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

HERE I AM! WALKING IN A HURRICANE!

Dad, 

i hope you dont have too strong of an 80's Scorpions flash back reading that title, but.. its true. 

as a missionary, one is left to be very ignorant. yes, it is true, well, in matters of the worl that is. We dont have tv, radio, internet, so we dont know when there is a hurrincane or not. well, last monday, apparently tere was a hurricane, and we didnt know. so we followed our usual routine, and walked to the mall, and it is about 2 or 3km, not too far. well, it was raining super hard, and windy, andi was like... oh, its just guate. well, fijese que no. it was a hurricane, and we triumphed. yep, good times, good times. it explains why the mall was basically empty. 

somethings i can remember from my week. well, lets see, it was an interesting week. we had a hard day, and nobody, like NOBODY would receive us except this one inactive sister. well, we went an visited her, and she gave us platano cocido con frijol y crema! puchis, tan rico. pues, now quedamos alla con ella, y miramos el video Gracias a El from mormon.org. here is the link to watch it in english  http://easter.mormon.org/ So, she started sharing her testimony of Christ, and she starts crying. anyway, this siter is awesome, becasue she just started coming back to church, and her mom in just a doll. they are so sweet, the whole family. anyway, the father was a high priest and left the church, and really detests the Church, and we feel very uncomfortable when he is htere. well, listening to this isters testimony, just warmed my heart!

We tried to visit a less active sister that hates us. anyway, she lives in an apartment building and didnt come down to let us out. we were locked in the building for 30mins. yep. i love it!

sorry, i didnt plan my time well. i gotta go!

love, 

 Hermana Ramirez 

ps. the assistants came and visited our planning session, and they found me being immature and taking tin foil and making grills. here is a pic 

it smells like... a cleanly spirit! actually, thats our new bathroom

Pops,

  I miss you! dang, i love getting your letters and hearing about your week.

I must tell you... it happened again. my pictures got erased again. its a long story. let me start by saying... WE HAD OUR BATHROOM RENOVATED! Yes, our bathroom was all messed up, and the pipe that left from the toilet would rise in our shower drain! sometimes we would go flush the toilet for fun because we had our very own old faithful right here in zona 18, guatemala!  sucio, no? pues, we told are awesome duenos, and they were like lets get that all fixed. bueno, saturday the men came, and got to work on our house, and put in new tile and it is so pretty! Well,  I didnt know these men, and we live in a place that is... lets the it is a smidge different from Mayberry. I decided to take my bank cards and all along with my darling camera to a members house. i thought this member was trust worth, but... lets say, people that speak dont speak english shouldnt mess around with cameras that are set in english. its not like i just threw the camera in their house and didnt say why, i said i dont want anybody touching it, and well, a bunch of the baptism pictures are gone and pictures of my area. i am pretty upset, but, oh well. i guess i know i am not a picture hoarder, because i have these clean ups all the times.

  

the bright side is that we have a new bathroom. We are pretty excited. now our house doesnt smell like the sewer. bye bye yosemite. 

so there area  few young recient converts here that rea just pilas, buut pilas pilas, so awesome. well, one of them was with us doing visits the other day, and i asked he (hes 15) what was the reason he wanted to change and be baptized. He told me how when he was 13 or 14, he went to this funeral ans there were about 15-20 people. we was at the wake, when these thugs came in and started busting rounds into all the people there, and he tried to hide. he said only about 6 people survived, and he is gratefult hat he was one of them, and he decided to change, and not be affiliated with those things anymore. so he changed, and through his friend who is also a RC, he was introduced to the church. i feel very grateful to know such grounded young people of the church. 

we went and visited una hermana, y ella es buena onda, enserio, buena gente. muy amable, y bien chistosa. she lives in a very humble house.. by humble, i mean it literally is just scraps of tin. well, she makes all these things to sell for this group. o think she said it was called cuarto mundo guatemala. she makes all these cute things, and i bought some stuff from her. she is so nice, these things are so pretty, and when her boss comes and thakes them to be sold, the crafts are sold for about 80 o 100 quetzales. well, we asked her how much her stuff costed, and she gave it to us for 20 quetzales. i wanted to pay more, but she said "noo, hermanita, somos hermanas. no se precupe!" she was telling us about her child hood, and how she lived in a little pueblo outside of the capital, and she said that her mom left her. she didnt have a dad, and she would go and be baby sat by a another lady, and one day she was waiting at the wondow for her mom to come back, and it was late and she was worried, and the baby sitter told her " i dont think your mom is going to come back." the next morning the lady kicked her out and said her mom isnt gonna come back. she didnt. so this sister went and lived with her grandma, and said they only ate cut up onion with sald on a tortilla. anyway, this sister is amazing, because she helps us out and visits with us, doesnt complain at all. the thing i love the most about her is that she laughs! she laughs, and enjoy life even though she lives in a shack of scraps of tin. I love this sister so much, i feel blessed to know her. 

We ate caldo de pata. its cow stomach soup. i herad it was good, and i decided to give it a try. i sounds gross, but lengua also sounded gross and i actually llove it, so i went right in and ate it, and ohh my word... it was horrible. it tasted and smelled like the cud the cows chew. clearly it would, but i thought it was going to be good. such a let down. it messed my companion and i up for a few days, and the worse thing was that we couldnt use our bathroom this whole week. yep, the best timing. anyway, my expectations were too high, and the caldo de pata was gross. 

Hermana Feik and I have been cooking a lot, and we love to eat. We also like not being fat. So we decided to stop eating like we usually do, and this week we are going to cut out platano frito, crema, queso, galletas, rellenitos, y solo vamos a comer sanas! I hope this goes well, becsue, well, lets face it.. I am in my latter days. i have to get is shape. i was never thin, but dang, i feel like the michellin-man. We are going for it this week!

I am learning a lot about patience. this area is really trying my patience, and some times.. people just tick me off. i pray for help so that this ny sarcasim does come out when we are contacting. when i get frustrated, like saturday, i just think "serenity now!" also, i remind myself that we have anew bathroom! INDOOR PLUMBING IS THE BEST! THANKS GUATE!

Well, take care Dad, and dont let people touch your camera! EVER!

Keep on turcking, and enjoy life with airconditioning!

love always, 

 Hermana Ramirez

here are some pics my comp took with her camera. this was domingo en la jungla!

ps. I love the Holy Ghost, and my comp Hermana Feik. We make the best trio

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, minerva is far awayyyy (MY AMERICAN COMP AND I)

I was changed out. yep, it happened. i felt like Minerva was the highlight of my mission, and i didnt feel the shock of the change until la hna.varela and i rolled up (fashionably late) in the taxi to the stake center in Molino. I saw Hna.Gomez, Hna. Ynjo, and the light of my guatemalan smog filled life, that darn Hermana Edwards. tha tgirl is so crqazy. anyway, she took my old area, she is sleeping in my old bed! Dang it Edwardsita! I love that girl, we split Puerto Barrios back in the day. Anyway, i knew it was true, becasue she had to come to minerva at one point, but her and i being in minerva, or even the same zone, at the same time... too darn good to be true. que freaking lastima.

   so, i re-read luke 10, and verses 16-18... wow. i like 18. Anyway. i have read that bhapter about 5 times this week.

   So i am in zona la laguna (mission name) but im in zona 18 in la capital. yep, i like seeing the fun and beauty that life in the 18 has to bring. you wont understand unless you've been there. sorry, closed club type of thing. ill tell you when i get home.

    MY COMPANION IS MAERCIAN! AHH! Wehn the assistant told me i had an american comp waiting for me, i heard Handls Messiah in my head. Could it be true? really, i would be so blessed to have an american comp. the last one i had was my darling Hermana hutchins, and now i have Hermana Feik. Okay, my comp is awesome. She is from Oregon. She was telling me about her life (i asked her about 100 questions about her life) in Oregon. She sadi that she got a revolver for christmas...i thought... wow, my comp is packing heat. but not anymore. She is awesome. she went to byu idaho also! she is actually nice enough to ask me how i am doing! Wow right? i felt like i have had somebody ask me how i was in a long long time.

   I miss my old house in minerva, mailny becasue of the view. I felt like sarah palin, because i could see memebers houses from my roof. I can see the zomna 15 from my house! sorry russia, zona 15 is pretty spiffy.

   i was reading our search for happiness, by elder ballard, and i was thinking about when we teach the first lessonthe restoration. well, i always mention how baptism withour authority isn the way the Lord wants it. When Christ established his church, it was in order. Well, i was watching people lined up getting baptized here in my new area, in the streets (not in our church). I thought, que lastima, dont owrry, one day you will be baptized by authority. i thought about it, and when i was baptized as a child, like 7yrs old. i was just doing what i knew at that point, to be correct. I see people as my brothers. these are just people, doing their best with what they have. How can i not try to help them? I know what i know, and i am doing the best with what i have, so when people come against us, as missionaries (happened a bit this week), i dont think they understand that we are doing this out of love. Just as other missionaries are doing it out of love (from other religions). This is a work of love, not a competition. The moment that this becasuse a competition, it is in vain, and offensive to do it in the name of Christ. I love this work, and everybody in this earth, is doing the best with what they know. i am here to teach, and open their doors to a new life. people that steal and commit crimes, they might be judged and hated by many, but do we know the reasons why they are the way they are? the conditions here are rough. understanding is love.

i love you Dad, take care!

 Read Doctrine and Covenants 112!

​