Hola to All!

I made it through my second week in the mission field!! haha nah, but really. Thank you for the support and love from every one of you. It has definitely been hard but I know that I am here for a reason and I have faith that the Lord with help me succeed in his work.
Last week we went to the cathedral I was talking about in my last email that has the black Jesus. It was weird because there were a lot of sculptures of Christ with blood all over him and stuff. I didnt like it at all. We has to walk out backwards too, what is that about? My comp tried to explain it to me but she just kept saying the same thing over and over. Hopefully you all got the pics I sent. I will try to send some more out next week but I dont know if I will have time today.
Thursday was a great day. We had divisions and I got to go out to Chiquimula with Hermana Guerra, who is probably the sweetest girl ever. She helped me so much and actually let me teach!! I felt like a real missionary for the first time. She is such a good example and exactly what I imagined a trainer as. It was awesome. We visited so many people and I have never sweated so much in my life!!! And chiquimula isnt even the hottest area! There is so much poverty there though and lots of people dont know how to read. They live with dirt floors, tin roofs and plastic bag material for walls. It was very humbling.
Saturday it rained sooo hard! It has been raining a lot lately but so much that day. We were teaching in a house with a tin roof so we had to yell while reading the Book of Mormon. It was awesome. When we went outside the street was like a river and all of the kids were out splashing and dancing. It was super cool.
On Sunday we traveled to the Capitol to do visa stuff yesterday. We didnt know that we were going to leave sunday so I was so excited. I loveeee the Capitol because I just love city life and being around lots of people. Anyways, I was hoping to stay with Hermana Fitzgerald (my old comp) in the old nurses house that we had stayed at before because the district leader said we would be staying in the nurses house so i was so excited but then he said we would be staying with the nurse who is hermana whittaker. Anyways the bus ride was 6 hours long because there was a car accident. The AC on the bus was broken too so that was pretty funny, and quite sweaty haha. Its always fun being with the elders though because they help me with the language and are super funny. They lift my spirits a lot. So when we showed up to the house we were going to stay at it was Fitzgeralds!!! It was so great to see her. Then the next morning Hermana Hutchins showed up from all the way out in porte barrios!! We went to the mission office and guess who was there...Hermana Medina! Then a while later the last girl from my district and ALL of the Elders from my district showed up. I was awesome because we didnt think we would see them again since they are in a different mission than us 4 (Fitz, Hutchins, Medina and Me). It was a major blessing because we all needed support and encouragement from eachother. It just goes to show that Heavenly Father knows us and knows our needs. Im back in Esquipulas now and ready to start working hard. There is definitely a lot of work to be done here!! Wish me luck. I hope you all have a great start of school!

Love you all,


Hermana Bender

This is the church with the Black Christ

 

At the catillo yesterday

Entonces!

It seems like it has been an eternity since i have been able to write! I'm out in my new area Equipulas. It is 5-6 hours outside of the capitol, practically by Honduras. Actually, my trainer said that it use to be part of Honduras. There is a famous cathedral here that has the carving of Jesus that turned black. So lots of Catholics here believe that God is black. Very funny.
I still only get an hour to write so hopefully i will have time to write everything. I also left my notebook at the apartment so i cant remember everything I wanted to write about. Anyways, the area here is good. Its pretty hot but not like Zacapa or Porte Barrios. There is only a branch here. Yesterday was my first day at church. The Branch President is hilarious, i love him. There are a lot of good people here that want to help us and some that don't but we are going to fix that. On Friday i think, we finally did some contacting in the street and I saw some little girls in front of their door, so I said hello and my comp asked if their mom was home. They invited us in and we talked with the grandma that was there. My companera asked her if she knew who we were and she said yes I know her...me. It was strange, I don't really know all of what she said but my comp said that she recognized me. After the lesson my comp asked her if she would pray to know that we are messengers of Jesus Christ and she said Hermana I don't need to, I have no doubts that you are his messengers. My comp said that a lot of people here say that they have had dreams or visions and so lots of missionaries think that they are crazy but the president said that because they are descendants of Lehi, they have that gift and to never dismiss what they say about them.
I'm going to send out some pictures finally so hopefully they all come through.
Spanish is really hard right now. Everyone here speaks differently and not everyone pronounces their words correctly so half the time I don't really know what the person is talking about. I don't really get to teach anything, I just go around with my comp right now and listen and then either pray or bear my testimony. Its really hard out here, and every day I want to go home. I have to remind myself every day why I'm out here, because I know it will get better. I miss you all so much and love you.

Hermana Bender

 

my trainer, Hermana Redondo

my hermanas de mi distrito Fitzgerald, medina, hutchins

Hola hola!

Great news everyone!!! We got to go to walmart on Tuesday! What a glorious day that was. We started the day off right with a nice americanish breakfast of pancakes!!! The viejos left that morning so there were only about 40 missionaries here. That night was pretty much the worst night of sleep I have ever experienced because the girls in our room had to leave for their missions at 3 in the morning. So basically they just stayed up all night and then around 2am Hermano debon started yelling luggage! luggage! luggage! in Spanish so that was awesome. The world was set right though when we got to breakfast and had pancakes. I dont know why but we seriously have some sort of egg concoction for breakfast almost every day. No me gusta. Anyways, before Walmart we went to the stake center and played an awesome game of kickball. I was a captain and basically picked an allstar team because we dominated. Not that we kept score...but we dominated haha. That was really fun. Then we got to go to walmart and everyone stocked up on their favorite candy and snacks to last us the last two weeks. Im Pretty sure the elders filled an entire cart. one elder spent over 700 quetzals. Insane. Hermana Fitzgerald and I got a nice stash of chocolate and nutella haha tpical. After wallyworld we went to the mall and ate in the food court. The taco bell here is legit everyone.
When we came back from our adventure "a fuera" we got to go to the temple, which is always the best. I am going to miss it! We might get to go once or twice in our mission though since part of the east mission includes the city.

On Wednesday morning we got a BIG new group of Norte Missionaries. We now have more nortes here than hispanos. Its crazy and awesome. There has been a lot of construction going on here so every day they turn the water off randomly and we have no water in the bathrooms. The only bathrooms we can use are out at the gym so there ends up being a long line haha. It has been a fun adventure. That night though some of the workers were working on the bathroom...we had a great suprise. We got into bed late because the hermanas were all just getting back from meetings and they still needed to unpack some things and so around 10;45 the 4 latina hermanas were kneeling by the door praying together in a circle. Us nortes were all just laying in bed when we heard a really loud rushing sound like the fire hydrant was on outside or something. I looked over the side of my bed to say something to my companion when the hermanas started screaming. Water started rushing in our room under the door!! I jumped down from my bed and went to grab bags and things that were on the floor and its a good thing too because we ended up with an inch of water in our room all the way back to the window. And our room is pretty big. Our room is right by the bathroom so we got the most water. It went almost all the way down the hall on our floor though and out the side door down the stairs. It was crazy. We all got brooms and mops and dust pans and swept all the water into the bathrooms in like 20 minutes. It was crazy and really funny. One of the hermanas in my district was super smart and when she saw the water coming she put a blanket down in front of the crack in her door so they didnt get any water in their room. Friday morning I woke up and grabbed my towel to go take a shower and had a nice suprise when i slipped in a new lake of water in our room haha. Luckily I caught my balance before i ended up sopping wet. We still have no Idea what happened with that one because our room was the only one with water in it.

In the new picture you can see two of the girls from my district. They girl in the bright red dress next to me is hermana hutchins and above us is a girl with red hair that is medina. Then down my row in the middle is hermana fitzgerald. She should be right in the middle, not the hispana one haha.

Last week we were talking about family and my teacher told us that her brothers names are josé, jóse, and josue...hahaha we all have a good laugh about it now and then and whenever we ask hispanas what their siblings names are or some of the teachers what their names are we always guess those names and then Melgar is like hey! Are joo making fun of mi family? it is the greatest.

Sundays Mondays and Tuesdays are our favorite days because Sundays are just filled with great devotionals and talks and meetings (besides the hunger games in sacrament meeting and district class). Then mondays we get a new shipment of ice cream (sad how our excitment centers around food these days). then Tuesdays are pdays and we get to email. Anyways I hope everyone is doing great and soaking up the summer sun! This might be the last email for two weeks since we are heading out to the mission field next Tuesday! Its crazy! I feel like I have been here forever but that I just got here at the same time!

I love you all!

Hermana Bender

foto grupo 24 julio CCM Guatemala: