Sunday, January 4, 2015

Photos from the week of December 23- 29, 2014









Letter dated December 29, 2014

Hey guys!!! 

It was so awesome to see all of your beautiful faces on Christmas day!  I know I just talked to you guys a few days ago but I still have so much that happened this week that I want to tell you.

Sooo…. Christmas Eve in El Salvador is crazy!  All you hear is fireworks through out the night and, of course, the occasional gun shot.  It’s kind of funny how I can already tell the difference between the two. 

Will you please tell Aunty Mary Joe how grateful I am for her letter.  I received it at our multi-zone party.  She is so sweet.  I miss her and her sweet family.  She’s the best!

After Christmas we had a zone meeting and did a white elephant game.  I ended up with candy, a t-shirt from Nicaragua, and cute little Christmas stuff.  It was really fun.  Then on our way home I had my first Jehovah Witness attack.  So rude.  He stopped us and started grilling us with scriptures and insults.  But whatever, we didn’t let him get us down.  Sis. Patt was pretty upset because he said some really mean things to her.  He thought I was latina so he pretty much stayed away from me.  I felt bad though, so I just tried to keep her smiling because everyone in the town was watching the whole thing.  Okay, not everyone in town, but a lot of people.  It’s okay though because everyone has their beliefs.  Those were his, and I have mine, and that’s all that matters.   It is just sad that what he really wanted was just to try and beat us down in front of everyone.

I have been so tired this week.  I have no clue why.  It is blazing hot during the day and we walk all day.  I got so tired that Hermana Patt was praying and, by the end of her prayer, I was knocked out on the floor!  She let me sleep for like 5 minutes and then we went back to work.  But all is well.  God carries me when I no longer can walk.  He helps me so much its crazy. 

I seriously have the best companion ever!  She is so sweet and kind. She has this goal to do more service and so she serves me so much. It’s so humbling for me to see her.  She pushes me to be better.  I love that about her.  She washed my hair again this week.  I seriously love her!

This week has been awesome.  I have learned that God really does know me personally.  He watches me and helps me and protects me. He knows my needs and wants.   One day we were walking, dripping sweat, tired as heck, and so ready for bed, but it was only 2 in the afternoon!  We had to walk all the way to the bottom of the hill and all the way back up... huh it was rough.  But we had to give the keys to the chapel to the bishop’s sister so we stopped at her house and, oh my, it was such an answer to my prayers!   She had a clean bathroom for us to use.  She gave us a cold beverage, and cooked us lunch…a nice burger and fries.  It was perfect!  Her house was cool and just so nice. Then we went on our way and got to work.  I just know that God knew that me and Hermana Patt desperately needed a pick-me-up.

Another thing I have learned this week is that the Holy Spirit is with missionaries.   We were sitting outside a pupusaria one night waiting for dinner and this Vijante (a guard) walked by.  I swear his face was glowing... SO I just started talking to him.  We talked to him for a good 10 min.  He was so receptive to the gospel.  We taught him a lesson right there on the spot.  It was so awesome.  I know the Holy Ghost gave me the courage to start that conversation and gave me the right words to say to him.   Heavenly Father loves all of His children and wants all of them to hear of His Plan of Happiness!

Oh and I learned how to make pupusas this week!!  I actually am not that bad. It will be exciting to cook pupusas back home.  It’s pretty easy.  The ward was having an activity with the young women.  They were going to teach the girls how to make pupusas, so we went.  When we got there the young women president told me and Hermana Patterson that we had to make all of the pupusas for all of the young women!!!  WHATT!!!   The order was like 15 pupusas w/cheese, 15 with cheese and beans and 19 of something else I don’t know the name to!  hahah  It was a shock but was super fun.  Lol

Okay so we have the best ward ever!!  Not as good as my home ward KEOLU HILLS, of course, but close!  So do you remember how we have been trying very hard to gain the love of the ward?  Well I guess we did it because now they want to feed us every lunch and dinner.  They handed around a calendar this Sunday and it was full within minutes.  It’s crazy good!  They want to start the February calendar.  I am so grateful and a little scared.... That’s gonna be a lot of food.  I am going to have to exercise twice as much.  But oh well. Lol The Lord is sending us so many blessings. 

Okay now for my favorite miracle so far!   We were walking one night and we had 30 minutes until we had to be home.  It wasn’t enough time to go far so we thought we would contact.  We weren’t having any success and so we got a little discouraged.   But we were like okay Heavenly Father we have faith that the next person we see will be ready for the gospel.  The next person to be in our path we will talk to and he or she will be ready in January to be baptized.  So we turn down this street and it’s seriously like a ghost town!  We keep walking down the street and then as we get to the end I see this little boy and I say okay it’s him.  Hermana Patt didn’t think he was 8 years old so we look aroung for someone else and see this girl on the other side of the street but she jumped in the car to leave!   We were like okay great there is no one here to talk to.  Then that little boy’s dog tried to eat Hermana Patterson!  Ha ha ha.  The little boy ran up to grab his dog so we start talking to him.  Then we see his dad, sitting on a wall in the dark (sketch),  but we knew we had to talk to him and so we did.  THANK GOODNESS WE DID!  They are awesome people.  Such an awesome family and they are so ready for the gospel!  So we planned to go teach and meet his wife and his other two kids at a later day.  When we went back to their home to teach them… oh no... they weren’t there.  I was so sad.  I know this family is ready and they weren’t home.  SO we left a note and a picture of Jesus Christ and left.  I prayed so hard for this family.  I know they need this gospel in their lives.   I know it!  Then another miracle happened on Sunday.  We were at church, just a normal day when I see this man in a coral shirt talking to some members.  I didn’t think anything of it. Then as Hermana Patterson and I are sitting in our Sunday School class in walks that man.  At first we didn’t recognize him.   He acted like he knows us... awks. I was thinking like dude who is this guy... and it finally clicks.  IT’S CARLOS C.!!!!  The father of the boy on the ghost town street!  He came to church!!! WHATT!!!  I started crying.  Hermana Patt started crying.  Oh my gosh, he must of thought we were fools.  We had prayed and asked the Lord to put someone who is ready to hear the gospel in front of us, and He did. Carlos is so ready.  I feel it in my heart.  Holly Molly.  It’s so awesome.  He said he came to church by himself to check it out and if he liked it he would bring his family the next week.  And he said HE LOVES IT!  I am so excited. We are teaching his family on Tuesday night.  I am so excited.  I already love him and his family so much!!

It is so awesome being a missionary and having the Holy Ghost as your best friend and knowing that you have angels all around you helping and protecting you!!

This week was perfect.  Yes, it had its trials, but WHO CARES!!!  The blessings are so worth it. 

I love you all and miss you, but I know that I am where I need to be. 
I LOVE YOU!!!!  Btw. Mom you look good…like you lost weight!

P.S. Please tell Tati that I miss her and that I think of her all the time! 


LOVE YOU ALL!!!

--- Hermana Kava---


Photos from our Christmas day Skype session



Merry Christmas!


Photos from the week of December 16 -22, 2014






Letter from Ayutuxtepeque, El Salvador dated December 22, 1014

AHHHH!   GRAMS AND PAPA CHUCK ARE THERE!!!! HOLA HOLA HOLA GRANDPARENTS!!
I am so Jealous! Why didn’t they come to El Salvador for Christmas?
Oh wells, tell them that I love them sooooo much!!  Hopefully they have a Christmas card from me waiting at their house when they get home.


To answer some of your many many questions..... I think you need to be logged in to Skype for it to ring.  But just keep it open about 15 minutes before 10:00 your time just in case I’m wrong.  Let’s be real... You are probs gonna be sitting there waiting... Right? Ha ha ha
I am so excited to skype y’all... I get to see all of your beautiful faces!!!


Okay for my birthday box... Idk what you should send.  I have a Walmart here so I can pretty much get everything that I need and I don’t really need anything.  I just haven’t been able to find hair-cutting scissors.  I need to trim my hair.  So scissors would be nice.  I do want MORE MORE MORE MORE PHOTOS!!!  And you guys can write me hand written letters…from everyone.  I just want things from you guys... like little notes or drawings.  If you could send my polaroid photo albums, and take some Polaroid photos of you guys... don’t go crazy….but take some nice ones of you guys.  Please don’t send the camera though, just the photos. 


Okay now for this week... so our showers are freezing cold.  Like ice cold!  But it’s okay because we couldn’t even shower for like 4 days because we had NO RUNNING WATER.  Our pipe busted and we couldn’t find someone to fix it for 4 days.  But it was okay, we had a bucket of water so we washed our hair once.  Lol Hermana Patterson washed my hair for me.  She’s the best.   Now all is good.  We have WATER!!  It’s been such a blessing to have running water again.  We can cook and clean now. 


I have been showing people the little photo book we made on artifact.org and, oh my gosh, people love it.  They all love you guys!!!  They think I have such a beautiful family.  Which I do!  But I love showing it to them and they just love seeing you guys, which makes me feel good, but then they ask if that’s really me in the photos.  I look so pretty in the photos and a bum in real life!   The STRUGGLE IS REAL!  Well, when you can’t shower for 4 days….it’s a little rough to want to get ready in the mornings and to look cute!  Lol


THE BUSES HERE are crazy.  Seriously crazy!  It’s so bad ha ha ha but I love it.  I had to go to town 2 times this week for immigration and then for a devotional last night. YIKES!!!  I am going to try and describe this to y’all... Put it this way, the buses in Hawaii are like a limo compared to the buses here.  Ha ha ha  It’s so crazy, yet fun.  The bus pulls up and you already see it is full and then you pack 10 more people on and you literally have no personal space.  You are stuck in between like 30 peeps.  When people have to get off they just push you against the chair or the window or another person you don’t know.  ha Then when its your turn to get off.. OH BOY!!! I feel like I’m in a football game.  You have to like ram through!  Poor Hermana Patterson is so small.  I go first and make a path and then she follows.  It’s funny.  I like it, it’s like playing sports everyday!  Ha ha ha But... I don’t like it when you have creepy old men by you. Then I just want to scream and do some Manti Te’o moves but oh well.  All is well.


This week I am so grateful for my district leaders. They are awesome.  I know the spirit is strong with them.  First of all, they come to some of our lessons and every time they do the spirit is so strong. They are so guided by the spirit!  I love it.  They also save our lives. The first time we had to go to town we got on the bus and then realized we were totally lost.  Then out of the blue, our phone rang.  It was Elder Morales, our district leader, he asked where we were and told us to get off of the bus right away and that they were going to come with us to town to help us.  He told us that he had a strong feeling to call us right away so he did and the first thing he did was ask where we were. I’m so grateful that we were safe and that our district leaders listened to the prompting to check on us. 


The other night we were in our house and we heard gunshots!  We heard like 15 gunshots!   We were a little scared because they were getting closer and closer to our house.  We think it was right behind our house.  The streets were silent except for the gunshots.  The elders called us during this time to get our numbers and we were like freaking out (more so Hermana Patterson hahahah) like on the floor… all lights off… kind of freaking out.  They elders said: “Hermanas, don’t be scared.  Just get into bed and I promise you wont hear any more gunshots.”  So we did... and he was right.  No more gun shots.  It was so awesome.  I am glad they help us so much.  Both of our district leaders only speak Spanish so that has helped me learn Spanish faster and helped Hermana Patterson polish her Spanish.


Earlier this week we were going to visit David, who is a less-active member. David lives up a kind of scary street but we really wanted to visit him so we went.  His street has A LOT OF DOGS!!  We start walking and we see this cute little boy and we say hi to him and keep walking.  Then when we get by the dogs they start going nuts!  They really don’t like us!   I don’t think I have ever prayed so hard!!!  Seriously, we were so scared.  These dogs are crazy.  We passed the first group of dogs safely.  Then there is the second group... and they are even scarier!  We really wanted to see David but the dogs just wouldn’t let us.  We prayed super hard but they weren’t backing down.  We tried picking up rocks and holding them over our heads like we were going to throw them at them like everyone says to do but nothing!  So we were like fine, we won’t go see David.   We slowly back a way from the crazy dogs and head back down.  Once we were in the clear we were so relieved but then we get to the gate and its locked!  You have got to be kidding me.  There was no one around and the houses had dogs in front of them!  So we are like great, now what?  Then we see the little boy laughing at us.  We ask him to open the gate but he keeps saying “arriba arriba” and wants us to climb over this 10-11’ gate in skirts!  Yeah, NOT going to happen!  OMG!!  I WAS SO ANGRY.  Hermana Patterson was a lot calmer than me.  She was like “its ok its ok”.  SO… we started walking towards the dogs again and they start to get nuts again!  We had nowhere to go!  A gate behind us, and crazy dogs in front of us!  Literally all we could do was to pray and beg our Heavenly Father to help us.  When we finished praying we opened our eyes and looked around and we saw this little path leading into the jungle that we had not seen before.  All of the other paths into the jungle are covered in barbed wire but this one wasn’t.  We aren’t supposed to go into the jungle but we see no other option.  So we take it and it leads us back onto the street!   It was a miracle and a blessing from our Heavenly Father!  Now we just need to figure out how to see David!


Okay now don’t be scared Mom because REALLY I am totally safe!  But the gangs here crack me up.  We were out contacting at like 7:30 one night and we heard gunshots.  I didn’t think too much of it because that’s normal here and we are getting used to it.  I can now tell the difference between gunshots and fire works. Lol  Then as we are talking to this old lady a line of cars comes driving by and thank goodness Hermana Patt was facing the lady and only I saw but the cars were full of gangsters.  They must have been looking for someone!  It was trippy.  They all had their heads sticking out of the cars staring at us.  I didn’t know what to do so I just smiled at them. Ha ha ha  But yeah, I’d say they are my friends.  (sarcasm)


I have a really good ward here.  Everyone is so nice.  Apparently the sisters before us weren’t very nice... So we have been trying really hard to get the ward members to like us… and I think they do. We have so many dinners scheduled, it’s crazy.  It’s such a blessing!  For the 24th, which is when they celebrate Christmas, we have 4 dinners scheduled!  I might just die... so pray that I will be able to eat A LOT. But yeah, my ward is awesome and everyone is so nice and loving.   Funny story…the ward had a practice for Christmas caroling and they invited us.  We went thinking okay yeah we can sing.... then once we got there they told us.... No, your in charge!  We had to come up with songs and arrangements on the spot!  But it was fun. The youth love us.  They just laugh at me all the time.  Probs because of my Spanish.  But I don’t mind, I just laugh with them.  lol 


Another funny thing that happened…I forget what was happening but one night Hermana Patt started singing... CHLOE'S MOM HAS GOT IT GOING ON... and it was so funny.  Cuz she’s my mission mom....right… anyways… I guess you had to be there!  It really was funny!! 


Okay I’ll see y’all on the 25th!!  AHHH I LOVE YOU ALL!!!   I CAN’T WAIT!!  Hug everyone you see for me. Thanks.


Okay mom can you get these peeps addresses for me?
Tatiana I. Lexee. Mariel. Morgan L.  Thanks!  I have letters for them. 


Love you!!! FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

--
--Hermana Kava--


First photos from El Salvador - week of December 9th-15th, 2014




First letter from El Salvador dated December 15, 2014

Okay so I am so sorry if I don’t have time to answer all of your questions today.  I don’t know how the time always seems to escape me.  I will be the fastest speed reader after my mission!  lol. 

I am here in El Salvador!!!  My area is called Ayutuxtepeque.  It’s awesome.  A little bit of a culture shock… but it’s fine.  I have to admit that leaving the CCM was rough.  It was like leaving my family again.  But it is okay.  I seriously have mad love for my ccm district.  The first two days here in El Salvador I was a little “ccm-sick” but working helps me to not think about them too much.  I love my teachers from the ccm!  They are awesome. I learned so much from them, its crazy!  I will always be grateful for them.

I got the package mommy.  Thank you so much!!  Yeah, they just take the money out of my account but it’s only like 3 bucks for the big box.  So your’e fine.  Lol.  My p-day is now every Monday so just giving you a heads up.  Its probably going to be like 9 or 10 am here. So that’s early in Hawaii. 

Okay so for Christmas we found a place where we can skype.  Our bishop has 3 computers so my companion Hermana P can skype her family, I can skype y’all and the bishop can skype his son who is on his mission too.  So that’s awesome!   Can you please send me my password and account name for skype and check to make sure that everything works on that end and tell me what time of the day on Christmas would be good for y’all so I can coordinate with Bishop and Hermana P’s family.  I am so excited to see your pretty faces. 

Anyway... on to my crazy week!!  It has been one huge adventure!
First of all I am serving in Tara H.’s old area.  Her handwriting and name is everywhere.  We even found her name carved in a tree.  It’s awesome because people here know her and they ask me if I know her and I get so excited!!  I’m like SI!!!  It is so awesome.  I even sleep where she slept.  Ha ha ha  Awks.  Anyways, Hermana P. and I are whitewashing so that’s been kinda hard but we have noticed God’s hand in this work so much!  Seriously though, Hermana P. has the worst sense of direction and it cracks me up.  She’s like you mom!  :)  We will be walking and all of a sudden she will remember that she knows a family that lives on a random street that we have passed 100 times.  We knock and there we find a family that is ready for the gospel.  It’s crazy.  The spirit is so awesome and I love having it as my constant companion.  Hermana P is so awesome.  We crack up all the time.  She is so funny and such a good “mom”.  We got to our apartment and the previous hermanas had left it a huge mess. Seriously, it was gross.  There were piles of rubbish in the back yard.  Not garbage bag piles but just piles of nasty old rubbish.  Hermana P walked in and just got straight to cleaning it.  She washed my laundry and showed me how to do everything.  She is just the best.  She went to BYUI before her mission too.  We were there at the same time!  It’s crazy.  She finishes her mission in March so I’m hoping that we will be together until then. 

Okay now on to El Salvador.  I love it here!  At first it was a huge culture shock but now I love it.  The people!!  OH MY!!!  They are the best.  I am in a small town (google map it) It’s small!  It’s up hills all day for us so I am going to have the best butt and legs after being here.  Excited for that!   Ha ha ha  Since it’s so small everyone knows everyone, so by the second day of Hermana P and I being here everyone knew there were 2 new nortes here and they all smile and wave at us.  They have so little and yet they offer all they have to us. It’s the best!  I love them all.  I just love teaching them.  Okay, I have to admit, I have been a slob!  We only have freezing cold water in the mornings and then the pipe broke and flooded our apartment so they had to completely turn off the water!  So a shower has become... not even an option!  Now I know why everyone said to pack baby wipes! Lol  Makeup... yeah forget about that!  But even though I am all  gross the people here make me feel so beautiful.  They always tell me I look beautiful even when I look ratchet.  I even got proposed to by a drunk 80 year old inactive member. That was.... nice.  Ha ha ha  But seriously,  the people here don’t care what you look like!  They are just the best.  My Spanish is okay.  I understand a lot but I can’t speak all too great yet.  I just smile and nod, smile and nod.  And hey!  It works!  The people love us but it has been kind of rough because the Hermanas that served here before us were not very well liked by the people here.   We have heard some not so good things about them but we just try to be happy and smile and serve the people here and so far people have been really nice to us.  Actually, everyone has been SUPER nice.  No one has been rude at all.  I am so blessed. Gosh!  Seriously though, I have been thinking about how blessed I am and how much my Heavenly Father knows me and is aware of my needs because He has just been pouring down His blessings and I am so grateful for that. 


It is crazy hot during the days but freezing cold at night so that’s been weird, but good. 

Okay so the people here think I’m a latina!  It’s so funny!!  People have already asked me if I am from... Uruguay, Honduras, Nicaragua, Columbia, and even Taiwan!  It has been so funny but once I tell them I am from Hawaii they ALL call me Lilo.  On Sunday everyone called me HERMANA LILO!  I think it’s so funny!! 

So Heavenly Father has been performing so many miracles this week.  It’s amazing.  Every time we are on a street trying to figure out where we should go a person will walk by and we will talk to them and they are always so positive and accepting.  We already have meals this week and so many lessons!   We have been having crazy good numbers and apparently this is a really slow area. We should actually have 2 baptisms this month!   That is SOOOO exciting.  I love all of my investigators and I’ll write all about them next week.

I love you all!  I hope all is well!  I’m trying to email photos to you but my camera takes too high quality of pictures so I have to send the photos one by one and it’s taking forever!!!

The photo of the water is crazy!  It’s of when the pipe busted and our house was totally flooded!  It was all kinds of crazy!  The photo of me in green is from today so y’all can see me today!! 

Btw.. I’m super happy!   I love this gospel and I love my Heavenly Father!  I love the people of El Salvador!  I love my companion!  I love being here!   I love my family!!   

I’m sorry but I didn’t have time to read all of your emails so I will finish reading them next week.  I will try to answer all of your questions next week.  I’m sorry but my time is over.  I LOVE YOU and I can’t wait to skype with you on Christmas!
--
--Hermana Kava--


Fifth etter from Guatemala CCM dated December 2, 2014

WOW!!! HOLA FAMILIA!!

Mom... seriously.  No worries beef curry!!  I guess my sarcasm didn’t come across in my last email.  I did live with the Kava family once... I know the struggle of a busy life. :) So seriously, no worries.  You could not email me for 18 months and I would still know I am loved and cared about.

This week was really exciting.  The new group of Latinos that arrived last week are the BEST!!  I absolutely love them all.  The Hermanas are so sweet and so loving to us Norte.  They speak a little more English than the last group so that helps but esta bien!  My Spanish has increased dramatically this past week.  Maybe because it’s our last week in the CCM until we are out there in the field!!!!!

When we said goodbye to the other group of Nortes it was so sad.  It was like saying goodbye to family all over again.   My eyes were like waterfalls.  Seriously though.  It’s like a bitter sweet goodbye because we know we are out here to serve our missions and serve the Lord but then none of us want to say goodbye to each other.  We all love each other so much!!  I got 2 new roommates for BYUI lined up already!!  It’s crazy.  I am so excited for them!  Look up Hermana Kenadee Ferre, she has become like my best friend and I love her to death.  She is serving in the El Salvador, Santa Ana mission…so close…. but not really.  Lol

Thanksgiving here was awesome.  We didn't get to do the turkey bowl because we had a live broadcast devotional from Provo.  It was Elder Dallin H. Oaks, one of the Twelve Apostles!  That was so awesome.  I love him!!  BYU Provo was lucky this past week because they had two live devotionals from the General Authorities of the church.  The other devotional was with Elder Bednar, another Apostle.  We are so lucky too because we got a live broadcast of the devotionals.  The staff at the CCM decorated everything for us and cooked a legit American-style thanksgiving dinner.  It tasted so good!!  Of course not as good as yours mom, but it was good!   Especially for a bunch of latinos who had no idea what the dishes were.  :)  It was awesome.  I was fine all day until we had another devotional with Presidente Cox (the CCM president) and all day everything was in Spanish... but he took a minute to talk solo to us Nortes.  He just paused, and said he knew how important this day is for us and that he knows how hard it is… and idk why but the water works started to flow.  I had my watch set to Hawaii time the whole day just so I could keep up with what I thought y’all would be doing.  6 am...getting turkeys out of the IMU….the turkey bowl... all sitting around eating dinner.... and then sitting on the couch not able to move for a couple hours.  That’s what I missed... eating and not being able to just chill but having to go straight to a class then to another devotional.  It’s fun though.

This is my last email from the CCM!!! How crazy is that???  BTW... I might not be able to email next week porque I leave the CCM on Tuesday morning, at like 4 am!  I then take a bus down to El Salvador and so unless my pday is after Wednesday in El Salvador then I will skip a pday.  So if y’all don’t get an email from me next week that’s why.  Don’t worry Mom!

If you haven’t already sent the box will you print all of the photos I emailed you from the CCM and send them too?  Thanks!!  I don’t know about printing photos here... lol.  Will you also email me my pin codes for my cards??  Don’t forget to put Virgin Mary stickers on the box. 
  
Okay soooo, I was called on the give a talk in sacrament this past Sunday.  I was hoping to go the full 6 weeks without being called on to speak in Sacrament but the odds were not in my favor.  Esta Bien. It was good.  I know enough Spanish to give a talk.  I am so thankful  for the gift of tongues!!!

Our teachers get transferred every 2 weeks but so far we have been lucky enough to keep the same teachers.  Then at the beginning of last week we got a new night-time teacher.  But I love him!!  HE HELPS US SO MUCH!!  Seriously, my district has grown so much this past week.  We only speak Espanol to each other so it’s awesome.


Since we got a new teacher we also got a new investigator.  His name is David.  He is awesome.  We went to teach him one night on the Restoration, and oh my goodness, I don’t know what happened but the spirit was so strong!  Put it this way, me and my 2 companions (who don’t cry easy) were crying by the end of the lesson.  David was crying too.  He committed to baptism on the second lesson!  He hasn’t agreed to any of the elders.  It’s muy entusiasmado!

This past week has been sad because every day that goes by is a day closer to saying goodbye and I literally have so much love in me for the people here.  I can’t explain it.  I love my companions, my district, all the missionaries here, the teachers, the senior missionaries, the staff, the chefs, the president and his wife, the people who deliver the water and ice cream once a week.  Literally EVERYONE!!  I am so lucky because I am starting to feel a little bit of the love the Savior has for all of these people.  I love the people of Guatemala.  Sometimes we sit outside to study just for the chance to watch the people walk by because we just love them all.  I am so excited to meet the people of El Salvador.  HUH!!   I CANT WAIT!!

Okay time for your questions:
Yes, I loved watching Meet the Mormons again.  Everyone was crying because it was pretty much everyone’s last movie that they watched with their families.  So that was rough but good.

Aww tell the guys thanks!!  It’s good to hear that they read my emails... I think… lol  Sometimes I don’t have a very good filter, so remember that.

I just love Mele and Vela.  I miss those two crazies.  I also miss Emma’s girls.  Hug them all for me!

200 trays at the imu!!??!!   SANTA VACCA!!!  That’s crazy cool.  I love that our family does the Thanksgiving imu.  I love the social part of it but also the service part … a lot!!
Wow... the boys played video games at the yard overnight???  Cool kids huh?? Nah, but that sounds fun.  Can’t do that here or you’ll get eatin by bugs!  lol  I got some bad bites from sitting on the grass outside.

Wow.  I just love Aunty Josie.  She is the best!  And Aunty Emma too!!  I miss them!

Oh and about Aunty Nan always going about quietly helping and cleaning and organizing... I KNOW!!  She is the best example for service and selfless love.  I love her too!

Good to know you read not just my letter to you but Luke’s and Sophia’s letters too.  hahaha Then again, who am I kidding?  I knew you would read them… hahahaha  Like the neon paper?? It’s all I could find lol.

Umm I don’t really care which shoes you send first... maybe the black Crocs or the brown Keens?  But either of them is chill.  I am just so excited for new shoes!  My shoes are already dying. :(

Thanks for the box!  Everything you said is in it sounds good!  Honestly, if you can’t find something, no worries, I can live without it.  I love you!!

Please tell Grams thanks!!  I love her so much!  I am so jealous y’all get to see her and Papa soon.  I wish they could fly out here :) but its okay because in 17 months I’ll see them!!   I’ll email Grams next time I get on a computer.
  
I love you all and miss you all!!  I am excited to get out there and start collecting the valiant ones.  BTW I have been reading my Patriarchal Blessing a lot this week and it has blessed me so much!!  Will you please encourage Luke, Sweetie and Josh to all get their Patriarchal Blessing?   It is so special and I know that each of them are special to our Heavenly Father and that their blessings will be so special too. I love you all!! :)  Stay strong!

P.S. Tell Aunty Wendy I pray for to have an easy goodbye with Mele. I just keep imagining how hard that is going to be for her. But I can testify that letting Mele go will be the best thing she can do for her.  I already love my mission so much and I know that this is going to be the best part of my life.  The relationship that she will grow and build with her Heavenly Father will be so magnificent.

P.P.S.  Daddy, AAHHHHH sorry I didn’t get much time to read and reply to your email but I love you!!!  I pray for you to have mental and physical strength every day.  You are the world’s greatest man.  I am so thankful for a daddy like you and thank you for finding Mommy. You are one lucky man.  Love you Papa!!  Oh yeah, the food is SOOO GOODD!!!!  Almost too good!!

I love you all!! Talk to you all next week <3
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--Hermana Kava