Photos

Warning: There are LOTS!

-The Conference with Elder Viñas from the Seventy

-Baleadas!! Oh how I missed them. (:

-That´s ice on top. My head hurt...A lot.

-San Rafeal ZONE! La Tierra Prometida. (;

-Us hermanas!

-Waiting for us in the acequia (;

-There we are! Good ol´ Argentina "winters" :P

-Walking to the service project

-Hna. Japa painting!

-Hna. Cerrato and Hna. Malstrom painting

-Hermana Benítez fulfilling her "duty": Mate preparer!

-And then she takes it around to the members and offers them mate. (:

-Raquel! The greatest hermana of my life. (: Preparing the meat for the asado!

-The awesome Bishop Galdeano, enjoying the service project haha.

-And one of his sons! Kevin. (:

-One of my favorite niñitas. (;

-I assumed the responsibility of entertaining the kids with soccer. (;

-I did a good job. :P

-But then I got to painting, too!

-Whoots!

-Showing off some sunglasses that aren´t mine with my comp haha.

-The hermanas. (;

-Hermana Raquel and Isaías! (:

-Hno y Hna. Bustos. This couple reminds me WAY too much of Mom and Dad! Just a bit more Argentine. (;

-The pro-asador (;

-Yummm! Meat!

-Great ward activities with food!

-I love this ward way too much. (:

-The Loyola family!!

-With Marinel now (:

-Me and the hermanas (grand-daughter, me, mother, grandmother)

-With Hna. Cerrato!

Correction: Like a THICK, Solid Cement Wall

Oof. I thought it had hit me last week...Until I got to THIS week. Now it´s not even funny. I´ve never been one to get headaches, not gonna lie. But dang, talk about a WEEK-LONG headache. And you remember that I mentioned "that awful, sick, nervous feeling in the stomach"? Yeah well it still hasn´t gone away. And at night time it´s the worst. The rest of the day, I´m thinking about a bajillion other things with the work and investigators and companions and hermanas and the mission and ibuprofen for my hurting head...And then I kneel down at night to say a prayer before getting in bed, and it all come crashing down again. I used to be able to fall asleep at 10:30 in 2 seconds flat. Now it´s like...2 and a half HOURS flat. :/ BUT...What ya gonna do, no? Seguir adelante!

This week has been SICK! We have finally had our first two lessons with investigators in almost a month!! We had a dryspell of lessons and investigators, but we´re finally beginning to see some success from all of our hard work (: Our numbers still aren´t glorious haha, but they are getting better! Poco a poco. We also had a zone meeting, tasty lunches, and a big service activity! Pictures will be sent in another email. (: Oooh! And there´s a family that Hermana Cerrato and I taught while we were serving in Gutiérrez, Maipú (the familia Loyola) who the grand-daughters and the grandma are members, but the mom was not. We always knew that the grandma lived in San Rafael, but we never knew which ward she was in...Well guess who WE found visiting San Rafael! Almost the whole Loyola family!!! (: Oh my, it was incredible to be able to see them all again. But SO hard to say goodbye a second time around. ):

It was awesome, because the older sister, Janet, wasn´t there, so they called her up and the mom tells her, "Che, I´m gonna pass the phone to someone who wants to say hi!" She passes me the phone, and I say, " Hooola, Janet?? Cómo anda y por que no está acá visitando?!"

Her immediate response: "Qué---AYYY!!! Hermana Libertyyyy!!!" (: Ah, it made me so happy. (: I love that family! Photos will also be included!

Hermana Japa is progressing SO much in English! It truly amazes me. When we first became companions, she knew some nouns and little things, so her prayers went a little like this: "Heavenly Father. Thanks for church. Thanks for companion. Thanks for estudio." But wow...It´s amazing. Now she says things like, "Our loving Heavenly Father, we thank thee for the opportunity to go to the church today. We ask thee to bless our investigators, so that they come to church. Bless us with Thy Spirit. Watch over our families..." Fah. It´s nuts. We practice vocab in the street still, and it´s still pretty funny the things she says. (: 

Japa: "Thank you for giving me foot."

Me: *Dying laughing* "Qué quiere decir??"

...She meant to say, Thank you for giving me FOOD. :P

That´s just one thing. (:

Okay, well that´s about all I´ve got for now. I´ll write something more sentimental next week when I have time to think tranquilamente and express exactly what I´m feeling and such. For now...Just now that I love what I´m doing. Yeah, it´s a little hard to be leaving. I love these people. This language. This Gospel. I still can´t truly imagine just up and leaving and stop being a missionary, so...I won´t! I´ll change places, I´ll come back and visit, but I´ll always be a missionary in my heart. Sharing these truths that truly change lives. See y´all on the other side of the world! Loves.

Con demasiado amor,

Hermana Lybbert

Like a Brick Wall

It hit me. Finally. It was kind of like a brick wall. Pretty painful, not gonna lie. I mostly felt sick haha.

Not gonna lie, one just gets used to the jokes about the time and how much time we have left, but it never really phased me. Until yesterday...We had a SICK zone conference, and I absolutely LOVED it. But the first thing that EVERYONE asked me was, "Hermana! So how do you feel???"

Me: "Uhhh...NORMAL!" Haha and it was true! I did!ç

But then we finished some workshops and started eating lunch, and I noticed Presidente walking around with the list of "Nuevos" and "Viejos" missionaries. AKA, those who just got here this transfer and those who are leaving this transfer. I start looking around to try and see all the newbies and to see who else would be leaving from the San Rafael and Alvear zones...NEWS: A BAJILLION! I couldn´t even count them all. About half of the missionaries.

Viejos: ME.

I died. I got that awful, sick, nervous feeling in the stomach, and it´s been there ever since. EXCEPT when we went out to work last night! So that was great. But dang. It comes back awfully quick. I don´t like it.

CHANGES! I´m so stoked, because Presidente is changing all SORTS of stuff! Haha. I tried making a list of all the little changes, but I couldn´t. Basically, he´s simplifying EVERYTHING. Cutting out the "fluff" and capitalizing the major basics. It´s bomb. Helping us become more dedicated, true, pure servants of Christ. Sure, we´re not gonna be able to become perfect, but we better be working to become as perfect as we can to be the best representative of our Lord and perfect Savior, Jesus Christ.

This week haha...So Barrio 1 of San Rafael once upon a time had 2 elders and 2 hermanas, dividing the area. But after a few short months, the elders were taken out again. I never understood why. Buuut...I´m beginning to see why. For the last 3 weeks, we´ve had some...Rough numbers. We´re working like CRAZY, I can´t lie. Talking to loads of people, knocking doors, looking for antiguo investigadores, searching for less actives, trying to clean out the ward directory...But...Dang. It´s rough. However, I´m not struggling personally haha. I´m good. Happy. Excited. Despite the numbers. Because I know I´m doing my part and giving my all. But I wish so badly to find a FAMILY or someone to teach. Ojalá! We´ll keep on keepin´ on. (; No worries. We´ll find some éxito here pretty quick.

Consejo was BOMB, way fun, and it happens to be my last. It didn´t hit me, but now, yes. Mostly just the fact that...I won´t see a lot of these people again. There are SO many people that I´ve come to love from Perú, Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, México, etc...I truly don´t know when or if I´ll see them again. That´s what hurts. SO...Here´s a few photos of just a handful of these awesome people!

-Our last Consejo with all the leaders.

-Mendoza! So typical, describes it perfectly.

-Those of the leaders who are headed home...(We´re missing 3 hermanas who headed home a tad bit early for school ): )

-We´ve got the rich part of the area! The houses were GINORMOUS and gorgeous! These leaves reminded me of the leaves that Dad made. (:

-The spiritual thought after lunch? A SONG! (: Deal. With the querida Hna. Ortiz. (:

-Hahaha I had to put this up, just because of Hna. Ortiz and her cute little daughter, Mazarena. (:

-Cheeese

-The hermanas from Malargüe came again for the conference! Except...This time we´ve already got 4 in the pench (apartment), sooo they had ONE mattress to share haha. Good morning Hermana Magaña and Hermana Bentley! :P

-Anyone remember Hna. Cerrato? Yeah, well, she likes doing people´s makeup haha. So she´s pulled out all her makeup to do the hermanas´ makeup! She´s nuts. :P

-Happy birthdays!!!

-Oh man. I wish I had this song that Presidente and Hermana Goates sing for the misionaries´ birthdays haha. It´s hilarious. Kind of awkard, but SO great! In this photo, they were dancing and singing it. :P

-Hermana Japa prepared a talk in English about charity, and she did SO great!! Certificate from Hermana Goates. (:

-La Hermanita Guzmán, mi peruanita...Oh goodness, she´s the greatest.

-My comp! Whoots! Hermanita Japita. (;

-Hermana Volpiiii! She´s the bomb. Dang. (: Coolest Chilena of my life.

Surpriseee!! (;

For me, mostly. Not for you all. (: Baha. So for these last transfers we had, Presidente had been thinking about splitting our area, but turned out that he didn´t. So all was fine. We found a few sick people and a family that came to church and THEN...

Monday, the pensionista (elder in charge of apartments?) called us up to see if 4 hermanas could live in our apartment. Response: "Uhhh sure! It´ll be tight, but we can do it."

Tuesday morning. The zone leaders call. "Hey hermanas, could you get a couple beds and desks over to your pench, because 2 new hermanas are coming. Oh, and don´t forget to split the area book, because they´ll be coming to your area!"

WHOOTS!! We got to work right away, trying to balance missionary work and area splitting work haha. And the best thing?? It´s my old comp! Hermana Cerrato! And she´s training a gal from Boston, Hermana Malstrom! :D It´s been crazy, and we JUST recieved the desks and closet today, so they´ve been doing studies on the floor and living out of their suitcases. :P But it is way fun. It´s making me think of the beginning on my mission here in Argentina with Hermana Mujica, all the things one learns and discovers and all the Spanish they learn! It has made me even more aware of the example I´m setting for this hermana. I think of the beginning on my mission, and I KNOW how much I watched my leaders, companions, other missionaries, and I know I had/have several people who I´ve used as examples my entire mission. Whew. It seems like a heavy load or pressure, but it´s a blast more than anything haha.

Wednesday, we spent the majority of the day looking for a decent closet, desks, and a bunkbed and splitting the area books. And they came Thursday morning! Well, we went to go get them and come back in taxis haha, so yeah! It has been absolutely insane, but I´m loving it so much.

Hermana Malstrom and I have had several funny moments together, attempting to talk in English. On top of that, she´s from BOSTON, so she has different English lingo haha. On top of THAT, she´s making me realize how much I´m struggling with English. :/ It´s absolutely hilarious, but sometimes I´ll sit there like a fool, trying to remember the word blackmail or trying to think of how we phrase certain things in English. But she gets a kick out of it, so it´s fine haha. She makes little comments every now and then that, again, make me realize the example I´m setting. "Dang, that´s funny that you´re forgetting English. I wanna get to that point. How long does it take?" I chuckled. (: Luckily she´s got a companion who is Latina, so they´re ALWAYS talking in Spanish. It´s great. (: She picks it all up WAY fast.

Other discovery I´ve made! No one from the States knows what arroz con leche is!! I always remember Mom making rice with milk and cinnamon and sugar, and it was delicious! But no norteamericano knows what it is. ): But I´ve discovered that I´m a pro arroz con leche maker. :P 

Alrighty, here´s some photos!! As we were getting stuff moved around, I truend into Hermana Fixer-Upper, because EVERYTHING needed fixed! But that´s alright, it was fun :P Sorry we don´t have more photos! I´ll take some now that we´ve got desks and everything. (: Whoots! Love you all!!