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. 

24 de Junio

 Venado Tuerto, Argentina

 

Hola!

I´m glad you are all just having a lovely summer... I am just here in Antarctica. Haha not really, but people sure dress like it. It´s nothing after living in Logan! 

Another week has come and gone....not anything too exciting but here are a few:

We attended 3 birthday parties... There was a party for a little girl at this place with inflatables. It´s a big deal here, they rent out these places and invite the whole class. Well we are loved so they invited us too, there was even real pizza they had made with flavor like in America! And chocolate chip cookies...mmmmmm. There was a bunch of the kids moms there, and they were asking the wolfleys all these questions about us, and thought we were nuns. Yep, people always thing we are testigos or nuns, so that was a good little missionary experience for them!

One day I roasted a marshmallow over the stove on a fork, tried to eat it, and the fork completely burnt my lips. So i had this nasty burn, like zebra stripes from the fork, on my lips and mouth, and was all swollen. And my comp thought it was hilarious. 

One day we went to Murphy, and there was a branch activity. We showed up at the time they said it started..and no one was there. So we waited, and 30 minutes later people started to come. Then we realized there was no electricity...yep, how embarrassing huh. It hadn´t been paid so they turned it off. Well good thing we went, because it turned out no one had planned anything..and at first everything sat there awkwardly. They said the missionaries would share a thought....which we did...and then do a game. Haha so we played mafia and ´do you love your neighbor´. In the dark!   It was one of the craziest activities i have been to, but they all loved it. (And then that night we were waiting for our collectivo to come...realized we had the schedule wrong, thought we were stuck in the middle of argentina and were going to have to sleep with the dogs in the street as we had hardly any money...when by a miracle a bus showed up late. So we made it home by 11pm that night. haha) Sunday we went, and still no electricity....aannnd, I had to give a talk in sacrament. I think I am making a record for missionary who gives the most talks. I love going to Murphy though, it is hard splitting time between 2 areas.

And lastly, the training thing yesterday. It was soo good! There was a couple things I noticed. 1. The MTC is so not the real world...all those girls looking cute and perfect like barbie...wait until they are sweating their eyeballs out or walking halfway to china. Ok ok, every mission is different.... 2. I loved when they said that missionaries should not knock doors all day. I guess we have been doing this wrong. 3. Missionary work is changing...it was different 10 years ago, and it will be different with all these people coming. 4. It was so good to have something like this, I know the leaders and people here were so motivated by watching it. (we have the best ward mission leader here...he was frantically scribbling down notes the entire time. Unfortunately he is moving in july..) 

 

The work of God really is moving forward. As a missionary I am beginning to understand the expiacion of Christ more...the importance in my life as a missionary, and also for others. Everything we teach, and the fact that we are able to overcome our weaknesses to do teach, are because of the expiacion.

Thanks for the letters! Have a great week.

hermana andrews.

17 de Junio

Happy father´s day!

I hope the day was great! I celebrated by drinking some mate (dad´s favorite...) and playing the piano in sacrament for the primary kids to sing their little songs.

The primary (ok it consisted of the 2 little wolfley girls and 2 other kids....) had an activity yesterday, and we were at the church so ended up helping. Haha it was a primary activity argentine style, making little fathers day picture frames. 

This week was zone conference, president Giuliani is doing it separately with every zone. There are 14 missionaries in Venado zone. Oh boy...it basically made me feel like poo. We had to do a ton of practice things, and everything they talked about just made me remember all my weaknesses. But....I do love listening to pres. and hermana Giuliani speak:) Everyone had to prepare a talk, and they choose a person to give it in Spanish, and a Latino has to give one in English. Well good thing I prepared mine the morning of, because president picked me to do it! Ugh! it is just my luck!, I had to do this twice in the MTC and then in this zone conference! ha. 

Some good things for the week....we had 42 people in the capilla yesterday, and 10 of those were priesthood! Basically, those are the numbers you would see in Buenos Aires...so very good for here:) The best part was, there was 2 inactive ladies we have been working with for the past 2 months who came! It was even more of a miracle, as it rained yesterday morning, which means normally no one leaves their house. A difficult thing about a mission is everything is so number based....how many baptisms, investigatores, etc. Me and my comp have worked for almost 2 transfers now, and at times it is difficult to see any difference. There are 2 things that I realize though: 1)we have to experience the bad to know the good, every day is not just full of great things....but you just keep doing all you can do, knowing you are at least dedicating your time and effort to God. Also, 2)change in people takes time and persistence. One of the ladies who came yesterday has been a member her life, but inactive for quite a while. She always feeds the missionaries every week, is proud to be Mormon, and wants her (almost) husband....partner...to be baptized. She talks the talk, but never would go to church, or read the book of Mormon. Finally this week we could see she is changing....we have assigned her things to read every day in the Book of Mormon, and she is always asking us questions....you can just see a change in her attitude about living the gospel. 

We passed by our special little Carlos one day to explain the importance of coming to sacrament meeting if he wants to be baptized. Turns out, their is a huge cement wall right in front of his little shack! The neighbors with the mansion next door built a wall in front of his shack....and Carlos was just on cloud nine, so happy that his neighbors would be so nice.....he is just so innocent.
 Good thing he doesn´t realize it is more of a wall of shame to hide where he lives from the world....

We went to Murphy one day, and of course had too many things to do and not enough time! We were able to pass by some referencias from members, and met some people who have definitely been prepared for the gospel. Murphy is a small place, and everyone knows everyone...the problem is that members never even talk about the gospel with people.
 

It´s cold here! The sweaters have been on every dog here for the past month...but it finally is cold for real here. And mom, I do wear the thermals every night! I hope you are all enjoying your 80 degree weather!

Ooh, I miss parades! That´s hilarious you went to a stake dance...ethan better get going to those while he is still under the age limit. 

,

Good job on the uke, landon. You can be the new youtube sensation.

Thanks for the emails!

Until next week!

love hermana andrews

Happy Mothers Day:)

Hello everybody!

Happy mothers day to all the moms out there. And we can go ahead and celebrate it again in october, like here.

It was so good to skype! woohoo! I just hope that by Christmas I will know Spanish so well that it will be awkward to talk in English. That´s the goal. The wolfleys made cinnamon rolls (one of my favorite foods in the world) so it was a good night:)

I have been in Argentina 1 month. We had one day that was quite the day. A day that required some tody and alfajores. A day that required us to use our emergency money fund to eat food to feel better. (I´m not sure what else they would consider an emergency...)

You pretty much heard about everything yesterday.....
Here´s a miracle from the week. One night all our plans had fallen through, we were to like plan X, and literally didn´t know what else to do. It´s not effective to contact at this hour, and our veryyy last resort was to visit a menos activo, 80something year old. We had walked around, and happened to end up by his house, so we went to visit him, just because we didn´t know what else to do. He lives by himself, but we were there, and his nieta (grand daughter) showed up....his nieta that weeks ago he gave us as a reference, but we could never find anyone at the address. We had just given up on contacting the reference, but this night we went to visit him and she was there! He is in her 20s, and has never really talked to the missionaries about the gospel, although she has met the hermanas who used to be in this area lots of times. She asked us for a copy of the Book of Mormon.....that day we had given out all of our copies, and had none. But this man, her grandfather, had 3 copies! So it was a miracle that we met her this night, at this house. God doesn´t always tell you where to go, but if you plan, and do all that you have planned, God will help you be in the right place. This happened the day after we fasted, so that couldn´t have hurt either:) 

Things are going here. It´s a little discouraging to see all the problems,  but we are working.

I will try to have more updates for you next time. (We made an ´I love argentina wall´, so i am working to find the good things here. It´s true, i know i know...attitude makes a difference)

Thanks for all your prayers, letters, and examples.

love you!

hermana andrews

p.s. everyone who is going on a mission should read "opportunity of a lifetime", a conference talk from a while ago. So good.

May 6, 2013

Yep, we celebrated cinco de mayo, with tacos and all.

Another week in argentina.....Dad, everytime i hear someone say it takes that long for the language, i want to cry! haha. I realize it is a process, but I have just never been so frustrated in my life. I can usually understand most of what is said, but I am just praying I come home fluent. 

 

This week has been another week of trying to find people. We contacted into a man, 73 years old, who is actually a member of the church. He got baptized like 40 years ago in Uruguay, but went inactive, his ´wife´ passed away 3 months ago, and now want to return to church. He is so sweet, and is actually pretty sharp. We have also been working with some menos activos. One family has 4 boys, 3 haven´t been baptized. SO we are working with the mom to reactive her, and teaching her adorable kids, she has twin boys .

Ok here´s some random things about argentina from this week....their haircut places are all closed every Monday.  There are also so many holidays here....and every holiday there is no school and everything is closed. They teach english in schools, so kids always want to practice it. The people LOVE their novelas...like day time soap operas. haha. We went shopping and I was looking for just ground hamburger, but all they had was cow tongue and intestine...i guess that´s common here! We had lunch with some members, and I tried intestine! So nasty and chewy...there was also cow stomache, my comp didn´t know it because it looked just like some yummy fresh salad...haha she almost barfed. There are also little kiosks everywhere, kind of like we have gas stations everywhere, they have little stores connected to houses. (This is where to buy alfajores and everything yummy). Luckily there is lots of fresh fruit here, they always have fruit after the meal as the dessert.

Daniel, they have chippas (?) here, those little bread balls with cheese like in brazil! I´m actually eating them right now....

And we also had empanadas....sooo yummy here. I am going to learn how to make them:) My comp also makes dulce empanadas, it´s like filled with a nobake cookie filling and fried. Pinterest worthy.

We always bring treats to district meeting, and even handouts this week. We represent the relief society, so nothing but the best. And the elders never knew all they were missing out on.

This week it was raiiiinnny

. There was a day that it was so humid and misty, you would be drenched walking around outside, even though it wasn´t raining. 

 

Ok I don´t have much time, but I will be talking to you this week! yay!

Basically all i have right now to talk about is food and the dogs here, so hopefully some things happen before then.

love and miss you all!

Fall in Argentina; April 29, 2013

Hola familia y amigos!

It is so weird to hear about all the summer things and end of school!...because it is just starting to get cool here i just see everyone raking their leaves. I literally do live in a totally different world.

Ok, first of all I have survived another week in Argentina! Let´s just say...good thing I have a year to love the people and country. I feel like I am in Italy. Or Germany. Or some old person nursing home full of grouchy people. Let´s just say...I haven´t met the nicest people here. One day we were contacting (we have to knock a ton of doors, because we started out with no investigators. And we need to find lots of people) It was my turn to talk, and the lady said,  "if you are going to be in this country you better learn the language. Where did you even come from?"  Haha, can you say rude?! (there goes your salvation!.......kidding) Thing is, her neighbor said about the same thing. Good grief we are just really trying to find nice people, who can at least give us 60 seconds to listen. For how much people sleep here, they sure should be nicer! (Santa Fe providence, specifically this city, is known for having very private, cold people. Even the members who live here say that! lucky us!)

Good thing there are some nice members!  We had lunch with an American family. I just love Americans:) Also, their is a great Argentine family.  But this is the best family, they feed us twice a week, and love the missionaries. 

 

Basically if something could go wrong this week, it could. Let´s just say I am learning the lesson of enduring patiently. But really. One day everrrry single appointment and plan fell through. Like we were to plan Z. And the next day, everything fell through. No one was home, members didn´t show up, etc etc. Oh, and I can´t speak stinkin Castillano. We have eaten a lot of alfajores and ice cream this week. Oh and they love their oreos here, which is good! One day we walked at least 115 cuadros (blocks), which is 7.14 miles. Ok ok....I know the pioneers walked more. haha. We just need some miracles to find people who want to go to the celestial kingdom:)

We have a few investigators that are progressing, but of course there are always difficulties like them going out of town for long periods of time, or one who always is working, or they don´t show up for church.

Other things this week include braving a ride in a remis (taxi...I literally do not understand how more people do not die in these streets!), going to a birthday party (they lit the candle, which was actually like firework thing that exploded sparks everywhere, I thought the entire table was going to catch on fire...it was hilarious, everyone was freaking out), we went to a baptism for some elders (yep, they needed me to play the piano), me and my companion made china food! (seasoning packet from america, i love flavor!).

Yesterday Elder Walter Gonzalez came to our sacrament! It was so good, he talked about centering everything we teach in our family on Christ, and being converted. There are 2 ramas(branches) in our building, so it was combined. This district is going to be made a stake, not sure when, but i think he is making the rounds before that happens. (He is area president). The classes were combined too, it felt like Utah to be in a Sunday school class so big! haha. And in RS there were even handouts and pics taped all over and quotes! haha.

We also had intrevistas with president Guiliani, which were really good. It´s only the second time I have really talked to him...but he is such a good man.

.

Thanks for all the updates.

2 weeks until mothers day!!

love you all!

hermana andrews

p.s. Mom, the pastries are better than what we tried. mmmmmmmm. Guess you will just have to come here to try one.

p.p.s. We ate the last of the peanut butter that was in our apartment...it´s hard to find here. But they LOVE their dulce de leche. Like the grocery stores seem to have a lot less variety here...but there´s a whole aisle for dulce de leche. (and of course one for mayo, one for matte, and one for pasta)