December 7

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!! I love you so much and hope you have an awesome birthday. I didn´t find the time to send you anything, but I´m thinking of you all the same. I send you lots of hugs.

This weeks has been once again busy, but very good. I was a bit sick on Tuesday. I ate something on Monday (luke warm papaya juice, I think) that made me sick, but I was better again on Wednesday. We had intercambios, which makes the week both shorter because we are too busy and longer because there is a lot to do.

We are assigned to the sister missionaries in two zones, six companioships, 12 missionaries in total. We do one intercambios per companionship per transfer for everyone. We generally do two intercambios per week. Other months we might have spread them out more, but Hna Callata goes home on the 17th. (they are sending the missionaries who leave this transfer home a week and a half early because it would be sad to get home two days after Christmas). We report on the intercambios to President Hansen and imform him if the sisters need any help from him. If they have problems we also work together with their zone leaders, who often see them more frequently.

Thus I have learned my area pretty quickly and am now able to be here for the day with another sister instead of always being the one who goes to their area.

I realize that my grammar is sometimes coming out wierdly, but I am too lazy to try to think of what would sound better when I know that it´s understandable. I do feel that my Spanish continues to improve. Phone conversations are still the most difficult, but I´m good with just about any other situation. My grammar isn´t perfect in Spanish, but people don´t speak with perfect grammar here anyway, so I´m okay. I no longer have to take the spanish exames. I had so much trouble getting them to work that Hna Hansen looked into it. It turns out that I never had to take them because I was in the MTC for only two weeks. I feel confident with my spanish. I look forward to be able to test my reading skills on spanish books other than the scriptures. The hardest thing to read in spanish for me is our booklet for training new missionaries, but I think that´s because it was translated from English really badly.

I think I will have permission to skype only on Christmas unless you really have a conflict with that date. I would perfer to skype Christmas morning like last year and hope to see the Christmas tree better decorated than last year. :) I have no idea where I will be or with whose computer, but I´ll arrange that the week before.

Thanks for the pictures and the story about your personal earthquake. I and my companion also laughed at the breakdancing story. Don´t worry, we laughed at the story, not at Charles.

One of the things I have been thinking of recently is having an eternal perspective. Thinking of things, especially when making decisions, in the bigger picture. This means remembering who we are, children of God, and that we have a huge potential if we chose to develop it. When I remember to have an eternal perspective, I remember that the decisions I take have consequences. Sometimes it´s little consequences. For example, I think to myself, I don´t want to wash my socks, but if I don´t wash them, I won´t have clean socks tomorrow. Sometimes the consequences are truly eternal. I remember God´s promises in the scriptures, that if I endure to the end and serve with all my heart, might, mind, and strength, I will have eternal life.

I think eternal perspective is what a lot of people, both investigators and some missionaries, lack. If you have eternal perspective, you realize that the spiritual part of life is of much greater importance than the physical and that obedience to realize future blessings is more important that our momentary desires. I guess, delayed gratification is very connected. If I had realized this earlier, I think I would have studied a lot more and made the sacrifice to wake up for seminary more too.

The Fotos:

Temple at dusk. It was actually cloudly for once. It´s starting to be a little cloudlier as it starts to rain occasionaly.

The temple´s nativity scene.

My camera is always blurry at night. I don´t know why. Hna Simons came to the temple from Santa Cruz and we talked for a few minutes. She´s doing well, but says that the transition from the mission to being at home is very hard.

This is how bananas grow.

The mission home is beautifully decorated for Christmas. We went because Hna Callata had her end of mission interveiw (even though she still has two more weeks). 

I love you a ton and hope you have a great week. I miss you, but I stay very busy. I send you lots of love and many happy birthdays and a hug with a kiss on the check, Bolivian-style.

Love,

Natalie

PS If you want to look up Bolivian music, Los Kjarkas are a popular folk music group. There is style of dance from Potosi called Tinku that I especially like.