Hola!!

This week has been awesome! On Monday we had to go to Guate for my visa and stuff. And we had to wake up at 2 in the morning to get there! Hahahah. Because we live in Narnia. For real. It was crazy and definitely an adventure. 4 hours there and 4 hours back. on a bus with the rest of Guatemala. hahaha. Missions are crazy! I love it. 

Some fun facts about Guatemala. They dont flush toilet paper here. You just put it in the trash. Hahaha. Also people always have parrots just outside their houses and I think they are pets but I am not sure. And they talk! Hahaha. We will be talking with someone and all of a sudden a parrot starts saying random things. It's so funny!

We had a baptism on Sunday! Wooohooo! His name is Mario. He was so excited to get baptized! It was so awesome for me to experience and strengthen my testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel and the importance of covenants. 

Some days in the mission are hard! And in life. Something we did in a district meeting today really opened my eyes. We raised our arms out to the side of our bodies. straight for 6 minutes. It was so hard and it hurt so bad. we were told to think about Christ and His atonement during this time and my heart was filled with gratitude and love. Christ suffered for us. His arms were like that for 6 hours. And He did it because he loves us. Something I have been learning on my mission is it is important to learn and read about Christ and his life. But if we really want to KNOW Christ we need to apply His atonement in every aspect of our lives. To repent and become better everyday. To help heal us physically, mentally, spirtually, and emotionally. Every thing, every day should be helping us come to know our Savior better. Think about some ways that you can apply the Atonement in your life and then do it! I promise you will come to feel the love of the Savior and come to know your Savior more as you do this. 

I love you all so much! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Hermana Dibb

Man! It is so hot here! crazy crazy hot! What a blessing! Hahaha. We sweat all day everyday. 

La Gomera is awesome! Hahaha. I love the people here! They lie. A lot. Hahaha. Cause a lot of them dont want to be rude but they dont want to listen to our message. Some hide from us. hahaha. Rejection is hard but I am starting to learn to just brush it off, tell them that we love them, and then move on! As we walk down the streets the people always yell at us. Mostly they say things in English. Incorret things. hahaha. And they always yell.. Gringas! Hahaha. 

Everyone rides motorcycles here. And not just one person on a motorcycle. Like a famly of 4 or 5 on every motorcycle! Its so dangerous! But pretty funny to see! Also the dogs on the streets are a problem. We have only had a few that have tried to come at us. They are seriously nasty dogs. The street dogs are called chuchos. Ahh. They are so gross and its so sad. They are everywhere! Also right now in La Gomera we are dealing with La Safra. It is the time of year where they burn the sugar cane or something like that. But anyway... It rains like black stuff all day,We sweep our house and like by the time we get home at night it is everywhere again. Hahaha.It doesnt look like its raining down but it covers everything and makes everything a mess! Fun stuff!! 

So since I am training we wake up at 5:20 on normal days. But when we have meetings with the zone or something like that we have to wake up at like 3 or 4!! Hahaha. What a blessing!! Good times! In march Elder Anderson from the quorum of the twelve apostles is coming to our mission! I am so excited! It will be so awesome to hear from him and learn how to be a better missionary! 

So. Fun story of the week. We were studying and I went out to go to the bathroom and there was our little rat friend waiting right by the bathroom! EEEK. And so I ran back in the house and told Hermana Klindt. But The rat ran away. Ahh. So nasty. And then the next day Hermana Klindt was going to get in the shower and she stepped in backwards and her shoe touched something! THE RAT. Luckily it was dead. But ew!! So we had to clean it up and get it in the trash somehow. I am happy that we finally caught it and got rid of it though. We put poison out like last week. haha. Now we are just waiting for the next one.. hahaha. I love Guatemala!

Everyday I am gaining a stronger testimony of this gospel. I know it is true. I know that it blesses and changes lives. Including mine. I am so grateful for it. One thing I have been working on here is faith. Faith is so important in every aspect of our lives. On a mission it is essential. Faith and fear cant coexist. And I am learning to overcome my fears here so I can have more faith. At first I was scared to approach people and talk to them. In spanish. But now... It is not as scary. The more I do it the more I enjoy it. We always start by saying we are representatives of Jesus Christ and testify that He lives. We are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I feel so privileged to be able to be a missionary and representative of Jesus Christ. I am trying everday to gain Christlike attributes so that I represent Him well. Everyday I learn more and more. Everytime I approach someone I grow in faith. Faith is a principle of action! When we have faith we need to act! We need to change and be better! Its amazing that we are able to do this. I am so happy and lucky to be here sharing the beautiful message of the gospel with the people here. My spanish is no where near perfect. or even near good. And sometimes the people probably dont understand what i am trying to say. But. I know that if I am worthy of the spirit and they people I am talking to are ready, they will feel something! And that is my goal. Because the spirit is the true teacher!

Ahh. Sorry this email is so random and not organized! I love you all and hope you all have an amazing week!

Love,

Hermana Dibb

Hola!!!

I am in La Gomera! It is by the coast, about a 40 minute bus ride. I love it! It is the hottest sisters area... and man IT IS HOT! Hahaha. We sweat so so much. It´s beautiful though!! My trainer is Hermana Klindt and she is from Utah. She is so awesome!! I love her!! She is such an amazing example to me of exact obedience! That is something that we NEED in the mission so we can be worthy to have the spirit with us. We live in a little house and it´s awesome! I´ll send pictures. We don´t get hot water, which is a blessing. Because when we shower in the morning it feels so good! And this morning our water didn´t work at all so we ended up using a bucket. So that was fun!! The people here are so wonderful! And for the most part pretty nice!! My spanish.... Hahahaah. Oh man. I get really frustrated with myself because I want to have awesome conversations with people but I´m just not there yet. I am learning patience with myself. And also patience with the people. It is awesome. Patience is a Christlike attribute and I am so happy that I am learning how to be more patient!! Also in our house we have lots of little friends. So the roof doesn´t really cover the whole house. We always have little lizards running around the walls which is good because they eat the bugs. But... We think we have a rat or a mouse right now... Ayayay. So we are trying to poison that and get it out! 

My mission president and his wife are so awesome. One of the rules of our mission is that everytime we leave the house we leave with a book of mormon in our hands. The book of mormon is so powerful! I gave one to a family on the bus today and I hope they read it because the book of mormon strengthens families! If you read the book of mormon your testimony of Jesus Christ will grow! I know it! So read the book of mormon. Everyday! Another rule we have is when we get on buses we have to contact the bus. So we always go up to the front and yell super loud that we are missionaries. We bear our testimony of the gospel and then we walk around and get contacts. It was scary at first but now I am not as scared. Hahaha. And the buses are LOCO. Seriously. People are just piled on top of one another and then people come on and try to sell stuff and it´s just crazy. But so funny. Funny things happen on the buses. We don´t ride buses in our city because we just walk but when we go to meetings we are on buses for like 3 hours at a time. hahaha. Oh Guatemala. I love it here!! 

Two of our investigators right now are Mari Crus and Hivan. They have a baby and she is almost one and so so cute! They are both so awesome. Hermana Klindt and her old companion found them and they just are amazing. They both want to be baptized and are just waiting for the Muni to let them get married! So we are praying for a miracle and hoping Mari Cruz can get baptized this Sunday!! 

I love all of you! Have an amazing week!!

Love,

Hermana Dibb

Sadly:(, this is all we got this week...  She's excited and we'll hear more next week.

I left the CCM this morning and made it to my mission. I am so excited!! I write every tuesday so I will talk to you next tuesday! I love you!!

Love,

Hermana Dibb

Hola!

Time is crazy here at the CCM. Days go by so slow but wow... I only have one week left. I can't even believe it. It's getting real! I'm nervous but really excited as well! Excited to get out there and talk and meet so many people in Guatemala. I love these people already! Whenever we go out of the CCM I can't help but say hi to everyone and smile at them and they just smile back and are so nice. And then I have to walk away becasue that's about as far as I can go in a conversation. Hahaha.

So I got called as the Hermana Leader and that's been fun! We have a devotional every night in the hallway with all the hermanas so I am in charge of that. And then at 1030 I get to go around to all the rooms that still have lights on and say "Las luces, por favor!" Hahahahaha.

2 general authorities came to the CCM this week for lunch and then we had a devotional with them on Monday morning. The devotional was combined with the Guatemala City Sur mission so that was fun to see real missionaries that are in the field! The general authorities were both members of the seventy I think. Elder Christensen and Elder Anderson. They gave awesome talks and they did a question and answer part as well. The meeting was about 3 hours. It was all in Spanish so they gave us translators. I only used it for a little bit of the time because I wanted to try and understand. And I did understand quite a bit of what was said! I always caught on to the idea... I just didn't catch every word. It was awesome! One of the things I learned that I think is really awesome is how when we pray we need to have questions. And if we want to receive answers... We need to be completely ready and willing to listen to the answer the Lord has for us and then follow that answer. We shouldn't pray with an answer we want already in our heads. If we want to receive revelation and answers from God we need to make sure that we are willing to align our will with His.

This week I also memoried all of D&C section 4 in Spanish. It was hard, but it feels so good to have it memorized. The section is about missionary work and so amazing! Whether you're a full time missionary or not, it applies to you! Read it and try to find something new in it that you never noticed before!!

This morning we went to the temple for Pday. As we were walking in to the temple I saw someone that looked familiar and so Sister Rasmussen, who is in my mission, and I walked up to her and it was our mission presidents wife. She recognized us and our names right away and knew that we were coming to their mission. She hugged us and then we met our President as well. It was so awesome. It was amazing to meet them and it made us so excited that we will be in their mission in a week. They seem so amazing and they are so nice! In a week from today I will be meeting my Trainer and starting my mission in the field. Ahhh. It's crazy to me and I am so excited!

I love you all so much and can't believe the next time I will be writing home will be from the field!! Ahhh. Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Dibb

2 Weeks Left in the CCM

hola!

I can't believe I only have two more weeks! In two weeks from today I will be in the field!! CRAZY. I am excited though. And nervous!! I can understand pretty much everything.... just my replying is not so great. hahaha. But I will continue to try!!

Okay... So funny thing about Guatemala. Cars. Cars are horrible here. All day in class there is constant honking. They are not afraid to use their horns!! It's pretty funny. And they are pretty bad at driving!! 

So most days our schedule is pretty much the same here in the CCM. I am going to share that with you! We wake up at 630 and go play sports. Then we get ready and study. We eat breakfast at 8. Then we have class and study. Then we eat lunch at 12. Then we have class and study. Then we eat dinner at 5. Then we have class and study until it is time for bed. So... We have class ALL day. hahaha. For class we do different things. Our teachers only speak spanish to us and they get mad if we speak english. We study for investigators. We teach investigators. We have grammar lessons. We learn how to teach and we practice teaching with the latino districts!! It is very repetitive. Everyday. But I am grateful for it!! Trying to soak it all in and enjoy it!

So in sacrament meeting on Sundays they don't have a plan. After we take the sacrament they just call up people to give a talk on the spot. So we all are supposed to have a talk planned because you just never know! Well this last sunday I got called to give a talk!! My first talk in spanish!! I was so nervous but I did it! I talked about faith in Jesus Christ!

This week has been kind of hard. I can pretty much understand people when they speak to me but I am having a hard time replying. the language is difficult. And so so hard. My whole district has been having a hard time. And a lot of them have been getting lazy and not really trying. So my teacher shared something with us that hit me so hard. The mission is hard. Life is hard. When Christ atoned for our sins and trials and everything... that was hard. Christ knows. It's supposed to be hard. But through Christ and su Expiación we can do it!! I have two quotes I want to share that I love. I think they are both from Elder Holland. 

The first one says, "The path of salvation always goes through Gethsemene." Wow! Powerful. Life is hard! But if we endure and apply the atonement in our lives... We will make it and we will be happy!! I love it.

The second one says, "One of the great consolations of our mortality is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so." I love this one. I love it so much. Christ is there for you. ALWAYS. Ask Him for help and he will help you. I know this to be true. Whenver we are teaching an investigator and I don't know what to say because I can't speak spanish... I just bear my testimony of Christ and the love he has for all of us. I bear my testimony about what he can and will help us with in our everyday lives. Always remember that He loves you and wants to help you.

I am almost out of time but I want to share my testimony in Spanish. I don't really know how to work this keyboard so I am not using accents and it is probably not completely correct but I am going to try! haha

Yo se que la iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias es verdadera. Yo se que el libro de mormon es un otro testamento de Jesucristo. Yo se que el libro de mormon es las palabras de Dios. Yo se que Dios nos ama. Yo se que Dios envio a Jesucristo para nosotros. Yo se que por medio de Jesucristo y Su Expiación, podemos vivir con Dios y Jesucristo otra vez. Yo se que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador. Yo se que Jesucristo quiere ayudar nosotros en todas cosas en nuestras vidas. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen. 

I love you all so much! And I hope you have an amazing week! 

Love,

Hermana Dibb

So... This week has been good! Things are getting really repetitive which kind of is hard but oh well!

I got called as the Hermana Music Leader. I am the only one that can play the piano so I have to play the piano for sacrament meeting and devotionals and all that fun stuff... Hahahaha. And I only know like 6 hymns.. So I mess up a lot but esta bien. Now I get to choose the songs I mess up on.... Hahaha.

I have memorized the baptismal invitation and the first vision in spanish. And the first few verses in D and C 4. In spanish. So that's cool!

One thing I found that is funny... hahaha. So the word for fish is pescado. and the word for sin is pecado. So I have tried to engrave into my mind the difference in these two words because it would be so funny to get them mixed up! Hahaha. So many people do and it's so funny. "We can be forgiven of our fish." Hahahaha.

Also. Outside my window there is a Catholic school! There are nuns that walk across the school yard and stuff. And I just can't help but think Nacho Libre... Hahahaha. It just makes me kind of happy.

Our mission president gave us T25 videos to work out to in the mornings. Oh my goodness. I have been so sore. I am not in shape. Hahahaah. But! I am hoping to be in better shape by the time I leave here. They are hard videos. But it's pretty fun. My whole district does them together. I love my district. They are all so awesome and we all get along really well. We got more Americans here but they are obviously in a different district. It is weird having them here. We got two new girls in our room! Both from Utah! Really nice girls!!

I have been struggling with Spanish. Patience is a virtue that I need to gain. I just want to speak and understand. But I don't and it frustrates me. A lot. But something my teacher said this week really stuck out to me. He said that we were called to Guatemala to speak What Language? Spanish. So we need to speak it. So I have been trying to speak it more throughout the day. Plus our teachers get really mad if they hear us speaking English. So.... It's hard. I can't express my feelings and thoughts in Spanish like I can in English. But I know I need to keep trying and I need to try and work harder and I will be able to speak it. Patience.... Hahaha.

This week Hermana Hill and I taught an Investigator and we planned on teaching her the Restoration. She is really our teacher by the way. But anyway... We got in there and started talking to her and the lesson went a completely different way. We were speaking Spanish very well. And about something we didn't even really know. The spirit was so strong. It really taught me that we need to teach people, not lessons. And also... We might not speak spanish... but the spirit does. And the spirit is the true teacher. Following the spirit when you teach is the most important. It was an awesome experience and I learned a lot from it.

I love you all so much! I got some pictures from the nurse from our adventure in Guatemala City last week. So I will attach those! Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Hermana Dibb

A few pictures of their visit to Guatemala City Central...

First Book of Mormon:)

...

My awesome Companion

Views from around the city...