Keep going even when it's hard

ok hello and howdy!

First off  sorry if this email is hard to understand- the spacebar on this computer is                    messed up. haha. But anyways it sounds like at home was a super fun and adventurous week!    Can talitha ride a 2 wheeler? Or was she pulling the wagon on a 3 wheeler? So weird. She looks so big in the pictures you sent. Speaking of which thanks so oooo much madeline for the  plan de salvacion, talitha for the  drawings, and mom for the pics and      thing from Lula’s funeral.   All of these things are on my desk and wall now. thanks so much! Really enjoyed that lots and lots. also so cool that you are going to go see hna  melissa morris  for her homecoming!!! She sent me pictures of all the  things she is eating  haha. I miss her lots.  The girls in my house last night told me that I need to start trying to be  hna black and not hna morris...I think i must be talking about her a lot and how I want to be like her haha. 

As far as salud goes- i am feeling awesome. i did take the charcoal, along with some other things  perscribed from  Elder nelson, and even went to the clinic because                                               it just wasn’t stopping haha.  But they said I was perfecto. So i asked my zone leader for a blessing. The blessing said  that    because I   decided to use faith, the medicine in me would start to work little by little and that I didn’t need to take anything else! So.. ... I am learning a lot about faith this week. :)        

 on monday I was  kind of frustrated with   trying to do my calling as leader,  have good  logros (number of lessons? I dunno what logros is in english anymore haha)             and train my companion.  But     reading the quote  you sent me mom helped me to remember to take things one day at a time.  Sometimes I get frustrated because I just want the church to work as good here as it does in utah. I just want someone, anyone to                                be a home teacher or a visiting teacher. I know we are far from perfect in utah  haha but like    . ... a lot of things work a lot better  in utah. And i know like the chruch has been in utah for 200 years, and we are  just barely going to get to 50 soon here in bolivia. But sometimes because I’ve seen how the church CAN work i just want to  make everyone here do it in the same way. haha.

But anyways its really going good   here.  FAith though has become big this week for me.  sometimes when   you just  get no no no no no no no no no no day after day you start to get disheartened and lose faith. It’s because you want to protect yourself.  Well at least me.  i don’t want to be sad again, don’t want to get my hopes up, so I think I lose faith because it’s easier to just not believe that the people will progress. When you  really picture someone in white, really believe that they           are  ready, really   put all your heart and soul into helping them and then they don’t except the truth and happiness you have, its hard! And it  really hurts. so I think somet imes I   shut down a little  sometimes. But   you  just gotta keep having faith. gotta keep    believing that there are people here you are meant to teach and baptize.      And sometimes you go weeks without finding them, and if you’re like me you get nervous because you think,   where are the people I promised before this life that  I would find  ? What if i don’t find them ?!   But                   you just  gotta keep going with faith. Trust that the big guy    up above is going to make everything work out. I just have to do my part- which is           open m y mouth and talk to everyone and do my best.  God will do his part  if I let him.

 Anyways this week was also cambios.  I am still with Hermana Barrios ( one month with the same companion if you can believe it ! haha  ) but now there are two more    hermanas in our house that  are also working in our area! One of them is a new  gringa ! hna baldridge. No one can say her name here hahaha.    We went from 2 gringas in this mission to 6 this week!  so that’s cool.                  also thanks to my calling as leader I was                 helping with the cambios.  My favorite part of this was running down the street in front of a taxi with  6 mattresses piled on top. haha  

                              None of our investigatores came to church this  sunday, but we aren’t giving up faith. We will get there. We will find the people ready  and chosen for the gospel.  We choose to be chosen. God is in this work, God is my  captain in chief,  and this is   His work that I am doing. I love it. I love helping others. I love saving the world .   

 thanks for  everything! love, Hermana Elisa Black

Training is hard

hello hello! 

First off iffy computer so no fotos sorry. 

Also other noticias... i dont know if you guys remember that when i was with Hermana Morris in Centenario we found this Catholic priest guy that is like a representative from Rome. Hermana Morris and I only taught him how to pray, and then new hermanas came into that area. Well, he totally got baptized last month. Cool right? And oh the reason why I feel more segure is because we now have cellphones! So that’s nice. 

Bien. Well this week i got pretty disheartened. it’s just kinda hard training (she’s great just a lot of the new latinas think that the mission is like a happy little vacation. In the states, we learn the mission is hard! here everyone tells people that are going to go on missions that is so fun and beautiful and wonderful.). But i really hope this next week is better. 

Like this week we had a family home evening with some members that said they were going to invite the husbands brother who isn’t a member over. Well we went, and they were like "just kidding his brother is actually a member and lives really far away from here". And I’m just like, um... thanks for wasting our time.  

Then we have lots of investigators that are coming to church that just don’t want to get baptized. so like, we are working so hard but they just don’t want to get wet. Sigh. So lots of work with little results right now. 

Wednesday was kinda fun though. I went looking for houses with Hna Ariza and the assistants. We are getting lots of new missionaries this week! Well anyways tuesday in the night there was this helicopter with a search light looking around in our area and the areas around. The driver when we were looking for houses said that the police are looking for two of the last gang members of this columbian gang. They found the boss because he was looking for a house to rent, and the police found all the gang members except 2. Well hermana ariza is columbiano and so is one of the assistants. And what were we doing? Looking for houses to rent. hahaha it was funny. 

Also hermana willard who is amazing is in the usa recovering from breaking her foot last week. poor thing. We now have an elder who is our nurse. And guess who got really sick this week? That’s right me. haha. poor elder nelson. 

This week we found a new family though who have a lot of interest in the strength of youth. It’s a mom with two kids in youngmen/women. People want good things for their families, and I got news for them. We are the only ones who have what they need. Period. They came to church this week and loved it! So we are going to be working hard for Gladys and her family. I just need to stay happy and work hard and we should be good to go. 

Well anyways this is all for today. i love you all so very much. Thanks for being great!

love, hermana elisa black

ONE YEAR MARK!

hi mom and family and friends!

So I’m here in san pedro still. With the same companion, hermana barrios. I know it’s always a shock when things aren’t different haha. Anyways the pictures are of me and my girls here in this house. The one with pizza is last monday, and the other one is us celebrating my one year mark which is the same day as my companions 1 month mark! so that was fun.

Ok well this week was definitely less cold and we enjoyed it (well my companion was almost dead with how hot it was and I was like honey, this is winter here). But today we are feeling winds from the south which means it’s soon gunna be cold. Anyways a little bit about my house where I live: it’s awesome. Definitely the most beautiful house I’ve lived in here. Its right next to the church which is awesome. Also the owner of the house has a parrot, a little black cat, and a bright white bunny with red eyes. I love it. The cat and bunny play together. I’m  teaching the parrot to whistle "woot woot" any time someone says "hermana black". So far its working good! seriously the birds here are super intelligent. Also the other night we were all in one of the bedrooms when hermana ariza gave a little yelp! They were all sitting on the beds and i was sitting on the floor. Well usually when people yelp like that it means mouse! So i got up and turned around faster than rain clouds enter santa cruz. But it was just the bunny. haha. I chased him out. Definitely like the pets of this house better. 

Anyways the new president and his wife got here this week! President and hermana Willard from Arizona. Um they are seriously amazing. They are changing so much about the mission- so much that I knew needed to change for a long time. I am so happy!!!! Ah this week was super stressful because I’m training, opening a new area, doing intercambios, and well it’s a special week for Elisa haha. But i know that little by little things are really going to change here for the good. I know that i definitely got closer to god for all my suffering here, and maybe that’s why I had the president I had. But now with these new changes I’m going to feel so safe, enjoy my time more, and have a lot less stress I think. I’m very very grateful for this. Maybe I just needed to learn and see the difference. But seriously I just cried after our conference with the president on tuesday! The changes are very, very good. 

Anyways we have been struggling with the work here a little right now. We do have lots of references which is incredible. But we are doing a lot of walking and not a lot of entering. I guess i really just need to get over my fear of talking to people on the phone and call people a lot more. But yeah it’s good. I’m also learning humility a lot here haha which is good. I just miss my old zone that started saying "we will go and do the things which Hermana Black commands". haha gotta start from scratch again here. haha no humility is just what I need.

Anyways this is all for today. I’m learning lots and its awesome. Hope california was a blast! love, hermana elisa black  

Missing Paraiso; changing back to original mission

so hopefully you read my other email first. because now i am in san pedro! but a few house keeping items first... first of all um malorie had a frog? k didnt know that. but im sorry he died i guess. also i got a few dear elders last week from dad and malorie... a lot of the tmie i dont get the ends of the letters. sigh. i dunno maybe its easier just to send everything via email and i can trie to print stuff... its just expensive but i think its more secure...i dunno. also im in the south mission now but i think i wrote that in my other email.

ok back to this week. well all monday we were moving to our new home. i found out why we had to leave paraiso. its because the new asistentas to the president are taking over that ward. sigh. i seriously had a hard time all this week. i miss paraiso so much. also we had two baptisms this week and two more planned for this coming week. hopefully they are taking care of that all. but anyways san pedro is pretty cool. its the best house for hermanas in the mission! becuase its pretty and huge. but its aweful for the cold! and this week is the coldest week of my mission! holy cow it was crazy rainy and cold. thats basically what i have to say about tuesday. so cold and rainy. we are opening this area, which means we dont know anyone. the last missionaries that where here were hna white and hna ordunez, and that was a month ago. (yes everyone thinks its hilarious that hna white left and now they have hna black). but anyways we are trying to get to know the area and the people as fast as we can so that we can work here!

so with all the cold and rain and leaving paraiso, i kind of had a slumpy attitude. but its getting better. saturday we had a baptism! the hermanas before taught her everything, we just basically came in and baptised her. she is awesome. shes a recently devorced mom with three cute little kids, including a baby of 4 months. she is amazing. on sunday we were waiting for her to come in so that she could get the holy ghost, but she still wasnt there when we finished the santa cena. so we finished that and the 2ndo councilor was like one of the young people go and get the new convert. and i was like well no one knows where she lives except us. so we got up and ran to her house. its about 7 blocks from the church. we knocked on her door and these kids of the neighbor that lives in her house was like "she left". and i was like no! you´ve got to be kidding me! so we ran (well walked... we were pretty dead from running) back to the church. when we walked in one of the members was coming out and he was like where have you guys been? she was just in the bathroom. so yeah... everyone somehow knew she was there except me. probably i was just anxious and so i didnt understand the 2nt coucilor. thats what happens with the gift of tongues. if you dont have the spirit (and you only have the spirit when your not freaking out) you dont understand. so that was that experience. so embarrassing, because always on the first day that the missionaries enter a ward, you always give your testimony. so they also called us up and we werent there. haha.

anyways also it was the area san pedros birthday on saturday so the other picture im sending is of people dancing in my street. every area has a different name, and so does every s treet. and when its the birthday of your street or area, theres always a party. well i happen to be in san pedro and its the area of san pedros birthday. i dunno how everyone keeps the parties straight here, because there is a ton!!! some of the streets its easy to tell when its its birthday, because the streets name is 24 de novembre. i dunno how anyone keeps anythning else straight. but anyways theres always a party in bolivia. this one almost made us late to get in our house on time, but it was super fun i loved it. always parades. everyone likes to dress up here! 

oh also on wednesday i had another intercambio. i love doing intercambios. its fun to leave and help out other people. its always for 24 hours, so i even sleep over. it was fun because it was an intercambio with two companerismos, and hermana morris was with the other companion. so i got to see her for my last time i think before she goes back home. 

anyways lots of love and stuff from me this week. hopefully you get these emails today! love, hermana elisa black  

ps oh yeah happy 4th of july and completion of one year in the mission! wow its nuts isnt it? love, me

Surprise Transfer: Staying in Mission Santa Cruz

ok so today i am leaving Paraiso!! NO!!! I am so dang sad i cant even
tell you! (ps the n key doesnt work very good on this computer so
sorry if this letter is loco). seriously i am so sad. also i got a new
companion o thursday. her name is HNA barrios and she is from la paz
bolivia. 7 missionaries came in this week. but presidet didnt know!
they were sitting in the airport for a long time util they were
finally able to contact the mission. and well im trainig leader so the
one sister that came in is with me. so basically i am training three
missionaries in my house- hna barrios, choque, and maximiliano. i am
pretty stressed out. its a really good thing maximiliano is AMAZING.
But yeah now i am leavig with hna barrios to go to the ward San Pedro
which is in the mission santa cruz! so yeah changing missions again.
sigh. 

but the conference was amazing! oh man i had a hard time not saying I
TOLD YOU SO! to all of my zone. they´ve been making fun of me for all
my ideas with mormon.org. now they are all saying "sorry! now we know
it was revelation!". yeah. thats right. listen to hermana black. well
now im going to a new mission... hopefully they will follow through
with all of my ideas in this mission. ha. things are just crazy here i think because we are
splitting the mssion and my prez is leaving. so i really duno if my
address will change or aything. i didnt see you guys but i knew you
were singing to me mom. so thanks very much!

also GABRIELA fernandez got baptized this week! oh it was so great! we
had so much of her family at the baptism. little by little they are
going to make it. the dad bawled durig the special number ( i am a
child of god.) and he even gave the closing prayer! it was awesome. i
am so happy for them, but sad becuase not only am i leaving paraiso,
but no knew missionaries are going to enter! and we have a baptism lined
up for this saterday and two for the next, and more promising people!
we are just booming here, and i know that much of this is becuase the
ward is reallly getting on the ball. now after this conference its just
going to explode! and there are no missionaries. well my zone leaders
are just going to have to visit every single day, because im serious
we have so many people! sigh. well its ok. seriously i put so much
into this ward. i was sure i was going to be here for a while. now im
saying my good byes. i had last night and this morning to pack, but
instead i wrote letters to people. investigators and members. well
i´ll just have to pack in 20 minutes. whats new? ha.

this week i also did an itercambio which was fun! i love my calling. i
didn't realize that i really do have a lot of experience, but when i was
with these two sisters i was really able to help them lots! so that
was cool. i was seriously all over the place this week. also it is
FREEZING HERE! ah! holy cow! and no one has heat. i am SO grateful for
thermal garments! and i almost didnt bring any! wow. listen to the
profet. bring everything that your calling says to bring. also im
grateful for girls camp- it prepared me for the long cold nights.
thats so great that maddie and afton had fun this week at grils camp-
cat wait to hear about it!

um what else... i forgot to write out things that i want to write home
about this week... iwas seriously all over the place haha. there aren't
any mice any more- we got our door fixed. also our shower didnt have
hot water till two days ago so that was an adventure. sorry i dont
have pictures- i dont trust this computer haha. but yeah hopefully i
will be a little less stressed in my new area...but probably shouldnt
count on it. ha. well love ya all lots ad lots ad espero que todo esta
bien!

con amor,
hermana elisa black

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

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