Letter dated January 12, 2015

January 12, 2015

Hola Familia!!!

Thanks for your sweet sweet email Mom.  Made me cry... I am so lucky to have had you and Daddy as my best friends for the past 20 years! 

WOW 20? What is happening to me? I feel so old. Ha ha ha kidding, but kinda not kidding.  I have been thinking back on these past 20 years…and thank you so much!  Because of you and Dad I have lived such a blessed life.  Seriously, I am so grateful.  I thank my Heavenly Father every night for all of the blessings I have.  Huh, I cry just because I am so overwhelmed with gratitude.  Thank you to everyone who reads my emails, thank you so much.  Each of you has helped to shape me into who I am today.  I love you all!!

Okay so for some of your questions... 

I love teaching!  Especially when the spirit is super strong.  It’s the best!  And no, my brain doesn’t feel like scrabbled eggs with Spanish. Ha ha  Its been kinda…. well….not easy, but not too hard to learn.  I have been picking up Spanish fairly easily.  I am so super thankful for that.  I know that it is because when you have a righteous desire, the Lord will help you accomplish it!  I think that if I were trying to learn Spanish to glorify myself or to feel puffed up I wouldn’t be learning it like I am.  I am so thankful that I can communicate with the people here.

As for studying… we don’t have too much time to study because we always have so much stuff to do!  We mostly do just our personal study and companion study but we don’t always get to do idioma (language) and 12 weeks.  As for my daily schedule: we wake up at 6:30 and work out for 30 to 45 minutes.  BTW, I got 10 Zumba dvds for 10 bucks!  Sister Hirschi helped me get them. :)  After exercising we then study till 12:00 noon and then eat lunch and are out by 1:00pm.  Lately we have been out earlier but it’s all good.  Yes Mom, I am eating.  I EAT SO MUCH MOM!!  Like no way do you have to worry about me starving!  These sweet people feed us lunch and dinner everyday!  It’s awesome but at the same time my stomach isn’t used to this kind of food yet so we run home a lot!  But it’s awesome.  Everyone knows my birthday is tomorrow and everyone wants to feed us, so this week we have twice as much food!  OH MY!  And people want to stop by and bring me stuff.  Super sweet!  I love everyone here.  I  am so blessed with an awesome ward.  Yes, it is well organized and my mission leader is awesome!  He loves to feed us too.  I’m really grateful we walk up mountains all day long... it’s so helpful.  Yes, there has been some questionable things people have fed us, but I just pray and stick it in my mouth and hope it goes down ok.  I actually like everything.  Ha ha ha I love me some El Salvs food!  I tell everyone I want to learn how to cook El Salvadorian food and so they all want to show me and write down the recipes for me.  SUPER AWESOME!  We have to be home by 8 pm unless we are in the home of a member then we can get home at 8:30p.m. so its not too bad.  I wish we had more time though.

I am so grateful for Elders.  Seriously!  At one point this week my stomach was so bad I couldn’t go far from our house so the Elders came over and gave me a blessing and since then I have been doing a lot better.  I love it that there are men who hold the priesthood around everywhere that I can always ask for a blessing.  So nice.  Also, I am thankful that my Daddy is always a worthy priesthood holder and he could always give me blessing when I needed one.  Love him>!

So side note... our futbol activity once a week is a huge hit!!  This past Thursday we got 35 youth out!!  THAT IS AMAZING FOR OUR AREA!!  They love it.  We love it.  

Our investigators are all doing awesome... some stories for y'all...

After futbol on Thursday we were getting pupusas for dinner and as we were finishing up we felt like someone needed us, so we quickly paid and left.  Then when we got outside I offered a prayer that we would know who needed us.  The second I said amen and turned around Carlos C. was walking up the hill.  We ran up to him and started talking to him.  He is awesome.  So we walked him to his house and asked if we could have a quick lesson with him.  He said yes and oh my, the spirit was so strong.  My Spanish was even on point.  He opened up to us and just like I had felt before hand, he told us that his family is having a lot of contention in the house.  He cried… we cried... it was just so awesome!  We were able to testify about how we know that this gospel can help him.  And I testified about how the gospel brings my family closer and gives us more unity and love.  It was just awesome.  He is so close.  I love him and know that he will be ready for baptism so soon!  It’s his family that we need to work with now. 

You know the teens that we teach, Nelson and Tatiana, well they want to get baptized and I know that they are ready. They have such a strong testimony but their mom won’t sign to allow them to be baptized.  SO SAD.  We had a lesson with them and asked what we could do to get their mom to sign and Nelson started crying saying that he doesn’t even know if his mom loves him.  It broke my heart... seriously!  I didn’t even know what to say.  Hermana Patterson and I  were a balling mess.  Thank goodness the elders were there and helped talk, cuz I for sure couldn’t.  It was so sad.  I thought about it, how many people out there question the love of their parents?  Wow.  I know that I have never questioned the love of my parents.  I just kind  of freaked inside.  I have so much love for these kids.  How could their mother not see how awesome they are?!?!?  huhh... Anyways, please pray for them.  Pray that we can get their mom to sign so that they can get baptized. We have a Family Home Evening this wed at their house so hopefully we can get it then. 

The Urrutia family is awesome, right?  It is so nice that they are sending you photos of us.  They feed us every Sunday night so we love them.  Ha ha  I shared with them how you bared your testimony about them. They were so grateful. They are an awesome family.  They have two girls and one boy. The eldest girl is Dani.  We took her out to work with us one day.  She’s awesome and will be a great missionary.  The son is awesome too and he is trying to learn English now.  The little girl is one loca chicka!  Ha ha ha So full of energy!  She’s a sassy little thing but she loves me.  Ha ha ha She runs up to me and hugs me all the time.  It is so nice.

I had my first inter-changes or inter-cambios this week.  It was chill.  Hermana Hirschi and I traded places so I worked in Mejicanos and she worked in Ayutuxtepeque.  I had Hermana Magoffin as my companion and it was cool to work somewhere else but I missed my area and all of the people in my area so I was happy to return!!  Yay!

I love everything in my mission!!!  I am soo happppyyy!!!

LOVE YOU ALL!! Hope you all have an awesome week!!

Daddy I love you!!

Thanks all for the birthday wishes!!!

P.S. Mom can I please have the email addresses of Tati and Mar and Lexx and Mele and home addresses for them and Chantel, Sabrin, Audrey’s mission, Cass, Henna, Keeks, Emily ots, Mele’s mission, Paula & my biggest bro Maui?  Thanks!

Oh!  Next week we have a super pday at the Presidente’s house so I don’t know when ill email next week.  Just a heads up so you don’t worry Mom!  I LOVE YOU!!!

--Hermana Kava--