2 Weeks Down, 76 to go! September 12, 2013

FA FA FA FAMMMMILY AND FRIEEEENDS!

Hola! Como estan?! Yo soy MUY feliz! I can´t believe it has only been two weeks. On the one hand it has gone by sooo fast, but on the other hand I feel like I´ve been here an eternity and known my district and comps for FOREVER. Time in the mission really is the weirdest thing.

Alrighty so on to this week. First of all, thanks to everyone who has emailed me either last week or this week! You have NO idea how much it means to get on and have so many emails that I don´t even know where to start! Your next challenge is to send me letters, send me letters, send me letters! That way I can have time to read it during the week and respond on P Day! Plus, there´s just something about getting letters. CHALLENGE INITIATED! (i´m making it a challenge because many of you are like me and can´t resist a challenge.)

After emailing last week, we got to go to the TEMPLE!!!! The Buenos Aires Temple is so beautiful. We went with the other district, so since most of the session was Americans, they did it in English for us! We still had to say everything right before the Celestial Room in Spanish, but they gave us a script to read off of so it was good! A lot of people here tell me I have really good pronunciation with the language, so at least it´s not like poor Elder Bronson in our district who has THE most Gringo accent ever. Bless. his. heart.

Before my comps and I went through the veil, Hermana Hunt had the three of us hold up the names we were going through for. After we each said our names, she said "they´re going to help us learn Spanish." We were all stressing about the language until we got that peace from the knowledge that those women we did temple work for are really going to help us. In the Celestial room, I sat down and started praying for a lot of different things. I got the very real impression that my own special angels were right there with me. Grandma and Grandpa Poulsen, Grandpa Dolan, Barb...I looked around at the 20 other missionaries and I could feel that we were all surrounded by angels. I tell you, there is nothing like going through the temple with that many other servants of the Lord. We all have our angels and they´re taking good care of us, so don´t you worry about me!

On Saturday it RAAAAAAINED. And I tell you, they were right when they said it rains cats and dogs in South America. I´m used to it storming for an hour or two then letting off back at home, but it was storming ALL THE DAY LONG. I was in heaven! Thunder, lightning, the works! It was the best! Hermana Buss and I ran out and danced around in it for awhile during Actividad Fisica. Funny story, Hermana Buss went inside and I was just standing there dancing and singing "I´m singing in the rain," and I look up and my whole District, the other American District, and alllll the Latinos who were looking out their windows upstairs, had been watching me. So. I know I make you guys proud.

We also had our last lesson with our investigator Rocío. We were pretty glad because Rocío was a difficult person. Teenagers are lazy! But on the plus side, my comps and I were the only ones earlier in the week who got her to agree to go to church! I don´t think the real Rocío liked Elders very much, because from the sounds of it the fake one gave our Elders a hard time. HERMANA PODER! It was funny though; when we were all talking about how we were done, someone jokingly said "did Rocío just die or something?" (the fake Rocio, not the real one) and Elder Bronson said "good riddance!" Elder Bronson is probably the funniest Elder here. one day in class when we were in Spanish class and had to ask each other questions, he looked for five minutes in the dictionary just to be able to ask Elder Dye how his "pet rock" was doing. And he was pretty proud of it. He is a crack up.  Maybe you had to be there. We all died laughing when he said it.

In other exciting news, the cold is traveling around the CCM and my comps and I caught it last week! Okay so not that exciting. But it was the worst cold ever. So then when I was getting better, I decided to run around in cold rain. Smart Megan. It´s amazing they sent me on a mission folks.

I love love love love love Sundays here in the CCM! We have Sacrament meeting bright and early at 7:50. So no one gets to complain about 9 o clock church anymore! What happens is during the week we´re given the topic we have to write a talk for in Spanish. Then on Sunday after sacrament, they announce the names of the people who will have to give the talks. I got away with not having to this week! Phew!

After sacrament we once again have priesthood and relief society. Hermana Openshaw still teaches Relief Society. That woman is seriously so scary. She´s just not really the warm mission mom you´d want to have, you know? But she can be funny sometimes and her lessons are actually really good.

My favorite part of the day is when we have Sunday class with Presidente Openshaw! His knowledge of the Gospel and especially the scriptures is AMAZING. It blows my mind every time. It reminds me a lot of you Dad.  Since Hermano Eckel couldn´t be there on Sunday, we got class with him twice! The first class, he talked about the Spirit World. I feel so spiritually fed whenever I have class from him. He just teaches us so many things we had never even thought of! In the class we had with him later that day, he talked all about the relationship between Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I´m a scripture marking/note taking fiend whenever I have class with him, because I don´t want to forget any of it! That class was probably my favorite because I hadn´t ever thought that much about their relationship. I loved that he applied it to us too by saying "I testify that God loves His Son. But I also testify that He loves His Son no more than he loves each and everyone of you, because just like Jesus Christ, you are all His children and loves you. He´s proud of you. He´s always watching over you." What is also so cool about being here in the CCM as opposed to Provo is that we actually GET to have a personal relationship with the President. He does personal interviews with every one of us every week and he knows all (or at least most) of us by name. That is just the coolest thing to me. I would definitely say this is the best MTC in the world!

We got to walk around the temple grounds on Sunday and take pictures because all of our Latinos left for their missions on Tuesday, since they´re only in the MTC for twelve days. We were so sad to see them go. Our roommates, Hermana Rodriguez and Hermana Ferrari, were the best girls. Hermana Rodriguez is the one who can speak English and she has the kindest heart. She said the prayer on Monday night in our room and although she said it in Spanish so we didn´t understand most of it, what we did understand was that when she start to pray for me and my companions, she started crying. I will never forget her. Hermana Ferrari left us a note in Spanish and we had our teacher translate it for us. It was the sweetest letter. I will miss those girls a lot. None of the latinos we get now will ever measure up to them.

I also never told you guys about Toledo! Elder Toledo. Yes, as in "Holy Toledo!" Except it´s actually pronounces To-lay-do. Not that it matters, because I called him Tornado. He is from Chile and his mission is one of the ones in Argentina. Tornado and I became really fast friends here.

 I especially knew it when I asked him how he learned English and he looks at me and goes "I watch Big Bang Theory."

mmmmmk so yeah I found my new best friend.

He said the jokes just aren´t funny when translated to Spanish, so he learned English watching American television! We had a good ol´time talking about Sheldon and teasing each other a lot. When I said bye to him on Monday night, he got this really sad look on his face and said "I going to miss you." I said "Tornado, you´re my Chilean brother." and he said "And you my American seester." GAAAAAAH that tugged on the feels. He was like a teddy bear. I will definitely miss my Chilean brother.

Anyway, my point is we got to walk around the temple grounds. I loved the peace and the Spirit that is there, even more so than in the CCM, if that´s possible.

That night was MOOOOOVIE NIGHT as always. We watched "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration." I can´t believe I had never seen it before! Tears. Tears the whole movie long. I cannot describe the love I have for Joseph. The best part was at the end of the movie, a quote came up that said something along the lines of how Joseph gave his life so that the Gospel of Jesus Christ might be spread to all corners of the earth. Then, the last line that came up said "Shall we not go on in so great a cause?" I was and am filled with gratitude for the fact that I get to go on in so great a cause, with so many other wonderful missionaries.

Monday we got two new investigators. Pablo and Delfina. Pablo is technically played by our teacher Hermano Abad, but Pablo was one of Hermano Abad´s investigators in his mission. And Hermano Abad and Hermana Gutierrez are both reaaaaallly good actors, so we don´t even notice.

Pablo is in his forties and his wife and kids have been members for a year, but he´s scared to join the church because he´s afraid he´ll have a hard time keeping the commandments and following through on commitments. The first lesson with him wasn´t all that great because we were thinking more about the lesson and less about what HIS needs were. Well last night we changed that. We gave him the lesson on the restoration but focused on Joseph Smith, and how Joseph was feeling lost but got answers from God. We then told him how Joseph was commanded to do many hard things by the Lord and probably felt inadequate and like he couldn´t do them sometimes. But then we had him read 1 Nephi 3:7 and explained that the Lord will help Pablo accomplish all the things commanded of him, because through God and Jesus Christ he can do all things. Hermana Buss rocked it in reciting the First Vision in Spanish, and the spirit Hermana Hunt brought when she bore her testimony was indescribable. We know Pablo could feel it. And guess what guess what guess what? PABLO SAID HE´D BE BAPTIZED. We came out of that lesson and jumped and screamed. That was THE best feeling ever and made me so excited to get out in the field.

Our other investigator is Delfina, this old lady who has been a part of every religion on the planet. She´s a little difficult because she thinks she should be baptized into every religion, not just ours, but she is a HOOT AND HALF. We like teaching her.

As for the language, I guess it´s coming. I just always get frustrated with myself when I don´t get things down really fast, which obviously isn´t how things like this go anyway. But I don´t feel behind anybody else or anything so I guess that´s good. I´m getting else frustrated with the language and more frustrated with feeling unable to bring the same Spirit to lessons that my companions do. I feel like any success we´ve had has been because of them and not me. Obviously I know I need not compare myself, and either way what´s most important is the investigator and not WHO made them feel the Spirit. But I just feel like I can be doing a lot better and it worries me that I´ll have that same problem in the field.

The food here is still absolutely positively delicious! And they feed us soooo much. Most people here have gained at least some wait. So. Holla for a high metabolism. All of the staff and the cooks are so friendly. The cook thinks my comps and I are the funniest people in this world. And let´s face it.....we are. Of course, there´s a really good chance he´s just laughing at our poor Spanish. Yeah, that´s probably it.

I didn´t really get any culture shock. The Latinos are just so warm and kind and friendly all the time, and they all think everything us Americans say is hilarious! So that´s a nice confidence boost for sure. Although it´s probably just because we are hilarious. Can you tell I´ve become so humble while being here? I can. And i am PROUD of it. (ha.)

Oh yeah, wanna here a funny twist of fate family? Want to know what day we leave the MTC for the mission field? OCTOBER 8TH. So I leave for my actual mission the same day Kenz comes home from hers. I´ll be thinking of you Kenz! My flight to Montevideo is only like twenty minutes though, so no complaints there in comparison to your forever long flight. I think I´ve figured out why missions are a year and half or two years. It´s because it takes us foreign missionaries that long to recover from the trauma of that awful and loooooong flight to the mission. Yikes.

My district and I are still obsessed with playing Ultimate Frisbee every day and we are boss. Most of us are pretty athletic so we TRASH anyone else who dares play with us. We played with the Elders from one of the american districts the other day. My comps and I were on their team and we played vs. our Elders. Well, those Elders suck. And for the first half of the game that wouldn´t pass to us because they figure us Hermanas probably aren´t very good. Until they passed to us and figure out we were the ONLY ONES WHO WERE SCORING. Sheesh. We played their district again and they ended up quitting because they just couldn´t hack it. Yesterday when we played, I sustained my first mission injury. You know, besides the one I got when I tripped coming outside of the stake president´s office after officially beings set apart as a missionary the night before I left. But we don´t need to talk about it. Anyway, we were playing ultimate again (duh) and the frisbee was passed to me. Well me and Elder Teloma both went for it because Teloma was on the other team and wanted to keep me from catching it. Well he knocked it out of the air.....and into my face. He felt sooooo bad though. It´s not bad anyway, it´s just a little goose egg on the side of my face. I didn´t even care about the pain. The frisbee knocked my super awesome bright orange shades off my face and so the only thing I said was "my glasses!" Hermana Hunt said she felt bad because she knew she should´ve made sure I was okay but as soon as she heard me say that, she had to walk away to keep me from seeing her laughing. We just teased Teloma for it because it was pretty funny. It was nice too because I went to take a breather just to be safe, and my whole District came over. I was like "Guys! Don´t stop the game! I´m fine! You better keep playing!¨And Elder Dye said "but....you´re our sister!" I love our cute little family that kicks the pants off anyone who dares match us in Frisbee.

STORY TIME. So many funny things happen here. Sorry if it´s not as funny to you as it is to me. Here are a few of them.

Me (after saying a really boss sentence in Spanish to Hermano Abad): "how do you like THEM apples?"
Hermano Abad: "how do you like....them....what?"
Me: them apples!
Hermano Abad: "why are you asking me if I like apples?"

the next day (after explaining the saying to him)
Hermana Hunt: how do you like them apples?
Hermano Abad: yes, i like those apples.

story number two:

so the Elder´s bathrooms are community bathrooms, and apparently every stall has a bidet in it. Well Elder Boyer told us that on the first day it was really embarrassing because he thought the bidet was a urinal.
Elder Teloma: "wait....that´s not a urinal? I´ve been thinking it was for the past two weeks!"

Last night with our new roommates:
Hermana Hunt: is this word a word we shouldn´t use?
our new roommate (in broken English): depends on the situation.
Hermana Hunt: depends on the situation?
roommate: yes.
Hermana Hunt: YES. I understood what you said!
Me and Hermana Buss: Hermana....she said that in English.

We´re all going crazy here. We think English is Spanish and Spanish is English.

I really love it here. I´m not fond of being in a classroom for that long, but I know it´s because I need to learn Spanish. I get frustrated with the language sometimes but for the most part I know I´m doing okay.

Anyway kiddos, that´s all in the life of Megan for this week. It´s weird to say Megan. No one calls me that here. Is that even still my name? I think so....but that was a faraway time......

okay dramatic moment over. I love you all and you are all in my thoughts, but not too often because I´m a missionary now! I love being able to put on that black name tag every morning. I love love love love love my companions and I literally have the BEST District EVER.

We go proselyting in downtown Argentina for the first time on Saturday so please pray for me that I can actually talk to people in Spanish! And that it doesn´t rain too hard because it´s supposed to on Saturday!

I sure hope my suitors are all doing okay without my constant presence. Actually, I sure hope all of you are doing okay without my constant presence and undying humility.

I love you, I love you, I love you! I am ultra happy!

Hermana Dolan

Don´t cry for me, I´M IN ARGENTINA!!! September 5, 2013

Hey hey hey errbody!!!!!!

 

I´m just gonna go ahead and apologize RIGHT NOW for any typos or weird symbols or unnecessary capital letters I make. This keyboard is SUPER weird and not everything is in the same place. Plus, our email time is six thirty but we could start at six if we wanted to, which means we definitely got up at five minutes to six. That extra thirty five minutes is probably going to kill me later, but I gotta give the people what they want!  I´m still trying to type quickly to give all you fine folks the lowdown on what{s been going on. So this is all for you! So no judgin´!

 

So anyway, I don´t think I´ve ever laughed so hard in my entire life.

 

Where to even start??!?!

 

I guess I´ll start with the airport. The night before I left had  a lot of anxiety and fear that was clouding my excitement. It wasn´t until I finally got to the airport and said goodbye to the fam and finally got started that I started to feel that excitement again. AND THEN I walked up to the get and saw about 15 other missionaries sitting and waiting for that same flight. That´s when I was like "I´m ready! Let´s go baptize some peeps!"

 

From Salt Lake I flew with one other Sister and FOURTEEN Elders. What a joy. At least we had plenty of priesthood power? But in Atlanta we met up with two more Sisters and five more Elders. The Elders are so funny. At the airport they had this need for everyone to stay together, even when we were just getting food. So we were just this pack of teenagers in suits and skirts walking in a herd around the airport. We got a lot of double takes! So funny.

 

The flight from Buenos Aire was fine until about 2 am, and then we were all just sooooo ready for it to be over. I think I´m just gonna stay in South America for the rest of my life, because I don´t want to take that flight again. Ugh. So if somebody figures out how to apparate me home, give me a holler. Otherwise I think I´ll stay here....or swim home. Or something.  BUT on the plus side there was a lightning storm right below us in the middle of the night! So we watched a lightning storm happening BELOW us. Pretty cool. I didn´t get much sleep though because I was sitting next to an Elder and I was legitimately paranoid that I´d fall asleep and start drooling, or fall on his shoulder, or something. Plus I was just way too excited! We all were. Sleep? What is sleep? But let me tell you, nothing will beat flying ABOVE the Argentina sunrise. That made it alll worth it....okay almost.

 

Finally finally finally, we arrived at the EEEEEMPPPPPTTTTEEEEEEEE SEEEEEAAAAAAAA. Aka SEEEEAAAAA SEEEEEEEAAAAAAAA EEMMMMMMMMMM (it´s the CCM when you say it in Spanish.) We started out by finding out our companions and who would be in our District. I know you´re all dying to know about my companions, so, drumroll pleaseeeee.....

 

HERMANA BUSS AND HERMANA HUNT.    

 

That´s right kids, I´m in a trio!!!!!

 

I´m with the two girls I met up with at the Atlanta airport. I LUUURVE them!!! A trio can be a little harder at times, but we get along SO well and we are always laughing. I wish I could tell you all of the funny things we´ve said and done, but that would just take too long! The Elders in our District think we´re just a bunch of crack ups. And let´s face it, WE´RE HILARIOUS. Finally, someone who recognizes how funny I am! Some of our one liners we say all the time now because one of us would say it once and now all three of us say it:

 

"Bless OUR hearts."

"We can´t take you anywhere!" (whenever someone struggles at mealtime or trips or something.)

"Well, MY grandparents....." (one of the elders in the other District who speaks Spanish really well never stops talking about how his grandparents served as mission presidents and that just makes him better)

"I´m gonna shoot em.....with the utmost LOVE."

"Behold, eh?" (said in a Canadian accent.)

 

Maybe it´s funnier if you´re here. We certainly crack ourselves up. Even if I do feel the need to beat up Hermana Hunt sometimes (that´s another joke. No worries.)

 

So as for Districts. They split the group up that flew together into two Districts, so Hermana Sanders (who flew with me from Salt Lake) and Hermana B., who met up with us in Argentina, are in the other District, and my companions and I are the only Hermanas in our District. Six of us in my District are going to Uruguay, and the rest are going to Paraguay. In the other District, three are going to Uruguay and the rest are going to Paraguay. Which means total there are nine people from this group going to Uruguay. Wanna know something way exciting? I am the ONLY Hermana in the BUILDING going to the Uruguay Montevideo West mission! There´s one other North American District here who has been here for three weeks now, but they´re all going to the Montevideo mission, not West. Soooooo lot´s fun except for it´s super scary!  My District is the best District around. We are already like a family and I feel like I have known them for waaaay longer than a week! It is going to be so sad in five weeks when I have to say goodbye to everyone going to Paraguay. :( I´m just gonna not think about it....

 

Elder Boyer is our District Leader and he´s from St. George. Elder Dye is from Washington, Hermana Hunt is from Arizona, and Hermana Buss is from Wyoming. Elder Page in the other District is from Colorado and Hermana B. is from Texas. All the rest of us are from Salt Lake is area, which is pretty cool!

 

Okay so as for stuff about my companions. Hermana Hunt, as I said, is from Arizona and she´s my age. She is the funniest person I´ve ever met! And put us together, and boy are we just a couple of people meant for the loony bin. I wish I could send you guys pictures here but I can´t. She played basketball, softball, and volleyball in high school. Hermana Buss is 20 and she is so kind and nice! She´s a little quieter, enough to keep me and Hermana Hunt more calm, but not by much haha. She whips out a lot of funny one liners without warning. She went to BYU for two years before coming here, which I guess I can forgive because she´s pretty darn awesome. Have I mentioned I love those two? We are already best friends and i think we will be for a long time, even though they are going to different missions.

 

Alrighty, so on for the rest of the week! After meeting our District on the first day, we had to unpack what stuff we would absolutely need for the six weeks here, and put the rest in storage. Then we had to wait for interviews with Presidente Openshaw and his wife. Presidente is AWWWWEEESOME. Hermana is cool, but she is super scary. I can´t even describe it. We´re all a little scared of her. After our interviews, we had a couple hours of free time, which I chose to use by taking a shower and having a nap. Oh yeah, my companions and I are in a six bed apartment that we share with one companionship of two Latino girls. Hermana Ferrari is from Argentina and she´s going to Spain (they send all the South American people going to Spanish speaking missions to this MTC), and Hermana Rodriguez is from URUGUAAAAAYYYYYY and she´s going to one of the Argentina missions. Rodriguez speaks pretty decent English so she translates for us and Hermana Ferrari, who doesn´t speak any. It was funny the first day we met them. Hermana Ferrari walked up to me and held her face out, which was for me to give her a kiss on the cheek and her to do that to me since that´s the culture, but I had no clue what she was doing. So I just stared at her for a good ten seconds until I actually figured out what was happening. Hahhaa. Stupid American I am. They are really funny and it kills us whenever Hermana Ferrari repeats something we say in English. Our favorite is "sweetdreamsgoodnight." She really does make it all one word, no joke.

 

After a nap and finally not smelling like the undead, we first had a lesson from Presidente and then from Hermano Agüero, who is the manager of the MTC. I love that guy! He speaks French, Spanish, English, Portugese, Italian, and knows some Russian and Japanese. He is HILARIOUS. Of course, I also think their accents hear make funny things sound even funnier.

 

We started our first day of classes the next day. Everyone lied when they told me none of the teachers here speak English. They ALL do! They try to speak as much Spanish to us as possible though, but they´re going easy on us since it´s our first week. We started Spanish classes and classes on how to teach. Our teachers are Hermana Gutierrez who we have in the morning and Hermano Abad who we have in the afternoon. Hermano Abad is seriously the funniest person and Gutierrez is a really good teacher and has a very powerful testimony.

 

After just one day of classes, the next day we had to teach our first Investigator! Her name is Rocío and she is played by Hermana Gutierrez, but she seems really real. The lesson did not go well. Our Spanish is just so poor and Rocío is only fifteen and really shy so we don´t really know what to teach her. She wants to be baptized but won´t go to church, so we´re still trying to figure out what we can do to help her. We´ve taught her three times now. Our Spanish is still really bad even now but we´re trying our best.

 

Sunday was AWESOME. Even though it was Fast Sunday. Man, that was rough! But it also meant it was a testimony meeting, which was cool. We just do church with the North Americans and the Latinos do church all together separate from us. You know what´s great about Sundays here in the CCM? They actually give us free time, which really means NAP TIME!!!!! I actually got a Sunday nap. That´s what I call a miracle.

 

We had a lesson from Hermano Eckel, an American who is the FBI agent who oversees Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. He gave us a lesson on sacrifice and dedication and how we need to teach that principle to our investigators while also understanding what sacrifices will be too big for them. He reminds us all of home so we really liked him. Later, we got a lesson from Presidente. He had nothing planned, just said "hmmmm. okay. let´s talk about the Atonement." And with every question someone asked he immediately knew where a scripture was to answer it without looking. He is brilliant. I loved that in that lesson he focused on Christ´s anguish and how that anguish was not given to Him by Heavenly Father, but it was something that came from His heart because that´s just who He was. Presidente told us how we will feel that sort of anguish for our investigators and people who reject the Gospel, and that´s when we will truly know Christ. It was an amazing lesson. I took really good notes on it, so you can ask about them a year and a half from now!

 

That night was MOVIE NIGHT. Where we watch a past devotional or something like that. We watched a devotional from Elder Holland given in Provo back in January. He basically talked about conversion. He spoke for an hour just completely relying on the Spirit. He is my favorite speaker. he focused on the importance of converting ourselves first, THEN going to convert others. The really powerful part was when he said, in his loud, blunt, Elder Holland voice "you had BETTER come home with at least one convert and it BETTER. BE. YOU." That knocked our socks off. I also loved that he explained that every dispensation before us has failed, and this is the one that will be successful! And how Heavenly Father must really love us to send us at this time and trust us immensely if he´s willing to put the salvation of the world in the hands of a bunch of "Aaronic priesthood escapees." Hahaha. If his talk didn´t bring everyone to their knees that night, then there´s no hope for that person. Amazing.

 

The days here are basically the same routine, but they do a really good job of mixing it up and giving us time outside the classroom so we never feel like we´re there for too long. Every day we get an hour and a half of exercise, and a couple days ago we played Ultimate Frisbee as a District. We played Uruguay vs. Paraguay, which meant I was the only Hermana on my team. And basically I found out I should´ve been a professional frisbee player, so I think I´ll just leave the mission and go do that.

 

Okay so not really. But our Elders did tell me I really surprised them with how good I was! Yeah that´s right. We´re not technically supposed to keep score, but if we were keeping score, (and we were), my team won. We DOMINATED.

 

I love our Elders. They really are like our older brothers (even though some are younger than us. But they protect us like older brothers do.) and take good care of us. Plus they are just a bunch of crack ups.

 

Okay I´m almost out of time! If I don´t respond to people´s emails, I´m sorry. I´ll get to them enxt week, I swear!

 

Fun facts about the MTC real quick:

 

it is so much better than Provo. We are learning the language a lot faster and things are so much more chill here.

 

There are five Latino districts and three american districts. That´s about thirty people (the americans) that we do everything with, including meals and everything. I LOVE it! It´s so fun to know everybody.

 

The food here is sooooo good! Family, you would be in Heaven because it is meat and potatoes like all the time! A few days ago we had mashed potatoes and beef with gravy and it was sooooooo goood. Reminded me of your mashed potatoes mom. Mmmmmmm. WE get fed super well here and they make sure they give us fruits and veggies too. I´m all about the bananas and kiwis.

 

There is a really attractive teacher here named Hermona Pedersyn. It´s called Pedersyn fever and all the Hermanas here have it! Just sayin´.

 

The Latinos are HILARIOUS. Especially the Elders.

 

Okay time is almost up! I love being a missionary and I love being here in the Argentina MTC. I love love love you all and I pray and think about so many of you more than you know! Tell my cousins Topher and Conner they still owe me a letter or email, so they better get on that if they want a gift.

 

We´re going to the temple today! SOOOOOO excited!

 

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU ALL! the gospel is true and Jesus Christ lives! Amen!

 

All my love and awesomeness,

 

Hermana Dolan

 

Arrived in Argentina, August 29, 2013

HOWDY.

I have arrived safely in Argentina and we are at the CCM!!!!!!

I´m safe, I´m ready to shower, sleep, and eat non airline food. I´m in a trio and I am soooo happy and excited to be here!!!!

This keyboard is weird.

LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU

Hermana Dolan

Salt Lake City International Airport August 28, 2013

I was here, here at the airport!  My Dad took me over to have my luggage weighed, YUP, it was over, and not only didn't they charge me for being over, they didn't charge me for my bags at all!  What a blessing.  My big sister, Jennifer (her hubby was at work) was there with the two cutest little boys ever, my nephews, Jackson and baby Sean.  Soon my brother Justin and my new sister in law Amanda arrived.  There were so many missionaries there, and we were all going to the MTC in Argentina.  Some were going to the Paraguay mission, and some mine, and others just Montevideo mission.  I was excited to see an Elder who just graduated from my high school, Olympus High.  Yea for Elder Jacob White.

When it was time to say good bye I was excited but of course going to miss my family terribly, and I was thinking of Mackenzie and how it would be so long before we would see each other again.

And so it BEGINS.............................

Getting Ready for the Airport, August 28, 2013

The day finally came, and it was so strange that after so much time, that I would soon be leaving this country.  I said goodbye to my dog, Charlie, who even helped me pack.  :) I had this awesome luggage that was given to me by my mission angels, John and Lillian,( thank you ), and my next 18 months was packed inside of them.

Argentina CCM (Missionary Training Center) Here I Come

August 28, 2013

Last night, August 27, 2013 I was set apart as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the Uruguay Montevideo West Mission, by my amazing Stake President, Pres. D. Russell Wight.  It was so great to have my family there to support me.  Then it was off to dinner to one of my favorite places to eat, and one of my favorite peoples favorite places to eat.  Chuck-a Rama!, Yup that's right folks, Chuck a Rama!  My "Aunt" Barb loved that place, and I do to, so I couldn't think of a better place to go with memories of joy and happiness and love of family.

I came home to find balloons flying around my fence with good wishes written on them by our good friends and adopted family the Woods, Blisses, and Yenchiks.  Thank you so much!

Farewell August 11, 2013

August 11, 2013

This was a big weekend in my family.  My brother was married to my new sister in law, Amanda Lim, on August 10, 2013.  Wow what a party it was.  It was so much fun, and I had such a great time with my cousins, and my second cousins.  We danced like crazy. Phew, then I had to speak in church on Sunday!  I was so grateful for everyone that came to hear me and support me.  I truly felt loved!  So thanks everyone!  Big Hugs.

Below is a picture of me, my Grandma Dolan who serves as a missionary at the Tabernacle in St. George, and my big Sis, Sister Mackenzie Dolan serving in Japan Tokyo/Tokyo South mission.  It was a stand up photo of her we had done for the wedding.  She arrives home on Oct. 8, we will miss each other for 3 years, but it will be worth it!

  My Dad had this great idea to hang flags of where our family has served missions.  So the Union Jack Flag is representing my Dad, who served in England Leeds mission, my brother in law, Jared Day who also served in England Leeds, so for him just the flat England flag, my big brother Justin Dolan, who served in the Thailand Bangkok Mission, and my sister Mackenzie Marie Dolan, serving in Japan Tokyo/Tokyo South mission.  The Japanese flag is the small one because she is the one currently serving, the big ones for those who have served and will serve, so then there is the flag of Uruguay.