Hello December

Dear family,
This has been a really fun week. My companion is super fun. She´s a hard worker and always has on a smile. I attached a few pictures of us....hey we get our kicks where we can find them.
Mom, I´m super happy you had a happy birthday. Sounds like a lot of fun. I thought of you on Friday and wondered what you were doing. I should have guessed apple bees. I thought maybe Mexican. Oh, well can´t be right all of the time. Thanks for the email. Thanks for the emails dad and aunt Janie. Dad, great that you´ve got another job, and that you like it. Aunt Janie thanks for filling me in on the ward and all of the changes, I´m pretty sure I won´t even recognize the place when I get back. ;)
So it is really nice to return to my second area. I have some good memories here. It was short only 8 weeks, but almost all of the members remembered me, not my name, but me. So that was pretty cool. I really didn´t think that many would remember, it´s been like 6 months. Oh and the other day we went to see Omar. Hermana Salas and I had taught him all of the lessons before he was baptized and then we got transferred. Hermana Keele was so great and helped him adjust to the change and get baptised. Well I was able to come back for his baptism ç, back in July and haven´t herd much since. Well on Friday we went and paid them a visit....awesome. I think I know what it will be like to reunite with loved ones who have passed on. I walked in and he didn´t really focus on my face, just that it was the missionaries and the I said to his friend Carlos, do you remember me, he nodded and smiled. His wife did too, Carmen is so sweet and she was really happy to see me. Then I got to Omar and asked do you remember me... wow, I wish I had a picture of his face. he said ¡ NO! no me diga. No, way, don´t tell me... yep. he was surprised. His hands flew up and he did a home alone type scream, nooooooo. (but of joy not out of pain, just to clarify that one) It was so sweet. We had a great lesson with them.
So that´s about all I got time for this week. Oh and I got to witness Hermana Sperry´s first proposal, that was entertaining. It was this homeless guy we stopped to talk to and we offered a pray with him and then after he said, ¨Can I tell you something¨ well of course, what? ¨I´m in love with you. tell me... are you married.¨ Oh it was a pretty good one. My comp was like what? you have got to be kidding me. I hope the best for the guy and that he can find a nice Latina to marry.
Okay now that´s about all,
Love you tons!
Aleta

Here we go again 2.0‏

Hello family,
well we had transfers today. It was a little tough to say good bye to Hermana Binks and to Urquiza. 6 months is a long time to have in an area and well there is just a special relationship between trainers and their hijitas. So here I am once again in Vicente Lopez. 2. Yep, that{s right. It seems I have more to do here. So I{m opening the area...again. I guess. So it got split when I was here in May and then they closed it or maybe better said put it back into one area when we got transferred to Urquiza. So I{m here again to split it all over again. It should be fun. My new companion is Hermana Sperry she{s from pleasant grove. This is her 2nd transfer here in Argentina, so I guess I{m still training. Well this last week was fun. Last p-day we went to calle Florida and I bought a lot of souvenirs and things. I had a feeling that I{d be leaving capital and I wanted to take advantage of the easy accessible and cheaper souvenirs. Mom, thus would be the reason of the with drawl from my account. We had a good time. Our awesome investigator Alcides, moved to Chacarita, the zone leaders area. So we aren't able to teach him any more, but they are awesome. Then he told us that he got a new job and had to work on Sundays. Well he wasn't aware that he couldn't get baptized if he didn't go to church. So miracle he called us today and told us he found another, better job, and he only has to work Monday thru Friday! What a miracle. Hermana Binks and I have been praying a full for that.
Well it sounds like you all had a pretty calm Thanksgiving. I{m sure next year will be full of adventures. Dad, that sounds like one good menu. Mom, I thought of you on Friday and wondered if you went shopping. Glad you spent some time with Jennie. Hey Melissa I got your Christmas card today, thanks!!! oh and Christine, I hope you feel better soon, I{m sure your sticking it out, but ouch!
Well that{s about all I got for you. I{m sure next week will be full of fun stories.
Lots of Love,
Aleta
PS. ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!! o como dicen aqui ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡Feliz Cumple¡¡¡¡¡¡¡

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Family and friends,

Thanks for the letters! Jaime, that is so weird to think you have been married a year. Congrats! Oh and speaking of marriages, Congratulations HEIDI! I got the wedding announcement this week when we went to a leadership training meeting and was slightly speechless when I saw your name. You look so happy! I can´t wait to meet up with you again and hear all about it.
Oh and HAPPY THANKSGIVING everyone! I can´t believe it´s on Friday...wait no Thursday. I guess that´s a sign I´ve been a way a while, can´t even remember when national holidays are....well, friday´s the day of the sales , that I remember ;)
So I´m sending home a few pictures of this awesome pen that Hermana Binks and I bought....then it broke, which just made it even more funny. I hope you think so too. hahahahha...it´s funny.
Also sending a picture of cute little Jonas, the chicken pox culprit... in case you´d like to see who i caught them from. I think he´s three.
Oh and this week at our training meeting, all of the sisters had a special meeting about this new pilot program the church is doing about open chapels. It´s like a mini visitors center and is mobile. They set them up in church and have an open house type thing, with a huge cut out of the christus and everything, even the same recording that you here in the temple visitor centers. Pretty cool huh. Well our mission is the ¨test site¨ So we´lll see how it all goes, I hope I get to participate in one before I go home. It is really great and the way they have it set and contact the people is just great. So we´ll see.

This week has been a roller coaster. We have had some great up and some huge downs. I guess that is the way things are though. The down definitely help you see and be grateful for the ups. We have an investigator Alcides, he is amazing and so prepared. It has been a blessing to see him learn and grow. He has had some amazing experiences with the spirit and loves the Book of Mormon. He has been working and living in the same house and as of last week the family moved in that had hired him to remodel. Well it turns out that they told him he had to leave the next day. Well, he had no where to go and doesn´t know anyone here, he´s from Chaco (a province in the northern part of Argentina). So to make a long story short, after much prayer and diligent search on our part, the lord blessed him with a place to stay for the weekend. Unfortunately, he told us yesterday that he didn´t have enough money to stay there any longer and he didn´t know where he was going to go. With tears in his eyes he said, ¨I don´t want to go, I feel God´s love and I want to get baptized in this church.¨ We talked a lot about repentance and a few things that he needs to change in his life, but the spirit was beautiful as it touched his heart and he saw the truthfulness of the gospel and the hope to change for the better. We are going to try and stay in touch with him, we aren´t giving up on him yet, we just aren´t sure where he will be going. He really has been a blessing for us and has helped us learn how to teach by and with the spirit. On another note...
Our district leader called us this week inviting us to look for ways that we could find new investigators. Well Hermana Binks and I prayed and counseled about it and we came up with some great ideas. I know that as we go forth with faith and diligence the lord will bless us with his children who are ready for this good news.
Okay I think that´s enough from me this week, I love you all!
Have a great week and eat A LOT of turkey and potato's for me. They don´t really do the whole turkey thing here, it´s pretty much pig or cow, but it´s delicious :)
Love,
Aleta

Hello

Dear Family,
Hi how´s everyone? Thanks for the emails. Aunt Janie that sounds great! I can´t wait to see the video, good job with the surprise everyone. I have a great mental picture of you seeing Mike there in the doorway. Dad, I´m gonna try the cookies, they sound really yummy I´ll let you know how they turn out. Mom, I´m glad you liked the pictures. It has certainly started to warm up here, sigh. Oh well, I guess I had better enjoy it, since Feb, will be extremely cold when I get there. This has been a week with a lot of walking. We ran out of credit on our cell phone and we don´t get more until the 23rd, so that makes it a little more difficult to set appointments and find members to come with us. Today was a little abnormal as well, we had to go to San Fernando at 8 this morning to do paperwork for Hermana Binks, then we (all of the companions not doing said paperwork for visas and official documents) had to take the train to go to Capital. Well that took forever, then we walked around and looked at a few shops, we walked past the congress building, which is beautiful by the way, and the plaza 25 de Mayo. Then we hooked back up with our comps and well that was that. I had fun though and it´s always nice to get together with the other missionaries.
Our area is doing well, we have an investigator who is fantastic. We can´t find him right now, but he is great. I have never met someone so susceptible to the spirit.
Well sorry it´s short I don´t have too much more to say...I feel like the longer I´m here the shorter my emails become. Sorry about that, I just never remember all the things that I want to tell you when I´m here writing. I hope everything is good and that you have a great week.
Love,
Aleta

15 Months!

Dear family,
Well here we go into another month, I can´t believe I just completed 15 months in the mission. wierd. So they don´t observe daylight savings here, I completely forgot about that. Well, I´m glad you all got an extra hour of sleep! Wow, mom, that sounds like one busy weekend. I hope you had fun with everyone. Thnaks for the pictures you sent a couple of weeks ago, it looks like Calsita is getting really big. I look forward to seeing here just in time for her birthday;) Oh and no, I don´t think any of my packages have ever been opened. Well, that´s not entirely true. This last one was opened, but by Elders in the offices, it seems that my name somehow got lost on the package. It got here and everything, but they couldn´t tell who it was for, so the elders dug in in hopes that something had a name on it inside. Well lucky for me I had a few cards in there, and Aleta´s not that common of a name. So they got it to me. So it might be a good idea to write the name on the actual box as well as the typed address. There was a little note written on one of the inside flaps that said, ¨Looks like a great package, enjoy!¨ So I know somebody opened it
Well that´s all I got time for today,
Love you all Tons!

love,
Aleta

Happy Halloween!!

Dear family,
Well it´s Halloween today, we´ve been eating candy corn all morning! Thanks for that, it´s good, they don´t have anything like it down here. So our plans today are to go the the cemetery in Chacarita and see the sights. When the elders asked if it was something we want ed to do, we were like...really...cemetery. Then we thought about it and remembered it is Halloween and since we can´t really do anything else to celebrate, why not. This cemetery is HUGE, so it should be cool to see all the different types of graves, and tombs, they have a lot of family tombs here and they are always really pretty and cool looking. So that is the plan for today.
Thanks for the PACKAGE!!!! It it fantastic! Mom, I asked Hermana Gulbrandsen about the customs thing and she said they didn´t have any problems receiving it, so the money thing isn´t a problem I guess. So you can send things how you want, don´t worry about me having to pay. I don´t know if that goes for all missions, but that´s what Hermana Gulbrandsen told me. As for Christmas I´ll have to think about it..... Thanks for the cards everybody, they are great. Love the skirt, I´m wearing right now actually.
Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISSY!!!! and a HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAMMIE!!! I hope they are great! I can´t remember if if I wished Brandi Happy birthday, if not Feliz Cumple.... tarde! I can´t believe that tomorrow is November. How time flies. I saw Hermana Vargas yesterday and someone asked her how much time she had in the mission and she said 5 months. That was weird. My hijita has 5 months! I can´t believe that I´ve been with Hermana Binks for 2, it just keeps speeding up. Before you know it I´ll be home and all this will be like a wonderful dream. It´s weird how things like that work. Oh well, así es, and we don´t have to worry about it.
As for this week...
It had it´s ups and down like every other, but the goods always out way the bads. One of the biggest things was our ward missionary activity that we had this weekend. It was a combined activity with Nuñez as well. We went to Parque Saavedra and contacted about 650-700 people. They were all invited to an open house that we had the following day (yesterday) One of the biggest purposes of the activity was to get the members involved and excited. It was great and there was definitely a new excitement in those members who participated. Hermana Binks was great as she knows how to make balloon animals and made several for little kids as we talked with their parents. I think I am going to develop this talent when I come home it is super fun and everyone love it. So Sunday came around and we were very excited for the open house. Well we had five people show up! One was a contact from the park and the others were people that members contacted on the street as they were walking by. One of them is Alcides. He is amazing and he is just as much an answer to my prayers as we are to his.
So things are good here in Urquiza. I love you all lots!
Okay, off to see some graaaaaaveeeeesss. oooooohhhhhoooooo.
Love you,
Aleta

Well, family how is it going?
I´m just peachy as always. Sounds like you all have had a busy week. Mom, thanks for the pictures, Calista is SO cute. Good Job Scott and Betsy. I can´t wait to meet her, I guess that will happen before we know it. Dad, that´s great about the activities thing sounds like a lot of fun. Aunt Janie, I think that some how you manage to be more busy than a full time missionary, and that takes some doin´. :) Jack, thanks for the letter, I can definitely relate with the commute issues. Our area here in Urquiza is huge. It takes about 1 1/2 hours to walk from one end to the other. There are always colectivos (buses) but then you have to wait and you never know when they will come. It´s not an unusual sight to see two very determined missionaries running with all their might to catch a bus, if they miss it....well 20 blocks isn´t really that far to walk...;)
I have a zone conference on Thursday so I hope I´ll get my package then! This was a really good week. We found three new investigators yesterday, all from different sources. One was a contact that Hermana Binks did on Saturday night. She started talking to this guy while we were walking and she invited him to church and he said he´d come. Well they almost always say they´ll come, but don´t actually do it. Well this guy did. he came to sacrament meeting then we taught him a little after church. We have another appointment on Tuesday so we´ll see were that goes. So things are going well here in Villa Urquiza.
Oh, thanks for the updates about Alex. That´s how our lunch schedule has always been. 1 hour for lunch and then if you are hungry for dinner, usually eat something when your finished with planning. The only difference is here in Buenos Aires nobody takes the siesta, most of them are at work. Oh and thank goodness it is not that Hot, I would die!!!! So thanks for putting things in perspective, when I get hot, I´ll just think it could be worse, poor Alex.
Okay that´s all I got for you.
Love you tons,
With all my heart,
Aleta