Finding Faith in Myself

Kelby has limited time to write each week so she came up with a brilliant way to really tell us about some of her awesome experiences by taking pictures of some of her journal entries.  We will include some of the e-mail letter she writes along with some of her weekly experiences from her journal. 

15 Julio 2014

There is the Elder in my zone and his name is Elder Salcatierra and he is like my favorite elder here! He is from Lima, Peru and he is trying to learn English. So every time we see each other and talk he tells me to talk to him in English so I teach him some words in English and when we play futbol, he teaches me some phrases in Spanish. MY favorite phrase is “Friking Chango”. You say friking like free-king and change is like a slang word for dude….I think. It’s a ton of fun though! A lot of the missionaries in my zone are from South or Central America so they think it is cool that I am from California! Two of the elders want to learn how to speak like me, it’s awesome! Today we are going to an Argentina Festival as a zone.  It’s called “The Poncho” and I might get a llama jacket!  Afterwards we are going to play FUTBOL and I’m going to wear my Messi jersey that you got me :)

16 Julio 2014

Yesterday was a really good day.  We went to “The Poncho” and we planned on walking around and doing some shopping but we first decided to eat lunch and we waited for casi una hora! Triste, right? We eventually got our food so I guess that’s the important part, right!  We went to the shops afterwards and they were so legit! They had handcrafted jewelry and it was all so beautiful. I may or may not have gotten something for my family there. I wanted to buy so many things but I am trying to be SMART with my pesos so I can only get a few things at a time. 

After p-day ended last week we had a lesson with Darrio, a recent convert who is in his late 30s. The lesson was seriously so good! We talked about temples and that families can be together forever which is seriously my favorite topic to teach! Darrio wishes his family could be baptized because he is scared about what is going to happen when they die- will they be able to be together forever? This topic is one that I hold so dear to my heart. I’m part of 2 families—my family here on earth and my family in heaven with Heavenly Father. Really, its one big family. We talked about this for a while and then we talked about some personal experiences from blessings our families have through the temple.

Today we have the cambios with the sister training leaders and I’m going to be with Hermana Perez all day!  Ask me if I’m so nervous!  She’s from Buenos Aires and legitly she only speaks Spanish.  We’re going to teach people today and some of them are investigators I’ve never met and y’all know me with directions—I don’t know where I’m going in Hemet, let along Argentina!  At first I thought, there is no way I can do this!  That was last night, but this morning I remembered that  Heavenly Father will not give me anything I can’t handle.  I have been called to do this work by God, so I just have to keep having faith all day that Heavenly Father has faith in me and so should I!

17 Julio  2014

I don’t know why I was so nervous—I learned so much.  Hermana Perez sincerely was an answer to my prayers.  I had so many doubts and I didn’t really believe in myself.  My day started off with an interview by Elder Ruiz.  We were talking about everything and he asked me why I wanted to serve a mission and I told him that because of the concept of my family being together forever has changed my life.  I want the people here to know that they can be with theirs too.  He asked me if there has been anything in my life that has made me feel so grateful for eternal families and I told him my personal story.  And I said, without temple work and this gospel I wouldn’t be able to be with them forever.  Elder Ruiz said, “hermana, that right there was a confident missionary.  Have confidence in yourself.  You are a daughter of God with a divine purpose.  He has a plan for you here and I’m not sure of the whole plan—what his whole plan for you is, but I know we need you in our districut.  You are a blessing to our district and to me.  Have faith in yourself—because I have faith in you.”  I’ve always struggled being confident with myself—and we said a prayer together and in the prayer he blessed me with the confidence I need to be the best missionary HF needs me to be. 

Yesterday with Hermana Perez I decided I was going to have a really good day.  I was still super nervous—but I didn’t speak English at all yesterday and I understood Hermana Perez!  WOOO!  I spoke in lessons and Oh! We were trying to look at the map to see where we should go next and this lady walks out of her front door just looking and smiling at us and I felt like I needed to talk to her so we both did.  I told her who we were and introduced ourselves—her name is Juana.  Juana was telling us about herself and she’s Catholic, but she’s really good friends with one of our menos activos, Evita.  The one who w as having a hard time with her business.  I asked her if we could come visit her one day and she said “Si Si! Cualquier dia.  Los noches son mejores.” So we have a cita with her on Friday.  She’s my first investigator that I helped contact!!

21 Julio 2014—Part of the e-mail to family

Hola!

So I took some more pictures this week with some of the people we´re teaching! You’ll read about Isabel in the journal entries but we went to their house today and holy gina their house is so huge!! I have been gaining more confidence in myself I guess by just not thinking so much about myself. I don´t know actually, I think it´s a blessing from heavenly father honestly. I think he knows its a huge struggle for me and because I’m from America people aren’t used to seeing a white girl walking around and they think I’m so cool so maybe that has something to do with it too! haha. A lot of the guys here on the streets are gross though, they say sexual things to me that I can’t even understand but my companion tells me stuff like about me being...I don’t know hot is a close word to the word in Spanish but she doesn’t tell me what they exactly say so that’s good.  Chango I was fat before my mission! I showed my companion that picture of me before and during my mission and she said you were gorda! I said haha ya I know while I was laughing and she said that doesn’t even look like you now! Dad, What did you do for your birthday by the way?? I want to know all about it! I celebrated your birthday and did something cool so ill send pictures haha.

Okay so food! Umm I just really don´t like the food here, literally everything I eat doesn´t sit well in my stomach and I go diarrhea every time I go pee. But I heard its normal for missionaries. But ya that $15 dollars got me 3 bananas and some yogurt! I had that for breakfast this week, things are pretty expensive here, I just don’t buy food I guess and the food makes me sick so I don’t eat much .. once a day is good for me. Suuuriously though!  That members house where I accidentally told her that her food was ugly...I have no idea what it was called all I know is I literally couldn’t eat it because I felt like I was going to hurl.  I’m not very hungry up here and I can’t stomach any of the food. And no one eats dinner up here basically just lunch and breakfast!

My branch is lovely! There’s about 50 people and yes I have had to bare my testimony my first Sunday! It was okay haha I mean with my broken Spanish I spoke what I could:) I’m sure people understood what I was trying to say! I just tell myself that so I can feel better. We don’t have a bishop, just a leader who conducts the meeting! And our leader of the missionaries is ironically inactive. But I love them. Its so small and I’m really getting to know all of them pretty well and there is one guy in the barrio who is named Daniel and he speaks super little English so everything he knows he says when he sees me its kinda funny actually. Makes me laugh! Ah so I was super sad about the baptism it didn´t work out and you’ll find out about it in my journal entries, but I was way sad and bummed, but it´s okay HF has a plan for him. Oh and his name is Alejandro!

The weather has been pretty normal- not to hot and not too cold. I guess this is the desert area of Argentina haha so that’s good. My companion is great, sometimes we can get annoyed with each other, but I try not to focus on that and stuff because I don’t want to remember only the bad things about my companions but yeah sometimes its hard but I’ve felt like I’ve been really able to practice so much patience!! Yay dad good job for not opening your card early wooo!!! haha sorry about the usted! They engrain it in our minds to only use usted as a missionary and it’s hard to remember I can use tu with family :)

Love you all sooo much! :) Yáll are in my heart always and everyday! Have a FANTASTIC Week! And dad, enjoy your week as a one year older man :) Don’t forget to tell me how your birthday was!!

So it was dad's birthday last Saturday and I didn't want to be homesick from missing y'all, so I bought some balloons and made a balloon family and there's all of us!  By the way dad, your birthday cake from Argentina was really good.  The shiny thing in the middle of it says Feliz Cumpleanos. Cool, right!  You had a birthday in the states and Argenina. Holla!

I like to punch my comp, so what? Just kidding i love her!

Sometimes we need a break from studying!

Two month mark today!

This is the back yard of Isabel's house.  So beautiful. And my Ariel pose because I have always wanted to be Ariel since i was little :)

We are hoping for a baptism in the next couple of weeks!

This is one of our investigator's granddaughters!  Her name is Isa, like EESA and we were waiting at the bus stop today to get to her house and she was showing me all of these signs to do with your hands and kept correcting me because she said that I looked like I was from American when i did them!  Ya, she's 6 years old--what a champ!! :)

Me and my comp and Isa and her cousin, Antonio

Another one with Isa.  She's adorable.  Oh my gosh, she kills me.  She said to Hermana Rivera "Saca un foot de eso!" Gotta love Isa :)