Igual definitely is not Cuernavaca. I think it might take me awhile to get use to it after being in Cuernavaca for so long but I actually love it! It´s hot...and when I say hot I mean HOT...and the funny thing is that apparently the heat doesn´t start until May...but I´m pretty sure I´ll still be here in May (I have 3 changes to go ---a change is a period of 6 weeks) so I´ll be able to appreciate it in its fullness! The people here live more humbly than the people in Cuernavaca. We don´t use too much public transportation; we mostly walk.

In Cuernavaca people usually say that it´s really hard to find people that are receptive to the gospel...but my companion Sister Durham and I were blessed to be able to find people that truly were ready to be baptized...and here in Igual they say that it´s the area where people ALWAYS are able to find people to listen and accept the gospel...but we didnt have any investigators at church on Sunday so we´ll have to try even harder this next week.

My companion and I get along amazingly. There are only 3 Columbian girls in the mission and I´ve have the opportunity to be companions of all 3! Hermana Silva is ending the mission in 11 weeks and I´ll be ending in 17 weeks. It seems like time really is going by super fast. We both think that we´ll be ending our missions in this area that we´re in.

Today we stayed at home all day cleaning because it was time that that house was shown a little love. I then made my companion and I spaghetti and she loved it! She´s going to teach me to cook some Columbian food next week. Hopefully next week we´ll be able to go to a place that´s called Taxco. It´s beautiful and I can´t wait to go!!!

My companion and I totally got these Peppa the Pig crowns from this little girl who we ate with yesterday! Peppa the Pig is a huge hit here in Mexico...I don´t know how it´s doing in the states but Peppa is basically the next Dora the Explorer.


Love all of you!

So we had 3 baptizms on Saturday! Woohoo! Seriously, these people are so amazing and literally they were truly ready to receive the gospel when we found them. I love being a missionary and I love helping these people.

The man`s name is David...he literally thanked us because he told us that he thought his life was fine and he thought it had a purpose...but them as he got to understand and live the gospel he was really changed and he noticed a huge change in everything. We sang a musical number at his baptizm...¨There`s Sunshine in my Soul Today¨....which was actually pretty interesting because all Saturday we were literally DYING because of these cheese filled chills we ate and well they basically killed us. I won`t include the details, but I`m glad that`s over with now.

Rosario and Dante are adorable, I love them, they`re amazing. They`re going to move to el D.F. in a month and they told us they`re going to try looking for the church when they`re there too so I really hope everything works out! They are amazing and they only thing Dante is asking the Reyes for tonight is a pair of church clothes (Los Reyes Magos is basically another chance for the kids here to get presents, what?! it`s pretty cool though).

Oh yeah...so I`m no longer in Cuernavaca, La Pradera...I`m in Iguala..with Hermana Silva. It`s pretty interesting because there are only 3 Columbian Sisters in the mission and two of them I`ve been able to train...and Hermana Silva is going home in 3 months (she`s the third), right before I go home! I`m pretty excited to be here in Iguala...It should be great, I can`t wait to get to know the ward a little better and the members too!.

We don`t have light right now in our house, but that`s okay, I guess we`ll get that figured out later, but I`m ready to get to work!

This week was Christmas! Heck yea! It was awesome because I got to talk to my family...and I basically had a little breakdown over Skype it was horrible! I´m sure if any of you would have been there you would have laughed at me, I was a laughing crying wreck! But that´s okay because the mission continues and we have 3 baptism coming up this Saturday! Heckka yea. Rosario and her son Dante, and Dave (Super Dave).

This Christmas I was able to do something really awesome for one of our investigators and I just have to share it because this is the best Christmas gift I¨ve ever given and well...it was free!! Dante is 8 and the only thing he asked Santa for this year was a little hymnbook...and Rosario´s husband lives in Mexico City on a military base and he went to the temple bookstore, but it was closed when he went! Oh no! So Rosario was looking everywhere for a little hymnbook and I told her to just take mine. We went 3 days later and the first thing he took out was his little hymnbook covered with Sesame Street stickers! Hecka yes. I think I just literally made someones Christmas and it was totally worth it. I´m going to attach a picture and you guys can be the judges of that smile.

The 24th was definitely the big day here....it´s basically just as big as Thanksgiving in the states. Maribel and her brother Aldo invited us over to eat with them and it was great. They´re the only Peruvians that I´ve met here in the mission and they´re legit. and they know how to eat! I loved eating with them! They also lent us sweaters and coats because all Wednesday morning in the storming and raining....which is really weird weather during this season ...so we showed up to their house soaking wet and cold...so they lent me this Peruvian pancho- scarf thing. It was awesome! Haha!

We were also invited to go eat at our friend Luz´s house. She´s so nice and she has a little puppy dog that really wanted to be invited to dinner too haha.

I´m really glad that I´ve been able to spend a second Christmas here in Mexico and I can´t wait to share you guys all my stories when I´m actually home, it´s been quiet a ride. Tomorrow I´ll have 14 months here in the mission.4 more to go!!

This week we traveled the Cuernavaca again to help my companion out with her visa. One the way there the police stopped the bus and asked to see everyone´s ID! Ha! My companion was all panicky but I whipped out my ID and I just told the police that she was with me...haha! Talk about feeling legit! Oh and before we got on the bus there was this bag checker guy who´s suppose to check the bags to make sure we´re not bringing anything dangerous onboard and he totally didn´t ask me to check my bag..it was pretty funny though because I asked him if he wanted to look at what I was carrying and he replied ¨oh yea..of course,¨ ....do your job! haha!

Last week a miracle happened...after our district meeting my companion went over to talk to one of the leaders because she had a question about something and 20 minutes later she comes over and gives me a huge hug! something that´s never happened before...lol..later in the house she told me what she and the leader had talked about and apparently they had a heart to heart and she totally apoligized for not talking to me and for being rude to me! I was astonished. And from this point we´ve been on good terms...it´s cra and he tal


idk what happened.....I´m gonna pick off where I left off lol

ït´s crazy what can happen here in the mission. I still can´t believe I´ve been here for 4 months! I´m looking more and more Mexican everyday! I love you all!

This week was awesome because we had our Christmas conference. I got to see my old Columbian companions, Hermana Ayala and Hermana Iles! We also had our district skit...it turned out a lot better than we would have expected lol and it was pretty awesome getting all dressed up! One of my companions, Hermana Lopez (she´s one of the 8 sisters in our ward right now--she´s from Spain) made me some huge wings out of wire and my companion, Sister Durhman helped me make this green skirt too....I would have never thought that I´d be chosen to dress up like tinker bell haha, but it was pretty fun...and the food was AWESOME. We had this white elephant gift exchange and I picked out of the last numbers and I ended up stealing a pretty awesome gift from one of the sisters that is going home in 2 weeks....haha! I felt like the devil´s child doing it because everyone was like NOOO!!But it was pretty funny, sometimes life is rough! haha! I´m such a bad person! But seriously it was a great time to see everybody in the zone.

So my companion and I had an interesting experience...When we went to Tepotzlan I contacted this old man on the bus and I asked if he knew anyone else that would like to hear our message...so he told us that maybe his daughter...great! I gave him a card and we planned to meet with him in 2 weeks. We went to seach him out this week and it was in a part of our area that we had never been to before and we werent really sure where we were going...my companion stops to buy this bottle of water and shortly afterward this older lady in this big black and gray fur coat says hi to us and we introduced ourselves and she was sort of really creepy...she had long black eyelashes and bright red lip stick...she asked my companion for a drink of her water, but tells us we had to open it just in case it was poisoned...she then starts telling us about how her and her parents had been poisoned awhile back and it was just weird. We opened the bottle of water and just ended up giving it to her. She then wanted us to go talk to her dad because she told us that he´d definitely be interested in our message...HECK NO. So we just told her we had to go....it was definitely one of the creepiest moments that I´ve experienced in the mission. We finally found the house and two little kids opened the door. Apparently the old man who had given the reference wasn´t actually interested, but knew that his oldest daughter, Arlette was Christian and that she might want to hear our message. He later told us that it wasn´t until he looked closer at the card that I had given him that he realized that we were Mormons...and that Arlette was actually already a member....the same Arlette that we went to look for because a few weeks ago we were looking through the area file and we saw that she had given a bunch of references of her friends to other missioneries...but when we had went to look for her they told us that she had moved!....but apparently the old man on the bus is her dad and Arlette had JUST moved back home....crazy, huh? we´ve still got to met her, we went on Saturday to share a message with one of the little boys who opened the door (Luis Angel) (He´s super interested in knowing more about the church but his dad won´t let him go to church on Sunday´s so it´s sort of not letting him progress, but that´s okay, we´ll see what we can do. It was definitely awesome seeing how the Lord literally lead us to the house of an inactive member who had just moved back and whose little brother was interested in hearing about the church....my companion and I decided that the old creepy lady was definitely a distraction that was put in our way from attending to our actual job, who knows that would have happened if we would have went with her!

We have 4 awesome investigators right now....Super Dave, Rosario and Dante, and Jorge


1)Super Dave....he loves to sing and he´s so funny and loves to serve. When we first contacted him he didn´t believe in God and now he has a baptismal date for the 3rd of January. But.....he just got called for a job at the Gulf of Mexico today and flew out this morning...he works with electricity and we´re really hoping he returns on time for his baptism on the 3rd! He´s really progressing well though!

2) Rosario and Dante....mother and son who are amazing. They´re also going baptized on the 3rd and the only thing that Dante asked Santa for was a little hymnbook and Rosario asked me if I knew of a place that sold them so she could get one before Christmas....and so I just gave her mine, haha! So I hope Dante likes it! Oh and one of my 2 pair of shoes completely broke yesterday...and both pairs of my shoes have already had to be brought to the shoe repair place because the bottoms fell off....oops. I´m really hoping my other pair of shoes lasts me 4 months more!!! Keep those fingers crossed!

Jorge is a great investigator. He doesn´t have a baptismal date right now but is already reading the Book of Mormon for the second time and went to the Stake Christmas Choir performance so we´ll see what happens with him, I hope he keeps coming to church, he´s great!

I hope all of you have a great Christmas this Thursday, I´m so excited to talk to my family!


Oh and that big garbage bag is my Christmas gift I brought to the White Elephant! haha! The mission doesnt really give us lots of options for supplies!

The 12th was the birthday of the virgin Mary (I don´t know who decided it was her birthday) and there were A LOT of parties. A LOT. Mexico went a little crazy and it all started the night before. There were a lot of fireworks--although I don´t know if they count as fireworks because they just shoot up in the air and make a banging noise...they don´t even light up!(there was this big castle shaped Christmas lit figure that said ¨Faith in the Mother¨ and that was pretty interesting) and people drinking...but even like that we were able to have some pretty good lessons. The interesting day should be the 24th, which is like the Mexican Christmas...they don´t care about the 25th, but they´re all partying on the 24th so we´ll see how it goes....Last year was pretty dead on the 24th for us, but we have high hopes.

The Pintor family is amazing. They´ve been working on their family history and theyre going to be going on a temple trip to Oaxaca on Thursday (because the Mexico City temple in closed for reparation still) to do baptizms for the dead. Love their family! Seriously.

Yesterday was the Primary program at church and all the kids were super cute and all of them passed up front to say their lines and I totally had Primary day flash backs from when I was up there saying my lines.

We also went to the Stake Christmas Program and the choir sang some songs and I didn´t realize it, but I actually sort of miss my ward choir...it´s just sort of homey.

Rosario, her little boy Dante and another investigator David are planning on going to on a ward temple trip to see the Christmas lights at the Mexico City temple and to check out the Visitor Center which apparently is AWESOME. I´ll definitely have to come back someday to check it out, probably when the Pintor family gets sealed, we´ll see.

This Wednesday we´re going to have our Christmas Conference and each district is going to be doing a skit and I was chosen to be Tinkerbell...sooo...we´ll see what kind of a costume we can throw together. My companion is the creative one and I think she has an idea so I´m keeping my fingers crossed!

This will be my second Christmas here in Mexico...weird right? It´s sort of hard being away from my family if I'm being honest with myself, but it´s totally awesome watching other families come together to celebrate this holiday season.

Oh, yesterday was pretty funny...we went to share a lesson with Pepé who is less active, but he was watching the Soccer game and didn´t want to be interrupted..but let us come in and we literally shared him the shortest lesson on patience ever because he was literally getting nervous that the tv wasn´t on, haha!! I kept telling him that the score would still have 0-0 when we turned in back on, but I don´t think he believed me lol

Have a great week!!

Right now I´m at Tepoztlan and it´s AWESOME. I just climbed the mountain with one of my companions Hermana Gongora and we did it in 1 hour and everyone was like ¨take 2 hours...¨ ha! It was way worth it too. I´m so glad we went, I´ve been wanting to go forever!! We climbed up and there were these little muskrats up there...sort of like Timon in the Lion King....we gave them water and they totally attacked Hermana Gongora´s bag because she had some rits crackers hidden.

On Saturday Cesar Ramirez was baptized! We had a few difficulties with the font but everything turned out alright in the end. Our mission leader told us that this is the Lord´s work and that nothing would stop things from turning out. In the end we got water in the font and Cesar shared a beautiful testimony about how 3 dreams were completed on the day of his baptizm. 1) His mom has always wanted him to join the church 2) He wanted to get baptized by his brother who is inactive right now, but it just so happens that our district leader also has the last name of Ramirez....so tecnically he was baptized by his brother! 3) Elder Ramirez always wanted to baptize his dad, but he couldn´t because he was too young...and he promised his family that he could baptize a Ramirez before he got back! What an amazing experience. When he shared his testimony at the end, everyone was in tears because we could feel the spirit. I know that he´ll achieve great things in his life and I´m so happy because I´ve gotten to know him during the mission.

We had a funny experience the other day...My companion and I contacted this man who was sitting on the side of the road with crutches and his swollen ankles all bandaged up. We introduced ourselves and we started talking about our lives and the church.He then started to tell us that he had no money and that it made him sad because he likes to travel but he doesn´t anymore because of his swollen legs...he can´t go anywhere without a taxi nowadays...and then we asked him if we could stop by to visit him because he´s always home and he feel lonely...but then he told us...¨but sometimes I leave..¨...and yeah...that´s mission life for ya.

We also got into this taxi drivers car the other day who had lived for 15 years in Georgia and he was so proud of it too. He shouted ¨ATL!!¨ it was hilarious. He then looked at my companion who has these big beautiful green eyes and asks her ¨What´s your beautiful name?¨HAHA! It was amazing and we basically died laughing.

So we´ve run into a few people that think I´m from Spain..I have no idea why but they usually guess Spain or some Arabic Country...it´s pretty funny when I tell them...¨nope...actually I´m from Pennsylvania!¨ haha!

This week was hard because we found no new people to teach...we did everything possible but the holiday season is sort of killing us. We´ve tried making appointments with people but they all say after the 12th (which is the Virgin Mary´s birthday...) and they do something that´s called ¨Rosarios¨ and basically they go from house to house everynight leading up to the 12th praying in front of their Saints and their Virgin Marys...it´s interesting for sure, but hopefully we´ll be able to talk to some people this week.

Have a great week and I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas Spirit!!

Oh! And if you get a chance go on Youtube and watch a 3 minute clip that´s called ¨He is the Gift¨ IT´S AWESOME.