I'll be home for Christmas

Whoops did I hit 9 months today meaning I'm officially half way through my mission? 🤭

That's right, looks like I'll be home for Christmas so start thinking of bomb Christmas gifts for me because 9 months is a lot shorter than it seems. 

In other news, we have moved houses and lets just say we are a lot closer together in this apartment. 

It's super tiny and we're basically tripping over each other but luckily the neighbor gave us their wifi so at least there's that. 

Some fun things that happened this week was teaching the specialist little girl Mía! She wants so badly to come to church and learn more about Jesus. She tells all her friends about the Book of Mormon and loves to learn more about Jesus every day. 

Please pray for her because she wants to come to church but she can't go alone! 

This week we also visited our recent convert Albano and his mom. Albano is so awesome, he's already preparing for his mission by sharing the gospel with his mom! He really wants his mom to have the gospel in her life so she can have God's help in her life just like he does! 

Sentimental

Don't mind me as I get a little sentimental up in here, but really I'm so blessed to have this mission experience. I'm halfway through and I can't even begin to describe how much I've changed and how much I've yet to change. 

I've been blessed with the best companions, Hermanas Umaña, LeBaron, Merlo, Ellison, Robbins, y Orellano. They are each so special and taught me something so valuable. I love them, and I love that God gave me a chance to know them. 

I have changed so much as a person, and to be honest it has been really hard. There have been moments where I wanted to quit, or moments when I doubted what I was doing, but in every single one of those moments I remembered why I'm here. 

"Because our living God is a loving God! He wants His children to know Him and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent! And He wants His children to gain immortality and eternal life!" (Catch the Wave, Russell. M. Nelson) 

I am not here for myself, I am here for the millions of people who don't know they have a loving father who is always looking out for them, and an awesome big brother who never falters. God has changed me and I have grown and learned a lot, I'm excited to grow and learn more, but that's not why I'm here. 

I'm here because I love God. I know The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Christ's Restored church on the earth. I know God loves every one of his children. I know he wants everyone to come unto him and receive eternal life, and eternal joy. 

God loves you so much, he is there, he listens, he answers, and he will never leave you. 

I know these things are true, because I've prayed and asked, and I have searched the scriptures, gone to church, and acted with faith. He has showed me, not all at once, but "precept upon precept; line upon line; here a little, and there a little:" 

I love the scripture in the bible that led Joseph Smith to pray, 

"5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." 

If you lack wisdom, ask of God! 

Poco a poco (Little by little)

I'm Moving

Not too long of an email this week because all of today will be used packing because we are moving into a new house tomorrow. 

Perro

Saw a sign that said "Cuidado con el perro" (be careful with the dog) and the sign took on a whole new meaning when I saw the adorable pint sized puppy waddle out to greet us. 

The Dangerous Beast

Bautizar 

Visited a super cool family of ex missionaries and was amazed as the wife told us in her mission she had a baptism every single week for 6 months. 

I'm lucky if I have a baptismal service once every 6 months! 

Milagro!

We saw a fun miracle this week! We were knocking this house looking for a guy named Denis and this guy comes out and says, Denis doesn't live here anymore he moved to the Netherlands.

So we go oh okay, chau Denis, we're missionaries, are you interested? 

And he's like, maybe. 

So we give him a card with our number and the information for the church meetings, explain it a little bit then go on our way. We didn't think much of the experience until we recieve a text the next day saying, Hey I'm Nahuel I'm gonna go to church on sunday see you there. 

People NEVER text us when we give them a card with our phone number on it, but he did and so we passed by and gave him a pamphlet about the church and that nught he texts us telling us he's read the whole pamphlet and he's gonna read it again because there are still some things he doesn't understand. 

People NEVER read our pamphlets, let alone twice! And then on Sunday he shows up to church! And all the young adults go right up to him to talk to him. He participated in the class, he made a lot of friends and he said he was coming back next week! 

Pray for Nahuel because he's really progressing! 

Pensamiento Espíritual! 

In Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel it says,

"Be patient with yourself. God knows that change and growth take time. He is pleased with your sincere desires and will bless you for every effort you make." 

I really like this part along with the scripture in Alma 37 that says "Behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass;"

These quotes really express the truth that it is little by little that things change. If we want to change the only way to do it is little by little. New Years goals usually don't work out beacuse it's really hard to change everything all at once. 

It's through small and consistent efforts that we change and that things come to pass. you don't have to change everything today, you just have to put in a little effort! 

Halfway Mark on My Mission!

20 Mosquito bites and 20 years old

 Jajaja the title's just a joke! The actual number of mosquito bites I have is: 41.

(I literally counted.) (I used bug repellent.) (this is not a joke.) Not ashamed to say I cried from how bad it itched. Don't worry though, I went to a doctor and he told me I was only "bastante alérgico" (super allergic) so I've now got some sweet drugs to take the edge off. 

In other news, I turned 20 years old! I had a lovely Sunday birthday thanks to my wonderful companion, the great members, and the great missionaries. It really was an awesome birthday and I'm having a really good time dedicating this year to the lord! 

To bring the mood down a little there was a storm in Bahía Blanca. Right now I'm serving in a little town thats about 2 hours away from Bahía, so I'm all right, but in the city of Bahía there was a lot of damage. Basically a lot of houses got flooded, but flooded all the way to the top, like the only place you could stand is on top of the roof. 

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/10/argentina-flooding]

Bahía needs a lot of prayers right now as they're recovering from this horrible storm. It's in disasters like these that I think about one of favorite scriptures which is in Proverbs 3, 

"5 ¶ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

We have a lot of challenges in this life that we may not understand. Some that may seem meaningless and cruel, or without purpose. But I testify that our all knowing heavenly father has a much bigger, and better plan for us than we have. In this life the only way to be happy is to trust in God. 

God promises if we will trust in him, he shall direct our paths. It's so hard to trust in God, but I promise as I have trusted in him and his plan for me, I have been a lot happier than I ever was before. 

Killing my husband with a Glass of Milk

To be honest not that much happened this week so I decided to create drama by cutting bangs. 

Basically me and my companion, Hermana Orellano are best friends. We thought we probably wouldn't stay together another transfer so at the beginning of the transfer we promised if we stayed together we would cut bangs. 

So I have bangs now. Someone find a photo of Sabrina Carpenter and compare me to it I swear its identical. 

Audrey or Sabrina Carpenter with glasses?

Servicio

This week we knocked a house in which we thought lived a nice lady named Daiana. Daiana opens the door, looks at us and says with joy, "Oh are you here to talk with the grandmas?" She then welcomes us in to what we realized was not a home, but rather a nursing home! 

She takes us to the back where there's like 5 grandmas sitting around and leaves, so here we are, very confused, with these 5 grandmas. Not to worry though, one of them starts telling us her life story, except she doesn't know where she is, who she is, or what a sentence is. Me and my companion can both testify that she said (without rhyme or reason), 

"Leche" (milk), "matar" (to kill), "esposo" (husband) and lots of other random disconnected words that I assume is her way of telling us she killed her husband with a glass of milk.

We shared a nice scripture about Charity then went on our way after that. 

On Wednesday in English class only 4 people showed up and they all were young men in the church preparing to go on mission's so we had a mission prep class basically. These 4 Argentinian boys can now proudly say "I am Elder of the church of the Jesus Christ of the ladder day saints." They're getting close to saying the real name of the church in English... 

Found out one of our friends who wants to get baptized is moving to a town so small and far away they don't even have missionaries assigned there 😭 Constanza will get baptized some day! 

That's all the highlights for now, I'd love to see some side by side comparisons to Sabrina Carpenter when you get the chance. Chau chau!