Hi :)

Dear family,
Well this has been a good week. It´s always a little rocky at start of a new transfer getting to know your new companion, but luckily mine is awesome. Hermana Binks is super sweet. She is from the US and is really excited to be here. She speaks really well, way better than I remember speaking. I don´t know maybe it was the same, but you just feel like you don´t know anything. She understands a lot though and I can tell that this is going to be a great transfer. We have plans to go to the Japanese gardens with our district today so that should be fun, nice to see some sort of nature here in the city :)
Thanks so much for all of your emails today! I am really feeling the love, nice to know that people still remember over there. Brother Bingham thanks for the photos, they are great, and I can´t believe how grown up all of the young men are! Its´s amazing how much people can change in just a year.
Lissy, super excited for you! I remember that feeling, just waiting until the mail comes. It´s a killer, but then it comes and I had to wait another 3 months to leave, so if nothing else you´ll learn some patience :) I am excited to here where you go.
Christine, wow Disneyland. That´s awesome. Thanks for the up dates, I was just talking about you last night and our opinions of the twilight movies. Jac I hope everything goes well with the move. Thanks Dad, Brother Chatt, Matt C. and Aunt Janie for your letters.
AS for me here, well things are pretty tranquilo (calm). We had a really great lesson yesterday with an investigator. Well she´s been an investigator for a while and she come to church every week. She really likes it, but when I brought up the whole topic of baptism she just kept saying that she has a lot of fear. Well we got to talking and turns out that she isn´t keeping a few commandments and has fear that she won´t be able too. Okay, so we made some good goals to help her out with that. It truly is amazing how Satan gets his grip on us and will use every way he can to keep us down. We have just got to find the strength to break free. Sometimes it is difficult and it starts a little by little doing the things that the lord asks us. He knows that it is by doing these things that the powers of Satan can be shaken and that´s the whole reason that we have to do them in the first place. Just something I´d been thinking about this week.
So it´s super cool that you are all part of this test/launch of I am a Mormon. I hope it fun and I know it´s an inspired program. I have seen a few of the clips on Mormon.org and they are really interesting. There is such a great spirit that one can feel from them. Okay
don´t have too much more to say. Love you all tons!
Aleta

Round two....

Well here we go again....
So Thursday we were planning for this week, as usual, and I got a phone call from one of the assistants saying that I was invited to a special meeting on Friday at Presidents house and that I need to be there at 10.00am and bring something to take notes. That was it. Sometimes I feel like they like being cryptic and leaving us in the dark. Okay, so my companion and I were like, huh? weird, special meeting? Oh well, we´ll go and see what it is all about. So Friday morning comes along and we head over to the mission home and we walk in and there are a lot of other missionaries there, but I was having a hard time finding something in common, for what reason we were there. Well, then we get started with the meeting and the first words out if presidents mouth were, ¨welcome, all of you who are senior companions as of Monday will be trainers.¨ You should have seen my face. my companion just turned and smiled this slightly evil smile, like ha ha told you so. It was a surprise to us all. Well so here we go again. I am with the Hermanas in Nuñez today and my companion will get here tomorrow. I don´t know if she is Latina or north American, so you´ll have to wait ´till next week to find out. Oh and the Hermana Vargas, she went to ..... Tigre! Well, I talk about tigre all the time so she is really excited to be there. I´m sad to see her go, but she´s all grown up now, time to get out on her own and learn new things. So this week will be full of excitement I´m sure and I´ll have tons of things to tell you next week.

oh and happy birthday day Dad and Congrats Isaac.

lots of love,
Aleta

Spring!!!!

Dear family,

Well I am happy to say that it is quiet lovely outside today. ¨Spring, Spring, Spring, all at once one day it´s spring!¨ Well, I´m not sure, I hope so, I am farly sure that the cold, really cold weather is gone. That´s good. I am not looking forward to summer though, I´m happy with spring. Let´s face it summer here, hot doesn´t describe it. It´s okay though I don´t have to worry about that for quite a while yet!

Okay so thanks for teh emails! Barbara sounds like everything is just great. I´m so happy for you, I´m gonna miss the kids, but it´s an excuse to come visit :) Tell them all I say hi when you see ´em. Dad, I really like the poem, it´s cute and happy, my kind of poem. Mom, sorry I forgot to mention the painting, there are always so many things go through my mind that there are always one or two that escape. Aunt Janie, thanks for the up-dates, I always love reading them. Jac thanks for your letter. Oh and Melissa Marie Chord.....Why am I just now hearing about this.....(insert picture of me tapping my foot with my hands on my hips).. hmmmmmmm, and yeah! I am super happy for you. I´ll try and write you a letter, but it might not happen ´till next week, I´m slightly short on time, like always ;)

Oh and the zoo was a lot of fun last week. There are a lot of animals to see, they have a turtle here that is huge, huge, like the size of a , well I can´t think of something that´s the same size, but it´s big. This week was great. We found some new investigators and are finally get some where with the others: One of our investigators is a former investigator, but didn´t feel like she has an answer to the question, is it all true? She also feels like if it is she won´t be able to follow through and keep all of the commandments. Well my companion and I have really been trying to figure out who could help her with that and this member came with us to the lesson. We also have been studying a lot for her and the other day we got the impression that we should share the story about Joseph Smith and the 116 pages of the book of Mormon. Well that´s not usually one I go about sharing with the investigators, but I could see how she could relate to the story so that´s what we taught. It was great she really felt like we were there to help her and that we weren´t just trying to get her in the water. After the lesson Hermana Vargas said that she just felt great that the spirit was really strong and that she felt it differently than in other lessons. I got to thinking about that and said that when we seek the lords help diligently and then follow through with it he will always be there to testify of what we said, because he gave us the words in the first place. We talked a lot about how she could see the difference between teaching people and teaching lessons and we both prefer the former. So we are really learning a lot. Hermana Vargas is just wonderful. Okay, that´s all I got.

Lot´s of love,

Aleta

August....can´t make up it´s mind‏

Dear family,
Well this was a good week. The weather this week has been up and down, last week it was really nice and I actually went out a couple of days with just a sweater. Well then the wind came up and the temp. dropped. My poor companion, she´s not used to it, Guatemala is warm all the time. Did you know that they don´t have fall or spring, just winter and summer. I remember Hermana Peña was super excited when the leaves were changing because that doesn´t happen in her house. Well the same with Hermana Vargas. She looked like a little penguin the other day with all those layers on and the long black coat and white scarf. It was pretty funny, she´s a good sport about it all.
Thanks for the letters. Jac, I knew your motivation must have been something like that...food. ;) Mom, WOW, sounds like you are doing a tons around there. I don´t think I´m gonna recognize the place when I come home. Oh and thanks for the letter about Grandma, if I remember correctly she wrote that for me when I was taking psychology in high school and had to do that big project about all the stages of my life. remember that? Well it should be in my room, in the book case by my bed, it´s in a rose colored scrap book if you want to brush up on my life. :) Okay, once again I don´t have a lot of time, we are going to the zoo today! It´s a holiday here and the zoo is open, so, we´ve got to take advantage. Oh, thanks Aunt Janie, dad, (loved the poem), and Matt c. for your letters! Here´s what on my mind today....We have really started to see the lords hand in answering our prayers. We have been finding people through visiting members and less active members, we have a few set appointments for this week and we are excited to meet them and teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today I was reading in Acts 8. I have never really paid much attention to this chapter before, but I love it. It talks about when Phillip goes to preach and the lord tells him in a dream to go to a certain place to the south. So he goes. On his way he comes across a guy, that is reading scriptures from Isaiah. So the spirit says go talk to that guy. So he does, but he doesn´t just walk over there, no no, he runs. He asks him what he´s reading and asks if he understands it. The guy says no, he needs help to understand. Well at this point, Philip, who has been listening to the spirit (and in an earlier chapter says that he is full of the spirit) and following the direction opens his mouth and testifies that Jesus is the Christ and that these scriptures are talking about him. The guy then asks what is keeping him from being baptized and Philip says, if you believe with all your heart, nothing. So the guy stops his chariot and goes down into the water right then and there. Wow. I love this example of trusting in the Lord and that in fact if we continue with faith and are constantly looking and asking to find the people who are prepared to receive the Gospel he will lead us to them. We have that promise all we have to do is remember that and act. So that is our plan here in Urquiza, I love it.

it´s me again....

Hello family,

it´s me again....just thought that i would drop you a little note, like I do every week, just so you don´t all forget me. Thanks so very much for the emails! Betsy, sounds like things are going great for you three, I can´t wait to see Calista in person, she looks so cute and I´m sure you are just the best mom. Thanks for the up dates, I hope everything works out with the house.

Aunt Janie sounds like you are really starting to see a lot of blessings I´m so happy for you. Mom, so you hacked off all your hair huh? Picture please. Oh and mom, Uncle Brian isn´t on the email list, could you add him for me, I´m not really sure who all gets the emails, but he´d like to. Well, sounds like everyone has had a pretty busy and fun filled week up there. The weather here is finally starting to warm up. The other day we had a pretty nice thunder storm, luckily we were inside studying and we just happened to be houses every time it poured. That was a nice tender mercy. In other parts of the Buenos Aires there was flooding and even hail, don´t worry here in Urquiza it was all calm and boring as usual. ;) Oh, we had interviews with President this week, so we all headed to the mission home, that was a nice treat since we usually have them in the stake center. The meeting was really good and we learned a lot. President and Sister Gulbrandsen are so great. Oh and last week we went to the ¨centro¨ down town Buenos Aires, and we went to the Obelisk and calle Florida, calle Florida, is a famous street with tons of stuff, it was really fun. Unfortunately we had to leave before they went to the armory museum, since we have to travel about an hour to get there and an hour back. Lame, but I did get a photo of knights armor, before we headed out :) A ver....que mas....ummmm....Oh we have this great convert, Carlos, he is so sweet, we went to his house the other day for a lesson and he made ¨mazamora morada¨ it´s super yummy, it´s from Peru, as is he. Okay well...

This was a good week. We are starting to see some progress here in Urquiza. I love the area and the members are great. Our Zone leaders are fantastic and have really been helping us by verifying with us everyday. I am starting to see that it is really true that as humans we are naturally lazy and when we have someone there to help us, we have a lot more success. It is really true. The thing now is to remember that even if they don´t call I am still always accountable to God. It goes back to the parable about the servants who are working those that he finds working when he comes he rewards and those who are just waiting to work until he comes back are not rewarded. I love that we have the scriptures to remind us of all these things so that we can receive that reward of eternal life that is promised us by our Savior.
This last week we had so many set appointments and members to accompany us that I was super excited, then one by one almost all of them fell through, two days in a row. It is so interesting that always, just like we tell the investigators, that when things start to turn around something comes up to test you, to see how committed you really are in succeeding. Well, I am committed and we will succeed with the Lord´s work here in Urquiza. Things are good and we are happy. Hermana Vargas is fantastic and she teaches me so much everyday. She´s a powerful missionary and I know the Lord has a lot for her to do here in Argentina. Okay that´s about all I got... love you all!!!!!!!!!

lot´s of love,

Aleta

Cumpli un año.......

Dear Family,

How are you? It was great to hear from you this week, your letters were all great, every one brought a huge smile to my face. I am so glad that everything went well with the arts festival. I am looking forward to being right beside you next year. Well, maybe not all the time, we know that I like to be in a different part too, anyway, I´m glad that you all had fun and everything went well. Sounds like church was great yesterday for everyone! I´m glad to hear it. Wow, I it´s been a long time since I went to a break the fast, but then again, I do get delicious lunch everyday. The members here are very generous and they loving having the missionaries in their homes. Oh, and yesterday the sister that we ate with made this delicious apple tort thing, I´m not really sure what it´s called, but I know how to make it mwahawahah. See, I am making sure that I am learning the most important things while in Argentina ;) food. Okay, okay, I´m learning more than that don´t worry. This week for example I have been learning more about patience.... a subject that we all love. Well, we have really been searching for the people here in Urquiza that the Lord is preparing at this time to learn about the gospel. There are days that seem forever long as we go from one appointment to another and no one is home. Then there are those days when you are literally running to get everything done. I guess that just fits into the plan, there must be opposition in all things, right?

Well okay, I´ve got to cut this short, we are getting together with our district today, I have no idea what we are doing, but it should be fun. They called last night and invited us, so we are looking forward to having some fun!

Okay got to run, love you,

Aleta

Agosto? when did that happen‏

Dear family,

How is everyone doing? Sounds like you all had very busy weeks. Christine!!!! it was great to hear from you! I´m looking forward to when we can enjoy those movies, seems like a long way away, but I´m pretty sure it will be here before we know it.  Thanks Aunt Janie, Jac_, dad, and mom for your letters. They were all great. I m looking forward to hearing about Shaun´s wedding........ pictures would be nice.....(wink wink, nudge, nudge) :) Oh and mom, no no, don´t worry that was only 9 PESOS, it´s about $2.25. That is one of the reasons I´m not so keen on hand writing letters, that can get expensive if you make a habit of it. I guess you´ll just have to wait another 7 months ´till I come home to hear all about my adventures in details.

I´m glad you liked the pictures, I like the punk band comment, it is true, maybe when we come home Hermana Gillum and I will get on that, sounds like a good idea, well a fun idea anyway.

Okay, okay lets see what have i been up too....

 We have contacted a lot of former investigators who have some interest. We have scheduled a few lessons for this week and hope that this will help find more people to teach. I have really seen this week that planning is starting to pay off, we didn´t have anyone in church, but they are all warming up to the idea. We have a lot of things planned this week to help them. There are 6 new ward missionaries here in Urquiza and we had a meeting last week, they are all really excited to be involved, two of them are preparing for a mission. They took it upon themselves to go out and visit the recent converts yesterday. It is great that they want to help strengthen the members here, it´s good because these are the people who will be in the lives of the new members, we as missionaries are just travelers helping them find the right road home, but it is the ward and their new family that will, in the end, help them stay on the road.
I am really excited to contact a few people that we contacted in the street last week, they seem really great. I am starting to see, that even though I can´t see the answers to prayers in the moment, they always come, all of it is according to our faith. I was reading today in Ether. Moroni talks a lot about miracles and how they all come after we show our faith, well it was a confirmation of something that I knew, but with a new meaning, a new application. I am pumped and ready for this next week. We are pulling out all the stops and going full force ahead.

Okay that´s all I got for you this week, I hope you all are happy and have a great week,

love,

Aleta

 

PS. weird to think that last year today, I left home on this great adventure, time really does fly!!!