May 28, 2012

Hola!
Wow, Happy Birthday mom! Dad sent Pictures and your party looked so so fun!! Everyone looks so cute these days, and tan! A lot of the family has changed Alex and Liz specially. You guys look good!!
This week was good! I got to do two haircuts for a service project. An investigator and a member!! I gave one of our investigators bangs and her husband didn't notice until she said something after 3 days ha-ha I told her about the time I colored my hair brown and how dad didn't notice for a few hours!
We were teaching/helping cook for one of our investigators that works in a restaurant (he´s so busy, but has interest so we decided to help him cook) Well, we had to take the chicken off of full, cooked (at least it was cooked) chickens. With bones and feet and all. It was so gross, I was using a knife and cutting all the fat and grossness off and he looked at me and said ´´have you ever done this before? Do you even have chicken in your country´´ then took all the gross parts I cut off and put it in the pile with the normal looking chicken that people are going to eat. Then we went to our lunch appointment with a member, and had......chicken. Ha-ha
So even since about 2nd or 3rd week here in Argentina, President has been telling us we need a vision. A vision for this mission. And how this mission (Buenos Aires Norte) has one and it is ´´Real Growth in the Celestial Kingdom´´. Well this has been huge, every time Pres. Talks to us it's about getting this vision, how to get it, and how to strengthen it. So for the past few transfers we prayed and got it and have been working and strengthening it. But this week during my personal study I was studying in Mosiah 15 and it talks about ´´The will of the son being swallowed up in the will of the Father´´ and it led me to think about this whole vision and how this vision of Real Growth is the will of the father, and I'm not sure exactly how I made this connection before, but it led me to think that ´´learning how to get the vision´´ is part of the ´´personal vision´´ that president has for each of us individually. He is teaching us how to get the vision or the ´´will of the father´´ for our future families, our future spouses, kids, testimonies, life's. And how ´´real growth in the celestial kingdom´´ is for our lives too, not just for these investigators and this mission. Well when I shared what I had learned with my companion she said ´´Yeah he always talks about how this vision is for our life's more than the mission´´. I don't know how I missed that if he ´´always´´ talks about it ha-ha, maybe I needed to learn it for myself to remember it or something. But I feel so blessed to have President that is helping us to be better then mediocre missionaries, and better then mediocre parents, wife's, husbands, daughters, sisters. Well, I hope you are all reading your scriptures; you should read Mosiah 15:7 (I think its 7) and start getting a vision for your life! With a vision comes goals, and motivation! I love you all so much!! xoxo

love,
Hermana Marchant

May 21, 2012

Hola!
Where to start! Well first of all Mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY this week!!!!!!!!!! Well, I spoke about 10 minutes in total of English this week! Ha-ha it went good. I saw my Spanish skyrocket. Having a companion that doesn't speak English is super helpful and I LOVE IT! Our goal is to teach families, and our President told us that we should pray in every single prayer to find MARRIED families (because everyone lives together unmarried here) and Men because the past 20 years of missionary work a ton of women have been baptized but there are no men in Argentina that they can marry (that are members) and guess what!!! Were teaching a few men and we found a family!! 6 children, married, hilarious, and live in a normal house in a good part of town so we can actually go at night!! We're really excited about them!  I found out that I´ll be in this area for at least the next 3 months!! Well a few weeks ago when my companion was sick we did divisions with a older couple in the ward, Hermana Sperry stayed at their house while Hermana Gonzalez and I went out and worked. Well Hermana Sperry told me about a little experience she had at their house with them. They have these two silver prongs hanging from a CD with ´´special´´ wire and some sort of electric current box plugged into the wall. Well according to them if you plug it in and set the two prongs in water it creates some scientific molecule or something that will kill ANY infection, ANY virus, bug, parasite etc. Well luckily for me the last day Hermana Sperry was here I saw her NOT wash her dish after using it but put it in the clean pile (sick I know) and well, you guessed Hermana G, and I both got sick! So anyway we had lunch with that same family on the day I was the most sick and they told me all about this ´´magic water molecule drink´´ and pulled it out and plugged it in and bore testimony of all the infections that its healed for them ha-ha. He gave me a huge bottle of it and well...I'm healed. Ha-ha. I think it's the antibiotics that healed me, but they don't know I bought antibiotics, so I'm there living proof to the ward members! Ha-ha well as for my BOM reading. It´s awesome. I love the BOM so much. I hope you all are reading!  I hope you all had a good mother's day and are enjoying spring there, because it's absolutely freezing here! Have a good week! xoxo

Con Amor,
Hermana Marchant


I got a whole bunch of letters this week from the mission home! Thanks everyone for writing me!
Natalie & family: Your letters are hilarious,  I loved your Mexico ketchup story! luckily for me, here instead of using ketchup on everything like Americans they use Mayo ( I HATE mayo) so when something is really gross I have the option of mayo or swallow and follow with a bunch of juice!! I've actually stopped trying to eat the whole thing when it's really gross to not hurt their feelings because I´ve been on the verge of throwing up from weird fish or meat one too many times, I just pull the ´´I had a huge breakfast´´ and eat a little bit. Glad to hear all is well! love you guys!
Rach and Carly: I'm sending a letter to my sister and ill have her print it out and send it in the mail because I don't have stamps to send it from here. Love you!

May 14, 2012

Family, and friends!
Hope all is well there! This week for me was amazing! I got to talk to you all, AND we had 2 baptisms!!! I have pictures! The baptism was amazing, it was of Facundo and Emiliano, and they are brothers. 9 and 11 years old. Their mom is getting ready to get married to her boyfriend that she is living with and then she will be baptized too! They are the cutest family ever. Facu was super cute, he had his clothes on for his baptism and it was super stiff  because it's that thick white fabric and it didn't fit very good either, so it kept bunching up at the top, and he was pretending he had huge muscles but really it was just extra fabric ha-ha.
So you all got to meet my comps! Hermana Gonzalez was so nervous to speak in English that she prepared a whole long thing to say but got nervous and only ended up saying a little bit, but how good did she do!! She´s so cute! Remember Pedro? The one that found the other church on the way to General Conference and ended up wanting to be a member of that one not ours? Well yesterday FINALLY after weeks of prayers and fasting he accepted a baptism date for this Wednesday! I CAN¨T WAIT. Well this letter is super short and not that interesting but I need to write a super interesting letter to my mom for Mothers day, ha-ha so I love you all and can´t wait to hear from you. Sorry I haven't replied to any mail..that's because I haven't gotten any this whole transfer because it's all at the mission office, but I should get it all soon! I love you all xoxoxo


Love,
Hermana Marchant

May 7, 2012

Hola!

Trying to think of what to write this week was hard...how is the possible on the mission? Either I´m getting used to the craziness of the mission and not recognizing it as crazy anymore, or this week nothing super interesting happened.

Well, my birthday was awesome! We went to the Holocaust Museum and then to this famous shopping street. Everything was really expensive so we window shopped, and then finally found a store we could afford and I treated myself to a new sweater.

Speaking of sweaters...ITS SO COLD HERE. I swear it changed overnight. And everyone keeps telling me this is just the start and it gets WAYYY colder. Oh well, the more cold I am the more blessings I receive, right?!

We got a new Hermana in our apartment yesterday. Her companion was visa waiting here for her mission in Venezuela, and after 9 months of waiting she finally got it and left. So now we have the Hermana Renteria in our apartment too. Switching between us and the other hermanas as a trio. Yeah, you know what that means. 5 girls, one tiny ghetto bathroom, 6:30 am. Ha-ha but no she´s awesome and we all have a lot of fun. 

Thinking about the mission, I think one if the hardest things is that you are constantly being lied to. And no matter how bad you know/think that someone is lying to you, you have to correct yourself and have perfect faith. You have to. Your successes, baptisms, happiness, trust in others, and relationships all depend on it. Were struggling with quantity of investigators right now, but the quality is really good. We have a few really awesome ones. Pedro...the empanadas guy is on the verge of being dropped. He is so sweet and has a lot of interest but he´s not really progressing. We´ll make a decision in a day or so. We have to meet with him one more time.

I´ve decided the two best members in all of Argentina live in this ward. Hermana Curia, and Hermano Cortez. Hermana Curia is like my second mom here, she is so sweet and gave me one of her rings ´´so that I never forget her´´ for my birthday. She is so sweet (she wrote you a message on facebook dad you should check!) and Hermano Cortez is awesome. He is older, about 60 or 65ish but talks about his mission like it was yesterday! It was so cute, the other day we were at his house and his cute wife made us hot chocolate and he talked to us about his mission. He reached literally in arms length and found this folder that had all his mission things in it. It was not even hidden in some box somewhere. He remembers so much and talks about it as the best time of his life. He is so awesome. I hope I can be like that about my mission too!

Well its confusing for Christmas not to be soon with this cold weather, but were listening to Christmas music anyway, how weird its spring where you all are. Well I love you all and hope this week is amazing. You should all read 2 Nephi 33. It's a short chapter and awesome. It's pretty much all a testimony, that's why it's so powerful. Keep sending me your missionary experiences!

Besos,

Hermana Marchant