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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.

Monday, September 12, 2011

September 12th, 2011

Hello, it was good week i will tell you, we were able to do a ton of lessons with members and that is always super great, we went out with maria 2 times and with lucho and fernanda as well and it was a fun week. yesterday was hna hernandez´s birthday and i didn´t do anything for her, i´m a bad companion haha but i had left all my colored paper at the church so i couldn´t make a card and i didn´t have any food in the house either to make a special breakfast so i just told her that another day i will surprise her with something. but yesterday we had fanta floats and lime pie at lunch with nelly and the hermanas so that was fun... today we had lunch with the Galdo family and we are going back later for a ¨surprise¨ haha so we will see and we are going to have ¨tecito¨ with hermana Selfi so that will be fun.

saturday night was the open house, and it was so much craziness, the bishop was freaking out because a general authority was supposed to come as well as some other VIP people and people from the church offices came as well as presidente calderon and his wife and i guess there wasn't much communication between them and the stake and the ward so it was all craziness, but it went well i took photos and the only sad thing is that we asked the tour guides to get references, the tour guides were young single adults and they didn´t really get the references as well as we had, i think they got a little shy and soem of them put really inprecise addresses and we didn´t get as many poeple there in the first place but oh well, it was good.
the bean burgers were ok too haha.

well all of our investigators are having some challenges, but its true they need to learn that being a member is a big commitment and takes a lot of dediction, we had an appointment to teach Braulio with president calderon and President never showed up, a few days later he apologized though he said that he had double booked us by accident so we are going to try to go with him this week, and the lesson with Braulio not going to lie was super hard, i almost cried because we really tried super hard to help him understand, but he wouldn´t accept what we taught, he wants to read all of the triple combination before praying and asking God if it is true. so hopefully we can change his mind or have a miracle happen so he can get baptized in september.

no i dont think we are going to the sand dunes anymore but today we went bowling and well i dont really like bowling but i did bowl one strike woo hoo and it was fun to be with the zone, can´t get the pictures to send, this computer is being dumb.

Mom haha what you said about the talk made me laugh, i would just say that the way the Lord speaks to us is through the scriptures because that is what helped me decide to go on a mission.

welll i love you all, i am so happy every day for the opportunity i have to be here serving the Lord, i really know that this is bringing me and all of you great blessings, and its so amazing to see people learn to accept the gospel. the other day we were with Jorge, our recent convert, he has been reading the BOM in 1 nephi and he saw that it is his story!! because he has a few brothers and sisters that are rebellious and dont listen to him, so he's our nephi, it was really special when he shared that with us.

Have a great week!!! love Hermana Tibbitts

Monday, September 5, 2011

September 5

Hello family!!!

This week was a little rough... I don't know why, it just was. that's
how the mission is. you have some great weeks and some hard weeks, and
sometimes your feet really hurt, like now, haha, but its ok. None of
our people with baptism dates went to church yesterday, so that makes
them lose their baptism dates, but i have faith that we will be able
to go see them this week and re-commit them.

Ok you asked me about the weather, its basically hot all the time, it
only get cold for like a week at a time when the ¨Sur comes, basically
cold air from argentina, otherwise its hot, and we havne´t have a sur
for a while, the poor hermana pareja from la paz though doesn´t have
any short sleeve shirts so she is dying of heat.

Braulio is doing good, he´s reading the BOM and gospel principles,
the problem is that he wants to study everything. He went to church
yesterday and enjoyed it, he´s pretty funny. The other day we met him
at the church to teach him. We were with Selfi, the crazy lady in the
ward that i´ve told you about, anyways, he says that we have to walk
down the street until we hit something, so we were like, ok.. we
started walking and he walks into a table where a lady is selling
breads, he picks one up and takes a bite out of it and then throws it
back with the other breads, hahaah, it was funny, he is crazy, he said
he had to try it first to make sur eit was ok, haha, but he did buy it
and he bought us bread - tortilla but they´re not like mexican
tortilla-- so we ate it and then had our lesson. Yes, we want to
teach with president because Braulio is a theology student. it´s not a
special rule or anything, we just think president could help.
president wasn´t able to come this past week but hopefully in this
next week.

Viviana didn´t go to church yesterday but we did get to teach word of
wisdom, she smokes and drinks a lot of tea and she wants to live the
word of wisdom, so we were happy, we talked to her about life and got
a lot closer to her, i really think she will get baptized.

Hermano Lucho says hello!.. haha.. he´s the guy that always eats lunch
with us on sundays. he went out with us yesterday to teach lessons.
hilarous.

Next week as a zone we might go to the sand dunes! I´m excited, i hope we go!!

This week the the OPEN HOUSE: i´m kind of nervous not going to lie. we
had a meeting yesterday to verify with all the organizations what they
have for their stands and the relief society is nuts, they want to
serve refreshments and wanted to serve hot dogs, we were like, are you
kidding!! its an open house not a barbeque! just serve juice and
cookies. they were thinking hot dogs or soy hamburgers, which they
learned how tomake in an activity.. so we will see.

Well... I love you alll! have a great week in school and work and
whatever else. keep prayhing for me and these people. Love Hermana
Tibbitts

August 29

Hello...!! Cambios happened.... Hna. Portillo went to La Cañada, my 1st area, with the sister that she trained. that was pretty funny but she was really sad to leave paraiso and the TRIO PERFECTO. So Hna. Hernandez and I are still here in paraiso, and we are doing super great, we have a bajillion investigators i can hardly keep track, we had 7 investigators in church yesterday so we were happy.

There are sisters in Charcas, so instead of elders at lunch we ahve hermanas, Hermana Huaynate (my 1st companion in the mission) is here with Hna Pareja who is a greenie and is actually assigned to serve in Venezuela but is waiting for her visa, she is from La Paz and is suffering a lot with the heat.

Well we have a bunch of new investigators, one of the is Hugo, he is 23 and has 2 kids, is separated, and a year ago he crashed his car and had surgery on his head, he has a bunch of scars, also one of his eyes he can't see out of now, so he always wears sunglasses now and a baseball cap, but he is a good guy and wants to learn more, he has a baptism date for 17 september.

Also we have a couple Viviana and Gary they are in their 30's and engaged, they don't live together but Gary is almost always at Vivíana´s house, they went to church yesterday and liked it a lot, Viviana is going to to go to the distribution center with Zelfi the crazy hermana that always accompanies us, Viviana wants to buy a hymnbook, bible, book of mormon, etc. they are both really interested and are keeping their commitments and viviana has a baptism date for 17 september as well, we are going to work with the elders for gary because he lives in the zone to see if we can have his baptism too.

also this week we were able to visit a sweet old man named Braulio, he is probably 65 years old, lives alone, i dont know if he works but he studies theology and so he knows a lot about the Bible, we are planning to teach him with the mission president. He came to church yesterday dressed in all white, ready to be baptized haha but we are going to invite him to baptism today.

I love you all!! Have a wonderful week. Know that i am happy that i am on the mission, i love what i am doing and am seeing miracles every day, and iknow that partly it is because therea re so many people praying for me and for these people, so thank you and keep praying!! Love Hermana Tibbitts