Hello, happy easter! 

We did nothing out of the ordinary for easter. We didn´t even sing any resurrection songs in church. Nada! so it was kind of weird. Hna Larsen and I are still together!!! and we are still in GuarHooray!! Hna. Harman is still in our house/ward and her new companion is Hna. Ortiz. She is from peru. She is the most mellow, calm person in the world, also the most punctual. So things are good.

There is a catholic church right by our house and alot of stuff was going on over the weekend. On friday there was an acting thing of the crucifixion, or what led up to it. kinda weird.

 

We have 4 ppl with baptism dates! Victor, Marta, Nayseth, and Jorge. CArlos and Yaquelin lost their dates because they didn´t go to church :( but we will work more with them. CArlos didnt´come to the english class because his mom wouldn´t give him 1 boliviano. They hvae been selling food in the church to raise money for the temple trip they are going on in may.

 Victor is working on the word of wisdom now. His wife is still in La paz so he is alone with his 2 daughters, it´s really hard for their family. They are in 1 nephi 15 though! His daughter that is 7, victoria is reading in the bible in revelations, she is very smart, and she is very concerned about the end of the world and when jesus comes, she LOVES primary, and wants to get baptized, she tells her dad that she is getting baptized when she turns 8 (august)! :) she is really cute.

Marta and Nayseth are praying but looking for their answers to the prayers (along with victor). She is catholic and doesn´t quite understand priesthood authority we think. so we are working on that.

JOrge is a 13 year old whose brother is a member but less active. He always goes to Young men activities and to play soccer at the church. He said the other day he had an interview with the bishop. Haha. dont´know how that works exactly. But he likes the church a lot and he is our friend and wants to learn more :)

 

This week we didn´t get to teach a lot becasuse of the holiday, a lot of ppl went out of town, or weren´t in their houses when we went t hte appointment. Funny thing that happened: we were walking down the street and some kids kicked their soccer ball down toward us by accident (happens a lot), Hna. Larsen kicked it off and her shoe went flying too! haha. good hting it was dark and not many people around.

every day we arrive at the house totally beat! exhausted. My feet hurt sooo bad! I walk like an old lady but the end of the day. I would love for someone to send me some gel insoles to put in my shoes. :)

 

I love you all!! Thanks for supporting me and praying for me. The mission is totally great. I have learned so much. I have so many more goals still but I love what i am doing and am happy i am here. my companion hna. Larsen helps me so much when i get stressed out or get a little bit of a bad attitude. She is amazing. but even more than, her, my Heavenly Father has blessed me so much. He has helped me through some really tough times. Les quiero mucho. Sigan adelante!! Con amor Hna. Tibbitts

Hello Everyone!
Missionary work is so funny sometimes. Victor is progressing but slowly. He doesn't have much time for visits and now Sulema is living in La paz for the time being. So he is there with the 2 girls being mom and dad. He did make it to sacrament meeting finally! In the last 10 minutes (investigators have to come to sacrament 3 times to be baptized). He had come to church 2 other times but not to sacrament. He likes what he is reading though and wants to learn more.


We didn't get to visit Romina and Mario again, and they didn'tcome to church :(

We had a movie night to bring in references. It was almost a disaster. We almost didn't have popcorn because the stove didn't work in the church, and then the projector didn't have speakers. But we figured everything out although we started the movie 45 minutes late. We watched the testaments. Not a lot of people came :( But we did get ONE reference. And he came to church the next day. So we are happy about that. His name is Jorge and he is 13. He has friends in the church so he has been coming to some activities. Going to visit him tomorrow.

Hna. Larsen and I made a lot of progress this week and were able to discuss why we aren't having as much success as we want, and already it is working!! We have changed some things to be better comapanions and to be more bold and more powerful and feel the spìrit more in our lessons. We have 3 people with baptism dates now for the 14 of May. Marta, Jacqueline, and Carlos. Jacqueline and Carlos are way special, she is a single mom and Carlos is her son who is 11 but turning 12 the 5 of May, and he really wants a cake, but his mom doesn't know if she will have the money. Having a cake for my birthday is something I always took for granted! How lucky we are to have a cake every year no? Hna. Larsen and I are going to do something for him. They are super excited and hopefully the will keep their commitments so they can be baptized! They live very humbly, Jacqueline washes clothes and sells refresco (juice, etc) in the streets to earn her living.

Oh, we also had the weirdest experience. We were running late to the movie night, with the popcorn in bags (ended up making it at the pensionista's), and this tall blonde lady comes up to us and asks us if we know German... we said no... it was a German lady! Young, super tall and super skinny. But she asked us who we were and we asked about her too, turns out she is not only a german in Santa Cruz but a Jehovah's Witness!! Baaah! Super funny. She invited us to some event in her church and we invited her to the church too, haha, super weird, and we were talking English the whole time, super weird to do a contact in English, I was translating my words Spanish to English haha!

Cambios are this week! But I think Hna. Larsen and I will stay together.So not really worried about it.


I love you all!! I love hearing from you!! Have a great week. Send pictures with a letter please!! Love, Hermana Tibitts

Hello!! Thank you for your wonderful letters. Did you already get the one i wrote you then? that´s great! it didn´t take too long after all. I just got a letter from Kristen that was sent in february. So I would say to use the POUCH if you are going to send hand written stuff. the PO Box that is in SLC. plus it´s less postage too!


The bananas are different than the ones that you eat raw, they have a differnet taste, she just cuts the ends off and puts them in the oven til the skin turns black, she says she eats them all the time instead of eating bread, haha, i am so sick of the bananas but they are ok, i wish she would fry them instead, more yummy that way.. but its ok.
the truth is i was addicted to coca cola for a bit because in my last area we had it every day!!! Then i came here and didn´t have it for a while, and got sad! haha
The baptism was great! Of course we had to worry about getting the clothing, priesthood there, keys to the church and the font, filling up the font (it takes 3 hours!!), etc. But it went well!! She is very happy. sending pictures. hna. Larsen and I sang I like to look for rainbows (cuando me bautizo), and it was great! She was confirmed sunday in church and now she wants to go do baptisms in may or june when the ward goes to the temple (date pending).

Friday was one of the best days on the mission so far. We taught really well and found some good people. We are still teaching Victor and Sulema, but Sulema went out of town for a week so none of the m went to chuirch on sunday, even after they said they would. so we are going to work harder with them :) they didn´t come to conference either but they are really interested in that, they are going to look up the talks on the internet! And we gave them a BOM this week so they are going to read it, along with the principles of the gospel book they have.

We had 2 jovenes 18 yrs and 25 yrs Romina and Mario come to church with us, it was so funny, we contacted Romina in teh street, invited her to churhc, she said yeah, she was so excited, she said she would make us breakfast! haha, but it was fast sunday and she woke up like 10 minutes before we left haha, but she came along with her brother! we hadn´t even had the chance to teach them, but they came and they liked it! So that was exciting, hopefully we can help them progress and eventually be baptized. other than that we are searching for more people, and trying to have faith that we will find people to baptize, it´s so easy for me to get discouraged because it seems like i can never do enough, we can never meet our goals, so i am working on that, i know the lord will bless us.

Yes we teach english classes once a week in the evenings. Hna. harman does most of it, members and investigators come, mostly kids, we always teach from the scriptures or stuff like articlesa of faith, primary songs, etc.

gotta go, time is up. love you all! keep being faithful! love, hna. Tibbitts

Hello again! Thanks for the letters and photos!

 

In the conference I was the only speaker that was picked at random, out of 2 zones! So like out of 50 missionaries. Crazy. The topic was Book of mormon.

 

We didn't teach a whole lot this week, because of general conference and last monday after writing my companion got sick!! We don't really know what she got but she was in bed, slept for about 24 hours, with some medicines and rest she was better by Wednesday. Hermana Harman also got sick with the same thing at the same time, so we thought it might have been food, but the other 3 of us in our house didn't get sick so I don't think it could have been food.

 

Our pensionista is good, she keeps everything clean and always boils the water for our drinks most importantly. I got a letter from Grandpa and he asked me about the food we eat. Well, we eat lunch everyday at a member´s house, she is paid to give us food everyday. We ALWAYS have bananas cooked in the oven, rice, potatoes, and then some sort of meat or pasta dish. I am kind of sick of the bananas to tell you the truth. she stuffs us full! Sometimes I feel like I can hardly walk leaving there, and then we still have a day of proselyting ahead of us. She usually gives us a drink caled linaza which basically is like lemonade but made from some other fruit, and it´s yellow with gray seeds, it's yummy. Other than that, we don't get fed a whole lot, sometimes crackers or bread and most visits they give us something to drink, water or coca cola. Coke is king here. there's now way to avoid it. We drink a lot of it. It's rude to EVER turn down them offering you food. So we get stuffed full always.

 

Mom, that's cool you met someone that was in Bolivia, to answer your question before I was in Barrio (ward) la Cañáda, estaca (stake) La pampa, and now I am in Barrio Guaracal, (estaca) Cañoto.

 

Florencia passed her baptismal interview and her baptism is saturday! Good to go! Just hoping we have enough priesthood there.

 

Wasn't conference great? Luckily we got to watch all the sessions, we had to bring investigators saturday and we were able to, yay! Florencia came as well as Eugenio, a man we found a few weeks ago but haven´t been able to teach much becuase of schedule and we have to bring another hermana from the ward with us, since his wife doesn´t want to hear, but he usually comes to the english classes and we were really surprised he showed up! Hopefully he liked it...he is prety shy so who knows. I loved the talks by Elder Bednar and Elder Holland and many others, and I can't wait to get the Liahona!! We watched 2 sessions in English and 2 in Spanish. I understood the Spanish sessions but English is a lot easier still, and the jokes don´t make sense in Spanish haha.

 

Meridian temple surprised me too!! But it's great!

 

We were sad though because Victor and Sulema and their family didn't come. I think one of their daughters got sick or something, our pensionista lives down the street from them and she said they left early in the morning Sunday to go somewhere and hadn´t come back...that's the only thing we think it could have been.

 

I wanted to send you some pictures but this computer won't let me...next week! sorry

 

I love you all. Thanks for your prayers, and I hope you are all praying every day and reading your scritpures! It´s really the best thing you can do for yourself. Always go to church too. I love you all. 

Hermana Tibbitts