Sister Katie Garff

Sister Katie Garff
Bolivia Cochabamba Mission

Monday, November 27, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving!


Leadership Conference
Hello:)
I hope that you all had a great week with your studies, work and other activites:) 

Funny: This section has been omitted.  The only reason we mention this is to assure you that Katie has not lost her sense of humor.  Perhaps she will tell this story upon her return, but it will not be over the pulpit.  Needless to say, we are excited to think of her coming home.
There was a HUGE forest fire in the mountains this week
which is truly awful because there really is no water in Cochabamba...
Cultural: Bolivians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but my pensionista worked in the US for a family, so lots of her recipes and traditions come from the US too...I LOVE HER SO MUCH:D
Thanksgiving! 


Spiritual: This was an amazing week because we really decided to focus on the members in our ward. We were directed by the spirit to visit an amazing woman named Rut Leon who truly needed our help. She and her daughter are the only ones who attend church because her husband and 3 sons have gone completely inactive. We were able to talk with the dad a day later in a family home evening, and the situation is so sad: he doesn´t talk directly to his wife-only to us and his children. He has started to smoke, he doesn't like to spend time in the house and is simply tired. He doesn´t want anything to do with his family, especially with his wife. 

When we visited the wife a day earlier, she was completely distraught and hopeless. By visiting her, however, we were able to help her through reminding her of her great importance as a wife and mother and we were also able to help her husband. 

We talked to the family about priorities and putting the Lord first, the family second and after, other obligations. We will visit them again this next week and are confident that we will see improvement:)
Making brownies with a few investigators:)  Don't worry, I didn't cook this time, I just encouraged;D

I love you all and hope that you all know that this work is so important. Never think that you can accomplish the difficulties of this life by yourself. You need the help of God. Never doubt the power of kneeling in prayer to talk with Him!

Hna Garff
I seriously almost left the house like this because it was super comfy;D


Monday, November 20, 2017

Another Cooking Attempt -"Hna Garff, been intent, pero for favor, no vuelvas de cocinario"


We visited an AMAZING family this week that TOTALLY reminded me of my own family:) They LOVE to laugh and simply made me feel like a million bucks. They are amazing and sadly they don´t live in our ward, BUT, it is my hope that their kids can serve in SLC, UT in a few years!
Hey:)
This was a great week that was absolutely full of activities to help our zone. We did 3 different exchanges and 1 zone invasion (where the whole zone serves in one area to help the missionaries there). It was awesome, but it was a bit tiring;D
I decided to be creative with my make-up this week
Funny: Cooking.....I don´t know why this section is almost always composed of me in the kitchen, but this time I tried to make my companion a different pasta sauce that my trainer had taught me how to make....in the end my companion told me "Hna Garff, buen intento, pero por favor, no vuelvas de cocinarlo" which means "Sister Garff, good try, but please, don´t try to do it again.";D;D
hasta que no haya fotos. We worked a TON with our zone this week and did LOTS of exchanges. It was super fun, but a bit exhausting;D
Cultural: we still don´t have a shower. Sorry to keep mentioning that, but I think it describes the rate at which construction is done in Bolivia. It gets done, but in its own sweet time;) As for right now, we still shower, no worries;) but in a plastic container that we place on the floor so that we don´t end up giving the neigbors a shower too;D
Spiritual: We have an amazing new investigator named, Yaneth and her sweet son, Jostine. Yaneth went to church with us this week and started crying after heraing one of the talks. She asked us after "hnas, did you ask that woman to give that talk just for me?" We told her, "no, but she was asigned that talk by the bishop, who receives divine revelation from God to meet the needs of our ward." It was so cool and we are so excited to teach them more this week:)

Love you all!
Hna Garff

Monday, November 13, 2017

100 Words and Loads of Pictures

Alex's baptism:) He is AWESOME and his family is SO humble!

The lesson that we taught for Alex's baptism while he was changing with my Spiderman puzzle:)
On the way to the baptism, we stopped by a few houses to pick up our best friends in the ward. I was also pulling my suitcase because we needed to drop a lot of things off at the church too, so of COURSE it was only appropriate that they rode my suitcase to have some fun:)
JELLO:)

Sorry, not a lot of words today, but LOTS of super funny pictures:)

Spiritual: Alex´s baptism. Alex and his older sister are members, but I loved that his parents were there to support him. They are SUCH a humble family and very spiritual to. I KNOW that they will all be members of the church soon and that Alex will serve a mission in a few more years.
This brave, young elder decided to let us cut his hair...neither my companion or I had EVER cut hair but it was a super funny experience (especially because right after I had cut 3 HUGE patches of his hair off, our neighbor mercifully came and finished the cut, haha:))

Funny: Just about every picture
The healthiest and craziest "lunch" I have ever eaten;) We were serveyed by someone in the street, brought to their store, taught about health and given water, tea and a smoothie that supposedly fills you up the whole day....we left abslutely STARVING!!haha:) Yup, doesn´t work, but it was super fun!
Cultural: sink and bathroom (see in pics for update)
It is summer right now, so we didn't have water for this whole week, BUT we received water today and went to different Hna´s houses to shower throughout the week, haha!
It didn't really matter that we didn´t have water, because we don´t even have a shower right now (something was wrong with the drain and we almost fell through our neighbors roof! haha:)) BUT, it should be fixed this week, so more on that for next week.
We have a sink:) We couldn´t exactly use it this week, but we are stoked to use it tonight:D

                        

LEFT:  Our beloved, special and unique bathroom - tadah :)
MIDDLE:   We may or may not have had a water-fight in the street;D
RIGHT:  Restaraunts like this are super typical (with the meat being cooked outside to draw the attention of pedestrians), but it is NOT typical to find the owner of the store, dressed up outside, so of course we had to take a pic:)
A family home evening that we had with two new members of our ward. They are super awesome and will be so helpful in the mission work!
The new members are from Peru, so they made us a traditional Peruvian dessert. I forgot the name, but it is basically hot, grape jello with fruit that tastes like bubblegum...
LEFT:  We went to the temple as a zone and it was SO important and SO refreshing. I love the temple:D
MIDDLE:  Three new Hnas arrived in the mission and they are awesome:) In fact, the Hna that I trained is now training Hna Ballard (one of the new Hnas) so in missionary words, I have a grand-daughter:) Also, we ate cake and ice cream for breakfast
RIGHT:  There is a grand lesson to be learned here: when your shirt rips, it is okay. You can still wear it, but you must put a sweater over it...
My companion when she tried to hide from the big, slobbering dogs!
The Elders when they decided to try on the Hnas old clothing...it is a good thing that they are Elders:)
A couple that we saw flirting in the park. We were a bit worried about them until they started reading the bible together....yup, weird, but an efficient way to flirt and learn at the same time!
Perhaps this is the BYU experience...

I love you all and hope that you had a funny, spiritual, cultural week too!
Hna Garff

Monday, November 6, 2017

HAPPY HALLOWEEN :D

Katie as a Tahitian (and the only one who dressed up for their zone activity)

Funny: For the zone activity, we were given permission to dress up and so of COURSE I took FULL advantage of that permission and dressed up as a Tahitian:) But...unforutnately the rest of our zone didn't take that very seriously and I was the only one that ended up dressing up, hahaha that is definitely my life;D
We saw horses in the park and OF COURSE had to take pics:)
Hey, HAPPY HALLOWEEN:D

This was one of the BEST weeks of my mission:) We had a MIRACLE baptism and my companion and I were able to strengthen our zone by planning a zone, Halloween activity. It was awesome:)
Our spiritual sponge, Gustavo, showed us part of his Halloween costume and we simply drank it up:) He is so funny and very dedicated to his costumes. What´s even better is that the other day, we went by his house to talk about the Book of Mormon, but he told us that he simply couldn't because he was working on his Halloween costume, haha:)

Always happy to pose for a Halloween shot
Cultural: When we were filling up the baptismal font, the Elders were telling us how lucky we were that our water was clean. I was a bit confused, so I asked why and came to find out that in other wards, the water comes out green....I suppose it simply depends on where you are in Cochabamba and how much water is available.

A gift that we made for one of the members in our ward becuase it was his birthday and we heard that he likes pineapples...but because we are a pretty crazy companionship,
we simply had to put a face on it to make it creepy;)
Spiritual: Mary is incredible:) She is amazing because she has changed her life so much to be able to enter the waters of baptism to follow the perfect example of Jesus Christ. She has made many mistakes, BUT, she made a 180 degree turn in her life over these past 2 months to be able to be baptized. She is a completely different person in the sense that she has a light that makes her countenance RADIATE:) 
Mary's baptism:) And, what's even cooler is that our mission president got to baptize her:)

Temple Bolivia, Cochabamba!
Going to the temple with Mary - It was AWESOME!
She was unsure about her baptism this past week, so we put SO much effort into our lessons, tactics and prayers so that she could still be baptized this week. She was still unsure until Saturday at about 12:00pm when she sent us a text message that she was absolutely decided that she wanted to get baptized. Althought it was CRazY getting everything ready for her baptism in 20 hours, we did it and with our bodies absolutely brimming full of joy and thanksgiving. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK! I LOVE it when the Lord allows us to see miracles according to our faith and obedience and I LOVE the change that it brings to the lives of others:)
The miracle message that we got from Mary:) She basically told us that after praying and praying, she received the answer from God that she should get baptized. So COOL! I LOVE mission miracles!
This is what my bed looked like pretty much every morning because I was so stressed, haha;D
For part of our p-day, we helped Soña (who makes food for all of the missionaries in the mission home on special occasions) make desserts and....we didn't burn down the mission home-wahoo:)
I love our companionship:
 My companion is AWESOME:) We celebrated my 15 months with pizza:D (a while back)
I love you all. Have a great week!
Hna Garff 
One of THE GREATEST facial expressions from a recent convert, haha:) You gotta love that smile;)

Getting my watch fixed...again!;D
While getting my watch fixed in Ingavi, I got to see a few old friends from my first area. It was awesome!


Our zone at the Christ statue:) I remember when I went there during my first day and when Hna Condori started her mission. It was awesome and it was so cool to go back:D