Hershey´s....we haven´t changed since 19...something

I don´t remember all of that logo/phrase, but I think the point remains the same, there are some things that never change. I am not one of them. Hello cambios. Yes, another 6 weeks has passed and I am now sitting next to my second companion. Her name is Hermana Cariola, she is from Chile, and this is her first time being senior companion. Seeing how I was the first daughter of Hermana Jones, I´m seeing a lot of firsts in my life. If I move to Senior companion after this transfer I´m probably going to....pray, a lot. I don´t know. Something fun. Hermana Jones on the other hand has the great opportunity of having the Lord and President Gulbrandsen trust in her so much that she is whitewashing an Elder´s area that´s out in the boonies, and training all at the same time. Plus, she´s probably getting another American. When I left her this morning she looked scared out of her mind. She will do great things.

The good news is I´m still in Nunez, which means I get to show the ropes to my new companion. It´s a good thing I paid attention. And already there is a lot more spanish speaking than there was before. Although, it is a standard/rule/expectation that all the Latinos learn how to speak English. So, she´s doing good, but sometimes I´m selfish and just want to talk in spanish. What are you going to do? Also, Hermana Cariola used to be a model before the mission. She´s super skinny. I´m pretty sure that´s going to motivate me never to eat again. We´ll see how that goes.

On to this week. Oh! This week was fun. Actually, it was. We met a lot of new people, we had 5 investigators come to church, which is my record. We have one family (ish) it´s the mom and daughter who absolutely loved church and want to go back. We have a baptismal date with the girl, didn´t have time to talk to the mom because she left to visit her aunt or something. Anyways, point being that´s awesome. And we essentially have 5 people who have the possibility and probability of being baptized this transfer if we stay with them. Here goes.

Story Time: So, we got locked out of our house Saturday night. THat was probably one of the least enjoying experiences of my life. First we have to run around trying to find a locksmith, then we have to coordinate with the zone leaders whether or not we´re going to use the locksmith. Then we have to wait for the zone leaders to come before calling the locksmith, because the locksmith will most likely be male and can´t be alone with Hermanas (valid). And in the end, because we couldn´t open our door we kept 8 other missionaries up until past midnight. Plus us, 10. Score. Church was fun the next day. And then we learned about cambios which means that two nights in a row I didn´t go to bed before midnight. I´m so tired right now. If this e-mail is crazy that´s why.

We also got to know the Familia Abregu a little bit more. They are recent converts that moved to Nunez, and they like missionaries to visit. And we were sitting there talking, and oh my. Hermana Abregu thinks I´m hilarious. I didn´t say much, but every time I did she started cracking up. And it wasn´t like small chuckle laugh. It was more like super loud high pitched nearly fall off my chair laugh. I didn´t get it. It wasn´t even that funny. Like one time, we were talking about marriages and the importance of temple marriages for eternity (valid) and they of course ask us if we´re going to get married/if we have boyfriends. The specific question was "oh, well, who are you going to marry? Do you have a boyfriend?" Something like that, to which my response was "I don´t know who I´ll marry. A man." And Hermana Abregu just starts laughing! "She doesn´t talk much, but when she does it´s hilarious!" Funny, yes. I´m not that funny.

Anyways, all in all, my days are starting to blur. It´s that or lack of sleep. But things are going well. It´s warmed up a bit, which I enjoy. Still in capital. Someday I´m going to see a field, it´s going to be great. I´m glad to hear about all of your fun 24th of July festivities. I´m glad that you are doing well. Tell Grandma that I´ll keep her in my prayers. Thank you for all your prayers as well. Life is grand.

Hermana Reed

Merge everybody Merge, I'm only imploding.

I eat so much. This is ridiculous. I on the other hand have miraculously maintained at least some dignity in my weight. And it has been hard. Let me tell you why. For the past 3 (please note that I said three, but I´m trying to be nice, It´s been more like 70) days I have been pressed upon to eat not one but 2 lunches. Usually one right after the other. Because people eat lunch at lunch time....and not later. It has been fun. And at least the food has been good. I got to eat mundongo again - we have recently learned that this family buys their meat for the whole month at the beginning - usually in the form of a medium to large carcus of some animal - and then uses all the edible parts. I had actually joked about the thought that she probably has a whole cow in the freezer, how funny to learn that I was actually right. But it´s okay. I don´t mind it to much. And we got to eat pudding at one family´s house and ice cream at the other. Love it!

But on to the more spiritual part of my life. This week has been good and crazy all at the same time. So, normal. We spent sometime this week working with a lot of less active families. Which meant doing a lot of listening. It´s interesting to see that the families that don´t go to church, are usually the ones who are lonely and just want people to talk to. And that´s what we did. We would go to these houses and just listen. In maybe an hour´s worth of talking between myself and my companion we probably spoke for max 5 minutes? It is unfortunate.

One family we did visit though was really nice. Well, they were all nice, but this woman, named Amelia, is a bit older, and had stopped going to church mainly because she didn´t have a way to get there. But she is super strong in her faith, her family was one of the first converted in Argentina, and all of her sons served missions. We´ve spoken with the Bishop and he´s arranged for rides, now she comes to church. We still visit with her, and through her we met her maid - who is not a member, and now we´re going to teach her as well. Blessings, Blessings all around!

And probably the most exciting portion of this week was with our baptism. Last week Ezequiel got baptized after church. So we had a week between baptism and confirmation. And lets just say it was an explosion of flavor. Things were going great, we were talking with him every day. And then mid-week he calls us up, tells us that we need to repent because we offended this woman whom we met on the street, and ends the conversation with my companion in tears. The woman is not an investigator, she used to be, but has adamantly refused to be taught, go to church, or do anything. But always asks us to do things for her. She´s always asking for pictures of Jesus, to bring her hot water, to watch her Flower shop while she goes to the Bathroom or something (we did this once thinking it would take 5 minutes and she didn´t come back for 2 hours!! Not happy was I or my companion). And then through Ezequiel we find out she´s so mad at us that she´s telling everyone she knows that we are liars, evil, and don´t care about anyone. Through her influence we´ve had a couple of investigators refuse to talk to us, and now Ezequiel was believing Sara, to the point where he was threatening not to get confirmed on Sunday. And we didn´t even know what we had done.

So we go to talk to S and E the next day, and, well first E pretends like there is nothing wrong. And then stops talking to us all together. So we start talking to S, and she just starts yelling at us, saying how we only gave her stuff so she would go to church and how we always held it against her (there was once a cold day and we gave her a sweater, but she decided to remember it as "We gave you that sweater so now you have to go to church") and I can´t really fully understand everything that is going on, but my companion is once again nearly in tears. So I tell S "Enough. You´ve made your point. Enough, Sara". Which is about all I knew how to say in the moment. Which of course shocked her into silence. Because I don´t really add to the conversation much. And my companion got the opportunity to apologize. Because we had no idea she had gotten offended. She´d been upset with us for almost 3 months, talking to her this whole time, and we had had no idea. She´d never told us. It was only through E that we even learned about it. Anyways, while Hermana Jones starts talking, E gets up and leaves, and then someone calls on the phone, so I go to talk to them, and H. Jones starts working things out with Sara. Sara starts crying and telling her whole life story, and it really is a hard life that she has lived. And in the end, she feels better, and decides not to absolutely loathe us anymore. Not that she likes us, but she doesn´t loathe us. So that problem got fixed. But E was still struggling/toying with us on whether or not he was even going to go to church this Sunday. But we leave, because we had an appointment.

The next day we go to find him, and we have to have another long explaining conversation with him to figure out what was wrong, why he was acting the way he was and everything. Turns out, he is so upset because transfers are in a week and one of us is going to be leaving. I´m thinking in my mind, this man is crazy. That was a bit of an extreme. He had decided that he didn´t want to get attached to us since we were just going to be leaving anyways, so he stopped talking to us altogether. Drama, drama, drama. But we talked about it, promised to stay in touch, and everything is all better now. Por Fin! I didn´t ever realize my life could be so dramatic in another country.

That was probably the most exciting thing of this week. Other than that, none of our investigators went to church, Ezequiel did end up going and getting confirmed, he is much happier now, and I´m glad he has the gift of the Holy Ghost because that should help him out a ton. And life is back to being the relatively normal state of a hard working missionary. Let´s just say we´ve been praying extra lately. Crazy, crazy, crazy. But the church is true. And I would highly recommend to anyone and everyone that if you are offended, at least let the person know. If you´ve offended someone, work it out. Contention is of the devil, and you can really feel the evil working in those moments.

Learn from my experiences. So you don´t have to go through it yourself. :)

Hermana Reed

More Pictures!!!

This is us all going to church on Sunday. We´ve moved buildings and now it takes longer. Also, the bus only passes by every half hour.



The two old people are Familia Wesby. They are old and we eat lunch with them every Friday. I love them. :)


No description of the rest of these pictures, but from my best guess, some sister missionaries, district picture after playing soccer, her most recent baptism, and one of her favorite families in the ward.

Do you have any problems? Yes.....Yes I do...

Aha! This week has been crazzzy. All in a good way. I promise that is true. Let´s just cut straight to the stories shall we? It´s my favorite part anyways. We´ve had a lot of problems this week. But again, in a good way. Or, atleast they were all funny.

Okay, so we´re teaching, well no, that´s a lie. We want to be teaching this family, two girls studying in college, very evangelistica, never have time for a full lesson, but always promise they want to listen (probably a lie, but you never know). And Tuesday we go in and try to teach them, but they are literally running around trying to leave. But they have just enough time to make us something to eat...because it´s rude not to. So we´re sitting there, she gives us a little snack, and then comes in with two hot mugs of...? Tea. Now, we had told her that we don´t drink tea. We do the herbal stuff, but nothing that actually contains tea. She must have forgotten, or doesn´t actually have any of the herbal variety. So, we´re sitting there looking at it, not knowing what to do, while she runs around and tries to get ready to leave. What do we do? Problem! And we didn´t want to offend her because we still want to teach her. Luckily, she got a phone call and goes into the other room. Hermana Jones and I look at each other. What do we do? So, jokingly, I say ¨.....uh, throw it out the window.¨ ¨............okay.¨ So she takes her mug, walks to the window, opens it, chucks it off the balcony. Then takes mine, does the same thing. Unfortunately, she throws the tea bag that was in mine down the 5 stories along with the tea. Well great. Now I´ve got a mug with no tea bag. What do I tell her? Uh...sorry? I was hungry? NO! So, we start cleaning up everything and put all the mugs and plates in the kitchen for her. Good news. We still have a return appointment.

Oh, and then this week we had a couple days of training with the President (mostly for those in training positions. We wer invited because Hermana Jones is still training me). And after one day we were just fired up and ready to go teach and invite and we were challenged to pray before knocking every door, and we were doing it. And we just had this day of rejections. Every door, either no one was home, or didn´t have time, or told us flat to our faces that they weren´t interested. Problem? Yes. We dropped a lot of our investigators that day. One particularly fun memory was with two 14 year old girls, one of which reminds me distinctly of Fallyn. They come to the door and just start out with ¨look, i just want to be sincere with you. We´re not really interested. I´m really catholic, and we read in your book and prayed about it (lie) and it´s just not really for us. And the owner of this apartment wants you to stop bothering us and yeah. We´re not interested.¨ So, we politely ask, okay, well is there anyone else who might be interested in this apartment? and she responds, uh, Let me go see. Wait here just a second. Shuts the door, locks, it and yells ¨Ciao Hermanas! muahahaa¨through the door......She´s not an investigator anymore. Good news: It was really funny. We don´t force anyone into the Celestial Kingdom. We invite them. And when they get a little crazy, we politely wait until they´re not around anymore before chuckling to ourselves. I wish I could fully explain this girl. Her hands were flying all over the place, talking rapid spanish, repeating herself 4-5 times. And we were just sitting there going ¨okay, if you don´t want it that´s fine. As long as you actually did read and pray. You can´t close the door without actually trying to know for yourself.¨ So funny.

And then we had a baptism this week. The fun part of baptisms is the week before you need to have daily contact, because Satan is going to try to get them to change their minds, bad things usually happen, etc. There is always opposition. Well this week the opposition came in the form of not actually seeing our investigator all week. He doesn´t have a cell phone, he didn´t answer his land line. Problem! So, we´re stressing out all week, calling him nightly, he never answers. Praying so hard. This is our most incredible investigator and all the sudden he´s dropped off the face of the earth! What the...? No good. Good news: He calls US Friday night. Not only is he okay, he´s fantastic. He´s found us 3 new investigators, set up an appointment for the next day, and is totally stoked for his baptism. Whew! Relief! That was fun. Kind of. He did get baptized, he´s still amazing, he loves sharing his testimony, and we gave him a Preach My Gospel to help him study because he wants to go on a mission too. He will do great things.

Do I have any problems? Yes. Plenty. But it´s okay. It all seems to work out in the end. And I´ve been doing a lot of repenting, and I´m trying to open up more to the people and everything. Whew, what great fun. Doesn´t this sound exciting? Emotional rollercoaster that it is. I´m so glad I´m here. I´m glad to hear everyone is doing well.

Love you all. Thanks for your prayers.

Hermana Reed

Jolin!

Woah, so, super sorry for last week. That was less then ideal on many a front, but we have plenty of time today so you won´t be disappointed. I hope that´s how you spell that.

Bleagh, I don´t even know where to begin. Two weeks. Lets talk divisions. I´ve now had two experiences doing divisions, where we just had to many appointments so we called up two ladies from the ward and split the team. The second time was a lot more entertaining since we contacted more people. I went with a girl named Evelyn, she´s 18 years old, and about as quiet as a mouse. Love that. So, we got to do some contacting, and teach a really quick lesson. The most eventful moment of the night was when one of our references actually answered his door so I had to do a door approach. Couldn´t remember who had given the name, couldn´t remember how to properly explain the gospel in 3 sentences. It went a little like this ¨uh, yeah! hi, so, we´re missionaries for the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, well, I am, she´s not. Have you heard of the church before? Oh, you know someone, that´s awesome. Can we teach you? Okay, next week. Score. We´ll come back with someone who can talk more, okay buh bye.¨ Forgot to give a pamphlet, Not even sure I said my name....good times. The lesson we had with a recent convert was much better. Partly because she knows who I am (and to talk slow) and partly because she likes to talk. All I had to do was share a scripture. ¨So, how do you feel about baptism?¨ Problem solved.

So, that was divisions. We have had some wonderful testimony meetings. One came from this really old lady. I mean REALLY old. This lady can´t move without help. But she´s great. She gives comments in Relief Society like it´s nobody´s business and is full of great stories....when you can hear them. The coolest thing is her faith in God. Her husband died a couple of weeks ago, and afterwards she came to bear her testimony, and in her testimony she told the congregation ¨I don´t know now whether to get married again or get a dog!¨ haha, seriously, this lady is like 120 years old. Then after she started walking down, and told the guy who was helping her to just pick her up. So, he did. ¨It´s faster this way.¨ That´s what she told everyone. I was dying!! Hilarious. I seriously wish someone would videotape my life. I don´t make any of these up by the way. Dani asked me that once. I mean, I know I´m a good story teller, but every word is true. I do have a flare for timing though, that helps.

But the best news of the past two weeks is our investigator Ezequel. Hermana Jones and Hermana Gonzalez had contacted him the Sunday before I came to Argentina, but then we had never been able to find him again. 6 weeks later, we show up and see him talking with another person and he asks us ¨So, are we going to the church?¨ ¨.....uh, yea! Lets go!¨ And this man is amazing! He has read everything and loves to share his testimony. He´s getting baptized this Sunday coming up and he even bore his testimony in church yesterday. We´ve only been teaching him for 2 weeks! CRAZY!! In fact, this one time we were at a recent converts house and we were going to talk about faith, and baptism and he starts talking. He ends up teaching the whole lesson, just from reading a small pamphlet we had given him! And while he´s sitting there he puts his hands in a triangle and explains ¨you know, I know you have been sent here by God. You have leaders and your mission president, and there´s the prophet. But really, God sent you here to talk to me. We´re in this triangle together, there´s me (joint) there´s you two (other joint) and there´s God (where finger´s meet). And we´re all working together to get closer to God.¨ and I´m just sitting there thinking....yes. we really are......SCORE! Let´s chalk this one up to another victory for Heavenly Father where I managed to be a physical representative and He did most if not all of the teaching, and I brought faith. The church is true. Since then, Ezequel has accompanied us to visit and teach other investigators, passed his baptismal interview, and become integrated in the ward. I love watching Heavenly Father work miracles. And I wasn´t even sick. That just made it better. Not that I was earlier. I just remember a time when I was, and when you can´t breathe you don´t enjoy things as much.

Oh, guess what? Heavenly Father loves me. Want to know why? Because. I got to eat coos-coos. Not actually sure that´s how you spell it. Let me please explain why this is important to my life by quoting a very popular movie that my family better recognize. ¨Oh! Why, he´s not bigger than a little grain of coos-coos. Oh look, he´s throwing a little tantrum.¨ Yes, Night at the Museum 2. Good job. Love my life.

So, want to hear a really awesome/awkward story. It´s called once upon a time it was a member´s birthday in the ward and we really like this family because they help us a lot so we went over to celebrate and bring them a cake (aw, how sweet. yes, yes, I know). Well, we´re sitting there taking pictures and my companion takes it upon herself to do something funny and pretend to choke me with her hands, as a surprise. Now, let´s talk a little bit about how I feel about being touched. I don´t. Well, by some people. Actually, I can´t really explain that. Some people it´s fine, other´s no. Definately not my face, or my rear. Touch me there and I will drop to the floor to get away from you, it´s a self defense move I learned in my ¨how not to get raped¨ class. a) because the dead weight will make them release their hold on you and b) it´s not a normal reaction. Well, let´s just say, during this picture, I was not in my normal, mission appropriate seated position. Do you know how hard it is to try to explain why you fell to the floor, in spanish, when your face is a flaming fire of embarrassment? In one word: Difficult.

I hope you enjoyed that rendition of my life. The work goes on. The church is true. I´m prideful and repent all the time. The Lord continues to bless me and my investigators and my companion despite all my faults. Oh, spanish. Before I leave. The spanish is going really well. The member who´s birthday we celebrated talks to me a lot, and he´s really patient with me, so I can actually talk now....when whoever I´m talking to is willing to wait for me to form my sentences. Really that´s the most difficult part. They understand me though (lots of errors but at least I´m talking). I think some of the time they think they are helping when they start answering for me, but really, that just means the next time I´ll answer incorrectly. So, that´s a little rough. But I´m talking, and participating in the lessons. And overall, I´m comfortable in Argentina now. That was the hardest part for me I think. New country, new people, new everything. Literally. It was not like the CCM at all!! I was not comfortable in my skin, or my place, or what authority I had, and that just made progressing really hard. But now, I´m at least comfortable. I´ve always been fine making mistakes in front of people. Embarrassing? Yes. But that´s how you learn. And really, I don´t need their approval (would be nice) I need them to listen. The approval will come later. Although I did hear the other day that my physical appearance just screams ¨white american¨and there´s nothing I can do to fix that. Huh, unfortunado. But at least I can talk to them.

Okay, I know this was a very random e-mail, but I´m a very random person. And I´m okay with that.

Love you,

Hermana Reed