Hola de Santa Ana

Hola familia
THis letter I hope is a liitle longer because I won't have tantos personas talking to me. I realized that I didn't say much about what has happened the week of changes and this week even more things have happened. Last week ( ithink I told you that my companion Hna Sanchez had changes) and I was with hna Bermudez who is from El Salvador. She is a great misionary and will finish her mission this change. Friday was a crazy day, with problems with the computers among other things. Sat and sun passed a little more stressful than normal mostly because of the suspense about what was going on in our mission, the tues before changes it started to rain, and we didn-t see the sun again until this wednesday. Many areas here were flooded, and many people's houses melted with the rain(some of the houses are made of adobe, and with a lot of rain the dirt washes away and the walls disolve). Also alot of people build next to the rivers and canals and with a lot of rain the water leaves and floods the adobe houses and washes away everything they have. Here in my area it wasn-t to bad. We have mostly houses of cement and aluminum. and a few of adobe with plaster on the outside, its the adobe that have't been plastered that melt. Lunes was a long suspenseful day in the office, and I was infomed of multizone for thursday. All of the mission on the same day at different times. Tuesday I was informed that Hna Bermudez was having changes, and my new companeras are Hna Bonilla(from Columbia) and Hna Salazar(from Honduras) Hna Bonilla just got here to our mission, she had visa troubles and has been working in Columbia sul for 4 months. She is trained as far as missionary work, and it is great to learn from her as far as that goes. SHe just has to be oriented to our mission and the things we do differently. Hna Salazar is the Hna that has Bells Palsy, and she is gradually getting better. SHe is here in Santa Ana for PT and we are doing divisions almost everyday so she can go to PT. Also the Docs told her she can-t 'andar por ariba and abajo' which means she is resting for this last week and for this next week. She has some ability to move her face a little wich is great. So Tues in the PM Hna Bonilla came in from COlombia, and Wedesday in the AM Hna Bermudez and Hna Stegelmeir went to their area, and Hna Salazar went and packed all of her belongings and came back. Thursday was a very sad day, as we had our multizona and Presidente informed us that 8 missionaries returned home dishonorable released. We recieved a lecture on obedience and President put emphasis on a few rules for our protection. As well as told us that from now on we will only have 45 minutes on the computer on P-day.
But it made me think about the purpose of rules and commandments. It reminded me of the general conference talk where a cow gets into the wheat and bloats and dies because she was pushing the fence. That is what happened to these missionaries they were pushing the rules, seeing if they could just reach a little farther if they could maybe taste just a little bit of that wheat on the other side. and they succeeded in tasting it, but it had dire consequences. The commandments(and for us misioneros the mission rules) are like the fence. We as members who have these protections should see them as a huge deterent that we shouldn-t be anywhere near them. Don't push them, don't see how close you can get or how far to the other side you can reach. They are there for our protection, not for our restriction.
I need to write president still, but I love you all, if you've heard about the flooding here before I mentioned it, don't worry I am fine and the sun is shining and we are drying out.
Oh something funny We were talking the other day about how many companions and areas we've had and I realized that I have had 4 areas and 8 companions in my 7 months in the mission field. Chistoso. :)
Love y'all,
Hna Allen