Well I made it here and I'm writing you from the mission home right now! How cool is that? We are only allowed to write three lines so this will be kinda short. Anyway, I made it here safe and it is HOT! The mission president and his wife are really nice and the mission home is way nice. It took us longer than usual to get here because there was a massive bus wreck right in front of us...kinda crazy! anyway I better peace but I will write more on Pday! Love you all! xoxo Hermana Ahrendsen
Family and friends!! I love you! I love reading all your emails...I spend my 22 minutes of internet time each week mostly reading....I love hearing about everything. I am SO sorry, I wish I could respond better to everything but they are a lil craze here and give you the boot super quick but its all good, keep writing me!! I look forward to it every week! Well Its been another week and on Tuesday I am officially leaving for El Salvador.....its so crazy that I have already been here for 6 weeks! I have loved my time here, it will be
sad to leave for sure. Yesterday we got a little class about what to say when you get to El Salvador and they ask you why you don't have a Visa...ha ha it was pretty funny. So nope we are still waiting for those but going anyways! We are actually taking a bus so I wont be able to call :( but that's okay because you know what?? Christmas is right around the corner! I am glad to hear everyone is still doing well! Well my companion is Hermana Allison Bowers. We went out tracting again on Tuesday..it was an awesome experience. We talked with lots of people and met our goals we made too which was awesome! If the Lord
wants it done it will get done...i really saw that as I was surprised a couple times when people could understand me about things I was saying. Well the chronic stomach problems live on here...ha ha you
know how they say sometimes the Latino culture doesnt even realize they are having stomach issues because its a daily occurance. I think we now all understand...its a little weird but you get use to it quick! Man I cant believe how many experinces I have had already and its only been 2 months I am so excited to be able to continue the Lord's work in the mission field (I was starting to feel like the CCM was my mission ha ha) People are waiting and need to hear the word and I can't wait to help in the process of bringing them to the fold! Every time I think about it, I think about how incredibly blessed I am to be doing this work...its the best in the world! Thanks again for all the support and love! Xoxo Hna Ahrendsen
Hey there! Whats going on? Sounds like everything is doing well in Idaho...the family reunion sounds fun and the BBQ beef sounds soooo good...I will admit, the food has really been an adjustment for me..I
didn't think it would be but it for sure is..i am always trying something new. We are going on a tour of Guatemala this tuesday and going to the street market which I am excited for. We are all SO excited to get out. The CCM here is triple-gated with 24 hour guards on watch armed with guns...and when we walk to the temple or out to the street they have guards set up all along out path with guns and walkie-talkies.... somewhat resembles jail?? maybe...haha just kidding its all good...They are good to us here. Speaking of
the temple- we went again on thurs and went to the distribution center after and seriously everything is so cheap i couldn't believe it. They have quetzeals here and its about 8 quets to a dollar...and the garments at the distribution center were about 4 quets....50 cents roughly...is that not crazy? we all wanna stock up before we leave. They have the testaments and legacy DVDs for a dollar- its crazy. This next time we go to the temple they informed us it will be all in Spanish...yes everything!...I'm a little nervous but it will be cool for sure. I have 3 more weeks! Isn't that nuts!? We went out tracting on Tuesday and were paired with a
Latina companion....it was awesome. I said "we are representatives of Jesus Christ and we want to share a message with you".. and then my companion took over and I basically didn't understand anything from
there.....ha ha, but my companion was super nice and so cute. We handed out pamphlets and got lots of people's contact info for the missionaries to meet with them..and then on the bus ride home I sat by a man and talked to him and gave him my Book of Mormon they gave us to hand out. Actually my Latina roomie in front of me spoke mostly ha ha, but i started the convo and wrote my name in the book and gave it to him so
that counts right? Anyway it was awesome to interact with the people- they are so nice and willing to listen to you. So this last sunday..i spoke in church. They give you the topic before hand and then at the
pulpit they announce who will speak...I was dying when they said "hna anderson".. I turned to my roommate and then looked back at president from the stand and he just smiled. I'm sure my spanish was horrible but its all a learning experience and i had this sense of..'ahh..you did it...loving feeling from my heavenly father when I sat down' it really was a cool experience. Really this whole experience thus far has been so humbling. I am learning what it means to rely soly on the Lord because without him you really cant do this work. Also I have really gained a testimony of how incredibly important the book of mormon is....it is SOOO important that you read every day. Never never let a day go by that you don't read...that is how true conversion happens, and hey the stories in it are amazing once you get into it. Really though, you learn so much. Love you all sooooo much!! Sending my love from C.A.!
Hna Ahrendsen
PS Be jealous of the weather; it is perfect everyday...rains, and then sunny with a tiny draft...Beautiful! A nice change from idaho ;) just sayin.....
Fam...wassup! Well it sounds like everyone is doing well..This week we got to go to the temple...it was
pretty small but very beautiful. There were also TONS of people there...2 busses full of people from Honduras came to go the temple. It was a 16 hour bus ride! How crazy is that? Anyway the MTC here is
connected to a building that is housing for people when they come to go to the temple so they were all around the MTC and at the temple. Anyway our session got delayed 45 minutes so we had to wait outside the temple and attempted to talk to a bunch of them. My companion is really good at understanding and responding and its pretty cool/sometimes discouraging because i cant say much but its a process
always....the people were SO nice! And after a while they started saying "photo!!" "photo!!" so we took lots of pictures with them....a lot of the time they just stared at me and my comp (my teacher said it was because we have blonde hair blue eyes and white skin) I wished i would have had my camera but the MTC took out camera passport iPod...basically anything valuable the first day and we only get it back the second to
last day we are here...kinda lame. Anyway i have another medical training today.....I think we Skype with the other nurses who know i will let you know about that though. I better get going though...thanks again for the emails and thanks mom for sending my package! I love you all so much!! have a great week! xoxo Hermana Ahrendsen
Hello Everyone!
Well I hope you got my last email but I didnt hear from anyone....but I'm here and things are going. We have a mix of Latinos and north americans. I try to talk to the Latinos but mostly I just don't know what they are saying and just smile and nod ha ha. The food here is very different. For some reason I just thought it would be kind of the same but it is most definitely not. We had chips and salsa yesterday for breakfast...and a couple days ago we had a seminar about the rules in the MTC and one of them was to eat EVERYTHING they give you so I have been trying but it is way hard...i.e. last night they gave us this massive piece of fish...and so I was like 'you know I will try it' so I took one bite and thought it would probably be more offensive to throw it up than to throw it away...but I at least tried! It really has taken some getting used to. They have huge freezers full of ice cream too which are SO good/will be the death of me. If I could only eat that I would be happy....ha. So the gym is a dot big....they have a few machines but so many people have gym at the same time that we usually end up watching the Latinos play soccer. Hmm what else....oh yes they have snack time every night like one hour after dinner where you tell them a new word you learned and get a treat...one of my favorites. The temple is very beautiful. We went there yesterday as a class which was awesome to get out because we haven't been outside these gates since we got here....anyway we had to go and find a member at the temple and share a message with them. That was a little scary but they were very willing to stop and listen...no way would that have been the case anywhere in the US just saying. So mom about my glasses....I don't know what to do. It seems super sketchy to send them here, but I don't know what else to do! A girl got a package yesterday from her family with treats in it and it was opened with a bite taken out of a Rice Krispy treat they sent her.....anyway let me know what you think. I am trying to just write everything out in this short time and its not organized at all, so sorry. So we have Latino teachers that speak a tiny english but hardly anything. We have this one teacher that tries so hard to speak english and I cant help but laugh every time.. and then I think 'what does he do when I try and speak spanish, he is probably dying!' It helps being around spanish all the time, unlike the Provo MTC, but I still have to try really hard and listen to pick out words to understand and usually I have to tell them to repeat it a few times too ha ha. Well we had a cool experience yesterday where we took turns teaching the missionaries in our room how to pray and the teacher played Paul Cardell's piano song 'Baptism' (which was amazing because I have not listened to music since I left), and even though we knew they weren't real investagators, I could feel the spirit really strong testifying to me again that the things we were teaching were true and the things they said during their prayer were true as well. My companion is really good and patient with me because she can speak fairly well and understand me, but she is good about teaching me and answering my questions. Tomorrow is Sunday and they told us that they will randomly call on two missionaries to speak 5 minutes before sacrament
starts...and then in district meeting they will call a companionship up to teach a topic for 20 minutes....I am so nervous about that....scares me for sure...so guaranteed I will get called on because they said the new ones always do! Well I better wrap this up. Love you all! Xoxo- Hermana Ahrendsen
