Sunday, January 4, 2015

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--


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