Monday Emails

Hola mi familia y mi amigos!!Time sure does fly! We are now down to two weeks here in the CCM (espanol)! We are getting anxious but realize that there is still so much to learn. I went to the tmple today and saw an old friend from the BYU sports camps...she served in El Salador (Tays mission but she was there before him) and she told me that the CCM didn't really teach her anything (language stuff she meant). I hope that isn't the case for me. I know I don't know much and I know I am in for a rude awakening but I hope I have learned something!Jake Brandenburg came by and said hi the other day...He volunteers every thursday for one of his friends classes and found out I was just upstairs. It was good to see a familiar face but totally weird at the same time. He had this girl with him who asked me if I knew this other sister going to Argentina..she actually is going to be Hermana SybrowsKy's comp when we head out cause they are going to the same mission (Ask Brandon if he knew a Sybrowsky in his mission cause her bro served in Campinas around the same time). I told her yes and she wrote a little note to this girl. I found her and when I gave the note she started to cry. She said this was an answer to her prayers...the girl that wrote the note isn't a member and she hadn't been able to find her address. She was afraid she lost her chance to testify of the truthfullness of the gospel to this non-member. The lord works in mysterious ways! I am glad he was able to get these two connect through my old childhood crush :) haha. Our companionship continues to grow everyday. I am so thankful for these girls and their example to me. We have a little discussion the other night about trust and I realized how little of trust I had allowed myself to give them. I never reall thought I was not trusting of people but looking back on my life I see that I have slowly but surely lost trust in people. Failed relationships can do that to people. We have to learn to trust people. If we don't we will never be able to really let people in. We need to have trust in our Savoir and if we do that we will learn to trust others. For some bad news... I have put on some weight. I have had to just deal with it. It totally sucks but at the same time I realize it just doesn't matter. Plus all you do is sit and eat here, maybe once in a while you hit up the gym for 30 min. In just two weeks i will be walking the streets of Argentina sweating everything off!!!So I heard that getting packages to Argentina is totally not affective. They make you pay half of the cost when it gets there, thats if it gets there. So I am going to need those shoes now. I am going to be sending some stuff home too because I am learning more and more about the conditions there and I prob wont need some of the things I have. Thank you so much for the package with nuts and dried fruit! I LOVE IT!The church is true!!! Keep being a missionary! Love everyone around you like Christ would! I love you all. I am so grateful to be here and I realize how LUCKY I am!Keep writing!
Hermana Redfern

So! well big news. Ihave just been changed to Zona Bosque, which is part of tampico. Im in Altamira, which is like a litte city itself on the border of tampico- Ive been in victoria so long i kind of forgotten how big things are. Victoria is a decent sized city, or so i thought, but i forgot how big tampico really is.. its crazy! It was like 3 and a half hours here. My comps name is Elder Melendrez, hes got 14 month in the mish. We actually live in a house with two more elders on the second story of a different house. Its way better than my last house. And tomorrow the other comp who lives with us. (elder oliveros) is getting a gringo brand new from the mtc. So it will be cool to be able to help him through those first ruff couple patches. It was cool too see a bunch of elders today. I saw Elder Ngatuvai who is from my generation o sea was with me in the MTC and it was awesome. He says i look skinnier. great. ha. But the area is pretty cool. well i havent really seen any of it. But it seems like we can get some work done. My comp already has 4 and a half months here. So he will know the area really well and than he will leave next transfer. Hes from baja california. It was weird leaving my last area. On sunday, being my birthday, last day, and easter, i had two flan cakes and another cake from different families haha. Erika, the golden convert, was one. Her and her siblings made me a present and she cried when i left. It was kinda sad to leave the area, but its also cool to start over again. Meet new people. So i hope everyone had an amazing easter. the last week was hard to find a lot of week because it was vacations for everyone and like half our area and almost all our investigatos left afueras. yea i got MAIL again! Wow the support i get from fam and friends is priceless, i could never thank you enough. (man i cant believe elder sanchez is training again. tiene q hablar bastante!. What a thug! but if someone can send me his mailing address one more time, not the salt lake one, but his mision adress, itd be appreciated, because he sent me a letter, but it doesnt seems like the adress was complete.) But hopefully next weeks ill have some more updates about the area and who we are teaching.

Love you all! Elder Redfern