Hello Querida familia y
amigos,
How’s it goin? Things are
still just trecken along here in the good ol´Santa Cruz. I think sometimes God
sends you on your mission to the country where you should have been born in. I
LOVE bolivia so very much. But anyways...
So wow lots of stuff this week! Madie, i hope you have a
super happy awesome 16th birthday! You should be receiving something in the
mail from me soon I hope. Also so great that Annalisa is home! And that Holly
got her call- i laughed a little- it seems like the perfect mission for her!
Also Tiana has a baby? Too weird! Also I got an
awesome package with the shirt, peanut butter, pictures, and balloons! So
great! Now i just need to some how finda balloon pump haha . But the pictures
are super adorable, I feel like my family just keeps getting more and more
attractive every time i see a picture!
Ok so how happy am I about everything that happened at
Trevor´s farewell? Trev you are awesome and i am so proud of you! You are
seriously so amazing and you are going to become such a spiritual giant on your
mission! Seriously watch out Japan, "here comes Elder Black"! (that
last part was sung by me to the tune of men in black.) Ah! Also Mitchell! What a tender moment.
Seriously what an amazing and inspiring family I have. Trevor, it´s going to be
hard, but you are going to love it. I remember all the people in the mtc that
had to be there for a long time. You´re there for 12 weeks right? Anyways they
were always really cool. Really sick of being there after 10 weeks, but great
examples and helpers to all the new people. Anyways you´re just going to have
so many opportunities to be an example you don’t even know! But anyways enjoy.
Say hello to the orange soda tree for me. And here´s to a great mission! Also
mom, what´s his address in the mtc and/or field? I wanna write my bro.
ok so moving on to bolivia... Coni (pancake family) came to
church again this week. We are hoping to work everything out so that she can
get baptised on the 28th but we still don’t have an exact fecha which is hard.
Things are just complicated with her family. But we will get there. Other than
that we dont have any investigators. We are actually struggling a lot with this
in the zone right now- except for the other sisters in our ward who have 4 baptisms
ready for this Saturday. So our zone leaders read this cool story about eagles
on Monday. Did you know, that eagles can live to 70 years old? But they can
only do this if they go through a renovacion when they are 40 years old. What
they have to do is fly to a high mountain with a flat wall. Then they have to
break their beak off which is super painful. Then they have to wait for it to
grow back, and then break their nails off, wait for them to grow back and then
scratch their feathers off. It’s a really painful process that takes about 150
days. If they do this, they live for another 30 years. If they don’t, they die.
We talked about how sometimes there are moments in the mission (and life) like
this. When things aren’t all hunky dory we have two options: to keep working
hard, or get trunky. (a little less extreme than the eagles). The results
though one day will be super different based upon what we choose to do. We
decided as a zone that we are going to keep working, and learn what it is that
God wants us to learn during this time of renovacion. Renovation? I hope that’s
the word in english haha. Anyways so we are working hard during this renovation
time, and we are trying to be patient waiting for miracles. Marivel sent me
this "jar of inspiration" that i open every monday, and the
inspiration that i happened to open this week was a quote from the fairy god
mother on cinderella that said, "even miracles take a little time".
couldn’t have been more perfect inspiration for this week :).
I was definitely at the end of my rope this last week, but
its usually when you´re at the end of your rope that you learn to use the rope
God has. (im betting my money that its a lot, lot longer than mine is.) So
here´s to a good week. We are going to have baptisms soon. But if not, the
church is still true, God still lives, and this still is His true work. We’ve
got some great activities that we are putting into action this week. One is
that we are going to put out these little flyers on everyone´s doors that say, "why
are mormons so happy? visit mormon.org"
that one of the nice members in our ward printed out. I have great hope that
this will bring about good results. Our area is super rich, so like there is
always lots of missionaries from other churches knocking on the same doors. So
we are going to try to enter by another means, which God has provided. Pray
that we get some references!
Well
that´s really all I’ve got to say today. Thanks so much for your letters! Seriously
lately I’ve been feeling like maybe all our hard work is helping our families
and friends back home more than anyone out here, but that’s also extremely
important for us. But we also know that one day we will be able to see all the
differences we made in other peoples’ lives. WE just gotta keep trecken. Which
is what we are going to do.
Anyways thanks for all your prayers and support! Have great bday madie, and an awesome first week of your mission trev! love, hermana elisa black
Anyways thanks for all your prayers and support! Have great bday madie, and an awesome first week of your mission trev! love, hermana elisa black