Week of Hardness! 3rd week in MTC

My schedule: So every morning I wake up at 6:25 and say prayers and then I get ready for the day. I always take showers at night because the shower line in the morning is super crazy and you won't get into the shower before class. Personal Study Time starts at 7 down in the classroom. So I go down there and study what ever I feel that I need to study to better increase my knowledge and how to help me investigators. We have breakfast at 7:40 where I have fruit and usually all-bran with bananas (it's become an addiction!!). Then we go back to the classroom for some more personal study time. Then next we have class from 9 to 12 on the day that I'm describing. The class times change almost everyday but I'm describing my least favorite schedule. Then we have lunch at 12:15 where we get the first wave of mail (packages and hand written letters) then after that we have another 3 hours of class. In this class we either teach our progressing investigator or got the the Language trainging center where volunteers come in from BYU and we teach them. Then next We have language study for an hour. After that we can go to dinner at 5:15 and then we have TALL lab at 6 for an hour. TALL lab is a computer program that helps you pronounce a little better and teaches you grammar and such. Then after that we have gym for an hour where lately because my companion is hurt we go do the stationary bikes or go out to the field and walk around the field if it's nice outside. But everyday we have one hour of language study, one hour of gym, one hour of TALL, two hours of personal study time, and 6 hours of class. It's a great schedule. We got to the temple every Friday and I love it!! our first week going some little Finnish lady came and gave us a ton of names to do because her and her daughter have been trying to do all the names and such but they have hundreds to do so they decided to come and grab some of the sister missionaries so it's been nice I enjoy doig the work for this ladies family. And then every sunday we have the temple walk in the late afternoon where we just go hang out on the temple grounds for an hour. It's great I love temple walk!!!

Well this week have been a pretty hard week for a couple of reasons. Number one is our companionship just about blew apart at the seems. Hermana Griffeth has been causing some pretty big problems in the companions hsip because she won't work as part of the companionship she wants things done her way and she won't let me and Hermana Lao say anything. So we finally had to get a teacher involved and everything seems to be going better between me and Hermana Griffeth but her and Hermana Lao are still butting heads a little bit. I love Hermana Lao to death. It seriously feelsl ike I've met her before and like we have a great purpose to fulfill in this life together. I don't know what it is but something. We are great friends. Number two hardness there are some major problems with our district. THey have been breaking rules right and left and it is really making the spirit disappear in our district. It is really upsetting me. Our district president has tried really hard to talk to them but they don't respect him so I don't know if the problem is going to get better or worse. I think it's going to get worse because it is getting worse. One of the teachers pulled them all out and talked to them and they still just laughed and made fun of the situation. So I don't know. I only have a month left with them so I'll just have ot put up with the disobedience I guess. Luckily for me the 3 of the good elders in the district are coming to my mission and only 1 of the elders thatl ikes to break rules. But that one is actually trying really hard to be better!!! So I'm glad I get to work with the obedient ones. Number three is Hermana Lao got some bad news this week. The first week here she was playing volleyball and came down hard on her knee and she heard a "pop" I tried to convince her that it was her ACL but she wouldn't believe me and she is/ was against medicine of anykind so it was hard to try to convince her to go to the doctor. SO we finally convinced her after she could barely walk anywhere last week. So she went to the doctor I went with her to the hospital where she got x-rays and MRI's and they let me watch. And then the doctor here at the MTC interpreted them himself instead of the letting the orthopedist do it. ANd told her that she just had to havep hysical therapy which made her happy because she thought she tore her Meniscus. Well yesterady afternoon we went back to the orthopedist and he had a surgeon there waiting for us and him and the surgery checked her knee and she has a torn meniscus and a torn ACL. She has to have surgery on Monday. It's a 6 - 8 week recovery so we are hoping to work her hard in physical therapy and at night before bed and get her ready to go before we leave so she can fly out with us. She is really upset about it. I'm quite sad for her. It's a pretty massive trial but I guess all we can say is I'm happy that she got it figured out now and she gets to still go to Argentina. Oh and the Anestheologist is in our branch presidency and he is going to let me come in and watch the surgery so I am quite happy about it. Hermana Lao has been really nervous through this entire thing so she has dragged me everywhere so that I can help her understand what is going on and such. It's a big trial but everyone is working with us really well. We aren't getting behind or anything so it's great.

Well other than that I love it here. I love the spirit here. I love theo pporutinty that I have to learn the gospel. I'm going to write everyone individual letters. and don't worry mom I'm sending off a package of pictures today.

Love you all!!

Cherysh

What a Week! 2nd week in MTC

This week was a little bit of a stressful but wonderful one. So they are now expecting us all to speak Spanish all the time so it is a little diffcult because i don't feel like I know anything. But it's coming slowly, everything will work out in the end. So this week is being really stressful because i had a bunch of nursing classes this week. So you know how my mission president's wife wrote me and told me that I wasn't really going to be the missions nurse because they already have one. Well i was talking to the medical director about it and they were saying that the mission president actually can't do that because the mission nurse has to be trianed by the church. They said that they will let them keep her in there for a bout another 8 months so I can get the language and understand the culture and such and if they don't put me in the mission nurse by the 6 months i'm out there then I'm supposed to email them. So i don't have to worry about me not being the mission nurse.

My nursing classes were pretty amazing I was the only nurse in there with about 5 doctors and they expect me to know and learn the same things as them. It was really intreresting and I think I understand everything pretty well. Hopefully I'm a good nurse when I get down there.

So scare of the week is I got a hug lump behind my ear and it was pushing my ear forward and giving me a massive stiff neck and headache. i dealt with it for a couple of days and then I got a little worried so i went to the doctor. It's just a lymph node and i don't really have any signs of infections or anything so they stuck me on some antibiotics because they don't know what is up but they think there must be something going on. They gave me some pain killers too but I haven't used them at all I just have been using tylenol and that has been working great. Then my companion Hermana Lao has been really sick the last couple of days and her knee has been really bothering her for a couple of weeks. She is very against medicine and doctors and such so it was really hard to convince her to go to the doctor. But we literally drug her to the doctor yesterday and she is really sick. She has an infection in her throat and in her lungs. And then they think she has a tumor in her knee. So I'm going with her to the hospital on Monday to get an MRI and see what is up. I hope everything is ok with her. but while she was sick we had to be in the dorms with her so we had a nice and relaxing day yesterday. Hermana Griffeth and I just sat on the couches and studied all day long. All the elders in our district thought we were up there sleeping and relaxing but we really tried hard to stick to the schedule and do what we could. We memorized 91 vocabulary words and went over verb tenses for quite awhile and and then we finally had to lay down and take a 20 minute nap. But we studied really hard all day long. It was really nice to just relax and take time to study. I feel a lot better because I was super frustrated all week with the language becuase I have missed so much class becuase of my nursing classes.

There is definitely a sickness going around our district. Elder Scott got it last week and then Elder Edwards has been coughing up blood because he has been coughing so much and now Hermana Lao has it so hopefully we don't all get it.

Our lesson with our progressing investigator went really well this week. Last week he was very closed and didn't want to talk to us and hated God and so on and so forth. Well this week we cracked through his barrier and he definitely felt the spirit. He was begging to know more like to hear the first vision and learn more about the Book of Mormon. It is really nice to watch comeone realize that happiness this gospel can bring.

I just love this gospel to death. It's amazing the happiness and the joy it brings. I've just noticed a massive difference in my life since I"ve come into the MTC. With the spirit as my constant companions it is really hard to get down or to be discouraged. LIfe is just wonderful and the gospel brings so much happiness, peace, and comfort to my life!!

Well that is basically my week I guess, nothing else really happened I still have like 12 minutes to write but I don't really have anything else to say. Oh I bore my testimonry in Spanish in church on Sunday I guess that was a pretty big accomplishment. I was scared out of my mind but it went great and hopefully I made a little bit of sense.

Well thanks for the love and support from everyone I really do love receiving letters every day. So keep sending letters!!

Love ya

Full Week #1

Well this week has been pretty amazing. I just absolutely love it here and all the experiences. Let me think for a second of eveything that has been going on. Well we learn a lot, I've learned more Spanish in the past week than i did my entire high school career. So let's just start with the hard stuff. So this week I had a couple of really hard days where were would learn a new concept and wouldn't have time to really study it and then move on to a next one the next day and so it was really frustrating because I'm used to staying up at night and sudying until I get the new concept. So it has been frustrating that I haven't been able to do that. So I started prayng really hard and trying really hard to rely on the Lord. I made a deal with him that I would get up an extra 30 minutes early in the morning to study Spanish if he would help me out. So I've been doing that all week. It didn't seem to be working and then Tuesday we were looking up some stuff for our fake investigator that we teach every week (which is one of the teachers playing an investigator from their mission) and I found this scripture in MOsiah I don't remember where but it talked about how we are nothing and unworthy creatures compared to the Lord and how he still loves us enough to bless us and to take care of us if we just humble ourselves. so that night a kneeled down and pleaded with the Lord and well the next day the language just kind of clicked. I'm still going to do my part, we got a tutor and I still am trying to get up in the morning and such so hopefully I can continue to progress in the language and to become better. The spirit here is amazing and I absolutely love it. The food isn't the greatest so I eat a lot of salads and I'm kind of sick of salad but ig uess i better get used to it because I have 8 more weeks of it.

Well let me introduce you all to my amazing district!! I'm just going to go through and tell you about each one. I'm gong to send pictures home so maybe my mom can find some way to get them up on the blog. Anyways so my companions. Sister Griffeth is from Lehi Utah and is kind of stressed out about the language but is very fun and loving. my other companion sister Lao is full Tongan but is from SLC. She is kind of spacy and doesn't know whati s going on most of the time but is probably the most fun loving person I know. Next We have Elder Scott and Elder Garret. Well Elder Scott as I said last week is The apostle elder scott's great nephew. He is very short like maybe 5'4 and is really quiet and keeps to himself. I sat down with him the other daya nd he told me his life story and it is amazing. His dad ran off or died when he was born he never really said which one and he was raised by his grandparents while his mom worked. His mom wasn't very active in the church because she married a non-member and he went to church each week by himself because he felt it was important and loved the spirit there. I think that is just amazing that he has done that. He knows his scriptures like no budies business and is pretty awesome when you can get him to talk. Next Elder garret, What to say about elder Garret well he is the crazy one of the group. He has a girl at home that he is positive that they are getting married when he gets home (We all know I know what that is like) I told him the other day that is probably wno't work out because they only dated for 2 months before he left, He got pretty mad at me so I havn't brought it up again. He is crazy, laughing and always getting in trouble, we always have to get him to sing hymns or primary songs to get him from not quoting or singing worldy music and movies.

Next companionship is Elder Dallimore and Elder Christensen. Elder Dallimore is the absolutely hilarious one of the group. He always keeps us laughing and is always doing something weird. He came up with our district cheer "Bienta a" it is funny we just do it every day at the end of gym. Elder Christensen is mr. serious he always sitting in the corner studying his guts out. He also has a girlfriend at home tath e is planning on marrying I keep telling them my situation about a year ago and how it doesn't work out and stuff but I guess maybe I should stop.

Next cmpanionship is Elder Marple and Elder Edwards. Elder Marple is the music guy of the group and the genius. He can already speak spanish pretty fluently and he doesa ll them usic, he played Cello at ASU and is pretty amazing. Him and Elder Edwards have tried really hard o get the elders to include us more which has worked they are great!! Elder Edwards is 23 and was cnnverted to the churhc like 5 years ago or something and just graduated with a math degree from college. His parents are anti and are pretty mad at him for what he's doing. He is our distric leader and pretty awesome.

Next companionhship Elder Beatty and Elder Varney. Elder Beatty me and my compaions have talked about this and we have decided taht we just can't understand him we don't know what to think of him. He's a fun guy but I can never tell when he's mad or upset or frustrated or happy hopefully as we get to know him more then I'll be able to understand his facial expressions. Elder Varney. This kid is also amazing. He is way fun and really tries hard to include us in the group and everything. He is alot of fun and we have a lot of fun plying volleyball with him every week.

So now you know who I hang out with. Thanks to everynoe that writes me letters. I love getting home at night and having letters to read so keep is up. I can only write letters on P-day so I won't write anyone back very fast but please continue writing me. Just know that i love it here, I love this gospel and i am so so so grateufl for the opportunity to bring people closer to Jesus Christ.

Love

Hermana Hubbard

First 3 days in the MTC 1st Letter 5-28-2011 WOW!!

Wow it is super crazy here but I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!! It's exhausting and fun. So my companion never showed up so I have sister Lao and Sister Griffeth as companions, it is really fun being in trio. They are way awesome and we get along really well. It's just us in our room and there are six beds in our room so it is nice because we each have two closets and our own vanity. My teachers are Brother Martinez and Brother Gamez. They are both amazing. Brother Martinez is from Ecquador and Brother Gamez is from Spain so they just speak Spanish to us only in the classroom. It's only day 4 and it's amazing how much Spanish we have already learned. WE learned verb conjegation yesterday and I think I get it kind of. It was kind of hard but I can definitely feel the Lord helping me as I learn it. My district is pretty awesome, just you're average 19 year old boys. Most of them have girlfriends and that is all they talk about, Brother Gamez got after them yesterday and told them to forget about them and then told them to stop quoting movies. They have been a lot better. The elders aren't too inviting to us sisters in the district. They have a hard time including us but I have to say that they do try it's just hard to find that balance between sisters and elders while on the mission.

I love the spirit here, it is absolutely amazing. I just love learning about the gospel everyday and being able to spend hours a day in the scriptures. I love praying a ton every day!! It is so great. Before I came in I was so nervous and scared to point that I got a little sick but the second I walked into the door i knew that this is where I'm supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing in my life right now. I have a lot of friends that are here and it has been really fun to see them all and to talk about our missions.

Oh and Elder Scott's grand-nephew in my district so that is fun to tease him about. He looks just like him but with brown hair and younger skin. But everything is great here!! I love every second of every day!! The food is good for the most part, nothing like mom's cooking but still good. And I would like to announce that I have been running everyday for gym time. I can barely walk up and down stairs from being so sore but it feels great to be getting into shape. Well I love you all and I can't wait to hear from all of you!!

Love

Hermana Hubbard

Hola Everyone!!

Well lets start out with this. I have the crappest keyboard I have ever touch in my life right now and it is horrible to try to type on so I don´t know that this is going to be to long of a letter.

So this week we worked hard. We tried really hard to meet all of our goals and to find new investigators and to help people on their path to Christ. On the other hand it was difficult because I think almost everyone of our investigators didn´t keep any of their commitments which is hard and we are going to try to figure something else out to do different this week so that we can better help our investigators meet their commitments. So I´ll start out with the not so happy and then move into the miracles of the week.

The Family Paniagua I think I talked a little bit about them last week and how they have so much potentiontal and we are really working hard to help them on their journey. Well this week has been really really rough with them. We love them to death and because of that we haven´t dropped them yet even though we probably should have by now. The ones that aren´t baptized just won´t keep any of their commitments and the 18 year old boy, Pablo who we thought had the most potential told us this week that he has no interest in finding out about our religion which was quite hard to hear. We are going to teach him one last lesson and see what he has to say afterward and if he still has no want then we will just have to let him go. The mother, Ramona, has just been rude like yesterday she was not saying very nice things about me because she really liked the hermana that was here before me and she was upset they transfered her. Well I could understanda nd her daughters were like ¨mom you need to stop that isn´t very nice¨ and she was like ¨she can´t understand anything that is going on anyways¨. But we are really frustrated with her and have just basically given up on her. Celso, the dad, is still showing a little bit of promise. He sat us down this week and said he is sick of doing bad things and wants to change so we are going to try to help him do that.

The next not so happy thing was yesterday. Sunday was a really rough day for us. We had 9 investigators commited to coming to church and 3 less active families and so we were really excited about church and about all the experiences these people were going to have. So we made a plan for each person individually and let the person know what was going to happen Sunday morning. Then we were originally going to get 4 cars to drive around town and pick people up but then we didn´t have time so we just got two cars. Well I went in one car after 5 of our most promising investigaotors and Hermana Knapp went in the other car to get two families of less active and the other 4 investigators. Well all of mine I stood and clapped and claped and clapped outside their doors and called them and called them and called them and none of them would answer and so we just headed back to the chapel. When we got their hermana Knapp was there with just one investigator and everyone else just hadn´t come and it was really really sad. The investigator is one of our miracles and I¨ll talk about her in a minute. But she ended up leaving half way through sacrament meetingbecause she just couldn´t stay awake any more because she had owrked all night long at a hotel the night before. So we were really grateful she at least came for a little bit.

now for the miracles.

#1: Maria Gloria: This lady is amazing. Hermana Knapp and Hermana Little had contacted her like two weeks before I got here and because she is super educated and works hard iwht her girls and everything they really wantead to teach her. Well since I¨ve been here we have stopped by her house almost everyday and she is never there or she is helping her little girls practice the violin or do homework and never had time to talk to us. Well FINALLY this week she was there and we could talk with her. She is an absolute miracle in our lives!!! She was for sure prepared by the lord. Before she wouldn´t let us in becuase she wasn´t intersted but lately her daughter has been asking a lot about the chapel they pass everyday as their are pulling out of their neighborhood and why there are so many churchs and why people believe different things and such. Maria Gloria said that because of these questions she has been trying hard to figure things out. So she let us in. We explained everything that we usually explain which is the bare minimum because most of the people down here don´t understand much past that. Well she then asked how we know that we have the true church. What makes our church different, what makes us think that our church is lead by God and such things. Well that was perfect we showed Amos 3:7 and then talked about prophets and Joseph Smith. We then shared the first vision and afterwards we asked her how she was feeling and she said that she felt wonderful and a sense of peace that she had never felt before. She said that was happened to Joseph Smith was marvelous and amazing!! Then we talked to her a little about the Book of Mormon. And once again, how did he have the power to translate this, who is Mormon, How does it work with the bible, What does it teach. All the perfect questions and we explained the restoration of the priesthood and the authority of God and then talked about the Book of Mormon and all the prophets there. She then left to get us some water and we decided to give her a chapter to read. We aksed if we could see her book of Mormon to mark some chapters and she said, why are you going to mark some chapters? I just want to read the whole thing. How about you guys give me two weeks to read it and then come back and we can talk about it, I want to learn all the prinicples and all the things it teachings before we talk about it just so I can better understand. We were like yeah you can read the whole thing!! Then we sent up an appointment for this Tuesday just to see how everything is going and answer any questions she may have and such. She was an absolute miracle in ourl ivesa nd we are quite excited to have her has an investigator!!!

Next we have Mary. We were teaching one of our investigaotrs Laura and Mary just came over because she saw a goup of people gathered, this was actually a cool lesson because people just kep coming and joining in. But then we set up an appointment with her Saturday and we had a really good lesson with her. She lives in Yukyty which it a little super super super poor village we have in our area. After the first lesson on Joseph Smith she shared with us that her husband left a month and a half ago to work somewhere else in the country and she hasn´t heard from him and she is sick and she doesn´t have any money and she has her two kids that she is really worried about and how she needs something like this church in her life to help her and to make her happy because she really does feel that what we taught her really did happen. She is so humble and her kids are the cutest things in the world!!! She alreadfy has a strong testimony and tries really hard. Sunday Morning she came home slept for 45 minutes and got up and bathed her kids and got them ready for church and she came for as long as she could stay awake. We have a lesson with her later this week so hopefully things go well!!

Next we have our less active families they are amazing. We have the Familia Gauna and teh Familia Petruchelli who are just amazing. They have both commited to coming back to church and to owrk toward being sealed as a family in the temple. WE had a lesson with both of them yesterday and they were amazing strong lessons!! I really think they are going to change. And Hermana Gauna made us lunch and we had raost beef, mashed potatoes and salad and I felt like I was at home it was just great!!

Well the language is ok. I´m understanding more andm ore every day and my verb conjugations are getting bette. I¨m acutally understanding when to use them and such., I can definitly feel the Lord´s help in this. Everyone always asks us how we learned SPanish so fast and we just tell them it´s a gift from the Lord, because it truly is!!

Love
Hermana Hubbard

¡Hola! Everyone

I"m in Paraguay and I just love it here!! The church is true and the work is moving forward!! It´s just amazing.

Well traveling down here was hard. It was long and I didn't get much sleep. But it was fun to try to listen to all the Spanish and try to get a little bit of it. I keep expecting it to be like over in Israel where people were speaking in a different language but the minute they realized that you spoke English they would speak in English. But after a week I've realized that people just don´t speak English down here!! It is slightly crazy and way awesome. Well we flew from SLC to Dallas which was a pretty chill fast flight. Then from Dallas to Buenos Aires which was a long flight through the night. There was a little girl that kept passing out so I offered to help but I really couldn't do anything because I had all of my nursing stuff with me but they said my carry on was too big so they took it away from me so I actually didn't have any of it so I was just not a help at all but it is okay. It was entertaining and a great thing to distract me from the fact that I was super tired. I really like the fact that I am small because then I can sleep on a plane quite well when I´m not between two elders that I can´t touch or they freaked out so, I didn't get much sleep, but it was a good experience. So half of my district from the CCM (MTC) left the night before the Paraguay people because they were going to Argentina but we ran into them in the Buenos Aires airport which I was super happy, I loved it oh so much!!! I miss my district they are all so awesome!!

So the country is just awesome. The first two days I was here it was quite hot like in low 80s with humidity so it was warm and we sweated a lot. All the people were saying that it is super weird for this time of year to be that warm. Well then we woke up and it was freezing. I mean it´s only like 55 degrees which isn't bad, but with the humidity and all tile floors and windows that don´t hold out the cold it is quite cold. The country is tropical, kind of, there are a lot of jungle trees but I've heard that a lot of the jungle has been chopped down and the trees we see now are just the ruminants of it. But basically it´s like any other south American country. It reminds me of Peru but cleaner (well in some parts) I love it here, that is all I have to say!!!

So daily life is pretty awesome. We work really hard and run a lot between appointments, we like to chat until we realize we have to be to another appointment across the area in 5 minutes and so we will run!! It´s fun but at the same time hard because the roads are all made out of a type of sand rock type rock that is just laid there it´s not really paved down or anything so it is really hard to walk on let along run on. I´m amazed I haven´t broken an ankle yet. But we wake up every morning and go running for our exercise in a little park about a block away and then we come home do our daily study sessions and then it´s off to work and at 9 we run into the house hurry and plan and then drop into bed dead tired and talk about life and it is really awesome.

So my area is called Ita Enramada it is part of Asuncion but is quite beautiful. I´m on the part of the city that borders Argentina and we can see Argentina all the time from our area. Our area is a good mixture of people. I think it is quite interesting. So part of the area is what we call . . . chuchi (or fancy or rich) and then the other part is like the poor of the poor so we have a really good mixture and it´s fun to be able to switch from teaching on a dirt floor sitting on buckets right outside someone´s outhouse to teaching in a super nice house that makes me feel like I´m in America. It is really quite awesome. We have a lot of investigators from both areas so it is fun!!

Now for my companion . . . . SHE IS AWESOME!!!!!! Her name is Hermana Knapp and she is from Manhattan KANSAS. She is about my height, has curly brown hair. She is super fun, oh and she went to BYU-Idaho and we are pretty sure we have seen each other because she has worked at the writing center for the past 3 years and I've been tutored there, and I have tutored Anatomy and Physiology there. So it is fun. She has been in Paraguay for 5 months and speaks the language amazingly. She is a way hard worker and we have to be going going goin for both of us to be happy. She makes me run every morning which is an adventure for her. Oh funny story of the week. We were running like two days ago in the morning and we were trying to make it across the street before the bus that was coming would get mad at us for getting so close to us and I stepped on the curbs with quite not enough of my foot running as fast as I can and fell HARD. So hard that my knees, my ankles, my arm, and my CHIN all were scraped amazing well. It hurt really bad but I didn´t have time to think about it because if I stayed there for very long the bus was going to kill me so I had to jump up and we just kept running to the apartment with blood flowing quite rapidly from my one knee. It was quite amusing my companion and I laugh about it almost every day. But anyways my companion awesome. All of our investigators love her and all of them have just joined in and taken care of me.

Our apartment is what you would call Chuchi. Hermana Knapp was telling me we had a super chuchi apartment and we were driving from the mission home to it and I expected you know American like style but you guys would definitely not call it Chuchi. It´s two bedrooms (one of the bedrooms the light doesn´t work and so we don´t use it. One bathroom, a huge living room and good sized kitchen and a storage room and a laundry room with a sink and wash board for our laundry (but don't worry one of our ward members does our laundry) but it isn´t very chuchi I mean it´s nice and we have warm water which is happy but it isn´t as chuchi as I though it was going to be. I´m emailing pictures to don´t worry.

The food here is let´s say . . .. greasy . . . they fry everything!! And I mean everything!!! But I´m still losing weight just because of all the working and running and walking. It´s really bland because they don´t use any kind of sauces and they barely use salt so it´s interesting. They love their bread. They have this stuff called Sopa which is like corn bread with onions in it. I hated it at first but it is growing on me. It´s really hard because they give us HUGE portions and if you don´t eat it all they are super super super super offended. I´ve walked out of a lot of houses ready to throw up I was so full. My stomach is stretching though and I just don´t eat anything except at the people´s houses.

Our investigators, for the most part, are awesome, We had one pull the whole we saw them in the yard and they ran inside when they saw us and sent her husband out to tell us she wasn´t home. It´s just not her time to hear the gospel even though she showed a lot of promise. But we do have a few amazing ones and we work a lot with the menosactivos and they are awesome as well.

Miguel. Miguel is 19 years old and is the most amazing kid in the world!!! Holy Cow he reads the book of Mormon and really wants to find out if this church is true. We taught him my first day and my companion tried to have me speak, and I'm not very good so she had to translate everything I said into Spanish that actually made sense. But the spirit was strong in that lesson. Sadly we missed the next lesson. We were at a lesson on the opposite side of our area and the lady just talked and talked and talked and so we were late by like 30 minutes even though we ran as fast as we could to his house and he had left to work by then. But we teach him tomorrow so we are excited.

Rocio. Rocio is 31 years old and has a little one year old boy that happened from a one night stand. She feels like she made a huge mistake in her life and even though she loves her son it´s really hard. She really wants to change and has the best spirit known to man. We had a great lesson with her yesterday and we were all crying because she can speak English so I can actually participate and such. It is quite awesome.

Familia Paniagua. They have 3 kids and then the parents. Elisha was baptized like 6 weeks ago and is doing so well in the church I swear she knows the scriptures better than me. Then I had my first baptism Saturday which was Erika Paniagua who is 11 and is amazing girl. She also knows the scriptures amazingly!! Then their brother Pablo is 18 and we got him to church yesterday which was great. He promised us Saturday that he would come and when we got to their house Sunday morning he was still asleep. My companion is really good friends with this family because she has been teaching them for like 4 months or something like that and so she marched up the stairs and knocked on his door, woke him up, and he came to church were he had a great experience and got to see Erika confirmed. It was quite awesome. Their whole family is amazing. They live in basically a giant garage that they have build rooms on like stilts that goes about the garage where they work and it is quite scary walking up and down there I felt like I was going to die and the whole thing was going to fall over. They feed us all the time and we teach them and slowly the family is getting baptized. Next is Pablo and we are hoping in a couple of weeks.

Familia Gauna. They are menos activos and they are amazing. The reason they don't go to church anymore is they have a 7 year old son that is severely autistic and so it is hard to deal with him. It was hard just to teach them a lesson. But they have a strong testimony of the gospel and they have now committed to switch off every other week coming to church so we are excited about that.

We have a lot of other investigators and menos activos we are working with but those ones are the ones that I feel like their family and I just love them to death.

Well I love the gospel, I love the people, and I love it all. All friends sorry you can´t write me on my email you have to write me through dear elder which actually gets here in like 2 weeks so just keep writing me!!!

Love you all

Hermana Hubbard

July 1, 2011 I leave in 3 weeks!!!!

Hola Everyone,

I leave in three weeks!!! It's crazy how fast time as flown but at the same time how long I've been in this MTC. I still love it here, the food is getting a little gross but thats ok it's just because i grew up spoiled. And my district is still going through some rough times but it's ok we will figure it out I'm sure. So this week have been a little hard because wehave been trying to get Hermanan Lao back into class. We've been late to almost everything because it takes like twice as long to get places but it's ok we are working with it. It's funny because our teachers pulled a couch into the room for Hermana Lao to sit on and so she can put her leg up and sleep when ever she needs to. SO it's quite funny because there are all these desks and then this one random couch in the corner. She has been doing really well with coming to class and everything and hopefully she can continue to go even though she is sore from PT and everything. Nothing much is happening here just the same usual thing. Class, Spanish, Spanish, Class, you know so on and so forth. I really didn't get a P-day tody because I was at the PT with Hermana Lao but I loved it, I seriously love being in hte medical field. And while we were headed there there was a big hot air balloon thing going on and there were hot air balloons going down all over the place so our driver decided to take us to see the balloons and it was quite fun just to get to drive around a little bit and everything. We drove right past my friend Megan Connelly's house and it was really fun to see it, too bad she just wasn't there so I could have yelled at her or something. The big news is Jacqueline Schneiber comes in this week. I don't think anyone understands, not even Jack, how excited I am for her to come in here. I seriously can't wait, I have been counting down the days just getting more and more excited everyday to be able to see her and to be able to have a giant hug. I bet I'm going to cry my eyes out when I see her because I really want to see a close friend right now!!! Another good news is I get to be a host this week for the new missionaries so I'm going to sit around and wait until she comes around the corner and host her, if they haven't made me go with someone else by then. But I'm seriously excited if you couldn't tell. But yeah that is about all that has happened this week.

So I am kind of sad I'm missing the 4th of July, it's kind of my favorite holiday but I'll get over it. THey are letting us outside to watch the fireworks for a little bit that night but not for very long. We have a special devotional thing planned for Saturday night and I don't quite know what they are planning on doing but it should be good because everything here is amazing!! It's more casual dress because the boys don't have to wear their jackets so I'm interested in what they are doing. But it should be fun!!! So HAPPY 4TH OF JULY EVERYONE!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Hubbard