Anybody Home?

Dear Family,

Pouch mail instructions: the church provides pouch mail ervice to your mission. Items sent by pouch mail use the US postal servis from your location to church headquarters, where they are forwarded to the missionary by a private courioer along with other church mail. Pouch mail leaves church hq every friday. Only postcards or one-page correspondences (no envelopes) written on one wide of the page may be sent through the pouch. Notebook or other light-weight paper will not process throught the USPS machines. Photographs are not acceptable. 

Letter Folding instructions: lay the letter blank side down. Fold the bottom of the letter about one third of the way up the page and crease. Fold the top of the letter to the bottom of the first fold and crease. Secure the long side with two ppeices of tape and one inch in from each end, but do not seal the ends. In the top left corner write your name and complete return address. Affix first class postage in the top right corner. In the middle write the missionary address as follows:

Sister Christina Marie Phillips

Uruguay Montevideo Mission

POB 30150

Salt Lake City UT 84130-0150

This is one option. The other is to send mail to this address (I would recommend this):

Centro Capacitacion Misional

El Tupe 4950

Ciudad Evita B 1778

Buenos Aires, Argentina

The CCM cannot receive packages.

Phew, now that that´s over...

I am SOOO glad to hear from you! I was so terrified that something awful had happened after I didn´t here from you, but I knew it was more likely that my email had just gone to the junk mail folder. All is well now, and I am so relieved. I´m sorry to hear about the car! That´s really frustrating. Give Ethan and Ryker and everyone a hug and a kiss from me. I love you! SOOO MUCH.

I didn´t know how much of a rebel I was until I suddenly have so many rules to follow. Don´t get me wrong-- I love structure. But I also like doing my own thing. It is all for my good, I know, it just gets under my skin sometimes. Also, I always used to hear returned sister missionaries talk about how annoying it is to have to work with all these 19 year old boys, but I am actually really enjoying good friendships with all of the elders here. The only really annoying one is 25.

There is so much dulce de leche here! It´s kind of ridiculous. It´s like the elders are having a contest to see  how much they can eat in one sitting. After dinner they´ll pile it on bananas and each one will eat about 11/2 cups of dulce. It´s facinating to watch.

I am learning Spanish faster than I ever thought possible. I won't try to write in spanish at the moment because I'm pressed for time, though. It really helps that both of my roommates are from Chile and there are very few English-speakers here. Get this: There is an Elder Phillips here. He's from Britain.

I love my companion! She is a great artist; right now she is working on a piece depicting the first vision. What I've seen of the concept drawings look really cool. I'll have to take a picture when she's finished to send it to you. She incorporates a lot of symbols, most of which she doesn't realize until after the fact :)

We are teaching two new Investigadores Progresivos now. One is played by our morning teacher, Hermana Arcos, and the other is played by our evening teacher, Hermano Morinico. During the first lesson/contact, H'Morinico didn't even let us in the door. At the next appointment he kept falling asleep during our lesson. I thought he was just playing a role, but Hermana Arcos told us today that he really has trouble staying awake. It's borderline narcolepsy. So that's fun.

We are learning to find out and administer to the needs of the people we teach. I never thought it would be so hard; I can barely do it in English, let alone Spanish. That's my struggle. Applying everything I know to the people. I don't feel like I even need to study the gospel so much as I need to spend time praying and meditating on what my "investigators" NEED to hear and how I can help them apply it. TIME. There never seems to be enough of it. LEARN FAST OR DIE.

I love you, so so much, and I pray for you all the time. Do everything you can to keep the Spirit in your lives. We had a talk today about stress management-- I think I feel more stressed after those kinds of talks-- but I realized that when I am stressed I pray more often for the companionship of the Spirit, but I fewer things to invite Him into my life.

I love you.

Always,

Hermana Phillips