Visa news...iphones and Michelle

Hola familia! 

I'm jealous that you get to go to Girls Camp together without me! Go and some cool hikes, play card games, and pull pranks in my honor, please! So the news on the visas is that they're starting to come! I DON'T have mine yet, but as of last Thursday Herm. Hales and like 5 other Elders including Elders Fullmer and Magdaluyo (from our MTC district) have theirs. Supposedly a lot of the visa-waiters will be leaving on June 17th and if I get mine before then I could leave on that day too. But even if I don't go then, it shouldn't be too soon after that that I go! 

As far as transfers go............................................................H. Hales and I are still together!! We're super excited. The only thing that will be a change for us in the house is that Herm. Marcum is getting moved to Hyrum for her LAST transfer, and Hermana Gaines is staying here and training Hermana Vergara (even though they've both been out the same amount of time). Herm. Vergara was in the English program before though, so now she gets to switch over to Spanish. We're so pumped to have her in the house now because she's probably one of our favorite sisters in the mission and we're all really good friends with her already! She's from Mexico but she lived in Utah for 5 years so she speaks both English and Spanish fluently, and she's just so funny and loveable. It's sad to see Marcum go, but it's also good to have a little bit of a change. It's a bit crazy though because Herm. Kreutzer will be the only one in the house who has been out for more than 2 transfers, which is stressing her out a little. But it'll be fun! So yeah, I'll probs be here until I leave to Mendoza. I'm really happy that I get to stay in our branch and that H. Hales and I get to stay here and continue to help the people that we've met here progress. 

Speaking of the people in our area, they're doing well and we met some new potentials this week. We actually started teaching two different white, non Spanish-speaking ladies because they're in the Elders' area but they handed them over to us because they're husbands/boyfriends are always working so they're never able to get in and have lessons with them. One of the ladies is named Jenna, who's a really young mom with a two year old and twin babies. We've only had one real lesson with her so far but she committed to a baptismal date on the first lesson, which was exciting! 

The other lady is named Michelle, and we're so grateful that we have the opportunity to get to teach her because she's gone through some pretty rough things in the past couple of years. The first tragedy that happened was that she accidentally drove over her 4 year old son and killed him, then a couple of months later her husband lost half of his leg in an accident at work, and then a little while after that she was diagnosed with M.S. and is in constant pain, and then on top of that she has a two year old (who was born with only one kidney) who she can't really take care of because of her illness and so her mom had to move in with her so she could help her with him. It's kind of a heart-breaking story, but the missionaries happened to call her on the anniversary of her son's death a couple months ago and so she decided that she wanted to learn more, take the lessons, and eventually get baptized so that she can be with her son and the rest of her family forever. It's going to be really amazing to be able to bring her peace and joy through the Gospel and watch the change that takes place in her. 

We also had a couple lessons that were a little bit more difficult. We met these three young Mexican girls one day when we were knocking apartments and they told us to come back another day when their mom was home. So we went back this week and were able to meet the mom... she's loca. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we've never had an actual conversation with her where she hasn't been literally screaming at us & at her daughters the entire time. Apparently she's a convert and she and her oldest (12 year old) daughter got baptized a few years ago in Ogden and then moved here but haven't really been going because they don't like the ward. So she was yelling at us and mostly her girls about all of this random stuff like the fact how her daughters aren't going to get baptized because they're afraid of water and she doesn't want to deal with it because they'll just cry, and then she went off about how she wants to go to church but she doesn't because her girls don't stay in there classes and about how we're the last missionaries that are allowed to come over because if her girls don't listen this time she's done with us forever.. and she yelled about some other stuff too. So then we told her that since she doesn't like her ward that she should try out the Spanish branch because she said that her daughters know Spanish and she wants them to be better at it, but we really didn't expect her to come. A couple days later, we find out that the English Sisters had been over there teaching them (well, getting yelled at) for weeks, which the lady had neglected to tell us. On Sunday, though, much to our surprise, this lady shows up to our branch with her daughters. Long story short, her daughters really don't speak Spanish so our Branch Pres. had a meeting with her and advised her to stick with her English ward, so we have one more lesson with her daughters tonight and then we're just going to let the English sisters take over for good. Anyways, the point is that she was probably the most difficult person that Hales & I have had to work with and we're relieved not to have to deal with her craziness anymore after tonight.

 This week we also had another lesson with this 20 year old girl named Dulce who I talked about a tiny bit last time. Her living situation is kind of...unique.. because she's living with her boyfriend and their baby in her parents' house (who have a two year old and a 10 year old), along with her 19 year old sister and her boyfriend who also have a brand new baby and then with her 23 year old sister too. Yeah. But she's really sweet and her Spanish-speaking boyfriend has met with the Elders a bit before and liked it but Dulce was always too tired to hear the lessons even though she wanted to. Anyways, so H. Hales and Vergara found her when they were on exchanges (I was in the English program with Marin at the time) and she was really excited to let us come over and teach. Like I told you in the last email, the first lesson didn't really happen because she loves talking, but the second time we were able to teach her and it went really well. We brought Beatriz Avila, the recent convert girl who's about the same age as Dulce, and she helped a ton because she had a lot of things in common with Dulce (besides the baby & boyfriend  part). She also has a baptism date though, so we're hopeful that she'll continue to progress and get the answers she's looking for. 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that I got to go to my first baptism this Saturday! It was for this 16 year old named Juan who H. Kreutzer and Conrad had been working with for a while. He's grown and changed so much since they've been working with him because he used to just stare at the floor and barely talk in their lessons, and he had really long hair that covered his eyes. But he's been opening up more and more as they've taught him and he actually cut his hair a little bit the day before his baptism and was smiling bigger than they've ever seen him smile before. The baptism went really well and I guess he wants to serve a mission now! Being a missionary is amazing because of things like that even though sometimes we get yelled at, rejected, and our lessons fall through. 

Another thing I wanted to tell you about even though I'm sure you've already heard about it is that a district in our mission (they're in Hooper) got iPads and iPhones a couple weeks ago. I guess there's 3 districts in the world right now that have them as sort of a trial-run. The iPads are replacing daily planners and area books, and now I guess they're even supposed to spend 1 hour of each day proselyting/teaching on Facebook.. Yeah I'm not exactly sure how that works or how successful it will be, but I think the online planners and area books would be super useful and so hopefully it goes well. They said that if it does go well that every missionary serving in the U.S. will have iPads and iPhones. I'm obviously not going to be in Utah still when that happens, but it'll be cool to see. Herm. Hales and I were talking the other day about how our missions are like no one else's because we are some of the very first under 21 year old sisters, we're serving both state-side and foreign, we basically trained ourselves, and we'll most likely be some of the last that use paper planners and that are out in the field before everything gets crazy with all of the new sister missionaries, new rules, and new missions being made. It's just kind of cool to think about that and that some day I'll be able to tell my kids and grand-kids about it too. 

So that's about it as far as this week goes. I'll send some more pictures next week if you tell me all about girls camp and send some pictures too. Have fun and be safe, I love you!

<3, Hermana Crawford

PS- I didn't get the letter you mailed yet, but it will probably come later today or tomorrow (:

Sister Power!!

May 21, 2013 Roy, Utah

Alright, well I actually don't have a ton of time to write this because I had to sit here for half an hour without a computer because they were all taken up, so don't be offended but I'm not going to be able to comment back on all the things you sent me, but I did read everything and looked at all the pictures! 

You guys are awesome. I did get the package and I love the shirts, shoes, trail mix, and pepper spray. No promises on not using it on the Elders though.. I wore the blue shirt to church and got a bunch of compliments on it, so nice choice mom! It's actually been randomly cold and rainy the last couple days so I haven't gotten the chance to wear all of the shoes and the other shorts, but I'm sure it'll warm up soon. Oh and thanks for praying for me to be able to get my Visa- I love it here but I would definitely love to get over to Argentina and start doing the work that I need to do over there. Tell your uncle David thanks so much for the letter and I had no idea how many people I'm related to served in Argentina- that's pretty amazing.

So we did have a lot of fun bowling as you can tell by the pictures. Well, most of us did. H. Hales got really frustrated when she wasn't doing very well, but Costa Vida obviously made up for it. It was kind of a frustrating week for us though because 6 out of our 7 lessons cancelled, and the one that we did get wasn't really a lesson because we seriously could not get a word in with this girl named Dulce. She's really cool and sweet but she LOVES to talk and it was impossible for us to control the lesson, but we'll try again next time. We're pretty used to cancelled appointments by now though so we're fine, and we know that everything happens for a reason and Heavenly Father's in charge. We have several lessons already set up for this next week (one's with the Toledos, who we finally got a hold of!) so hopefully we'll be more successful this round. 

As far as the fishing activity we had with the Rama (branch), we didn't actually get to fish.. We were supposed to meet in the morning and the sister missionaries were going to cook everyone pancakes before we headed out to a lake in Syracuse, but it was pouring all morning and so we had to cancel. I had spent 12 bucks on a one-day only fishing license, so that kind of stunk, but Presidente decided just to change the activity around a little bit instead of cancelling the whole thing. We ended up still cooking breakfast for everyone in the church building and then after they ate we played a bunch of games of Voleyball. It was a lot of fun and surprisingly a lot of people showed up, including some non-members and less active families, so I'd say it was a pretty successful activity. 

Exchanges yesterday/the day before were super fun! I got to hang out with Hermana Faasavalu, who's originally from Hawaii but she lived in Gilbert (she knows the Aiono fam.) for a little while and then went and played basketball for ASU! She's the coolest and we got along really well because she's so chill and funny. As I expected, though, we got a little lost... In fact, we actually lost the only maps we had a few minutes after we left the house..... so yeah, H. Faasavalu pretty much got a tour of Roy because we spent most of the day wandering around trying to find addresses and trying to stay within our area so we wouldn't be poaching. We were supposed to have two lessons, too, but both cancelled. Our only success was teaching a bit about the Resto. to a hispanic family that's here on vacation from Cali., and then we found an inactive Mexican lady who was friendly and is going to try and come to our branch with one of her friends this Sunday, which was cool. On paper it sounds like a pretty terrible day but we had a lot of fun together so it really wasn't bad, and Herm. Marin was there with Herm. Conrad and Marin is actually Faasavalu's "mom" so they were crazy together and the four of us had a blast during lunch and during the hour that we have to relax after planning/right before bed. Oh yeah, and she also jammed on my uke a little bit and she's amazing at it and wanted to steal it from me. 

That's about it as far as this week goes. We only have ONE WEEK left until transfers! At first I thought that they'd just leave H. Hales and I together until we get our Visas, but after talking to some other sisters I'm pretty sure they're planning on moving the visa-waiters around.. so once again I have no clue what's going to happen or where I'll be in a week! Crazy stuff. I'm glad you guys are alright and hopefully the heat isn't too deadly down there yet. Good luck with everything! I love you all.

<3, 

Hermana Crawford

Some of the Elders in our zone, bowling

The 6 roomies bowling last P-Day

 The score for my 2nd game of bowling...140!!! (the first game I only got 68)

Hermana Faasavalu and I during exchanges yesterday

Hermana Conrad and Marin (who I did exchanges with last time)

A pic of us after our unsuccessful hike a couple weeks ago

Crazy Sis. Burton with the cutout of her son (it's actually Mitt Romney's body with her son's face glued onto it)

An old one of me when we were tracting one day- we wanted to get a picture where we looked like we were somewhere cool rather than in the suburbs of Utah

Tess's scary story!!

Before you read Tess's letter you need to hear an update from our skype conversation with Tess on Mother's Day! 

Smiles all around!!

 Tess's cousins were over too and we got to talk to Hermana Hales!!

Tess said that she would tell us a scary story if we promised not to freak out. So we promised and this is what we heard...

One night last week at about 10:00 pm someone knocked on the door and they thought it might be the elders for some reason so they answered it but no one was there. Then someone started banging on the windows and the door again. This scared them and they went and got one of the sisters out of the unfinished basement (she likes to study alone down there sometimes). Their basement windows have no locks, or coverings and are easy to open from the outside. Tess knows this because she and H. Hales have climbed in them before when they have accidentally locked themselves out. So, after they brought the one sister upstairs, they shut the door to the basement, but it doesn't lock. Then they heard noises coming from the basement and we sure there was someone down there!!! They were all huddled on the couch and very afraid. 

They called the elders who live fairly close and they got their quick (one is from Scottland and the other is a big black young man from Georgia and they both made the girls feel safer). The elders went right into the basement and no one was there, but they could tell someone had been in there because the windows had part of the bushes that grow right outside pinched in them because someone had left in a hurry. So the elders, and probably others put beams and boards and stuff across the windows to essentially lock them and cover them so no one can break in or see in again. (Hopefully Tess doesn't lose their keys!) The sisters seem very sure that the culprits were some "druggie" teenagers that live with their parents down the street. Also- there are some people (i'm not sure if these are the same people) that yell profanities and such at them because they apparently hate Mormons and sister missionaries. 

In my letter to Tess yesterday I asked her if she thought it was possible that the elders had just been playing a prank on them. She responds to that question in the following letter. 

Even though the story was scary, we know she is in the Lord's hands and is being watched over. She had her companion, Hermana Hales tell us the story on Skype and so it was fun getting to know her too a little bit on Sunday. We can see why Tess likes her so much. Tess skyped us from a woman's house in the ward who drives them anywhere they need to go, whenever they need her and Tess said she is awesome. She's like their mom up there. They have a missionary serving too and had a huge life size cardboard cut out of his picture and it was behind her while we were talking and it was pretty funny. 

She is really happy and she showed us her super tan feet and told us all about the other sisters they live with. I want to meet all of them someday! She also told us about some ladies in the ward who have become close friends too and her favorite is a young mom from Argentina who has two little kids and invited them over for gnocchi the other day! YUM! She is very excited to get to Argentina though and had a little excitement the other day when one of the sisters in their house, who is extremely intelligent yet kinda ditsy, came into the house with the mail yelling "Your VISAS are here!!!" and they all freaked out, when in fact the address on the envelope wasn't even to all the girls waiting for Argentina and was NOT their visas at all! Oh boy! She said it's cute that the sisters who are permanent Ogden missionaries are as excited, if not more so, for Tess and the other "visa-waiters" to get their visas. They did get some news saying that they are still in process, so at least they have not been forgotten about!

Hola again!                                                      May 14, 2013

It was awesome to get to talk to you guys on Sunday. It was fun to get to actually see you and it was great to get to see the Wilsons and the Koskis too! I'm glad you approve of my accent and you enjoyed my tan. I love Jakey's new puffy collar and the other pictures you emailed (I sent you guys some too- you're welcome). That's crazy that the owl scarecrow thing actually works too- why didn't we think of that one sooner? Tell Chloe I want her to email or write me and tell me about her life because I didn't get to talk to her enough and I wanna know what's up. I'm happy that you guys got to meet Hermana Hales too- she's hilarious! But she was seriously on something that night because she's usually not that hyper or enthusiastic, I swear. And the lady whose house we were at is Sister Burton- I'll tell her you said thanks!

I really wasn't that freaked out by the guys breaking in, but I know for a fact it wasn't the elders and it was these teenage guys that live right by us because the elders have called the cops on them before for drug-dealing and doing other hooligan stuff and the elders around here are pretty obedient and wouldn't be out messing around at 10 pm. I wouldn't say it was the most I've ever been scared, but I can't think of an example of a specific time when I was more scared. I think the person who was the most freaked out was my companion, which is funny because she's one of the most logical and fearless people in the house, but she was so scared and made me sleep on the floor in Hermana Kreutzer's room with her. That didn't really help because she was too scared to sleep anyways and then Herm. Kreutzer snores insanely loud so neither of us got much sleep. But it's all good!

Not a ton has happened since Sunday but we did have a super long and tiring day yesterday because it's starting to get warm (I think it was low 90s yesterday). It's really not technically that hot compared to AZ, but having to walk around in it all day carrying a heavy bag and wearing closed-toed shoes makes it seem a lot hotter. I was wondering if maybe you could send me up some more short sleeved shirts and possibly a pair of closed toed shoes that has like a bunch of holes or something so that my feet get more air? If not I can just try to buy them next P-Day, so just let me know what's better. Thanks!

So we have a lot coming up this next week that I'm excited about. We finally have some lessons scheduled with potential investigators that we have (Alex and Angela, Winston, Dulce, Jazmin, Vanessa, & more) and we also have a branch fishing trip/picnic in Syracuse this Saturday, which is going to be really fun and I think the whole Avila family is coming! We also have exchanges again but this time I get to stay in Roy and another Spanish sister is going to be coming here with me- I'm a little scared though because I'm terrible with directions, as you know, and so I'm pretty sure we're going to get lost several times throughout the day, but it'll be an adventure. So yeah, I should have some cool stories for you next Tuesday! I'm out of time now because we're about to go bowling at Fat Cats with our zone (missionaries bowl for free). Hopefully it's fun even though the elders are kind of boring. I think we're going to Costa Vida afterwards too! Thanks for everything and have a fun week!

Love, 

HermCrawf

Here's the picture of our casa you guys wanted

Another pic with H. Hales posing in our bedroom window

Our living room (now picture how it was when the elders lived there and the carpet wasn't visible because of all the dead mice and who knows what else...)

Our kitchen

We have an awesome back yard but we don't really have time to enjoy it much

Here's a pic of our notorious basement but you can only see a small portion of it here. 

Here's one of my ridiculous feet- the tan line is more clear in real life but you can still kind of see it

Hermana Gaines (on left w/ pink shirt) and Hermana Conrad

"We're pretty much celebrities up here"

Hey guys!                                             May 7, 2013

Thanks for all the emails and for the letter (I got it yesterday). I really liked the pictures, but the computer couldn't read the file for the video of Jasper for some reason :/ Oh well. It sounds like you had quite the week though with the intense lax game, mom's crazy foot injury, fixing Jakey, Mom's birthday, and driving Jasper around in the car! And it's almost summer too! Don't go on any super fun vacations without me, por favor. I'm pretty excited for summer, though, because I'll finally get some sun! Although I am a little worried about having to walk around in the heat all day. My shoes and stuff are doing fine and I don't think we really want to do the bike thing so there's nothing that I really need you to send me as far as that goes, but I'll let you know if that changes. 

I'm excited that it's almost Mothers' Day too. So about Skyping, H. Hales and I kind of already had it figured out and I was planning on doing it around 7:30 pm (Utah time). I know you'll probably be at MJ's but that's the only time that really will work for us. I guess I'll just have to call you or text you before so we can get each others' usernames or whatever. Sorry that might make it kind of difficult, but I'll talk to you guys then! 

This week was a pretty fun one. We had exchanges on Wednesday and I was paired up with Hermana Marin for 24 hours up in Pleasant Valley. She's actually in the English program right now even though she's been in the Spanish for most of her mission, so I got to see what it was like to be purely English speaking for a day. Hermana Marin is pretty cool- she's from Mexico but she's lived in Idaho for a while and went to BYU-I. I had a lot of fun hanging out with her even though only a couple of the people that we wanted to visit were home, and we had kind of a rough lesson with this older Catholic couple. We brought two other Sisters with us to the lesson because the couple kind of scares her with their deep-doctrine questions, and one of the Sisters we brought is pretty good at handling tough questions. We went over to this couple and they were pretty nice, but they had our Plan of Salvation pamphlet sitting on their coffee table when we walked in and they started off the gospel conversation by saying, "we read your book (the pamphlet), and we have a lot of problems with it". Then they started asking a bunch of questions about the Fall and all of this different stuff in the pamphlet that they didn't agree with, and they didn't really like many of our answers so it was a little frustrating and didn't really go anywhere. I've had a couple other lessons like that in the past though, so I wasn't too thrown off by it.That's really the only eventful thing that happened during exchanges. 

The rest of the week Hermana Hales and I were just doing a ton more knocking. We still have trouble finding Hispanics to teach, but we have a few potentials that we're trying to get lessons with so it's not too bad. Just as an update, the Elders say that Melvin is progressing well and is reading the Book of Mormon often, and the Valeros came to church again this week, which is awesome! H. Marcum had to turn Marixa over to the English elders a while ago and she's been doing well too, but I guess Marcum & Gaines had sort of an unplanned lesson with her and her Spanish-speaking boyfriend and apparently the boyfriend is now committed to baptism too after only having one lesson! I was surprised when I heard that because I had met him once before and he really didn't seem interested at all, but I guess something happened and he's had a change of heart. Crazy stuff. 

It's pretty amazing how much the members (not just the ones in our Branch, but the ones we meet while were out tracting) are willing and eager to help us with everything. Tons of times we'll be walking and a member will pull up next to us in their car and ask us if we need a ride. Also, just about every other time we go to eat somewhere a member will insist on paying for our food. We're pretty much celebrities up here, it's crazy. Nothing else too exciting or unusual happened while we were out working. I did go on splits with Herm. Conrad for a couple hours on Friday and it was fun to switch it up for a bit with her. She actually reminds me a ton of Mckenna Crawford because their personalities are really similar and their laughs are exactly the same. It's kind of freaky. 

The only other exciting thing that's happened is that we (H. Hales, Conrad, Gaines, and I) decided to go on a short hike with our zone this morning to a place called waterfall canyon in Ogden, and Liz Avila (the 18 year old) gave us a ride and came with us. At the beginning of the trail there was a steep, rocky part that was kind of a short cut that we decided to climb up so that we could get ahead of the Elders. At first just H. Conrad and I were going to do it but the rest of the Hermanas & Liz decided to do it too. So we crawled up this big rocky hill and it was pretty exhausting, but Liz actually slid part of the way down and cut her leg a little bit, so H. Conrad and I waited with her while she recovered and the other two decided to go run and tell the Elders who had passed us. So we sat there for like 10 minutes and then Liz decided she was ready to continue, but she was going pretty slow and she took a bunch of pictures as we were walking. One of the times she like started hiking down this other little trail to get a picture of something and she told us that we should just go ahead because she was going to slow us down. H. Conrad and I started jogging up the trail, expecting to find H. Hales & Gaines along the way, but apparently they had caught up with the Elders but decided to just stick with them and not come back for us (they figured we were still with Liz, who knew the trail pretty well). 

Anyways, after a while of being on the trail which had no signs or anything leading us the right way, H. Conrad and I were getting a little worried because we were going downhill and around the other side of the mountain when they had said the hike was pretty short and steep. We kept going though because we hadn't seen any other trails and we were hoping the one we were on might start curving upward. So finally we got to a tiny little stream thing where there was a sign that said that Canyon Waterfall was in the opposite direction than we had been hiking for like half an hour... We turned back around and walked back for a while until we came across some teenagers who showed us where the real trail was, but at that point we figured that the others might have already gone back down to the car looking for us, so we just went back down to the parking lot and told them that if the others were up there that they should tell them that we walked back down already. So of course, when we got to the parking lot no one was there, and about 10 minutes later the Elders and other 3 girls came down and told us that they had been waiting at the waterfall for us for a while until the teenagers told them that we had already turned back. Conrad & I were a little bummed out that we didn't get to see the waterfall, but we still got a good workout and got to enjoy being outdoors, so it was still worth it! 

We ate lunch at Zupas after that and an older lady paid for all 5 of our meals, which was awesome. We told her no the first time she asked, but she was persistent and told us that it was ok because her husband was rich haha. That was a first. Anyways that's just about all that happened this week. I really do love being out here even though I'm still not in Argentina and I work 6 and a half days a week. It's so nice not having to worry about anything besides being a missionary. I'm having so many experiences and learning so much that I just would not be able to experience or learn in any other setting than this, I'm really lucky. We've got some fun activities coming up this next week that I'm looking forward too, including Mothers Day, so I'll talk to you guys soon and let you know what else is going on! Stay safe, good luck with finals, and don't work too hard! 

I love you.
<3, Hermana Crawford

Also, tell Debbie Finelli thanks for her letter, it was so sweet & thoughtful. And tell Jenna that I'm really sorry I didn't get the chance to finish her letter last P-Day, but I'm going to try and finish it tonight so she'll hopefully get it sometime this week. And I'm glad that Sis. Hirsche approves of how her FS is doing! I'm doing my best to represent my girls of the VV Ward well!