Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Two weeks down!!!!

Hey everyone!!

I can't believe I'm a third of the way done here! its gone super fast but so slow at the same time! I don't know how thats possible but the days are sooo long but the weeks are super fast! today has been a really hard day because this morning we had to get up at 3 in the morning to send off our sweet Latinos which was sooo hard. i never imagined i could love so many people so much in such a short time! they have taught me so much in these past two weeks and they are the most genuine, kind, loving, patient people i have ever met!! the CCM feels so empty and quiet without them here! 
but on a brighter note we got to go to the temple again today which is such a good get away! 
I'm starting to get used to the food here... sorta.  I've eaten 5x the rice in the past two weeks than I've eaten in my whole life combined and that is not an exaggeration. every way shape and form you can imagine rice and anything and everything you can imagine in it! and the latinos tell us that the food in Boliva is terrible soo... I think this is my time to enjoy! haha I just want some pizza and a hamburger and fries.
The bad part about living in a prison is that when one person gets sick everyone is bound to get sick... ive had a killer head cold and sore throat the last few days but there is a strict TNDO rule here so we are pushing through! im just glad its not anything worse! (knock on wood)
Church here is hunger games style... we all have to write a talk every week (and I thought writing a talk in english was hard) and then sunday they just randomly call people up to read their talks. its actually really terrifying. hahah this week i wrote mine and before sacrament and had one of the Latinos proof read it.. she looked at it, laughed, fixed what she could, and said ´¨lets just hope you don't get called up¨´. hahah luckily I didn't. 
The language is coming along slowly... I get super frustrated when I don't understand something our "investigator" or the Lations say, but I just keep reminding myself that it will come with time!
This sunday we had a lesson from Hermana Dyer and she asked who was the only member of their family and had no support from home and seriously pretty much every latino raised their hand! it broke my heart like I couldn't stop crying for hours. They are such examples to me and it made me so grateful for all the love and support I feel from all of you back at home! I couldn't be here if it weren't for all of you so THANK YOU for all your sweet words of encouragement and for all the prayers! I definitely feel them! I love and miss you all!!

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Safe and Sound

Hey everyone!!
 I made it to the ccm safe and sound! It has been such an adventure already! Our flight was delayed from Atlanta to Colombia and we got stuck in customs because they wanted to search all of our books... which we obviously have a lot of! so we got out of the airport around 12 and our ride was nowhere to be found. there were 6 of us and I knew the most Spanish out of all of us... which tells you how much trouble we were in! we divided and literally searched the whole airport, called every number we had, talked to everyone we possibly could with our broken english, and found nothing! so after a couple of hours we said a prayer and decided we would just have to take a taxi and pray that it got us here! we definitely got ripped off on that taxi but we were just so happy to see the ccm we probably wouldve given him everything we had! hahah but there is a gate fence all the way around so we had to stand outside and bang on the gate until a security guard came and let us in... he was so confused! but he opened up the kitchen to us and let us eat whatever we want. Then we got a quick three hours of sleep haha so I am exhausted but I am having so much fun!
There are only 6 sisters here and only 3 of us speak english! so its basically a constant game of charades and its actually quite hilarious most of the time! the latinos are so sweet to us and they are doing everything they can to try to help us learn the language faster. most of our meetings have been in spanish so far.. so I honestly have no idea whats really going on here but you can feel the spirit even when you cant understand the language! 
We had to turn in basically everything we have that could be considered valuable this morning.. I felt like i was in jail or something but they have to do that to keep our stuff safe! ive already been asked for money a couple of times which breaks my heart because it just shows what kind of living conditions they are coming from!
Ive learned a lot already and this place is so beautiful! I love and miss you all and am so grateful for the love and support!