Semana 11

Igazu Falls- Argentina/Brazil

22 June 2015

Hoolaaaa! Happy p-day! I'm on divisions with Hna. Garcia again because our companions are in Iguazu Falls, living it up with the other 18 super trunky people of the mission! Lucky them :) But actually lucky me, because divisions on preparation day is SO MUCH FUN!!!!! I haven't quite decided what determines a good or a bad p-day yet, but I think last week was my favorite: After writing home and buying groceries we came back to the pension, made a big vat of popcorn con dulce de leche and watched 2 movies! doing nothing was the best!  First off......HAPPY LATE FATHER´S DAY!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU DADDY!!!!! I'm sorry that the Church doesn't think you guys are cool enough to deserve a call home. he he he

ehmmmm this week was actually super long and super boring, but I´ll do my best to keep you entertained...Ooooo chiste, tengo una historia...So its about 730pm and almost pitch black and we go to a house of a menos activo familia and find the husband there talking with his cousin (who looked a little sketchy with his mo-hawk and tattoos, but I was trying not to judge). Hermano Rios leaves and we are there with his cousin who starts talking about how hes super ashamed about the things hes done in his life and how he really wants to stop drinking and change his life. I was like super stoked, because we have been having a hard time finding new people. I'm all energetic and wanting to talk to him and Hna was being all rude and kept trying to cut off the conversation. After we left him, and I was kind of bothered by her attitude, and Hna looked at me and said that we needed to call the Lìderes (Elders) to see if we were allowed to teach him first. Very puzzled I asked why we would need permission to teach someone? She then started laughing, because I had clearly missed the part of the conversation where he mentioned how he had just gotten out of jail for homicide. Oh....yeah,we called the Elders and we don't get to teach him, but hopefully he really can make progress with the Elders? haha no sè, but WOAHHHHHHH I SHOOK THE HAND OF A MURDERER, IN THE DARK ! It was definitely better to find that out after...I probably would´ve started running. WE LOVE ALL OF GODS CHILDREN !

I taught my first capacitaciòn on "how to know if your investigator is progressing"

orando,

leyendo,

asistiendo,

preparando (tiene una fecha)

besides these 4 key points, we also talked about patience, and how every single time these people let the gospel into their lives even just by a little bit, we are influencing them and helping them come unto Christ. We might not have the privileged to see their miracles or witness their baptisms, but sometimes we are merely just here to pass the baton to the next missionaries. Heavenly Father knows how, when, or if these people will change, and at the end of the day it has close to nothing to do with us.

The Zone

Let´s see...ehhh yeah the rest of the week was pretty boring, besides that little encounter. We contacted A TON and met a couple families that could be potential investigators. We walked soooooo much Thursday, Friday, and Saturday but hardly taught at all because there was an Argentina vs. Paraguay partido, Paraguay vs. Uruguay partido, and an Argentina vs. Jamaica partido...and where there is fùtbol, there are NO LESSONS!

Also, this week was sooooooo collllddddddddd so what do you do when it is winter and you didn't bring winter clothes? You play the...How many articles of clothing can you put on game!

I managed to fit 2 dresses, 4 sweaters, my sweatshirt, and windbreaker, with 2 pairs of shorts on underneath! But naturally on this day, when I had broken my previous record it decided to be scorching hot and I had to remove most of it and carry it around all day instead. 

Sorry this wasn't very long or eloquent, we´re short on time because we´re going to go find something ridiculously awesome to do!  

Love you all and thank you to all the people who haven't forgotten about me, yet :)


Chau chau for now !

Semana 10

June 15, 2015

So...we are riding on the colectivo going to Zone Meeting, and its kinda crowded but we manage to find two seats, not together, for the 20 minute trip to La Valle. I pull out my Book of Mormon, BECAUSE ITS AWESOME, and continue with all the wars and contentions of Alma 59. I was just reading the part where Moroni is super peeved with the government because he doesn't have enough troops and everyone is dying, when I look up and realize, I have my own problem to worry about....Hermana Tapia wasn´t on the bus... AHHHHHHH IM ALONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



The AP's !

Yeah, not good. So I ask the bus driver where Japòn and La Valle is and I had missed it by one stop, ooopsies...good thing I can speak Spanish, that made the whole experience 100X less awful. Anyways, so I start walking the 4 cuadras back and call the zone leaders. SUPER EMBARRASSING, but they came and found me, because let´s be honest, I had no idea where I was going. They came with Elder Worthington (Asistante) and picked me up in the truck, and they´re all laughing about how this has never happened before.... oh great... Awesome :( ehhh. And they were joking about how I am probably the first Hermana to go on divisions with Elders. ha ha Woopsie. Then Elder Ollerton chimes in with, "for your birthday I´m going to buy you and your companion child leashes to attach to your backpacks". Thank you for that...and IM STILL FREAKING OUT BECAUSE IM COMPANIONLESS AND SHE DOESNT HAVE A PHONE. We everntually found her and she was, very very mad at me. But then again, its kinda her fault because technically I am "her hija". 

Then everyone was talking about how at least once their Mom left them in a grocery store, or a crowded elevator. Ahh the good òle days.  So yeahhhh, overall, the time Mom & I got lost in Beijing after that Chinese Acrobat show and found ourselves in a dark alley was 100X scarier, and this time I was ALONE for 10-ish minutes and not something I would recommend. Definitely one for the books, but I probably won´t try that again.

Anyways, the rest of the week was definitley more mellow haha.

MANTRA: Everrrryday is LEG DAY !

So we found out that we actually have 2 additional parts of Jardìn that our our area. It used to be part of the ZL area, but since there are 2 sets of Elders now in Jardìn with 1 set of Hermanas, the boundaries got all changed around, and somehow our area got bigger, which is cool, just A LOT MORE walking. We haven´t had a chance to investigate but as a zone we did a very thorough cleanse of our Carpetas de Area (Area Books) and now had por allì an additional 50 regìstros to contact, so lots of work for this next week!!!

DEADLY FOOD COMBO= fried empanadas, Cola, and sprinting half a mile home because it´s 10 minutes till curfew. yeah...the repercusions were immediate.

TREAT OF THE WEEK: Tutuka. It is supposed to be carmelly glazed popcorn, but it has a consistency more of a packing peanut. oddly addicting though.

Giant ant hill

CREATURES BIG AND SMALL: There are ant hills everywhere!!!!! Sometimes we get super bored when we are walking (like all the time) and count all the "Reinos de Hormigas". 54 on Wednesday. We are convinced that they´re taking over the world.

FUN FACT: did you know that they didn´t have language training for missionaries until 1961?!?!? ¿Què en el mundo? What were they doing before?#CCMsavedmylife

SPIRITUAL, more spiritual stuff:

So the biggest problem that we are facing is that these people dont have a testimony of the book of mormon. Im talking about members and menos activos alike. really though, a lot of these people have never read the book of mormon or dont understand the book of mormon, or got baptized because they were obsessed with the really attractive Americanos. Super duper. These people need to have a full conversion and en realidad the only way is through the guidance and power of the book of mormon, and NOT my dashing smile. Although, hopefully it helps a little :)

Had divisiones with Hna. Garcia on Friday, WHO IS AWESOME! Seriously she works so hard and she walks super fast, and we got so much done. It was probably the best day of work I´ve had so far, in my own area! We moved from appointment to appointment, and the harder we worked the more energy I had. "The start of something newwwww"

Lastly, I was reading in Alma 56:47-48 "now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death...yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them". SHOUT OUT TO MOM for being the best. I know that if it wasn´t for you, your teachings, and your example there is no way I would be on a mission right now. Thanks for raising me right.

With every day, my desire to be here and share this gospel grows stronger and stronger (I feel like I say this every week, but it is true) and I KNOW that I am supposed to be here. I can feel my Heavenly Father preparing me to help and heal the sould of these people, and it truly is a priveledge to serve in the army of my God.

Love and miss you allll thanks for all of the love and support!

Oh! and CRAZYYYYYY all my high school peeps are either home, getting home, or are in their last couple transfers. Que raro.

have a good week!

Chauuu

Hermana Cannon

Semana 9

June 8  

Holaaaa!

First things first, something I forgot to mention about the package thing. Hermana Fielingstones family always plasters her packages with "virgin Mary" stickers. It a precautionary tactic used to get your packages through without people robbing them, since Argentina is SUPER Catolica people are nice and don't touch your stuff if you show the love for the "Virgin". Not sure how much of a necessity it is, but yeah, theres that extra bit of information.

My inconspicuous face after taking out money from the ATM

We are currently in Centro, because we don't have an ATM in our area so we have to come downtown to take out our rent, light, and living money from the month out here in civilization. It is a 40 minute colectivo ride, but these computers are AWESOME!!!! and theres a little market called, Placita,
where you can buy literally anything. and it is all SUPER CHEAP and AWESOME!

This past week I declared which fútbol team I would forever be devoted to...SOY DE RIVER PLATE!!!!!!!!!! Hehe I bought my Jersey and everything. Hna. Tapia is de River Plate too, so we bought matching Jerseys and took really ridiculously hilarious selfies with them.

Somos De River Plate

Zone meeting this week had me feeling super trunky, because the Elders kept asking me about gymnastics! And then Elder Ollerton was asking me about lifting and we were talking about that for a while, and then I realized how much I miss all of it, A LOT! Also, it just made me a bit sad because I remember when I used to be made out of muscle instead of Dulce de Leche. Eh, what can ya do.

TWO SHOUTOUTS for my beautiful area: seriously the clouds are soooooooooo beautiful! The sky is just something else. My heart used to belong to the Park City summer sky and stars, but I dont know the Argentine sunsets and starry nights are definitely growing on me. I don't know, maybe the sky looks like this everywhere, and I just never noticed because I was always so glued to my iPhone...no sé

Oh, the second thing is how abundant this land is with fruit! Seriously everyone is just giving us food all the time, and its so awesome! Over the past 2 weeks we have developed an over abundance of paltas (avocados) sooooooo we had MUD MASK NIGHT! :) My face is SO SOFT, anyone would be lucky to carress this business, hehe too bad i am an HERMANA :P Really though, my face is like baby bottom soft.

Soooo beautiful avacado masks :-)

Progress report:

so the work has been slow, with finding people and lessons to teach, but that doesn't stop us, no no not ever! Things are going great with our Menos Activos and yesterday we had 14 of them come to church! yeay for menos activos!!!

Two investigators that we have been focusing a lot on this past week are Ignasia and Miguel

Ignasia came to church last week for the first time as you know (if you read my email last week. not too sure if anyone actually reads this hehe) so yeah that was really great, because shes SUPER CATHOLIC! Sidenote: so whenever she prays she always starts with "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.." and end with a big finale of AMEN AMEN AMEN. But this week, we asked her to say the closing praryer and she started with, "Padre Celesital" and ohhhhhhh I lost it and started bawling right there in the middle of the prayer, IT WAS AWESOME AND THE SPIRIT WAS SO STRONG!

Hehe and with Miguel...well he we cant count him as a progressing investigator yet because he is silly and wont come to church but he reads all of the passages that we give him and he has a really strong testimony, which is just fabulous. We were teaching him on Friday though, and right before we left I invited him to come to Church, and he said that he would, only if when I got back to "the land of the wealthy" (referring to my home of the US) that I send him a check for a million dollars...yeah, I tried to explain to him that I am nothing but a poor college student, but he didn't seem too convinced. He then came up with a brilliant idea that I should buy a lottery ticket and because I am a servant of God, I will be able to come into a million dollars in that way. I told him that if I ever won the lottery I would gladly give it all to him. But then he just gave me a really serious look and said, "no, 10% is for tithing...then the rest is for me". Well...at least he is learning something.

24 hour fast had us feeling super skinny, so we took a bunch of pictures at church. It also had us feeling super starving and nauseated. Chruch is less boring now that I understand what everyone is saying so that's a plus! Except testimony meeting is still incomprehensible because my brain hasnt learned how to process the mixture of Spanish and crying. All in good time.

well...that's all for now! we still have a couple of hours left of P-day, and I think I quite possibly will get to take my first nap!!!! im very very excited about this. as always thank you for all of your love and support, God loves you and so do I. Have a fabulous week!

Chau Chau Meow Meow

Hermana Cannon