Trabajando A FUL

FAH. I´m exhausted. Mostly my brain. My head hurts a tad, but not as much as last week, thank heavens. I´ve always been a person who wants to take a nap everyday, though, so that´s all kind of normal haha. No worries. We´re still working our butts off. AND we´re finally getting to see some of the fruits of our work. (: That´s always been one of my challenges throughout the mission. The Lord enjoys testing how much faith I´ve got, to see if I´ll keep working, even if I can´t see the fruits. So...

POR FIN!!! This last week, we were in the middle of weekly planning when an hermana calls us up from the ward. We choose to answer (THANK HEAVENS), and WOW...She tells us a story about her cuñadita (younger sister in-law) who has been having depression issues. She really wants us to go and visit her. She had already talked with her parents and received permission for us to visit her. DONE. We went and visited her that night. Her name is Caren. 14 years old. Searching for something more in the life, but she can´t seem to find it. She can´t find that happiness...We all get to talking, decently casual to gain her trust and the trust of her family, and Caren open RIGHT up with us. Such a cute gal, I love her to death. We talk a it about what we do as missionaries, our purpose, our message, Jesus Christ, and the happiness she WILL be able to find. And that is a PROMISE. We finish up, and ask her how she´s feeling. She sits and thinks for a second..."Feliz. Contenta. Lista para cambiar."

FAH. Can you say PREPARED?! We leave her with a Libro de Mormon, and we teach her how to pray. Then? Kneeling Prayer. She offered it. (: She is SO great, and she came to church yesterday. Fah. I love her to death.

I had another bomb Inspired Door Knocking experience. (: The first one, if y´all remember, resulted in the baptism of the Sesma Family in San Juan. Well we went wandering through a neighborhood, Barrio Tac, and we decided to go down a random little dirt road. (Little did I know, it wasn´t even in that neighborhood haha). We walk down to the end of the road, and I point at a door, "ESA PUERTA." Baha. We go knock, and my companion asks for Luciana...?!?!? We have no idea who these people are, but she spits out a name, and they try helping us out haha. "Maybe the gal next door or in front?? I´m not sure..." Our reply:"Hmmm well, we´re missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints...etc, etc." And then here comes the miracle:

THEY LET US IN.

Truly, that´s the hardest part of Argentina. All love to heard about the word of God, but nobody wants to let you in their door. Dang. In that house lives 2 families, and they are SUPER great. They´re even married! What luck. (:

Alrighty, those are just a couple of great experiences from this week. Other than that, we got lucky with Zonda! Great big winds and such, leaving the air cool and fresh. (: Dang, I had to actually USE my blanket!! AND I had to pull out my sweatpants and hoodie. (: Sooo that´s what those photos are from haha. For the first time in...weeks. Months. We were actually COLD. Fah. Gotta love it. (:

That´s all for now, folks! CHAU!

Efficient Language Studies and CRAZY Heat

 Sooo I don´t have a ton of time left, but I wanted to sen d a few pictures while I can! The first two are from Hermana Cerrato´s camera...

-SO...It has been wicked hot lately, and almost impossible to sleep at night, because it´s so hot out. On one occasion recently, we got fed up. We  put the fan outside the door, a couple thin blankets on the kitchen floor, and we slept with the doors wide open. (No worries, everything es all closed in, so nobody could have come and killed us, por suerte. (;)

-Uhhh I happened to try and kick my comp while she took a photo...Yes. Our feet are almost permanently dirty all the time. Bleh.

-Us hermanas! The other two hermanas live in the pench next to us, so we get to hang with them a ton. Plus, I worked with them as sister training leader, and FAH...Yeah. I love them to death. But the hermana to the left of me was transferred. ): Sad day. Love them all.

-This is the relationship between my comp and I. (: Bahaha chiste. We both very "alegres" haha. It´s a blast.

-We´re starting to focus on Mormon.org now, too, annnnd what did I happen to find?? PERSONALIZED MORMON.ORG CARDS! Now I can hand these out and tell people to go check out my profile. (: Whoots!  I now have one in English, and I had to make another in Spanish. SO. Check out both! (;

-The last two photos...One of the biggest problems here in Argentina, is the number of people who smoke. The majority of our investigators smoke. So what do we do?? We used the method of "tobacco tea". (BLEH.) You know how after you puke after eating something, you never want to eat that food again? Well that´s what this does, más o menos. The tea is wicked awful, I´m assuming, and then the person has to smoke right after drinking it all. It makes them want to puke. And thennn they never wanna smoke again. Fah. I felt awful watching our investigator do it. It hurt my heart to see him struggling like that. ): BUT...In the long run,  I know he´ll see miracles.

ALRIGHT! That´s all I´ve got for now. This week we finally started seeing some success in this newly-opened area. It was GREAT. But for now, I´ve just got a funny story for you all. (:

Sooo Hermana Cerrato and I LOVE language study. I learn  a lot by teaching her English, and she learns WICKED fast. And, of course, she´s always helping me with my grammar and such. (: And, we happen to know quite a bit about the other´s country and city. She knows that Quincy is a little farming town, and that my name comes from a lake. I know that she´s from a gorgeous, tropical country, and she´s got the warm ocean, mountains, and rivers within 15 minutes, and that her name is super unique, and why her parents named her Eylin...SO...We started language study one day...We were going over some rhyming words and vocab, and she starts out reading off the words, "Okayyy...Bow...Down...Crown...Cow...QUINCY, WASHINGTON!   "  HAHAHA I died. Then we started on vocab:  "Ocean means...el mar o oceano, no? Río is easy, river...Okay...Lago...That means lake. Shelan! Lake Chelan!" And then gave me the biggest smirk of her life hahaha. I died. Again. (:

That´s all for now! CHAU!

TRANSFER CALL number...Uhhh...

Wow. I have no idea. I think it´s like my 7th or something. I couldn´t tell ya for sure. But no worries! Hermana Cerrato and I are both staying here for another 6 weeks. (:

Hmmm this week has been...Kind of long, but we got loads done. I think one of the hardest things from the mission has been not seeing the fruits of our efforts. BUT...That´s okay, I suppose. It´s a work in progress.

Here´s an update on pictures!

-Waiting to take the bus to skype with our families!

-NOBODY. Christmas day was SO SLOW. No traffic, nada.

-My comp got to meet my fam! :P

-Chit chatting with everyone. (:

-Playing doctor! (; Turns out she had a sty, and the best way to take care of it? Warm salt water, a semi-patient companion, and way too much laughing. :P

-Sometimes, the heat just gets to ya...How we spent our Christmas. (;

-So I told my family that I was wanting to buy the gals some gypsy pants, which are the "fad" here in Argentina...Yup. I bought myself a pair, too. Annnd I love them haha.

-The district!

-CHEERS to the New Years!

-Fireworksss

-Funny story. We get home, leave the door open (always, because it´s always cooler outside than inside), and the next thing I know...There´s a random dog outside! Which is weird, because we have a gate thing to keep things out--like this mangy-looking thing haha. Well, he was shakin´ up a storm from the fireworks, sooo...

-I comforted the mangy thing. (: Lucky for me, he´s our neighbor´s dog haha.

-Getting ready to head to my meeting at the offices, Consejo.

-Right after a bomb intercambio! :D

-TRANSFER CALLS! What nerves they´ve all got. :P

Annnd now a few from the fotos of my comp:

-Again. Heading to Consejo.

-DEAR DAD: I hope you´re proud of me. I taught my comp the "geniusness" of chocolate milk and a splash of orange pop. WIN for the norteamericana!

Una Mezcla

Alrighty, again, I think I´ll be including a little bit of what I wrote to Presidente, because it´s hard to translate and re-tell it in English haha. BUT...This week has been pretty insane. Not really, it´s just that I haven´t been in my area all week or we haven´t been able to work.

Monday: P-Day of course. And thennn turned out that Hermana Cerrato, my comp, had a STY in her eye! So we had to keep washing it out and putting hot washclothes on her eye. So yes. I played doctor all day. (:

Tuesday: New Years Eve. Fin de Año! We, again, weren´t allowed to work unless we had set appointments, due to all the people that were borrachas. Drunk. BUT, we did get to have a great New Year´s Ever dinner with our ward mission leader, his great family, and the elders. It was a blast! This computer won´t read my memory from my camera, so those pictures will come later.

Wednesday: New Year´s Day. Año Nuevo. Even MORE drunk people, sooo it was the same. But we got sick of sitting in the apartment studying/cleaning/etc. so we went to the chapel to practice piano. (: I´m teaching Hermana Cerrato! Eegads.

Thursday: A REAL day of work!...Except for the fact that we had weekly planning. But it was good. (:

Friday: Consejo. I don´t know what that meeting is called in English. That meeting where all the zone leaders and sister training leaders go with the assistants and presidente? I´m not sure. But it was BOMB. Kind of a "bajar la caña" Dropping cane. That phrase means...Like...Reprimanding? Chastizing? I´m not totally sure. But it was GREAT. He made very clear what the rules are and are not. Some have gotten a bit mixed up in the mission, but it is all very clear cut now. (: Then after Consejo, we did an intercambio. Exchanges.

Saturday: Finished up the intercambio, and had another great day of work!

Sunday: We had a lot of citas fall through. It was rough. And wicked hot. But we had such a bomb language study. Hermana Cerrato loves learning English, and I love teaching and helping. I, myself, learn a ton about Castellano and English, and I find that I have a lot of patience when it comes to others learning English. I aboslutely love it.

Miracle of the week! La semana anterior, fui con la Hermana Rodriguez en Godoy Cruz Centro. El milagro principal? Su bautismo!! Había una hermana que iba a bautizarse, pero no pudieron encontrarla por dos días. La llamaban a ful, pero nunca contestara. Pasamos dos veces, pero no estaba. Llegamos a la pensión, y Hna. Rodriguez estaba un poco desanimada, pero le dije que fuéramos a pasar una vez más...Fuimos para visitar otras personas, y pasamos a la 1:30 más o menos en sábado...ELLA ESTUVO! Pasamos y nos pusimos hablar, y la Hna. Rodriguez dijo, media nerviosa, "Bueno, hermana...¿Qué piensa de su bautismo a las 7 hoy?" (Pregunta inspirada? Quizás no, pero funcionó! :P ) Nos respondió: "Sí! Estoy lista!" FAH. Tuvimos su segunda entrevista (por el té que tomaba antes) a las 4, y preparamos todo para el bautismo. Discursos, miembros, canciones, todo. Fue con poco aviso de tiempo, pero ese bautismo era tan hermoso.

I was/am SO grateful to be one of the hermanas to do intercambios and help the other hermanas. I love this calling, and it was wicked cool to be able to help these hermanas prepare their first baptism. I felt so...needed at the end of the exchange, because we were about to leave, but I thought about it for a sec..."Hermanas, the exchange is over, but do you need our help, or is it okay if we leave?" Hermana Rodriguez got a slightly nervous look on her face, "Uhhh we´d feel a lot better if you stayed..." OKAY! And thank heavens we did, because WE were running around a ful, as well as the OTHER hermanas, trying to get everything put together! Such a great miracle. (:

Other fun stuff?? My family sent me the pictures from our skype call on Christmas! Lo and behold, I did NOT realize that my head was freakin´ ginormous haha. But these photos bust me up. (: Enjoy!!

-While we were waiting during her interview, Hna. Rodriguez finally had a second to relax. :P

-Spying. :P Chiste. She was checking to see if they were saying the prayer yet haha.

-And off we went!! To fill the font!...But first, we had to clean it haha.

-The great baptism. (:

-Christmas fotos! West and I! :D Gotta love that brother-sister love. (;

-AUDREYYY! Love my one and only sister in-law! :D

-Bunny ears for the momma. (;

-HERMANOS! Fah. What handsome brothers I´ve got. (:

-"Wait, wait! I want a picture with my daughter!!" Haha thanks Momma.

-He was mocking me...How kind haha.

-Minion oreos! We only seem to find them in Argentina. (; That´s one point for Gryf--uhhh ARGENTINA.

-Kisses from Papa. :P