Hello my dear family and friends!
(Mom you are going to have to correct my gramar before sending this out haha) I did!! haha
Wow I feel like its been an eternity! In the last 10 days since I wrote last I have been in several cities, 3 planes, 2 hotels, countless taxis and buses..... I feel like I have traveled the world!
I'll try to give the quickest rundown in the world of what this last week has been like - I left the CCM in Buenos Aires Tuesday, flew to Comodoro Rivadavia (my misión in the south) and was greeted by the misison president and a bunch of amazing missionaries. We stayed in a hotel (me and the 4 other newbies) and did training for the next 3 days and getting to know the misison and such. We had problems with our tramites (paperwork stuff) so none of us could leave for our áreas until like Friday, but its all good.
My trainer - shes such a capa (boss in spanish!) Hermana Borba from Uruguay... speaks NO English at all.. but we have been able to communicate shockingly well! The gift of tongues is so real.... We are getting along so well and she has so much patience with me!
We got the special priviledge to fly from Comodoro Rivadavia to my first área Ushuaia! (My misión is the 2nd largest in the world, so this is rare to fly for transfers). But there are no flights to Ushuaia so we had to fly to Buenos aires, stay the night, then Saturday morning fly to Ushuaia. It was craziness and I honestly don't even rememebr what happened because it was so crazy.
But we arrived in Ushuaia, the city at the end of the world, Saturday evening just in time to run to a capilla (chapel) and watch the evening conference sesión.
After, we went to our apartamiento! Its this Little run down apartment on the corner of some run down street... but I LOVE IT! Its tiny, but its nice to finally have my own space, food, and stuff! It's just me and my comp there. It was so nice to be able to cook for ourselves this weekend!
Sunday was so great - we watched conference (in English yay!) and we even had an investigator come to watch the evening sesión with us which was a miracle (especially beacuse we are in a whitewash and only arrived on saturday). Today was P Day so we did this 4 hour long hike along the coast in this forest. Look at a map of Argentina, look at the bottom part… I'm on a island thats actually technically not even part of the American continent!!! The hike was gorgeous but man am i pooped... we went with our whole zone of 18 missionaries and a super awesome member.
It's weird being a minority... I realize how little i know about Spanish, the culture here... everything! It has been humbling. But everyone has so much paciencia with me and has been so kind to me. The hardest part for me is not knowing what is going on all the time because I can't understand the language all the way! I learned Spanish... Castellano is a different story! haha! But I love it. i love the people, the área, my comp, and my misión. It is so wonderful.
I'm sure I will have more stories about our investigators for you all next week... we are starting from scratch right now because we are in a white wash. (I asked Amy what that meant. She said "White wash means they took out the missionaries in my área and put me and my comp in. So neither one of us knows the people, investigators, or the área. Usually they keep one person there and give them a new comp, because then at least one of them knows the area)
But - I am happy, healthy (well...i may have put on a few pounds from how much they make us eat here,, but healthy still lol), safe, and doing well. I love what I am doing. It's super hard and I am frustrated often and lack paciencia, but I am learning to rely on the Lord and trust in Him. I really have to learn to chill and let others be in charge and lead me around sometimes which is hard, but a lesson I know I need to learn!
It's freezing here, and its spring... weird! The mountains are aboslutely breaktaking, with all the snow on them.
Well... Ill talk to you all next week! I love you all and hope everyone is well. I pray for my sweet town of Thousand Oaks often!
Pray for me and my Spanish and that I can find people to teach! ALl I want to do is teach! Thats why I am here after all.. to bring the light of the góspel to The Uttermost Parts of the Earth (as the scriptures say), and thats what I am going to do!
LOTS OF LOVE
Hermana Holt
