Hola!

Can you guys believe it? Another week has come and gone. Well luckily for us, no horrible disasters like running out of water or anything of that sorts happened this week, BUT all of our investigators with baptism dates got canceled or moved back. And the rest of our progressing investigators are not progressing anymore. Lame. But it's ok were staying positive and trying to work hard! 

We had the cutest little girl Jesi with a date of this past Saturday, but she wanted her dad to baptize her...understandable, but he had been less active for years so he had to have a interview with the Bishop and he has to wait a few months now to be worthy. So were not sure what were going to do. We asked their family to pray about it and decided if they are going to wait for the 3 months or have someone else do it, but she got really emotional about it and really really really wants her dad to. So we will find out tonight what they decided. She is the cutest ever though. She acts so much older than 9 years old. We were teaching her the other day and Hna. Gillum asked her parents what they wanted for Jesi and how they feel about her and they said the usual "Í love her and want whets best for her and want what makes her happy" and she started crying.  So Hna Gillum asked how she felt about her parents and she was crying talking about how much she loves them, but she is kind of timid and shy so she would just say a few words, but you can tell she is very spiritual. It's cute. She kept forgetting to pray at night so I made her a Prayer Rock out of this random cool piece of tile I found one of my first days here. It´s a really cool pink color and a really cool shape. I found it just in the road somewhere, and had it on my desk, and when she said she couldn't remember to pray I told her I have a present and I'll bring it next time. I had these silver sparkly stickers that Lizzie sent to me in the MTC so I put Orar (pray) on it. She loved it! I have pictures ill send either this week or next.

Ok and then our second investigator Nacho he is about 24 years old. He was extremely excited because he got his answer about the BOM and couldn't wait to join and wanted to serve a mission and we thought he was golden.  He told us he had 2 dreams of him teaching the youth of this church in the future and all this stuff, and then the next time we meet with him he's saying "my pastor told me I need to wait, I don't know if I want to do this. I need time" etc.   Then there was drama because he only wanted to be taught by the sister missionaries but he lives in the Elder's area.  So were not sure what's happening with him anymore. Regardless though our leaders said we can teach him at the church but since he lives in the Elders area when he gets baptized it will go to the Elders...so that's all that matters anyway, salvation..Not numbers.

And our third investigator with a date, Emiliano. He is living with a member of the church and in order to get baptized they have to be married and in order for her to repent they also need to be married.  So we had a date for the wedding and then baptism, but now they are not coming to church and not answering out calls. So it's kind of a bummer, but now were working hard with the few investigators we have.  Other than that we're asking for references and street contacting as much as possible. Our whole district and zone´s number were down this week so were working together to get them back up!! I´m sure this week will be more successful!

I've decided that as a kid growing up in Argentina would be the best ever. All day everyday you get to be dirty. That's like a  child's dream. They just play in the dirt outside all day long.  I feel like I'm constantly thinking ´´where are the parents?´´ and ´´shouldn't you be in bed?´´ ha-ha.  W then when they are old enough they all play barefoot soccer for hours. The other day we were walking home and all the sudden, 10 little kids from age 4 to age 9 run up to us and they are like ¨WHERE ARE YOU FROM´´ we said the United States and they all started screaming at once and one of them goes "DO YOU KNOW JUSTIN BIEBER?" ha-ha.  We laughed and said yes and then they started yelling all these people WHAT ABOUT MILEY CYRUS, ZAC EFRON etc. we said yes yes yes and then they said,  dead serious, not one bit of kidding CAN I COME LIVE WITH YOU?   We told them we were kidding and we don't know all those people and the still wanted to live with us. Instead of hugs here everyone kisses on the cheek so they all kissed us on the cheek and ran back to their soccer game. They are so cute. Argentine kids win for cutest looking. My bike broke AGAIN the other day and one of those little boys ran up and stopped me and said LET ME HELP.  Then did something crazy and fast and fixed my bike in less than 30 seconds wiped his hands on his shirt kissed my cheek and ran away. Ha-ha I love the kids here! The whole time I was thinking "were in the middle of nowhere...where are your parents?". Well Thanks everyone for your prayers and love and support! I miss you all! Have an awesome week! Xoxo

Hermana Marchant

Hello everyone!!

This week it really hit me....I AM HERE. Wow. It has been nothing but an adventure from day one. Something disastrous and crazy happens every day!! Where to even start? Well the little girl I told you all about last week, from the less active family- The Enrique family. She is getting baptized!!!!! They are so awesome. They came to church and are ready to start over. I know they are in it for life now. They are so strong. It was actually a funny story how she committed. So we were planning our lesson for her and my companion Hermana Gillum told me to take the lead and invite her to be baptized...so I practiced the commitment in Spanish ALL MORNING: ´´Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?´´   Nervous, but excited we go over deliver the lesson and when it was time for me to say the commitment ´´someone´´ (alguien) and ´´who´´ (quien) are kind of similar words in Spanish...keep that in mind. Anyway I said: will you follow the example of JC and be baptized(then I forgot what was next because I was nervous so I said) Por quien (by who) instead of Por alguien (by someone) and I knew that the last word was wrong so I said the last word in a question on accident.   Ha-ha, then froze because I realized I messed that up so badly.  My companion took over and re-asked and finish the whole commitment.  We walked out of the lesson and just started cracking up.  Will you follow the example of JC and be baptized....by whom? Is what I said. It was embarrassing! I´ve realized that it's hard to tell funny stories through email, they are all better in person.  Just imagine, I'm there acting it out for you all!

Well anyway her date was for the 28th, but now there is all this confusion because her dad wants to baptize her but doesn't know how long it will be since he was less active for so many years.  She wants him too but the dad is trying to talk her into just doing it sooner and not waiting for him because he knows it's not right to make her wait, so it's really hard and the bishop doesn't like us baptizing this much with all the people we have committed because he is afraid they are going to fall away.  So it's all crazy right now!! But our ward is amazing the bishop and his counselors are the best ever. They all make fun of my Spanish and if you're Latin and serve a mission the church wants you to learn English.  So they all know a kind of a lot of English so they will say things but it's with such a accent I can almost get more of what they are trying to say in Spanish than English...sometimes lol.

One of the counselors Hermano Garcia is so awesome. His family and he are my favorite family here so far. They have us over for lunch every Sunday and the rest of the ward wasn't feeding us but they were feeding the elders.  So Hmo Garcia showed us like 3 chapters in the bible and BOM about servants of the Lord asking for food and how the ward needs to feed us because they get blessings from sacrificing food for servants of the Lord and stuff. He did it all in a joking way, but it was a good lesson. We need to ask and be more up front. I just feel so bad because these people are living in shacks with dirt floors and no car and half a ceiling and to ask them to feed us just seems wrong.  But Hmo Garcia who lives in a house just like that was saying that each times he feeds us they´re week is blessed in every way and the members know that...so lesson learned!!

We have one other investigator committed too his name is Nacho. He is awesome. He is about 26 and super open minded. He got an answer about the Book of Mormon this morning and sent us this crazy excited text message ha-ha.  His bap. date is 3 weeks from yesterday. I'm excited!! People are pretty open minded here.  Its nuts, they say no at first to everything like ´´Can we talk to you for a minute, we're missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ´´ ´´no, I'm catholic, thanks.´´ ´´Its very important and its of love and happiness´´ ´´ok come on in´´ you just have to try twice and usually after that they are receptive! But back in the United States...people are not that open minded.

Our water stopped working for 2 days this week and the thought of getting into bed after 24 hours of sweating and walking and riding bikes was not an option... so our creative selves went outside and starting looking for anything to help us. We came up with 2 ideas: the ghetto 2 foot pool our landlord (she lives right next door and we share a yard) has, or a hose. The pool is breaking the rules so we decided hose.  We dragged the hose into our house and put it in our shower and turned it on and then alllllll this mystery black 3 inch chunks starting pouring out. So we turned it off really quick and started to panic...I have never wanted to shower so badly in my life. We threw the hose back in the yard and went to option two the pool to see if we could just use the water without getting in so we didn't break any rules. We open the cover to the pool and look down and the water is BROWN. we close it and laugh and start brainstorming...we go back to option one...the hose. we finally find this other lid thing on the spout part that just let water out and decided to put our work out clothes on and wash off outside.  The thought of the water running through that mystery black hose was nothing compared to how gross and dirty I felt...we were desperate!!  Well now we have water in our house...BUT it's not clean water its public water from ´´the street´´ or something...who knows. all I know is that it's not purified at all and it will be a month until it is fixed with regular water, but we can shower in it, and it's Clear. That's all I ask.

So we had to to stop feeding all the dogs, we have no money as missionaries and each day I would feel worse and worse because I couldn't feed the next dog that was watching me feed the other ones because I ran out. So I was taking more and more food each day and then finally I realized that I was sacrificing my food for these dogs and I was hungry.  So I got my priorities back in order.

Our bikes broke again and again...each day. it's probably the dirt roads with glass, trash, cement chunks, rocks, and dead dogs all over them.  These cheap bikes were not meant for the wear and tear, and distance we put them through.  Well, so much happens every week that I can´t type it all in a letter. we have tons of investigators, The spirit is awesome.   I got pepper sprayed in the face by accident because Hermana Gillum likes to play with the pepper spray.  My legs have over 20 bug bites, I fell on my bike on a main road and Hma. Gillum told the whole ward that story yesterday at church!  Tthe people are really nice..after they break their stare at my hair color.  My companion and I get along really well, teach really well, and laugh a lot together!! I love you all tons and miss you like crazy! xoxo

Ok!! Hello family and friends! My first week in Argentina. Well I don´t even know where to start. It is soooooooo different here. It's AMAZING, but different. We have more time out here in the field for emailing, but were going to play soccer with our district in a few minutes, so again I am rushed!! Ok to start: on our way down here I got on the plane from Atlanta to Argentina (right after I talked to you all) and I couldn't understand ANYTHING... I started to freak out...a little bit....ok a lot. And then I remembered something I had read in Preach My Gospel which was -don't give into discouragement- I then thought why not give into it...I'm allowed to be scared and sad once in a while and then I remembered the next sentence that says -because it is giving into Satan- the words I'm sure were better placed and everything, but that's the jest so I decided to tune out the incomprehensible language and remain calm. I did and since then I have only started to freak out like twice!! Ha-ha but freak out in a good way, and I have realized that when I'm feeling the overwhelming or everything, once we start talking to people and the spirit gets really strong none of that matters. The bugs, the sweat the Spanish...everything. The only that that matters right then is those people and the spirit

 So many crazy things have happened this week...first of all my companions name is Hermana Gillum she is from St George. She´s amazing we love each other. She looks like Selina Gomez but prettier! Were both have a lot in common, we have fun! She goes home in 2 transfers. Ok so were in San Ignacio (look it up n Google maps...don't freak out mom, we have two tall locked gates to get to our house...were safe, promise) but it is kinda ghetto. Ok really ghetto. But the people are SO nice and SOO HUMBLE. I think that's my favorite thing about Argentina is that no one cares what you look like or who you are or what your wearing. They are so humble. every time I try to say anything they look at my companion to clarify ha-ha to me I sound just like them but I guess my accent is really bad!! Ha-ha oh well... all in good time. I can understand ALOT more then I could the first few days, but still it's not a lot.

In church yesterday the teacher told a story of one of the church leaders when she was growing up who was very very very strong in the church has no fallen away and she went to his house for the first time in a long time and the daughter answered, so she asked the little girl if her parents were there and if she could talk to them and she daughter said they weren't home. so she started asking the little girl what she knows about god and everything and the little girl didn't know anything (she is 9 years old) she was so sad that this family who was once so strong had completely fallen away. So anyway, after church Hna Gillum and I decided to go visit them. They got us Tang to drink (because they are stuck in the late 80´s early 90´s here in Argentina) and we started talking, I didn't say much because I couldn't understand much, but the spirit was so strong, almost stronger then I have ever felt it before in my life and then I bore testimony of what Hna Gillum had been saying and stuttered out some other words in my broken Spanish, and then they started to cry. They said my words were so strong and they committed to come back to church. We're going to commit that little girl to baptism tonight! It was my favorite thing that´s happened. I will never forget that experience! Its little things like that that makes all the negative things not matter.

Ok so crazy story. Were opening a new area. They havn´t had missionary here in years. Plus hna gillum is training me, plus the area is HUGE HUGE HUGE. So finally after days of walking miles they told us we can get bikes. So we wake up excited, get ready do our studies and head for the bank to get the money out... well that bank didn't have money in the ATM so we have to go all the way downtown to Centro. so we do we get there it takes 30 minutes then we get money out and start looking for a bike store to buy helmets and lights etc. because where the bikes are that were going to buy (the store by our house) they don't have helmets and stuff. So we look for another 45 minutes finally find it...its closed for Siesta. Get annoyed go get lunch and get back on the bus to go to our town to buy the bikes. We get back after another 30 minutes go to the bike store. It's also closed for siesta. get annoyed, decided to go contact referrals, thought a lesson go back get the bikes get the helmets at another store get on a our way. It took alllll day. so we laugh it off and go contact for a little bit have to go home, get lost going home because our area is HUGE, get home decorate our bikes with Jesus stickers so that they don't get stolen..Literally Jesus is ALL OVER these bikes. We call them our CristoCruisers, anyway then we went to sleep. The next morning we wake up have an amazing day planed because we were behind from yesterday because the bikes took so long. Get out and start working, get lost. Ask these people where we are find out where in the ghetto way outside our area like 15 little old ladies tell us to get out of there because we stick out especially me and its super dangerous. So we FINALLY get back in our area, but still in the dangerous ghetto and then..............MY BIKE BREAKS. so we pull over and all the people are walking and driving by yelling RUBIO RUBIO (which his like blonde blonde) so we are super scared. We call our district leaders...no answer call our zone leaders no answer. Finally call the other elders in our area they answer and say they are sending their Cop friend that they are with. So he finally gets there in this little red car and is taking his time putting our bikes in it and then the plan was to take us home drop of our bikes then we will walk. We ask how his day is going and he said -good I'm baptizing my daughter today- we are all excited for him and ask what time he is doing it and he says -4- I look at my watch and ITS 4:20.... We start freaking out telling his he needs to go we can walk with our bikes he says No like 100 times and insists he takes us home. Why did the elders send him?? Of all people! Ha-ha. So finally... (We get lost again.) We get home and he goes to the baptism and we get annoyed of our bikes and had a crazy crazy 2 days. My companion said get used to it. The mission is full of them. Ha-ha I was so stressed. (Dad spell check and change words so that that all goes together I don't have time thanks!)

Everyone stares at me. Men women children dogs...everyone, because I'm blonde. And then when I talk they just stare for a second and then look to my companion for help ha-ha. She has gotten called Latino like 3 or 4 times because compared to me she does look Latino, but she said she has never gotten that before this week ha-ha. Glad I'm good for something. Everyone knows how to say Hello and 1 2 3 4 5 in English so when I walk by people they will randomly just say 1 2 3 4 5 because it's like the only thing they know in English ha-ha it's so weird. But hilarious because I don't even know they are speaking English because of their accents and then my companion will ask if I heard that ha-ha... people here are the best. There is a guy in our ward who speaks perfect English I love talking to him. I can actually have a real conversation with someone. He actually knew one of my argentine teachers from the MTC, small world.  And then another guy speaks a tiny tiny bit so when he says things at first ill think YES I UNDERSTOOD THAT WHOLE SENTANCE IN SPANISH and then I realize it was English with a Spanish accent ha-ha.

After the first day here my feet were so beat up. I took pictures. They were disgusting ha-ha bloody blistered everything but 3000 miles later my shoes are finally broken in and I'm good to go! The food is good. ESPECIALLY the fruit. OMG the fruit is unreal. The bananas taste fake they are so strong. The only complaint I have is a member fed us dinner and they don't take the bones out of the food so there are hundreds of little bones in the chicken and all over the plate of food. I was holding back puke the whole time and I kept getting them in my mouth ha-ha it was awful. my companion looked at me and smiled as she took like 3 bones out of her mouth like she had done it 1000 times, made her eyes a little wide suggesting -get used to it- and I did my best! There are hundreds of wilds dogs here. It's the saddest thing ever. They are all diseased and sick and starving. Its sooo sad. They have these sad eyes and when they look at me I want to start balling. So instead of balling, I found a solution!! Every night I take some bread out of the freezer to thaw and then I bring it in a bad and when I see a realllly sick or realllly hungry one I give it bread. it's all I can do right now for them, it's so sad everyone beats them and is mean to them...literally hundreds of them everywhere!! Tons of spiritual things have happened tons of hilarious things have happened but I don't have time!! Just know that I am doing well and I love you all!  I feel your prayers every day, they keep me going! Thanks for everything xoxo

HALIE!!!!!! I JUST GOT ALL OF YOUR LETTERS THIS WEEK! I am so sorry! You probably thought I was so mean for not replying to you! They were being sent to my mission not to me at the MTC. So I had no idea until the day I got here. I'm so sorry! I love them they made me so happy and they were the first thing I got to see right when I got here to Argentina. Reminded me of home and made me feel really good. Thanks for making me happy and not homesick!! I miss you a ton too and love you like crazy!

Love, hna Marchant

 (below is a pix of the greater Buenos Aires area-note San Ignacio where Abby is).