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

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

Hi everyone,

 

Dear friends, please send me letters by DEAR ELDER. I can't write you by email and there is a possibility I can get in trouble if i have emails in my inbox from people who are not family.

Next week is Carnaval, so I won´t be writing. Saturday afternoon, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, we will be in the house, except to go to church and maybe a few appointments close to our house. We don't want to get soaked with dirty water and paint!

I sent a hand written letter to Tracee- it has the letter i wrote when my companion had dengue. Sending letters is a little hard since the only post office is in El Centro and it´s not possible to go there very often. We are so crazy busy all the time also it's kind of far. But we went last Monday and it was nice. We went to the plaza and the post office and also we ate chicken in a restaurant, yummm. It was fun. I'm trying to send pictures but they´re loading very slowly.

We bought boots in the Feria. There is a fair every Thursday in the street that is close to our house. Tons of people set up tents and sell used clothes. I bought a purse there that had goodwill tags on it a while back. I got big black boots that go up to my knees. I feel like I'm wearing combat boots kind of. But they are fun, Hermana Castro bought them too. It rained like crazy this week, but it's fun to walk through puddles and mud. Very few of the roads we walk on are paved.

Evelin still doesnt want to change. Her biggest obstacle is changing her style of dress. She dresses in short shorts and mini skirts. We are frustrated with her we will probably stop teaching her this week. It's sad but it has to be done. She knows it's true but doesn't want to do anything about it. We also brought a member her same age and she made a comment that made Evelin uncomfortable...sad. She thinks that being a member of the church will change her personality and form of being, but that is totally not true! The gospel only makes you happier.

We are praying super hard to have a baptism in the month of March. We trust the Lord but it has been hard going. All the people we find don't progress. Please pray for us! I know prayer can do anything!!

Changes are soon but Hna. Castro and I will probably be together still since we have less than 1 cambio working together. We don't want to leave yet!!

Haha, so I didn't eat the chicken foot. But I did eat the soup. It was good. everyone here has chickens that they raise for eggs and to eat. Some people have ducks too, and most people have dogs. There are 4 dogs that live in our house: Muñeca, Carito, Cabezon, and I ca't remember the other one's name. They are pests. I don't like dogs. sometimes we see dogs fight in the street.

Love you all. Hasta luego. 

Hna. Tibbitts