Dec 31, 2012

This week was awesome! Ariel, our investigator was baptized!!!!! He is ADORABLE. His dad is a member and was working with his mom. She loves us, but the church is "boring".

Christmas was awesome. I Loved seeing and talking to you all! Sounds like your Christmas was awesome too. Can you believe 2012 is ending? This last year was the best of my life. I’m a little sad to see it go!

Remember when we were in the part that says campo"field" on the map looking for someone when we saw the snake? Well that someone was the mom of Ariel. We found out that she didn’t have a lot of interest, but Ariel did! And he was baptized yesterday.

Well we have been focusing on asking for referrals from everyone and after asking and contacting, asking and contacting a few times from the family of Ariel we found a lady named Marlen (from Peru of course ha-ha). She told us that she was attending our church weekly for a while and then one day had to move back to Peru for a family emergency. So she left Argentina 3 years ago. Then she said "and I wanted to go back to church but I don’t know where it is".  We said, "when did you get back from Peru?” she said "yesterday". She left Argentina attending, and came back for 1 day and we found her again!! Such a little miracle!

Also this week we had a lot of appointments so we did divisions with members and my companion went to contact the family of a girl who we talked to when we were waiting for the bus one day. She walked up to the house and there were two ladies standing in front that stared at her for a good 15 seconds with weird looks on their faces. So she introduced her self and before she could finish one of the ladies said, "We know who you are. In this VERY second I was saying that I wanted to return to the church, I am a member." She was baptized in Mexico about 15 years ago moved here and lost contact with the church, for 10 YEARS!!!! Its so crazy how the Lord works. Little Christmas miracles!!

Well that’s about all. Check out my awesome tan lines from the picture I sent. WE GOT BIKES THIS WEEK!!! I am sure there will be lots of future stories. My district leader said they had 6 people on 2 bikes the other day.   2 elders, 2 members 2 investigators....I don’t know how. Well see what happens this coming week with our bikes! I love you all HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE!!!

Besitos, Hermana Marchant

My old companion Hermana Malhue, and my new Hermana Hualpa.. from chile!!! 

Some of the other hermanas on Christmas eve

The biggest mate ever invented!!

The saddest sickest dog in argentina!!!

My awesome tan lines. ITS SOOO HOT

Baptism of Ariel, HOW CUTE IS IT!!! when we was done he started swimming hahaha everyone was laughing so hard!

Fake snow that we made on christmas day!!!

Dec. 10, 2012

Hola!!

First things first, I got transferred!! I am now in an area called Tigre. It’s beautiful. The view from our apartment is AWESOME. I’ll take pictures (I found my chord to send pics).  We have an island in our area, river, the train station (it will be cheap to go to meetings now!!) and its HUGE. Our apartment over looks a park and the river. I AM IN LOVE. I think I´ve been blessed with the best areas and companion in my mission.

I am with the Hermana Hualpe (I think. I´ve already asked her 300 times what her name is and I keep forgetting so I can´t ask again. Ha-ha) She is from Chile too. Just like the last comp, and the one before ha-ha I think I speak Chilean Spanish better then argentine!

Leaving Hermana Malhue after 4 1/2 months together was SOOO HARD. She is one of my best friends ever. This is her last transfer, and I don’t know when ill see her again when she goes back home to Chile. SADDD. But that’s the mission!

Remember Melissa? The recent convert from Spain? Well she is going to Spain for Christmas and needed somewhere to keep all her things while she was gone, so she called the Bishop and asked if she could keep them at the church, he obviously said no. She got extremely, extremely mad and decided to not participate in the church. Well not only that but she called Edison (the recent convert that just got the priesthood last week) and told him a bunch of stuff (who knows what) and he also has decided not to participate. IT’S SO HARD TO SEE THEM FALL. They were in the conversion process and Satan found them early.

We tried to have a lesson with him yesterday but he wouldn’t talk/listen. It was sad. But I know he will return to church. My companion stayed in the area and she’s awesome so she will help them!

As for Tigre, I’ve heard a lot of good things! I’m excited to be here and I love the mission. Christmas is so soon. How lucky are we have to the truth in our lives. There is nowhere else I’d rather be them here in Argentina right now at this time of year, preaching what I know is true. Thanks for you prayers and love!!! oxoxoxox

Love

Hermana Marchant

Dec. 3, 2012

Nov 26, 2012

Hey!! Sounds like thanksgiving went well!! So this was the first year I didn´t celebrate Thanksgiving...weird!!! But I did think about what I’m grateful for:

 for my awesome mission; and

I really think were the most blessed family in the whole world. Really!

Edison was confirmed a member yesterday and the ward LOVES him! I know you want pictures I keep forgetting my cord.

I love you all!! Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Marchant

Nov. 19, 2012

HI!! So we got a text last night from our zone leaders that there are going to be protests in the whole country on Tuesday, so we can`t leave our houses at all tomorrow, so today in stead of tomorrow is Pday (expect this morning to buy food and email because we cant leave our houses tomorrow) So time is really limited today!

This week was awesome!! First of all, Edison, an investigator got baptized yesterday! It was beautiful. We got a new ward mission leader that actually helps us!! Melissa (our recent convert that got baptized about 2 weeks ago) said the prayer in the baptism of Edison, and right before she went to say it she said this is my first participation in the church!!!!! I have to remember it and clapped her hands like a little girl. Ha-ha

This week was really awesome for growth! I saw huge growth in investigators, members helping, my Spanish. everything! It was awesome. When we teach Edison, we have to go to member’s houses because he is only 26 years old and lives with 2 roommates so we cant go into his house. So after the lessons we always have to walk really far (because the member that has us over to teach lives across town) So one day this week we taught and we were walking back and talking briefly about the Sabbath day, we didn’t even teach it well because we had plans to teach it the next day, but it came up in conversation. I think either my companion or me said something like we don’t buy things on Sundays and briefly explained why and that was all. But then the next day we all met up and he said "hey guess what? "I asked for Sundays off at work with out us even committing him to do it, or bringing up the idea or anything. He is so awesome! He is the definition of repentance. He had committed almost every sin, and almost each point of question 4, but completely changed his life.

I LOVE THE MISSION. Witnessing things like that make it all worth it. Also Melissa (the chica from Spain) wanted to finish her tattoos and asked our opinions because she just got baptized ha-ha so obviously we told her what the prophets have said and told her to pray. The next day we went to her house and she said “LOOK. I found something in the book of Mormon then flipped open her book to Jacob 7 and in one of the verses is talking about doing Gods will not ours”.  And she said "and I know that its Gods will that I don’t get more tattoos, but its my will that I do”. “But I know the truth and I know that I need to do his will and if I don’t, I will be condemned. So I’m not going to get more!!!!” How awesome!!

I told her to look for you on FB Alex. She said she found you. She now calls her self Hermana Marchant too because she wants to marry you! Ha-ha that’s actually a huge step. The first few times she came to church she left right before Relief Society because she DID NOT want to get married...ever. And that’s all they talk about in Relief Society hahaha. And now she wants to get married to Alex! The gospel is changing her!!!! We finally have running water, elevators, and A MISSION LEADER.... couldn’t ask for anything more! I love you all!

Love, Hermana Marchant 1 (Melissa is 2)

Nov 12, 2012

This week was...awesome! Like always! Well besides the fact that the elevators broke, and are still broken (we live on the tenth floor) and we didn´t have any source of water either! The day the elevators broke was the same day as Zone Conference. At Z.C. we got a huge box of Books of Mormon, and little booklets too that explain the lessons, and other random books and DVDs. So knowing that it would be heavy and that we will have to travel, we took an empty suitcase so that we would be able to get it all home. Well when we walk in our neighbor tells us that the elevators are broken. With a suitcase at least 65 or 70 pounds (literally) we start to walk up the stairs. Some random guy saw us suffering and asked if we wanted help. We said YES. Well he started to try and almost couldn’t lift it but managed to lift it enough. After about 2 flights he started to fall and sweat and die ha-ha. After about 20 minutes we got it up there and he said ¨WHAT IS IN THIS¨´ we told him it is full of the best book ever, and gave him one. Right when he realized who and what we are he walked away fast ha-ha but at least he accepted the BOM!

 Remember how in the last letter I said something about our memories being horrible? Well it just so happened that we.... ok not we, I (it was my fault) left the keys inside the house and didn´t realized until we went down all 10 flights of stairs and couldn’t leave the building because we didn’t have keys! Ha-ha so we had to go back up 10 flights of stairs to see if by any chance the door was open, and no it was closed. Well long story short we had to go up and down like 500 times this day and had to pay a bunch of money to some key guy to break in for us! Ha-ha I always said ´´lets take the stairs as a half joke to my companion and she always said no´´ this week this wish came true so many times it’s not even funny!!! Almost every day we forget something and have to go back up. Now we name the list of things that we need before we leave, were doing better! We finally have water again! No elevators is ok, I can handle that, its exercise! But no water. That ones hard! I think one of the biggest things I´ve learned on my mission is How to laugh when I want to cry!!

Yesterday we had stake conference and they talked how the Lord sends the missionaries in the lives of people when it’s the worse hardest point in their lives. And how we all have friends that are suffering for one thing or another, introduce them to the missionaries. And also to look for the blessings in times of sufferings in our own lives. It was good! So that’s my invitation, whom do you know that is suffering that’s not a member? Send the missionaries! I love you all tons. I hope your week is full of missionary experiences!!

Love,

Hermana Marchant