April 13th

4/13

Wow! It has been a great week! The elders had a beautiful baptism on Saturday- after we did service cleaning the chapel in the morning! Well, yes, I do know that you love me and I hope you all know how much I love you and before I forget -HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!!!!!21!!!!!!  I hope it is an amazing day!

Well, right now, it is about 62º outside! It is beautiful, but will probably end up raining since we are in rainy season now

Well, before I talk about me and my companion...I am super-jealous that the Stake kids 

get to go to the Manti pageant for youth conference!!!!!! and yes they are just a little farther than where I was living, but still really nice! It will be SUPER fun!!!!

I hope you can see by the pictures that we are great! We have an investigator named Narcissa that is ready for baptism on the 25th and we have a new family that we hope to get them committed for May 2nd and we contacted another family on Saturday and we think that they are going to be great. The hardest thing with them is that she said her husband is a little hard and they are very Catholic, but no problem, we are excited to start working with them!!

We are enjoying this time that we have together and always, always learning more and more! Our next transfers are the 3rd of May, and she will head to Quito that Sunday and her flight leaves on the 5^th- super early in the morning, but that will be cool she´ll be home the same day! 

The Hermana leaders have a picnic planned for Saturday morning so that should be really fun as well!

THANK YOU for always having words to give me!!  I love you soo much and I hope you know how much I love you!!  I hope you have an amazing anniversary, and a spectacular week!! 

love you forever and always!!!!!

KARLEE JO

Dog followed for about two hours

Missionary loving dog

Anyone need a copy?

Elders Barton, Leach, Lopez, Mosquera

Funnin' with the camera

NOT the mall food court--ewww!

Us at the NOT mall food court

March 30th

Wow, what a week! We have been contacting and trying to find new people. We contacted an antiguo that we have hope for. Her name is Narcisa, and she is great, she just needs to come to church. We invited her to come with us to the women´s conference and she was excited to go and we got there and we called her and she said that her son came home drunk and she couldn´t leave him..but that she would be there Sunday..she didn’t come, nor did she answer the phone when we called her..so we will see. She has interview for the 18th but will have to be for the 25th cause she didn’t come to church. We have hope for her.

We also were given the reference of a part active, named Gladis, and she is super cool, she was super excited to come to the conference and to church with us and didn’t answer either day when we called to see if she was coming. Sad day!  Well, we had a few other contacts this week but they always after we talk to them or teach them…well, I´m Catholic! Esta Bien Hermana, we aren’t here to change your religion, just to talk and teach what we have, and after that, it is your decision, all we can do is invite! And if we are teaching with the spirit, He will do His job and touch their hearts, and they will have the desires to keep listening to us and want to know more!

We are having a lot of fun! This transfer is a million times better than the last!! And from all she is telling me of Honduras, I have more desire to visit there than to come back here- ...almost.

How amazing was the general women´s session of conference!! I loved it, even though I ¨got¨ to watch it in Spanish. I still really enjoyed it and learned a ton! I loved the talk from Sister Esplin, her whole talk was amazing and I loved that song- families are of God! It was so cute!! My companion and I were a little trunkie after conference! Ha, ha thinking that our mom´s and sisters were watching it with us! -even worse was seeing all of the beautiful flowers and seeing the conference center! But, we are SO excited for this weekend when we get to watch it for two whole days!! It is amazing to think, that at the last conference, I was finishing in the MTC, and the next one I will be wrapping up the mission! How amazing an opportunity it is that we have to hear the words of our prophet and his apostles! Well, I can’t wait to watch conference with you this weekend!! 

As always I send my love to everyone and I am doing great!! 

No, we don’t have any sort of program with the youth, they have a noche de amigos, cada miercoles and that is always fun, they have members, less actives, and sometimes we get our investigators to go with us, we try –they just don’t always follow through on their commitment to come. hahaha and no i did not get your email, mom, in large letters, it is normal, completly normal! haha, 

i cant wait till i can go with my friends when i get home!!  

i hope you know how much i love all of you!!! You are all so incredible and I couldn’t be here with out you! I love you so much and am looking forward to watching conference with you!;) 

I hope you know how much I love everyone of you sooooo  much!!

Have a spectacular week!!

love you always and forever! 

your daughter and sister

Karlee Jo

March 23rd

Well, as you all know, we had transfers and this is going to be such a fun one!!!!!! Guess who´s here? You know it! She´s here as an Hermana leader and my comp seems super cool, she finishes this transfer! There are three Hermanas here in Rio Bamba that are going to die this transfer!! I am so excited!!

This week started off on a bad note, we were frustrated with each other and it was super hard, but we ended it on a good note! We had 31 contacts on Saturday!!  That´s the most I´ve ever had in one day!! 

I hope you all enjoyed your St. Patty’s Day! iI was kind of fun doing it in our District...and trying to explain to the Latinos why we had to have green on...ha,ha- but fun all the same! We have been working with a family and they said that yesterday if they weren’t traveling they would be there, and well, they must have been traveling since they didn’t come...but they said next week for sure! Wo we are excited for that!! Well, sadly, I don’t have a whole lot more to report this week...other than we contacted a reference from one of our investigators, and he is 33, still lives with his mom, and works with strippers....awkward!   It was super funny cause he doesn’t live in our sector so we took the elders to meet him and they were totally weirded out...it will be interesting to see what happens! Ha,ha, ha!!

Well, our house here is a little smaller, but it is very open and everything is in shades of white so it feels super open, really nice!  The branch, we had 127 in attendance yesterday, our branch president is super awesome, and young..like 28 but his wife is amazing and super cute!! The members have good intentions...just don’t always follow through on what we need. But not too bad! Our meals we finally have figured out and they are good so far! 

Well, I know there is a reason I am here and I am glad that I have the opportunity to serve!!

I love you all sooooo much!!

have a spectacular week!!

Karlee Jo

March 16th

March 16

Hola mi bonita familia!!! Como estan? Espero que todo esta bien!!  How was your week? Sounds like you´ve all been busy from what I could gather from your emails! But busy is good...most of the time!  It is better than being bored and having nothing to do!

Well, this was the best week yet...it only took a month! Ha,ha- but looks like we are going to end this partnership as friends at least!  It has been the hardest and yet I still can’t believe how fast time has passed! We only have this week left together, we think, we have transfers this weekend--on Sunday we will find out what is going to happen! We both think she will go because she was born here in Rio Bamba and this is her third transfer here, exactly like my first sector, so we think that she will be leaving, but as you said we don’t know what president and Heavenly Father have in store!

Well, this week we had a visit with a part active named Milli Cherez, and we were talking with her and she is 19, I think…if not she´s 18, but we asked her if she´d ever thought about serving a mission, and she said no, but by the end of the night she was asking us what she would have to do to serve and such, so I think she might actually be considering it now…that will be cool!

We had our zone conference this last Wednesday!!  It was awesome!  They had a bunch of activities planned to keep us awake, haha!  We had an English activity and my comp and I got to help with it, they had a person, well, stick-figure drawn on the board, and she had to write as many body parts as she could in English, only receiving help from those whose first language is Spanish, and I...yup, you guessed it, had to write all the body parts that I knew in Spanish, and I didn’t do too bad!  It was kind of fun, then they had all of the native English speakers teach head, shoulders, knees, and toes, then they taught it to us in Spanish!  It was fun and nice that we could be up and move and not just sit-since our conference was from 11-5! We went outside and they had chairs set up- it was probably the width of a basket ball court, and they had a chair on either side, on each side was a bowl, in one bowl there were beans, and we each had a straw...we had to, using only our straws, carry each bean over to the other bowl. And if it fell we had to pick it up off the ground using the straw...eww! But it was really fun and then they had us relate it to missionary work and how sometimes we give our all at the beginning and forget that there is still a long ways to go and even though we get some all the way across, many fall, and we have to go back and look for them to help them make it to the ¨finish line-¨ even though baptism is only the first step!  It was really fun! Then we had lunch, we had pizza and cola, and it was super funny cause Pres. Christensen was being so nice and going to pour us cola, but opened the first bottle and it had gotten shaken up and it exploded and luckily didn’t stain his shirt, but it was so funny to watch the reactions! After lunch we had a great couple of lessons by the assistants and the other by Pres. Christensen.

This last Saturday was the anniversary of the RS, and I don’t know if you guys did anything, but here they went full out!! It was amazing! There are 4 branches here in Rio Bamba, and each branch prepared a dance, like a native dance and had the full costumes and everything-- it was super, super, cool!!!  I have videos and pictures, but my card won’t register to attach them this week!  Have you ever thought of creating a drop box?  That way I can put more pictures and videos on there since they are very difficult to send...the videos that is! :)   It was really cool to be able to see some native dances and see everyone so excited!  We had a bunch of MA that were there and we had a new investigator, that said she was going to come to church with us yesterday, but when we called and knocked on her door no one answered!:(

Well, that about sums up my week! Not too bad!

It is so true, when we don’t have the Savior on our side, when we aren´t doing everything that we need to, everything that is hard, is even harder!  It is something that we are continually trying to teach people-- even though they say…no, I’m happy, we have unity in my family, we don’t need anything else...bull.  Give it a shot and see how much happier you could be, how much more unity you could have in your family!

It is crazy how much the mission changes people!  Well, hopefully you will be able to say the same thing about me when I get home!

Well, I hope you all have a spectacular week! Don’t forget to read and to say your prayers! They are incredibly powerful tools that are often to easily forgotten!!

Oh, and you will have to sign up to have the missionaries over for dinner another time! Ask them what kind of food they want...or you can surprise them... love you lots and lots and lots, for ever and ever and ever

Love always and forever

KarleeJo