I am sorry these are coming late, I have been out of town! Enjoy!-Beth
Helloooo!!!
Wowowo we only have 11 days left here!!! So I would give my address but i guess i have to wait to see exactly where my first area is. I will give you the address of my mission home next week when i actually remember to bring my mission packet downstairs with me when i write, i always seem to forget.
Anyways it has been a great week so far, well at least last Saturday really made my week for me. We went out into Buenos Aires as we usually do on Saturdays and were really excited to have our appointments that we had made the other week. One of the women wasn´t home so we headed onto Nora´s house, that is the woman that has a ton of health problems with arthritis and such. We were expecting to just help her with work that she had at home. As we walked up to her gate she was just barely scooting along down the street. It was amazing that we caught her because it turns out the buzzer outside her gate actually goes to her neighbors house... weird... but anyway it all worked out for a reason. She invited us into her house, and we all sat around her table. We started asking her what we could help with and with as many things as she could have give us to do she said all she wanted us to do was to bring comfort to her life through the word of God. She went on to tell us more about her health problems that she has. Turns out she has been hit by a bus twice and has many problems from the accidents. She could barely get up and down from her chair. The thoughts and lesson we were able to share with her went so well, I didnt even know that i had some of the spanish vocabulary that was coming from my mouth. It was such a strong experience and she was so happy with what we were able to share with her. As we were leaving she wrote down her address and told us to write her during our missions. we are really sad we wont be able to go back to that area but there are other missionaries that will be able to take care of her. i cant really put it in words but this experience was nothing short of a blessing for all of us.
So ya other than that we have had a bunch of classes as usual... haha. Oh my birthday was on tuesday as ya know and it was great. i went into the kitchen in the morning and everyone starts yelling happy birthday and the cook had made me another postre and had everyone sing again. then even better yet i went up to the classroom and the elders in my district had made a big drawing on the whiteboard that said happy birthday and they all made me cards and gave me a present of a pack of gum.... a beach ball... and a yo yo...so funny. the cards were all so cute and hillerious, ill have to show you some day. anyways everyone was so good to me and i enjoyed my birthday at the mtc... then today at mail time i got this huge package and it turned out to be from one of the elders moms, it was so sweet, tons of stuff that will be handy, including a spanish hymnal which i was desperately in need of.
Anyway its been a good week as usual, im gettin a bit of cabin fever and am really really really excited for uruguay! Here is my favorite scripture of the week, I hope you love it as much as I do, ´¨Yea, I know that I am nothing, as to my strength I am weak, therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strenght I can do all things, yea behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever. ¨ Alma 26:12
So thats it for the week folks. I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU!!! Ciao- Jess
Monday, July 12, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
June 24, 2010
Hello all! Not much is going on here really. the last transfer left on tuesday morning so there were only ten of us here for a few days. all the people of the new transfer just got here and it may be an interesting next few weeks.
this last saturday we went about our usual proselyting business and it was really dead in the streets. Hermana Grow and i ran into some really amazing people though and actually have three appointments for this next saturday which is amazing. we are really excited. one of the women that we are going to teach we ran into as she was going into her gate, as we started to talk to her she just became really overwhelmed because i think she was in alot of pain from arthritis, so we offered to help her and she said that she didnt need it then but we could come back this saturday and help her out at her home and teach her. she was amazing and we are so excited to go back and hopefully we will be able to understand her a bit more this time. we were able to talk to alot of people and it gets better every week, even though we can hardly understand a thing they say. but it will all work out for the best in the future as our spanish comes along.
hmmmm well what else what else..... days are pretty much the same haha. oh ya. one of the elders had a seizure and had to be hospitalized for a few days. guess they diagnosed him with epilepsy and said that the seizures come from getting too stressed out from studying which will probably be a problem since that is everyday. we are all hoping that he is able to overcome it but we arent quite sure what is going to happen there. he is back right now but started to go into another episode last night so we will see.
during class this week we were doing somewhat of a scripture chase and i came across one in Isaiah 49:16. give it a read if you get a chance. it really made me think about something i had in my farewell talk about how Christ will never forget us because we are His scars, He is with us through our trials and afflictions no matter how big or small they may be, i know that is is true with all my heart. love-jess
this last saturday we went about our usual proselyting business and it was really dead in the streets. Hermana Grow and i ran into some really amazing people though and actually have three appointments for this next saturday which is amazing. we are really excited. one of the women that we are going to teach we ran into as she was going into her gate, as we started to talk to her she just became really overwhelmed because i think she was in alot of pain from arthritis, so we offered to help her and she said that she didnt need it then but we could come back this saturday and help her out at her home and teach her. she was amazing and we are so excited to go back and hopefully we will be able to understand her a bit more this time. we were able to talk to alot of people and it gets better every week, even though we can hardly understand a thing they say. but it will all work out for the best in the future as our spanish comes along.
hmmmm well what else what else..... days are pretty much the same haha. oh ya. one of the elders had a seizure and had to be hospitalized for a few days. guess they diagnosed him with epilepsy and said that the seizures come from getting too stressed out from studying which will probably be a problem since that is everyday. we are all hoping that he is able to overcome it but we arent quite sure what is going to happen there. he is back right now but started to go into another episode last night so we will see.
during class this week we were doing somewhat of a scripture chase and i came across one in Isaiah 49:16. give it a read if you get a chance. it really made me think about something i had in my farewell talk about how Christ will never forget us because we are His scars, He is with us through our trials and afflictions no matter how big or small they may be, i know that is is true with all my heart. love-jess
Sunday, June 20, 2010
June 17, 2010
Well as for a little MTC update there has actually been alot this week!! Argentina played in the world cup on Saturday so we werent allowed to go out and do our usual going out that day. People close down every shop in the entire city to watch the games, this country revolves around soccer, so we pretty much wouldnt have had anyone to talk to. But... we go to go out on Friday instead!! About an hour into our day we ran into the sister missionaries that are serving in the area and we ended up going around with them for a couple of hours. That made me SOOOO excited to get to uruguay. it was so amazing. we actually go to an appointment with a man named Luciano. Oh i wish i could have teleported you here to experience it, it was awesome!! This man lives an extremely humble life, in basically a shack with celophane windows and cement floors. his whole house was no bigger than the size of our old living room. he was the stinkin cutest old man, we sat down with him on these old chairs and the sisters just started talking away. one of the sisters, sister daniels, went to alta high and we actually know alot of the same people. anyway we were able to sit in on the lesson and then got to bare our testimonies at the end. it was such a cool opportunity. i was excited because i actually understood the whole lesson. what we didnt understand sister daniels would translate. she told us how much luciano loved having us there and that we brought a wonderful feeling to his home, which was really exciting to hear. ah i am just so excited to get out there and be able to have my own lucianos that i get to grow to love and teach gospel to.
It really has been a big week! as i told you last week, Elder Andersen came to speak on Tuesday. I think this may have been one of the coolest experiences ever. We were all able to personally meet him and introduce ourselves. He came and shook my hand and the area president was behind him ready to shake my hand, but i was so in awe that i kept looking at Elder Anderson until i heard ´´uh hermana,´´ embarrassing. i totally forgot that he was right behind him and was just staring at Elder Anderson.... oops. Anyway it was really amazing because he was able to just speak on missionary work and i felt like every word he had to say was directed at me. he talked about the hard times we will encounter on our missions but of how much a blessing these times will be because we will turn to God for peace and comfort more than ever. Gosh i am so excited! Anyway i wish you could just experience this all with me but no worries i will talk your ear off when i get home.
Anyway so i told the cook earlier this week that my birthday was on the 29th and he is just the best, he made me a HUGE cake and everyone sang happy birthday.... i think he thought i was leaving with the group that leaves tuesday.... haha oh well.... that just means more cake! His postres that he makes are seriously to die for... SO good. i could eat them all day... so anyway after that i was fixing my hair and found a gray hair... Happy Birthday to me, im gettin old. I know that gray hair would have been pulled out a long time ago if Beth was around, she seems to always find them for me and then attacks them.
So as of this coming tuesday we will be the oldest group at the MTC with three weeks left!! yahoo! i am going to miss it here though thats for sure. i love being around these people everyday and have gotten really comfortable with them.
Well that´s about it. One of my favorite scriptures of the week is John 16:33. Read it if you get a chance, i love it. It has such simplicity to it but is so powerful. Love-Jess
It really has been a big week! as i told you last week, Elder Andersen came to speak on Tuesday. I think this may have been one of the coolest experiences ever. We were all able to personally meet him and introduce ourselves. He came and shook my hand and the area president was behind him ready to shake my hand, but i was so in awe that i kept looking at Elder Anderson until i heard ´´uh hermana,´´ embarrassing. i totally forgot that he was right behind him and was just staring at Elder Anderson.... oops. Anyway it was really amazing because he was able to just speak on missionary work and i felt like every word he had to say was directed at me. he talked about the hard times we will encounter on our missions but of how much a blessing these times will be because we will turn to God for peace and comfort more than ever. Gosh i am so excited! Anyway i wish you could just experience this all with me but no worries i will talk your ear off when i get home.
Anyway so i told the cook earlier this week that my birthday was on the 29th and he is just the best, he made me a HUGE cake and everyone sang happy birthday.... i think he thought i was leaving with the group that leaves tuesday.... haha oh well.... that just means more cake! His postres that he makes are seriously to die for... SO good. i could eat them all day... so anyway after that i was fixing my hair and found a gray hair... Happy Birthday to me, im gettin old. I know that gray hair would have been pulled out a long time ago if Beth was around, she seems to always find them for me and then attacks them.
So as of this coming tuesday we will be the oldest group at the MTC with three weeks left!! yahoo! i am going to miss it here though thats for sure. i love being around these people everyday and have gotten really comfortable with them.
Well that´s about it. One of my favorite scriptures of the week is John 16:33. Read it if you get a chance, i love it. It has such simplicity to it but is so powerful. Love-Jess
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Update from June 4
Hola!! Sorry this is coming a day late, the internet was out yesterday so we were unable to do our emailing. I am hoping everything is going good at home.
Its official it has been three weeks!!! My newest food of the week was pig intestine, sad to say but it actually was really good haha. Oh and they eat halls cough drops here as candy... yuck. I have been told that i look a bit like a chia pet here, you know those ceramic animals that grow plants out of them, my curly hair is outta control and the plugs here are not the same as the states so i am all natural, yehaw. This week the first group of latinos and two of the Americans left the CCM so there were only sixteen of us here for 2 and a half days. Hermana Bowers and Hermana Quartino who were mine and my companions room mates left. It was really sad saying goodbye to them!! We miss them already but Hermana Bowers is serving in Montevideo too so we will be seeing her in six weeks! While Hermana Quartino was here she found out that her dad´s health complications from his stroke had gotten out of control so they were going to take him off life support. The way she took the news was incredible, she had a hard time for a bit, just being here helped her so much.
My companion and I had a mock lesson called an IPE with our teacher last week and it was really exciting because we got really positive feedback! We went out proselyting again on Saturday. Wow, we thought that is was going to get easier but we were both having a really hard time getting out of our shells at first not to mention it was dumping, and i mean DUMPING rain. We had a pretty amazing experience that helped us to get going, after that we talked to everyone that we saw... pretty much whether they wanted to hear what we had to say or not. People here either want nothing to do with you or are quite sweet and understanding, its all a matter of sticking your hand out half way down the block and yelling hola- then hopíng they dont run away. We ran into a guy that thought we spoke german as our primary language, he was a bit disappointed when he found out we didnt. But we were just really excited that we are gaining the confidence to talk to random people, we know we couldnt do it alone though. I am so happy that we get this experience every week, not many missionaries get this opportunity this early on in their missions. I hope it will help me once i get to Uruguay.
Sundays here are the best, I have never enjoyed church so much, especially since i can relate every talk that is given to something i need to work on and my relationship with Heavenly Father. Plus it is so nice to have a little break from classes of course, haha. Our relief society class is taught by the presidents wife, with just my companion and i so it is so fun, she loves to talk, this last week our class went over by a half an hour, but she is amazing and it is so fun to just soak in everything she says.
you to pieces- Jess
Its official it has been three weeks!!! My newest food of the week was pig intestine, sad to say but it actually was really good haha. Oh and they eat halls cough drops here as candy... yuck. I have been told that i look a bit like a chia pet here, you know those ceramic animals that grow plants out of them, my curly hair is outta control and the plugs here are not the same as the states so i am all natural, yehaw. This week the first group of latinos and two of the Americans left the CCM so there were only sixteen of us here for 2 and a half days. Hermana Bowers and Hermana Quartino who were mine and my companions room mates left. It was really sad saying goodbye to them!! We miss them already but Hermana Bowers is serving in Montevideo too so we will be seeing her in six weeks! While Hermana Quartino was here she found out that her dad´s health complications from his stroke had gotten out of control so they were going to take him off life support. The way she took the news was incredible, she had a hard time for a bit, just being here helped her so much.
My companion and I had a mock lesson called an IPE with our teacher last week and it was really exciting because we got really positive feedback! We went out proselyting again on Saturday. Wow, we thought that is was going to get easier but we were both having a really hard time getting out of our shells at first not to mention it was dumping, and i mean DUMPING rain. We had a pretty amazing experience that helped us to get going, after that we talked to everyone that we saw... pretty much whether they wanted to hear what we had to say or not. People here either want nothing to do with you or are quite sweet and understanding, its all a matter of sticking your hand out half way down the block and yelling hola- then hopíng they dont run away. We ran into a guy that thought we spoke german as our primary language, he was a bit disappointed when he found out we didnt. But we were just really excited that we are gaining the confidence to talk to random people, we know we couldnt do it alone though. I am so happy that we get this experience every week, not many missionaries get this opportunity this early on in their missions. I hope it will help me once i get to Uruguay.
Sundays here are the best, I have never enjoyed church so much, especially since i can relate every talk that is given to something i need to work on and my relationship with Heavenly Father. Plus it is so nice to have a little break from classes of course, haha. Our relief society class is taught by the presidents wife, with just my companion and i so it is so fun, she loves to talk, this last week our class went over by a half an hour, but she is amazing and it is so fun to just soak in everything she says.
you to pieces- Jess
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Update from may 27
hello!!!! yehaw!!! im so sorry when i respond i am not really answering any questions or responding to anything you have written, i cant read my emails until i am done emailing... odd system. but no worries fam, i wrote you personal letters through the mail so you should be getting them this week. but here it goes again!! another week at the mtc!! i really love it here!!!
So i will start you off with this past saturday. i dont know if i told you but we went out and did proselitismo... like when you see missionaries walking around talking to people. the day before we were told we were going to go out for a brief two hour session so we planned the night before when we got our maps. 20 minutes before we left they told us they would be sending us our for 7 hours that day. oh boy. i was so excited and so nervous at the same time. we were driven to our area about thirty mins away from the mtc. it was crazy even just driving outside the mtc, drivers are nuts. as soon as we got off the bus elder mcclellan stepped off the bus and what do you know... he stepped in dog poo... welcome to buenos aires. that is no suprise though because there are stray dogs everywhere and dog poo everywhere. i stepped in it several times... i was prepared with my rain boots though since it has been raining like mad. my companion and i went off and started walking through our area. i was pumped. talking to people about their lives and the gospel just made me so excited. i think i kind of forgot there was a language barrier. one by one, i would say hola como te va!! and one by one we were rejected. most people wouldnt even say hi back. it was a very humbling experience to say the least. we did not have our first contact for about the first 30 minutes. we talked to him for a while in really broken spanish, i really cant even re tell what was said because i dont know if it even made sense. since i have to keep this short i will tell you about my most favorite contact of the day. there was a homeless man that approaced us and asked us for food and work. my companion and i always share our food anyways so we gave him one of our sack lunches, he broke down and started to cry, we felt like we needed to leave him with more than just the lunch so we tried to talk to him a bit. about the only thing i could spit out is that i knew he was loved by our Heavenly Father and that he cares about him. he started to cry to us and ask us more but we could not quite understand. we gave him a set of scriptures and asked him to read them, he agreed, kissed us on the cheek and we were off. he was amazing and i hope we were able to help him. at about one everyone goes inside to take a siesta or nap... everyday.... what a life. so the work was pretty sparse after that.
so monday was argentinas celebration of 300 years of independence from spain, with some odd traditions. as my companion and i picked up our lunches that day the kitchen reeked. we sat down and began to pick through the soup we were given and noticed some odd looking stuff. i asked presidente what it was and he just said, hermana kubly, it may be better if you just eat it and dont know. i told him that was a dead giveaway that i needed to know. after a little battle the whole section of teachers eating lunch was betting on when i would throw up. presidente finally told me it was cow stomach. yes i tried it... yes i swallowed it... no i didnt throw up... yes i will avoid ever eating it again if i can. cow stomach is not one of those weird foods that just tastes like chicken, it tastes like it smells, which is one of the worst smells ever. the texture may be the worst part. what a cool experience though, i was way excited to eat something weird. we also ate cow tongue but i couldnt even choke that one down. all the teachers told us to enjoy this while we can because it will only get ten times worse in uruguay haha.
so guess what!! every sunday everyone has to have a talk planned for sacrament meeting on the topic given. somehow once we were done with the prayer i knew it was going to be me, and sure enough, presidente called me up. it was only 5 minutes but it was entirely in spanish!!! luckily i had it all written out but i was happy to have that to practice. after sacrament hermana george, presidentes wife came up and spoke on the topic as well, which was on love. i loved her explanation, she said the things in life that take us to our knees in prayer are the ones that make us learn the most. i know that is true and i am so greatful to have that communication with my heavenly father.
wish i could write more but i am out of time.
thank you for your support and letters!
So i will start you off with this past saturday. i dont know if i told you but we went out and did proselitismo... like when you see missionaries walking around talking to people. the day before we were told we were going to go out for a brief two hour session so we planned the night before when we got our maps. 20 minutes before we left they told us they would be sending us our for 7 hours that day. oh boy. i was so excited and so nervous at the same time. we were driven to our area about thirty mins away from the mtc. it was crazy even just driving outside the mtc, drivers are nuts. as soon as we got off the bus elder mcclellan stepped off the bus and what do you know... he stepped in dog poo... welcome to buenos aires. that is no suprise though because there are stray dogs everywhere and dog poo everywhere. i stepped in it several times... i was prepared with my rain boots though since it has been raining like mad. my companion and i went off and started walking through our area. i was pumped. talking to people about their lives and the gospel just made me so excited. i think i kind of forgot there was a language barrier. one by one, i would say hola como te va!! and one by one we were rejected. most people wouldnt even say hi back. it was a very humbling experience to say the least. we did not have our first contact for about the first 30 minutes. we talked to him for a while in really broken spanish, i really cant even re tell what was said because i dont know if it even made sense. since i have to keep this short i will tell you about my most favorite contact of the day. there was a homeless man that approaced us and asked us for food and work. my companion and i always share our food anyways so we gave him one of our sack lunches, he broke down and started to cry, we felt like we needed to leave him with more than just the lunch so we tried to talk to him a bit. about the only thing i could spit out is that i knew he was loved by our Heavenly Father and that he cares about him. he started to cry to us and ask us more but we could not quite understand. we gave him a set of scriptures and asked him to read them, he agreed, kissed us on the cheek and we were off. he was amazing and i hope we were able to help him. at about one everyone goes inside to take a siesta or nap... everyday.... what a life. so the work was pretty sparse after that.
so monday was argentinas celebration of 300 years of independence from spain, with some odd traditions. as my companion and i picked up our lunches that day the kitchen reeked. we sat down and began to pick through the soup we were given and noticed some odd looking stuff. i asked presidente what it was and he just said, hermana kubly, it may be better if you just eat it and dont know. i told him that was a dead giveaway that i needed to know. after a little battle the whole section of teachers eating lunch was betting on when i would throw up. presidente finally told me it was cow stomach. yes i tried it... yes i swallowed it... no i didnt throw up... yes i will avoid ever eating it again if i can. cow stomach is not one of those weird foods that just tastes like chicken, it tastes like it smells, which is one of the worst smells ever. the texture may be the worst part. what a cool experience though, i was way excited to eat something weird. we also ate cow tongue but i couldnt even choke that one down. all the teachers told us to enjoy this while we can because it will only get ten times worse in uruguay haha.
so guess what!! every sunday everyone has to have a talk planned for sacrament meeting on the topic given. somehow once we were done with the prayer i knew it was going to be me, and sure enough, presidente called me up. it was only 5 minutes but it was entirely in spanish!!! luckily i had it all written out but i was happy to have that to practice. after sacrament hermana george, presidentes wife came up and spoke on the topic as well, which was on love. i loved her explanation, she said the things in life that take us to our knees in prayer are the ones that make us learn the most. i know that is true and i am so greatful to have that communication with my heavenly father.
wish i could write more but i am out of time.
thank you for your support and letters!
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
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!
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!
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