Tuesday, May 25, 2010

First week update!

Jessica is not allowed to email anyone but family, but she can receive emails and write you back by hand. Her email address is jessica.kubly@myldsmail.net. Here is the second email that her brother Jared forwarded to the group.

okay so here goes a little update!!! wow its been a whole week here already.. i can barely believe it... the days all just kind of smash together since they are all pretty much the same. the typical day is: wake up, eat, study, class, eat, class, run, study, class, eat, class, plan.... haha over and over again but i am really liking it!! mama and poppy you would be thrilled at how well i am doing with studying, i have never been more excited to learn in my life. the spanish is actually coming really welll so far, they speak in castillano here and in uruguay which makes the ll sound like sh, so that is the way that we are learning the language. i think i have learned as much as i did in four years at school over this first week. there are about 30 latinos here and about 16 americans... we dont understand them and they dont understand us but that makes it even more perfect for practive!!! every teacher here is from south america as well and about 90 percent of our classes are spoken in spanish.... its basically like pushing you off the plank and hoping you can swim haha. this place is just like a big three story house, you see everyone every day and everybody is pretty close. there are only three of us english speaking sisters here and five spanish. i get along with them all great so that is a definite perk!!! my companions name is hermana grow. she is from peoria arizona and is a theatre major. i couldnt have been put with someone more opposite but having here has been such a blessing so far. we are both learning that we need to do everything that we can to make each others time here effective and enjoyable. we have quickly learned how to help eachother. we definitely dont see eye to eye on everything, but we have focused on letting those little things go. i was worried that i wouldnt have a chance to run if i had a companion who didnt share the same interests. i let hermana grow know that that was important to me. and like the champ that she is she said that we can go out in the field everyday during exercise time and she will walk while i run. it has been perfect. she takes our grammer book and i take flash cards, when i catch up to her she teaches me a new phrase each lap and i teach her new vocabulary. it has been so great and i love having her as my companion. being with her teaches me so much everyday. she is dedicated and a wonderful example, we learn well together as well.
there are 7 total people in my district or class. elders baxter, moffitt, jackson, mcclellan and jarvis. what stellar guys. they are so sweet to my companion and i. they are so fun to be in a district with and we are all getting to know eachother really well. they are definitely 19 year old boys if you know what i mean. it has been amazing to see them grow in their testimonies in even just one week. they really are stellar and im stoked to serve with them. they are quickly becoming such examples to me. maybe this is standard but when we have meetings with our zone or several districts all the elders stand when the sisters come in the room... kind of makes me want to walk in and out of the room again and again... hahah make me feel important.
my mtc presidents are amazing, i get to chat with them almost everyday. they are wonderful, it kind of like living with grandparents.
well anyway i have three minutes left. i am so happy to be here. this place is kind of like a bubble from the outside world. you can see cars drive by and hear people working outside but it is almost like totally different zone here, the feeling is amazing and the teachings are even more amazing. the more i learn, the more i love the gospel of Christ. i cannot tell you how much they emphasize the fact that you must first love the people and understand their needs, they truly want everything we do and think to be centered around Gods children. our purpose is to teach all of Gods children the plan that he has for them. it truly is a plan of happiness. i know that we have the opportunity to live with our families again and to return to live with our Heavenly Father. we must care about each person as an individual as Christ does. well i gotta run. i love you very very much!!! mama i love you forever ill keep you for always, hope you are feeling okay, please update me on everything. everyone please let me know how your life is and what is going on! love you everyone!! -jess

She has arrived!

This is the first email from Jess the day she arrived in Argentina!

hello!!!
its me and i am here in argentina safe and sound. man this has already been so weird, i was feeling like throwing up out of nervousness until my companion and i met another sister we are rooming with that has already been here for six weeks. it helps alot to talk to her, i feel like i will be able to handle it. just gotta take it day by day. my companions name is sister grow, she is a nice chica. there are only three american/english speaking sisters at this mtc... this is going to be quite the adventure. this is going to be the biggest crash course for spanish, i am already completely surrounded by the language. the sister missionaries across the hall are latinos and my companion and i tried to have a conversation with them... it was way funny, we were all just laughing because they couldn´t understand us and we couldn´t understand them... so to make a peace offering i brought my heeps of candy into the hallway and just said "carmellos?" after using my handy translator to find how to say candy... they all jumped at the opportunity, i guess american candy is a delicacy here??? sister bowers, the other one that is rooming with my companion and i told me to never offer up my candy anymore... must be a pretty precious comodity.
ill give ya a little run down of what has gone on thus far. i was able to sit next to a guy in the sl airport that was on his way to afghanistan, what a cool dude, he was leaving his wife, one year old, and brand new baby to go off for about 8 months. we had a nice little chat... he showed me pictures of his family and told me a bit about his position as a specialist in the army. he was not quite sure what missionaries were and when he asked the elders about our tags i had practice my skills (or lack thereof) for the first time. on the plane ride from sl to dallas i rode next to elder jackson. he is way nice, we chatted for a bit and then my sleep deprivation caught up with me and i wiped out for a bit. when we got to dallas we had a few hours to kill so we went on their tram thing that takes you around the massive airport. after that we all went to make a few last calls to family and friends. we met up with my companion, sister grow, and ran into a woman from dallas who had just been baptized in april. oh man was i excited to talk to her, she was amazing and was so excited to run into missionaries. she was an amazing woman and an example to me right off, super strong and excited about her new amazing step in life. oh man i have ten minutes left.... ahhhhh okay.
so we got to argentina and my girl skills of packing massively heavy were no good, had to have the elders help me out quite a bit. we met up with our driver, who did not speak an ounce of english and had to finally figure out that we each needed 150 pesos. then finally we were off to the mtc. we arrived like 5 minutes later with the buenos aires temple out front... almost completely destroyed since it is under large amounts of construction. this place looks like a mental institution from the outside... it is SOOO small!!! there are no more than 50 missionaries in the entire mtc. which will be bomb though. hopefully i can learn that much faster. well i am going to make it no doubt!! dont know if i will be able to email anymore but i wanted to get you my email address so you can have it and i can write you back. love you all and thank you for being my support and strength in getting to this point, i am going to give it my all. much love- hermana koobs

by the way thursday is my p day for writing!