Sunday, January 4, 2015
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---
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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