Spring in Pheonix

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, after moaning last week about it still being winter, I think spring has finally arrived. We've been sitting in the mid 70's to 80's all week and it's been really really nice. Hermana Aydelotte keeps reminding me not to be too excited because it means that in the next month or so we'll start breaking 100. Yikes! It's been an interesting week. As I said in my last letter we had a mission conference this past Wednesday. It focused on the Book of Mormon, since by that point everyone had finished their 60 day read of the Book of Mormon. It was very fascinating to listen to the different experiences and things people learned. The focus was on the fact that each person can have a very personal experience with the Book of Mormon. There were many wonderful examples given, but I thought I would share a very humorous one. President asked people to give example of key things they learned from this reading of the Book of Mormon. About half way through an Elder raised his hand and told about how one morning he was reading in 2 Nephi 27. He said he was really tired that morning, and after reading verse 4 of the chapter he fell asleep. He then said when he woke up he read verse five which reads:

"For behold, the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep. For behold, ye have closed your eyes, and ye have rejected the prophets; and your rulers, and the seers hath he covered because of your iniquity." The Book of Mormon certainly has something for every moment.

This week has been a series of missed appointments. We found lots of new investigators in the last week, and this week we had lots of lessons set up, unfortunately not all new investigators are created equal, and so many appointments fell through. This week will probably be a lot of finding and then looking for those whose appointments we missed. We did have one very cool experience this past week with a missed appointment. We showed up and no one was home, so we decided to go knock the doors on the street near by that we hadn't finished last time we were in the area. We ran into a lovely older Mexican lady who let us in and we had a really really good lesson with her. We have more set up and we'll see what happens. It's always so interesting as a missionary to see how things don't always work out how we had planned, but they do always work out for the best.

I thought I would write some cultural things for you all. It's interesting being in a bilingual mission. Trent probably also has some insights on this. There are mission wide rules that everyone is to follow, but I've begun to notice there are small changes to make allowances for cultural traditions. One example would be the parties. In the English wards they have been asked not to have parties after baptisms... in the Spanish wards we've been asked to just try to get the party moved to some one's house. Mexicans LOVE their fiestas. Just about anything is an excuse for a fiesta. The ward I'm in now loves to do group family home evenings. I got to go to my first one this past Monday. Well part of it. It started at seven and from what I heard they didn't finish until midnight. We left at 9 when the party was really getting going. It started out like a regular family home evening: prayer, songs, lesson, closing prayer, but then it was after that the party started. The family who hosted made Postole (which is my all time favorite Mexican food, it's a soup with pork, some Mexican grain that I don't know what it is in English, and then lots of Salsa with cabbage, onions, and cilantro on top) and then they all had a Karaoke in the living room. What skills they don't have in tonality they make up for in enthusiasm.

Another fun cultural thing is the dinners. Across the mission there is a rule that missionaries can't eat at a members home unless they have invited a friend. That rule is more or less ignored in the Spanish wards. Hispanics LOVE to feed you. And they love to feed you a lot or food. It's been quite fun to go over to their homes and get to know the families and spend time with them as we've enjoyed all sorts of different meals. It took some time to get used to though, because by and large the families eat before we come over and then they all just sit around the table and watch us eat. It left me feeling a little like Marie Antoinette at first, but I think I dealt better than she did. Now I've learned to just get them talking and telling stories while we eat so I don't feel so awkward. Once I figured that out I've started to really enjoy our dinner appointments. I've learned all about life in Mexico, conversion stories, and gotten tons of help picking up new words. I'm not sure how useful some of the words will be after my mission because I'm now starting to learn words that only work in certain parts of Mexico, or even better, spanglish that is widely accepted here but probably not anywhere else.

Love you all lots and have a wonderful week!

Hermana Okeson

Winter in Phoenix

Hi All!

This week has been a pretty good week. We've been really blessed and found a lot more Spanish speakers who want us to come back and teach them. After the first 2 weeks of not really seeing much of anything here, it is nice to see things moving forward again. We spend our afternoons out meeting people and then our evenings running from one appointment to another. I like it that way, but I have a feeling that once it warms up here we'll try to move things around so we aren't out in the middle of the day. Most of our visits are to families in the ward who need extra support.

One of my favorites is visiting Hna Gutierrez and her son. She's out of work and barely scraping by. We usually stop by to talk to her a few times a week and to share an uplifting thought. Her son is 13 and very autistic. From what I've seen he functions more at about a 6 year old level. I've been working pretty hard since we first went by to get him to be comfortable enough with me to talk some. Finally last Friday when we went by he talked to me for a few minutes. It was a huge breakthrough. I've discovered he likes to play games, so today when we go shopping I'm going to buy a cheap game of some sort that is for 5-8 year olds and see if he'll play some with me next time we go by. He really just needs a lot of attention, and isn't getting it, so it's nice to be able to give that service even for such a short amount of time.

Another family we stop by a lot is the Valenzuela family. They have been through some really rough times recently and need lots of support. The husband has become fairly antagonistic about religion and so we usually go over and try to share a very mellow message. When it works we get to stick around, when it doesn't we usually end up leaving pretty quickly and then try to come back another day when he's in a better mood. Last night we stopped by and he was doing better and so we had a really nice discusion about how being obedient blesses our families... not sure if any of it stuck, but it was a nice visit... the first nice one we'd had in a while.

As far as the people we're teaching goes, most of them are either really new, or have been investigating the church for years... but we do have one sister who we've just started teaching who we are really excited about. She had us over for a Columbian dinner last Saturday night and we had a really good visit with her. She also came to church for the first time on Sunday which we were really excited about. She's really really busy, so she's hard to get ahold of, but she's always excited when we come over and has really good questions.

I thought I would share an interesting experience from this past week. We had a Zone Conference last week on "finding" aka how to find people who want to listen to us. We've had some really cool experiences this past week as we've put it all into practice. In just one week we went from finding about 4 new people a week to this week where we found 16! The coolest one happened last Friday. We'd felt like we needed to go tract in a trailer park near the chapel. After being there for about an hour we got chewed out by a cranky security guard and he told us to leave. When this happens we usually leave, and then come back and talk to people another day. So, we left. We still had another hour planned to contact people in that area and we decided we needed to stick as close as we could to that area. As we were out contacting people near by we ran into an older gentleman. He lives in an area of town we don't normally go to, but that day he was over watching a grandson who was sick. He had talked to missionaries in... Mexico (I think)... but when he came here he lost contact. He was really excited for us to come by and teach him.

Other points of interest from the week... I ate at my first taquero stand this week... there's a family in our ward who have a stand where they let the missionaries eat for free. We decided to go try it out. I enjoyed it a lot and we'll probably go back when we're in that area around dinner time. Also I'm back on medication for migraines. It's made for some interesting moments. It makes me really really sleepy all of the time. Hopefully in the next week or so it will stop doing that, but for now I'm always feeling half asleep. I do pretty good, but it's doing funny things to my Spanish. I feel like I have to think twice as long to say half as much, or I just mix up my words and say things I don't really mean. Hopefully in the next week I'll aclimate some and be able to speak and not have headaches. :)

That's about it for life here in Agua Fria. This week we have a huge mission conference that no one knows exactly what is going to happen, so we're all pretty curious. I'll be interested to see what is happening. It's gotten cold here again, which has also been interesting after having a very warm early February, Phoenix has again decided it should be "winter" so I've not been able to put away my coat... maybe this week.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

Accent Shopping

Hi Friends and Family,

This week has been an interesting one. My time here in Agua Fria is turning out to be very different from my time in Aguila. The adjustment has been a little tricky, but I'm starting to get there. I've really really missed my previous companion, Hna Ayala. She and I worked very very comfortably together from the first day. We had similar work ethics and both really just loved to be out and working with the members and our investigators. Hna Aydelotte is a good missionary, but does things very differently and isn't very comfortable with change. So we've spent a lot of time trying to get used to each other. I'm learning a lot of patience... a lot a lot of patience.

The ward here in Agua Fria is made up of Mexicans and Chileans. It's about 2/3 Mexicans and then the rest are from Chili, minus one or two other families from various parts of Latin America. It's here that I've finally found the accent I want to pick up. I LOVE the Chilean accent! Every time we're in church and our Bishop gets up to speak (he's from Chili and has an incredible accent) I spend my time muttering very quietly under my breath trying to mimic his accent. I'm slowly picking it up. I figure if I can spend 3 or 4 months here I can really start to get a good Chilean accent going... we'll see what happens. The Chilean members of the ward all get a kick out of my attempt at their accent... so I guess I'm winning brownie points too.

Dad asked about the area... this area is very very white. There are very few Hispanics here and so we spend most of our time working referrals only. When we knock we can knock for 2 or 3 hours and only find one family who speaks Spanish. So it's not a very good use of our time. Tonight we're meeting with the bishop to see what we can do to try and get things moving more.

The main investigator we're working with right now is a woman named Carmenza. She's from Colombia (and also has a really cool accent) and has lived in the US for 16 years. She moved here 16 years ago to marry an American. Previously she was a lawyer in Colombia and worked for the government. We had a really interesting conversation the other night about being in a foreign country and trying to adjust to a different culture. You can tell she really misses Colombia and probably would go back if she hadn't been in the US for so long. She told us she is going to come to church this Sunday, and we're really excited. I hope she makes it.

Okay now questions from Mom:

What is the most effective thing that you do in your scripture study that you feel makes a difference in your testimony?

Well, right now I'm almost done with reading the Book of Mormon in 60 days. So that's been my big focus. Although, what we've been working on as a mission is really studying for our investigators and the people we come into contact with. President is really pushing that all of our study time should be 100% focused on our investigators. It's been very fun to see how as I am reading and thinking about the needs of the people I am teaching often things will jump out that can help them. I find myself teaching more and more from the scriptures and it's amazing to see how every question can always be answered by them.

How are the language studies going?

Language studies are going well. There's always room for improvement. When I was with Hna Ayala we would spend language study time with me telling her stories and she would help me with the vocab I didn't know and correct me when I said something funny. That really really helped my Spanish. Often when we are out and about she couldn't point out when I was saying something funny, but at home for that hour she would help me say things right. I've had to make a switch here in Agua Fria to studying more from books. I don't like it as much, but I'm making it work. It's a little tricky because I'm the Junior companion, but I'm far more comfortable with the language. Hna Aydelotte speaks very clean Spanish (probably more clean than mine) but I have a larger vocab from years with Sra. Blanchard and I'm also more comfortable just speaking. Most of the members think I'm at the end of my mission not the beginning. It's also nice because I'm able to really start picking up more and more vocab. I love it. The members here are really good about helping us out and they are more than happy to define words for us when we ask them.

Yes, I am still in the greater Phoenix area. All the Spanish speakers mostly stay in Phoenix. There are usually a few in other areas but not many. Actually, this area only has 5 of the 35 companion ships in the areas speaking Spanish. That's quite the contrast from my last area where in just one Stake (9 wards) we had 3 sets of English speaking missionaries and 12 sets of Spanish Speaking missionaries. Like I said, it's a pretty white area. As for getting warmer, earlier in the week it did hit 80 but then it cooled off again. Now we're sitting in the 60's which is nice. Actually, it's showing me how Phoenix is ruining me. It was in the upper 40's lower 50's last night and I was wearing my heavy coat and scarf and I was still cold... I felt pretty pathetic.

I think that's about all for this week. Have a wonderful week everyone!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

Scorpion Slayer!

Hi Everyone!

This has been quite the week. As you all know, Monday morning I got transfer calls and so I spent Monday and Tuesday packing up and saying goodbye. It was tricky to get to everyone, but I just about saw the people I wanted. I just missed one or two families who I had wanted to stop by. Oh well. I am now serving in a ward named Agua Fria. It's in Peoria. So I've gone from working in the ghetto to working in one of the richest areas of the mission. That's certainly made for an interesting change. We cover all of Peoria, parts of Glendale and parts of Phoenix. There aren't a whole lot of Spanish speakers here so the work is a little different. I've missed Aguila a lot this week, but I'm getting used to being here. My companion is Hna Aydelotte. She's from Boise Idaho and has been out a little over a year. Before coming out on her mission she graduated from BYU-I with a degree in highschool education focusing on Math and History. We live in an apartment off of the back of an older couple's home. I'm pretty sure it used to be a garage that was converted into an apartment. I've met Brother and Sister Anders once, but not really seen much of them. It's a nice little apartment, although I've missed having a washer/dryer in the apartment like we did in Aguila. The house is off in a nicer neighborhood so we actually have a back yard with grass and real trees. I love it. The Anders have a huge number of roosters and chickens back off of the side of the house, meaning our early mornings are punctuated by roosters crowing and me thinking about rooster soup.

Okay, now for some stories.

First, last Monday I taught a flute lesson. It was way fun. I had a really good time, and I think Sariah did too. She's 13 and we worked a lot with their family, and so it was fun to get to go over and help her out. It actually helped make me miss flute less, because it really showed me that I can do flute forever, but I can't be a missionary forever. I sound a little rusty, but I still know how everything works.

Second, Monday night was Brian's birthday party. It was so much fun. I've attached some pictures from the party. It was cool because Hna Perea wasn't expecting it at all, but we had found out that they didn't have money to celebrate, so we decided to throw the party for them. Brian was so excited. I will never forget the look on his face as we all sang "Happy Birthday" to him. That was probably one of my best moments in Aguila.

Tuesday was Transfer meeting. I spent Tuesday morning packing up and then running out to visit a few more people. Then we had to drive into Glendale for the meeting. There really weren't a whole lot of surprises. There are only 12 Spanish sisters in the whole mission, so it gets pretty easy to guess who is going with whom and where. Usually by Monday night everyone from the Spanish Sisters has talked and we all know whats happening, we just have to wait for President to announce it and make it official. This was actually a pretty big transfer for the Spanish sisters, because with Hermana Barker going home Aguila was closed and Elders were put in, and then a lot of Hermanas had to be shuffeled around. All but one companionship of Sisters came to transfer meeting.

Wednesday I got to go out and get to know the area and the other missionaries here. It's incredibly different from Aguila and being in South Phoenix, but change always makes for some good learning. The exciting news from Wednesday is that I killed my first scorpion. YUCK! I was reading Wednesday morning when I saw him coming across the floor. I was really, really, really irked. Hna Aydelotte would probably say that was an understatement. Luckily I won, and the scorpion died and noone got stung.

Here in Agua Fria we get fed a lot by the members. Last August, President sent out a letter to all the different wards asking them to no longer invite the missionaries over for dinner, since dinner appointments encroach on our best working hours. Aguila was pretty good about it... but from what I understand a lot of areas are still struggling, and Agua Fria is one of them. It's cool because it's a nice way to get to know the members, but it really just weirds me out. The good news is I've gotten to try a lot more Mexican food in the last week. Most of what I've had has been pretty good, although last night I had to think fast to avoid getting to eat Menudo... aka Cow Stomach Soup. Gross.

It's also been fun starting out again because I'm able to really see how my Spanish has improved. Most of the members when they first talk to me ask me if I'm going home soon, becuase they assume because I've gotten pretty comfortable with the language that I must be at the end of my mission. I still get that I have a South American accent, and I still don't know where that comes from, but we have a lot of Chileans here in Agua Fria, so they are enjoying my accent.

Well, that's about all the news from here. Things are going well, I'm learning to work with my new companion and in the new area. There's been a lot to get used to, because things here are very very different from my previous experience but I'm adapting.

Have a wonderful week!

Hermana Okeson

Ps. The first two pictures are with Rossy, and then with the Madruenos, my adopted family in Aguila. I'll work on sending pictures form Agua Fria next week.

Saying Goodbye

Nicole sent this Feb 8 but I was enjoying the Philippines and didn't get it sent out. Hope that you will forgive me. :)

Hi All!

Transfers are probably one of the most miserable parts of being a missionary. I got the phone call this morning and was told to pack up and that tomorrow afternoon I will be in a new area with a new companion. I have truly loved my time here in Aguila and I am so sad to be leaving. Especially because for various reasons they will be closing the area that I worked in. Atleast partially closing it. I'm really curious to see what happens tomorrow at transfers. Hermana Ayala is staying here with Hermana Kigueta and they will be working in Montana del Sur. I am so bummed to be leaving them both. I absolutely love being with them. Hermana Ayala has been an amazing companion and I wish I would have gotten more than just one transfer with her. I'm still hoping to get more than just one transfer with Hermana Kigueta since she's only been out one transfer longer than me. I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that one. I have so many options of where I could end up. President is moving one sister from all but one Spanish companionship in the mission. So really I could go anywhere. This will be really interesting.

This week has been quite the week. Working in two wards was an experience. I'm glad I had such great companions for it, or this could have been really tricky to hold everything together for two weeks. Some highlights from this week include:

• Winter finally showed up! That's right, I spent three days wearing a coat, and it was freezing! The fountain outside of our apartment complex froze! I think Arizona might have ruined me. Also on one of those super cold days we had splits and Hermana Kigueta and I went out on bikes. It was so windy I thought I was going to get blown over.
• ROSSY AND REUBEN ARE GETTING MARRIED!!!! That was one of the huge exciting things of the week. I am so excited for them, and for them to be one step closer to being baptized. I can't believe it. I feel like part of why I was sent to Aguila was to be here with Rossy and Reuben and to work with them.
• We taught possibly the most interesting lesson of my life this week. It was just one of those lessons that felt like you were watching a car crash, you could see where it was going and what was happening but you could seem to get out. But these are the things interesting journal entries are made of, and you laugh about many many years later.
• Alma's dog finally decided to be friends with me. This may not seem like a big deal, but it was. Every time we'd gone over for the past three months he would sit and bark and growl, but yesterday he decided we could be friends... just in time for me to leave. Yeesh.
• Today I'm teaching a flute lesson! I am so so so so so so so so so excited for it. There's a girl in our ward who has asked me flute questions before, and so finally I decided I might as well just teach her a lesson. I can't wait. I'm not sure which of us will have more fun.
• Tonight we're going over to the Perea's and throwing a party for Brian, the youngest Perea boy. He turned 5 on Sunday and we found out that they don't have money for a party, so we're making him a cake and we're going to go do Testimony Pizza (a lesson about how building our faith in God is like building a pizza) with them. I am way excited for the lesson and it will be fun to surprise them with a party for Brian.

There's not much else to tell. You'll all have to hold your breath to see where I go after this. I'll write and tell you all about it next time. Where ever it is I know it's where I am needed. I am really really sad to be leaving Aguila, but I feel like I've done what I needed to here. I've worked hard and I'm happy with that. Now I get to go work somewhere else and really get to love the people there just like I've loved the people here in Aguila. Missions really are just so incredible. In just 3 months of being here I've found so many people who I just love and I have enjoyed serving.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermanita Okeson

TRIO

Hi Family and Friends,

It seems that my mission will be punctuated by being in a trio ever transfer. That's right, I'm now serving in two areas again and there are three of us again. One of the other Hermanas in our apartment went home to take care of things for school and so I am back with Hermana Kigueta again (just like at the end of last transfer) and so the three of us are covering Aguila and Montana del Sur areas. Serving with Hermanas Ayala and Kigueta is so much fun. We are having a blast, and we are so incredibly swamped. It's pretty fun and a little stressful sometimes as we are trying to hold everything together. We spend most of our day in the car running from appointment to appointment. Aguila for the most part is a nicer area, there are some sketchy areas. Montana is one big sketchy area. It's pretty much Mexico. I love it. We visit all these little houses and wonderful families, and there are some really really great people in that area.

For investigators in Aguila we are still working a lot with Rossy and Reuben, they are making progress, and it is very cool to see the change in their lives, especially in Reuben's life. When I first met him he was your very very typical macho Mexican man, now he's softening up and really willing to talk with us and learn. We also had quite the surprise as an investigator we had written off and dropped showed up out of nowhere at church on Sunday. Both Hermana Ayala and I were incredibly surprised.

As far as stories for this week goes, I ate the most terrifying meal of my whole mission on Saturday. I knew it was bad news when I first saw it, but as a missionary sometimes you just have to have a whole lot of confidence that being protected by God includes being protected from bacteria. With every bite I was praying we wouldn't die during the night. We were all pretty miserable after the meal, and I spent a good part of the evening feel way sick but no one died. The impressive thing was that it made Hna Ayala sick, because she is Mexican and so usually she can eat anything, but not this time.

Sunday night we went over to Bishop Galvis' for a birthday dinner. There were tons of families there and it was quite the party. They made "carne asada" which ranks as my all time favorite meal of my entire mission (it made for a convenient follow up to the worst meal of my entire mission). Carne asada is grilled beef with all sorts of delicious spices on it, and then you eat it with tortillas, beans, avocado, rice and salsa. So good. It was also pretty fun because I was able to see how my Spanish is getting better. When I first came out I really really struggled understanding Spanish when there were lots of people talking and lots of noise. Yesterday I was able to keep up pretty well and I wasn't just laughing because everyone else was laughing. (It's pretty sad, but often as missionaries when we are learning the language you just watch for when everyone else laughs and laugh with them and then ask your companion later about what the joke was about.) It was quite the party. The Galvis' house was full of people and it was all people I've loved working with.

I'm getting a little nervous, transfers are next week, and there's going to be a lot of change in the sisters areas. I'll probably be included one way or another because there are so many changes that are going to happen. I've absolutely loved serving in Aguila and I'm really nervous, I don't really want to get moved yet. I feel like I have so much more I want to do, and so I'm crossing my fingers that President lets me stay for another 6 weeks and that Hna Ayala gets to stay too. I've had such a good time serving with her.

Today was quite the fun p-day. We got up and all the missionaries in our area got together to play "death ball" think dodge ball but far more crazy. I actually lasted quite a long time, but none of that was of my own doing, the Elders are just afraid to chuck the ball at the Sisters, so we tend to last a little longer. We also played soccer and then we went to a mexican restaurant with Hermanas Jensen and Wells. Hermana Jensen was Hermana Ayala's companion before me and she is going home next Tuesday. So we all went out and got lunch together. Way fun. Tonight we have some really awesome lessons set up and I'm quite excited for them.

We've got to get going. Next week when I e-mail you'll all get to hear if I'm staying in Aguila or if I'm getting moved. Who knows.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

Goodbye EFY

Hello All!

This has been another interesting week. Mostly because of all of the long meetings we had this week so there really wasn't much time for working. Tuesday we had Zone Conference. It was awesome. The big announcement from Zone conference was from President Beck. He got up and banned EFY music. (For those who don't know, EFY or Especially For Youth, is a summer program for teenagers.) He banned it for different reasons than I would have... apparently being musically tacky isn't reason enough to ban something... and I think I am probably the only missionary in the mission celebrating. All in all it was a really really fun conference, and it was very fun to see the other missionaries. Also it was fun to go see some of the other sisters. As sister missionaries sometimes we feel a little like an island, and it was fun to see some of the sisters from the other areas. We even got up early and had breakfast at the apartment of the sisters who were catching a ride with us to the conference. That was way fun.

Wednesday we had an enormous district meeting. This month as a mission we are focusing on planning better. So, Wednesday we all got together and had a massive weekly planning session. It was actually pretty fun. One of the Elders had been sent a Little Ceasars gift card and so he used it to buy pizza for everyone. Then we all spread out across the building and did our weekly planning. It's way easier to stay focused when you aren't in your apartment. Hna Ayala and I have decided we're never doing weekly planning at home again.

Wednesday we ended up driving into Peoria to trade companions for exchanges for Thursday. Exchanges were interesting. They certainly helped me see that I'm not exactly the easiest person to work with. Especially since I was working in my own area with a companion who was just here for the day. I was very excited to get Hna Ayala back at the end of the day. That said, we did have some really good visits on Thursday and found some people who were willing to have us come back, so I can't complain.

Friday we spent the day going through our records trying to find people who had previously met with missionaries and might be interested in meeting with us again. Knocking doors has been less than fruitful lately, so we thought we'd try a different approach. It's been slightly more successful, and now at least we are coming into this week with a good number of appointments.

Saturday was a weird day. We had an early morning appointment at 9am so we had to get up and get out pretty fast. Especially because it was on the other end of our area, so we had a good 20 minute car drive to get out there. We met up with Maria, a woman who we had tracted into and we had a pretty good appointment with her. We'll have to see how next Saturday goes with her. She's traditionally Catholic, as opposed to religiously Catholic. You see that a lot with Mexicans. They're Catholic more out of tradition than conviction, but it still makes for some interesting conversations... especially about the Virgin Guadeloupe (the Mexican version of the Virgin Mary). I'm still a little sketchy on exactly what makes Guadeloupe different from the Virgin Mary, I've heard all sorts of descriptions ranging from that she is the mother of all Mexicans to that she is no different than the traditional Virgin Mary. Maybe one of these days I'll get that one figured out.

After visiting Maria we went and stopped by Alma and had breakfast with her and her mom, Petra. It was so much fun, and it was the first time Petra was really willing to just sit and talk with us. She is hilarious! I had a blast listening to her tell stories, and she's quite the sassy Mexican. I also learned what Mexicans eat for breakfast... scrambled eggs with onions and jalapeños, beans, and tortillas. It was pretty good. I'm still working on learning to eat like they do with their tortillas... no one uses utensils much, you just grab and scoop with the tortillas... I use utensils because I hate having beans or random other foods running down my arms. After Alma's we spent the rest of the day driving around just visiting lots of people.

We ended our night over at Rossy and Reuben's. That was an interesting visit. As a missionary it's frustrating to see how little we can do to get people to make changes in their lives. We can encourage, we can promise blessings, we can bring over members who made the same changes but none of it matters unless the individual wants to make those changes for themselves. That's kind of where we are at with Reuben. We've got to get him to a point where he sees that his choices aren't good ones and then get him ready to make those changes. When we stopped by Saturday it became very very apparent that he isn't even trying to make those changes. Yuck. We were really really bummed after that visit. That might be an understatement. It's amazing after just two months of knowing people your heart can break for them and you really really hurt for them.

Sunday was a pretty typical day. The hardest thing for me about Sundays is we have meetings we have to be at at 7am. Not fun. I really have no idea of how I survived seminary, because one meeting a week at 7am is killing me. I think the difference is that as a missionary I feel like I have to look presentable for those meetings, I never really felt that way about seminary.

Today for p-day we went over to Hermana Lopez's and she taught us how to make earrings. Hermana Lopez is the wife of Presidente Lopez, one of the counselors in the mission presidency. I absolutely love them both. We joke that Presidente Lopez is the muscle in the mission presidency, he was a rough and tough Mexican fighter until he found the church just over 10 years ago. Now he just looks rough and tough, but he is absolutely amazing. We love working with him and bringing him to lessons, and his wife loves to come out with the Sisters, which we also love. She invited us over a few weeks ago to come make jewelry with her on p-day and today we finally worked everything out to be able to do so. It was way fun, and I got a new pair of earrings out of the deal. Awesome! Next p-day we're going over to Hna Madrueno's so that she can teach me how to make true Mexican salsa. I'm pretty excited.

We have to run. I love you all lots and am so grateful for your prayers and support. Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Okeson

Ghetto Bird

Dear Family and Friends,

This has been a week for missed appointments. Sort of frustrating, but it shows us pretty fast who is interested and who is not. Now we just have to figure out where the interested people are. Most of our missed appointments were from people standing us up, but the memorable one this week was when we got chased out of an area by the Ghetto Bird. The Ghetto Bird is the police helicopter that tends to show up when something is going on. It spent a lot of time in Hna Ayala's last area, and we'd see it a little here but not very often. Well, Thursday we were in an area for an appointment and we saw the Ghetto Bird out and about and didn't think too much of it, it's not like we were planning on knocking doors in that area, just visiting someone. After being there a few minutes trying to find the house, suddenly the Ghetto Bird got really really close, and we saw a lot of police hanging out, and then another Ghetto Bird showed up. We left pretty quick after seeing the second helicopter. Still not sure what went on that afternoon, but we didn't see anything...

Most of our area is actually the nicest and safest of the two wards in our district. Most of the homes we go into a pretty nice and upscale, but we have one stretch of housing that we call "little Mexico" and that's where we were when the Ghetto Bird came. We try to stick to only being there during daylight hours, because it's a little creepy at night. But it's also a fun area to be in. It's almost completely Spanish speaking, and hispanics are far nicer than the white people we run into. They're way happy to sit out and talk and get to know you. White neighborhoods aren't nearly as fun. No one is every outside and they don't really want to sit and talk. So while Little Mexico can get a little sketchy, I absolutely love it there.

We've done a lot of just going out and visiting the members this week, trying to help them get involved in missionary work. It's been really fun to get to know the members in our area. It's pretty hard sometimes to get to know them because we aren't allowed to do dinner appointments. So instead we just schedule and drop by and share a quick message and have to leave. We've been trying to visit at least one family a day, and this week we will have gone by every family in our area. After that we'll start going back and seeing how they've done on the assignments we left with them.

In visiting the members we pick up some pretty cool stories. My favorite for this week was learning how Mexican men go fishing. They catch fish with their bare hands. Big fish. They grab them by the gills and yank them out of the water. We stopped by to visit a member of the bishopric last night and as we were talking he was telling us about how he learned to fish with his brother. It was hilarious. I guess when you grab a big fish by the gills it puts up a bit of a fight, and Hno Madrueno was acting it all out for us.

One of my other favorite stories from this week was stopping by and dropping of a birthday present for one of our favorite ward members/ families. This family has kids roughly the same ages (but not genders) as in our family and a few younger. Hno Carrillo is a real joker and loves to mess with people, so we decided for his birthday we'd get him back. For Christmas Grandma Okeson sent me a fake snow kit (just add water!) we decided to make a full jar of snow and drop it off. It was quite a hit. He couldn't believe it was "snow" but by the time we left he was having to defend his "snow" from all of his kids.

Okay, so I'm struggling with a little writers block (I really should start bringing my journal down when I write so I can remember things better) so today you all get a few pictures.

I thought I would show a funny picture that gave an idea of the height disparity in the areas where I serve. Friday night we went to a baptism for someone Hna Ayala had taught before coming here. She had me stand in on one of the pictures and I thought the results were hilarious. Hna Ayala and I make quite a pair, and we get tons of comments about our difference in height.

These pictures are from after the baptism Friday. The family that took us to the baptism also took us to one of their favorite restaurants. They said it was just like being back in Mexico. I certainly got stared at. Especially as I was keeping up in Spanish. After dinner right before we got off of the free way the car started making funny noises... we had a flat tire!!! Hno Daugherty changed the tire while Hna Ayala and I took pictures by the road.

I think for me I'm learning a lot about patience. Apparently when I started my mission God knew I had no concept of what patience was... now I know enough to know I don't have much of it. Mexican culture is very very laid back. "Lo que sea" is a pretty common thing I hear here, which translates roughly into a very non committal version of whatever/whenever etc. I'm used to things happening at a certain time and starting and ending and go in, get the job done, and get on. I'm learning that's not how it works here. Things are a little slower. I'm also having to learn to be far more social than I've ever been in my life. Mexicans love to PARTY! That was something I was super uncomfortable with at the beginning of my mission. I'm still not great at just getting in and talking to everyone and getting to know everyone but I'm getting better. My Spanish is also really getting better, now I just struggle with jokes and particularly with sarcasm. I can't follow hispanic humor yet. I usually just try to laugh with everyone else and then I quiz Hna Ayala after on what everything actually meant.

These 4 pictures are more pictures of a family in our ward. Today for p-day we went over to their house and helped the kids make scripture cases. It's a family of five boys 15 and under and then a single mom. We cut our pictures for them and then brought everything over with some treats. I was way excited about how much they liked the activity and they all seemed pretty excited with the results. Even Hna Perea wanted to make her own!

Well, I've got to run. Thanks for all your prayers and support! I try to write back for the letters I get, and I'm really really sorry for those of you who I've been slow getting to. P-day just seems to slip away, but I'm trying to do better and get more letters out.

I love you all!

Hermana Okeson

The Chihuahua and the Giant

Hi Everyone!

This week has been another packed week. The biggest thing this week is that we have made amazing progress with Reuben. He is the esposo of one of our long term investigators, Rossy, and until Christmas he had been completely uninterested in our message. Well, after lots and lots and lots of prayer he decided to meet with us. This Sunday he came to church for the first time in his whole entire life. Crazy! If someone had told me the first time I met him that he would be sitting with us in Church this last Sunday I would have laughed at them. It's amazing the changes that can happen.

I thought I would regale you all with an amusing story from this past week. The other Hermanas in our apartment had to go into the mission office earlier last week to pick up some supplies. While they were there they heard the office Elders talking about this really cute new companionship. After eaves dropping a little more they heard them say it was that tall one and the Mexican one. That's right. Who's part of the most attractive companionship in the Arizona Phoenix Mission... Hermana Ayala and I have gotten quite a laugh at that one, and now we use it as our excuse when creeps follow us.

Also, these past two weeks have been pretty cold by Arizona standards. Hna Ayala and I got to tract in the rain not long after she got here, and I've actually had to wear a coat in the evenings. I guess I've been pretty spoiled, but I'm sure starting to get nervous about the summer.

Right now here in Aguila we're really working on building up our teaching pool. We have some long term investigators, but we are trying to get new ones, especially because we will be dropping one of our longer term investigators this week. As a quick definition for those who don't know, when we say we "dropped" an investigator, we mean that we aren't teaching them anymore because for one reason or another they are not progressing. I'm not looking forward to stopping with this particular investigator, she knows our message is true, and she's supposed to be baptized at the end of the month, but we've not had much of any contact with her for 2 weeks and she keeps standing us up. She was supposed to get baptized when I first came here and the same thing happened, a few weeks before the baptism she just disappeared. We talked with the Bishop on Sunday and he was really supportive, but I really don't look forward to talking to her and telling her that her actions say she isn't ready to be baptized.

Working with a native companion is helping my Spanish in ways I never expected. I blame eating all the Mexican cheese and salsa. I'm picking up interesting habits including pointing with my head (it's a bizarre thing Hispanics do, I don't know when I started, but it's gotten pretty noticeable in the last week) and saying Mande (the equivalent of what in Spanish/Mexican) whenever I miss what someone said. It's also cool serving with her because she is way up on the slang and so she is helping me know what people are saying. It's been super helpful. The most recent thing she taught me was a series of words that as you change one letter it goes from little girl (chamaca), to little boy (chamaco), and finally the devil (chamuco). I've not worked up the nerve to use any of those yet since I'm terrified of mixing them up.

Have a wonderful week everyone! Things are wonderful down here in Aguila, and I'm really enjoying the work. We're meeting some really amazing people, and missionary work is really the best thing ever!

Love you all!

Hermana Okeson

La Morenita y la Grandota!

Hi Everyone!

So, the news you've all been waiting for, my new companion. I am serving with Hermana Ayala (she's the short Mexican one in the pictures Hna Beck put up on her Blog from the transfer meeting...) She's from California but her parents are from Mexico. That means she's a native speaker, so I'm excited to be able to work on my Spanish with her. We are having a blast. I absolutely love serving with Hna Ayala, she told me from the start that she likes to work hard and play hard, which sounded great to me.

This week was actually a pretty weird one. We had transfers on Tuesday, and then Wednesday and Thursday were regular working days, but on Friday because of New Years we had to be in at 6pm and then Saturday was by appointment only. Our Saturday appointments fell through so that left us hanging out at the apartment all day. Not really my idea of what to do with a Saturday, but obedience brings blessings, right? If nothing else we got some things done around the apartment and I got to know Hna Ayala better which was fun.

Hna Ayala has been out for about a year, and like I said, we've been having a blast. We had way too much time on our hands as we were stuck at home on Saturday, and you can only update the area book so much, so we decided to call the Elders who live near by and see what happens. Long story short, Hna Ayala convinced them to not only fix her bike (it has a flat) but also to get us a bunch of yummy Mexican juices and different candies. Those Elders moved into our apartment complex during the last transfer and they've had to fix our bikes three times already. I guess they've learned what it means to live near Sisters.

I thought I ought to explain the title for this letter. Grandota, effectively means really really tall, and Morenita means little brown one. Hna Ayala is 5'2'' on a good day. We make quite a pair out talking to people. She's super loud and full of tons of energy. I absolutely love that. Also, somehow she is always up on everything that is happening across the mission, so now I think in one week I've learned more about the mission and what's happening where than most other missionaries know. She takes the whole "Sisters know everything" to a whole new level.

This past week we've spent a lot of time out door knocking, with little door answering because everyone is still in Mexico, so to make things more entertaining we took to rating all of the wreaths on a scale of 1 to 10. I feel like if music doesn't work out I have a future in wreath critiquing.

We also had a really interesting experience this week as we were out checking on people who had been taught by missionaries before, but for one reason or another had not continued meeting with them anymore. Serving in the area that we do often we get stopped from going to houses by guard dogs. In my last companionship Hna Hoof was by far the faster runner so I was somewhat loath to go into those yards with "Beware of Dog" signs as I knew which of the two of us would turn into a puppy snack... I think I could take Hna Ayala in a race, but we have an agreement about avoiding doggy houses. This past week however was the first week I have been thwarted by a guard horse. That's right, horse. We pulled up to this house and there right in the front yard was three dogs and a big beautiful white horse. We were more concerned about the dogs than the horse, but as we walked up to the house we learned we had placed our concern in the wrong area. That horse followed us up and down the front of the gate as we tried to distract it enough to get to the house. Next time we go by I'm taking carrots. I'll have to send pictures as well, we decided to cut our losses and took some pretty fun pictures by that horse before moving on.

Other news, mostly we're just really trying to get out and find people to teach. We're trying to work more with our ward, and we've had some pretty good success with that. We're also trying to help Karla feel ready for her baptism on the 29th, she's a little nervous still, but I'm super excited for her. It's so cool being a missionary. I really love every day so much, I just wake up smiling because I'm so happy to be here and to be serving.

Have an awesome week. I love you all!

Hermana Okeson