Satan is the Worst!

Let me explain.  This week, we really wanted to be better with everything because we aren´t seeing much progress in our area.  Our entire zone is feeling the same way and so we decided as a zone to have a fast together. 40 days of purification in which we try to be the best missionaries that we can be.  We had our meeting tuesday and we were so pumped up.  We were working like crazy, knocking doors, calling members, and doing everything.  We were doing so great, and then a mosquito bit me.  I know it sounds really stupid, but it was a big deal.  We continued to work and work and work.  And by the time that I got home, my hand was SWOLLEN.  The pictures don´t do it justice, but it was huge.  I couldn´t see my knuckles or anything.  I didn´t want to go to the doctor because that´s a really lame excuse, but my companions convinced me and we left.  We went to the hospital and 10:00 at night with a swollen hand.  They gave me a Argentine version of Benadryl and I went home.  I don´t remember the next two days because I was pretty medicated.  I don´t know what that drug was, but I never want to take it again. In fact, we went to eat with a member one of the days and the member asked my companion, "what happened to your companion?"  Apparently I was just standing there staring out the window at something.. I don´t even know what.  It´s actually kind of really creepy.  Poor member.  That´s why satan is the worst.  Because when we try and do better and to progress, that´s when he sends little things that make our hands swollen so we have to be medicated for a couple days.  Really, it´s lame and I am sick of it.  When I told my companion that I don´t have allergies she just told me that the mosquitos here have Argentina Pride so they are going to do whatever it takes.  (She´s from Argentina so she can joke about it.)

Anyway, later this week we went to Cerri to help out the rest of our district.  It was miserably cold, and nobody let us into their houses, but all was well.  We met a lot of people that were very sincere and now the Elders there have more people to work with.  Doesn´t matter where you are, the message is still the same and the church is still true.  

Also, side note.  It´s very very rainy here.  With rain comes other stuff.  Like in Utah, we have a lot of worms after rain.  Here, there are frogs.  Dead frogs that have been smashed by cars with their guts on the outside.  I thought it was pretty funny so I started counting them yesterday.  My companion didn´t appreciate that too much, but I thought it was funny.  Poor frogs.

Anyway so much happened this week, but all is well and this area will improve.  I know it.  At least I hope, because it´s been really frustrating.  Sorry that my thoughts are so scattered.  Love you all. 

Another week in the land of Bahia Blanca!

We had a really good week, mostly because we made some progress with some awesome people!

One is named Teresa.  Teresa is really old and has very advanced cancer.  The doctor told her that she has 6 months left to live. She has a kitchen in which she feeds people that cannot afford to buy food
for themselves.  The missionaries taught her over 15 years ago and she knew that the church was true then and so now we are just reteaching everything because she wants to get baptized so bad.  During the first lesson we were talking and she asked, "what do I need to do to get baptized?"  That was the most shocking question ever during a lesson, but she knows that it´s important and she always jokes about how it´s even more important for her because she knows she doesn´t have much
time.  Which is a little uncomfortable for us at times because we don´t know whether to laugh or not.  It´s awkward.  She is absolutely so sweet.  She is completely bald, has no voice, but her heart is the
biggest that I have ever seen.  Even when she knows that she could go any day, she is still serving everyone around her.

The other investigator that I want to talk about is Hermano Escudero. His wife and all of his kids are active members in the church, but he has never really had any interest.  There are a lot of families like
that here, it´s a little unusual.  But when I first got here, and Hermana Medina was telling us about our investigators, I felt a big explosion of spirit that I knew that we needed to teach him, and that he was going to pick up this time.  Yesterday we went into the chapel and we sat next to his family.  He wasn´t there...  but then, I heard the door open and turned around.  It was him!  I was so excited that I
yelled at my companion in english, "turn around!"  She didn´t understand me, but she could tell that I was excited.  One of the other Hermanas that we live with taught him a couple months back.
(She served here 6 months ago or more and then return after two transfers in a different area.)  She told us that she was trying to get him to come to church for the whole time that she was there and she was really shocked when she saw him in the church wondering how we did it.  It was a good day yesterday.

And be prepared family, when I get back from Argentina I am going to cook so much delicious food.  We made ñokis last week and yesterday we made Empanadas.  Pretty much it´s still amazing here in Argentina.

I go by Hermana Marta now.

Wow, I cannot believe that another week has gone by.  When I first arrived here, my companion was sick.  Go figure, I am in an area named Hospital so it´s only appropriate.  Really though, it is so much different here.  I am now living with 3 hermanas that are all from Argentina and don´t speak any English.  My companion is Hermana Medina and honestly she is so cool.  She is one of the funniest people I have ever met.  Hermana Ibaña and Hermana Severiche are the other two Hermanas that I live with.  Every night is pretty much a party with them.  Sometimes though, I forget that they cannot speak english.  We were in a zone meeting and sometimes the native elders like to conduct the meetings in English.  Elder said, "we will now sing hymn one hundred and fifty three."  My companion turned to me and asked what hymn he said.  I repeated him... in english.  She had such a confused look on her face, but then we realized the problem and laughed quite a bit.

Anyway, my first day here.  My companion was sick and so was Hermana Severiche and so Hermana Ibaña and I went out to work together.  We had a lot of fun actually. We went and we were in the street and I was like, "let´s talk to this lady."  She is so short, has crutches, had throat surgery, a fake leg, and she couldn´t hear.  We started talking to her, and she was so cool.  She really could not hear at all.  She asked my name and we were screaming my name at her.  By the end my name became Hermana Marta so that´s what I go by now.  Anyway, her birthday was the next day so we set up a time to see her on birthday.  She gave us the address and so the next day we went to her house.

We had a hard time finding her house, but we finally found it and it turned out it was a place where a ton of people lived.  And when we walked in there was a huge picture of the Pope and a statue of the virgen Mary. Turns out it was a house from the Catholic church. The most awkward part about finding her was that we had to ask to Nuns where we could find her.  She wanted us to talk to her in the hallway, but she couldn´t hear so we were screaming at her everything that was going on.  We felt uncomfortable preaching our doctrine in a Catholic house so we tried to teach out of the bible and set up an appointment for a different hour.  Then she kept asking questions.  It was the most awkward lesson I have ever taught because we were screaming the answers at her with the nuns in the next room. Actually probably not the most awkward, but it was definitely pretty close.

Anyway, it´s been pretty interesting here.  Definitely a lot different.  Well, there is a lot more to say, but writing it all down would take too much time.

Chao.

Transferred to Hospital, Buenos Aires

Okay everybody, a shocker happened.  I am no longer in Toay.  I am now in Hospital, Buenos Aires.  I hear that the people here are really nice so I am really excited to work here.  When we got the call, Hermana Tovar and I were both really shocked when they said that I was leaving.

I love Toay.  I will just talk about my last day there.  First off, our recent convert Margarita always relies on people for rides to get to the church each week, but this week, we totally forgot to call her.  Some of the ward members were really worried that she was a little too dependent on the members fo everything.  Anyway, we were in the middle of relief society and all of a sudden Margarita walked in.  She was so exhausted from the walk there that she was breathing pretty heavy, but she came!  So I am actually really happy with how everything turned out.  At the end of relief society, Hermana Gozalez asked me if I would give the closing prayer because I was the Hermana leaving.  Then everyone found out that I was leaving....  They all just looked at me, and I got up to say the prayer.  I started the prayer and then I couldn´t continue because I was crying so bad.  It was really sad, but all of the ward members after gave me a huge hug and told me it would be okay.  

I left on a bus that night and said goodbye to La Pampa for a while.  

Well that was sad, there were also funny things that happened.  For instance, I don´t know if I explained this, but everyone always greets you with a kiss.  Sometimes it is really awkward because we aren´t allowed to receive kisses from the men.  Sometimes they attack you because you are American.  Twice.  Creepy men with moustaches.  And after... women with moutaches.  That was a little awkward.

Also, I wanted to eat a hard boiled egg so I cracked my egg open.  It hadn´t been cooked.

My companion hermana Tovar flooded the bathroom in the church.  Literally water filled up the whole floor.  It was a good last day.

Now I am in Hospital and my companion is Hermana Medina.  I live with 3 other hermanas all from different parts of Argentina.  They don´t speak any english.  This transfer is going to be fun.

Love you all, see you in a while.  Weird to think that I almost have 7 months in the mission!

Activation Activity / Camila / Frederico

Foto Santa Rosa

This week we honestly worked ourselves to death.  We are so exhausted right now, it is not even funny.  We had some pretty cool experiences though.  So the majority of what we do here is work with the less actives, it feels like.  There are so many.  We went through the whole ward list, and it was pretty humbling to realize that less than 10 percent of all the baptized members even go to the church.  With our ward mission leader, we decided to have a huge activity for all of our investigators and members with games and a lot of fun other stuff.  So, I will just explain that night because it was a little unusual. 

There were two parts to the activity.  There was an hour beforehand to learn a lot of things about first aid so that in case of emergency, people can be more aware of the things they can do to save lives if necessary.  The second part was a noche de hogar with games and food and everything with bundles of joy.  When we showed up, however, the patriarch pulled us aside and said, "You have 4 new investigators waiting for you."  It turns out there were four 17 year old boys who wanted to know more about the church (yeah, they were doing a school project, but Props to them for not using Wikipedia).  I do not really know exactly why I am explaining this because they ended up asking us out on a date for ice cream, so I am not so sure we explained the mission very well.  Oh well, one of them was actually pretty interested and asked a lot of good questions, so who knows.  Hopefully 1 out of 4 will be interested at least.  I will let you know how it goes. 

Anyway, I explain the story of these boys because that is why we were late to the activity (that we were in charge of).  We finally got done explaining and booked it to the activity.  We had been handing out invitations all week.  At least 50 invitations to all of our investigators, members, and random people on the street.  Only one family came: the familia Haspert.  I was actually really shocked to see them because they have not been in the church for so long.  But they actually came, and it was amazing to see them!  We played games and had a lot of fun with them.  One of their daughters really wants to come to church, but her father has not allowed it.  We asked her if she would ask her parents if she could come to church, and they said that would be fine.  We went to go pick her up in the morning to walk with her to church.  We thought for sure that she would not end up coming, because that is kind of the way things work here.  But when we rang the doorbell, and immediately her dad opened the door and Camila was wearing a little dress with her Book of Mormon in hand. 

Vicky at her birthday party.

 

 

Her other cake.

She loved the church, and she is preparing for her baptism.  The only problem is that her dad wants to do it, but he needs a little more time.  Really though, they are so great and the whole family wants to come back to church.  At this point, they just do not know exactly how.

Also, one more that I do not think that I have talked about.  Frederico!  He is the cousin (actually he is the neice) of a member in the ward.  Which is interesting because Frederico is older than his uncle Santiago, but they are living together now because of some problems in the family.  Anyway,  Frederico is a 17 year old boy, who is absolutely awesome.  We first met him in the street when he was walking with Santi.  Frederico suffers from a disease that disabled his muscles from growing to full capacity, so walking for him is really difficult.  We have been having lessons with him, and they have been going really well!  He came to church last week, and absolutely loved it.  His grandma told us that he went up to her the other day and said, "Grandma, is my white shirt ready for church this week?"  He was so excited to go, so we are praying for him because he is an awesome kid!  Well, I think that is about it, so much more happened, but I really cannot write all of it.

Love you all, write me!

Hermana Tovar on one of the streets  . . . yeah, it's dry here!