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