my dear beloved

 hey guys!!! some things that have happened since my last email:

-my bolivian roommate learned how to say "my dear beloved" and now everytime we leave the house she says "chou my dear beloveds". so cute🫶🫶

-elder suarez visited our mission! i got to shake his hand!!!! he talked to us about urgency and how we are developing spiritual resilience that will last us the rest of our lives. it was so cool to feel the authority and love radiating from him

- we came to the realization that uruguay is really quite close to antarctica and the weather feels like it. its a humid cold that attacks and enters every pore 😁😁

- got to stay in a hotel in montevideo to do migraciones, felt boujee 

- weeee are the champiooonss, uruguay won a really big worldwide soccer tournament 🤘🤘

-the members here are the best, a few of my favs are blanca (93 yr old who sweetly bullies our friends into accepting the gospel) and eliana (who has a glass she will break when i get married, i got it for her bc the other glass was broken by unfortunate and accidental contact with my forehead)

My testimoy of God's love for and awareness of us grows every day! I love you guys!

💌hermana webb

updates

 hey guys!!

i'm still here in Chuy WITH MY SAME COMP which is so fun and so out of character for my mission president!! 

But a lot has happened, here are some things i love about my area and some things i don't love quite as much:

☆don't love:

-macumba: black magic practiced in brazil that involves animal sacrifices and luring people with food?? I dont really know that much about it but we walked past a sacrificed dog one time and that was really horrible.

-our house is infested with worms

-just lots of bugs overall. one time i was in the middle of bearing my testimony to our friend when my comp just started screaming and frantically pointing at my back. she started swatting me and i saw that the biggest beetle i have ever seen had fallen on me :) 

☆ LOVE

-lots of acai here and i'm addicted

-living with 4 hermanas! i have so much fun talking with them and trying to help them bake stuff! 

-our recent converts!! last transfer i was really able to see how the gospel changes people's lives and shapes them into more joyful people. we've seen amazing changes in our friends blanca and monica, in their process of conversion they've become so much happier! they smile more, they use softer voices with their loved ones, they sleep easier, they're more loving and open. literally unrecognizable from our first visits with them. and then we've had other friends that had these huge dramatic miracles where the answer to their prayers was just right in front of their faces, and we were so sad and confused why these friends didn't progress. but i've learned that the real miracle of the gospel is the little changes that Christ works in us until we become better people, more like Him.

love you guys!!

💌 hermana webb

Bom día

 helloooo my dearest people

Transfers happened!! I'm in an área called chuy thats HALF IN BRAZIL. So on top of spanish i'm hearing portugaise. I really really love it! I'm with the sweetest comp, hermana fife and we've been working hard and having so much fun together! 

Also happy late easter!! Matthew 28:5-8 is bomb!!

holiiiiissss!!

what's up guys

big news from like 3 weeks ago: i got transferred! My new area is called Lomas de Solymar and if that doesn't sound like a kingdom from a children's fantasy book i don't know what does.

My comp and i are both new in lomas and we're the first hermanas they've had in like 20 yrs, which we found out when they gave us a round of applause after we walked in to a ward dinner. The ward is really great, there's a ton of youth who are excited ab missionary work and really willing to come to lessons with us, super rare. Also this area is right on the beach which is a win. 

I'm getting way more comfortable with spanish, this week a half-deaf woman thought i was from Uruguay!! I was immensely flattered.

If you haven't watched the Book of Mormon video for 3 Nephi 17 you really should, it's very precious. It really communicates Christ's love and mercy and joy and just wow it's really good.

have a great week! and tell me about it!!

💌hna webb

 

Pics: bizcochos on the bus in montevideo, one of my fav members, my comp and i are both peñarol and absolutely freaked when we found out they have a practice field in our area, there's pink trees everywhere that i love, me at the beach, a cottage i WILL MOVE INTO after the mish

nuns and not knowing

 helloooo!!!

♡ i'm coming to the end of this transfer so I just wanted to give you guys an update of how everything's going. Probably the most significant event: I met a nun!!! We've been wanting to talk to the nuns of carmen for 4ever and then one day we just crossed paths with one perfectly! Her name is Darlin, she's from Nicaragua, and she's the sweetest person I've ever met. I think she was really confused by why we wanted a picture but we bonded over our preaching-ness. And a few days ago she asked a member about us and how we're doing so I think we're officially friends!!!

♡ we were talking to one of our friends and we were like "oh my gosh it's your birthday tomorrow?!!" and she said "si Dios quiere🤷‍♀️". And that is the mindset I would like to have. Also way less frustrating than when we ask ppl to come to church and they say "si Dios quiere" and I'm like "bruh I already know He does!!!!!"

♡ We had an activity for Sociedad de Socorro and it was genuinely the most fun I've had in a while. I included a pic of the soc soc president rolling torta dough with a Corona bottle, absolute serve.

♡ got to hang out with my district this week! I'm measuring my Spanish by how many of their jokes I get and I definitely laughed a lot so that's good! 

♡ My dearest trainer hna israelsen is going home and we held a despedida for her! The rama is like a little family and they sent her off with a lot of love. I'm gonna miss Hna Mia, she taught me so much about following the Spirit and communicating Christlike love. And she's killed so many insects for me, I don't know what I'm gonna do without her.

♡ i've been really stressed this week about having my first real transfer, so many mixed feelings about all the possibilities. But during personal study I opened right up to Mosiah 13:9, which reads "But I finish my message; and then it matters not whither I go, if it so be that I am saved". In that verse it's talking about 'going' as in dying, as in going to the spirit world, but I'm choosing to apply it to my situation lol. I'm still super nervous but I know my message is the most important thing, and I can share it no matter where I am. yay for the scriptures and the comfort they bring!

That's pretty much it, I love you guys and I hope you're doing well!

💌💌💌Hermana Webb

avìseme Quaker cosa

 this week was really good and i wanna tell you guys about it so buckle up!

○ there was a fire in Carmen! ahhhh! noone was harmed thakfully but the town was going absolutely haywire. We don't have a fire department so basically everyone that had a car was just bringing any water they had and frantically dumping it on the fire. I think uruguay is in a drought because people keep sending color-coded charts in the rama group chat and the whole country is bright red. most of the people here are farmers and droughts are not good for farms so we're praying for rain!

○I thought I would give you guys a little rundown of Carmen:

-people eat pasta, rice, and tortas fritas. Also there's a lot of pizza and hot dogs, weirdly. And the only condiments are mayonnaise and dulce de leche. I'm pretty lucky as far as mission food goes but if I come home sick of pasta I won't know what to do with myself.

-cowboys: instead of flannels and jeans and boots they wear balloon pants, keds, and beret-like hats called boinas(??). But they have horses and cows and all the other cowboy things.

- we're famous! Not really but everyone knows where we live and where we run in the mornings which is weird because I've never seen anyone watching us walk home or run. So I don't really know how all the information gets around.

○ this week we had a couple very swag experiences where we felt we should visit some ppl and then when we did they told us they'd been having a really hard day and prayed for help. We were able to be answers to their prayers! These experiences really strengthen my testimony that the Spirit can work through us.

○ our friend juan gabriel got baptized! Something you need to know about JG is that he looooves soccer, specifically one of the two popular teams in uruguay called Peñarol. We're talking multiple tattoos, flag outside of his house-- biiiiig fan. So hna israelsen and thought we would surprise him and wear black and yellow, the colors of the team, for his baptism! We showed up to his house that morning all excited and all he said was that they'd lost the day before. So basically we just rubbed it in. But anyways the baptism was really good, all the strong members of the rama went and they were really excited to have a new member!

○ I'm happy here! I don't like that I'm sweaty all the time and always have youth album music in my head. And I miss my family and friends so much that sometimes I feel like I'm missing a vital organ. But I've developed so much love for the people of Carmen! When I first got here I think the feelings I had for them could best be described as fond frustration, but now I leave every charla and turn to my comp and go "i love them!!" 

○ I met a love witch! ok actually she was a witch of a lot of things but she said mostly she helps people in their love lives. her husband was a good 15 years younger than her and kinda looks like Stanley Tucci so I'm not saying she knows her stuff buuuut...yeah. she showed us all her candles and stuff and was really nice, we're gonna go back sometime soon, so give me advice on what to teach a witch!

💌💌💌 Hermana Webb

Pictures: dog in church, cute dog, JG baptism, my district

Dos hermanas dos🫀🎄🤛🐑

 hey guys!! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope you all had absolutely fabulous holidays!! I'm not very good at remembering to write emails but here are some things that have happened:

♡ we had a choque de fuerza, which means that our whole district came to carmen to help us find people!! so there were literally 12 missionaries in this tiny little town and it was the best thing ever. we found double our goal for the day, carmencita has still not recovered. the Spirit was so strong, we met really cool people and just had a lot of little miracles where we were at the right place at the right time. hna israelsen and I pretty much just cried the whole day because we couldn't believe what was happening and we were so grateful!! 

♡ I've eaten a ton of really good ice cream and cake and oatmeal and alfajores

♡ everyone here gives besos, so you basically kiss people's cheeks to greet them. obviously we can't give guys besos and it has created so many awkward situations, every time some dude leans in and i just have to stick out my hand really fast and say "nopodemos" and hope they don't get offended!! but I really do love that everyone here makes a point to greet everyone else individually, it's sweet

♡ Christmas!!! We spent Christmas eve at a members house and our mission pres let us stay out until 12:30 which was hype, we ate really good food and then threw poppitz at each other and it reminded me of my family, precious. And we went to catholic mass with them bc my comp and I want to become friends with the nuns here🎄💒

♡ new years was pretty chill except there was a lot of fireworks and everyone was speaking a lot of very loud Spanish. I could understand most of it so pretty psyched about that but I still sound like a 7 yr old when I attempt to communicate. Everyone make good goals and listen to New Year's Day by Taylor Swift for me!!

♡ prayer is super cool!! It just switches up my mood so fast and I've literally seen the difference that it makes in people's days and lives. If you want to be happier this year and you're not sure how, try praying!! Heavenly Father loves you, He wants to hear from you, and He will bring you comfort.

choucito!!! happy 2023!!!

-hermana webb

tell me how your holidays were!! I love getting emails and I swear I will respond to them eventually!! my email is jorja.webb@missionary.org💌💌

Pictures: making pie for Christmas, beautiful moon. I found apple juice, rama Christmas party was robust, more nature, nice ppl give us flowers sometimes, last picture is how we usually feel😁👍