A Birthday in Bolivia :D

Our Zone at the Temple

Hey Everyone!!

Sorry, I was a dork last week and forgot to inform you that I wouldn't be able to write until today. We visited the temple as a zone, so our P-day got switched, but YES:) I love you all and hope that it was another great week of summer for ya´ll! 

Las Hermanas at the temple! Que guapas ;D

Since we usually don't have water in the house, we hadn't showered in a week.  We didn't want to offend anyone, so we decided to ask the Hermanas to lend us their shower, haha!

Funny: We were visiting a humble family for the first time, and we were asking their names. I could understand all of their names pretty well because they were simple and spoke clearly, but when it came time for one of the teenagers to say his name it was super mumbled....I asked him about 3 times to repeat his name, and then just decided to guess. I said, "Oh! Wow! Great to meet you, Javier!"....everyone started laughing, and my companion and I joined them when he said his name was "Amilkar"..not even CLOSE, hahahah!!

During intercambios with the other Hnas, we like to take pictures so that we can hang them in our house for them to see. However, with this Hermana, we forgot to take a picture until we were home at night,
so we decided to proselyte our own door, haha!

There are tons of parks and soccer fields here. It is awesome, but super dusty sometimes, haha:D

Cultural: Bolivia is really great for a lot of reasons, but there are also some sad facts. The girls here tend to get pregnant really young (15-17 years old). It is really sad because usually they have to drop out of school and end up raising a family by themselves. I love kids, but I am OH SO GRATEFUL that I am just serving a mission right now, and not raising a family without an education!

This picture is one of my favorites, because my companion is pretty short and she tried to take a selfie, hahaha!
You just gotta love her!

Spiritual: Visiting the temple is always amazing, but today was especially neat because for the first time in all of my trips on the mission to the temple, I could UNDERSTAND what was happening. It feels really good to be in the temple, but especially when you can understand the language, haha!

I had one of the best birthdays ever here, because our pensionista, Hna Maggie made me BROWNIES!!!!!!:D And, it was an American recipe. What the heck? Haha:D She is so incredibly sweet and I feel like she is my mother here:)

Have the best darn week of your life y hasta lunes:D

Love you all!

Hna Garff

We also had ice cream...

And lemon pie with our district

I also bought a sandwich maker for my birthday because we have lots of intercambios with the hermanas and we have decided that we are done with eating oatmeal for breakfast;D This was one of the best decisions of my LIFE, jajaja:D 

Zone Conference - Serving with Hna Renovato

I got to see Hna Condori, mi hijita during Zone Conference and It was the BEST:D
I love her so much!

Hola a Todos:D

This week was great! We had transfers and I am serving in Cochabamba again:) I am actually serving about 5 minutes from my last area and it is great! I am serving with Hna Renovato from Mexico/Texas and she is awesome! She is 20 years old and will finish her mission in 3 months, crazy!

OH, and we got to meet Elder Condori too, haha:D

Funny: 

 I decided to take great advantage of this picture, because of the fact that my teeth look like they are glowing, haha:D I am still brushing my teeth twice every day, no worries, haha!

Cultural: Al regresar a servir en Cochabamba otra vez mas, I remembered just how little water we had before and nothing seemed to change, haha! We have water here about 2/7 days, so we rejoice pretty greatly those 2 days during the week;)

I had a drawing contest with this niña and...I lost, haha! She started erasing my drawings because they were so feo, haha!

To alleviate luggage weight, sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do;)
Layers - likely more than three.  Happily, it is winter in Bolivia

Spiritual: I was able to play the piano for zone conference, which included a special musical number: "I Know My Savior Loves Me / I Know That My Redeemer Lives." It was so neat to play a Primary song, and I felt so blessed as God helped me to learn the piece in 3 days, so that we wouldn't destroy the spirit, haha!

Hna Renovato:)

I love you all! Have a great week!

Hna Garff

Back to Cochabamba

This is family Ferufino. With Lisbeth who is really sick, her husband, mom, 3 kids and brother and sister. They are amazing! Simply the most humble of all families and very kind. I will miss them so much!

Hello Everyone!

This week was another incredible week completely full of miracles, which is why there is a lot of information in the spiritual colum this week:) Also, I recently got my new transfer to serve in Cochabamba, Cala Cala as a capacitadora with one of my good friends, Hermana Renovato. I am so excited to serve with my new companion and the other Hermanas!

This is Hermana Madsen, one of the Hnas that I get to work with in Sucre. Sometimes contacting can be a bit dangerous, haha:D

Funny/Cultural: We ate fried egg plant this week...when we started eating, everyone became skeptical, but nobody said anything until her son bravely asked "Mom, what is this?" looking a Little ofended, but also culpable, she retorted "it`s meat." Directly after, he continued to press what everyone was wondering "what kind of meat" to which she responded, "fish"....that was DEFINITELY not fish!! But, God blessed us with the gift of tongues to be able to finish the fried...fish!:)

Our pensionista made TOMATO SOUP for us. Not having tomato soup for 10 months was crazier than I thought it would be. I nearly cried at tasting this;D

Spiritual: Serving in Sucre has been such an incredible experience, and I was especially able to learn a lot from my recent companion, Hermana Lopez. She is the absolute greatest and I learned how to excercise faith to see miracles, how to have the perfect balance when teaching and how to become a better leader. She fears no man, including cualquier missionary and I love that!! 

I was also able to see the miacle of true converts. My two converts from this área are incredible, and are progressing a lot in the church. They are already changing the Ward a ton through their service and their love for the missionary work. Juan Pablo, the younger convert, has plans to serve a misión and his dad is in line to become the bishop!

My companion is friends with ALL of the dogs in the Street, but I guess I am a little more picky. THIS dog, however is one of my favorites because she is SUPER sweet and loves to follow us around!

I have always had faith in the priesthood, but this week was special. Lisbeth, who hadn`t eaten for 5 weeks and was about to go into surgery for something the doctors weren`t sure about, She recieved a blessing from the bishop, waited another 3 hours after was able to eat again. She is slowly recooperating right now and is on track to be healthy again within a few months. The power of the priesthood is so real, and faith is a real thing! This miracle did not come with a lack of faith. Their whole family, nosotras and the leaders in the ward have been praying for them for WEEKS!

Lastly, I was able to really put my faith in the work. Because we were diligent and relied on the Lord, we have been able to encounter amazing people these past few weeks. Specifically, we got to meet this sweet woman named Liseth who, within the first 2 minutes of our visit, expressed her need to get baptized.

I love being a missionary and I love seeing the hand of God work in my life every day. This church is true, I have always known that, but to see others testify of this is the reason why I am here!

I love you all,

Hermana Garff

I love my companion, but I guess we have our differences. I got a super sweet chocolate, oreo ice cream swirl, and Hna Lopez got beat yogurt....YUP it`s time for cambios...;D

"Slap Me Some Skin Sista!"

Intercambios con Hna MITCHELL :D:D

Hola!

Happy new week everyone! Lots of great things happened this week, inlcuding serving with one of my best friends, Hermana Mitchell:D

Pic from P-day. I LOVE the Hnas and especially Hna Mitchell!!:D

Funny: An old man is trying to learn English in our Ward, so sometimes we practice. I don`t know how or where he learned this, but before leaving, he motioned for me to give him a high five and said "Slap me some skin, sista`!", hahaha! I love him:D

A member family that we LOVE!

We decided to eat heatlhy this past week...and we DID! We pounded that fruit, haha:D

Cultural: The milk is sold in bags here. I didn`t really remember that until my companion reminded me of how strange that was, but YES:D The milk is sold in bags and it only makes it hard when we close the refrigerator really fast and it starts spilling everywhere:)

Also, it was really weird to go shopping and see white eggs, haha!

Un bautismo de los Elderes!

Spiritual: The elders had a baptism! They haven`t had one in this área for 6 months, and they work SO hard, so it was incredible to see that happen on one of the elders last weeks in the misión!

Our misión leader and the elders. We are such dorks, but it´s okay, haha!

I love you all! Sorry that was so short, but have a GREAT WEEK!!

Hna Garff

Bolivian art, chala!:D

Bolivia's Finest Cuisine

Salteñas make everything better, haha!

HEY:D

I hope you have all had a great week and were able to see lots of miracles in your life, because I sure did this week:D One of these great miracles was seeing my favorite older brother, Josh, home. What the???, I thought he was going to die out there, haha:D Congratulations Chubsy! And, for all friends and family, enjoy your time together. He is the greatest!!

The rock hard hockey-puck cookies that we made for our dear Relief Society, haha!

Funny: We decided to make cookies with Hna Ines, our pensionista, for Mothers´day:) It was all great until we realized they were pretty black on the bottom and had the grand opportunity to harden even more at night because there are no ziploc bags here...so we arrived in church and were excited to give them out up until we gave a freebee to Carolina (Luis´sister) to try. When we saw that this 10 year old girl humbly tried to hide the cookie, we started laughing so hard, and started sorting our our options. In the end, we ended up gifting the hockey pucks to the mothers, but WOW it was HILIARIOUS to watch various mothers try to "save them in their bags for later" or dish them off to their kids, haha!!
Perhaps we all have different talents, and mine may not include baking;D

THE WEDDING

Our Decorations for the Wedding

The soup to start the wedding feast...;)

The brown brew that was served all throughout the 5 hour celebration (it tasted like watery peanut butter and smelled like coffee....very suspicious, haha!)

Culture: WEDDINGS:D We had a wedding this week for two of our progressing investgators. They really were excited to be married despite their happy picture below:) Emiliano, the husband, cried for one of the first times in his whole life!

The Happy Couple

Spiritual: We were able to see lots of miracles ths week, one of which was an amazing 15 year old investigator, LUIS:D and his family. Luis´sister has been very sick for multiple months and will likely die in a few weeks if she doesn´t get a certain sergery in the hospital. Because of this event, Luis has not been getting lots of attention and has actually had to fill the roll as the dad in the family. He has not been in school for 2 years, but has re-enrolled today:D During lessons he is also INCREDBLE!! Al escuchar que Jose Smith vio a Dios y Jesu Cristu, he was wide-eyed and shocked with revelation:D He has a baptism date for the 17 of June and he will likey complete this goal. He is so excted!! 

Just to explain his potential a little bit, he was waiting for his mom (less active) to take them to church on Sunday, but she never showed up. Hurridely, he took a micro to arrive at church, grabbing 2 of his siblings to go with him. Al entrar la reunion sacramental, he was absolutely destraught to enter and find that the first hour was over, but was elated to find out that there were still 2 hours more to church:D At the end, he told us that he wished there was more. WOW!! THIS is one of God´s elect!

These are two cute kids who want to serve missions.
This is their misión fund, so of COURSE my companion and I contributed:D

Washing dishes with HOT water in the mission home, what the heck, haha:D

Bolivia!

Scenes From Bolivia

Hola Amigos:D

This week was GREAT! It was full of miracles, and the week will just continue to get better as it is Mothers' Day this Saturday (here). We have plans to contact people in the park and share the message that familias son eternas:D

Paintball - Finally, a skill from home:D

Funny: I don't know if I have written about this earlier, but it is SO funny, so it might even be worth it to write it twice;D We were explaining to a new, gringo elder how to celebrate birthdays in South America. We told him to smash an egg on his head and also in his birthday cake (which is TRUE that's how people celebrate their birthdays here!)....but, the elder misinterpreted the explanation a little bit and ended up smashing the egg in his companions face....which is pretty painful, but WAY funny:D

Cultural: There is a lot of fruit here, but sometimes they just eat it differently than we do at home. The other day, we were given an orange and just started to peel it. We were thinking about home and how we used to eat oranges there when it dawned on us that for the future, we could just CUT the oranges and eat from the rind...it's been a long time since we have eaten the "soccer oranges" apparentely, haha! 

Spiritual: Our area is doing extremely well. We have 2 marriages (not our own;)) planned for this week and a few baptisms these next few weeks. There are a ton of people attending church, and lots of new investigators too. But, more than anything, we have been able to see TONS of miracles!! One of which was when we met with a mom and her 10 year old son for the first time and both the mom and her son broke down in the middle of her prayer because of the gratitude and love they felt for both us and their family. She pleaded with us to come back and not make that the last visit. 

I love you all! Have a great week!

Hna Garff

Happy Mothers' Day from Sucre

The Castle of Mirrors

Hello Everyone and Happy Mothers' Day!

This last week was great! I LOVED skyping with my family, and would specifically like to wish my grandpa a HAPPY BIRTHDAY:D

Funny: As described below, Cechua is another language here in Bolivia. However, I didn`t know that it was so popular here. I remember my first Sunday in my second area, I started panicking, because our sacrament meeting was in Cechua and I couldn`t understand it (I thought it was Spanish), haha! Later, I came to find out that every 4th Sunday here is in Cechua. Cool!

We visited the only castle in Bolivia, and it was great!  It is called the Castle of Mirrors because well... there are a lot of mirrors.  Here are some pics:

The king and queen adopted about 50 kids to like here so they could have somewhere to live and grow up.

Cultural: Hna Ines is the woman who I presented during Skype. She is an absolute angel and can speak Spanish and Cechua and is currently excited to be learning English from my companion and I. Cechua is a beautiful language and nearly all of the people in Sucre can speak it...except me and my companion, haha!

Spiritual: This week, I really wanted to focus on "fearing no man." This was a GREAT thing for me to focus on, because, truly, it helped me to follow the Holy Ghost every time. Specifically, we ended up having a cita with 3 big, footbally player looking guys and a member. It was intimidating at first, but as we taught, we did it with confidence, and ended up extending 3 bapstimal invitations and 2 of the 3 accepted and are excited and ready to learn more.

We also went to the dinosaur museum as a zone and it was awesome!

There is an AWESOME member who lives in our ward and he and hsi wife are SO cute! Even though they can`t walk very well, the husband always insists that we come to visit him so that we can visit his "investigators" He ALWAYS shares the Gospel WHEREVER he is and that is AWESOME!! Additionally, I remember a time when we visited them, and as we were leaving we turned back to say goodbye, but paused when we saw them kneel and hear them begin to pray for us. They are awesome!

More Adventures in Bolivian Plumbing... Thanks Katie:)

 

I don't know what it is with bathrooms and kitchen here, but they always seem to break down, haha:) We have not had any water in the bathroom or kitchen sink, let alone the toilet, but luckily, we have had water in the shower, so we have been using that:)

I love giving our CTR rings to the kids and adults here because they LOVE them and take such great pride in them!

I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Hna Garff