Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Season 3 Episode 8 The BEST of Bella Unión (7-23-17)

Season 3 Episode 8 The BEST of Bella Unión!!!!
Last day with the ZONE

So this week was totally crazy but it in all good ways. The best things that happened this week have to do with just a couple of people - our friends Bruno and Cirino. 

So Bruno, he has been progressing so so much. He is an 11 year old with a bunch of questions that makes it such a fun experience to teach him. He came to church again this week and he is learning SO SO Much!! He is excited to be getting baptized in the next couple of weeks and we could not be happier for him. 

Cirino's Tabacco he gave to Us to throw away
Then we have Cirino, our good veterinarian, 65 year old smoking friend. HOWEVER, this week we had the chance to talk to him about the Word of Wisdom and after his initially shocked face once he read the pamphlet, he just looked at us. I did not know what to say but then he just goes "well this is not going to be easy"... The truth is that when someone tells you they have been smoking for 45 years I was a little skeptical that he could actually do it... BUT God is always here to help us all and he has defiantly been helping Cirino. We can say that after he gave us his big chunk of Tobacco Thursday night that Cirino is SMOKE FREE!!! I have seen the hand of God working and helping this man with his addiction and it is absolutely wonderful!! 

Bishop and his family
Young Women President and her family
CHURCH - So this week was probably the weirdest Sunday ever. We got a call for changes at about 7:50 am right before we were on our way out the door. Then we were on our way to the house of two investigators, from there to the house of another investigator and to top it all off we had three investigators coming from far away. However we did it! We all got to church and on time this week... The Bishop told the ward that I was leaving, not going to lie goodbyes are still hard. Then we walked them home and then we went to lunch, finished a couple of things and then we started packing up our bags and on our way to Salto. 

BELLA UNIÓN BESTS
1.  The Bishop and his family, I am gonna miss them running around 
2.  Tania, the RS President and her family. They are almost American I swear (I don't really)
3.  Nadia, the YW President... She kills me she is so funny and her kids make me laugh 
4.  Loana, she is just hilarious and her family is so missionary focused it is awesome
Young Women and Our Investigators
5.  Zully, I love her she is like the cool "Aunt" to everyone here in Bella Union that wants everything to be the best!! 
6.  Alberto, I love him. He is such an amazing convert to the Lord and to see him change and improve has been a great adventure. 
7.  Cecilia, she has been such a cute little person. She is 12 but she is 100 percent ready to take on the world and be a missionary in the future. 
8.  MANY MANY cows!!! 
9.  Soooo many wild dogs - wish I could take them all home with me 



Baby it's COLD OUTSIDE!
Man...I am going miss her!!!
LAST BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY - 
Hermana Sierra... She has been such a great companion and a huge example for me!! I have learned so much from being with her here in Bella Union. I can not describe how much I love her and want the best for her in her mission. Luckily we are totally going to see each other in Utah, when we are both at UVU once again. I LOVE Her and wish her the BEST... 

This weeks Challenge is to take the advice of our Bishop here in Bella Union, "to make the GOOD things BETTER... Everything can always get better!!" It is always an Adventure here in the mission. However, everything GOOD, always gets BETTER. 
  





BIG NEWS:  I am heading to a New Area on Wednesday - Fray Bentos, Mercedes. I will be with Hermana Wagner (which I met in Paysandu) and we are going to be 
Sister Training Leaders.  I am not really sure what this calling means but I am excited for the NEW Adventure. Here's to making Good things Better.

Love you and Thank You for all that you do!!! 
Hermana Sanovich 
P-day lunch with Hermana Huntsman (blonde) and Hermana Harker
Elder Black
Finally bought me some NEW BOOTS!
OUR DISTRICT








Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Season 3 Episode 7 " The one with TWO lunches" (7-17-17)

Season 3 Episode 7 
"The one with TWO lunches"

This week we will just jump right to Tuesday and explain exactly the lunch situation. A lovely member in our ward decided about a week ago to be in charge of our lunch calendar and to help us get more lunches from the members. However, we had already made a calendar and people had already signed up. This leads us to Tuesday when we realize that two different families are going to be waiting for us to eat with them. We do our best to get a hold of one of the families to cancel and they are just not answering, then the daughter calls and asks us why we are not at their house yet. This is when we decided that it was too late to cancel so we ran to our first lunch at about 12:15 we are eating our first plate of fideos con tucco... The Uruguay version of Spaghetti and meatballs. Then we are being fed another plate at around 1230... Then they proceed to pull out dessert... And in my head I am dying...and I am already wanting to barf.  BUT wait there is more - Then we run to the next lunch and she is waiting for us with more fideos!! And she serves us our third plate of fideos at about 1:00... As I am struggling to finish, she mentions that she has dessert for us too, a cream with a type of sugary sauce on top we fished lunch like champs and rolled home at about 2:00 ready to explode!! The members are awesome!!! However, this was just the first of 5 days this week when we ate fideos.... 


So other than our crazy lunches this week we also taught the coolest kid ever. His name is Bruno and he is 11, I think I have mentioned him before but I am not sure if I have explained how cool he is!! He is so curious about everything and just wants to be apart of the ward and honestly they all love him. We were able to teach him about the Plan of Salvation and he just kept asking the coolest questions to us about Christ and his Atonement. 

We also ventured out to Las Laminas and we were able to visit our group of four new investigators. There were more and more kids gathering by the minute when we were talking. It was really really cool to see how interested these jovens are in learning more about Christ and the Restored Gospel. 

Another little hi-light was church. We were about a half an hour late because we went and picked up 2 of our investigators, but it was worth it for sure!! I also had the chance to speak about Families in Sacrament Meeting, which was amazing! I love my family so much as well as my little Uruguayan Familia here too...

Welp Desafio - (Well to the Challenge) I learned this week that everything is good in moderation. For example...the spaghetti is good until you overindulge like we did. (not on purpose) Over time little things become big things when we use our time wisely on them... I hope that makes sense, so this week please do everything that you usually do and watch how you are spending your time on the things that maybe you could cut back on...to not overindulge on... However, the scriptures are not something that you are ever going to spend too much time on... HINT HINT 



I love you guys and hope you have a great week!!!

Love,
Hermana Cassidy Sanovich 

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Season 3 Episode 6 "The people that are suppose to hate us...actually want to listen to US" (7-10-17)

Another pic from the baptism of  Cecilia
Season 3 Episode 6 "The people that are suppose to hate us...actually want to listen to US"

So this week has been another crazy one but we have had some great adventures and met some very awesome people. I think the best way to share all about it is just giving you a run down on the people that we have been working with recently. 

A neat story for the week would be with Bruno - Bruno is 11 years old and lives close to this really neat store that we go to sometimes. We contacted his house one night right before we went home and his mom told us to come back. We were able to teach Bruno and his mom twice this week and they were awesome!! He was so interested in learning more, even though his mom told us that she didn't want to go to church or anything but was ok if he wanted to. My favorite was that we asked him if he wanted to get baptized he says "umm...´SÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ" 

It was one of the coolest answers ever. He even came to church with us this week and absolutely loved it. We were sitting in Primary and he was looking at everything and then says "this all looks really familiar, like I have been here before", he has not had any type of contact with the church before in his life. 

I ran into Nicol from Paysandu - It was so great to see her!
The ORANGE house - So this house has about 20 people living there and in the house behind it.. And three of them are different contacts that we are trying to teach, we walk up to the house and ask for 3 different names and every time we are there more people come out. I really want to know who all lives there and just teach them all. They also have a neighbor who looks like a Uruguayan JB wannabe so that is interesting... 

This is the coolest part of our week. We got on a little bus that takes us about an hours walk away (yes I don't know distances) so I gauge things in how long it takes us to walk there #missionlife!! The last time we were out that far we were able to find a bunch of people that were interested in us coming back and teaching them. This time we had 4 people actually come up to us!! 
That doesn't happen here people!! This is also one of the reasons for the title this week. We were talking to a reference family that everyone told us were not going to like us at all, and they were the coolest people!! I'm not sure where their interest level in the Gospel is but they are willing to have us come to their house again...so that is exciting! 

Some Funny stuff -
*On the 4th of July our RS president told me...
     "Its the 4th of July, Congrats Hermana Sanovich" (like it was my birthday or something?)
*Hermana Sierra got attacked by a tree (the tree lived & so did Hermana Sierra)
*I totally biffed it... (nothing new I know)
*A contact grabbed my hand and tried to show me his house (kidnapped) 

Desafio/Challenge - This week we have seen a bunch of little miracles after our own efforts. So this week I am asking you to put in some effort and pray for guidance and I know that you will also see the miracles. 

THANK YOU FOR BEING AWESOME!! 

Love you all,
Hermana Sanovich 

**Random pics from the week**









Alfajores "Bob" Marley style - Shout out to my dad!






Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Season 3 Episode 5 " Sierra and Sanovich VS Satanás" (7-03-17)

Wacky Wednesday!!!
Season 3 Episode 5 
"Sierra & Sanovich VS Satanás"

So this week was exactly the two of us versus Satanás. 
We were not in Bella Union for the majority of the week, had some cool experiences, some crazy challenges but......SPOILER ALERT we totally won!!! So there you go "Satanas" 

Starting on Tuesday we were in our lovely home away from home Salto to do some divisions. For divisions I did some visits with Hermana Valdez who is from Bolivia. 
It was a great day where we got to know each other a little better and we had the chance to share the Gospel while doing it. One of my favorite parts was when we were teaching a woman about the Plan Of Salvation, right after the lesson she told us that her son had committed suicide about a week earlier. He was old enough to have a couple of teenage kids and the sadness in their home was intense. However, when we testified about the love that God has for ALL of us as well as the perfect plan that we have and the chance we have to be together again. The love and light that filled the room was incredible.  It was one of the best feelings ever, to know that we helped her at least recognize that God is looking out for her and that he wants her to return home with her entire family. 
The Gangs ALL here

Wednesday - we were up and out the door bright and early to all get into the van to go to Paysandú for our tri-zone conference with Paysandu and Argentina. I was so excited because as you know I have some roots back in Paysandu and to see some of the mission friends is always a blast. The conference was amazing, we heard from all of the zone leaders, the assistants, Hermana and President Olsen. They were able to teach us so much and we were able to learn all together. One of the biggest lessons that I continue to learn here is that the people in Uruguay are truly an extension of my family and will be forever. I care about them so much and want the best for them. When we got back to Salto it was around 5pm and there we were going to head home...but Hermana Sierra became really really sick so we decided to stay the night. 

Thursday - after we finished our planning we went to the terminal and the assistants were all just hanging out so the four of us ate some Burger King for lunch (it was really good) then we were off on our bus. To our surprise we were welcomed home in Bella Union by Presidente and Hermana Olsen they were on their way to Artigas and decided to stop by and visit our little apartment...luckily it was clean...they also were able to see our little town. They dropped off some little snacks, we took some pictures with them and they were on their way to their next conference. We left our house for a little bit and found a NEW Investigator so I would say that Presidente & Hermana Olsen are Good Luck and should come by a little more often.

Friday night the biggest event that happened was our little trip to the the Hospital for Hermana Sierra, she was to the point where she told me that she could not breath. (very scary) we decided that we needed to get her to the hospital sooner than later to try and find out what was going on.  They told her that she is suffering from "gastritis" which we are not sure we believe but after awhile....she seemed to be feeling much better.
Baptism Selfie

Saturday - was the craziest baptism day ever... After cleaning the font, finding 2 frogs, filling the font with cold water, getting in the font to change the water, filling it with about room temperature water, Cecilia being late to the activity right before her baptism, Cecilia did get baptized!!! She actually did it and it was AMAZING!! The spirit was so strong and her smile was amazing!!  I am so happy for her and the choice that she made to be baptized. 

Challenge - So we talked at our Conference about "the need that we have for the church" but...really "the need the church has for us".  This week find a need that you or the church or your family has for someone and invite them to help you fill it.  As you do that you will feel the love the God has and the need he has for each one of us to return to him.

This church is true. I love the Gospel. I love being a missionary and helping others come unto Christ. Thank you for all that you all do for me. 
Keep being YOU and keep being AMAZING! 

Love you, 
Hermana Cassidy Sanovich