Feliz Navidad. 6 months.

I need a nap. Last Zone Conference, President asked us to commit to doing one thing. “Make memories this Christmas.” It's been amazing.

Christmas Eve, just a couple people came, but stayed the whole evening and we went through every Christmas song in the Hymn book. I wouldn't have been able to do it without the warm up of caroling to less actives and the homebound all week, bringing them banana bread from our awesome ward mission leader.

There was a happenin arts n crafts party at the Senior Couple apartments till 11pm, so we were hyper by the end of the evening and stayed up late and then got up at 5:30 to go to a breakfast at the visitor center in the morning. Sister Williams sang Cantique de Noel, she's German and speaks every language on the planet and her parents are opera singers, so it was memorable. Then we all swapped gifts and I should have known my companion was my secret Santa. I'm so clueless. She gave me lip gloss (subtle hints :-).

We went home opened presents...sure 'nough, they were Peruvian. My companion was jealous, her gifts came from the Gap. Ha! We made cookies and went to visit a lady from the ward in the rest home. She was super sweet and was sad because she couldn't get up. We sang with her and were singing one more song as we were leaving the building, but the orderly marched up to us and asked us who we were with and told us to follow her. She led us into a cafeteria with at least a hundred people and asked us to sing again. No pressure. Then we went to another cafeteria. Then
another. Then a little plaza. Then a few more people's rooms, so we put on an impromptu concert to an entire facility yesterday. That was memorable.

Calling Mom and Dad was great, sorry I didn't have enough time to call all the siblings. Too much to say. I'll just have to write. I want to hear Benjamin's voice. Somebody, send me a tape or a sound byte or something.

We went back to the visitor center and a family gave us a concert. Christmas afternoon and the VC is dead and I'm thinking of starting a movie, when a 14-seater Mormon Attack Vehicle pulls up with a big family. I say “Welcome to the Mormon Visitor Center.” Grandma says. “We're Restorationists.” A little staunch, but her kids were nice and her son and I talked all about missions as the rest of the family looked at the nativities. He seemed like he would like to know more, but not with
Grannie around, but he offered to sing me a song...um, okay. They're an A Capella group and the whole family sang a gospel song for the missionaries in like 20 part harmony. Elder Dana made me run out to see if they'd made a CD he could buy. They said they'd like to record, but with that many kids, it's money they don't have, so if anyone's looking for a good investment opportunity, lemme know.

We watched “A Labor of Love.” Hehehe. We ate Ramen. I studied the scriptures a bit, ate some of the other sisters leftovers...got fatter. Then 3 families arrived at once and I took the hispanic one. They're more fun. It ended up being a 3 hour tour, because they were movin slow and wanted to see everything. So I mostly talked with an older gentleman from DF/Monterrey about the visitor center at the temple in Mexico City and the geography of Chiapas and the Rojas family, because everyone knows
them, and linguistics and it was just great to be talking to someone on the same page as me. Especially, since I couldn't call Kellen. Heavenly Father knew I needed that conversation.

We went to a later Dinner at one of the Senior couple's homes and got to bed late, once again...they're such party animals. We love em. We're off to laundry and then straight to la cama. I hope you all had very Merry Christmas and find lots of missionary opportunities in the new year. Feliz Ano Nuevo! See ya next Christmas!

Hermana Deb

Hola Familia!

Bienvenidos al Centro de Visitantes! I have officially given 2 tours! Woo hoo! It's a very nice place to be around the holidays, but it's also the most dead it's been all year, because it's not close enough to Christmas yet and a lot of people came to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, including myself, last month. So I have lots of time to study up on my church history and the millenium for the future hordes of tourists we're going to get in the summer. I've been using the Thomas Grover stories, thanks. They're good, because they make it more personalized and so people are willing to talk a bit more about their family. When did Thomas Grover join the church? Was he here?

Mostly people are coming into see the “around the world” nativity stuff downstairs, which isn't considered a tour, so I was successful once in catching a couple on the way out and taking them through God's Plan For His Family. That was neat, and they were really happy they went through it. It's kind of like fishing...the director puts on the bait (the nativities, the dead sea scrolls, etc), then you wait a long time, then they take the bait and I go introduce myself and really play up the history tour or the temple tour to see if we can actually teach them something about the church. Last night I succeeded in taking some older women on a history tour from the Nativity room and afterwards one of them said,“I worked at a Christian bookstore and we sold those big Mormon Bible combo things and so I knew a little bit, but I was never willing to learn more because I thought Joseph Smith was seen as being higher than Jesus or something. But most of the Mormons I met have pretty nice and they always have a good peaceful kind of aura going for them. But that was great, because I didn't realize it IS a Christian church. Neat. I'm glad we did that.” *warm fuzzies*

I've been doing a lot of practice tours and we do have some Spanish families in our ward. We did a family home evening for one of them the other day. The ward here is awesome. Super duper excited about missionary work. The area is pretty disorganized as far as the area book goes and we don't really have a good map...kind of a problem for me. Visitor Center sisters get transferred through apartments and areas a lot faster it seems, so I feel bad we can't devote more time to the ward. It seems like if a ward is doing this well in it's member missionary work it deserves full time missionaries. Our dinner calendar fills up the first Sunday it goes around, but we only get to go to half of the dinners. The rest have to be dropped off at the vc, because we're on shift. So I miss working with the members every evening and getting to know them and helping them in their missionary projects. I miss knowing who everyone in the ward is. I want to call the relief society prez today, but I'm not sure what her name is.

Fefe hake? Sai pe. Alu ki fe? Aluoku. “How are you?” good. “Where you going?” Study.

So there's a lot of Tongans/Somoans in our ward. Our bishop is Bishop Fuiamono. That's why I don't know the Relief Society President's name, it's like 20 syllables long. I'm trying to start learning Tongan from Sister Lasalosi. She started teaching me in the MTC. It's coming in handy. So we get big polynesian meals on a regular basis and somehow baked goods magically appear in the “guides room” every afternoon. I don't know who puts them there, but I'm becoming Hansel and Gretel paranoid. Most sisters here have packed on approximately 15 pounds since entering the visitor center. I've started to notice a difference, since leaving my biking area full of granola eating college people. Yesterday the baked goods pixies left Cinnamon rolls...this is getting serious.

Bummer that my package went to Sister Cameron instead. I'll be happy to get whatever's left in a couple months when she hands it over at Zone conference :-) The little photo book was cute though. I missing Benjamin's cute years. I was going to send home some photos last week and forgot to buy stamps. Then I dumped water all over my desk this morning, they got damp, but they're okay. I guess I'm not in a big hurry to send them now that Mom's in CHINA! That's so funny.

Life is good here in the mission. There's lot's of work to be done. Our week is pretty much booked up. That's never happened before. It's a neat feeling. Love you all. Have a great Christmas and as you stress out about all the Christmas shopping you've got to get done, remember the story of the Nativity. It was a busy night in Bethlehem. Make sure there's room left in your heart for Christ.

Season's Greetings,
Hermana Deb

Ofu atu!

Happy slightly-belated Thanksgiving! Merry bit-too-early Christmas!

Thanks for all the letters from Vail! They were really cool. I liked all the illustrations. Glad you had lots of fun and how did Tom tear his acl? I missed that. I’m guessing it was a pretty similar situation as to last year when he sprained his wrist and busted a couple ribs. Or did he get more creative? Hope you feel better soon, Tom! You’ll be back to Tai chi-ing in no time. “Sun is warm. Grass is green.” -mr. miagi

Hey guess what? It’s cold! Wednesday it was 75, Thursday it was 10. I’ve got da sniffles. So sorry for all the little extra expenses at Walgreens and the Dollar Store this month… don’t send me anything for it though. By the time it arrives it will be spring ? I also just found out I have to fix the bike we borrowed from some
members months before I even arrived here, because they’re moving. I bought a wrench to see if I could get the back tire back on that I popped off really torquing up a hill. If not, I might have to take it to the shop. I named it Purple Whatever II. We’re not riding anymore for a while. It’s too cold. We’re figuring out the buses.

We got around this week. Friday we drove 108 miles. We’d been saving up for this little road trip to go see less actives in McClouth, Oskaloosa, Ozawkie, Perry and Le Compton. It makes one big loop, but didn’t go so great, because of my awesomely superior navigating skills and mapquest’s very clear and specific, well-written directions (does sarcasm travel over the internet?). Anyway we somehow never even saw Ozawkie and went about 30 miles too far to Meriden (which is technically still our area) and asked the nice pierced person in the gas station for directions. They were pretty good after a lot of missing turns and me jumping out and backing, we finally made it to our dinner appt. Which went great and this family had taken a big leap of faith recently by closing their restaurant which had been their dream, because it kept them from church on Sunday and really being active and they had to sell liquor to keep it open. He said he felt spiritually desensitized and it wasn’t worth his salvation so without having any backup, they sold it. And that’s where
they’re at now. Nice house. Nice cars. Few kids. No job. And I’ve never seen those kids so happy or had as spiritual of a lesson with that family. We’d always just met with them in the restaurant with Thai pop playing in the background and the dad running in and out. I felt really just humbled at the sincere love and trust they had in the Savior that you could see just by looking at them. All the frustration from the 108 miles of missed turns and turn-arounds had melted away when we stepped
into their home.

We had a good Thanksgiving. It was strange thinking about everyone out snowboarding and napping and carrying boxes of food and decorations up 3 flights of stairs into the condo. It’s just not a holiday without some kind of heavy labor involved. All I had to do was share a spiritual message. Huh. Weird. We ate dinner at the Hansens, which is the Colorado Springs equivalent of the Nimers or Christensens, but younger. Sister Hansen is the Young Women’s president and has 6 kids, 12 to zero
and she is everywhere doing everything. She also happens to be related to my mission president. She’s a super mom and actually didn’t even sign up to feed us. A different couple had, but their kids couldn’t come home, so she said the more the merrier to all 4 of us.

I’m taking my sniffly self to bed today, but I’ve got some pics I’ll send home in a card before I hit the pillow. There’s a good one of me next to a field, because we got into a spot that was just so perfectly in the middle of nowhere we had to take a picture with some cows.

The world needs the Book of Mormon. It needs a prophet. And the more people I talk to, the more convinced I am of this fact. I have a testimony that this work is really important. I don’t know if it’s been important for anyone else yet, but it’s definitely been important for me.

Love you all.

Hermana Deb

Hola mi familia!

Life’s great aqui en Lawrence! We committed someone for baptism this week and he’s doing great. He came to church last Sunday, he’s already in 2 Nephi and he stole the Gospel Principles book he borrowed from the church library and is reading that as well! Most importantly he recognizes the Spirit, so we’re really happy for him and just pretty happy in general at the moment.

We had Stake Conference the last couple of days and it was great. President Elliott is reading Preach My Gospel and has been to a lot of trainings. And so conference was very different yesterday. I didn’t realize it until I got to the MTC but out of the 3 fold mission of the church, wards and families have been promised that if missionary work is put as the priority, everything else will fall into place. And so most of the conference was people, mostly converts who were asked to bear their testimony on the Love of Christ. Wow. There were so many different people with so many different backgrounds and problems and it was so neat how one message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, could be so . . . cure-all.

And everyone bore their testimony about missionary work. Whether thanking the missionaries who had found them or people they had affected through their example, or how prophets in the scriptures did it. It was a priority and everyone I talked to afterwards said that was one of the best, most different, stake conferences they’d had. Missionary work in the church solves everything. It’s like the best way to keep water clean is to keep it moving. Bring in new water to send it along, otherwise it gets stagnant and then all these problems pop up in our wards, like
inactivity, unpreparedness, discouragement…and something President Elliott talked a lot about at the mission meeting Saturday night was his mission in Chile, where less than 30% of members go to church. He said the most successful transfer of his mission was the only month of his entire mission he didn’t baptize anyone. He talked to the bishop and they split the ward list with the 3 other priesthood leaders and did home teaching for the 327 less actives all month and went from 28 people at
sacrament to opening the overflow in a few Sundays.

I thought that was a really neat story and so we taught 14 member lessons this past week and got a lot of referrals, instead of tracting. The high school seniors crack me up. They referred us to everyone they knew, since they’re leaving to college pretty soon anyway and don’t care what anyone thinks about them anymore. But their referrals are along the lines of: “So this girl named Mary was like, ‘so are you mormon?’ so you could go see her, she lives like by that one art building off campus. The street is wood, or forest something, like behind it and they have a funny
looking chimney and I think the house is blue, wait, maybe it’s white, I don’t know her last name….” I’m excited to see what will come of it. We’ll be working on getting more prayerfully considered referrals this next week.

I ate shrimp! And potato salad! I nearly died, but I didn’t want to insult the Somoan family in our ward so I took some. Then she said, “You only take two? Eat more.” Then I had to fess up that I’d never had shrimp before. I couldn’t bring myself to eat a third one. Sister Cameron has told me about some of the things she’s eaten in the Riverview Ward—Spanish-speaking, and I don’t know how I’d handle fish head and whole shrimp soup or brain taco. Bleh.

So it’s been an interesting week and a really weird fall. It’s 70 degrees outside today. It’s really nice, especially when you have to ride your bike in a skirt. Thanks for all the support and letters. It’s greatly appreciated and if there’s anything I can do in return let me know. Love you all.

Hermana Deb

Que Onda mi fam?

This week we had exchanges and that’s always a really good opportunity to learn. Sister Madsen is going home in a few months, so she had a lot of experience to share. She’s really good at having a normal conversation with just anyone on the street, and turning it to gospel things. That may not sound like much, but walking up to a complete stranger and engaging them in a conversation and not sounding like a salesperson or a fanatic or like you need directions, is an art…which honestly, I have yet to master. But I’m working on it. And she’s the first sister missionary I’ve met who does that really well.

She also asked a lot of good introspective questions that got me thinking about what I’m doing here and whether I’m meeting the goals I set at the beginning of my mission.

Another really great thing that happened this week is that the ward took ownership, or at least took a step towards owning their own missionary work. They decided the monthly goals for baptism and reactivation in Nov and Dec. That’s a big deal, when the missionaries can say, “So how can we help you reach your baptismal goals?” instead of, “So would you help us with missionary work, pretty pretty pleeease?” They even picked the families that were most likely to reactivate and just needed a nudge, which was great because without us really saying anything, they picked the families we were already planning to see this week.

So, we knock on a less active family’s door yesterday, Sunday, and hear, “It’s the missionaries,” and a few people laugh…and I say, “Opps, are we conflicting with home teachers?” Then I hear the bishop say, “come on up, Sisters!” We walk up their stoop and the bishopric, their home teachers, and a family we had asked to help fellowship them were all crammed into the living room. ? None of the 11 knew the other was coming. They’d all just followed a prompting to go. I love this ward. And the less active family said they might need to come back to church, so it doesn’t get
brought to their living room again. Just the ‘nudge’ they needed.

They actually volunteered after that to go do something fun with us today, so they’re taking us to an outlet mall after we’re done emailing, which to me didn’t sound terribly fun, but my Cali compa was a pretty good sport about mtn biking last week, so I suppose I can pretend I’m excited about scarves as well.

So in Zone Conference last week President Hacking told us not to get or send emails to friends, sooo..Write me! (Mom, you can still forward this one, though) Lisa, my district lives for those comics you send, so keep em comin ? I haven’t got any packages, though both Kellen and Mom, said they sent me one. Maybe President will bring them to interviews tomorrow.

We had 3 investigators at church on Sunday! And a bunch of other people who haven’t been there in forever that we’ve been working with. So that was really exciting. I think it has a lot to do with the season, which is great. We’re working on a Navidad activity, since there aren’t a lot of Spanish-speaking churches or Christmas activities close to here. I think we’ll get a good turn out.

Okay, this is a note for Utah people. So you know Felix? The guy that teaches Salsa at BYU. “Just remember to shimmy.” Apparently, it works, because he and his wife, President Hackings daughter, just had a baby. So President’s got a little chamaco in the family now. Hehehe. Sister Hacking flew down last night and is in Utah right now. It’s her first grandbaby, so she’s really been beaming all week. We’re going to have to teach them some Spanish.

Well, life’s great in the mission field, just doing what I do best. Riding my bike and talking a lot. “Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?” That’s my favorite talk this conference. Because these plain and simple truths do uplift our hearts and minds. Families are forever. Jesus Christ has a perfectly organized church, and it’s here. Everyone’s invited. God loves us. The Book of Mormon is true.

I love you all.

Hermana Deb

Hidy Ho Familia y amigos!

It has been a great week. We found two new investigators and some new Hispanics to go teach. Every Hispanic we've met this week took a double take at Hermana Cameron's nametag, pointed out what her name means (shrimp), and politely called her Hermana Carmen instead. It's really a great way to break the ice.

We?ve had a few really great lessons this week and that's all it takes to really wake you up. Get you motivated to share the gospel. We've been focusing on using mormon.org and the "Questions of the Soul." Things people want to know and be sure about that this church really focuses on and gives good solid answers to. We tracted a lot last week and when we went to our appointment this week with Stacey the first thing she said was, "Well I thought a lot about that question you asked, 'What do I want to teach my children??'" She said she had mentioned God to her girl, talking about creation or something, and her little daughter had no clue what she was talking about. So she's really interested in finding that faith in Christ, for herself, but moreso for her girls. She was so sweet and I'm really happy for her, because she's so willing to find answers for herself.

We've taught so many people and it's great that they were so willing to listen and we've done our best to teach, and some of them even recognized the Spirit, but no one so far has had that desire or real passion to know. To look for answers themselves. So we still visit the Craigs, the Ukrainian family, Fernando, and invite them to activities and things, but unless they've prayed about the Book of Mormon with sincere heart, this church is just a really quirky social club to them.

This week was the Primary Program. It's the most well attended Sunday of the year. So we've had fun contacting as many less actives this past week as we could and 5 of them came to church! Including Sister Luna who I think I might have mentioned in a letter a long time ago. So that was really great and I love all the really loud little girls. There's about 30 something little kids in the primary and each of them has the energy of a split atom. Best part: one of the 2 year olds in the back got loose and ran all the way up on the stage and gave his big brother a hug after
his speaking part. That was cute, so no one stopped him, then since he was all the way up there, his parents couldn't really go get him, so he spent the rest of the meeting bobbing around under the seats, not getting caught by the primary grannies, and being as disruptively cute as possible.

We're having Family Home Evening tonight with a recent convert and some of those little kids so I'm excited. We give the car back to the elders today, I'm not so excited about that, because it's Cooold. Hermana Cameron, my Newport Cali compa has vehemently vetoed biking in skirts in winter chill, so we have to figure out how the buses work today. And parents you may have noticed me using the debit a bit. I started buying winter stuff. I got boots last week. Sorry, but I ain't tracting without leg warmers and fuzzy footwear.

Regarding your question; An ojota is a type of Peruvian flip flop.

I'm glad you guys made it back safe and that Dad had lots of fun.

The Church is true and your ward missionaries are worthless without your support in helping them find and teach and fellowship. So give em a call. Ask to help and refer somebody who needs the gospel (ie everybody). Thanks so much for supporting me and letting me know you care. Thanks for the letters and I love you all.

Con carino,
Hermana Deb

P: Que es la diferencia de una pera y una chica?

R: Una pera es pera, pero una chica no espera. jajaja

Hola Familia!

Sounds like a fun trek home from Peru. Boliches! I've got a new companion, actually she's recycled. Hermana Cameron, one of my MTC-VC training companions, arrived on Thursday and for some reason we haven't gotten a teamup since J She went from a car to the Islander-6 (I need to send home a pic of this bike) every minute of the day. I haven't ridden a bike this much since I arrived in the mission. I haven't ridden my bike this much since high school! The skirt makes it fun. We're passing around a teamups list next Sunday, the old standbys have moved on to bigger and better callings. In fact, one of our top Spanish speaking teamups husband just got called to be bishop! So I let Brother formerly-bishop Markham know we would be calling him for teamups this week and he'd better brushup on his Spanish J . We haven't gotten new investigators in awhile, so we tracted and rode our bikes a lot to do followup the last couple of days. My legs are frito-ed.

I went to some pretty dern cool birthday parties, I mean…finding opportunities, this weekend. One with a Spiderman 3 theme, tamales, cupcakes and a JUMPING CASTLE (I need to send you that pic as well). Then a hoppin happy 70th for our ward clerk. His sister was in town and she's not LDS so we talked about genealogy and ate a lot of M&Ms. We worked it all off, because contrary to popular belief, Kansas is not all flat. Lawrence really knows how to represent as far as hills go.

Oh hey, guess what? I ate FISH! I put a lot of limon y sal on it and just chewed it down. I'll be honest. It doesn't taste bad, but that smell…I drank 5 glasses of cranberry juice and I'm not sure how long I brushed my teeth when I got home. I'm still trying to shake it off. Bleh.

So I paid for 10 mins in an internet cafe to finish this letter. The Church is true and thank you so much for a ll your love and support. Especially Mom and Dad. You're my examples and I know Heavenly father has put someone in your path today. Someone he wanted you to talk to and tell them whats made you happy. tell them about the gospel. We haven't had a lot of success yet, but I'm supposed to be here. The string doesn't know how the tapestry will turn out. I'm simply where I'm supposed to be doing my best tot see what I'm supposed to do. Heavenly Father will guide us to have daily missionary opportunities as we pray and work for them. It's not hard. Just a see a need and love people. Open your mouths and they shall be filled. And when it doesn't seem like there was a point, we'll still stand with Our Creator the last day and be able to say with Him. It is good.

Con muchisimo carino,
Hermana Deb

Hola familia!

Okay, so I made up this really great joke last week. My companion didn't get it, but that's okay...."Que es el resulto de una vaca frances y un toro de Argentina?" Okay, you'll get the answer at the bottom, like a popsicle stick. :-) I told a member this and got a better one back, "Que es la diferencia de una pera y una chica?...Una pera es pera, pero una chica no espera." hehe, pobre elderes.

Quiz question for Mom when she gets back..what's an Ojota? Elder Alvarez from Peru gave me one on a lil keychain.

So we had an exchange yesterday and it was really great. Sister Cornell got to go to an Indiafest and teach an Indian lady in Topeka, which was cool because her grandparents are Indian. I got to meet the other Sister R. and confuse a lot of people at church. Sister T. R. speaks Spanish as well and had not gotten to teach any Spanish lessons on her mission so far. All the Spanish wards have elders assigned to them. So we taught a second discussion to Elsira and it went really well. I really like teaching in Spanish. It's too bad all of our Spanish investigators fly home for the winter. I'll get all their Chihuahuan addresses before they go. It doesn't matter where they learn the gospel.

One of our ward missionaries invited us over to eat with his parents this week. They're not LDS and it was great talking to them, and sharing a scripture, even if there wasn't time to teach. Then he told us we should go visit some people in his neighborhood. They weren't very interested. Then he gave a Libro de Mormon to a man at work. I had written his testimony in Spanish in the back for him, no interest. I was feeling bad for this ward missionary. He was baptized himself about 4 years ago and married in the temple with his wife. It's hard to see members get rejected, especially those that are pretty shy. But he went and bore his testimony on Sunday about each of these things that had happened. About how he had felt touched by his first priesthood session ever. He started talking about how great the missionaries are and I was amazed at how much faith he had in us. I mean I was feeling bad, because there were all these things I wish we'd said to the neighbors we hadn't. Like maybe if they were more veteran missionaries, they would be teaching them right now.

But I realized the promise had been fulfilled that we left with him. We never commit anyone to do anything, or ask anyone to do anything without promising the blessings that will come. I told him the blessing that comes with sharing the gospel it a greater testimony of it and more opportunities to come. And the first part at least, was obvious last Sunday. From when Ifirst met him til now. he has an amazing testimony of it. I believe the second part will come. outta time. Church is true.

Love you.
Hna Deb

Answer: Le Che! hahaha!

[Note from Lisa: The joke is "What do you get when you cross a French cow with an Argentine bull? "Le Che!" Then Spanish word for "milk" is "leche." Argentinians call each other "Che" all of the time. Like, "What's up, man?" is "Que pasa, Che?" ... It loses something in the translation. The other joke is a pun that isn't going to translate at all: "What's the difference between a pear and a girl? A pear is a pear ("es pera"), but a girl isn't a pear ("no es pera") / A pear waits ("espera") but a girl doesn't wait ("no espera').]

Helloooo Family! –week 12

Sorry about last Wednesday’s busted internet line. I’m still in Lawrence and things have really picked up since last Thursday. We had Elder Watson (wrote most of Preach My Gospel) and Brother Allen (head of mission dept) come in to talk about the Truth Restored program and the fact that it’s not working. So we got retrained and we have four months left to really show the members how to use it, not just hand out
pass-a-long cards, or else poor Brother Allen is accountable for a lot of wasted tithing money. We have been trying our hardest to use the questions of the soul and things have been going really great.

I love Sundays! Yesterday was awesome. Church had started, there were no investigators and as soon as I stopped preoccupying myself about who was supposed to come and how we’re going to get them there next week. Fernando and Luis came in with Brother Markham! It was great. Brother Markham translated for them and Brother Wauneka was there to talk to them for a a while afterwards and we got them Spanish Himnos and sung in Spanish with them and then we had Sunday school and Hermana Raber had gotten visual aides (I’d called ahead) for the class and there was another nonmember Spanish-speaking friend of a member there from out of town. He asked awesome questions in the lesson about Prophets and there were about 20 people in the Spanish Sunday School class, even the bishop…so I’m pretty excited. We’d spent four weeks trying to get these brothers to church and it went great, because in those four weeks they had members visit them and had read parts of the Book of Mormon and had prayed with us and seen us every few days, it’s almost like training or practicing for a game. After we took Margloria to church that one time and she stopped talking to us I learned people need prep. There are rarely second chances given in missionary work. When the Gutierrez brothers walked in I felt like yelling “Gooool!” We’d run back and forth across the field at least four times and taken four shots and we finally got one in.:-)

So that was church, then we rushed home to eat, because we were going to the Craigs and they were taking us and a member coworker/friend to the Visitor Center in Independence. (Yes, I took pictures). It was great, because they are such a kind older couple, and Brother Craigs said himself, “I’m old and set in my ways. It takes a long time to change and you girls are very different.” So to have them out of the house and into a place where he could SEE the concepts we’re trying to teach and not
just hear them was so nice. Plus, I had never been there before, so that was really neat. The missionary who gave the tour was Sister Gerber and in that setting he was more willing to listen and tangent off less. He’s a good story-teller, but it makes it hard to explain anything sometimes. The Spirit was there and they really like the Christus and the “God’s Plan for His Family” exhibit and were talking about bringing their kids and grandkids to take pictures. He opened up about how much respect he’d
had for the member we brought with us, before she really even knew him, so that’s really great when people find out they are seen as an “example of the believers,” because you never know who’s watching and rare to ever find out.

We get home and it’s the next big adventure. We missed our dinner appointment (we called) and we were off with the Miles to go teach Mario and Elsira, Fernando’s boss that he had referred us to. They were in Witchita, or so Fernando told us, and so we asked if we could interrupt the tv and teach them instead. It was good. Sister Miles shared the experience of how much faith was required in adopting a son from Eastern Europe. And when I asked Fernando for an example of how he had felt blessed in his life, he said last summer, working on a roof, he fell two stories to the ground and did not get hurt….I agreed that was a blessing. I should have extended better commitments, but it’s hard to talk about baptism when I know he can’t get baptized until he goes to Mexico or gets residency. We can’t baptize anyone breaking the law.

In fact, we had an appointment right after that with the McCoys, but she was still out of town and even though they want to get baptized and are studying and he’s almost quit smoking, he told us the night before he’s on probation til 2009 for bad checks. 3 checks, three felonies. We called President Hacking and he couldn’t get baptized until after he gets off probation. So its good he’ll have plenty of time to prepare, but it’s sad he has to wait and is going to have a lot of trials with his
family still. He could really use the Gift of the Holy Ghost right about now.

I’ve discovered a cancelled/dogged appointment means (1.)We didn’t teach with power the first time and/or (2.) the Lord wants us somewhere else. So after teaching a lesson with mostly Sister Miles in Spanish we went to go recontact a Ukranian family with Brother Miles who served his mission there. The Voroms are a wonderful family. They have 12 kids, 9 at home and we had first contacted their daughter Olga. The mom is only 44 and has lived in the States for 14 yrs and Lawrence for a few months. She was talking about Spiritual promptings and how after this life there will really just be one church, they had a lot of beliefs in common, as well as some kind of quirky things from the old country. The dad was SURE Lenin was a Mormon ?. You know the bad guy in the batman cartoons with dark hair and the stripey beard in the bright blue eyes who’s always after the elixir of life? He looks just like that. They really opened up a bit with Brother Miles there and I’m excited to go back and we need to be oh so so so careful to teach exactly what the Lord wants, because they’re on the fence tipping towards the opposite side. They’ve undergone a lot though. They both have undergone serious post-Chernobyl cancer surgery and I imagine there is a lot of faith involved in raising 12 kids. She reminds me of a general more than a housewife. God has real plans for them.

It was so cool having a Spanish and a Ukrainian lesson in one night. Brother Miles had a Ukrainian Book of Mormon for them, they said they’d give it a shot. Like I said, we’re really focusing on working with the ward members. Teamups is part of that and dinner is not just for dinner anymore. It’s helping the members help their friends to find something in the gospel that will help them with their life. Something to invite them to come unto Christ and His restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the Gift of the
Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. I’m excited.

Love you lots,
Hermana Deb

ps Sorry I haven't been writing to specific friends or loves-of-my-life
via email, but I've been told email is to the family only, and just
forwarded to others. Just wanted you to know you are still loved, not
snubbed. I will write out snailmail today. Mom are your forwarding
these to Patty as well as Kellen? Dilly whats your address?

The internet went down and Deb had to resort to writing home old school style. Click to enlarge either image.

Yep, still in Kansas. We got to teach in primary on Sunday and I loved one little girl's definition of faith.. "It's when you're room is dark and you don't want to sleep alone or go inside, that it's okay, because you have faith there's no monsters to eat you or anything." That's just so deep. Do you have faith the monsters won't get you? I know I don't always.

It's been a week for monsters, too. I'm pretty sure they've been eating some of our investigators, because even though we taught 35 lessons this week, not a one came to church. Understandably a few were out of town, but we realized we needed to really work with our ward mission leader, and not just tell him what needs to be done, but why we're doing it. If any of you are having missionaries over or have to sit in meetings with them, ask them what "Personal Daily Contact" (PDC) is and what activities they've got planned out for their investigators this week.

Por ejemplo, we call Laura Mon, we have an appt on Wed, she doesn't show, so we resched for Thurs, have the lesson, commit her to come to church and call her Sat night. No answer. She's not at church that week. Or the next week. Then she's not really investigating anymore. So, we've been asked to plan for members to go meet investigators, so it's not just her or him stepping into a building solo, not really knowing anyone or what it's like. That's a scary thing for people. Not for me, I've been to lots of churches, but I'm quirky. I'm glad we helped the mission leader/missionaries see why its so important, because now they're helping us think of activities to invite investigators to and who would be good people to fellowship, etc. Did you know we spend three hours every week doing weekly planning?

Dad, you're right. There is no such thing as an inside dog. Everyone in Kansas has a dog. We're 20 minutes into lesson one, and it's really spiritual and then. "Scooter! GET OFF THAT! What are you doin! Whaddya I tell you about being on the couch!" either that or "Oh wait, just one second, Mopsy's hungry."…30 mins later…so I like outdoor dogs now. I'm a convert. Especially, after holding a poodle puppy for a whole hour with very sharp little teeth and getting gnawed on to keep it from being a distraction. I love animals, but I prefer wildlife.

But I do like playing with the little kids while Sis. Cornell teaches. And I like those lessons the best, because I play out all the visual aides and everything ahead of time and they like to participate, they like to answer questions, even if the answers wrong, they like to pray, even if they need help. I've got lot's of cool object lessons and I'm going to start sending some of them to the Welleritos and the Parsonitos. Let me know how they go.

I think the best lesson I taught this week was to a referral we received. Sis Cornell and I had a RM with us and his sister so we went to try and see if we could catch Fernando at home again. He was there, along with 2 of his bros and a couple roommates. Teaching the Restoration to 5 Chihuahans at once, was not as intimidating as I thought it would be and the RM we brought had served in Mexico and the lesson was just really smooth and they had good questions and were super receptive. Sis Cornell read a scripture. They got called into work on Sunday morning. They sincerely wanted us to come back next week, though. I don't think they'd be able to get baptized until they went back to Mexico. We believe in obeying and honoring the law, even if it's a poorly written one.

It's an odd situation to be in and one bishop was pretty vehement about what a waste of time trying to build up a Spanish ward is in Lawrence, since there's so few legal Latinos here. That was a little discouraging to know there must be more then one person that feels that way, but I know I've been sent here for a reason and I think the mission president can see a bigger picture than a Univ. ward bishop. I think just like "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," "The Word of Wisdom," "For the Strength of Youth," all were written addressing issues that at the exact time of publication, weren't really even issues yet. I think I'm not the only Spanish-speaking missionary that's been called to an area without a lot of Hispanics to teach. Because, I think in the not too distant future, there will be a lot, and President Hacking has been made aware of that, even if he doesn't know all the details.

I was also asked by my ZL if I would prefer to be in a Spanish area, since Spanish study is very frustrating with no one to practice with as a greenie. I can't write letters to friends in Spanish during that time. I do appreciate the time to study, but learning a language alone is weird. I told the ZL, I needed to be here, because I really really miss spending time with Latinos and being part of the culture. So who better to find Hispanics to teach? I've never prayed so strongly for to Lamanites, because I think if I don't succeed in getting a progressing Hispanic investigator fairly soon, Prez is not going to put in another Spanish-speaking sister. We're in fairly limited number and if it's not going anywhere he won't waste resources. So I've actually started marking every person with a Spanish last name and first name from the phone book on a map at night. And finding excuses to go into Mexican restaurants and talk to the bus boys (Chachos). We had one contact at a Mex restaurant last week, but he lives in Topeka.

I like the challenge. I like trying to find people on Purple Wonder II without Mapquest or a GPS and only half an address and just knocking on every apt 7 until we find the right one. True story, we're teaching a Jordanian woman because we knocked the wrong apt. I like the challenge of the mission and getting up to run every morning. I'm determined to have a 6 pack by the time I get back. I like riding bikes everywhere and actually one of our investigators is selling a low-end mtn bike for $50. I'm going to go ahead and get it, if that's okay, if not call the mission office. Purple Wonder II actually belongs to a member and is cheap as free. The back wheel likes to fall off. I think I'll return it.

Well, thanks for the letters, the postage (Mom), and your prayers. I liked the ginormous stack of emails with pictures from Lisa. We have stupid possums here, I have yet to see one alive, maybe they're related to your chipmunks. "Do not go silently into that great night, like a possum, because you'll be road kill." Meggie I did get your original letter, feel free to chew out Kellen for sending it 2 weeks after he got it. The dinosaur picture is super cool. Thanks for the letter Sis B! No I haven't gotten mission cookies, but it takes forever for missionaries to get boxes. I love you all. Hasta ver.

Hermana Deb

TQM chilango mio
kd

Hola familia y amigos,

I love teaching little kids. We went to a dinner appt Monday, and instead of us doing the spiritual thought I decided to ask the 8 year old of the house describe the pictures from the first discussion…we need to take her on splits. She taught it. She even quoted part of the first vision. We taught a 7 year old daughter of an inactive lady later thatnight, her sister volunteered her for the opening prayer, it was sosweet. I didn’t feel like I had anything to teach afterward. But we went through the lesson with pictures and saw The Restoration. At the end we asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon, it went something like this, “Heavenly Father…is the Book of Mormon true?...In Jesus’ name, amen.” Guess what? It’s true. I want to take her on team-ups, too. She could show people how simple faith is, instead of us just trying to explain it all the time.

We went out to visit Le Compton this week. Lawrence is a sub city of Topeka, and Le Compton is a sublet of Lawrence… TRAILER-TOPIA! There wasn’t as much corn as in Toganoxie though. We visited a new convert who was pretty quirky. I say we visited since, we never really said anything for an hour, he just kind of took it away. Well, we did teach two principles, sort of, but between long bouts of very random stories about ex-wives and trucks and how cool the sister missionaries who taught him
were (he was pretty attached). I still haven’t figured out how those sisters found enough silence to teach. It’s a pretty common problem. On one hand, I don’t want to waste the Lord’s time chatting about worldly things, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be rude.

Lisa said Tom mentioned Lawrence was pretty upscale in intelligence for Kansas. It is, just because of KU, and most professor types are agnostic or Catholic, it’s also very hippie Buddist, very low income Pentecostal, and very ultraconservative Baptist/Presbyterian. Not everyone fits in those categories, there’s even more, but I’ve noticed a lot of patterns knocking doors. College towns are interesting. I’m pretty happy we’re not serving in the University ward, poor Elders are barely keeping their heads above water tracting the sororities.

We went to a Mexican restaurant, with real Mexicans last week. El Mescal, it’s kind of like La Carreta or Red Iguana(SLC), upscale but authentic. The Mana was playing and I didn’t do a very good job of pretending to ignore it :-) I miss Mexicans. We made a contact with the busboy, but he's out in Topeka and all the hispanics here work like mad. We’re only teaching one at the moment. I haven’t been able to contact the one who went to church 2 weeks ago. My Spanish is okay, but it definitely has not improved a lot since I’ve arrived here. Not much of an opportunity to speak it. I’m reading el Libro and trying to do Spanish study, but it’s frustrating not having anyone to speak it to other than the rms on Sunday
and Juan Ortega, our one Hispanic investigator who I always seem to wake up. He’s too groggy to understand what I say anyway.

We’ve got an activity we’ve been putting together all week tonight. “The Cottage Meeting,” is a mini fireside where we’ll introduce investigators/less actives to some members and have a short lesson and Sis Cornell will sing and the Lathroms will bring cookies. I takes a lot of time to plan an activity. I hope it works out and gets more people here on Sunday. If not, there’s still cookies at the end. I’ve made
about 40 phone calls though. Speaking of the Lathrom fam. He’s a ward missionary and I love going to that house, because they have homemade ice cream and goats and a tortoise and Sis Lathrom makes good enchiladas, and I get along better with converts. They’re more fun and easy-going with us, because they don’t really know the mission rules :0)

Next week we will be making a lot of return appointments with those we have found tracting and hopefully I can have some really good teaching stories. Love you all! Thank you for your letters and packs of greeting cards. I will use them. The church is true and there’s no place like home. Just tap your ruby shoes three times and you’ll be here.

Con carino,
Hermana Deb

Hi Family!

Life's great in the mission. I got your pics of Lori's lil chunk o Guatemalteco and Lisa's letter about their latest exploits on the east coast. Thanks. We're teaching people. We had just started talking about agency yesterday to Floyd Craigs and his wife and he stopped Sis Cornell and said ?Wait a minute, so somebody told me, that after I go to your church you're gonna want to get me baptized? Is that correct? Sis. Cornell's face was priceless, but she did a good job about not beating around the bush. She told him our purpose is to bring others to Christ, through faith, repentance and baptism, but that it would be his choice and something he would need to study and pray about. He seemed fine with that and he?s going to think about it. That was really neat.

We also taught a lesson last week with a woman named Teri. She didn't go to high school, but is a hard worker and very sweet. Her best friend dropped by half way through the lesson and we invited her to join and summed up the first half and we finished up and challenged them both to read and pray. We made an appointment to teach Teri again, invited Laura if she wanted, went last night and BOTH of them were there. After knocking doors all afternoon without seeing the slightest glimmer of interest in one person and then have someone voluntarily want to be taught again without even having set an appointment with her? That's a BIG deal. It was great. We kept the message simple and she asked great questions, like "What is repentance?" and "Where did the Book of Mormon come from?" Really essential things that told me she was listening. And Teri gave the closing prayer. It went great.

I also taught my first lesson in Spanish the other day. We only have a few female Spanish speakers in our ward, they are all busy a lot of the time. So we brought a 17 yr old with some high school Spanish (bishop's daughter) and a DVD, so I wouldn't be talking the whole time. We get there and there's no vcr or dvd, just Margloria and her cute baby. Which is great, because they don't have that sucking up their time, but I decided, okay first lesson it is, I'll just ask a lot of questions. The answers: "si, no, no se." I had had to talk 30 mins and I felt I explained things pretty well and the Spirit was there during the First Vision and Alicia's testimony, especially. We have return appt. But I have nooo idea what she thinks about any of this. She's so shy, hopefully we can just teach her again and maybe she'll start to open up a bit.

We're also teaching a man who is the retired head of the Classics department at KU and taught Western Civ, we didn't know any of this at first, just that he was very smart and didn't like the BOM, but was willing to meet with us again. We took Sis Murphree the smart Sunday School teacher and it turned out she had taught the exact same class he did using his curriculum. They hit it and talked for an hour about the
Dead Sea Scrolls and Virgil and the Enlightenment and Sis Cornell and I just sat there, happy to not be the ones on the other side of that kind of conversation. Then he opened the BOM and translated the first line into Hebrew and said that doesn't make sense, the syntax is all off. She convinced him to try reading the BOM like a novel, without a lot of analysis, to try and enjoy the story, and then see how he felt. Sis Cornell said something about faith, I said a prayer and we left. We saw him at the hospital yesterday on his way to senior exercise, he said hi and wanted our view on some Church History stuff. He didn't run away. Yea progress!

So we're teaching some really interesting people Latinos, academics, Africans (really-Tanzania and Kenya), people who's lives seem perfect until they tell us why they really let us in the door (divorce, laid off, death in fam), WWII vets, lotta Navajos/Pawnee, working class mostly though. It varies so much going from one door to another and it's hard to really figure out which part of the message they need to hear first. It's called GQing, golden questions, like "What?s my purpose?", "How do I
balance my family and work and beliefs?", "Why does God allow so many bad things?", "Does God even know me?". So I've been trying to figure out in 3 seconds which one of those questions matter the most to the person I'm talking to and I'm figuring it out. I mean, I can't teach without the Spirit, but just by seeing someone's face and asking them how they're doing today, you can kind of figure it out and bring up the issue. We're teaching the members to do that when they give out passalong cards. It's pretty neat.

Anyway, it's hot, it's August, but the Church is true and the answers to those GQs: Yes we have a purpose, Yes the Gospel blesses families, Yes we can overcome challenges and progress with Christ's help and Yes God knows each of us personally, cares about us and everything we do. He wants us back.

I love you guys. Thanks for the letters (even the semi-annual ones, Dad). Sorry the financial office has messed up and is sending my financial card tomorrow. I tried not to use too much on the debit today. I took some cash off just in case. Love you.

Hermana Deb

Hi family!

I some pretty special spiritual experiences this week. Elder Garcia, my teaching companion, left Monday, but before we leave the MTC we all get blessings. He was the one who gave me a blessing and I understood the Spanish he was speaking like never before. It was really great. I've also been able to call people who have ordered DVD's and BOM's from the church in Spanish. I call them, ask if they got it, how it went and if they'd want to meet the 'church representatives'. Then if they're pretty interested I can bear my testimony to them about the Book of Mormon or about this church. If they're evasive, I just ask for a referral. I think that's been my favorite part about the MTC so far. I've had about 8 people want to meet with the missionaries and a couple of them were like, "Claro que si!" That's been great. Hermano Alard asked me yesterday in his departure entrevista what I would like to change, what I liked and what was the most important thing I've learned in the MTC. I told him un agradecimiento por la expiacion de Jesus, an appreciation for the atonement. I won't go too into depth about that, but I don't think I've ever appreciated Christ's sacrifice for me or understood it as well until I really needed to teach it to someone else.

So I'm still waiting for the scheduling office to call me, but it sounds like I'll be put in a building with a district of sisters who are being taught visitor center stuff by a senior couple some time today. And the front desk told me the last day of training we go to slc and follow around a companionship speaking our language. I have been given my arrival date for INDE...and forgot to bring it into the computer lab. Sorry. I'll send you a letter when I get there. I think it's like a 2 hr flight. Dad wanted to know why Sis Werrett was throwing up 2 weeks ago, no idea. Doctor said food poisoning, it's not common if that's what you're worried about, but hey, feel free to march on the MTC. (and no I shouldn't be a nurse).

Hey Baby Don Don, my compa is going to Chile Osorno. Any really brilliant advice you'd like to share before I take off in a week other than take a jump rope and extra peanut butter. Were there 8 missions in Chile when you went?

I got a couple little girls soccer teams going on my floor. That's been pretty fun, and I've been getting pretty good if I do say so myself. Oh, and Ardeth Kapp spoke last Sunday. It was really good. I waited in line afterward to talk to her and at first she was like, "and where are you going to serve?" She had no idea who I was, but then I mentioned "Rexene" and she got all excited and gave me a hug. It's good to have connections. And speaking of firesides I have heard some awesome musical numbers here. There was a departure fireside for my district last Sunday and 4 big
tough-looking Tongan elders go up there and sing a hymn acapella like they were N Sync. There's soloists all the time and there was even a really good cello player before something last week, you getting jealous yet Mom? :-)

Anyway, still here til the 25th. Still winging it with the Spirit. La iglesia todavia es verdadera y el valor de almas es grande en los ojos de Dios.

Love you Guys!
Hna Deb