Thursday, March 7, 2013

Baptism and Yellow Dress


Hola!

So i realize that my subject of my email was kind of weird... i meant
to send you a picture of me with avocados. haha anyways if my camera
doesn’t die i´ll send you it today. But anyways here’s a picture of
Laura’s baptism. 




You might be thinking wow what the yellow dress? And
yes, i couldn’t resist buying it when i bought my new backpack. It was
$4! And yes i love it. The other picture is for dad- i was glad i had
my camera this day to take a picture of "Daddy Black" on the wall.




Happy birthday this week mom and dad! Unfortunately i havent been able
to get your birthday letter in the mail yet, hopefully today. So it
might be a while before you get that. oops! But i love you both so
much!

Ok so if you could send me another journal that would be awesome- i
haven’t found anything yet and i need one soon. Also i am so glad that
you sent me a wallet mom- besides the fact that it’s cute, it comes in
handy! Mal and Michaela should bring one. As far as winter clothes- it
gets way colder here than utah, but just for like 3 weeks. So iwill be
needing gloves and a bigger coat and a hat i think. And oh yeah- we
have cambios a lot now because of the change in the time at the mtc-
every two weeks i guess. So ill just let you know when i change haha.

Ok ok!! so Monday we played some good ol futbol and man did we both
hurt after ! So Hna Morris and i have decided to be more diligent
exercisers in the morning. We have felt good all week for our
exercising! It’s been great.
Tuesday- so i forgot to wear sunscreen while playing soccer on monday,
and i got super super sunburned! I also forgot to wear sunscreen on
saturday, and got really burnt again. Also, sad to say but
every avocado I’ve received i have ruined, except the one that was
given to me perfectly ready, and i ate it right then. Fortunately, my
zone leader has 3 avocado trees at his house, and he’s been giving me
lessons about how to care for your avocados (and by the way there’s
different kinds that need to be treated differently). So ive been
rather sad about loosing 5 avocados. But the season is just getting
started so i should have plenty of time to eat paltas! (avocados).




Miercoles- so Lili got a job! The blessings of going to church are
great. Her daughter Joselin though has to get a blood transfusion (if
i understood correctly) every 15 days for a year and a half. it’s a
great trial for this family. We are doing our best to help them, and
the ward here is seriously amazing. We are going to get more of them
involved with her and hopefully they will get the help they need and
feel good about being baptized on the 16th. Im thinking about putting
together a little kit of stickers and things for Joselin when she is
in the hospital for 2-3 days every time they go. But mom- if you can
think of anything we could do to help out Lili or Joselin let me know!
thanks.

thursday- so i think i wrote about Cleidi... but she doesn’t want to
listen anymore. But Pilar is amazing. All of her friends are making
fun of her, and her family thinks she is crazy for listening to us.
But she is standing firm in her decision to change her life. She
understands the book of mormon better than any investigator ive seen
read it thus far. She just soaks it in and loves it so much! We are
going to get the ward involved in helping her out too because she
seriously has no support right now! But she is awesome.


Friday- so I’ve decided that sometimes the mission is like a game of
'x's and 'o's. We write people down all the time and then they either
progress, or we x them off our lists. But you´ve got to do something
with everyone you find. Well today we found a lot of xs! haha. But it’s
good. We are working really hard at having discernment, knowing who is
going to progress right now. The mission is short- we only have time
to find those that are ready right now for us!

Saturday was Laura’s baptism! Thank you for the prayers on her behalf!
We are really hoping that the mom will keep trying to bring more and
more of her kids to church, and that this family can get the help they
need. It was a beautiful baptism and everything worked out nicely. It
was actually a great day. Working hard feels so good i love it! But
you can never over do it. If you get stressed, the spirit can’t guide
you. So part of working hard is knowing and accepting when you need to
take a coke break (as Hna Morris says. she´s addicted to coke. haha).
But one thing I’ve learned on this mission and that Hna Morris is
really good at, is never lose hope. We knock on hundreds of doors,
but we can never stop hoping that the next door has a family just
waiting for us. Its great.

So sunday we had Pilar and her daughter, and Lili with her two
daughters and two nieces. haha they had a lot of fun. Also, Maria
Torrez got married!! She still has to wait a week for the papers to
come back or whatever (i dunno how it works) but she is ready to
progress for her baptism! We are planning to have a baptismal service
for Pilar, Lili, Joselin, and Maria on the 16th (There’s a cambio on
the 14th....we try not to think about that). So we are excited for
these ladies. Please pray for them! They are all dealing with hard
trials right now.


Anyways we are working hard and we feel good. This ward is amazing.
our ward mission leader and bishop are seriously top notch (our ward
mission leader even brought us pizza empanadas wednesday morning
haha). I seriously am loving Centenario or as My zone leader says, "La
Tierra Prometida" (the promised land). I could do with a couple more
avocado trees, but other than that things are just awesome. I’m more
and more grateful every day for all that i have, especially this time
here. I know that probably not all of my other areas will be quite so
awesome, but I’m grateful for every day i have here! (we also have a
store here called IC Norte which has a bunch of american stuff in it-
its super clean and air conditioned and we absolutely love going there!
we have found refried beans, tortillas, cereals we like, salsa, chips,
better peanut butter, and american brand shampoos! This is the only IC
Norte in all of santa cruz- im trying to enjoy it while it lasts!)

anyways much love, and happy happy birthday mom and dad!!!!

love, Hermana Black



Typical protective gear for carnival (an apron with pockets to hold squirt guns  and balloons full of paint)

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