March 7, 2011

Guess what I found out this week in my letters I just got…. 3 of my friends are getting married, nuts huh??? Wow I was not expecting that, everything seemed to not be changing too much and then wham…. Three of them are gone. Beth is getting married in June, Melanie Hayes in august, and my friend Jenna or Sunshine from brighton camp…I think she is already married. Ahhhhhh its so crazy- I feel old, I hit 23 in not too long. There is definitely no way anyone would be checkin me out right now because… guess what else… so I have fleas, again. And to top it all off, you are going to puke, lice. Ya everyone, and I am not being dramatic when I say that, everyone in Uruguay has lice, kids, adults, everyone!!! And its really not a surprise because there is so much contact with the people since we beso everyone to say hi our hair is all intertwined all the time. Yes I am showering daily, that is not the problem. But no fear my Colombian companion has dealt with the problem her whole life and is a pro and getting rid of them so she has been combing and treating my hair almost daily. Okay I wont give you too many deets so you don’t get grossed out, but really its nasty, but hey. Im in Uruguay… another experience to check on the list haha. And with the fleas the hermano from the ward came and fumigated our house… for the third time. He said it’s a crazy bad season for fleas right now. We were tracting the other day and there were like 10 fleas jumping around on my legs…. Normal right??? Haha ah I am so used to it now that it doesn’t even phase me.

Well this really was the week of some amazing miracles, I was so happy to be a missionary this week and be able to have these experiences. So remember natalia, the girlfriend of Richard?? So we went to have a lesson with him last Monday and when we left we just yelled bye to natalia and invited her to a family home evening at the bishops house on Friday, not expecting for her to say anything, let alone leave the room and she came out!!! She really came out!!! And gave us besos and everything… we were just in shock. Then came Friday and she came to the family home evening and it was such an amazing experience. The bishops wife gave a wonderful lesson on the gifts of God, Natalia even was teary. She really didn’t speak the whole time but we could tell the lesson touched her. Then came Sunday and she came to church with Richard!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Can you believe it!!! I almost screamed when I saw her walking up to the church. Anyway it was amazing.

Another really amazing experience we had was after the family home evening with the bishop we were booking it home on our bikes when my companion screamed at me from behind, turns out she saw a 18 year old boy named Facundo that we talked to in our first week together. So we stopped and talked to him and his friend, his friend started asking me questions and Facundo was talking to my companion so we kind of had two conversations going on, I kept looking over at my companion and she looked a bit worried, but she pulled out a pamphlet and was talking to facundo about it so I figured everything was okay. Facundo everytime we had passed by him for weeks on this same street had yelled ¨hermanas!!¨ and we didn’t think anything of it. Turns out he was trying to get us to stop the whole time because when facundo and his friend left my comp broke down into tears and I was trying to get out of her what happened. Turned out Facundo asked her why we hadn’t come by his house or stopped when he yelled our names and that he had been waiting for us for weeks. In reality we had, we knocked his whole street and turns out the person we talked to was his sister, but she didn’t want anything, and we didn’t even know it was his house because he didn’t give us the house number. My comp told me that he was begging her to help him, that he is addicted to drugs but knows our message can help him. So she told him we would go by his house the next day and we finally found out which one it was and when his sister came out again she was furious, and was like, I told you last week I don’t want anything!!! So we told her we were looking for facundo but he wasn’t there. Later we were just clapping houses but decided to head to a different area and had the idea to pass by this big main road where we first met facundo just to see if he would be there, and he was, it was crazy. So we talked to him and made an appt to come by this week. Really it was such a cool experience and im positive that through the gospel he can overcome his addition, I am really excited to see where it goes.

Well ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I am out of time already!!! But I love you so so so so so much and please give me an update on how everyone is doing. Miss you and love you always- Jess

Ps yes this is a pic of my comp getting rid of my lice….. how fun huh??? I was really happy and felt like a really hygienic person as you can tell