Thursday, April 27, 2017

Skibby sent the following email and photo on Monday, April 24, 2017.  I had Google translate her opening paragraph, but I don't know how accurate it is.  I will put it in italics below.  Also, Nate received his mission call last week.  Skibby is referring to this in her last paragraph.  Nate will be going to the Argentina Rosario Mission, Spanish-speaking.  He will report to the MTC on September 6th.  :) 

Date:  April 24, 2017 at 9:20 AM
Subject:  Ni hao a todos!!

Hola Familia! Que tal están?? 

Pues, ha sido una buena semana. El martes fuimos y recogimos mi nueva compañera, 
Hna Tang. Ella está terminando su entrenamiento. Me sentí mal porque tenia que salir 
de su primera compañera 2 semanas antes que lo pensara. Pero, estoy súper feliz tenerla. 
No tuvimos ningún libro ni nada en china entonces, tuvimos que ir el miercoles por la 
manana a Pavones donde vino la companera anterior de Hna Tang, y recoger una maleta 
lenisima de biblias, folletos, y libros de mormon en Chino. PESABA. [Hello family! How are 
you?? Well, it's been a good week. On Tuesday we went and picked up my new companion, 
Hna Tang. She is finishing her training. I felt bad because I had to leave his first partner 
2 weeks before I thought about it. But, I'm super happy to have it. We did not have any book 
or anything in China then, we had to go on Wednesday morning to Pavones where the 
previous companion of Hna Tang came, and pick up a suitcase full of bibles, pamphlets, 
and Mormon books in Chino. PESABA.]
I thought my suitcases were heavy, but they really were nothing compared to a broken suitcase full of books. But now we have Chinese material. WOOHOO!

Tuesday night Madrid played Germany for the European cup (I think) and won! 

This week we spent a lot of time talking with Oscar. He told us that when he is at church, he forgets all of his problems and feels really good. He likes coming to our family home evenings and learning and talking about the gospel. We had a family home evening on Thursday with Yuli's family. She is a member from Peru, who is married to a Spaniard who is crazy, but a lot of fun, named Nemessio. Apparently her grandfather is from China and she had some documents of dates of family members in Chinese that Hna Tang tried to decipher because the handwriting was bad.... Anyway, we talked about having faith and how we need to center our faith on Christ. 

We threw a birthday surprise party for Lucia (a member), with the help of Daniel and Fatima (Fatima no es miembro [isn’t a member]), and it was really fun. I really wanted Daniel and Fatima to develop more love by serving others, and I hope this helped them. 

We kind of had a talk with a Chinese man named Lin Yang Gon. I only understood the part in Spanish. He is searching for a famous pianist or singer to take back to his country and earn lots of money. He wanted our help to find one, so if you know of anybody, let me know so I can inform Lin. Then he told me I didn't look like I had confidence in myself. I was very put out. But we gave him a Book of Mormon, and we'll see if he reads it.

Well, everybody is extremely excited to have Hna Tang here. We pretty much live in China town. The ward keeps telling us about a Chinese familia that was here and we're searching our area books to find them. Look out for the new Chinese branch in Carabanchel.....

Hope you're all happy and doing well. Congratulations for Nate! Everybody that's not from Spain says they speak bad Spanish here. Maybe Argentina speaks a lot better. This is all I can say about the accents:
Spain: cuando yueve en seviya, es una maraviya
Bolivia: cuando lyueve en sevilya, es una maravilya
Peru: cuando jueve en sevija, es una maravija
Argentina: cuando shueve en sevisha, es una maravisha

They speak really pretty.
Have a great week!

Skibby and her new companion, Hermana Tang, from Malaysia

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Skibby sent us the following email and photos on Monday, April 17, 2017:

Date:  April 17, 2017 at 6:49 AM
Subject:  La Semana Santa

Hola!
This week was Holy Week. Everyone has been talking about Semana Santa since the beginning of January. All the kids got last Thursday and Friday off and then the whole week this week. It's a big deal. It's been cool to hear about the traditions and things the people do here. Thursday and Friday were a big deal because it's santa cena and the crucifixion. The Catholics walk around in a procession like the Ku Klux Klan. I haven't seen it, but I did see pictures of it, and it was a little bit frightening. I think the orthodox congregations have mass all night long Thursday, because that's when Christ was in the Garden of Getsemani. I don't know. It's really interesting to hear all about it, and it sometimes makes me think these people are really religious, but I like that we just celebrate on Sunday, the day of his resurrection. It's important to remember his suffering, but I think the resurrection shows how we can apply his atonement for happy things and improving our lives. My favorite part about the resurrection is that we can overcome spiritual death. Every time we repent it's like we are being resurrected spiritually. 

This week we had intercambios [exchanges] with the Hermanas from Barrio 9. They're awesome and we see them a lot because they share the church with us. 

Hna Rivera and I went out and got torrijas, the famous Pascua [Easter] treat of Spain, which is really just soggy French toast, but is actually all it's cracked up to be. And we bought some matching shirts. I have been wanting to learn how to make paper cranes for the longest time. I was going to email Heidi and ask her to send me directions about how to do it, but luckily Hna Rivera has been making them since she was little and it's like second nature for her. I feel like I was really lucky to get to know her and spend these last 4 weeks with her. 

I have been stuck in a trio with the B9 Hermanas. We spent 5 hours at church yesterday. My companion should come tonight. Her name is Hermana Tang. Crazy huh?! She's from Malaysia and has 2 weeks left of training. I'm really excited to work with her and teach some Chinese people here!!

Oscar is doing really well. We're working on the other people. That's about all for now. Love you all!!  Hope you had a great Easter and were able to remember all the Savior did for us.


Skib
This is Skibby opening her birthday package from us.


She is showing a little photo album we sent her.  She had asked us to send her some family pictures, and she specifically requested photos of Peter when he was on his mission in Finland. 

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Skibby sent us the following email on Monday, April 10, 2017.

Date:  April 10, 2017 at 6:59 AM
Subject:  Hola Familia!!

Hola Familia! 
Well, I'm sorry to report that there is not that much to report this week. It's been a pretty rough end of the week. 
There are lots of things that I need to do better and focus on doing better. I don't know exactly what to say. We met with a few people and went to church. It was one of our investigator's (Luz) daughter's birthday. So we celebrated that with her. Luz is awesome. She has a really pure heart. We're going to continue here trying to do everything we have to do. I know obedience brings happiness and that the Gospel is set up to help us all follow the commandments as well as we can. If you haven't already seen the Easter initiative video, go and watch it! I love how Jesus Christ always has his arms open for us. It's hard to believe how merciful he is to us. And all we have to do is follow him.

Love you all! Hope you have a great week and remember Jesus Christ and what he did for us:)

Hna Christensen