Dad – WAY TO GO get that referral sent in! I am so proud of you and hope that you all take advantage of each and every opportunity you have to be missionaries. In fact, everyone should go and buy a paperback Book of Mormon and put it in their car and then when the Lord puts someone in their path, dedicate it and give it away.
Mom – the paper was torn more or less. Not terrible, but not lovely....but what matters is that all the treasures inside were just fine!
The cough is almost gone. Every once in a while I have to let myself cough, but it sure hurts to do it! Sleeping is more painful because my body never did learn how to sleep on my back, sleeping on my stomach is bad for my spine, and on my sides puts weird pressure on the ribs so I can´t quite get into a good position to sleep. I went in this past week and had blood and urine work done because Dr. Garcia wants to check on my kidney functions and other things because of all the weird problems I have had lately. I figured it was best to just go ahead and do it to get rid of the doubt. I sent the results in and we´ll see what he thinks about it all--but my feet are cured.
Dad – my comp and I both discovered the other day that our fathers told us very few stories about their missions and we want to hear some. I cannot wait to hear A TON of mission stories, but until then, I want you to send me a few. Por favor!
Nata – I hope you had a blast in Madrid
NATA JASON – don´t hate me because I forgot to wish you a happy anniversary. Wow – 5 years! How awesome is that!
In Argentina you can buy chips loose - like by 100 grams. 200 grams of potato chips is too much for 2 sister missionaries. I learned that this week.
One of my zone leaders told me to start praying for my street contacts right there in the street after they reject me (in my head, obviously) and I started putting it in practice. I found that I was less frustrated with the rejection because I would think something like “Heavenly Father, the next time some of Thy missionaries tries to save the soul of that person, please bless them to listen.” And then I don´t feel so bad (in the words of that famous girl from the Sound of Music – can´t remember her name).
Can you even believe that I hit 15 months this past week? That is like a super long time. Did I already tell you that makes me “viejita” translated little old, but it means like little old lady, not little old, it´s like A LOT old. The language is weird. 15-18 months is the viejita stage. And I am now in it! I bought a pretty blue glittery number 15 candle and we put it on top of the calzones we bought because our lunch appointment stood us up for no good reason.
Mom – Sister Benton told me a little bit about that feeling you had that I would be home in July, but I didn´t catch that you had it twice and I didn´t catch that it was clear back in March. Wise choice not telling me, I would have gone ballistic. I totally see that it was referring to the mission home. It is the closest to home that there is and like your friend said – I was with my mission parents in their home. We knelt together for family prayer every night and everything. And as I already said I was able to get a “Father´s blessing” from my mission Dad. I felt totally at home and well-taken care of.
In Argentina in the windows of the clothing stores there are plus- sized mannequins. The other day we walked past one and it stopped me in my tracks because I had never seen one before. Do we do that in the states too?
Remember the mangy dog 'Alejo 2' that follows us around a bunch? This past week he was following us around for over 6 hours from appointment to appointment and he got in some pretty vicious fights with the other stray dogs of the neighborhood. I thought he might not make it out of one of them. I wish he would just leave us alone.
Sunday was Child Day “día del niño” and it meant that it was even tougher than normal to get investigators (and members) to come to church. I tell you, if there is one thing that makes the work difficult it is holidays.
Remember Mauro and Adriana – or did I not tell you about them? Nope I didn´t because we found them on Wednesday. Here is what happened. It was late and we were short on contacts. My comp needed more than me, so I told her to do the next one and there was a family – parents and 3 year old daughter – walking towards us in the dark. She let them pass by, so I stopped them and backed up a little to contact them. I immediately realized why my comp had let them go. The mom was crying. I said, “We´re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ and it looks like we´ve found you in a tough minute – is there anything we can do to help?” The dad then went on to tell us that they had just found out that their 11 month old baby is really sick and the doctors don´t think he is going to make it. Right then and there we started explaining the Plan of Salvation. We left them a pamphlet, said a prayer, and set an appointment to come back when they could really receive us. After the prayer, which my comp said, I felt the need to testify about Davy and how Heavenly Father is a God of miracles. I got about half-way through the story and we were all 4 of us crying and there was a very strong feeling of faith and hope. We left and it was one of those incredible missionary moments where you feel like you are really doing the work. Really doing what you came to do. And the miraculous part is that we had walked that last block by accident. We were supposed to turn one block earlier. We wouldn´t have found them.
We came back and watched Together Forever with them and they felt the Spirit a lot. We committed them to come to church on Sunday – even though it´s the Child Day and are you ready for this… they came! They showed up just after the sacrament was passed, but who cares?! I saw them come in, grabbed a Young woman to go out with me, left my comp with our investigator and brought them back to sit with us. They were both mesmerized and paying attention and the speakers spoke about death and resurrection and faith and it was a great meeting for them to be in.
They weren´t able to keep the appointment last night, but we have another one for this Friday with members to accompany us!
Unfortunately they aren´t married, but there are no divorces pending that we know of. Their baby Agustin is weak. His muscles just don´t seem to work, but he grows normally. No doctor can find the cause or treat it.
The investigator who was with my comp is named Marta. She is from Bolivia and we found her last Monday. We are trying to find her husband to teach him, but so far we have just found some other family member (like distant cousin) who lives there named Lydia. I plan to baptize the whole house of Bolivians next transfer! Marta stayed almost all 3 hours in church and it was really great.
You know what people here hate? Particularly women… skirts. They refuse to come to church because they don´t wear skirts. They just don´t. We tell them they don´t have to, and then they say, “but I would feel bad and out of place if everyone else is in a skirt and I´m not.” It is sad because they aren't going to try coming to church because they don´t like skirts and so that´s it. It´s a battle that you just can´t win.
Today we received special permission from President Benton to have lunch with the sisters from Castelar – Hermanas Roy and Pruner-- and then I get to go with Sister Pruner to CASTELAR until Thursday! That is a super division and we´re not even in the same zone… it´s like totally something that only the President can OK and he did! I´m going to get to go and see all of my converts except Rolando who is in Cordoba with his fiancé. I´m so excited you don´t even know! We practiced "All My Days" (but in Castellano) and we are going to sing it in the last transfer meeting. That was the main reason that we got permission to do such a super (more than 24 hours) division. President Benton is so great!
Your question about if I have that unconditional love for the people… almost. It´s not something I automatically have for ALL people--yet...but I do love the people, and I want them to have the gospel, but I understand that it is not free, nor is it cheap. You gotta want it and you gotta earn it. But I´ve been studying charity all week and I´m getting better and better. What I can say is that there are MANY, MANY people that I do love instantly and unconditionally. Like the new family we found yesterday. Sandra and her two sons Elias and Diego. We had contacted them in the street one day a week or 2 ago and set up an appointment to teach them, but when we went we ended up at the wrong Bertole 1184. We later found out there are 2 houses with the same number, on different blocks, so we went to the other one the next time we were in that area and found her. We taught the three of them and in the middle of the lesson her 6 year old son Diego started crying and she took him in her lap and asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. She asked if he was sad and he shook his head no. At this point my mind was racing and I began to think, “maybe he feels the Spirit – we are teaching them about the Restoration – that is what we would hope is happening – that the Spirit would testify to their hearts that is is true as they hear this message.” And then she asked him, “do you like what they are saying?” My heart stopped because I knew that if he said no, that was pretty much chausaso (means like BIG Goodbye) to the family because she is never going to let us back in her house and really never going to come to church if her son doesn´t like our message and it makes him cry, and then he nodded his head YES! Relieved like you can´t imagine I took advantage of it and said that children being so pure can really feel the Spirit. She said that he is really sensitive and I told her a little bit about how I was like that when I was a kid and we saved the lesson. We went back to the first vision and it was a great lesson. The downer is that her husband works a lot. With the mission schedule we will pretty much never meet him and he works 24 hours straight on Sunday. Ouch. It´s tough to baptize a complete family if the dad is NEVER home. But we prayed that he can be able to quit the second job (which is the weekend one) and be in the home more. They are a Catholic family, but seemed quite open. They knew members from the neighborhood that moved to the states and it looks really good for the next appointment and we softly talked about church this Sunday, but we´re going to commit them to come on Friday when we go back.
______ didn´t come to church because she doesn´t want to be rushed. I try to understand that, but it´s just so hard to be patient in the work. You just naturally want everyone to get baptized in 3 weeks and go to the temple in a year. She said she doesn´t want to come until she´s sure, but we explained that she´ll actually get her answer by going and seeing how she feels in the meetings. We used the ever-famous Buenos Aires Oeste example of how you can´t know that a cake is yummy until you try it, but it didn´t win her over. She stood us up yesterday, so we lost contact, but we´re going to find her again and work on her some more.
Wow, the hour is gone.
I love you tons!
I miss ya.
Don´t worry about me!
But pray for our investigators!
