Dos Meses en la Misión? Que?!?!?!

ALOHAAAAAAA!!!!

Ahhhhhh I can not believe that in two weeks I will be able to see you guys on Skype!

 I have to warn you though that I am going to cry. I miss you guys choke!!! I miss saying choke! My spanish has improved little and little each day. But when I do get tired of speaking it I have to be honest that I just speak english to my companion even if she can not even understand me. Jajajaja.

This week was roughhhhhhh. But what week isn´t? So last pday I took a nap and had a pretty bad experience of not being able to wake up or move.......long story short, but I had a dream that a young boy ran in front of me and all of a sudden I just knew I had to wake up. So I did. When I woke up, my eyes were open, but then I felt like something was entering into my body.....and I could not move or speak. All I could hear was my companion outside of the door talking to someone and that I needed to call out for her. But I couldn´t. Then I fell asleep again because I was really tired, and well I woke up again. And the SAME THING HAPPENED again. I could feel something enter into my body! I am dead serious. I could not move or speak but my eyes were opened.....then I fell asleep. Woke up and the same thing. But after 10 minutes of trying to move, I finally was able to move. The whole time I was praying for whatever was inside of me to leave. My compañera finally came into the room and I told her what had happened. The next day I got a blessing from our zone leaders because well that night I barely slept..I am so much better but I still feel that the "evil spirits" that satan has are still attacking me because I am here doing something they do not want me to do. Just pray for my protección please...jajaja but really I am okay. Never again will that happen. I was told it can be common on the mission for satan to attack your dreams, but we do have the autoridad to send those spirits away in the name of our savior.

What else happened? So we have been teaching and teaching and have not have much success. So we made it a goal to be more specific in our prayers that we will be able to have fecha baptimals and people who are prepared for His word to find us or for us to find them. We had miracles because of that prayer. A young boy found us and has been really good at keeping commitments in his progression. He came to a baptismal service with us this saturday and so far he liked it. But then last night we found out of the possibilities of what may cause him to decide to change his mind about learning more, but we are praying hard that we will perform a miracle with him. We also have a young girl who we are teaching. She is so prepared to be baptized but her father makes it difficult for us to have her come to church and for us to teach her. Getting permission from her father is hard...but we KNOW that we can perform a miracle with her too. She came to the baptism with us too and she kept saying how beautiful it was to her. It made me SOOOO happy.

I was able to participate in lessons. Yes, I CAN TEACH. Well kind of. It is coming. Its the language barrier that keeps me from trying but when I do try, I can feel the spirit working through me. Last night we taught an investigator who needed to hear what I needed to say about how Perfect Love really Does Cast out Fear. I realized so much that because I have the perfect love from our savior with me, I have no reason to fear. She cried when we were teaching her. And when I said, "Como representantes de Jesucristo, le prometemos que Dios le bendicirá si usted guardará sus mandimientos y Él nos bendicirá con las cosas que necesitamos. Dios le ama mucho. Su amor es perfecto. Con eso amor, no necesitamos tener miedra." Ahhhhh it was so powerful. I love when those kinds of things happen.

Today we hiked up a mountain to see a waterfall. It was FREEZING cold. It was a water fall in Hawaii but the water below was like a huge puddle. The elders asked me how are the waterfalls are in Hawaii and I said that we can jump from the top to the bottom and that here we can too but if we do, we will die....they laughed so hard. Its freezing cold here in the mornings and nights that sometimes I can see the smoke from my breath.

Yesterday our lunch appointment with a miembro fell through again..like last sunday. So.....we made sandwiches. We always make sure we have food in our house incase for these kinds of things. I told my compañera that I can make saimin with eggs and such. She was excited. jajajaja. I think I can cook. She thinks I can cook. But really all I make is spam and saimin.

que más?....oh mother! Happy Birthday!!! This saturday is your birthday and I wish I could be there with you all! Have a laie chop suey birthday please! For me! I miss the food at home soooooo much. I swear I crave everything all the time. Pandas, bbq, a real legit burger. But its all good. I showed my snacks to the elders once and they almost cried because its been so long since they ate chex mix and slim jims.

Gabriel, you letter made me cry so much. You have became a spiritual giant. I am so proud of you. Remember that you have something so special. You have the priesthood. You have the authority to act in the name of our savior. That is so sacred and precious. Something that will bring so many miracles and blessings to our family and future posteridad. I watched the elders perform the baptisms this past weekend and I was so happy to see that our gospel does have the proper authority to bring others unto Christ. As missionaries, we do have the power of God with us. We have the authority to promise blessings to our investigators even if it does seem crazy...for instance, if we were teaching a lesson about tithing we can promise that they will never lack food or things they need as long as they are faithful in paying a full tithing. We can promise them that God will take care of them because we are like Christ and God will take of them!

Yesterday many people nevah like sign up for feeding us hungry missionaries and one of the ladies said, "Do you want Jesus´s in your home! Do you wanna feed Jesus?". Jajajajajaja. For real though, please feed me. Everyone is losing weight here while I feel like I am always eating. I am ALWAYS hungry.

Entonces, I feel that this week has gone by so fast. Oh and the mountain trip! It was so UP UP UP UP. We are going again this week. We go every week. Lots of cows and goats. The photos that Elder Johnston has probably might be one of the areas that only elders go to. I am not sure. I have not seen him yet either. But I know I will! Oh and I always make butterflies out of paper origami. People love it. They will know me for the butterflies because I always pass them out and they will say "que Lindo!".

Well I just wanna bear my testimony.......muchisimos gracias por todos. Estoy tanta agradecida que podemos estar en Bolivia. Tenemos milagros por que Dios es con nosotros. Dios me dijo que yo puedo hacerlo...puedo ser misionera poderoso si yo hablo. Its all about opening your mouth. Por favor oren cada dia, cada noche. Oran por mi protección y que yo hablaré. I can not wait to hear from you next week. The following week I will get to see your smiling faces! and AHHH!!! You got a car! I want to drive! I miss driving! Thanks for getting fishes and saying that my fish decided to go to heaven. It makes death a lot less painful...but its all good. We have the gospel!!!!!

I love you all sooooo much! Please continue to "Come unto Christ". Mi objectivo como misionera es a invitar a las personas a venir a Cristo. We are all His children and He is depending on all of us to help build His kingdom on earth. Gabe, always remember your experience with the iron rod. The iron rod is the BOM, the teachings of the profetas.....one sweet day we will receive that hug from Jesus, our savior. I always read about the tree of life and imagine myself searching for it as I am holding onto the barro de hierro.

Be safe. Take care. Les amo mucho. Les quiero mucho. Tenga un buen semana!

Hasta luego!

Hermana Santeco

some photos are from one of the elders. but here is the chapel we go to, and our Zone!!!!!

Oh!!! one more thing I was also able to invite someone to be baptized for the first time and it was a real person! it wasnt just a fake investigator for practice. and he said yes! my first invitation to be baptized, he said yes!!!! :)