Happy New Year!!

¡Familia Mia!
It was so good to see and talk to you all on Christmas! It was probably the shortest 40 minutes I've ever experienced. Needless to say, I'm excited for Mother's Day haha.
Since we just spoke a few days ago,I don't have a whole lot to report this week expect that I'm staying in Tiquipaya with Hermana Lopardo! I didn't think I would be her for another transfer, but I'm really excited. I truly love Tiquipaya and the people here.
These past few weeks, I honestly haven't felt like a very qualified missionary. Maybe it's been the lack of people progressing, or just the feeling that I'm not doing enough, or I don't know. Either way, I just didn't feel like a good missionary.
But, I was reading the Conference talk by Larry L. Lawrence, "What Lack I Yet?" (i think this is the title, I was reading it in Spanish haha), and I felt very impressed with what he said about starting where we are. To the Lord, "our direction is ever more important that our speed." Although I lack a lot, the important part is what I try to do each day to improve and become more like Him. Before I felt discouraged, but after I truly felt hope and encouragement that I could become better. And I know that this opportunity to change is a blessing that comes from the Savior's sacrifice for us.
I would encourage each of you to ask our Heavenly Father how you can improve, and then be humble enough to listen and to change. I know that each one of us can become a little better, and that it's never too late too start!
I love you all and hope you have a great New Year! Thanks for everything!
Love Hermana Rupp

Famlia mia!
Not a whole lot to report this week, mainly just that I'm getting SUPER STOKED to talk to you guys! Transfers are next week, and I think that there's a good chance I'm leaving. I really love my area, and I don't want to switch, which makes me think that I'm more likely to go haha. But, I know the Lord will send me where I need to be, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.
We were helping one of our of recent converts this last week (who was abandoned as a child) with her family history, and it was so cool. We think we found her uncle and her grandma, but were still looking for her mother. I've never seen a family get so excited about family history. Even her father in law, who never wants to talk to us, was really interested. The Spirit of Elijah (it's elijah in english, right haha) is real, and I have a whole new appreciation for family history.
I spent a lot of time saving photos from my comp's computer so I don't have a lot more time, but It's alright because we get to talk in 4 DAYS. I'll give you lots more details then :)
Have the best Christmas, don't cry too much because you miss me :) I love you!
Love Hermana Rupp

Well, it's been an interesting week, folks. We had a baptism scheduled for this week, but our investigator bailed the night before. It was super hard and disappointing because she's so prepared. We don't know exactly what happened because when we called, she said that she couldn't because she was out of town at her brother's house, Only one problem, she doesn't have a brother... We still haven't been able to find her.
They also cut the water to our apartment. Well, probably to all the houses close to ours as well. So that means that I haven't showered in 2 days, and am a little concerned about what I'll do tomorrow if it still hasn't returned. Poor people that have to sit next to me in trufi's. Pray for me. Or better yet, them haha.
This week, it's been hard not to get discouraged. Not very many people are progressing well, and it's difficult not to feel like it's my companion and I's fault. Obviously there are a lot of things we need to improve in, but we're not exactly sure what we can do more to find prepared people.
Apart from this (does this expression work in English? I honestly can't remember), there are so many people here that have such hard lives. We just spent the afternoon cooking with an elderly couple in our ward, and I was talking to the woman that works for them, who is also a member. Not only is she so poor, but she's the only member in her family, and they hate her for it. One of our other investigators lives in one room with her three children, and doesn't have work because she's blind. So many people here have been beaten and abused literally their whole lives.
However, I'm constantly amazed and humbled by their faith and devotion. The change that the Gospel has made in their lives is so evident and so inspiring. Although it's easy to get discouraged, they are evidence that the Atonement is real. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior, and that because of Him we can live again as well. For this reason, ¡Alegrete mucho!
I love you all, and have a great week!
Love Hermana Rupp

Our "hike" the other pday:

My comp and I had a pretty free pday, so we went and explored one of the more rural parts of our area. It was super pretty and fun, and sort of felt like a normal hike at home. So I´ll send photos of that next week as well.
This week was good. Slow, but good. A lot of our investigators bailed, so I feel like we walked a ton and don't have a lot to show for our efforts haha. But, I know that we worked hard and did what we could, and that slow weeks are bound to happen.
Hermana Lopardo is awesome. We get along great and we work hard. I also don't think I've laughed this hard in quite a while. I feel very comfortable and happy here in Tiquipaya and, for this very reason, I'm starting to get the feeling that I won't be here for much longer haha. Oh well, I'll worry about that when transfers come :) Either way, I'll focus on enjoying every day that I have here.
Thanksgiving was a great. We went to the house of our recent converts, and the Elders (who are also gringos) and I told them that we were going to have an American dinner. Unfortunately the Elders couldn´t find any turkey in the supermarket, so we settled for the next best thing: hot dogs haha. We didn't have anything to cook them with so we literally just used sticks that we found around their house and roasted them around the campfire. It wasn´t quite what we had in mind orginally, but it really felt like we were with our "family away from home." I thought about all of you together and it made me a little sad that I couldn´t be there too, but I know this is where I should be and I really love being a missionary here in Bolivia.
Elder Godoy, one of the Seventy, also came to visit Thursday, and we had a conference with all the missionaries. One thing that he talked about was the difference between lecciones and enseñanzas, or that we can´t just have lessons, we need to really teach and help people progress. It made me think that, not only do I need to improve in this, but that many times we do the right things, but we're sort of just going through the motions. Our goal should always be to come closer to Christ and invite the Spirit more into our lives.
Anyway, I hope that Thanksgiving was great and that you have a safe drive home! I loved the picures. Love you all!!
Love Hermana Rupp

This week can best be summed up by saying that I have a firm testimony of "forget yourself and go to work."
The week started out rough. On the verge of tears rough. My trainer left, I felt completely inadequate, and despite all the logical reasons why I shouldn't be nervous, I just felt sick.
Hermana Cabarcas left Tuesday morning, and my new companion, Hermana Lopardo, and I, arrived in Tiquipaya early that afternoon. That whole morning I had just felt sort of depressed, but when we went to our first appointment, all the negative feelings just went away. It was such a miracle:) Later that night and the next morning they started to return, but, once again, we went to our first lesson and I felt great. I love the people here so much, but I don't think I truly realized how much until this week.
Hna. Lopardo is super cool. Obedient, hard worker, and has got a definite sense of humor. We get along great and I'm really excited for this transfer.
Yesterday we had one of the best lessons of my mission thus far. We went to visit a man we had contacted the day before and, like usual, he said he didn't have time. So we left and were almost to the end of the street when he came back out of his house and asked us to come back. So we returned and taught his family and him about the Restoration. They were all super attentive and had perfect questions. They have crazy potential and I'm so excited for our next appointment.
I love being a missionary and there is so much joy in sharing the Gospel.
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!
Love Hermana Rupp

So we have transfers tommorrow morning, and I´m staying in Tiquipaya, but Hermana Cabarcas is leaving for Potosi. I don´t know much about my new comp, so I´ll let ya know next week :)
We have a lot of really great investigators, and I definitely feel a weight of responsibility to help them progress. Frankly, I feel really inadequate, but luckily I don´t have to do it alone. In fact, if I try to do it alone, I´m doing it wrong. I´m very grateful this is the Lord´s work, and I can have full confidence that He´ll help it progress. I just need to be an instrument through which He can work. I´m trying to become that.
I´m constantly impressed and humbled by the poeple here. We went to visit a convert of three years the other day, and she has practically nothing. She has barely any money, and doesn´t always know what she´ll eat for that day. However when we entered her house, she had hymns playing in the background and she had been reading an old Liahona from 2013. I could feel the Spirit so strongly in her little home, and I´m so impressed with her. I know that she has so many challenges in her life, but she still continues to do what she should. I wish that all could have her faith and conviction, including myself.
That being said, I think about the things I did at home, and whether or not they invited the Spirit. A lot of times they didn´t. So I would challenge all of you to think throughout this week if what you are doing is something that can invite the Spirit to dwell or not. If not, fix it.
I know this is the Lord´s work, and I´m grateful to be here in Bolivia. Thanks for all the great examples. Love you!
Hermana Rupp

This week was super good! We worked hard and found some awesome people.My companion said that I even place Books of Mormon in my sleep haha.
Saturday we were tracting in one of the more rural parts of our area, and we found this super nice woman who let us in to our house. We taught a whole lesson, and she came to Church the next day with her children! We were so surprised because even our best investigators have trouble attending Church. She was also telling us that she didn´t have enough money to celebrate her daughter´s birthday, but they still paid for a trufi to get to the chapel. Super humbling and super inspiring.
We had a conference with President Hansen this week, and I learned a ton. He talked about the talk, "Which way do you face," and making sure that we don´t invert the first and second commandments and fear men more than God. Something I think I need to work on a lot.
I love being a missionary. Some days are super hard and I´m almost always tired haha, but I love it here. There is a true joy in doing the work of the Lord and sharing the Gospel. Have a great week and I love you all!
Hermana Rupp

Happy Halloween! Bolivians don´t really do much for Halloween (some of the kids dress up and give out candy in the plaza), but today is Todos Santos, which is similar to Dia de Los Muertos. They all go to the cemetery and leave bread and flowers on the graves of their family members. And that´s about it.
It´s funny because almost every weekend here in Tiqupaya, there´s some kind of festival or party. But. when there´s an actual holiday, they don´t do a whole lot.
I feel comfortable with my Spanish, but sometimes it´s a little hard to understand when someone makes a joke, simply because it´s usually a word I don´t know. So i think I sometimes come off a little boring because sometimes I just laugh and don´t know how to respond haha. Oh well, it´s all coming along.
We got to go to the Temple two weeks ago as missionaries, and as well with two recent converts this past week. They didn´t have enough people to do baptisms so we ended up walking around outside for a little while, but it was still awesome. I wish we could go more often.
Overall, this week has been really good. We worked hard, and I truly feel content and happy here as a missionary. I know without a doubt that God loves us and answers our prayers. I love this Gospel and I´m grateful for all of you and continued support.
Love Hermana Rupp

This week was pretty crazy and sort of stressful, but some of the first people that I met here were baptized and they are awesome!!  I truly love them so much, and it has been so awesome to see their progress.

Another one of our investigators also told us this week that she is getting married next week! She is literally the perfect investigator, except for that she isn´t married. For the past 2 months her goal has been to get married next year, and we have just kept telling her to continue to try to find a way to talk to her boyfriend. Now, she can probably be baptized the following week because she is more than ready. She also has a little boy, who coincidentally is named Samuel and is 3 years old . It´s no wonder that I love them :)

There was a big festival of dances with all the Stakes here in Cochabamba:

Dressed up as cholitas (what the more wealthy/older/traditional women always wear here):

This is my district. We found all these random hats, so... :

So this week has been really good!  We worked super hard, contacted a lot in the more rural parts of our area (which I love), and found some super cool people. Our baptisms didn´t go through this week, but they´re now scheduled for this Saturday, and I really feel that they´re ready.

The other day we lost our cell phone (okay, I´ll admit it, I left it on a rock in the outskirts of our area), so we were kind of freaking out because if someone finds your phone here, they keep it. But, we decided to say a prayer, and I felt the Spirit really strongly, so we called it anyway. Some guy answered and told us to come to the same spot, and he would give it to us. We were super relieved and excited, but when we got there, he was gone. So we started to walk, and my comp felt we should go to this one house up the mountain a little. We got to the house, and it turned out to be where the man lived. He was super drunk, but he gave us the phone and my planner in exchange for 20 bolivianos. Later we realized that we had 6 or 7 missed calls from other people, but the man only answered our call. We both were super grateful for an answer to our prayers.

We have 2 baptisms scheduled for this week, so I hope they’ll go through and I can tell you all about them next week!

I’m extremely grateful for all of your love and support, and I hope you have a great week!

Love, Hermana Rupp

So this wifi here is pretty hit and miss, and I literally just spent another half an hour waiting for it to work.  Sorry this is, yet again, so short and lame. I have pictures of other letters as well, but I’ll have to send them the next week, probably.  I’ll try now, but we’ll see.
I love you all!!

http://3yearsinbolivia.blogspot.com/2015/10/hugs-from-our-family-visitors-to-bolivia.html

my pensionista is soo nice and made me a cake/ sign (mujer virtuosa haha)

So the internet wasn´t working great, and I'm just starting so I'll have to be fast, sorry.

I´ve learned a lot this week, and Conference was amazing. Every question I had got answered. The main thing I realized is that I´ve used obedience, our rather the occasional lack thereof, as an excuse. And I know that obedience is the first law of Heaven, but the first and great commandment is to love the Lord and therefore others. And I´ve done a pretty bad job with this. I decided I really, truly need to improve in this. And this morning (I was again thinking about this), and my companion brought it up, and we made goals to be more obedient and work harder to meet our goals. definitely no coincidence there. 

I´m so grateful for this time to be a missionary, and I´m especially grateful for all of your examples. Have and awesome week, and I love you all!

Love Hermana Rupp

http://3yearsinbolivia.blogspot.com/2015/09/sisters-conference-sept.html

This week was really good. I´m really starting to feel like I can communicate with the people here and it´s awesome.

We had intercambios and I learned a ton from our Sister Leaders. I tried to apply a lot of it the next day during our weekly planning, and I already feel that we are going to see some good changes. My companion had a little bit of pain this week, but overall we were able to work hard and teach a lot of lessons. I´m extremely grateful that she likes to work and truly wants to share the gospel.

Lately I´ve been worried because a lot of our investigators aren´t really makng it past lesson 2 or 3, and I had been thinking about how we could have the Spirit more when we teach. But then I realized that a lot of the times when we leave the house I´m frustrated because we're either late or something like that. So after the women´s conference, I decided to be better, and yesterday our lessons were so poweful and I could feel the Spirit so strongly (and my Spanish was way better than normal). I also had to give a talk, and I know I got divine help with that haha.

On a different note, the other day we were in a trufi (pretty much a bus) on our way to an appointment, and we had to stop because there were a ton of cars in the street (and there´s pretty much never traffic in our area). So I was thinking that there was a wreck or something, but turns out there was a priest blessing the cars in the street - in white robes (with his sweats underneath) was sprinkling water on the engines of cars and some of their keys as well.

Also, the other day one of our investigators wanted to hear me pray in English, and it was actually really hard! I started to speak in Spanish like twice. So later I was laughing about it, and I tried again in our apartment, and my mind literally went blank. It literally sounded like the prayer of a little kid. I can speak to other gringos fine, but for the past three months I only prayed in Spanish, and it was so hard to switch back. Not a good sign for when I return haha.

It was really sad to hear about Elder Scott.  I wish I had known Justine was singing, because I actually thought about it when they said Cache Valley.  I´m so excited for Conference. I loved listening to the Women's Session in English, especially President Uchtdorf´s voice.

Anyway, thank you for all the emails, support, and prayers. I love being a missionary, and I love you all!

Hermana Rupp

The elders made us breakfast for pday

The mission home is across from the temple so we took a pic after

Hola Familia! This week was "bien, no mas." All the people say that here. We always ask how people are doing and they respond "Ay, no mas" haha.  Bolivia is a funny place. Rainy season is just starting, so one day we were completely soaked, but generally the weather is really nice. It´s funny though because during the day, everyone complains about how horrible the sun is, but then as soon as it cools off a little around 5, they all put on sweaters and complain about how cold it is haha.

Whenever we´re tracting and we knock someone´s door, they say they're working and they don´t have time. So then we ask if we can help, and they say,"no, I actually just finished." Haha literally everyone says it, and it makes me laugh everytime.

Sometimes it´s kind of hard here because people don´t really introduce themselves or care who you are until they get to know you. Every time I introduce myself to someone new, they never tell me their name in return, and they pretty much ignore me and talk only to my companion. It really bothered me the first week, but I´ve now learned that if I jump into the conversation, they´re then really nice and inclusive. ...Usually.  I really love the people here, and I feel like I´m actually friends with a lot of them now. And when I can´t understand, I just play with their kids haha. Overall, the people are fairly receptive, and really nice when you get to know them. Our Bishop is super helpful and very invested in missionary work.

I´m trying to trust my trainer. Although our approaches could not be more different, we both like to work. And, by the time we return to our apartment at night, we´re laughing and get along great. Seriously, work is the cure for almost everything. She is super sweet, and we do get along well.

I hope you all have a great week, and I love you!
Hermana Rupp

 The view from the top of our apartment where we wash our clothes.

  Usually there´s a crazy windstorm one or two days a week, so that´s why we all look so fantastic.

One of our investigators went to hair school and wanted to practice.

We don't have a ton of time today (My comp lost our cell phone, and then she wanted to go track the taxi that we thought it was in, so that took a little while haha), so sorry.

Thank you everyone for all the prayers and emails for my companion and I. Her surgery was a little more complicated than they were expecting, but everything went well in the end, and we could leave on Wednesday. Each day we have only left our apartment for a little while, but by tomorrow I think she´ll be able to work a full day. She's a very hard worker and staying in has been hard for both of us, but overall this week has been good, and I'm grateful that she has such a strong desire to teach.

So a little about my area. We split Tiquipaya with two Elders, and our area is in the middle. So, it's not as poor as their's, but it's also not the nicest. There are some nice houses in our area, but we also teach some people who have pretty much nothing. Some don't have work and have trouble buying food and water (you can't drink any of the water here). One woman we taught literally was sleeping in a little shed full of sacks of flour. So at least she had food. That being said, I'm pretty sure my area is fairly nice overall. We wash our clothes by hand, but we have a working toilet and a warm shower, which is awesome.

Our area is big, and there is a lot I haven't seen yet. There are a lot of fields (they're pretty small and in just whatever patch of ground where there's room), and livestock like cows and chickens. I really like it. The weather is pleasant, and the people are great.

Overall, I really love it here, and I´m really just excited to be a missionary! There's definitely a joy in serving that is unlike I have ever felt before. Especially when teaching lessons.

I'm already out of time, so I'm sorry but I'll have to send pictures next week. I'll send lots, I promise. 

I love you all, thanks for everything!

Familia!

This week has been crazy. I think I made it pretty clear last week had some rough moments haha, but this week I have felt very happy, peaceful, and excited about the work. So thank you for all the prayers and support, I really appreciate it. 

The other day we were teaching a lesson to a family who has all been recently baptized (except the parents who are waiting to be married), and I realized that the 9 year old daughter was writing my name in the margin of her Book of Mormon. My initial instinct was to tell her not to doodle in her scriptures, but then I thought of 1) all the dumb things I wrote/colored in my first set, and 2) that she would look back through her scriptures at some point and remember that I had been one of the missionaries who taught her. The thought of that made me feel so grateful to be a missionary. It´s crazy how much I already love all the people. And the kids are awesome. My second day here I bought a bag of suckers to hand out, and I gave out like 10 within 2 or 3 hours. I´m pretty sure my comp thought I was overdoing it, but it made me feel better haha. Even if the people don´t know me that well yet, at least the kids do.

My companion started having stomach pain earlier this week, and we figured she had eaten something bad. She threw up a few times during the next day and a half, but was pretty good the following day. However, on Thursday she got really sick again and was having stomach pain, so we stayed in for a few extra hours. The next day (she was feeling better) we talked to Hermana Hansen, and she recommended going to the clinic. So on Saturday morning we went to the hospital, thinking we´d only be there a few hours for a check up. 

They gave her an ultrasound and a CAT scan and turns out she has kidney stones because she hasn´t had enough water. They told us that they needed to run some more tests and that we needed to stay the night. We wanted to leave. However, it´s a good thing we didn´t because, upon further examination, one of the stones is massive, and can´t pass without being broken up. 

For a while we thought she was going to have to leave to have the surgery, but I called President Hansen and also talked to the doctor in the Lima CCM (who then called the Bolivian doctor), and apparently it´s safe enough to have here. So, the two of us have been in the same hospital room since Saturday morning (expept for right now since two other hermanas came so I could write you guys), with only the things that we had brought for tracting. No extra clothes, no tooth brushes, only our scriptures and pamphlets. Some really nice Elders have brought us food and finally a DVD player because we were dying of boredom, which means my poor companion has had a ton of time to stress about her operation. It´s not too complicated, and we should be able to leave tomorrow night or the following morning. But, if it doesn´t work, then she needs an actual surgery, and we´ll be in the hospital for seven more days. I feel so bad for her, but she´s handled it pretty well.

Anyway, I´m running out of time, but the baptism sounded awesome, and I wish I could´ve been there! I loved the pictures. Thank you again for all the support, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Rupp

Wow

This week has definitely been one of the longest and hardest of my life, but I´ve also seen some great tender mercies as well. I felt good when we arrived and when I found out who my comp was the next day, but as soon as we got to our apartment that afternoon, it just hit me that I was all alone with my comp, who I can´t even always understand. But, I just sort of pushed it aside and the day was a little exhausting but overall not bad.

The next day, however, this homesickness and loneliness hit me like never before. I´m not exaggerating when I say I was on the verge of tears for most of the afternoon.  Same with the next day.  It took everything I had to not just sit on the curb and sob. I wouldn´t have gone home given the chance, but 18 months had never seemed so long. But then we were teaching this girl, and I was thinking about home when I realized that this wasn´t just some random girl I´d just met, but rather an investigator who I had the chance to help. And that I was going to be here for at least three more months (most likely) and this was someone I was going to come to love. And as soon as I realized that, I felt great. I became engaged in the lesson, and the rest of the afternoon was great.

This depression, mixed with hours like the one I just described, lasted for about 3 days. I literally could barely control it, and it freaked me out. But on Saturday I told the Lord I really needed His Spirit and help, and I really did want to be here and do His will. And that day was great. We taught at least seven lessons and found three golden investigators. And I mean golden, super prepared. It was such an answer to my prayer. I´m still a little lonely and homesick, but I have been genuinely happy the past three days, and I already love the people we teach. I wish I could share more about them and all the tender mercies we've seen.

Anyway, I´m telling you all this because I don´t want to sugercoat what it´s like here, or think I´m just sharing the nice stuff. This is hard, but it´s also great.  I miss you all like crazy, but I know this is where I´m supposed to be, and I know there is a pure joy that comes from sharing the gospel.

President Hansen said that if I was obedient, I would experience joy in my mission unlike I've ever felt before. And I could feel that it was a real promise and blessing, not just something he says to all the missionaries in passing.  I´ve kind of been holding on to that this week :)

Elder Bednar also came to our mission last week, and I just missed him. bummer

I’m serving in Tiquipaya, a little city on the outskirts of Cochabamba.  My trainer is from Colombia and she’s only been out for three months, so she just finished her training.  She’s a hard worker and I really like her and, thank goodness, I can understand her Spanish about 75% of the time.

There’s an hermana who has a blog http://brinleyinbolivia.blogspot.com/  Her first three months were in my area, so I’m teaching some of the same people and you can probably find more details because it’s the same apartment and everything.

I’ll tell you more about Bolivia and the culture next week but I don’t have much more time.

We played ultimate frisbee at a park for pday.

I love you all!

Love Hermana Rupp

I made it to Bolivia!

Today, or rather the last two days, were probably the longest of my life, but we made it and I'm at the mission home now. We left at 5pm Monday, and got to Cochabamba at 9 this morning. I'm basically running on no sleep, but I feel pretty good and excited.  Let's hope that feeling lasts haha. I've got to go, but I love you and I hope you have a good week!

Family!

This week has been really good. I´m not really sure about my travel plans. I believe I head out either late Monday night or possibly early Tuesday morning. We don´t actually find out until Sunday night, so I´m not really sure.  I´m pretty bummed that my whole district is leaving to Chiclayo except for one Elder.

So last week when we were shopping on p-day, I placed my first Book of Mormon! Two, actually, and we talked for at least 5 minutes about the gospel. The only problem was that we don´t actually know the address for the Church, or the telephone number. So basically I ask this woman if she wants to learn more or come to Church, she says yes and asks for the address, and then I tell her I have no idea where it is haha. Sweet. ¨Wanna come to church?¨ ¨Sure.¨ ¨Great, I have no idea where it is.¨ More or less what happened haha.  I think I told her what general direction it´s in.

Anyway, I really love and miss you guys, but I´m happy to be here! The longer I´m here, the more I realize that this really isn't a sacrifice. Especially when you compare this to what others have done, like the early Saints. And especially when you think about the Savior.  No matter what I do, this doesn't even come close to repaying Him and our Heavenly Father. And this is actually going to benefit my whole life, so I´m really even more indebted than ever for this opportunity to serve. Hopefully I´m this optimistic when I leave the cushy CCM, and enter the field haha.

Love you all, hope you have a great week!

Love Hermana Rupp

Familia!

A couple funny things I forgot to share last time:

I play soccer with the Latinos, and I asked one of them how to say a word, and instead he taught me the D-word! It’s “demons” in English, so it´s not a literal translation. I didn´t find out until I said it in class and my teacher told me haha. Well played Elder, well played.

The other day our investigator told us that his dad was unfaithful to his mother, and my comp didn’t know what he was saying, so she just smiled and told him very nice haha. It was so hard not to laugh.

Some responses:

We eat inside, and you can´t bring any food out (although you can buy food on p-day and eat it in your rooms), but they have little tables in a lot of places outside for studying.

The temperature is kind of chilly, and, every once in a while, actually cold. There´s rarely ever sun, and it gets pretty gloomy and depressing after a while. I´m excited to leave and see the sun again haha. It´s very humid. If something gets wet, it most likely won´t dry all the way unless the sun happens to come out.

All the missionaries sleep in the same building (dorms), but there are separate hallways for Elders and Hermanas.

When we shop we take a public bus to the Temple, and then we just walk to whatever store we want (as a district). We usually go to a grocery store or to these little garages where they’re super cramped, but sell a lot of stuff.  It’s fun. Today my comps and I placed 2 Books of Mormon, and it was sweet! Hopefully they actually read them haha.

Peru is cramped, and there are so many houses stuck in tiny little spaces. By the CCM and the Temple it is fairly green.  All the medians between the roads are just grass and trees. The area I went tracting in, however, was just packed with people, and you couldn´t see any kind of mountains or vegetation, just buildings and grey sky.  It´s crazy how many people are in Lima.

Hey family!

So there´s some kinda funny rules here at the CCM. You can´t sit next to any Elders at meals, you can´t take pictures except on P-day (and they can only be outside), and you can´t send letters from here. But they´re super chill about other stuff, like not making you play half-field soccer. Some people really dislike it here and want to leave, but I like it. I genuinely enjoy being here, and I feel super grateful.
So on our first pday we left for the temple at like 6:30 in the morning, and then you get to go shopping for about 2 hours after. The Temple is about a 5 min drive away, so you walk outside of the CCM, and then catch a public bus as they pass by. Sometimes you get pretty lucky and it´s decently roomy, but other times it is insanely crowded and the motor sounds like it belongs on a lawn mower haha. The Temple has been closed for the past two weeks, which is a bummer, so we get free time until around 10, and then we go shopping. We have time do laundry, email and pretty much whatever we want until 5 that night. Leaving the CCM is super fun.
My teachers are two Peruvians, and they´re super funny.
Our latina roommates left, and they moved our trio into our own, separate room. We were super bummed we weren´t getting more, but then we realized we now have our own bathroom in our room. So it´s sad, but... the bathroom helps us cope :)
The food here is good, at least I think, but there´s not much variety. Meat, rice, and bread every single day. Almost every single meal. I eat more here than I ever have in my life, especially the bread. I think i´ve gained three pounds, but it´s a good thing. Of course, if this trend continues in the mission field I may have a problem haha.
This Saturday we get to go proselyting in Lima, and I´m way excited. I may be in Caleb´s mission, but we´ll have to see. I´ll let you know how it goes.
Overall, I love being in the MTC, and I have yet to have a bad day here. I get more out of the scriptures than I ever have before, and being here just feels so right. I´m a little stressed because I have the option of leaving my district and finishing up the last two weeks with a latino district, and I don´t know what to do. It would mean a new comp and new schedule... we´ll see.
I love you all, and have a great week.

CCM

I really like the CCM, and the past two weeks have been really good. My district is super funny and we get along well.  My entire district is going to Chiclayo, Peru, which is sad because I'm already such good friends with all of them.   I feel the spirit and get answers like crazy, and I can already tell it will be hard to leave.  I´m sorry pics take a while, so I'll send more later!  i gotta go, but I love you all!

"Here on the Rock, we have a few rules..." And I intend to obey all of them!

I was the only missionary on my flight to Atlanta.  When I got to the terminal in Georgia, I found like 30 other missionaries (I think there were actually 28 total), 12 of which were sisters. The flight over was long, but I just talked to the Elder next to me most of the time, so it was pretty fun. We got to the CCM at 2 in the morning, and I didn't get to bed until 3am. The first day was rough because we were running on 3.5 hours of sleep, and you´re kinda already stressed to begin with. They also fed us subpar pizza for breakfast haha.

I´m the only Hermana in the CCM who is going to Cochabamba, and there´s one other Elder in the same boat. Therefore, I am in a trio and I like them both. We have fun. We room with three Latinas who are only here for two weeks, and they´re hilarious. I literally love them. And I can actually understand and respond to almost everything they say, which is a plus haha. I´m pretty much the room translator.

A lot of people are having trouble adjusting to the CCM, but I really like it. I have a super clear mind, and it just feels right to be here. The Spirit is really strong, if you ask for it, and the Spanish is coming super fast. Although I really miss you guys and want to see you, I have no desire to be anywhere else but here. I just know my purpose here, and, because of that, it´s easy to enjoy what we're doing.

Have a great week! I love you all!

I´m alive!  I´m the only new sister going to Bolivia, so im in a tripanionship which should be fun. I gotta go, but love you all!

Buenos Dias