April 11th & pics and April 18th letter

April 18th

HELLO FAMILY!!

Well first and foremost, I would like to give a little shout out to the office Elders. I hope that my blog is everything that you hoped and dreamed. ha

Now....where to start...? Nothing super thrilling happened this week. Veronica (the lady that had a baptismal date) told us that she is not ready to get baptised yet and doesnt want to meet with us anymore. Cool. We did have a baptism this week though. It was a 9 year old little boy named Marcos. His whole family are members but not completely active. What happens is, if a kid is 8 years old, and their family is active, they can just get baptised. But if theyre older than 8, we have to teach them first. The family could not remember how old he was so it took quite a while to figure things out but they finally came to the conclusion that he was 9 years old. Not even the mom knew his birthday! haha Thank you for remembering when you gave birth to me mom! So he is the most darling little thing ever and I love him! He was sooo happy after he was baptised and it was precious. So our fake (fill in, until we get another one) bishop set goals with us and the dad of the family to reactivate some of the family and set goals for Marcos to get the Priesthood and stuff. Im excited! Marcos is one of the little boys in the street that follows us around and asks us how to say stuff in English. There are like 5 little boys that every time they see us, they run up to us and give us hugs and ask us how to say stuff in English. So precious. There are also a pack of not so little boys that always talk to us on the street. They always tell us to come and talk to them. So one day I was unusually annoyed by it and I invited them all to church. haha They said they would go if we would give them the discussions first. ha! No thank you.

Weve been working a lot lately with Inactive members. None of our other investigators look real promising but we will find them soon. I just keep telling myself that. For some of these people, (the inactives) its like theyre our investigators cause they do not know ANYTHING about the church. I actually really like teaching them. And theyre usually pretty willing to come to church. A lot of them left the church because they got offended by someone in the church. That is really frusterating to me because the people in the church have nothing to do with the truthfulness of it all but what can ya do?

This week, I have gotten so many clothes given to me. For some reason people love giving me clothes but the problem is...is that I would never be caught dead wearing them. And one lady gave me one of her shirts and I tried to refuse it nicely but she insisted. So I took it and said thank you. And she said "if you are really grateful, ill see you wearing it". Oh dear. That same lady that gave me one of her shirts asked me if she came to visit me, if I would accept her. So I said yes of course! And she was so excited and said ok great! We{ll only be living with you for a few months! Just while my husband starts work there!! Uhh....whoops. Sorry dad, we{re going to be having some illegals living with us. Are you cool with that? haha

Well in answer to your questions....my clothes are awful! They are all getting holes in them and are super hot, I hate them! haha But the good news is...I went shopping last week in some "pacas". They are just stores with used American clothes in them. Thats where everyone gets their clothes. It was so funny cause I was in heaven and I got a new shirt and skirt and was sooo happy. And then I realized....half of these clothes are probably mine that I gave away at home. What is this world coming to? haha
Yes, they have the most delicious fruits here! Lots that I have never tried before. My favorite right now if Mango. They are in season and people have Mango trees everywhere and give us giants bags of Mangos all the time. So Ive been eating so many! I think they are way better here but I think that about most things. hehe

Well sorry if this letter is so short but I cant think of anything else I have to say that is exciting! Except that in 2 days I will have 6 months in the mission! Weird! Thank you for all the letters and emails! I love you all sooooooooooo much!

Love, Hermana Kami Alyse Alston

April 11th letter and pictures

Hello my dearest family!

So Im pretty sure that this week was rather uneventful but Ill do my best to say something interesting.

Well unfortunately our baptism fell through. She got terrified and doesnt know if she wants to even learn more. And we keep on seeing her husband in the street and he just goes on and on about how much he is annoyed with her and might possibly want a divorce. Perfect. We have not given up on her yet though! Dont you worry! Also, we have been teaching this other girl named Evelyn. She is my bff. I love her. But the thing is, is that we have been teaching her but she hasnt really been progressing. She keeps on saying that she is going to go to church but then she never does. Well guess what? SHE CAME TO CHURCH THIS SUNDAY!!!! I was soooo excited! Im hoping that that means that she is a little more dedicated to finding out if this church is true. Ill keep you updated on her. Also, remember Jessica? The one that got baptised in Pamelita? Well she called us the other day! We were soooo excited cause I didnt have her address or number or anything but now I do. And her Grandma that she is living with just got baptised toooooo!! She is still going to church and is loving it. You have noooo idea how happy this makes me. haha

In answer to some of your questions, yes, the people here are extremely religious. EVERYONE believes in Christ has pictures of him up everywhere. They have church services every night of the week almost and are very faithful in going. They visit people in their churches every day, they wear skirts every day, they dont wear earrings or jewelry because they think that it says that you shouldnt in the bible, they dont dance or listen to worldly music. These people are intense. Now not all of them are like that but a HUGE majority. What I meant last week by "baggy elders" is like trunky elders, you know, they want to pack their bags and go home? Get it? Yes, this is the hottest that it has every been since Ive been here. I guess the month of April is the worst all year round. Its supposed to start cooling off in May because of the rain. Although, it has been raining almost every day here. But that just makes it hotter, cause its humid.

Something funny that happened this week. We went out to the middle of nowhere, Guatemala to go visit a less active member. But when we got there, she said she was about to go to a wedding and wanted to know if we would go with here. So we went and helped her with her kiddos and it was so funny! We were totally WEDDING CRASHERS! Im afraid we stuck out like a sore thumb considering the fact that we were the only white girls and all. Everyone was staring at us and I felt real bad. We ate the food and they gave us a guest gift and everything. baha! It was a good time there. Dont worry, the bride was 16 yrs old and there were giant muddy pigs running under everybodies table. They were having a really good time at the party!

Also, something creepy happened. Let me know if you are getting sick of my drunk man stories but this drunk man followed us home to our apartment. And he kept on trying to grab me. SO CREEPY! Then when we got upstairs on our balcony, he kept on blowing kissing OVER AND OVER AND OVER again to me. bahaha! Dont worry, he was to waisted to remember where we lived or anything.

The family reunion sounds like it was ridiculously fun! When I saw the pictures of it, I got a little homesick for the first time! But no worries, Im already over it cause the day that you guys were having the family reunion, I was crashing a wedding! baha! I better get one of those awesome tshirts! Well I gotta go but I love you all more than life! Thank you soo soo much for your letters. If you havent been recieving letters from me. Its not my fault. I have tried. LA AMO!!!!!!!

Love, Hermana Kami Alyse Alston (AKA, your favorite, daughter, sister, and friend)

My neighborhood friends.

President and Sister Maravilla. bahaha! It looks like their cutting their wedding cake huh?

April 4, letters and pics

Hey family!

Well it is a miracle that I am finally talking to you write now. The electricity keeps on going out in this internet place and earlier my keyboard didnt work but I think its for real this time.

First off, thank you all sooo soo much for your letters. They make me incredibly happy! Hermana Nelson also gets a lot of letters and one day, the office Elders gave us our letters and it was this HUGE pile and they said that they think they{re going to make a zone just special for us "Zona Enfermeras" "The Nurse Zone". hehe So thank you so much. Also, I have tried to send a bunch of letter and I just have this feeling that they are not getting to you guys. I keep on asking people if they got my letters and they havent. How weird. So just know that I am thinking of you guys and sending you letters, Guatemala is just very shady and they dont end up getting there. Sorry about that.

This week was fantastic for 2 reasons. First, I GOT TO WATCH CONFERENCE! IN ENGLISH! I was so happy. Dont worry, the satalite went out about 30,000 times and we didnt really get to watch a few sessions but it was better than nothing. All of the North Americans were in our own room and we all had tons of snacks. It was pretty nice. All the Elders were baggy though. Because I guess in the Priesthood session they told all the boys that they need to be actively searching for a wife. So when we asked them how it was, they said "Well we all said bye to our girlfriends. After that talk, all the boys back home are going to snatch them up!!" They were so depressed and I thought it was hilarious!

Second reason I am super happy is because SOMEONE IS GETTING BAPTISED! Woohoo! This saturday. I am so excited. They went to conference and everything. Her name is Veronica. Her husband is an inactive member but wants her to get baptised soooo bad. He is practically desperate. He keeps on talking and talking to her about the church and saying, don{t you want to be together for me forever? With our little girl? If you want that you have to get baptised and we have to get sealed in the temple! It is precious. Shes had a little bit of a hard time feeling like she has gotten an answer to her prayers if this is the true church be she says she feels peaceful when she prays about it and agreed to be baptised this Saturday. She was Evangelical before and had a REALLY hard time believing in Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon but she has been praying really hard and has resolved a lot of her own doubts. I am so happy!

I also saw someone from Pamelita yesterday and I asked about our convert Jessica and if she{s still going to church and he said that she goes EVERY single week by herself and her little baby. I am so proud of her! Shes only 15! So that made me extremely happy!

Funny story of the week. We were at a members house and we talk him a little short lesson. And afterwards we asked him if there was anything that we could do for him (we ask this EVERY time that we leave someones house) and he said. Yeah, you guys can learn Spanish better because I dont think you understand anything I say. Ouch. Thank you. I didnt really want to learn it better before but now that you said that...haha! It was really random that he said that cause we understood every word we said. Hna Noj said that she thought we underthood everything that we said and stuff. She said she thinks its because a lot of people here just assume because you{re white, you dont understand them and cant speak spanish. Good thing I have a high self confidence level cause these people are BRUTALLY honest.

Well Im out of time but I love you all tons! I hope you have a fantastic week!

Love, Hermana Kami Alyse Alston

AWESOME crib that a TON of people use down here. I want to buy one for Lindsey and Christi for their babes but somehow I doubt they would use it....

Conference

a recent converts - less active members house - We come here almost every day. These are the kids of an 18 year old!! She had her first kid when she was 13. Sad.

Our little friends bday party we went to.

New comp Hna Noj. We were having a picnic cause we were in no mans land where there was no where to eat lunch.

March 28, letter & pics

Buenas Familia!

Well I cant think of a whole lot that I have to report this week. It turns out that I was able to go to the temple on Monday and it was sooo wonderful. And here is the best part. We were in a session with Elder Martino and Elder Clark of the 70. I was excited! haha If you ask me, I think it is crazy that they let us just take off to Guatemala City alone. We had to find our way back and we ended up taking a taxi, metro and bus to get back to Reu. The buses are CRAZY! They are all decorate and painted crazy and there is stuff piled on the top of them like 10 ft high. All the members here are very upset that they let us go on a bus by ourselves. They say it is soooo dangerous. And that THEY wouldnt even go on a bus and they are from here. How comforting.

It turns out that our new companion Hermana Noj is actually hilarious and I love her. I think shes going a little crazy cause shes going home in 4 weeks but she just is full of jokes and shares them with us all day long. It is super good to have her as our companion cause we have to speak spanish all the time. At first I missed english so much but now I am getting used to it and learning A LOT more spanish.

We also had a conference this week with the President and 3 other zones. And guess who is in my neighboring zone? MY BFF!!! Member her? Hermana Roney? haha We chatted about the missionary moms website and all and it was hilarious. I guess she was saying that her mom might get kicked off the site cause she upset some of the moms? Is that a rumor? Hna Roney thought it was hilarious. What DRAMA! haha

So we found out something very interesting this week. We have not seen our Bishop since weve been here. We saw him the second night we were here and then he mysteriously disappeared and nobody knew where he went. We just found out this week that he got threatened by a gang and had to leave the country. Sooo yeah, he is tucked away safe in Nicaragua and we are here in the ward still. Dont worry. haha Im not sure how much of that is true because people LOVE to gossip and overexaggerate here but it makes sense because he did not tell ANYONE and just took off. Who knows!

About our investigators...we had to drop Aurelio. Waa! I was sad but he sent us ANOTHER message saying that he loves the Catholic church and thats where he belongs. I just hope that we planted a seed for the future! We are teaching this other girl now though that Im hopeful for. Her name is Veronica. She is "married" aka living with this guy who is a member and return missionary and everything (but inactive now). They have a little kid and are a PRECIOUS family. He wants her to get baptised and sealed in the temple SOOO bad. He is desperate! He is doing everything in his power to convert here. Its precious but really sad at the same time. I just dont understand how you can be a return missionary and fall away from the church! He still has such a strong testimony, he just fell away. She is a little less excited about the whole thing and kind of has the attitude of trying to prove us wrong them wanting to know for herself if its true. She said she would read and pray to know for herself and her husband has been helping her. She says she really does have a desire to know. Hopefully that works out.

On the Nursing topic. I got about 1000000000000000 calls this week. Everyone is dying I swear! There was one day that I was literally on the phone all day. The president even called me because one Elder was so sick. Its hard though because I am not allowed to send someone to the doctor without the permission of Dr. MacArthur so pretty much I cant do anything. So Ill call the Dr. and he ALWAYS says that theyre fine. No matter what. So them the President will call me and say....I think that so and so needs to be hospitalized. Can he go? Uhh....Welll....uhh....I dont know. The Dr. says that hes fine. See the problem. Every time I am around a large group of Elders, I feel like everybody is shooting fire at me with there eyes. One funny call I got this week was an Hermana that said her lips were a little darker than usual. Hmm... I asked for how long and she told me for ten minutes. I think she wants to go home and purple lips were her desperate attempt.

In answer to some of your questions, yes parasites are a VERY VERY VERY common thing. I would say about 75% of the calls I get, they have parasites. All different kinds. One elder has a tape worm and cant take medication for 3 months because you are only allowed to take the medication every 3 months. This is the 3 worm/ parasite he has had and he just got here right before me. Bummer. I think I might have one too but who knows.

The only really funny thing I can think of that happened this week is that Hna Noj whipped out a picture of a North American boy in a "model like" pose and I couldnt tell who it was for a while and then I realized....IT WAS THE ASISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT! bahaha! I guess every single Hermana in the mission has pictures of him that a member printed off of his facebook and gave it to all the Hermanas. The mission is ridiculous. Its like a HUGE efy. All the Hermanas have crushes on all the Elders and they email each other on Mondays (which is completely against the rules). So now, I have a picture of the asistant to the President in my house. Awesome. Its amazing the stuff I know now that I have a latina companion.

Well sorry if I bored you to death. Ill try to have more interesting things to tell you next week. I love you soo soo soo soo much! Seriously. A lot. Have a wonderful week and Ill talk to you next monday!

Love, Hermana Kami Alyse Alston

p.s. General Conference is this weekend and Im so excited I could just DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have never been this excited for conference before in my life. Its pathetic. But our whole zone is pitching in a buying a pig to eat in between sessions Saturday. Like an entire pig. The President found out about it and was so excited and says hes coming. haha! Have I mentioned I love that man?

Volcano outside the bus window on the way to the capital! The ride was so stinkin pretty!

Best Friends Forever!!!! Hermana Roney

Alston shirt! WOOHOO!

Awesome swiss family robinson house. I finally got a pic of it but it totally doesnt do it justice!