Hey mom,
so first of all, i will try to find out how mothers day works, im not really sure but i will let you know. i want to find out as well so we dont have to have problems either. im excited to talk to you too! oh and i actually know about pres brough and president hamblin, he told me about it yesterday at a training meeting, so that is kinda crazy. so we talked about it for a minute. anyways, i am in a place called san lucas. it is in the mountains, so it actually gets cold here at night. my companion is named hermana cevallos and is from ecuador. this is her last month of the mission so i will be here last companion. she doesnt know a lot of english so sometimes communicating is difficult, but it hasnt been too bad. the area we are in is new, it hasnt had missionaries for like three years i think, so my companion doesnt know anything about the area either cuz she is new here as well. we didnt even know where the bishop lived and stuff, but we know a little more now. the ward here is huge! there were like 270 some people on sunday. we are the first sister missionaries here ever. There are also some new elders in our area too, so that has been good to have them there cuz one of them is from provo so i can actually to him in english which is really nice. so far we have just been going around and tracting or meeting members and meeting with the bishop and trying to figure things out here, so we havent done a lot of teaching or anything yet. its just kinda frustrating because when we are just talking or visiting with people, i cant say anything cuz i dont really know whats going on. I need to learn normal words! i only know gospel stuff. Its just hard to understand people cuz they talk so fast. anyways, my companion is really nice. she is very kind and patient so that is good. so our house. our house is so weird! its basically just a big concrete cinderblock. there is a bedroom, a kitchen, but we only have a fridge and a little plug in stove thing, and a study room. the shower is like this weird thing in the wall with a door that opens into it. luckily we do have warm water to shower. not hot, but warm. um but yeah the rooms have flooring in them, but all the walls and the floor in the hall and the stairs is just concrete, and theres not even a complete roof on the top, only the rooms are all fully covered. its so weird and hard to explain, i will send you pictures if i can. oh ps, so im not going to get mail very often here, like every few weeks when we have a meeting. i dont really have an address, you just have to send it to the mission office, so keep doing that. even dearelders i wont get everyweek. also i still havent gotten your package or matts letter, maybe a week from friday when we have another trainging meeting, i dont know. its so weird here, like some people are really rich and have super nice cars and nice houses and cell phones, and other ppl are literally dirt poor and have nothing. they live in like little shacks of metal with dirt floors. im definitely gonna go through a lot of shoes, cuz sometimes its like im hiking through a forest of something. dont worry, most of the city isnt lilke that and most of our area is more normal with streets. i just cant believe people live like that and its normal. i will admit i get scared a lot when people give me food cuz i know it doesnt follow the rules of what we are supposed to eat. we can only drink clean water and disinfected fruits and vegetable and stuff, and i know these poor people arent always giving us clean food, but i dont know what we are supposed to do. i got super scared about it, but when we met the bishop he gave the four of us, with the elders, a blessing, and mine said i would be healthy and be able to eat the food. at least i think thats what it said, i mean it was in spanish so i cant exaclty be sure. also i get really nervous about all the dogs everywhere cuz they are so dirty and scary and run around everywhere. but i guess if i was blessed with health i probably wont get rabies, so hopefully i will be ok. luckily in the mountains there are less bugs and stuff, so we dont have cockroaches in our house or anything like the people in the city do, so thats good. um so lets see, eat breakfast at our house, at lunch we have a cook, and she is a lady in the ward, and we dont even get to eat dinner, we just eat when we get home at night if we want. we also have a lady who does our laundry, its they same lady who cooks for us. i dont think my clothes are going to survive for very long, i mean when i saw how they get washed, they got through a beating! anyways, i will admit that things have been really rough. i have been struggling and scared and upset a lot this week. but yesterday we had a training meeting in the capital, so i got to see all my friends from the ccm so that was super great, and the other girls were struggling as well so i wasnt the only one. then president brough talked to the four of us north american girls cuz he could tell that we were all really upset and frustrated and having a hard time, so i feel a little better now and i am just trying really hard to be ok. but dont worry im ok a lot of the time, its just so hard to never know whats going on. i just feel like i never know what we are doing, but it will get better. also pres. brough told us that he wasnt going to let any of us go home, so i guess i am stuck here! haha anyways right now i am in antigua, which is a city like 10 to 15 miles from my city, we had a district meeting. so tuesday is when i get to email, mondays are our p days, but we didnt really get one yesterday because of the meeting. so i thought my area was like a kinda smaller town, but really it is huge! it is so so big. i cant believe how far we have walked somedays. its really hard for me to figure out where we are and stuff, but i will have to learn eventually, cuz since my trainer is leaving next transfer, i will get a new one and i will have to show her where everything is. anyways, so yeah you guys dont need to send dearelders every week cuz i wont get them, you can email, but i wont always have time to email you back, sorry. i can write letters though.
um what else, food. mostly so far chicken, rice, and tortillas. the tortillas are really good. also they have really good bread here. and everyone drinks this weird coffee stuff, except they say its not coffee cuz they are all members, so i hope it really is safe cuz they always give it to us. i cant figure out what its called though.
all the people are really nice, even if they dont want to listen to you they will be really polite and friendly so that is good. i havent really met many rude people. even when we are knocking on doors they are nice. anyways, i think its about time to go. i dont know if i answered all you questions or not. but things are good, just super crazy and overwhelming. im trying really hard not to think about being gone for 18 months cuz that makes me discouraged. but i pray everyday to learn to love this and learn to love the people, so hopefully eventually i will. but yeah, this beginning part is really hard and i hope it gets better. anyways, i love you all and hope you are doing great! keep telling me everything thats going on at home, i love it. also thanks for the pictures! you could mail me some too if you wanted. i will let you know when i get your package. love you! miss you! hope everything is good!
Jessie
No comments:
Post a Comment