"Working hard..." (September 29, 2014)

man what a week. im so tired holy heckkkkk anyways!

so we got the tortilla...well they werent. we used epanada tapas and just cooked them stove top,

so we taught taught taught this week. we reached almost all of our goals and exceeded others. but we also found so many awesome potentials and our inv that we do have really progressed.

Banana bread for planning

jose. so he is still not a fumador, a smoker, but he still hasnt come to church. were getting a little worried but we cant give up faith on him,

lucila, is still wonderful and we continue to teach her and im trying to stay patient but hma carlson really wants her to get baptized or drop her...well see i still feel like she needs us now, but we got to teach her brother the first lesson and he accepted a date! that was such a miracle holly crap haha so we just need to get the two of them on the same date and all will be well.

Alfajors with the girls! Haha!

patricia is a niece of the pres wife here. she is doing so awesome and will be baptized this saturday if we can teach all the lessons we need to haha but she is very excited and has a huge desire to learn and to change, to be born again and i know that she can really do this and make this change if she keeps up on all the commandments. and really we can see that god gives us commandments because he loves us and cares for our well being and he wants us to be clean and pure so we can return to live with him. also since she has decided to live the law of chasity and separate from her marido, she has been blessed and has been offered a job! what a milagro!

hmm oh! so the inv we chased down, we found again taught him and he came to church again this week, we stood outside and waited for him this time so he couldnt get lost haha but he like it so yay!

Milkiando. It's a verb we made up here called "milkiar", you bite
 both sides of an alfajor and then suck up the milk hahaha so good.

we found a new family, the moms name is sandra, she is recently divorced with 5 kids, and she just lost her job, please pray for her and also that she will continue to listen and learn about the gospel.

so patricia, shnell(the guy we chased down) and maria came to church! the most inv ive ever had. it was so great! oh and after church i went up to maria and i asked her "so, weve been thinking and you say when you want to get baptized you will do it the day of right? well in order to get baptized you need an interview, so will you be interviewed this tuesday at 4?" and she was like...whatttttt hahaha no and i just looked at her and smiled and then she was like, okay muchacha ill do it. haha so yay our marathon inv is having an interview haha

also patricia will be having her interview as well. so exciting right? so this saturday we might have 2 baptisms! and general conference! locooooooo but what a wonderful day it will be.

so all in all we taught a whopping 34 lessons this week and found 6 new people. none of this would have been possible without the ayuda de dios. realmente yo puedo ver en este obra, que necesitamos Dios, necesitamos la ayuda del espiritu santo para poder realizar la voluntad de dios. estoy muy agradecida por todo lo que el me ha dado y por la fuerza y energia que yo he recibido.

How we got to hear Women's Conference. We sat in the Branch President's
office and the internet connection didn't work so we just listened to part of it. Only two ladies showed up and all...

yo se que El vive. que jesucristo ha expiado por todo nuestros pecados. el ha sentido todo lo que sentimos y por eso, el nos entiende perfectamente. le amo a Jesucristo y voy a servirle con todo me corazon, fuerza, mente a alma.

Funny

Pics from Taco night...with Lucila.

on friday we were waiting for people to come to seminary and english classes instead of just sitting down i decided to stand at the door with soy mormon cards and pass them out to all who walked by, well i didnt know what to say to this one girl who walked by i almost didnt go after her but i did. i was so nervous but i just said "hi can i present myself? im a missionary for the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, i want to invite you to come to our church meetings, they are sunday from9-1º2 in the morning. here we worship god and have sunday school...." and then she stopped me and said "i know this church, took lessons from the elders for a year and a half when i lived in patagonia." haha so she had just moved here and bam we found her! well see if we ever find her again but everyone was laughing at me cuz i was so like excited and all. haha it was embarrassing but hey at least we found someone lol

.....and Hermana Spies. Haha!

so things are good here in esperanza. the work is progressing and no one and stop this work. im so thankful for all that i have been given and i know that our trials and aflictions in life, are from god to make us stronger and so that we can return to him, shaped and molded into the person he needs us to be. your homework for this week is to read mormon 9. i know that God is a God of miracles and he can see these miraces everyday when we have the faith. i love you all very much1.

un besito

hermana sanders

"Chasing people to come to church, cuz thatz juz how we role" (August 22, 2014)

perty flowerzzz 

i feel like every week is a crazy week now. haha

oh and SHOUT OOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEAUTIFUL SISTER EMILY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

so i got sick again. id been battling a really bad allergy season for the past 2 weeks and finally it got a hold of me and i was super sick with fever and all on tuesday. this time i refused to go to the hosptial so we went to the clinic which is much nicer because you have to pay for it. haha well i got my meds and slept that day and then on wednesday i was 100% better. such a blessing.now im just a little stuffy. and mom no se preocupe, ive been using my meds every day and using the cell salts to try to stop it but i needed other stronger stuff i guess. my first battle with the argentine spring time was brutal but with lots of prayer and meds i fought through haha

well jose......HE QUIT SMOKING COMPLETELY what a miracle. on wednesday we had a lesson with him about temples and family history. (we have to teach all 5 lessons before baptism) and at the end he said, i have something i want to give you. he took out his last pack of cigs that had like 10 left, took one cig and placed it behind his ear and said, this is for you. so after we rode around the corner and smashed up thise things haha. today he is going to humboldt where his family lives and asked if we could give him a b.o.m. to give to his family. so yeah he is awesome and is really getting converted and wants to go to the temple!

lucila! she is such a frustrating girl but i love her...so she reads and summarizes the chapter we give her and lets us read for understaning haha so cute. she always has a bunch of questions. one wed we had noche de hogar and she came! so did a bunch of people, she loves the church and the people and says it is the first church shes felt comfortable in. but she still wont accept a date for baptism. ugh but whatever she is still awesome and reading and comes to church.

a pretty race track for horses 

before noche de hogar the sister of the new 1 counseler came to go on spilts with us. she borrowed a sisters bike and we rode all around with her. she is a return missionary from brasil and has just been home from her mission for 1 year. she is amazing! and we get along so well. it was super fun and allllll yeah haha and then the normal work day to day blah blah blah. then saturday! so pres came to interview our inv right? well first he came to talk to us and all and we taught him what we had studied that morning. he is amazing and has so many awesome insights. well maria comes in and we all sit down together we talk about her doubts and everything and invites her to baptism and she still was so hesitant. well by the end of an hour we had persuaded her to pray about it tonight and follow through with the answer she receives. on sunday we checked up on her prayer and she said that she didnt receive her answer, in fact she felt frustrated and nervous when praying, like dark. i shared with her that when i was first deciding to serve my mission, a life changing and huge step, i thought about it and at first felt so awful, like not at peace, and anxious, and i thought maybe i really shouldnt, but that feeling got stronger and stronger. i then decided, well i know for a fact that god will be happy with me if a serve this mission so im just gonna do it anyways. the moment i decided this i felt an immediate feeling of peace, and i felt gods love for me, and i then promised her that the same thing will happen. baptism is a commandment from god and there is no doubt then when we complete the commandments he is happy with us. this feeling is hard to describe but im pretty sure its the spirit telling us that if we dont do this we wont reach salvation. so i hope she thinks about that a little more :)

taco night

anyways! saturday night we had a night of tacos and we made them in the capilla for a rama activity. so fun, lucila came. haha argentines cannot handle the tiniest piece of spice. we made two types, spicy and mild, they tried the spicy and just said "pica pica pica" over and over it was so funny haha i love them. so yeah thats probably the most notable activities that we had, oh! an investigadora got separated but its good because they werent married and now she can get baptized haha

hmm sooooo funny!

sunday morning we rode by this inv house and invited him to church, he said he would come. so were in the third hour and its during the sacrament right? hma carlson sees him walk right past the church looking for it but just missing it, so after the water, we left the church, and literally ran after to find him. we jogged about 2 blocks and around to look for him but he had already left. we even peeked inside the other church around the corner but he wasnt in there. ah! but ya. also earlier in the week we were eating an alfejor when hma carlson said, hma i think we are breaking the word of wisdom by eating too much chocolate. i laughed but shes serious sooo there goes my chocolate priveleges haha jk its okay.

spiritual!!

the 4 hermanas de esperanza

this morning i did a study on humility. ive decided that in order to reach the potential that god has given us we have to be humble to let him mold us into the people he has planned for us to be. after i read in helamn 3:35 about this people that are doing well in the eyes of god. in the verse in spanish it says that they became "mas y mas fuerte en su humildad" it means became stronger in ther humilty, and then i thought stronger in their humility? thats kind of confusing, but then the scripture alma 26:12 came to mind, where alma say, as to my strength i am weak, and something like, therefore i boast not boast of my strength but of the strength that god has given me. so basically being stronger in our humility to me, just means to always give thanks to god, and recognize that your talents, and everything that is given to us is of god. woohoo!

welp thats it for the week. hope all is well in the good old states. love you all!

xoxoxo

hermana sanders III

dad. this week as in yesterday we were listening to the mo tab music and i heard the organ and thought of you and i started to cry, i guess this might mean that i miss you and how you play the piano every sunday morning. 

the district

lorito!!!!

"lookin like a fool with milk in your bag" (September 15, 2014)

six months cake 

so ill explain the subject later.

this week was loco! no tengo mucho tiempo entonces voy a escribir un poco, lo siento pero tuvimos que hacer cosas por la zona y presidente.

so we got a call last week saying we changed zones. we are now in the santa fe norte zone which composes of 20 elders and us 4 sisters from esperanza. we are the biggest zone in the mission too haha our district is now just us 4 and one pair of elders in the city next to us called recreo. they are super crazy and fun so we are happy but its weird with so many elders.so this week!

it was crazy and stressful mainly just because no one was there for their appointments, it rained and we had divisiones. well jose and lucila didnt come to church...

jose wants to get back with his ex wife but she doesnt want to but yeah, hes down to 2 cigs per day so were almost there.lucila is getting really close to getting a fecha so we are really excited. we have an inv that is a klepto but is super awesome...and we got dropped by two others this week.

one thing cool though. we have an inv of 7 years. she pays tithing and all, well our stake pres told zanni about her and pres called us and asked if he could come and interview her! so this next saturday hes coming to interview her and come out with us to visit our inv. hes so awesome and is wanting to be really involved with the work. he asked permission from the 1st pres and we are going to have more leaders in the mission, he is going to call 8 stls, and 4 assistants. every zone leader will be a trainer as well, so he is changing a whole bunch of things but everything is going to enhance and refine the hole basis of missionary work. 

on divisiones con la hermana moberly

im so excited to be a mssionary here in this mssion in this time! it will be amazing. we had divisiones. i went to parana with hermana moberly and we were together for my 6 month! so fun. it was a nice time.

funny! we were riding one night in the rain..in a storm. we had just bought some food because we had none. the bag breaks and drops to the floor. we stop and pic it up, i put the bag of milk and yogurt in my bag haha and we tie the top of the pasta with a hair tie....and we rode for the rest of the night visiting people with milk in my bag...hahaha everything laughed especially cuz i was wearing my hood under my helmet...ive officially let go of how the people think of me here...its pretty wonderful. blah haha

spiritual.

biking in the rain with a broken bag of pasta.
"hmm are we in argentina or are we in argentina..."

a lot of members are having problems with rebellious teenagers. so ive shared mosiah 27 alot this week. it is my absolute favorite chapter. i dont have much to say but i want to testify of the strength of a parents prayer. the lord promises that he will answer our prayers when we pray with faith and obey the commandments. (verse 14) im so thankful for you guys and for your strong testimonies. i hope we can follow the example of alma the younger and be born again of the spirit. first by repenting and second by dedicating our lives to serve god and build up his kingdom. i love you all so much!

xoxoxo

hermana sanders

Jessica paid 68 pesos for a combo with a Mcflurry and
was so excited to eat fast food. She said it was totally worth it. 

bus stop

a less actives son wearing the helmet haha

thuggin with benja 

 a pic of our pension...find the llamas

"In Maple We Trust" (September 8, 2014)

the subject is one thing we saw on a tshirt the other day...its really fun seeing what is on peoples shirts when they dont even understand it...one time we saw a shirt that had a city scape and it said "new years city" hahaha

so this week....literally it seems like a blur and ive forgotten a lot of things, but we do have 5 people with baptismal dates! we found and programmed 4 awesome news! the members have been working with us alot! its been really awesome and weve seeen so many miraceles!

so! hmm

our inv. jose! is still progressing. we had more lessons in the capilla and he is down to 3 cigs now a day....everything was awesome and then sunday comes along. he doesnt come to church so his date dropped. ugh! we came to see him after and his work was loco again, and now he wants to get back together with his señora and he wants her to get baptized too! he has a testiomony on the restoration which is really awesome! so we set another date more in the future...so we will move forward as always.

lucila. what a freaken miracle rollercoaster child! this week, we had lessons with members. she progressed and is reading again. also she asked us to come with her to church! like duh of course! haha so she came. i taught the class on the life of christ. she was very emotional about the atonement. she really is an amazing girl! we still havent re invited her to baptism and are trying to but the spirit keeps saying no, so we will be patient. everything in the lords time and in his way right?

had noche de hogar with a menos activa familia! 

going to contact people and have lessons with rogelio

we had more lessons and more miracles but i dont have much time to elaborate. but we had many lessons. didnt reach our goal but we have another week to do so!

oh! we were teaching a guy named shnell and his 2 friends were there we were teaching the ldm. the friends started to attack the book of mormon saying what everyone says that the bible is perfect blah blah blah and asking us by what authority we had to teach and preach. so i took out my ministerial certificate (i felt like a police man showing my badge) and they read it. in the end it says "we exhort you to listen" so after they did. we ended up testifying and following the spirit in this and gave them a book of mormon. it is so powerful this responsibilidad and calling that we have as missionaries to teach what we know. even though we are young and dont know that much, we can have powerful testimonies and we have desires to serve and love for these people, and these things qualify us for the work of salvation.

so que mas, funny!

the tshirts. also hermana carlson has showed me her talent. she makes really good fart noises with her mouth haha so while we are riding bikes she does it all the time. haha oh and last night we had a sleepover with the other sisters, so she showed them that too and then we all started to do our personal prayers...right when we started, hma carlson farts for real we all started to laugh and cry so hard hahaha

spiritual. this will be short but yeah! i studied reverence today and im very glad i did. we are all told to have a reverent attitute about things right? well ive always known like to be quiet to feel the spirit or something but there is more to it.

celebrating hma wilde y carlsons cumple mes!

when we have a reverent countanence we show our respect and love for the things of god. it is to be modest and humble and meek. long suffering in all things. but also when we are reverent we receive blessings! like all things spiritual. we feel the spirit and are more able to receive answers personal or family. also our minds will be clear and we will be able to think better and make righteous decisions! how awesome is that! dyc 63:64. be careful when speaking about sacred things. everything is a gift from god and we need to respect it out of love for him and his commandments. yeaaahhhh buddy.

well thats what i got for this week! oh! i completely forgot! we had a mission conference in santa fe! so fun and we learned so much! after all the missionaries when the mcdonalds. it was 68 pesos for 24 chicken nuggets bites and fries and a mcflurrey...soooo worth it. ive never been so happy over fast food. haha oh and it rained and we had to bike in the mud which was fun! well now that all it!

hope yall have a wonderful week! love you all!

xoxoxo

hermana sanders

dad. im sad it is so hot ever there but we didnt even get a real winter and it is already warming up...yikes everyone says its terrible here for summer

mom. i got your letters and the cd! you are safe to send me more! haha i love you and im glad everything is good we ended up not having a drop lesson so yeah thank goodness. pres told us to be insanely specific in our prayers and mom we have seen miracles little every day!. im so happy you went out (with the missionaries). sounds really interesting that guy but what a miracle that you got to go and that he attended you! my english is getting so bad isnt it. haha oops.tell mary (Rosebrock)i say hi!

i love you all so much and i hit my six month this friday. crazy how time flies no?

the animals of the week

the animals of the week

horses 

and my shadow! im so talented i
can ride in the dirt and take pictures!

hma moberly! now is an STL hahaha

Sunday!

eating at noemi and edguardo 

cooking empanadas in a kettle at the church hahaha

"The jokes of Esperanza" (September 1, 2014)

so this week! man i dont think we have worked as hard ever in our lives! a couple weeks ago we had the talk from zanni about how we should have the goal to baptize evry week of our misison! so during planning we really focused on how we could accomplish this. well i am completely exhausted and man we just worked so hard. i really can testify that organization is essencial to being an effective part of the lords army. so! this week we saw so many miracles!

we saw that we had 4 girls who are menos activas and are in young womens, well the age group. so this week we put together a yw activity! we made invitations and talked to all and their families. one MA has been very difficult but when we introduced this to her she got so excited and totally opened up. she gave us toonnnsss of ideas! everyone else who we met with was super excited about it. we were going to introduce the program personal progress and then play games but then only one girl came. so that was a little annoying but she ended up coming to church with her mom on sunday! so even though it wasnt that huge of a success, it was for us because one girl came back to church :)

waiting for people to come to the yw activity in the chapel! 

with jose! ah what a guy. he is so special! so this week we had daily contact with him. he is reading and is very exciting for his bap. date. this week we had 2 lessons in the chapel with more members. he loves it and is continuing to quit smoking. in his prayers he thanks god for putting him in this place so that we were able to find him, and hes just doing so good. until sunday! ugh so he didnt come to church because one of his friends got stabbed and almost died so him and the guy he takes care of went to visit him. we met with him sun night. he had smoked a little more than the last day but then he said, idk why all these things are happeneing right now, (with a smile) is it because the devil doesnt want me to get baptized or is it god testing me to get to this point. so he gets it! but he needs to come to church the next 2 weeks or he cant achieve his date! he really is determined though.

sleep over with the sisters 

lucila! the 13 year old. its so sad how one week can be so good for someone and the other just completely turned around. so she stopped reading and said she doesnt want to come to church. she still wants to get baptized but in a year maybe. it is really sad and tomorrow we are going to have to have a drop lesson if she doesnt commit to a date. :( but yeah we talked to her mom about the personal progress thing and she was excited but said they cant do anything right now as a family because her spouse is crazy....o there is definitely going on that we dont know about but god has a plan for them and we just need to make sure we do what he wants with this plan.

we found so many news this week, one is a family of 5. the parents and 3 little girls. they are a cute family and have a very strong faith in jesus christ so yeah we have a cita with them, we found some more as well and are very excited to work with them! and yeah as i said we worked so hard. we didnt get to work monday because it was cleaning day and on tues was pday, but that included we taught 27 lessons! and this week we are determined to teach 30. the thing is we just are not wasting any time by chatting, we listen for their needs and teach, we open our mouths and we will just continue this approach. the more lessons we teach the more people will progress. the key is also to have meaningfull lessons. quality over quantity everytime! but yeah that was my week. worked super hard but none of our inv came to church. it is okay though because we know we did all we could do!

so funny!

remember how that menos activa fainted? well we went back this week and had a lesson with her neighbor who is also a less active. he told us how after we left everyone was laughing at how serious we were....so now we are even more of a joke here! haha also there is a reference that weve tried 3 times. each time she was really rude and slammed the door shut. but for some reason we had the strongest impression to go back and write her a note, so we did and we began by saying "even though youve rejected us 3 times already we feel like we have to come back" hahaha

the note!

and spiritual! this morning i was meditating about what and who i am. like divine nature stuff and i decided that 3 things that i want to be more of is my love of people, give service, and my love for god. so i decided to study a little more about what love is. not love like husband wife love but just love for god and fellow man kind of love. haha :) it was a great study but i just want to share a few scriptures.

1 john 4:7-21. in vs 7 it speaks about how love is of god and when we have love, we are in unison with god. in vs 14, the disciple testifies that because god loves us, he sent his son. and really i echo this testimony. nothing shows gods love for us more than jesus christ and his sacrifice, the atonement. and 3rd, in vs 18 it says that perfect love casteth out fear. in relating this to the work of the lord, missionary work, when we truly love our fellow men we will share the gospel. we will not have fear because what we are sharing is eternal life. so we can see that love of god in effect helps us to love our brothers and sisters. in reality, we are all just a big family and god loves each and every one of us equally. even more, jesus atoned for the sins of all mankind. for everyone! not just our friends, and not just for the people who we have a good relationship with. i hope all of us and try to see this picture more clearly. and love everyone we see with a full love, with charity and understanding. its the power of love that changes peoples hearts. (chessaaayyyy) but really the love of a friend, of family and the love of god changes and opens hearts.

welppp that is my week everyburdy i hope everyone has a great fun and happy successful week! besitos!!

xoxoxo

hermana sanders

with hma cuchiparte during transfers! she is a sister from our zone. 

hma carlson and cuchiparte! 

more pics with her. :)

a 2 week old puppy!!!!!!!!

the family lopez and their bee collection in their house!

and bon o bons!