Letter #34: August 27, 2012

Dear Fam Jam,

Hey what’s up?  I miss you all VERY much!!!  Parents, how was Seattle?  Are you still there? How’s The Graduate?  (That’s a pun because there’s a movie called “The Graduate” starring Dustin Hoffman….it was his first big movie).  Well, nothing much going on here other than............... FELIPE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOT.  I can’t even tell you how happy it made me!!!! He is such a good boy and I’m just so happy for him to be a part of this gospel and partake of the wonderful blessings it has to offer.  

So, let me tell you a story about his baptism... It was at 4 o’clock in the afternoon last Saturday and we arrived at 3 pm.  No one was there so we waited until the bishop showed up and we went in. The ward mission leader was supposed to fill the font and when we went to check on it, guess what we found?  You didn’t guess, but the answer would have been: the font filled with water the color of poop.  Not even kidding. It was dark brown!  With leaves and crap in it. It was about 3:30pm by this time and so the bishop let the water out of the font and we tried refilling it 3 times with the water pretty much the same nasty color... So when Felipe arrived we pulled him aside and told him the situation, we told him that we could go to a different chapel at 6 pm and still have the baptism.  His face fell a little and he said he couldn’t at 6 pm….but then he asked if it mattered what color the water was and we said no.  Then he said “It doesn’t matter what color the water is, as long as I can get baptized” (but in Spanish of course...)

Oh my gosh. I was SO happy!! He is just super awesome and I wanted to hug him.  Ha. (Don’t worry, I didn’t.)  And so he got baptized in the nasty brown water and he was happy :)

AWESOME. 

Well that was the highlight of my mission thus far.  (Also, when we bore his testimony on fast Sunday this month BEFORE he was even baptized.)  Felipe is just super great and I really hope that he serves a mission one day.  That would be even more awesome!!  Now we are going to try to teach his grandma and his friends... hehehehe J  He had like 7 friends at his baptism, who are not members... :)

That is all I really have to say about this week.  I miss everyone very, very, very much.  I miss English.  And I miss Utah.  We watched some videos with Felipe this week and they made me very proud of my heritage once again and made me super glad that I was raised in the Salt Lake Valley.  I love Salt Lake sooooo much!!!!!  We are “seriously so blessed” ;) to be LDS and to live in Utah.  There are so many cool things that we have that the rest of the world doesn’t. 

I hope everyone is doing well and that you are missing me as much as I miss you.  Ha! HA!      

I LOVE YOU ALL MUCHO MUCHO MUCHO!!!!!!

Have a good week!

-Hermana Hermansen 

Picture of the Water Described Above

Felipe's Baptism

Letter #33: August 20, 2012

Hello there family!

I’m not in much of a writing mood and I don’t have much to tell from this week, either.  The work has been a little slow.....but I digress. 

FELIPE IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WOOT.  I am so stoked.

Not much to report other than I’m excited.  We had another lesson with the family of penguin man.  They are awesome!  They have a lot of sincere desires!! :)  So this is kind of a cool thing, there is this super cute, little, old lady that we keep running into.  We’ve run into her 3 times now in the street randomly.  It’s so awesome to see how God literally puts people in your path-way.  :)  My companion and I both feel like we need to take it slow with her, but we know where she lives and I’m dying to teach her!!   I’ll keep you posted on what happens.  Well, that really is all I have to say this week... I’ll try to find something funny to write about for next week. 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EttE.

-Hermana Hermansen

Letter #32: August 13, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

(Because your family people are your friends and I don’t know what you do with my letter as far as posting and blogging goes)

I have only 30 minutes left to write and much to tell and my fingers feel like ice cubes right now.... So we’ll see if I can condense and get out all that I want to say... :)

I went to Santiago this past week.  Ha. Ha.  My Colombian companion had to do some visa stuff, so the secretary of the mission called us one day and said, “Hey come to Viña tonight and you’re going to sleep here and then tomorrow we’re going to Santiago.”  Ha!  Ha!  That’s how they do things on the mission.  Things are always changing and rescheduling.  It was a fun trip.  J Santiago is huge and it’s just like New York City, expect in Spanish.  In this trip we went to the MTC and guess who I met?  That’s right President and Sister Allred. (aka the Mission President and Wife of the one and only Elder Brett Bowman).  They said to send their love and regards.  It was nice to find people who spoke English for a bit.  J

So, our new Mission President has changed some rules.  Nothing too drastic, just little things.  I may need to buy a new coat and backpack though because he wants them to be dark and solid colored.  Also we have a restriction of which finger we can wear rings on.  Ha! Ha!

Mom- Please e-mail me the address of Bishop Reams and the Webers. 

Sometimes when I see people paying for things here I think they are using monopoly money because it’s colorful. Oh yeah….I finally got my package!!!!!!!!!  WOOOOOOTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!  I only have fleas when we’re in the streets sometimes now!!  It’s nice.  J

Ok, so remember penguin man who was drunk when we met him?  So we had a lesson with him and his family and it was super cool!!  They are very interested and he’s been reading the Book of Mormon!  He was a totally different person sober.  I almost didn’t recognize him.  It was cool and I have a lot of high hopes for this family!!

We also are working with another family but this one is more complicated... I am hoping to see results, though!  The dad is less active and still married to another lady because he can’t afford to get divorced.  The son and mom want to get baptized, but the couple needs to get married first. Plus, there are some issues with the bishop of this ward so we’re working to see if they can attend church in a different ward.  Lots of things that need to be taken care of, but we’re going to try.  J  

Felipe is doing well; we’re just trying to finalize a date for his baptism.  We placed another baptismal date with Leontina and she came to church last Sunday and wants to learn all she can. She can’t read very well, but she reads all she can from the Book of Mormon. She’s awesome!! Hopefully she can make her baptism date.  J

Well that’s all from this week!  Hope all is well!!  LOVE YOU ALL LOTS AND LOTS!!!!!!!!!!
-Hermana Hermansen 

Letter #31: August 6, 2012

Dear Family, 

Well, first things first…The mission blog is up again.  Here is the site:

http://misionvinadelmar.blogspot.com/

Well, I received a bunch of little notes from the ward (I think)!!!  That was nice of them!!  They made me happy. :)  I’m going to try and write a letter back to the ward and maybe they’ll read it in sacrament.  That would be cool, eh?  That’s crazy that Sadee’s dad is bishop!!  (Is Sadee married yet?)  What big changes!!!  Cool though.  I haven’t received my package yet, but I’m really hoping I receive it tomorrow because I’m tired of having fleas....  Oh yea, one of my investigators, Margarita said to send you all her regards.  Ha! Ha!  She’s funny. 

Mom- will you PLEASE find out Laurel Christensen’s address and e-mail for me???  Please, please, please! Well, last but definitely not least (it’s actually the most), I had by far the coolest experience of my mission thus far yesterday!!!!  Our investigator, Felipe (19), bore his testimony in sacrament yesterday!!  He had a baptismal date for the 28th of July, but didn’t feel ready because he didn’t have an answer about whether the church was true or not.  So anyway, we’ve still been teaching him and he is super awesome and he had the idea to fast for his answer so we said we would, too.  So we fasted and he got up during fast and testimony meeting and said that he knew the church was true and he got his answer and he knows that God always answers when we ask.  IT WAS SOOOOO COOL!!!!!  I’m stoked for his baptism this month!!!

Well, that’s all for today.  I hope everyone is doing well since I only got an e-mail from Courtney!  No worries fam!  I know you’re busy.  I just hope everything is ok.  I’m pretty sure the mission office would inform me if not, so I’m not too worried.  Anyway, I LOVE YOU ALL VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a good week!

-Hermana Hermansen 

Letter #30: July 30, 2012

Dearest Family,

So... I have a new companion!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOT.  She is SUPER great!!  I loved Hermana Flores, but I’m officially done with being trained as a missionary.  I feel like there is still a ton that I don’t know, so my new comp is going to spend the next 3 weeks reviewing everything with me. Are you finally ready to meet her?  Ha! Ha! :) Her name is Hermana Palomino and she is from Colombia.  Once again, does not speak English. Ha! Ha!  Lucky me. :)  It actually is way better for my Spanish.  She is super sweet and we are both 100% dedicated to work hard and I can for-see a lot of potential between us both.  We are going to have a lot of success these next 6 weeks, I can feel it. :)  Hopefully we get to stay to together for 2 or 3 changes.

Last night was our first night of working together and we put down a baptismal date with a man in the street. It was super cool!  Ha! Ha!  We are going to work a lot with him.  He was a little drunk, but he pretty much stopped us in the street and asked us if we could help him change and turn his life around.  He reminded me of one of the penguins from Madagascar because he had on a beanie and he has a gut, and he was saying some super funny things and kind of talked like them too.  It was so funny.  Classic.

Dad- Thanks for the U.S. info :) Ha. Chileans are funny.  Sometimes I feel like the Boxcar Children, especially on p-day when we clean the pension and cook on our gas stove.  It’s nice.

Mama-Thanks for all the recipes and pictures and letter from Bailey and Austin and all the e-mails! LOL.

I don’t have much to tell you at the moment because all this change has wiped my memory clean of the past week.  Oh, so it’s still just me and my companion in the pension. We don’t live with any other hermanas for the time being.

Mom- this Felipe is a different one.  I don’t know what happened to the other one because he doesn’t live in our area, but this Felipe is super, super cool beans.  He has a baptismal date for August 25th.  He seriously is a golden investigator.

By the way, that is way funny about the other Hermana Hermansen... Ha. Ha. Ha. Well, I’m glad everyone is doing well! I love you all very much and I miss you all a ton too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Have a great week!

Love,

The Real Hermana Hermansen... please stand up, please stand up. (.... Get it?  Just like the real slim shady... Ha. Ha.)

P.S. I’m writing on Tuesday this week because our President changed how we do changes now.  We do the switch-a-roo on Mondays and have our p-day on Tuesday. So, next week I will be writing on Monday again.  If we do changes like this every transfer, once every six weeks I´ll be writing on Tuesday.