Monday, November 28, 2011

Another Week in Ciudad Real!!

First off, thanks for sending me a ferw pictures this week! I loved that in the picture that dad sent, "I" was eating black olives!!! hahaha I eat so many olives here... mostly green though. And a cool thing is that the olives are starting to turn black on the trees now! it is cool, somtimes you can just see them walking around in the streets!!!

So I will first tell you about my thanksgiving celebrations!! yes, plural! we celebrated thanksgiving twice. I will attach pitures of both celebrations! First, last p-day, we celebrated with all of the missionaries from our district! each missionary companionship was in charge of cooking one dish and bringing it! we had such a great meal! it was like a real thanksgiving... even though we had chicken instead of turkey! (turkey is a little hard to comeby here!). Hermana Sturgess and I made an apple pie and a greenbean casserole! I thought of Meme when I was making the greenbean casserole! It turned out really great even though we had to make it in a pinch because they dont even sell things like cream of mushroom soup here!!! Along with the things we made, other elders made mashed potatoes, a sweet potato casserole, and the cleggs made chickens, stuffing, a pomagranite salad, and a soup! Oh, we even wre able to get cranberry sauce from a specialty store in Malaga!!!!!!! wow!!! it was soooooo good! we had such a great time. After the meal, we all went around and said what we are thankful for. It turned into a really spiritual experience. All of the missionaries in our district are amazing and they are all so grateful for the gospel and so grateful to be missionaries. What a great bonding experience!!

So, our second celebration was on Thanksgiving night at Presidente and Hermana Sanz´s home (president of our branch). They had never celebrated thanksgiving before, but they really made a special night for us!!! We taught the kids how to make handprint turkeys, and told them the story of the first thanksgiving! We then ate! we had little pizzas, salad, and toasts with cream cheese and salmon for appitizers!! then we had chicken and mashed potatoes for our main dish!!! it was soooo nice of them! we even had a candel lit on our dinner table! they really wanted us to feel like we were at home!!! It was so sweet! we have a great branch fmily here!!!

This week i also got to eat at my neighbor, Isabel´s home! Isabel is 91 year old woman, and our friend Myra takes care of her. They invited us over for mediodia, and we had a very spanish dish... Migas!!! Migas are kind of like stuffing, but kind of taste fried! you eat migas usually with some kind of fruit because otherwise they are very dry! you should look it up. they are quite intereting! it was so fun eating a really spanish mediodia with them! isabels son was visiting from Mardid, so he was the one who cooked with us! Isabel is an amazing woman. She lived through the rise and fall of the dicttor, Franco, and was an orphan t the age opf 15. She has seen a lot in her life, and loves it when we come over. She is extremely catholic and tries to convince us that we should pray to the virgin mary.... haha. But she is always willing to let us shre spiritual thought... she thinks the scriptures from the book of mormon re beautiful!

Things are going well here. We are still teaching and working hard. No big news on that front. We through we would have some baptismal dates set this week, but it just hasnt worked out! I heard tht my MTC companion Hna. Crowder had her first baptism in the mission!! thats so exciting for her! She is in Sevilla!.

Anyways, things are going well! I love ciudad real and the members here. Thanks for sending me the pictures and things!

Friends!

hey! check out this picture too!! a police man took it for us with his super cool camera. he has a specil lens on his camera that made the background look like that. soo cool! he was nice enough to offer to take a picture for us and email it to us!!! the gril in the middle is our friend myra. she is our neighbor. we are teaching her family, and she want be to taught, but she really doesnt have much time.... she is a great friend!

La Mancha District "Family Picture"

Hey everyone! take a look at this pic, this is a picture of my district here in La Mancha! once every transfer, we take a "family picture"! we are the only district in the mission that does it, and it is because we are more like a family here than in any other place in the mission... this is because there are so few members and so few baptisms tht we are really a tight knit group! it is great! plus we have elder and hermana clegg... they are like the parents of the family!!!! hope you like the pic! crystal, be sure to post this one!!!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Monday, November 21, 2011

I Finished!!!

i finally finished reading the book of mormon this week!!! i started my 3rd week in the MTC and just finished. The plan was for me to start reading it in spanish, but we were given a new challenge at zone conference... so i am starting that. they gave us all new books of mormon and asked us to read it and highlight all of the time that christ is mentioned in any form. they asked us to do it by christmas!!!! wow!!!! we have to read 18 pages per day to finish... we are trying really hard. It is nice to do a speed read of the book of mormon. We are really enjoying this little activity! I have heard of a lot of people doing it, and always wanted to do it, but now is my chance!!!

Take Care,
Hermana Letendre

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Hair Cut & Zone Conference Picture

This is a picture of all the Missionaries at the Zone Conference last week from the Spain Malaga Mission Blog.
http://spainmalagamission.blogspot.com/




**Hermana Valerie Letendre is the first Hermana in the second row**

Click on the picture to get a closer view...


Check out Valerie's new haircut! It looks great! I guess it was a success. I'm glad since in her last email she was concerned about getting a haircut in another country!! :)

Monday, November 14, 2011

Hair Cut and a 4 Hour Drive to Zone Conference in Malaga!

I hope you are doing well, and that it is not too cold there in CT! It was unusually warm here this week, and it was so interesting how we could really see a difference in the people when it was a bit warmer.... we had noticed for the few weeks before that as the weather had cooled off a bit, so had the people... nobody wanted to listen to us at all!! but this past week was a bit better... we were able to get 25 people´s contact info this week which is much more than we have gotten the last two weeks... We had 20 lessons in total this week. We still are not sure that we have anyone that will be getting baptized anytime soon, but we do know some wonderful people.

Guess what_ I am getting my hair cut today!! woo hoo!! i am excited. i am going in 30 minutes!!! I am going to get about 2 inches off... nothing too much. my hair has gotten sooooo long!! It will be my first haircut in another country..i am kind of nervous, but im usre it will be fine! hopefully i dont end up with a mullet or somethign! haha

We get to go to Malaga tomorrow for Zone Conference!!! I am soooooo excited! WE are driving there with the senior missionary couple who lives here in Ciudad Real, the Cleggs. Because we are driving with them, we get to sleep over in the mission home for a night, then go to zone conference in the morning and then come back to ciudad real!!! Malaga is about a 4 hour drive! it will be nice to see some difference scenery on the drive and i am realy exicted to be able to sleep over int he mission home! we are really lucky because other missionaries dont usually get to sleep over at the mission home for zone conference!!!! woo hooooo!! Anyways, things are going well.... I am doing well and love hearing from you all.

Take Care,
Hermana Letendre

Monday, November 7, 2011

Halloween in Ciudad Real, Espana!

This week we celebrated halloween as well! My companion and i put on a halloween party for our whole district-- there were about 70 people there!! WOW! That is amazing considering that there were abuot 85 at out district conference last week.... we put ont his party specifically to try to get members to invite their friends... and it was a success... we had at least 21 non members just from cuidad real at the party!!! it was seriously the best night ever!!!! wow!!!!! and my comp and i planned the whole thing!!!!!!! we started out with some games... we did a mummy wrapping competition with toilet paper, then we did the game where you eat a doughnut off a string, then we did bobbing for apples!!!!! everynoe was going crrraazzyyy!!!! it was soooooo great!!! I had to do the bobbing for apples even though i didnt want to... haha one of our investigator´s daughers wanted to do it, and nobody else wanted to go against her... so i was nice and did it... we then had trick or treat! we had members decorate doors and give out candy.... people from uor branch were the only ones who did the trick or treat! also our branch was sooo awesome and was dancing and doing all of the games!!! wow! what a great thing! also the president of our branch and his wife got 7 non members to come! they were soooo excited!!! they are so excited to invite their friends to other church activities... so that was a success all in itself!!! wow!

This week as far as teaching goes, it was pretty normal. i dont have any specific stories to wrtie.. i am still doing well... trying to learn more spanish! still hard to understand a bit... but i am getting better!

Take Care,
Hermana Letendre



My companion and I.. we dressed as dominos... and the man to the left is our branch president, and the man to the right is our branch mission leader, hermano gallego! what a costume!!! hermano gallego has hair like my dad in real life... and he told us missionaries that he hates halloween and would not dress us... BUT he dressed up and he did a door for trick or treat! he is great!!!!! wow!!!!

me at the cemetery on dia de los muertos! everyone brings flowers to their relatives graves! wow!
me and my comp with our halloween teeth! thank mom and dad!!! a view of the halloween party during our dancing part!!