hola mother dear!
I loved the picture of the week this week! so cute! and glad Jackie had fun at morp, I remember morp, good times.

 so nothing too exciting happened this week! except the lights decided not to work in my house so it´s a good thing I have my little flashlight and really nice neighbors with lots of candles to spare. This week we had divisions again, I love those! I was with hermana bynton who is from utah but she only speaks spanish in her home so spanish was her first language so she is one of those double fluent folks that is super helpful to have around. she is an hermana leader and she is in my district. so I was with her for a day and a half and I was totally in charge the whole day, it was pretty weird since I am used to just following my trainer around since she knows the area and knows spanish and stuff like that. but on division day I started and directed every lesson and the day was not a total train wreck like I was expecting. so after that I have had a lot more confidence in myself so I have been participating in the lessons much more and I have had more say in what we are going to do and so basically I feel like I have progressed more in this one week than in my entire first change here! My companion is super great and I am really lucky to have her! she is like the most patient person on the planet and she is super nice and we get along very well.

   Here is a pointless note for you, everyone in my zone calls me hermana Barbie, HOW FREAKING WEIRD IS THAT?!  I have never gotten barbie in my life. but I wear my blonde hair in a high ponytail everyday and apparently that makes me look like a barbie. people called me that in the ccm too! pretty weird. This morning we played volleyball with another zone and hermana phillips was there! it felt just like Christmas morning!! Hermana phillips was my best friend in the ccm and I have seen her a few times in the field on pdays and every time I see her it feels catching up with one of my good friends from high school because she is awesome just like my good friends from high school and we just click! 

     in other news, Roberto received the priesthood in sacrament this week! It was super fast since he was just baptism last week but he was worthy and he understands what it is and you know the rest! it was pretty sweet!! Well I love you very very much and I miss you and I hope having the Mitchell's leave doesn't kill you. Oh and I brag about my family whenever I get the chance because you guys are the best humans on the planet! 

con amor,

Hermana Barbie??..

• 
                                            A cockroach we killed in my house
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  mi primer bautismo‏

The pic of little Jackie is adorable. I have never thought about my arms and legs as blessings but after seeing that I am happy to walk everywhere every day. 

   So guess who had her first baptism!!! We baptized two people, they are brother and sister and their names are Roberto and Carmen. Roberto is 17 and Carmen is 23.  We strated off just teaching Carmen then Roberto joined in. Carmen would not accept our invitation to be baptized but Roberto did. So while our DL was interviewing Roberto we were talking to Carmen and out of the blue she said, Ï want to be baptized this saturday with my brother. so we said um... YES PLEASE DO! So Elder Homlmstead interviewed her the same day and they were both baptized three days later. it was like the best thing ever! I seriously loved teaching them! They are young so it was felt like I was just talking with one of my friends. They are funny, nice, fun,and smart. and they can read! so that´s a huge plus! they were my favorite people to teach so I am stocked that they were my first baptism!

Tons of members came to the baptism and I sang at the service and I am now officially a member of the stake chior. 

   The stake president came to our baptism and his sister is the stake chior director and I cant say no the stake president! so we had our first practice yesterday and I have a solo for some song I have never heard in my life, we just happened to be singing one of the only 6 songs we dont have english. but I have like 5 weeks to practice so its okay! going to chior practice totally gave my flashbacks because she is just like smith except she is a women and she speaks spanish, but it was super fun! 

   So what do I do on a normal day you ask? Well I wake up at 630 and study spanish and take a shower. Once I am all dressed and ready and what not is usually when my comp wakes up... so then we do personal study the comp. study then my training which is totally pointless. On tuesdays and thursdays we have a zone meeting or district meeting and other days we teach or contact in the morning then we go to hermana mimas house and she feeds us and talks our ears off totally love hma mima! she rocks! then we go home for language study. my comp. usually takes a nap and I study spanish. then we if we have appointment we teach and if not we contact. we usually have about 5 lessons a day. then 8 we go home and plan and I write in my journal until its time for bed. some days are better than others but its a good time for the most part.

   well I wish you the best in all your endevours good luck with your booth! until next week!

Love,

hermana outsen

Yo tengo el mejor familia en el mundo! les amo!‏

Hello hello mother dear! 

     Loved the pumpkin pic! Calvin is so big! please tell him to chill out with that growing up thing for like 16 more months or something. I would love some little coin purses! I would love both but I think I would rather have the little american ones for the latina hermanas because they all love america. Everyone here wants to go to america and also they all want to learn english. So since I can actually speak english I got a little calling. starting this saturday I will be teaching english classes in the church, so I will let you know how that goes. it will be nice to have the tables turned for an hour or two a week! 

  so it is definitely rainy season! in fact while I was writing this morning there was a huge storm and all the power went out in the middle of my letter! so we had to return two hours later to finish. Every morning it is so flaming hot that I literally feel like I am preaching on the sun itself then after lunch it rains all night long, everyday.  I am not talking like a little sprinkle, it dumps and the streets turn into rivers. it is quite the fight to keep my scriptures dry but my raincoats usually do the trick. 

    so this week I ate cow stomach, I never want to do that again! it was sick but my comp loves it, she likes a lot of weird food. Also our house is infested with giant cockroaches. We have a deal that if she kills the cockroaches I will kill these weird worm things that hang out in our pila. it is a pretty unfair deal since they are tiny and totally harmless and cockroaches are awful, but don't tell her that! for some reason she is terrified of the little guys but the giant cockroaches and spiders are fine. 

   This week we had interviews with the president. Turns out my area is very close to the mission home and the mission office, like 10 minutes away My president is like the sweetest little man ever. He is just nice and very approachable, I like him. 

   Well I have emptied my mind of everything worth telling you. We have a baptism lined up for this saturday with Roberto. I absolutely love this kid and I have loved teaching him! I am not going to tell you about him until next week because I don't want to jinx anything and also I am out of time. but he totally rocks and it would totally rock if he got baptized so keep him in your prayers! Love you all and I hope you have a fantab week! 

Love,

heeeermana Mern

He is the Caitie of Guatemala. his name is Borris and he is precious. I love him with all my heart! he is in my ward

This is what Marilyn Monroe would look like if she were a missionary

HOLY CRAP!!!! THAT IS SO CRAZY!!! can you please send me Alex’s email so i can write him personally! I have been thinking about him all week and when I read that I just bawled, how awks for my distict... ha ha. I am sure no one guessed that right! that is so just...FOREIGN! but I am so excited for him! Alex is honestly going to be the best missionary on that entire continent wherever the heck that is! actually probably the best on the planet. congrats alex!! I love you! 

Calvin has the same birthday as my zone leader so I told him I am just going to pretend he is my nephew this week so i will be celebrating with Calvin this week also, oh and ps I loved the picture, so freakin cute!! oh and tell Dallin I am lovin his long hair! 

   Yes I got grandmas email, loved it! I am in a town called Tzununa and it is a really poor area but I love it! it is so pretty and the ward is awesome and everyone is so nice all the time. I don't really know if it is close to the mission home or not because I suck at directions and I don't know where anything is.but I assume it is rather close but my mission is pretty small. I do know that it is like a 7 minute tuk tuk ride to Reu which is a busy city and my area is a little dirt road place and I see like 3 cars a day, not including tuk tuks. Church is not super well organized here so the bishop ends up speaking in sacrament like every week for 25 minutes and my bishop is totally crazy. He is like 3 inches shorter than me and he is just always smiling and never makes sense. His wife lives in Utah, I don't really know why but she lives like 20 minutes from our house. I like church because all the members are so great and they work really hard at their callings and make it work,. it rocks!

I got to watch conference in a little air conditioned room in the chapel with 6 other missionaries in English and it was freakin awesome! I am sad it is over because one, conference rocks, and two, our little conference invites were a great icebreaker for contacting and stuff. I hope you all heard the shout out to Guatemala on Saturday with the story of the missionaries shoes. HOLLA! 

   I got dads dear elder and it was hilarious! they still print those out even when I am in the field! I think they take a while to get here but they are a great surprise so if anyone is every bored, log onto to dear elder! I had my comp read it to see how much she could understand, we were laughing so hard! I told her not to feel bad because my fam is weird and we talk weird. I think the most used spanish phrase for me is, don't listen to my english! My comp repeats stuff I say in english and when she says it I realize how weird I sound and how often I don't make sense, I think I can blame Jackie for that one. 

Tell alex that missions rock and that I love it and that I know he will love it too even though its hard some days! but I am so glad I am here and I am so glad I get to experience this experience! it has already rewarded me! I love you all and I hope you enjoy having the Mitchells around, I love the Mitchells!  Oh and the pics I sent are my zone playing frisbee in the pouring rain. and a pic I took from my roof. I have like the best view ever from the roof of my house, muy bonita! love you all! congrats to my twin! I will be praying for alex everyday for the next two and a half years!

Love,

hermana marsy doets