March 9, 2015

Hello family and friends!

So another week has come and gone! and this week is the most exciting of them all because FINALLY my brother will be here in argentina with me to experience all these crazy adventures! Im so excited for him to get here! 

This week has been really good...it went by super fast. We had alot of success as far as investigators coming to church. We ended up having 5 in church yesterday! which is a big deal! Sundays in the mission are a huge stress. I always say to my companion that the day of rest doesnt exist for missionaries. We are so worried about our investigators that its hard to enjoy church. But its so worth it to see our investigators in church. 

So this week we started visiting an elderly lady,  she reminds me alot of grandma murray haha. shes hilarious. Anyways her house is always filled with family so we go in her room and teach her. Well shes never read the bible, but shes catholic and believes and worships the Virgen Mary. Here in Argentina, the catholics all have huge virgen statues that are like dolls in fancy dresses. So she has one in her house and she says that she just cant get rid of it. Its like an addiction! One day we knelt down at the side of her bed with her and prayed and she said the prayer to ask if joseph smith was a prophet and if the book of mormon is true and during her prayer she starts to say that she knows its true she just cant stop praying to the virgen. so that was an interesting expierience. I asked her if she believed in the 10 commandments and she said of course. so when I read to her from the bible where it says to not have graven images or to worship other gods she said that we have different commandments haha. So my companion asked her to bring us her bible. so she walks out and comes back in with this HUGE bible. it was seriously the biggest book ive ever seen. it reminded me of the old books in the disney movies like shrek. Anyways we found the 10 commandments in her bible and she was surprised. So we will see if we can get some progress with her and get her to get rid of her virgens. 

We also had a miracle at the end of the week. Saturday I prayed before we left the apartment to have a miracle. And we were working all day long and no one was letting us in. I was getting super frustrated. We even had a member that came with us and no one was letting us in. Well about a week ago we were walking and 2 ladies were in front of us carrying grocery bags and we decided to talk to them and help them with their bags. So we get to talking and introducing ourselves and one of them says "yeah shes a member" and pointed to her friend. So I asked her what happened why she wasnt going to church anymore and she told us to stop by another day and we could talk. So fast forward. We decided to stop by her house saturday night. And her granddaughter comes out and said her grandma wasnt home but she let us in. We got to talking to her and she said that when she was 16 she wanted to be baptized but her dad wouldnt give her permission. She really liked the church when she was going. Well miracle- shes now 18! she doesnt need permission! She accepted a baptism date! This gave me alot of hope for the teenagers and kids that we are teaching that dont have permission to be baptized. I have hope that one day other missionaries will stop by their house and they will remember the things we taught them and can be baptized in the future! 

So theres a couple of stories for ya. I realized I havent shared alot of things about argentina so I wanted to share some random crazy things that happen in Argentina.

1) In the stores, if they dont have change, they give you little candies (I dont want candy, I want my money!) the worst part is sometimes they give us cough drops...they think its candy.

2) I am starting to make a list of crazy things Ive seen people carrying while driving their motorcyles. Besides trying to fit about 6 people on one motorbike, Ive seen people trying to balance fans, baby strollers (I always pray that there isnt a baby inside), weed wackers...thats a scary one....its just crazy what people try to carry while driving. 

3) After lunch, sometimes they ask us if we want dessert and they give us a banana haha we definately arent in the US where dessert is like cake or ice cream. I would lose weight, but they serve pop or juice. we dont drink water. im sooo sick of drinking pop. But I dont really have a choice because we cant drink their water.

4) We are living in a house FULL of cockroaches! they are everywhere. Ive learned to just get used to it. also we had mold in our house because its super humid right now! I think ive forgotten what a clean house is like.

5) The milk here is in a plastic bag, it takes about 10 minutes to try to get it to stand up in the fridge without spilling.

6) We have to hand wash our clothes and hang them dry outside. Its takes about an hour out of our pday and then the next day it rains and our clothes are wet again! Its like washing your car and the next day it rains. we have the worst luck.

Why the mission is so great:

1) we invite our taxi driver to church and he actually showed up when we really werent expecting it! I love little suprises like that!

2) when we teach a recient convert about family history and we walk into the computer lad today and hes there working on his family history! Ah makes my heart so happy!

3) when an investigator raises their hand in sunday school and shares their experiences they had the night before in our lesson. 

and sooo much more! I am just loving it!!!! Its crazy because im to that point in my mission where I feel like ive always been doing this and its never going to end. There is sooo many things I miss back home, but so many things I love here. Its just a weird feeling that I cant explain. Time is flying by and I dont know if I like it or not. 

 

Well I love you!

 

hermana stewart