Thanks for the emails!

 

Haha yeah its pretty crazy I am sr. companion, but i like it . it is sooo different. But I have a wonderful companion. Realy she is becoming a great friend for me. She got to the mission 3 wks before me but speaks less spanish becasue she didn´t study it before like I did. But  we have a great zone and we are finding a lot of great people to teach!! I don´t speak spanish 100% but i speak well enough and i understand most of what people say. the hardest people to talk to are teenagers/young adults because they talk fast, and old people. haha. It´s funny sometimes the reactions we get. Being 2 americans, we have to be extra careful, especially at night. We don´t knock doors after 7 p.m. and keep our distance from men. But don´t be scared!! I can hold my own! Mos tpoeple see that we are americans, but one investiator thought we were Germans haha, and another lady thought we were Brazilian. What the heck?

 

We are FIVE sisters in our house now. A sister left the mission unexpectedely, so now Hna. Flores lives in our house, she is in a trio with Hna. Patzi and Hna. Harman, she is great to have around, she finishes her mission in june and she is from Trujillo, Peru.

 

 

My interview went fine. Basically it was just like... how are you doing? are you ok? ok good good to see ya. haha. But we also had to bring our area book to be reviewed and do practices with one of the assistants. that was the hard part haha. But President Calderón is great. He has helped me so much alreayd on the mission. He is so inspired. Hna. CAlderon is great too. He is a convert. The missionaries contacted him when he was 18 or so, he was playing soccer in the street, he said he wanted to punch them! haha, but he accepted an appointment, and eventually joined the church. Hna. Calderon is wonderful too.she is the sweetest lady. You really feel her love every time you talk to her.

 

We had zone conference with 2 zones the day after. We were all supposed to prepare a 10 minute talk on the book of mormon, and they called on someone randomly to give the talk. Well I was picked!! And of course I didn´t prepare very much. Oops. I forgot!  But it´s was ok. I had a little prepared so i used that and I think it went well! Not the best talk i have ever given, but it went ok and it surprised me that they picked me most of all, that president has that kind of confidence in me! The conference was great and I learned a lot. There are a TON of missionaries coming to our mission. They are going to be opening a ton of areas. So I am happy that the mission is growing.

 

Florencia is getting baptized April 9! Her family are all members and because of some documents (long story) for a long time we didn´t think she could get baptized. But she can so we are happy! She has a super strong testimony and has been attending for over a year so it´s about time. It is special to teach her nad help her get ready for her baptism, she´s already ready though haha.

 

We are teaching a wonderful family! Victor and Sulema are the parents, they have 2 cute daughters Julia and Victoria who are 4 and 7. The day we had stake conference they came to our chapel here, and found no one, but someone in the street told them they could go to another chapel, gave them the address (out of the stake), they went there, got there in time for Relief society/priesthood, and enjoyed it a lot. Someone there gave them a gospel principles book and they hvae been reading it, Sulema really likes the word of wisdom,and they are both soo good! They came yesterday to church ut also only for the last hour! But they are happy to have a church to go to, and like the lessons, and they are going to go to general conference (i´m soo excited!) and want to go to ALL  of the activities that they are having here in the ward. We are so excited for them. We actually contacted Sulemna in the street one of the 1st days in the area, but we kind of forgot about her oops. But  friday we decided to go go back knock on the door and we were able to learn about the 1st time they wen tto chrch and made an appointment for satuday. The 7 yr old asked us questions about revelations and the anti christ haha. She is super intelligent, turns 8 in august.

 

thank you for your letters and your prayer. I appreciate it. Poeple here are usually nice so don´t worry too much about that. Pray that these people progress!

 

 

haha I love you alll. have a great week.

love Hermana Tibbitts

Hello!
 
People have asked me how to send packages. I don´t think there should be a problem with things getting stolen. just tape it up good. And if you want to you can tape on a picture of Jesus or the virgen mary. Smaller packages are probably better. I would love to get some!! I would love to recieve easter candy, or any american candy, and something I would really love to get is pictures and stickers, like church related pictures or flowers, designs, etc. to decorate my planners and to use in people´s memory books, just any sort of stuff like that, especially mission related would be great, stationary type stuff. Also I could really use a nice umbrella. I am on my 2nd umbrella here. My companion has one from land´s end that is really nice. If it´s not nice quality then it will break here, there is wind and the rain is a lot. Oh, and definitely I want one that is compact. Right now i am using one that is not collapsible and it drives me nuts. Also I would love to get pictures of my family, and gel insole things for my shoes.

No pictures to send this week, sorry. but we´re going to el centro to mail letters and print pictures, and then later we´re going bowling as a zone!! so we should have pictures for that. 

It was father´s day here in bolivia on saturday. So lots of parties and drunk people. Happy fathers day dad! You get to hear that twice this year. Also FYI mother´s day here is may 27, i think in the US it is may 8?? I don´t remember but it is a different day. I don´t know which day I will be able to call, but can you please send me your phone numbers? I need to update your information in the mission office, I need your address (do you have a physical address?? or po box in the uae?) and can you send your cell phone numbers and VOIP number?? thanks. 

So with father´s day a lot of people had forgotten that it was father´s day when we made appointments with them, so we went to their house and they were gone, or they told us to come back another time. One lady felt bad because she was having family over and getting ready for that, but she gave us a piece of cake! hahah. 

Sunday was stake conference!! So we got to go to church at 10 instead of 8 (yes, this ward has 8 a.m. church- yuck). Elder Rafael Pino of the 70 was there as well as President Craig of the temple in cochabamba. They spoke as well as some of the stake presidency and president calderon and hermana calderon. it was a really great meeting!! We have a mission conference on wednesday so that should be great, and tomorrow we have interviews with president calderon! my first one, haha, don´t know how i got away so long without having one, 

We walked sooo much this week! I thought I was gonna die! not really, ut the mission is WAY more physically demanding than I thought it wouold be. Also emotionally demanding. You come to care so much about the people. Now i think i understand what people say about missions, that it is the hardest thing you can do, but most rewarding. It is sooo hot and sometimes we don´t have any lessons until the evening. But when you have a lesson and you are able to teach something of value to that person, really helping them with their needs and it´s worth it. 

In other news, this week we saw 3 dead rats in the street, and 2 dead cats.One of the cats was completely flattened by cars. I almost stepped on it. I don´t even know how to explain that one Plus we have seen lots of dead, flattened frogs, but that´s not out of the ordinary.

I wrote more but it got erased! sorry! out of time. Love you all. until next week. Hna. Tibbitts

Hello!

 

Before I say anything else, CAMBIOS HAPPENED!!! On Thursday. So now I am in a new area with a new companion. I am with Hermana Larsen in the area Guaracal, Zona Cañoto. I am senior companion and my companion is from Fillmore, UT. How crazy is that? But Hna. Larsen is awesome. She is such a sweetheart. She went to Weber State before the mission studying art and she moved around a bit before living in Utah. I'm sending a picture of her. She arrived in December so we are both new sisters. She didn't know any spanish before the mission. So things have changed a bit for me!! But it is a good change I think, we are both going to learn so much and really understand spanish and how things work in the mission so I'm excited!!

 

Also sending some pictures from the activity today. All the sisters in Zona Cañoto and Zona Paraiso went. And the Americanas haha. We played volleyball and the elders played soccer in the parque urbano.

 

If you want to look at a map of Santa Cruz, I am in the south part between the 3rd and 4th Anillos. Barrio Guaracal and La Morita, we share the ward with 2 other sisters, Hna. Harman and Hna. Patzi. Before I was in the east part by the 4th Anillo and av. 3 pasos al frente.

 

Carnaval was soo boring! 3 days in the house without leaving. It was boring but I read a lot of the Bom and we did get some water balloons thrown at us when we were with the other hermanas who live on the second floor, haha, from the kids next door.

 

Since we just got here 2 days ago we don't really know any of the investigators yet, so we've been doing a LOT of tracting. Every day we come home exhausted, but really Hna. Larsen and I have high hopes for this area. We feel good and we really want to do a lot of good. There is one Hermana, Florencia, who is an investigator, she lives with a member and her 2 daughters were baptized a year ago. She wants to get baptized and she has a STRONG testimony the only thing that has to happen is that she has to divorce her 1st husband and get married to the man she is living with. So hopefully we can do that soon. We are also teaching 2 people that live in the relief society president's house. (Her daughter is primary pres too- awesome family!! ) One is a new investigator and the other had a baptismal date but then went out of town. They didn't come to church yesterday but we have high hopes for both of them, they have good questions and really want to learn.

 

Soooo...the mission is hard. But i am happy. It's full of surprises every day. But I have had the lord trust in me a lot and that makes me happy. I have grown in so many ways and I've been blessed with the language and being able to relate to the the people. I can't believe I'm almost at 4 months! Where has the time gone??

 

The weather is still crazy here. Rain, sun, rain, sun, rain, sun.

 

I love you family! Hope you are doing good. 

 

love,

Hermana Tibbitts