Mannnny Miracles

This week was filled with Miracles. So, Tuesday was our knocking on doors day, and  that rocked! We found a young man who lives with his siblings, his name is German! He just eats up whatever we teach him! He loooves learning about the gospel, and cant seem to get enough. We cant come back and teach him again as quick as he would like. haha. He is a stellar kid. Then, we felt like we needed to go teach one of our old investigators again... and MIRACLE. She understood everything we told her. She understood the importance of attending church, the importance of baptism, the miracle of the restoration, why it is sooo important that we follow Jesus Christ. Seriously, she rocks. She is getting baptized! Then Helen, the lady I talked about last week, well..... GONZALO LEFT HER!! He is goooone! So now she can get baptized! She is a tad heartbroken, but it is being filled with her excitement for her baptism on the 7th! She seriously rocks. Small miracles, but enough that... man. The Lord will help you in your life. No matter what.

I had the chance to see Hermana Hiskey twice this week! She was my best friend in the CCM, and I miss her like crazy! But TWICE I got to see her! haha We had a conference that was an answer to my prayers. I´ve been struggling with the dead guy I saw. I keep having nightmares, and I the image would keep popping in my head at random points during the day. Then Hermana Willard talked on how important it is to control our thoughts. And I thought of some ways that I can help myself not think so much on this Dead Guy. And so I tried them. AND THEY WORKED. Sometimes, the Lord requires us to make an even GREATER effort in our lives before we recieve the answer to our prayers. I absolutely love it here.

All the guys here whistle at us... Im not a fan. Number one, I´m a missionary. I´m not gonna respond to your whistles or nasty english phrases. Number two, even if I wasn't a missionary, I´m not a dog either. sooo..... Yeah. I¨m learning to tune it out. I sing a lot in the streets as we are walking. It helps me not notice it! haha and it helps me learn the spanish hyms better!

It was freezing this week. there´s utah cold, then there´s  our window leaks when it rains and so our house floods and then freezes because of the cold.. cold. haha I wore four pairs of pants to bed last night. and three pairs of socks. and four shirts, and my scarf and hat... and my winter coat as an extra blanket. Humidity makes the cold... SO COLD. hahaha

Anywho, it was a week filled with miracles, and there was many times when I knew the Lord was watching over me. Hermana Willes told me the first week that the Lord will show me every day that he loves me. sometimes I may have to look for it, but he will show me. and it is so true. as the day goes on, I look for things to write in my miracle journal, and I find that the day feels better if I do that.

The Lord loves you! I promise! Have a great week everyone!

Note from mom,
As much as we are all dieing to see pictures from Alex they might be a while in coming. For some reason the computer she gets to use won't recognize that her camera is plugged in or is having other difficulty. She is going to try her companions camera with her SD card next week in hopes that that will work but if not we may have to wait for her to be moved to a new area before we see pictures.  Sad day! When we do get them though I will do my best to go back and add them to the posts they belong to, or maybe if I can't tell what goes where I may just have one big long post full of pictures. Hopefully she can get this figured out soon since this has been a problem since arriving in Bolivia. As for me, I'm going to start praying that she can get the technical problems worked out so I can see my baby girl again.

The life of a missionary...

Sooooo.... this week sucked. I´m glad i came here just at this time though, cause it can only get better from here! We had an amazing week planned, with what we thought were tons of great investigators.. and we taught five or six lessons this week. Everyone just either didn't want us back, forgot we had a lesson, sent their kid to say they weren't home, or didn't have time. mostly, they just didn't want to hear from us. I cant even tell you how many nights I cried myself to sleep this week. Oh wait, I can. 7. It was rough.. Super rough. So yesterday, when EVERYONE we planned on teaching fell through, we had a huge talk. We felt we needed to drop all our investigators that weren't progressing. We only have One. Leonardo Sanchez! Super stellar kid, and he is super excited! He came to church yesterday and loooved it. We are keeping another investigator just because it is a special case. She is pregnant and wants to leave her boyfriend, but he wont let her and is a alcoholic. Long story short, He is manipulative. But God still loves him! It was a hard decision, and we cried lots of tears, but this is the mission! We have come to love these people, but they don´t want it. We have no other option. Tomorrow we decided to spend the day knocking doors. We have one appointment scheduled, but other than that, we are knocking! The members are super helpful when we have someone to teach, but they dont have anyone for us to teach... so they say. 

I´m understanding Spanish way good! I can understand about 70 percent of what I hear, and about 85 percent of what I read, but speaking.. Eh. Ill get there! haha It´s a process, and it cant be learned all at once! My companion is so wonderful! She is teaching me so much, and we have so much fun together! We work well together, and she always helps me when i cant remember something. She helps me in the streets with memorization and other Spanish vocab, so it´s awesome. 

The people here love my hair... and my eyes. They call me Barbie.... hahah It cracks me up. I decided to grow my hair back out... I seriously miss it. haha. It was pouring almost all week. Then the time would come to leave the apartment, and it would clear up! Tender mercies all over the place! 

The best part of this week, is that I never felt alone. At times when I would be struggling to fall asleep, caught up in my own thoughts, crying and pleading with my Father in Heaven to help us find new people to teach, to help me with the language, to help my companion, to help me be the best missionary i can be... In these times, I never felt alone. Not even for a second. I could almost feel someone else with me. It has been the strongest feeling... and I dont ever want to lose it. This is the lord´s work, and he wont let me fail! 

Pink hair for daaaaaayzz

Okay, my first week in Bolivia was rough.

Shout out to Aunt Shalan for sending me an awesome letter! in it she mentioned that talk from conference where the girl missionary got mashed potatoes launched at the back of her head! i loved it! so I got that letter Wednesday, and then Friday when we were walking to a cita, we passed a school! And these ADORABLE girls dumped pink yogurt all over my head. I loved it! Pink hair, Stinky hair, Sticky hair, and to top it all off, the sun baked it! Man I smelled real good!:)

Welcome to Bolivia! 

My companion is super cool! She gets kinda frustrated when I dont understand what she is saying in Spanish, and have to have it translated, but it´s only making me work harder to learn the language! Sometimes she talks about me in Spanish when I am standing right there, but luckily I dont know enough to know exactly what she says! :) Blessings of learning a new language! hahaha It is fun though. We dont get hot showers, and the water is only in drips, so it takes a while to get yourself clean, but at least we have water! I have about 90494675 bug bites, despite how much bug spray I put on, but I haven't gotten sick, so the Lord is looking out for me! 

This work is hard. I am amazed at how quickly I came to love the people. We had our first lesson with a new investigator on Thursday, and the spirit was SO STRONG. I know that she felt it! She agreed to come to church with us, and when we went to go pick her up... My heart broke. She wasn't home. But, that´s how it is with a lot of these people. They agree to commitments solely to be nice, or only to get you off their porch, but when it comes time to follow up, they dont want to have anything to do with it. Then we have a family.. ish. they are living together, and she is pregnant with a little niña! but they dont want to get married. they want to be baptized, but they dont want to get married! 

A lot of citas fall through. people either forget and are busy, or they just dont answer, or they tell you never mind. And it breaks my heart. I feel like nothing I do is helping, and these people really don"t care.

Then I have a  lesson with 16 year old Raquel. And the first thing she asks is "My grandma said you worship Joseph Smith, and you dont believe in the bible...but I want to know the truth." And suddenly, it is all worth it. Suddenly you feel the joy that comes from sharing the gospel in greater abundance than you have ever felt in your life. And it is all worth it. 

Church yesterday was rough, cause I hardly understood anything. And my poor companion just had to watch me cry... She doesn't understand, it´s not her fault. But I hope all you wonderful Mothers and Grandmothers our there had wonderful mothers days! 

Oh, and I saw a person dead on the street. Found out today he was murdered, but I didn't want to know how. I had seen enough and the image is stuck in my head. It´s not like the movies, I promise. 

I love you all! Thank you for all your support! Keep sending letters! Cause... Yeah i like letters... haha love you all! Happy week! 

Love, Alex!

First thoughts of Bolivia

  I made it to Bolivia. super cool, as we got out of the airport I just FELT that this was perfect. The roads are rivers, the humidity is horrid, the dust is flying everywhere, but i feel like this is heaven!

Tender mercies

Well, we got our Latin companions! I'm SO glad i can understand her! She is a sweetheart and has such an amazing testimony!!

This is my new companion

Story time... So our Latins were in a meeting the first day, and my old district had NOTHING TO DO. So, some of the teachers took us out to the streets to meet people! Super fun! We got to proselyte (however you spell it) for about two hours! I loved it! The language is coming great! I'm not perfect by any means, but it is definitely getting better! ha ha anyway, so we decided to talk to an older fellow who was just hanging around the park. As we start to talk to him, he said he spoke English! Me and Hermana Feddock just looked at each other and almost cheered!!! We were so happy! WE LOVE ENGLISH. So then we start talking to him and getting to know him a bit and then begin to share the message of the Restoration. It was horrible. it just felt off. We could not get the right words to say in English. It was so hard. So I look at Hermana Feddock, and start talking in Spanish again. It went sooooooo good after that. The guy wants to bring his family to church. Him and his wife had been wondering which church really was right, and we have it! It reminded me of a scripture in Alma. Alma 29:8 says that the gospel will be taught in their own language. I am a fulfillment of this, and here I am, So glad I can finally teach a lesson in English, and it's HORRIBLE. Guess the Lord really needs me sharing the gospel in Spanish!! 

I had another tender mercy... about forgiveness. Our CCM president really didn't like us very much. We were too happy around others, we were too excited, we sang to much in class (hymns might i add....) and when we go to apologize and ask for his forgiveness, that we really are trying to do better, but we need a little guidance sometimes, he chews us out in front of all the new north Americans. He told us we were stuck in high school, and we would be terrible missionaries... and then in a fireside to the Latins that night, tells them all about what we have done. It was a rough few days. I was so upset. I felt like I had to change who i was completely in order to do as he directs. So i prayed for daaaays for help. It was one of the hardest things i have ever done. I need to follow his direction, but i felt so lost and so confused and so sad. It hurt. I kept praying for help to forgive him and to be better. And it WOULDN'T come. I know God answers prayers in his own time, but this was hard. Then we were outside for class and Presidente asks to talk to me. He gathered all the girls who had tried to apologize and he took us into his office and he apologized for all that he had done. He had told us that he was way in the wrong, and he didn't have any right to say what he said to us, especially to others. And then with tears in his eyes, he asked for our forgiveness. He told us that he loves that we sing, because none of the Latinos can sing. He said it's good to hear good voices. And then a miracle happened. I knew that I had no hard feelings towards him anymore. I knew that my prayers had been answered. I dont know what made him say what he said, but it doesn't matter.

  The power of forgiveness is real. The power of the atonement is strong and true, and this gospel is THE restored church on the earth today. And I know it. To phrase what Joseph Smith said, I know it, I know that God knows it, and I cannot deny it. Have a great week everybody! my next email, I will be in Bolivia! Adios! :)

This is my new district!

And my best friend in the CCM Hermana Hiskey