April 20, 2015

Familia!

Hello! Guess what?? I got two ingrown toenails pulled out today! Fun, huh!? I thought I only had one, but she found two... But she gave me a pedicure-ish thing for free afterwards, so it is all good! :) What a great day!

Fernando was baptized this Saturday! :) He invited his cousin and Jose loved it! He wants to get baptized as well and we are now teaching him too! The Elders had two baptisms the same day, which happened to be two young men, so we had a lot of support form the youth! 3 new young men in our ward. The youth program here is strong and they have friends and feel comfortable and it is great! Fernando´s mom came as well and loved it. She was so happy to see her son make a good decision. We are still teaching her as well. :)

Next week are transfers....... Dun dun dun.... I really like Escazú..... Maybe they will let me stay. :) I will keep you posted, no worries. :)

We went on division this week with the STL's! I went with Hermana Holmes and it was awesome! I may have cheated and talked in English with her.... Oops.... But I learned lots and will work on Spanish this week. :)

That´s all for today...... HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!! Love you all! Stay happy, healthy, and safe!

Love,

Hermana Markle. :)

Items of Business....

1. I ran out of things to write.....

2. I am really hungry....

3. I miss you guys!!!!!! LOVE YOU LOTS!

4. How is life? How is the world? Crazy stuff going on?

Fernando's Baptism

I got two ingrown toenails removed..... Ewwww..... these are the pieces that were in ONE toe, and the one from the other two got thrown away before I took the picture... Maybe they look small, but they weren´t. They hurt a lot. But now I feel great! :) I just have to put drops on them and shove cotton in them every morning. :) We had an ingrown toenail party. I went with 5 other Hermanas. 4 of us had ingrown toenails and it was lots of fun. :)

This spider on the wall was waiting for me to go to bed!

The Spider that almost ate me.... It was waiting for me by my bed to eat me at night....... So I killed it with a rock.

April 13, 2015

Hello! It is almost time for April showers to bring May flowers here! Or more like more showers in May. I hear that it will start to rain soon and then it wont stop until November...... Wahoo! Good thing I am styling some nice Crocs every day! Don't judge, you would do it too.

Fernando is excited for his baptism this weekend!!! He loves the youth in our ward and has lots of friends already! He is going to make an excellent missionary one day! We are still working with his mom, but hopefully his testimony with help slowly help her too. :)

We had Multi-Zone Conference this week and it was great! We learned how to plan and prepare better! Hermana Wilkinson sat in the back and looked through all of our planners and area books to see if we were doing what we should be doing... Scary! But I think my planner passed! Planning and preparing is a tool God uses in all He does. And it can greatly bless our lives in every aspect if we learn to master this skill!

I hope you all have a great week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! School semester is almost done!!! Keep working hard! LOVE YOU!

Love,

Hermana Markle. :)

Items of Business!

1. I GOT THE PACKAGE!!!!! :) :) :) THANK YOU!!!!! :) :) I loved the Cadbury Eggs and Cinnamon Bears! Easter isn't Easter without Cadbury! I was looking for my Breakfast of Champions with a Reese's Egg but couldn't find one... I will keep looking. THANK YOU!!!! :) :)

2. The Crocs fit great! And I LOVE the watch!

3. It was a slow week, sorry.....

4. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!! 

Multi-zone conference

My package made it all the way to Costa Rica!

I found rotisserie chicken! Yum!

 

Weird fuzzy fruit. Very fuzzy, but tastes good.

We made earrings out of the weird fuzzy fruit's seeds . . .

Huge seed inside of fuzzy fruit

The ants found my wishbone from out rotisserie chicken. I am going to teach my companion about making a wish on a wishbone!

April 6, 2015

Mi Familia,

Hello! Funny story for the week.... One of the Sisters in our ward finished her mission and is going home tomorrow. She was sad to leave and was crying. She got embarrassed and Sister Yorleni (our cook) said, Don't worry, all girls cry a lot! Well... Except for Hermana Markle... I don't think she cries... Hahah! I wasn't even there when she said this, so she wasn't just teasing me, she meant it! Hahah We are at there house every day to eat lunch, but not much more. I didn't know I was supposed to cry during lunch time to be considered a normal girl! My bad. :) I will work on my crying skills.

Our Zone reached our goal for baptisms and we earned breakfast with President! Wahoo! Sister Wilkinson makes the best banana chocolate chip pancakes in the whole world. And that is saying a lot because I don't even like pancakes. So I am pretty excited. I know we are missionaries, and we should be helping people have their baptisms because we love them and want them to receive salvation and blessing from God, but food helps too. :)

Conference was amazing. I loved it. :) I remember falling asleep during conference, or painting my nails, playing conference bingo, or coloring pictures while listening before, but now I don't think I could do that! My conference notes are pretty awesome, you can read them one day if you want. And if you weren't able to listen, don't worry, its online and you can go listen to it right now! :) I will ruin the surprise, there were lots of talks about family and marriage, and I was tempted to come home and get married again... Family is important and amazing and I LOVE MY FAMILY!!! :) One day, one day, I will come home and get married and have my own family. I hope... :)

My companion and I are still doing awesome together in Escazú! We have found several new people to teach and 3 of them came to conference with us! Fernando is closest to being baptized. We shared the First Vision with him yesterday and it went way good! He is 14 years old and has the same questions as the Prophet Joseph Smith, so he immediately prayed with us to know if it was true. He is awesome. I have a feeling he will be an excellent missionary one day.

Well, that's about it for this week... No cool waterfalls this week, but I think we are going to Pricesmart for grocery shopping today? Maybe I will paint my nails and clean our apartment? Exciting stuff! I hope you all have an amazing week! LOVE YOU!

Love,

Hermana Maquensi  (that is how Hermana Munguía spells my name... I like it.)

Items of Business....

1. Brandon, you need to write me. You have waited long enough. Tallllkkkkkkk to meeeeee...

2. Katie, if you want to get married before I get home, I give you permission, BUT you have to get married in the Costa Rica temple. That way I can go. Thanks! :) I am sure nobody would mind coming to Costa Rica to watch you get married. It will be easy to convince people. You just need to win the lottery first I think to pay for it.... Or do you have a super secret marriage fund that you have been saving for years for in case your sister was in Costa Rica during your wedding??? That would be cool.

3. Madi, stop being a baby you baby. You will be fine in your apartment alone without Katie. Especially if you have other roommates. Are you friends with them? Or do you ignore them? Awkward.... Take Suki to the apartment for the week. Suki loves the apartment, it's her favorite!

5. Kami, HAPPY SPRING BREAK!!!!! No school! Wahoo! This is a good time to bug Brandon about taking you out to learn how to drive!

6. I get scared to walk in the streets at night now. Everyone we talk to says, Be Careful! It is dangerous out there! And then we go walking around in the dark for a few hours anyways. Oh well. 

7. The package hasn't made it here yet... But the whole Country shut down for Semana Santa (Holy Week) for the Catholic holiday... So the post office was not open. Maybe tomorrow! :) It is close enough to Easter still!

Our new pet. I discovered that we have these things living on our windows! They make funny noises. I thought the noise was from birds outside, but no. They yell all night long... but they are cute. :)

March 30, 2015

Familia,

 

I AM IN COSTA RICA!!!!!!!! For P-Day we went and saw the waterfalls in La Paz! And I finally feel like I am actually in Costa Rica!!! :) An amazing member in our ward took us! It was great, I highly recommend it. You even get a discount if you are a missionary. :) We saw monkeys, poisonous frogs, ant-eaters, jaguars, toucans, parrots, giant spiders, snakes, and all of the other cool animals that Costa Rica has that I have never seen here before! Don't worry, we were still missionaries while being tourists. We ran into a few members from Dallas, Texas and Holiday, Utah, missionaries from another church from Minnesota, and lots and lots of other people to talk to from all over the world! Not many will be going to church with us this Sunday, but maybe when they get home from their vacations they will find a building in their home towns!

 

I AM SOO EXCITED FOR CONFERENCE!!! Being in Escazu means I get to listen in English. :) I would be fine listening in Spanish, I almost understand most things... But last conference left me scarred, I think I will just go strait to English... I remember watching my companions taking really good notes and loving what the Prophet said, while I sat there wanting to cry because I had no idea what was going on....... Hahaha missionary problems. I am so grateful I have had so much help with learning Spanish and I don't feel like crying anymore. :) The Gift of Tongues is amazing and I know that my Heavenly Father loves me. :) I hope you all get to watch conference this week in your native tongue! ENJOY! :)

 

Oh we did have the chance to watch the Women's Conference this week. It was nice. But I almost called President afterwards to tell him that I need to go home, get married, and start a family, right now. (just teasing!) It talked a lot about the family! It was beautiful and I am excited, but maybe they should not let missionaries listen to that! Hahaha. But my sisters are allowed to listen! :) (Not you Kami). (But wait until I get home to get married!). :) I am grateful we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and gave us the opprotunity to have families here on the earth. I love my family. :) But I really like how they talked about how we are all part of our Heavenly Father´s family, and we should be loving and helping all of our siblings. And God helps his children through his other children so we can all learn and grow. :)

 

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter! :) Save me some chocolate! Or just send me some! ;) I will accept any reject Easter eggs.

 

I am excited to be sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ during this Easter Season. :) I heard there is a good Easter video you should all go watch about Christ. And share it with all of your friends. :) HAPPY EASTER! :) Happy Conference!!! :)

 

I love you all!

 

Hermana Markle. :)

Items of Business.....

1. GOOD LUCK KAMI!!!! You will do awesome at Drill try outs!!!! Dont be scared, you dance at competitions all the time and rock at it!

2. Good job Katie! :) Did someone offer to buy your winning art work??? Is your soon to be fiance super proud of you???

3. When is Spring Break?

4. Did you send Suki to me in the package??? :)

5. We went to a butterfly room just like the one in Cancun! :) Do you miss Cancun mom??

6. We should come here for a vacation one day.... Just saying. It is a lot prettier when you are not walking in the streets all day and you actually see cool stuff.

7. HAPPY EASTER!!!! Save me some cool prizes from Kathy!!!! :)

8. Dont worry, I didn't call President....

9. We are spending more time in the office to finish the paper work insurance stuff.... So we don't work in the area as much now... But we are still working hard!

10. I LOVE YOU!!!! :)

March 23, 2015

Hola! :)

This was a great week! :) Someone asked me if I was from Canada! Cool, ehh? My Zone Leader is from Canada, he said I should take it as a huge complement. So I did. :)

We had a Mission conference this week with all 240 missionaries! Elder Maynes, I think that is how you spell it, who is one of the Presidents of one of the Quorums of the 70, came to speak to us. :) We had a great lesson about The Plan of Salvation and the Atonement. One day I will share my notes with you if you are interested. It was pretty awesome.

After the meeting, about 20 sick missionaries came and found me and formed a line to talk about their sicknesses. So that was pretty exciting. :) No broken bones or blood or surgeries this week! But we are still working on mountains and mountains of insurance claims.... We want to be all the way caught up before the mission split! But that is hard.... I think I would need a transfer in the office to get all of that work done. But I like being in my area working with our investigators, so the mountain will have to be patient.

We found a man named Walter while tracting. He was a little bit drunk, but was still able to listen and respond to our questions. We told him we would come back another day. We returned later this week and invited him to church with us. He started crying and said he wants to quit drinking and wants to change his life. And he actually came to church with us this Sunday!!!! :) We are ready to help him change his life through the atonement of Jesus Christ. He is great.

Also, Yerly is doing amazing! We are teaching her husband, and he just bought a new suit so he could wear it to church! :) That means good things.

Carla and her son Fernando also joined us at church this week! They live right next to our house, so it is easy for us to visit them frequently and they are awesome. Fernando had a dream that he was old and standing before God and felt dirty. He had vices and sins and God asked him about them. He is only 14 and doesn't have any of those vices in real life, but it scared him. He said he wants to keep his life clean. He wants to be baptized and stay clean for forever. Hopefully that means he will also serve a mission one day. :)

During the other conference we had, Elder Alonso pronounced an Apostolic Blessing upon us missionaries. I also received a letter from someone from my home stake that shared the Apostolic Blessing Elder Nelson pronounced on my stake during the last conference they had. I didn't even know these blessing existed until now, but they were both beautiful. Both blessed us with Angels seen and unseen to protect us. I started to think about all of the times in my life I have been protected by angels... I have done some pretty dumb things in my life. Even just walking in the street during the day is dumb and dangerous sometimes. I can clearly see hundreds of times I have been protected. And I am sure there have been thousands of other times I am not aware of. We are being watched over and protected and I know that there are angels with us every day.

Also, I used to make fun of returned missionaries who acted all funny and were different, but now I understand.... I guess.... I do want to be different when I get home, so sorry if I annoy some of you later. ;)

I love you all and I miss you! We are alive, well, and working hard! Stay happy, safe, and healthy!!! :)

Love,

Hermana Makensey Beth Markle. :)

Items of Business....

1. I also thought about while I was texting and driving and how dumb that was... And I know mom told me to not do it, but of course I still did it. I was definitely protected. But I won't do it again mom, don't worry!!!! I am smarter now. ;

2. I think transfers are back to normal now. That might have been a rumor... But no, I did not get transferred. I should be here for about another 6 weeks, and then moved. Maybe. But I am happy. :)

3. They moved the STL's into Escazu. So now we have the Zone Leaders, the Sister Leaders, and the Nurse all in one ward! Cool, ehh? They are trying to turn this ward into a stake center. So they needed strong missionaries here. I am not sure what the nurse has to do with that, but I just wanted to included myself into the leadership pool.... :)

4. Brandon still has never written me........ And Kami stopped writing me...... Madi did good this week. And Katie mas o menos recently... Just letting you all know.

5. I got robbed.... Someone stole my watch. It was a sad day. But oh well.... Did you send a watch in the package?? Did you send the package?

LOVE YOU!!!!!! MISS YOU!!!!!! :)

 

Two of our investigators at church with us - they are both awesome!

At the Mission Office

Pizza and missionaries - a great combination!