PAYSHUNTZ!

this week was so great!

juan, our investigador with a pretty rough backround, told us that he wants to move his baptismal fecha up. we saw him again on sunday and he said how he sees how much he has changed, and that when he gets tempted he just opens up to the scriptures. he asked us for another copy of the book of mormon to give to his friend, and he also wants another copy of the bible to give out as well. Juan, seriously, just makes me so happy, i almost cant believe how much he has progress. hermana guillen have seen him change and repent right before our eyes, and it makes me so proud.the only thing is we think he might need an interview with the misison president, and i know he doesnt like to wait. chill out juan, tranquilo hombre. 

we visited claudia (an inactive member) and we thought we lost this family. they were sealed in the temple, and now turned away from the church. claudia told us she stated going to another church, and i felt pretty sad bcause they were sealed in the temple, that isnt just something to turn away from. well, we went wednesday night and i just asked her how her new church was and if they take the Sacrament. she was puzzled and said no, and then we started the lesson about el espiritu santo, and in the middle she asked us "what do you both think about evangelicals?" i told her how i felt, because i was evangelical, and i even mentioned how dad was going to be a pastor. i love evangelicals, so whatever. wel, then she just changes her look on the face and blurts out that she feels so confused because her church doesnt have the sacrament, and she knows that it is a commandment to take the bread and wine in memory of Christ. Well, we got her back! she is reading the bok of mormon again, and she is praying. weve been teaching out of the bible to her, and when we mention the book of Mormon and use it in lessons, she doesnt get upset. I think they will need time, but i know they will come back!some patiene and time .

I did divisions with the sisters from Lomas, and the sister did great. she has finish her training, and she is a great missionary. we found a new investigador and put a baptismal fecha with her! It was awesome. i also did divisions with the sister from los Olivos. the sister i went with is actually the mision nurse. i love this hermana so much, i can truly see that she works with her heart. she did great.  we had an evocative conversation, and i could feel the love she has for her area and her frustration. i love divisions! I learn so much!

take care and have a great week!

con carino, 

 hermana Ramirez

Mom, pops, this week was sweet. i just figured i'd warn you

i feel like i am converting myself more and more everyday. 

We visited an inactive member and her famiy. we met her husband, who is not a member. they love us, the whole family. the husband drinks, and he feels bad about it, and he almost cried telling us about why he drinks. they dont have much income, and the wife(member) is sick and needs an operation. they put the goal to pray as a family, and they are doing it!

hey, i realized i don't have time. 

im so bad at writing you like i used to. im sorry. i'll write a letter and send it!

i love the Lord. I feel like this week has helped me to grow more and more. I love to contact peolpe, i feel likei am fulfilling my purpose at a missionary when i street contact. 

Take care. Please read alma 36. 

i know Christ lives, and i know this because I see His hands in my life. 

hermana Ramirez

Climb Every Mountain

Mom and Pop,

 let me tell you of the adventure we had last pday! We climbed a mountain! WE went with our district to climb a mountain in Palencia! I was so gorgeous! It took us forever to climb up that darn thing, but it was so worth it. vale la pena, de verdad. it was at an incline of probablyabout 55-60 degrees. it was a bit tough because we were going for a while. we also got a bit lost, but we asked for help, and luckily we werent taken captive. a bunch of lost gringos... we were fine. we passed these little girls who lived up there, and i asked to take a picture of them, and they let me. there are these little pueblos up there, and it looks like something out of a movie, of these little farms stuck up in a mountain. 

the most interesting part was coming down the mountain. well, all of us nine missionaries were coming down and one of the hermanas fell. she busted up the leg super bad, to the point where she is still using crutches right now. she cant go out and work, and its sad. we got home late.

sorry, i ran out of time!
love,
 Hermana Ramirez

things i learned as a child! no, fo reals?

hey mom and pops,

que onda?

hows life in the empire state?

let me give you a run down of my life right now. its nothing spiffy, but it is my life. 

we have been working hard in reactivation. we are seeing the fruits of our labors. this ward has so much potential, and we are working hard with the relief society president! we took the ward directory out, like we did in san rafael, and went looking for those lost sheep. well, we went to this area called el pinito, por el rastro. let me tell you a bit about el rastro. its a slaughter house area, but its not a factory. its this run down tin shack neighborhood where the people do the butchering inside the house! it is completely unsanitary, and when we went to see the lady on the list, she opened the door and her hands were covered with slime and fur. she was cutting up little cows, IN HER HOUSE. we were walking outside and from far away saw this clear tube thing hanging up, and when we came closer, we realized they were cow intestines drying in the sun. its to make sausages! yummy. it was super appetizing because it was covered in flies. well, the streets are dirt, and on the sides there are piles of carcases stacked high! it smells so bad because there are no trees, so everything roasts in the sun. anyway, we found the family, and there are 14 inactive people living in the house, and including about eight more that are not baptized members. they seem receptive, and so.. there is work to be done! 

are kapris a style for men in the states right now? we see all these gangster type guys wearing kapris (capris?) and we are confused. that one direction group is a HUGE deal here, so i dont know if it has something to do with them. im just curious. i hope it is not a thing in the states right now, because men wearing clothes like that... ewwwww.

i have learned quiet a bit throughout the many many years of my life... more like just 20. well, from the little that i know, i remember learning how to say good bye in sign language from blue's clues. well, we met a deaf girl, and we make small talk... with our hands kind of. well, we wanted to say goodbye so i did the chin thing and she did it back! wow, i thought that wouldnt work because its american sign language and maybe it was different. well, i felt pretty proud to know that steve taught me that from blues clues. also, i studied mandarin, i love it still! i rememebr it a bit, but i will never forget the basics! well,  hna.michaelis told me how this inactive member claims that he speaks chinese, so we visited him and i just busted out with some mandarin small talk. he looked at me so puzzled. i first asked him in spanish, if he said he spoke mandarin, and he said he did. so i asked him (in mandarin) his name, and if he speaks chinese. he then goes "no no no, its not ni hui shuo, its ney haaash!" i asked him if he knew what i said and he said "its a greeting, no?" i felt bad, but he got embarresed, but.. dont go setting yourself up in language lies. you never know when you'll get a gringa in you house that speaks english, and spanish with a brazilian accent that also knows mandarin. 

another language thing. i like german, but i know like little phrases like 'the soup is very good' or 'what time does the traincome' or 'where is the train station' and nautrally 'do you speak german?' well this one sister we met was being mean and saying spanish is easy and that there is no excuse for our spanish to be so bad. i felt more sad than angry. she said she spoke german so i asked her in german 'you speak german?' and she looked at me for about 5 seconds and said.. va pues. im not a linguist, but watch your tongues gente.

our investigaroa hna.g is getting baptized! this saturday! we love her so much! she passed her interview! i love her and i am so happy she is deciding to repent and come to the fold! we went to her house and reminded her of next saturday and asked how she felt. she thensaid "i dont know.. i dont know anymore" so we asked to explain everything. well, she said she doesnt know the rules of the iglesia, and i said all that is important is to pray, read, and follow the commandments. that is it. nothing else matters really. keep the commandments, in this there is safety!

okay, the 'fo reals?' part. i have CHANGES! I am so sad. i have been here for six weeks, and hermanita.g is getting baptized this saturday. also, this thursday we were supposed to go to the Temple with our convert hermana.B! im crushed. i have a dismal outlook on it, and i need to change that. i usually am fine with cambios, but this one hurts! i hope this next area is my last, because i only have two changes left. 

anyway, i apologize for the typos. 

i love you all! take care!

Love, 

 Hermana Ramirez

it's not me, it's you... The Break Up

Mom and Pop,

  hows it going out in the land of the free? Is it hot and humid? I don't miss that too much about ny in the summer, but i guess i couldn't get too far from the humidity- being that it is the rainy season right now. hey, lets not talk about the weather, i am sorry. 

did you hear about the earthquake? probably not. i don't know why, because it was a freaking 7.2 quake, but nobody wrote me to see if i was alive. i'll tell myself that y'all just didnt hear about it, so that is why nobody asked about if i was okay...so, yeah. anyway, i woke up last monday at 5am, and heard all this water moving, gushing water, and i thought a pipe had broke. i sat up in my bed and looked around and saw everything swaying from side to side. i realized the water was the fountain that is in our house, and all the water gushed over the sides. it was crazy and awesome. i was prepared, i have my 72 hour kit.. it's full of snickers. 

we've been taking the ward directory around and finding people we dont know. we found this family of six, and the father is a high priest. we searched for them, and the second time... we found them! they love us too. the daughter came to church on sunday and a ton of people came up and we talking to her and made plans to hang out! I am so proud of the ward for welcoming her back. next sunday  i hope the whole family comes. they are sweet!

okay, lets get to the break up! remember hermanito.a? well, fíjese que we dropped him. no more, until he calls us back. we love this kid so much, seriously, it hurt to drop him. it's just, if we keep visiting him, and he doesnt progress, we can go back because we'll be numbing him to the importance of acting on faith, and the importance of our purpose as missionaries in trying to help people progress and make covenants with our Heavenly Father. We are working still with his aunt, hermanita.g and she is progressing so much! she is still working for her baptismal date for the 26th of july! she is so amazing. she said how she can see herself changing, and it is so beautiful watching people come closer to our Father in Heaven by repenting and preparing to make sacred covenants. I feel like a proud parent, watching their child grow up into an awesome person! I love hermanita.g so much!

we saw the inactiva lady, Hermana.G this week. she is the one with ms, and she is so amazing. we were visiting her and all of a sudden she breaks down crying. before i tell you why, let me share more about her. her husbands drnks and is drunk a majority of the time, her son chooses to not have a social life and insists on taking care of her (which makes her sad), and she cannot speak claerly even though she spoke four languages fluently. she is lonely and cries a lot. well, she started crying and saying how grateful she is, because she says that everything she asks in prayer, she gets it. she says she doesnt understand why there are suffering people all over the world, and when she asks for something, she receives it. she says how grateful she is, but she feels sad for the rest of the people. she said "how can i tell somebody that Jesus loves them, when they dont even have a bed to sleep in, andi have everything i need?" I love this woman, so much. we are secretly best friends. the thing is, she doesnt know it yet. 

Apparently i have a different accent. some people say i sound like i am from brazil, and others say i am from portugal. they think im from brazil sometimes, and i dont understand it. anyway, this one family said i speak strange, but not like a gringa, which is cool, not sounding like a gringa, but, they laughed at me obnoxiously. oh well, i guess if people think i speak like a strange brazilian, i just think  'thou sayest.' i should give portuguese a try some time. 

there hasnt been rain for a while, so oh well. im living it up, but saturday it came down hard, i wasnt expecting it. oh, germany won mundial, and all of guate wept. the majority of people wanted argentina. i secretly wanted germany, but didnt tell peolpe because many people get offended over little things here and i didnt want to offend. 

love, 

Hermana ramirez 

yep, the week

Dad,

  it was a pretty good... maybe mas o menos, type of week. there were ups, there were downs, i laughed, i cried. okay, bit that intense.. anyway, it was a week.

We said goodbye to president and hermana watts. it was rough. i love them so much. we had their farewell this last tuesday. we had it with zona alameda, atlántico, y ... i don't remember the other zona, who cares anyway. we sang to them as a district (6 companionships) and hermana watts started to cry. it is like saying goodbye to your parents, but they have to leave. it was really hard. They wanted to say goodbye to everyone individually, and so they had us enter into this room and have a few minutes with them.

 I came in and hermana watts hugged me, and they both just said how proud they are of me. they both started talking about things i have overcome and done in my mission, and some of the experiences, and they said "we are so proud of you!" they just said how much they love me, and how they would love for me to stop by and visit them when i get home. i said goodbye, and i just tried to joke around so that i wouldnt cry, so luckily enough, i didnt.  i just felt so much love from them, and i will never forget them. after all of it, i couldnt help but think how it will feel when we return to Heavenly Father, and when we enter into his presence. will He say that He is proud of us? I sure hope so. I know He is proud of you Dad.

this investigadora, (that i havent actually met) is really sick. by really sick, i mean, she has cancer. she didnt realize it until a few months ago. well, we went to go find her, and she wasnt there, so we went to this menos activas house to find her (theyre friends) and it turns out the investigadoras daughter is living with the menos activ sister, because apparently she is now in the hospital, and they sister told us she is just wasting away. she is dying. it made me so sad because the daughter is so cute and tiny. she is about five, and is so adorable, and i cant imagine how it must feel to know thet you are dying and are leaving your daughter. this lady has no family, and the majority of women here are single mothers. we cnt go visit her because she is outside of our area. this whole situation makes me very upset.

we went and visited a recient convert, and he is a little... crazy. it was my first time meeting him, and we brought a short lesson to share with him, and out of nowhere, he just stands up in the middle of the lesson, and says "yo sé como hacer karate!" he just started doing karate, and is going all around the patio doing karate, and i was trying so hard not to laugh. i literally bit my lip. did i mention that he is 71? yep, he is 71. so, imagine that and don't tell me you wouldn't laugh. his shirt was also unbuttoned.

its the season of mundial, or fifa i guess it is called there. mundial is such a big deal here, that sometimes the children don't have classes because of mundial. there are certain equipos, like argentina, that everyone goes crazy for, and the children don't have classes when they play. yep, i just thought you should know. apparently the US was playing, but then again, im american, and i don't care that much about futbol. people here ask us what is our equippo, and i just say costa rica or germany, and they ask why not the US, and i said... ehh, they wont last long.

thats all i have to say about that.

love

Hermana Ramirez

winds of change

so, let it be known, sometimes things happen that you don't expect.

last week was transfer week, and we (feik and i) thought we didnt have transfers because our leaders said we didnt. well, lunes, at about 7:30 pm, elder Gamez called me and said that i had changes. it is strange because hna.feik has been in that area (San Rafael) since mid diciembre. strange, huh?

Well, I am in Lomas del Norte with Hermana Michaelis. Let be describe Lomas to you... casi America! seriously, it is so nice this area, but it isnt too nice where people scoff at you everywhere. San Rafael was poor, and the majority of people were annoyed just looking at us. Here, the people are a bit more friendlier, and it is pretty. THERE ARE GARBAGE CANS! it is so nice! there are still dogs roaming around, but there are also side walks! People have real doors that shut all the way, with hinges! i feel like i am in America.

Speaking of America, my new comp is american! Hermana Michaelis, from Arizona. We fit together like lamb and tunafish... (brandon will get it) We get a long well, and my area actually has nice people. I am sure that i will die here (finish my mission), and to be honest... that sits well with me if it is.

We have this investigador, he has 20 years. He is the bomb! he is progressing, and in this lesson, i got the chills! He is so prepared to receive the Gospel, and in his prayed, oh my gosh! it was so cool, he is awesome. i wont describe the prayer because i dont thinks it is appropriate. just know, he is pilas. 

Well, I must go now. I LOVE LOMAS. Hna.Michaelis and i get along so well, we stay up talking in our beds, and she tells me her bad date stories, and we talk about... experiences. its cool.

Hermana Ramirez