Sunday, July 20, 2014

Zoe's laugh...wait for it....!

David's Note: Zoe's laugh is at the end of the video. Anyone who knows her well will recognize the laugh!
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So we´ve been a lot better at helping eachother with language study this transfer so far. The latins are helping us with our Spanish and we´ve been helping them a lot more with their English. So they other day we´re just chilling in our room and Hna Mieses asks us what this song means that she knows. Then she starts singing. It takes us a second, but we figured out what the song says. She´s so cute!





¨The greatest thing we can desire in life is to align our will with God´s will..¨ - Gerald Causse

Until next time!

Hna Safeer

Nothing amazing, but good stuff is always happening!

Hola a todos!

This week has been good! Nothing amazing, but good stuff is always happening around here:) 

My companion´s chickinguya is pretty much gone, so that´s great! She luckily never got the body and joint pain, just the skin problems. But dumb chickinguya is EVERYWHERE. Seriously. Everyone´s got it. Supposedly it´s hit the southern parts of the US, but the mission doctor thinks it´ll get taken care of before it spreads.

So we´re working with these two girls, Manuela and Maria. They´re daughters of 2 ward members that were living in the campo but now are here and we´re teaching them and helping them prepare for baptism.  Manuela´s 10 and Maria´s 12. Probrecita Manuela was in the hospital for 4 days this week hooked to an IV. She had chickinguya, dengue and an infection. ALL 3! But we went to the hospital and just talked with the two girls for a while. She was happy to see us and told us about the entire movie of The Life of Pi. Ha. And then we shared a message of course and gave them stickers.

We had no food in the house this week and bought 50 mango. 50. And only for like $2.50 US dollars. Not too shabby!

Aaaand I got a letter from Hermana Courtney Cox in Argentina! She wrote me in Spanish and it was really good and sounds like she´s doing really well:)

¨We will all face fear, experience ridicule, and meet opposition. Let us- all of us- have the courage to defy the concensus, the courage to stand for principle... Courage becomes a living and an attractice virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully but also as the determination to decently.¨ -Thomas S. Monson

Adios!

Hna Safeer

There´s always a silver lining!

Buenas dias! 

This week has been a another great week out here in the mission field. Nothing too special, but I´ll share a couple of things.

One, Heladio got baptized!! Remember Heladio from Sabana Yegua with one arm and quit smoking? I got to talk to one of the Hermanas out there this week and they told me he did get baptized and has not missed a week of church since. Yahoo! He´s such a good man. He always walked very slowly to church. It´s a struggle for him to walk, but he always was there.

Also my pobrecita companion (Hermana Paul) has Chickinguya.(I´m pretty sure I spell this virus different everytime). It´s finally hit someone in our house. So a week ago she had a fever for like 3 days. Then starting last night she started having what looked like a ton of giant hives. Then this morning she was up since 2 because she was so itchy and I woke up and it had gotten a LOT worse. So we made a trip to Dr Walker, the mission doctor, and recognized it real quick as a classic case of Chickinguya, but with some pretty extreme skin reactions. But he gave us medicine and instructions of what to do and all that good stuff. It will last for at least a few days... or week, but she´s always doing better with her medicine. 

I don´t know if you can see the splotches super well in this photo, but on the positive side, we got to eat at taco bell because it´s close to the doctor´s office. 

There´s always a silver lining! hahaha

On an ending note, "Happily every after is not a fairy tale. It is a choice!¨ -Fawn Weaver

Have a great week!

Monday, July 14, 2014

Bloody Thursday and the Dreaded "Chickengunya"

Buenos dias!

Alright here´s the top news stories for this week:

1. Chickengunya. A new mosquito virus that´s sweeping the nation. Apparently it somehow came here from Africa. It consists of full body pain and fever. We´ve been told 70% of the country has it. And we believe it! Seriously, everybody and their dog has it. I don´t know how nobody our home has gotten it yet. I guess the Lord needs us working and not in bed. 

2. Elder Jeffery R. Holland was here! So actually this was  a couple weeks ago but I forgot to write about it. One of our investigators told us about it, that he saw it on the news and was super excited to see somebody from our church. He didn't know he was an apostle, but we've heard that Elder Holland was in the country for a couple weeks and was working with Danilo, President of the country. Maybe you guys back home can look up photos or something. (Read article here.) And some news articles. I think he was talking to Danilo about social issues or something. I´m not to sure. If anybody find out more, let me know. And send me a photo of him with Danilo:)

3. Gladi got baptized!!! And her two oldest kids as well! 





OK, here we have Hna Paul and I with the whole family.







Cynthia and I. At first she hated when we came over. Now she loves us and she loves church!






Everyone right before the baptism.



















Gladi right after she came out of the baptismal font. She didn't know I was there with my camera. That was her real face. So happy!












4. Bloody Thursday.



Once upon a time my companion had a bloody nose. For 3 hours. Which finally ended us up in the hospital. Luckily we live right across the street, so at midnight Friday night us 2 and the other 2 missionaries in our house made a midnight trip to the hospital. Her nose finally stopped bleeding (before anyone had actually helped us) but they took her blood pressure just to make sure everything was ok, then send us home around 1 am.






And one more picture of Arjeny. Gladi´s 2 year old boy :)

¨Work without vision is drudgery. Vision without work is daydreaming. Vision with hard work is exhilarating!¨
-President Nuckols. He said this to us, but I´m not sure if he made it up or heard it somewhere else.

Have a great week!

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Photos - Baptisms, Teaching AND Some Play Time

Buenas!

Everything´s been grrrreat this week as usual! I´m going to start off this week with some photos.

We had an awesome multi-zone activity last p-day and we played all types of games and saw the dedicatory plaque for the church in this country. We had 3 zones from the Capital there and President and his wife showed up and played around with us as well:)

Another photo of us at the activity.


We also had our last district meeting together and here´s a photo









And this is Jose ( a member) and Wilker (almost to be baptized).









We also had the world´s craziest lesson with 8 teenage boys. We had a lesson planned with 2 boys, but one of them brought 5 of his friends and they've all been going to church regularly and all the activities so that´s good. And we had it in the house of a member who´s also a teenage boy. It was crazy, but now they all know the 10 commandments memorized!




Oh ya... WILKER was baptized this weekend!! Yahoo! He´s only 12, but he´s been going to church and all the activities every week for the last 6 months. He´s also really good friend with two of the families in our ward, so he has Family Home Evening with one of them every week. He was sooo happy to FINALLY be baptized.














Also, this week we´re particularly excited about a woman named Gladis. We've been teaching her about 3 months by now and she often came to church alone with her 5 children all under the age of 11, but wasn't progressing wonderfully. She was not a very happy person (she´s in a really rough situation with her husband right now), rarely in her house when we came for our scheduled lessons, she wasn't reading her Book of Mormon, we kinda had to drag her to church often... but now there´s SUCH A CHANGE! Something has clicked and she´s converting for real! She´s reading, coming early to church (still with all 5 kids), is on time to her appointments and we´re so happy for her! Her baptism is planned for the 28th this month and she´s finally ready and excited! It´s also not only her, but especially her 8 year old daughter who didn't like us too much before, now is excited when we come over and loves church! We´re soooo happy for them and so excited to just see things get better and better:)

 Well that´s all for this week. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DAD!! 

Make good choices everyone and always be a good friend to all.
¨My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.¨-Henry Ford

Until next time,

Hna Safeer