Dime Mi Amor

what a week!

 

so, last monday for noche de hogar we taught Brenda la palabra de sabiduria.... ha  so daisy her aunt and her mom karina had different ideas about what i actually meant and went off for about 20 minutes explaining stuff about having wisdom and learning and finally when hermana caguimbal and I got to speak we explained that it´s actually about what we should not put into our bodies.  and THEN diasy says ¨oh yeah, like no wine, and drugs, and no green fruits¨  great.  we laughed and thought it was a joke because some dominicans love green fruits and some hate them (there´s no inbetween here) and then she was like serious!  So we had to explain that green fruits are OK.

 

us 4 hermanas watched doctrine and covenants videos and ate popcorn and happy hippos! thanks mom.

 

at 10:30, as i was getting in bed, elder manubay called to give me the honor of giving the message for our zone meeting the next morning.  yay   so I stayed up a little late preparing for that.  I make the zone leaders cookies and this is how they repay me?! 

 

So yeah, tuesday morning we had zone meeting in messopotamia.  I gave the message on power and authority and we talked about goals and health and working with members and all the usual zone meeting stuff.  then elder chinchilla bore his last zone leader testimony and cried and everyone was so quiet because chinchilla is like a legend in this mission. (he was an assistent for over a year and the zone leader in san juan for 3 transfers i think?)

 

On wednesday we went to teach brenda the last lesson on the sabath day and chastity and thankfully her mom was showering and her little sister was playing on the street so we were able to really teach her and not have a million voices and distractions!  Brenda is really super smart and so sweet and told us about her older sister playing bad music and her having a really bad feeling and telling her to turn it off.  aww.

 

We taught hna. mary and llafreisi her neice who are so cute.  Hna. Mary is like my favorite in the rama.  she´s so humble and tranquilo.  She is always asking us questions to know more and just got called to be the young womens president and she´s so freaking out because she has no idea what to do.  we´re repasing all the lessons with her neice llafreisi and with her too and we are helping her with her lesson plans and calling a lot.

 

thursday got woken up to the incredibly annoying colmado on wheels.  these little trucks stuffed with fruits and veggies with giant speakers on the top.  ¨HAY YUCA HAY YUCA HAY PLATANO HAY GUANDULE HAY YUCA HAY PIÑA

!CRISTO VINE! HAY CEBOLLA HAY YUCA !ARREPENTIRSE!¨  and it´s so dang loud and never seems to stop.  especially when we´re trying to teach and one of these trucks drives by REALLY slowly.  it´s funny though because they throw in preachy words like REPENT and it´s super great.  we always want to contact on one of those and get like 700 people in a 10 minute span.

 

We taught Marilyn who is reading her book of mormon and is starting her marraige papers!!!!!!  we´re so so stoked!!!!!!!

 

Brenda´s introvista was thursday and she was so happy when she walked out of the office and elder moreno gave a big thumbs up.  she danced all over the church and told her mom that she can officially wear her new dress for the baptism. 

 

Friday morning I made strawberry pancakes (with jello mix... strawberries are a very rare and EXPENSIVE thing here) in the shape of hearts and we ate and then went to the capilla to clean.  Brenda and chantel, her younger, hilarious sister, came and helped us too.  Both of them act like 40 year old typical dominican women, instead of 7 and 9.  I was cleaning the font and yelled for brenda to bring soap and she responds ¨DIME MI AMOR¨  hahahaha oh brenda.

 

hermano manolo went out with us all day to find menos activos.  it was SO nice of him and we found a ton of people on the rama list that no one even knew about. 

 

Saturday was the baptism!!  the other hermanas had a baptism too, and an 8 year old boy in the rama.  So many people showed up and the service was really great!  Marilyn even came with her two kids!  and afterward and asked if we could come to her house so she could show us how to make habituelas dulce! 

 

Sunday wasn´t quite as stressfull as last, except I had no time to practice the hymns so i just winged it and hoped for the best....  dad why didn´t i practice more?!?! WHY?

 

This area is super great... but the rama doesn´t want to do a whole lot.  Us hermana´s have to do so much here, and it´s super hard sometimes.  We talked as a house about how we can work on strengthening this area, and especially these members.  This are is really prideful and a lot of people don´t want to do anything if they don´t have a high position calling.  Also, they NEVER want to have activities to strengthen the rama because there is ¨no money¨¨and we´re trying to think of creative ways to have good activities with no money to show them that we don´t need money and nice callings so be firm and happy and work together.  it´s difficult.  But it´s a learning experience! 

 

Today we woke up and cleaned and cleaned and then walked to the zone leader´s capilla and had a zone activity and played games and soccer.  It was so fun today because the whole zone was here so we had legit teams and it got so intense and we played for a good two hours.  Sometimes it´s scary playing with a million aggressive elders but it was so worth it, just running around for forever. 

 

but yeah, that was the week! 

 

thanks for everything!!

 

les amo!

 

hermana huish

SO Much To Do!!!!

Typical Neighborhood - they love blue! 

hey!  happy valentines day almost!  AND anniversary annika and michael!  a year?!

 

So... Brenda´s baptism is this Saturday!  We´re really excited and working with her a lot, reviewing and all that stuff.  She´s great though and really excited.

 

On Wednesday we walked forever to Christofer and His mom´s house and talked about the plan of salvation.  His mom REALLY wants to get married and told us she wants to get baptized and sealed... but her husband doesn´t.  it´s really sad.  she was almost in tears and we just didn´t know how to help her.  We´ve tried talking to her husband but he just doesn´t care and uh it´s the worst. 

 

We also cleaned Anna´s house.  We do that at least every week for her in the morning.  She´s so sweet and just beams when we show up to chat and clean.

 

On thursday we had nothing planned for lunch so hermana santana and I used empanada sheets and made pizza empanadas in the oven...  and hermana Ortiz kept saying ¨extraño... pero rico..¨ (translation - strange but rich, which means great!!) so hermana Santana and I have decided to open up a restaurant when the mission´s over called ¨EXTRAÑO PERO RICO¨ we´ll have pizza empanadas, and every dulce served with syrup (because hermana santana eats EVERYTHING with syrup... apparently they don´t have it in spain and she´s obsessed and eats it with bread, on cake, cookies, and would probably drink it if we had a bigger supply.) 

 

We worked with Wilson (recent convert) on friday.  Like no one was home and it was so frustrating so we went to his house and talked about his new calling as ward mission leader and read through PMG and chapter 5 of the red church calling manual.  He´s super stoked about his calling and is always so willing to work with us it´s great.

 

We taught Eduardo the word of wisdom.  He didn´t have a problem with it and was super tranquil (peaceful) and just sat there and we asked if he was ok and he just sat there still.  He´s just super bummed that his wife won´t let him get baptized.  We´ve tried teaching her but she always leaves... so yeah we´re kind of stuck with him!

 

On Saturday I made corn bread and chili for the hermanas.  The corn bread is another ¨extraño pero rico¨ thing for the other hermanas.  But for me it was so normal and so fall and I was in heaven.  mom, i miss your cooking p.s.

 

We cleaned the capilla after lunch and then went on splits with the relief society!  It was super great!  They showed us where like everyone lives in the ward and we visited menos activos and it was really awesome.  We also went into this area really far that we never visit and it was super dark and everyone´s houses were lit by candles and the colmados were actually playing loud music like they´re supposed to and i felt like I was back in Sabana Yegua. 

 

The Zone leaders came to our capilla that night for a meeting and brought my package!  thanks family!  Then I practiced the hymns for sacrament meeting and we went home. 

 

The other hermanas told me at 8:30 saturday night that we had to teach the relief society lesson because they had to help with another class and the teacher would be out of town... my companion was a little ticked and told me to plan it so i stayed up like until 12 planning a lesson about the plan of salvation.  Thankfully it was an easy topic, but I felt a lot of pressure because the usual relief society routine is to read straight from the prophet book manual for an hour and so I felt the need to give a real lesson to help them understand what a lesson should be.  So I planned my best, but I just kept wishing that my mom could be here to give the lesson because she´s really great at those and I´m not. 

 

WELL... sunday morning.  ate really fast, showered, got ready, and just as we were about to leave president drove by on his motor and gave us the sacrament white sheets to iron....  so we quickly ironed those and ran to church so I could teach on time.  We talked about the plan of salvation and focused a lot on the importance of this life and what we need to do now.  I took the opportunity to say that we have so much paz and comfort from the plan of salvation and we need to share this peace and knowledge with others :)  a missionary has got to do what a missionary has got to do..

 

Then hermana caguimbal and I taught the family history lesson.  A lot of the leaders were sent to our class so it was nerve wracking, but the instructors manual is super great and we just relied a lot on that to help us plan so it wasn´t so bad!

 

Then I played the piano in sacrament meeting and the C note doesn´t work and i swear every hymn I played used the C note at least 80 times.... haha but we have a piano now so it´s pretty great!! 

 

After church I zonked for a good hour while hna. ortiz and caguimbal made lunch.  Then we left and had a super packed day which was awesome! Sunday´s are never this successfull so it was a huge blessing.  We went to a contact family and they were super receptive and the mom doesn´t work and doesn´t have commitements on sundays!  hallelujah.  (OH MY GOSH speaking of hallelujah, hermana santana has an IL DIVO CD and they sing that song in spanish and they also sing the song with celiene dion and it´s so great.)

anyways, we visited jesucita and talked about family.  We contacted a BUNCH more and then went and had a meeting with president.  Our goal is the really strengthen the rama here, because it super needs it.  We´re trying to work a TON with members this week to find more people and strenghten their families and callings at the same time. 

sheesh though it´s been a lot of work this week.  over here the rama´s arent super strong so as missionaries we have SO MUCH TO DO.  it´s super stressfull, but it´s also a super great learning experience... but holy cow i´m tired.

Well... that´s about it!  It´s been a good week!  love you all and thanks for the support and prayers!

 

hermana huish

No Run!

ok first off..... HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA MY SWEET BABY 13 YR OLD!!!!!  wow. 13.  Might be an unlucky number but I heard you already got a cell phone so yeah I guess you just broke all the odds.  way to be!

 

So... last monday night as a house we planned to get up early and run.  As you can imagine, I was stoked.  Tuesday morning at 545 I got out of bed and was all excited and then hermana ortiz slid into the room and without pause croaked ¨mañana¨ and walked right back into her room.  haha so the run was a no go.  but that´s alright because I was awake to read and jump rope.  haha jump rope.  I remember laughing at Mom when she said she just jump roped her whole mission, but now I see how great it is!

We contacted a bunch and this old lady talked for about 15 minutes and then took my hair in her hands and started praying and called me her saint.  GREAT   haha we tried to tell her that I´m just a person, a missionary.. no saint.  But she didn´t really listen to us.  we thanked her for her time and walked off and she yelled ¨ay MI SANTA¨ and everyone in the streets looked at me all funny.  woops.

We went to Robin´s house and taught Morena.  Robin showed us his fancy guitar his rich uncle gifted him.  He was grinning ear to ear with that thing.  He doesn´t have money for food really, but he has this giant guitar that he treats like the best thing in the whole world.  it´s quite adorable.  Morena was being really timid and wouldn´t really answer our questions, she just looked at the floor.  We noticed this giant bruise on her arm and asked her what happened and then robin told us her ¨esposo¨ beat her... oh my gosh my heart dropped.  Her esposo also ripped and trashed all her clothes and that´s why she said she couldn´t make it to church with us this sunday.  hermana caguimbal and I were heartbroken.

That night we went to Marilyn´s house and her esposo was there!!!  he is NEVER there.  We shared with them and their two kids and talked about the importance of family´s and marraige and he was really awesome about it and told us to come back on saturday to have another lesson with them all!  Well on saturday we came back and he gave us this sweet corn milk stuff and they told us they want to get married!!!!! YES!!!  ah man we are really excited for them.  Then, on sunday Marilyn came to church for the first time ever!  She never can because they go t the campo on sunday mornings, but she arranged her schedule to come!  good, good day!

On wednesday I brought out my inner Mexican-arizonan and made cilantro tortillas and black bean hummus.  It reminded me of home.  and all those days hermana rush tried to mash beans in a pilon in the dark.... good times.

On thursday we ACTUALLY RAN!!!  ahh man it felt so dang good.  although I had to run circles around the other hermanas while they walked, it was so worth it.  i miss my long runs!  the paths! ahh man.  one year! ok no, that´s too soon.

ANYWAYS, on friday morning we had the zone leaders and 4 men at our house to install fans!  yeah we´re living large.  It was a 3 hour operation so I made everyone chocolate pancakes and we chatted with the owner who served in Santiago in 1990.. mom? when were you there again?

We went to familia Mesa and hermana Anna was all alone and half asleep on her chair so we cleaned her SUPER messy kitchen for almost 2 hours.  Like deep cleaned. 

Then we went to Morena and gave her this skirt we bought at a paca.  She screamed and put it on and twirled around in it.  I cried because it was literally the cutest thing i´ve ever seen.

We taught Victor who told us he is excited and preparing for his fecha, dia 15 of march!  yay!  Victor is great!  He is sincere and excited to read and learn, but has trouble coming to church because he works in his uncles campo...

hermana caguimbal was trying to pick a guanabana off a tree with a giant pole with  hook and then she dropped it and it landed on this little haitian baby.  haha.  Hermana caguimbal freaked out and was hysterical and ran to comfort the baby, who took it like a champ and just stood there motionless.  All the haitians just laughed and laughed at hermana caguimbal.  not gonna lie, i was laughing pretty hard too.  ah man. my comp.

We talked with Eduardo who told us his wife told him NO, he can´t get baptized.  we´re super bumbed but we over time his wife will let him.  He still is going to go to church and everything so it´s ok.

On saturday i turned 6 months!!  wow!  and emma turned 13 years!!  we got up super early to walk to the elders capilla to have introvistas with presidente rodriguez! He´s so great.  They fed us conference bread, which is like a dream.  and piña juice.  We chatted with the hermana and I played on their piano, because our rama doesn´t have one!  I also talked to elder garner, a new elder from Mesa, AZ!  lives on Recker and McLellan?  yeah like my neighbor. 

We stopped by familia Mesa and Anna and her daughter were in the car and told us to hop in, they took us on a 10 minute ride to see their finca! $$$$$$$  they´re loaded.  it was ginourmous, and gorgeous

On sunday we went and got Morena in her adorable new skirt and walked to church together.  Kelvin, Brenda, and MArilyn came, and then a few of our menos activos! it was a good day!

We had a legit reunion with the district president and hna. caguimbal and I are now in charge of the family history and temple work class on sundays... errrrr.  wish us luck!

well that´s a wrap!  We played soccer and ate lunch with the elders and during lunch the restaurant was playing despicable me!  ahhh man... THAT¨S WHAT I¨M TALKING BOUT.

 

love you all!

hermana huish

¡HOLA!  

ok first things first... something went down in messopotamia (an area with elders in San Juan) and so they had to get a replacement mini missionary... well we walked into the internet center like 5 minutes ago and the mini was there and it´s RONA!  from Sabana Yegua!!!  I was pretty stoked to see him, obviously.  And we chatted it up about Sabana Yegua for a bit.  Ah man, I miss that place.  

But things here in San Juan are pretty awesome as well!

So... last tuesday for our district meeting elder manubay made us all enchiladas!  I was quite impressed because they were dang good.  Hermana Ortiz also made salsa picante to go with the enchiladas and the night before when she was making it, she asked to to test it out.  I took a spoonfull and she just smiled up at me as I put it all in my mouth.... well I couldn´t breath for about 30 minutes despues... seriously. she just laughed and asked if it was hot.  ¨pica MUCHO you monster!!¨  she doesn´t know what monster means so we´re good.  

We contaced A LOT.  I actually don´t mind contacting, but then the results of contacting are always iffy and frustrating when no one is in their houses for return appointments or they are busy cooking or excuses excuses.  BUT you never know if you´re going to find someone legit and someone who God has prepared.  So you just contact anyways and pray for the best.

Wednesday night we went to this fancy grocery and bought groceries for the week and then were like ¨oh shoot, now we have to carry these 30 minutes home...¨ BUT NO!  because this grocery store has a great mini van that drove us and our groceries home for free!!  YEAH. So we´re definitey going to buy groceries there more often.  Especially because Wander, the van driver, is now our friend and promised to come to church.

That night we used the baygon we bought and fumigated our house (we had a cucuracha problem) and by the end of the night hermana santana and I had sprayed 27!!!  ¨la cucuracha! la cucuracha! Ya no pueden caminar. ay ay ay!¨  to clarify, we killed 27 BIG ones, and about 200 babies.  gross huh?

Thursday morning the Clawsons came for house checks and said our house was the cleanest in the whole mission. booyah.  They rate every house with all these different tally´s and our house got a 97.5%.  So mom, don´t worry, when I come home my room won´t be a ¨pig stie¨ anymore.  I´ve learned a lot of dominican cleaning techniques, and let me tell you, dominicans are DEEP CLEANERS.  Mopping is now my new hobbie.  I sprint to the laundrey closet to beat hermana ortiz there soI can mop in the mornings. true story. 

Ok, did I tell you about Nicole?  no se.  pero, Nicole is the granddaughter of hermana Anna Mesa.  She is 10 and wants to get baptized.  Her dad, Henri, is a menos activo.  SO! we´re working really hard with Henri so he can baptize Nicole.  Hna. Anna and Domingo are faithfull church goers once again so we´ve got a lot going for us!  Henri is definitely going to be more difficult, but we´re excited to work with them!  We gave Nicole a book of mormon and invited them to read and pray together, so we´ll see how they do!

speaking of the book of mormon.... I FINISHED READING EL LIBRO DE MORMON IN SPANISH ON TUESDAY!!! HALLELUJA! good, good feeling.  

on friday hermana cuca recieved another boche about not coming to church.  She gave us a long list of reasons why she couldn´t because of health and stuff but reminded us that she is ¨faithful to the lord¨ and I had to frankly tell her that she´s not faithful if she´s not renewing her covenants with him.  She might have health problems for the rest of her life, and does that mean she wont go to church for the rest of her life then?  obviously she took it well because she gave me a pair of her old glasses after.  The lenses are SUPER blurry for me, but when I took them off she said that I had to wear them so I stumbled out her door wearing her glasses.  haha cuca. 

we shared the family´: a proclamation to the world, with marilyn and she really loved it.  Her eyes got all big as she read and she shared her feelings without being asked.  We hope it helps her decision to get married. 

Hermano Marco cleaned and shined my shoes on Friday. 

On Saturday we had the baptism on a ward boy who is 8 that we helped teach a little because president asked.  and EDUARDO came to the baptism!!  it was super great to see him there, dressed all nice.  after we met with him and president and a ward member and talked and it was a super great lesson!  we basically just answered his questions and talked about his doubts and to have faith and keep praying.  Eduardo is really great and he seems like he really wants it now.  He´s worried because his wife is very catholic and doesn´t want to hurt their marraige, but we just tell him to do what feels right and he says the church feels right. 

On Sunday Eduardo, Kelvin, and brenda came to church.  Along with like 5 of our menos activos!  It was really great!  We visited Familia Mesa and hermana Anna gave us these teeny tiny guineos fromtheir finca and they tasted like apples and bananas mixed!  THEY¨RE SO SWEET. 

Wilson, recent convert, is now our new lider missional.  We´re stoked to have him!  He´s excited to work hard and has really really progressed like crazy! 

Well, yeah.  This morning we cleaned.I made the hermanas chocolate pancakes. I mopped :) and we played soccer with the elders.  

well, that´s about it!  hope all is well.  

les amo!!!  

con cariño,

hermana huish 

Quick Recap

i never know how to start these things... it´s so awkward.  

ok so we ate at a member´s house last monday night for noche de hogar (unintentional) and then all tuesday we had major diarrhea... it was really awfull.  mom, you can delete this from the email if you´d like...  but really, it was the worst.  We also had district mtg tuesday morning and had to ask the elders to meet us in our capilla instead of theirs and when they asked why we just said ¨girl problems¨ (that excuse works with everything.  especially elders because they are too embarrassed and socially awkward to ask more).  

On wednesday I woke up and jump roped and got on board with my 2014 resolution to actually exercise this year... even if it means I´m the annoying jump roper in the kitchen while everyone else is trying to get a few extra minutes of sleep or write family letters... i also did 10 push ups and then thought I was about ready to die.  Elder Manubay (zone leader) always talks about the P90X work outs he does from memoria and thanks to dad I think I have abb ripper X memorized... haha so guys just wait for the day I come home with killer abbs.  new years resolution 2014! 

On wednesday we also gave cuca, menos activa, a mini boche.  ¨I have the gripe every sunday¨ and ¨I have to start cooking lunch for myself at 11¨ just aren´t legit excuses... especially to the Lord.  

We went to Christofer, a menos activo we just found.  He´s only 14 and adorable.  We shared with him and then taught his mom how to make pancakes!  She was so stoked and they all shrieked everytime the pancake flipped over in one piece (which was everytime).  Then I was casually looking at all my split ends and she shoved me into her salon chair and cut my hair!!  I cried a lot inside.  she cut off like 3 inches.  sad day.  but maybe it was needed...

We found out hermana Anna Mesa was in the hospital all day so we rushed to their house and helped her make her family dinner and comfort her.  She´s stressed and tired and so on Thursday morning we went straight to their house to help her clean and cook and let her sleep and relax while we helped her with stuff.  I de-shelled like a million green beans for her in the morning and spent like an hour doing so... and then she put them in a bag and gifted them all to us!  I was so embarrassed because I spent so DANG LONG de-shelling beans for myself...

We gave Victor a fecha... he accepted and was just super chill about it all!  but the rules here about baptisms are set high... like he has to go to church 12 times in order to get baptized... so i´ll let you know how the three month journey goes!

Well... i feel like this is the normal thing, but I have like zero time.  these internet centers are always super crowded and I was the last to get on... but it´s been a good week!  thanks everyone for the support and prayers!  I love you all and hope everything in going well!  

love hermana huish 

2014 !?!?!?!?

hmmm.... ok... where to begin??

Last monday night we went to alejandra´s house and she gave us dominican hair do´s... and then they practiced american fishtails on mine and my comps hair.  (speaking of dominican girl hair... have izze and emmy tried out their fancy hair beads yet??) 

On tuesday we had a district mtg in the elders rich area.  it still amazes me... i´m going to take pictures next time to show you because it´s really insane.  the zone leaders are in our district so they brought our packages and i got grandma and grandpas package!!  filled with baking mixes, candy bars, and philipino mangos (which was well suited seeing that my comp is philipina) thanks guys!!

There aren´t any different traditions here for the new years that I saw... other than getting really drunk new years eve and all the next week.  (which was frustrating seeing that I somehow missed a lot of alcohol bottles and there weren´t in the ocean)

once again... i can´t believe it is 2014!!!!!!!!!!  such a great time to make new years resolutions and para mehorar and stuff.  i love making resolutions and since i´ll be a missionary for just about one more year (and like 20 days more) it was cool to make goals super focused on the work.  My comp, hna. caguimbal, and i made some very specific goals for the new year and our companionship that we´re really excited about.  We are determined to be exactly obedient and work our very hardest.  We have different goals to help us with the slowness of the area right now and just this week we have seen huge improvements and we found 3 new investogators who really seem legit!  Our prayers for the past month have seemed to all get answered this week.  it was incredible.  The Lord really works miracles, but tries our faith first. 

anyways, one of our new investogators is barbara... she sounds like a gringo because she actually can´t roll her R´s (which makes me feel a lot better about not being able to...)  but she´s the cutest lady and we went back to share with her on thursday and her neighbor was there and she was just kinda grumpy and not pleased to see us.  We were talking about the purpose of life and since barbara is a mother and grandmother to over 30 people and her neighbor, ivelisse, had her three children around her, i felt impressed to read alma 56:47-48 with them about the 2 thousand soldados and oh my gosh ivelisse was loving it.  she chatted about the mothers and their faith and what not for about ten minutes and asked about this new book was (el libro de mormon) and it was awesome.  the only bummer is ivelisse is evangelica... (errrrrrr) but we are excited to see where things go!!

hermana caguimbal and I have the same time in the mission... so we celebrated our 5 month cumplemes together on new years day!!  (can´t believe it... really can´t.)  anyways, we came home from working and the other hermana´s surprized us with cake!  fiesta!

We´re working hard with Eduardo.  His fecha is 25 de enero.  Have I mentioned that he is my absolute favorite??  he is about 45 and his wife is catholic.  But boy is eduardo the best.  he is the most monotone-tranquilo person i have ever met.  the ultimate example of chill.  he is also so awkwardly hilarious.  He petted my hair on sunday and when presidente laughed and said i´m a missionary eduardo said ¨ sorry i have just doubted this whole time that it was real¨ haha

we helped out familia soler with their panaderia on saturday night.  it was super cool. 

i recieved hérmana hillary owen´s letter (FROM JULY 22!!!!)  today from the elders!!  talk about casi 6 months late!!  but it was amazing and she is incredible and wrote the cutest letter that made me laugh and cry and she said exactly what i needed to hear.  hill, love ya.

hna. santana´s papi sent her fancy sausage from spain.. SCORE.  the other hermana´s don´t like it cause it´s raw meet or whatever... so us two eat fancy dinners of bread and sausage and talk about traveling all over europe. 

On sunday we visited hno. Marco in his house and right when we got there he went and grabbed a small bottle of mouth wash, handed it to me, and walked away....   then he told us the secret to love.. is to find someone who eats, showers, and wears nice church clothes.  (this is true)

Sunday night we went to flia Mesa to tell them we were gonna pass by for a noche de hogar today.  We ended up staying late telling stories and laughing so hard with them which was aMAZING because we haven´t seen them smile or laugh since i´ve been here.  We felt god´s love for them so strong and we know we need to really help them find happiness again!

well... anyways, there´s so much more to say with so little time!  maybe next week! 

les amo!!!

hermana huish

HOLA from SAN JUAN!!!

HOLA from SAN JUAN!!! 

I´m still in the campo which is such a blessing!   but first things first....

monday hna. rush and I finished and laminated our new fancy shmancy book for president.  It´s like our baby... it´s gorgeous. 

I said goodbye to the flia Feliz and Evani and Greydi and Oly.  It was sad.  Then we finished packing and whatnot and tuesday morning we showered and hurried and said bye to Gabriel.  We made him cookies (which he ALWAYS asks us for) and gave him a tie and I said goodbye.  I obviously cired so hard because I love him like my little brother.  And we was tearing up so he waved us off so we wouldn´t see him cry.. haha he likes to think he´s tough.

Anyways.... got on a gua gua and waited with all the missionaries... said bye to hna. rush and cried again.

then got on a giant airplane bus with my new comp hna. Caguimbal from the Phillipines!  

She´s the cutest little thing and she speaks english almost perfectly, so she´s pretty much a North American.  And she was in the CCM with me so we are both BABIES!!  crazy!  So we´re having to learn spanish together.  The other hermana´s in the house are hna. Ortiz from Mexico and Hna. Santana from Spain!  So we always speak spanish in the house with them which is helping a lot too. 

I have felt my spanish grow like crazy in just the past week though. Since Hna. Caguimbal is fairly new she doesn´t know the area too well and we only have 5 investogators who aren´t super solid so I kinda feel like i´m white washing again.  Asking for referencias like crazy, really trying to work with the rama and presidente.  It´s been a hard but great week! 

I realize more and more each day how incredible of a trainer hna. Rush was.  Like really, I feel like I know so much more and understand so much more and really can comunicate decently and I get how the mission life goes and all that and it´s just a huge blessing.  I miss her a lot but I love my new companion too!

BIG NEWS....  San Juan has Luz and water ALL THE TIME.  yes, i now don´t take a shower using outside bucket water and a blender.... I take a legit shower and can turn on my fan at my pleasure.  I´m living like a queen.  for reals.  The shower water is ice cold but i don´t even care because water is coming out of the wall and not a bucket! 

Also, San Juan is like a smaller city.  We actually have a mini super market and a clinic and a few restaurants!!  Also, the people here have a little more money for the most part.  San Juan doesn´t have gua gua´s really because most people have motors and a few have actual cars.  so fancy. 

We are also closer to other missionaries.  There are only us four hermana´s in the entire zone because they don´t really like hna´s far out near the border.  So this morning we walked to a playa and played soccer with the eldersw who only like like 20 minutes walk away.  It was super fun! 

Anyways, there is a recent convert in our area and the night we got there his mom died.  So we rushed over there and tried our best to comfort him but.  It was so sad.  He´s about 50 years old and lived with his mom so now he´s alone.  But he´s a real solid convert and he´s going to be ok... he´s just super shocked because she was getting better.  His name in Hermano Marco.. so maybe pray for him.

We also have a menos activo family here whose dad is in the hospital basically on his death bed.  He can´t move or talk or eat and we have visited a couple times and sang and rubbed his hands and feet. 

alos... on thursday we were walking through this small streem of houses trying to contact and this guy came out of his house and called after us.  He asked us for a book so we handed him a folleto and he seemed really interested and asked when we could come back so we were trying to set up a return appointment and he leaned in and tried to kiss me!  Thankfully I quickly held my hand over my mouth, so he kissed my hand!  BUT GEEZ! haha apparently he wasn´t really interested in the folleto so we ran outta there!

Also, we had a lesson with this lady we contacted and in the middle of our lesson she started shaking and mumbling all these words in creole and was going crazy and hna. Caguimbal and I just looked at eachother wide eyed like WHAT IN THE WORLD.  she did that 5 times during our 15 minute cita... and at the end she told us that she had put our spirits inside of her and felt our message... errrrr.  so needless to say we aren´t going back.  Í´m seriously praying for good references from the rama because contacts are sometimes super iffy....

Yesterday was hna. Caguibal´s birthday!  So we all pretended like we forgot and didn´t do anything and when hna. Caguimbal got home at 8 we walked into the house and the other hna´s made a cake and got balloons and put the little gifts we got her (colmado snacks..) on her bed.  She was so happy it was the cutest thing.  We also smashed her face in the cake because it´s dominican tradition to ¨bake a cake on your head¨ if its your birthday (meaning throw eggs and flour on your head) but we were a bit nicer. 

 

Well.... that´s about it!  Thanks for the thanksgiving poster and love!  Love and miss you guys! 

hermana huish (wis)