Monday, December 19, 2011

hey everybody!!!

so im sorry about my lack of email last week i seriously spent my whole time writing and pressed send at the very end and it didnt work and so i clicked okay and everything disappeared well my email did and i couldnt find it so i had to go to work. but sooo this week was really good. really busy and really stressful but really good all at the same time. i am so tired but its great bec as soon as i get out the door to go to work i dont feel as hot and tired its only once i sit down and stop. haha a tender mercy from the lord. i know yall probably get tired of hearing this but it is soo hot here. blahhhhh the last couple days have been terrible (heat wise everything else has been great).
So ill start with yesterday and work my way back. so yesterday was church of course. haha but i had to give a talk... uh oh in spanish. but so i prepared and prepared and 2 other relief society sisters talked before me and we all know how much women like to talk. i think they gave great talks from what i could understand but it took up pretty much the whole time so i was hoping to get out of it bu no such luck i was trying to keep it simple and fast but one bad thing about trying to hurry through a talk in a different language is you arent really sure if it comes out the way you intended it too.. so i am still really worried i said something that wasnt true or crazy. but H. Callejas said it was good and the spirit was strong but the best part about it all is that i actually was able to do it in spanish without writing it out word for word the words just kinda blobbed out of my mouth which is what makes me nervous for saying somethng wrong... yeah... anyways so we go and we look for our investigators before church.. and so church starts at 9 so we left at 7:30 and we actually didnt make it to the church till 9:30 (luckily we have relief society first bec we are always late bec were looking for people) so we spent 2 hours walking fast out in the sun we covered like our entire area. i have become quite a walker... but only 2 of the ones we searched out came... its a little disheartening to spend all that time finding htem and then they arent there or dont want to or wont wake up... but one Marcello we had met saturday night he is the uncle of facundo who we baptized the 10th and he is a little special but he came and right afterwards he told h. callejas that he wanted to be baptized!!!! we didnt even say anything about it. he just came up to her and told her! and then we had a lesson with facundos brother who has not been at all in the church at all but him and his friends listened ot us. it was quite a miracle. and we had a really interesting lesson wiht gladis last night but i told you about it in the letter i sent today so i wont repeat it...
    but so saturday we had a baptism! for Facundo (a different facundo there are a lot of people with that name here.)  his brother got baptized about a month ago and Facundo has such a testimony. its interesting bec the first lesson we had with them i was listening to them and santiago has a lot of reservations about the chuch and kept asking all of these weird questions like how do we know theres a god.. etc. and i wondered if he was really the one baptized bec facundo was giving him answers. and he has really studied the bible. he has a special spirit i love him. but so his mom came to the baptism!!! she came to sign his paper saying he could get baptized and we talked to her for a while and she loves her kids so much she is so excited for them to be baptized because she knows its right but she doesnt think that she can bec she has made so many mistakes so we are meeting with her this week... on the 23 but so she was there and the spirit was so strong. i think she is gonna be a lot more receptive now.  keep your fingers crossed. 
    and then friday... friday was quite a day. we were all over the place bec we contacted references and then had to get hte key to the church and then go to facundos interview and we ended up staying there for a while and then we had lessons and had to walk out to the end of the world for lunch and hten we had to study and then a lesson with vanesa and some of our lessons didnt show whihc makes it feel like we arent doing anything when we are waiting at the church for someone to show and we are the only ones there... ahh ... but so we were hurrying as fast as we could to the church for the interview.. we were late and this lady is standing by her gate and calls us over. and so we go over and she starts talking and i dont understand and h callejas says we actually have an appointment weve gotta go. and this lady got kinda hostile and told us no we needed to share a scripture with her. so h callejas pulls out her book of mormon and the lady says no and pushes us in the gate (h callejas whispered to me that she was drunk but i didnt understand until later when she had time to elaborate bec i dont know the word for drunk.. its not in the spanish for missionaries book that ive been studying..) but so she has us sit down and h callejas takes the book of mormon and starts to find a scripture and she says no. im gonna choos and takes the book of mormon and opens it to a random scripture and points to it and h callejas reads it and explains it to her and how she can repent etc. so we start to try and leave and she stops us looks at me and says "now you wheres your bible" and so pull out my book of mormon and she does the same thing but before i could explain we manage to hurry off to our appointment. whew. it was so weird.
   thursday was weekly planning so nothing really exciting happened then. we have that for like 6 hours in a hot room not fun.. but of well
wednesday was zone conference and it was sooo fun it went longer than it was supposed to be but we had so much fun. we all brought white elephant gifts and put them in a bag and at the end one of the elders dressed up like santa and brought them in the president levrino would call a name and wed go get a gift. and a loaf of this chocoalte chip bread (by the way i tried fruit cake this week cause EVERYONE eats it here. gross... ) and took a pic with santa. all the sisters were shaking his hand it was funny. the elders would run and jump on his lap. but i learned so much at the conference. well the part that i understood i learned. i learned a lot about dilligence and thought of new ways to get our numbers up because our zone has been doing really good and making our mission goals so he gave us higher ones... haha. at least i think... i never really know if i hear everthing right. but because our time is so different they christmas devotional was really late so we didnt get to watch it so president levrino played it for us.
oh by the way!!! speaking of christmas im calling home at about 8pm on christmas day so i htink thats about 4 or 5 for you guys.... im not sure you might want to check that.  but im calling form the phone in the capilla (the meeting house) i think and im buying a calling card. thats 50 min. president says i only can talk for 30 minutes which means 40 minutes bec everything lasts longer than he says so he always says 10 min less than we actually get. but so thats less time than michael. i dont know the phone number. but i will call. and ill call the house (the house phone works right? on the invitation it had your cell? should i call your cell? i guess ill find out bec you cant answer.. so im gonna go with the house. and if that doesnt work your cell...)
but so zone conference was really good but its hard to listen to everything in spanish im afraid i tuned a lot out... oops but hte devotional was really good i loved the video they showed. so i complain a lot about spanish but it is getting better every day!!! i actually had conversations with people all by myself this week i was pretty excited. but i should probably go. thats most of my week anyways.
i love yall!!!
and i do get all the emails people send
love
hermana applegate

Monday, December 12, 2011

I am afraid this week it is a little slim on news! Here is the message I got :)


hey mom.... so i just wrote you a really long great email and now i want to cry bec something happened when i sent it and it didnt send and got deleted...a nd now im out of time.... i am so sorry i will send one next week but im great im sad now that you cant read all the cool things i wrote. but i love you im thinking of you im doing great and p day is over so ive gotta go. i loved your songs and i have letters for christmas coming but yours and dads ill have to send in the next weeks stuff bec i ran out of time for that tooo i feel soooooo bad. i love you
jen

Monday, December 5, 2011

First letter from the field!

hey mom!!!
I am here alright. im in Oran (thats as much of an address ive got for you) and it is sooooo HOT!!!! i made it safely and the elders did take care of me the whole time so nothing happened but it was crazy!!!! so we flew 10 hours to get to Buenos Aires and then we got there and they put us all in a line for customs but the mtc gave us this envelope to give people when we got to argentina a nd so we confused all the workers and it took like an hour-hour and a half to get us all done. and then we wandered through the airport until someone from the church found us and they ushered us all to a bus and we drove around for about an hour and then they dropped us off at another airport and left.... we were confused til someone else came up and didnt know how to speak english but got us all on planes so i had another 2 hour plane ride and when the y flight attendant talked to me i realized i cant do this!!! i dont understand a thing and my elders were on different parts of the plane. but i love my mission president in my initial interview he told me that the lord had confidence in me and so he did to. it was exactly what i needed to hear.
Oran is about 5 hours bus ride away from Salta and it is very different we had to hand wash our clothes today which was actually pretty exciting. The people are so friendly and i do A LOT of walking i got a blister on my foot the first day.  and the next day it was bleeding from my shoes and our ward mission leader Jorge came with us and all day they were checking up on my foot and telling me how to take care of it.
 
oh and its actually better that you didnt send a lot in the package bec there is a tax here on packages 50% of the amount claimed on that and then to change that into pesos there are 4 pesos to each dollar so its expensive and sending it to the mission home was exactly right. they go pick them up once a week and get them out to all of the missionaries.  and there is a list of stuff that youre not allowed to send i dont remember all of it and i forgot the paper but i remember clothes is on it and medication like vitamins etc... maybe electronics... ill tell you next week. by the way pday is monday
 
So i had a cool experience this week!!! well ive had a lot. but we stopped by this investigators house i dont remmeber her name.. but we were talking to her and her son came by who si in his 40s or 50s i think and he was talking and being friendly and then all of a sudden he went off about something it had to do with religion i didnt catch a whole lot of it (which happens an awful lot here) but finally i jsut knew that i needed to bear my testimony and tell him i knew god existed so i did very powerfully and hermana callejas (my companion who ill tell you aobut later i still only get 45 min of emailing time)  said we should sing so we sang i believe in chirst in spanish we sing at all of our lessons and so we did and she bore her testimony of the savior and during the song i could see him change. he had tears in his eyes. then he hurried and left.
It was really really cool to see. the people here are so friendly. some of them really intimidate me but they love the missionaries. even if they arent members.  the food here is very different. everything is fried. and my stomach is not happy with me. but thats okay i can at least finnish my plate! barely but hey the people are so nice they really have very little and they still give a lot.
i really love it here but ive gotta go

Sunday, November 27, 2011

hey everyone so guess what?!?!
 
This is the last email im gonna be sending the from the MTC! this is monumental!!! im so stinkin excited.  2 more days and im on my way to Argentina 3 more days and i will be there. im so excited to be there but i am not excited for the whole traveling thing.... im am not a traveler.. but so I am so so glad that i am a light packer. my companion hermana jones has been trying to pack for like 3 days and she is 20 lbs over in weight and like 10 in her carryon!!! and i dont think im gonna have that problem I made sure i was under enough to get some books in there and then im out of a lot of the heavy stuff like shampoo and body wash so taht will free up more space... and i dont have much stuff for a carry on so i can totally fit any extra in there thank goodness!!! but it is funny to watch hermana jones try and figure it out.  I am really sad that i am not gonna see my companions after 8 am monday though!!! it stinks that we are going to different missions (but i keep telling them they will fit in my suitcases!!!)  haha
 
Soooo this week was pretty much AMAZING!!!! i couldnt have picked a better week to leave the MTC on! at the devotional on tuesday we had Elder Christofferson come!!! and it was a pretty much amazing night and then thursday was thanksgiving and let me tell you they know how to do thanksgiving here.  The food was actually pretty decent which was exciting (my moms thanksgiving dinner is better but it still was pretty good for MTC food)  and we had a devotional in the morning and Elder Russel M. Nelson came and talked to us!!! So 2 Apostles this week!!! how cool is that.  I think the coolest part of the devotionals was tuesday when Elder Christofferson came in it was right before the last prelude hymn (we sing A LOT here)  and so we stood up and we stayed standing while singing I Know that My Redeemer Lives!  i mean wow! being able to stand in front of an apostle of God and sing that it was pretty amazing.  But anyway after dinner on thursday (well lunch and they gave us sack lunches for dinner)  we did a service project.  we had a little humanitarian presentation before where they told us about all the humanitarian stuff the church was doing and that was pretty cool to see. and then we made injury kits (4000 of them but my table of 30 only made 160 but with all the missionaries it added up to 4000)  that they are going to send to the Sudan so the people down there can help take care of themselves.  It was not so exciting to pull off one piece of gauze and pass it down to the next person pulling off one piece of gauze... but the missionaries were all singing hymns and laughing and talking and taking pictures it was a lot of fun. nad it was just great to spend thanksgiving helping other people.  Ill tell you what Elders can be really annoying sometimes but they they have a lot of energy nad a lot of them have wonderfully strong testimonies.. The Elders in my district are so amazing i am constantly looking at them and saying wow. that is so cool.  But then after the service project and our sack lunch dinner they had a little program with some thanksgiving songs and musical numbers and Sister Nally (in the MTC presidencys wives...) did a little play with the missionaries dressing some up like pilgrims and turkeys and indians and it was kinda cute.  Then we watched 17 Miracles!!! it was such a good movie!!! I love it and they gave us popcorn which was a big treat. i dont know if you guys think this is as cool as it was but it was really great and a big change from the normal here at the MTC
 
oh and thanks Relief Society for your package!!! i really appreciate it!  It made my day and im sending a better thank you note i promise i just dont have a lot of time emailing
 
Les Quiero!!
Hermana Applegate

Friday, November 11, 2011

hey everyone!!!
 
Just another week here at the MTC! they all sorta just run together so there isnt anything really new.  but i did see an old friend of mine from back in BYU Lisa Corrigan!!!! She teaches here on the floor below my classroom!  It was really good to be able to see her. :)  and then at TRC we taught one of hermano talatainas friends i dont remember her name but she was really nice and we got HUGS!!!!!  I dont think people really realize how precious hugs are until you cant get hugs from like anybody when you need one. Everyday after class (twice a day) our teachers hug the guys but since we are sisters we cant get hugs so we get hugs from everyone we can. thats just a little informational story for you all to know.  but then right after TRC we got rushed over to another building for someother thing which is not normal at all!!! we got to practice asking questions and listening to answers. They had people who were interviewing for acting jobs here at the MTC (who knew the MTC had acting jobs?)  and we got to interview them in spanish. but it was really hard because we could only ask them questions we couldnt respond at all. which is hard and they were all native speakers (at least the ones i talked to were) so i couldnt understand most of what they were saying. which makes it even harder to ask good questions. one girl was getting pretty frusterated with me...  but it was a great practice. 
 
So this week is our consecration week which means we are only talking in spanish which is really difficult sometimes so it doesnt really happen.  especially when we are having comp inventory and you cant get your point across in spanish so you just say it in english. it actually happens more than it should at least for me because i really dont like talking to people who cant speak spanish in spanish i just kinda think thats rude. and our roommates dont speak spanish. well one does but thats just what she learned over the summer. i actually think shes better at spanish then i am... but my spanish has been quite improved since then and it is pretty decent (i.e. i can communicate in another language and understand eople who speak really slow with baby words)  and praying in Espanol is getting more and more fluid.  So thats about all the exciting stuff weve got going on here.  oh and they are tightening security here which is weird... were a bunch of missionaries. but now all the doors are locked and so we have to get out our id cards and swipe them to get into the building which we always forget so we end up standing out in the freezing cold for a few minutes. its been pretty cold lately (maybe thats just cause im always in a skirt... but whatever) its cold and it makes it a little more annoying to have to unlock the doors all the time.  and we arent supposed to hold open door for people we dont know and make them unlock it themselves... weird....
 
anyways! i love yall! Te quiero! (Les quiero?)
 
hermana applegate

Friday, November 4, 2011

Hey Everybody!
 
This was actually a pretty good week! i've learned lots and lots and probably too much to share with y'all because it takes up all my time. i only get 30 min to email.  But this week I really worked with my companions to teach in unity because we are having a lot of problems teaching in unity just because our teaching styles are different and its tricky to figure out a way that works for everyone. :) but i love my companions to death and we have grown sooooo much closer because of it. I think after we taught one day we were in our room waiting for the Elders to come back and we ended up hugging like we do alot because we dont get very many hugs here.... its kinda annoying. our teachers will hug all of the elders, but because we are sisters they cant hug us... howd all the sister teachers end up with the all elder districts in our zone?!?! really?!  but so anyway we were hugging and the elders walked in and were like uh.... and then they left and waited outside until we were done.  it was kinda funny. 
 
So we got new roommates this week! its actually kinda sad.  I loved!!!! the sisters we shared a room with before.  Hermana Matte, Hermana Poulson, and Hermana Brightenstein (i think i spelled that wrong...)  were amazing! and so much fun! and they were spanish speaking so we learned a lot from them.  But they headed out this week and i know they are doing great being out in the field.  but on Wednesday we got some new girls. They are all english speaking though so i never know if i should just speak spanish cause im supposed to speak my language or if i should speak english for their benefit.  They seem really nice though although i am a little bitter about the fact that they get to leave before i do and i have been here a lot longer?!?! whats up with that? oh right... theyre not learning a new language.
 
But so i have gotten really friendly since ive been here.  Its really weird and out of character for me... but I talk to EVERYONE. i swear. i say hello to the girls brushing their teeth with me. or there have been a couple times ive been in the shower and ill start singing and the person in the shower next to mine will start singing with me and then we will start talking and i will have no idea who it is but we will have a great conversation.  Can you say out of the ordinary?! at least for me. but everyone here is so nice.  oh funny story about one of my new roomies!!! haha so everyone who is new here gets a little orange dot on their nametag to say that theyre new nad everyone says hi to them as they are walking around their first day.  But so I made a point to smile at this really cute girl in red that was walking around and then she ended up being my roommate!!!! it was crazy!!!! But she has the cutest purple luggage. it was pretty cool.
 
Haha so on Sunday nights we watch films after the fireside. They usually have one of the big ones playing like the Joseph Smith Movie or the Testaments or Legacy in the gym. and this week it was The Testaments and I LOVED it!!! Okay so i have to say my favorite part was when Christ came (of course) and he was looking out over the crowd  and he looks straight at Jacob (the main character who took awhile to decide the church was true) and you could just see in his eyes the Love he had for Jacob and for that people and it was remarkable to me that in that time when everyone was vying for his attention, Christ took the time to look straight at one person who needed to feel his love nad know that he loves him.  And it is a great testimony to me that Christ knows and loves each and everyone of us. He loves us so much that he will take the time to look you straight in the eyes when he is wrapped up in eveything else to convey that love.  He has done this multiple times.  He took the time to seek out the woman who touched the hem of his robe.  he took the time to bless each and every child and there were probably a lot.
 
Yo soy me Salvador vive.  yo soy Dios es nuestros (nosotros?) Padre Celestial y nos ama.  Yo soy la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias (I cant get my accent button to work right sorry)  es verdadera. Yo soy Jesucristo es nuestros Salvador y Redentor.  Yo soy misionario trabajar es importante... okay i need to work on grammar more but it is a work in progress!
 
Les Quiero!!!

Friday, October 28, 2011

October 28, 2011

hey there everybody!
 
P-day is here again which is really weird because it feels like i had p-day like 4 days ago... but everyone tells me its been a week so ill believe them.  haha Time here is all weird. The days seem to last for FOREVER!!!! im not even kidding people will ask when did we do this? and the answer will be ummm this morning. and youll swear it was a week ago but then you look at the days youve been here and you think. there is no way ive been here that long. i mean talk about a time warp!!! But i am officially at the half-way point here at la CCM (MTC in spanish)  And thank goodness for that. i dont really like it here.  everyone says you should love it whereever you are and i do love being able to just study for hours at a time,but at the same time. i eat sleep and live in about 3 buildings and 2 of them are right next to each other. and then im in 1 room in each building it gets a little old but it makes people very interesting...... its fun. it really is im just ready to meet real people!!! i cant wait to go
 
This anxiousness is actually because this week i had like 3 meetings for my Visa. on monday all the Argentina people in my district (there are 4 of us) got a paper saying we had a meeting on tuesday from 9-12:30 and one on wednesday from 9-11.  can you say long meetings!!! so i got to just go with my elders so my companions wouldnt miss class. btu so the first meeting they needed to finger print everyone going to argentina! did you know there are 10 missions in argentina! so thats a lot of missionaries going to argentina.  so i sat there for 2 hours before i was called up to be fingerprinted.thank goodness i brought stuff to study. i read Esther. which by the way is a wonderful book in the Old Testament. i think it is one of my favorite stories! :)  but so then the next day we had to meet a member from the Argentine Consul. SCARY!!! and on the memo telling about the meeting they said the elder had to wear suit coats and it seemed like we were going to appear one by one in front of hte consul member so i made sure i looked nice (which doesnt usually happen here) and was really worrid but she just talked to us a lot about argentina then we went and signed a paper (the one with our fingerprints) and she signed it to and that was nice to not actually have to talk to her.  but she seemed really friendly. but her answer to most of our questions was look it up. which is hard to do when you can only read certain things and cant get on the internet but so i guess we will have to see when we get there. but she did say the food was really good and if you dont like the food you probably went to a place that didnt make good food. haha which makes sense. and apparently there is really good ice cream which i am really excited about. but then yesterday we were in class and they called us all down to the travel office (the ones of us going to argentina) oh and did you know taht there is an MTC in argentina?  so all the elders were like "oh you guys are leaving!!!!" but it was just because they changed the policy for visas so we needed to get  adifferent picture taken.  so i dont know how many of you guys know this but i had to go get my picture taken for my visa andi couldnt smile (so everyone looks angry in them) it had to be the right side of my face with my ear showing.  and it was so hard to take!!! i kept smiliing and now i had to get another one. and i still couldnt show teeth when i smiled so i looked weird.  but anyway! hopefully i will be getting my visa soon which is super duper exciting!!!
 
Im not really sure what other exciting things have happened this week.... it gets pretty monotonous here at the ccm. i do the same thing everyday. sometimes gym will be at different times but thats about it..... oh one more thing!!! i got called(assigned?) as the music coordinator in my branch/zone. so i get to pick the hymns for sacrament and elders quorum and find piano players and conductors and make sure that there is a musical number. So that s pretty nice for me because it gives me something else to do and keeps me a little more sane. and i dont know everything seems so much more exciting here than it does in real life so im sorry if i say something is exciting and yall think im nuts!!! Cause i probably am... everyone goes crazy here! im pretty sure. at least the ones who are here for a long period of time like 2 months.  my companions will just laugh at nothing and so one day they just started laughing as we were walking up the stairs and they couldnt walk anymore  cause they were laughing so hard. so i sat on the stairs to wait and whne they were done they looked at me and started laughing again! it took like 5 min to get up the stairs.
 
Well i hope everything is good with  everyone at home!!! i love yall. happy birthday aubri!!!!
 
Te Quiero!
Hermana applegate