April 25

WOW!!!!!!

That was a whole bunch of surprises to open the email to! I can't beleive ANY OF IT! My mind is seriously blown!

GIL AND SJ!!! CONGRATULATIONS! I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!!! SO SO SO SO SO SO HAPPY! JUST IMAGINE MY EXCITEMENT JUMPING UP AND DOWN AND SCREAMING!!!! This is just the greatest thing. I can't wait to hear more including every single detail of everything! wow! When is the date?????????

Wow okay so this week has been a changer for me. Unlike last week I think I could be ready to get out of here. I still love the MTC don't get me wrong but you have to go to earth sometime. I'm still trying to learn as much as I can here but I can't wait to get out to the field and learn more. My focus kind of shifted this week from the lessons and spanish to other gospel and charity. I was able to focus more on my campanion and the people around me instead of feeling like I had so much to learn for myself. But in all honesty I probably learned more this week than ever. We lost one of our investigators as well as one of our teachers, Hermano Molinaro, which really broke a heart string because he was amazing. He will be very much missed. Very very very much, he was supposed to send us off! He really changed my life so it was hard to see him go. Plus he told us in the last 10 min of class that he was leaving in the morning! excuse me!! totally not okay.  but we get a new teacher tonight and he's great as well, Hermano Osler. I am excited to get to know him better. Luckily our other teacher is staying. I told my hermanas that if he leaves too than I don't see why we can't leave either and that I was just going to go to the airport and hop on a plane to chile myself. There's only so many people to baptize here at the MTC-- meaning NONE. Time to fly away. Speaking of breaking free my bird necklace with the cage just completely fell apart. I think it's a sign.

Yesterday we were able to skype with a lady in mexico and teach her a lesson. That was great except my head phones weren't working very well so when she started crying I didn't know if it was something that we said or did wrong or if she was sad that we couldn't understand what she was saying.

There is an Elder here that reminds me of Trent, it's really funny. He told us to go smell this tree that smells like cream soda... ya we didn't beleive him at first... but eventually we had to smell the tree so we did it at night when no one could see us cause you have to get really close to the tree to smell it--- and you wouldn't beleive it. It really does smell like cream soda!!!! WOW!

Also I found I have trained my companion very well during conference for when the BYU men's chorus came to sing and the camera rolled across their faces to a guy with a beard she promptly exclaimed "Diversity!"

I noticed I don't think I've been signing off my letters. I guess cause I wouldn't do that if was just talking or something but in any case, I love you all so much and think about you all the time!

Faith is Knowing the Sun will Rise,

Hermana VandeMerwe

December 30

 And so this is Christmas.. And what have we done?

Well I’ll tell you. I've done quite a bit. We are working very diligently everyday sometimes without success but we don't let it get us down! All you need is a quick boost ya up with the family to keep you going.

Gosh. I don't feel like I got to tell you anything that I had planned... really anything. How does that even happen? You just forget everything so fast! But I learned a lot about myself from talking with you all so it was good. Probably should have been the opposite but hey I’m far from perfect.

I all of a sudden can't live without music again Tate! Thanks for that! And it looks like I finally got the details from the trip you went on. That will be fun to read.

Sounds like your Christmas was awesome! I'm glad to hear it. I must say I loved my Christmas over her basking in the sunlight, playing volleyball, eating lamb, listing to the guitar by the fire... a lot of things that just don't sound very missionary like so I don't know why I’m telling you. But I enjoyed it.

For New Year’s eve we are going to have our p-day (today we are just writing and then we will go out and work!) and tomorrow we have permission to have one (cena) with someone just like on Christmas eve and we get to stay out until 10:30.

This week we are focusing on finding new people to teach and prepare for baptism in Enero! So next week I’ll be telling a bunch of great new people with dates to be baptized!

Thanks for all you do and who you are! Love you!

Hermana VandeMerwe

April 17

AN APOSTLE OF THE LORD! sing it with that tune from veggie tales. Yup that's right. an apostle of the lord came to speak to me. I feel just so honored. And we were lucky enough to be in the same room. Richard G Scott inspired us with great words to keep up the good work and then gave us a blessing to be able to MASTER the language! Ah just beautful! and also a blessing to be able to learn from our companions as well as a blessing of PEACE. Wow just who doesn't need those blessings as a missionary. AND THEN when he was all done, we sang the closing song and then a sister was walking up to give the closing prayer and he stood up and stopped her because he needed to tell us something else. um. wow. He continued to tell us that the Lord has sent us here to succeed not to fail and that He will not abondon us. The mission will help us realize a capacity and strength we never knew we had and that we will never be asked to do something we can't do. Um. talk about a pump up talk!

On Sunday we had a great just fantastic devotional from the director of media missionary department. Um. OKay.. you should really just go to London right now. so seriously. Wow. The church just launched a new campain there because the mormon musical is going there. um. wow. seriously check it out. Also we got some great stats about how much missionary work they are able to do through the internet and how they are reaching the people that missionaries can't. Also, a non rumor stat: 44% of current missionaries are sisters raising moment by moment.

Okay so ya. Half way today!!!! WOW! HALF WAY! It's actually a little overwhelming. And I really love it here. Some hate it but I seriously enjoy every single day. There is still so much to learn including the language. Ah! but esta bien. From this date forward we are only talking in spanish. We made that goal the first week that at three weeks we would only talk in spanish. It will be good however, I don't think we're talking correctly and I really want to get the grammar right cause gosh when people do that in english it just drives me crazy. Plus I want to sound education obviously. So grammer is a work in progress.

I get letters usally a day after you right it sometimes two. We don't open anything until 9:30 when the day ends as to avoid distraction. I think dear elder is just as fast as letters I was mainly saying don't email so that I don't have to spend time reading them.

We sure get fed a lot here. like a lot. and it's actually like really good. The cafeteria is just full of choices and yummy options. I haven't had anything I don't like yet. and I have fresh pineapple everyday and I used to get chocolate milk every single day for dessert as well but now I just stick to my favorite drink ever- water! But OKAY. so wierd but that have the best chocolate chip cookies EVER EVER EVER so good. okay Cinda's might be a few steps up but they are so good! MY FAVORITE! If lunch is close to gym time we get a sack lunch so we don't need to change keep it homey with a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, chips, water and if I'm lucky a cookie. Sound familiar? Ya. except now I have a new found love of soy milk so that's sometimes thrown into the mix as well. But even if the cafeteria were to be bombed, we all have enough food to last us a few years in our rooms so there would never be any starving. It's next to impossible.

We get to got to the temple every wednesday on our p day and i see emily quite a bit only enough time for a hug and how are you and we have to go but it's still fun to see her. Yesterday I was able to talk to Kenzie for a while so that was great.

Oh ya. I spoke in church on sunday. They just suprise you that day and you need to speak in spanish.so... That was interesting.

April 3

HOLA  FAMILIA!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW! I HAVE SO MUCH TO TELL YOU AND I AM JUST SO EXCITED TO BE WRITING YOU FINALLY! YAY! I have so much to say I hope I can tell you everything. I am having a great time here at the CCM! The first day as I told you before was crazy, all of a sudden I was just in a room and we were speaking spanish and we haven't stopped since. I don't know why some people don't like it here it really is amazing and there is so much we can learn here. We were told that this is the second most holy ground next to the temple. It is a place where we are taught how to be missionaries and better disciples of the Lord. How cool is that? I'm pretty much living in heaven!!

I can not wait for you boys to come here! You are going to love it! Really my biggest distraction has been me thinking about everything I need to tell you so I've decided I'm just not going to write you at all- APRIL FOOLS! HA I am so funny!

As much as I love it, it's true that it is not going to be easy. My bag from China only made it a day and a half but I am stronger than that so don't worry. Okay so we taught our first investigator on Friday. He is so rock solid. He's Jewish so we had to start with basic belief in Jesus Christ. He doesn't practice but that's what his parents practice. Our first lesson was a little sketch cause the spanish wasn't too great yet. My companion speaks italian though and she is able to understand and speak a lot better cause lots of the words are the same so she was pretty good at taking over on that lesson. Lucky he spoke a little Italian too because of his grandparents. We challenged him to pray.

second lesson, he didn't pray but we challenged him again and that lesson went a lot better because we didn't have as much time to prepare and so we really relied on the spirit and it was there and so naturally we came back for a third lesson and he had prayed!!! yay! we got so exicted! That lesson we taught him about the atonement and challened him to repent and of course by our fouth lesson he had! Golden investigator. Our fourth lesson wasn't as good because I think we taught too much of what we thought he needed to know then by what the spirit told us to tell him. We did invite him to think about baptism and asked that when he knows it's true he will be baptised. We teach him again tomorrow and I think we are really going to focus on that. He has amazing faith.

Easter was great we had Bishop Clausse and Sheri Dew talk to us. Steak and Shrimp for dinner and I loved my Easter basket!!! Thank you so much! It sounds like you guys had such a fun Easter. I'm excited for Eliza. Will you please send me her address? We also got called as... Greeter Usher people for church. That will be fun. haha. Oh and we had a mission wide sacrament meeting on Sunday for Easter! Super cool and it took less time than when we feed just our ward. Talk about feeding the 4000.

My district is spectacular! We all get along so well and it really is incredible how inspired the companionships are like everyone is perfect for each other. My Teacher, Hermano Molinaro is beyond description incredible. I LOVE HIM!!! He is really just teaching us in the perfect way. He is so good at inviting the spirit into the room and he has a really dry sense of humor which gives us a laugh now and then but still pulls us back in before the spirit can leave. It's quite a gift. We have so much to learn from him and the other teachers. I think we all aspire to be just like them but of course that's just never good enough is it? They say we can't do that because we need to be better than them. One of the teachers said, we were missionaries a few years ago, the world is different now, you need to be even better than we were. I'm just telling you. If I come back even half of what they are...

What's the best about all the teachers there thus far as they don't give you that fake smile while you're trying to constuct a sentence nodding their head and then shouting "muy bien" when you know it really wasn't that good. You all know what I mean right? Plus it really is a lot more conducive to the spirit. I mean it's not like the spirit is going to be like YOU DID SUCH A GOOD JOB when you didn't so. please. really don't do that ever. ugh.

Mom I loved the quote that you sent because it goes perfect with one of the movies that we watched. It is so excited to be standing shoulder to shoulder with that greatest missionary that ever was. I am trying my hardest to really  study all that I need and try not to focus on the language but the gospel which is really hard because I feel like I can't teach the gospel unless I have the language. It's so annoying to know what you want to say and not be able to say it. But I know it will come. We as missionaries really are way too hard on ourselves when it comes to that. If I were to look back at what I've learned in the last week- I mean I was praying and teaching and bearing testimony by the second day so... We just need to step back and see the miracles sometimes.

My leaving date is May 6th. Please dear elder me because that way I actually get letters soon and don't have to waste time on the computer reading and then they can be printed out as well. Please also give me everyones email- in the fam so this can go to all of them unless you want to read it as a family or something. Also you know what I was thinking? now that you only have future missionaries in the house you should go back to Dad's mission! Fun! Boys wouldn't that be cool to hear all of his stories? 

I really do wish you could watch all the devotionals I've heard and see the things I see but alas you can't and they probably wouldn't apply to you as much as they do me but if you could watch one. you should watch theCharacteristics of Christ by elder bednar in an mtc devotional on christmas day- dec 25. it's about missionaries but it really can apply to everyone in immense ways. so if you have time (I know you do. I lived with you) you should watch it. I thought of dad and mom the whole time because dad you would just love Bednar in it and the message is just perfect for everyone! it's long and i don't know if the boys will want to watch the whole thing but I bet tate can find it somewher.

The first councelor in my bishopric is brother monson, prs. Monsons's Nephew. He told us stories of "Tom" all last night to our district and how he is more of a father to him! So cool! He has the same teeth and story telling skills as Prs Monson. Turning his head to the side a little to look down with his lip out thinking about his story. It kind of reminds me of Grandpa as well! Please send my love to Grandma and Grandpa!

thank you Martha for the wonderful letter I loved it

i have so much more i wanted to say but I am out of time! LOVE YOU

cambria

April 10

HOLA!!!!!

Como Estas? Thank you for all of your letters and packages! They were delicious to the body and soul. It was my companions birthday and two days later another sister's bday in my district so we made candles with forks and put them in old cake things that another sister had and then just ate up the cake bites. it was absolutely perfect and they were so confused as to how we did it because we are always with them. Ha! Perfect timing family! We wore polka dots for Hermana Dodds birthday and stripes for Hermana Seegmillers birthday but only one of the Elders had a polka dot tie- lame.

Thank you also to Lani and Aunt Debbie! You are so thoughtful! It means seriously so much! MUCHO GRACIAS!

We recieved our second teacher who is fantastic. le mucho amo. He's complete opposite of our other teacher and helps us more with gospel than with the language because he speaks in english for the most part.

Conference was fantastic of course. and of course they talked about missionaries silly what did you expect? We're like the hope of Israel. I'm just kidding you. In between sessions they let us watch the news showing thing of the MTC so that was exciting to see the wave of new missionaries be covered on tv except that commercials came on in between and there was was where this teenager and parents were both yelling at each other and I don't think there could've been a better picture taken than of all the missionaries at that moment because we haven't heard anything like that for so long. I think we all froze in our seats and stared at the screen in pure horror.

Two elders came up to me and asked if my name tag was longer than the others or if they had to squeeze my name on. The whole first week everyone knew me not because they had met me but because I was the girl with the long and wierd last name. However, it does give me big shoes to fill because everyone knows Haley. They ask me if I have an older sister and I know they are talking about Haley mi prima! In case she reads this, Elder Haselton is in my zone heading to Argentina yo creo and some other guy that is getting married that laughed at my spansh during trc that your knew before the mission-- I think that's what he said. Really I have no idea.  

My companion learned Italian at school. She was going to do some Italian internship this semester that she had a goal of doing her whole life but decided to go on a mission instead.

We have only 4 girls in our room so we do have closet space. But there is an extra bunkbed. Haha. Oh interesting fact. We had 700 people enter the MTC on the day I came in and only 6 girls away from being 50/50 elders and sisters! I'm not sure if that's a good thing... but interstesting. 

The idea for the family reunion sounds so great! Do I still get a number? I hope so!

 The baby blessing sounded great! 

Tate! The bench does get a little cold-- I don't usually sit on it.. and I definetly won't now. the showers here are gross but if you just close your eyes it's not so bad. we clean them for our service (snicker) but really there's just lots of hair. But also considering- it's not so bad. I hear your band concert went well!! that's great!. Also You need to tell me all about your dance! I think your answer was perfect! Please send pictures and what not. And I love the picture  you sent me. I don't think that my companion got it but it was funny because of that commercial.

Oh speaking of pictures. Family. I would like more. I wish I had more time to find the ones I wanted. So I have my baptism picture but really I would prefer my baptism picture with Dad (aka priesthood) and I have our family picture of sav & Rich's wedding but really I want the one where we are in front of them temple- stupid me. I know you can't really see the temple so maybe that one and then one of just them with the whole temple. Si?

Brockton!! You are so funny. I read little bits of your letters to the hermanas in mi room and they think you're funny too! I love your bubble party! I can just imagine it! Thanks for all the details! Hahaha! even in class!! LOL as I write! Just don't get caught now and get good grades 

But really to Grandpa!! WHAT? WHY ARE YOU CUTTING DOWN THE TREES? There isn't going to be a fire! Why don't you just hire full time fireman or buy a fire hose instead? That would last much longer.

I love you all so much! and think about you all the time. Yo se que esta inglesia is verdad y que JesuChristo es mi hermano. El es el unica monera podemos regresar vivir con nuesto Padre Celestial. podrio mas pero no tengo tiempo. perdon mi grammer.