SERIOUSLY?!

WHOA! I don´t have much time, sorry haha. Buuuut I´m sure you´re all dying like we were to figure out about transfers!! :D No?! Yes.

 

Sooo we had both heard SO many things as to what was gonna happen with us.

 

Zone Leaders: "Hermanas, they can´t support keeping the best hermanas in the same area; they´ve gotta spread y´all out!" HA. Jokes.

District Leader: "Oh for SURE with all the new missionaries you´ll be training." **GULP** Flip. I hope not.

Other Elders of our district: "Hermana Lybbert is opening an area, Hermana Cox stays and trains!"

 

The reak answer ISSS...**BUZZER BEEP** WRONG-O!! All of them. Presidente was kind enough to grant us both with our desires and begs of staying together at least one more transfer!!! Here in hot San Juan Centro. :D BOOM!! Wanna hear the really exciting news? About 2 days after figuring out about transfers, the asistentes randomly call us up.

 

"Hey Hermana, can I talk with Hermana Lybbert?"--->What??

"Hermana Lybbert, have you gotten a call from President yet?" Uh...Nope.

"Ohhhh huh. Well, you will be soon. He´ll be telling you what all you need to do as a sister training leader." Ahhhh flipppp. Seriously?! Jokes. Cruel jokes...What? OH. You´re NOT joking. Heh. **Nervous chuckle** Solid! Thank Elders...

 

CHAU.

 

I had a minor freak out moment before I got excited. (: Por suerte, I´m only en charge of the other 2 hermanas in my district! :D So I´m stoked. I head to Mendoza with the zone leaders tomorrow for Consejo and an interview and such haha. Whoots!

 

But for now?? PICTURES!

 

First two? Ha, yeah, that´s my REALLY great zone. (: Love ´em!

Ping Ponnng with la Hna. Cox! Haha. We´re great. Gotta love P-Days.

The most decent picture we could snap with our district haha. Our district leader changed! Elderrr Gomezzz on the left. He´s from Colombia, and he´s SUPER solid!

HA. I may or may not have been playing soccer with the kids. Don´t judge me. (;

"Hey Hermana, what´s that that you´re eating??"..."Uhhh...Ha. Sugar. (:" Baha. Dulce de leche with Trix. Mmmm.

The freeway we walk over all the time haha. This is what happens during siesta. Nada. Nobody. Except for the law-breakin´ hermanas! Jokes. There are no laws like that. :P

AGAIN. Siesta. NOBODY. It´s the worst on Sundays, because nobody even answers the door when you knock. Ridiculous.

Yeah. We were fed up with not finding people in the streets haha. So what do we do? Take pictures in the middle of the empty street. Super productive. (; Jokes. We really are. (:

 

That´s all for now! Amor! Chauuu. (:

 

-Hermana Lybbert

Más Fotos!

Sooo here´s three more fotos haha. I have a video of the sonda finally from yesterday, but it´s too big to load. ): Sad day. BUT...Enjoy looking at the NASTY water from a load of clothes last week! We do have a "lava ropa", and then we rinse out he soap and hang dry them, but SHEESH...I had to wash that load twice haha. The water was BLACK.

Yesterday was Mother´s Day here! :D Only the Argentine´s call home haha. We wait. (: But this is for my Momma, annnd...

THIS is one of my Argentine momma´s! haha. These are the members that we live behind, nuestros dueños. They don´t have kids, so we took the honor of being her daughters for Mother´s Day. (: Hermano y Hermana Polo!

Pictures! Cavas de Zonda

Finally at the top of the hike!

Sitting on top of the head, with Elder Gutierrez behind me haha.

"Cheeese!!" hahah we´re really attractive.

The elders of my district haha. Up top is Elder Saavedra with my district leader, Elder Wright. Down below is Elder Holmstead (from my old ward at BYUI), Elder Johnson (Zone Leader) and Elder Gutierrez.

All of my district! (:

The ridiculous "trail" of rocks we climbed.

The cavesss.

My comp and I. We´re really great.

So windyyy.

Those MOUNTAINS! Fah. They kill me.

Everyone pretending to fall, except for Hna. Cox, who legitimately IS falling.

Uhhh an attempt of getting a picture of the elders.

Yeah. That´s Elder Johnson for ya.

Climbing up a holeee. :D

Elder Saavedra, I zoomed in...

Annnd what Elder Saavedra really looked like from teh top! :D

District.

District plus a zone leader haha.

Climbing downnn.

It´s Always the Darkest Right Before the Dawn

Can you say STRUGGLE MOMENTSSS?! Freak. Satan truly knows where to attack and WHEN. It´s not like Hermana Cox and I struggled ALL the time, but we definitely had our moments. Lucky for me, I didn´t do too bad. A couple times, for sure. Sometimes you just do NOT have ANY clue as to what you´re doing or why you´re standing in the middle of some dead street, in the middle of the siesta. But I have SUCH a testimony of the saying,

"Forget yourself and go to work."

So that´s exactly what we did.

Appointments fall through? No big. Knock their neighbor´s door. Your investigator drops YOU? No importa. Find a someone else who is willing and ready to hear the gospel. Investigators don´t show up to church? Well...That does suck. And it makes us as missionaries look bad, BUT...What can ya do, no? Keep working.

So we wake up Saturday morning, and it´s kind of a struggle morning. But we choose to forget ourselves and get to work. We go clean the capilla and study and then head to our bishop´s house. We share a simple spiritual thought, and I choose to ask him what HE thinks we can do better as missionaries, to gain the trust of members, etc. And he sits there. Kind of stumped. All he says, "Hermanas, ustedes son trabajadoras. Los miembros las ven y ven su trabajo. Sigan trabajar. Eso es todo lo que puedo decir."

It was just what we needed. To feel like your work isn´t all in vain. That we ARE accomplishing things here in San Juan Centro...THEN...We had a recorrido at the capilla. A church tour. With a Menos Activo. She´s been a member for 40 years, went inactive 25 years ago for some ugly things that went down with members in the church. It´s bad, and her experiences are hard. But OH how she misses the church. We visited her on Friday and mentioned we could do a tour, and we ask her when she´d like to do it. She thinks for about 5 seconds then says with a burst of excitment, "MAÑANA." Oh! :D Okay! Haha. And wow...It was glorious. It´ll take her a little bit to come back to church, but she´ll come back. We walked around the chapel and then just sat in the sacrament meeting room. Peaceful silence. She closed her eyes and began to cry silently. "ÉSTA...Ésta es la que estoy buscando. Esta paz." I love her to death.

We then decided to go to the familia Ibaseta, just to see if they would be coming to church the next day. They´re a tough family, but we visited them earlier this week, and WHOA. Hermana Cox and I had an Alma and Amulek teaching experience. We mustered up all the boldness and faith we had in us and testified and promised blessings like nobody´s business...The entire family of 11, and then some, were sitting there listening and captured in what we were saying. We layed it all out on the table, and we asked him to say a very specific prayer, and we left...We show up Saturday, and we ask if they want us to come by Sunday morning. All Raul says, with so much determination, "Me voy a ir. No sé quien más quiere ir, pero YO me voy a ir."

FAHHH. I was blown away, but SO stoked. SO! Lo and behold, him, and 3 of his daughters came with us to church. (: Two gals went to primary, one went to Young Women´s, and Raul went to Priesthood. They stayed for all the meetings. The members invited them all to all sorts of activities, and to bring their siblings. One of the members set up to have a Family Night with their whole family...WHOA. It was incredible. This family...Gah! I love them. (:

Anywho!! This week has been nuts. And we normally would know by now where we´re going for the next transfer (transfers this week!!!), buuut the mission is going NUTS. It´s so sweet, because I got to see the missions in the states going nuts with loads of new missionaries, and now it´s just starting with our mission here! 35 new missionaries this week, and because of that, we won´t know until later this week when/if we´re being transferred!! FAH. Hermana Cox and I have been kind of hoping to serve just ONE more transfer together, because her and I both are "those hermanas" who have never had one companion for longer than one transfer haha. BUT...All we know for now is that one of us is training, most likely here in San Juan Centro, and the other is opening a new area! FREAKKK. Whatever comes, we´re stoked. (: We´re casi positive that we will be serving together as companions later on in the mission. But only time will tell. (:

That´s all for now, folks! **Pig chuckle from Looney Tunes**

-Hermana Lybbert

Sueños y Sorpresas

Just a few things I´d like to mention this week. (: Sadly, without pictures. ): My card isn´t working with this computer for now, sooo...The picture from last P-Day at the caves will just have to wait!

First off, our mission is still going nuts with random new missionaries coming in all the time and areas being split without a word of notice haha. So our really great district leader got transferred in the middle of this transfer to go be a zone leader. The last night before he was to leave, we called to give him our numbers, and (of course) he asks is there´s anything he can do for us. We hesitate, carefully choosing our last and final request of Elder Wright.

"Sing us a song." (:

Honestly, he did NOT sing us a song that night. Instead, he asked us to wait until the next morning...Just to fill you all in on some background, Elder Wright is a REALLY good singer and he sang in the men´s choir at BYU. Plus, Elder Holmstead sings a SICK bass, and the other two elders sing great melodies. Sooo the next morning come around, and they sing us one of my FAVORITES.

Be Still, My Soul. It´s not in Spanish, sadly. And wow, I miss it SO much. I definitely cried. (: Luckily they just sang it over the phone, so it was fine to tear up a tad. :P There are some GREAT elders all throughout this mission. So willing to sing to us hermanas. :P

Okay! Are you all ready for our DAY OF MIRACLES we had?!...SO...Remember the familia Ibaseta? Who has had contact with the church and missionaries for SO long, yet are waiting for a dream?? Yeah, well we haven´t seen them. We decided to not pass by for a little, so that they´ll recognize we bring something different into their home.

Well, long story short, this week was a struggle with all of our investigators. We love them to death, but there´s only so much we can do for them. So we decided we would go up north of our area to find "new blood" haha. We say a prayer before we head out Friday, and I turn to my comp, "Hermana...I think Raul has gotten his dream...We need to stop by."

Of course, comes the time where we intend to stop by, and a big ol´ Zonda comes, and we have to head home from the wind. SO LAME. We make plans for Saturday morning, and we head out the next day...We walk across the bridge, and I see Raul on the corner. He sees us walking, waves, and walks over to us. "Hermanas, I need something from you...I need a picture of your "mother church" or temple or something. I´m not sure."

Okayyy...The first thing that pops into my head is the Salt Lake City temple. Raul then gets this big smile on his face..."I had a dream...There was a big white building with all sorts of spires and points on top..." GAH!!! We all go our separate ways after a conversation, and I start tearing up again. Both of us do haha. We found a picture of the Salt Lake Temple, and we stopped by with the bishop the next day...Boy, you should´ve seen the look on his face when we pulled that foto out. He just about cried. He´s been having this dream for 7 months or more now, and it keeps coming back...We´ll going by later this week again to see them and show them a video on temples. (:

Other than that...We´ve been CRAZY busy this week. Literally RUNNING to lessons hahaha. It´s great. (: I´m a little sick, super exhausted, but so loving it. "Run fast. Run hard. To the tape. You can rest later."

CHAU!

-Hermana Lybbert

What?!

What is this?? How is it that I am in ARGENTINA, and I can´t drink mate...Yet the elders in Quincy, WA are drinking mate at MY house?! Bah. Whatever...

Hey, Mom, Dad...Where´d ya get the mate cup?! :D

"Freaking Agency"

Yes. That DID come out of the mouth of our ward mission leader about 3 days ago. Why? Well...Needless to say, it´s one of the BIGGEST issues we have to deal with as missionaries haha. We can go teach, serve, plan everything out, have Noche de Hogar with them...But ultimately, it´s up to THEM if they want to read, pray, search, go to church, or SHOW UP TO THEIR BAPTISMAL INTERVIEWS. Fahhh.

Why do I mention this? Ohhh Lucia. I love her to death, but man is she a toughy. One day she´ll be STOKED for her baptism, picking out who is gonna baptize her and who´s gonna give the talks...The next day? We show up, and she´s in her PJ´s with "the flu" as she´s hosting a party! Fahhh. So we RE-set her interview for the next day...A lot has gone down. But long story short? She randomly decided to take a trip, and nobody knows when she´s coming back...Investigators falling off the face of the earth...I wish it wasn´t so dang common.

OKAY! Uhhh more random things that are killing me this week? The Superbowl song. Nuts, right? It´s been stuck in my head for days, and it´s making me miss ittt hahaha. But that´s cool. No worries.

GENERAL CONFERENCCCCEEE! What?! So great. But before I talk about that, I´ll tell you why I randomly got called to Mendoza this last week!

So we were in the middle of district meeting, when our phone goes off, and it´s the zone leaders. We were all kind of confused, so I go ahead and answer. (Sidenote: We´ve been getting lots of new missionaries all kind of randomly lately, and people have been getting transferred, areas being split in the middle of transfers and all sorts of nutsiness. People have joked that because Hna. Cox and I are having so much success right now, they´re gonna split us up and such. So you must understand the nerves that IMMEDIATELY went through all of us when all I said was, "A Mendoza?...Cuando?...ESTA noche?!"

Mini Freak Out Moment.

BUT...No worries, I just had to go renew my visa stuff. (: Bahaha. Sooo the picture of Hna. Cox sleeping on the bus is on our way to Mendoza! The one before it with all the meat and the two elders? ASADO!

Yup. Last P-Day, we finally got to have a true asado. It was knd of nuts, because we heard a couple weeks ago that we were getting another flood of missionaries from the states who all received their visas--in the middle of the transfer. So we knew that in our district, we were getting one new elder, an area was being split, and a set of hermanas were coming in. We stoked to meet them! So we show up last Monday to FINALLY meet them all, and I shake the new elder´s hand, and..."Wait a sec...Elder Holmstead?...I know yo--OH!"

Meet Elder Holmstead. He was in my ward at BYU-Idaho haha. My visiting teacher was in his FHE group. I think he´s thoroughly enjoying Argentina and all the meat here haha.

Other picture: We´ve finally gotten some GOOD sun lately! Annd the first day we get it, of course, I am ALL sorts of burnt haha. And now? Brown. (: Thank youuu tan lines.

This family!! The mother, the baby boy, and the two girls one my left and right are the daughter. The other gal is their friend who loves listening to us, too. (: This is the family who has the dog who bit me! :D They are SO great! Verónica, the mom, came to conference yesterday. (:

Speaking of Conference! It was GREAT. Us gringos went upstairs and had a conference party haha. But no, it truly was incredible. I got things out of every single talk. Mostly that I need to be a little more meek and humble. I´ve always kind of struggled on that end, I feel. I take so much pride in being strong, tough, and competitive that sometimes I forget that meekness is not weakness. I don´t HAVE to be strong all the time, and that I HAVE to rely on others--especially my Heavenly Father.

Anywho, that´s about it for now. We´re gonna go on a hike today, I hope. (: I need it! Whoots! CHAU!