My New City - Sister Justyce Oliphant

Written by Sister Justyce Oliphant, serving in the Mexico Tuxtla Gutierrez Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaking Spanish.

Hola mi familia!

I am so sorry I didn't get to write last week. As you know, I was transferred to Tuxtla Gutierrez. I am now serving in the Barrio Jardines Ward. My compañera es Hermana Rodriguez. She is from Chihuahua (very north, on the boarder of Texas. She actually was born in Texas!) She is sooo tiny! About a foot shorter than me!! I absolutely love working with her. She is 21 years old and so great. And a plus, she speaks English! Oh how I had missed speaking English! It has helped me with my Spanish because she can explain things better about Spanish and the language!

We got here Tuesday morning and didn't have a house. Our ward used to only have two missionaries, and now has two Elders and two Hermanas. SO, we lived with the Sister Training Leaders and took a bus to our area each day. We got lost so many times. We wouldn't get off at the right stop, or we would take the wrong combie, and we didn't have a cell phone so we would have to walk to find a pay phone and call the Elders or the Sisters or our Bishop to help us find where to go. I always hated getting lost at night. We got lost two times in the downtown area of Tuxtla, and I won't lie, it was really scary. It was dark, and there were borrachos (drunks) everywhere, and we literally could not feel the Spirit there. We took a taxi to our house both times, which was really expensive but at least we were safe.

Another time we got lost and asked a police lady where to go. She was nice and helped us out. Another time, we were trying to find the stake center for Stake Conference and got lost and finally just got off the combie to call someone for help. Ond one of our investigators drove by and drove us to the stake center, but we were REALLY far away from our area. Who knows why we kept getting lost!

Our new house!

But we finally have a house now and moved in on Saturday. We painted the house with Elder Cavasos from Monterrey and Elder Caldwell from Arizona (they are our Zone Leaders and also serving in our ward!). They help us so much! Then on Friday we bought all our stuff at Walmart with the Elders from the mission offices.  It is so good to finally have a house!

So the reason I didn't write last week was because we got lost and used all of our time for Preparation Day to find our way back home. I was really sad I didn't get to write you! I am glad you received my letters though! I sent them forever ago. haha!

Painting the inside of our house

Our area is sooooo small -- at least compared to my last area in San Cristobal! But I love it. Yeah it is sometimes hard to keep busy because we don't have a ton of investigators, but we are working on finding. And we work with the mission leader in our ward. He is a really good help. And our obispo! Our ward is small but its really strong.

I have learned so much about obedience these last two weeks. When we aren't exactly obedient we have problems, and when we obey everything, we are successful! I am so thankful to be here on this mission. Yeah , it is sooo hot everyday! And I literally sweat so much. I  am always sticky and I love showering in cold water. Oh and about the showers, I am so used to showering with a bucket and a bowl, haha, but in our new house we have a working shower! Yay!

I am about out of time and I just got the pictures to work so I will send a few. I love you all!!
Have a wonderful week!!

Hermana Oliphant

Transfer Week (March 3, 2014)

Letter from the HEAT (March 17, 2014)

The Tree of Life :)