aaaaand we're back!

hello hello and welcome back to the adventures of Hermana Black!

haha. Its good to be back! I am really loving the mission more and
more. And of course, the baptisms of Keila and Marco help with that!!!
Oh man it was so great. But i forgot my camera cord so i don’t have
pictures! But hna Morris is sending pics home and I’m sure you can find
those somewhere. But anyways thanks for all the updates mom and dad! i
love knowing what’s going on :) Also i got the valentines package a
week before which was awesome, and Marivels on valentines day, so i
had a great time with all that! Except the elders came for inspections
and i hadn’t taken down the heart decorations and they were freaking
out for a bit... haha.

Ok so im going to try to cover everything important that has happened.
Spitting experience: Hna Morris was sitting next to the window on the
bus. She turns to me at one point and says "I’m wet". i look out and
there’s no rain or clouds or anything. Then i look in front more and see
a woman just spitting and hacking loogies and it’s just coming and
coming. I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. That’s just how things
are here. You just gotta choose to laugh or cry. :) And Hna Morris was
a good sport about it all.

Ok so for the interest of the YW of the ward- i gave their book of
mormon to this 9 year old girl named Laura. She is scheduled to get
baptized on March 2! All of her family are members, but they are
really inactive. So we’ve been getting the ward involved to help this
family come back, and help Laura get baptized! Thanks so much for this
special book of mormon for this special girl! Just pray that
everything will work out for this family. Oh but the first time i went
to her house i got head butted by a goat and bitten by a duck. haha.
goood times.

Ok so carnival was only saturday night until wedensday morning. But we
definitely were dodging water balloons before that. Also we were
waiting for a bus on saturday morning when another bus drove by and
some guy got me right in the face with his squirt gun full of paint!!
yeah dont worry i got a picture :) it wasn’t that bad- just a few
sprinkles. But hey, i got to be part of Carnival! Awesome. it really
was super crazy. All the buses are still trying to get clean from all
the mud and paint. It’s insane!

So Marco is amazing. We talked to him on tuesday (two weeks ago) and
he told us that he had not one, but two answers that the church is
true! He just couldn’t stop smiling and is just so happy! He has really
changed his life around, and this amazing ward is so helpful and are
just taking him in! Also Keila had to change some things in her life.
Its crazy, but they are both super firm and we had a beautiful baptism
for them both! There were so many people there they were standing out
in the halls! When they both got the Holy Ghost on sunday, in both of
their blessings it said they would be the examples that converted more
members of their families! Well obviously that’s exciting. So yeah it
was just all great.

So unfortunately mango season ended during January. But guess what
guess what? Its avocado season!!! OH MY GOSH! We do not know what
avocados are in the states. Here, they are huge, and extremely
delicious! Seriously! And i thought everyone had mango trees. But
apparently they all have avocado trees too! I seriously am in heaven!
I dunno how i´ll ever be able to eat another avocado in the states.
Guacamole was my favorite food before my mission. But i didn’t even
know what guacamole was before i got here!!!! yeah i love it if you
can’t tell. You should probably be jealous. I also love empenadas,
salteñas, and cuiñape. I hope i can find recipes for these things
when i go home. ha.

Ok so Malorie- LEARN SPANISH! Those RMs you wrote me about are crazy.
Also, you are going to the peru ccm. um the teachers there don’t speak
english. So you don’t learn to speak spanish. You just start listening
to spanish. So i would definitely try to learn it. I learn more
spanish when we have conferences here, because someone can explain a
rule to me. You don’t learn these things in the ccm! Those RMs you
talked to who said they catch you up in the ccm are very very wrong
right now. Everything changed at the ccms 8 months before i got in
there, so no RMs know anything right now :) but anyways i wrote some
more things to you in a letter. i am finally going to be able to send
letters this week so hopefully you’ll get them in 2 weeks!

Oh also about marco- three days before marcos baptism, his dad came
out to listen to us (and by listen i mean ask lots of questions that
he doesn’t really want the answers to). Well we started answering, but
then MArco just jumped in and answered in these perfect simple
answers. When our district leader finished interviewing him, he said,
wow Marco. You´re definitely a future church leader. I seriously
couldn’t be happier for these opportunities to be an instrument in God’s
hands right now. We are seeing miracle after miracle, because we are
following the spirit so much. And STRESS and SPIRIT can’t exist
together. (Remember that when your trying to learn spanish. or
anything). Its great.

Oh but i haven’t ever really written about the people i live with. It’s
this family of members. It’s a big circle our house, with a bunch of
rooms around the edges that just open in the middle. This is how the
majority of houses are. The living room is just open space and all the
other rooms are just around in a circle. I love where we live. Its
yellow, and people play music, and i just feel Latin. It’s fun :) our
piensanista is from Columbia, and she has a one year old son. (They
live in our house, with two other families that are of her husbands
sister and brother). She has a little boy that is one year old and is
named lucas. He can say 4 words: Mama, Goal, coca cola, and Hermanas.
haha he is the cutest thing ever ever!!!!

Ok well that’s got to be all right now. We are still trying to get
Maria Torrez married... she can get baptized if she just gets married!
Oh also i bought a new backpack (and dress) because my zipper broke.
haha.

i love you all so much! Thanks for all the letters and things! im
trying to write back. i am just exhausted every pday now haha. its so
great.

love, Hermana Black

More pictures

In the rain in Bolivia--January 2013

On the bus going to an activity with the Zone

At the end of the day, after your hair has been up
in a bun, on top of your head, in over 80% humidity...

A typical avocado, enough to feed a family of 10!

January's Mail Bonanza! = One Happy Missionary!

Typical Public Phones...Wanna Cracker?

Carnival

hello hello!

So good good week! Definitely one of my favorites in the mission.
Monday started out with our activity- i think i told you about it. I
wrote about my companion getting spit in the face on the bus right?
That was hilarious. Oh and sad too of course. But anyways it was fun-
i got to talk to a bunch of new elders and tell them about how things
get better. It’s nice to be the one saying that now instead of being
the one that gets told that. I like this end better. They’re great
though. We haven’t gotten any new hermanas since me and hermana
Huenchur! So that’s kind of weird.

Anyways tuesday was a conferencia. It was really cool- we had a chance
to teach this investigator- about 100 missionaries with this one
investigator. His son and wife are members- i think he just needed a
little push, and 100 people in white shirts (and like 8 with colors ;)
) did the trick. He´ll be getting baptized this month :)

Wednesday- funny you should mention the story in the bible about the
blind man mom- this week we talked to a couple that was blind. They
politely told us we were gringas. haha. it’s actually been amazing. we
are not brilliant spanish speakers (we have some people that like to
remind us of this often). But God is showing his power through us
every day and it is awesome! The language of the spirit is so much more
strong than anything else. Today we had an appointment with marco, but
he wasn’t home! This is always really weird. But we have found that
when Marco isn’t home, it means there is something else very specific
that God needs us to do. The first time we found Kaila. This time, we
talked to this new family that we are hopeful for. You just can’t give
up hope in the mission- there are always people that God wants you to
talk to.

ok anyways thursday. So thursday we talked to Marco and he is loving
the book of mormon. We gave him the plan of salvation pamphlet, and he
read it and taught it to us this day haha. oh also he was really sad
that he had to miss the lesson on wednesday- we don’t have a phone for
him to call and tell us these kinds of things. But anyways he is doing
great!

Friday- we met with Kaila and she too is doing awesome! We´ve only
talked to her a week, but i wouldn’t be surprised if she finished the
book of mormon before her baptism, also for feb. 16. She is very
smart, and is just soaking up everything. my favorite thing was when
we gave her a pamphlet for her to read for next time, she couldn’t help
but say "oh thank you thank you I love these!!!!!" it makes my day to
have these people that are discovering the wonderful gospel and can
see the truth! ah its just great!!! She’s 21 and marco is 22 I dunno if
i wrote that...

Saturday- well Nanci doesn’t want to listen to us anymore. But we found
another little family and the mom is super interested, because of the
light in our eyes. I was so grateful she said this- it makes me feel
like if anything, at least we are doing our part to be good servants
of the Lord. We really are working so very hard and it feels good!!!

ok so sunday- we finally got to talk to Maria Torrez again, and her
wedding is set for feb 15, baptism for 16 if all goes well. She has a
very strong testimony of the truth of the church, she just has tons
and tons of trials right now. She is 42 years old. She loves the
hymns, and i happened to buy and extra hymn book when i was at the
distribution center. She just cried and cried when i gave it to her.
Anyways pray for her that everything will work out for her wedding!!

Well obviously I’m super excited and thrilled and happy about these
upcoming baptisms. Unfortunately I wont be able to write next Monday-
we can’t leave our houses saturday night, or all day sunday, mon, tues
because its carnival!!! Everyone will be throwing water balloons full
of paint at each other, and rubbing shoe polish on each other’s faces,
and making mud puddles to push people in. so ill write on the 18th
about these baptisms!!!!

Thought: i read in the liahona (speaking of which I’ve seen Justin in
the Ensign :) ) an article by HB Eying "the Lord requires faith and
humility before he gives his help." love this! Also i got the package
of meds thank you so so so much! You should send a picture of extended
family if you can some time :)

muchooooooo ammooooooooooor!

hermana black