It won´t be easy, you´ld think it strange
When I try to explain how I feel.
That I still need your love even when I am gone.
You won´t be grieving
All you will see is a girl you once knew
With all she´s not dressed in long skirts.
She´s not preaching or teaching to you.
I had to let it happen
I had to change
Couldn´t stay all my life with my plack.
Doing contacts in the streets
Knocking doors all day long
So I choose freedom
Running around trying everything new
But nothing will impress me at all
I never expected it too
Don´t cry for me Argentina
The truth is I´ll never leave you
All through my RM days
Those crazy institute dances
I kept my promise
Don´t keep your distance
And as for marriage
And as for school
I never invited it in.
Though it seems to the world
that it´s all I desire
They are illusions
They are not the solutions they promise to be
The answer is here all the time.
I love you and hope you love me.
Don´t cry for me Argentina
The truth is I´ll never leave you
Not through my RM days,
those crazy institute dances
I´ll keep my promise
Don´t keep your distance
Have I said to much?
There´s nothing more I can think of to say to you.
But all you have to do is look at meç
to know that every word is true!
Don´t cry for me Argentina....
I also translated this song into spanish during my language study. I bet you thought you were going to get some spiritual last letter talking about my mission.....But I´m just not that kind of missionary. I am so much cooler. You´ll get my spiritual experiences in person....later.
Love you all, see you soon
Hermana Reed
Monday, September 10, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Tu Conversión
Hello friends and family:
Sorry about last week. That was rough. But Don´t worry, now I have 2 weeks of stories to tell you. But the keyboard here sticks and it´s making my hands tired so I´m going to bulletpoint instead of trying to make it flow or have a theme. Don´t hate, I´m a good writer.
1) So we went to the open house with our new converts. And at the temple they give you a little card to fill out with your name and information. Well, one of the box essays “Religion” and one of the little girls asked, “What do we put for religion?” and her sister replied “Mormon, We´re mormons now.” I nearly leaped for joy. They have no idea what all that entails – we will continue to teach them that – but they were super proud of the fact that they are mormons. And I loved it.
2) Buahaha,okay, so the other day we had a member ask us to help them! That in and of itself could be a bulletpoint because it´s a miracle, but the story is a bit funnier then that. So, an Hermana had been assigned to clean the church, and due to work and other complications, she ends up being the only one going to clean, with an added homework to help cook for this big Bishops lunch the next day, so she asks us to give her a hand. So we go to the church to begin cleaning, and we´re doing fine when all of the sudden I hear this squeal “HERMANA!” What the freak!? I turn around and Hna Lobos has just found a little grasshopper in a corner. Now, to be fair, Hna Lobos is deathly afraid of insects, which I think is funny. We´ve had a couple of opportunities to kill small spiders and bugs together. I don´t do it for her, I help her do it. Anyways, well, we can´t kill it when it´s in the corner so I help her get the grasshopper out of the corner, and it jumps, natural right? Grasshoppers jump. Here´s what´s not natural. Her reaction – blood curdling scream! In the chapel. I was dying laughing. Absolutely dying. Anyways, I tell her, we have to kill it or you´re just going to be scared. So we get some paper towels and cover the poor grasshopper (o, did I tell you that it was already wounded? Yeah, we have a fun time) and then on the count of three Hna lobos steps on the bug. Blood curdling SCREAM otra vez! IN THE CHAPEL! And I was just laughing so hard. I´m such a bad person sometimes. Anyways, we get her calmed down, I clean up the bug and we move on cleaning. But, so funny.
3) Where´s Crystal? I finally got to talk to Elder Vargas from El Salvador, he was doing tramites last Monday as well. His eye´s nearly popped when I said that you say hi. And he got excited to know that I know you. He still looks up to you a lot. I don´t know if you have ever written him, but it would probably make his day. I also learned he has very good art skills that he learned from his life before the church. Maybe you could explain that to me someday???
4) Even in the boonies of Zarate we received a temple miracle. We have been working with a recent convert to help her start coming to church again. She had been out of work for a long time, and when she found work, it included Sundays. We started talking to her and really encouraged her to do everything in her power to go visit the temple. She finally did, the last Saturday it was open. But, unbeknownst to us, she took her daughter with her. And her daughter loved the temple. She said that she felt a peace inside that was out of this world, and it was peace that lasted. Afterwards, the daughter ends up showing late to work, and instead of being irritated by all the normal negative comments, she just kept feeling peaceful. And it´s a miracle because apparently, the Elders of Zarate 1 always go there to buy bread (normal) but by this interaction she was even more willing to talk to us. Because this last Wednesday, the recent convert moved in with her daughter, when we went by to give a leccion deretencion, our convert wasn´t there, but the daughter was. She recognized us as missionaries and asked us to come in. We started talking with her, she told us her story, and said if it hadn´t been for her experience with the temple and the Elders, she wouldn´t have spoken with us. Normally she doesn´t bother talking with religious people, because they just have the title and don´t really live what they believe. But us "Mormons" we´re different. We were able to teach the Restauration of the Gospel and give her a Book of Mormon. And that night she was reading and asking her mom all sorts of questions about the church. She wasn´t able to come to church with us the next day because she worked but she already promised to come on the 16th. And she was excited, she wanted to go. So much so that she allowed her mom (recent convert) to take her two kids to church on Sunday. And they loved it and were singing and sharing their experiences with their mom afterwards. That is our temple miracle.
5) Okay, so one of my favorite recent converts is Walter, and he´s not even my convert, but I claim him. So, last week he received the priesthood (finally!) and so this week we were searching everywhere to find him a white shirt and tie, and pants. Which means, we asked the Elders to loan us some. Loan, to gift of their own. And seeing him in church this week in a white shirt and tie. Shoot, it was like a mother´s pride, I nearly cried watching him pass the sacrament (he was super nervous to do it, he asked us about it and I told him that one of the Hermanos would help him out.) I´m such an emotional baby these days, but I don´t even care. It was so great to see how far he´s come in his progress, and to know that he´s now prepping to serve a mission.
6) I´ve learned that I have changed a lot. The people here know that I¨m leaving soon. And they keep asking me for my name. But I don´t give it to them. I told them I would give it when I leave, and I´m not saying my name a minute earlier! Even though some sneaky elders kept trying to look at my name on my tramite paper last week. Elders….. anyways, I just have been able to notice that I´m not “Carlee” right now. I left her behind when I entered the MTC. Right now, I´m “Hermana Reed” and I like myself better that way. It´s weird to hear my name, or even to see it. It just looks wrong. The people in tramites even called my first name. I was like 2 feet away, and they called my name like 7 times and it didn´t even register that they were talking about me. One of the sneaky elders who saw my name had to call my attention to the woman.
Alright, it´s time for me to head out. Love you all. I hope you enjoy my letters. My life is hilarious.
Hermana Reed
Sorry about last week. That was rough. But Don´t worry, now I have 2 weeks of stories to tell you. But the keyboard here sticks and it´s making my hands tired so I´m going to bulletpoint instead of trying to make it flow or have a theme. Don´t hate, I´m a good writer.
1) So we went to the open house with our new converts. And at the temple they give you a little card to fill out with your name and information. Well, one of the box essays “Religion” and one of the little girls asked, “What do we put for religion?” and her sister replied “Mormon, We´re mormons now.” I nearly leaped for joy. They have no idea what all that entails – we will continue to teach them that – but they were super proud of the fact that they are mormons. And I loved it.
2) Buahaha,okay, so the other day we had a member ask us to help them! That in and of itself could be a bulletpoint because it´s a miracle, but the story is a bit funnier then that. So, an Hermana had been assigned to clean the church, and due to work and other complications, she ends up being the only one going to clean, with an added homework to help cook for this big Bishops lunch the next day, so she asks us to give her a hand. So we go to the church to begin cleaning, and we´re doing fine when all of the sudden I hear this squeal “HERMANA!” What the freak!? I turn around and Hna Lobos has just found a little grasshopper in a corner. Now, to be fair, Hna Lobos is deathly afraid of insects, which I think is funny. We´ve had a couple of opportunities to kill small spiders and bugs together. I don´t do it for her, I help her do it. Anyways, well, we can´t kill it when it´s in the corner so I help her get the grasshopper out of the corner, and it jumps, natural right? Grasshoppers jump. Here´s what´s not natural. Her reaction – blood curdling scream! In the chapel. I was dying laughing. Absolutely dying. Anyways, I tell her, we have to kill it or you´re just going to be scared. So we get some paper towels and cover the poor grasshopper (o, did I tell you that it was already wounded? Yeah, we have a fun time) and then on the count of three Hna lobos steps on the bug. Blood curdling SCREAM otra vez! IN THE CHAPEL! And I was just laughing so hard. I´m such a bad person sometimes. Anyways, we get her calmed down, I clean up the bug and we move on cleaning. But, so funny.
3) Where´s Crystal? I finally got to talk to Elder Vargas from El Salvador, he was doing tramites last Monday as well. His eye´s nearly popped when I said that you say hi. And he got excited to know that I know you. He still looks up to you a lot. I don´t know if you have ever written him, but it would probably make his day. I also learned he has very good art skills that he learned from his life before the church. Maybe you could explain that to me someday???
4) Even in the boonies of Zarate we received a temple miracle. We have been working with a recent convert to help her start coming to church again. She had been out of work for a long time, and when she found work, it included Sundays. We started talking to her and really encouraged her to do everything in her power to go visit the temple. She finally did, the last Saturday it was open. But, unbeknownst to us, she took her daughter with her. And her daughter loved the temple. She said that she felt a peace inside that was out of this world, and it was peace that lasted. Afterwards, the daughter ends up showing late to work, and instead of being irritated by all the normal negative comments, she just kept feeling peaceful. And it´s a miracle because apparently, the Elders of Zarate 1 always go there to buy bread (normal) but by this interaction she was even more willing to talk to us. Because this last Wednesday, the recent convert moved in with her daughter, when we went by to give a leccion deretencion, our convert wasn´t there, but the daughter was. She recognized us as missionaries and asked us to come in. We started talking with her, she told us her story, and said if it hadn´t been for her experience with the temple and the Elders, she wouldn´t have spoken with us. Normally she doesn´t bother talking with religious people, because they just have the title and don´t really live what they believe. But us "Mormons" we´re different. We were able to teach the Restauration of the Gospel and give her a Book of Mormon. And that night she was reading and asking her mom all sorts of questions about the church. She wasn´t able to come to church with us the next day because she worked but she already promised to come on the 16th. And she was excited, she wanted to go. So much so that she allowed her mom (recent convert) to take her two kids to church on Sunday. And they loved it and were singing and sharing their experiences with their mom afterwards. That is our temple miracle.
5) Okay, so one of my favorite recent converts is Walter, and he´s not even my convert, but I claim him. So, last week he received the priesthood (finally!) and so this week we were searching everywhere to find him a white shirt and tie, and pants. Which means, we asked the Elders to loan us some. Loan, to gift of their own. And seeing him in church this week in a white shirt and tie. Shoot, it was like a mother´s pride, I nearly cried watching him pass the sacrament (he was super nervous to do it, he asked us about it and I told him that one of the Hermanos would help him out.) I´m such an emotional baby these days, but I don´t even care. It was so great to see how far he´s come in his progress, and to know that he´s now prepping to serve a mission.
6) I´ve learned that I have changed a lot. The people here know that I¨m leaving soon. And they keep asking me for my name. But I don´t give it to them. I told them I would give it when I leave, and I´m not saying my name a minute earlier! Even though some sneaky elders kept trying to look at my name on my tramite paper last week. Elders….. anyways, I just have been able to notice that I´m not “Carlee” right now. I left her behind when I entered the MTC. Right now, I´m “Hermana Reed” and I like myself better that way. It´s weird to hear my name, or even to see it. It just looks wrong. The people in tramites even called my first name. I was like 2 feet away, and they called my name like 7 times and it didn´t even register that they were talking about me. One of the sneaky elders who saw my name had to call my attention to the woman.
Alright, it´s time for me to head out. Love you all. I hope you enjoy my letters. My life is hilarious.
Hermana Reed
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
!!Fotos!!
Burnt finger from relighting pilot light before baptism
At the baptism
This is what dripping wet looks like!
At the temple
Going to the temple
Only got 4 minutes to save the world!
I rememberthat I started my mission saying that, and now I´m on the other side of this process saying the same thing. WEIRD! Alright, enough about you, lets talk about me.
Lets talkabout how this week was crazy insane, and I loved every minute of it.
Monday - wehad a rock awesome game playing cita with our investigators with the recently returned missionary and the family loved it and him.
Tuesday -we ask said recently returned missionary to do our daily contact for us because we were working in the temple all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Working in the temple was great. It was actually very quite because it was raining ALL DAY LONG.
Wednesday -we finish working at the temple and drive home in the rain- We get back about 7:30 at night and RUN to have daily contact with our investigators to find outthat one little girl fell in love with the recently returned missionary....and now wants to get baptized. LOVE IT!! More details on this one. On Monday while we were teaching she was being all sorts of flirty. She was touching his ears/hair, commenting on his eyes. He was beet red and I was trying to compose myself. Finally, it wasn´t happening to me. Poor guy, I do feel bad for him.Oh, did I mention that this little girl, Milagros, is 8? Anyways, point is, now she wants to get baptized and we call Pte Gulbrandsen and he gives us permission! Even though she´s never been to church. At least we have been teaching her. I promise Kind of. She likes to run a round, she has a lot of energy. Beside the point.
Thursday –we go to the church to do our planning and to clean the baptismal Font. Which takes, forever. Then we go tromping out in the POURING RAIN to find the family for their interviews. We swim back to church (okay, a member picked up most ofthem and Hna Lobos and I walked/swam) to find out zone leaders waiting to do the inverviews. Perfect. While we are there we have them try on their baptismal clothes and they are running around like crazy super happy. Ayelen comes out of the interview and shouts “I´m getting baptized!” Well, lookie there. I´m glad you are happy about that. Then they start running around in the baptismal Font I had JUST cleaned. And it got dirty again. But it was an easy fix so that´sokay. A Little dirt never kills anyone.
Friday –Everyone is calling us. Are we still doing the baptism? Are your investigators getting baptized? Uh….DUH They are getting baptized! A Little bit of rain shouldn´t stop a baptism. However, sometimes here in Argentina it does stop a baptism. But that´s beside the point, it´s not stopping this baptism. Because I have a lot of faith…and we´re calling a remis. Done and done. We show up dripping wet to the baptism. But all 4 of them are there. They all get baptized. SCORE!
Saturday –we wake up and leave early in the morning to go to the temple with our baptisms. Woohoo! It´s a long ride, and we´re super squished in the back of a convey, but we get them all in and they love the temple. LOVE IT! They are so being fiel.
Sunday – we go to get them for the confirmation. We have a bit of a scare as some sex-crazed idiot tries to follow us for 7 blocks. But God has more power then Satan…and we still had credit on our phone. So we call up Hno return missionaryto walk us to church. By the time he gets to the house the creeper is gone, butwe still feel better protected because we have a priesthood holder. Yay! Preisthood holder!! And it came to pass that this weekend there were not 1, not2 but 4! Count them 4 baptisms and confirmations in the Zarate II Ward. And the crowd goes wild! Wooooaaa!! And I know that I didn´t really do anything. God is great. He gives us baptisms. Love it.
And now, I´m chilling with the Hermanas of Campana. It´s a holiday so we´re going to go do some fun stuff. I´ll talk to you later! Seek out miracles!
Hermana Reed
Lets talkabout how this week was crazy insane, and I loved every minute of it.
Monday - wehad a rock awesome game playing cita with our investigators with the recently returned missionary and the family loved it and him.
Tuesday -we ask said recently returned missionary to do our daily contact for us because we were working in the temple all day Tuesday and Wednesday. Working in the temple was great. It was actually very quite because it was raining ALL DAY LONG.
Wednesday -we finish working at the temple and drive home in the rain- We get back about 7:30 at night and RUN to have daily contact with our investigators to find outthat one little girl fell in love with the recently returned missionary....and now wants to get baptized. LOVE IT!! More details on this one. On Monday while we were teaching she was being all sorts of flirty. She was touching his ears/hair, commenting on his eyes. He was beet red and I was trying to compose myself. Finally, it wasn´t happening to me. Poor guy, I do feel bad for him.Oh, did I mention that this little girl, Milagros, is 8? Anyways, point is, now she wants to get baptized and we call Pte Gulbrandsen and he gives us permission! Even though she´s never been to church. At least we have been teaching her. I promise Kind of. She likes to run a round, she has a lot of energy. Beside the point.
Thursday –we go to the church to do our planning and to clean the baptismal Font. Which takes, forever. Then we go tromping out in the POURING RAIN to find the family for their interviews. We swim back to church (okay, a member picked up most ofthem and Hna Lobos and I walked/swam) to find out zone leaders waiting to do the inverviews. Perfect. While we are there we have them try on their baptismal clothes and they are running around like crazy super happy. Ayelen comes out of the interview and shouts “I´m getting baptized!” Well, lookie there. I´m glad you are happy about that. Then they start running around in the baptismal Font I had JUST cleaned. And it got dirty again. But it was an easy fix so that´sokay. A Little dirt never kills anyone.
Friday –Everyone is calling us. Are we still doing the baptism? Are your investigators getting baptized? Uh….DUH They are getting baptized! A Little bit of rain shouldn´t stop a baptism. However, sometimes here in Argentina it does stop a baptism. But that´s beside the point, it´s not stopping this baptism. Because I have a lot of faith…and we´re calling a remis. Done and done. We show up dripping wet to the baptism. But all 4 of them are there. They all get baptized. SCORE!
Saturday –we wake up and leave early in the morning to go to the temple with our baptisms. Woohoo! It´s a long ride, and we´re super squished in the back of a convey, but we get them all in and they love the temple. LOVE IT! They are so being fiel.
Sunday – we go to get them for the confirmation. We have a bit of a scare as some sex-crazed idiot tries to follow us for 7 blocks. But God has more power then Satan…and we still had credit on our phone. So we call up Hno return missionaryto walk us to church. By the time he gets to the house the creeper is gone, butwe still feel better protected because we have a priesthood holder. Yay! Preisthood holder!! And it came to pass that this weekend there were not 1, not2 but 4! Count them 4 baptisms and confirmations in the Zarate II Ward. And the crowd goes wild! Wooooaaa!! And I know that I didn´t really do anything. God is great. He gives us baptisms. Love it.
And now, I´m chilling with the Hermanas of Campana. It´s a holiday so we´re going to go do some fun stuff. I´ll talk to you later! Seek out miracles!
Hermana Reed
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Benedryl - the $7 babysitter!
Sometimes, I think about sleeping just a little bit to much. My body is going all wacky from the different schedules we´ve been having this week. There just isn´t a sleeping routine anymore. BUt it´s okay because we receive blessings! Like working in the temple. It was great. We went last Wednesday - leaving at 6 in the morning taking a little breakfast break in capital and still managed to make it to the temple by 10 o´clock!...we were supposed to be there by noon. We were definately not late! So we were able to have some study time while we waited for our shift to start. We went and had lunch with Pte Gulbrandsen and Hna Gulbrandsen in the CCM that is behind the temple and then started to work. Hna Lobos and I started in the reception tent. Essentially, after the tours, everyone is led to this tent where there are chairs to sit down, a few snacks/goodies and time to reflect on how you felt and what you saw. Our job was to invite everyone (specifically those that weren´t members) to fill our a commentary card and to answer any questions that they had. It was a fun opportunity because a lot of the people were members - so we got to ask about their conversion experiences, and help them understand a little more about the temple. Talking with those that weren´t members was also really fun because we were able to teach mini lessons. They had really good questions, but it was just amazing to see the changes in the people for going through the temple. One Hermana told us that a man in our group started the tour being a little cocky, having only come for his daughter, not really wanting to be there. But throughout the tour he began to feel the spirit and by the end was very reverent and had a touching experience. Many people came out crying. The tour ends in the sealing room talking about the family and everyone having the chance to look in to the 2 mirrors into the eternities.
Then around 9:30 when everyone had finally left we were able to go up to our rooms....except the lock didn´t work. So we trooped back to Pte Gulbrandsen our mission dad to fix the lock. And he acted in a very dad-like manner. First, he was laughing at us because we were all so tired we were slap happy. Hermana Whitehead was dying. She was laughing/crying at everything (to be fair, we as the farthest missionaries had gotten up at 4 in the morning to be at the temple) and Pte Gulbrandsen just laughed at her. We figured out that the key didn´t work because it had been next to an i-phone all day (which I´m glad, because if Pte had opened the door when I couldn´t I would have felt like an idiot). So, first, like any good dad - he tried to jimmy the lock with his credit card. When that didn´t work, he went to go look for a spare master card. We eventually made it into bed.
9 o´clock the next day we start up again. This time we are in the entrance. There´s a hostel/building where the tour begins with a 10 minute video explaining the temple and the Hermana´s give a 30 second presentation of the videio and then we leave. That´s all. It was definately more routine/robot-esque but good at the same time. In the down time between groups we were able to read our scriptures.
And then when the next shift of Hermanas came in at 1 we were free to leave. And we started traveling and were back in Zarate at 7. Just in time to do daily contact with our 3 baptisms this week!!!
It was an amazing experience, we were able to spend a lot of time with Pte and Hna Gulbrandsen. Hna Gulbrandsen is hilarious. When we ere in the reception tent we spent a lot of time with her. And even though she still struggles with Spanish, she throws herself into the work. She just makes sure she has a translator with her at all times. But she was totally being our mom too - making sure that we were okay, keeping us busy, happy, entertained, and then helping with the people. She´s wonderful. I love our mission president and wife so much.
Okay, that´s pretty much the most exciting thing that is going on. Sunday morning was an adventure because it had rained like crazy the night before. Small little rivers that nearly kept us from getting our investigators. We had to cross over on a makeshift bridge. And then one little cranky girl almost didn´t go to church because "she was tired". Honey, you don´t know tired, get out of bed. I didn´t say that, but I thought it. Instead I just got some water and splashed it on her face.....done with love. It got her out of bed and she was able to enjoy el día del niño at the church. Afterward she thanked me for waking her up. Oh the joys the gospel brings.
Alright, I´m heading out. We´ll be going to the temple again tomorrow. So I´ll be giving you an update on the works again next week.
Love you!
Hermana Reed
Then around 9:30 when everyone had finally left we were able to go up to our rooms....except the lock didn´t work. So we trooped back to Pte Gulbrandsen our mission dad to fix the lock. And he acted in a very dad-like manner. First, he was laughing at us because we were all so tired we were slap happy. Hermana Whitehead was dying. She was laughing/crying at everything (to be fair, we as the farthest missionaries had gotten up at 4 in the morning to be at the temple) and Pte Gulbrandsen just laughed at her. We figured out that the key didn´t work because it had been next to an i-phone all day (which I´m glad, because if Pte had opened the door when I couldn´t I would have felt like an idiot). So, first, like any good dad - he tried to jimmy the lock with his credit card. When that didn´t work, he went to go look for a spare master card. We eventually made it into bed.
9 o´clock the next day we start up again. This time we are in the entrance. There´s a hostel/building where the tour begins with a 10 minute video explaining the temple and the Hermana´s give a 30 second presentation of the videio and then we leave. That´s all. It was definately more routine/robot-esque but good at the same time. In the down time between groups we were able to read our scriptures.
And then when the next shift of Hermanas came in at 1 we were free to leave. And we started traveling and were back in Zarate at 7. Just in time to do daily contact with our 3 baptisms this week!!!
It was an amazing experience, we were able to spend a lot of time with Pte and Hna Gulbrandsen. Hna Gulbrandsen is hilarious. When we ere in the reception tent we spent a lot of time with her. And even though she still struggles with Spanish, she throws herself into the work. She just makes sure she has a translator with her at all times. But she was totally being our mom too - making sure that we were okay, keeping us busy, happy, entertained, and then helping with the people. She´s wonderful. I love our mission president and wife so much.
Okay, that´s pretty much the most exciting thing that is going on. Sunday morning was an adventure because it had rained like crazy the night before. Small little rivers that nearly kept us from getting our investigators. We had to cross over on a makeshift bridge. And then one little cranky girl almost didn´t go to church because "she was tired". Honey, you don´t know tired, get out of bed. I didn´t say that, but I thought it. Instead I just got some water and splashed it on her face.....done with love. It got her out of bed and she was able to enjoy el día del niño at the church. Afterward she thanked me for waking her up. Oh the joys the gospel brings.
Alright, I´m heading out. We´ll be going to the temple again tomorrow. So I´ll be giving you an update on the works again next week.
Love you!
Hermana Reed
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good.
Hey there family, Can I just tell you something real quick. Life is funny, and never easy. And if think that we deserve an easy life we for sure haven´t read the scriptures enough. That said, I´m for sure looking forward to my first "p-day" in casa when I´m going to take a very loooong nap.
First - transfers. Nothing changed. I´m still in Zarate II, and I´m still with Hermana Lobos. Hermana Whitehead and Hermana Erickson are still in Campana II - so life is pretty good. We got a super awkward despedido phone call this morning from the only Elder that left from the district. He called everyone, so it wasn´t inappropriate, it was just weird. It´s always weird, it´s happened a couple of times. They call, and give a little shout out to every person (Elder Burgas kindly wished me a happy death and that I baptize a lot this transfer....thanks Elder). And Hermana Lobos and I kept saying. "okay....bye!....okay.....bye. Bye Elder. Thanks Elder, bye." Despedidas should be like bandaids. Just take them off real quick and then throw it in the trash. I´ll be seeing you again. On facebook if not in person. Geesh. Elderes. I never knew that people could get so sentimental. I mean, I know I´m funny.....but that is ridiculous.
We moved! And we have light! When we moved we just had a bunch of cables hanging from the ceiling, we lacked the portolamparas. I don´t know what it´s called in english. the thingymajig that you put the bulb in. Anyways, we have those now. We spent the first couple of minutes with the lightbulbs singing "divina luz con esplendor benigno, alumbrame!" Okay, I was singing Divina Luz. My companion just listened. What else did we do? Oh, well, we went back to work. It was a pretty rough week, work wise. Everything just seemed to be off a bit until Sunday. With all the moving and what not it was super hard to have daily contact with our investigators, and in the end we didn´t have anyone at church on sunday. Blegh, hate that. But we showed our faith and went to their houses directly after church to re-fijar the fechas! They will all get baptized......someday. but we will be like Ammon and Alma and baptize nations for OUR faith. Because God is very involved in the work and wants us to be successful.
Things did start looking up Sunday night. We set up a cita with a recent convert at church and then asked another member to accompany us. Well, this member just happens to be the Young Adult representative so she asked if we could make it a FHE thing. Sure! Why not? Miembro Justo! So we end up having this FHE with 6 people, and we decide to play charades with the commandments (10 commandments + a few additionals). And it was funny - because it doesn´t matter if you are in Argentina, or the U.S. if you´re 20 or 30 - you will still feel dumb acting something out in front of a group of your closest friends. (Why? You´re friends because you do dumb things together. I´m pretty sure that´s part of the definition of friendship...) Or maybe they weren´t as good of friends as I thought. Either way, it was doubly funny because I´m sitting there thinking it will be the easiest thing in the world - there are only 10 commandments and the others are pray, read. We do these things in church all the time. Primary answers. But it was harder then they thought. It´s one of those "oh, I can recognize the answer, but can´t come up with it myself" type of moments. And it was great because we read Mosiah 2:41 afterwards which talks about the blessings of keeping the commandments and enduring to the end. And we talked about how it´s hard to keep commandments when we don´t know what they are. So as members of the church, we have made promises to keep these commandments, we better know what we should be keeping. So we need to keep coming to church, reading, praying, to know what it is that God wants us to do.
Also, we need to be sure that we are interpreting the commandments correctly. Because every person was acting out the commandment, but sometimes in a way that we had no idea what they were doing. So, even though we knew the commandment, we just stared blankly at them...or burst out laughing. So, we need to be sure that we are keeping the commandments in a way that those around us, recognize what we are doing. (Something akin to being an example of the believers.) It was a good little devotional. They all had a good time, we taught our recent convert. And then we were able to talk about the mission for a bit. 2 of the YA´s have received mission calls (one to Colombia the other to Neuquen), one is thinking about going on a mission, and our recent convert is 18 - and prepping himself to serve a mission. The other was our ward mission leader - who has served a mission. He helped out a lot and had some funny stories to share. But, all the current or returned missionaries gave heartfelt testimonies that the mission is the best thing that they had ever done. I sure like it.
All right, that´s all for now. I´ll talk to you next week!
Hermana Reed
o P.D. i don´t really know my duties specifically for the temple, or when. I still don´t know the schedules, but all we will be doing is talking to the visitors in the reception hall - to answer questions, and we will be part of an opening movie that introduces the temple. We won´t be giving tours. But it will still be cool to work there. :)
Love you!
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
And the good news is....
The good news is - so much is going on right now in my life that it´s just awesome and I love it. The bad news is I didn´t write yesterday and yáll were probably wondering why. I will tell you.
First - I had a meeting in the temple at 9:30 in the morning Monday. Wait...did I say temple? Heck yes I did! I mean, All that is sacred and holy indictes that I did. And family, the temple is beautiful, after our meeting we were able to take a tour of the temple, and it was just so amazing, you could totally tell that it is a sacred house of God even with the workers putting on the last finishing touches of the temple. The Celestial room nearly took my breath away. I literally started singing How Great Thou Art in my head. Which was rough because I only remember like two lines in English, And I don´t remember the words at all in spanish. Oh well. That will be my next language study session. The news is that the Hermanas are going to be helping out with the Temple Open House. Not every day, we don´t know our schedules, but we will be helping. I. LOVE. Being an Hermana. And Being in the Buenos Aires North mission. How cool is it that I was able to be called to this specific mission at this specific time and that I get to help with this specific rededication. I love God. God loves me......YESSSS!
Anyways, and then after the meeting that lasted until 1. The bus decided to take forever to get here and then take us to the apartement in Congreso where we had stayed the night (got to Congreso at 2:45) then another capital colectivo (45 minutes) to the big comfy bus that would take us on a 2 hour ride to Zarate. The only perk was that we got to stop and eat at McDonalds, something my companion had wanted for about.....all this transfer. She loves the french fries. I was just hungry. By the time we ate it was 4 o´clock in the afternoon. We left captal at 5, and didn´t get back to Zarate until about 7:30 - where we had to wait for another colectivo to take us to our apartment. Which we didn´t end up going to because we saw an investigator who is super hard t get a hold of - so we just jumped off the colectivo pj bag and all to talk to her. It was a great lesson.
And then today - I´m writing super late in the day because we´ve been packing, cleaning and moving all, day, long. And we are beat. And we haven´t taught a lesson all day. We´ll be going there soon, we just had to write the Pte and you guys real quick. So, I´m going to leave it at that. We´ll try to get some more writing time scrunched in next Monday, but with my life, we never know what´s going to happen. Anyways, I love you all. Go eat something awesome and think of me. I say that because I´m currently hungry, this isn´t a normal every day thing. Just a in the moment thing.
Toodles,
Hermana Reed
First - I had a meeting in the temple at 9:30 in the morning Monday. Wait...did I say temple? Heck yes I did! I mean, All that is sacred and holy indictes that I did. And family, the temple is beautiful, after our meeting we were able to take a tour of the temple, and it was just so amazing, you could totally tell that it is a sacred house of God even with the workers putting on the last finishing touches of the temple. The Celestial room nearly took my breath away. I literally started singing How Great Thou Art in my head. Which was rough because I only remember like two lines in English, And I don´t remember the words at all in spanish. Oh well. That will be my next language study session. The news is that the Hermanas are going to be helping out with the Temple Open House. Not every day, we don´t know our schedules, but we will be helping. I. LOVE. Being an Hermana. And Being in the Buenos Aires North mission. How cool is it that I was able to be called to this specific mission at this specific time and that I get to help with this specific rededication. I love God. God loves me......YESSSS!
Anyways, and then after the meeting that lasted until 1. The bus decided to take forever to get here and then take us to the apartement in Congreso where we had stayed the night (got to Congreso at 2:45) then another capital colectivo (45 minutes) to the big comfy bus that would take us on a 2 hour ride to Zarate. The only perk was that we got to stop and eat at McDonalds, something my companion had wanted for about.....all this transfer. She loves the french fries. I was just hungry. By the time we ate it was 4 o´clock in the afternoon. We left captal at 5, and didn´t get back to Zarate until about 7:30 - where we had to wait for another colectivo to take us to our apartment. Which we didn´t end up going to because we saw an investigator who is super hard t get a hold of - so we just jumped off the colectivo pj bag and all to talk to her. It was a great lesson.
And then today - I´m writing super late in the day because we´ve been packing, cleaning and moving all, day, long. And we are beat. And we haven´t taught a lesson all day. We´ll be going there soon, we just had to write the Pte and you guys real quick. So, I´m going to leave it at that. We´ll try to get some more writing time scrunched in next Monday, but with my life, we never know what´s going to happen. Anyways, I love you all. Go eat something awesome and think of me. I say that because I´m currently hungry, this isn´t a normal every day thing. Just a in the moment thing.
Toodles,
Hermana Reed
Sunday, July 29, 2012
"Oh, my soul hungered..."
That´s the song I have stuck in my head today. Alright, I don´t have a lot of time because we have to be back in our apartment to fix our exploding bathroom. I tried to fix it myself, but there´s only so much that we can do when our only tools are a kitchen knife and fork. However, my companion was super surprised that I even knew what to do, let alone had the insight to use a knife to fix a plumbing problem. But it´s okay, it turns out the people who constructed our house messed up in the piping. It´s not that big of a deal, but the good news is that we are getting a new place to live in. It´s an apartment, 5th floor. It´s supposed to be super nice. We´re so cheta. We´ll be moving in about 2 weeks.
So this week has been full of a lot of small but fortifying experiences that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. We didn´t baptize anyone, but we are starting to see some real progress working with the ward. Part of this is because of the temple rededication. We´ve essentially been asked to contact every member (active or not) and give them invitations to give to their friends. So everyone gets the chance to go to the open house. So we´re going to be updating the ward list, see who lives where and who doesn´t live here anymore, we´ll be contacting all the houses of members that have moved, and essentially finding a billion people to teach. My mind kind of explodes at the idea, but with our bicycles, I think we can do it. Now we just have to fix our bicycles. I have volunteered to help create an Excel list of the ward members and then use a program in word that copies and pastes the names into a formatted letter. I remember that there is a way to do it. The trick will be remembering and doing it in spanish, come on spanish-english dictionary! help me out! But the Bishop here nearly started floating when I offered to do it, there are over 300 families, so to write a letter and personalize it for 300 people....? It would be time for the dedication before we even got the invitations out.
So now the ward is starting to understand what we as missionaries do, and they´re helping us out. We received a call today from a member, who while doing her visiting teaching (and that doesn´t happen a ton here, we´re talking very low percentage, I don´t know if that´s normal in the United states, but I have a new found respect for visiting the hermanas of the ward) found 1) an hermana who wants to come back to church and wants her 2 kids to be baptized 2) otra hermana that wants to come back to church but doesn´t feel prepared to do it (she also has baptizable children) and 3) the direction of an Hermana that moved and got married umpteen years ago and therefore probably has children. Plus we had a Centro de Visitantes en la capilla yesterday and a member there told us her daughter wants to come back to church and wants her kids to get baptized. That´s ...hold on..count that up...yeah a potential 4 baptisms in the next month. I would die. In a good way. And that´s what happens when missionaries help the members. MIRACLE BAPTISMS!!! I´ll let you know how it works out.
That´s the most recent and exciting update. Also, this new family that we found did NOT go to church. Super bummed. Even though we left Ward Council early and ran in the early morning to get there and then called and called and called, and potentially knocked on all of their walls and called their names real loud and my companion felt like an idiot and I was just like "look! you´re going to church. Just open the door." Turns out they weren´t even there. Who decides to have their children the saturday night before church? These people I tell you! well, congratulations to the dad he´s a grandpappy again. And now we have to wait another week for their baptism. But other then that they are progressing. They are reading, their prayers are getting better and more sincere. And they at least are happy to see us. That always makes things better.
Another small but fortifying miracle happened on wednesday, we went to go talk to the Bishop for a bit, to update him on our findings and whatnot, and as we were just about to start our meeting a woman walks in the door and starts talking to the secretary "Hi, I used to be a member of Zarate I (ward next door) and we moved here about a year ago. We haven´t been going to church, but we want to start going again. We were wondering what we needed to do to see if the missionaries could stop by our house...." Well lookey there, turn to your left and you will find.....THE MISSIONARIES! Hello, my name is "answered prayer" and God sent me here. Okay, I didn´t actually say that. But i thought it in my head...right now if not in the moment. But we were able to talk to her and later her husband who came in as well. Turns out he used to live in Zarate II and the Bishop knew him. It was a good humbling experience for them, because they came and asked and new that they needed help. And all the people that could help just happened to be in the church at that exact moment. God really does love all of his children. And later the Bishop told us that of all that had happened that day, even if we had had the worst missionary working day ever, vale la pena. Because that was a miracle. Which is good, because i was actually feeling a bit rushed and we were a bit behind schedule going to and from the meeting, but God still uses us when we´re late. So it´s okay.
Alright, last little tid bit and then I´ll be off. Here are some good tongue twisters that I have learned in spanish. They´re called travalenguas in spanish. Good luck:
Pablito clavó un clavito. ¿Cuántos clavitos clavó Pablito?
Tres triste tigres tragaban en un trigal.
Pancha plancha con cuatro planchas. ¿Con cuántos planchas Pancha plancha?
camarelo caramelo
Right....that was some good work there.
Besos and a nice firm handshake
Hermana Reed
So this week has been full of a lot of small but fortifying experiences that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. We didn´t baptize anyone, but we are starting to see some real progress working with the ward. Part of this is because of the temple rededication. We´ve essentially been asked to contact every member (active or not) and give them invitations to give to their friends. So everyone gets the chance to go to the open house. So we´re going to be updating the ward list, see who lives where and who doesn´t live here anymore, we´ll be contacting all the houses of members that have moved, and essentially finding a billion people to teach. My mind kind of explodes at the idea, but with our bicycles, I think we can do it. Now we just have to fix our bicycles. I have volunteered to help create an Excel list of the ward members and then use a program in word that copies and pastes the names into a formatted letter. I remember that there is a way to do it. The trick will be remembering and doing it in spanish, come on spanish-english dictionary! help me out! But the Bishop here nearly started floating when I offered to do it, there are over 300 families, so to write a letter and personalize it for 300 people....? It would be time for the dedication before we even got the invitations out.
So now the ward is starting to understand what we as missionaries do, and they´re helping us out. We received a call today from a member, who while doing her visiting teaching (and that doesn´t happen a ton here, we´re talking very low percentage, I don´t know if that´s normal in the United states, but I have a new found respect for visiting the hermanas of the ward) found 1) an hermana who wants to come back to church and wants her 2 kids to be baptized 2) otra hermana that wants to come back to church but doesn´t feel prepared to do it (she also has baptizable children) and 3) the direction of an Hermana that moved and got married umpteen years ago and therefore probably has children. Plus we had a Centro de Visitantes en la capilla yesterday and a member there told us her daughter wants to come back to church and wants her kids to get baptized. That´s ...hold on..count that up...yeah a potential 4 baptisms in the next month. I would die. In a good way. And that´s what happens when missionaries help the members. MIRACLE BAPTISMS!!! I´ll let you know how it works out.
That´s the most recent and exciting update. Also, this new family that we found did NOT go to church. Super bummed. Even though we left Ward Council early and ran in the early morning to get there and then called and called and called, and potentially knocked on all of their walls and called their names real loud and my companion felt like an idiot and I was just like "look! you´re going to church. Just open the door." Turns out they weren´t even there. Who decides to have their children the saturday night before church? These people I tell you! well, congratulations to the dad he´s a grandpappy again. And now we have to wait another week for their baptism. But other then that they are progressing. They are reading, their prayers are getting better and more sincere. And they at least are happy to see us. That always makes things better.
Another small but fortifying miracle happened on wednesday, we went to go talk to the Bishop for a bit, to update him on our findings and whatnot, and as we were just about to start our meeting a woman walks in the door and starts talking to the secretary "Hi, I used to be a member of Zarate I (ward next door) and we moved here about a year ago. We haven´t been going to church, but we want to start going again. We were wondering what we needed to do to see if the missionaries could stop by our house...." Well lookey there, turn to your left and you will find.....THE MISSIONARIES! Hello, my name is "answered prayer" and God sent me here. Okay, I didn´t actually say that. But i thought it in my head...right now if not in the moment. But we were able to talk to her and later her husband who came in as well. Turns out he used to live in Zarate II and the Bishop knew him. It was a good humbling experience for them, because they came and asked and new that they needed help. And all the people that could help just happened to be in the church at that exact moment. God really does love all of his children. And later the Bishop told us that of all that had happened that day, even if we had had the worst missionary working day ever, vale la pena. Because that was a miracle. Which is good, because i was actually feeling a bit rushed and we were a bit behind schedule going to and from the meeting, but God still uses us when we´re late. So it´s okay.
Alright, last little tid bit and then I´ll be off. Here are some good tongue twisters that I have learned in spanish. They´re called travalenguas in spanish. Good luck:
Pablito clavó un clavito. ¿Cuántos clavitos clavó Pablito?
Tres triste tigres tragaban en un trigal.
Pancha plancha con cuatro planchas. ¿Con cuántos planchas Pancha plancha?
camarelo caramelo
Right....that was some good work there.
Besos and a nice firm handshake
Hermana Reed
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
La Santificación
Bueno, just kidding. I´ll write this letter in english. I thought about writing it in spanish. Just for a second. But then I decided against it. I´m a good person, I promise. This week was great. A lot better then last week. I was a bit stressed last week. This week God decided that I had put forth my faith enough to give me a booster shot of spirit so I wouldn´t go crazy. I love it when God shows me He loves me. It allows me to make it through the next bout of crazyness.
A ver, what happened this week. Lunes - I took a nap. That was awesome. Then my life got rearranged like three times (last minute phone calls - you have to be here at such and such time). But we were invited to a special training conference in San Fernando (training - yeah! Getting up at 4 in the morning - Boo!). We talked about the Doctrine of Christ and read in Mosiah 3:19 about the natural man and how are goal is to overcome the natural man. We do it by the Atonement of Christ first - to become Saints - applying faith, repentance, baptism (weekly through the sacrament) and the gift of the holy Ghost. But we get faith first by learning and understanding the Gospel. Something that needs to be planted in our hearts (Alma 36:13? I think somewhere around there. I don´t have my notes) And if we plant faith in our hearts, we will feel the true fear of God - because we will want to repent because we know we are messing up every day. But if we feel this fear, then we will offer a true prayer (not a quick insincere prayer) and we will receive forgiveness. Which will lead us to become humble, meek, patient, longsuffering - like a child. It was a mixture of Mosiah 3:19 and Alma 36. And it was great. I loved it. And I walked away knowing that I needed to repent but knowing that God knew I could do it. (As opposed to the week before where I went to the training meeting and walked away feeling like the worst/least efficient missionary of all time) Sometimes I just need a good dose of the doctrine to keep me going. And as we become these things we will become even as Christ is - perfect. But it´s a progression. So keep repenting.
Then Hna Lobos and I talked about our Santification - we were given the assignment to teach it in our district meeting. And Santification is being freed from sin and staying pure. The goal of our lives is to be sanctified and live with God (Moises 1:39). The only way to do this is by applying the Atonement in our lives (Moises 6:59-60). We apply the atonement in our lives through the Sacrament. By partaking of the bread and water we reknew our convenants, are cleansed once again, and can begin a new week with renewed faith and motivation. Thus being sanctified. Cool huh?
So, that´s the doctrine I´ve learned/studied. I´ve also been thinking a lot about the change over from the law of Moises to the Law of Christ (3 Nefi 9:17-22). And I was thinking about the difficulties when it finally occurred. Because all of the believers had been looking forward to the coming of Christ, but were living a different law. So when the time came to change, they had to change all their habits all at once. And I´m sure quite a few people struggled with the changes even though they knew that it was what they wanted, and they wanted to follow Christ. But it took time, to change over. And some people probably changed super fast and it wasn´t even a struggle. It depends on our faith and willingness, and if we understand. It´s how we live our lives, no? We are living and doing good things, but there comes a time when Christ asks us to jump in our faith and live a higher law (we receive a calling, they up the standards, we are asked to do more in whatever position we are in). And it´s hard because we felt like we were completing our part and doing good, and it´s harder what we are being asked to do. But we have to show our faith and receive the confirmation that this is what God is asking us to do right now. And each time, God is giving us a bit more of His laws to live, so that we can become like Him.
Alright, investigators. We don´t have a ton that are progressing. Just one family. The family from Paraguay told us that they didn´t want to change churches (I don´t think they really read in the Book of Mormon) we´re going to try to pass by again and invite them to really read in the Book Of Mormon. We have another family that we were doing good with, but then our lives got super busy and weird so we´ve only been able to have contact by telephono. We´ll see what comes of that.
The most exciting is this new family we found this week. One of the projects of the ward is to clean up the member list. So we´ve been given a list of older members and asked to pass by to see if they´ve died or not (it´s not morbid, we just ask if they are there, and they tell us if they´ve died or not). IT´s a great way to get new investigators because we start talking to whoever answers the door. Anyways, so we go, find out this one specific Hna is not dead, but she doesn´t want anything to do with the church - we ask for a reference and she points us to one of her neighbors. It´s late so we have to go home. The next day we are walking and a member from Zarate I stops us and says "I have a reference for you" He didn´t even introduce himself, just looked at us, searched for our placks and when he saw that we were missionaries gave us this reference. But the reference gave us the needed opportunity to go back and contact the neighbor of this member. So we go, and the reference isn´t interested, but her granddaughter came walking up and we got a return cita with her. We went back to teach her and she accepted a baptismal date and everthing! She was so excited, she´s had a lot of bad experiences, she´s 16, she married some guy ("married" she lived with this guy) who beat her, she was pregnant with twins, lost the twins, and then went back to her family. who only half accepts her because her grandma taught her to rob. The point is she wants to change. So Sunday we go pass by for her house and she does not want to get out of bed - a bad consequence of being out late until 7 in the morning at a boliche. But her 2 sisters and her mom come to church with us. Miracle! And as we were walking home they accepted a baptismal date. And they were super excited because there are a couple of activities going on this saturday and they want to go. Hurray! Miracles. And we reset the fecha with the original so the whole family (poco a poco) will be getting baptized. Love it.
And that´s the highlight of my week. I´m going to go sleep now.
Love you lots!
Hermana Reed
A ver, what happened this week. Lunes - I took a nap. That was awesome. Then my life got rearranged like three times (last minute phone calls - you have to be here at such and such time). But we were invited to a special training conference in San Fernando (training - yeah! Getting up at 4 in the morning - Boo!). We talked about the Doctrine of Christ and read in Mosiah 3:19 about the natural man and how are goal is to overcome the natural man. We do it by the Atonement of Christ first - to become Saints - applying faith, repentance, baptism (weekly through the sacrament) and the gift of the holy Ghost. But we get faith first by learning and understanding the Gospel. Something that needs to be planted in our hearts (Alma 36:13? I think somewhere around there. I don´t have my notes) And if we plant faith in our hearts, we will feel the true fear of God - because we will want to repent because we know we are messing up every day. But if we feel this fear, then we will offer a true prayer (not a quick insincere prayer) and we will receive forgiveness. Which will lead us to become humble, meek, patient, longsuffering - like a child. It was a mixture of Mosiah 3:19 and Alma 36. And it was great. I loved it. And I walked away knowing that I needed to repent but knowing that God knew I could do it. (As opposed to the week before where I went to the training meeting and walked away feeling like the worst/least efficient missionary of all time) Sometimes I just need a good dose of the doctrine to keep me going. And as we become these things we will become even as Christ is - perfect. But it´s a progression. So keep repenting.
Then Hna Lobos and I talked about our Santification - we were given the assignment to teach it in our district meeting. And Santification is being freed from sin and staying pure. The goal of our lives is to be sanctified and live with God (Moises 1:39). The only way to do this is by applying the Atonement in our lives (Moises 6:59-60). We apply the atonement in our lives through the Sacrament. By partaking of the bread and water we reknew our convenants, are cleansed once again, and can begin a new week with renewed faith and motivation. Thus being sanctified. Cool huh?
So, that´s the doctrine I´ve learned/studied. I´ve also been thinking a lot about the change over from the law of Moises to the Law of Christ (3 Nefi 9:17-22). And I was thinking about the difficulties when it finally occurred. Because all of the believers had been looking forward to the coming of Christ, but were living a different law. So when the time came to change, they had to change all their habits all at once. And I´m sure quite a few people struggled with the changes even though they knew that it was what they wanted, and they wanted to follow Christ. But it took time, to change over. And some people probably changed super fast and it wasn´t even a struggle. It depends on our faith and willingness, and if we understand. It´s how we live our lives, no? We are living and doing good things, but there comes a time when Christ asks us to jump in our faith and live a higher law (we receive a calling, they up the standards, we are asked to do more in whatever position we are in). And it´s hard because we felt like we were completing our part and doing good, and it´s harder what we are being asked to do. But we have to show our faith and receive the confirmation that this is what God is asking us to do right now. And each time, God is giving us a bit more of His laws to live, so that we can become like Him.
Alright, investigators. We don´t have a ton that are progressing. Just one family. The family from Paraguay told us that they didn´t want to change churches (I don´t think they really read in the Book of Mormon) we´re going to try to pass by again and invite them to really read in the Book Of Mormon. We have another family that we were doing good with, but then our lives got super busy and weird so we´ve only been able to have contact by telephono. We´ll see what comes of that.
The most exciting is this new family we found this week. One of the projects of the ward is to clean up the member list. So we´ve been given a list of older members and asked to pass by to see if they´ve died or not (it´s not morbid, we just ask if they are there, and they tell us if they´ve died or not). IT´s a great way to get new investigators because we start talking to whoever answers the door. Anyways, so we go, find out this one specific Hna is not dead, but she doesn´t want anything to do with the church - we ask for a reference and she points us to one of her neighbors. It´s late so we have to go home. The next day we are walking and a member from Zarate I stops us and says "I have a reference for you" He didn´t even introduce himself, just looked at us, searched for our placks and when he saw that we were missionaries gave us this reference. But the reference gave us the needed opportunity to go back and contact the neighbor of this member. So we go, and the reference isn´t interested, but her granddaughter came walking up and we got a return cita with her. We went back to teach her and she accepted a baptismal date and everthing! She was so excited, she´s had a lot of bad experiences, she´s 16, she married some guy ("married" she lived with this guy) who beat her, she was pregnant with twins, lost the twins, and then went back to her family. who only half accepts her because her grandma taught her to rob. The point is she wants to change. So Sunday we go pass by for her house and she does not want to get out of bed - a bad consequence of being out late until 7 in the morning at a boliche. But her 2 sisters and her mom come to church with us. Miracle! And as we were walking home they accepted a baptismal date. And they were super excited because there are a couple of activities going on this saturday and they want to go. Hurray! Miracles. And we reset the fecha with the original so the whole family (poco a poco) will be getting baptized. Love it.
And that´s the highlight of my week. I´m going to go sleep now.
Love you lots!
Hermana Reed
Monday, July 9, 2012
I thought you were an athlete! I am an athlete!
Not write now, write now I don´t think I could run a mile even if I tried, unless it was 8:55 and we had a mile to run to get home on time. And then my companion would collapse on the floor and cry....then we would call a remis.
Alright, this week´s letter is going to be a shorty. I´m feeling some strep coming on and I need a nap. Here are the awesome things that happened this week.
1) We had this awesome lesson with the wife of a less active. She is very Catholic and we´ve been passing by her house weekly - more to help her husband come back to church. Because she has absolutely no intentions of being baptized. We know because every time we stop by she greets us with "Well, come in. But I´m not one of you. I just listen because you need a woman, but I´m Catholic. But I listen to everyone because the Bible says if we don´t listen to the servants of God then they will wipe their feet at our doors and we´ll be destroyed. I even listen to the Jehovah´s Witnesses!" Not even kidding, she says that everytime. But it was even better this week because we were sharing with her and we were talking about how in Ephesians it says that there´s One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. And she responds with "Ephesians, that´s in the Book of Mormon?" "No...it´s in the Bible." "Oh, then it must be in the First Testament, written before Christ came." "No, it´s in the New Testament." "I´ve never heard of the New Testament, there´s only the First testament and the Second testament." "Right...that´s the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the Book of Mormon is ANOTHER testament. 3 Witnesses that Jesus lives."
"Oh, well I have a question. Have you ever spoken in tongues?" "I´m speaking in tongues right now, I´m from the United States. My native tongue is English." "No, I mean, have you ever been speaking, and know that you are speaking directly with God?" "You mean, a prayer??"
It was a funny lesson. She´s an older lady, and she doesn´t hear very well. But it was kind of funny. She always likes it when we share scriptures with her, and her husband is awesome. He´ll be coming back to church. And I think God is softening the heart of this Hermana. Good times.
2) We had a special training meeting for invited missionaries only. We were some of the invited. And essentially we got told that we could be baptizing weekly. We just need to get more intuned with God. Which stressed me out like crazy because I thought I was doing a good job and having success, and when I left this training, for sure didn´t feel like I had been doing enough with my time. But those are the thoughts of Satan, I know this because Pte Gulbrandsen told us that. Don´t worry, I´ve been building up my Satan protecting shield for 16 months. It´s almost perfect. Satan is just getting trickier. The only good news is that we know that all the opposition that we are receiving is because of the rededication of the temple. It´s going to be a wild ride.
3) We had our baptism this weekend! It was crazy! It almost didn´t happen! Here, I will explain. It´s called Once upon a time we had a 10 yr old little girl that was super excited to be baptized. Due to the training meeting and the devil we weren´t able to find her until Thursday night. We literally went to both of her houses 2 nights in a row (opposite ends of town) to try to find her. Couldn´t find her. She´s 10 - doesn´t have a cell phone. Thursday night we find her! Miracle. We set up her interview for Friday night only to find out that our district leader can´t make it (it´s a 2 hour collectivo ride) and our zone leaders have a cita justo at this moment. So we have to call the district leader of our other district to come do the interview. Done.
Saturday - it´s our turn to clean the chapel, and we go to fill the font to find that it hadn´t been drained from the Baptism of Noemí. So we have to drain it, clean it, and fill it. Love my life. Plus go to all of our citas.Luckily our ward secretary is awesome!! And showed us how to do it before returning to his wife (it was her birthday). Saturday morning, we wake up and our Sim card of our phone stops working. Sweet, we don´t have a designated 2nd witness, just the hope of a couple of hermanos that said that they would do all that they could to be there. I´m nervous, we have citas, and we don´t have a phone to call the bishop. AUGH! So, we head to the church at 6:30 and we find a menos activo recent convert and invite him to come to the baptism. Turns out it was a miracle because we couldn´t find a 2nd witness, and we got permission from the stake president to have him be our 2nd testigo. She got baptized that´s all that matters.
okay, gots´to go. Their closing for the holidays. Love you .
Hermana Reed
Alright, this week´s letter is going to be a shorty. I´m feeling some strep coming on and I need a nap. Here are the awesome things that happened this week.
1) We had this awesome lesson with the wife of a less active. She is very Catholic and we´ve been passing by her house weekly - more to help her husband come back to church. Because she has absolutely no intentions of being baptized. We know because every time we stop by she greets us with "Well, come in. But I´m not one of you. I just listen because you need a woman, but I´m Catholic. But I listen to everyone because the Bible says if we don´t listen to the servants of God then they will wipe their feet at our doors and we´ll be destroyed. I even listen to the Jehovah´s Witnesses!" Not even kidding, she says that everytime. But it was even better this week because we were sharing with her and we were talking about how in Ephesians it says that there´s One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. And she responds with "Ephesians, that´s in the Book of Mormon?" "No...it´s in the Bible." "Oh, then it must be in the First Testament, written before Christ came." "No, it´s in the New Testament." "I´ve never heard of the New Testament, there´s only the First testament and the Second testament." "Right...that´s the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the Book of Mormon is ANOTHER testament. 3 Witnesses that Jesus lives."
"Oh, well I have a question. Have you ever spoken in tongues?" "I´m speaking in tongues right now, I´m from the United States. My native tongue is English." "No, I mean, have you ever been speaking, and know that you are speaking directly with God?" "You mean, a prayer??"
It was a funny lesson. She´s an older lady, and she doesn´t hear very well. But it was kind of funny. She always likes it when we share scriptures with her, and her husband is awesome. He´ll be coming back to church. And I think God is softening the heart of this Hermana. Good times.
2) We had a special training meeting for invited missionaries only. We were some of the invited. And essentially we got told that we could be baptizing weekly. We just need to get more intuned with God. Which stressed me out like crazy because I thought I was doing a good job and having success, and when I left this training, for sure didn´t feel like I had been doing enough with my time. But those are the thoughts of Satan, I know this because Pte Gulbrandsen told us that. Don´t worry, I´ve been building up my Satan protecting shield for 16 months. It´s almost perfect. Satan is just getting trickier. The only good news is that we know that all the opposition that we are receiving is because of the rededication of the temple. It´s going to be a wild ride.
3) We had our baptism this weekend! It was crazy! It almost didn´t happen! Here, I will explain. It´s called Once upon a time we had a 10 yr old little girl that was super excited to be baptized. Due to the training meeting and the devil we weren´t able to find her until Thursday night. We literally went to both of her houses 2 nights in a row (opposite ends of town) to try to find her. Couldn´t find her. She´s 10 - doesn´t have a cell phone. Thursday night we find her! Miracle. We set up her interview for Friday night only to find out that our district leader can´t make it (it´s a 2 hour collectivo ride) and our zone leaders have a cita justo at this moment. So we have to call the district leader of our other district to come do the interview. Done.
Saturday - it´s our turn to clean the chapel, and we go to fill the font to find that it hadn´t been drained from the Baptism of Noemí. So we have to drain it, clean it, and fill it. Love my life. Plus go to all of our citas.Luckily our ward secretary is awesome!! And showed us how to do it before returning to his wife (it was her birthday). Saturday morning, we wake up and our Sim card of our phone stops working. Sweet, we don´t have a designated 2nd witness, just the hope of a couple of hermanos that said that they would do all that they could to be there. I´m nervous, we have citas, and we don´t have a phone to call the bishop. AUGH! So, we head to the church at 6:30 and we find a menos activo recent convert and invite him to come to the baptism. Turns out it was a miracle because we couldn´t find a 2nd witness, and we got permission from the stake president to have him be our 2nd testigo. She got baptized that´s all that matters.
okay, gots´to go. Their closing for the holidays. Love you .
Hermana Reed
Thursday, July 5, 2012
I want a baby....
puppy. I know, You all freaked out on that one. Don´t worry. I´m not trunky. I do want a puppy though. We were over at a recent converts house and they have a baby puppy and it was just so cute. And...now I want one. Which is weird, because before the mission, I wasn´t in to the whole "pet" thing. We´ll see what happens. All right, that was less then important, I just share my thoughts with all of you. And I like keeping it real. I´m funny, just accept it.
So, this week, was awesome. Hermana Lobos and I work great together. She´s got a lot of good ideas and good experiences, we make a good team, teaching in our lessons, bringing in the spirit. It´s awesome. Plus some miracles - we got permission from the mom of Yamila, and she came to church on Sunday which means we have a baptism this Saturday! Whoohoo! And we found some antiguos investigadores who accepted a fecha for the 14th. Whoohoo! Hello milagros.
So, Yamila came to church this week, and we got the signature of the mom! It was most excellent. Plus, it included a return appointment with the mom to teach Yamila in her house. And when we were teaching (them both, with miembro justo) the mom really liked it, she told Hna Figueroa (Yamila´s aunt and mom of 3 recent converts) that she felt a peace/change in her home the whole day. She´s not super interested in changing her life (yet) but we keep looking for opportunities to teach her and have her see the changes in her daughter. This more then anything, we feel will help her become more interested in the Gospel.
And then, Sunday night we had some miracles. I´ve been praying and searching for a family to teach. Because in my whole mission I´ve never really taught a family - just individuals. And Sunday we went to contact a reference, and outside was this Dad - named Julio - he´s from Paraguay, he moved here 7 months ago and has gone to a couple of churches, but hasn´t felt really good about any of them. One he did like, but the pastor up and closed the church. (Act of God, I think). Anyways so we asked him if he´d ever thought about why there are so many churches and he just exploded. "yeah! I´ve asked a lot of pastors but they never could give me an answer that I understood!" He´s super excited for us to go back. Oh, it´s a family of 7 - 6 of which can get baptized. I love my Heavenly Father.
And Hermana Lobos and I are working great. It´s weird because I´ve never really had a companion with a lot of time in the field. I´ve been the 2nd companion of a lot of Hermanas (or the 1st) as senior comp and working with Hermana Lobos has been great. We work together always and share our ideas and it´s never one person doing all the planning and thinking and the other just accepting because they don´t have any ideas to share. I´m not lazy, it´s just nice to have a good 2-sided discussion. Something that comes with experience. aka. I love Hermana Lobos.
Some fun experiences included when we went to go contact a reference - well it was the 2nd time. We had a cita with Juan and he didn´t show up, so we went to set up another appointment and he accepted but as we were talking he turned to me and said "you know what, you look like someone really well known. Wait, who was it....uh...the wife of Tom Cruise, with the curls? Nicole Kidman! You look like Nicole Kidman!" And I honestly didn´t have a response to that. It´s the first time any one has told me I look like Nicole Kidman. It´s a good compliment.
And I´m just excited to start working again. I had a bout of boredom this week, but we´ve found some new investigators and things are starting to fire up again here in Zarate II. Keep praying for me. Keep doing good in your own lives. Prepare to go to the temple. Pray for us as missionariesy in Argentina that we get to be part of the rededication ( The Buenos Aires Temple is going to be rededicated September 9th - barely made it - and rumors are spreading like rapid fire that the Missionaries in the 3 Buenos Aires missions may get to participate. Pte. Eyring and Elder Ballard and Elder Christofferson are coming down for the dedication. So exciting!
Allright, gots to go. Love you all.
Hermana Reed
So, this week, was awesome. Hermana Lobos and I work great together. She´s got a lot of good ideas and good experiences, we make a good team, teaching in our lessons, bringing in the spirit. It´s awesome. Plus some miracles - we got permission from the mom of Yamila, and she came to church on Sunday which means we have a baptism this Saturday! Whoohoo! And we found some antiguos investigadores who accepted a fecha for the 14th. Whoohoo! Hello milagros.
So, Yamila came to church this week, and we got the signature of the mom! It was most excellent. Plus, it included a return appointment with the mom to teach Yamila in her house. And when we were teaching (them both, with miembro justo) the mom really liked it, she told Hna Figueroa (Yamila´s aunt and mom of 3 recent converts) that she felt a peace/change in her home the whole day. She´s not super interested in changing her life (yet) but we keep looking for opportunities to teach her and have her see the changes in her daughter. This more then anything, we feel will help her become more interested in the Gospel.
And then, Sunday night we had some miracles. I´ve been praying and searching for a family to teach. Because in my whole mission I´ve never really taught a family - just individuals. And Sunday we went to contact a reference, and outside was this Dad - named Julio - he´s from Paraguay, he moved here 7 months ago and has gone to a couple of churches, but hasn´t felt really good about any of them. One he did like, but the pastor up and closed the church. (Act of God, I think). Anyways so we asked him if he´d ever thought about why there are so many churches and he just exploded. "yeah! I´ve asked a lot of pastors but they never could give me an answer that I understood!" He´s super excited for us to go back. Oh, it´s a family of 7 - 6 of which can get baptized. I love my Heavenly Father.
And Hermana Lobos and I are working great. It´s weird because I´ve never really had a companion with a lot of time in the field. I´ve been the 2nd companion of a lot of Hermanas (or the 1st) as senior comp and working with Hermana Lobos has been great. We work together always and share our ideas and it´s never one person doing all the planning and thinking and the other just accepting because they don´t have any ideas to share. I´m not lazy, it´s just nice to have a good 2-sided discussion. Something that comes with experience. aka. I love Hermana Lobos.
Some fun experiences included when we went to go contact a reference - well it was the 2nd time. We had a cita with Juan and he didn´t show up, so we went to set up another appointment and he accepted but as we were talking he turned to me and said "you know what, you look like someone really well known. Wait, who was it....uh...the wife of Tom Cruise, with the curls? Nicole Kidman! You look like Nicole Kidman!" And I honestly didn´t have a response to that. It´s the first time any one has told me I look like Nicole Kidman. It´s a good compliment.
And I´m just excited to start working again. I had a bout of boredom this week, but we´ve found some new investigators and things are starting to fire up again here in Zarate II. Keep praying for me. Keep doing good in your own lives. Prepare to go to the temple. Pray for us as missionariesy in Argentina that we get to be part of the rededication ( The Buenos Aires Temple is going to be rededicated September 9th - barely made it - and rumors are spreading like rapid fire that the Missionaries in the 3 Buenos Aires missions may get to participate. Pte. Eyring and Elder Ballard and Elder Christofferson are coming down for the dedication. So exciting!
Allright, gots to go. Love you all.
Hermana Reed
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Oh my gosh, he knew!
Well, as we all know, the mission is long, and just when we are so tired that we don´t think we could possibly go a single day longer....it´s transfers, and we have to stay up until 1 in the morning packing to be in the offices early in the morning, to not have a chance to take a nap on your p-day. It´s a good thing God loves us missionaries or we would drop dead from exhaustion.
Anyways.....Transfers!! Hurray! I am currently with my new companion, Hermana Lobos, she is from Santiago, Chile, has been in the mission for about a year, and was once companions with Hermana Whitehead. Hermana Alvarado went to El Taler, taking the spot of Hermana Cariola who went home this transfer with Hermana Gonzalez. <--That was a mission quiz. Anyone who can tell me how all those people are related to me and my mission wins a free prayer! And if you remind me, I´ll bring you back something from Argentina. Lets see if you actually pay attention when I write my e-mails. Muahaha, sorry I´m evil. I get a kick out of it. But yeah, so we got to get up early today to head out to the offices. Which is always fun, you get to see the Elders and Hermanas that you haven´t seen in at least 6 weeks, gossip about your old areas and companions, and just kind of wait around as your new companion flys up from the South. There were a lot of changes in our zone this transfer, I think at least 1 companion from every companionship left. 2 went home, and the rest went to other areas. They even closed an area here. The thing is, 12 missionaries left this transfer, and only 2 Latino Elders came in. The other 48 missionaries from the states are waiting for their visas. Which means, there is going to be a flood of missionaries some day. I personally believe it will be in about 3 weeks, giving all the new people time to learn the area and then the older more experienced companions will be called to train and open all the areas that they just recently closed. We´ll see what happens. That may or may not be revelation.
Lets see, what did happen this week? Oh, uh...hold on. I have to check my agenda. Oh, so we walked a lot this week. And we did some good old fashion missionary work, that made me feel good. Sometimes we just get into a routine, and something President Gulbrandsen has been saying is that if we want to see results that we´ve never had before, we have to do things that we´ve never done before. So to kick us out of our normal routine - visiting the same families, the same members, using the same members to accompany us. Just to branch out a bit. And I will admit that we had gotten into a routine, and we were always doing the work, even doing the work that President Gulbrandsen wants us to do (working with recent converts, references, etc.) A couple of days this week we just went out and started contacting, we had a guide. Our Bishop gave us a list of people over the age of 65 (something like that) and asked us to visit them to see if they have died or even live there anymore. To clean up the list. There´s an Hermana here that supposedly is 102. We´re going to see if she´s still breathing to brag about it. And it was fun to just do a little bit of grunt work. There´s a lot more politics to missionary work then I thought there would be, o sea, there´s a lot more analyzing and searching for the truth then I thought there would be (pre-mission thoughts....I didn´t know anything). And then getting a good relationship with the ward, helping the ward befriend the new members, getting everyone to work together. It´s a lot of mental work and planning. So it was nice to just get out and talk to people for a bit. Even if they pretty much all said no. I was still inviting people to hear, and was able to share my testimony of the Gospel.
And then, I was talking to E. Christensen (my old zone leader, he went home..today) on our convey ride to San Fernando and he was telling me that at the despedida yesterday (big "party"/spiritual program where we say good bye to the missionaries) he realized that he was "dying" as a missionary, and that he would never be able to teach or testify of Christ in the same manner. And it pained him to realize that sharing his testimony was going to be different. He encouraged me to enjoy these last two transfers being able to testify of Christ, and to do it with the power and authority that comes from our calling. It was rather insightful, and I love being a part of these moments. The ah-hah! moments where we can see that these little boys have truly become men. He was a good zone leader. I´ve met a lot of good Elders.
And, by a miracle, we were able to go to the Despedida. In case you haven´t google-mapped where I am in relation to the mission offices (I know, you are all really bored, and I am the priority of your lives, so you have all google-mapped argentina. It´s probably a daily occurrence, but for those that haven´t...) it´s about 1.5 hours in car from the church in Zarate to the church in San Fernando, about 3 hours by bus/train. Aka. No way on earth that we could make it to the despedida and get back on time - being obedient to our 9 p.m. curfew - unless we had a car. Well, one of our investigators (Leonardo) is a remis driver (think taxi-esque) and our recent convert Noemí lives in the same house. And they love us. So we asked them if they wanted to go, and so we did. And it was great. All the missionaries were able to share their testimonies, and then President Gulbrandsen got up and spoke. And he spoke about how it doesn´t matter how other people have treated us in our lives (or our missions) what matters is how we treat each other. And there´s a verse in the Book of Mormon (it´s said by Alma, I think the Older, in Mosiah, but I can´t find it right now) that talks about how we are accountable for our actions. And how when we stand in front of God to be judged (and the judgement day WILL come) God is not going to ask us: And how did your brother treat you? No, He´s going to ask: And how did you treat your brother? It doesn´t matter who did what, or when, or why. What matters to God is if you did your part. If you were humble enough to let it go, and move on with your life and what is more importnat - like the Gospel, and your eternal happiness en vez de temporary happiness. With the promise that if we do everything we can to be worthy of God´s love, blessings and guidence, we will be eternally blessed, even if life does suck for just a little bit - it will get better, as long as we keep doing what´s right.
Man, I´m such a talker. I´ll let you all head back to your normal lives now. But, I know the church is true. Keep praying for opportunities to share your testimony. Everyone needs the Gospel!
I love you.
Hermana Reed
Anyways.....Transfers!! Hurray! I am currently with my new companion, Hermana Lobos, she is from Santiago, Chile, has been in the mission for about a year, and was once companions with Hermana Whitehead. Hermana Alvarado went to El Taler, taking the spot of Hermana Cariola who went home this transfer with Hermana Gonzalez. <--That was a mission quiz. Anyone who can tell me how all those people are related to me and my mission wins a free prayer! And if you remind me, I´ll bring you back something from Argentina. Lets see if you actually pay attention when I write my e-mails. Muahaha, sorry I´m evil. I get a kick out of it. But yeah, so we got to get up early today to head out to the offices. Which is always fun, you get to see the Elders and Hermanas that you haven´t seen in at least 6 weeks, gossip about your old areas and companions, and just kind of wait around as your new companion flys up from the South. There were a lot of changes in our zone this transfer, I think at least 1 companion from every companionship left. 2 went home, and the rest went to other areas. They even closed an area here. The thing is, 12 missionaries left this transfer, and only 2 Latino Elders came in. The other 48 missionaries from the states are waiting for their visas. Which means, there is going to be a flood of missionaries some day. I personally believe it will be in about 3 weeks, giving all the new people time to learn the area and then the older more experienced companions will be called to train and open all the areas that they just recently closed. We´ll see what happens. That may or may not be revelation.
Lets see, what did happen this week? Oh, uh...hold on. I have to check my agenda. Oh, so we walked a lot this week. And we did some good old fashion missionary work, that made me feel good. Sometimes we just get into a routine, and something President Gulbrandsen has been saying is that if we want to see results that we´ve never had before, we have to do things that we´ve never done before. So to kick us out of our normal routine - visiting the same families, the same members, using the same members to accompany us. Just to branch out a bit. And I will admit that we had gotten into a routine, and we were always doing the work, even doing the work that President Gulbrandsen wants us to do (working with recent converts, references, etc.) A couple of days this week we just went out and started contacting, we had a guide. Our Bishop gave us a list of people over the age of 65 (something like that) and asked us to visit them to see if they have died or even live there anymore. To clean up the list. There´s an Hermana here that supposedly is 102. We´re going to see if she´s still breathing to brag about it. And it was fun to just do a little bit of grunt work. There´s a lot more politics to missionary work then I thought there would be, o sea, there´s a lot more analyzing and searching for the truth then I thought there would be (pre-mission thoughts....I didn´t know anything). And then getting a good relationship with the ward, helping the ward befriend the new members, getting everyone to work together. It´s a lot of mental work and planning. So it was nice to just get out and talk to people for a bit. Even if they pretty much all said no. I was still inviting people to hear, and was able to share my testimony of the Gospel.
And then, I was talking to E. Christensen (my old zone leader, he went home..today) on our convey ride to San Fernando and he was telling me that at the despedida yesterday (big "party"/spiritual program where we say good bye to the missionaries) he realized that he was "dying" as a missionary, and that he would never be able to teach or testify of Christ in the same manner. And it pained him to realize that sharing his testimony was going to be different. He encouraged me to enjoy these last two transfers being able to testify of Christ, and to do it with the power and authority that comes from our calling. It was rather insightful, and I love being a part of these moments. The ah-hah! moments where we can see that these little boys have truly become men. He was a good zone leader. I´ve met a lot of good Elders.
And, by a miracle, we were able to go to the Despedida. In case you haven´t google-mapped where I am in relation to the mission offices (I know, you are all really bored, and I am the priority of your lives, so you have all google-mapped argentina. It´s probably a daily occurrence, but for those that haven´t...) it´s about 1.5 hours in car from the church in Zarate to the church in San Fernando, about 3 hours by bus/train. Aka. No way on earth that we could make it to the despedida and get back on time - being obedient to our 9 p.m. curfew - unless we had a car. Well, one of our investigators (Leonardo) is a remis driver (think taxi-esque) and our recent convert Noemí lives in the same house. And they love us. So we asked them if they wanted to go, and so we did. And it was great. All the missionaries were able to share their testimonies, and then President Gulbrandsen got up and spoke. And he spoke about how it doesn´t matter how other people have treated us in our lives (or our missions) what matters is how we treat each other. And there´s a verse in the Book of Mormon (it´s said by Alma, I think the Older, in Mosiah, but I can´t find it right now) that talks about how we are accountable for our actions. And how when we stand in front of God to be judged (and the judgement day WILL come) God is not going to ask us: And how did your brother treat you? No, He´s going to ask: And how did you treat your brother? It doesn´t matter who did what, or when, or why. What matters to God is if you did your part. If you were humble enough to let it go, and move on with your life and what is more importnat - like the Gospel, and your eternal happiness en vez de temporary happiness. With the promise that if we do everything we can to be worthy of God´s love, blessings and guidence, we will be eternally blessed, even if life does suck for just a little bit - it will get better, as long as we keep doing what´s right.
Man, I´m such a talker. I´ll let you all head back to your normal lives now. But, I know the church is true. Keep praying for opportunities to share your testimony. Everyone needs the Gospel!
I love you.
Hermana Reed
Monday, June 18, 2012
Happyness abounding!
Hello family!! So this letter is going to be quick because we´re playing in Baradero with the Elders and my companion has to write to her family as well. Sorry. But there are two great things that happened this week. And please don´t judge me as I tell you them. You´re going to think I´m crazy for my priorities. First:Noemí got baptized!!! It was a great service, members actually CAME to the service, that doesn´t happen very often. And then we ate pizza and cake afterwards. It was awesome and she was able to mingle with the ward a little bit. And it was just awesome to see so many people reaching out to her. I really do love this ward. So far Zarate has been my most successful area, in this regard. I feel like we have been working together with the ward to help our investigators, instead of the missionaries working with the investigators and pulling teeth from the members to get them to make new friends. (make new friends but keeeeeep theee old, one is silver and the other gold. That just popped into my mind. Don´t worry about it.) And bless her soul, Noemí came to church on Sunday and was super excited for her confirmation, she was a little sad because her fiancé chose not to come to church with her and this is a very important step in her life. But she is confident that he will see the changes and will take the steps to accept the gospel in his life as well. Then she did her first act as member of the church by accompanying us in a cita later that night! Whoohoo! She got to bear her testimony! Okay, it was with Yamila, who lives with her. But she still was able to bear her testimony and help strengthen Yamila´s. Called to Serve Him Heavenly King of Glory….. I love singing.
But the other fun part and short stories that I will share with you is that I did divisions with Hermana Whitehead this week! Do to some awesome inspiration on my part, I called the President (which in and of itself is a miracle, I hate calling the President) and asked permission to do divisions – with the excuse/reason that Hna Whitehead needed a little pick me up. Here are some of the fun things we did/said together:
1) We were in district meeting and Elder Cristiansen and Elder Leva (zone leaders) were fighting over who would win a fight, Jack Sparrow or a ninja, normal. But this is what I said. Elder Leva said that Jack sparrow couldn´t win because he´s always drunk. My response“Jack Sparrow can´t be drunk all the time, because sometimes the rums gone.”
2) Hna Whitehead and I went to go contact a menos active. Hna Whitehead “There´s an ant farm in front of this house.” Me “Well, there are some people who just can´t afford expensive pets…”
3) The hermana´s are in charge of cooking lunch after district meeting because the Elders have to wait an hour for their bus to pass by. They showed up an hour and half late so we were rushed eating lunch. Since the dessert (apple pie) was ready first, we convinced the whole district that everyone in the united states eats dessert first. They believed us for a bit and started debating between themselves about our eating habits. Don´t worry we explained to them that we don´t eat dessert first, we eat whatever is ready first. We don´t prioritize.
4) For a recent convert we made banana bread, and as we were searching for her house we were hoping that she wouldn´t be home so that we could eat it. I know this story isn´t really that awesome, but it was great because we were both hoping it….
5) I taught Hna Whitehead “cake in a cup” and one time we made it and it exploded all over the cup. We made a video of it. But this was our conversation afterwards. “It says on the recipe that it won´t spill over” H.W “Quick!! Get the camera.” Me “You know what! I forgot to put the vanilla in it!” H.W. “yeah Hermana….that´s probably why it exploded…you know what, maybe it did need the full egg (we had only put half an egg because a whole egg made it taste yolky.)” Me.
And that´s my life with Hermana Whitehead. She went home super happy, and we still laugh about it. Then we got back together Saturday for the Capilla Abierto and were laughing some more. It was successful. Okay, I have to go. Thanks for everything! I love you all, and I´ll talk more next week. Get excited, it´s transfers, once again.
Hermana Reed
But the other fun part and short stories that I will share with you is that I did divisions with Hermana Whitehead this week! Do to some awesome inspiration on my part, I called the President (which in and of itself is a miracle, I hate calling the President) and asked permission to do divisions – with the excuse/reason that Hna Whitehead needed a little pick me up. Here are some of the fun things we did/said together:
1) We were in district meeting and Elder Cristiansen and Elder Leva (zone leaders) were fighting over who would win a fight, Jack Sparrow or a ninja, normal. But this is what I said. Elder Leva said that Jack sparrow couldn´t win because he´s always drunk. My response“Jack Sparrow can´t be drunk all the time, because sometimes the rums gone.”
2) Hna Whitehead and I went to go contact a menos active. Hna Whitehead “There´s an ant farm in front of this house.” Me “Well, there are some people who just can´t afford expensive pets…”
3) The hermana´s are in charge of cooking lunch after district meeting because the Elders have to wait an hour for their bus to pass by. They showed up an hour and half late so we were rushed eating lunch. Since the dessert (apple pie) was ready first, we convinced the whole district that everyone in the united states eats dessert first. They believed us for a bit and started debating between themselves about our eating habits. Don´t worry we explained to them that we don´t eat dessert first, we eat whatever is ready first. We don´t prioritize.
4) For a recent convert we made banana bread, and as we were searching for her house we were hoping that she wouldn´t be home so that we could eat it. I know this story isn´t really that awesome, but it was great because we were both hoping it….
5) I taught Hna Whitehead “cake in a cup” and one time we made it and it exploded all over the cup. We made a video of it. But this was our conversation afterwards. “It says on the recipe that it won´t spill over” H.W “Quick!! Get the camera.” Me “You know what! I forgot to put the vanilla in it!” H.W. “yeah Hermana….that´s probably why it exploded…you know what, maybe it did need the full egg (we had only put half an egg because a whole egg made it taste yolky.)” Me.
And that´s my life with Hermana Whitehead. She went home super happy, and we still laugh about it. Then we got back together Saturday for the Capilla Abierto and were laughing some more. It was successful. Okay, I have to go. Thanks for everything! I love you all, and I´ll talk more next week. Get excited, it´s transfers, once again.
Hermana Reed
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Fotos de Hermana Reed
Alejandro's Baptism
The Frozen Chosen T-Shirt
Birthday Gift - Machu Picchu bag from Peru
Some of the Pi Day festivities
(a side note, for the mathematically inclined: our lovely missionary is teaching some false pi doctrine here. i guess it's not essential for eternal salvation, so we'll give her a break.)
I´m going to use “focus” because I don´t know how to spell “diligence”
I was trying to think of a movie quote but I just couldn´t quite pull one out. My mind is falting me. I must be from Argentina now. This week was awesome. But first, UNCLE CARL!! I put that in caps so that you pay attention. Did you ever teach a family Redondo? Specifically a Nilda Redondo? Because her daughter came up to me in church today and asked me if my dad served in Argentina, because about 22 ish years ago, a tall, gringo Elder Reed baptized her mom and some of her sisters. Her mom has the picture, so she´s going to try to bring it to church. It´s in the Zarate area. Super campo, I think it was a branch at this time…. I´ve always had a secret dream to meet someone who knew you. Check! I love life.
Anyways, so I´ve gotten to the point where I don´t remember what I have told you and what I haven´t told you, so if I repreat myself. (that´s like a mixture of repeat and repitir, aka can´t spell) my bad. I was trying to think of fun/funny stories to tell, but I couldn´t really think of any. Nothing incredibly ridiculous happened this week. Which, now that I´m thinking about it is kind of lame. But we did have a lot of success this week. We´ve found quite a few people who are super interested in listening to us, and we had at a máximum 6 baptismal dates. But then some of them didn´t come to church, and one of them we learned she needs to get divorced so she can get married so she can get baptized. So, we´re down to 3. You just need to come to church!
But I´ll give you a scoop on some of them. The coolest and most fun is Yamila, she´s 9 years old and is the neice of some of our recent converts. She started living with her grandman and this family and one of the cousins gave her his Book of Mormon to read. She started Reading it like crazy with Noemí who also lives in this house and is getting baptized this weekend. CRAZYNESS!! I love baptisms. Anyways, so she was Reading, and then we stopped by one night when she was there and she comes up to us and says “I want to be baptized…” Welp, okay! And we taught the Plan of Salvation this week using the “Vamos de paseo Beep beep beep” song. And now every time we pass by she wants to play the game where we “go on a road trip” and the road trip always leads to Jesus´ House. (we draw a road map and there are “obstacles” in the road. I.e. rivers/physical and spiritual death, and we need bridges – resurrección and expiación – to help us get back home). I think she understands well. If nothing else, she knows she´s going home to her HEavenly Father.
And then, okay, this is kind of sad. We´ve had the unfortunate opportunity to watch as some faithful members of the church are beginning to lose their testimonies. It starts out small, but we can see the consequences of it nearly instantly. First they stop Reading, then they stop praying, and then they stop coming to church. And “all of the sudden”, life is a lot harder then it used to be. There´s this one member, who is trying really hard to do things right, to have a “good life”, he wants to get married in the temple (he has a girlfriend, check), he wants to complete his calling, he´s trying to finish up school, and he recently found a job. But with all the stresses of completing EVERYTHING he slowly dropped Reading, and then he stopped praying. And last Sunday he didn´t come to church. The week before, he came to sacrament meeting and the booked it outta there before the final hymn. And he just doesn´t feel like he has the strength to keep going. He feels like he needs help….but from the Ward. And he´s not receiving it. I´m torn between wanting to slap him in the back of the head (don´t worry, I won´t. Inappropriate touching to the max) and just crying. Oh, did I mention he´s our Ward misión leader? Yeah, I´m cursed, I´ve never been able to keep a Ward misión leader for more then 2 weeks before something happens. I´ve gone pretty much my whole misión without our called connection to the Ward. Whatever. Pray for him.
But the point is there is this other member as well, he´s very sick. He was diabetes – which caused him to go blind and lose his leg. He really is very sick. And we were talking to him one day and he said that he wanted to go to church the next day, but it all depends on if he feels good the next day (it was a Saturday). Then he confessed to us, that sometimes he wakes up in the morning and really doesn´t feel good, but then later in the day he realices it wasn´t as bad as he thought it was, and he feels bad because he knows that in hindsight, he really could have gone to church. This is what he said “But each time I don´t go to church, it becomes a Little bit harder. But I know it´s a question of willpower. And I´m scared that with time, I´m not going to have the willpower to go to church anymore.” It´s so much easier to ask for help in the begining, then to let it go to long.
Just so you know, I really am very happy, that´s just what has happened this week that stuck out to me. It starts out small, and then slowly but surely you are separated from your God who wants to help you, who has the power to help you, but can´t because we are not doing our part. This was something, in our Ward council last week, I don´t even remember what we were talking about, but it made me think of when Jesus was lifted on the cross. And there´s the scripture that talks about when he diez. It says and “He gave up the ghost.” I have no idea why that thought came so vivently to my mind (it came in english, and i was thinking in spanish) but it did. This thought that Jesus Christ was not killed. He allowed himself to be taken, to be whipped, beaten, bruised, spat on, mocked, and eventually lifted up on the cross. And when he had completed with his Father´s plan, he WILLINGLY left his physical body behind. However, the power that He had as a literal Son of God meant that He had total control. He had the control to leave His body and then to take up His body once again after three days time. He knew that it was God´s plan and he knew that he had completed his part.
If Jesus Christ has this kind of power, he can help those who are having hard times. But we need to really know who He is. And the only way to do that is by talking to him and listening to his words. I.E. Reading and praying. And he has promised us time after time that if we do this, we will receive eternal life, we will receive earthly and celestial happiness. We will receive the blessings of eternity. But we have to ask for it. And we won´t know how unless we know him. What else more is there to do? I´m going to go read my scriptures.
Love you all,
Hermana Reed
Anyways, so I´ve gotten to the point where I don´t remember what I have told you and what I haven´t told you, so if I repreat myself. (that´s like a mixture of repeat and repitir, aka can´t spell) my bad. I was trying to think of fun/funny stories to tell, but I couldn´t really think of any. Nothing incredibly ridiculous happened this week. Which, now that I´m thinking about it is kind of lame. But we did have a lot of success this week. We´ve found quite a few people who are super interested in listening to us, and we had at a máximum 6 baptismal dates. But then some of them didn´t come to church, and one of them we learned she needs to get divorced so she can get married so she can get baptized. So, we´re down to 3. You just need to come to church!
But I´ll give you a scoop on some of them. The coolest and most fun is Yamila, she´s 9 years old and is the neice of some of our recent converts. She started living with her grandman and this family and one of the cousins gave her his Book of Mormon to read. She started Reading it like crazy with Noemí who also lives in this house and is getting baptized this weekend. CRAZYNESS!! I love baptisms. Anyways, so she was Reading, and then we stopped by one night when she was there and she comes up to us and says “I want to be baptized…” Welp, okay! And we taught the Plan of Salvation this week using the “Vamos de paseo Beep beep beep” song. And now every time we pass by she wants to play the game where we “go on a road trip” and the road trip always leads to Jesus´ House. (we draw a road map and there are “obstacles” in the road. I.e. rivers/physical and spiritual death, and we need bridges – resurrección and expiación – to help us get back home). I think she understands well. If nothing else, she knows she´s going home to her HEavenly Father.
And then, okay, this is kind of sad. We´ve had the unfortunate opportunity to watch as some faithful members of the church are beginning to lose their testimonies. It starts out small, but we can see the consequences of it nearly instantly. First they stop Reading, then they stop praying, and then they stop coming to church. And “all of the sudden”, life is a lot harder then it used to be. There´s this one member, who is trying really hard to do things right, to have a “good life”, he wants to get married in the temple (he has a girlfriend, check), he wants to complete his calling, he´s trying to finish up school, and he recently found a job. But with all the stresses of completing EVERYTHING he slowly dropped Reading, and then he stopped praying. And last Sunday he didn´t come to church. The week before, he came to sacrament meeting and the booked it outta there before the final hymn. And he just doesn´t feel like he has the strength to keep going. He feels like he needs help….but from the Ward. And he´s not receiving it. I´m torn between wanting to slap him in the back of the head (don´t worry, I won´t. Inappropriate touching to the max) and just crying. Oh, did I mention he´s our Ward misión leader? Yeah, I´m cursed, I´ve never been able to keep a Ward misión leader for more then 2 weeks before something happens. I´ve gone pretty much my whole misión without our called connection to the Ward. Whatever. Pray for him.
But the point is there is this other member as well, he´s very sick. He was diabetes – which caused him to go blind and lose his leg. He really is very sick. And we were talking to him one day and he said that he wanted to go to church the next day, but it all depends on if he feels good the next day (it was a Saturday). Then he confessed to us, that sometimes he wakes up in the morning and really doesn´t feel good, but then later in the day he realices it wasn´t as bad as he thought it was, and he feels bad because he knows that in hindsight, he really could have gone to church. This is what he said “But each time I don´t go to church, it becomes a Little bit harder. But I know it´s a question of willpower. And I´m scared that with time, I´m not going to have the willpower to go to church anymore.” It´s so much easier to ask for help in the begining, then to let it go to long.
Just so you know, I really am very happy, that´s just what has happened this week that stuck out to me. It starts out small, and then slowly but surely you are separated from your God who wants to help you, who has the power to help you, but can´t because we are not doing our part. This was something, in our Ward council last week, I don´t even remember what we were talking about, but it made me think of when Jesus was lifted on the cross. And there´s the scripture that talks about when he diez. It says and “He gave up the ghost.” I have no idea why that thought came so vivently to my mind (it came in english, and i was thinking in spanish) but it did. This thought that Jesus Christ was not killed. He allowed himself to be taken, to be whipped, beaten, bruised, spat on, mocked, and eventually lifted up on the cross. And when he had completed with his Father´s plan, he WILLINGLY left his physical body behind. However, the power that He had as a literal Son of God meant that He had total control. He had the control to leave His body and then to take up His body once again after three days time. He knew that it was God´s plan and he knew that he had completed his part.
If Jesus Christ has this kind of power, he can help those who are having hard times. But we need to really know who He is. And the only way to do that is by talking to him and listening to his words. I.E. Reading and praying. And he has promised us time after time that if we do this, we will receive eternal life, we will receive earthly and celestial happiness. We will receive the blessings of eternity. But we have to ask for it. And we won´t know how unless we know him. What else more is there to do? I´m going to go read my scriptures.
Love you all,
Hermana Reed
Monday, June 4, 2012
Tithing of your time.
Hey, did I tell you that last week I gave a talk in sacrament meeting and it was awesome? I think I forgot, because I was ragging on people, but I did. Nope, I just checked, I talked about Adrian. I forget things super easy. Well, the best part of last week was that I gave a talk and I essentially did the Introduction to the Book of Mormon....over the pulpit. Best idea of my life! Because there are a ton of members who don´t really recognize how important the Book of Mormon is, what it really signifies, and what that means for us. They know that it´s true, but then get caught up in other details. Anyways, the point is, after explaining it just a little bit we were able to see the fruits of our labors, the members here in Zarate II trust us as missionaries a lot more. They are willing to work with us and help us know the area more and are asking for our help. Missionary Gold!
But I tell you this not to brag, but to move on to my first story. We had a FHE monday night with a family mildly less active. Sometimes they come to church, sometimes not. But they had been to church the day before, and during our FHE we were talking about the Restoration of the church, why it was important. And they stopped us, and the Hermano said, "Yeah, about that, why was the Restoration important? How do we know?" Which made me realize, that there are still a lot of people who don´t really understand why it is important to know that we are members of the only church that has the authority of God. And why God only gave His authority to one church (so there weren´t dissensions....that´s such a church word, so the people wouldn´t be fighting over stuff). And later the Hermana asked "I was wondering, what does the word Atonement mean. You used that in your talk yesterday, and how do we receive revelations?" And it was a great teaching opportunity because we were able to help her understand that the Atonement means that we can make it back to God. The suffering of Jesus for our sins, with his crucifixion and his resureccion means that when we make mistakes, there is someone who can help us out. Jesus knows what we´ve been through, and through the power that God has given him, he can help us overcome our mortal habits. I love teaching opportunities like this. This is super basic doctrine, knowing the Atonement, and realizing that the Atonement is our saving grace. Without it, there really wouldn´t be a point to life, because there would be know way for us to progress.
So, that was awesome. Then we had a lesson with our recent convert (he got baptized the Saturday before we arrived) who also had been to church that day. And during the lesson he told us that he had questions. They had written it down, but because they had forgotten we were coming over and then rushed over to meet with us (we called them from their house.....oops) they forgot the paper. But they want to learn, they are willing to learn. We talked about eternal marriage with him and his girlfriend, about being worthy to enter the temple, and being a worthy priesthood holder (he´s got some concerns about serving a mission, he´s a rather timid young man). But it just makes me so happy when people say they have questions, because that means they are reading, and paying attention. Score!
Then Tuesday (I know, not even done with Tuesday) We go over to our favorite recent convert/investigator family (they are waiting to get married so the dad can get baptized) we learned that he had been mugged right before coming home. And it was the perfect opportunity to bolster his testimony with Mosiah 13:3 "Touch me not" - we were able to share with him and help him understand that God has a plan specifically designed to help him and even when Satan starts messing around with our lives, we have the power to tell him to knock it off. The kids had a lot of fun with that one. We gave them a lot of examples, "What do you say when you want to hit your brother?" "No me toquéis! (Touch me not)"
Wednesday we had our Zone Conference in Esobar - which included a 2 hour bus ride plus waiting for buses. Early morning for the missionaries. But it was fun as I got to see Hermana Whitehead and I got my package!! Oh shoot I just realized, the computer here doesn´t read my card. But I lOVE my package. My mom loves me a lot, she gives me Triscuts (Hna Whitehead laughed about that, she remembers how much I love them) and my FROZEN CHOZEN T-SHIRT!! Which I wear to bed every night. Thanks Fallerina! I love it. And I laughed histerically at the bible references to frozen things. I really did enjoy Chacra.
Alright, and then Saturday (we´re going quick here I have to wrap things up) we met a woman named Rosa, who is super sweet. We were talking to her, and her son is in jail, accused of being an accomplice to a burglury. He was out riding with his friend when his friend decides to hop off his bike and rob a Kiosco, gets back on the bike and they ride off. Super unfortunate. But when we asked her if she would get baptized she said yes! And then she told us that never had there been a moment in her life when she has felt such joy, as when she said yes to getting baptized. It was a miracle lesson, and is just living proof that God is preparing people to listen to the Gospel. It´s not always hard, it just is like 95% of the time, and that´s when we show our faith to keep going.
And then on Sunday we went over to visit our investigator that lost her fecha because she didn´t come to church! (tear fest) We were able to work through what had happened, and she was actually sad as well, because she knew that she would have to wait to get baptized now. But the miracle came when we were talking with her roommate. Her roommate is taking care of her granddaughter, because the daughter isn´t really in to the whole "caring for your children" trend that´s been around since the days of Adam and Even. And Yamila has been reading with Noemí. And the grandma told us that Yamila wants to get baptized, and so we were talking to her, and we set a fecha with her, and she was just so excited, she didn´t want us to leave. She kept saying "Oh, do you want me to read this part of the Book of Mormon? Okay, and look, I read this part, and this part, and i really liked this part" and she kept reading in the scriptures. It was amazing. ´She´s nine years old, and is so excited for her baptism. The church is true!
Oh, and the title, sorry, this e-mail is lengthy, we had Ward Council this week, and the Bishop showed us a video clip of a 12 year old girl who was sent to buy groceries with 40 pesos. It was all that this family had. And they had to buy groceries and have enough fair to go to church the next day. The girl was praying the whole time to have enough money to get to church. Her first stop was to get charcoal so they could have heat in their home, they needed two bags, 10 pesos a bag. But a necessity. The next item was diapers for her brother. And she only had a 5 peso bill left to buy food. When she went to pay for the sardines, she reached in her pocket and felt a large lump of bills, she looked and found five 20 pesos bills in her back pocket. Enough money to buy food and go to church the next day. It was a miracle that this family needed. A gift from God. And we were talking about it as a group, we know that God does not need material possessions, He created us, He created the Earth. He asks us for our tithing to show our obedience and our faith. In the same way, we need to pay our tithing of time. Because it doesn´t serve anyone to have a poorly given class, or discussion. You don´t grow your testimony and the people you are teaching don´t grow either. We need to pay our tithing in time to our callings, preparing well for our classes, helping those in our organizations. And if we put God´s time first (like we pay our tithing money first), we will find that we have enough time to do everything.
I loved this discussion. I´ve always thought of a mission as a tithing as well. 2 years of our first 20. And then we have time to keep serving. And it´s not something we can accumulate. We can´t say we´ll be a dedicated servant in 30 years when our children are grown and gone, or when we´re retired or have nothing else to do. God blesses us now, and asks us to pay our tithing now. This is the dedication and the motivation that we should show our God who has given us everything, even our lives.
And that was my week. I love you all!
Hermana Reed
But I tell you this not to brag, but to move on to my first story. We had a FHE monday night with a family mildly less active. Sometimes they come to church, sometimes not. But they had been to church the day before, and during our FHE we were talking about the Restoration of the church, why it was important. And they stopped us, and the Hermano said, "Yeah, about that, why was the Restoration important? How do we know?" Which made me realize, that there are still a lot of people who don´t really understand why it is important to know that we are members of the only church that has the authority of God. And why God only gave His authority to one church (so there weren´t dissensions....that´s such a church word, so the people wouldn´t be fighting over stuff). And later the Hermana asked "I was wondering, what does the word Atonement mean. You used that in your talk yesterday, and how do we receive revelations?" And it was a great teaching opportunity because we were able to help her understand that the Atonement means that we can make it back to God. The suffering of Jesus for our sins, with his crucifixion and his resureccion means that when we make mistakes, there is someone who can help us out. Jesus knows what we´ve been through, and through the power that God has given him, he can help us overcome our mortal habits. I love teaching opportunities like this. This is super basic doctrine, knowing the Atonement, and realizing that the Atonement is our saving grace. Without it, there really wouldn´t be a point to life, because there would be know way for us to progress.
So, that was awesome. Then we had a lesson with our recent convert (he got baptized the Saturday before we arrived) who also had been to church that day. And during the lesson he told us that he had questions. They had written it down, but because they had forgotten we were coming over and then rushed over to meet with us (we called them from their house.....oops) they forgot the paper. But they want to learn, they are willing to learn. We talked about eternal marriage with him and his girlfriend, about being worthy to enter the temple, and being a worthy priesthood holder (he´s got some concerns about serving a mission, he´s a rather timid young man). But it just makes me so happy when people say they have questions, because that means they are reading, and paying attention. Score!
Then Tuesday (I know, not even done with Tuesday) We go over to our favorite recent convert/investigator family (they are waiting to get married so the dad can get baptized) we learned that he had been mugged right before coming home. And it was the perfect opportunity to bolster his testimony with Mosiah 13:3 "Touch me not" - we were able to share with him and help him understand that God has a plan specifically designed to help him and even when Satan starts messing around with our lives, we have the power to tell him to knock it off. The kids had a lot of fun with that one. We gave them a lot of examples, "What do you say when you want to hit your brother?" "No me toquéis! (Touch me not)"
Wednesday we had our Zone Conference in Esobar - which included a 2 hour bus ride plus waiting for buses. Early morning for the missionaries. But it was fun as I got to see Hermana Whitehead and I got my package!! Oh shoot I just realized, the computer here doesn´t read my card. But I lOVE my package. My mom loves me a lot, she gives me Triscuts (Hna Whitehead laughed about that, she remembers how much I love them) and my FROZEN CHOZEN T-SHIRT!! Which I wear to bed every night. Thanks Fallerina! I love it. And I laughed histerically at the bible references to frozen things. I really did enjoy Chacra.
Alright, and then Saturday (we´re going quick here I have to wrap things up) we met a woman named Rosa, who is super sweet. We were talking to her, and her son is in jail, accused of being an accomplice to a burglury. He was out riding with his friend when his friend decides to hop off his bike and rob a Kiosco, gets back on the bike and they ride off. Super unfortunate. But when we asked her if she would get baptized she said yes! And then she told us that never had there been a moment in her life when she has felt such joy, as when she said yes to getting baptized. It was a miracle lesson, and is just living proof that God is preparing people to listen to the Gospel. It´s not always hard, it just is like 95% of the time, and that´s when we show our faith to keep going.
And then on Sunday we went over to visit our investigator that lost her fecha because she didn´t come to church! (tear fest) We were able to work through what had happened, and she was actually sad as well, because she knew that she would have to wait to get baptized now. But the miracle came when we were talking with her roommate. Her roommate is taking care of her granddaughter, because the daughter isn´t really in to the whole "caring for your children" trend that´s been around since the days of Adam and Even. And Yamila has been reading with Noemí. And the grandma told us that Yamila wants to get baptized, and so we were talking to her, and we set a fecha with her, and she was just so excited, she didn´t want us to leave. She kept saying "Oh, do you want me to read this part of the Book of Mormon? Okay, and look, I read this part, and this part, and i really liked this part" and she kept reading in the scriptures. It was amazing. ´She´s nine years old, and is so excited for her baptism. The church is true!
Oh, and the title, sorry, this e-mail is lengthy, we had Ward Council this week, and the Bishop showed us a video clip of a 12 year old girl who was sent to buy groceries with 40 pesos. It was all that this family had. And they had to buy groceries and have enough fair to go to church the next day. The girl was praying the whole time to have enough money to get to church. Her first stop was to get charcoal so they could have heat in their home, they needed two bags, 10 pesos a bag. But a necessity. The next item was diapers for her brother. And she only had a 5 peso bill left to buy food. When she went to pay for the sardines, she reached in her pocket and felt a large lump of bills, she looked and found five 20 pesos bills in her back pocket. Enough money to buy food and go to church the next day. It was a miracle that this family needed. A gift from God. And we were talking about it as a group, we know that God does not need material possessions, He created us, He created the Earth. He asks us for our tithing to show our obedience and our faith. In the same way, we need to pay our tithing of time. Because it doesn´t serve anyone to have a poorly given class, or discussion. You don´t grow your testimony and the people you are teaching don´t grow either. We need to pay our tithing in time to our callings, preparing well for our classes, helping those in our organizations. And if we put God´s time first (like we pay our tithing money first), we will find that we have enough time to do everything.
I loved this discussion. I´ve always thought of a mission as a tithing as well. 2 years of our first 20. And then we have time to keep serving. And it´s not something we can accumulate. We can´t say we´ll be a dedicated servant in 30 years when our children are grown and gone, or when we´re retired or have nothing else to do. God blesses us now, and asks us to pay our tithing now. This is the dedication and the motivation that we should show our God who has given us everything, even our lives.
And that was my week. I love you all!
Hermana Reed
Monday, May 28, 2012
Fotos!
Buenos Aires from the sky
"Family" in Chacra - Elder Reid and Elder Rassmusen (cousin of Hermana Reed's brother-in-law)
Ready for Alejandro's baptism!
Current companion
Riding in first class to Buenos Aires
Hermana Erickson getting excited for Alejandro's baptism
With Hermana Erickson (companion in Chacra)
With a member in Chacra
That´s Lame
This week was fun and exciting. For one, it was the 25th of May! Whoohoo! Except, as a missionary we pretty much did the same thing. Preach the Gospel. We did have a district meeting that day, and I made brownies. De-lsih. and Zarate put on a concert esque type thing with a bunch of booths and what not. It made me think of Broomfield Days. Other than that, it was pretty mild. I do have a couple of good stories, my testimony and then we´ll leave you until next week.
Okay, story time. The first one is quick. We went to contact a reference and knocked on the door. When the woman came to the door she was like " Testigos! No! No more Testigos" and we sat there for a second ".....uh, We´re not Jehovah´s witnesses....." " Oh, you´re not? Oh, good, because I don´t want to talk to them anymore." We actually get that a lot. But we´re not Jehovah´s witnesses, that´s why we have placks that identify us from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So that was funny.
But the best was on Sunday. We had 5 investigators at church! Whoohoo! It´s my record. Don´t tell me if you´ve had more as missionaries because I don´t want to hear it. I´m happy with my 5. We worked really hard to get these 5 people to church. Well, we worked hard for 4 of them. The 5th was a miracle. His name is Adrian, and he´s Evangelical. He was walking down the street and decided to come inside for church. It was great. And he was talking with one of the Bishop´s counselors before church and the counselor told him to talk with the missionaries. So, after sacrament meeting he came up to us and we started talking. And he told us how he really respects women and he wanted some advice because he grew up without any love and he just didn´t know how to show the people in his life that he cared. And it wasn´t very fair to his girlfriend. So if we could help him out...? So, we start talking about the Gospel (right, normal transition) and how if he is looking to change himself, the way to do that is through God, and we started explaining about the Book of Mormon and he inturrumpts us and starts talking to me. Haha, okay, so he looks at me and says, "I appreciate all that you are trying to tell me. But I want you to know that you are here in Argentina for a purpose. (Right, preach the gospel) You are here to find your future spouse." Uh...I´m sorry what? But wait, there´s more. "And you´ve recently had a dream, a really vivid dream. And it scared you a bit. But don´t worry, it wasn´t bad. It was good! You are here to find your spouse." And family, I was doing everything I could not to laugh in this man´s face. It was all I could do to tell him, "well, I dream a lot. Pretty much every night, so I´m not quite sure which one you are referring to." And I didn´t tell him this, but there was a very vivid dream that I had had recently that came to mind.....I was running a Ragnar race with Beez. Except we were swimming and not running. Apparently that´s going to come true, so Beez. Get ready.
I was laughing so hard on the inside, I couldn´t look at my companion, I couldn´t look at our member that was with us. And after a while I just interrupted and started talking about the gospel again because it was getting ridiculous. And then he told us that we had the devil in our church. So we let him leave. I guess he forgot that he entered OUR church first. Oh well. He is a beloved son of God. He will do great things. Unfortunately I did not have the time to tell him that he can´t receive personal revelation for me as he has no stewardship over me whatsoever. Poor Unfortunate Soul. It was pretty dang funny. Alright, I will tell you, because I love you. There were a couple of responses going through my mind. A) Oh you poor crazy nutter butter. B) Riiiight. Actually, if I did want to marry someone here in Argentina it would be pretty easy. I have had a couple of people propose to me. But....they were all drunk. Don´t think it would work out. Darn.... C) ....That´s not going to happen.
But I didn´t say any of those. Because I´m a good missionary. Actually I was just trying not to laugh. I laughed when he left though. It took me a while to get my control back. =) I´m just not perfect.
But I did want to share with all of you how important my mission is to me. Even though I´m not perfect, and sometimes bad things happen, and crazy people talk to me, or whistle at me, or don´t accept the Gospel, my mission means everything to me. I can´t fully explain with words how happy it makes me to at least have the chance to share my testimony with the people of Argentina. The fact that I can, and that they listen makes me so happy. I feel like I am a better person for the testimony that I have. And I wouldn´t change the experiences I have had for the world. I know that God lives, and I know that the Book of Mormon is true. Scriptures change lives as we become closer to God. And we are happier because we know that there is an All Powerful Being who is taking care of us. Yes, we need to struggle, and life is hard. But we continue surviving through the grace and power of God. I was reading in the Book of Mormon recently, Mosian 13:3. It says "Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not deliveed the message which the Lord sent me to deliver; neither have I told you that which ye requested that I should tell; therefore, god will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time." This is when Abinadi is talking with King Noah and his wicked priests, and the king wants to kill him because Abinadi is essentially telling him and the world that he is sinning (which, he is). But the thing is, that for all the things that happen, we can tell Satan and the world "Touch me not...for God will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time." We each have an individual and defined purpose here on the earth. And while we may not understand completely exactly what that purpose is. We can have the faith that God will not permit us to be destroyed until we have completed our missions. God loves us so much and wants us to be successful. So when bad things happen, just tell satan "Touch me Not." God will give you the power to overcome every trial that satan throws in your way.
I love you all,
Write me back. Have a Good Summer! It´s winter here.
Hermana Reed
Okay, story time. The first one is quick. We went to contact a reference and knocked on the door. When the woman came to the door she was like " Testigos! No! No more Testigos" and we sat there for a second ".....uh, We´re not Jehovah´s witnesses....." " Oh, you´re not? Oh, good, because I don´t want to talk to them anymore." We actually get that a lot. But we´re not Jehovah´s witnesses, that´s why we have placks that identify us from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So that was funny.
But the best was on Sunday. We had 5 investigators at church! Whoohoo! It´s my record. Don´t tell me if you´ve had more as missionaries because I don´t want to hear it. I´m happy with my 5. We worked really hard to get these 5 people to church. Well, we worked hard for 4 of them. The 5th was a miracle. His name is Adrian, and he´s Evangelical. He was walking down the street and decided to come inside for church. It was great. And he was talking with one of the Bishop´s counselors before church and the counselor told him to talk with the missionaries. So, after sacrament meeting he came up to us and we started talking. And he told us how he really respects women and he wanted some advice because he grew up without any love and he just didn´t know how to show the people in his life that he cared. And it wasn´t very fair to his girlfriend. So if we could help him out...? So, we start talking about the Gospel (right, normal transition) and how if he is looking to change himself, the way to do that is through God, and we started explaining about the Book of Mormon and he inturrumpts us and starts talking to me. Haha, okay, so he looks at me and says, "I appreciate all that you are trying to tell me. But I want you to know that you are here in Argentina for a purpose. (Right, preach the gospel) You are here to find your future spouse." Uh...I´m sorry what? But wait, there´s more. "And you´ve recently had a dream, a really vivid dream. And it scared you a bit. But don´t worry, it wasn´t bad. It was good! You are here to find your spouse." And family, I was doing everything I could not to laugh in this man´s face. It was all I could do to tell him, "well, I dream a lot. Pretty much every night, so I´m not quite sure which one you are referring to." And I didn´t tell him this, but there was a very vivid dream that I had had recently that came to mind.....I was running a Ragnar race with Beez. Except we were swimming and not running. Apparently that´s going to come true, so Beez. Get ready.
I was laughing so hard on the inside, I couldn´t look at my companion, I couldn´t look at our member that was with us. And after a while I just interrupted and started talking about the gospel again because it was getting ridiculous. And then he told us that we had the devil in our church. So we let him leave. I guess he forgot that he entered OUR church first. Oh well. He is a beloved son of God. He will do great things. Unfortunately I did not have the time to tell him that he can´t receive personal revelation for me as he has no stewardship over me whatsoever. Poor Unfortunate Soul. It was pretty dang funny. Alright, I will tell you, because I love you. There were a couple of responses going through my mind. A) Oh you poor crazy nutter butter. B) Riiiight. Actually, if I did want to marry someone here in Argentina it would be pretty easy. I have had a couple of people propose to me. But....they were all drunk. Don´t think it would work out. Darn.... C) ....That´s not going to happen.
But I didn´t say any of those. Because I´m a good missionary. Actually I was just trying not to laugh. I laughed when he left though. It took me a while to get my control back. =) I´m just not perfect.
But I did want to share with all of you how important my mission is to me. Even though I´m not perfect, and sometimes bad things happen, and crazy people talk to me, or whistle at me, or don´t accept the Gospel, my mission means everything to me. I can´t fully explain with words how happy it makes me to at least have the chance to share my testimony with the people of Argentina. The fact that I can, and that they listen makes me so happy. I feel like I am a better person for the testimony that I have. And I wouldn´t change the experiences I have had for the world. I know that God lives, and I know that the Book of Mormon is true. Scriptures change lives as we become closer to God. And we are happier because we know that there is an All Powerful Being who is taking care of us. Yes, we need to struggle, and life is hard. But we continue surviving through the grace and power of God. I was reading in the Book of Mormon recently, Mosian 13:3. It says "Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not deliveed the message which the Lord sent me to deliver; neither have I told you that which ye requested that I should tell; therefore, god will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time." This is when Abinadi is talking with King Noah and his wicked priests, and the king wants to kill him because Abinadi is essentially telling him and the world that he is sinning (which, he is). But the thing is, that for all the things that happen, we can tell Satan and the world "Touch me not...for God will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time." We each have an individual and defined purpose here on the earth. And while we may not understand completely exactly what that purpose is. We can have the faith that God will not permit us to be destroyed until we have completed our missions. God loves us so much and wants us to be successful. So when bad things happen, just tell satan "Touch me Not." God will give you the power to overcome every trial that satan throws in your way.
I love you all,
Write me back. Have a Good Summer! It´s winter here.
Hermana Reed
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