Whow! It has been a long day and I don't have too much time to write today. I had to go into the city to get some Visa stuff done with all the other Gringos in our area. It was great!! I got to see all the Elders from my MTC district!! I didn't know I missed them so much haha we all ate at a Burger King (haha okay I lied about the no more burgers thing, I love them too much! And Burger King is definitely better, one day I will find a the Carl's Jr here though)

But Life has been great here. We had the opportunity to sing Christmas carols outside of the Hospital this week, which was really fun it helped light up the mood of a lot of the people there. And our ward also had a Christmas party this week! So much fun! I never knew how funny The Christmas Story could be until I saw in reenacted by our ward haha it is so funny to hear it in Spanish! Oh and they fed us Pig Head in our tacos, which actually tasted really good. I wont complain haha.

We have at least sung every Christmas song in the hymn book about 50 times! I pray that they will get more espanol Christmas hymns, because singing the same five can get a little annoying but watcha yah going to do =)

Well I feel like I am getting fatter everyday, one habit I have not broken from the MTC yet is being a fast eater, and I am so paying for it. Every time a member sees that my plate is empty, they put a ton more on it because they think I'm starving, haha! I'm totally not.

Well love yah all! Have a good week! Enjoy the Holidays!!

                  We are God's elves :)                        

Familiar things!! I still love my Video Games and my MTC District!

Love,

Hermana Orison

NO MORE BURGERS!

Whoow time is going by fast, I cant believe another week has gone by so fast. Well, for starters we did get our water back on!! Yay!! (Happy Dance) so I don't stink anymore (at least I don't think so...) we have been doing a lot of activating for our ward (there are a ton of less actives) so Ive been meeting lots of the members around here, they are all really nice and happy people =) 

'Im still learning the dos and don'ts in Mexico. for one, don't ever eat a burger from any of the little shops here, they are not very good (I would honestly pick McDonald over them, yep that bad) and you will be up at 3 in the morning throwing it back up haha (all part of the Mexican Experience) 

One thing I have noticed here is that Coca-cola pretty much sponsors this place haha at least it looks like it. they sell coke everywhere, every person offers it to us to drink and the label is pretty much on every street haha its so weird.

We watched the Christmas devo last night at the stake center, and it was so nice because all of us American missionary went into one of the back rooms of the church and watched it in English, it WAS SO NICE!! AH! I MISS MY ENGLISH SO BAD!!! haha as Elder. Yoo said while we were watching it "it feels like I'm in America again!" it was so true haha I definitely needed it and the words that were spoken in the devo felt like they were just for me. If you missed it go watch it! Like right now! It was great =) oh and if you haven't watched the Christmas video "he is the gift" put out by the lds church, go watch that too. it is so amazing! I love it! (christmas.mormon.org)

I hope all is going well for everyone! I miss yah! I love yah! Keep being awesome!!

Love,

Hermana Orison

 

 Oh My companion cooked my Spaghetti for breakfast haha (and I just hit the guy beside me with my memory card just barely oops haha what can I say, I was excited to upload my pictures!) Our lovely wash and rinse cycle, yeah this is the life!!

  Our lovely wash and rinse cycle, yeah this is the life!!

This is the Life

Hola!!!!

                     Wow has it been a week! I don't even know where to begin haha Mexico is so different!! My companion Hna. Alfaro, she is from Mexico and seriously I think without her I would literally die haha! She is very smart and we have been teaching each other English and Spanish to communicate. 

                     My area is in Ciudad Obregon, all the houses here have gates around them, there are no paved roads, and there is no carpet in any of the houses I have been to so far (haha I know weird thing to notice). We walk everywhere and if we don't we take one of the buses which is very exciting haha. Imagine a school bus with half of the seats pressed against the windows, a broken windshield, and a bus driver who stops for about one second to pick you up (as in the bus is moving as he is finding change for your money and while you are still trying to get to your seat haha and its not moving slow!!) I have a ton of fun with it though haha 

                 The people here are really awesome!! I love them, although I can barely understand them, they are really patient with me and they are always happy its awesome! 

                      Haha I totally forgot about thanks giving until I read everyone's emails. They do not celebrate it here, Thinking back to what I ate that day I think it was a really spicy bowl of what looked like spaghetti Os. The food here is amazing though, I just ate manray soup for lunch (sorry for spelling errors I'm on a Spanish keyboard and the keys are not quite the same haha).  They serve tortillas at every meal and they are AMAZING!! 

              Ah yesterday someone stole one of the pipes to our water line! Haha so we have had no water for two days. ahhh yeah its the Mexican experience, why someone needed a pipe is beyond me. but, I hope they needed it more then us 

           Here's some Awesome stuff, we had a lesson Last night with my favorite Investigator Cesar,And I was able to testify to him and tell him my baptism story IN SPANISH!! it was great!! He is now thinking about baptism and I committed him to read a chapter out of the Book Of Mormon (the one that helped me know the church was true). It was an awesome experience!! Made me love this place even more  it's the best!! 

I hope all is going well for all of you!! I love you all! have an awesome week!! 

Love,

Hermana Orison

My welcoming to my new home haha

 

Us getting water.

                                                    My new home. And so the adventure Begins :)

MEXICO!!!

                           I am in Mexico, after traveling for over 20 hours (I don't even know what sleep is anymore) and I just got done with a crazy taxi ride (as in, broken windshield, hatch totally opened with suit cases in the back, and doesn't obey any of the street laws haha fun stuff!!) and my first companion speaks only Spanish, yay! so we have been carrying around our Spanish and English dictionaries and pointing at a lot of stuff to converse with each other, planning lessons will be really exciting haha.

I would have to say Mexico is very different from the US but It is pretty cool. There is a preschool in front of our house and they do a ton of Zumba there in the night so I guess you hear music from there all the time. I walked in on Gangdam style, have not heard that for a loooooong time haha. It will take a little while to get used to everything, but I am excited for it. 

                  Well I do not have to much time today I will try to write you all next week, I get to go meet all the members in my area now it will be interesting...I still don't understand that much Spanish...but it will get there! Love you all! Have a great week!!

Love,

Hermana Orison

Spanish Spanish Everywhere!!

             Only seven days left!! Whoow!! Time is counting down haha it really doesn't feel like I've been out for a month.

 So this past week I had to go pick up an international missionary for our new district, but when I went to pick her up there were two other international sisters that had no one to show them around (their sister training leaders didn't come for them) So I adopted them for the day. One was from Porta Rico, another from Spain and the other from an island I have no idea how to pronounce or spell (same with he language) so we had three languages going on at once it was pretty fun haha.

 Oh it was cool we got to teach through Skype this week, it is so weird! And a little hard to figure out what they were saying, but it went really well :)

            It is getting a lot colder here! Which sucks because I packed mainly for Mexico and not too much for Salt Lake haha but I only have one more week here. I'll probably be complaining about heat stroke next week, haha stay tuned!

               Funny Story: we were teaching are teacher (pretending she was an investigator) about baptism, and I showed her a picture of my baptism and she asked who I was baptized with.

"Mi Hombre!" I said and realized that I meant hermano and not hombre. My companions busted up laughing as well as my teacher.

Yes, apparently I was baptized with MY MAN instead of MY BROTHER haha sorry Luke ;)

              

                             Herma Day was about to depart to we had a S'more party in our PJs :)

              Verse: 2 Nephi 10:20- When life is just not going your way and it seems that you keep hitting more and more road blocks just remember that God is leading you to something better, it may not look like it at the time but when you have faith in Him it will all turn out for the best.

                I love you all!! I'll write you from Mexico new week! Whoot!!!!

Time Flys By With Spanish

Hola!

Whoot! Week 4! It feels like time is flying by fast! My favorite district (okay besides mine ;) ) just left to Mexico this morning, I', a little sad because I'm going to miss them a ton! But I'm also excited for them because they will do amazing work! :) So now we are the oldest district in our branch, it is so weird, I don't feel like I've been here that long.

But awesome news! We have been teaching our investigator Hely, for a little while now and she accepted our Baptism invitation this week!! Such an exciting moment! It was honestly the best lesson I have had the opportunity to teach, even though our Spanish was not that great, the spirit was so strong!! I've never felt it that strong before, it was truly amazing :)

Yesterday, our leadership roles changed, I am still the sister training leader but now two of the elders in my district have become Zone leaders and another is a district leader. So on Sunday's pretty much my whole district is attending meetings (SO MANY MEETINGS!! GAH!!) but I am really proud of my district, they are the best!! :)

Haha funny story, we made a goal to not  say the word hate in our district, instead we should replace it with love, I guess we took it a little seriously because everyone is now screaming I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!! throughout the halls and classes haha all the other districts look at us like we are crazy (okay so we are a little crazy...) haha the best is when I yell it at the Elders when they are being realllly annoying!! (many times in the day haha) Fun stuff :)

Quote of the week:

We started singing in choir when-

Sister missionary: "Shouldn't we say a prayer before starting?"

Choir Instructor: "I like to warm us all up before praying, because then I know how much I need to pray." haha 

Scripture of Week: 2 Nephi 8:12- (read it!) when the lord is on our side, we have no reason to be afraid. He is there to guide and comfort you through all of your trials, have faith in Him and you can accomplish all things!

Love you all! I'm praying for all of you!

Another One Bites the Dust !!

Hola Todas!!

It has been a really weird week, I really think all of our elders are dying off haha. One elder got a really bad sprain in soccer and his ankle swelled to the size of a big golf ball. another one has back problems and another one has a reallllllly bad cough and they are all sick. I feel really bad for them 

:( I still don't know how us sisters are doing well. 

We watched the restoration in the Korean language yesterday, to be honest it was like watching a very badly dubbed anime, don't do it because you will probably be laughing through the whole thing and be getting glares from the missionaries learning Korean (that may have happened...)

First fast Sunday was not bad at all, I thought I'd be starving but I felt perfectly fine :) I guess when you fast really hard for things, you don't feel that hungry, that's some advice to you all! :P We also got to listen to Elder Nelsons wife, it was awesome!! :)

Funny Story:

One of our Branch presidents councilors asked me to pray in Spanish, and I guess to him I messed up on some of the words (I swear I didn't!) and he told me how to fix it in front of my district.

So in our next meeting they called on me to pray again (I'm the only girl in our meetings so I guess they just like me a lot or something...) and I emphasized on all my "corrections" in my prayer really loudly to prove him that I was saying it right. They were all laughing at the end of it and congratulated me on giving a good prayer , I know I'm a brat ;)

Well, Love you all! And I hope you are all doing well!!