Yo yo yo!
I mean....Hola hola hola!
Okay, quick business:
If you want to send me a letter or package, just send it to the mission home. That will be my address the whole mission! And they just put them altogether in a bossa (a bag) and they get handed to us every week at District meetings.
You should totes send me an email TODAY. Like RIGHT now, because then they`ll print it out and send it in the bossa and I`ll get it tomorrow!
I think the mission home address is on my Facebook. I love handwritten letters too!
First off, if you can name where that quote is from, you`re about as great as an Alfajore. And alfajores....they are the best thing to ever happen to this world, ever. Well i mean besides the gospel and maybe some other things.
Second off, WELCOME HOME KENZIE!!!!!!!!!!! You look so good in all those pics and looks like you had a good turnout! I heard about your homecoming and it sounds like it was beautiful and you and Jen did a great job. I`m a proud sister! And not gonna lie, I mostly was super jealous when I saw the picture of you holding our nephews. gah. I miss them.
So let`s talk about leaving the CCM first, mmk? I know, you`re going to have to wait a little longer to hear about Uruguay. mwahaha.
So we had general conference my last weekend here, and it was absolutely the most perfect way to end my time in the CCM. conference was AMAZING! And I can`t believe we have 80,333 missionaries now! And I`m one of them! Wow. The Lord really is hastening His work and I am so blessed to be a part of it.
Monday night I cried harder than I did when I left home. We had a testimony meeting and afterwards, was time to say goodbye to the Elders going to Paraguay since our flights were so early in the morning. what really put me over the edge was a poem Elder Teloma wrote me. He wrote a different one for me and my comps. Luckily he`s in Uruguay also, but it still got me. It says:
Your smile brings joy
And honor to Thee
You`re an Hermana to others,
But a sister to me.
GAAAAAAAH. elder teloma has made it his special job to really look out for me from the very beginning. We`ve had a special brother sister relationship. So that got me. But THEN I had to say goodbye to my true brotha from anotha motha Elder Worsham, and he was tearing up too. And then all the rest of the Elders. And then I knew the Hermanas were leaving me in the morning. Talk about emotional. I was totes crying all over the place. Ridic.
And awww, my companions. The hardest goodbye of all. Those girls are my sisters. But 17 months will not bring that sisterhood! What we had was so special and something I will never forget. The CCM will always have a special little place in my heart.
But, what all of us together in the CCM are going to do is SO much bigger and so much better and so much more than ourselves, so it`s worth it! And I know I will see them again!
So tuesday after a super early flight, I was already excited to be in Uruguay, but when I saw actual missionaries of Uruguay there to pick us up at the airport, THAT is when I was like "let`s do this!" So we went back and got an AMERICAN breakfast made by a senior couple. Mmmm. Then we had a few classes with the APs and a couple with President Smith. President Smith is AWESOME!!!! Everyone tells me the mission has totally changed since he got here! He`s changed the way we do lessons one and two, and it is so much more effective. Plus, it amazes me that he was baptized when he was 21 and then went on a mission. He`s just an amazing man. Unfortunately Hermana Smith was sick so I haven`t met her yet, but I`m excited to! And I got to meet his 11 year old daughter Starla. Funniest girl little girl I have ever met en mi vida. President Smith also wants to work a lot on activating all the less actives. uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, have baptized 5,000 people in the last year. But, 4,000 of them are inactive. How sad is that? So that`s a huge focus. We have three goals in our mission:
double sacrament attendance
100 baptisms a month as a mission
And 100% retention.
And our mission slogan is HOY ES EL DIA! O, TODAY IS THE DAY! Because Today is the day that things will change! So inspired. We yell it all the time. HOY ES EL DIA1
K so none of the rest of the day or Wednesday morning was super important. We just had to all go get mini physicals Wednesday morning to make sure we`re still healthy, but THEN! We got to meet our TRAINERS!
So they lined us all up in front of the temple and told us to look down. Then our trainers came up behind us and sang the first verse of "Called to Serve" (in Spanish, of course.) Then, I turned around and met my trainer, or "Mom", who is (drumroll please)........
Megan, Hermana Goode, and President Smith
THE GOODEST MOM IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! No, really, her name is Hermana Goode! She is from Texas and she is awesome! She`s only been out four months, but she already knew Spanish so she was only in the MTC for 12 days. She only trained for 10 weeks, then finished training another girl so that girl is her stepdaughter. But I am her very first real hija! She`s 20 and she went to BYU for a year and a half. I LOVE her! Besides the fact that her Spanish is awesome, she is fantastic teacher in lessons. And she is SO patient with me and always encouraging me. Plus, she`s pretty cheeky and I like that. She is a gifted teacher and we already get along so well. I think this is going to be a really great companionship! (shout out to Hermana Hunt and Hermana Buss though. No one will ever be as psycho as you two.)
Right after we met our trainers, we got to do a session with them in the Montevideo temple! which is a lot smaller than Buenos Aires, but it is so beautiful.
We all went to the bus terminal after lunch and buying some stuff to go to our separate areas. It was good though because it gave me and my group a couple more hours together. Even though I came with all Elders, I was sad to say goodbye for even a little while. don`t worry that I was the only American Hermana who traveled here in my group. Those Elders took good care of me!
Okay so as for my area:
I`M IN RIVERA!
Rivera is the northern most part of Uruguay, right on the edge of Brazil. I mean like, RIGHT on the edge. No, like there`s a street we walk down to get to the stake center where one side of it is Brazil and the other is Uruguay. And there`s a big plaza with shops and stuff with the Uruguay flag on one side marking where Uruguay is and the other side with a Brazilian flag. So, I get to say I`ve been to Brazil now! We walk through Brazil a couple times a week. Rivera is also going to get SUPER hot because it`s so far northwest, but that`s okay! Everyone tells me I`m super lucky to be born into this area, because it`s super super cheap here, and we get a lot of the Brazilian food and fruits, and it`s just so chill here. Everybody is so friendly and open and pretty much everybody will hear what we have to say. I`m being born into the best area ever! Our house is super nice too. It`s one of the nicer ones in the mission. We live with another companionship, Hermana Olson and Hermana Ramirez. They`re awesome! Hermana Ramirez speaks no English except for the slang the Latinos hear us Americans say, like "I love you" and "dang it" and stuff, but she is so cute! she is like this little Peruvian princess. We got to our area around 12:30 in the morning, but the busses we do changes on are super duper nice, like first class on an airplane, so I slept well.
Okay so for the sake of time I`ll just tell you about a few of the investigators and menos activos (less actives) that we`re teaching.
Yenny (o Jenny): she is a lady in her seventies who they were teaching before I got there. They had taught her a couple of times and then she went to general conference with them. President Monson`s talk was perfect for her because her husband died around the same time his wife did, and to hear a prophet of God has problems too really hit home for her. That night, the hermanas gave her fecha (baptismal date) and she accepted! so she`s getting baptized on the 26th. I know, already I get to go to a baptism! Anyway, her daughter`s boyfriend is a member and so she was a reference. She was just so prepared. And she is so so so sweet!
Andryws (pronounced Andrews): Andryws is 14 and his grandma is a menos activo. He is super funny, oh my gosh. He is so funny with his little sister Carolina, because he just has no patience. Haha. We`re still working with him on baptism. You can tell that he knows it`s true, but there are just some things about baptism he`s a little confused about, so we`ll be teaching him and working with him this week. He just teases me about my gringa accent and how I don`t know what he`s saying sometimes, but he does it in a funny way. And he loves to say "so cute!" And "the americans say I`m so cute! My fans, my fans!" Funny, funny kid.
Sol y Carol:
Sol is a little nine-year-old girl whose sister Erica who is 12 is a member. Their mom Carol has been seeing the missionaries for the past 3 years, so she`s basically an eternal investigator. BUT Sol is also getting baptized on the 26th and she told us that Carol had told her she might get baptized with her! So we will be talking to them about that tonight. Carol`s husband just works all week except for weekends and doesn`t want her to be at church instead of spending time with him, so that`s what`s been holding her back lately. But she knows the Gospel so well from being taught so long, and it`s so obvious that she knows what she needs to do. So we`ll just keep praying for her! I know I shouldn`t have favorites, but these guys are hands down my favorites. Sol is so, so, SO special. Such a sweet little girl. And I love being with them because they actually talk to me instead of brushing me off since I don`t know Spanish, and they help me with words and don`t make me feel dumb when I`m talking to them. They all three love talking to us about American musica too, it`s so funny. But I love being with them because I feel more myself with them than I do anybody else. They are the angels the Lord has given me when I feel discouraged. And I am so excited for Sol to be baptized, and hopefully Carol too!
Cecilia: Cecilia`s parents we just barely reactivated, and she`s 9. We are working hard for them to go to the temple to be sealed, but her parents are having a lot of marital problems right now. I love her family though. Her two older brothers, Christian and Nikki, are 16 and 14 and they are such good kids! They watch Cecilia and her little sister Victoria who is 2 and is the CUTEST LITTLE GIRL IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD all day while their mom works. They`re basically the moms during the day. Such good kids. We really hope Ana and Pedro can work out their problems, because we really want them to be able to be an eternal family.
There are some others that we teach, but those are the main ones. I`ll talk about more when I have more time! But they are supes awesome.
Sunday was stake conference, and the stuff I could understand was really great!....too bad that wasn`t much. But President Smith came to speak so it was good to see him again and he gave a really powerful talk that I mostly understood. Afterwards, we went to lunch at the bishop of the other ward`s house. He. Is. AWESOME! I feel super comfortable with him and his wife. I gave the spiritual thought and I managed to say everything I wanted to say! And he reminded me that I need to remember how much Spanish I can speak for how little time I`ve been here. I know I need to do that. It`s just so frustrating to not be able to express myself the way I want to. I understand most things I hear, but not a ton. Plus, for some reason when people turn the attention to me and ask me a question, I suddenly don`t understand and just get this doe eyed look on my face. Gah. I do not love how people talk to Hermana Goode about me while I`m standing right there because they think I don`t understand, then they go "and she doesn`t even understand any of this, does she?" And I go "No, I understand." And then they still just look at me like I`m dumb. But there are two things I hate most about not being able to speak:
I can`t be myself.One of our menos activos made the comment to Hermana Goode that I`m so serious and boring all the time, and she assured him that I`m not, I`m just trying to learn. I hate that I can`t be goofy and witty and outgoing, because I don`t know what`s going on and I don`t know what to say.
I hate hate HATE that I can`t help people, including my companion. I don`t want to be a burden on her and sometimes I feel like I am, and when other people, like Ana, are having a hard time, I want to be able to help them and encourage them, but I can`t because I don`t know how to say it.
But we`re supposed to focus on our strengths, so here`s my strenght: all the gringo Elders in my zone, as well as Hermana Goode, say they were terrified to speak when they first got here. They say it took them a few months before they weren`t scared. But I`m not scared to speak. I open my mouth and sometimes....okay, ALL the time, sound super dumb, but it`s just not something that scares me. I just get SO frustrated with myself, especially when we`re sitting there with people and Hermana Goode is such good friends with them and is laughing with them and I can`t. Some moments are really hard, but, esta bien, porque yo se que voy a apprender espanñol, y voy a poder hablar y ensenñar todas las personas que conocer. Yo se que Dios va darme el don de linguas. Me ayuda cada dia. Él y Jesucristo estan siempre con mí.
Oh anywho, so my zone is awesome too! There are about 36 of us, which is really big for a zone. Since we are all so close together, we meet every week instead of just as Districts. About half are american. Today we played volleyball and went and ate a a Brazilian buffet. A BUFFET, for $7 American dollars. Yeah, I know. I figured out real fast why people have warned me to be careful not to gain weight here. They feed us SO much and give us SO many sweets1 And, get this: Megan Gayle Dolan, the bottomless pit, has been teased by people here that I barely eat anything! And I still eat just as much as I did before. Sooo, yeah. It`s pretty crazy.
Anywho, I really love it here. I love Uruguay. I love the people. They all amaze me. I see their houses and they are nothing compared to the states, but the people are SO happy and vivacious and extravagant and bright and loving and wonderful. I love Rivera, I love my companion, I love the Gospel, and when I can really speak it, I know I will love Spanish too.
I hope all is well for everybody! Send me letters, send me letters, send me letters!
I love you, I love you, I love you!
Hermana Dolan
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