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Monday, November 28, 2011

One year Anniversary!!!

CAMBIOS!!! I am still in belen with... guess it... HNA HERNANDEZ!! Yes, again! Very unexpected but i am happy. We were only separated 6 weeks. I¨m so excited! Hna Hernandez ROCKS! and we are working hard and will continue to. I guess Presidente doesn´t want me to get to know other hermanas very well, becuase he keeps putting me with the same ones! haha. Some of my favorite elders in the zone left, and I¨m sad... booo cambios

Hna Larsen is still in my zone but in another ward. So I still get to see her twice a week! She is feeling lots better too so that´s good. Her comp is Hna Cruz, the guatemalan sister.

i CAN´T BELIEVE I´VE BEEN ON THE MISSION 1 YEAR! I feel OLD! But it´s been a great year. Just like you said, this has been a great opportunity for me to learn and grow. I am really happy now on the mission, i feel like the hard part is over and from now on it´s just going to be more fun and spiritually stretching.

I didn´t really do anything to celebrate that day. Was going to but ran out of time. The next day a member bought us a 2 liter bottle of coke that we had to drink all of it between the 3 of us. He only drank 2 little glasses then left us. Haha, that was funny. We were struggling to finish it. It´s a reuseable bottle he bought so that's why. That day we were also given Mocochinchi, Chicha, Lima, and Tampico. We were about to burst when we got home!

Well we were supposed to have Sandra´s baptism this weekend, but she moved!! So she will be baptized in her new ward. She moved back in with her family (she was renting a room close to her boyfriend but she can´t afford it now).

Mom, you sound like superwoman. way to be involved in so many things. You are a great example of service I am sure so many people are grateful.

Family, please stop getting sick!!! Glad you have been to the Dr. and gotten the medicines you need. I realized I have picked up some Bolivian habits when it comes to my health. I try not to drink too much cold water, if I feel like i´m getting sick I drink hot lemonade (limes put in the blender) with honey, and try not to sleep with the fan on. If my stomach hurts I like to drink chamomile tea... pretty funny huh. I also bought an old fashioned water bottle for my stomach. Warm water and salt is good too for the throat. But these things work! Try it out if you like!

We have a few new investigators now that are really great, one of them is Andres, he is older, his wife and all of his 6 or 7 kids are members. They have all been to the temple too, and he has a testimony, but is afraid of being baptized and messing up after. We had a lesson with his wife, 2 of his kids and their wives, and it was super special. He wants to have an eternal family. He knows it´s what he needs to do. Trying to help him with this fear that he has. He is a super sweet guy. He offered us hamburgers and tampico and coca cola- too much! And one night he paid for our taxi to take us home.

We are also teaching a guy named Diego, his grandma Irma is a member and he recently moved into the house across the street (Irma´s daughter´s house.). He is really great, he is about 20 and wants to learn, but says he used to go to a christian church and he really liked it, the dancing and singing-loud stuff. He said he felt weird when he went to the LDS church. Hopefully we can help him understand! He had some problems with Word of wisdom too in the past so we will try to help him.

We visited a lot of members this week when Hna Hernandez arrived, so she coud get to know the ward. It´s been really fun! That´s one of my favorite parts of the mission. Being with the members and establishing relationships with them. Also I helped a couple times with the Primary kids, they are preparing to sing in sacrament meeting (Child´s prayer) and needed a pianist. One day their leaders didn´t show up so we just taught them! It was super fun. I think most all Bolivians are tone deaf though.

My convert Hugo is doing goood, he gave us a really good reference today, but Corina and Alejandro haven't been going to church, and we can´t find her at home. Hope she is doing ok! Shirley is doing great too. Her son has to have another operation this week, this time for his head. Pray for little Bennji! We thought he was close to gettin out of the hospital but it appears it will be a while still.

Oh tracee, I forgot, I really liked the package! Thanks! I was so excited get it!! The clothes didnt´t fit me though, they are super huge!!! Did you think i got fat? Cause i´m not!

Cross your fingers I can get the Dhl package from my friend. if i don´t get it by the end of the month they´re gonna destroy it!! eeeek.

I love you all. Keep being good. Do you want anything from Bolivia for Christmas?? Have a great week and trynot to get sick anymore!! How is your preach my gospel reading going??
Love Hna Tibbitts

Sunday, November 27, 2011

November 7

Wow, what a week, well, Halloween came and went, some people celebrated it here, it´s kind of a fad thing because it´s american, some people really don´t like it. I got a package from Malia Pruitt with candy 2 days later, so that was really nice, also she included some halloween tissues and glow sticks. For Halloween I was Hna. Larsen and she was me. We switched name tags... :) we told people we were dressed up and they didn´t get it at first.. hah.

Shirley´s baptism went great! She was laughing when she came out of the water!! She was really happy.A lot of members came to support her. Her grandma gave her testimony and it was really special. After we went to her house and her grandma served us cake. When we were walking there it started pouring rain!! We didn´t get too wet but her grandma made us change shirts and she gave us towels to put over our heads because it was still raining when we went home. We are excited because Shirley´s baby had surgery, and it went well, and he will come home in 2 weeks!!! The sad part is that she doesn´t have anything for this baby, only one bottle. We told the RS president that it would be good to have a baby shower for her. Hno. Menacho baptized her. He is the husband of Ericka, our pensionista. I don´t know why she´s not in any of these pictures.

Saturday Hna Larsen was sick all day, we only went to the baptism and to eat cake after. Sunday she started feeling bad too. She slept all morning, I almost didn´t think we would be able to come to internet. Her whole body hurts, especially her back, she says she´s never felt this kind of pain before. I´m afraid its... dun dun dun.. dengue! I hope not!!! please Pray for my poor companion!! I don´t know why this keeps happening, it feels like we are always struggling with our health this cambio. But I know the Lord always has a reason. Hope you alll feel better soon too.. no fun to be sick.

Day of the dead... people here go to the cemetery and visit their dead family members.. dad, mom, grandma, brother, etc. They eat their favorite foods ther ein the cemetery (not everyone but some). that´s about it.

we ate shwaerma and falafel in the fidalga the other day! it´s a mall type place with a food court. it was good, and hna larsen really like dit, it was the first time to try it for her.

My eyes;;; have not bothered me at all this week. Maybe it was just stress?? I don´t know, I might still have them checked but i dont know. will seee what happens.

Christmas::: I don´t know what else... some mascara? i can´t find any good mascara here... umm... I don´t know. Whatever you think.

Sandra, our investigator, is ready for baptism. She had her interview yesterday, but sadly her baptism isn´t until the 19th. She goes out of town every other weekend for work, so we just decided to get it done early and get it out of the way. Today is her birthday, she is turning 21. Her boyfriend is a member of the ward and is like 35. Kind of weird, he wants to get married but she doesn´t. Whatever, the important part is that she has a testimony of the gospel and she wants to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized.

have a fun vacation!! Wish i was there!!! But glad i am here.
love you all. be good! Hna. Tibbitts

October 31

Hello, how are you all, I¨m doing ok, this week was kind of hard because both of us got alittle sick, but we are better now, still recovering alittle bit, but that´s just how it is. IT HAS BEEN SO HOT!!! and then yesterday it rained. now it´s hot again.

the pictures attached are Nefi, age 3, and Paul, age 6. They are the brothers of the baby Lehí that was just born.. picture of the baby is in the other email. Their mom is Seluti and she is a recent convert- she wanted to get baptized for a long time but her husband had to get divorced to marry her, so that´s how they have a 3 year old named Nefi. They´re a g reat family.

We weren´t able to have Shirley´s baptism this week, becuase she had to work on sunday, and her confirmation has to be in sacrament meeting, so it will be this saturday. Hooray!! Shirley is so great and ready.

We lost track of Jose CArlos, and SAndra is really hard to find now because she is traveling constantly for her work, but we will keep working and looking!!

There is a family in the ward and they let us have FHE with them every monday night, and we bring investigators, last week we decided to make the treats and we made mud cups, actually Ericka our pensionista made the pudding and we brought the oreo and worms, it really surprised some of them! But it was a hit. I guess we had halloween early...

Last monday we had an activity as a zone with the zone Paraiso, my last zone, so i got to see Hna hernandez and she told me that Lars got baptized!! Remember the guy from Sweden we were teaching!! I AM SO HAPPY!!! Also another investigator, Nicole, got baptized.. we were about ready to give up on her! So in total that is 5 baptisms for me in october between the 2 areas. Yesss!!

What else... so the prophet made a decision for the missionaries all around the world, and it is that all missionaries can have DVD players in our houses!!! WE got ours the other day. It is a little portable DVD player.WE only have 1 DVD to watch. So... that´s my christmas idea mom! DVD´s... we can only watch DVDs from the church though. Ones that have the church logo on the case. I want the video for the REstoration, and whatever others you want to send. Finding faith in christ would be good. Just make sure you get the version with other languages on it for spanish.

we went to part of the ward relief society´s party for the birthdays of the sisters. Very different from a party in the USA. All the women were dancing!! They had a dance contest.. then ate cake. We had to go home before eating cake though!!

Well even though this week was hard i am happy. i am doing the Lord´s work, and that makes me happy, to be an instrument in his hands, and I know that the gospel message is true, i want to do all that i can to share it.

Going to the mission office later becuase i have a package that is stuck in customs that was sent by DHL.... don´t use DHL in the future please!

Ok so... my companion thinks i need glasses. I have been having a hard time reading in my personal study in the mornings, i get headaches if i read for very long. Do i need reading glasses?? I think so...
I think i can get a free exam here.But does our insurance cover that kind of stuff? although its probably cheap here.. i dont know. what should i do?

Sounds like a lot of fun stuff going on in your lives!!
Keep your grades up brothers!!

I am praying for Grandpa T and Melissa.. I had no idea that stuff was going on!

Have a fun trip to Oman!!! .. and trip to London!

Love you all..

Have a great week! Love Hermana Tibbitts

Monday, October 24, 2011

October 17th

Hello, first of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRACEE!! 20!!!

First of all I am all better, thanks to antibiotics, cold medicine, and drinking hot lemonade with honey. Yummm. Last monday was awful actually. When I got off the phone with the doctor I cried, I didn´t want to stay home, or be sick. Then after internet i cried again. I guess i was a little emotionally sensitive that day.

Things are good here with Hermana Larsen. We had a hard time in Guaracal, but things are going to be better here. We are good friends. We talked about it a little this week, and she said that she had a really hard time with her last companion, and she was praying that her next companion would be a friend, and then i came! so she was happy because she said her prayer was answered. She is my friend and she supports me and helps me a lot. It was hard in Guaracal because we were really hard on ourselves, we kind of thought that everything we did wasn´t good enough. But now we know better!! Every effort is important, no effort is ever wasted!! And we both felt really inadequate because we were in the beginning of our missions. Both of us have gained a lot of confidence now. so things are great!!!

So we have 5 people with baptism dates!! One is Alejandro. He is 11 and is the son of Corina. Before he wanted to be sure before getting baptized. But after the baptism of his mom he said he wanted to do it. So he was interviewed and will be baptized sunday morning.
Also we have Hugo. He is a reference from the Ex Bishop. He is 31 and single and lives with his parents. He is a little weird but is a good guy and wants to do what is right, and believes in the things that we teach. He will also be baptized sunday morning if everything goes how it should. we are having problems scheduling his interview.
Then for the following sunday we have Shirley. She is 20 and just had a baby about a month ago, 2 or 3 months premature. So her baby is in the hospital for now until he gains more weight. It´s kind of a sad story. She is not married and was kicked out of her house when her mom found out she was pregnant, and now lives with her aunt who is a member. She studies and works and goes every day to visit her baby. She loves what we teach, she understands everything, and wants to be a member of the church. she is excited for her baptism.
We also have Evelia for the same day. She is 35 or so with 1 daughter (who is 4 years old and will NOT be quiet more than 2 seconds to let us teach), also single. We will have to work on her a little bit to have her arrive to her baptism date. She lives with members. She needs to gain a testimony. But I trust in the lord!!
Then for 5 november we have Sandra, she is 20. Her boyfriend is a member of the church. He is like 12 years older than her though.. he wants to get married but she isn´t sure. She investigated the church when she was younger but her mom didn´t let her get baptized. But she has a testimony she just has some doubts about things. So we are answering her quetsions. She trusts us a lot.

Other than that we are looking for new people. MOre than anything we are trying to get references from the members. That always works better especially in this area.

The weather was rainy and a little cold this week. I left some of my cold weather clothes in my last area but was glad i kept some of it. Lots of mud in our area! Lots of walking too!!! but sacrifice brings blessings. I bought new shoes a few weeks ago that i am slowly breaking in. I got one pair fixed correctly, finally, and have one other pair, plus my boots. so i should be gooD! dont want to worry about shoes for the rest of my misson.

today we are going bowling as a zone.. there is nothing else to do in santa cruz! haha. We are going to eat at subway if everything works out well. excited about that! yummm

Mission conference was great. I was still a little sick but we went and Elder Pino of the 70 spoke to us, it was really great, he and his wife talked to us about obedience, humility, our calling, and a lot of other things, he praised our mission president Presidente CAlderon, and the goals we have for the mission. They asked me at the last moment to lead the music. I told them ok, but i can´t really sing.. just moved my mouth nobody knew the difference.

HAPPY 11 MONTHS TO ME!!!

there was no churh yesterday because of the elections. the members in the house that we live in (familia chambi) let us come to their little sacrament-testimony meeting. it was really nice. they are a crazy family. after we were done they had us look at all their pictures of the daughter´s quiceanera, she had tons of model type photos in her TWO dresses. kind of ridiculous. nice people though. our apartment is upstairs in the back. There are still some decorations up from the quince party in the patio, so its kind of fun. Only bad part is that currently we don´t have hot water in the shower. hope it gets fixed soon.. wasn´t that fun this week with the cold weather. happy that i bought a blow dryer.

well have a great week. i love you all lots. be safe in thailand wyatt!

love Hermana Tibbitts

October 10th

I GOT TRANSFERRED!!!!!

I was sooo sad to leave Paraiso. I cried a little. I felt like there was a 99% chance that i was staying. I felt sick wednesday night when they were gonna call us too so i was really hoping not to go because i just wanted to go to sleep instead of pack my suitcases. They called us at 10:30 at night to tell me that i was going... Booo!! but hna. Hernandez stayed in paraiso and is in a trio now with hna pareja and hna randall. they will do great!!!

YOU WILL NOT GUESS WHO MY COMPANION IS.... HERMANA LARSEN!!
Yes, again!

Our area is BELEN.. in english.. BETHLEHEM!

It is not anything like my last area.. lots of dirt roads! We are a little further away from the city. OUr area is HUGE!!! We take the micro a lot. Also the neighborhoods are like mazes. I can´t figure it out. I´m so lost! Plus we don´t really have a good map.... lots of the streets don´t have names and the houses don´t have numbers. the members are nice and there are members who help us.

Well not much to tell about, we had a baptism sunday morning of an hermana named Corina, she is super great, she is a single mom with 2 kids, her son is 11 and he has a baptism date but he wants to be sure before he does it, he is pretty intelligent and knows a lot for an 11 year old.

So all together we have 3 people to be baptized on the 22 october!! just praying they will all make it!! we are looking for new people as well now.

Well since i got here i have been a little sick, it got a lot worse last night so after this we´re going to the pharmacy and the grocery store and then going home so i can sleep!! zzzzzz i have a super bad cold i can hardly talk my voice is almost gone and my throat hurts. but i am happy i am here with hna larsen we had a lot of trials when were together in guaracal but this time is going to be different and we have learned things since the last time together so i am happy. she has changed a lot, but in a good way! we have already been doing great so far
hope she is happy too that we are together again.

tomorrow we have a mission conference with Elder Pino the area presdient hopefully my health will be good enough so that we can go.


hey... your lives sound great! thanks for always filling me in.
love you all, have a great week Hermana Tibbitts

September 26th

Wow.. what a week!! We have a lot of new investigators this week, lots of changes too, what to start with... Ahh!! Still working like negritas to get people to accept baptism dates.

Ok Braulio, we taught him once this week, he is not going to church right now but we are helping him with his doubts and he is going to read the BOM, we taught the apostasy and he asked, why is it called la gran apostasia (gran= great or large), when was the medium apostasy or the little apostasy, haha, funny, it was just a long time, so he is complicating things a bit by thinking of things like that.

Viviana, do you remember her, we finally found her last night and she is going thru a lot of problems, but is reading the BOM and cutting down on smoking!! So with time I really think she will be baptized.

Wemet an AMERICAN girl the other day, in the street, she was talking english, and said to her friend, ¨hey those are the sisters from my church¨so we talked to her and told her she has to come back to church, it was way weird to speak in english.

BUT THEN. Sunday, Irma mother of Irma with her little boy, she brought some friends to church that are from SWEDEN, she used to work there and some friends came to visit, Daniel and Lars, father and son, they seem like typical swedish people, or what i think would be typical, we taught them during church the restoration and Daniel told us he is looking for the truth. so we are going to keep teaching them! it was sooo weird to teach in english. i like spanish better when it comes to teaching the gospel.

We also have a few investigators that are Brazilians. One we understand but the other we have no clue. Dad, send me portuguese lessons please!! We were able to get a few Book of mormons in portuguese though. Maybe i´ll read one too!

That and our Chinese investigator came to church...l it was out of the blue since we visit her like, once every 3 weeks or so, haha,
So with all these languages going on i´m one confused missionary!

Haha but things are great, working hard to get people to get baptized, I can´t remember if i told you about Zahera (Saera is how you pronounce it) but she is coming back into town after 2 weeks and also the couple Fernando and Dabeiba are planning on getting married. WE´RE GONNA HAVE A WEDDING!!! The sad thing is that they didn´t go to church yesterday and they were supposed to bring their documents to start the process, but hopefully with time.

We met a member whose nickname since he was little is Nephi, but now he is inactive, we got him to go to church yesterday and he brought his little boy to have him blessed, it was really special, so hopefully we can work with him more! We have another family too of members, the familia Estrada, who have gone 2 sundays to church and the Dad is going to recieve his patriarchal blessing and
the melquesidec priesthood.

Also anotehr family of investigators the familia Santivañez went to church yesterday, for the 1st time! Considering they have been investigators for about 6 months we were really excited.. finally!

Mom, your talk sounds great, i can´t believe you used so much stuff that i´ve told you! That´s quite the compliment!! thanks.wish i could have heard it!

We had interviews this week with president. went well! he says to me, you almost have 1 year on the mission! Nooooo!!! I don´t want to leave!! I love it, and am trying to preach the gospel to everyone, even if they don´t speak my language or live in my area. it doesn´t matter, ever effort makes a difference and smoeday the gospel will fill all the land. But until then...!!!

Sounds like fun all these activities you have going on!! Glad to hear that Pres Crosbie is improving!

Oh wow.. Taco bell.. way to make a sister trunky.! that sounds way good.
I love you all. have a great week, keep up the good work, brothers be good! study hard and dont skip seminary, do all your homework too! sorry there are no photos again, this computer is kind of crappy.
Love Hermana Tibbitts

September 19th

Hello!! thanks for the letter. you have no idea how much i love reading hwat you write me. thanks for including al the little details, it really lifts my spirits a lot.

First i have to tell you that I saw Hna. Castro this week. She says to thank you all again for the letters, they were a huge help to her. She has about 3 weeks left in th emission!! Her companion recently had to go home to get surgery! So she is in a trio now to finish.

I got the package you sent me with the pictures and stickers and bookmarks. thanks for thinking of me!!

Well this week we did not teach Braulio we couldn´t get an appointment and he hasn´t gone to church... hoepfully we can see him this week with president, may be hard because we have interviews and conference next week so president must be really busy.

Hna. hernandez´s birthday was well, kind of hard. we had fun but the members fed us soo much food that monday! we were stuffed, we felt sick that night. I finally gave her a card today. I wanted to make it a funny card so i waited a while because i had to think of a joke. . It was a joke about BRaulio. When we were trying to explain that he doesn´t need to read the entire BOM to know it is true, we shared an example. We said that it is like a cake. If you have a huge cake, you don´t need to eat the whole thing to know it is delicious. YOu just have to try a little piece. But he said, what if the cake has more than one flavor? So you do have to eat the whole cake.. he said.. and started using other examples. So i made her birthday card with a picture of a 5 layer cake on it and i wrote all the ¨flavors¨on it. Hehe.=)

WEll this week was good, we are working hard, we are never short of people to teach but we are looking for the people that will actually accept the gospel. we have a few people that we are working hard with, Marioli, and Graciela, they are both moms that haven´t accepted a baptism date, but we will see, because we know that spirit will answer them, if they ask! Also, miracle, we found a couple that is super great, Fernando and Dabeiba (weird name) they are a young couple, he is a member but inactive for a long time, she is catolic but wants to learn about the church, they live together but are not married but are planning to get married because they are expecting a baby in march. we had a great lesson with them and they went to church on sunday and talked to the bishop, she has accepted a baptism date but it depends on the marriage and if she feels like it is true. They are reading the BOM and setting goals.

Santa cruz is pretty right now! it is the month of santa cruz. the 24th is the day of santa cruz. the trees are blooming with pretty flowers and it is hot again- its spring here.

Wow.. BYU! how embarassing. good thing i´m not there now. all the zoobies must be crying!!

Tanner and Wyatt.. good luck with volleyball!! Rooting for you! Good luck with all the homework too!

I still cant get the pictures to send.. sorry! be patient with me!
Praying for the stake president too.. he´s the australian guy right? or english? i remember him, kind of, i think.

thanks for your support and for suppoirting me in the choice to go on a mission. i have great experiences every day. hard too. but that how it is. thanks for raising me in a great family and always staying strong in the gospel. its something that we dont see as much here in bolivia. it´s not easy to live the gospel but it is the best that you can do for yourself, because the lord blesses you when you try.

well, now i´m gonna go eat churrasco with my district! should be fun. i might buy new shoes again today. we´ll see. we have to go the store to buy food today because we have almost no food in the house. pday is always shopping, shopping shopping. time´s up! love you all have a great week and please keep praying for me and the people here.

love Hermana Tibbitts.