Happy Halloween from Canadia, found out last night that literally everyone does fireworks to celebrate here. I was bewildered. thought it was just more gunshot noises that usual (lol jk, kinda. love surrey.)

happy things about this week:

-the most darling little boy in the whole world told me that he knows prayer works because when messi retired he prayed that he would come back and then it worked and so he knows that Heavenly Father answers prayers now. i looked at him and said "your prayer single handedly brought messi back to the world of futbol." hahha PRECIOUS.

-i gave a talk in sacrament meeting :)) in espanol:))) in front of the whole congregation:)) about the work of salvation. so YEAH. did not pull an hermana bronson and forget my notes, thank heavens. but still, as much as i actually do enjoy public speaking it's an entirely different experience in another language. i was so SO happy though because our ward mission leader got up after me and bore his testimony about the gift of tongues that he's witnessing because he's lived in canada for 21 years now and "nunca, nunca, jamas, jamas" has he seen a missionary learn the language as fast as me. guys my heart was literally so so happy!

-TRUNK OR TREAT hahah i adore my ward. reminded me of trunk or treat ward halloween parties in texas, back in my youth. oh latino ward parties are an entirely different experience than what i'm used to though. i walk in the gym and everyone is just dancingggggg. and i was like YES these are my people. even though i didn't dance. cause obedient misionera. i just appreciated it. 

 

sad things:

-nobody showed up to church UGH I DO NOT UNDERSTAND when we go and teach all these lovely people we meet, and they feel something when we're teaching, and they know that it's good, and it's different, and it's from God, yet they still won't make the effort to give Him a couple hours of their week. 

things that made the sad thing okay:

-LUZ. the most darling bolivian woman who we found in our less active's basement:)) we taught her the restoration last night and she just wanted to rant to us about how even though she's catholic she doesn't understand why anybody would worship the saints and why their churches are so gaudy and richly decorated when they should be using that money to feed the poor and i was like YES YOU ARE BASICALLY ALREADY MORMON!!! so send prayers please that she actually reads the book of mormon.

speaking of which, i remember sweet annie hayward writing home once and saying "I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THE BOOK OF MORMON WORKS MIRACLES". and tha'ts all i could think of sitting at the table with luz last night. how if she could just open her mind and her heart to this book, there is so, so much goodness that comes out of it. so many answers to questions, so many ways to find peace, so many ways to come closer to God. ah. don't take it for granted guys. do you have any idea what that book, those records had to survive to find their way into your hands????? you are literally holding a miracle. 

 

okay i love you all, happy happy halloween. be good.

xoxo

hermana reagan curti

 

2. rosa got confirmed!! YES. SALVATION IS HAPPENING BEFORE MY EYES.

 

 

 

3. i made hermana kartchner pull over to look at this pretty field while we were lost somewhere in Canada. i love rain. i love trees. i am turning into a hippie. plus everyone here is RELIGIOUS about composting and recycling and whatnot.

 

xoxo

hermana curtis

hey don't forget you people and your support and prayers and letters and love means the world to me. honestly.

8440 williams road

richmond, bc v7a 1g6

canada 

(2 USA normal stamps)

 

be good!! i'll write more next week!!!!!!

 

 

guys. my body is wrecked. we've fasted 3 of the last 8 days for various reasons, left our car parked as much as physically possible which means i have essentially walked all of canada (our area is beyond massive, i've never even seen a complete map), and dear hermana kartchner snores so sleep isn't really a thing. BUT miracles are real, missions are worth it, and i am real life happy here in this lovely land up north :)) oh also there was apparently a typhoon on saturday, everyone we spoke to was like "go home!!!!! buy bread!!!! and flashlights!! prepare yourselves!!!" but we worked all day anyways and i was unimpressed by the storm.

also, i sleep talk ward correlation discussions. and sleep pray in spanish.

ALSO THE HAPPIEST NEWS!!!!! I GOT PASSED A FRENCH INVESTIGATOR!!! the elders, bless their hearts, gave up on trying to teach her since according to them she speaks 95% french and 5% english so SOEUR CURTIS got to give it a go and it was the kindest answer to prayer from Heavenly Father to get to use my french for real. super terrifying too, especially since she's from the congo and her french is for sure not paris french. but gift of tongues is real and so is the work of salvation and so yes. this is happening. we have a return appointment with her next saturday :))

in other news i wounded myself and now have a scar from running into my bed, but i'm actually pleased because now i can continue my tradition of getting a new scar in every country i go to. super fun.

i have to go but i love all of you people more than you know, and i love my mission. we're the lucky ones out here with nametags on, as hard as it is.

 

xoxo.

 

hna reagan curtis
 

ps everyone i teach is literally named maria. and when we were doing rosa's genealogy she asked me to enter all of her siblings names and 5 OF HER 5 SISTERS ARE NAMED MARIA AND 3 OF HER 3 BROTHERS ARE NAMED JOSE haahahha I LOVE LATINOS!!!!!

miracle uno: okay you are about to hear about the most humbling moment of my entire 20 years my lovely friends. the other night hermana kartchner and i are out wandering about (yay love tracting) looking for people to teach, and we run into this dad and his two daughters from iraq. who, after a few moments, finally invites us into his home right that very moment. so we walk with them to their complex, and then he leads us into this smoky corridor and there are just all kinds of humans hollering things to me in arabic and such and then all of a sudden i'm in his living room, with this darling family all on their edge of their seats as i teach them about God, about Christ, about why we're here. and there's an iraqi newscast going in the background and it smells like cigarettes and all kinds of things and we barely understand each other but the sweet spirit was just teaching them through me and then we're out running in the rain again and i'm standing on this street corner in the middle of surrey, and then i realize that Heavenly Father literally pulled this family all the way from iraq, where the rest of their family members were actually killed by ISIS, for those 20 minutes with me on their couch. in canada. teaching them about the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ. and i felt so small, but so very honored to be a piece of that. 

ah, I am so grateful for my mission.

other highlights include sister riley seiter and i out on splits cause we're ROOMIES for the second time in our lives (this world is tiny) and the best moment was us looking at each other and saying "hey remember when we went on splits with the missionaries in belize and now we ARE the missionaries on splits except in canada?"

that's all. 

hahaha i love her and i love canada and i love spanish and it's canadian thanksgiving!!! and i am so afraid cause i have to go eat with like all of central america tonight and i am going to be in such a food coma after!! and then ahve to go walk the streets of surrey!! okay i love you people! bye!

ps mom please send me the anis mojgani poem i love, i think it's called come closer. i need some of those words to share with someone :))))

ALSO ROSA GOT BAPTIZED I SHALL EXPLAIN MORE NEXT WEEK!

love you people, more than any of you know

xoxo 

hermana curtis

This week was a lot of things. a lot of good things and a lot of hard ones. to be perfectly honest, i don't get what's going on in my mind. i'm being obedient and working as hard as i can but i still find myself pushing shadows away a lot of the time. that being said, i finally had a moment last night when i was like "oh, this is so worth it." we went to drop by a potential investigator's home, she bailed on us, and we said hi to her mother on our way out. moments later i'm sitting on these wooden steps, in the pitch black, in the cold, holding this nicaraguan woman's hand as she's sobbing to me about where her heart is right now and i was just so grateful. so grateful that i could be there, for God, in that moment. to hold her hand and listen to her rapid fire spanish and bring some sort of peace to her mind. dad, if i could spell her name i would include it :))

In other news, rosa duran from el salvador is being baptized next week <3 ah this woman is seriously a miracle hahah she has been meeting the missionaries for over a year now, she's literally one of us. she can teach all the lessons back to us and is in on all the mission lingo and news. she texted us this morning to ask what the news was with transfers, cause she likes to keep up on where even the english missionaries go:)

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SPEAKING OF WHICH i finished transfer two of the mission!!!! hermana kartchner and i are both staying in surrey, zero surprises there, but cute sister grant (our roomie) is off to the isla of victoria and SISTER RILEY SEITER aka my dear friend from my month in belize last year is comingggggg!!!!!! the world is such a tiny place, oh my word. 

 

 

All the non-pine trees look like they're on fire, i get happier every time it rains on me, and the elders just announced to me that they've started preserving the spiders they kill with packing tape. because OH YEAH I DIDN'T TELL YOU the spiders here are simply out of control. also i asked them if they had learned any intro lines in punjabi or hindi yet to use with all our turban friends and they said "just say it in english really fast" so this is what i am dealing with. hhaha jk i love them.

Go listen to conference on lds.org (hey. all of you. it will make you happy. this is real) because God is good and we have a prophet on the earth today and men are that they might have joy </3 there are good things coming, and i'm one of the lucky ones, not matter how many doors i have to knock everyday.

loves to all of you!

hermana reagan curtis