We're running into some problems with Celibelsa's baptism, because she
has to get permission from her parents, but the bishop is going to go
talk to her parents this week... And.... this week Jefferson and Carla
told us that they want to get separated... They both want to get
baptized, but there are some big lack-of-support problems with
Jefferson's family.... They don't want him to get baptized. We're
doing everything in our power with them. We appreciate your prayers a
whole lot. :)

I'm keeping it short this week because there's not that much stuff
going on.... But I love you guys and I feel your prayers... :) I know
I'm never alone, no matter how far I am from home. :)

LOVE YA! :)
-Hermana Hall

 

 

                                                       photos of Kaitee's birthday

 

 

*in order to understand some of this message, you need to be aware that Kaitee's father and brothers are growing their hair and beards (in some cases) until Kaitee comes home... *

It's good to hear you guys are all doing so well! :) I love hearing how you guys are doing. It's funny, because sometimes my companions or other missionaries have problems back home and it gives them cause to worry... I feel so blessed because you seem to be doing so well (all of you!). I mean, I don't know if bad stuff happens and you just don't want to worry me... Or if you are just all doing so awesome... But I'm just grateful anyway. :)

Hey, I got my package! My card got here safe and sound!! :) The earrings and watch are SO CUTE and they got here right in time for conferences, interviews, and on Saturday we have Elder Uceda from the 70 coming. I have no clue how you found that watch. It's perfect! I always tell my companions that you have a 6th sense for what to send in packages... Also, the face wipes, American Mascara, and candy were perfect. That's not even mentioning the Birthday Cake Oreos. Made it a very happy birthday. :) Thank you! 

Mom. Send me a picture of my dad and brothers. I laughed out loud about JD looking like short Jesus, or like Teen Wolf. I seriously want to see them. I WANT THEM TO MAKE IT. THEY HAVE TO MAKE IT. 

I was talking to my companion about the whole hair thing... and she says that they should let me cut their hair when I get home... I've gotta say, I like the idea! :) I'll chop JD's Jesus beard right off!

 

OKAY. MIRACLE TIME. On Friday we had intercambios (I don't know what that's called in English, but the point is that I wasn't in my area) and Hermana Limo went to visit Jefferson and Carla with a couple that got married so that the husband could get baptized (LOVE that family, by the way) and they had a powerful, POWERFUL lesson, in which Carla said that she'd "get baptized right now if she could, but she couldn't do it alone." Gerardo Martinez told Jefferson like "Don't you want to be with your wife and daughter forever?" and then talked about how big of a blessing it's been for him. The point is... WE HAVE A WEDDING. September 25th they're going to get married, and on the 26th we have a baptism.

OTHER MIRACLE. Celibelsa came to church this week... Took me by the arm and said "can you come with me to talk to my parents? I've made my decision. I want to get baptized." 

Me: "Now??"
Her: *nods*

Her parents don't live in our area, so we can't come with her... But she LOVED young women's... It was exactly what she needed. We have a lesson with her today, we're gonna set an exact date. :)

Welp! :) That was my week! I love you guys too darn much... Can't believe I hit a year on Wednesday... Trying to ignore that, haha. 

Love you to the moon and back! :)

*that's what her watch says... she ends every letter home this way!*

-Hermana Hall

 

Kaitee's PS to her father and brothers... 

I have to authorize all hair/beard/mustache changes.

To authorize a change in hair/beard/mustache appearance, the following must be provided:

• Photos of the article of hair appearance of which the change has been requested. (Profile and Direct view)
• An appeal as to why the change has been requested.
• An explanation of the change that will be realized.
• 200 US Dollars.

We appreciate your compliance.

 

So, I'm going to keep this short.... A lot of people wrote me for my birthday and I want to thank them for the birthday wishes. :)

 

My birthday was great. My cute companion put together a little bag of goodies for me: a little stuffed animal that said "Happy Birthday" on it, a Dr. Pepper (I told her I love Dr. Pepper... You can buy them in cans at the grocery store here) and an Almond Snickers. I love me some American Candy... With a homemade card that she put a lot of time into. She's kind of a beast, that companion of mine. :)

I ATE SO MUCH CAKE. Here, well.... In Latin America, it's tradition that "if you don't bite the cake, your wish doesn't come true." I don't know if that was a thing in Dustin's mission or not, but I bit two cakes. Those are the pictures of me covering my mouth, for the record. Normally they shove your face in the cake, but I'm too sly for them, and they didn't get me (even though they tried) ;) May be a tradition I try to continue when I get home, because it's pretty fun. 

My backpack was on the verge of death, and the cute Barrientos family bought me a little side bag. :) I don't even know if they had the money to do it, but Rosa doesn't even let me buy food when I eat at her restaurant (she just gives it to us, haha) so she's kind of the best. She is seriously one of my favorite people I have met on my whole mission... I love her to death. :) 

Our priorities are a couple, Jefferson and Carla, and a 14 year old girl Celibelsa. Jefferson and Carla are GOLDEN.... except they're not married. They don't believe in infant baptism, and they get mad at how people treat the pope like more than a man. They're SO prepared... We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they LOVED it.... The problem is, they're not married, and they don't want to get married until next year. We're going to visit them with the ward mission leader tonight though. Pray for them. :)

 

We also have Celibelsa, who is the sister in law of a less-active named Vanesa. Vanesa has a restaurant, and Celibelsa works there, and she practically lives with her brother and with Vanesa. She says that she "loves Vanesa like a mom." The last time we had talked to her, she hadn't seen her parents in two weeks. They and her sisters had practically kicked her out of her house. She's suffered a lot. But she reads the scriptures we assign, and she loves the idea of baptism. She says she doesn't want to get baptized until she's 18 because she's "confused about a lot of things." We asked her if she had any questions or anything she'd like to learn more about, and she asked us what she has to do to go on a mission... that "she feels good when we come." I asked how long she's been thinking about a mission and she said "since you guys started coming." She had been really shy before that visit, and she basically didn't talk... But she really opened up to us on Thursday, and she kind of stole my heart... Pray for her, because she's going through a rough time.

Hahaha, this was going to be short... Now it's not haha... Welp...

 

I love you guys a lot! :) I hope you have a good week!

Gonna keep it short this week, probably.

I turn 20 tomorrow!!! Can you believe it? There is no better way to spend my birthday than in the service of the Lord. :)

Haircuts.... *sigh.* I'm doing all in my power to make my hair grow faster. I'm even taking Biotin, haha... I think it's helping. My hair, ever since I cut it short, practically doesn't grow... It's also been falling out a lot.... My hair has gotten a lot thinner since I got here, haha.....BUT.... I'm going to take good care of it... And have long hair again someday.... Hopefully.

It's starting to heat up a bit here in Bolivia. It's still cold in the morning and at night, but during the day it is SUNNNYYY.... Been getting my tan on... It was crazy how much of my tan I had lost over the winter. My companion saw the tan lines from my shoes and said "I thought you were white, but you used to be even MORE white."

Yep. Pretty much.

Speaking of my companion, she is a POWERHOUSE. We have seen more miracles over the last week. This week we were in a lesson with Jefferson and Carla (These names seem so white, but they pronounce them differently, hahaha) and we talked about how the spirit will answer their prayers to know if the church is true... My companion described how the spirit feels, and then I asked "when have you felt like that before?" Jefferson said "I felt it right now, when she was talking." They don't believe in infant baptism and they are PURE GOLD. The only problem is that they aren't married... We're going to talk to them about it today though, and hopefully bring another awesome couple (the husband is a recent convert and they had to get married for him to get baptized). Pray for this awesome couple! :)

Also: Yisela and Victor

Elizabet and Israel

Felix

That's it from me this week! :) Love ya!! :)

                                                  photos from Vivian's baptism


 My companion is Hermana Limo from Chiclayo Peru. She's 26,
got baptized at 11 and has been dying to serve a mission ever since.
While we were walking around on
the first day she kept saying "I can't believe I'm on my mission!" and
"I can't believe I'm with my trainer!" I feel a little bit of pressure
to show her the very best of mission life.... but she's SO prepared to
be here. She keeps talking about how much baptisms we're going to have
though... Which is a little intimidating for me. I hope I can live up
to her expectations, haha...

I'm healthy as can be. My clothes are... Hanging in there. There are
always those little markets here where you can buy American clothes
here, so I've been able to buy what I need. You have no idea how many
times I've been asked by my companions (in all seriousness) "Do
Americans only wear their clothes once and then donate them?" There's
also a rumor that we don't shower....? I don't even know.

This week we've found a couple of couples! Jefferson and Carla, and
Yisela and Victor. They're both AWESOME, SUPER prepared, and both were
blown away by the thought of eternal families. Carla asked "how can I
know that that's true?" My companion is a POWERHOUSE of a missionary,
and she has so much faith.

We're also working with someone named Felix, who is the husband of a
member. He has gone to church practically every week for 7 years with
his wife, and leads family home evenings with his family. The problem
is that he has a couple of doubts that hold him back. But his wife,
Yuli, went to the temple to figure out the whole thing with him not
being a member. We taught him for the first time on Tuesday, and we
felt the spirit SO strongly. After we left, his wife chased us out,
and told us that their 10 year old son had dreamt the night before that an
angel was baptizing his dad... And
that two nights before he had dreamt "this. What's going on in the
front room right now." He had dreamt that me and another missionary
(I wasn't even with Hermana Limo yet) and Hermana Isabel, a member,
were teaching his dad in the front room.... Please pray for him,
because he's just a step away. We're seeing miracles with him.

You guys really are the best. My companions talk about their families,
but I just know that I have the very best one. :) I love you guys to
the moon and back, and I hope you have a great week. :) Keep us and
our investigators in your prayers!

So, transfers on Sunday nights wasn't just a one time thing, it turns
out. Now they'll let us know of the transfers on Sunday nights, and
we'll change on Mondays...It's kind of a crazy change, because there's
not much time to clean or wash clothes or anything.

Well... Last night while we were waiting for the call, and we were
speculating. Our prediction was that I was going to leave the area...

But they called us and told us that I was staying... And that I'm
training. Hermana Kofoed, even though she's only been here a transfer,
is leaving for Santa Cruz again. Poor thing was in Santa Cruz, came
out here to Tarija for only one transfer, and then left again...for
Santa Cruz.

I'm really sad to say goodbye to Hermana Kofoed... We have had the
funniest transfer ever, and I'm going to miss her a lot. She is a
MACHINE of a missionary...But she's going to kill it wherever she is.

I'm going to be with another sister from our zone for two days and
then on Wednesday morning we go to Santa Cruz to pick up our new
companions.

Okay. So getting to this week. The 6th of August is Bolivia's
Independence (sorry if I spelled that wrong... no spell check) Day.
The stake (ALL of Tarija...A giant stake of 10 wards) had a huge
activity where each ward was assigned a department (kind of like a
state) of Bolivia. Then it was their job to prepare a lunch of food
that's traditional to that department, and organize a dance that's
traditional too. We got to go for a couple hours because our
pensionistas were there and if we didn't go we... like....wouldn't've
been able to eat. It was AMAZING. Every ward had a stand, and there
were people in traditional clothes EVERYWHERE... It was amazing. So
fun.

That's pretty much all that happened with us this week. We've been
finding some AMAZING new investigators... But I think I'll have more
on that next week. :)

I love you guys! I love missionary work! I love Bolivia! :) I hope you
have a great week! Love ya!

This week was... interesting. Well, mostly this weekend.

So, on the weekends, we eat lunch with the members and the relief society gets who we're going to eat with all figured out.

Well, Aeropuerto, as a ward is HUGE. It doesn't have a limit until it hits Bermejo, which is a city south of here, right on the border of Argentina. Our relief society president lives like 20 minutes out of the city in car, like a block away from her first counselor.

This week, we were going to eat with a member, supposedly, that lives a good ten minutes out of the city.... But once we got there, they told us that she was going to give us lunch NEXT Saturday, and that the 1st counselor in the relief society had to give us lunch that day.

So we were just like... Stranded in the middle of nowhere for a good hour because none of the little bus/car things that haul people out there would stop for us and we had to go FARTHER into the middle of nowhere. Finally, by some miracle, the relief society president passed by with her family in their car and hauled us out there...

Then, yesterday, we had a couple of free hours and there's a part of the area that had been closed (that's ours now) that we hadn't had time to go into yet.. So we went out there yesterday and it is straight up farmland. Like pigs, and goats, and chickens and cows.... Pigs just walk around up there like they own the place, and I didn't even know it was part of our area. Hermana Kofoed and I took a picture out there in the boonies (both times...) but it's been a pretty adventurous week.

We contacted this lady and she had a pig and I asked her what his name is and she said Pancho. Pig in Spanish is "chancho," so her pig is literally named "Pancho el Chancho."

That's pretty much what I've got to report this week.