3/25/10

Como estan mi familia!? this is my very last p day here at the ccm.. i cannot believe it! i have had such a great time here and ive loved every minute of it( haha well almost). but anyways, how are you all? how is life back home? im guessing you all are doing well? i´d really like to know.. so write me! haha, this week has been good for the most part. im really excited to leave and get out into the field. we had proselytismo this last week and i was really scared about it because they decided to put me in a trio with hna rodriguez and hna smith. one who knows only spanish and the other who knows only english. the night before i prayed for a solid 15 minutes for help from the Lord becuase i was so worried about it. and the Lord blessed us that we were able to have an amazing day! the spirit was with us the whole day and even though we were lost for most of the day we were able to have some amazing contacts. there was one guy in particular named gabriel who i think might just want to be baptized. it was a great experience. im so thankful that it turned out the way that it did. we´ve had some really good meetings here in the last week, we had a member of the seventy come talk to us, his name is Elder Marcos Aidukaitus he´s from brazil but he speaks english and spanish. he gave us an awesome talk on the kingdoms of glory. and then today we had a 3 and a half hour long meeting on the apostasy! it was crazy! but so informative.. im sure it wouldve been better in english haha but it was still really good. ive got four more days left! AHHHH!! im going to miss this place. argentina is such a great country. im sure uruguay is too! im hoping that we get to go to the temple when we get there because the temple just across the street is completely torn up. ill send pics on monday.
ive learned how to lead music katie! hahah are you still the leader? it took me a while but ive caught on to it. my roomate is crazy! haha hna ochoa speaks a little bit of english and she has told me that she wants to eat my eyes and fingers for candy. haha i kinda believe her. she also has a big giant picture of michael j fox in her closet! she LOVES him! hahahaha its soooooooo funny! ill send you a picture on monday of that too... i get to get back on on monday so please write!!! PLEASE!!!

3/18/10

Greetings from Argentina! Another week down and one more p-day here at the ccm left.. i honestly cannot believe it! in two weeks from now i will be getting to my first area and meeting my trainer.. haha good thing its on april fools day. woohoo! im thinkin about maybe trying to play a joke on her. any ideas!? i want some good suggestions por favor. how are you all? thanks so much for your emails and letters they are so invaluable to me. i love you all so much! and miss you more than you know! i hope everyones week was good. mine was absoluteley great! i have been very blessed by the Lord this week. as you all know, we got a new group here last week and it has been very different. i was really quite worried when they came that i was going to hate it but the Lord has truly helped me! my new companion is from uruguay and she is very sweet, she has a very strong testimony but she is also very quiet. the other two sisters in my room are from argentina and are both very nice! while i have been here i havent been speaking as much spanish as i should and ive had a hard time speaking. i can understand a lot but when it ever came to talking i just wouldnt because i was scared that i would make a mistake, muy triste. on this last saturday i went into a latino district for the day because there were no other sisters that were here that could go out proselyting. it was crazy! i had to focus so hard! and even then i didnt really quite understand everything that was being said and then it came to teaching with my companion oohh boy was that hard! pretty soon she took over most of the teaching and i just added in when i could. it was hard for the both of us. i prayed alot that day for help and i could feel it but i was very happy when my district came back and i could be with them again. on sunday i got to talking to one of the new north americans hermana smith who is actually from st. george and wh i knew before my mission. we got into a great gospel discussion and after i decided that i would pray for help from the Lord so that i will be ready to leave when the time comes. it was amazing the answer i recieved back, i had the feeling that i should write down all of my goals and make myself a mini mission statement of what i want to accomplish everyday. i have it hanging above my bed and i read it everyday now! it has helped me so much with my attitude and my spanish! on monday i had the best day here yet! i spoke amazing spanish.. its starting to really click for me! i cant believe it but the Lord has blessed me immensely! i honestly cant tell you how much i have felt him in my life during my time here. especially this last week its like everyday i grow closer and closer with him and i can feel him always.

there are two new north american sisters here that i have so much fun with! we just laugh and laugh, im convinced that they are halfway crazy.... hahah just exactly what i needed! i really love it! i dont get to see them much but its so great whenever we´re together. we help each other alot. haha one of my roomates speaks a little bit of spanish which i found out the other day when she all the sudden told me that i was going to die! hahaha and then the other day she held up her fist and said i have a present for you! hahaha im watchin my back these days! hahah its funny! i love all the teachers and people who work here.. we all have our inside jokes.. its so awesome! hna george the presidents wife pulled me aside the other day and gave me a huge compliment. she said that everyone appreciates how modest and loving i am and that she considers me to be the example to all of the sisters... holy moley who´d have thought! it was crazy to hear that. but i have to go i love you all so much! keep writing PLEASE!!!!!!! i love you!

hna crofts

3/11/10

Hola hola hola! Oh my dear family, how are you all? my dear friends, where the heck are you? you all have disappeared on me... please reappear and write your missionary! haha so... for the last two days i have been the only hermana here. it has been awesome! not gonna lie i love being able to get done with class and immediately go to sleep. it was heaven. we also get really good food when the groups are changing. mmm mmm mmm! but now the new group is here and yikes there are a lot of people! i now have a new companion.... and she is a latina. she only speaks spanish and i dont have any clue what shes saying most of the time. oh boy! its insane! also all of my roomates are latina and speak only spanish haha i am definitely being prepared for the field. its crazy to think that i only have two and a half weeks left here and then ill be off to good ol uruguay! i really cant wait!.. so because my companion is latina they have been talking about moving me up and putting me in a latino district. so instead of me with a bunch of american elders it would be me with all latinos having all my lessons and church in spanish! i honestly dont know how i feel about it.. im scared out of my mind but i also know that if i do this than i will learn so much faster! i guess we will see what happens.. whatever comes its all good! im just happy to be in the service of God.

so from the last time i wrote much has happened obviously. proselitismo this last week was great! it was my last time with hna kleinman and we had a good time! its amazing how much we had progressed from that first time we went out! we were able to carry on full conversations about the gospel. we clapped doors and had a lot of success. i am going to miss her a lot. while we were out it seemed like it was only men that wanted to listen to us. haha i dont know why but 20 of the 21 contacts we had were with guys. i have now been proposed to 3 times haha there was even one time when a guy was driving his car down the street and he turned around tried to say something to us and then parked his car just to profess his love... i dont get it! haha i think its hilarious! we told him to come to church and he said are you coming i said no and he didnt listen to great to our message after that so we left haha! i sincerely love the children down here.. they are so precious! we saw twins who were almost as cute as my nieces and nephews. the more and more i go out to proselitismo the more and more i realize that i can do this! i can speak spanish and i can bring souls unto christ! its so awesome!

now some good news to all who care haha i finally shaved my legs!! yes, hna kleinman and i waited until her last day to finally shave all our amazing hair off our legs haha.. i have pictures to show but i cant send them yet. i wish i could but they have a rule here that you cant send pics til your last day. but dont worry i will! i wish you could all see some of the funny things they do here in the ccm, every third thursday the elders get a visit from a brother we fondly call edward scissorhands! haha he cuts there hair just like edward scissorhands would except he does a pretty horrible job and the elders are left with uneven hair and a humbled ego hahah i love it! thank goodness im a sister! the elders also have whats called corbata fea which is like ugly tie day haha! they all pick ties out of a backpack and wear them the next day. there are some really really ugly ones! one was actually once a pillow hahah! things are good here! the spirit is strong and the language is coming.. thank you all for your great emails! i would love a letter once and a while though. in like a week i would that you guys send stuff to my actual mission address and not here cuz ill be gone!! yahoo! i love you all and hope your all doing well! remember that god loves you!

love you always,

hermana amy crofts

3/4/2010

Hola mi familia!!
How are you all doing? I´ve been thinking about everyone a lot this week. It sounds like everything is going well! We got the devastating news about Chile this Saturday. I guess some of the elders felt the quake.. I didnt. I had no idea anything even happened. We have some chilean missionaries here and it was a pretty weary couple of hours when they were trying to find out whether or not their families were okay or not. it turns out no one lost anybody which shows how much the Lord is aware of his missionaries. i guess that one of the mission presidents in chile had an impression that something like this was going to happen and he was able to prepare the missionaries in the area. im sure there is probably something about it in the news. crazy that so many natural disasters have been occurring so frequently!
well this week has been rather interesting. I was somehow hit by a train of bad luck. on saturday during prosletismo i got really sick and we had to picked up about two hours in. it was not fun! there has been a bug or something going around all the north american sisters were sick. i was feeling rather bad that we couldnt be out proselyting when hermana george, the ccm presidents wife, had all the north american sisters come into their apartment and watch a movie. she wanted to make sure that we didnt feel guilty. she is such an amazingly sweet lady! we watched a movie called "i am david", it was really good and i reccomend that everyone should see it. its about the holocaust, she said she found it at deseret book. anyways so i was sick for 3 days out of this week but still went to class and everything and then i somehow had half of my big toenail fall off! dont ask me how, it just fell off! its pretty gross looking and just adds to how great my legs and toes look haha! oh and to cap it all off, i took a nap one day during lunch and after i woke up and used the bathroom i somehow ran head on into a door... i know i know pretty amazing huh? so i now have somewhat of a large goose egg on my eyebrow! i am now wearing my good luck necklace everyday and i havent run into a problem or a door since!
my companion and the group we have been here with the longest is leaving in 5 days now.. its really sad! and now that means that we will be the 6 weekers and like the seniors in high school. pretty hard to imagine i only have 3 more weeks here. (im pretty happy we only have three weeeks left cuz im going crazy). i am still trying to survive being with elders all day everyday! its hard somedays i want to kick them really bad.. i can do it though! theyre not all that bad. ive actually grown really fond of them but i can only take so much of them everyday. our teachers are all from here and now all our classes are being taught in spanish.. i never realized how much i love english! haha but the lord truly increases our understanding when we try our hardest. i love you all so much! please keep writing! dont forget.. ok? here is a little bit of my testimony in spanish.. haha errors and all.
yo se que la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias es la iglesia verdadera! y que jose smith fue un profeta y vio jesucristo y dios. mediante jose smith el evangelio de jesucristo fue restaurado. dios nos ama mucha y quiere nosotros a regresar con el. yo se podemos traer almas a traves sus ejemplos. le amo el evangelio de jesucristo y yo testifico que podemos hacer todas las cosas con Dios ayuda!

le amo mucho!
hermana amy crofts
ps.. im so excited for that package! YAY!!!!