God Be With You Til We Meet Again

Wow. Lula. I’m thinking back when I said goodbye to her. So peaceful. Thanks for all of the details. She was an incredible woman. I feel so privileged to be a part of her family. I wish i could have come home and talked spanish to her though. Tuesday. wow. I was sitting in the street with my companion writing in the front of a book of Mormon for one of our investigators when someone came by and knocked on the door of the house next to us and told us that someone had died! We ended up talking to them, and going into the house and shared a message about the plan of salvation and sang “God be with you til we meet again” to all the 15-20 people there. It was quite a miracle, we had people coming up to us and asking us to share more. Incredible that I sang at a funeral probably really close to the time all this was happening with Lula. There was definitely such a peaceful feeling there when we were singing. Maybe I was really singing to my great grandma.

Snap. I have no time left. Don’t kill me dad!! I told him I would have 2 pages worth of emails for him! Well, last week was long right?? This week I had to make up for not writing any of my friends last week. HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!!!!!!!!!! I love you soo much. My comp and i have been working with a broken marriage right now and I think I’ve always taken it for granted how awesome my family is.

I’ll send pics next week. ya miracles are happening every day. Seeing braedon was definitely a tender mercy. I love the mission so much. spanish isn’t coming as fast as I would like, but i have learned sooo much. Humility and patience. I love it. Keep up the good work everyone. Much much love.

Hermana Mal Black

Just born in Cusco

Ah my companion loves that grandma’s from Guatemala. Her name is Diana Ivonne Martinez Mendez from Guatemala City. She is 26 years old, and has her own business--tanning salon, graduated in marketing and will finish her FNA masters degree when she gets back(finance and accounting)--pretty legit eh? She’s absolutely incredible. They call our trainers our ´madres´ and I was just born. My training is 12 weeks long, but she will be ´dying´ in 6 weeks, so if she doesn’t extend I will be getting another trainer. I hope she extends, she just got her plane tickets today, but has been talking about extending recently...i think cuz she likes me:) crazy gringa. She knows how to work hard and smart. She speaks great english. She is service oriented and has made me breakfast more than once. I seriously don’t know how i lucked out so well.

We share the biggest house in the mission, it’s nice. I have my own queen sized bed, our own study, a kitchen and sitting area. The water is cold in the showers, but that’s the only down side. We share the house with another pair of hermanas who are the sister leaders. They are vacan(cool). hard workers, one of them is going home in 3 weeks which means she knows what she’s doing as well and is from utah so she knows english as well which is super nice and has let me become real friends with them cuz i can actually express myself in english(her and my comp are best friends in the mission and actually traveled all over the mission putting on singing concerts--my comp teaching the stake choirs they went to and the utah singing solos. vacan eh? the whole mission knows them.).

Our ward is the best in the mission. The members are awesome, we have had a bunch of lessons so far already and almost all of them with members. What’s crazy is that our ward has 6 missionaries in it! 6 in one ward! Me and my comp share it with our housemates(the sister leaders) and the zone leaders. Big ward. We had a meeting with all the sisters on thursday and more than a couple told me that my companion was the best. Our pinchanista(spelling?) or cook is vacan, she’s super good at cooking, I love the food. Not rice every meal:) NEEDLESS to say, I FEEL SOOOO INCREDIBLY blessed. especially cuz i heard that my amigas from the ccm don’t have it so hot(irvine is opening an area, her spanish isn’t that good and her comp can’t speak it and her comp isn’t that patient for an example). i am motivated to work so much harder to learn the things that the Lord would have me learn in this incredible time. I am bracing myself for the upcoming months of the mission that will be hard.

wowowow. So yesterday at church was awesome. One of our guys we’ve been teaching(jose) got confirmed in sac meeting. The stake pres and an area 70 were there, and the other 3 new missionaries spoke(one of the zone leaders and the both sister leaders are new to this area), but for some reason they didn’t have me come up and speak like they said they were going to. probs better that way cuz my spanish is no muy bien.

My comp has great relationships with tons of members and pretty much the whole time was talking with them and setting up times that they could come procelyting with us. Planner is pretty great this week. We have a baptism this saturday for one of our investigators (super cute 15 year old girl who is friends with the members thanks to mi comp) and were singing love is spoken here in spanish at a baptism for an 8 year old that morning as well. I am constantly in awe at how well my comps brain works. Like we went over to the member’s house that we’re singing the song for with them and on the way they said hi to some of their friends and my comp was like what? Introduce us to them! And so we have an appointment with them! another time after a lesson for our investigator that’s getting baptized this saturday at a members house(of course) she invited the girls that were there to make cake with us at the house of jose(only member in family) because he has a sister that’s the same age and apparently when we were at their house last time she had asked the parents if we could come over and make cake with them(relationship building activity) and if we could maybe bring other people. then after she invited those girls to cake she asked the member mom(whose house we were at) if she had done her homework from the day before and the mom said yes and brought us across  the street to meet some of her non member neighbors. I honestly don’t know how this lady(mi comp) works, but it has blown my mind a bunch of times. This is how missionary work is supposed to be. I’m just trying to not get lost in the streets or the language or just trying to remember the names of all our people in the meantime she has created a new plot to dominate. I am in awe.

Spanish is rough! We have so many lessons a day that we usually don’t plan them before hand(like maybe talk about a topic) so i have had to rely on the spirit mucho. sometime I hate her because i don’t know what’s going on, but like a good companion she switches off very well with me, so next thing I know she’s smiling at me and everyone’s waiting expectantly for me to say something. Let’s just say ´yo se que´ has been one of my favorite phrases. I really really really wanna learn spanish. We have a rule that we have to speak spanish to each other during the day because i need to learn. We have this giant phone that’s like a house phone with the stand and everything and cord that we have to carry around because we don’t have a cell phone and sometimes investigators call us. I HATE carrying it. hahaha its so awkward. So the punishment to talking in english is they have to carry the phone that day. haha. My idea. We ride the bus places which is super cool and we’ve had to pack in like sardines more than once. We saw a parade the other day. june is holiday time in cusco.

I am absolutely in love with cusco. It is cold don’t get me wrong. In the day is sunny and warm most of the times, but at night its sooo cold! So i have to pack around this big coat that i found in our house (a diff sister left) all day so i don’t freeze at night. Oh i have to wear it in our house too, cuz they dont have indoor heating or cooling, and for some reason our house is super super cold all the time. PERO, i LOVE the sky! We´re so high up its always gorgeous! The clouds are amazing, the sun is so gorgeous. I love the feel of this place, the cobblestone paths, the picture perfect mountains and the small, poor, artistically pleasing, colorful, randomly houses, every kind of dog that walks the streets and steals bread or barks from the tin rooftops and scares you to death while you’re trying to contact someone, or the small bridge that you have to cross over the garbage filled river to get to a group of houses, or squeezing past the hanging laundry on the top floor of a cramped building to get to the room(pretty much their whole house) of a mother of small children who we invited to be baptized while huddled in a small area on plastic chairs feeling the spirit and knowing that Christ´s message will without a doubt make her life better.

Happy days here in cusco. My companion and i send our love. (She’s going to conference in october and her and the utahn sister leader are going to come visit you all!) :) MUCH MUCH LOVE!!!!!!!

your perfect daughter ;),

Hermana Malorie Black

I made it to Cusco!

HELLO!!!!!!!

idk if you got my voicemail on dads phone, but i made it and absolutely LOVE it here! I’m realizing more and more how little spanish i know, PERO i love the feel here. There’s such a good spirit here and the people are very kind and humble. I LOVE the sister missionaries. They all seem super chevere and spiritual. I look up to all of them. I LOVE my companion. She’s from guatemala! She’s super spunky and loud. The trainers are called madres and me the hija. I thought she only spake spanish, but found out later with some smart skills of mine that she speaks english as well. I’m staying in the cusco mission so in the city. I’m actually in the president’s ward! I love the house thing I’m staying in. it has the prettiest porch view of the city lights and mountains and i found out it’s like the nicest biggest house in the whole mish. I’ve had it confirmed that God knows me so well because of my comp and where i am. The altitude is crazy! We traveled from sea level to 11,000 feet in an hour! I had pressure on my ears like all day and was super weak and felt like I had to sit down all the time. They gave us that tea stuff and most everyone else seemed to be alright, but I took it the hardest. We just chilled at president’s house most of the day yesterday to accustom to it. Today has been better. Singing is hard cuz you use more oxygen, but I’m getting used to it fast! Today is a little reunion for all the girls. Our mission pres leaves at the end of this month so his wife wanted to do something with all the sisters. So ALL 40 of the sisters in the mission came today and we’ve been chillin doing manicures and eating lasagna. I had my first peruvian mango as well. SOOOOOO GOOD! love you lots! my pdays on monday, so talk to you then! much love!

Hermana malorie

CCM #5

My missionary scripture is the one that’s like ´ I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me (dad sent it to me in like one of my first letters:) I have no idea about my address changing. I received one of Elisa’s dear elders! I’m so happy because i get like a letter a week from either dad or her thing. I feel soooo soo loved. I’m so incredibly blessed. Thanks so much for everything. One of the ladies in the temple hugged me so much and kissed me on the cheek, and told me that she had a missionary out too. Love the missionaries, I have lots of mothers out here:). 2,000 islands??? dang trev! That’s tight! People say that with spanish we can come home speaking fluently, japanese and stuff they speak like I do in spanish after 5 months when they get home. Hard language, but you will love it man. AH tali going to school school?!? cray cray! BAHAHAHAHAHA the little red hen!!! I laughed out loud picturing it! That’s so great!!!! Very creative. I love it. wow.

So many incredible things happening over there in one week!!! good luck at graduation tomorrow trev! brother taylor is the new stake patriarch?!?! Did the other guy die? :( Congrats on the call to dad too! haha my advice is to be friends to all. Sharing the gospel doesn’t need to be awkward. Just state the facts! This is what life’s about! NOTHING else comes close to being as important. So just remember that. They will recognize it. Have faith in God. He makes things happen every day. Believe that He will make miracles happen in your life and he will! I love the armies of helaman. Dang did they have faith. A big part of faith is not doubting that God will deliver you or be with you always. Look for it in vs 47 and 56 of chapter 56 in alma. and ch 57 vs 21 and 26-27.  Ok while you’re at it turn the page to ch 58 vs 10 and 11. Good stuff. I’m in love with the scriptures. Seriously anything you ever need to know you can know from the scriptures and from prayer and answers from the holy ghost--2 ne 32: 3 and 5.

Wow. trevs an elder?? Giving blessings and going through the temple?? Doesn’t seem real! He will be an incredible missionary though. I can tell. He’s so obedient and he does what the Lord wants even if he’s never done it before or doesn’t know how. That’s what God needs and what makes extraordinary missionaries. Extremely obedient, hardworking and full of love. you got it man!

Ok so a week from today i will be in cusco!!! Time flies when you’re having fun eh? My flight leaves at like 9 I’ve heard, so i will hopefully be able to call in the airport if i can figure out a way. So I’m guessing maybe around 8 or 830 my time?? Who knows. Or maybe when i land. i love peruvians. Everything’s like last minute or not completely planned. :) sooooooo ya i can’t wait if it all works out! I don’t know how to use a phone card but whatevs.

Sooo i met my mish pres!!! He came to the ccm with the area 70s and stuff cuz they had a big meeting and came and ate at our cafeteria and that’s his new calling! He’s soooooo amazing! All 5 of us in my district just sat around as he ate and talked to us in spanish. He’s so full of the spirit and he said that he felt a really good spirit around us too. The altitudes super high so I’ll drink that drink, he said the people are amazing. I also met Elisa’s mission president!!! Its soo cool knowing that she’s soo close and real! hahah. He was so happy to meet me and i asked him if Elisa’s doing well, hes like ´yes! She’s the sister leader!´haha. There are 3 people from my district going to santa cruz so hopefully they’ll get to meet Elisa! 2 white girls and an elder. They are the girls that I’ve shared a room with for 6 weeks:), super funny. I can’t wait for them to meet Elisa. They just have like that dead pan humor. So great.

Oh ya, i forgot to tell you that i was called to be the sister leader in the ccm too! So I’ve had it just since last sunday, but it was cool cuz we wrote all the new girls notes, and I’ve been helping girls with sicknesses etc with oils n stuff. I have learned a lot from being the leader. It’s hard. you have a lot of responsibility and you have to be a good example always. haha even though i don’t do too much in the mtc, it’s been a really good experience for me. The new group got stuck over night in the LAX airport cuz something was wrong with the wing on their airplane! So i got up when they all got here and helped carry stuff up the stairs. I remember how hard it was getting here and everyone speaking spanish to you and not knowing what was going on and couldn’t imagine how hard it would be coming a day late too! i told them how this place is run.

Something for mission moms is that garments are SO cheap down here. Like 1.5 soles so like 60 american cents. soo good. I dont need any so i never bought any. Our last pday was today. We asked the pres if we could all go to pizza to celebrate our last pday. He worked out so many details giving us an extra hour out so we could go to the temple, go shopping and go to pizza hut!! Pizza hut was like a super nice sit down restaurant! Who woulda thought! I’m gunna miss lima. It’s so great. especially now that I’m not like freaked out every time i walk out of the doors or sit in the bus as it wizzes by the other cars like a licking distance away(aka i could lick the other car if i stuck my tongue out the window). i like the feel of the city and the run down houses. I’m sooooo stoked to finally get to cusco though.

I feel like the first week here i learned spanish so fast, but now I’ve started slowing down a bit. it’s frustrating, and nerve wracking, but tengo fe. I’m just stoked to get out and really be a missionary. :) One thing I’ve really learned though is that it doesn’t matter the title you have, you can be a missionary every day. Like before i came out here i learned so much stuff like how to listen to people and talk about the gospel with them and be friendly and listen to the spirit that has helped me so much out here. Like more than i would’ve been able to learn here in 6 weeks. aka learn something new every day. Don’t let one day go to waste. You can listen to the promptings of the spirit to help people. Helping people is the ultimate goal. Christ’s personality was to reach outside himself and he did it every single day and in every situation even when suffering on the cross. Our ultimate goal is to be like him, so let’s constantly find ways to not complain and look outside ourselves. Gods goal is ´to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man´, let’s make that our goal too eh? Obviously it’s the best goal eh? Help people, people!! :)

One of the guys that serves us food that we talk to every day we found out isn’t a member. We asked him if he wanted to learn more and it was like a no brainer yes. So all the sisters in my district talked to him after we got back from pizza today and it was the coolest thing. He had a lot of weird ideas about what we believe, and he knows the truth. People in the world just need to see that we´re normal people. He said he loves to serve people. Like that’s what he does every day, and he does it cuz of the good feelings he gets every time he does. He also believes in a higher power. It was cool being able to tell him that that higher power is God and he´s literally our father and that he speaks to us today. It like blew his mind. It was cool feeling like ammon teaching king lamoni and just relating everything back to him and having the support of everyone testifying that they know for themselves. What a blessing agency, and personal revelation are. God our father cares enough about EVERY SINGLE person that he will individually give them an answer and speak to them. If God teaches individually to their needs, we need to too. I’m so thankful for all of the incredible things I’ve learned on the mission so far. soo much learning in so little time. It’s incredible. It’s a trial of faith every day and i love it. my faith has grown so much. God loves all of you! Keep up the good work!

hermana malorie 

CCM #4

haha ya sorry for all the emails. I think tony got me ´too´good of a camera! The pictures are so high def that the email doesn’t know how to deal with it! jaja(as the latinos say)

TREVs a beast!!! Way to be on all the high honors! He’s going to be awesome in japan:) but ya...get on those applications!  I’m definitely going to miss a home grown garden.

Oh, so i forgot to tell you that i barely missed elder bednar!! he was at the ccm literally 2 days before i got there and shook everyones hands!

I love the way the latinos translate some stuff into spanish. On our schedule it says, ´red the book of mormon´ for read. The other day one of our teachers was trying to explain a word and said you know, ´teeth sticks´ we later found out he meant tooth picks haha.

So you know the thing that craig used to do with his hand when he was excited? like the snappy clap thing? Its only with one finger here--your pointer finger hitting your middle finger and thumb. trev can do it i think, but anyways all of the latinos can do it and do it when somethings awesome like encouragement kind of. I’ve finally gotten a sound out of it, but I’ll be pro when i get home.

haha so i think I’ve figured out why people get so close to their districts in the mtc and why they have so much fun all the time. Its cuz we´re all soooo dead tired so it starts to get to the point where EVERYTHING is hilarious! And how the smallest things are SUPER entertaining. Like if i saw some of the things that gave me enjoyment now i would probably be ashamed. haha. Like there’s this huge house on the side of the hill next to the ccm and we can see it over our wall. Anyways the other night the alarm was going off on it, and literally we all stood outside and watched it for like 10 minutes. It was exciting. The other day one of the elders discovered something super exciting, spinning around for 30 seconds and then putting your feet together. You fall flat. Hilarious. We learned a little foot clappy thing. one of the sisters stole my toothbrush while i was in the restroom and put in on the window sill ledge and sat there cutely smiling while slowly pushing it off making the emporers new grove noise saying, uh huh?´kinda. I though it was the most hilarious thing. I died. Same girl pulled me around in the hallway on our comforter. McDonalds has never tasted better in my entire life! I think it’s my new fav restaurant and i didn’t like it before the mish. The few of us that are staying in peru on our mishes had to go and get our peruvian licenses today and so we got it. Best hamburger and fries of my life. The sprite tasted kinda diff though.

ya, so while were waiting for forever at the license place today. I saw this man with a daughter that was crying. I went over and went over and tried to give her a pamphlet to look at the pictures but she didn’t want it so i pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and she stopped crying and started drawing, I started talking to the guy and he spoke english!!! The tender mercies of the Lord. Not only that but he was from..get this.. INDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said one of my hindi phrases to him that i learned from my tapes!!!! He totally understood me and could understand my accent!!! wuzzup!!!!! He was in peru for work, we were just talking about life it was great. His daughter ended up crying again and I made one of those cootie catchers and she loved it! She giggled so much and took it. He asked me if i had a facebook or email address and i gave it to him and took down his info for the missionaries to come! It was great!! 

While we were waiting there were people just sitting all around me. I luckily had brought like ten pamphlets about the plan of salvation etc and handed them out to the people around me that looked bored saying, ´quiere leer?´ they all took them and some of them looked really grateful and said thank you. There was this boy that was in high school that looked like he had a rough life and i handed him one and he kinda started reading it, then i went and sat by him and asked him about soccer and messi in my broken spanish. We talked about usa and what i liked about it. He asked about the church and it was super cool cuz i told him that we are Gods children and he could be like God one day. It was super cool cuz we went back to talking about other stuff(he was definitely very patient with my spanish) and were just like chill friends. I realized that that’s how the gospel needs to be taught, not as like someone trying to force their beliefs on someone else, but as friends sharing and really caring about others and helping them to find more and become more for themselves. (I’m not going to lie, there was a lot of times i would just nod and laugh if it looked like he was saying something funny..most the time i could barely understand him..it worked though i think! lool)

We went prosylyting on saturday. It was a really awesome experience. I felt like a real missionary. And kind of lame cuz i really don’t know the language. With God it doesn’t matter though cuz the spirit has its own language and i definitely felt it a lot. The cool thing about the ccm is that the spirit is everywhere. it’s so real.

One thing i learned this week from Elder Holland is that whatever you want your investigators to do you need to do first yourself. Like if you want your investigators to pray harder and repent more or dig deeper into the scriptures then you need to do it yourself! You are Gods investigator. He wants you to come closer to him. I’m working on making my prayers more meaningful and digging deeper into the scriptures and i challenge yall to do the same! i love you all soo soo much!!!!!!!! Good luck on graduation coming up t-rev!!!!!!!

te amo mucho!

herm black.

ps, i think im heading out on the tuesday around june 4th. 2 more weeks!!!!!! :O

CCM #2

TREVOR THE ASIAN!!!!!!!!!! WOWO!!!!! DID ANYONE SEE THAT ONE COMING?!?!?!?! CRAZY!!!!! CRAZY!!!!!!!! CRAZY HARD LANGUAGE!!!!!! dude, trev. you´re going to ROCK man!!!! spanish is hard..but its nothing compared to japanese!!! haha. all that studying for ib will pay off i think!! youre soooo cool!!!!! you're going to be able to speak japanese!!!!!!!! thats super good that steve gave you that rosetta stone though. i heard those things are the best. im soo sooo pumped for you. i was sitting here reading my emails with a room of missionaries and i yelled, ´WHAT?!?!´ and then ¨my brother got called to JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!´ sooo stoked for you man!!! you are seriously going to rock it.

i am sooo sooo soooo stoked for michaela to come!!!!!!!!!! ive been telling everyone, ´my cousins coming in two days!!!!!´one of the elders was like, ´does she play soccer too?´ haha i said shes a really good piano player. :) its nuts cuz theres only like 20 people at the ccm right now! 2 of the 4 american districts left on sunday, and all of the latinos(they only stay for two weeks so ill go through 3 groups of them)! i was muy triste. the latinos woke me up at 4 in the morning and we sang ´God be with you til we meet again´in espanol, and i prayed for them in spanish. theyre the best. theyll all find me on ´face´(thats what they call facebook haha) cuz i wrote them all notes in their journals(more like drew them with my colorful pens and wrote in broken spanish) ha. ya so its a party being so empty here. according to hermana cardon(presidents wife) theres about 75 latinos coming, 4 latinas, 7 american hermanas y 9 american elders. should be fun! cant wait for another hermana black!!!

i didnt realize how hard it would be to work hard as a missionary. theres not people there all the time telling me what i need to do all the time. its a lot of self discipline to study for multiple hours a day on your own. im trying to learn how to get rid of my will and accept Gods. the district also makes it hard too, because they become some of your really good friends because your with them all day every day! so if one person comes off focus, then everyone does. on sunday we were all particularly roudy and finally one of the elders stood up and said, ´i have a spiritual thought´and he read a quote from preach my gospel and a scripture about working hard and how God will bless you with power. i have definitely re-commited to putting my best effort out there and stop letting myself lag because other people are. whats cool(trevor) is that we all have so much more respect for that guy now. hes always worked so hard and his spanish has improved a ton(he´ll bring flashcards to meals even). we all want to be the best missionaries, so when youre an example even if it seems intimidating people will thank you for being so so obedient all the time. i know i have definitely thanked that elder.  

cool thought in the temple today was that scripture ´the last shall be first and the first last etc´. i sat on the back row so that i would be the last one into the celestial room, because im trying to be better at serving others and being selfless(last time i was first in there). anyways, the way it worked out, they were taking the people on the back row first this time, so i ended up being first again! it made me realize that when you do what your supposed to and always put God first, things will actually work out better for you. siempre. always. it may not seem like when we get rid of our will and put God first that its better for us. but he´s way smarter than us. he´ll pay us back 500%. at least. the scriptures are dang powerful. i watched a talk from elder holland on sunday and he said that when you open the book of mormon its like the spirit oozes of the pages. (i dont think he used that exact wording, but that the imagery i got:)) ha anyways. its so true. the book of mormons powerful. i just get to tell people to read it! its the proof that everythings true!!

much love,

hermana black.

Pictures (CCM #3)

We pieced together a BUNCH of emails for the following (2 days after Mom’s day)…

Mostly info from the pics she sent.

-------------------

This is my district all on the same flight to peru from georgia. There are two other girls that flew alone, so they’re not here, and we also have two more people in our district from the mtc in provo that got their visas. i wonder if i have pictures of them?

This is us at the airport in peru! The girl to the left of me is my companion. haha so this picture was supposed to have everyone that was there with us, but the lady that took the picture musta zoomed in a lot. haha

Here’s the picture i drew you mom! Sorry its dark i just barely took it. :)

 2. = freedom. that’s what across the street looks like when we get to leave on pdays. It’s pretty awesome because every single pday we get to go to the temple and then after we get to go out on the streets and go shopping for a couple more hours. We always bring extra book of mormons and pamphlets and hand them out on the crazy busses and in stores. i love it. Except it is a little nerve racking to speak to someone in spanish, because i can’t understand hardly anything they say. i bought some smiley face stickers and I’ve been handing them out to little kids on the street. I think it’s good for people to see how nice the people with name tags are.

 3. My district in front of the ccm. i love them.  jk, 3 = most of my district in front of the temple.

 Ok, this picture is great. i found out after that i wasn’t supposed to take pictures in the cafeteria, but im glad i got it! These are some of my latina girls, and you can see in the background that there’s a lot of latinos. I havent been as friendly with this last group of latinos, this time, but i was tight with all them.

 5. What the soccer field looks like from my floor. it’s nice. We got some new latinos this time around and one of the elders said that he’s never seen a girl play soccer before! They dont in peru i guess!

 6. Me in front of the ccm on a pday.

 7. Is my whole district in front of the ccm. They’re crazy. we see them all the time. we tried to do an all spanish day, because surprisingly we get spoken to in english a ton. And for like devotionals they give us translators. ya that day only lasted til lunch. it hurts my head to speak in two languages.

 8. The cute girls in my district. 3 go to byu idaho, one goes to byu. my comp goes to uvu. we took this picture while we were waiting for the bus. Ok jk it doesn’t wanna upload. So here’s another of my district on our first pday!

 10. K there’s this crazy fruit called the granadilla or something, and i love it! It has a hard shell that you can break open with your fingers and is about the shape and size of a lemon. Inside though are these crazy slimy covered seeds that taste delicious when you slurp them up! Some of the elders said they look like frog eggs so most of my district won’t eat them anymore. ha. i still do and love it!!!

 13. ok this guy in our district is awesome. elder estrada. the one that kept us in line the other day. He’s hilarious and crazy super hill billy(like lives with his family in a swamp town) haha hes going to cusco too. Anyways we were talking about the crazy food that we might have to eat and someone said we might have to have monkey brains. Now every time someone says anything about monkeys he does a creepy monkey sound and wiggles his arms. i drew a picture of a monkey holding a baby with a tentacle on the whiteboard because one night he said, ´what would you do if you just had a baby and the doctor brings it out and it has a tentacle for an arm?´ haha ya thats estrada.

On my way to peru. The sky was absolutely gorgeous. I’m lucky the plane wasn’t too full so we got to choose where we got to sit! Yes, they gave us like 3 meals on the plane. i loved every minute of it.

I gave a talk on sunday! So they have us all prepare a talk in spanish and call on us randomly to give it. the topic was on charity and they called ´hermana black´haha probably gave Michaela a heart attack, I’m surprised the other herm black didn’t give it because she leaves next week. But my talk went well! All in spanish baby!

Elder chino is one of the new latinos and he’s from bolivia! He brought me a letter from Elisa!!!! so cool. he’s a super funny kid, and he told me that Elisa’s spanish is super good! there’s actually 3 sister blacks at the ccm now that Michaela’s here, so i think it was kind of confusing for him to find me :) yes, i see Michaela all the time she lives across the hall from me. She was famous when she got here. I told everyone she was coming. :)

Ah thanks so much for the update! I’m glad you found the pin mom:) well, i don’t really wanna look for the second trigaurd, cuz all my suitcases are up on top of the closet, but I’m sure I’ll be fine. there’s been some viruses breaking out among the north americans, so my oils are being well spent. And the wonderful cough drops. muchas gracias. :)

 I’m glad everything’s going well in provo! haha i laughed out loud about that tooth fairy tali story. sooo cute. i miss that chica. Tell me what you want me to take more pictures of!!

i love you all so much! The church is so true! Today was pretty cool because they didn’t have translators for us in the temple, I love how i know exactly what’s going on, even though I don’t know all the words. The spirit is siempre the same. i feel bad for Michaela though cuz its her first time! I love that imp starting to be able to feel the spirit more and more in spanish. keep it real familia!

much love,

hermana mal black