From Hermana Benton

Thanks Karen. That´s a beautiful article (on the Oquirrh Temple) and the photos are great too.

Your daughter is doing fine. I worked with her all day last Wednesday, walking rocky dirt roads in the heat. Hermana Jensen is a trooper, and a powerful missionary to boot!

When I had used up all my energy and was ready to go home to dinner and bed, she and her companion, Hermana Carrasco were still going strong, heading out the door to walk to a home to do a family home evening, looking real cute and fresh with new perms in their hair that they had done together on their last p-day.

I love those strong, spiritual, hard working girls!

Love,

Hermana Benton

Your Baby Is Getting Old - 23 Years Old!

Thanks for the awesome birthday wishes! It made me quite happy.

Grandma Olson - I loved hearing that you are a temple worker in the Oquirrh temple. Way to go Grandma! You make me so proud. You are a great example for your posterity.

Grandparents Jensen – thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers. I really feel the power of the prayers offered on my behalf and am grateful for them. I can´t wait to see you all again!

Nata – I´m so pumped to see you all in December. It will be here before we know it. I hope Davy takes to me quickly. I´m so anxious to hold him in my arms and teach him Spanish nursery rhymes. I know some pretty cute ones!

Speaking of things I have learned. Allow me to teach you all how to play “hay un perro muerto” (there is a dead dog)

You are all in a circle and the one who has “it” starts singing

“debajo de mi cama hay un perro muerto y el que diga ____ y _____ se lo comerá”

THERE´S A DEAD DOG UNDER MY BED AND WHOMEVER SAYS --- OR --- HAS TO EAT IT!

In this example I will use “even numbers or multiples of 3”

Then you start counting number by number around the circle. And if you mess up, you´re out and the game starts over with a new set of requirements.

Here w ego “debajo de mi cama, hay un perro muerto, y el que diga números par o multiples de 3, se lo comerá”

1,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,25,29,31,37,41,43,47,49,53

Do you get it? I hope so. We´ll have to play it when I get home.

There´s also this game you play with pennies. You let them roll off your nose and make them bounce into a cake dish. The team that gets the most pennies in while the other team is trying to find the key scripture wins. You go back and forth and it´s fun. I learned it in a “workshop” taught by my district leader. PS my team won!

Remember that way elect family with the 6 year old son that cried in the first lesson? We lost them after the second. It was an awesome lesson with the three of them and the husband and we had a member accompany us that bore testimony after we watched "The Restoration" DVD, but it didn´t take. They are Catholic and they don´t want their kids to be confused. It was tough to lose them. I tried to convince her to pray and think it over, but I hope they get another chance and that they take advantage of it. They would be a lovely family in the gospel.

We had this awesome lesson with ________ - a reference from the family Elder Pollock baptized and he said that he wanted to go to church that Sunday and that he had prayed, but couldn´t understand the answer. He is so sincere during the lessons, but come Sunday morning he is tired and doesn´t come. He will never gain a testimony until he can produce the actions that reflect his faith. We´re going to keep working and find a better way. The problem is that he just switched jobs and now he is almost never available for us to teach him. But we´ll find a way.

I realized how much I had been missing Hermana Benton when she came for interviews (she doesn´t attend those) and I walked into the church and saw her and screamed for joy and ran to give her a big hug. It´s the closest you can come to seeing your real mom, so you take advantage of it! I miss her and that must clue you in on how much I too miss you all!

My interview with the president was a special one. He taught me how to develop charity. He said these things:

The foundation of the atonement is love.

Never let anyone else dictate how you act. How you think or act should not be dictated by someone else´s actions.

Keep your focus on where you´re going on a daily basis (to not get trunky)

Charity is a muscle – exercise it and it will grow.

And my favorite:

You´re better than you think you are. Remember that.

He is so good and is such a great teacher. In my next interview I will teach him for 10 minutes about charity and then I will have finished my study program for the whole mission. I will be presented a pin in front of the mission and it´s a big deal for us.

Thanks to hundreds and hundreds of prayers and tons of ours… Santiago was baptized on Sunday! It was technically my best bautismal service yet because almost nothing went wrong. There was hot water in the font, the witnesses and baptizer showed up, he didn´t have to be baptized twice… it was great.

There has got to be a way to cure my nails. The hangnails are killing me. I perform my own surgery cutting them out every few months and then can´t wash my hair or really use my hands for a few days because of the pain. There has got to be some vitamin I can take to fix this.

Mom - can you do me a favor and send an email to the CLAM (LA mission) and say this:

Sister Jensen mentioned that when she was serving there in a zone conference her picture was taken so that she would be a part of a mission directory that was being made. Is there any way to get a copy of that mission directory?

They said they were going to give me one, but they never did and I want to be able to look up mission buddies from that mission. Thanks!

I hear Hermana Johns about being just worn out. I´m not trunky, trunky, but tired yes. I have days where I´m just like, “do we really have to go out and walk all day again?” Yep! Once you get out in the street, it´s not that bad, but at times I really have to push myself out the door in the morning--that´s where Satan tries to get you. “Just stay home during the morning and go out after lunch…” NO!

We saw Alejo 2 today and he is all injured and has a huge open wound on his side. It´s sad. I wish he could just be put out of his misery, but I don´t know how to get it done. I don´t know if he got in a fight or what, but he´s pretty beaten up.

Don't worry about me....things will get better, every trial makes us stronger. I´m tough and I will accept whatever comes on Monday in transfer meeting. The most important thing is that I can testify that Heavenly Father answers prayers.

I love you all so much and will think of you on Saturday as I am working hard in the heat that is already upon us.

I know the gospel is true. It sustains me. Let it sustain you now and forever!

PS – I get to go to Rolando´s temple sealing! WAHOO!

Wubba,

Hermana Jensen, Pruner, Carrasco, Roy



They even chose the same "I am going to serve a mission" scripture!


Spring's page...


and Stacey's



Great fun and good times!

Special Divisions

Hermana Carrasco, Jensen y Maria Teresa

Deal with it (or toughen up) Padua!

23 years old!

Translation: I am armed!

Trying to get them to open the door...

The pension in Padua

The Medina/Rivera family

Hot, Cold, Humid, and Changing!

Mom and Dad - Happy 27th anniversary – I´m afraid I´ll forget to say it later, so I´ll say it now.

Hey awesome family. How are you all? I absolutely loved the division in Castelar, even though it was tough to visit some of my converts and see them struggling with their testimonies. Raul is doing great though and was very happy to see me again. A lot of the others weren't home so we couldn't visit them. I tried to visit Azucena, Haydee, and Florencia, but could only leave post-its on the doors. Rolando is in Cordoba and there is a tiny tiny chance that I will get to attend his sealing in the temple in September. That would be a mission dream of mine come true.

Hermana Pruner and I are going to rock the house when we sing in our last transfer meeting, and yes, I will find a way to record it! I´m going to put it on my mission video as a background track.

When we were in divisions I went with her to their district meeting and it was cool to be in the Castelar Zone again. They did something in their district meeting that made me laugh. They set goals-- each companionship for how many lessons they would teach that day with and without a member present and as each said their goal I chuckled to myself as it seemed like they were playing poker. “I´ll see your two “with a member,” and I´ll raise you 3 “others.”(other lessons means without a member present). I laughed.

It was a joy to work with my dear Hermana Pruner – she is like walking charity, but isn´t as bold as me. Somewhere in between she and I is the PERFECT missionary. I would love to be able to serve with her because we would balance each other out so well, but the chances of that are like one in a thousand now.

I was talking to Hermana Di Stéfano the other day and she said that Paula – a woman in Haedo 1 that I worked like crazy with to get her to quit smoking has a baptismal date! She also said that Silvia – the woman that had a baptismal date when I left that later fell through – has another one. So if those 2 get baptized the fruits of my labors will be harvested! It made me really happy to hear it.

Have ya’ll heard of “the plan of destruction” google it. It´s like a little poem about how Satan just tells us there is no hurry. I think I already wrote home about it once, either way, I love it.

I learned to never let Argentine mud dry on your shoes. It will take you about 15 minutes to scrape it all off in the shower afterwards. The mud reminded me of that time when I was helping Daddy put in the sprinkler system at Salinas and I was convinced that if we added a little bit of water it would make it easier to dig the trenches-- then I learned that it just makes things worse. Mud is just a mess no matter what you do.

I was super, super sad when I returned home from living in the mission mansion to find that my companion had lost my awesome giant umbrella. It´s one of the few things I was actually going to bring back to the states with me because it is so awesome. She feels bad, but I feel worse. I had taken such good care of it and it had served me so well. I need it for these last 3 months. Ugh.

Speaking of that time when I lived with the Benton´s… I told the President that I wanted so badly to baptize a family and he said, “You will baptize a family, you just don´t know it yet.” What do you think that means? Sometimes I think the only family I will baptize will be the one I form myself. It´s not that I lack faith, it´s just that it isn´t something that comes easily. I´m going to work as hard as I can to baptize a family, but if it doesn´t happen, I will accept that at least I have been a tool in His hands to bring many individuals and incomplete families to the waters of baptism. I figure I would rather baptize some twenty odd individuals than just one complete family of 4 or 6. Because as I have seen with Dora and Gerardo that followed in Gera´s footsteps and were baptized after him… where an individual is baptized, a door is opened for further missionary work as we work to complete the family.

It was so cold and then it was so hot that I was walking around in my socks and my short dresses and then it was so cold and raining that I froze to death and now it´s just cold in the morning and night, but hot in the afternoon. You cannot win. You have to either carry a jacket and it's heavy and be hot all day, or be super cold at night and have everyone get mad at you for not dressing warmly.

We are so low on mission money this transfer… we don´t know what happened or where it went, but we had like 100 pesos and we were waiting for reimbursements from my blood tests and a heater we bought when my companion prayed for us to be able to make do with the money situation. That very day we got an envelope with 100 pesos from Hermana Pruner that we had left over with her from the division. It was so cool to see how the Lord answers our prayers. The worst of it is that when she prayed for that I thought to myself, “why pray for that?… what can He do to get us more Money?” Oh how wrong I was. The thing is that we shouldn´t have received that envelope for another week, but the office elders were super on top of things and got it to us the day they sent it in. What a miracle!

I finished finding all the footnotes to my patriarchal blessing and it was one of the best activities I have ever done in my personal study. You should all do it. It is amazing to see how our personal scripture is supported by the Standard Works and the examples of those from the scriptures. Do it!

What is going to happen this transfer? Will I train the only new sister missionary we are going to receive or will someone else? Her name is Hermana Godfrey… we saw her picture in the estandarte – along with Elder Thompson´s! He looks more grown up than I imagined he would and I have faith that he will be an asset to the mission. I think I will start to pray for his trainer – whoever it will be.

Speaking of that do you receive the estandarte? Or did you ever? I bet you didn´t for a while because I stopped being an overachiever, but I´m in this one because we were in the top 20. If you get a copy will you let me know? Just curious if the mission is still sending them out to the parents.

Nata – I don´t remember what you were asking about but we use pollera instead of falda. Were we talking about polleras? I´m lost. But I´m super excited to see the present you bought me. Thanks a bunch. I loved the pix you sent me… you are so dang skinny it kills me!

Where do we need your prayers? I will tell you. Santiago is going to be baptized this Sunday, but he is super nervous. He´s totally prepared and all, but he would do it in like 3 months if he had the choice. But we are helping him go forward with faith to reach this date. Please pray for him to not let anything stop him.

Also Brian finally warmed up to us again and he comes to listen to parts of the lessons and says hi to us in the streets again! We want so badly to baptize him on the 30th. He even came to church this past Sunday with Liliana his mom. It was her first time and a true miracle for us. We did have to bring them ourselves, but that is to be expected. Almost nobody comes their first time on their own. Just Raul in Castelar! Anyways… Liliana needs prayers too because she is going to a doctor tomorrow and she has more health problems than we do. That is all the more reason that she needs the gospel – and besides that… we need her to be a support to get her kids in the routine of coming every week to church.

Our motto this week is “all that shines isn´t necessarily gold” – I don´t know if that is translated perfectly, but you get the idea. We have had that happen to us so much this past week. We have people who want blessing...and they shine, but they have no desire whatsoever to be baptized. They just want their child to be healed and don't care about joining the church. _____ – we lost contact with her because she stood us up 3 times. She sincerely wants to know if the church is true, but doesn´t want to make commitments or come to church. We have others that have so much potential, but the trial that I am facing a ton lately is that these need to be 3 week baptisms. Every missionary wants to find, teach, and baptize them--- the 3 weekers. They´re already married, they quit smoking one day to the next, they come to church 3 weeks in a row and you baptize them like that. It's just not the way it seems to fall for me. I have to accept that I may have to work and work with someone for 4 months (or years) and then they will get baptize. It´s still a soul saved, but it requires a ton more time… and when you measure your life in 6 week periods – it´s harder to have the drive to work and work and work for the long term baptisms. The patience that I thought I had mastered is still a struggle of mine. Why can´t everyone be a 3week convert? Oh yeah, 2 Nephi 2 says that there´s just gotta be opposition in all things!

Pray for President Benton – I think he´s still sick. Poor shing.

We went to the temple today and it was lovely, but p-day is gone!

Mom – way to go on girls camp. I am so proud of you.
Dad – I am so excited to hug you again too!
Nata – Are you reading the Liahona in Spanish – if not, I hope you will start.
Jason – I´m really struggling to put my thoughts into lyrics for the song I want you to write. I´ve got writer's block. Any suggestions?
Grandparents - Thanks for all your love, support and prayers.

Gotta run.

I love you more than words can express.
Tell everyone I love them.

A Super Division in Castelar!

Transfers are on August 31st and the word on the mission street is that I´m training a new missionary in Padua. We´ll see.

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!

This Is The Lord´s Work And There Is Nothing Better In The Whole World!

Dear Familia,

It was an eye opening experience to return to the “mission field” alter almost 10 days in the mission mansion. I literally felt the mantle fall on me for a second time. All of the sudden I felt the weight, the pressure, and the stress realizing that the salvation of the people in Padua is directly related to what we do there. I felt it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was kind of like those first few days in Heritage Halls – Rogers 97 when I moved to BYU as a scared 17 year old freshman. Except this time I knew EXACTLY what I was getting back in to and how to handle it all. Sure, the first few days were kind of like, “wow, I forgot how heavy this load can be.” But after that, I got right back into my bold “repent, ye, repent ye” preaching missionary self. I have been able to maintain and even expand the new vision I developed for the work and yesterday was one of the best days I have ever had in the mission.

It started in district meeting. The APs randomly showed up to talk to all of us in Merlo and they taught us about how we need to really believe that our area (whatever it is) is the BEST area in the mission and in the whole world. I didn´t know quite how to do that at first, but luckily the Lord had a wonderful plan for the rest of our day. I learned yesterday that San Antonio de Padua really is the best area in the world.

We taught a new investigator they found last week (with her next door neighbor member) and it was an incredible lesson. ______ has 3 kids, is MARRIED and her oldest son turned 8 on Thursday WAHOO! Her husband is nice. We haven´t taught him yet, but when he answered the door he treated us so well. He was leaving for work, but was very, very welcoming. She is Catholic, but doesn´t agree with baptizing babies and her eyes are opened to see that she needs to find the true church. She sincerely wants to know if this is it and it was an incredible lesson. She committed to come to church with us this Sunday.

Before that lesson we were knocking doors and found a Bolivian woman who is also MARRIED and was short on time, but listened for a quick lesson and also agreed to come to church on Sunday… we´ll see, but it was awesome.

Later in the afternoon we sat down in the front yard with a family and taught them. They are great parents and have 4 children and they are sincerely looking for a way to keep them from falling into utter destruction with the wickedness of the world. They aren´t married and may have Word of Wisdom issues but I was super bold with them and challenged them to come to church with us this Sunday and see how it will change their lives and bless their family-- and they accepted! It wouldn´t be a 3 week baptism (because marriage takes at least a month), but it is a family with a ton of potential and they sincerely want to find security.

If those 3 lessons weren´t enough, then we went to _____ (the investigator who was going to be baptized from 2 months ago) and set another date for her. She accepted August 23. Attendance and tithing will be the struggles, please pray for her – she is super poor and too ill to work for now.

Then we went to ______ and he accepted the same date! He had come to church with us this past Sunday and we finally got him to accept the date. We tried a few days ago and he just wouldn´t say yes, but this time we got him to say yes.

Talk about a good day. We caught the bus, did our last contacts and prepared for p-day!
Oh, and I forgot to tell you that ______ also accepted that date. We will have 3 baptisms! (provided that all make it, but that is why we have faith… they will make it). He hasn´t smoked in 4 days and even though it is super hard for him, I know that the Lord can help him quit. I was dumbfounded when he smoked again after drinking the nicotine tea because according to Elder folklore it is fool proof.

Now that I´ve told you about the best day I´ve had in the mission, allow me to tell you some random funny things. The other day we passed 2 teenage boys sitting on a ledge in the street and one of them crossed himself as he saw us. He must have been a little confused… we are not Catholic, nor are we the Virgin Mary, but I got a kick out of it. And then a man in the street said I sounded Ukrainian (I get that a lot) and asked how long I´d been here. When I told him 14 months he was all disappointed and said I should speak better – especially being American. I can´t lie I was pretty insulted. Fortunately I have been told by many that I speak better than most non-natives--but to make the insult worse, just as we left he said with a chuckle “que le salga mejor el Castellano.” Which means “hope Castellano leaves your mouth better.” In the famous words of Stephanie from Full House “HOW RUDE!”

So I got a letter the other day and Petree´s wife is due in November and Dewey´s wife had a baby in June. Crazy!

Today we took a train to Merlo for p-day and went shopping. I bought the most beautiful hand- made scarf that you have ever seen. Literally. It is like 3 different blues and too gorgeous to wear. It was $30 pesos – like 7 dollars US and I am so in love with it. I also bought Jason a souvenir it took 15 months to find something PERFECT for him, but I´ve got it now! I´m not telling, so quit trying to get it out of me!

Nata – I hope you had a great time in Spain. I can´t believe you ran into Aaron McBride… what a small world! Literally. How cool was it to do a temple session in Madrid! I know how you feel… it´s hard to get it all right. Did you buy me something nice?

Mom- enjoy girls camp… you are so lucky to have such a great calling!

Daddy – sleep in a wet t-shirt. It won´t ruin the bed and it will change your life--it did ours without air conditioning in sweltering heat--you will love it!

Oh – and there is no job working in the mission home as a secretary or anything… I was inventing that because I thought– how cool would it be to be able to stay on the staff, but with more privileges and less rules? It doesn´t exist, but it would be really fun.

Mom- they did open my package, but Sister Pollock put everything back in. How do I take the natural sleeping tablets… it doesn´t say how many? I´m super excited to eat the Reeses Pieces… I´m saving them for a special occasion.


We had a Gira Misional meeting – I don´t know what it is in English, but my companion and I volunteered (because Pres. Really wanted us to – he told me beforehand) to commit a pretend investigator (Hermana Johns) to come to church in front of 4 zones (approx. 70 missionaries) and a General Authority, Elder Zivic from the Seventy. It went well and President was content with our volunteering to do it. I had a heads up, because he told me the day before what the topic would be, but my companion and I had been separated for 10 days and couldn´t practice at all before going up to do it. Luckily we taught with great unity and fluidity because we are such a great, close companionship to begin with! I missed Hermana Carrasco so much and we are so happy to be together again.

Three days before returning to the field the cough and muscle pain came back and the doctor put me on nebulization for a week. I finished and sent the machine back. The cough is gone, but the muscle pain remains. It´s just life. My loose floating ribs stab me and ache. That is my current battle. Not to mention the raging athletes foot I got from all the antibiotics they put me on. A few of my toes are totally purple with problems. They burned and itched and didn't respond well to any medicine – even prescriptions. It´s just about healed, but that was a hassle that only added to my discomfort for almost 2 weeks.

On Sunday in testimony meeting nobody went up for a couple of minutes and I was contemplating getting up to break the silence, but a part of me wanted to see how long silence would fill the room. I was about to let the experiment continue when this thought came to my mind. “Can you imagine if the Savior walked in right now and saw that nobody was testifying?” He might say, “is there no one here who can bear testimony of me?” and of course we would all jump to our feet and run to the pulpit and say “I can, I can!” So what did I do? I jumped up faster than you can imagine and went straight to the pulpit to testify of my Savior. I couldn´t bear the thought of Him walking in and seeing NOBODY standing there.

I love the mission. I not only love the work… now I am living for it! Please pray for our investigators – the adversary tries so hard to get in the way and stop their progress. We go to the temple on the 18th and I am super excited!

If my intuition is right, I´m staying in Padua until I finish the mission and I´m training a new missionary next transfer.

How is the family? I found an awesome puzzle of the waterfalls at Iguazu, but it was 58 pesos and I just couldn´t do it. I´ll try to find another less-expensive one before November. I want to write Cameron and Tyler if I can just find the time, but I am behind on letters because I spent ALL last p-day finishing the Book of Mormon (I read it in one week!) and all the p-day before getting the mini from Catan so that I could go back to the mission home.....so I haven´t written and I owe letters to Megan, Kristen, Jecca… I´ve got work to do.

I pray for you so much and hope that the states can withstand the corruption. Oh, another random story… you have got to see the way people give directions here. It´s a trip. They use their hands and make funny across the street motions and never, ever use north, east, south, or west. They just use one hand and say “on this side of the street.” Hello – that doesn´t help if you are facing one way and go to that side of the street or if you are facing the other way it´s the other way. It kills me. The worst part is that now I am doing it too!

I can´t even believe how many plans and goals I have for my life. I want to do so many things it´s almost funny. I´ve never been so happy, even though I´m still in pain and it´s cold and hot in the same day so you have to take off your coat and carry it around. This is the Lord´s work and there is nothing better in the whole world.

Once last week I accidentally let my eyes wander in the home and saw a clip of a basketball game and this guy went for the 3 and swished it and I confess… my heart skipped a beat. For a second I was back in the Marriott Center dressed in blue and screaming for the cougs. I felt bad afterwards, but for a second I remembered all that fun!

Gotta go. I love you so much and hope that you all have a splendid week.
Take care, take luck, HAVE JOY!