"Goodbye Esperanza, hello Pergamino" (November 18, 2014)

yay! what a week as far as numbers go it was the best week of my mission so far but we all know numbers dont count. what does count is that we met so many new people and were able to speak to them about the gospel many times. 

saying bye to patricia...the homegirl and the recent convert. 

shnell is still coming along. he came to church and was wearing a white shirt and tie. he just needs a litttle more time and then will shortly be ready to make these covenants everlasting with god. :)

saying bye to the marathon inv.

lucila and emmanuel. son buenisimos todavia! buuuut emmanuel is gonna move to a different barrio but we'll still be able to visit him. lucila wants to wait till the end of the year for her baptism but one day they both will make it and soon after, her family will make it. 

sole. she was on vacation this weekend so the first time we saw her was yesterday. we taught the ten commandments with chasity. it was a nice lesson and she understands that she needs to get married in order to baptize herself*-.

other than that we just found a ton of news and it is amazing how the spirit guides us in the way.

so other than that, im getting transferred. im going to a place called Pergamino in the south of the mission. its in the provincia of buenos aires! so im super excited. i know my zone liders and theyre awesome so im stoked. 

when hma moberly left she called me on the phone and said bye. i really will miss having her here especially cuz shes such a good example to me but its all good. crazy though shes going home and then next transfer hna carlson will go home. and then its just me and all my compysss. its all good.

soo yeah that was my week. i love hna fry and am sad i will be leaving her but i know ive done all i couldve done here and im excited to go where the lord needs me.

:) yay

me with a bunch of little lambs haha 

so funny story!

not really funny story but yeah. so argentines have 3 ways to cut grass- 1. the rich people have small lawn mowers that are plugged in. 2. weed whackers. 3. machete. the third being the most common.

also we were in a lesson and the guy come up to saludarnos and goes in for the kiss (they greet people with a kiss on the cheek here) so we did the whole, lean way back stick out the arm a mile out and say no! and then the guy we were teaching jumps in and says. "you cant kiss them, theyre holy".....so                                                                                    people here think we are holy. hah! now spiritual!

i was studying in the" true to the faith" that i got from the parents and decided to study the part about adversity. many people here go through tons of adversity it is hard to imagine how they must feel. but we always explain that god gives us these challenges to test us and make us stronger. that he has a unique plan for everyone but through everything he is right by our side but we just have to reach back for him. he loves us and everything we go through is for our benefit in the looooong run. read in dyc 122. a short section but very comforting. i love you all and god loves all of us. we can feel this love that he has for us and for others if we just humble ourselves, repent and ask in prayer. 

well thats it. excited to start this new adventure! love ya all!!!!!!!

xoxoxo

hermana sanders

bye to maria. she bought us matching hats as a goodbye
gift to me and hna fry just for fun. love her so much!

ps. pergamino has a ward and it will be my first ward in my mission!!!!

dad. so glad you are doing so much service. cool thing. i did some family looking this week. like looked at tree and ive decided im so doing it when i have more time! keep on serving. im great, the work is coming, and no baptisms this week haha

mom, glad you enjoyed my thought last week. hows your studies on pmg. i read in chp 9 the seccion about member missionary work this week. i suggest you study it. its awesome! and allyson had to walk 5 miles...pobresita.....hahahahaha im gonna be walking again. the bikes were such a blessing and now i can ride without handle bars. thats what happens when you spend 6 hours on bike at least.  sorry about aarons gpa... love you all so much!

un beso grande!

last lunch with hermana susana!

on a road to nowhereeeee

bye to the capilla here in esperanza! 

the relief society room

sacrament room 

the primary!

  last pic with the district!

*publisher's note: I copy and paste Jessica's emails just as she has written them, as poor as the spelling and grammar may be, because it's more authentic that way. You get to observe just how immersed a missionary becomes in the language and culture, as well as how little "free" time they have. They often don't' have the time to worry about spelling and grammar... they figure their family and friends will get the gist. ... and we do. ;) For this particular typo, however, I feel compelled to clarify: We do not believe that one can baptize one's self. This is just a perfect example of the Spanish grammar bleeding into English. I'm pretty sure Jessica just meant to say, "in order to be baptized." 

"Lyfe Changing" (November 10,2014)

so this week we were 100% healthy. prayers get answered!!! haha but serioulsy its been a good week. 

we have a new inv named sole. she is 25 with a cute baby girl, a 7 old boy and her marido. shes together with him not married yet but have promise ring. anyways she is wonderful. super sweet and has accepted a baptismal date. we just need to get her married but she is great. this week we will have to drop maria

na :( annnnd hmmm we focusing on finding news and all the normmmmm. 

so the baptism was all going good until thursday. shnell decided he needed to stay in the church he was baptized in. but he said maybe in the future. he is so close we know one day he will get to it but for now its this. but we arent sad. the lord knows better than us and he has to wait longer. so its okay.

the brother of lucila is golden. he is so awesome and understands everything. this week we taught the sabbath day and he even showed the scripture in the bible we were going to show. we talked about our purpose in life as well. 

so we had divisions again! i went to parahna again with hma moberly and met the nurse of the mission. she just came in from washington and is amazing. 

other than that we just are doing to norm but the title "life changing" is in regards to a conferencie we had with pres zanni and his wife. basically after sharing what they learned in a leadership training thing, he went off and talked about many themes but i want to speak on one. 

spiritual! 

he said this "como el hombre es, dios fue. y como dios es, el hombre puede llegar a ser." it means how man is, god was. and how god is, man can become. how awesome right? well if we want to reach our full potential as missionaries...or as children of god, we need to do everything he has commanded us to do, 100%. this means being exactly odedient. i read today in hebrews 12:6. god loves the disciplined, simply. and this means those who obey and are doing the things without complaining. its interesting that discipline and disciple are similar right? if we want to be true disciples of christ, we need to be disciplined. do the thing we are asked to do without complaining and doing them to the best of our ability. as we do this we will become true sons and daughters of god. 

funny!

another thing pres told us is that he learned 

us being us... 

everything from his mission. this is how he propsed to his wife. knocked on her door, and verified how she was, taught her that marriage was essential to salvacion then 

invited her to marry him. he said seguira las eseñanzas de la iglesia a se casara conmigo? she said. he promised blesing and said yo le promete que va a ser re feliz and blah blah blah. then he said you need to know for yourself that this marriage is true. will you pray to know that you should marry me? she said yes. then he made an appt. tomorrow at 7 i will come to see how your pray was. will you be here at that time, she said yes. he left. then the next day h came back and verified hahaha

anyways that was my week i love you all soo much!!

hermana sanders

in argentina they make their own houses on the side of the road haha

the sign says, dont trespass, danger of death. haha 

Sunday dinner, pasta and garlic bread!!

"oauhfcrmluhrgls...." (November 3, 2014)

hiiiii

getting ready for the rain

so this week started out soo great. we taught wonderful lessons and found news monday. tuesday morning also was great but then after our district meeting, hermana fry started to feel super sick....she ended up throwing up and then the comp of the other hermanas was sick too, so hermana wilde and i just did spilts for the night. then wednesday we went to the hospital and stayed in the whole day because hma fry was super sickl :( then on thursday i got super sick. we went in the morning but had to come back early. then friday we were both on the better side of things but we started to go out, kinda shaky, then it started pouring we went inside for 10 minutes cuz it was a storm that was dangerous and then went to lunch, after lunch i threw up, we stayed in a little then left again cuz we had a cita but came back at 8. saturday we had a baptismal interview for an inv and then i ended up having bad pains in my ear so we went to the hospital, i had an ear infecction and inflamatory something or other...couldnt understand spanish medical terms. then stayed tried to work...i was feeling super weak and dizzy and all, with pains in my ear and head and stomach, hma fry still wasnt 100% but we needed to see patricia...the rc (recent convert). she wasnt answering any of our phone calls and she still needed to be confirmed (receive the gift of the Holy Ghost) btw...she moved and theres been a huge ordeal so it was really important that we saw her. haha anyways right after we bought my meds for the ear thing we were riding around just praying to see her. no more than 2 minutes we see her waiting on a corner for a taxi. we ride over and turns out she has a new number. we get the new number and talk to her for a little bit till the taxi came. so that was a miracle. we were wiped out after that and sat in a park for 5 minutes debating what to do. we got ice cream and returned to the apt and just rested cuz we were both super sick still..fry was getting better but i still was on a low. so sunday. wake up...rough. the night before it was thundering and lightning and all and we couldnt sleep too well. get up, still raining and super cold. get to church, not feeling well at all. but we get through it. in the 2nd hour PATRICIA CAME. she walked in the rain with her baby and all! aaahhhhhhh i was soo happy. so finally she got confirmed. i held it together until we got home, i threw up one more time and just studied for a bit and slept. woke up this morning feeling soo much better but yeah. that was our week.

hugeeeeeee pills for the ear thing 

funny...we kinda did nothing so there wasnt too much funny 

spiritual.

first of all, the secret to happiness in missionary work is work. and when you cant work because of stupid sickness, just try to keep your head up. dont get frustrated and just pray that you will get better ASAP cuz its not fun doing nothing all day. 

second of all. i just want to speak a little on patriarchial blessings. for those who dont know too well, patriarchal blessings are special blessings unique to each and every individual. basicaly they are given by men who have the priesthood (power and authority of god). they are inspired by god to give specific blessings and guidance to someone to help them in their life. they also answer 3 questions very simply. what is your identity as a child of god? what is your purpose in this life? and what is your destiny?. i invite all of you who have your blessings to read them again with these things in mind. pray before and after and ask for the guidance to find these answers. i know you will all find these answers and gain a better understanding of who you are and gods plan for you. i know god loves us and because of this love he gave us the ability to return to him. we have the gospel, we have blessings, and he gave us his son. jesus christ. only through him and his atonement, can we become who we need to be to return and live with god and our families forever. 

i love you all :)

keep healthy and keep happy #thumbsup

chaocito

hermana sanders

our week...drinking mate cocida... 

...and chilling out with my awesome comp

"can i have yo numbaahhh" (October 27, 2014)

sunsetss 

its heating up here in good old esperanza thats for sure. but it was a wonderful week. a little stressful but as is the misison and life right?

well hmm time just mashes together here. 

we have a new inv calles mariana. she is so awesome. we found her contacting and the firsat thing she told us..."youve come here to talk to me havent you" we said yes, she said well im about to shower but come back this day and we will talk. so we come back and teach her the restauracion. she was so attentive and repeated in her own words what we had shared. in the end she prayed perfectly and sincerely. weve had a few more lesons with her but she cant have a real date because she is living together with a man. they have 2 kids together and one is 19 and the other is 17. they cant get married because he is still married to another woman. ahhhhhh but she is so wonderful....so we just get to pray about her boyfriend.

shnell!!! hes progressed so much this week. he defended the book of mormon to his son who is a pastor! we taught him so much this week and when we taught chastity we asked him to repeat what it is in his own words and he said "es buenisimo" hahaha 

happy bday fry!

he also bought a cake for hermana fry, it was her 20th birthday this sunday. he is so great and he is growing so much. it is crazy how much people grow when they accept a baptismal date and our really commited to it!

lucila. ACCEPTED A DATE FINALLY! after she said she new the bom was true and all, the next time we went back and she was like, so when am i getting baptized. the thing now is we need to work on the signature from her mom. but im praying super hard for this. please pray for it as well. lucila really has a desire to get baptized and is so awesome. her brother also has been reading the bom and although we cant really meet with him cuz hes a boy and we dont have too many members that come with us, he is reading and studying the pamphlets.

other than that we dont have too many other inv. 

funny

we were riding when two boys on their motos rode by and asked for our numbers we didnt respond but then we pulled up right next to them on a red light. right before i turned to hma fry and said, get ready to teach! we pulled up and i started talking to them, they gave me their number and i just said, we are missionaries, he said "well were argentines" i said well were missionaries for the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. we share and testify of our message that the fullness of the gospel has been restored. they said "well can you still come out with us sometime" i said, no we do this full time because we want to serve god. then the light turned reen and i said, well have a great night and remember that god loves youi :) in situations like this, instead of saying nothing and ignoring the boys who try to say weird things like that, i just learned its better to talk about god and the church. then theyll either stop bothering you or you find a new! haha

another bday pic

spiritual
ive been stuck on this charity and love subject for so long. charity is love in action. to really practice charity we must act and be true followers of christ. being a christain or following christ means doing what he did. he acted. He was an example. i love 1 timothy 4:12. be an example and do everything you do 100% for the gloria of god. 

thats it for this week just had a few bible bashes and hma fry fell of her bike a few more times haha the bugs are getting vicous and we need to by off and sunhats. i love the mission. i love everything about it. they key to really  being happy on the mission is work and obedience. as we do this we will be blessed so much. it is the same in life really. if we do the things the lord wants us to do and are obedient we will have success and happineess which come by having the spirit with us. i love you all so much!!!

besitos

hermana sanders

may or may not have cut bangs...just for fun haha

dad.stay up with work but dont forget to read you scriptures everyday and pray personally. helps a ton. church was fine yesturday, the new branch pres is still very new and we have to pick up a ton of the slack to keep the rama going. its good but a little stressful

mom.  tell ally i say hi and miss heraring from her. hma fry cut my hair, she cut the front layers too short so we decided to do bangs but then we cut those too short too so i just always wear the front up...cant wait till they grow out but hey at least im on the misisona and still have time for it to grow before the end haha i love you!!

weird baby bird owl thing hahaha

hambugers at a zone conference

the crazy hma spies (wife of the president)

happy bday fry!

"AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!" (October 20, 2014)

to mimic the subject line of my beloved sister emilys email to me this week. ahhh! holy heck! shes gettin hitched. so wow. congrats to her and my future bro in the lawww. so excited for them both! so yeah! woohoo!!

beautiful argentine sunset!

on the end of the missionary work here in hope (esperanza) this week was the fastest week of my life. we had 63 hours outside of our area sooo yeah. we still worked super hard of course but just didnt have too much time. anyways! ill give a little catch up of the inv we have. 

shnell. still progressing, has more desires to get baptized the 8 of november so thats good. 

lucila!! she got her answer again haha but this time she said she knows without a doubt that the bom is true and that this church of jesus christ has been restored. she is anxious to get baptized but know that its true. she said "i was scared before but now i cannot deny that the book of mormon is true" so that was wonderful.

other than that weve dropped everyone. we found many news(new investigators) this week and they have a lot of potential. we are working a full! so yeah other then that we were traveling in colectivo (bus) or sitting in meetings. it was a good week and we learned alot of new things and received much direction from our leaders. every week i am more and more thankful for being on the mission and the organization de la mision. really im sorry but theres not much else to share this week :( 

the rain pic that i refered
to in the email!

funny! so on saturday it was pouring rain the whole day! ive never been sooo wet in my life. we were outside in the rain for 5 hours because no one would answer their door or let us in. we ended up calling the members and asking if we could teach them so we werent outside the whole time. anyways it was also pretty cold so i took a picture of how we looked while we were in the rain. enjoy :) 

spiritual! so lets get real here. sometimes our weaknesses overwhelm us. sometimes we feel like we arent good enough or that we are alone in what we are doing. when we are faced with trials we have two decisions. we can either get down on ourself and feel bad. or we can get down on our knees and pray for the strength to move on and get better. we dont have to feel bad. life isnt meant to be awful and miserable and just a cycle of depressing refinement. when i see the word refinement i think of the atonement. we are given our weaknesses and our trials to strengthen us. we have been given these things so we can depend and grow by drawing strength from the gift god has given us in our savior. we have talents that god has given us and we need to use them.i read in alma 26 today about the sons of mosiah. in vs 17-20 ammon recounts his past. and the mercy god had on him and his brothers. the were the vilest of sinners, yet in gods infinite mercy, has saved them. now they have moved on from this part of their lives and had dedicated themselves to the service of god. in vs 22 (our mission theme right now) it tells us what we need to do in order to have sucess in this life, or on the mission. we have to pray, repent, and do service (act) and we will be able to know the mysteries of god. we need to repent and we can help others repent, even thousands! i love you all so some and i hope we can learn to repent quickly and effectivly to prepare ouselves. to live better lives and to love god with all our heart might mind and strength!

un gran beso!

hermana sanders

feliz cumple! shes happy i swear. 

her daughter cami.

lunck... 

...aND milkiando with our district

street sign on the way to district meeting...lol

bathroom pic with the missionaries from esperanza!

"Scripture reading brings blessings" (October 13, 2014)

so! i really don't have much this week. we have to stop seeing a bunch of people because they arent reading or not doing this so yeah. this week many things fell through and we spent a lot of time contacting. its fun having a new companion. she and i get along really great. shes weird and quirky and likes merlin just like me! so this will be a fun transfer. we taught many lessons still, i dont know how but one thing we are doing is we are going around and teaching the members actives the missionary lessons.

end of transfer with Hna. Carlson - name tags

we think this will be a nice way to help them strengthen their testimonies! we will see though. so yes jose is the one who started smoking again. patricia the convert was the niece of our presidents wife. i didnt talk about her too much cuz i didnt want to jynx her progress haha but ugh guess what. so she couldnt receive the espiritu sant because it was general conference last week so we were going to do it this week but her baby got sick and she went to santa fe and so we havent seen her since last tuesday and she doesnt have the holy ghost. :( her baby is okay they are just doing some tests on her but its just so frustrating how the adversary can get in the way of things. but we just do our best. also lucila is super sick and couldnt come to church either.... uhmmmm so we have this inv shnell who came to church this week and he really is our only inv who is progressing. hes so funny and just one of those old quirky men. he lives alone and his house is like a old car dump cuz he has 5 car bodies laying around with rusty old boats and all sorts of machines. his two fingers on his right hand are cut from the tip like dads one finger but his is right below the nails...hes so weird but super nice and religious. please pray for him that he will continue to progress...

ugh the guy in the ciber started to smoke. that is one regla that i wish they had here but whatever. 

so this week we also ran into anti americans and that wasnt fun. they were saying things like, well its not your fault where you were born, and the the states do nothing for anyone...idk there was a lot of hate and it took all i had to not get patriotic on them and just start debating. i just stuck to talking about the gospel of jesus christ. dang ive changed soo much hahaha

so the first week being senior comp. its really not that different but there is a tiny bit more responsibility there is there. pero bueno. today we are going to the mission home for trametes. i will try to be able to visit monica maybe but that is a big maybe. we have her number so ill just call if i can! 

hermana fry!!!

so my new comp!! her name is hermana fry. she is 19 almost 20 from oregon! she has 3 months in the mission field but speaks spanish really well. she took classes in school so she has awesome grammar! she is una capa! yay im super excited for this next transfer with her! and interestingly enough we didnt have too many problems with the language. ive decided to focus on what i do know of spanish than what i dont know. and its been pretty wonderful seeing how god has had such a hand in this experience. and in helping me learn this language.

so funny! hma fry has had some fun times on the bike getting used to riding in a skirt and all. and today after buying groceries we were riding with all of it on the handle bars or whatever and we had to brake hard at a stop and she couldnt brake in time because one of the brakes broke so she just ran into me haha and then some groceries fell out of the bag but all is well! oh and yes i bore my testimony in chruch and on my way back to my chari i slipped and almost fell haha so we are just two little clutzy hermanas haha

spiritual!

it is very important that we study the scriptures daily. we must set time aside to read these words of the prophets and of christ and if we do this we have some pretty awesome promises. 1. we will be more able to hear the whisperings of the spirit. 2. our faith will grow. 3. we will be able to resist temptation 4. we will have a closer relationship with heavenly father and jesus christ. in helaman 3: 29-30 we can read about these promises and that if we do these things, we will sit at the right hand of god. so again as a missionary i invite all of you to read the scriptures everyday and set aside time in your day to dedicate to the study of god's word. i know tht god loves each and everyone of us so perfectly. his love for us is the basis of everything that he has given us and will give us. i hope we can all love god more and show him our love through our actions, mainly through obedience to his commandments and loving others.

hope you all have an awesome week! and read your scriptures!!! :)

besitos

hermana sanders

us on top of the world

super cute la familiy

bike riding

tacos!!

hma fry and wilde riding together

a less active dressed as a zombie...oh shes 11 years old.
does not look like it thought right? haha

lives of the mission! dropping off notes... 

...and eating alfajors for dinner!

"Conference Weekend!!!" (October 7, 2014)

this week. bueno so this is what happened., at the beginning of the week we went on divisiones. i went with hma cambel who is just finishing training. so we go about our day and see many miracles and it was so fun! until my bike decided to bend right after i got a new tire. :( the wires on the side got twisted because it fell down a few times...dont ask. but we got it all nice and fixed. 

but during the division we went to have a lesson with him(Jose) and we saw him outside smoking. he came up with a dumb story as to why he was all sad but we were very sad. i was kind of passionate to and told him to pray and repent as soon as he can and start over. well we went back the next day. he said he stopped but this time he came up with a different story as to why he was sad...so he lied to us and i was just very disappointed and didnt say much. yet we went back...i smelt very strong smoke but he said he hadnt...but i was doubtful and pushed the question and he never admitted but he didnt deny it. so we had a drop lesson with him about puting god first and puttting your life in order...so that was a let down but whatever.

pix from the baptism! 

also we had a baptism this week! for patricia. she came right at 305 when the bap would be at 300. i was peeing my skirt i was so nervous!!! but things went smoothly and yeah! she also has plans to get married within the next few months so hopefully it works out :) 

so also we havent gotten to lucila too much or our other inv but its been such a crazy week but we have news and news with a baptismal date we just need to have a smoothe transfer and keep it up and soon i think we will find people to be ready for baptism and the blessings of the gospel weekly. this is my vision at least as a missionary. the key is to be worthy and prepared to teach always and god will trust us with his children to find and teach them. so. conference weekend!

what a conference right?? there were many wonderful talks and many great messages. mom, it is true we are preparing for the coming but not yet ;) so on saturday i stayed here (in Esperanza) to watch it in spanish. but on sunday, me and hma wilde (we went on splits again) went to watch it in santa fe because the elders there went into a room to watch it in english. so on sunday we watched conf in a small room with 18 elders on a little computer screen but it was such a spiritual experience. conference is always the words we need to heart and study for the next six months and definitly i think we all got the message (they were pretty clear) that we need to strenghten our testimonies about our prophet. but also we need to strengthen our families. 

our baptismal font...a green little pool hahaha

everyone re-watch richard g scotts talk. he lists 4 things we need to make a priority in our life. daily scripture study, daily prayer, family home evening and the temple. we must do things things with frequencia. if we dont do this we need to get our lives in order. we can worry about the things and the world and about the timing of things ¡to come but firstly we need to get ourselves in order and strengthen our family. guard the family and strengthen yourselves in the gospel together. thats what i got from conference. re-watch it. and also re-watch jorg kjbnsrihc ,idk his last name, but man what a talk. so strong, powerful and straight up talk.

well i dont have much time to do a funny part but im sure i will have planty to tell next week as i will be senior companion to a newby like me. haha wish me luck and i pray that we all can reorganize our lives to put god first! love yall

besitos

hermana sanders

us with the homegirl patri

our neighbors who are wayyyy catholic... 

and like our g parents here

ice cream

con patri

emilse and her granddaughter diarra

blue candy making us blue da ba de da ba dy

the district. next week, elder ortiz who is from
mendoza will make us an asado! haha

hma spies. what a character haha