10/13/14

Alright, heres some culture info about Spain: besos. I love besos. Kisses on kisses. Super awkward when the guys go in for besos though. Also, i think that every single person in Spain walks their dog in the morning and buys a fresh loaf of bread. Like on average, we probably see 15 people just carrying a loaf of bread every morning (not wrapped or anything). soooo, my and Hermana Hemsley went and bought one this morning and made tortilla de patata (eggs and potatoes between bread) -yum!

Also, am I even serving in Spain? A laaaarge share of the people we meet with are from africa, the DR, Columbia or somewhere south. The sad part is that a lot of them up and left their families to come live in spain. sad. we met with a lady, mari dorado, and she started crying and telling us about how she wants to see her fam.

SO we went and visited a less active named sofia. shes from africa and stopped coming to church cause people are racist... are you freaking kidding me?? i love different cultures and i hate hate hate racism. and i can tell you exactly who it isin our ward... but i wont do that cause thats not what the savior would do..

aaaanyway, sofia gave us the most nasty drink i have ever ever tasted. it was called malta somthin from africa. grrrrroooooss. a nice lady, less active named margarita, gave us a huge jar of peanut butter (probably like 10 bucks) so that was nice.

Hermana Hems and i ran 6 miles saturday morning so that was fun. we also bindged hard core on brownies, ice cream, and hot chocolate that night. which by the way was fast sunday so cause we forgot to start our fast that night, we fasted from that night clear through sunday until 10 pm... ouch.

k, bennedette. her name is beni but i like bennedette better. shes craaaaazy. we did a musical number with her and some other ladies in the ward (me on the violin, hems on the piano). ive never practiced so hard for such a simple song. i wish i could explain beni to you, but just know, shes the craziest spaniard i know. i love her.

anyway, thats all - sorry this was a longer one, but i get going. summary: all is well here in España and the chruch is true, the book is blue, im a mormon.... it usually ends with jesus is a mormon, but i dunno, is that sac religous?

lots of love from hna lam

10/6/14

Hello hello!

Yesterday was my two month birthday, so we made some really buttery cookies for conference.. and ate them all. So good, so bad. But no worries, we´re going on a strict veggie/fruit cleanse this week... hopefully. We´ll see how long i last.

Its October so we´ve started to listen to Christmas music. A little early? is it ever too early for christmas music?? 

So, my comp had not only one, but TWO ingrown toenails taken care of the other day... gross! haha so that was grose, but fun. Heres the sad part, the next two days, we walked over 14 miles each day... ouch! I dont know if ive ever been so sore. It was like reliving trek. We need to find more people to teach cause no way are we walking ALL day contacting ever again. haha but we´re workin hard!

K, General Conference. So great right? Its like the Super Bowl for us missionaries. We got to watch it in English so that was a miracle. I loved a couple quotes:

´´though we may disagree, we should not be disagreeable´´ -Elder Oaks

´´Obedience is ALWAYS better than sacrifice´´ -Pres Monson

so good. I love the family. i love the church. I love you guys. The mission is good.

Love you lots and more,

Hermana Lam

9/29/14

This week involved a lot of unanswered doors, fired lessons, and long walks. The good news is we do have an awesome investigator - George. his sister is a member but her boyfriend, Asid, is not. We think he´s a terrorist. Hes been telling Emily (the sister/girlfriend) that if he had it his way, he would ´´take care´´ of all the american missionaries. he also wants to join the army so he can kill some americans. needless to say, we dont like to hang around him very much. well, i do, but he doesnt. personally, i think he´s cool...

yesterday, a lady at church gave me a rice roll kinda thing. i ate it. it wasnt too bad. but it was rice and pig blood? is that a thing? -ew.

also, i lost / the machine ate my debit card a few weeks ago and i bought some boots for the upcoming Winter aaaaand there you have it, im out of money. I love $1 bread!! Haha but all is well.

k, so my week was pretty bland on the appointment aspect of it, but heres a scripture for you all: Alma 34:41. its about being patient during hard times, and all will be well. I thought it would be appropriate for this week.

love you  all!

-Hermana Lamoreaux

9/22/14

Wow, its official, im a missionary out in the field.. its freaky. This area is called Vitoria, its in the northern part of Spain and its supposedly the greenest city in all of Europe so, needless to say, its absolutely beautiful here. 

My companion is Hermana Hemsley, we´re basically the same person in a lot of ways so thats fun. She´s a combination of a few people... Sara Boley, Payton (on one tree hill) and Mikun. She´s my mom out here. I love her. Its jus us in our ´´piso´´ aka apartment.. and its HUGE! and really nice, so thats fun. We work out twice a day.. pros and cons to that, but its really good cause then i can eat a lot ;). 

K, so church yesterday... that was the longest day of church i have ever had. Like no comprendo nada. Needless to say, the language is a very big challenge for me, but its comin, ITS COMIN! I just wish that it had come yesterday. 

K, so heres a funny/im-an-idiot story concerning the language. So everyone says ´´que guay!´´ which is like saying ´´how cool!´´ right? k, so were talking to this less active lady and im getting that she was talking about some kind of party and what not and im just nodding and smiling and occiasionaly saying que guay.... ya, after we left, my comp was like ´´um, you should probably make sure you know exacly what theyre talking about when you say que guay cause you kept saying how cool it was when she was explaining that her country (dominican republic) loved to party and have one night stands´´....idiot. i hate myself sometimes.

But all is well here in espain. Just workin on it.

Love you all!

Hna Lam

9/15/14

well, tomorrow i leave the safe enclosed gates of the madrid mtc orphanage at 4am. i keep thinking that its gonna get easier when i get out into the field, but im sure some serious challenges await me. i feel like ive learned so much and really that ive gone through so much but i havent even started! wish me luck with the spanish, getting a good trainer, being a good trainee, and all that kind of stuff.

love, sis L 

9/11/14

first off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUBREY! love you. second off.. this is awesome, im gonna miss the ccm... kinda. im soooo pumped to get out there, but im gonna miss some things about this place. i loooove my teachers a lot. my district is way cool and obedient. the other missionaries are so fun too. its like im running a marathon and im only a mile and a half into it... only 24.5 to go! haha but im so excited for the progress to be made.

k, nutella here is 1 euro for a big bottle. thats like 1.3 dollars. needless to say, everyone bindges on nutella allll day. and night haha. but its ok, cause we play like 30 mminutes of soccer everyday... do you think that will make up for it? last week for p day,, we played soccer for 3 hours! it was SOOOO FUN! im gonna miss soccer. we cant play it at all in our mission cause its liike crazy striict, but whatever.

so one of the teachehrs brought his ukulele and lefft it with us for the last week in the ccm so thats been the best ever to be able to play that a bit. i misssss music a lot. but i have my violin, so thats fun.

haha k, so my companion is a champ. shes beenn on an ´´english fast´´ for a week now.. like from breakfast to 9.30 she only speaks spanish. its awesome. she has a way hard time, but good for her.. shes only had a couple major breakdowns so i think shes doing ook.

this week has been fulll of study and fun. but theres a bug going around so im a bit sick so thats annoying. it literally took me 45 minutes to fall asleep last night, so prrrray for me ;)

also, i know you all want to send me letters so check on facebook for my mission address :)

 

love you allllllots.

hna lam

 

 

9/4/14

im a little sad to see the russians go - despite their constant bickering. haha really though, one of the sistras always called me her hawaiian sister - so i probably only love her cause she thinks im tan... ;) nah jk. i had another russian for my comp in the park last week again so that was fun to carry the entire conversation. its comin!

as sisters here, we are sooo pampered. like eveyone opens doors for us and they let us eat first.. s/o to jj_jarema.

the teachers are some of my favorite people ever. we all play soccer. again, i love love lvoe soccer with these guys! its kinda my saving grace... except we cant play soccer in barcelonna cause its ´´to dangerous´´...? haha but whatever. also, i miss my uke and guitar. other than that, i´m doing just fine!

its crazy out here. llike i had no idea. no one can really prep for the mtc and im guessing for the actual mission too so wish me luck in a coup`le weeks. i´ve never evealuated and reevaluated myself so many times a day. its insane. but its cool. theres definitely ups and downs but its all good in the end.

buuuut thats all for now! 

love you guys lots,

sis L

ps this is desi,her bff updating her blog, but look, she sent PICTURES!!!!!