Christmas in Paraguay

Highlight of the Week: Talking with my family! (Skype is so easy. . . why did I not know this?)

We had an investigator come to church yesterday!!! So exciting. The hardest part of missionary work here is getting people to church. Nearly everybody's willing to talk about Christ till the cows come home (honestly, till their cows come in from the fields) but then you explain that attending church is important and they always have really good reasons why they can't go. But it's so important! We're working on that.

Bueno. Christmas in Paraguay:
Hot. Humid. Loud. Imagine the 4th of July with Christmas lights and palm trees and you've got a pretty good idea. And apparently there´s a huge dinner at midnight. I wouldn't know though. I was  sleeping :) And Christmas day we had divisions with the Hermanas Leaders, but we still managed to make chocolate chip pancakes in the morning to celebrate :)

Our mission-wide activity on Thursday was something else entirely, but I´ll wait till next week to do it justice.

And I forgot to bring my camera to send pictures AGAIN. Sorry. It´s gonna happen. Someday.

New Compañera

Highlight of the Week: NOT having to pack my bags (moving 100 lbs of suitcases around the cobbled streets of Paraguay is the stuff of nightmares. not joking)

Well, Cambios have come and gone and I`m still in Ypacarai (I`m going to be here for mango and guayaba season!). But I`ve got a new compañera, Hermana Weeks. She`s from St. George Utah and has 6 months in the field. She just finished training one of the Hermanas that was in the CCM with me :) And we`re getting along great, and it turns out I can plan out our daily schedules every day (since she knows nobody in our area. . . yet :)

Story of the Week: We were in the far reaches of our area, Patiño, contacting, when we discovered a great big wall. Hn. Weeks wanted to know what was on the other side. I didn`t know. But just then a man came out of one of the gates in the wall, and so we introduced ourselves and asked our question. We didn`t understand his reply. And so he offered to show us. And thus began our spontaneous tour of what turns out to be an old abandoned zoo, by a man with an Igor-ish vibe about him (You know, assistant to Dr. Frankenstein. . . right?), who gifted us with enough litchi (a strange Asian fruit, I think) to last a lifetime AND wanted to come to church. . . he didn`t end up coming unfortunately. But we`ll work on that :) I love Paraguay.

Well, I`m looking forward to Christmas! Fireworks and all. I`m sure I`ll have stories about it next week :)

Merry Christmas

Highlight of the Week: Getting my new Ajenda, and about a million letters from home ( Love new ajendas, and letters :)

Bueno. I know I promised more this week. And last week. And next week I won`t be writing because I`ll be talking with my family (Yay!!!) so I`m not making any promises about next week or the week after :)

Ok. The guavas are getting bigger. So excited.
And I tried a strange fruit called ýbapo´o. it`s slimy.
And I tried another strange fruit. Don`t have a name for that one.
And I tried a starfruit for the first time! I may or may not have found that one in the streets of Asuncion. . . I washed it really well, I promise!

Ok. Merry Christmas. Think of Christ! He is SO IMPORTANT!!!

Virgin de Caacupé

Highlight of the Week: Hosting the Hermanas de Caacupe

I found cocoa powder! AND chocolate chips! There are hidden blessings in giving up P-day to sign legal papers in Asuncion :) 

 

And all of Paraguay walked to Caacupe to pay tribute to the Virgin de Caacupe yesterday. Except us, of course - we had divisions with the hermanas de Caacupe for three days cause they couldn`t go out in their area due to the crowds. 

 

I`ll explain more next week sobre this grand Paraguayan festival. 

The convert

Highlight of the Week: Thunderstorms - so cool (when you´re inside :) 

Joaquin got confirmed! Aaaaand then we lost our new convert. He´s got health problems, so he can´t walk to church (so he told us), so we´ve been really on top of having rides to and from the chapel for him.  And this Sunday was no exception. . . except we´re really busy after church and such, and it was some time before we realized that the branch president (our planned ride for Hno. Joaquin) was still there, but Joaquin wasn´t. And none of the members knew who had taken him home (or IF he´d been taken home). So we started to worry (not panic. . . just worry :) and set out to find him. It´s a good 15 minute walk (missionary pace) to Joaquin´s house, and the whole way we were trying to figure out what could have possibly happened. I came to the conclusion that he was so close to perfection that all he needed was to be confirmed and then the Lord translated him :) Hna. Quito didn´t buy it. Turns out Joaquin can walk to the church (at least home from the church) and we didn´t lose our new convert after all :) He´s well and living, not yet translated, but baptized and confirmed :) 

Well, I don´t have time to write more, and I can´t respond to individual emails this week either. Sorry. But just wait for next week! :) 

Pata de Vaca

Highlight of the Week: Divisions with the Sister Leaders - I love our Sister Leaders 

Joaquin got baptized! And then couldn`t make it to church to be confirmed yesterday. :( So nothing´s official yet, but next week it will be!

And eating horse last week has NOTHING on this week`s 'lunch of the week' : Pata de Vaca, or Cow Foot. There is no need for any other explanation. The name says it all. I ate the foot of a cow. With beans and gravy, of course :) Not sure I`ll ever be able to look at cows  the same way again. 

And the scriptural discovery of the week is that there's a typo in Luke 7:39 (at least in my edition of the scriptures - lo siento all you digital scripture users, you don`t get to enjoy this discovery with the rest of us)

Aaaaand more next week. Out of time. 

Adios, Buenas Tardes

Highlight of the Week: Torrents upon torrents of rain. . . for 10 minutes :)

I´ve decided the theme song for contacting in Paraguay is that one Beetles song that goes, "You say goodbye, I say hello". Everyone here uses 'Adios' as much as anything else when passing people in the street, and as missionaries we use 'buenas tardes' (it's a little more open and inviting)

I think I ate horse. I`m not sure. That`s what they said it was at least. Not all that bad actually :)

And I just know I`m going to come home speaking a spanish that no one else will understand, with a fair amount of Guarani mixed in there :) I just discovered this week that 'sarambi' (disorder) is not spanish. Niether is 'háke' (careful).

And if all goes well we`re going to have a baptism this Saturday! Juaquin came to church with us for the third time yesterday! (yay!!!) More on that next week :) 

Gardening with Machetes

Highlight of the Week: Service! We`re good at cleaning . . .Well, Hna. Quito is.

1. People in Paraguay garden with machetes. And plants grow so casually here and the gardeners are the same - very casual. We helped the branch president´s wife with some yard work the other day, and it was quite the experience - "let`s hack this back here, and throw that plant over there... there`s a pile of rocks in the back, let`s maybe put some around these plants (after hacked to size with the machete of course)" And they weed with machetes too! BYU grounds needs to look into this . . .

2. Piñas are my new favorite fruit. and here they are tiny and cute and the perfect size for one person :)

3. I now know the difference between Grace and Mercy . . . they`re really different. So if you don`t, look it up in the Bible Dictionary! It`s fascinating, I promise :) And 2 Nephi 9 is my current favorite chapter. There is SO MUCH in it! 

4. It`s hot. Stiflingly hot. And the only thing the members have to say about this is that December and January are hotter. . . (Nooooo!!) It`s a good thing I know what grace is. And faith. I`m going to need it.

6 weeks in Paraguay

Highlight of the Week: Mini reunion with my CCM companion - going all the way to Asuncion is a bit of a journey, but worth it!

Well, I`m about to finish 6 weeks in Paraguay! Woohoo! That means I have a brand new Ajenda (I`ve already got it decked out for Navidad, thanks to the 2010 December Liahona) and only 6 more weeks of training. Today I bought a Guarani/Español dictionary, we`ll see if it actually helps at all. I`m picking up on the Español, it`s coming. Guarani`s a little more difficult :)

I made an important discovery this week. Guava trees are in bloom. And they´re everywhere. And according to the members they`ll be in season in January (in time for my birthday! yay!)

We went to the lake last week for p-day and discovered a third variety of Mimosa pudica that we hadn`t known about before. Perhaps after my mission I`ll become the world`s leading expert on Mimosa pudica :)

This week was a little crazy. All of Wednesday was travely to and from Asuncion for an Examen. I wasn`t too keen on the idea of a test, especially one in Español, but I had fun with it (perhaps a little too much fun, but that`ll just even things out with my companion, cause I think she took it a little too seriously :) And I got to talk with the other newbies and compare stories and experiences. So Ypacarai seems to be in the middle of the spectrum when it comes to city and campo.

Funny story - Hna. Quito found a grey hair the other day. It`s probably my fault, but apparently it`s bad luck to pull them out, so it`s there to stay!

Aaaand in case it ever comes up, walrus in Español is morsa.

And morir and morar are two very different words. ´to die´ and ´to dwell´. I feel that maybe our conversations about where people live won`t be quite so confusing anymore :)

People in Paraguay are blunt. Or open, or something. They`ve got no reservations about commenting on weight, that`s for sure :) They ask me what I eat, and if I eat a lot, and have to tell them "I eat what you give me!" (which happens to be two huge platefulls of who knows what at lunch and nothing for dinner [which is ok, because usually I`m still working off lunch]) The Gospel is true. Meal time not so much.

I love Paraguay, and Ypacarai, and the Gospel, and people, and life in general :)

Hna. Houldridge

Divisions

Highlight of the Week: Divisions.

This week was crazy -  we had divisions on Thursday (that is such a strange word, Thursday. . . jueves :) and the couple missionaries in our district visited us on Friday. Divisions is when you swap companions with another companionship for a day, and it was up to me to find all our appointments because Hna. West isn`t familiar with our area, and believe it or not we didn`t get lost - even when we had to cut though a field because our usual path had become a small river :)

The weather here is crazy too. Wednesday was so hot and humid I could barely think straight, and then Thursday it poured all day long and was *almost* chilly. I`ll take the rain over the heat any day :)

My legs look like a war zone. If I forget repellent one day I`ve got a whole new set of bites.

The work is coming along - gotta love the Gospel! I memorized the first vision in Español this week! (about time)

Pictures in Paraguay

Here are some pictures of Hermana Houldridge sent to us by Elder and Sister Kelly.  The pictures had geo tag information that Rachel's dad looked up. 

 

Here is the link to where Rachel was when the pictures were taken.  (Click on "Here")

 

 

Mimosa Pudica

Highlight of the Week: Church again. We had an investigator come for all three hours (yay!)

I`ve figured out the shower in our house. So I feel like I`ve officially moved in now :)

Our dish soap is bubblegum scented. . . don`t ask me why

Chipa is fantastic. I`ll explain what it is later.

One of the members in our Rama (branch) showed me a few edible plants - I love Paraguay :)

Mimosa pudica grows like a weed here! It never ceases to amaze Hna. Quito

 

 

(Mimosa pudica, is a creeping annual or perennial herb often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken.  Rachel brought a small one home last year.  They are fun to touch and watch them close up.)

 

 

I`ve managed to stumble across two bad words in all my fumbling in Español. . . can`t remember what they were, but I`m not going to forget how great the look was on Hna. Quito´s face :)

And one of these days I won`t be pressed for time, but today I am. Gotta love the Work :)

Third week in Paraguay

Highlight of the Week: Church. To see the people you teach come to church is better than Christmas :) 

It rained this week. I discovered that my raincoat is not a `be in the rain for 6 hours` kind of rain coat. But that`s ok, cause I`ve been humbled and will now bring an umbrella too :) 

With the rain came thunder. LOUD thunder. We were studying at the casa and all of a sudden there`s this deafening boom and everything got showered in brick dust from the wall. . . quite exciting. And apparently the week before I came they had a terrible hail storm that devastated the terracotta roofs, and even shot holes through the fiberglass stuff too. . . quite impressive. 

I was reading about Jonah in the Liahona and I`ve decided that my 32 hours of travel was a blessing compared to traveling by whale :) 

And I`ve found my favorite spot in all of Ypacarai - it`s this ancient grove of mango trees (Current Awesome Tree: Mango trees :)

Ypacarai: Y means water. pa means . . . stop I think. and carai is the name of a guy. So I think the story goes something like this: There was this town next to a lake, and a man, Carai, was really thirsty. So he began to drink the lake up. The villagers were afraid he`d drain the whole lake so . . . they told him to stop? I think. I don`t remember. Something like that :) At least that`s what I got out of what Hna. Quito told me. 

Well, perhaps next week I`ll figure out pictures :) 

I`m in Ypacarai

Highlight of the Week: General Conference! (in English, no less :)

Everyone who didn`t watch it, watch it now!

Ok, lo siento for the brevity. 

Everybody burns mango leaves here. They don`t compost aparently. 

I feel like I`ve kissed the cheeks of every woman in Paraguay :) 

I`m in Ypacarai - it`s Guarani. I`ll tell ya the story behind it next week. 

I`ve been using the "ok" hand gesture a lot because "esta bien" gets old, and my vocabulary is limited. . . but my Hna. Quito told me yesterday that it`s equivelant to the middle finger in Peru where she`s from. . . oops :) now I`m reduced to just a thumbs up :)

Aaaand I promise I`ll be more thorough next week - cause I`ve got all sorts of stories and plants to talk about :) 

PARAGUAY!!​!

 

 

 

Well, it`s a little strange to be writing in English, I must admit. And this is only one week in. . . so I`m going to apologize in advance for what my English is going to be a few months from now :) Ok. I have a very limited amount of time, and quite a bit to write about, so this is going to be a first-second-final draft all in one. 

Traveling to Paraguay: 

32 hours of traveling is A LOT. There were 27 of us missionaries heading to Paraguay, and we were quite the sight! We flew from Mexico to Bogota, Columbia, then to Buenos Aires, Argentina, then finally to Asuncion, Paraguay. The flight attendants from Mexico to Columbia looked like a whole slew of Camen SanDiegos  (if anybody remembers that show). That`s pretty much all I`ve got for the whole 32 hours. Oh! I was blessed not to sleep through any of the offered meals (that I know of :) That right there is a genuine tender mercy of the Lord. Airplane food may not be grand, but it sure is fantastic when it`s the only option available :) 

Traveling in Paraguay:

We spent the first day in Asuncion at the Mission home getting all oriented and everything. They only had room for about half the missionaries at the mission home, so the rest of us got to stay in a little hotel a few blocks away. And they fed us the biggest and best meals we`d had in 6 weeks.

We finally met our companions Wednesday morning, and it was probably the most suspenseful event of my entire life. Not kidding. It felt a little bit like the Hunger games. We were all sitting in a chapel, and the trainers were spread out in the pews and we newbies were all huddled in the front corner, completely bewildered and terrified. And one by one President Agazzani called up a trainer and then a new missionary. Tender Mercy of the Lord number 2: I didn`t pee my pant (thought I might :)

My companion is Hermana Quito. She`s from Peru, she`s been out 12 months, and she doesn`t speak any English, which makes every daily task that used to be normal really quite interesting :) AND she likes Korean Dramas. Who`d a guessed. Don`t ask me how we managed to figure that out between my broken Spanish and her lack of English, but we did.

The Lord could not have sent me to a more perfect place. I love Paraguay already. I love the dirt roads and the crazy colectivos (buses unlike any you`ve ever been on in the States) and the people and Guarani and the plants. . . I`ll have more details next week. And I`m going to get better at whipping out these emails. Promise.

I'm In Paraguay!! Sept 24th

Hey, I´m just checking in really quick, we survived our 32 hours of traveling, and we may not look like much, but we´re so excited to be here. I already love Paraguay. It´s green and there are dirt roads, and our mission president is wonderful and funny and doesn´t speak any English at all. We meet our companions tomorrow, and our pday is on Monday. But we only get an hour of email time here, instead of however much we want like at the CCM, so I´m gonna have to write more letters and less emails. Well, I´m doing great, can´t wait to shower and sleep in a bed, and I´ll send you more info in a week!
Love you guys!

~Hermana Houldridge

Haz Lo Justo!

 

~ Highlight of the Week: Giant cream puffs for lunch ~

 

THREE MORE DAYS!!!

 

That´s it. And then I´ll be on my way to Paraguay. . . which is so much scarier than flying to Mexico ever was. Give me 4 days and I´ll be a real missionary. ( Not that MTC missionaries aren´t real. . . we´re just. . . still in the MTC )

 

 

The beginning of the week was rough, due to a slight disagreement between my nose and the rest of my face. My nose was bent on crawling off my face, and I just wouldn´t let it. (I´m gonna need it these next 17 months) This resulted in me learning to not shake investigators hands after lessons, and how to hold in a sneeze while explaining the Atonement, and how to still run during gym time without the convenience of breathing through my nose. It was a fabulous learning experience.

 

 

Also we found the biggest, nastiest bug in our housemates´s shower. This thing could have eaten us (or at least our little toe). It´s a good thing I´m blind when I shower (no glasses :) and I can´t see the creepy crawlies :) We made the mistake of handing it over to the elders, who made some sort of terrible plans with it. . .

 

 

Weed Whacking. Maybe it´s a menial chore to all you guys, but it has never looked so fun. And they do a lot of it here.

 

 

Aaaand possibly my favorite pass time (besides studying the Gospel and reading the scriptures, of course :) is a good ol´ game of Kill/Save the Flower. It´s the only thing that can keep me awake during devotionals on Sunday night. It´s second only to Melonball, and since Melonball´s not quite possible on the mission, Kill/Save the Flower´s got a comfortable spot as number 1.

 

 

Question: Is there a book on how to fly Hot Air Balloons? I´ve been giving it a lot of thought, and now I have all these technical questions . . . no body here at the CCM seems to know the answers. . . so I´ll need a good book, or at least a wikipedia article to read about 17 months from now.

 

 

Ah. Name tags. The teachers here have white ones. We have black ones. We asked our teacher a few nights ago why his was white, and his response was, ´It´s the color of experience´, and then one of our Elders exclaimed, ´Like Gandalf!´ . So there you go. I now understand perfectly :)

 

 

Last night Hermana Kimball and I discovered the wonders of Mexican Super Glue. You´d think it´d be the same as in the states, but it´s not. Luckily 6 weeks of Spanish has given us enough language skills to muddle our way through the directions (with help from the pictures), and we were able to safely and successfully apply super glue (Kola Loca) to Hermana Kimball´s scriptures.

 

 

And I´m running out of time, but I need to mention Mexican Independence Day, which was the 16th, but which they celebrate all week long. Which means we got to celebrate too, since we could hear all the fire works. We missed seeing most of them though, because for some reason nobody else in Mexico City goes to bed at 10:30. . . strange, right? :)

Waiting for Mexican Night in the rain

Presedente Pratt did let us stay up and participate in the Grito Sunday night, which is where the President of Mexico rings a bell and shouts ´Víve (some historically important founding father)´ and everyone else shouts back, ´Víve!´. It was pretty sweet. But it was way past 10:30, and I was struggling. Honestly, I bet we all go to bet at 10pm in heaven. It´s a lovely time. Don´t know how I ever survived otherwise :)

 

Well, next week I´ll be in Paraguay! Yay! Guess I should start speaking Español. . . :)

 

 

Service! We worked in the kitchen (I´m happy about it, I promise :)

The streets of Mexico, viewed from a bus :)

Our elders are quite pampered, but they share sometimes :)

They have Israeli candies here! (at least, that´s the last place I saw these)

¡Listos, Siempre Listos!

 

~Highlight of the Week: getting a package and a letter in the same day! :) ~

 

 

I am learning all sorts of useful things here at the CCM, like how to speak Español, and how to survive 18 year old elders, and (by far the most useful thing I have ever learned) how to fold fitted sheets. Yes. After years of wrestling my fitted sheets into an only somewhat recognizable folded state, I now posses the knowledge necessary to perfectly fold a fitted sheet into a nice little compact rectangle. Mexican style. My life is forever changed.

 

 

Hermana Gleed and I ran three laps around the grassy part of the track barefoot the other day. We decided our noses wouldn´t be able to survive our shoes getting another soaking (the smell of our closets could knock out a small elephant by the time p-day comes around), but we couldn´t give up our run (exercise time is precious). It was quite the work out, because the warm weather grass that they have here is rather thick, and we were sinking in a good 2 or 3 inches with every step. Gotta love the rain :)

at the track

 

 

Elder Bednar is fantastic. May we all get the opportunity to listen to him this upcoming General Conference! We watched a clip of him in class the other day, and he was talking about spiritual promptings. He made the point that we don´t have to recognize promptings as spiritual promptings when we receive them, and that often times we won´t even know we were prompted until much later. So what´s most important is to live worthy of the spirit and stop worrying so much about recognizing them in the moment. Good stuff. Gotta love the apostles. And for a quick side note, our district is pro at saying ´Apóstoles´. We´ve got it down :)


taking devotional seriously

 





 a dark, solid colored umbrella :)

 

 

Something my companion said got My Fair Lady stuck in my head earlier this week. And not just any song from My Fair Lady. It was the ´aw ah want is a room sauhm where, fah awaee from the cauw nahght aeer´ one. K. That probably means nothing to anyone. But it´s where Aubry Hepburn is singing in this thick Cockney accent, and it´s fabulous. Unfortunately Cockney accents don´t lend themselves readily to Español. And they sound a little out of place in Mexico. But so does the Mary Poppins ´It´s a jolly holiday with Maryeeeee´ song, and Hermana Gleed sings that every time we whip out the paraguas (umbrellas :) We´re just connecting with our English roots I guess.
 

Here´s something noteworthy - I drew a fantastic t-rex during a game of Save/Kill the Flower this past Tuesday. I´ve never drawn a more perfect dinosaur.

 

And I´ve been humbled by a few embarrassing moments this past week:

 

We were in Tall. I feel pretty comfortable in the Tall labs, since we´ve been here for 5 weeks now, but I´ve never ventured to play music through LDS.org like some of the other missionaries do. But I was feeling bold. So I went for it. I put on my big clunky headphones, and pulled up a hymn. It sounded a little faded, so I´m turning up the volume when Hermana Gleed taps me urgently on the shoulder and says, ´Hermana! You´re headphones! They´re not plugged in!´ I immediately realized the whole lab could hear the hymn, panicked, cut the sound, and could have melted in my seat right then and there :)

 

 

Then yesterday I told my teacher,´Necesito un baño´, which does not mean, ´I need to use the bathroom,´ but instead, ´I need a shower´. And then later that day I told him, ´Yo soy enfermo,´ which happens to mean, ´I´m mentally ill´ instead of ´I´m sick´. I´m on a role this week with Español :) But my roommates informed me this morning that I was talking in my sleep last night, in Spanish! So all is not lost, and perhaps there is hope for me after all :)

 

 

So I´m sending a picture of the funny sinks. And of me getting a package, and of my baby palm tree (Jorge), and a tree we´ve deemed the Horton Tree (it looks exactly like the tree in that one Dr. Seuss book where the elephant sits on an egg in a nest in a tree . . . ), and of us at the track (when it´s not raining) and of my shoes, and of guava! I think it´s guayaba in Español. . . I was so happy when they had it at the Comedor the other day. It´s my current favorite fruit.

weird sink  Here's the link to the explanation. Look for "Tuesday"



Jorge

Horton tree

 

shoes!

guava

 

~Highlight of the Week: Making friends with other Hermanas - harder than you think in the CCM, since all time is scheduled. . . :) 

 

Week three done, going on four. And that means I´m more than halfway through my time here at the good ol´ CCM. It´s a little bitter sweet, or would be if I didn´t still have three more weeks of cafeteria food to look forward to :) My companion and I still can´t accurately guess when the many suspiciously similar looking jello-like desserts are worth it or not.

 

Ok. Here it goes.

 

The cupboards in our room really do smell wonderful. And I know I´ve already said this, but I get to smell them every day, so it´s still new news :) It makes getting out my study materials one of my favorite things to do.

 

All of the recorded devotionals include a musical number, which are all accompanied by a Sister Omatangelo (I think that´s how you spell it, but I could be terribly wrong. . . Sorry Sister Omatangelo :) Coolest. Last. Name. Ever.

 

Alacrán is Scorpion in Español, according to my best friend, the Spanish/English Dictionary.

 

The mosquitoes are playing mental games with me. They are everywhere, but for the first whole week I didn´t get bit. We eventually learned to treat them more like flies. But then the other day I found a bite on the most visible spot on my arm. . .like a warning, like they´re offended that we´re not scared of them or something. And then a few nights later I woke up to one flying past my ear. Not ok! Easily my least favorite way to wake up :) It tormented me for hours, and when I finally got up I wasn´t quite sure if it had really been a mosquito, or just my imagination getting the best of me. . . these Mexican mosquitoes are tricky little bugs. . .

 

An elder in my district treated us to the entire ´morning routine´ song from Tangled. We kept expecting him to run out of lyrics, but he knew every word :)

 

The crows here are kind of scary looking. Like they´ve been mauled by a cat and are still upset about it. But the parrots are fun (and a little noisy), and occasionally you can spot a brilliant red bird, like a golden finch, but red.

 

And what else. . . Ah. The adventures of finding your progressive investigator. . . :) So to help all these brand new missionaries learn how to teach, the MTC teachers pretend to be investigators ( and probably endure all sorts of the most horribly pronounced Spanish ever uttered on the face of the earth because of it). It´s extremely helpful, though nerve racking and frustrating ( but only when you´re investigator falls asleep) and so hard to adequately prepare for. Our teacher, Hermano Lloyd, happens to be very good at it, and always keeps us on our toes. He´ll pop into class, announce he´s headed to the building across the way, and then take off into the evening´s thunderstorm (pretty much a daily occurrence this week). We then quickly cram a few more faith-promoting spanish phrases into our heads, don our raincoats, and pray for the best before braving the 50 feet of brick pavers fraught with large puddles and small rivers to get to the building across the way. Once safely across we then have to look into every classroom till we find our ´investigator´. We say another quick prayer, come to terms with the fact that we´ve already forgotten the spanish phrases we´d just practiced, and knock on the door like there are souls to be saved :) It´s quite exciting.

 

And I can rest in peace because the flower I was trying to remember is Lobelia - my mom´s looking out for me :)

 

And I thought I´d be free of the ´cups´song (made famous by Pitch Perfect) for a while,  but as it turns out the Hermanas I live with kind of like the missionary version my roommates and I wrote a few months back. . . So if we´re not singing a hymn we´re singing ´I´ve got a ticket for a long plane ride. . .´

 

 

Heading out of the CCM

 The big B on the mountain
 (stands for Benemerito, I think. The name of the high school)

the building we have class in

us and our classroom

this is me with my study materials out in all their glory



in class. . . playing a game. I forgot what it´s called

I found an airplant and named him Phil

friends from the branch - they head out this Monday to California

roommates at the temple

~Highlight of the Week: The rain. I love rain. :) ~

 

Well, week 3 is almost over, believe it or not! I apologize for how long last week´s post was - I had a lot of words to get out. I don´t think this week will be so bad, because our schedule´s been pretty much the same, but who knows :)

 

So I keep a small notebook with me, and during the week when something happens that I want to write home about, I quickly jot it down so I don´t forget come Thursday. Last week I fleshed out all my notes into small stories, but I think I´m just going to quote from my notebook for some things this week. . . :

 

(Friday or Saturday)

´An elder asked if I knew what Studio C was, because he thought I looked like Mallory.

[*pull fist in triumphally* yes!]´

 

(Monday)

Ate 3 guavas for dinner - probably gonna regret it.

 

(Monday)

´Is ´Ned´ short for anything?´

 

(Monday, because I forgot to write it down on Sunday)

 ´Elder Holland called up the ´Brown kids´´ . . . This one needs some explanation. We were watching a recorded MTC devotional from about a year ago given by Elder Holland. It was great, we were glad it wasn´t live (he was calling on missionaries for answers, and it would have been terrifying, I assure you), and we were really enjoying ourselves. Half way through the devotional he says, ´Can I have the brown kids come up here?´, and then waits for whoever the ´brown kids´ are to come up on stage. Now we can´t see the audience. It´s a recorded broadcast. So all we can see is Elder Holland. And my first thought is, ´Did he really just say that? I mean, I know he´s an apostle, and has been all over the world, and he´s at the MTC, so I´m sure 90% of the audience is white as wonderbread, and he is Elder Holland. . . but, really?!´ And then the ´brown kids´ made it up on stage, and I know that the whole CCM was thinking the exact same thing I was because the auditorium was immediately filled with relieved laughter when we saw that they were as white as white could be, and were actually the grandsons of the MTC president, President Brown :) So funny.

 

(Tuesday)

 Our cupboards smell FANTASTIC - just like a new house. (the ones in our classroom that we keep our books in)

 

(Tuesday)

 -Rebekah- look on Pg. 107 of Preach My Gospel. That guy almost looks like Cumberbach. . . (or however you spell Sherlock´s name. . . )

 

(Tuesday)

 Bathroom sinks. weird stuff. This one needs explaining too. I´ve noticed that things relating to plumbing sort of vary from country to country. (for example, Israel has more sophisticated toilets than the United States, who has more sophisticated toilets than Turkish rest stops . . . in most places. Unless, of course, you´re in the new BYU Broadcasting building, where they´ve somehow adopted Israeli toiletry technology :) And so I felt prepared for Mexico. But I must admit the first time I tried to wash my hands I was stumped. These sinks have no knobs to turn or handles to push or lift. They are not fancy motion-sensored. They´re not touch sensitive. They just have this funny looking thing sticking out of where the water is supposed to come out. It looks like . . . what is it called. . . an uvula? Is that right? (if that´s the name of some other embarrassing body part I´m going to laugh :) That one thing we have at the back of our throats that triggers our gag reflex. Yep. And after some trial and error I figured out that you have to push this . . . protrusion to one side or the other to get the water to come out. 3 weeks in and I´m still working on my hand washing technique. Doing it without getting the front of you wet is somewhat of an art :) Maybe I´ll take a picture so you guys can stop trying to come up with what this bizarre Mexican plumbing looks like on your own. I´ll work on that.
Here's a link to the picture she sent later

 

(Tuesday)

 Something caught up to me. . . not sure it was the guavas though. . . tmi. . .

 

(Tuesday Night)

 Faces seen while watching MOTAB before devotional:

- Bill Nye the Science Guy

- Steve Martin´s eyebrows

- Gus (from Psych)

 

(Wednesday Morning)

 Dreamed my teeth fell out. Not funny. & so relieved when I woke up. . .

 

(Wednesday)

 I need to know the name of a flower. . . one I´ve forgotten. . . I´m going to go crazy if I can´t figure it out for 18 months. . .

 

And that brings us up to date! So about this flower. . . If I had google I could figure it out. But I don´t. It´s an annual ground cover, mostly dark blue, sometimes white, they sell it at Home Depot, and all the cute little old ladies ask about the trailing varieties for their hanging baskets. I´m almost 90% sure it starts with an ´l´, but I could be wrong. . . If I can figure out how to send pictures today I´ll post a picture of it. This is my mental health at stake guys. I need to know what it is! :)

 

And this is a long post too. Sorry. So many words. . . :)

 

*Spiritual Thought of the Week: Prayer is essential. And I would know. We happen to do it a lot as missionaries :)

The Missionary Training Center (CCM In Spanish)

~ Highlight of the Past Ten Days: Getting my first letter (Annie you´re fantastic) ~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will begin by saying I get so much more sleep here than I have in the past 8 years of my life. Going to bed at 10:30 and getting up at 6:30 is glorious. And you´re not missing out on anything because everybody has the same schedule. And never before have I looked forward to studying so much. Guess that´s just one of the many miracles/blessings of serving a mission!

 

In General:

Mexico City looks like some one took a box of crayons and colored in all the buildings in East Jerusalem. Honestly. And they drive about the same speed and distance from other

moving objects too :)

 

Driving from the airport to the MTC (or the CCM, as they call it here) all the 18 year old Elders and 19 year old Hermanas (´Sisters´ in Español) had their faces glued to the windows, freaking out about no marked lanes and houses built on top of other houses, and everything being in Español, and guys in the middle of the street selling who knows what. . . and I´m in my seat like, ´Did you see the flowers on that vine back there?!´ I suppose traveling does things to you :)

 

 

 

I know talking about the weather is super cliché and all, but it´s one of my favorite topics, so expect to be updated regularly :) The weather in Mexico City is beautiful. I was so worried it was going to be miserably hot and humid and nasty, but it´s cool and sunny, and it rains about once a day for just a few minutes. I get to wear my cardigans (yes!) and I´ve even busted out my super cool rain jacket, the necessity for which makes me so happy. Hermana Gleed (my wonderful companion) and I even ran through a thunderstorm the other day - best gym time ever!

 

 

 

 

Ah! This is super important. They have the same grass here as they do at the Jerusalem Center. I´m still freaking out over it. Ask Hermana Gleed how many times a day I mention it, multiply that by two and that´s how often I think about it. And the next time Google is available to me

 I will figure out how to ID it.

 

The Cafeteria food is. . . something to look forward to , simply because you never know what to expect. It could be very American, or very Mexican, or Mexicanized American, or vise versa. . . I cried with joy the first time they had veggies. Broccoli has never been so beautiful.

 

So to help us learn Español we spend about an hour every day using a program called TALL (Technology Assisted Language Learning). The desktop backgrounds of the computers in the TALL lab are set to change every 20 minutes or so, and they´re usually photos of nature and mountains and such. But a few of the computers have a Seattle theme, and so if I´m lucky I get to look at moss and rhododendrons and the Space Needle and the EMP building while I learn Español - it´s a tender mercy of the Lord, really. (though I´m sure my companion is quite sick of me exclaiming, ´I´ve been here Hermana! This is the [insert Washington State location here]!´) Also our favorite part of TALL is switching the weather gadget to our mission - we´ve been keeping and eye on the weather in Paraguay, and according to the gadget it goes from 98 to 58 on a semi-regular basis.

 Don´t know how to take that.

 

As for the earthquake, the CCM has an alarm system hooked up to the city´s main sensor system, and if anything so much as moves a hair we get to drop what we´re doing and make our way outside to stand in these big ol´ green circles on the ground. (not that the green circles keep us safe. . . they just keep us all in the same place so they can find us) We´ve done this twice now, and I didn´t feel anything either time. (I think one might have been a drill. I don´t know.)

 

The mosquitos here have meat on their bones they´re so big, but I haven´t been bitten yet. Whenever we´re teaching our investigator (which is an interesting experience, since neither Hermana Gleed and I can speak enough Español to say anything we haven´t studied) we have to fend them off. I accidentally squished one yesterday with my Spanish Phrase Book. I´ll have to avoid that page now. . .

Also, I want to watch the Truman Show when I get back. Not because it´s amazing, but because I´ve never seen it and I´ve always wanted to and gosh darn it I´m going to see it eventually!

 

(Note from Mom:  There was a 6.2 earthquake ~200 miles south of Mexico City August 21st.  The news reported that Mexico City felt it (because it is built on a dry lakebed), some buildings were cracked, schools sent children home for fear of aftershocks, and somewhere an arch crumbled.)

 

 

 

Made It To Mexico

Here's Rachel's first email to us.  She flew out Tuesday morning August 13th and we got this Tuesday afternoon the same day.

 

 

 

Well, I made it to Mexico, and managed to keep all my luggage with me :) The hardest part of the whole day has been trying to type on this keyboard with all the symbols in different places. . . And now that I have my ´´Hermana Houldridge¨ nametag the whole thing feels a little more official :) Mexico is so green! And there are so many hills, and the city is so big. From the air you just couldn´t see the end of it. And there are mountains/hills. . . didn´t know that. K, I gotta go unpack and figure out dinner - they say the food is spicy :) Love you all!

 

~Hermana Houldridge



Rachel Is A Missionary!

Rachel is an official missionary now, set apart.  So if you want to contact her here's how you do it.

rachel.houldridge@myldsmail.net

 

We are waiting for her Mexico MTC (Mission Training Center) address.
I'll let you know when I have it.

 

~Rachel's mom  :)

ONE!!!

~ Highlight of the Day: Texting Annie one of the *most embarrassing pictures of my childhood, and getting the best response ever :) ~

 

(But if I were composing this post after getting set apart as a missionary, I'm sure it would be that :)

 

 

Well, this is not the last post, only the last post directly from me.

This is only the beginning :)

 

My lovely mother will now be posting in my stead.

 

It should be once a week (ish),

since I'll email home once a week (ish)

 

And it may or may not include pictures,

I'm not sure how the internet will be in Mexico and Paraguay.

But we're gonna find out :)

 

 

Also, on a completely unrelated note, my sister just showed me the best My Little Pony scene:

 

(just the first part - you'll know what I'm talking about :)

 

 

(And if this looks familiar, it's because of this post)

 

And all the many ways to contact me, by letter or email, on my mission will be up shortly,

via my mother :)

 

*No, I am not going to post it. This picture was embarrassing enough to last at least a year or two)

Two!?

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting one last Sunday family meal in before I'm off :) ~

 

Temples are beautiful buildings. I've always been partial to the Seattle Temple, mostly because I'm most familiar with it, and (as a landscaper who sometimes gets a little snobby about plants {I guarantee one of these days I'll post while on my annuals vs. perennials soapbox}) it has the best grounds. But today we visited the Gilbert Temple, and when it's finished it is going to be breathtakingly gorgeous.

 

 

Course, there's a lot more to temples than just how they look. . .

but we'll save that for another post :)

 

 

Quick Side Note: Packing 18 months' ( and 4 distinct seasons) worth of stuff into suitcases is a lot harder than it sounds. And I never thought it sounded easy. . . :)

 

 



Three. . .

~ Highlight of the Day: printing off so many pictures of some of my favorite people

 (so I don't forget what they look like in the next 18 months :) ~

 

Before I left Provo my roommate Katie somehow got me and my fancy camera up in the mountains which resulted in some lovely mission pictures of her (She's going to Honduras in a month or so :)

 

And since I was in a surprisingly good mood at the end of her photo shoot (photo shoots are prone to wreck havoc on my demeanor, much like prolonged shopping and the thought of wearing makeup) we took a few of me too:



 

On a more current note, I'm coming along in my packing! I now have everything, I just need to compile it all and pack it. . . but that's what Monday night is for, right? :)

 

Also, I discovered the stuff of nightmares.

 

 

I wish I could say I stayed calm and composed upon seeing this little (but not little, actually quite large and ferocious) guy, but alas I cannot.

In fact it may have gone something like this:

 

Me: Aah!. . . aaaaahhhh. AhhhHHHHHH!!!!

 

And now I can perfectly empathize with all those who feel the need to jump up on the closest chair upon seeing a mouse. Never before has my desire to obtain higher ground and put as much furniture as humanly possible between me and something else been so intense.

 

Did you know they move twice as fast when they're scared?!

 I suppose that makes sense, I do too :)

 

Also they glow.

 

 

And I'm so happy my camera caught it - it's not perfectly focused , but just look at that glow he's got! According to the seasoned scorpion hunters in my family you turn out all the lights and
go over everything with a black light before going to bed, and then again in the morning if you've got a scorpion issue.

 

Yes. So I'll be dreaming/having a feverish nightmare of huge scorpions tonight.

 Lovely stuff :)