No More Blog

Sadly we will no longer be posting on the blog. If you'd like to stay up to date on Mackenzie and her mission, please leave your email address in the comments and I will send you her email and pictures. Thank you to everyone for you love and support for Mackenzie!  

Week 4 - Leaving for Uruguay next week!

 

Hi fam!! 

 

I feel like my weeks are so uneventful but then I go and think back and I feel like I have so much to tell and so little time to tell it in!! So proselyting this week was hard. I mean really hard. No one wanted to talk to us. It was really frustrating because the week before we had 60 contacts and this week we got 4! In five hours we were only able to talk to four people. So you could imagine how disheartening it would be to be walking around for five hours (feeling like you are melting by the way, literally it was so hot on Saturday our nail polish on our toes melted off onto our socks and shoes) and not have much success. Well we had about 45 minutes left before the bus would be coming to get us and Hermana Harpole and I decided to go back towards the shops since we weren´t having much success clapping doors. So we walked to the street and sat on a wall to get a drink of water and we see this man walking up and Hermana Harpole felt impressed to talk to him. So when he walks up she starts with- Hi! I´m Hailey!! (In English I might add) So when she turns to me I start talking to him in Spanish and tell him that I am Hermana Rich and then it registered what she said. It was pretty funny. But we talked to this man and he had played rugby and had a lot of friends from Utah! Well it turns out he absolutely loves the Book of Mormon but his wife hates it and so she threw his out and he doesn´t attend church. So we gave him another Book of Mormon, left him with Alma Chapter 32 and wrote the address of the church inside. He just kept saying how Joseph Smith was his friend and he felt so good talking to us. It was then I knew we had been assigned this new area to talk to this man. I decided even if my entire mission I only talk to 4 people that would be okay with me because I know that just by talking to those people or in this case that man, that I was easing Christ´s pain in Gethsemane just a little bit.  

 

So funny story... yesterday Hermana Harpole and I went outside to actividad fisica and we were just messing around right? Well we have this trick where she gets on my back for a piggy back ride and then I squat down really far and she flips over, more like rolls off of me. So we went to do it and the first time she landed it! So we went to do it again but tweak it a little bit and bad news. We got a little over ambitious and Harpole was sitting too far up on my back so when she when she flipped she ended up falling and dragging me down with her! Well she dislocated her finger and once again we are a broke companionship hahaha. But we just laugh about it and yes we realize we sound like we are five!  

 

Also, last night an elder from Brazil came into our district room because he needed a blessing and wanted one of the elders in my district to do it. So we were able to sit in and after his blessing he asked if he could talk with us so we said yes of course! And he just told us how back in Brazil everyone thinks North Americans are not very good people but because of us he knows the truth and how the North Americans here are his favorite people and how he knows we will be fantastic missionaries. It was so precious and cool to see how we can change people´s opinions! We actually hang out with the Brazilians a lot, especially since the only time we don´t speak in Spanish now is at breakfast and right before bed!  

 

This is the last email before I am out in the field and I am so excited!! I love all of you so much and can´t wait to talk to you all next week!  

 

Love,  

Hermana Rich

The church building in the area

 

Her new proselyting area

 

Hermana Rich & Hermana Harpole with her dislocated finger

 

 

 

Christmas & New Year (Week 3)

 

Hello my dear family and friends! 

I hope all is well and you had a fantastic christmas and new year! It is so crazy that it is 2016 already!! My Christmas was great! I just hung out with my district all day. We played this game called signs and we got some brazilians and latinos to join and we were able to explain the game in spanish to them which was really cool! We are learning the language so fast! But I still do not feel ready to leave for the field. But I keep reminding myself that faith and doubt cannot dwell in the same mind and just rely on the Lord! 

Christmas here was really great even though we had the worst meal ever!! It was this potato salad thing with cold imitation roast beef meat (in other words horse meat) so Harpole and I had banans and rolls haha. We just laugh and know it could be way worse and appreciate what we do have! They celebrate Christmas here like the fourth of July! There was not an empty spot in the sky! It was so amazing to watch the fireworks behind the temple! They did the same thing for  New Years but I must say missionary work, even in the CCM is exhausting, so I was not awake for them. I just woke up to them and rolled over and went back to sleep hahaha.  

I have to say thank you so much for the letters I got for Christmas! They made me feel so close to home and it really felt like Christmas because of it!! This Christmas made me really appreciate all of the things I don't have with me right now like my family and friends. The Lord really did bless me with the most amazing people in my life!! 

Proselitismo this week was a lot more difficult. But I must say every time I got discouraged or frustrated I would just start singing primary songs and would instantly feel so mcuh better. No one really wanted to talk to us! We were able to teach two lessons and hand out two Book of Mormons within the first hour of proselyting but nothing the rest of the day. But I was determined to meet my goal and just walked around talking to people while I was waiting for the bus and was able to hand out my last two book of mormons and teach two more lessons! I was so happy. 

I want you to know that I have a strong testimony of this gospel AND I  KNOW that it is through the atonement of Jesus Christ that we can be with our families forever and be forgiven of all our sins. I love you all so much! Happy New year! 

Love,

Hermana Rich

Funny Christmas Pajama Picture with the district

District Picture

Tags at the temple

Hermana Rich and Harpole in front of the temple

Hermana Rich & Harpole in front of the CCM

At the Temple 

With the Brazilian roommates

The group at the CCM