Ready, Set, GO (into the mission field)!

February 20, 2014

Oh mother I am doing so well. I really am loving life and am doing wonderfully. It is the highlight of my week to hear from you guys. It's good to know that you are doing well. 

Yes, Hermana Huff will be flying with me. We are going to the same mission. Also Hermana Miller will be with us too, I believe. 

The language is coming slowly, but coming. We are expected to teach in Spanish, have been ever since the 2nd day. It was a bit frustrating at first because I didn't know any Spanish so I wondered how they expected me to teach in Spanish. It's been a humbling experience. 

I can't wait to get out to the field and try to teach myself the concepts that we are learning. Here we learn a new concept almost everyday. However, the way that we are being taught is almost a review. It's hard to review something when you've never learned it before. So at times that has been a struggle. I do certainly however know a lot more than I did when I got here, so that is good news.  

I am so excited to fly to California! It's going to be nice to be back into the states. However, I will miss the people here. Whenever I teach I feel such love for the investigator. Even if I'm just practicing. We come up with an investigator profile of some real person that we know and use their story. I feel that it is a gift I have to love the people that I'm teaching. 

I have loved having Hermana Huff as a companion. We taught one of our best lessons last week. We worked together really well and were able to be unified in our teaching. She has helped me so much. 

Haha so for the new things I've tried this week...I tried bon bons for the first time in my life. So if anyone were to ask what how I'm doing in Mexico, just tell them that I'm eating Bon bons. Hahaha that'll sound good. I've also tried mango, starfruit and an asian pear. It really has been fun trying new things here. 

Our last service project here was washing the outside of one of the houses. We had a pressure washers and buckets of soap and brooms. They seriously use brooms here for EVERYTHING. Anyways we used the brooms to clean the outside of one of the casas. I was excited because it felt just like my summer job of washing truck. Except trucks are higher. I told my district that this was like my job and I think they were impressed. Anyways I got a turn with the pressure washer but it was only a baby. I told my district that this really wasn't a powerful pressure washer. (I, knowing so much about pressure washers of course, ha), anyways we all got a turn to use the pressure washer on the house which was pretty fun.

This past Sunday I sang in church. It was supposed to be a duet but turned into a quartet. I was the only person singing soprano. I was nervous but it was fun. We sang Oh mi Padre. It was fun. I also talked in church about obedience. I talked about Abraham's obedience to the Lord to sacrifice Isaac.  

They are working on fixing something; I'm not really sure what. When I saw this I thought of Dad and how he would be all around this kind of thing observing their work haha!

Today I saw the smallest banana I had ever seen. I thought it was adorable. 

I took this picture of the palm trees this morning when we were walking to breakfast.

This is our light switch. At first I thought it was funny how you flip the switch to the side instead of up or down. 

This is my bed. The bottom bunk. The beds here aren't terrible comfortable but I have slept pretty well every night. I'm sure that's a blessing from the Lord.

This is where we get our water. We only drink filitered water. 

This is our living room we never use. Haha

This is the district that just left this past Monday. The girl in the blue dress is the one I stayed in the hospital with. I love all these girls so much!

My placa (nametag) is a little dirty whoops but I love wearing it everyday and being a servant of the Lord.

A quote from Hermana Huff (one day we were going through the food line and they were monitoring how much whip cream we were using):  ¨I like how they trust us with people´s salvations but not with whip cream.¨ Hahaha yeah what is that about? 

Something that I heard that other day that I love is ¨We have a short time to serve but an eternity to look back.¨ That's so true. Whether that's serving a mission or serving in life. We need to be diligent in serving others and in doing the Lord's work. How sad would it be to look back and think that we could've done better. 

We need to do our best to serve others and build up the Lord's kingdom. 

One day we were having a class and some of the boys were getting sleeply so our teacher made us all do 20 jumping jacks. That's fun in a dress. Haha I love my teachers here, I love my district here, and I love the people here. 

Sorry this is all randomly thrown together. 

But my time here has been so great. I truly have learned a lot and I know this is where I am supposed to be. I hope all of you are doing well. Yo se que esta Iglesia es verdadero. Yo se que por medio de Jesucristo podemos hacer todas cosas! 

I love you all so incredibly much. Please all have the best day ever!

Love your favorite Hermana,

Hermana Killpack

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Sunday, February 23, 2014

So I get to write you again tonight! We leave tomorrow at 3 in the morning. I am so excited! I can't believe my time here is over. It has been so wonderful. 

Today has been the best day ever! 

I will try and call tomorrow. I hope that everything works out. I will be traveling with Hermana Huff and Miller. They are both so very fantastic. 

So since I wrote only a couple days ago I don't have a whole lot more to say but I will think of things. 

I just learned that the great great grandpa of my mission president, President Pratt, is Parley P. Pratt. How cool is that?

Okay so I know this picture is really cheesy but we had fun. These girls are so amazing! This picture is with my district.

So I am just sending you pics...not sure which ones are good because I haven't had time to look over them. You are allowed to show other people only the good ones haha

(Note from the Mom…I put them all in.  They were all great :)

Or maybe you shouldn't use any other these. I look kinda gross... haha you can choose.

Sorry 'Im just sending you a lot a pictures.

And I keep on realizing that every picture I send you is gross. Lo siento.

 

I love my teachers here. They are both so amazing and loving. 

Oh I just remembered! I did finally get your letter! The date that you wrote it said Jan 19 and I just got it this past Friday. I was happy to get it. 

I´m doing fantastic. I have only seen 1 cockroach here and it was dead so that's great. Maybe 3 spiders, and too many to count mosquitos. But thankfully I haven't been bit a whole lot. 

It's crazy to think that I´m leaving the CCM so soon. It doesn't seem real. Like how it didn't seem real when I was saying goodbye to you guys. I am excited to get out to the mission field and get to work. I don´t know a lot but I know enough. I have loved my experiences here. There are so many. Some of them are simple but they still mean a lot. 

We just had our last supper in the comedor. To celebrate, I had nutella. Sometimes we weren´t sure what they were feeding us but you can always be sure of the nutella. Haha. 

So I haven't had any blisters although some shoes are more comfortable than others. I like my oxfords when my socks cooperate. I have gotten a lot of compliments on them haha. I also really like my born flats. They are definitely one of my fav, if not my fav.  

 I am excited to hopefully hear from you tomorrow. I hope all is well with you. I don´t know when I´ll be able to write next but I´m sure you´ll just take comfort knowing that I´m in the US again. 

I am excited to be able to shop at a Walmart. I´m looking forward to being able to get out and go places. :) 

Sorry that I send so many pictures. I need to get a usb drive and put all of my pictures on that. But remember you can send me pictures too! I would love pictures!

And I say sorry about sending so many, and what do I do? Send more. 

This is me just chillin in my closet. I was done packing and waiting for Hermana Huff to finish so that we could weigh our bags. After weighing, rearranging, and weighing again I think I´ve got it. My smaller suitcase actually weighed more than my bigger one. Both close to 50 lbs.

From the Mom again:  We were able to talk with Hermana Killpack briefly as she flew from Mexico City to Phoenix and then on to Santa Barbara, California.  It was WONDERFUL hearing her voice! 

Later in the day, we received this email from her mission president:

Dear Brother and Sister Killpack,

Thank you for sending Sister Ashley Rae Killpack  to the California Ventura Mission.  She  arrived today smiling and in good health.

You may expect a letter from your missionary soon, along with a photograph of her  with Sister Castro and me.

We welcome her  into the Lord's service and thank you again for sending such a valiant missionary.

Fernando R. Castro

President, California Ventura Mission