I'm a city girl!

Hey there! Mom you met Hermana Salisbury!!!!! She better send me some more details about the guy who came with her. Me and Hermana Garnder are really feeling in the dark.

So my first week has gone really well. I like Hermana Garnder SO MUCH! We are having a lot of fun, we get along, we have a lot in common as far as our personalities go, and she is a super hard-working, dedicated missionary. If anything I feel like I have a hard time keeping up with her but I am definitely going to learn a lot this change. Being in the city has been good, I was really nervous because I had heard that the people here are a lot harder to work with and just not as receptive or nice, and it´s true, contacting is harder and it´s hard to keep your numbers up and I am really having to adjust to practically running along side people shouting about the gospel over the noise of the cars while they try to get away from me, but it´s coming for me. And I really do prefer city to campo (country). Life is just more exciting and busy. Time just seems faster altogether for some reason and I like it. But I will have to be patient with missionary work here because it seems to be a little more fruitless for lack of a better way to say it.

Hermana Gardner and her companion before had found an awesome 16 year old kid last change who got baptized yesterday. He is really cool and asked if he could take a minute at the end to stand and thank everyone for their support and helping him. It was so sweet. Also, President and Hermana Heaton showed up in our ward yesterday and drove us to our lunch appointment. I love them so much! We also have a senior couple in our ward-the Heaths from Idaho Falls. They are great and I am SO excited to have them in our ward and that we will get to work with them. I think we are going to have dinner with them this week too-homeade american food yeah baby!

AMy I love the pictures of your house, it looks so nice and the decorations are absolutely darling. Houses here, or apartments rather, are alot nice that in other parts of uruguay so that has been pretty interesting. Our church building is pretty normal and nice and we have a nice apartment too. We are really close to the beach but it isn´t the most beautiful beach but still pretty. We actually ate lunch on the beach our first day together. I will try to write some good letters today and get them off with some more detail, I´m pretty much out of time. I love you all so so so so much! I miss you and am glad that time in Montevideo seems a little faster so that I will be home a little sooner than I think! Until next week,

All my love, Jessica

This country girl is going to the city

Hi Mom and everyone! Before I forget Judy, yes I can get all of those things. Explanation?

Well as I already told you I am going to Montevideo with Hermana Gardner, the one I took the camera for remember? Hermana Salisbury was her trainer and the area I will be in is where Hermana Salisbury started her own mission. In ways I am really nervous because I hear a lot that Montevideo is one of the harder areas of the mission. I actually went to pocitos, the area, when I went to the hermanas conference with hna moreno my first change but we just went and visited with one of her old converts for two hours until our bus left, but it will definitely be different than what I am used to working in. It´s city. the people are always on the go and you are in more apartment type places as far as I can tell. But there are also things I´m looking forward to. For one thing, next monday for pday I bet we will be able to go to the temple! Yay! And I think Hermana Gardner and I will get along really well and work well together. I´ll also probably get to see the president and hermana on occasion. So there will be good things and bad things as always. I will be glad to have a change though just to give me some new stuff to see and think about. I really do love hermana halladay though and I´m glad that I got to be her comp, but I still don´t think we made the most effective companionship. Her new companion will be hermana smith. I was hoping that I would be in a zone with hna smith but still no luck. I really have missed her and I am in need of a haircut. But I talked to her today and apparently the mission pres. wife and temple pres wife have her come to deo to cut their hair sometimes and she will probably be going this next change so I will get to see her and she will cut my hair too. Woo hoo!

Well, in short, this week was long. I was really dragging last night and Heavenly Father definitely worked things out so that a change would come just in time for me. AT the beginning of the change I felt really strong about dealing with the halt of the work and all, but it has really worn me down. Although we have had some progression. At a member lunch we met hermana chivel´s 18 yr old grandaughter who wanted to her the discussions. We have been teaching her and have been able to answer a lot of questions she has had. She has a baptism date for the 24th and came to church on sunday as well as a couple who is progressing extremely slowly but surely nevertheless. So I am glad hna halladay and hna smith will have a little something to work with. Today I mostly got packed and we went to the zoo and a museum and ate ice cream in the plaza. Tonight i have to go say goodbyes.

BIG NEWS: THe mission is getting ovens!!! for all of the houses! It will probably take a month or two but yes you heard right we are getting ovens. Hoo-rah! I am very excited about that. Let´s see I forgot to bring my list of things I was going to write about so I can´t really remember anthything else at the moment, but...only IF you have a package that you are going to be sending, please include some of those footies that you wear so that you can´t see them because we don´t have to wear tights in the summer now when it get´s super hot but i don´t have footies and they are hard to get. Although maybe hold off, I might be able to find them in deo, I´ll let you know next week.

I haven´t heard from hna salisbury yet about your meeting but she had sent me a couple of other emails before that. I´m sure she is busy trying to keep up with all the boys that are wanting to take her out. : ) I hope that you will be able to hook up again soon though. ANd i´m glad that you are getting my letters! Did jennie get hers too? I sent to all of you, I don´t think I will have time to write today though. Mom did you and judy ever get your bday cards?

I leave to go to montevideo tonight at 12:30. I will be on the bus all night entonces. We are going to go to the other hnas´ house before so they can come with us and hna halladay will stay the night with them. It will be really tiring to travel all night but I am excited to be going somewhere, it is just nice for some reason although I may eat my words after a week of trying to work the streets of the city.

Well I am about out of time. I love you all so much! I´m excited about this change because we will have general conference, interviews, and temple on mondays, so it should go really fast and when it´s over i will just have a month and a half left until my christmas phone call! I will email next week and let you know about my first week in deo. Oh! and on thursday i get emails at district so respond to this to the mission email before wednesday night and then make sure you write new emails to me before monday so I don´t get the same ones : ) I love you!

Jessica

I ate a hot dog for lunch

Hola, how is everyone doing? We have a had a rainy cold week but yesterday and today have been beautiful and warm. I am so glad to hear that you met susie! I can just imagine the two of you cruising around in the corvette. How fun. Did she show you pictures from her camera or any videos? try and send me the pictures that you took in your email next week! Did she remember to give you my little package? It had some little flower clip ons for amy and jennie, wondered how they liked them. did she drive the corvette? haha

Before I forget, yes mom next week is change week so we will be emailing on tuesday. I am really not sure what will happen for changes. I thought that I would probably be going but at our conference they said they are going to start trying to leave us in each area for about 8 months, which sounds like a lot to me. For us hermanas that would pretty much mean only serving in two areas so I wonder if they will be a little more loose with the hermanas. We´ll see though. Whatever happens I am hoping to be in a zone with hermana crofts or hermana smith. I am hoping to see hna smith soon because I need a haircut! Well and because she is just awesome.

Hey mom, did you ever get your knee looked at? has it still been bothering you or is it doing better? how has it been doing for your exercise classes and everything? What are you doing today for labor day, anything special?

Yesterday we finally had some investigators in church. the llovet family and coca. The llovet family were a reverence, they are really poor and the mom has been having really serious health problems and the dad has been having to do everything as far as working and cooking, washing clothes and taking care of the kids. the boys didn´t come, they are super shy, but i think the parents had a good experience. I hope that they will start progressing faster and be a little more proactive.

Last week we did a noche de hogar with the familia de lima and we made my box cake and talked about obedience and how you have to follow the directions on the box. the cake turned out really yummy and i made chocolate frosting for it, people here don´t really have the custom of putting frosting on cake but I think that they liked it. I got your package on tuesday with my premarin in it, so that got here really quickly. Thank you for sending it and for the treats! I am making good use of the stationary. I was really missing home this week, tuesday and wednesday were especially hard for some reason. I have really appreciated hna halladay though, she is very patient and understanding and good to talk to. I just keep trying to tell myself that I am only days away from my six month mark. It still just seems like a really long time and I miss you all a lot.

I´m glad you had such a good week, sounds like you are preferred first grade teacher as always. Did you happen to get my letter yet that talks about my recent thoughts for a career path? I want to know what you think when you read it. And did you ever get my birthday card? I am sending one for grandpa tomorrow so I hope that it will get to him before his birthday is long passed.

I guess I don´t really have anything more to say. Just that I love you so much and I really miss you. The next time I email I will be more than 6 months along and maybe headed to a new area. I´ll be letting you know!

I love you to the moon and back! Jessica

Another P-day Email

Hey everyone! I hope I didn´t sound super desperate or angry in that other email, but thank you all for your emailing me! I thought you could just send them to the mission email and I would read them tomorrow, but you are quick!

Well it has been...not the best week. We had our conference in Mercedes and I actually didn´t really like it very much. For starters the traveling part always takes a toll on being able to sleep. We left at 12:30 in the morning and rode a bus for some 2 and a half hours to paysandu where we got off and went to a church where we and the other 2 hermanas slept on the floor in the guarderia for a couple of hours until we had to walk back to the bus terminal and ride for another four hours to mercedes and start the conference. The new area president Elder Arnold spoke to us along with his wife and the heatons. We kind of expected him to ``bajar la caña`` or drop the cane a little on us, which he kind of did, but not as much as I expected. But to be honest I didn´t really like him very much. Which I know is really bad of me. Maybe it was partly because I was tired but I didn´t really like his personality and he did talk a lot about how we need to do things and be really strictly obedient and what things we need to be doing in our lessons and planning and everything. I left the conference feeling really depressed because I felt like I am the worst missionary ever and don´t do anything right but I still feel confused about how to do things better and I don´t think I will ever be a very good missionary. But I think that is how the conferences with area presidents usually are. I just didn´t really feel the spirit though and we didn´t get to talk to the heatons really because they all left right after the closing prayer and...yeah I just didn´t love the experience. Although I have also realized lately that I have some pretty serious pride issues so that was probably playing into things. After the conference we went and worked in Mercedes for a few hours and knocked some doors by the river. It was weird because it was a really high end area with big nice houses. We didn´t have much luck.

Hermana Halladay and I are getting along well, she is really nice. But I still don´t think that we work very effectively. We pretty much started out the change with no real investigators and we needed to find news, we are still in that same situation. Our numbers have been horrible as far as lessons a week go and we aren´t really working with the members. It is hard because we both want to work hard and I think we do, just not in an effective way. I´ve been missing you all a lot this week and it´s just not been the best week, but i think you have those sometimes. I´ve been really tired too though after the conference. I´m just glad that there are only a couple weeks left in the change. I would kind of like to go to a new area, I think it would help me to refocus a little bit and get out of my comfort zone some more to shock me back into life....maybe, or it could just make things worth. But the elder arnold said at the conference that he wants us to start staying in each area for at least eight months so I am not really sure what will happen. the work is really slow here though right now, I hope it will pick up, I need to distract myself because I am really unfocused this week.

I am out of time, but mom I didn´t get the premarin yet but it might come tomorrow. Amy I think the mission address is 1167 enrique martinez montevideo uruguay c.p. 11.800.

Talk to you next week,

All my love, Jessica