Letter #11: Snow in Boston!

FIRST SNOWFALL TODAY!!!!!  we were doing our morning studies and looked out the window and it was snowing! hahahah sister hileman went NUTS. but it was glorious and the best way ever to start the day!

yesterday for p-day we went to the u.s.s constitution. aka a PIRATE SHIP! and let me tell you. that made my day! it was really cool though. we went with the chelsea elders. the trio that works in the same ward as us (somppi, sousa, freeman) and we did the tour and learned all of the history behind it. and then i asked one of the crewmen if i could ring the giant bell cause elder somppi dared me to and he actually let me! hah! last monday we went to the beach and drank root beer while we fished with sticks and sewing thread. that lasted about 20 minutes though cause it was freeeezing.

monday night we had noche de hogar! aka family home evening with the ward!!! it was our first one and it went super well. miraculously. the relief society president was out of town and she forgot to have one of her counselors plan it so that morning she called us and asked us to do everything! but we managed to pull it off and everyone that came loved it. we played this funny game where someone draws a head and then you fold the paper down and the next person draws the body and then again and the next person draws the legs. and so you end up with this super awkward funny looking person. and then after that we played soccer in the gym with the youth and i loved that of course cause i got to play!

we had a lesson this week with our eternagator Ada. we spent the first half learning spanish and then we went into the gospel lesson. she knows that this is true but she doesnt want to act on it. we invited her to be baptized and she said she wants to wait until after she finished reading the book of mormon. so we're at kind of a stand still with that.

Hermana Luis is our abuela in the ward. she is so adorable and always sneaks us candy in the hallway during church! we had a lunch with her this week and she kept staring at me and then finally she was like you look just like my daughter!! like our facial expressions and everything apparently.

okay so cindy.. she's breaking my heart let me tell you! so we were driving around chelsea earlier this week and we found her wandering the streets. so we pulled over and went to dunkin dohnuts with her so we could talk. (my first experience at dunkin dohnuts! true new englander now thank you very much!) anyways so she goes on to tell us about her new boyfriend that she found on the internet who is 36 (she is 20) and has eight kids all with different moms that dont live in the states. and that she thinks that he's "the one" even though she went on to tell us that she had cheated on him that very same day. and i was like uhhhh yep true love right there. ahhhh my heart cindy no what are you doing! so we talked with her a bit about making good decisions and chastity and having self worth. but we're going to have a more in depth lesson with her again soon. and then this past sunday SHE CAME TO CHURCH!!! i could have cried i was so happy!!!! ahh i just ran up and hugged the crap out of that girl. she hasnt been to church in forever. definitely not since ive been here. that night we went over to her house to tell her were were happy to see her there. and her mom started crying and thanking us for taking such an interest in her and trying so hard bring her back. this is guadalupe btw to the woman who is getting to jose this saturday! super stoked for that :)

also this week we handed our seven dwarfs over to the portuguese elders. we went over with them and tony was the only one there. he was so happy that we came back ahaha he started singing a song to us about zion and then went on to start crying about us being a blessing in his life at this time. so hopefully the elders continue to progress with him and can meet the other men that we had met that day. tony has a lot of heart. except the elders told us after their lesson that tony told them that he's a prophet. so that kind took a different turn than they expected.

also on sunday hermana and hermano mendoza got their patriarchal blessings! we went over before to talk with her and answer any questions she had and just let her know that we were excited for her. and i gave her a journal so that she could write about her experience. she loved that haha. im SO excited for them. their marriage has been kinda on edge and this is a huge step that they went TOGETHER to get their blessings.

anyways im doing wonderful! i love and miss you all! our mission has a book called "the power of everyday missionaries" approved and i read it this week and its amazing. you should all buy it and read it! it will really change your perspective on everything. it did for me! "fear of talking about our beliefs is a construct of Satan."

i love you all! the gospel is true and it will bring you more peace and happiness than anything else! have a good week and be safe :)

hermana tantillo

Massachusetts Boston Mission

Fishing on the Beach day

U.S.S Constitution

Add caption

My Companion

Beautiful Boston

Bunker Hill

The elders being weird

Mom making pancakes

Letter #10: Adventures of Halloween

BOSTON UPDATE TIME! hey guess who won the world series??? THE REDSOX!!! in case you didnt know. hahah actually the whole world found out before we did but people went nuts. also President Obama was here this past week and the Elders saw him just on the streets of boston! so that was cool. and wanna know what else ive noticed about this place? the number of dunkin dohnuts here is equal to the number of starbucks in seattle. five on every corner. actually it might even have seattle beat there are so many!

i got a package from my family this week!!! THANK YOU!! oh my goodness it was so perfect i cant even tell you. the sweat and scarf are so adorable and ive worn them both a million times. it came on monday and then we had FHE that night with one of the families in the ward and so i brought the candy you sent and they loved that. so this family is awesone. Guadalupe is the mom and shes getting married in a couple of weeks to Jose. and then Jose is getting baptized teh week after that! there are two kids, cindy and andrew. we've been working with cindy because she's become less active. but during that FHE her boyfriend was there and after we left they got into this huge fight because he's muslim and didnt like that we came and basically started dissing our religion and telling cindy that she should never go back. and she was super not okay with that and stood up for what she believes in and broke up with him! and i was SO PROUD OF HER!!! because even though she's struggling right now that just goes to show that she really does have a testimony and she KNOWS that this is right and was strong enough to stand up for that.

i also got a package from grandma and grandpa tantillo! THANK YOU!!!!! those cookies and treats were wonderful and so delicious they're already gone! haha my companion Sister Hileman LOVED them and im pretty sure she ate half of the box herself in this past week. so she says thank you too :) that was so sweet and made me feel so loved so thank you!
also dad i got you old missionary scriptures in the mail this week :) THEYRE SO COOL! hahaha i love them they're like made out of tent material no wonder they've lasted this long! ill send you a picture of them next week. oh and i got a letter from elder derek lambert too! he's doing awesome. and also remember elder sousa the one from brazil thats in my district? well he's from the same area that derek is serving in! AND he met derek during his first week there because he was going on splits with the missionaries there to prepare to come here! he remembered the redheaded elder of course. so that was a small world.

last p day we went to the Franklin Park Zoo as a district! i saw the most random animals that i didnt even know existed and we ran into like every other district serving in MA. so that was fun. also this week was halloween! and since we were red dotted and couldnt be out after six we made caramel apples. ill send pictures. the one of my on the ground is from my face getting stuck in the caramel. sister hileman died laughing and almost peed her pants.

we had return and report this week where all of the other missionaries that got here a few weeks ago get together with President and sister Packard and they train us and check up on how we're doing so far. and then after that we went to lunch at a brazilian restaurant!

okay best moment of the week! so we were walking along the street and we came up to this house that had a few men just chillin on their porch drinking their beers. so we stopped to talk to them and sister hileman starts going off in spanish. and they were like uhhh we speak portuguese sorry. and i was like YESSSS TUDO BEM!!!!! hahahah but thankfully they spoke english too cause thats about the extent of my poruguese right now. but there's seven men that live in that house all from brazil and they're like the seven dwarfs and so funny. we talked to them for a while and they loved us and that we are out serving the lord. they invited us to come back next week too! they're all super awesome and im excited to see if anything happens with that.

I love you all so much! Thank you for everything that you do for me :) have a good week!

Sister Tantillo

Letter #9: Three weeks next Transfer

HOLA FAMILIA Y AMIGOS!!!! the mision life here is WONDERFUL!!! the leaves are falling and everything is so beautiful. Hermana Hileman is the designated driver and she gets lost literally every ten seconds. so twice this week we accidentally crossed the bridge into boston cause she took a wrong exit on the freeway. but that meant i got to see downtown boston and i LOVED IT!!! so beautiful i want to live there someday please! 

Mom: sister packard told me the other day that she met my yw president from home! but i didnt know if she was talking about the president when i was in yws or the one serving currently. could you find out who was in boston this week?? thanks!!

Michael: OH MY GOODNESS YOURE A MINION!!! seriously thats the coolest thing i have ever seen you look like a real minoin!! how did you do that? ahh youre the luckiest little boy ever im super jealous. thanks for sending me pictures!! also guess what? hahah i got in trouble for being a yankees fan at dinner last night. we were at a dinner appointment and this family had red sox stuff all over their house. they're serious super fans! and so then they ask us about where we're from and the baseball teams from our hometowns and if we root for them. and my companions ratted me out and told them i was a yankees fan! i almost got kicked out of their house right then and there! jk they just teased me about it but it was a close one! haha okay LOVE YOU MINION GOOBER!!
Katie: i love you so stinking much you beautiful girl. i hope youre having fun at FLC!!! i cant wait to hear all about it! no worries though i know you're busy busy busy so dont feel bad i can be patient for your next letter :) 

Emily: my companion had the UP soundtrack on her ipod and it came on in the car and i legitimately started bawling and they were like uhhh what is wrong with you??? hahah and i was like SORRY I LOVE UP! not sorry. and i thought of you and i love you. also thats awesome that you got to be home and i hope you gave my family GIANT hugs from me!!

Rachel: i hope you had fun at home!!! you're being spoiled mom tells me so enjoy that while you can :) haha also tell tanner thanks for his email and for loving me more than my own sister! not really i know you love me. i miss provotown! take tanner to susiya for me k? 

Dad: i head a lot of good stories about you at my dinner with the siebers! he told me about the time that the two of you worked at that restaurant all day hahah. and about trading the his suit for your scripture case. guess what? he said he's going to send it to me! passing on the legacy of the scirupture case i guess! so thats really nice of him. i told him he didnt have to cause i know it means a lot to him. he's had it for over 20 years after all! but its also cool cause now i get to have the scripture case my dad used on his mission! anyways they were SUPER nice and my companions LOVED them. we took them to Tu Metapan so that they could have the type of food that we're eating here. also he told me that he's gald im learning spanish so that i can be a spanem just like you two. haha

So this week we got to meet with one of our eternagators Ada! she's a spanish teacher so we asked her if she would give me lessons once a week to help me learn! so we went for our first time on tuesday and she went through some basic stuff with me. it was good to talk to her and that me and hermana brown got to meet her. we're going back tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to work in a spiritual thought this time and build up from there :) also this week i wrote a blog post! this mission is launching a Digital Mission blog that answers questions of the soul. Hermana Brown has worked with it a lot actually and its really cool cause its all been started right here in Boston. its full of just short stories and testimonies about people's experiences. it reminds me a lot of mormon messages but its a blog instead of videos.

This week i discovered pupusas. the most amazing food on this planet! they're tortillas stuffed with cheese and meat! thats partially why we took the siebers to tumetapan haha cause they have them there! but i also learned how to make them at Hermana Bonilla's house! we had a dinner appointment with her and she taught us! dinner appointments are always fun. at another one this week the family had a pet parrot that we got to hold. he pooped on my shoe. also hermana hileman is terrified of birds but the little boy put it on her shoulder hahah and so it was funny to watch her try to stay calm through that. 

I was talking to elder sousa (the elder from brazil) and he was telling me that in brazil ill have a lot of trouble getting people to come to church on sunday and they'll use excuses like i cant cause its raining! and so he taught me how to say "you're not made of sugar!!" hahah "voce nao e feito de acucar!!) so thatll come in handy

For district meeting the district leaders made us mancakes. as in the manly version of pancakes. theyr'e HUGE like the size of a frying pan and five inches thick. he put peanut butter and chocolate chips in the batter. and then cooked into is bacon and eggs. and it was delicious. hermana hileman is gunna send you a picture i think! 

We had stake conference this week! there was an adult session saturday night and we went with hermana mendoza who is a recent convert. and then we took the T over on sunday afternoon with the elders. im in the cambridge stake by the way i dont think i ever told you that. also whenever we go to english church hermana hileman calls it "white people church" because she likes to pretend like she's Hispanic and not a skinny little white gringa. confrence was awesome though! theres such an incredible push for missionary work right now. the entire conference was about it! our mission president and his wife spoke and he said that the Lord is hastening His work. its going to move forward with or without you so decide NOW where you stand with the Lord. super powerful. and he talked about the chosen generation and how the Lord is sending out his mission force NOW. 

Anyways fam. the spanish is going well! ish. haha. i can pray in spanish now! and i bore my testimony about christ in spanish during a lesson this week and taught a third of the first lesson in an appointment last night. so its coming along. im understanding most of it but speaking is a whole different thing. also half the things i say are usually in portuguese still hahah i prayed at an appointment with the relief society president and afterwards she was like "you learned portgueuse didnt you?" she knew from my prayer!! hahaah apparently i speak spanish with a portuguese accent? i dont know. but its funny and the ward loves having a greeny the says silly things and doesnt make sense half the time. so is all good :) 

Im glad that nan got to go see the bruggemans harry potter house!! ahh that place is magical :) i love it! sister bruggeman told me about the updates they had made this year in teh package she sent me. they sound awesome! i hope you all have a wonderful halloween! we'll be red dotted that night after six. meaning we're not allowed to leave the apartment. but the elders in salem are actually being relocated for three days because its not safe for them to be in the city. i guess they take halloween seriously there. but we're fine here in revere so no worries!! you'll have to send me pictures of your halloween! 

I love you all SO MUCH!! 

"Believe your beliefs. Doubt your doubts." 

HAVE A GOOD WEEK!

Con Amor,

Hermana Tantillo

Letter #8: Boston week TWO

So im super not happy with myself right now cause i had everything all written out that i wanted to tell you about and i left it on my desk back at the apartment!!! dang it! so this is going to be all over the place and hopefully make sense. but eh thats what these emails are usually like so its all good. ill answer some of your questions first mom. but there were like a million of them haha so... yah. yes portuguese and spanish are kinda sorta similar. like the verbs are the same and sentence structure but EVERYTHING is pronounced differently. so thats what im struggling with. also its like i dont even really know portuguese hardly at all so that doesnt really help anyways. haha but im not worried about it! things are good and im doing what i can and the Lord makes up for the rest. and actually a lot of what we do is in english cause even though the people are spanish speaking and would go to the spanish ward here most of them prefer to speak in english with us during lessons. also im doing well with understanding spanish its just speaking it is where i kinda get stuck haha. but my companions are super patient and awesome about it. 

My clothes and shoes and everything are great mom thanks!! no worries :) i havent gotten a warmer coat yet cause it hasnt gotten that cold yet. and i might not need to the one you sent is really great and we have a car so i think thatll be just perfect for the winter! 

We get fed for most of our dinners so no we dont cook a ton. but guess what?!? Hermana Hileman makes pancakes for breakfast on sundays!!!!! JUST LIKE HOME! hahah that made me so happy! i told her that my mom does that too and she was like oh man destiny that i would be your missionary mom then. so yah we have pancake sundays :) also i dont remember if i told you this already but if not im telling you again. but a family in the ward here owns a bakery and we go once a week and they give us free bread and its the most wonderful thing of life! now that im writing about it though im pretty sure i already told you about it. but thats okay cause its that good it deserves to be talked about twice. 

The primary program was yesterday!! hermana hileman and i ended up playing all of the songs together cause we decided that was way less stressful. so she played the right hand and i played the left. it was super fun and the kids were SO CUTE and excited about it. thankfully we managed to get through all of the songs without messing up. and then we went to primary after and they gave us cake and icecream and life was great. 

So coolest experience of the week was our appointment with this lady. Sheis  in college and is a less active member. her mom and soon to be step dad (who is also getting baptized soon!!!!!) are worried about her and so are we. she's kinda at the point in life where she can either go right or left and its time to decide and so we're trying to help her make the right choice! she's really a sweet girl and on saturday we went and had a super long talk with her and her parents. we taught her about how all of our choices have consequences and that sometimes making the right choice is harder but that its always worth it and we will be blessed and Christ will carry our burdens. and it went super well and afterwards i hugged her and she said she would come to church which would be for the first time in about a month. she said "see you tomorrow miley cyrus!" cause apparently she thinks i look like her... not sure how i feel about that. anyways so i was super pumped leaving that appointment and i was like YES she's back on track shes gonna do great this is awesome! and then the next day she completely broke my heart and didnt come to church :( so we're gonna go see her either tonight or tomorrow and find out whats up and try to see what we can do. 

Sunday night we went to dinner at the Mendoza family house with the elders. theyre super fun and recently joined the church and super excited about everything! i love them. so we taught them about keeping the sabbath day holy cause they dont. haha i dont think anyone has ever explained it to them cause they sincerely dont know that theyre not supposed to be doing those things. so hermana brown did this awesome object lesson where she made an ice cream sundae and put lots of good things on it to represent the good things we do on sunday. and then she starts adding like ketchup and mustard and hair and dirt to it to represent the bad things we can do on sunday. and then she was like "you dont want to ruin a good sunday!" hahah great punch line and they totally loved it. and it got the point across really well and it helped their two kids get it too. 

umm this is killing me cause i know im forgetting something that i wanted to tell you about!! shoot. oh haha hermana hileman gets lost ALL THE TIME. like seriously you thought i was bad! she's worse. today we were trying to go to the market and she made a couple wrong turns and before we knew it we were on the bridge headed into downtown boston! hahhaha but i was happy cause we got to ride over the bridge and see the water :) also guess what? we can listen to music in our car and hookup our ipods and it makes me happier then anything because we rock out to efy music in a super wholesome way. 

Okay i guess ill update you on the things that i know i forgot about next week! sorry about that... umm dad i hope you had a good time in dallas and made it home safe!!! thanks for the picture from the eastlake game. glad that you've got that eastlake pride going strong :) and thanks for telling me about your week i love hearing about it!! i got a letter from katie and michael this week so THANK YOU!!!! i wrote you both back so thatll be coming your way. i love you all! 

sending all of my love,

sister tantillo

Letter #7: First Week in Boston!

Okay first of all im SO SORRY that it’s taken forever for me to email this week. The libraries were closed on Monday and then we didn’t have time yesterday so we finally made it over today!! ahhh im sorry I hope you weren’t freaking out mom. Dad... nice pink pants. You’re turning into grandpa Tantillo next thing I know you'll be coming home with a fresh pedicure. um email time is still stressful and short... sorry if I don’t reply to you personally but I really really do appreciate all the love and ill do as much as i can in the time that i have. but i definitely will reply to handwritten letters I PROMISE. also CONGRATULATIONS TANNER!!!!!!!!!!! super super super exciting that you'll be going to BYU!! love that place. you'll do great!

So here's the update. I'm serving in the Revere 1st ward. Its spanish speaking. not even joking right now. I am temporarily a spanish speaking missionary! hahah like WHAT i was shocked. so thats absolutely crazy and im still trying to process that one but its all good. so yah dad any advice you have about that would be much appreciated. i have two trainers though! we're in a trio. Hermana Hileman is from Colorado and she's 23. and then Hermana Brown is 24 and from Utah. they're both super short and different but i love them both. sister hileman has trained three times and all of her trainees have been visa waiters. we're serving in the same ward as a trio of elders and we work really closely with them. they have a visa waiter headed to brazil in their trio too.

I didnt get to my area until thursday though. i landed here on tuesday. it was just me and two other elders on my flight and we were greeted by President and Sister Packard. They're adorable and they have these great texan accents and were so excited to see us! so eventually we get all of our luggage together and head over to the mission home and meet up with everyone else that got in that day. we were on a different flight since we're visa waiters. sister packard sent you a pic of all of us. so yah we spent that night and all of wednesday at their house being trained and having interviews. we slept at the sister training leaders apartment. on wednesday they took us to the Boston Commons to do street contacts. they assistants to the president called it our "hazing". so that was reassuring. but it was. haha we got into random companionships and just walked around and started talking to people and they were rude mostly. but thats okay it was a good experience. and its not like that in my area at all. so i guess its a blessing im not serving there. 

Thursday we went to the transfer meeting where they assigned us to our companions and thats where i met hermana brown and hileman! and then we've been at work ever since. all of the members here in the spanish ward are so friendly and they hug us and kiss us on the cheek and try to feed us way too much food. last night we were at a dinner appointment with the elders and freaking elder freeman kept telling the lady that i wanted more food and so she kept bringing tacos and i was going to die but i couldnt say no cause thats rude and i was mad at him. 

Even though its spanish speaking here i still run into a lot of portuguese which is cool. and one of the elders in the trio, elder sousa, is actually from brasil so he's offered to practice with me and help me keep it up. about half of our lessons so far have been in english too. it just depends on what they prefer to speak. and all of the kids speak english cause of school. but its been interesting. i can actually understand most of whats being said cause its so similar to the portuguese. its just saying something myself that is the issue. i tried so hard to forget spanish in the mtc cause it was messing with my pronunciation of everything!! haha so now ill have to relearn all of that. 

We live in this po-dunk little apartment as sister hileman calls it. and all three of our beds are crammed into this tiny room but i love it! i love all of the buildings here cause they're all that new england style and i just cant get over how cool they are. theres so much character. we have a car which is super nice cause its the first time that this area has had one. hermana hileman says we're getting a lot more done in a day than they were able to just walking and on the bus. except she got a parking ticket our first day out with it and we've already had to have it jumped cause she left the emergency lights on all night. she was having a rough day haaha she also clogged our kitchen sink trying to dump a ton of rice down it. so we've made friends with our landlord cause we keep having to call him to do things like jump our car and fix our sink. 

I want to tell you about this lady! We decided to go visit her a couple of days ago cause she hasnt had contact with the missionaries in a while. She’s inactive but when we showed up at her house she was SO HAPPY to see us. she invited us in and cooked us this amazing meal and basically just told us that she's ready to make a change in her life. she's been exploring a lot of other churches and has realized that she couldn’t find the happiness and the truth that she once had. shes had a rough life though and is really struggling. she had a little five year old daughter and the father of her daughter lives with them. so last night she asked us to bring the elders over to give them all blessings. so we all went over and each of the trio gave a blessing to them. jenny recieved hers in portuguese, the father in spanish, and the daughter in english. and that was SO COOL! gospel is true in every language. but jenny and her daughter are leaving the country soon for about a month. she says she's going to go to church while shes gone. so the elders are going to work with Leo (the dad) in the meantime. He was close to being baptized several years ago and we dont really know what happened with that. but i know their whole family is going to be just fine! they'll get through all of this. 

Oh haha also i am now the ward chorister/pianist (sister hileman and i switch off) and also the primary pianist. the primary program is this sunday so ive gotta learn all of those songs by then... yeah. haha i love it though we practiced this past sundayand all of the kids are so excited and sing with their whole hearts! its inspiring :) sister hileman said she was praying for a piano player to be transferred here so that she wouldn’t have to do it haha. 

Alright well I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! Im so thankful for this opportunity i have to be serving a mission right now. its hard but its wonderful and there is nothing better or that i would rather be doing right now. ill write again on Monday :) miss you and keep safe.