Happy 1 year to me...Happy 1 year to me!!!

Hola mi familia y amigos,
I can´t believe it I´m hitting a year in the mission on Thursday. At first I didn´t think I would survive a year. haha. Muchas gracias for the emails Dad, Dad, Mom, Nikki, and Kim. I really really appreciate it. Have a good trip dad! I´m glad Mom and Joseph you´re safe with the car and good luck Joseph with basketball. I´m glad life is GREAT for ya Nicks. We´re going to watch the relief society conference on Saturday before the general sessions, but thanks for the recap Kim. Oh...Stefi thanks for the photo last week, I laughed really hard. Well, I´m really excited for conference. The ward here , well actually it´s a branch is good. They asked me to present myself and give my testimony and then right before sacrament started they asked me to give a talk also, I was like ummmm...It wasn´t that long but whatever, I still need to develop that talent. :) Progreso is HUGE!!! We take buses everywhere because it´s like a bunch of little tiny towns hooked together. It´s in the country and it´s really reallly pretty. Some parts are like I´m walking into the movie of Anne of Green Gables. I forgot to mention the conference with Elder Bowen 2 weeks ago. It was amazing. He shook all our hands and he told me what a great name I had and then turned me around and told everyone my name and laughed. It was funny. He talked a lot about the book of mormon and how that was the keystone, which I knew but it was amazing how he just used the book of mormon and had practiced teaching sessions and his testimony was really powerful. Then us hermanas ate lunch with him and his wife our mission president and he told us, you hermanas are the best, you always have the greatest success. It was really nice. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn´t get the cookies, probably won´t for a couple of weeks till zone conference unfortunately, I´ll dip them in milk. :) This area is really really busy we are running from charla to charla. We´re having a baptism in 2 weeks. I haven´t been this busy since my first 2 changes. Last night, Hna Rogers and me made crepes on a camp stove, they were really good. Our apt. doesn´t have a stove or oven, I´ve been spoiled in my last two areas to have a stove and oven. But it was an interesting experience. The people here are really nice and a lot more willing to listen than in la paz, but I still really miss la paz. Yesterday my comp had a tarantula climbing on her leg, it was really funny and scarey, but she killed it. I hope we don´t have a spider problem here as it warms up. Oh my credit card works, thank goodness, I used it some last week. But thanks for sending me another. I´ll let you know when I get it. Well, I think that is all. I love you all mucho mucho and miss you all a ton. Thanks for the prayers I know they work. Have a great week. I LOVE YOU!!!!
con amor, Tiffani
p.s Here is a photo of us and our crepes.

My third area

Hola familia,
Thanks for the emails, Mom, Dad, Nikki, Stefi, and Kim. I really appreciated all. About that question dad, I´ll fast and pray about it and let you know. I am glad life is good for you all, and I´m sorry softball isn´t doing so hot, there is always next year. :) I´m glad your talk went well dad and your enjoying your class mom. Another change gone by, and I´m going to my third area Progresso. My new companion is Hna Rogers from Utah. She´s going home in December. Oh well, I can learn a lot and she´s really nice. I am really sad to leave La Paz. It was so hard to say good bye to the people there. I cried like a baby, go figure. But I had a feeling I was going and it was time. I was so grateful we found investigadors together and that they are doing great, Hna Yeates will baptize them next change. We had 6 investigadors in church our last week together, it was awesome. We´ll we see how progresso goes. I´m only like 30 minutes away from La Paz. The Vidartes said they are going to go to church there one sunday. They are really great. I´ll miss them a ton and a lot of people here. This past week has warmed up quite a bit. It´s really nice, but I started remembering last summer and how sweltering hot it was. I never realized how the physical aspect of the mission effects a lot. I guess I´ll just tough it up. I´m really nervous to go to this new area as always. Change is still tough. But I´ve been lucky I´ve only had 2 areas in almost a year and Hna Yeates has had 4. Heavenly Father has really blessed me and he will continue to help me and bless me. Thanks for sending me the card. I´ll let you know when I get it. I´m so excited for conference in a few weeks and I can´t believe I´m almost hitting a year, it´s nuts. Sorry, this letter it kind of short, I´ll have more to write monday. I love you all mucho!!! Thank you for being a great family. I´ll be sending photos home in a few weeks, so you can see the fun Hna Yeates and I had. :) Have a great half of a week. LOVE YA!!!
con amor, Tiffani

Another change almost gone...

Hola mi familia,
I am glad all is well with you all. Things are good, warm finally. Muchas gracias for the emails Mom, Dad, Nikki, and Kim. So heads up next week is changes so pday will be wednesday, and i have this sinking feeling that I might be leaving La Paz. I really love this area, well mostly the people, but I will be really sad to go. I hope I have one more change here with Hna Yeates. I´ve had 2 changes with all my comps and so I don´t want to break tradition. haha. This past week has been good. We found 9 new people and some of them are really great. We´re excited to continue to teach them. My family Vidarte has callings now. They are like fully integrated in the ward. It´s awesome!! I feel like a proud parent. haha. The gospel is amazing. This week the ward is having a talent show and guess what me and hermana yeates are doing a duet on the guitar. It´s the same song I did with Hna Wilson, ("I hope they call me on a mission," It´s like the only one I have memorized) But this lady in our ward is really sweet and she played us some uruguayan folk songs and we recorded them and then she had me play that song and then she said I could borrow her guitar till the talent show. So at nights when I have a few minutes we practice or I just practice hymns. It´s really fun. I really miss the guitar. I made a resolve to practice that and get a lot better when I get back. But I´m glad I have had a few chances to use what I know. Our investigador luis came to church again which was great, but he booked it home after to smoke. He never goes longer than a hour to smoke. It´s really sad. But we have a lot of charlas with him to try to help and motivate him, but after church we went and he told us he smoked and that he has faith and knows he can quit. It´s getting pretty frustrating because he´s not exercising any self control. I don´t know what an addiction like that is like, but I know many have quit and it´s very possible. The day after he got a priesthood blessing he smoked more than he had the whole week. He´s just waiting for Heavenly Father to stop smoking for him. But that is not how it works. But we´ll keep praying and working with him. The members here are great they are helping us a lot with our investigadors. We had two really good noche de hogars this past week also. One in English with this family Schvint, they are so great. She showed us some mission photos and we ate pizza and played uno and we taught in English another funny experience. We also had a noche de hogar with this less active family we found last week. It turned out nice, the kids aren´t members and they love having us visit and the parents want us to bring a ward member so they can know ward members. They are really ready to come back. He´s looking for work right now, and we can tell they are struggling and are looking for hope and help. We´re having another NDH with them saturday. They are really great also. On Sunday one of the women came up to me and said I´m like a spoiled child and I don´t know what we´re going to do when you leave, because I give them some ranch packets. It was pretty funny. She said you need to send us ranch for the rest of our lives. haha. Oh this week President Bowen is going to speak to us, and I´m excited, he´s a good man. Well, I´m barely surviving (this running stuff is rough haha). I love you all mucho. Thanks so much for everything. I love all your emails. Have a great week and a half.
con amor, Tiffani

Happy 11 months !!!

Hola mi famila y amigos,
¿Como estan? Muchas gracias for the emails Mom, Dad, Nikki, Joseph, Kim, and the Crums. I am glad things are well with you all. I´m glad you had a good bday Joseph, did you get keep your present from Kim? haha. This week has been good and rainy. Every 31 of August there is a storm called santa rosa and it´s still going strong, so it´s been kind of a bummer. But it´s warming up which is good and bad. This past week we had interviews and it was good, I really like the DaSilvas. They are great people. He gave me some advice to try and find other ways of finding people and use baptisms to find references. The great thing is on Sunday this guy Luis (his wife is a less active that we visit) came to church. The first visit we went to with Hna Yeates he sat down and listened to the lessons. He had listened before but couldn´t stop smoking. Now he has a lung disease and wants to change. And so we have been teaching him the past 2 weeks and this week he came with his girls. He really wants to be baptized, but he smokes like 25 cigarettes a day so we´re working with him to stop. If he keeps going maybe his wife will come back and his daugter will also want to be baptized. It´s really great. So we have some investigadors now and it´s really a big blessing. We´re also teaching 2 twelve year old girls and one came to church and the other Alison is amazing, but she has a rough home life so she didn´t go, but I think she´ll come next week. It´s really great. But the interview with president Dasilva was really good, really short, but good. My comp started to kill me last week, and asked me to go running every morning. She´s scared of getting fat, especially with all the chocolate you all sent me. I HATE RUNNING!!!! We only do it for like 20 minutes, but the after the second day, I could barely walk during the day. She just laughed at me. And the next day she gave me a break because I couldn´t move at all. Every morning I have been praying for rain because I won´t run in the rain and every morning it starts to rain around 8. I guess she has more faith in her prayers. But, I love my comp and so we´ll run until we change. Well, tonight we´re going to have 2 family home evenings, which I´m pretty excited about. The first one will be in English with the family that the wife served in california and her husband is trying to learn english, so that will be interesting and fun. And then our regular family home evening with the vidartes. Another fun one. So I bought another backpack today, yep my 5th one, I don´t know why I have such rotten luck with my backpacks. Thanks again for the packages, I really really really love them. We made the cookie dough you sent last night while we wrote our letter to the president and practically ate the whole thing. Little piggies. We have to deal with the stress some how haha. Things are good, sorry I don´t have a lot to say this week, but things are good. I love my time to study every day, I learn so much. I love the gospel and know with all my heart it´s true. Have a fantastic week. I love you all mucho. Talk to you later.
con amor, Tiffani
ps. I really liked the kitkats you sent me, if you have any extras lying around the house to send...I´m so excited about the cookies.

HAPPY 18 LIL´ BROTHER!!!!!

Hola mi familia,
¿Como estan? Well, I can´t believe it, my baby brother is growing up 18. CONGRATS and Happy Birthday Jose Vaughn! Muchas gracias for the emails Mom, Dad, Nikki (puh-lease) haha, and Kim. This past week has been a little long, but thank you to my comp today was like christmas for me. She has medicine in her packages and since we didn´t have zone conference she called last week and said she needed them, so they delivered her packages and mine too. I was sooooo excited. I got 3 packages and an envelope. I was so chocolate deprived. THANK YOU. Thanks also, for the other amazing american food, cds, tights, and verb book. (wasn´t that yours mom?) BUT THANK YOU!!! The swiss chocolate didn´t make but the good old american chocolate did. phew...haha. THANK YOU THANK YOU AND THANK YOU!!! It will defintely comfort us in these difficult weeks of not many investigadors and lessons. I think I am suppose to be learning something in this very slow time. I may not be helping a lot of people, but I am sure learning a ton. And I´m grateful for my comp. Yesterday was a very long day and super hot, (Uruguay has the craziest weather) and so at the end we had an hour left and we were doing contacts and we went and talked to these elderly people outside with their handicapped daughter and they were just the nicest people in the world. They are very evanglist, but they were talking with us and saying god bless you for what your doing and so I asked we could sing them a song and they were excited and pulled out chairs for us and then we just started visiting. We talked about God and how it´s sad that so many people don´t believe in him and how he´s always there for us. And then they told us there life stories which were really neat and how they found each other and God and how now their mission in life is to take care of their angel daughter who is 44 now and handicapped and can´t take care of herself. It was so great, (and they gave us orange soda...haha.) And we sang to them and gave them a brochure and it was just a blessing because it´s been a long week and we have been getting a lot of doors slammed. And they were just nice and they asked us about our missions and how what a great sacrifice and great blessing to serve Heavenly Father and gave us some advice for life. It reminded me a sunday night visit with the Cooks. I just was grateful. I don´t know if we´ll be able to teach them, but if they don´t get baptized here, it will be in the next life for sure. This week we have interviews with the president because the last week Elder Bowen is coming to give a conference, so that will be exciting. Yesterday, the president asked us to write in our president´s letter our feelings of Joseph Smith, and I was thinking that I have walked and visited practically all the places he was, New York, Kirtland, Nauvoo, etc. And I have grown up in Utah and have seen so many neat things. But right now in this far away land Uruguay, my appreciation, love, and testimony of him have grown so much more. It´s the same with Jesus Christ, I´ve walked where he walked, but doing the things and serving as these have done I feel so much more gratitude and love. And my testimony is growing every day. It´s really amazing. I am giving the President and his wife two pictures of the sacred grove with the leaves on the back. (If you have more, I will always accept them.) But the gospel is such a blessing, and as hard as my mission is and how much I miss ya´ll, I wouldn´t trade it. Thanks for everything. I love you all MUCHO!!! Have a happy week. Tomorrow is 11 months, nuts huh?
con amor, Tiffani

Happy School starting!!! (hahaha)

Hola mi familia y amigos,
¿Como estan? I am glad all well with you Dad, Mom, and Nikki and I hope everything is well with you others. Mucahs gracias for the emails Dad, Mom, and Nicks. That is so neat you got to see the temple dedication. I love the temple dedications and the spirit that is there. At least when I get back I can go and do a session there and in Draper. I think I´ll go to all the temples in utah. I sure miss them. So this week, has been pretty normal. We didn´t have any investigadors in the church but our converts are there and so that is good. We´ve found a really great girl her name is Maria Jose (kind of strange name but common here) she´s our age and we had two charlas with her so hopefully we´ll keep her progressing. She´s really nice and really willing to read and learn. So that´s great. Yep it´s still a little slow with investigadors, but like I said before it´s really awesome that our recent converts are going strong, Camila, Grasiela, and two other recent converts are doing awesome Facundo and Myriam. I love teaching and helping them learn more. The family Vidarte had a break down with us, they miss Hna Vera sooo much and they said it´s going to be the same when I leave and that no other missionary will be the same, and they are so upset. It was so hard. Hna Yeates and I explained that we can live together again if they remain faithful and that it´s not the missionaries who can save them it´s the Savior and that we have to follow the Savior no matter what. She came up with a really good idea that for all the charlas that we have with them from now on we should just focus on the Savior and make him central. It´s a great idea and so I hope it helps. They are such a great family, It´s not me that can save them it´s the Savior. I´ve started really enjoying companion ship study. At the beginning Hna Yeates would ask what did you learn and I would kind of roll my eyes inside (because I´ve had this experience before and it wasn´t that great) and just say what I´ve been reading. But I started warming up, we started really talking and applying things we learned and it´s amazing. I found that talking about it and explaining the things I learn I´m remembering better. Which is a huge blessing, because I have the memory of an elephant. I just love the scriptures though. I can´t believe how they talk to me and how every chapter just applies to me in some way. I can´t believe I went so long not liking to read the scriptures, before my mission. They are just letters from Heavenly Father to me and it´s amazing. I learn new things every day. I´m reading Jesus the Christ right now and my testimony of the Savior has grown so much because this book just explains things really well and I really love it. I found out a few days ago that we´re not having zone conference this change and so I won´t get my packages for a couple weeks (kind of a bummer) but I still have a few remnants left from the others. Hna Yeates was having chocolate withdrawls so I gave her a bottle of nutella. Haha. Oh also, there is a new music rule because last change hna yeates and hna orme asked if they could listen to other music and he said whatever brings the spirit you can listen to. I was soooo excited. I am not listening to Motab again. There is also this new thing in the mission where anyone can send emails to the mission office and the mission office will print them and send them to us kind of like Dear Elder. So anyone can email now, the address is urumontemission@gmail.com. So those who don´t have time to write and send a letter can just email. Well, the great news is it is warming up. FINALLY. Grandma sent me the weather report a few times during winter for Florida, I was like thanks for rubbing it in. Haha. But, thanks again for everything. I sure love you all mucho. Have a great week. Oh how was softball this last week?
Con amor, Tiffani

Hola

Hola mi familia,
¿Como estan? I am glad you all are doing well. Thanks for the emails Dad, Mom, Nikki, and Kim. I am glad you guys won one of the games, I am still waiting for my jersey...haha. Well, the past few days have been good, a little stressful, but good. Hermana Vera had an incredible memory and so I just kind of followed her around La Paz, but now it´s my turn and we´ve only gotten lost a few times. haha. I am so glad Hna Yeates is my comp. I guess the biggest thing we´ve done is on friday we recieved a text to come to house of one of the members so we had time and she said she wanted to feed us french toast and maple syrup but all the days on the calendar are full so she wanted to feed us dinner, well turns out that our lunch was canceled that day and so we ate with them. It was fantastic, I think I´ll call it american toast. Anyways, she served a mission in california and she is teaching her husband english and they read the scriptures in english together and so they asked us if we would teach in english. So we´re like...okay and then we taught the plan of salvation in english. It was soooo wierd and soooo hard. I couldn´t believe it. I kept plugging in spanish words and hna yeates was struggling to. It was a good experience. We haven´t taught in english since the mtc and we did it together. Two weeks ago in english class, they asked me to say a prayer in english, it was the hardest thing ever. I ended up ending the prayer in spanish. I could not talk. I think it will be really funny when I get home, if I am already struggling to teach and pray and english. They want to us to practice on them more so we might do it once a week or once every couple of weeks. She loves american food, so I´m going to give her some ranch packets. There are actually a lot of people that know about it here and so I gave some ranch packets before to a family that lived in utah for little bit. They´re funny they´re like what are we going to do when you go. On friday and saturday the weather was amazing it was just like spring or summer, it was perfect I didn´t need a coat, scarf, gloves, sweater, etc. I just wore a short sleave shirt. And then on Sunday it dumped, and I mean dumped on us rain. We had 30 people in church, so it was a lot of fun walking all day in the rain. I really don´t like the rain. But today it is warm again. Every year in the end of winter they have a little summer for like a week or two weeks and it´s just like summer and then it will be cold again, so it´s great. I am sure grateful I only have one winter here. On monday we found a really great girl, Allison who is really mature for her age,she is 12, has a hard life, and so we went back on friday and then again on Sunday and she is so awesome, she´s like drinking it all up. And she prayed for the first time out loud yesterday and it was such a simple pretty prayer. I´m really excited to be teaching her. Well, thanks for the emails again and everything. I hope you all have a great week. I love you all mucho.
con amor, Tiffani