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
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