¡¡Hola!!
Well my life is pretty boring nothing way exciting!! I have a new companion! And I suck at changes and so the first few days were filled with crying and being upset but now they are great. I really miss Hermana Quartino but she is doing great I´m sure at home and we are doing great here. My new companion is Hermana Lefler, she is from Texas. She has a lot of excitement for the work and a lot of hope for this area which is exactly what I needed here. I was starting to feel a little down about this area but now I have her and she has a ton of excitement and so I´m excited about that. It´s always good to have a new companion because we have different ideas for the work in every area and that is what is happening now. Before Sunday she really didn´t believe me that our branch is about to die but after church and only having and attendance of 18 she changed a little bit and saw what we saw and so now we are working hard together to make plans to try to build the branch and to build the investigator pull here also.
We found a way awesome investigator this week!!!! Like way awesome. We were contacting her neighbor and she walked up and was like what are you guys talking about and so we told her and she asked if we could pass by the next day and so we did. Her name is Nancy and she is the mom of 4 girls and her husband of 30 something years died last year and she turned to stuff that really didn´t help like smoking and drinking and now she is really searching for inner peace, she wants to find God for real. After our first lesson with her she was really excited and the next day we passed by and she had already read and was really excited about everything and that she is starting to find peace and finding answer to her questions. We started to teach her the Plan of salvation but we didn´t get through it with the part that she had be with her husband forever and so we are really excited to teach her that. We have a lot of hope for her and her girls. We are also sharing with the 14 girl right now and so that is nice. They are both very prepared and we are really excited. We are also teaching a family with 9 kids right now. They keep saying they are going to come to church but they never come and so we will see after this next Sunday, if they don´t come we are going to have to move on. They are very sweet people and we really want them to accept the gospel but if they aren´t willing to do their part then we can´t do anything. We will see what happens with them.
But the area is moving forward I´m excited about it, we are working hard, we are finding a lot of people to teach and I¨m really excited bout it all. We have a lot of great plans for Christmas for our members and such. We are going to try to do a 12 days of Christmas thing with the branch where we are picking a member of the ward everyday for 12 days and going to do service or something for them and we will see. Then we are going to plan a big branch activity and hopefully people come but we are going to make sugar cookies for Christmas and then take the youth and share a little Christmas message with totals and then give them a little plate of cookies and so we are really excited for that. We are going to have the women of the relief society do all the cooking with us and then the youth and the primary to cut them out and to decorate them with frosting and then the men to put them on the plates with a little Christmas poem and then we are all going to head out. We are excited about this activity and just hopefully that it works out and that people come so that we can do it and everything can work out well.
Oh dad you asked about the language, well it´s great actually. yo puedo hablar y todos pueden entender y este es la clave, si todos pueden entender todo está bien. Mi compañera neuva solamente tiene 3 o 4 meses mas de yo entonces ambas de nosotras estamos aprendiendo todovia pero todo esta bien, podemos ensenar con el espiritu y podemos tener conversaciones.
But yeah that was about my week, I got to ride for around 15 hours in a bus which 7 of those hours was in the middle of the night so that was fun and I was quite tired after wards but it was fun I guess. My feet were way swollen after wards but they went down by the next day. Oh and mom I got your package, THANKS!!!!!! I´m trying hard to resist to open the Christmas presents but at the same time I don´t know if it would be bad to do so because my companion doesn´t have anything to open Christmas morning and so I don´t want to make her feel bad by having Christmas and opening presents and her not having anything. But we will see. But yeah that is about it!!! Oh mom tell all the ward thanks for the support, I really feel the love from everyone!!! I got a letter from Tanya Yamauchi today that was a really nice surprise and then the Kraus Family is writing me and that is really nice. It is nice to have the support. Monday is our day to kind of chill out and feel love and to prep ourselves for the next week so it is great to feel so much love!!! Oh also mom with those talks and you copy and paste them to me because I can´t follow the links because it is outside the web pages that we can use so if you can copy and paste the actual words that would be great!!!
Well love you all!!!!
Hermana Hubbard
Monday, December 5, 2011
Ultimo Semana November 28, 2011 #17 letter
Hola!!
Well everything here has been getting better. I´ve had a few rough days this week because I just feel the burden of this area on my shoulders. I just don´t feel quite ready to introduce this area to someone new. It really scares me but what ever it´s fine everything will work out. I had a mild break down last night as we were walking from an appointment but I have an awesome companion and we sat down and talked for awhile about what is going on and how I just need to have more faith.
Well Saturday we had Gloria´s baptism and it was crazy!!!!!!!! And I mean crazy, Hermana Quartino said that it was the craziest baptism she has had in her mission. Well we woke up and were studying and around 10 the branch president called us and was like "I have a surprise for you guys!!" We thought it was food or something . . .then he said "the water it shut off to the chapel because I forgot to pay the water bill" He sent us running to all the different fire stations throughout Encarnacion trying to find one that could come and fill the baptismal font for us. Well we found one that would do i for cheap and then all of their water trucks are in Asuncion right now and so we couldn´t use them. They told us of a different station on the opposite side of our limits and so we headed off basically running. Bought some Empanadas on the way and ate them while we were running. We got there and they said that it was 180mil to fill up the font wilt 1000 liters of water. Just so you know it´s 4mil to a dollar so you can realize how ridiculous that was. So we were like alright well we are going to have a branch building activity of everyone bring buckets and such and coming to our apartment and carrying water a block and a half to the church until the baptismal font is full. We called our district leader so that he could come and help and he called our zone leaders. Well they then called us and said that they were going to try and find something else to do because carrying water to the chapel was going to take all day. So we waited a while while they talked with President Callan abut what we could do. Well they called us and said that the mission was going to pay the passage for everyone on the collectivos to go to rama 2 which is about a 10 to 15 minute bus ride. So we hid that from the members because we knew they wouldn´t come if they found out that they ahd to ride a collectivo there. We called Gloria and her mom and they were fine with it. Well we got everyone in teh chapel and then we told them we were headed to rama 2 and well all the adults besides our branch president, and his counselor and the mom of Gloria stayed all the other adults, "oh I have a different commitment, sorry" Well we headed off with about 10 youth and these three adults. We called the elders to let them know we were coming and they said that they had just seen a miraclc because they had been in the chapel for the past 5 hours trying to get their font to fill up and then they discovered that the pipes the fill the baptismal font are completely rotten and nothing can pass through them and while they were trying to think of what to do the font started filling up and we had water. It was yucky green water, but hey i was water. Well we all got there. the baptism went great, ate some yummy cake and had a fun time and then headed off to catch the collectivo home. Well we walked from about 10 minutes to the bus stop and waited about an hour and it wasn´t coming and it wasn´t coming and it wasn´t coming. Then all of a sudden all we could see all these cop cars and stuff a ways off and we were trying to figure out what it was. Well it was a huge marathon, and so we watched a marathon while we waited and that was quite fun to sit and cheer these people on. Well after about an 1 and a half of waiting we decided to just start walking. So we headed out. It took about an hour to walk home but man it was beautiful, most of the walk was over this bridge that goes over part of the Parana River. We could see Argentina with all of i´s lights on one side, we could see the San Pedro Neighborhood behind us and then Encarnacion in front of us. It was beautiful. We finally made it home about 10 at night. We were way late, and way exhausted but it was worth it. Gloria was super super happy and that is all that matters.
Then Sunday was also really good. We had an attendance of 35 people we were way excited!!! At the end of the meeting one of the ladies that was visiting came up to me and gave me a big hug and with pain in her eyes she asked me to go and please continue to pass by her son and daughter-in-law they were baptized about two years ago and are now less active with 9 children. She just came to me, gave me a big kiss on the forehead because i was playing the piano and could giver her a proper greeting and then just said "please, PLEASE don´t forget about my son. Those are my grandchildren" She started to cry a little and I just watched as her heart broke in front of my eyes. We have stopped passing by this family because we have passed by so many times and every time they hide from us. But now I Have a new desire to pass by and to try to share with them. It was a pass oh so familiar that I say in her eyes, It really made me think of mom and I don´t want this mom to feel the pain that mom feels and so I´m going to work my hardest to try to help this family find the true path again. But that was a way good experience. It´s just amazing how the Lord works, he has ways of telling us what we need to do. I now know that I need to help this family. We just have to figure out a way to get in their door now.
But yeah that is about it this week. Oh and my hope in the ward, the one youth that has a huge desire for the work and wants to help moved yesterday. Pati Ayala, she is like my best friend here, I´m really sad about that!!! But oh well her family needs her more than I need her. But yeah that was about it. OH this week was thanksgiving, well me and Hermana Quartino had way big lans but we were both sick and couldn´t eat anything so I think I ate some toast and drank some water and that is about it. It was quite depressing we were excited for our thanksgiving adventures but oh well. I´m just glad we are better now. Oh and mom don´t worry we are eating well. the branch members love us and so they feed us almost everyday now. We have found our branch grandma too, there is a grandma that wants to take care of you in every branch or ward here and we have found her, our dear Palerma Ayala. She is a sweetheart, she is always bringing us little snacks to eat. And we usually eat at their house on Sunday but they were traveling this Sunday after sunday school and so she brought dinner to us in the chapel so that we could have dinner Sunday it was really fun. and it was delisos also!!!
Oh mom thanks for telling me when Tanner s coming home, you read my mind because I really wanted to know because i was gong to send him a letter but I think I´ll send it to his house now because I doubt he will get it. So will you get me the address to his house please!!!
Well thats all folks!!! Keep praying for me and for the people here in Encarnacion because they need your help always!!!
Love you guys a lot!!
Hermana Hubbard
Well everything here has been getting better. I´ve had a few rough days this week because I just feel the burden of this area on my shoulders. I just don´t feel quite ready to introduce this area to someone new. It really scares me but what ever it´s fine everything will work out. I had a mild break down last night as we were walking from an appointment but I have an awesome companion and we sat down and talked for awhile about what is going on and how I just need to have more faith.
Well Saturday we had Gloria´s baptism and it was crazy!!!!!!!! And I mean crazy, Hermana Quartino said that it was the craziest baptism she has had in her mission. Well we woke up and were studying and around 10 the branch president called us and was like "I have a surprise for you guys!!" We thought it was food or something . . .then he said "the water it shut off to the chapel because I forgot to pay the water bill" He sent us running to all the different fire stations throughout Encarnacion trying to find one that could come and fill the baptismal font for us. Well we found one that would do i for cheap and then all of their water trucks are in Asuncion right now and so we couldn´t use them. They told us of a different station on the opposite side of our limits and so we headed off basically running. Bought some Empanadas on the way and ate them while we were running. We got there and they said that it was 180mil to fill up the font wilt 1000 liters of water. Just so you know it´s 4mil to a dollar so you can realize how ridiculous that was. So we were like alright well we are going to have a branch building activity of everyone bring buckets and such and coming to our apartment and carrying water a block and a half to the church until the baptismal font is full. We called our district leader so that he could come and help and he called our zone leaders. Well they then called us and said that they were going to try and find something else to do because carrying water to the chapel was going to take all day. So we waited a while while they talked with President Callan abut what we could do. Well they called us and said that the mission was going to pay the passage for everyone on the collectivos to go to rama 2 which is about a 10 to 15 minute bus ride. So we hid that from the members because we knew they wouldn´t come if they found out that they ahd to ride a collectivo there. We called Gloria and her mom and they were fine with it. Well we got everyone in teh chapel and then we told them we were headed to rama 2 and well all the adults besides our branch president, and his counselor and the mom of Gloria stayed all the other adults, "oh I have a different commitment, sorry" Well we headed off with about 10 youth and these three adults. We called the elders to let them know we were coming and they said that they had just seen a miraclc because they had been in the chapel for the past 5 hours trying to get their font to fill up and then they discovered that the pipes the fill the baptismal font are completely rotten and nothing can pass through them and while they were trying to think of what to do the font started filling up and we had water. It was yucky green water, but hey i was water. Well we all got there. the baptism went great, ate some yummy cake and had a fun time and then headed off to catch the collectivo home. Well we walked from about 10 minutes to the bus stop and waited about an hour and it wasn´t coming and it wasn´t coming and it wasn´t coming. Then all of a sudden all we could see all these cop cars and stuff a ways off and we were trying to figure out what it was. Well it was a huge marathon, and so we watched a marathon while we waited and that was quite fun to sit and cheer these people on. Well after about an 1 and a half of waiting we decided to just start walking. So we headed out. It took about an hour to walk home but man it was beautiful, most of the walk was over this bridge that goes over part of the Parana River. We could see Argentina with all of i´s lights on one side, we could see the San Pedro Neighborhood behind us and then Encarnacion in front of us. It was beautiful. We finally made it home about 10 at night. We were way late, and way exhausted but it was worth it. Gloria was super super happy and that is all that matters.
Then Sunday was also really good. We had an attendance of 35 people we were way excited!!! At the end of the meeting one of the ladies that was visiting came up to me and gave me a big hug and with pain in her eyes she asked me to go and please continue to pass by her son and daughter-in-law they were baptized about two years ago and are now less active with 9 children. She just came to me, gave me a big kiss on the forehead because i was playing the piano and could giver her a proper greeting and then just said "please, PLEASE don´t forget about my son. Those are my grandchildren" She started to cry a little and I just watched as her heart broke in front of my eyes. We have stopped passing by this family because we have passed by so many times and every time they hide from us. But now I Have a new desire to pass by and to try to share with them. It was a pass oh so familiar that I say in her eyes, It really made me think of mom and I don´t want this mom to feel the pain that mom feels and so I´m going to work my hardest to try to help this family find the true path again. But that was a way good experience. It´s just amazing how the Lord works, he has ways of telling us what we need to do. I now know that I need to help this family. We just have to figure out a way to get in their door now.
But yeah that is about it this week. Oh and my hope in the ward, the one youth that has a huge desire for the work and wants to help moved yesterday. Pati Ayala, she is like my best friend here, I´m really sad about that!!! But oh well her family needs her more than I need her. But yeah that was about it. OH this week was thanksgiving, well me and Hermana Quartino had way big lans but we were both sick and couldn´t eat anything so I think I ate some toast and drank some water and that is about it. It was quite depressing we were excited for our thanksgiving adventures but oh well. I´m just glad we are better now. Oh and mom don´t worry we are eating well. the branch members love us and so they feed us almost everyday now. We have found our branch grandma too, there is a grandma that wants to take care of you in every branch or ward here and we have found her, our dear Palerma Ayala. She is a sweetheart, she is always bringing us little snacks to eat. And we usually eat at their house on Sunday but they were traveling this Sunday after sunday school and so she brought dinner to us in the chapel so that we could have dinner Sunday it was really fun. and it was delisos also!!!
Oh mom thanks for telling me when Tanner s coming home, you read my mind because I really wanted to know because i was gong to send him a letter but I think I´ll send it to his house now because I doubt he will get it. So will you get me the address to his house please!!!
Well thats all folks!!! Keep praying for me and for the people here in Encarnacion because they need your help always!!!
Love you guys a lot!!
Hermana Hubbard
Thursday, November 24, 2011
What a Week! November 21, 2011 Letter #16
Hola
There really isn´t much to say this week. To say the least it has been difficult. I really want to try to be positive in my letters home but this week really was a test of faith for both Hermana Quartino and myself. Last night we came home crying. We lost one of our baptisms this week because one of the boys in the branch starting dating the girl that was going to get baptized and her sister freaked out and thought that the church is some dating system or something, she doesn´t believe that we actually follow the law of chastity or anything. Her sister is 12 and the boy that she is dating is 12 also, she is just worried that something bad is going to happen between them and so she doesn't want her sister to be part of the church. That was a challenge because she was golden, she has basically read the entire book of Mormon, has come to church and all the activities and already has a strong testimony but she isn´t allowed to leave the house and we aren´t allowed to come to the house and so thats, that. I´m going to try to pass by on January and see if her sister has calmed down a little bit. Well yesterday both Hermana Quartino and I gave talks and we both felt really inspired about what we talked about. Hermana Quartino talked about putting God first in our lives, no matter what and I talked about having Unity, Charity and being willing to do service for each other. Both of them were kind of strong and we taught doctrine and now our branch is mad at us. We tried to visit two different families (active families) last night and we watched the parents get up and leave the front room and send the little kids out to tell us that they weren´t there. It was heart breaking . . . we don´t have investigators and our branch hates us and then on top of it Hermana Quartino is leaving in a week and I don´t think I can do this without her. We planned two giant activities this week and invited everyone and had a lot of people that promised to come and well the first activity 4 people showed up and the second activity 2 people showed up and so that was hard because we focused a lot of our efforts on these activities this week and they didn´t work out. The most important thing is that we are working hard, we are being 100% obedient and trying to follow the promptings of the spirit. Hopefully things will get better, we know that the Lord is just preparing us for something that is going to come. I don´t know what it is but it´s going to be great because when we do our part the Lord does his part ALWAYS!!! We are just a little disanimados this week no mas. Hopefully things get better, especially for the last week of Hermana Quartino this is her last week and I really hope things work out, she has worked hard her entire mission and I just hope that the last week for her works out well. Well sorry for kind of the downer email this week. I´m going to try to have a better attitude for the next letter.
Love ya
Hermana Hubbard
There really isn´t much to say this week. To say the least it has been difficult. I really want to try to be positive in my letters home but this week really was a test of faith for both Hermana Quartino and myself. Last night we came home crying. We lost one of our baptisms this week because one of the boys in the branch starting dating the girl that was going to get baptized and her sister freaked out and thought that the church is some dating system or something, she doesn´t believe that we actually follow the law of chastity or anything. Her sister is 12 and the boy that she is dating is 12 also, she is just worried that something bad is going to happen between them and so she doesn't want her sister to be part of the church. That was a challenge because she was golden, she has basically read the entire book of Mormon, has come to church and all the activities and already has a strong testimony but she isn´t allowed to leave the house and we aren´t allowed to come to the house and so thats, that. I´m going to try to pass by on January and see if her sister has calmed down a little bit. Well yesterday both Hermana Quartino and I gave talks and we both felt really inspired about what we talked about. Hermana Quartino talked about putting God first in our lives, no matter what and I talked about having Unity, Charity and being willing to do service for each other. Both of them were kind of strong and we taught doctrine and now our branch is mad at us. We tried to visit two different families (active families) last night and we watched the parents get up and leave the front room and send the little kids out to tell us that they weren´t there. It was heart breaking . . . we don´t have investigators and our branch hates us and then on top of it Hermana Quartino is leaving in a week and I don´t think I can do this without her. We planned two giant activities this week and invited everyone and had a lot of people that promised to come and well the first activity 4 people showed up and the second activity 2 people showed up and so that was hard because we focused a lot of our efforts on these activities this week and they didn´t work out. The most important thing is that we are working hard, we are being 100% obedient and trying to follow the promptings of the spirit. Hopefully things will get better, we know that the Lord is just preparing us for something that is going to come. I don´t know what it is but it´s going to be great because when we do our part the Lord does his part ALWAYS!!! We are just a little disanimados this week no mas. Hopefully things get better, especially for the last week of Hermana Quartino this is her last week and I really hope things work out, she has worked hard her entire mission and I just hope that the last week for her works out well. Well sorry for kind of the downer email this week. I´m going to try to have a better attitude for the next letter.
Love ya
Hermana Hubbard
!!!!!!!!!Hola!!!!!!!!!!! November 14, 2011 Letter #15
Well this week was pretty normal, just the usual. We one thing great
is we found a place that carries by favorite alfajores which was quite
happy because I crave them every second of every day and no one carries
them around here. But we had some pretty awesome miracles Saturday
that I guess I can tell.
Saturday was pretty cool I guess, we had a meeting with Brian Garay
who is going to help us with this project that we are starting for the
youth because our branch has more menos acitvos than active members
and so we really need to work on activating them and the problem is
is that Hermana Quartino and I can´t do it alone and so we are having
little MTC's every other Saturday and every other Saturday the youth
are going to go out and visit the menos act ivoes and so hopefully it
works and everything pans out. And then we taught mutual which was
fun, all the kids liked it a lot. Then we headed out and all of our
appointments fell, we worked hard, walked a lot. We finally had an
appointment that we were sure was going to happen and so we headed.
We got to the apartment complex and to get to the st airs to go up you
have to walk through this one car garage to get to the stairs. So we
started in and realized that there were 4 super drunk guys sitting in
the back of the truck was in the garage. We felt a little uneasy
but thought everything would be fine. So we headed in and go up the
stair s everything was fine. We definately had some gross comments
made and stuff but that is normal. So we got to the second floor
where Adriana lives and then knocked and knocked and she wasn´t back
from work yet. The problem is neither of us felt good about walking
past these men again. We sat and looked around for other ways to get
out of the apartment complex and there wasn´t so we sat down and
thought for a second. We had other appointments to get to and didn´t
want to miss them because they were with our two girls that are getting
baptized next week, so we decided to say a prayer and head out. We
said a prayer asking that these men would leave and that we could
leave in safety. We go done praying and they were still there and I
was scared to leave being the blond cleared eyed girl, well we headed
down the stairs. We got to the first floor and I didn´t want to go
any further but Hermana Quartino said that she felt everything was
gong to be okay and that she would stand between me and them and
everything so we started down. Then the miracle. All the super drunk
guys stood up, and walked out into the street, we were able to leave
the garage and then they went back in, it was way crazy and really
shows that the Lord protects his missionaries we just have to have
faith that he will do so. Don´t worry mom and dad that is the worst
situation I have been in here on the mission, Hermana Quartino grew up
in an area really scary and is super careful about everything and is
teaching me to not be so naive about situations.
The Second miracle of the day, we headed to our other appointments and
we taught our girls and then all the rest of our appointments fell
through and we had nothing to do, we headed to contact some references but
never could find them and we still had an hour left of the day and had
nothing to do, literally. Well we stopped and prayed and then we felt
the Lord guide us to this super churchie house, and Hermana Quartino was
like, no Hermana they aren´t gong to let us in let´s go find a
different house. I clapped anyways and his sweet lady walked out and
let us in and she is so prepared for the gospel. She is so confused
about what to believe and is so ready to ask the Lord and do what
he asks. she is great and really wants to do what is necesary to find
out. Then our last miracle of the week . . . .our branch president,
elders quorum president, and mission leader went out and visited a lot
of the menos activoes in the branch yesterday, that is an absolute
miracle we don´ know what got into them but we are super happy about
it!!!! Oh and this week we have to correct our branch president and
we are not excited about but it has been placed on our shoulders.
The branch president has interviews almost every week with every
member and then talks with all the other members about the
confidential things that are told in some of the interviews. We have
a few recent menos activos because of this, people who has super
strong testimonies but don´t want to come to church because everyone
knows their sins, and if they are paying their tithing and how much
tithing they are paying and everything. We feel bad about this and
we have to talk to the branch president. We will see how it goes ....
but the mission is going great. Sorry I really don´t want to write
more because my keyboard sucks and that is why there are a lot of
spelling errors and spaces and weird stuff, I swear this thing is
possessed it´s writing when I don´t even touch anything, so yeah. Well
love you all!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
is we found a place that carries by favorite alfajores which was quite
happy because I crave them every second of every day and no one carries
them around here. But we had some pretty awesome miracles Saturday
that I guess I can tell.
Saturday was pretty cool I guess, we had a meeting with Brian Garay
who is going to help us with this project that we are starting for the
youth because our branch has more menos acitvos than active members
and so we really need to work on activating them and the problem is
is that Hermana Quartino and I can´t do it alone and so we are having
little MTC's every other Saturday and every other Saturday the youth
are going to go out and visit the menos act ivoes and so hopefully it
works and everything pans out. And then we taught mutual which was
fun, all the kids liked it a lot. Then we headed out and all of our
appointments fell, we worked hard, walked a lot. We finally had an
appointment that we were sure was going to happen and so we headed.
We got to the apartment complex and to get to the st airs to go up you
have to walk through this one car garage to get to the stairs. So we
started in and realized that there were 4 super drunk guys sitting in
the back of the truck was in the garage. We felt a little uneasy
but thought everything would be fine. So we headed in and go up the
stair s everything was fine. We definately had some gross comments
made and stuff but that is normal. So we got to the second floor
where Adriana lives and then knocked and knocked and she wasn´t back
from work yet. The problem is neither of us felt good about walking
past these men again. We sat and looked around for other ways to get
out of the apartment complex and there wasn´t so we sat down and
thought for a second. We had other appointments to get to and didn´t
want to miss them because they were with our two girls that are getting
baptized next week, so we decided to say a prayer and head out. We
said a prayer asking that these men would leave and that we could
leave in safety. We go done praying and they were still there and I
was scared to leave being the blond cleared eyed girl, well we headed
down the stairs. We got to the first floor and I didn´t want to go
any further but Hermana Quartino said that she felt everything was
gong to be okay and that she would stand between me and them and
everything so we started down. Then the miracle. All the super drunk
guys stood up, and walked out into the street, we were able to leave
the garage and then they went back in, it was way crazy and really
shows that the Lord protects his missionaries we just have to have
faith that he will do so. Don´t worry mom and dad that is the worst
situation I have been in here on the mission, Hermana Quartino grew up
in an area really scary and is super careful about everything and is
teaching me to not be so naive about situations.
The Second miracle of the day, we headed to our other appointments and
we taught our girls and then all the rest of our appointments fell
through and we had nothing to do, we headed to contact some references but
never could find them and we still had an hour left of the day and had
nothing to do, literally. Well we stopped and prayed and then we felt
the Lord guide us to this super churchie house, and Hermana Quartino was
like, no Hermana they aren´t gong to let us in let´s go find a
different house. I clapped anyways and his sweet lady walked out and
let us in and she is so prepared for the gospel. She is so confused
about what to believe and is so ready to ask the Lord and do what
he asks. she is great and really wants to do what is necesary to find
out. Then our last miracle of the week . . . .our branch president,
elders quorum president, and mission leader went out and visited a lot
of the menos activoes in the branch yesterday, that is an absolute
miracle we don´ know what got into them but we are super happy about
it!!!! Oh and this week we have to correct our branch president and
we are not excited about but it has been placed on our shoulders.
The branch president has interviews almost every week with every
member and then talks with all the other members about the
confidential things that are told in some of the interviews. We have
a few recent menos activos because of this, people who has super
strong testimonies but don´t want to come to church because everyone
knows their sins, and if they are paying their tithing and how much
tithing they are paying and everything. We feel bad about this and
we have to talk to the branch president. We will see how it goes ....
but the mission is going great. Sorry I really don´t want to write
more because my keyboard sucks and that is why there are a lot of
spelling errors and spaces and weird stuff, I swear this thing is
possessed it´s writing when I don´t even touch anything, so yeah. Well
love you all!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
A Week of I Guess You Would Call MIRACLES!!!!!!! November 7, 2011 Letter #14
Hey Family,
Wow the life is great. I love this place. I had a dream the other night that I got transferred and I woke up crying. I don´t want to ever leave ENCARNACION!!!! It is a difficult place, there is a lot of work to do, the branch is up and down every week, but I love it with all my heart. We have our family here, the family Garay (the dad is the branch president) They have 3 sons and one little princess that rules the house. Barbie, I talked about her last time, she is hilarious. The whole family just runs when she says so. Like this week we were in the church and Barbie started crying by the girls bathroom or somewhere around there. We were with Hermana Garay and Brian (the oldest boy) was in playing ping pong in one of the rooms, the other son was in the chapel, and the other son was playing futbol in the field. All literally ALL came running when they hear her, "mom Barbie is crying, what happened" you would think that she was dying or something. But all the happened is her friend had to go home. It was quite hilarious, but they really are our family here and we love them to death. Are miracles come in the form of three people, Clara, Lorena, and Lidia.
Clara. Her Uncle just moved here to live with her family, she is having a really ahrd time in life because her setp mom hates her and her dad just kind of follows what the step mom says. She is super shy and great. Her uncle brought her to church one day and we taught her and then they went to a different branch the next week and then we passed by to teach her, taught her once and she cired through the entire thing and then the next time we stopped by her dad told us that we need to respect their religion and leave their daughter alone. Well we left wen to a different appointment and then on our way back to encarnacion we saw her dad and step mom leave in the car so we stopped by just to talk to her for a second. We invited her to read the book of Mormon from the beginning and then she asked if we could meet her the next night in the big plaza in encarcaion we decided that that was ok and so we met with her wiht the promise that she would tell her dad that we were doing so. Well she pulls out her book of Mormon and she is in 2 Nephi already, in one night, she knows that these things are true and she is super happy now. Her uncle is going to work with her dad so that she can get baptized because she really wants to, really bad, she is willing to put in jeapordy her family and everything which is crazy but it´s worth it. Hopefully something can work out because at the end of the month her dad is sending her to be a catholic nun and so she and us fasted yesreday that her dad would change her mind so if you guys want to pray for Clara and her dad Ramon that would be great!!!
Next we have Lorena. She is the girlfriend of Brian Garay the son of president Garay. She is great. Her family is super super super catholic (like all of Paraguay really) and well she has already read all sorts of stuff. We had our first lesson with her Friday and she walked into the room and said "all I want to know is what I need to do to get baptized" . . .ok let us teach you a little. Well we had a lesson with her yesterday and she brought "the miracle of forgiveness" by President Kimball and siad that she found it in her house when she was like 8 or 9 and read it and loved it and now she understands where it comes from and eveything. She is amazing. Her parents are making one requirement from her first that she is confirmed in the Catholic church and then after that it is her choice waht she wants to do. So her confirmation is in December and so she can start coming to church in January and she has picked the baptismal date of the 21 of January. She is amazing. The first lesson I thought she was just doing it for Brian but this last lesson she bore her testimony to us and everything and wow she is so prepared for this gospel. Brian leaves on his mission somtime around January because his papers are going in the first week of December and so we will see. She is great.
Last of all we have Lidia. She is the friend of a girl in the branch that has investigated almost every religion out there. She was born Catholic and when she was 9 she started studying the doctrine and found out that she doesn´t agree with a lot of things and then she studied with the Evangelical churches and doesn´t agree with them either because you aren´t accountable for your actions and then she studied with the Jehovah witnesses for like 2 years and now with us. We shared the story of Joseph SMith with her yesterday and she said that she feels like him that she has looked and looked and looked for the truth and FINALLY the Lord has lead her to the place that has the truth. Her baptismal date is in two weeks and we are excited for her. She is so excited about the gospel. She reads and reads and reads and prays and everything, she is so awesome. We have a strong young women group in the church and so we are really excited for her she already has a lot of friends in the church just from coming to the activities this week.
Our plans for the future. So we have been working hard trying to figure out what to do to make people happier in our ward, have more love, and be more united. So we have come up with two activities that we are really excited about. First we are going to take charge of the branch nights because right now they are just everyone getting together with the kids playing futbol and the parents sitting around and gossiping about everyone in the branch. So we have a lot of fun games planned, lessons, and commitments for everyone, hopefully that will bring more unity in the branch. Next we have something we call project attack! This is for everyone between ages 12 - 30 (that isn´t married) and it is going to be awesome. So we have A TON of less actives in our branch, like around 200 that we know of and so this is kind of like a mini MTC. WE are going to teach the youth every week about how to talk to friends about the gospel and how to share about the book of Mormon. We are going to teach them how to give lessons, have practices, and then every other week we are going to put everyone in companionships and then assign them a less active to visit. They are going to go out for 30 - 40 minutes and share a message with this family and then we are all going to come back and share our experiences. We are really excited about this and so are all the youth!!! It is going to be awesome and give some excitement to the youth and then hopefully in turn we can have some less actives coming back to church. We are working with so many right now that want to come back but they just don´t have the support of anyone to come back so when it comes to Sunday they don´t have strong enough desires to get out of bed!! So we are excited about this and hopefully everything works out well!!!!!
Me and my companion are great, we love our area. We have a lot of our area that is just fields of trees and such (not really jungle but kind of) that there are no one to talk to and so we have made some funny videos of us just talking, I have taught her some songs in English and she has taught be some songs in Spanish and Guarni and so I´m going to try to upload them. Right now I don´t know that they are going to work but we will see. At least I´ll send some pictures.
It´s not super wet here actually, there are a lot of rivers and to my surprise there are very VERY few mosiquotes. It is beautiful and I love it here. The people are SUPER catholic. I thought they were bad in Ita Enramada but not even close to the people here. All the people are very closed and doen´t want to listen but it´s ok because the poeple that do listen are serious and I like that better because I´m not wasting time. We are teaching people that want to listen, to change, and to really follow their Savior.
My companion once agian she is absolutely great!!!! I just love her to death, we have so much fun, are 100% obedient, work harder than I have ever worked in my life, we walk until we are ready to cry, and really understands our purpose here and works hard to fulfill it. she is incredibule. It is a true blessing to have her as a companion, the Lord knew that I needed her to find out waht a real missionary is . . . So yeah basically she is great. I´m just sad that she is leaving after this change, we only have 3 weeks left together. But oh well I´ll have another companion that is just as great . . .hopefully!!!
But yeah that is my life, wonderful . . . basically. I have never been so happy or felt so fulfilled in my lfie. I love spreading the word of the Lord everyday and watching as people find out the answers to every question their is to this life. It is just amazing, this church is definitely of God, there is nothing out ther that can give answers to ever question, except for God and his gospel!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
Wow the life is great. I love this place. I had a dream the other night that I got transferred and I woke up crying. I don´t want to ever leave ENCARNACION!!!! It is a difficult place, there is a lot of work to do, the branch is up and down every week, but I love it with all my heart. We have our family here, the family Garay (the dad is the branch president) They have 3 sons and one little princess that rules the house. Barbie, I talked about her last time, she is hilarious. The whole family just runs when she says so. Like this week we were in the church and Barbie started crying by the girls bathroom or somewhere around there. We were with Hermana Garay and Brian (the oldest boy) was in playing ping pong in one of the rooms, the other son was in the chapel, and the other son was playing futbol in the field. All literally ALL came running when they hear her, "mom Barbie is crying, what happened" you would think that she was dying or something. But all the happened is her friend had to go home. It was quite hilarious, but they really are our family here and we love them to death. Are miracles come in the form of three people, Clara, Lorena, and Lidia.
Clara. Her Uncle just moved here to live with her family, she is having a really ahrd time in life because her setp mom hates her and her dad just kind of follows what the step mom says. She is super shy and great. Her uncle brought her to church one day and we taught her and then they went to a different branch the next week and then we passed by to teach her, taught her once and she cired through the entire thing and then the next time we stopped by her dad told us that we need to respect their religion and leave their daughter alone. Well we left wen to a different appointment and then on our way back to encarnacion we saw her dad and step mom leave in the car so we stopped by just to talk to her for a second. We invited her to read the book of Mormon from the beginning and then she asked if we could meet her the next night in the big plaza in encarcaion we decided that that was ok and so we met with her wiht the promise that she would tell her dad that we were doing so. Well she pulls out her book of Mormon and she is in 2 Nephi already, in one night, she knows that these things are true and she is super happy now. Her uncle is going to work with her dad so that she can get baptized because she really wants to, really bad, she is willing to put in jeapordy her family and everything which is crazy but it´s worth it. Hopefully something can work out because at the end of the month her dad is sending her to be a catholic nun and so she and us fasted yesreday that her dad would change her mind so if you guys want to pray for Clara and her dad Ramon that would be great!!!
Next we have Lorena. She is the girlfriend of Brian Garay the son of president Garay. She is great. Her family is super super super catholic (like all of Paraguay really) and well she has already read all sorts of stuff. We had our first lesson with her Friday and she walked into the room and said "all I want to know is what I need to do to get baptized" . . .ok let us teach you a little. Well we had a lesson with her yesterday and she brought "the miracle of forgiveness" by President Kimball and siad that she found it in her house when she was like 8 or 9 and read it and loved it and now she understands where it comes from and eveything. She is amazing. Her parents are making one requirement from her first that she is confirmed in the Catholic church and then after that it is her choice waht she wants to do. So her confirmation is in December and so she can start coming to church in January and she has picked the baptismal date of the 21 of January. She is amazing. The first lesson I thought she was just doing it for Brian but this last lesson she bore her testimony to us and everything and wow she is so prepared for this gospel. Brian leaves on his mission somtime around January because his papers are going in the first week of December and so we will see. She is great.
Last of all we have Lidia. She is the friend of a girl in the branch that has investigated almost every religion out there. She was born Catholic and when she was 9 she started studying the doctrine and found out that she doesn´t agree with a lot of things and then she studied with the Evangelical churches and doesn´t agree with them either because you aren´t accountable for your actions and then she studied with the Jehovah witnesses for like 2 years and now with us. We shared the story of Joseph SMith with her yesterday and she said that she feels like him that she has looked and looked and looked for the truth and FINALLY the Lord has lead her to the place that has the truth. Her baptismal date is in two weeks and we are excited for her. She is so excited about the gospel. She reads and reads and reads and prays and everything, she is so awesome. We have a strong young women group in the church and so we are really excited for her she already has a lot of friends in the church just from coming to the activities this week.
Our plans for the future. So we have been working hard trying to figure out what to do to make people happier in our ward, have more love, and be more united. So we have come up with two activities that we are really excited about. First we are going to take charge of the branch nights because right now they are just everyone getting together with the kids playing futbol and the parents sitting around and gossiping about everyone in the branch. So we have a lot of fun games planned, lessons, and commitments for everyone, hopefully that will bring more unity in the branch. Next we have something we call project attack! This is for everyone between ages 12 - 30 (that isn´t married) and it is going to be awesome. So we have A TON of less actives in our branch, like around 200 that we know of and so this is kind of like a mini MTC. WE are going to teach the youth every week about how to talk to friends about the gospel and how to share about the book of Mormon. We are going to teach them how to give lessons, have practices, and then every other week we are going to put everyone in companionships and then assign them a less active to visit. They are going to go out for 30 - 40 minutes and share a message with this family and then we are all going to come back and share our experiences. We are really excited about this and so are all the youth!!! It is going to be awesome and give some excitement to the youth and then hopefully in turn we can have some less actives coming back to church. We are working with so many right now that want to come back but they just don´t have the support of anyone to come back so when it comes to Sunday they don´t have strong enough desires to get out of bed!! So we are excited about this and hopefully everything works out well!!!!!
Me and my companion are great, we love our area. We have a lot of our area that is just fields of trees and such (not really jungle but kind of) that there are no one to talk to and so we have made some funny videos of us just talking, I have taught her some songs in English and she has taught be some songs in Spanish and Guarni and so I´m going to try to upload them. Right now I don´t know that they are going to work but we will see. At least I´ll send some pictures.
It´s not super wet here actually, there are a lot of rivers and to my surprise there are very VERY few mosiquotes. It is beautiful and I love it here. The people are SUPER catholic. I thought they were bad in Ita Enramada but not even close to the people here. All the people are very closed and doen´t want to listen but it´s ok because the poeple that do listen are serious and I like that better because I´m not wasting time. We are teaching people that want to listen, to change, and to really follow their Savior.
My companion once agian she is absolutely great!!!! I just love her to death, we have so much fun, are 100% obedient, work harder than I have ever worked in my life, we walk until we are ready to cry, and really understands our purpose here and works hard to fulfill it. she is incredibule. It is a true blessing to have her as a companion, the Lord knew that I needed her to find out waht a real missionary is . . . So yeah basically she is great. I´m just sad that she is leaving after this change, we only have 3 weeks left together. But oh well I´ll have another companion that is just as great . . .hopefully!!!
But yeah that is my life, wonderful . . . basically. I have never been so happy or felt so fulfilled in my lfie. I love spreading the word of the Lord everyday and watching as people find out the answers to every question their is to this life. It is just amazing, this church is definitely of God, there is nothing out ther that can give answers to ever question, except for God and his gospel!!!
Love
Hermana Hubbard
Monday, November 7, 2011
A Little Bit Better.... October 31, 2011 Letter #13
This week has gone a lot better, we are still working hard but we have already seen miracles open up in our paths. Monday or Tuesday, I can´t really remember we came up with this lesson plan to go through with all the less active members that have strong testimonies and it has worked miracles. This week we worked with Hermana Baez, Hermana Almada, Hermana Aguirre and Hermana Carmen to try to get them to come back to church. Hermana Baez and her husband were the first members in Encarnacion and quite coming to church about a year or so ago and we are still working hard with them, hopefully someday she will come back to church. Her husband comes about every other week and only to sacrament meeting so we are still working with him also. The other Hermana Almada was baptized in 1982 and hasn´t been to church in 8 years. She stopped coming when her health got really bad about 8 years ago and then just has never come back to so we have been working hard with her. Her daughter is one of the really strong members of the church right now and we just love her (she does our laundry), so she has a great help there from her daughter to be able to come back. The next is Hermana Aguirre, she and her whole family of 6 children were baptized about 3 years ago, they were active for about a year and half and have been inactive for about a year and a half because her husband decided that he wanted to go to a different church that allowed him to drink and so she followed. Now after a year and a half she realizes that she is miserable and she misses the church really bad she just doesn´t have the guts right now to tell her husband that she isn´t going to go to church with them anymore and is going to go to our church. We are still working with her, she has a really strong testimony and I´m pretty sure that she is going to come to church this Sunday. Then the last is Hermana Carmen, she has been out of town for the past week and a half but we finally found her yesterday and we talked and tealked and talked with her. She doesn´t come to church anymore because her grandson (who she raised from age 3) fell away from the church and moved in with some girl and such and so she just feels alone now when she goes to church and so she doesn´t like to walk alone to church. She was one of the first people baptized in this area too and so we are working hard, we are positive that she is coming to church this Sunday so we are really excited. But it was amazing our assistance number last week was 23 or 24 somewhere around there and this week we were at 38 or 39, we were really happy it was nice to see the fruits of our labors. The miracle of this Sunday was Hermana Almada came to church. We were sitting waiting for some of our investigators to show up and then all of a sudden Hermana Almada walked up to the chapel door. We were so excited to see her, most of the people in the ward don´t know her, the branch president thought that she was just visiting her daughter or something and announced that we had a visitor over the pulpit and pointed her out so that was kind of hard for her but all the people that did know her in the ward just were so so so happy, we were really happy. When they walked in the doors her daughter came to us and told us that we just watched a miracle happen. It was the first time that she had walked into the church in 8 years, we were just so happy. After that meeting I went up and talked ot her about her experience and how she liked it and she said that she loved it and was so happy to be back. Then she said "thank you so much girls without you inviting me and inviting me I would have never came, because i just felt like no one cared whether I came or not". So we are watching the miracles happen. We are having a hard time with investigators. We had a couple with baptismal dates but they don´t want to so we are starting again from scratch. We are still working on going through all of our old investigators that are in the area book and finding them and talking to them. It has been nice to go through that and clean it out because a lot of the housing around here is just renting apartments and stuff and so people move a lot and so most of the poeple don´t live in the same place anymore. So we have been working hard, walking a lot, losing a lot of weight. Almost none of my clothes fit me anymore, no one feeds us here and we don´t have time to stop and eat ever so we just take a piece of bread with us or and apple and eat it while we are walking. We are tired and happy with what we have done here.
Our other project of the week, we got ot know our other city that we have in our area. Yeah we have two cities, well one is super city, like downtown Encarnacion and then we have a little town that is super super country called Cambryte or something close to that if you want to look it up on the internet and look at pictures or something. It´s really pretty. and it is quite large. It took us an hour and a half to walk there, a fell hour and a half in a fast walk. All the natives thought we were crazy to be walking that far. We got there went to the city hall to see if we could somehow get a map to be able to find our way around because there are no street names you just have to know where you´re going, so basically the knowledge is passed down from companion to companion, well for us we had no one to pass it down to us so we just have to figure it out for ourselves. So we got to the city hall the printed us off a map and then this nice guy sat and told us all the neighboor names and where all the points of interest are and such so that we could better find our way around. It was really nice of him. Then we headed off to find our branch president´s house, got a little lost, walked like 20 minutes past their house had to turn around and walk back, it was really funny. They finally had to send their son to find us. Then we had one ofthe most delicious meals i have eaten here, like it was so so so good, it might be the fact that we have been eating bread and apples for the past week and we were actually eating real food but it was so good!!! Our branch president´s wife is basically amazing. She took us around the all hte active members houses in the area and some of the less actives and some of the people that were investigators before. This is a funny story. So our brach president´s wife (Hermana Garay) has a 4 year old daughter that is super super super attached to her, like more attached than I have ever seen any child to a parent. Well when we were getting ready to leave the house after lunch Hermana Said that she was going to go take a shower, I was like what we need ot leave we have a lot to do, but then her son pulled us into the kitchen and told us that she was hiding in the bathroom and that we needed to get Barbie (the 4 year old) to take us upstairs to show us her toys and then Heramana Garay was going to go wait out on the street. Well we talked Barbie into taking us upstairs and then we said we had to leave, Brian was there (the 18 year old son of Hermana Garay) and siad that their mom was still in the shower so Barbie could hear, then we headed out. We found Hermana Garay hiding behind a bush and she said ok girls ready to run, and so we took off running, ran about a block where we were sure Barbie couldn´t see us anymore and then went off to learn about the area San Miguel. The area is beautiful. It´s a little hard because it is so far away from our house and such, but there are a ton of investigators and less actives out there, and we can´t be out there after dark because it is a little dangerous after dark, like most of our area. Really at night we can only be in like a 10 block radius of our apartment at night, the rest of our area is dangerous at night. We went to a members house the other night that we thought was okay to go to at night and after the lesson two of their sons walked us out of their neighborhood and so now we know that we can´t go there at night. The branch is super protective of us I think because our investigators that live in those areas say that it isn´t even close to dangerous at night but we are following the counsel of our branch presidency and the members because they know what is best for us. So at night we do a lot of wandering among the same 10 blocks because all are apartments and we can´t get into them without someone telling the guard that we can come in. But we are working on it, we have learned that street contacts are really important in this area because without them we wouldn´t get to talk to anyone that lives in the apartment complexes.
My companion is great, I´m loving having to speak Spanish all day everyday, my Spanish has gotten really good in the past 2 weeks because i have to speak it all the time. I never thought I would be told this but a lot of the members think that I have been out a year or more and when I tell them 3 months that are surprised, I tell you the gift of tongues is real because 2 weeks ago I couldn´t talk to anyone but I have to hear, one person can´t do all the work here because there is way too much work here for one person to do it!!! My companion is such a hard working, we are funny because we push each other really hard because both of us think the other is a harder worker then we really are and so I won´t stop because I think Hermana Quartino doesn´t want to quite and then Hermana Quartino won´t quite because she thinks I don´t want to quite so we just go and go and go and go. But we have a lot of fun, the mission president has given me the challenge and getting her speaking good English because she only has this change to learn better, she already speaks really really well but she just needs vocabulary and pronuncion help and so thats what I´m doing. She was baptized 7 years ago and so never got to be part of primary so I have been teaching her primary songs in English and she loves it!! So we have alot of fun, I suspect that she is going to be my favorite companion of my mission because she is just awesome, completely obedient in everything, loves to work hard, and knows what her purpose is here. I don´t know if I said this in my last email but she is so strong. Her dad died when she was out for 6 months and she stayed out, she is just amazing, I don´t think I would have the strength to do that, I actually know I wouldn´t. She is amazing!!!
Well that's about it for now, the work is moving on, this is hard, the mission president wrote me an email today and said to be patient and that everything will work out and that he knows that this area is for me and Hermana Quartino! We love the work here, it´s beautiful and it is not hot here!!! . . . YET!!!
Love you all
Hermana Hubbard
Our other project of the week, we got ot know our other city that we have in our area. Yeah we have two cities, well one is super city, like downtown Encarnacion and then we have a little town that is super super country called Cambryte or something close to that if you want to look it up on the internet and look at pictures or something. It´s really pretty. and it is quite large. It took us an hour and a half to walk there, a fell hour and a half in a fast walk. All the natives thought we were crazy to be walking that far. We got there went to the city hall to see if we could somehow get a map to be able to find our way around because there are no street names you just have to know where you´re going, so basically the knowledge is passed down from companion to companion, well for us we had no one to pass it down to us so we just have to figure it out for ourselves. So we got to the city hall the printed us off a map and then this nice guy sat and told us all the neighboor names and where all the points of interest are and such so that we could better find our way around. It was really nice of him. Then we headed off to find our branch president´s house, got a little lost, walked like 20 minutes past their house had to turn around and walk back, it was really funny. They finally had to send their son to find us. Then we had one ofthe most delicious meals i have eaten here, like it was so so so good, it might be the fact that we have been eating bread and apples for the past week and we were actually eating real food but it was so good!!! Our branch president´s wife is basically amazing. She took us around the all hte active members houses in the area and some of the less actives and some of the people that were investigators before. This is a funny story. So our brach president´s wife (Hermana Garay) has a 4 year old daughter that is super super super attached to her, like more attached than I have ever seen any child to a parent. Well when we were getting ready to leave the house after lunch Hermana Said that she was going to go take a shower, I was like what we need ot leave we have a lot to do, but then her son pulled us into the kitchen and told us that she was hiding in the bathroom and that we needed to get Barbie (the 4 year old) to take us upstairs to show us her toys and then Heramana Garay was going to go wait out on the street. Well we talked Barbie into taking us upstairs and then we said we had to leave, Brian was there (the 18 year old son of Hermana Garay) and siad that their mom was still in the shower so Barbie could hear, then we headed out. We found Hermana Garay hiding behind a bush and she said ok girls ready to run, and so we took off running, ran about a block where we were sure Barbie couldn´t see us anymore and then went off to learn about the area San Miguel. The area is beautiful. It´s a little hard because it is so far away from our house and such, but there are a ton of investigators and less actives out there, and we can´t be out there after dark because it is a little dangerous after dark, like most of our area. Really at night we can only be in like a 10 block radius of our apartment at night, the rest of our area is dangerous at night. We went to a members house the other night that we thought was okay to go to at night and after the lesson two of their sons walked us out of their neighborhood and so now we know that we can´t go there at night. The branch is super protective of us I think because our investigators that live in those areas say that it isn´t even close to dangerous at night but we are following the counsel of our branch presidency and the members because they know what is best for us. So at night we do a lot of wandering among the same 10 blocks because all are apartments and we can´t get into them without someone telling the guard that we can come in. But we are working on it, we have learned that street contacts are really important in this area because without them we wouldn´t get to talk to anyone that lives in the apartment complexes.
My companion is great, I´m loving having to speak Spanish all day everyday, my Spanish has gotten really good in the past 2 weeks because i have to speak it all the time. I never thought I would be told this but a lot of the members think that I have been out a year or more and when I tell them 3 months that are surprised, I tell you the gift of tongues is real because 2 weeks ago I couldn´t talk to anyone but I have to hear, one person can´t do all the work here because there is way too much work here for one person to do it!!! My companion is such a hard working, we are funny because we push each other really hard because both of us think the other is a harder worker then we really are and so I won´t stop because I think Hermana Quartino doesn´t want to quite and then Hermana Quartino won´t quite because she thinks I don´t want to quite so we just go and go and go and go. But we have a lot of fun, the mission president has given me the challenge and getting her speaking good English because she only has this change to learn better, she already speaks really really well but she just needs vocabulary and pronuncion help and so thats what I´m doing. She was baptized 7 years ago and so never got to be part of primary so I have been teaching her primary songs in English and she loves it!! So we have alot of fun, I suspect that she is going to be my favorite companion of my mission because she is just awesome, completely obedient in everything, loves to work hard, and knows what her purpose is here. I don´t know if I said this in my last email but she is so strong. Her dad died when she was out for 6 months and she stayed out, she is just amazing, I don´t think I would have the strength to do that, I actually know I wouldn´t. She is amazing!!!
Well that's about it for now, the work is moving on, this is hard, the mission president wrote me an email today and said to be patient and that everything will work out and that he knows that this area is for me and Hermana Quartino! We love the work here, it´s beautiful and it is not hot here!!! . . . YET!!!
Love you all
Hermana Hubbard
A Whole New World!!! October 24, 2011 Letter #12
Cherysh just wrote a family letter this week, so there won't be a blog. She has been transferred to Encarnacion, Paraguay, it is a 6 hours bus ride from the Mission Home. Hermana Hubbard and Hermana Quartino has just opened a new Sister Mission area. Hermana Quartino is from Uruguay, and has only been a member of the Church for 7 years, she is very hard working and completely follows all of the mission rules, Hermana Hubbard loves her. Hermana Hubbard loves speaking only Spanish with Hermana Quartino and her Spanish has greatly improved. There is a lot of inactivity in Encarnacion and so they really have there work cut out for them. Their area covers a very large area and they do a lot of walking.
Hermana Hubbard is so thankful to be in Encarnacion because the weather is not so hot!!! She also stated that it is very beautiful there and is surrounded by rivers.
Hermana Hubbard says, "we love the work here, it's beautiful and it is not hot here!!!....YET!!!!"
Hermana Hubbard is so thankful to be in Encarnacion because the weather is not so hot!!! She also stated that it is very beautiful there and is surrounded by rivers.
Hermana Hubbard says, "we love the work here, it's beautiful and it is not hot here!!!....YET!!!!"
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