Sacrifice for something better...

Thanks for updating my blog. Sorry that i never send group emails.I just never have the time or the energy after writing the people who write me. But I"ll try to send one every couple of weeks. 

ALFREDO
So Alfredo is still in Resistencia.. and we don't know why he still has to be there. But our branch president is going to talk to him today, so we´ll see. 

JOSE is doing good! He's growing in faith so much. I can really see a change in his countenance from the day we first contacted him. He smiles much more, and feels a lot of peace. The problem is his wife does not approve ov him coming to church.  He even asked if he can get baptized without telling his wife, but obviously we can't do that. So he had to build up the courage to tell her. He told her it didn't go well. She won't allow him to get baptized and we understand that family and especially a marriage comes first, so he has to put his baptismal date on hold until she softens her heart. But he came to church on Sunday and got a blessing from our branch president. It was super awesome and the spirit was so strong. After he left the room, Jose was crying and looked at us and just didn't know what to say,so he just put his hand over his heart. He was overwhelmed with the spirit. Pray a lot for him!! 

NORMA

We have an investigator named Norma who´s super awesome. She invited us to her granddaughter's birthday party and we went.  I think all of her family and friends were like... "why the heck did norma invite these 2 white Mormons?"  But we started talking to her friend Natalia and she wants to talk to us this week! There was drinking and partying and dancing...with a lot of hip moving....it was hilarious and we laughed so hard.

ZUNI'S CHURRO BALLS....
We went to a members house this week and she taught us how to make these little churro balls with dulce de leche in the middle, and sugar on the outside. They're so good.. I love this member. her name is Hermana Zuni.. and all of her daughters and nietos live with her - and they love it when we come. They´re all like "hermanas hermanas.. watch me!" and each one is calling your name every 5 seconds. They are soooo cute .. ill send a pic. 

TALK ON SACRIFICE 

I gave a talk on Sunday, and the topic was "sacrifice"  I really enjoyed preparing the talk and studying that subject and shared that the greatest leaders and examples in history are the ones who had to sacrifice the most. Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Lehi and Nephi, pioneers, etc.  Also I said that as humans sometimes we don't fully understand the definition of sacrifice - it isn't just giving something up because God says to. It's giving something up for something of greater worth. If God asks us to sacrifice something, he will always bless us far more than what we gave up. In the beginning, I thought I was making a sacrifice by coming on a mission.. sacrificing school, time, friends, family. But the longer I'm here in Argentina, I can see that the mission isn't a sacrifice, but rather a privilege. I can see that the blessings and benefits are far greater than anything I thought I was giving up. 

BIRD POOP...no biggie 

Something funny that happened this week is that we were talking to someone and a bird pooped on my arm.. and I wanted to keep the Spirit so I was like, its chill... I'll just use this dry leaf to take it off my arm. And the lady was like noooo you cant do that.. I'll go get you a towel. And my comp was laughing sooo hard that I wanted to wipe it off with a leaf haha. 

Sister Balderee

Large caterpiller 

Jose is progressing

Cleaning the floor - squeegy broke 

We spent the entire week out of area and in Resistencia because of my companions back problems. We did a lot of resting and one morning I studied the Pearl of Great Price for like 3 hours straight. We did divisions so I could leave with an Hermana one night. The night before Valentines day we stayed in the mission home.. and its so nice. They have carpet! I hadn't seen carpet in 10 months. Hermana Patanìa showed us all their wedding photos and scrapbooks and we stayed up with her looking at them until like 11:15. haha it was so fun. 

On Thursday we had our multizona conference and it was great! I always love them.  We talked a lot about how we need to change our style of teaching as a mission, because there are so many cliche ways to teach the restoration that everyone knows and uses. They want us to change our teaching styles and adapt and focus in more on the needs of people.. teach more briefly, and do more lessons. It was interesting. After the meeting, we all traveled home in this bus with the zone and my zone leader said he told the mission presidente that he thinks I should be a sister training leader.  It would be fun.. but also I'd lose a ton of time in my area because I'd constantly be traveling to do divisions. But presidente told me in my interview that he's happy with our work - so we will see.  

Us and Jose  at church 

Josè is really progressing, so I think he`ll reach his date of baptism for march 3rd.. if he gets permission from his wife... pray for that. 

Alfredo is doing good. He still talks to our branch president all the time. He's still in Resisitencia.. but I think he should be able to come back soon. I think the only reason he's staying there is because his aunt and uncle are super mad about him changing, and so there's a lot of tension in his home here. But he asked what the address to the chapel is there in Resistencia :) he's still firm in his decision!!! Please keep praying for him ,so he can come back soon and start his new life!

For valentines day we made sugar cookies... but to be honest, I forgot it was Valentines day until it was already night time.... oops haha. But sounds like you had a good day! with good food. i miss american food so bad. And your cooking! Everything here has so much grease. 

Keep the Faith 

Hermana Hall 

Chicken in a Tux!

Thank you so so so much for your prayers for Alfredo - he needs them! 

ALFREDO

So this week he came home from Cordoba.. and we had a charla with him and brought our branch president. Basically he told us that he got in a fight this last week because all his compañeros from his serminario were bashing the Book of Mormon.. and he was defending it. .and quoting alma 5 to them. Alfredo is seriously so awesome, and his testimony is so strong. The problem is that this week he has to go back to Resisitencia and stand in front of this Catholic tribunal thing and give his argument or his reason for leaving his religion. Also his family is super mad about his decision.. and so his relationship with his aunt and uncle (who raised him because both his parents died) is really being strained. He understands sacrifice.. but that doesn't change that its a hard time of life. So we have no idea how long he´ll be in Resistencia. He said it might take a few weeks. I'm just hoping and praying that it can be soon so that I can be here for his baptism!! Please pray that he´ll be able to return soon! 

We have another investigator, José who´s progressing a lot.. but his wife is against the church and he may have to wait until his family can soften their hearts and accept his decision to be baptized.  

We had a few really bad storms this week. It was a crazy thunder and lightning storm, and it made the power lines explode. It was super awesome to watch haha.. but we were left without power for almost 24 hours.. which meant our fridge thawed and the water went all over the floor.. and our food went bad. And also we had no air.... so we were just dyyying of heat.. and took sleeping pills so that we could have help falling asleep in the heat. 

Today's my 10 month "cumplemes"... can you believe it? And so some of the hermanas bought me this gift.-. its a rubber chicken and they put it in this tuxedo bag. so funny - made me laught so hard.  No significance for the chicken.  

A random man bought us TP from the store across the street cause there was none in the public stall! 

Chicken in Tuxedo bag - a gift to celebrate my 10th month out 

Alfredo wants a family!

Thanks for all your prayers!!! I'm sure they´re really making a difference. Alfredo is in contact with our branch president everyday. He sends him passages of the BOM to read. Alfredo tells us that all he can think about now is having a family! The last lesson we taught him before he left was about temples and family history. and for the last 7 years he´s been told he cant have a wife or children as a priest, and so now that he has that new hope, and it's all he can think about. IT makes me so happy! 

We´re teaching Silvina, his sister and she came to church on Sunday and she really bonded with the members in relief society. She shared that she never liked churches because in every one shes been to, everyone just looks at what you're wearing, or who you came with, if you came walking, or in a car, etc.  And that she's never felt comfortable.  and she felt good in our church! She shared with the ladies there that she never lets missionaries share with her, because shes not really into religion. But for some reason, she let us share our message.. and that she had almost felt like she knew us before... like we had already met at some point. Ahhhh, that made my eyes well up.  so we´re hoping now she´ll have a desire to be baptized too! 

José is our other investigator that has now come to church twice. (hes the investigator that has only 1 eye haha)... and after the testimony meeting he was crying, and said he couldn't describe how he felt but was so happy. So all in all, its been a good week :)

We had another cool experience with these two ladies that we contacted. Its a grandma and her granddaughter whos 29. They told us that the granddaughter is from Buenos Aires but was visiting for the week because the grandpa had passed away just last week and so they´re doing the funeral and helping the grandma. They´re passing through a really hard time... and we left them with a Book of Mormon. Then a whole week later we passed by again.. and they told us that the Book of Mormon had saved them. That all week whenever either of them got sad, they´d grab the book (that they always kept in the middle of the table), and read from it, and there would always be something that addressed exactly how they felt. They said the book was healing them, and it was such a sweet moment! They´re moving to Buenos Aires this week, so we cant continue teaching them... but at least we had the opportunity to plant the seed, because now we can send some missionaries to teach them! 

This week we decided to really focus in on the needs of people. Sometimes we focus so hard on the lessons and the evidence and our Spanish. But I wanted this week to just ask a lot of questions, and apply the gospel to what they specifically need.. and I saw a huge difference in the effectiveness of our efforts! The spirit has been present so much more in our teaching! And yes I'm still with Balderree finishing her training. I actually hope to stay in Bella Vista for a couple more transfers.. I really like it here. Our zone leaders complimented us on our work efforts, and said they can see our diligence.. which has made me want to work hard even more. 

My shoes are not that good. I have 2 pair: 1 that hurts my feet sooooo bad. another pair that I got from an Hermana here.