Grant...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! You are 15! What the heck!? Where did all the time go? We have had a lot of birthdays here in the ward this week and every time we had a party I was thinking about you. Birthdays here are crazy! It is a day of pranks really. Yesterday we celebrated Fransiscos (the ward mission leader) and his son, Edwardos Birthdays. They are so stinking cool! I love them both very much. As a side note Edwardo got his mission call this week to El Salvador! He will be a TOP NOTCH missionary. Anyways for their birthday party we had Chinese food, games, cake and like I said PRANKS. One tradition here is to smash eggs on the Birthday boys or girls head haha. I did not see that coming. The whole house was covered in broken eggs by the end of the day. I am getting nervous for my birthday now. Hermana Nohela said she is already planning it! She has a new question for me every day like.... What is my favorite color? What is my favorite sweet? What do I want for dinner? What games do I want to play? She is so sweet! Anyways I hope you had a GREAT DAY!! What did you ask for this year? Do anything fun with your friends? Have any eggs smashed on your head??? LOVE YOU BUD!!!
Okay so this week has been really interesting. We have been working SUPER hard to find families. As a zone we have a goal to all baptize two families this month. Well it seemed like all our hard work was paying off because we found 3 GOLDEN families at the start of this week. We were so pumped! The most prepared family lives in a tiny little home at the top of a mountain.... of course. The husband’s name is Carlos 34 and the wife is Jackaline 17. It is really common here for the girls to be married SUPER young. Most girls start having kids at the age of 16 or 17. It is CRAZY to me. She has a kid with a different man but he is no longer in the picture. Her daughter lives with her mom about 6 hours away from Matagalpa so she likes to visit her every other week. Anyways they are just GOLDEN I tell you. Carlos is about prepared as a person can be. He is always so excited to see us and eats up EVERYTHING we share with him. He committed to be baptized the first day. Jackaline has been a little harder to work with because she is just so stinking young. Carlos is a great help to us though and is very supportive. She finally decided to accept the invitation to be baptized and get officially married after 3 lessons. However, this past Thursday she left to go visit her daughter again and was unable to come to church. We understood she needed to see her child though and still felt good about this family. Saturday night we went to check on Carlos and share the video Finding Faith in Christ with him. PS that video is so golden. Watch it for FHE tonight. Anyways after sharing the video with him and visiting we told him we would come back Monday night so he and Jackaline could accompany us to FHE in a members home. It was then he dropped a BOMB on us. He said that Jackaline had called and decided to bring her daughter back with her. Right now Carlos and Jackaline live with Carlos´s mom. When Carlos told his mom this, she said they had to move because she didn’t like the idea that this girl wasn’t his kid. So TODAY they are moving to a new home. He just wanted to give us the directions so we could visit them in their new home. He gave us the directions and we realized they would no longer be in our area...NOOOOO!!!!!!!! Ugh I felt like my heart had been ripped out. We are going to tell the other missionaries in that area about them but man that HURT!
In other news we had another baptism this Saturday! WOOT! It was of a cute 9-year-old girl Sintia. She is a daughter of a less active family. Over the past couple weeks we have worked with them and got them to start going to church again. She was so excited to be baptized and become a member of this church. It has been awesome to see the change in this family. The excitement they have to learn more about this Gospel is infectious. They live at the top of a HUGE MOUNTAIN. When we start going up the mountain ppl start saying the HERMANAS are coming and by the time we get to their house they are usually waiting out front so excited to see us! They have nothing right now. Not even food but they are so happy to just have this Gospel. It is pretty incredible.
Okay odds and ends. The language still sucks. I can feel myself starting to understand more but it is still hard to talk. In my setting apart blessing it said the language would come to me in this manner though. Whenever I say something in English in my head I quickly stop and think about how I would say it in Spanish. Then I say it to my comp and we both laugh about how off I am. The hard thing about Spanish for me is that it doesn’t translate the same. The order of which you say things is different, the words you would use are different and the verbs are just mean haha. I work at it everyday though and I know I am going to learn it through the help of the Lord.
I think I may have told you last week how much I hate the dogs here but I will say it again... I HATE DOGS! They are EVERY WHERE. This week a stupid dog basically attacked my comp one night. We were both screaming and running and I was trying to kick the thing before it bit her. I was too late...lucky it didn’t break the skin so she was okay. It has been SUPER HOTT this week and we have had some CRAZY rainstorms. It is so weird how fast the rain starts. It can go from absolutely nothing to a straight up down pour in a matter of seconds! Also the men here are RIDICULOUS! I hate going into the city because all the men start making weird noises, following me around and saying things. I am glad I can't understand yet. I just have to learn to ignore them. People here LOVE GRINGOS! Several times a day ppl stop to ask if I am from America and then take a picture of me. It is so odd. All the little kids call me princess or Barbie. I have been told I look like Ariel, Belle, Kirsten Stewart, and Carrie Underwood.... basically any American haha. I am starting to think all Americans just look the same to them here. I think I told you about the cute little sweet shop we found. Well it should be no surprise to you that it is now an addiction. We go EVERY DAY! My favorite thing there is this chocolate filled doughnut pastry type thing. I also get tres leche a lot too. MMM SO GOOD!
I think I have told you about Hermano Hector and how awesome he is! Well he has had us over EVERY DAY this week for a meal. It is so sweet. He has lots of fruit trees and always sends us off with BAGS and BAGS full of mangos and guavas. This week was no different. I tried a lot of new things at his home this week. Straight up rice, beans and a tortilla is still my favorite though.
So right now I am studying in Mosiah. King Benjamin is INCREDIBLE. You guys should study those first few chapters of Mosiah as a family. I am learning so much from him and the examples of his ppl. Their desire to keep the commandments of Christ is incredible! One of our less actives Jesus is really struggling with the Word of Wisdom right now. I think these passages are really going to help him. He just needs that extra push right now I think.
Oh and can you tell my students I hope the recital was a complete Success!!! I have been thinking about them and praying that their recitals were spectacular. I know they were! I CAN'T WAIT to dance with them all again and already have SWEET ideas for competition dances. One word BEYONCE. Love all you cute girls!! Keep dancing for me!
Oh and random fact for you mom... my eyes are GREEN! Yes straight up green right now it is so weird. Ppl comment on them all day long. It is the strangest thing. The members say I have cat eyes.
Okay I have to go now! I love you all!!!! DAD, BRANSON, GRANT, GRANDPARENTS, COUSINS, AUNTS, UNCLES, FRIENDS and STUDENTS!!!!! Until Next week!
Love,
Hermana Kendall aka SAVANNAH
Oh how I miss my name!
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