Dearest familia!

Wow it sounds like a crazy week you had there!!. Alyssa, that is a cute way Skyler asked you! I want to see pictures of her dress when it´s finished! :) I´m excited for her. Elder Guthrie found you!!! That’s so fun! How was the dinner and everything? He´s a great missionary, and we had a lot of fun. That is so cool he found you guys. I wasn’t really expecting to see a picture of him. Oh btw, the picture of Bre i didn’t know that was her, I thought it was a model. Not kidding, she really looks incredible in that picture and Michael is the cutest thing ever!!! I love him so much!!! 

Ok, so here is the big news. I have been transferred :( I cried because I didn’t want to leave my area. I loved my area and we are supposed to have 2 families being baptized this Saturday and I won’t be there. So we went to transfers and I saw everyone in my district!! It was so fun!!. There are not enough sisters here so guess who is training..... Hermana Stott!!! She was hoping to be put with a spanish companion but she didn’t and was put with an american.  Also, I got transferred to a place called Miramar.  It´s basically in Valparaíso but it´s not like the center of Valpo. It´s about 1 hour out of Viña. It´s so beautiful here. But they have not had sisters here in this area for over 10 years so this is a new change. When we first got to the apartment there were couches, beds and dressers. They had to hurry and find an apartment and didn’t have time to really finish so for about 2-3 days we did not have a kitchen. But we do now.  Also let me tell you about our bathroom. I´ll send pictures. The way to get into the door is to pull a string. Then there is a shower head right above you, the sink on the left and the toilet on the right. Yep, it´s the bathroom and the shower in one. So we can basically go to the bathroom, shower and brush our teeth all at the same time if we wanted to. 

It´s actually a really cute house and we really like it. It´s like a condo so there are other houses in there too but there is only one door to get to the street. I hope that makes sense.  The lady that owns it is so sweet and incredible. We really love her a lot.  She is baptist so we can work with her on changing her religion haha.  My companion is Hermana Castleton, she is from Sandy Utah and 20 years old. She went to Brighton High School and was on the soccer team. She is so cute and we really get a long so well, she is like another me so we get along really well and we work hard together. So the thing about this is that she has 7 weeks here in the mission. We came here on the same day and so we are supposed to be with a trainer for 12 weeks but we are finishing training each other. only problem with that is that her trainer never trained her.  I´m at the point where I can understand a lot of spanish but it takes so much concentration and it´s really hard, I don't understand everything.  

Mom, I feel like a failure as a missionary. This is so hard and I have never done this before. I´m not kidding, I honestly don't know what I´m doing.  We are trying to contact people in the street and also recent converts and less active members but we have only taught 1 lesson in 4 days. That´s not good. It’s really hard. I don't know what to do. I´m trying so hard to be positive and to work as hard as I can but it´s complicated because there are specific areas we are allowed to go because the other areas are dangerous. But when we talk to someone on the street and ask for directions they just say no and then we try to keep talking and they say no again. In Casablanca Hermana Paz could always figure out a way to get people to help with directions even when they would say no the first time.  I´m trying to learn but this is hard. We are trying our best but our numbers are so awful and we feel like failures. The elders here are all really nice and want to help us as much as they can. The district leaders call us every night to make sure we are ok and to see if we need anything.  There are 3 companionships here in the mission right now that are all training each other. It´s a really hard situation. Please pray for us here because we really need as much help as possible.

There is a young girl here in Miramar named Yazmin. She is a member and 17 years old. She looks exactly like Kenzie. It´s so weird, well she is wanting to go on a mission and loves coming with us to lessons. She has offered to come with us for hours when she can to as many lessons as we have for that day. She wants to prepare for her mission in anyway that she can. We really love her and she tries to help us out so much. The members here are awesome, they really are so nice and welcoming. The ward here is not a ward it´s a district. There are a lot of less active members here and because of that it´s become a district. 

We did teach a lesson but it was with a less active member and we didn’t know that in the moment. But the lesson went really good and he came to church this Sunday. So that was really good. So I know there has to be a reason the mission president sent us here to Miramar and that me and Hermana Castleton are companions.  There is always a reason for everything, but in the moment seeing that is really hard. I find myself thinking about Casablanca a lot because things here are so different. The people here aren´t very nice. They just shove you away and don’t want to talk to you or want you to walk with them, whereas in casablanca you could talk to anyone and they would be really nice to you and accepting and when you asked for their address they would give it to you without hesitation. It’s just a different environment. A lot of people have told us it’s like New York people here. That they are so busy and consumed with their needs and are so involved in themselves they don't want to talk to anyone.  Please give us some advice what to do because we need it. 

This place is beautiful though. We are right next to the beach and watch the sunset every night. The ocean and all the lights from the houses at night is amazing.  We are located on a huge hill that overlooks Valparaíso and we are facing towards Viña so its really awesome and really beautiful. This will be a hard transfer, not because of my companion but because of the language barrier, situation we are in, and not really having any investigators. We don’t have investigators because we had to split this mission so there are still Elders from the other mission here and they have the area book. So we are basically starting from scratch here. 

I have been very discouraged at times. Sorry this email is more about the hardship of this area so far, but next week I hope will be better.  I love hearing from you all and hearing about what is going on with everyone. I miss you and I love you and pray for you all everyday.

Con Amor,

Hermana Tycksen