Siga Adelante no mas!

I learned a lot this week. I did. It was really hard for me to accept that I have only two transfers left and watching the missionaries go home made me realize how hard it will be to go home. It is hitting me harder more and more each day. I tell my companion that its like running into a wall full of spikes. It hurts, but you just gotta run into it because its in front of you. I am so surprised how my flight schedule already got home. This week, the mission secretary even called me to ask me when I am going home and to what airport I will be going home to. As so I have a huge favor to ask all of you that are writing me....please in your emails, I don´t want anything that says, "You will be home in so-and-so weeks, months!" All I want is to receive, "Hermana Santeco, as you know your time is coming to an end....keep working hard and enjoy what you have left. I really need lots of encouragement right now. I am absolutely exhausted and freezing....My body just aches from the struggle of getting use to the huge weather change and the altitud. I need to keep working. Tell me, "Marisa. I want you to know that I´m cheering you on until the very end." I need that and I want that please. I have missionary friends that just left and were not able to sleep their last few weeks in the mission because they were having a hard time to keep working because going home brought them so much fear....I really need to sleep....and I need to forget that I´ll be home soon. I want to work and I want to do it the best that I can. So that is all I ask of you. I imagine you are excited for me to come home so I can get back to helping around the house and to eat all the left overs that you can´t finish, but I need this.

Hermana Crawford is leaving me to Sucre and I will have a Latin companion from Peru. My 5th companion that is from Peru. Sweet! She is from an island I heard. Where its hot. So I think we will just be able to relate as we suffer in the cold haha. I have really came to a conclusion of how blessed I was to be with Hermana Crawford and that I really needed to be with her during these 12 weeks in the mission. These 12 weeks were hard. Really hard for the both of us. But we worked hard and really learned a whole lot. I have never felt so tired and cold. But I am doing all I can and trying to do more so I can become better. I am really going to miss Hermana Crawford. I will be in a house full of three latins and I´ll be the only North American. I´m excited because now I will be speaking more Spanish and I want to speak it more before I end the mission.

We went to Uyuni this past pday. A week ago. It was GORGEOUS. It looked like snow, but endless snow, but it was all salt. It usually looks like glass in January to February when it rains, but it was still beautiful. We went as a zone and got to go to this cactus island in the middle of the salt flatts. It reminded me of an island with a dry sea full of salt. It was BEAUTIFUL. I grown even more grateful for God´s beautiful creations. I wished you guys were there with me to see it. You would enjoy it. We took pretty cool pics there while we were there. I went crazy and bought cute colorful things to wear that day. My companion and I were twins.

We worked super hard this week and we prayed hard for help from the Lord. We felt that we never had any success here in Potosi these 12 months together until the very last week together. We have been watching the district over again to be able to remember the things we learned in the beginning of the mission. Repetition is really good. It helped us a lot and we saw a huge difference in our effectiveness as missionaries. We just forgot so many things to do to make things more effective in lessons. We grown to see that the Lord could see our desire to do better and really do His will. Having a stomach infection was part of His will (which happened two weeks ago), but now I´m better! I´m telling you now what happened...hehehehe but I´m so much better now. We were able to achieve all of our goals together and find three people who are now preparing themselves to be baptized this month of June. I just feel God´s love for me as I type this because He has been so patient with me.....I just see the many imperfections I have as His daughter and I just beg for Him to help me to be better...to work better.

Teaching someone who doesn´t believe in God has been hard, but I love her to death. Her name is Juani and this week I was searching a way to help her. It was hard, but I just knew that she just needed to have a personal spiritual experience. We have been having her try to pray to this "Energy" that she believes in and to ask it specifically if its God. She is slowing but surely doing it. I can´t imagine not believing in God or anything in that matter. I studied a lot for her to know what to do and I came across my journal that I had at home. It was a journey entry I had from July 2013 when I was going through a few hardships at home and I did something a little out of normal. This is a shout out for a good friend of mine who helped me get through the trial and see the blessings of it. My friend Marleyna told me to talk to the spirit, to God in a isolated place and to talk as if He were to be right there with me. I read that journey entry and I just bawled. I remember that day so well. It was after class at BYUH and I took the car to go to the temple and to be alone. I climbed all the way up on Laie hill to see the entire Laie and I talked to God....and asked Him, God are you there? I need your help because I feel so alone. I bore testimony in my journal and saw how that helped me so much. I could feel the spirit so strong that day at the very pavillion up on Laie hill. I could feel the peace that He brought me to my heart. Reading that even brought me the very same feeling. I read other journal entries of when mom was going through Chemo and the trials we went through as a family. My heart was full and I was amazed of how much of a person I was at home to do such a thing, because apart of me makes me feel that because I am so tired and after doing the same thing week after week for 15 months, I forget those kinds of experiences I have and had at home. I neeeded to read that. Now I know how I can try to help Juani. To share her what happened to me. I am grateful for writing in a journal to see how the things that we go through can benefit us in the future and even others around us.

I ate chinese food. We found a new chinese restaurant here in our are. Its called Hermanos Chifas. They are LEGIT chinese people and so I thought two things: 1. They must know how to cook good chinese food. 2. I´m in bolivia...I hope their meat is good...I hope its not cat. I never felt soooooo insecure about eating in a chinese restaurant until I came to Bolivia. After getting an infection, I am super careful with what I am eating. I asked her, the chinese lady what kind of meat it was. She spoke more chinese than spanish. It was funny. But I was stressed because all I wanted to do is eat calmly and peacefully. We ate Chop Suey and it was DELICIOUS. They have a sauce that I like that is not Bolivian. We didn´t eat the meat in it though we were too scared. After eating I told her in chinese, thank you, Shui-shui! She smiled. My companion kept telling her that I was chinese too...It made me laugh.

One thing I learned for sure is to just keep moving forward. "Siga adelante". Keep going. Keep working. I know it will be REALLY hard for me to finish the mission and leave it....but you just keep going. I just have to keep working.

I am really excited to work this transfer and a little curious of what will happen. Its going to be great. Really great. I can feel it. Inspite of feeling cold, I feel great. I love the mission and love being a missionary. I am not trunky, but if anything just a little nervous and excited how time is going by so fast. That gives me more reasons to work! Let´s do this!!!

I love you all. Have a beautiful week.

Hermana Santeco

15 out already and its cold

15 months!!!! WHoooooo!!! 

This week the traveling, the altitud, the food, the stress, the spiritual experiences all hit me all at once and I got sick. I couldn´t work for three days and stayed home to rest and get better. The good thing is that I have gotten better and I am back to work. 

This morning we traveled again. And I think I won´t be getting sick from the traveling. We left at 4 in the morning to go to Uyuni. I am in Uyuni right now! Its colder here and its beautiful. We will be seeing the Salt Flats. 

So the traveling. We went to Tupiza until Quiriza which is a historical church site in Bolivia. It was the first place where a chapel was built. We got to learn more about its history and of the miracles that took place there. Elder Richard G. Scott was mission president here when it all began. We hiked and sat in the very chapel. A miracle was that when they constructed the chapel, it was all donated by people to make it happen. All the funds and materials. The beam that was to support the entire chapel was being placed into it, but it sadly wasn´t long enough. They called it a day and left the materials overnight and as a people they fasted and prayed so that they could get their chapel built. They live in an isolated place. Full of little groups of people, mountains, and rivers. The very next day, they found that the beam could fit. Their prayers and fast and also their faith allowed them to see many miracles such as that. 

We visited places where President Kimball was to dedicate the place and where Elder Scott prayed. At a rock and near a tree to pray and find out if they should start building chapels there. We met a few of the very first members. President Dyer and President Dyer from the CCM and my formal mission president before President Hansen were the first missionaries that served in Quiriza. And look at how much the church has grown since then. There are hundreds of members in Bolivia and many chapels and a temple. We also got to learn many wonderful things from our mission president that day. Things that I can´t imagine not learning. My time in the mission is going by so fast and 12 weeks....that is almost nothing. I have seen the missionaries here who are going home next week having such a hard time accepting that they are going home. Its hard.....but I´m motivated more than ever to keep working. 

I learned that I need to recognized that I am not working for myself, for a leadership role, my companion, myself, neither my mission president, or the prophet, but I am working for the Lord. After 15 months, the leadership positions I gained in the mission, they don´t matter to me as much as it did before. Its nice being sister training leader and to be known as the sister that only had 10 weeks in the field to start training a greenies....but it just doesn´t matter to me anymore. I learned that the Lord recognizes our efforts and our work. And who else needs to recognize that? I don´t need to annouce to the whole world if I got a baptism or if I taught 18 lessons in 3 days (that´s hard to do here.....I didn´t acheive that..lol), but the Lord needs to see me that I am trying. I was sick...and I could feel Him recognize that I was trying to get better so I could get back out there. He could recognize that I was SAD. I hated to stay home. But I accepted His will and asked Him to give me patience.

I can´t really say much about this week. I am sorry, but it was because I was sick in bed most of the time. But this week is the last one of this transfer and there is a huge chance my companion will leave and I will be finding out who will be my last companion in the mission. I am going to miss Hna Crawford so much. She became a really good friend to me. She took good care of me when I was sick this week and if it weren´t for her, I would´ve been sick still. I am dying in the cold. It has gotten colder. Sometimes I still ask God, Why POTOSI???? I am from a ROCK...a Hot ROCK and I am dying. This area is the hardest one I ever had in the mission, but I love the challenge.

I know the Savior lives and I know that He loves us. I know that this work is real and that the work will never come until an end until God says so. I know He blesses us through our obedience and our efforts to show Him that we truly do love Him. I love being a missionary and seeing the things that He does for us in such an area where I am. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week. Stay warm in the sun. Its good for you.

Les quiero muchisimo,

Hermana Santeco

Yay for baby Trey!!!!

I ammmmmm just screaming from my chair from a sucky internet place in Tupiza, he is finally here and he is an asian poly for sure!! Your emails brought me so much joy and I am just soooooooo excited to see him soon. I am in Tupiza right now. I was just here three days ago and had to go back to Potosi in a 5 hour bus right back, and we left this morning to come here for a zone conference. I´ve been traveling a lot. And its not the end just yet. The ride here wasn´t so bad just because we traveled in the morning. Usually I travel at night and try to sleep. 

This week was a lot for me. It was a little of a trial, but the fruits of the labors do show through it all. Potosi is not an easy area. It is cold here, the people can be cold too, and its just dark cold vibes, but don´t get me wrong, I love it here and its beautiful. We do meet some great people here. We left to Tupiza tuesday night and had the best seats ever. Top floor, window front seat. The only thing was that it was COLD. But we got there. We did companion exchanges with the sisters and it was a blast. It was exactly what I needed this week. Tupiza is hot......its a little cold, but Potosi...COLDER. I love being with the sisters that are finishing the mission. Some are trunky......and some are just awesome. They are working hard and doing all that they can to not even think about home even if they are going to be home in two weeks. I love their example. I do honestly feel that I learn more from them, than I teach them as their sister training leader. I love that the most. I was with Hermana Perez from Guatemala and the other day with Hermana Rhoton from Idaho. Hermana Perez is such a doll. I remember meeting her in Tiquipaya when I first started the mission in Linde. Its amazing how quickly the time went. She´s already going home!!! Hermana Rhoton is my favorite. She inspires me. She has 11 brothers and sisters. She told me that her mom has a saying that she would have as much children as the Lord permits her to have....she had 12. I think I will remember that and might do the same. I want to bring God´s children here on earth and see how many the Lord will allow me to have....but really I am inspired. Hermana Rhoton is a darling! She is a happy missionary and I told her twice already that if I were a new missionary, I would love to have her train me. 

My companion and I left Tupiza that very night and went back to work in Potosi. I was sick with a cold this whole week and it affected me a lot in how I was working, contacting people. teaching.....I was literally exhausted from the traveling, the weather, the altitude, everything. But I´ve gotten better. We have been able to meet wonderful people this week and see how much the work and efforts that we are doing do bring forth fruits. If I say that I had a hard week, I say it because I do sometimes feel sad that after working so hard with so many people, they just don´t seem to progress....but I keep thinking and remembering Alma 26. Patience in thy afflictions and thy shall be given success. Sunday came around and I dreaded it. For many reasons. Mostly because investigators don´t come to church. We called a few people to see if they were coming and they all said no. We were walking to the chapel that morning and we decided to pass for the Familia Vara inspite that they said that they weren´t going to come. We couldn´t give up so quickly so we knocked on the door...and they came. The kids came. I was just happy and they loved it. They absolutely loved it. The downside about the first impression in primary...is that sometimes kids are naughty. One of the little boys that came with us to church said, "A boy called me pregnant! They are bad behaved kids!" I was just like this -__________-...........kids kids kids........how am I going to have 10 kids if they are going to scare the investigators away. But he just took it as a joke at least. 

This week has gotten by so fast.......I did see miracles this week. A girl named Stephani is a less active in our ward and we finally got to find her. She has been inactive after going to a Catholic school where its required for her to go to the catholic church and when the elders that baptized her, left. When she heard we past by the first time and she wasn´t home she was so happy. She has been praying for the past few days to go back to church. She made a huge sacrifice and skipped the catholic church to come to the ward. I was happy to see her in the chapel. She even has brought a friend to her house one night to share the gospel and they were both in tears.......apparently they think that my companion and I are perfect. Or in other words, they just look up to us so much. They admire us for being happy and living good values. They kept saying, "You both just have something so different and we want that". I always heard that people say that about seeing mormons, but it was cool to actually hear it from someone in person with real intentions. 

Leticia. The grandmother that is sick with cancer has gotten worse these past weeks. She is in bed rest and really weak. Please pray for her. 

Oh I lost one of my agendas in the street while walking outside. It was terrible. Its my life. It has everything. I had to start over with a new one and the down side is that we are already more than half way through the transfer. 

I am sick of traveling. And to think of it, if I am really going to finish the mission here...its going to be more traveling. But its awesome really and a priviledge. I made spam for my companion one morning with eggs and rice. She liked it! I found Jazmin Rice (made in Bolivia) and it was not too bad. Funny story, I do have a hard time remembering things. My companion and I were sitting at the bus station waiting for the bus to come to go back to Potosi and trying to remember actors and actresses names. We couldn´t remember Hermione from Harry Potter´s name. We were like...is it Emma Smith????? Hahahaha its Emma Watson. We got the restoration stuck on our minds. When we arrived at Potosi from the bus ride, it was 3am....I was DEAD. I was drowsy and walking practically half asleep. A member was actually there and said hi to us...I couldn´t...I just couldn´t go up to her and make a conversation. I just waved and walked out looking for a taxi with my companion (i am terrible for that........) but we got in the taxi and my companion starts contacting the driver trying to give him a pamphlet (im proud of her) and I was just DEAD. I could not talk, could not think, barely walk...I was dead tired. The mission is full of funny moments.....I am a funny person....I like making people laugh here by just being myself. 

This whole week I did think about Marvy and ask myself....hmmmm I wonder if she is in labor right now....hahahaha 

Congratulations to Marvy and TJ and Trey. I am happy to hear all about the good news and see the beautiful pictures of my nephew. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Santeco

Y quienes os reciban, allí estaré yo también

the things i do to get warm. ugly but necessary. oh well we are in bolivia right?

adobe houses-

Vara kids. 

Happy Mother´s Day! Feliz día de la madre! I was really happy to see you all last night and to see how seeing my family is something I do look for and what I did need last night. I woke up this morning and my cold got worst. The weather change going on here is affecting me. I had to wear three layers of sweaters last night to get a little warm, not completely warm, but just a little. Haha. But I´ll be getting some cold medicines for that. 

This week was a little stressful, but full of wonderful blessings. We were able to find new less actives to teach and new people to teach, and new members to work with. The work is moving forward here. I like it! Potosi is the hardest area I ever had in the mission and knowing that I will be most likely finishing the mission here is a big push for me to keep working. Hna Donoso shared a beautiful quote with me that I carry with me always now, "Como termina su día será como terminará su mision. Como termina su misión, va a determinar como será su vida." How you end your day is how you will end your mission. How you end your mission is going to determine how will you life will be. I am pushing myself so I can end the day well and keep seeing the fruits of our labors. My companion is an amazing she is helping me go through the trials of the mission and to really see the Lord guiding and protecting us. I do feel like if I am going through the same footsteps as our savior and see how there is good as well as there is evil. Satan is working hard with us and trying to tear me down. But then my Zone Leader remided me a scripture last night. Doctrina y Convenios 84:88. Y quienes os reciban, allí estaré yo también, porque iré delante de vuestra faz. Estaré a vuestra diestra y a vuestra siniestra, y mi Espíritu estará en vuestro corazón, y mis ángeles alrededor de vosotros, para sosteneros. Stake President Hafoka shared the same scripture with me just when he set me apart as a full time missionary. He also told me that its normal to be scared, but remember this. This scripture. I had seen how the scriptures had helped me to see and open my eyes how they are true and they do provide comfort. I had a hard time sleeping last night, but I thought profoundly in this scripture and thought of Jesus Christ our savior receiving the comfort from His father. His Father sent Him an angel to comfort Him as He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane. I could feel it, inspite of the cold weather laying under 5 thick blankets, that my Heavenly Father sent His angels to protect me and hug me as I fell asleep. 

Whoever shall receive me shall also receive Him. He will be on my left, On my right...surrounded by His angels to bare me up. 

I am a happy missionary blessed with the knowledge and the five cans of spam that the Eyre Family sent me and my companion (hahahahahahaha). But really. I am grateful. Its amazing how the time goes by fast and life just keeps moving forward and we see how wonderful our Heavenly Father is. 

If I do have to say another thing which I learned, it has to be that I´m learning to respect people´s free agency. Mostly of the people we contact and teach. Or in all, everyone. Its a trial at times, but I´m learning a whole lot about it. 

This week, just like I said last night, I´ll be traveling to Tupiza to do companion exchanges. A 5-6 hour long bus ride. Not fun. We will be also getting back and we will have to travel back to Tupiza until Quiriza which is 5-7 hours away in Bus the following week. I am not too sure when we will be traveling there next week, but I heard it could be in the afternoon or 4am monday. We shall see. So if there is a little difference of when I email you, difference of time, you know its because I am traveling. 

Just a friendly reminded, I expect a movie marathon night with you all when I get home and to eat panda´s express when I get home. My zone leaders call me panda power now because they think its so funny that I´m chinese and that I could own Panda Express. They gave me the idea that I actually wished that I did hahaha. I hope you all have a wonderful week.

Don´t worry too much about sending me a package if not. I figured that if you send it, I´ll be getting it in July and that´ll leave me 2 months to enjoy it. But its all up to you. Send me warm fuzzy socks! Haha. I love you all and I love my Savior Jesus Christ.

Hna Santeco

El mes de mi Madre!

leadership training conference lunch

it was the last time i got to see hna rumualdo, my last companion. she is going home this transfer

with hna Hansen

one the plane with the others sister training leaders to get back to sucre and potosi

after 7 months, i finally got brian wheeler´s letter from Japan.

            i love letters!

How lucky is my mom to have her birthday and mother´s day combined in one month. I love the card that dad made for you mom. Its true really. You are special to us everyday and we do really love you and appreciate you for all that you do. I am so grateful for mothers and the wonderful women in my life who I have as my examples. Just yesterday as the nursery leaders brought all the loud noisy kids to the relief society room when we were still in the middle of the lesson, I observed each of the children run searching for their mothers. Many of them ran up to their mothers hugging them and kissing them. Inspite of the noise and the chaos and the poor relief society president trying to speak over the noise of the kids screaming and crying (which was funny), I could feel the joy of being a daughter of a wonderful mother, and the future of being one, one day. I have my moments in the mission where I rethink and say, "How am I going to be a mother if this kids drive me nuts?!" But then again...I could see the beautiful moments that a mother could have with her children. I yearn for that and that really also makes me excited for Marvelyn to be having her son very soon. 

This week was a week full of traveling, learning, and taking care of my companion. My companion has gotten a little sick from traveling and the both of us had felt a little overwhelmed from all the things we are expected to do as sister training leaders in Potosi....1. Its really cold....2. we have two little heaters (portable) and five blankets, and fuzzy socks. 3. We had to go through Godly sorrow with our investigators, 4. Companion exchanges..we still got to do them still. 5. and many other factors.....but we had the wonderful priviledge to fast and pray to find a way to get through this little mountain in our journey together in Potosi. The Lord shown His hand...and touched our hearts to show that there is still good when it seems there is only bad. 

We traveled to Cochabamba this past tuesday night. Just as last time, we traveled the night before in a taxi, a three hour car ride to Sucre, stayed the night there and traveled through plane to Cochabamba the following morning. Traveling is not fun. I would love traveling if I were with Gabe, Jess, and Marvy. Like those fun times on the plane rides to Thailand. But I do my best now to take advantage of the time to sleep...but its kind of hard to sleep in small cars and short plane rides...and when the elders want to talk the whole way......but the conference, the leader trainingship conference was awesome. Loved it! We also ate good food for lunch. It was almost like a loaf of bread filled up with pizza stuff, almost like a hot pocket, but not. But it was huge!!!!! The funny thing was that out of the 10 sister training leaders in the mission, I was the only sister that could finish it. Bahahaha....oh do I know how to eat! We stayed at President´s house that night and when I told him and Hermana Hansen, his wife that I ate it all, you should have seen their faces. They were shocked and said, "You ate that whole thing?!" hahahaha....I love eating so much. After that conference, my companion and I went out and shop a bit for a few things from the supermarket for things we can´t find in Potosi. For example, Doritos and pasta. hahaha and pancake mix. I am cooking like crazy now. I even bought a hairdryer because its hard to leave my hair wet here now in Potosi...its cold. We ate dinner, ate some good chicken and went to the mission house. Hermana Hansen was there home alone while president was at a meeting. We talked to her as we were just settling down. She gave us some clothes to bring to Potosi so we would be warm. (Thank goodness) and then we started to talk to her like just girl talk. She told us how she meet president, how she knew she was to marry him, and how he proposed and how she responded. It was so funny and so fun to talk to her like that. She made me realize how the mission is really preparing me for marriage...(I am not trunky, I am just being real now haha). But really. I can see it and I am really grateful. 

Being in their house was really nice. President Hansen got home and joined the conversation and that is when I told them about how I finished my lunch at conference. Hahaha. Then when we just finished the conversation and about to leave to the room, President asked if we could do a family prayer. It was so tender. He said the family prayer and literally accepted us along with his wife as if we were their daughters. 

But I am not going to lie. It was HOT in Cochabamba to sleep there. I do not know how I am going to adjust to the Hawaiian weather. I am so used to the dry and cold climate now. 

That next morning they made us french toast and sent us off to the airport in a taxi. I felt like I was literally with a family of my own who loved me. President Hansen and Hermana Hansen are amazing.

We got to our area after the long traveling and went straight back to work. We did not eat lunch that day because we felt sick from the traveling, but eventually I literally went crazy for food...mostly chicken because I didn´t eat any meat that day. But we kept working. 

I had seen so many funny things here. Its sooooo funny. Usually how you can see on google that the people here carry things and somethings their babies in ayuayo (the colorful fabric) on their backs. That day I say a lady carry her son on her back who was probably like 5 years old, just strapped awkwardly on her back. Just like a strap. Just like he was duct taped to her back with his legs dangling. Its was hilarious! 

We are traveling to a farther place for zone conference this month, to a place called Quiriza. Its an hour away from Tupiza. It is where the church started in Tupiza. Its a beautiful place and I´ll make sure to tell you guys more about it as soon as I know for myself for sure. 

We were lucky to find a member to have us come to use their computers to skype you guys. We are so excited!

I got Brian´s letter after 7 months. I loved his letter!

I got your package! I loved that too thank you so much!

The miracles this week...with the Vara Family, it has been hard not with them, but everyone in our area. Sometimes we feel that this area is just really one of the hardest ones in the mission. People progress really slow here. But we went back to this family to teach them and show them the Restoration Video of Joseph Smith. After thinking that because her kids are noisy and won´t let her listern or pay attention...we could see that the spirit was working in her. She told us that she felt something different, from that movie, and even when she reads the pamphlets. We gave her the Book of Mormon...we are so happy. We left that appointment happy. It was the same day while we were fasting. My soul was filled with so much light and I was content and grateful. 

Finding people here also is hard. Finding people to teach. They just....disappear sometimes and get lost. We go to this place, sabores urbanos where they make DELICIOUS food. I go there a lot to eat salchi papas, lomito, hamburgers. We always wanted to contact the owners of that place. We finally did yesterday in the street. Did you know how hard it is to find people who live together and are married and dont work on sundays? They happened to live together, to be married, and to not work on sundays. Thank you Heavenly Father for that miracle.

I am grateful. Just so grateful for the things that I am learning here and the opportunity to grow and to serve the savior. The time is going by so fast. 4 months to go...one week to go to see your beautiful faces. The mission is the best and I´m loving the time I have here...to see the progress...of others and ourselves. 

I look forward to see you all soon.

Have a wonderful week. Love you,

Hermana Santeco

Mas cerca Dios de ti..en estos 14 meses

I don´t like looking at the calendar and seeing the time pass by faster and faster and see the months disappear.....where on earth did Abril go? Now that we are entering May you know what that means?! It means its going to be mom´s birthday! and also mother´s day! I will only have one more pday to talk to you before deciding about skype, but I do ask you to prepare everything and tell me what time is good for you. I finish church here just about at 1pm and that would be at 7am in Hawaii...but I do eat lunch until 2-3pm and that would be up to 10 in Hawaii, but I think it would be good if we could do it at 5-7pm bolivia time range? That would be 11-1pm time range in Hawaii I believe? Just tell me when and I´ll do what I can and let you know next week because we are still in search of a place to do it. Its kind of hard to get good internet service here but we are doing what we can. I just hope Marvy doesn´t give birth too soon, but at the same time I would love to see the bugger, the Samoan, Chinese, Thai, Filipino baby! I would have never thought our family would include the Samoan blood, but its pretty awesome!

This week, this new week we will be traveling to Cochabamba again for a training leadership conference. I am honestly not looking forward to traveling a lot this transfer. My companion and I will be traveling a lot to fulfil the responsibilities we have. Its a little hard because we are the only sisters in our ward and having to leave is a sacrifice. 

This week just to share a little of what happened was that my companion and I really learned how to be guided by the spirit. We had a tough week to be honest. I have lots to tell you guys when I get home about all the experiences I am having here that I just can´t say right now haha. We will have lots of time for that, but my companion and I really worked to have the spirit with us more throughout the day. Being in Potosí somehow just makes us so tired. That sometimes we are grumpy together. Haha my poor companion, she has been sick these few days with a cold. The rain poured on us one day and it has been really cold. I was blessed to buy a blue scarf made out of Alpaca fur. Its sooo warm. But it rained and we had to walk home to change. But along the way we were going home, we knocked on doors hoping that because it was raining, maybe they would take us in because they felt bad that we were wet. But.....that didn´t work. It made us laugh. We went home, put on some rainboots and continued to look for people to teach. Everyone fell through with the appointments we had with them. There was a young adult girl named Jessica that we contacted the other day and a few more days later we had an appointment. We left her a pamphlet about the restoration and invited her to read it before we would return. When we returned, she opened the door and told us right away that she was against the fact that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that a prophet could even exist in these days. Oh she was hard hearted and my natural man side of me was frustrated and just wanted to change her brain structure just so she could understand it in an instant. We stood at the door and she kept throwing us questions that jumped from on idea to another. I took a deep breath and said to her, "Sabemos que usted tiene mucha buenas preguntas y nos gustaría ayudarle con ellas, pero tal vez podríamos sentarnos y hablar?" She didn´t let us into her house, but we instead went to a little plaza with a bench nearby where we could sit quietly and talk. We sat down and it was so funny because she literally didn´t give us any eye contact and she was very direct with us. We started with a prayer and we specifically asked God to help us with this lesson because we honestly don´t know all the answers to her questions, but we knew that we could somehow bring the spirit to her heart. When we began the lesson, we explained to her importantly that she is a daughter of God and that He really does love her. We explained that we can become closer to Him in many forms....she asked, "How can we get closer to him?" We explained..."Asistir a la iglesia, leer las escrituras, orar, guardar los mandamientos, muchas cosas"....she nodded her head in agreement and we could see she was starting to open up to us. We saw the spirit work in her......but now the proble was that she couldn´t come to accept that Prophets exist. My companion shared a scripture with her and she was amazed...she was in awe...and she was open to know more about them. That lesson we could feel the spirit and we could feel that she could feel it too. Just from a closed-out person, she opened up and could see that it could be true. I am still learning to recognize the promptings of the spirit and continuing to search of how I can be obedient to its promptings....as my companion and I did this, we also learned that just as there is a good spirit, there is a bad spirit that doesn´t want you to feel secured with the good one.....but its amazing how things work out with the spirit.

Yesterday my companion and I had a rough day. Two dogs attacked us. Two big dogs. I just lost it, I was already frustrated with the things that were going on throughout the day and I just wanted to feel better about what was going on. But these two dogs wanted to bite us....I got so aggressive I grabbed my bag and started to taunt them and scream in Spanglish (haha) so they would just go away. They eventually left us alone. I hate dogs. I hate dogs with a passion. I swear I grown to be afraid of them as soon as I came on the mission. I don´t even think I can watch 101 Dalmations anymore because they just make me nervous. But I learned to protect myself from them. My companion and I are just grateful that they didn´t bite us. Plus, I finally can say that I can face them with more courage. 

Its interesting to really think and ponder about what I´m learning now in the mission and I can see how this things will help me to improve and to grow....14 months out and away from home is a lot of time to be away from home, but it has become the best 14 months of my life. Everyone is now talking to me as if I´m finishing the mission...they tell me, "Hermana Santeco ahora que esta terminando la mision........Hermana Santeco, espero que pueda aprovechar estos ultimos meses de su mision...." Lots of stuff like that. Its crazy. I look back and I swear I was just a newbie here and now I feel like I can finally put all I can to do this work because I finally know how it works. I am truly grateful for the things I´m learning and things the Lord is trusting me to do. He is trusting me to withstand the cold weather. He is trusting me to fight off the bad dogs in the streets even if there are 10 in one street....they are so many dogs....He is trusting me to keep going...to wake up at 6:30 even if its getting harder now because its so cold. He is trusting me to forget myself and remember whose work is this. I had never forgot that it was never mine...it was never my mission. It was never my work. I am grateful for the spirit for telling me to serve a mission and for the blessings I have received from it. I know without a doubt that our savior Jesus Christ lives and loves us. I know that He knows us perfectly and wants us to return to Him and our Father in Heaven. 

I love the Lord...I love my family. I love my companion. I love Potosi. I love being a missionary.

I wish you all a wonderful week and a happy early birthday to my dear mother...and my beautiful sister who is about to dar la luz. Dar la luz means give light, but in Spanish it means give birth...hahaha I can´t wait for you guys to hear me try talk in English and laugh at myself fail at speaking proper English.

I love you all,

Hermana Santeco

I forgot to add a little more of what I did this week, but my companion and I spent some time with Leticia. The 64 year old lady who is suffering from uterus cancer. She taught us how to make a bolivian donut type of food. Its delicious. I have the recipe. We are going to do it when I get home! Sadly I forgot my camera that day to take pictures. That very same day we made tacos with our pensionista. I´m just cooking a lot these days. But the thing we made with Leticia is called Roscones de Nuez Mocada. Its DELICIOUS. I enjoyed my time with Leticia. She is just like our grandmother in the mission. She was alone all night so we accompanied her making with her Roscones. Yummmmmm. ^_____^

Living the Book of Mormon

This week has been honestly an exhausting week. I remember when I first got to Potosi and my companion told me, "I don´t know, but I´m honestly so tired here that I feel like I´m falling off the face of the earth". I didn´t understand why she would tell me that, but now I understand. I am exhausted. I literally feel as if I am falling off the face of the earth now. I am a walking zombie...walking in the streets. Potosi makes me tired. But the Lord continues to bless me and to help me to keep going. I feel as if angels push me forward from behind as I struggle my way forward through the streets.

Its been a week a little tough, too but only because people weren´t home and members fell through with their promises to acompany us...but its honestly the life of missionaries here in Bolivia. In Potosi, I feel that the work here is harder, but I love it as well because slowly but surely the miracles are coming out. One night, my companion happened to sit in the back of the bus and I was in the front because of the lack of space in the auto. She talked to the lady she was sitting next to. The following day we went to look for her at her house. She happened to be out already at her door and we were received into her home. She happens to be a single mother who is separated from her husband for a few complicated marriage problems. She lives with her daughter and she was having trouble accepting that she is a daughter of God. That struggle just broke my heart-and I just tried to find the words to help her realize that she is a daughter of our Heavenly Father. My companion and I could really feel that the Savior really guided us to her. We had her say the last prayer to end the lesson and her prayer just touched my heart. I could feel the spirit come to me as she said the words...she thanked God for sending His servants to her.

Just moments after that appointment we walked down the street and ran into a sister member from our ward that we heard that had a reference for us. She took us to the reference that very instant. It was her sister who isn´t a member and is suffering from a type of bone cancer. She was pratically a single mother her whole life of 4 children and an amazing artist and sculptor. She showed us her portfolio of her work and she is talented. But because she is sick, it is difficult for her to do what she enjoys. I thought hard about this, and mom, would you be able to write her a letter of encouragement with maybe a few pictures of you when you were sick and of you now all healthy and all? I´ll translate the letter for you to tell her it. She honestly just needs lots of love right now and is going through a hard time. But I am grateful......she also too ended the lesson with a prayer thanking God for sending His servants to her.

It touches my heart to see how the Lord guides us.......my companion and I have been working hard to get to know the members and to help them. We knew that a few had a few problems in their unity as a family or in their marriage and we applied what we are learning now in the mission and taught it to them to help them become strengthened. We taught about prayer in a family home evening in their home and we focused on the different part that they may not have realized that would make a huge difference. Hugs. In the mission they taught us to hug each other after every prayer we do as companions. It really was hard for me to get used to that. I am not very an affeccionate person and imagine...as a missionary, I just gotten less affectionate (sorry I can´t remember how to spell that word). But I see the big difference and I realized that our family does that. The whole group hug after the family prayer. In this case, in the family we were teaching, the father was a returned missionary and we reminded him of the things he perhaps learned in the mission. We gave them the challenge to do group hugs after praying. Yesterday in Ward Counsel, our ward mission leader gave acknowledgement for that lesson and said that that very brother in the ward, mentioned in their class how grateful he was to be reminded to do that in his family and how it is helping their family to be more united. That made me so happy and it touched my heart to know that the Savior helped us to know how we could bless their family.

We visited a counselor of the bishop (we don´t have a bishop as of right now) so we could see how we could lessen the burden of the ward and help them somehow. All they asked of us was that if we could make a Hawaiian dish with them one night....the problem is that I completely forgot what there is to cook at home.....and here...I just don´t remember a lot of stuff. Can you probably give me ideas mom??? hahah I literally have bad memory now. I was thinking maybe Hawaiian Haystack? Because its a lot more easier to get the ingredients maybe?

So we had our stake activity and acted out the stories of the Book of Mormon. It was a beautiful activity and I could really feel the spirit. We acted a few things such as the story of King Lamoni, the Tree of Life, the life of the missionaries in a funny manner, and when Jesus Christ came to America. This activity really made me realize that these stories are real. They are real stories and to act them out was a wonderful priviledge to do and share with others. I was Sariah in the tree of life scene, a sheep in the king lamoni scene, and one of the people who were there to witness that Jesus came to America. I went home that night in awe and being grateful for the BOM even more......I love that Book and it keeps changing my life more and more each day.

Sometimes as a missionary and doing all I can do to help people progress, and see them not go to church makes me just devastated.....these past sundays were hard to sit in the sacrament room and not see them come. But yesterday my companion and I prayed to accept His will and help us to be patient with our investigators and they make come if it shall be His will....we were blessed. 5 of them came. I was tremendously happy.

I do meet interesting people in the street or at their door step....sometimes I get a little sassy to be honest. I´m not perfect I know, but this lady....I lost it. Her name was Nancy....we thought she was friendly, but it just went downhill. We tried talking to help and give her a little of what we teach, but she just had me look up scriptures in the bible and listen. I tried to talk over her voice, but that didn´t do anything. She asked us, "Do you guys know how many books are in the Bible?" And I told her.....Hermana do we really know that? (I lost it right there...). We had to end it and tell her that we wanted God to bless her and all that stuff. I walked away for blow off some steam.....some people....are still children of God.

Oh as you know this week is the beginning of new transfers. My companion and I are staying together in Potosi. And its getting colder and colder each day. We are having a few new more sisters here in our area to do some companion exchanges. I´m pretty stoked! I can not believe that half of April has already gone by and I´ll be making 14 months already......its going by so fast and that means that is only 3 transfers left before going home.

I do have a question though, when is mother´s day? I´m sorry....I don´t know anything about home now that I´m away haha. Tell me soon so I can start searching places with my companion to do skype with you guys. I hope that you all have a wonderful week and I´m just waiting for that email to hear that Marvy already had the bugger come out of her. I expect pictures of him. I want to see my handsome nephew out and chubby.

I love you all and thank you for your love!!!

Hna Santeco