February 15

Hi Mom and Dad and everyone else,

Wow, what excitement with the cold. We continue mostly too hot and occasionally cold and rainy. There was some exciting lightning Sunday morning, but it stopped raining before we had to leave for church.

We were supposed to ¨hide¨ from carnival on Tuesday, but we had to go look at an apartment for rent and then we (we here means Hna Bender) played witht he kids in the street in front of our house. Carnival outside of the center of the city isn´t dangerous at all, but is is impossible to walk outside without getting wet, so it was pointless to try to go out and work as missionaries. 

Yes, I have heard in general about the migrant/refugee crisis in Europe. 

I hope to get all of my photos and videos up today as we found a decently fast internet. The pictures should explain why it was such a great pday.

You should find pictures of:

getting ready for the caravan of taxis with Brayan and friends. All the cars are decorated with balloons and streamers.

Hna Bender with her squirt gun

Thiago, Brayan´s 2 year old.

Playing on a street corner with Brayan, Roberto, their cousin Ester, who is going to serve a mission in columbia, and two other little cousins. As you can see everyone got wet.

(photo with fountian) back near their house we threw a few more water balloons before everyone went looking for dry clothes. 

Hermano Carlos, Brayan and Roberto´s Dad watched from the doorway.

We then went to buy lunch (chicken and french fries) and went to a little bit outside of the city (20 minutes away) to eat it.

They actually succeded in lighting a fire. (no one present was/is a very outdoorsy type).

Hna Bender looking cute on a rock.

A nearby river. And trees.

All the way home people tried to get us wet. Sometimes we rolled up the windows and other times we threw water balloons back at them.

On the 21st there are elections. These are some of the flags for ¨NO¨ The question is whether a president can be reelected a 3rd time and the sides are SÍ and NO. Both have put up lots of flags, banners, stickers, and murals/paint all around the city.

These are the kids that Hna Bender played with on Tuesday in front of the house. 

Brayan´s baptism. He bought a white hat for the occasion, but also a shirt and tie. Also pictured: Samuel, his cousin and Ester´s brother, Tiago, Roberto, Pamela, their sister, and her daughter Luciana.

The last pictures are from a Family Home Evening that we held with the family. People who messed up in the games got whiteboard marker on their faces. 

My current agenda, the previous two, and an example of a blank one. 

You are now getting a copy of some things I wrote to President Hansen about, so save time and because I wanted to write to you about the same general topics. 

Last Wednesday we went to contact a reference who we had called a few days before to arrange a visit. However, I had forgotten his dirrection and phone number is my old agenda from the previous cambio. So we got to the general area and had to go visit him without knowing exactly where. I only remembered that it was in plena esquina (exactly in the corner). There were several houses like that so we decided to knock on one of them. To my great surprise, there was Hernesto waiting for us. As we left, Hna Bender told me that she had been praying to find him as we knocked on the door. I hadn´t even thought to pray, but I know that God answered my companion´s prayer because she prayed with faith. I want to have that same faith that God will answer my prayers, so I´m going to trying to start looking for the answers more and writing down all the small miracles that we see. 

Last Saturday, Brayan was baptised. We were so happy and so was Brayan. He is truely converted. He is really nervous to speak is public, but shared a beautiful testimony of the Atonement. I can tell that he has truely repented and has changed his life so much. (our mission theme/thing is Teach Repentance and Baptise Converts.)

I found a cool video about love (since it´s valenitines day) on the church website. I think it´s cute.

 https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-08-014-expressions-of-love?cid=HP_FR_2-12-2016_dPFD_fMLIB_xLIDyI-1_&lang=spa

February 8

Cambios were this sunday (yesterday), but we are staying put as we expected. However, all the sisters under our care had cambios except for one companionship when I thought than only one companionship would. This coming cambio is 7 weeks long and then I expect to have one last cambio and one last area for only 6 weeks. 

I have had an awesome pday and we didn{t leave time for internet. this may be the only email that you get this week, but check out my pictures and know that I am okay.

Very cute kitten in Carrie{s house.

Hna Bender{s nail paint makes me think of a oar blade. 

Cool avengers cake on display in a window.

Hna Bender is a trooper. She{s still not great, but is still working hard. Here she is in bed with sunglasses because the sun is too bright.

Last Monday night Ester opened her mission call. Most of the YAS were there as well as her parents. She{s going to columbia cali. :)

The rest of the photos are from today. Carneval!!!!

Jose, cousin or nephew or something of brayan with confetii in his hair.

getting ready for a mini parade thing with the taxis at the taxi agency where brayan works. I think this picture came out especially well. 

Roberto in the car. 

Hna Bender with spray foam all in her hair and on the phone. 

filling water balloons. 

Brayan who{s the one who got her this the foam (note the can in his hand). We went with Brayan, Roberto, and Ester (who is their cousin) all day today for carneval stuff and fun.

I think that is all the photos that are going to load today. You will get the rest next week. 

February 1

  

Hi Mom,

Thanks for the letter and photos. You never answered my question a few weeks about about Charles. Is he doing ballet or what?

Just so you know, Hna Bender has not gotten over her parasites and everything yet. Give her a week or two. We are trying to balance working hard with all the great plans we come up with and letting her rest a bit more. 

My class assingment seems fine. I´ll enjoy ASL [American Sign Language] too and Hna Bender pointed out that it´s a bit more useful to know asl than arabic. 

Thanks for letting me know about that virus. I hadn´t heard about it here, but Aunt Beth wrote about it too this week. There aren´t mosquitos around here like there were last  year in villa mexico. Actually, I don´t think I´ve seen a single one yet. However, I will keep an eye out for mosquitos more than before. 

I had heard about the ward split because Brother Davis wrote to me in december that the ward was going to have some sort of special meeting maybe about spliting the wards and then I checked out the ward directory and ward map on lds.org. I am very glad that we will be meeting at 9 and not 1pm and that Bishop Whatcott is still bishop. 

 I will be waiting for pictures of Robert´s project.

I hope Charles can handle his classes and rowing and everything well. It´s interesting to hear about his transition to college and how he fits in with the other rowers. When I got to college, I felt very liberal compared to my peers at byu while at abrhs I had felt very conservative. 

My photos are:

In a nearby catholic church there is a huge mural of the same painting that we have in our pamphlets. We took pictures last Monday afternoon. 

We had a little party for Thiago (pronounced tiago) who turned 2 years old. Thiago is the son of Brayan, who will be baptised in two weeks, and the nephew of Roberto, our recent convert. Thiago wasn´t very happy about all the attention, but  Luciana his 1 and a half year old cousin loves attention and put on the party hat that Thiago didn´t want to wear. (when I forgot to put the flash on it turned out very blurry)

This is a fruit that Hna Wilson, a missionary that we had intercambios with this past week, gave me. I think it´s called something that starts with a g, but I forgot the rest. It´s okay tasting. You don´t chew the seeds, but just slurp and swallow it all. It´s kind of sweet.

We were really happy this week with Brayan. He´s been progressing well for a few weeks and accepted a baptismal date a few weeks ago, but this week he really had a break through. He learned about baptisms for the dead in the temple and loves it. He´s so excited to be able to be baptised for relatives and, with the permission of their family members, several close friends who have died. This motivates him to read the book of mormon a ton. He´s also been finding a ton of church videos online, serveral mormon messages, and a cool time lapse of the construction of the provo city center temple. He also wants his little son to be raised in the church and be able to serve a mission. It is so cool to see how the gosple changes someone for the better. Brayan has had to change his lifestyle so much (since these photos were taken last monday, he has also taken out his earrings), but we can see that he is so much happier. 

I hope you have a great week. I love you so much and send hugs for everyone.

Love,

Natalie