Panama

Her email is rachael.ericson@myldsmail.  YES, you can email her....Monday is her P day.  I haven't mailed a letter yet, but I think it is $1.05 to mail a letter to Panama.  

hola famila.  k sorry about the pictures we couldn’t do anything in the mtc since they took our cameras away. Next week I will figure things out and send them in my e mails or send they home.  My president is amazing, he is relaxed and I get a lot longer to e mail so now tell people to e mail. Did you get the new address Sister Ward sent you? Because it’s a little bit different and letters usually take 3 weeks to get there. Have Aaron e mail me part of his talk. I will be e mailing every Monday since that is my p day and its usually in the morning.  I have not heard from Natalie or Michael. Have them e mail me and did they get my letters?  Get on facebook and ask my friend Shantay Carson what her e mail is please, and Shaylee Williams.  

Well this has been a great first week, spent the first two days in the city with the president and his wife and had amazing food. On Wednsday we met our new trainers for the first 12 weeks. Her name is Hermana Fannin she is from American fork and yes we do get along we have been trackting a lot. I’m getting to know my area a little better. Its called David and its 8 hours away from the city. The first day we didn’t get here till midnight. So yes Ii was tired but was excited to see where I would be living for a while. I’lll just tell you this mom, you would never in your life spend the night there. Ha, I don’t know how I’m doing it. Yes I’m  sure there are millions of spiders but I don’t look for them and usually there are little bugs on my bed but I try to ignore them.  Ii did clean the place up a litttle bit, I have a cold shower every single night it’s great.  This week I committed to people for baptism, and get this, my area has not had a baptism for 5 months.  It’s crazy so hopefully they will both be baptized on September 8th.  We are teaching other people. There is an 18 year old girl and her family was catholic and for 2 years they have been evangelicals so it’s very interesting. I understand mostly everything, but I can’t speak as well, but I don’t care.  I make mistakes every day and I share my testimony.  It has been good weather though it does rain pretty much every day. I usually wear sandals.  The president is fine with it so most of the Hermanas wear opened toed shoes.  OK, the food here is amazing, rice beans and chicken every day in the same place for lunch. My companion skips breakfast, but today I think I’ll buy cereal.  I found out she was feeding me moldy toast a few times for breakfast and I didn’t know it until I showed her. Ya nasty, it tasted fine but not after I saw the mold ha ha.  But really the food is so good. The members feed us also for dinners. Last night was so good. We had mashed potatoes bbq wings and fried bannanas which are my favorite and a piece of cake which you know how I don’t like cake. Here it’s a little different. The cake is moist and really good ha. I don’t know how to explain, but most important I have not been sick at all since Ii have been here.  I have not seen Andrew Hawks. He is in a different area and when I was in the city he didn’t have  a change but a lot of missionaries said hi to me from him.  I think I answered most questions you would ask. But today me and my Hermana are going to visit her old converts. She only has 5 more weeks left of her mission, so I’ll get another soon.  Mom are you sending my e mail to everyone?  Well I miss everyone and I’m doing just fine. Don’t worry. Love ya all so much talk to you next week.  Rachael

Panama

hola happy birthday devin today, and chuck on Saturday. I hope you both

had a good birthday and hope you are doing well. ok,so last Monday for p

day my companion wanted to go see one of her old investigators. So I

went with and had to use the bathroom so bad ha, so I went out back and

the little daughter showed me to their rusty out house. ha mom I had to

pass, ha ha and that was only my first experience so far. We have been

teaching a lot of people and have four baptisms for this month but we

will have to see how many will keep their commitments. I’m still

learning my area and figuring out how to do things. Our area is so big

and when I got here the bishop was not very happy with the other

missionaries before me because they have not had a baptism for 5

months. So hopefully it will be successful this month. The members are

so nice and we get fed a lot. one day I didn’t want lunch so I mac n

cheesed instead they have a lot of American food I can get pretty much

anything I want for food but I usually just make French toast for

breakfast or cereal. How did Aaron’s farewell go? I can’t believe he is

already leaving in 9 days send me his e mail address so I can e mail

him.   SORRY this letter is way short but I didn’t get any letters or e mails so e mail and let me know if you are getting them. love all ya and hope

everything is alright. Sister Rach Ericson

Panama!!!

Here is the link to Rachael's mission blog. She arrived in Panama and there are a lot of pictures posted on the blog.

http://www.panamamission2010-2013.blogspot.com/2012/08/new-missionaries-arrive-in-august.html?m=1

Guatemala MTC

HAPPY birthday to Brooklyn and Savannah Releyea, I love you both so much
and wish I could celebrate your birthdays with you. Have fun in school
Savannah, I’m thinking of you and hope you have a great birthday, love ya
so much.  Brooklyn you are so sweet, I miss you so much and I hope your
water party is (or was) fun.

   So,  a lot has happened this week.  It was so great specially being my last week. Well, the day after my last e mail I had a feeling I was going to speak in sacrament meeting,  and they don’t announce
who is speaking until after the sacrament is passed.  Then you go give your talk 10 seconds after, so Sunday I hurried and wrote a talk for about 5 min, if that. And it had to be in Spanish so that was a little
crazy.  It was on an apostasy which I had no clue how to give a talk about it.  So I just gave an example about it, ha. It was 5 min long.  I did have to read it in Spanish and went really slow. I’m sure all the
Latina and Latinos were laughing inside, cuz I’m not sure if I translated everything correctly, ha ha.  Tuesday was so fun.  We went proselyting for a few hours just close by the MTC. The first door we
knocked on we gave a short message on the resurrection and she was interested and wanted us to come back.  We invited her to come to church but her family was coming in town.  She was catholic but still wanted to hear more.  The next person we talked to was a guy named Adrian.  He was so sweet. He was on break from working a vet. Hospital.  He was sitting on the grass with another friend we started talking about the book of Morman,  since he saw it in our hands.   Then he kept asking us questions. Hermana Francisco started talking to a guard and Hector since they didn’t know anything about the book.  Well, Hector kept talking to me, and it was so weird, what do I know?  I could understand everything he was saying for the most part.  I would never think of talking to someone in Spanish without my companion translating.  It was for more than 30 min, it made me feel so great. He told me about how the missionaries are teaching him right now and that he has been reading the book of Mormon.  Then he shared his testimony with me about how he feels when he reads it.  He put his news
paper down and said he wanted to read the book of Mormon, ha, so I gave him one.  We had a couple of copies we  were giving away as we proselyted.  He was so sweet and I bore my testimony and how I felt and he asked me if I would be able to come back tomorrow to talk with him.  But I couldn’t  because our schedule is different and its really for practice.

I  finished reading the book Morman this week and I’m so happy.  I’ll read it again and I’m starting
it in Spanish now. We got about 7 referrals the rest of the day so that was success for us .  I can’t wait to get to panama. I leave on Monday in the afternoon.  I have no clue when our flight is.  They don’t
tell us till Monday.   But when I get to panama they let me email.  I got the  dear elder letters from  mom and Shantelle.  Thank you so much I love getting letters, and it’s crazy how everyone is getting married.
Last  Thursday  it was our last time in the temple in Guatemala. I will see ya soon and hope to here from everyone.  Jacob I hope you’re doing better and Fernanda.   Do have any plans what you’re doing or moving or anything exciting i guess being home right ? love you both so much.

I can’t tell you how happy I am right now.   love ya  so much,  take care and write to me ha ha

Guatemala MTC

hola comó está. Hope everything is going well. Andrew how is your new
job? Anything new? Mom I got your package 2 days ago thanks so much I
was so excited, especially for the slim jims. Today is Hermana
Canfields B day. She was my companion in the Provo MTC and I woke
up at 5 so that I could decorate her bed and sing feliz cumpleaños to
her when she woke up. I bought her a few things when he went shopping
a week ago but I’ll give it to her later on tonight. I also had
the chef make her a cake tonight so I’m going to surprise her all day
ha.

  Thursday we did a session in the temple and it was all in Spanish.
It an amazing experience ,I could understand pretty much everything
I’ll go one more time next week and then I’m done in the MTC. 9 more days
left, it’s so crazy but I’m super excited.

  On Tuesday we go proselyting, not with a Latina this time. We will see how that goes. I’m excited and speaking a lot more Spanish not in the correct way but at least good enough for others to understand me. I’m going to work on grammar a little bit this week but it’s not that important to me yet. I’m not
worried about it.

cada dia enseñamos nuestto investigadors and it is
always interesting trying to figure out there problems and to teach
them the right thing, but we learn from our mistakes. And learn to teach
different every time. Dad how is your new job going? How is Jacob
doing? Anything new?  Aaron did Spencer Richards go back out? What
are you up to? Fernanda how is your job at Las Costas? or whatever
the name is I forgot. I hope you are doing good, I love you so much and
can’t wait to tell you all my experiences it’s amazing and I’m so happy
I’m learning so much about the gospel and how important it is for all
of us love you.

  My panama address is Sister Rachael Ericson, Panamá Panamá City Mission, Carrasquilla Entrega General/ AP 0834, Ciudad de Panamá, provincia de Panamá, Panamá. It takes 10 days for letters so you don’t need to send anymore letters to the MTC.

 I have to go love ya tons.  Oh and mom a couple of the Latinas really wanted pictures of our whole family so I gave both of them away will you send me a couple more when you write a letter thanks. Hope grandpa and pat are doing
better tell them I love them and I’ll send a letter to our house so
that you can give it to them. Tell grandma I love her and hope she is
having fun in Bear Lake. Say hi to all the cousins and tell them I miss
them and that I’ll write to them, if they write me ha, since I don’t get
much free time. Love ya tons Rach

Guatemala MTC

hola como esta This week went by so fast I don’t even remember what happened.  On martes the president and his wife took us on a city tour of Guatemala. All of Latino elders and Hermanas’ left since they were only here three weeks so there was only 16 of us nortes, but it was a
fun day to get out.  

They took us to the middle of the city and showed us this huge map of Guatemala made on concrete. Then we got to go shopping. It was fun just a market like Peru but I didn’t buy anything
for me. I did get my old companion from Provo something since she is here and her birthday is next Saturday. We went to Wendys  after and I was so excited to get a spicy chicken sandwich. I didn’t know how  to say no mayo in Spanish so I ate it anyway.  About 20 min after, I was so sick I wasn’t sure what it was from but I guess American food did not agree with me. One of the Latina Hermanas’ didn’t get her visa or had problems, so we were a trio for two days. She was happy to be with us for one more day.  When we  first  got to Wendys,  she said she was scared her family might see her since they live in Guatemala.  I was trying  to understand her, but  she said my family is up the stairs they had a clothing
business.  So I went over to the president and asked him if it would be alright if we went up to say hi.  He came with us and it was so cool to meet her family.  It was her 2 sisters and her grandma and they were all crying.  They are not active in the church but it was neat to see them together. On our way back to the CCM I was not feeling good. We were going to the temple when we got back,  but I still went.  I’m learning something every time I  go. The next day for class none of the elders were in our class. We found out that more than half of the elders were sick, too.  So, I’m  not sure,  but it was probably the food at Wendys.

 Bekah, thanks so much for the package,  that made my day. Ha.  My rice crispy was opened, not sure if
you did that on purpose, but it was pretty funny. And no, I am not the shortest. Most the Latinas are short but I am probably the shortest American ha ha. Thanks so much love you!  Mom if you have not sent that package don’t send it. It won’t be here in time before I  leave.  It takes about 2
weeks or longer.  If you want to send stuff send it to my panama address and I’ll  give that to you next time.

Fernanda hos is your job at la costa? I can’t wait to come home and speak in Spanish to yolu i miss
you and I hope you are doing good without Jacob I know its hard but my family is there for yolu if you need anything don’t be afraid to ask. Dad how was your first week of your new job? and what is it
what do you do ?
 Sorry, have to go love ya  Rach