July 29, 2013

Hellooo!

I am in rosario right now! My comp...who leaves in 4 weeks....has to renew her visa. Ha what a joke. So this morning we took the 5 hour bus ride to spend pday in rosario, and then tomorrow sometime we will go back. Good thing is, you get snacks, even better than on an airplane. Almost ever single week this transfer we have had to travel to rosario or concordia! Thereś a lot of traveling in this mission...lots of the areas are farrr from rosario and the mission home.

 

Oh colon....aah I absolutely adore it. There are so many cute little cabin and condo rentals...like some are nice enough of what you would find in the states!

This week we also went to Gualuychu (spelling? ha) for a district meeting (2ish hours.) There are 4 elders here, and they have the MOST adorable church i have ever seen. I will have to show you pics sometime....it is so old and vintage, even with a narrow little staircase to go upstairs, and old wooden and glass doors everywhere....utah is missing out on classy chapels:) Also, this city is FAMOUS for Carnival....there is a block that has huge parade type stands on both sides, they have an entire stadium just for Carnival. I hear itś a party. 

 

Big news....We have the nicest pench in the mission. Ok not really, because our mattresses are worse than a camping foam pad, but we painted!!! Itś adorable....AND.....we painted a chalkboard wall! Pretty sure we are the first people in all of south america misisons to do this. We need copy rights on this before itś a hit on pinterest. Doing all this, of course we had to entirely rearrange and organize our apartment. 

 

Happy pioneer day!!! My comp has never celebrated, so i introduced her to cobbler! Itś one thing that turns out just as good in Argentina! Actually....we might have even made peach cobbler twice this week.....

This week was also a week of miracles! We had a goal to have 4 investigadores in church. We had worked really hard to find good solid people.....only 1 ended up coming. But this week we found some people who are prepared and interested. Having lessons with members has been a struggle, when you dont want to bring a member if you dont have set appointments or with investigadores that are progressing. Well one day we were talking to the zone leaders, and they said, where's your faith??! Whether it goes perfect or not, the members need to see that itś difficult and that references are needed! So we finished and called 3 members....with the faith and hope that our citas would actually go through. The next morning we had a super good lesson with our investigador Debora. Hna Lemes came with us....before the lesson even started she pulled out 2 copies of the Liahona for our investigador! It was such a good lesson, to have a member there as a friend, and also to be able to teach. This is how missionary would should be, with the members playing the main part and missionaries just there to help teach. We found out that after this member had gone to visit less actives, just because she was out and about already! And she told us how happy she was to finally have someone to pray for! ha. Moral of the story is members are so important. We have definitely been focusing on this, to have the members animated and thinking about people they can invite for FHE, etc. Another day a member came with us, the investigador wasn't home, but the member then told us about a recent convert/ less active who lives close, who we didn't even know existed. So we went here, and found that the daughter, Selene) hasn't been baptized, but was interested in coming to church! Selene made the comment that it is different with hermanas (her sister and mom were baptized...but stopped going as soon as the elders were transferred...), and came to church with us. 

 

Thereś also some less active families we are working with. This can be the most frustrating thing ever....when we have a super good lesson and you know they really felt what they need to do....and then time after time they don't come to church. If itś not the cold, itś too early...if itś not too early, they are offended.....The example and role of the parents is SO important. Right now we are teaching from the beginning, the 5 missionary lessons, to help them really understand the doctrine of what we believe, and not just that church makes you feel good. 

 

One day we had lunch with our president, who lives a couple of miles out in the fields. We decided to walk back, they thought we were crazy and even pay for our taxi, but we had some things we wanted to see. And it was a nice day. So we started walking...and walking...and truth is, we had only even driven this way once before. We missed a turn on the long dirt road. And we kept walking...and saw a sign San Jose...we had made it to the next town over. But we kept walking....and then saw a sign that said Colon, 4 kilometers. Eventually we realized we had made a huge unnecessary loop. We got our exercise for the day, got to walk by the Colon Tower that is part of a hotel. But it was a lovely warm day. 

I don't know that anyone else had a week so exciting, but thanks for sharing:) haha. And tonight we are going to the Monument of the Bandera...you can google it. Thereś some sweet pictures I bet. 

Enjoy the summer! Eat some smoothies for me:)

Have a great week! And...read Mosiah 4. This is my favorite chapter recently. 

Love you all!

p.s. Pics: My store!!!!!.....Painting our walls a lovely orange!.....The study room, complete with a chalkboard wall for planning.

Feliz dia de Amigo

July 22, 2013

Feliz dia del amigo ayer! woohoo! Argentina celebrates just about everything.

And....happy pioneer day this week! My comp is from vegas and so has never done anything....we will of course be making cobbler and playing pioneer games. :) 

 

I hope you are all enjoying the heat. It is like Antarctica here. Seriously, it´s like the bitter Utah cold without the snow. I don´t know what happened, the week started out warm enough for not even a jacket! Our apartment is colder than the fridge, we have been just heating our bedroom and even do studies in there. Also, we ran out of toilet paper Saturday night. I almost had to resort to using the bidet with ice cold water, but decided I didn´t want this real Argentine experience. 

Yesterday at church was so good! We wanted to show the ´work of salvacion´ training thing to our whole branch. After way too many hours and dumb computers and dvds, a guy was able to help us do it all.....and we were able to copy it to a dvd, and luckily everything worked out. We spent the first 2 hours of church and showed it to everyone but the primary. It was SO good....we didn´t get to watch all of it, but i know the members liked it. Then during sacrament meeting our ward mission leader spoke. He is an incredible man, like could be a general authority. He related missionary work to a soccer team, that all the players have a role, and also that there are people that are ready to accept the gospel here, we need to work together as members and missionaries. The members all respect him, and he is a very good speaker, so that just turned out great. Our goal is to help the members be animated about sharing the gospel. Our branch also went to the temple Saturday, so they were also some testimonies about that.

 I have never been so cold at church in my life, it´s a big warehouse type building, with just a tiny gas heater, and it has been so cold here. Everyone has to stay bundled up during all of church, but the people just have so much enthusiasm and testimonies! I love them a lot. 

 

This week we had a big miracle...and then a day of poop. We had an investigador who was so prepared and accepting of the gospel. She had found a Book of Mormon in the street, and it was such an answer when we found her. Well this week we went for a lesson, and she handed us the Book of Mormon and folletos back. ... she totally rejected us. We were so sad for her.... It is the saddest thing to see people who have had a spiritual experience and know it´s true, to give it up because of what someone tells them. We pray that in the future she will accept the gospel!

As for p-days, mom we email in a cyber, buy stuff we need. Today we were tourists and went to a bunch of tourist shops, ate ice cream (we of course have to try every place in the city...), ate pizza in a cone, and this afternoon are going to paint our kitchen. And probably make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. The past 2 p-days we haven´t been here, so it´s just time to catch up on everything. 

Hope everyone has a lovely week!

love, hermana andrews. 

P.S. A young man we taught in Venado, is getting baptized! WOOHOOO!! I think this is the story of a mission, with people getting baptized after you leave, but I am SO HAPPY for him!

P.P.S. even polar-bear-scarf-weather is apropriate for a treatie. 

P:P:P:S: THe food here is killing me.....We literally eat carbs and more carbs....I am going to come home a gordita. So hold off the fat jokes for now, my brothers. 

HAPPY 6 MONTHS!

July 16, 2013

This week is my "6 months as a missionary"!!! SO crazy. Not going to say it has flown by....but it has been quite the experience!

This past week has been best week yet. Right  now we are staying at a hotel in Concordia. Jaja ok...not a real hotel. But we are here until tomorrow, today we have a special p-day with the whole zone, and then tomorrow interviews with the president. Me and my comp are staying in the apartment of the hermanas (they took hermanas out of this area a few weeks ago) so it´s all empty...and it feels like we are staying in the Marriott!! The mattresses are like the ones from the states, it´s adorable, there is not a constant mold smell, and there is a heater! haha. So we are enjoying our little vacay.

Last week we came to Concordia also. Concordia is a 2 hour ride. We had zone meeting. It was so good! The president is focusing a ton on the importance of the members, and the worldwide conference thing from a couple weeks ago. 

To answer some of the questions....my comp, Hna Morgan, is the best. She has this transfer plus a week and a half, she is going home a little early to start school. She is such an example to me of hard work, she wants to work until her last day here, and has so much faith in our area! And we are usually pretty hilarious and have fun together. 

And about our area...we have some of the best members I have ever met. We had a meeting with the leader misional, and he even had his ´preach my gospel´book out.....this never happens. The church is pretty new in Colon, it´s only been here for about 15 years, so everyone is a convert or moved here from somewhere else. I have never heard people who sing with such enthusiasm! haha. The people have testimonies and are so converted, our struggle now is just helping them feel the importance of sharing the gospel, as they are so content with the amount of people and who is in the branch. We met some menos activo families, and they were so solid and with testimonies! THis area is blessed with strong priesthood men, we  have found it is more the wives who struggle, which is not common here. 

Also this week the assistentas, or traveling hermanas (they are like the girl assistants) came to do divisions with us and find people. They were here for a day and were able to contact and find some really good people! I definitely have a testimony of the importance of planning, and if we have faith God with make sure we find the people who are prepared. God is preparing people to accept the gospel, especially here in Colon. And then sometimes we just find crazy people....like it seems to be a common thing here that people answer their door without pants, or the lady who came out of her house with 4 little statues of virgin Mary to show us that she prays.

 I love when we are in some of the poorer areas, where it´s all the little houses touching, and you clap and never know who is going to pop out of what door. 

I also saw the HUGEST spider...right outside our front door hiding in a box. I have definitely improved in my ability to tolerate such things. Also, we discovered the most delicious, easiest thing to make...cocacola cake. Google the recipe, it´s from crackerbarrel. I have to enjoy such delicious things while i have an American comp. 

As for the rain, when it rains here, it rains hard. This week it has been pretty sunny though, and warm enough for just a light jacket. My kind of winter. 

MOm you can look at colon on google. I love this little city....it´s not super huge, but it is just so nice. And there´s a million and one houses and condos to rent if you want to come for vacation....

I´m grateful for the oportunity to serve here. Really we are nothing....but I know that God consecrates our time and efforts, and through our testimonies, others come to know of the plan God has prepared. 

Thank you for the letters and prayers! There is so much to be done both here and all over the world, now we just need to have the faith to do it. 

Hermana Andrews

“It will be a great day when our people not only pray for the missionaries throughout the world, but ask the Lord to help them to assist the missionaries who are laboring in their own ward” President Hinkley

JULY!

Oh my goodness my head is just going to explode with so many things...and I don´t have a lot of time....but here it goes.
I AM TRANSFERRING! Yep, we just found out today...A ton of people are switching. We were pretty sure most of us in Venado would stay. But, I am going to Colon (?) in Entre Rios, a different provincia. But I am leaving Venado! I thought I would be here longer...but I guess God has other plans! But...I am going to whitewash! again! And my new comp will be leaving after just one transfer...so there will be more changes soon too. And we really were starting to make progress here!!

I just made it through what was probably the hardest week yet...but I am alive. Nothing can really prepare you for what it is like to be a missionary. But after a few days of poop, some good things have happened.

Here is a little story...one day we were doing callbacks, to go to the people we have contacted. There was a lady, Cristina, who we knocked on her doors weeks ago, and decided to pass by one more time. Well she let us in this time. We ended up teaching her and her sweet little nieto that lives with her about the restauracion. While we were teaching she started to feel sick, but insisted we keep going...she said she recognized what we were teacher her is good, and that there must be a bad influence trying to stop her from listening. Smart lady. I thought she might pass out...but it turned out to be one of the best lessons we have had.  I know the spirit was there, and I think we even won her over, as she gave us pan dulce. And the little boy, Angel, showed us youtube videos of songs about Jesus with pictures (we pointed out almost all the pics used are from our church. ha.) She isn´t very religious and doesn´t go to a church, and was very open to us. It was a milagro, and we have a lesson with her tonight.

Sunday us missionaries taught the lesson for 5th sunday. We tried to take some of the videos from the training last week off the internet, but of course every form of technology failed. Anddd...we had baked some cupcakes for an object lesson...I went to go get them and almost all of them had been eaten by some chicos from the other branch! But, it all turned out. 

 

There are just logical differences here...haha. (I was walking by the nursery, and they were all drinking their little cups of diet coke. ha it was hilarious...that would not fly in utah.)

There was a homecoming thing for a missionary in one of the branches here. The whole district was invited, and there were tons of nonmembers. First everyone went in the chapel and there was a devotional thing, then there was food (pizza of course, cake with dulce de leche, and tang....), and then a question and answer session. There was more people than I have ever seen in the church! He was serving in Texas, it was so funny to hear people ask questions about the states, and to hear his perspective, and how people love to hear the stories about a mission.  In the missions in the states, people complain about not having a car and having to bike....here you are one lucky person to get a bike!

happy fourth of july!
hope everyone survives trek....

llove hermana andrews


p.s. I had 2 people this week think I am from Argentina...it must be the hair.
p.s.s. The Latina hermanas saw my sticker collection....they were absolutely in love. They LOVE stickers...I´m glad I could share:)
p.s.s.s. We were in murphy and some chicos, probably only 12 or 13, saw us...stared...and were talking, but of course we could hear them. They thought we are nuns...and then creepily took a pic of us with their cell phone. Probably posted us on Facebook.