Hello,

     OK, so this week I got called fat twice! Yay for blunt people! I presented the Book of Mormon by myself for the first time and it went good! Hna. C. said that she was super proud of me and that my Spanish was super good! We taught 28 lessons and they were amazing and we really saw the hand of the Lord in our lives this week.  We are finally seeing a lot of progress in our investigators and menos activos and we are so happy! Also we had a goal of 25 lessons as a zone so we worked really hard to complete it! We were both wanting pizza so bad and we talked about how that night we were going to go buy pizza and guess what? In our 25th lesson after we accomplished our goal, they had just ordered pizza right before we got to their house! Heavenly Father gave us pizza for accomplishing our goal!!!! We just looked at each other and laughed! 

     Oh yeah I was in a lesson with a family and they told me that I looked taller and fatter than normal.  I didn't understand at first, so just to make sure I understood they told me in English! Yeah... we also had a ward member tell us to stop eating.....so that was great.....

      We went to the touchdown Jesus monument today! Way fun! I'll send more pictures! Also we walked all the way up to the platform and it was really windy and my dress flew up to my hips.....in from of my zone leader...that's probably just about the most embarrassing thing EVER. Yeah garments and all for my whole zone. We also met some people from Cartersville, GA and that was funny! This lady is pregnant and smoking living in the DR with her soon to be Dominican husband who she can't really communicate with because she doesn't speak a whole lot of Spanish.  She has a  pierced daughter who is getting married and can't talk to her fiance because he's in a Dominican prison! Yeah, so they were really nice and cool...we made some new friends! Anyways running out of time, love you!

Leah

Talking to Leah on Mother's Day was wonderful!  She looked great and she bore her testimony in Spanish and it sounded amazing to us.

Hi mom! 

      I´m so happy that I got to talk to you! Aunt Allisen said you were impressed that I talked to boys? Jeez Mom I did interact with people before my mission at work! Ha ha. But yeah, we both know not that much! OK.

     Things I forgot to tell you! I want a recipe for cinnamon rolls, Aunt jessica´s Pb cheesecake and dinners that are cheap and easy! Yay thanks! I learned how to make Frito's and Dominican spaghetti this week! Whoo hoo! I can also finally light our stove with a match and the gas! Big step!  Oh yes, in the package I want my castor oil, some of my t shirts, and nice smelling bar soap...like the peppermint kind from B&B, perfumes I left and lotions. I'm not talking alot but a little variety.

      As of this week, everything that has happened I pretty much told you about on Sunday!  I am going on splits three times this week which is terrifying! Once tonight but that's not a big deal because its only me and a member staying at the chapel for a meeting while Hna. C. teaches. Then tomorrow with a member I get to go and teach people! I'm so scared! I´m probably going to go teach the menos activos which is where I'll do the least amount of damage...=) Hope it goes good because the day after that I'm going on intercambios with my sister leaders...which will be interesting...because I'm staying in my area and will have to get us from point A to point B. AHAHAHAHa.....I still can barely navigate our area. But the part we´ll be in should be okay, but I'm nervous because all of our appointments for that day are with contacts so I sure hope they´re actually there or else I don't know what I´ll do. Oh well I'll just pray alot and prepare for the worst but do my best!

      I love you SO much and you look so good!!!!!!!!!!!! I do too by the way! HA HA another cut and paste email for you!

Love,

 Leah

Dad,

     I loved talking to you! It was so nice to hear your voices! I'm really grateful that you guys are doing good! Its weird to think that you guys have just kept going in your lives while I'm here though! Of coarse I knew that but still it seems weird! It was so nice to have just a real conversation with you guys! I love you so much! You are such a wonderful example to me and I think about all your mission stories while I'm here having crazy stories of my own! I even tell them to the other Americans and we all laugh and laugh and laugh! Ha ha though I think my mission is winning on the gross factor! Love you! 

Leah

Pics of Hna. Calderon´s Birthday! We made cake and got ice cream!

Hello Everyone!

     We have a family that is prepared for the gospel! They came to church and we were in charge of the baby and their SUPER energetic 2 yr old! Finally we took them out and let the two year old run outside to tire her out and then found a classroom and I just picked her up started rocking her and singing to her until she fell asleep. I held that girl for about an hr and a half! Yeah, finally after she was out I sat down and everyone was super impressed that I put her to sleep. Ha ha... kids I can handle! 

     So everyone here makes fun of me because I have a high pitched voice....also that I´m short...it´s kind of funny. I´M DONE WITH MY FIRST TRANSFER!!!!!!! That´s super exciting!!!!! Not much else happened this week. I´ve had some killer blisters because there were some big rainstorms and in wet shoes that's fun=) I am still having ear trouble and you can't just buy a box of decongestants here at the store like you can in the US so that's kind of hard. Also I'm getting sick... no fun but other than that its been an amazing week, my trainers trainer who lived in our house with us ended her mission today so that was way sad! Love you!

Leah

Mom,

     Mom I freaking love you so much! I also love peanut butter  and mint oreos and sweet tarts, and GOLDFISH!!!! And they aren't the wheat kind!!!! Yay go Mom! The half tank tops are amazing! Loved all the food!  

     This week was good.  I impressed the elders in my district by putting a crazy 2 yr old to sleep, go Leah! So I hope you liked all the pictures! I sent you practically every one I had! OH MY GOODNESS BEFORE I FORGET ! I get to talk to you guys on skype on Sunday! I will be on skype at 5 pm my time! DON´T YOU DARE FORGET ME!!!!!! Super excited to talk to you all though! Love you!

Leah

Dear Mom,

      Okay I'm so sorry about last week! Hna Calderon got some super bad news from her family so it cut things a little short, but she's doing really good now! This week has been so full! MOM I HAD TO CLEAN RAW CHICKEN NECKS. Like that were from chickens killed that morning.  Just the necks too, all floating in a tub/bucket outside.  So there were oogies in the water floating and I had to pull feathers out of the necks and then pull the throat out of those stupid chickens. I hate chickens so much...and Chihuahua's. Ha ha packaged chicken? Try chicken that is still bleeding!!!! Ugh... now THAT is a memory.

      I also got to go to the temple! Which is a big deal in the field! Hermana C. has been out for a year and this is her first time to go in the field! 

     Guess who I saw in the CCM? KATIE HOLT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She freaked out when she saw me and cried and I've never been hugged so tight in my life! It was so cool! We couldn't talk for long but just to see someone that I know was really amazing!  (Katie is one of Leah's oldest friends from Pittsburg CA.  They have known each other from birth and are two months apart.  Katie will be serving in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission)  Then I saw a girl that was in the CCM with me but left after my first two weeks! So cool to see her and her trainer is Katelyn Olsen, as in the Olsen's from the Castlewood Canyon ward! SMALL WORLD!!! That  was the best day ever! 

      Hna C and I waded through a brutal rainstorm this week, like through rivers in the streets! We were soaked! And eww... the water was dirty!!!! Ha ha so I have a knack for dying my clothes in this country! Don't worry, only my yellow Colorado shirt is now orange. I don't even know how it happened. Then my down east yellow shirt is a different shade of yellow every time. I just keep changing the skirt I wear it with depending on what color it turns out each time! 

     

     We went to a waterfall yesterday and it took all day.  It was really pretty.  Anyway, my time is pretty much up! 

 I GOT ALL THE PACKAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH! 

Love you!

Leah

Dad,

      Guess who learned how to send pictures from an Internet center! This girl! And I sent a lot too, so that should make up for missing yesterday and also the shorter time the week before!  A couple weeks ago we had our grumpy old man investigator tell us that we couldn't come back and teach him anymore. It was really heartbreaking because I know he felt the spirit! Man...agency...after we left I just cried. It was pretty hard. But we do have a family who is completely ready for the gospel and it was way cool to see how Heavenly Father set this up for us! 

Love you!

 Leah

Leah and Katie

Mom,

     Do you want to know what we did for P-day??????????? WE WALKED AND HIKED FOR EIGHT HOURS. Fun right? I thought for sure I would die on the path and just told them to bury me. I'm actually in a lot better shape now with having to walk everywhere every day. I at least did it! Yeah we were looking for a cave that was SUPPOSED to be amazing. I was convinced that it was imaginary. We got lost and in all spent 8 hrs on that freaking mountain. I'm so tired and we haven't even gone teaching yet. Hey, this might have to be short because something happened with Hna Calderon.  I need to go.  Love you! Ask Daniel for his email to get a little of my week.  I'll try to email Dad real fast. Te quiero mucho!

Love Leah

Hey Dad,

      This has to be fast because something is going on with my companion. We're teaching some good families this week that we have a lot of hope for. For the first time I talked more in a lesson than Hna Calderon! Whoo hoo! Also, I attempted to cook for myself and only made ramen and then found worms in it after I was almost completely done with it.  NOT OKAY! ALSO IT WAS WAY MORE SAD because I had to learn how to light a match and then the stove, without burning myself.  That's what I get for trying to cook. Love you.
Leah

Daniel,

     I FOUND AND ATE WORMS IN MY FOOD THIS WEEK! NOT OKAY! Hna. Calderon made me down a coke afterwards because supposedly that kills everything.   Sooooo...…I might have a parasite or maybe they were just worms, not a clue…I think I'll name him Stewart if He's going to live in my body. So anyways... yeah that was way gross. Love you! Oh and the weather here is only a nice temperature when its raining. So it's either you can be wet from sweat or rain.  There is so no in between!   Love you!

Leah 

     Daniel had more emails from the past few weeks with some good stuff in them that he forwarded along to us.  Hopefully Leah will get the hang of a group email:-)
Andrea


Daniel,

     I saw the coolest thing this week! We had this guy we were teaching and the first lesson was a disaster becasue the old man couldn't get past prophets and the whole time the thought just kept coming to me that maybe if we taught the P.O.S. it would be a better way in. So we went back for another lesson and Heavenly Father really softened his heart! He said straight up that he decided that he´d bothered us too much the last time and that he´d listen better this time. So we actually could see him struggle internally!  We could see he felt the spirit and how it made him uncomfortable and he just didn´t want to acknowledge it! BUT HE FELT IT! We saw it! Super cool! Anyways love you!

Leah pot

    Everyone believes in Jesus and everyone will let you in.  We really are only allowed to eat with members on Sundays because we can get sick, but if they offer for other times we still go and get fed. People are in the streets constantly and it's LOUD ALWAYS.  Between the car horns and the music its always loud, even until the middle of the night! I'm fantastic at bucket showers now!

      Honestly the bucket showers are pretty funny! I'm pretty dang good at them! This week we had almost no water, so I've been trying to do laundry for a week to no avail....thats annoying but it's fine.   At least we dont have any major bugs in our apartment! I only found a cockroach in my shower the size of a toy car once! IT WAS GROSS! Anyways... as far as weird food goes- we went to this place to eat after district meeting and a Dominican elder told me that another thing an elder had been eating was ……..wait…….., wait for it……….. CAT……..no joke! And then he asked if I wanted to try it and I said no. Yes, I know it's good to try things, but I draw the line at freaking cat! Anyways love you! 

Leah

Hello Everyone!

     All right, this week we got to clean the chapel, which includes throwing horrendous amounts of water everywhere and then sweeping it out with a broom. Haha-no carpet in these chapels. Also we had to go in and clean the baptismal font for a baptism. Hna. Calderon and I were in the font with soap and brooms scrubbing it while it was partway full, while the elders watched. Then when they did decide to help us, we ended up soaked as we had water pored all over us! Then later we were decorating the chapel for the baptism and we saw that the font was draining, so Hna C. told me to wade in and fix the stopper thing. IN A SKIRT! Thank goodness there was no one there! I couldn't even fix it, so she had to get in too and we just stood there and laughed as our skirts were hiked up to our hips. Quite the experience... Also we went and painted a girls room pink! I think we came home covered in more paint than the room!

     Hna C said that I have actually started to teach our investigators principles instead of just bearing my testimony! And she only has to explain to me what is going on some times! I'm working on being bold in the message I am here to share and my missionary purpose. I'm working on feeling no shame when I speak. I'll never learn the language if I don't talk.  So now I just talk and make mistakes and move on!

       OH YEAH AFTER ONE OF OUR LESSONS WE SAW A PROPOSAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are going to get married.  After we talked about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and how the gospel blesses families, he got down on his knee and proposed to the lady! Then he told Hermana Calderon to set a date!!!! Guess who's going to a wedding on May 2nd? THIS GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you guys!

Leah

Family and Friends,

     Leah had a rough entry into mission life in Santiago.  She was physically sick as well as dealing with the stress and anxiety of a new culture and language.  She seems to be doing better and I am cutting and pasting some excerpts from her emails home.

Andrea

Hey mom!

     Yeah I'm fine! This week was good! I had my major melt down, but now I'm pretty okay, I think. Every day is hard, don't get me wrong, but it is now just normal missionary frustrations...language and teaching and constanltly being exhausted.  As far as the anxiety goes I'm dealing with it and learning to replace my fear of change with faith. Dad's email to me last week was incredible and he gave me some amazing advice! He hit every single thing I was worried about and helped to calm my worries. I read it every morning! 

     I got the first package!!!  Thank you!  Mom I've lost a lot of weight….I'm learning how to learn to eat, rather than live to eat. Then again we are just running on coke and whatever we buy at the colmado as meals currently….I've never been too tired to eat but I am when I get home! We work right through dinner and then I just go to bed! On the bright side my yoga pants are super cute on me! And I wore my hair down today because we aren't proselyting until 6 and went out with people in our district.  I got hissed at a lot.... totally awkward when you´re walking next to your district leader and people start yelling rubio Linda and hissing... He told me men who do that are called snakes.  I didn't wear make up for the first week and a half because I was a basket case and I pretty much shocked the elders in my district when I actually wore make up and did my hair. One of them said you are not the person we played bball with this morning.....that was funny.... Dominicans are very blunt.....So now whenever we all go out the elders hiss and yell rubio to make fun of me....haha it's funny. They made me practice looking the other way when people hiss because you are not supposed to acknowledge it. You're supposed to just keep walking, which is what I already do, but they made me practice...=) It's funny you'd think the people here have never seen a white person...... actually I had kids point at me in the streets with wide eyes. So... yeah there´s that. But you know me its not like I mind attention.=) The reactions are mainly just funny.   Oh do you want to send me some fun stickers? That would be nice! Thanks mom I love you!

Leah

Hey Dad!

     Way better this week! Went way faster and now that I'm not sick every morning it is a lot easier to start the day and get through the mornings. I had a cool experience.  We visited this lady who is less active and she was telling us how she is sick and doesn't understand why and how she tried to commit suicide, but knew it was wrong. But she still wanted too and thought about it.  And it was super tender because I just sat there only half knowing what was going on and just feeling so strongly that I needed to tell this lady that I knew God loved her and that he would give her strength. And I just bore my testimony of that and it was really sweet because even though I can't completely speak I still have that simple knowledge and that can make a world of difference. Also General conference was amazing! That talk by elder Uchtdorf was an answer to my prayers! I saw it in english too! Also at the stake center half of it is kind of outside. Like you go outside from the chapel and walk to the classrooms.  Anyways a man rode his motercycle right on in! it wasn't technically in the chapel,  but it kind of was...it was funny! I love you!

Leah