hesitate to stick up for you or die for you." I think that´s gonna be my mission motto :)

I miss home, and I miss my family, and I miss my friends... but I love being here, despite the fact that I can barely understand anyone!! I´m so glad I finally made it to Argentina!! I never knew that preaching in some random Castellano language could bring me so much happiness :)

Please keep me in your prayers.

-Love, Hermana Hailey Reeve

PS... a couple more things: we don´t have hot water at the moment, and probably won´t for the next two weeks because the heater is broken. so we boil water and dump it over our heads and try to wash our hair the best we can... also, our hair is always gross because they don´t have a water softener here :p so my hair is just always dirty, not oily, but dirty!! also, I found out I´m in the same zone as elder schoonover, so I´ll get to see one of my CCM amigos at zone conference!!

-i´ve learned that it is just pointless to try and match clothes here, so I wear the most ridiculous outfits. I also always wear leggings because I am always freezing.

-this is the first time I´ve been homesick in my life, but I can´t even explain how much emails helped!! It´s weird--I´m never distracted while working, but when I am laying in bed at night it´s way hard. but this is the happiest I have been since I got here, so thank you all for your emails.. they really do help me :)

-peanut butter doesn´t exist here, and I forgot to bring some so I think I might die before the month is up. Seriously though... I miss peanut butter. And we don´t get packages here, so I don´t think I´ll be tasting it for the next year and a half haha

I think that´s all for now... If i remember anything else, I´ll tell you next week! haha remember.. pray for me. please.

love y´all :)