What a week...

Dear family,
So I´ve been on the fence about whether or not I should tell you about my week last week. I have decided that if I don´t tell you, I will have nothing to say and my email will be shorter than that one last week. So 1st things 1st, I am FINE The thing is well, last Saturday I came down with a fever. No big deal, just a fever, it´s that time of year when people are getting sick. Well Sunday rolled around and still had said fever, okay that´s just annoying. The rule is if you have a fever you have to stay inside, you can´t go out and proselyte. So Monday still had pesky fever and then a dot. followed by two dots, three dots.... as the afternoon went on I noticed a few more.....uh oh..... which is why my email was so short last week , I was feeling slightly under the weather. Well if you are my mother you have probably put the two things together...the dreaded and deadly chicken pox! Yep, that´s right. Don´t worry though I called Hermana Gulbrandsen and she gave me a perscription for this medicine that makes it run it´s course faster and then another one so that it doesn´t itch. Well the first day, yes there was itching, then the medicine started to kick in and it really wasn´t bad at all, I haven´t really paid much attention to them since Wednesday. The only things is that I have to be inside until they all scab over. So all this week and a couple more days in our apartment with limited ways of entertainment has been the most difficult part. The other day I drew a picture and that was fun. I´m fourteen chapters in to Jesus the Christ , oh and Saturday we made balloon animals. Hermana Binks knows how and had all of the stuff, I made a purple bunny. That was super fun.
Okay so LISSY!!!!!!! that is so cool Arizona! There are a lot of great people who are serving from Arizona, not to mention my mission president. So I know that you will love it and that the members will just love you. I know the lord has people prepared for you , or that he had been preparing you for. You´ll LOVE it. promise.
Thanks everyone for your emails. aunt Janie seems like you are having a great time like always. Dad, a book, cool.
Okay that´s all I got. Love you all!!!!
Aleta
PS. I really am OK, I´m not sugar coating it or anything, modern medicine really is a blessing:)

Whirlwind of a week

Dear family,
Well this week has been very busy. We had a our regular district meeting on Wednesday and we went to San Fernando on Tuesday ands Thursday for leadership training meetings, they are so great. We always learn where we need to be better and what it is that we can do. Then that switched up our weekly planning session to Friday so it was a fun meeting filled... good week. This week we have zone conference, so I am looking forward to that as well. It is always so nice to meet together with the other missionaries and learn form them , what they are doing in their areas and how that is helping them.
Thanks so much for the emails. They really are a lift to my week. Jac the dog is super cute, and I can not believe how big Elaina has gotten! Wow. I really have been gone a while. You kind of start to think that time just stands still back home, but then you see a picture and realize that in fact life goes on for everyone. Mom, thanks for the recipe, I hope you have a happy week and can find some joy in all the little things around you. I´m sending a huge hug and kiss from Argentina. Aunt Janie, thanks for all the up dates, sounds like you are super busy but enjoying it, and that´s what matters.
oh hey, que paso? Lissy? did you hear anything?.... You totally need to write me when you do....
Well I am kind of short on words today, sorry. Then again, most of you said the same thing, so maybe it´s something that is going around, some sort of short email syndrome that we have all caught. Hopefully it passes by next week.:)
Lot´s of Love,
Aleta

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