Updates

Feliz cumpleaños padre! Happy Birthday dad! I sent you a card about two weeks ago so I hope that you will get it today or tomorrow if it hasn´t come already. Hope you have a great birthday and eat some cake and ice cream for me! And mom make sure there are candles on that cake!

So as I said in my first email, I am in Montevideo today. We have our zone conference tomorrow so last night we left Artigas at 12:30 and took another 8 hour bus ride to get here this morning. Tonight we will take another bus to Taycuarembo for the conference tomorrow. I´m not sure how long it will take to get there and we still don´t have definite plans of who we will stay with. Today has been fun though because I got to see all the elders and Hermana Crofts from the MTC and talk about our first weeks here. As I led on in my last email, my has not been easy. It´s just hard with Hermana Moreno because she doesn´t really do things the normal missionary way that I would have expected. A lot of times she doesn´t get out of bed until closer to 8 so I just do my own personal study while she gets ready and then she we have our companionship study at nine and then she finishes getting ready at ten but then a lot of times by the time we are ready to leave we just walk around a little bit until 11:30 when we go to our lunch appointments. Then after we will sometimes go back home because she doesn´t take everything. Basically what I´m saying is I don´t feel like we really spend much time working. And when we do, it´s not that fun. Sometimes when we go into a home to teach HNA Moreno just looks around and doesn´t say anything for a while and it´s awkward, sometimes she´ll even pull out her cell phone and text. It makes me so uncomfortable and it´s hard because I´m not really learning to like missionary work. She´s also kind of weird about her ankle because sometimes she acts like it doesn´t bother her and she´ll say sometimes that it doesn´t hurt her but other times she´ll complain about it especially to members or she´ll ask me to do a lot of things for her that I´m pretty sure she is still perfectly capable of doing for herself. Sometimes I wish that we lived with another set of hermanas so I could at least have some other girls to talk to. And although I don´t have much of a problem communicating in Spanish with Hermana Moreno it would be nice to talk in English sometimes. I miss the free flowing expressive talks that I could have with Hermana Smith in the CCM. I didn´t know I was going to miss her so much but I really do and all the other sisters from the CCM for that matter. It´s been really nice to hang out with HNA Crofts today though and we got to leave our trainers to go to the place to have our blood taken and stuff and she told me that she´s been worried about me because her trainer has heard a lot of things about my companion. It is kind of nice though to know that I´m not crazy for being bothered by her though because I´m not the only one to think she´s a little different. With the difficulty of all that it also makes me really homesick. I think of you all the time and sometimes wonder what it would be like if I could just be home right now. Don´t worry I´m not saying I´m ready to call it quits or anything, but I am definitley looking forward to the next change and hoping that I can be put with a new companion. If I get an interview with President Petersen at the conference I might have to talk to him about the situation though with my companion because I´m really have a hard time staying positive and feeling happy here and I don´t know how long I can last like this.

We have been able to do some teaching though and been following up on some investigators that the last Hermanas were working with. One of them, Adrianna, accepted a baptismal date last week and if all goes well will be baptized on the twenty fourth. I don´t know if we´ll be able to stay long enough to see that happen though because we are changing areas. Our section of artigas is a lot of country area and gets pretty dark at night and there aren´t tons of lights. So I guess the stake president or someone brought that up and it got back to the mission president and he is going to switch us to a different barrio that is more lit up and not so much country. It´s good but also hard because we were just getting comfortable in our area. Speaking of the stake president we have eaten at his house three times now and they are a wonderful family. I don´t know if you recieved it but he took a video of me playing hand clap games with his daughters yesterday and tried to email it to you.

We haven´t really had much luck with getting lunch appointments, that´s why we´ve eaten with him three times. Also, every missionary gets a credit card so they can take out their giro, or allowance every month, but I didn´t get mine since I came early. They said they would put my giro on hna moreno´s card but they never did nor did she receive her. So I´ve just been using my own money but it´s been kind of a weird situation and since we haven´t had money we haven´t gone to get food and we don´t really have much at home and the only meals we get with members is lunch so that´s been a little frustrating but hey, I did want to lose weight right? I did finally get my card today when we were at the mission office but I went to take out the money and there was nothing on it so I need to go talk to them again. Hna Crofts and her companion and me and my companion have spent most of the day together, we went and got lunch and did some shopping, I got a new straightener because my isn´t working, and we ate ICE CREAM! So yummy. So it´s been a pretty good day.

Before I forget I wanted to tell you that the mission as a gmail account that you can write to and put my name in the subject line and then type your letter and they print them off every week and distribute them at district meetings through the bolsa, urugoest@gmail.com. (i think that is right) That is good because you can respond to my emails on Monday and then I can get your letters and read them every week. But still email!!!!!!! I´m trying to deal with it but I´m so homesick right now and today I only got one short email from mom and Amy. I know that you are sending letters and aren´t neglecting me but I feel so out of contact with you and it´s making me cry. Literally. Hopefully I´ll get some letters and maybe a package tomorrow.

But thanks for the pictures and it looks like you are having a good time in California. Emma is such a little sweetie pie! Kiss those cheeks for me!

Love you so much, Jessica