Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Changing to Santa Cruz Norte Mission starting in July!

hello hello family!

Thanks for letting me know about everything that’s going on. What a
week. I definitely am going to miss Lula. It’s interesting- I found
myself talking about her a lot this week. Like yesterday we helped a
lady with her laundry, and i told her about how my great grandma washed
and ironed clothes when she lived in Guatemala. I’m glad everything
went well this week for her. I also just got a letter from Grandma
today (yes grandma I got your letter for my birthday thanks so very
very much!) and it said that Lula always asks about me. She’s such a
great lady and I’m glad she is in more peace right now. One of my
favorite scriptures is Alma 40:11 which talks about how right after we
pass over, we are met with God. I know that that’s where Lula is right
now.

Also happy father’s day dad! I hope you had a great day yesterday. I
love you so much!



Algunas cosas: so this foto is me and hna maximiliano my companion. We
took this picture just barely. We are both rather bad at remembering
to take fotos haha. But she is really cool. We think alike sometimes-
we wore almost the exact same outfit one day which was kinda funny.
Also I got bessie´s letter and pictures this week! Thanks so much! It
was so great to get some pictures of barelake- and I finally could
prove to hna morris that my grandma is latina! haha. Also i got the
pics of trevs grad and easter! Man my family is so attractive! Oh and I’m in
mission santa cruz norte! My new president is from Arequipa, Peru! He
will be here the first week of July i think.

Ok so this week I had two conferencias. On tuesday it was zone leaders
conference,and wednesday was like a day of practicas with all the
people that are in mission norte. Always for these conferences we go
out to eat. We usually all walk, but because there was only four
hermanas (hna morris, yo, the other hermana trainer and her companion)
we got to ride in the car of president on tuesday. While we were
driving I saw this monkey running in the street! Then it jumped up a
wall and into a tree. Good ol´ sur america. Monkeys just runnin around
all the time. haha. On wednesday my companion and i left late to go to
the lunch because we went to the bathroom. So us and 6 elders all left
together. We walked to where we thought lunch was, and no one was
there! Well long story short eventually we found were everyone was and
they called us the 8 virgins without oil or something like that haha.

bien. Then thursday was the regular zone meeting in the morning. Well
you know you´re getting good at spanish when you speak your mind in
front of 20 latins...hehe. I was a little annoyed with some of the
elders but we talked it out and we are doing better. They are a lot
nicer now. Their future wives will thank me as Hna Morris says hahaha.
But I was just happy I have the spanish to say how I feel now. It’s
really nice. haha.

Well this week we had fun with mice again... the dueno of the house
(the boss of the house? uh oh forgetting english haha) came and fixed
the door, but this week was cold so they are trying really hard to get
in the house. The other hermanas entered the house and one ran in! But
then they turned on the light and it ran out. They hurried and closed
the door, but they said that there was a bunch of mice just running
in front of the door after that. (The door is glass so we can see out.)
they said there are big ones and little ones and tons of them! So...
we are going to buy some more venum. haha. Oh mice. "it’s ok to be
friends with a mouse" as Talitha would say. :)

well this week was tough, but some good things are happening. Gabriela
was finally interviewed, and will be getting baptized friday, 21 of
june. We are still working on activating all of her family, but the
shields are coming down and I am excited for them. I love the
Fernandez family so much its crazy. Didn’t know it was possible to love
people like this. Also speaking of families I love, although we (the
missionaries) can’t really visit the Vasconcelos family anymore, one of
the powerful families in our ward went and visited them this week. I
also bought a Portuguese book of mormon and dropped it off at their
door. One day they will come into the fold. And well the third family
that I love so much here is the Choque family. I think i wrote about
them last week... almost all of them are members except Gustavo (16
yrs old) and the dad. Gustavo will be getting baptized the first week
of July! He is progressing well. He told his dad something like "hey
dad, you´re going to be the only one in this family who isn’t mormon.
You should probably just join ok?" haha so we are helping this family.
They are so sweet and great. I just love working with families. It’s
seriously the greatest.

Also we had another lady just come into the church because she felt it
was right. We wrote down her direction and phone number, but we haven’t
been able to find her... so I’m worried about that. I’m thinking she
didn’t exactly give us her correct address. Sometimes i think i scare
people with my enthusiasm...gotta work on that. But when we were
looking for her this man was like "where´s your church and what time
is it at?" well turns out he is looking for our church specifically
and wants a book of mormon! So we will be visiting him and his two
kids this week. He is a single dad with two kids in young mens age. So
we are looking forward to teaching them!

Anyways i know there is a lot of power in prayer. I know that families
are really the ultimate thing for happiness. Without a family, you
can’t have complete joy and cant progress completely. seriously working
with all of these families I’m learning so much about families, and
that really without Christ, and following his teachings, families
just won’t be able to withstand the darts and winds of this world
(helaman 5:12 is our favorite scripture these days).

Well anyways love you all lots. I’m happy to be here even though
sometimes its super hard. I just have so much desire to help people
that the hard stuff is worth it when we can help people understand the
good news that when we do five simple things, Christ has power to save
us.

Thanks for being the best family and friends ever!

love, Hermana Elisa Black

Friday, June 14, 2013

SIX Companions

Ok so maybe this letter is going to be a little short again...sorry. hehe... we will see. at least you have two missionaries to read about now. :)
Anyways the pictures are the baptism of Beismar and Me with Hna Huenchur, Hna Choque, and Hna Ariza (from Columbia). Yeah i had 6 different companions this week. haha lemme explain...



So monday was pretty normal. We went and bought winter clothes. Thanks so much for the money! I love all my winter clothes. It’s so cheap here- i bought like a bunch of cute winter coats. (Sorry dad I’m awful with money...but how much do i have left in my account?) Anyways so monday was fun. My companions were Hna Huenchur and Hna Choque.

Then on tuesday one of the assistants called me at 6:34 in the morning to tell me that a sister from Columbia just got her visa, but the cambios aren’t until thursday, so she would be my temporary companion for 24 hours. Hna Ariza was super cool. I love how people from Columbia talk. It’s like Jamaican spanish. haha. So basically we did things like change money, i taught her about santa cruz, and we went to a few appointments.

Wednesday i ended up having to take Hna Ariza to all the migration stuff. Remember all that first day stuff i did? Like give blood and lots of fingerprints? yeah stuff like that. It was kind of cool to get to do it all again. At the time, i was like in shock, but now I’m like, "aaaawwww first day!" haha. Here i got to meet Hna Buckley and Hna Wolfe and Elder Neuhaus, missionaries from malories district in Peru! Aw it was so great! Hna Buckley explained to me that Malorie was great- even though malorie locked her in a closet once. haha. It was cool to talk to them, and get a letter from malorie via missionaries! Also so cool that malories companion is from Guatamala! There is only one person from guatamala in my mission that i know of,and he’s an elder. He is constantly talking about the food from guatamala and how much he misses it. I’m the only one that can sympathize with him haha! But its true. guatamala food is the best!!

Speaking of letters only afton and talitha got letters from me? i sent one to madeline and trevor too. Also did you get my pictures in the letter with letters for my cousins inside? And there should have been two of those... also my face is perfectly clear now, but my analysis for it won’t be here till thursday. haha. Must be the power of prayer or somethin.

Oh also my bishop says hi. Did i ever tell trevor that my bishops name is Grover? Also his son is named grover and he’s our ward mission leader. haha. lots of Grovers. 

Ok moving on again...so then thursday. I thought that i was going to be with Hna Choque and Hna Huenchur again but nope! Surprise! My new companion is Hna Maximiliano!! She is from Peru. She just got here this week, but she´s been out for 3 months in the mission field. She was waiting for a visa too. It’s getting harder and harder to enter bolivia. (bolivia follows Venesuela in things like this). Anyways she’s about to turn 27 and she’s super cool. Also she is from Peru so i love her. haha. I just love everything about Peru. And I’ve always wanted a companion from Peru! And her name rocks. so yeah it’s pretty sweet. 

So friday, saturday, and sunday were normal days. We are teaching right now Gabriela Fernandez again- her baptism is now scheduled for 21 de junio. We are going to work hard with them again. Also Gustavo is a sixteen year old and almost all of his family is members. He’s been going to seminary on and off for 3 weeks now and we finally got him to listen to us. So we should be baptizing him soon. He wants to get baptized. I love teaching his family- they remind me of my family kind of, because they are always laughing and cracking jokes. 

The baptism of Beismar was great. He tried to give his testimony at the end but he just got super emotional. He´s a great kid. Hopefully we will get him thinking about a mission soon! 

This ward is seriously great. Sunday morning instead of having ward council everyone left to go and bring investigators and less active members to the church. Also one of our missionaries of the ward wrote her testimony on 16 pieces of paper with a liahona and gave this out to people on the street! She is amazing.

Well the work here is good. The church is true. Seriously the mission is the best thing to help you grow in the gospel. I’m so glad I’m here. 7 months will go by fast i think. 

much love, Hermana Elisa Black 


Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Sketchy Internet

hello!

So sorry the internet has been crazy today! Usually we go to this mercado that has lots of computers, but today it was closed. So then we went to this other street with internet cafes but today the police decided to come and shut them down for being illegal haha. Of all the days to have the police come. Well now we are at another internet cafe, and hopefully we don’t get kicked out! But it’s going very slow so sorry. And mom, sorry my letter was short, but i don’t think it has to do with the fact that i can write friends. We were given more time to write!

So a few things: are you guys sending malories letters via dearelder? Cause I’m not getting them... also congrats trevor on everything this week! Wow so cool! I’m so proud of you and happy for you! i love that you guys did a dance. That’s so my type of thing to do and i love it haha. Also hna choque has been a member all her life, also hna huenchur, who says thanks! She is so excited to go to byu. She talks really great english.

Ok so this week no fotos. Sorry but this internet is kind of sketchy and i don’t want to mess up my camera. Can that happen? Can you mess up your camera from a computer? I don’t even know.

But anyways so this week i was at the dermatologist and clinic a lot. I’m growing some kind of bacteria on my face. haha. It started out small, but it keeps growing and is now on different parts of my face! But it’s all just part of the mission experience here in bolivia. It’s getting a lot better now and has started going away so no fear. at least i didn’t get bit in the face by a dog like Hna Morris (sorry mom of hna morris for writing that she was in the clinic the other week... didn’t mean to freak you out!). We are all recovering nicely though and all is well. Yes i have ongaurd :)

so we are having some awesome success here in paraiso. We are teaching about 10 FAMILIES right now and it is just so fantastic! We are working our little tails off. Also this week Beismar will be getting baptized. He´s almost 18 and he´s been living with his aunt and uncle who are members. We taught him lots all week, but he just wasn’t feeling as secure as he wanted. But we prayed and prayed and prayed. and saturday night, he had a dream about us! In the dream, hna huenchur told him that he missed his opportunity, and now he can’t be baptized. He said that in his dream I kept saying "no its ok" but hna huenchur was like no its passed the time! And well somehow this was the answer he was looking for and he is very excited for his baptism! He’s got tons of friends in the ward. So yeah that’s great.

Gabriela Fernandez i think is going to have to wait an extra week to get baptized because they have missed church these last two weeks. The dad is in the hospital right now and we are hoping that with his health failing he will have greater desire to come back to church.

We brought a mom to church yesterday. Her name is Cynthia. She was born catholic, raised jehova witness, and went to an evangelica church when she was 20ish. Now she is a single mom with two daughters. She came to church, and then we visited her in the afternoon. We explained a lot about joseph smith and the restauracion and after she was like, "well thank you but i think i am just going to go back to the evangelica church and be really active". But unfortunately she was talking to two missionaries who are sick of not having baptisms. We didn’t leave it at that. I am so tired of losing my brothers and sisters. hna huenchur feels the same and well hermana choque she is just going to have to come with us in these things. We bore powerful testimony, committed her to pray about the church, and set a baptism date. We are talking to so many families these days which is challenging, but we are working so hard and praying so much. They might have to send me home in pieces in 7 months (only 7 months!!!!!! aaaaah!!!!) because all my blood sweat and tears (and skin from my face haha) are here in paraiso.

Oh btw the mission will be splitting this week. So i might be in mission santa cruz norte or i might still be in santa cruz mission. Paraiso is in the north mission so if im still in paraiso next week, that will be my new mission. 

Anyways love the mission. It’s the best thing ever for my life. Also I’m obsessed with
mormon.org these days. I feel like im supposed to bring it to bolivia even though i don’t know much about it haha. But like sometimes i can’t sleep at night because I’m just thinking of so many ideas and things these days. Its great but it’s hard.

Ok sorry mom its short again this week. But i have to write good letters to president these days too. haha.

I love you all so much and i love reading about you all. Thanks for everything!

love, hermanana elisa black

CAMBIOS!

hello hello!!

So crazy week! On MONDAY we had CAMBIOS! I am still a sister mission leader and hermana morris as well. But now we are separated and both training! I am also in a trio. I am still in Paraiso,  but I’m with Hermana Huenchur (she entered the mission with me)and Hermana Choque! (yes the same last name as the hermana who was my trainer). Wow crazy! I love them both so much. Hermana Huenchur is the hermana who is super jealous of trevor for getting to go to japan, she also is planning on studying animation at byu after the mission, and is from Chili, loves Regina Specktor like me, and well is just a hoot! Hermana choque is from La Paz, Bolivia. Well actually, so you know how la paz is the highest city in the world? Well actually there is little villages in the mountains of la paz (which are a lot higher than the city la paz) and that’s where she is from. She is like how i thought all the people of bolivia would be- her parents even wear the typical clothes and everything! Anyways she came to the mission basically with nothing and we are helping her get everything. She has three weeks in the mission, so I’m not raising her exactly from the mission womb, but close to. ha. The pictures are of us on her birthday which was thursday! i got the birthday package you sent me on her birthday which was awesome because we got to celebrate together! Anyways it was great.



So it is complicated right now, because Paraiso was split into two parts, for two sets of missionaries, but now we are combined because we are a trio. It’s been complicated, but we are doing pretty good.  Unfortunately this week was a tough one for the family Vasconcelos. We finally got to talk to the wife again, but it was because they had other family over when we passed by. We had what we thought was a good lesson with everyone, even though many people were anti mormon. We passed by though saturday (two days later) and found out that the parents have been fighting over the last two days. Hermano Vasconselos didn’t come to church on sunday, and we are worried about them. I have only prayed as hard as i pray for them i think 3 other times in my life. I am exhausted from praying for them and don’t know what to do. sigh. We have a great ward mission leader that is going to help us out a lot though.

Speaking of ward mission leaders, that’s so awesome about dad’s new calling! Dad this work is awesome! I am so glad we are turning into a mission family. We are a strong family- now we can help others be the same!!!!

So unfortunately the fernandez family didn’t make it to church either. It was a little bit of a tough sunday. But Beimar came to church, and he will be getting baptized on June 8! He is in the area of Hermana Huenchur, but Hermana Michel and i actually taught him and his cousin first. I knew I’d be part of his conversion so i thought it was weird that he didn’t live in my area, but now look! God puts you where he needs you. I shared Trevor’s experience with the book of mormon  with Beimar and his cousin this week because they are 17 and 18. I hope you don’t mind trev! It was just perfect though. Anyways we are excited for Beimar.

Well this is all I’ve got time for this week sorry! Oh but moms phrase of "power, strong, moooove along!" has been one that has helped me this week. So thanks mom. Today is Mothers day in Bolivia, so happy mother’s day again!

Seriously love you all so much!!!! Thanks Patrice for your email, and all my grandparents for birthday letters, as well as other family! I seriously have such a powerful wonderful family and am more and more grateful everyday!

love, hermana Elisa Black