Capa Convention

Conferencia de Zonas

We had a Conference that united the zones of Olavarría, Mar Del Plata, and Necochea (2 zones I've been in previously and the one I'm currently in) all because we had Elder Costa from the 70 come and visit us! He was super awesome and I learned a lot from him as you'll see at the end of this post.

Companion Reunion!

But what also was super fun was seeing everyone from my previous zones!! We reunited the Olavarría gang and took an awesome all generation photo of all the missionaries who have been to Miramar that were at the conference (plus hermana Arbarzua snuck in there). 

It was so fun to see everyone and I got to feel like Santa as I gifted my old companion Hermana Robbins a new pair of shoes straight from the USA. 

Milagros!

Visited a super cute inactive member named Melody this week and she began reading the scriptures again and came to church this week! Please pray for her because she needs God's love so bad right now! 

Met an 11 year old named Mia whose smarter than anyone I've ever met. Her mom doesn't like church or believe in God, but Mia goes to the church 2 blocks away from her house and wants to learn more about God because she knows he's real. We gave her a Book of Mormon and when we came back to her house later that week she pulled up on her bike, Book of Mormon in hand, because she had just finished telling all her friends about this awesome book we had given her. 

She told us it was a little confusing and she didn't understand everything so we gave her a Book of Mormon for kids and she was so excited! We told her about church and she begged to come with us, but her mom doesn't want to come and she's not allowed to come to church without an adult. 

So please pray for Mia, we're gonna do everything we can to find a way for her to come to church this week! 

Spiritual Thought

Elder Costa said something that I haven't stopped thinking about. When we make a covenant with God, it's fact, it's done, it's permanent. We can do whatever we want, we can stray as far from his presence as we can, but he will never stop looking for us. He is always there, he is always trying to help us, he knows us perfectly and he will never stop trying to bring us home. 

It's like Elder Kearon said, God is in relentless pursuit of us. He never let's go, it's our doubts and fears that make us let go of him. In the bible when Peter walked on the water towards Jesus he started to sink because the wind made him fear. But when he sank he reached out his hand to Jesus. 

After, when Jesus saids "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" I think he was saying, "Oh Peter, why did you doubt yourself?" 

Peter trusted enough in the Savior to walk on water and know that when he sank, Jesus would save him. He lacked the faith in himself to keep walking. 

We need to have faith in ourselves in these latter days or we won't survive. We must keep walking. We must have faith in the Lord, in Jesus Christ, and in ourselves, trusting that we can endure to the end. Because we can. Jesus knows we can. God knows we can. And that is why he is in relentless pursuit of us.

I Have a Stalker?

Stalker is clickbait, but my recent convert Artemio just so happened to be in Tres Arroyos for work this weekend and we had the pleasure of running into each other! Saturday afternoon as we were doing a little activity with a whiteboard, asking people questions and writing the answers on sticky notes Artemio walks up! 

He said he was going for a walk, found the church building and was now walking back to his hotel when he saw us and he came over to say hi! We chatted a bit then he left to go get some rest while we did our whiteboard activity.

Artemio is the Best!

 The next day he comes to church and after he gives me a little bag and tells me it's just a little gift from him as a thank you for everything and he hopes God puts us in each others paths again. 

I thought it was cute and the gift was just like candy that he had picked up at a Kiosko or something, but no, it was a premeditated gift because this was not a gift that has a Saturday night - Sunday morning turn around - this was a mate mug with my name engraved on it kind of gift. 

Guys, these kinds of things are expensive and it really is a crazy nice gift. I am so grateful for this awesome gift that I'm gonna have to learn to start liking Mate.

 

Rapid Fire Week in Review

Invited 4 people to be baptized in 2 days, we're crushing our goals. 

Literally met my twin and wondering how we got separated at birth (Shout out Elder Atwood)

Taught an English Class all alone - that was the elder's idea. It was bomb tho

Literally had the skin rubbed off my heel from walking so much, I limp but we keep working!! 

Walked around all morning one rainy day with our new best friend Brenda whose preparing for her mission! 

Walked around carrying a whiteboard for 3 hours, but it's okay because our other new best friend returned missionary Camil came and hung out with us! 

Thats all the exciting stuff that happened this week so I guess I'll leave it there 

My First Pride Parade

This week feels like too much to recap so I'll give you the highlights. 

First we played a get to know you game with the zone where the person asks questions and whichever one of you is the answer to the question gets your face dunked in flour. Safe to say showers were taken that night. 

Cute Milagro!

We were walking on a really hot day in the middle of nowhere and a guy named Kevin pulled up on his motorcycle, told us he saw us and as a man of God, had to buy us cold water bottles. It was so sweet! 

Speaking of motorcycles... 

An encounter we had this week, 

(Guy on a motorcycle stops suddenly and pulls over to us, looking like he's about to rob us) "Chicas!!! Que hacen???" (Girls! What are you doing??"

Nosotras: "Caminando?" (Walking?)

Él: "Son las mormonas no?" (You're the mormons right?)

Nosotras: "Sí y estamo-" (Yeah and we-)

Él: "No, no, no!" (He drives away frantically) 

Pride!!

I thought pride month was june but it looks like it came early this year. We were walking down the street to go to this big Plaza to talk about our English class that we just started and we start to hear drums. It's a little parade and I ask Hermana Orellano about it and she goes, "I think its for Carnaval or something" 

I accept that and we move on, but the parade is following us. I look back and I think I see a little peek of a gigantic rainbow flag. I go... "Hermana... I think those people are Gay." She laughs thinking it's a joke, but I insist that I think that we've stumbled our way into a pride parade. 

Then I get the thought... hey in front of the plaza there's a really important government building. Wouldn't it be funny if they were going to that building to protest? And sure enough, after we got to the plaza about 5 minutes later the pride parade comes up and hauls this giant flag up the flag pole. 

It was majestic and maybe illegal, I don't know Argentinian laws so I can't be sure. I'll never hear a drum circle again without thinking about that day. 

My 1st Pride Parade

Crime

I robbed a member of his drivers license and I literally had it all day. It was his fault he shouldnt have given it to me. 

Proof of My Crime

Musical

Hermana Orellano busted out the old clarinet skills but was blown away by the musical talent of this family whose children all play like 3 instruments.

Trunky Moment

I don't want to make anyone too trunky but safe to say I was very happy with the miracle pday we just had with my sister Kinney and her husband Jeff. 

Thanks for The Awesome Visit!

I Literally Have Nothing But the Clothes on My Back

Transladoss

This is a good one gang. So we had transfers this week and I was sent to a new area, which means I packed up everything and got on the bus to leave to my new area. We always travel at night so we're all sleeping on the bus and only get jolted away when people leave to get off at stops. 

Anyways, all the stops happen as normally scheduled (horribly delayed, but they always are...) and so I get off in Tres Arroyos feeling pretty ready to take a nice long nap since it's 6:30am and I've been traveling since 5pm the day before. 

So, we go to grab our stuff off the bus and my stuffs not there. So I'm sitting their like 😃 what do you mean my stuffs not on the bus? Don't worry, I literally lost everything, the only things I had were me, the clothes I was wearing, and my backpack with virtually nothing inside, not even a change of clothes. 

The bus leaves because they don't have my stuff so the driver decides he's not sticking around and I check my pockets and see that my phone is not in them. Which means that my phone is on the bus. 😃

So now I'm sitting there with literally nothing but the clothes and backpack on my back in a little town 2 hours away from any city. So we text all the Zone leaders to find out where my stuff is, call the secretary, pray, and go to sleep. 

We wake up and we find out from the Zone leaders in MarDelPlata that some elder removed my things from the bus not knowing whose it was for some reason? Despite my very distinctive cat suitcase. So we tell the secretary and she books us 2 bus tickets that day to take the 6 hour journey to MarDelPlata to get my stuff back. Oh also the bus driver found my phone and he's coming back to Tres Arroyos the next day so I can get my phone then. 

So we go to MarDelPlata, pick up the suitcases, go home, the bus driver comes and the elders in Tres Arroyos pick up my phone because they live super close and the guy was in a hurry, and yesterday, (Sunday), I received all of my things and happily unpacked. 

Suffice it to say I definitely saw the hand of the lord this week as I was without anything. My kind companion Hermana Orellano lent me clothes for a day, the elders picked up my phone, Hermana West dropped everything to get me an immediate bus ticket to go pick up my stuff. People really are the lords hands in this world. 

Me and Hermana Orellano were setting goals for this transfer and we both put service as our biggest goal. Because we are the tools the lord has in this life. The best thing we can do is be his angels here and help others see his light! 

Little Milagros! 

We had all 5 converts (people who were baptized in the church later in life) come to church which is crazy because the old sisters literally couldn't get in contact with one of them and 2 usually don't come, but for our first Sunday here all 5 showed up! 

3 friends came to church, and one of them got up and bore his testimony that this is the true church! We're going over to teach him and ask him to get baptized tomorrow! 

Me and Hermana Orellano are the same person! We are so in sync it's scary! We also sing way too much Sabrina Carpenter in the house. 

That's about all for right now, I'll keep you posted on the milagroso week we have next week! 

My New Area