November 30, 2015
HOLA Familia y Amigos!
Can you believe that it’s December tomorrow?? Because
I can't... mostly because in my mind it’s way too hot here to be December, AND
because time is passing so fast!
Now I know what you all were thinking when you saw the
picture of my companion and I last week - wow Meg is white! Yes I know,
but don't worry- the sun has already changed my skin color...TO RED! Hah!
I didn't last a full week without a sunburn, but what else is new? ;)
Don't worry mom, I'm using sunscreen now. :) It’s seriously SO HOT
and it’s not even fully summer here yet... Great…
This week we had a multi-zone conference! Basically we
talked about health, nutrition, exercise, and the new plan for the mission
starting in the New Year. It was super fun to meet lots of the other
missionaries here in Bahia Blanca. I was also able to have a much needed
all ENGLISH conversation with Elder Holmes (one of the Elders that arrived with
me). Our poor little brains are a bit
overwhelmed and fried from all this Spanish! We had Subway for lunch... super
weird to have food from the states ha-ha!
Now, in answer to some of your questions…
Hermana Palma is from Santiago, Chile and her family lives
in an area called La Reina. Dad, she
knows the areas that you served in back in the ancient days. She has been on her mission for 10 months,
and I am her 13th companion!
Poor girl has been moved around A LOT.
She is awesome as a trainer. She
can speak a little bit of English – she mainly knows random phrases and Disney songs
:) But, she does seem to understand
English well and when I don’t know how to say something in Spanish, I can
normally say it in English and she can figure it out.
Spanish is hard but it’s coming along. Everyone always compliments me on my Spanish
and says how good it is, but I think that’s only because the other Yankees that
have been in this area have come knowing absolutely nothing and have really bad
gringo accents. I got lucky to have Dad and Jess help me with that!
My comp helps me lots with Spanish. I just get frustrated over the stupid
conjugations of verbs, you know?!
Yes, we do have hot showers!
But the water heater is completely bipolar and really touchy so it takes
like 5 minutes to get the temperature right.
It can go from freezing cold to frying your skin off in a matter of
seconds. Oh, and the toilets work
great! We are technically supposed to
put the paper in the trash, but sometimes I forget. :/
So over the past couple weeks I've obviously been eating
lots of new and different foods. But honestly we mainly just eat a lot of
bread, pasta, meat, and dulce de leche!
My favorite thing is after we've had a huge meal with a member and then
they bring out bananas with dulce de leche...it is really good! I've also
had my first Argentine Helado (ice cream)! Sad to say, it’s not as good
as the ice cream in the States, but that is probably good because I won't eat
as much as I did back home...haha :)
Speaking of eating with members, for now we eat lunch with a different
family every day, but starting in the New Year that will all change. Too many missionaries are getting sick, so we
will have a new mission rule that we can’t eat with the members. We will be making our own meals
everyday.
Lucky for us, Hermana Palma likes to cook. She makes this really good apple tort/cake
thing that we have every week. So this week I decided to give back and
introduce my new mom to the wonderful world of FRENCH TOAST. Only thing is, we encountered a few problems. One, syrup is not a thing down here, so plain
French toast it had to be. And two, we
are poor missionaries and could only afford the cheap baguettes the day we
wanted to make it. So we had weird, mini-French toast on baguettes without any
toppings. Yum.
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| Hermana Palma's first taste of French Toast |
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| Sun-burnt with a side of plain French Toast! |
BUT on Thanksgiving, while you all were having incredible
meals, we splurged and bought a real loaf of bread, milk and cookies for our
Dia de Gracias feast...don't be too jealous ;)
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| Our Thanksgiving Day Feast |
Thanksgiving Day was hard...I was missing home and my
favorite weekend of the year (Thanksgiving with the Family and decorating the
house for Christmas). As a result, I was quite sad that morning and to
top things off, nothing was really going well.
All our appointments fell through, no one was home to visit, plus we
were walking in the scorching heat for hours. It was at this point when I
decided to pray for help.
Luckily, my Heavenly Father was looking out for me and knew
that I was having a hard day. That night we had a great lesson with some
investigators about prayer. We taught
them about how we need to pray for specific things and really treat prayer as a
conversation with our Father in Heaven. We played the game “telephone”
(where you whisper a word or phrase into someone's ear and they have to pass it
down the line until the last person gets it and says what they heard). Of
course I don't know Spanish very well and so I always screwed up the phrase and
the boys found it hilarious! We all got a good laugh out of my bad Spanish
and had a very powerful lesson... and I was happy! I didn't realize it
right then but after the lesson, as we were walking back home and saw the most
beautiful sunset, I knew my prayer had been answered. My Heavenly Father
helped me to be happy and blessed me with the tender mercy of a sunset to
remind me how much I am loved and how much I have to be grateful for!
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| Thanksgiving Sunset :) |
One of my favorite scriptures says, “Be of good cheer little children; for I am in your midst, and I have
not forsaken you; and inasmuch as you have humbled yourselves before me, the
blessings of the kingdom are yours.”
I love this verse because right now I feel like a little
child - I hardly know where I am, I'm living in a country I've only known for 2
weeks and talking to people who don't speak the same language as me…BUT I'm not
alone or forgotten.
I hope you all have a great week and remember how much love
and divine help we have every day. LES AMO MUCHISIMO!!!!
Hermana Bartholomew
P.S. Just like Dad and
Jess experienced on their missions, people here have the hardest time with our
last name, and it cracks me up!
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| Hey Mom! |
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