April 16,2012

Hello!
            Wow, ok can you believe I´ve been in the mission for over 5 months now? And even crazier can you believe I turn 22 next week? I can´t.

            This week ended awesome, but before last night at 8:00 pm it was the hardest week ever! We were rejected and rejected and rejected, and lost all of our investigators even the really strong ones. It was crazy how thing after thing went wrong. We tried to laugh it off, but it was really hard. Everyone (before my mission) told me that Argentina is super receptive and we were going to baptize a ton. But then I got here and I heard a few people say that the city used to be really receptive years ago.  Now it's more European than anything. It's so true, the people here think they have everything.  It's so sad! But we went through our book of old investigators from years and years ago, and made a list of everyone that has 3 asistencia (occurrences of attendance at church) or more and started contacting them. We finally, at 8:00 last night got to one door and this girl, Macarena (like the Macarena dance...best name ever) answered and within literally 1 minute she was committed to get baptized this Wednesday. It was literally like she was just waiting for us to knock her door. She said she was preparing for her baptism and then the missionaries just stopped coming to her door. How awesome!

            Besides Macarena, I think my favorite thing that happened this week was the random guy asking Hna. Sperry if she is the Virgin Mary! Ha-ha speaking of the Virgin Mary, every single person here claims to have seen her in a vision! We hear that at least 4 or 5 times a week! It's so interesting, i.e. the difference in culture. Even if you have seen something crazy in a vision in the US you don't usually talk about it but here everyone is really open.
            We had a weird experience this week! We were contacting some people in this really quite little neighborhood and we saw this Special Needs boy sitting outside his house, so we started talking to him. He couldn't really respond but he had a good sense of humor, and could respond with hand signals. So we were talking and telling him jokes when his brother came out. We started talking to him about the gospel and he invited us in to say a prayer. We had a member with us so we decided to do that. So, we go in and are just about the say the prayer when the special needs boy runs in...Come to find out he is literally almost 7 feet tall. HE WAS HUGE. And he slammed the door and started to get really mad for some reason and hitting the wall and punching the door. Hna Sperry, and the member and I all looked at each other and said VAMOS. We pretty much ran out of there. I have never been so scared in my life! News travels fast in the ward and we got a lecture from about every single ward member to be more careful!

Well thanks for the early birthday wishes, I love you all and you´re in my prayers! Keep sharing the gospel and loving life! xoxo

Hermana Marchant

Annie, Tommy, and Steven: Thanks so much for the pictures they are awesome! I brag about my cute cousins to everyone and show them all your drawings! You guys are little artists! Love you!

Sherry, No I have not gotten the package yet, ill probably get it in about a month because we only get mail about once or twice a transfer! I'll let you know when I get it! Thanks for your letters and packages. You're so thoughtful!

April 9, 2012

Hola, Friends and family!
I know you're all expecting me to say it since I say it each time...but I CAN´T BELIEVE ANOTHER WEEK HAS PASSED! This week was interesting on the topic of what I ate...no that's not true for the whole week, just Saturday was interesting. We have lunch with the Contrerez Family each Saturday. The food always tastes good, but it's always a little sketchy...usually there is at least one bug or hair or something in it. Well anyway, I´ve gotten really good at just shoving bugs to the side and still eating (yeah I know...can you believe it? me either.) but this time I found one tiny hair and thought, ´´wow, success...the food tastes really good only one tiny hair´´ well just when I finished the thought my companion looked at me with wide eyes and pointed to the chicken she pushed to the side of her plate, I looked at it closer and realized they were CHICKEN FEET. And not only chicken feet in the shape of chicken feet, they had 3 inch white hairs on them....all throughout the pasta. We´ll I forgot about it for the day and we went on with our day. I was excited all day because we were have Family home evening with a recent convert in the ward and they wanted us to make tacos because they don't have that kind of food here. So when we got there we all went to Wal-Mart (that's the first sign the meat would be weird...it's from Wal-Mart...) to get the ingredients. Well long story short we cooked them and the meat was the grossest meat I've ever eaten in my life. We were describing it to the other Hermana´s that we live with in our apartment that are Latin and they gave us a list of gross weird body parts it probably was. Well anyway we were going to be late back to our apartment, so we had to run for about a mile. By the time I got home I felt horrible. Chicken feet, Mystery body part with tacos and running... yeah I threw up. It was probably one of the worst taco´s I've ever eaten in my whole life. Well the whole ward found out we made taco´s, and now everyone wants to do Family home evening with us. Each time I think of tacos my stomach hurts and I got nauseous...I don't know what I'm going to do this week with 3 taco nights...
Well remember Riley? He´s the one that walked up to us a few weeks ago and said ´´I'm a member and I'm inactive and I want to be active again´´ We´ll he works at this pizzeria with the best pizza and empanadas that I've tried in Argentina so far. His friend Pedro is one of our investigators and they work together at the pizzeria. Each time we go, Pedro gives us a ton of free food, so last time we told him we don't need it and we feel bad and were going to start buying it. Well come to find out, when we were telling him to assist church with a question in your mind and it will be answered Hermana Sperry gave a example of when she did that and her question was ´´how can I save money for my mission´´ (obviously this was before her mission) but he thought that was recently so he thought we had no money. He is half blind and can´t really see very well, but he said ´´No I can see you are both losing weight each day and it's because you don't have money or food, so whenever you need it just come here´´ hahaha we told him we have money and were taken care of and that we are actually gaining weight each day! Hahah were laughing so hard! They people here are so nice!
We taught Priesthood class on how to be a miembro justo (I'm not sure what it is in English... like a member that is a best friend to an investigator) and on missionary work in your personal life. It went really really well, lots of people are really excited about the missionary work now!!  I've never taught a class before so I was super proud. My public speaking fears are hardly fears anymore. So blessed! Love you all so much, keep sending your missionary experiences, I love to read them! xoxox

Hermana Marchant!

these are from after conference with romina and a less active memeber roxana and her son (the cutest little boy in the world Bruno)

that wall of toms shoes is the brand that toms makes for argentina to sell here, its called something else and they are soooooooo much cooler then toms! they are have designs. they are cheap too...in dollars they are only about 25!

that sign is some public park with hundreds of cats because people just drop off their cats there hahah so they put up a sign asking people not to just drop them off! how funny. we met two people from oregon there and talked for a long time they didnt speak one word of spanish haha!

April 2, 2012

Hello everyone!

How was conference for everyone? So awesome for me!  

I loved all the questions I´ve been getting; ´´Do you have cell phones?´´  ´´Did you get to watch conference, or at least listen to it by radio?´´  Ha-ha.  YES technology has hit Argentina, especially here in the city! We have cell phones, and I got to watch conference...in English! It was fun, at the stake center they had a whole room for English so all the missionaries and some members that speak English all sat together and ate lots of treats and watched! (All sessions too).  It was so awesome, I´ve been trying to decide on a favorite talk to write about but I couldn´t, a lot of them were so good! Seemed like a recurring theme I took away from it was the patterns of the gospel and patterns of God, it seemed like most talked about God having a pattern for all things. I loved it because it's just another reminder that The Gospel and the way of God doesn´t change with the constantly changing of the world, but of course Satan would be changing things and updating his ways to appeal to more people. The easy way always was Satan's way. I loved the talk on Forgiveness too. My favorite quote from the whole Conference was ´´there´s always someone to love, someone to forgive, and someone to serve´´. 

Today is the start of a new transfer, and luckily Hermana Sperry and I are still companions! Yay! We have set some achievable, but awesome goals for this transfer and were excited! I´ve realized that every day on the mission I experience heart break, laughs, interesting conversations, and extremely spiritual experiences. It's such an interesting time of life. Conference talked a lot about missionary work and how each and every member is called to it, wheather you're a missionary or not. I hope you are all praying for opportunities, and talking to those people Heavenly Father is preparing and setting in your path! 

We have a new investigator, her name is Romina and she's absolutely adorable. I don´t know why I've been so drawn to the kids on my mission but I really feel the strongest connected to them. She is 11 years old and already has been to church a few times earlier this year with other missionaries. We found her in that awesome building that looks like a haunted house (I think I told you all about that a few weeks ago).  She is so awesome the first time we talked to her she told us she wants to be President of the world to eliminate all the evil and bad things. And yesterday, her mom bailed on coming to conferences so Romina came with us and spend the whole day helping us teach other investigators in-between sessions of conference. We had her pray for the food at lunch and she prayed that there wouldn't be transfers today! How cute! Then she said she was going to call Pres Monson and tell him she would like it if he let us stay here ha-ha. I bet her prayer is what kept me and Hna Sperry together this transfer! Well anyway at the end of the day we were on the bus coming home and she asked us when she could be baptized, before we even got the chance to ask her! How awesome. We talked to her mom when we got back and she's supper supportive too. We taught her what April fools is and she went around to all the elders at conference playing little pranks on them and saying APRIL FOOLS ha-ha, she´s so awesome! I'll send pictures next week. Well I love you all so much! Have a good week!

Xoxo

March 26, 2012

Hola!

Alright, well we had a baptism this week!! Her name is Cinthia and she is so awesome! She had a baptism date for last transfer before I was here, but at the baptism while everyone was taking pictures she took off!!!! Can you believe it? Well anyway since then, she moved around and has been being taught by our Zone Leaders in a different area. But then Thursday afternoon our leaders called us and told us she just moved back into our area and she has a date for this weekend. Since she is living in our area as of that day it is our baptism. So we made the calls and got it planned and she was baptized the next day (Friday). It was the craziest day I have ever experienced. Not exaggerating not kidding, I have never been so stressed in my life, but it's a long boring story so I won't go into that. Anyway, Friday night at 8pm she was baptized and it was beautiful. A recent convert from last week (the convert of the other Hermanas that we live with) is a famous pianist in Europe and agreed to play at Cinthias baptism. It really made the baptism that much more special! We kept close tabs on Cinthia the whole time so that she didn't run away, and the night ended perfect. We met with her the next day and I can tell she is going to be a very strong member and huge positive influence on this ward. Yesterday at church she was going to be confirmed and we couldn't find her anywhere, thinking she ran away we started running around calling her cell phone frantically. Well after a few minutes we finally discovered she was sitting patiently waiting for Sacrament Meeting to start in the chapel. Ha-ha we threw a smile on our faces and sat down next to her. She was confirmed and the whole ward befriended her. This ward had a 98% retention rate for baptisms and that is almost unheard of in Argentina. The bishop especially is really awesome!

Well on a sadder note, we decided to drop Marioli this week as an investigator. She knows the church is true but can't make the step to get married, they have been living together for 15 years and have 2 kids, but the paper work of marriage scares her. This family was really really special to me so I'm a little heartbroken. Maggi (the 11 year old daughter) still has a date for this weekend but some things have changed and were not really sure what the plan is anymore for her. I love her so much and know that no matter what happens with her family one day they will be baptized, but right now might not be the time. We found all this out yesterday so last night was full of tears, but today were doing better! We know it's all part of the plan! Well, I want to hear about everyone´s missionary experiences this week, write me and tell me! I love you all so much! 

Con Amor,

Hermana Marchant

Yesterday at church a missionary just returned back from his mission in Colombia, so I told him my cousin served there recently too he said ´´Elder Archibald? Yes I know him he was an excellent missionary, really really special; made a big difference in the mission´´ Good job Stephen! Ha-ha making history for our family all over the world!

Hola!

Wow I know I say this almost every week, but TIME IS FLYING. I can´t believe another week has passed. Well, this week was amazing as usual.

We are working so hard and its paying off. We have tons of investigators and tons with a baptism date. Remember Marioli and her daughter Maggi? Ok well just in case you forgot Marioli was a street contact, and her daughter Maggi is 11 years old. Marioli is not married to the guy she is living with so we are working on that before she gets baptized, but Maggi has a date of April 1st. The last day in the transfer. What a perfect way to end a perfect transfer. Yesterday I was sitting in the chapel waiting for Sacrament meeting to start talking to one of our investigators and I felt someone sit down next to me so I turned around and Maggi with her timid little smile was sitting right next me, so excited to be at church for the first time! I had my arm around her during the meeting and she wrote me a little ´´I love you Marchant'´ note! (Yes, I think she thinks my first name is Marchant ha-ha) but ugh my heart broke...in a good way if that makes sense. I really hope I can stay in this area next transfer to see her mom get baptized too. They are so special!

Well, this week we were asked to come up with 20 ways to ask for references from street contacts, investigators, members...everyone. So we decided to get creative. That day we were out working and we saw this Hippie chic with florescent colored clothes walking around so we walked up to her and right away she rejected us before we said anything.  So right when she said NO NO we said ´´no we have a question...who in this area is the funniest person you know´´?  Instantly she started cracking up and said ´´wow that is not the question I was expecting from you guys´´.  Then we all ended up talking and walking for about 15 minutes, she gave us a reference and in the end I think we changed her opinion of ´´the missionarys´´!!

Well remember the one less active man that walked up to Hna Sperry and me a few weeks ago and said he wants to be active again? Wow, he is soooo amazing! He works at a pizzeria and each time we meet he brings his investigator friend Pedro. They are both about 25 years old and so strong. Can you imagine leaving the church and then walking up to missionarys because you miss the church... You´d have to be so brave!...And then to bring your friend also. Pedro is really strong too. They are both from Peru.  The first thing that happened when we met Pedro was us, explaining what the LDS church is... the Church that Jesus Christ- which was established when he was on the earth.  The first thing he said was ´´what? I didn't know his church existed on the earth!  I want to know more´´ can you say prepared?? They are so awesome and like I said they work at a pizzeria so we get free empanadas and other food each visit!!  Well I love you all so much and can't wait to hear from you!

Xoxoxo have an amazing stress free week.

Faith to Move Mountains

Hola! 

How is every ones week going? Time is starting to fly here in Argentina! I want it to slow down; my mission is passing by to quick!

Well last pday when we started working at 6 it was POURING rain (a lot like today) and we had met someone last Sunday that attended church for 3 months in Peru before he moved here.  So our goal was find him again, teach him, and baptize him this week. All week we looked for him. We called the phone number he gave us but it was his sister's number and she didn't like us.  So she hung up every time we called. We searched for him where we found him the first time (at his work) but we were always missing each other with our schedules. Well anyway, back to the pouring rain day.  We went to his house last Monday and searched but he wasn´t there. Well since we were really far from home and at this random building where he supposedly lived we decided to start contacting in that building. This building looks like it's under construction...but it's not it's just really humble and old. Water was flooding down the steps inside from the rain; there was no wall in most of the building,with bugs, garbage, and dogs everywhere. Imagine a haunted house, with weirdly big spider webs and all, and that's this apartment building. We were a little scared at first but we decided it's ok to teach there as long as we have a member with us. But we started talking to the first people we saw and then the next and the next and the next and before we knew it the day was done and EVERYONE that we had talked to, for 2 or 3 hours wanted to know more! This building has so many prepared people it was unreal. We walked away in shock at how receptive every single person was. So thanks to José we found tons of investigators!

Well it was Saturday night and we hadn´t found José yet but we really felt like we could still have the baptism. We felt like if we work as hard as we can we can see a miracle. So, we searched for him and FINALLY tracked him down and found him at work. He told us to come back at 8 when he gets off and he is so excited we found him. We came back at 8 and guess what? The store was closed and we couldn't see ANYONE insight. Just as I told myself not to lose faith I saw someone move and there he was, waiting! We talked to him for a really long time and finally he committed to baptism Sunday at 9:00 PM! After work! We called and got permission from our president (because it's so late for a baptism) and planned the baptism. We decided he needed to attend church at least once here in Argentina before he is baptized so we planned to meet at 8am Sunday morning to teach a little then go to church. 8:00 the next morning, He is nowhere to be found....8:30 same...9:00 same. Church starts are 9. We went to church still telling our selves ´´miracles can happen with faith´´. We got to church and he was nowhere to be found. After the first hour (relief society) we go on our search and find him at work...working. We were so bummed...but still had a ton of faith. Well turns out he had to work for some reason I didn't remember and he was in the hospital last night and that's why he didn't meet us but he still wants to get baptized that night. We told him he needs to attend church and that this week isn't possible but next week he can! The interesting thing was after wards we were talking and we were saying how we are confused because we prayed soooo many times and felt like we could have had a baptism Sunday night and I have never believed something so hard in my life. I had more faith in that then anything before. Well we figured it just wasn't part of the plan and went back to work. We were really successful and we found a family through a reference from some members in the ward.  A humble family of 7 . One daughter has special needs and is super sweet and the other 6 are all above age 8 and accepted baptismal dates for April 1st, the Last day of this transfer! What a blessing. A huge, sweet family all wanting to get baptized. We were talking last night about everything that happened and Hermana Sperry said ´´you know what? We could have had a baptism if we wanted to...we choose not to, but Heavenly Father delivered his end of the promise´´.  Confused I asked what she was talking about and she said ´´José still wanted to get baptized tonight but we told him no because he hasn't been to church here yet, which was the right decision.  BUT we asked for a baptism and felt like it was possible...and we had the opportunity... and because we had the chance to baptize him.  Our intentions were pure and we wanted him to be faithful and go to church.  So, God blessed us with the family of 7 who all accepted baptism´´ So moral of the story, Heavenly Father always delivers his end of the promise, just not always the way you expect it! It's kind of like the saying we all know ´´with faith you can move mountains´´, but is not always technically mountains of dirt, but mountains of fear, doubt, sadness, weakness etc. Heavenly Father will never let you down!

 Were working harder than I have ever worked in my life and it's paying off. I see how my progression in the gospel language and life in general is helping others and I am so grateful to be a part of the mission work for this awesome gospel! I love you all and hope your week is fun and full of missionary experiences too! xoxo

Hermana Marchant

Week of Miracles

Hola!

Well this week was a week of miracles! So much has happened. Let me try to sum it up in a short email for you all! Well this weekend was Stake Conference. So Saturday we were running around town all day (literally running) getting out investigators who committed to coming Saturday night, and after running, running, running, we finally decided to take the bus across town because we were running really late.  We looked to see if we had coins and as I was counting how much we had, the bus came and Hermana Sperry jumped on. As I was yelling to her "WE DONT HAVE COINS"  ha-ha but she jumped on so I had to too! So we get on and I look at her and say ´´we don't have coins´´ and she said instantly- ´´were about to see a miracle´´ she put in the 4 or 5 coins we dug out of our bags and when we still owed a lot she reached down where it prints the receipt/ticket saying you paid and there were TONS OF Returned Chainge COINS. TONS! So we had enough for that ride.  We got our investigator and then we still had enough to get us to the church. Well,  turns out this investigator that night prayed and got her answer to the book of Mormon and searched online all about Joseph Smith and watched the  Joseph Smith movie online and will be baptized!! She is amazing and lives with a lot of people so were going to teach and baptize them all!!

This week was my first baptism! Santi. He is the little 9 year old. He´s such a little missionary he is teaching all his friends all about the church. I always heard that the days of baptisms are crazy and things go wrong.  Thinking that wouldn't happen to me I woke up ready to work and happy. Well we got about 30 min into the day before things were crazy.  So many things went wrong it was kind of hilarious. Hoping that was the worst of the baptism day stress, we calmed ourselves and did our studies and left the apt. for the day. We were told that the baptism font takes 3 hours to fill up, so 3 hours before the baptism we went to the church to start it. Well, because this is Argentina they don't have a hot water switch or button like you would think you have to light the gas and then get a match and throw it in this box thing. Long story short the member helping us burned all the hair on his hands off and we almost get fire in our face 2 or 3 times. After deciding it was too dangerous and about 45 minutes of trying to figure it out, we gave up and put the cold water on to fill up the font. Remember how someone told us 3 hours? Well we come back 2 hours later and guess what? Water everywhere. (Good thing carpet doesn't exist in Argentina) the font over flowed and there was water everywhere. It was an awesome, crazy, spiritual, fun day!

Yesterday Hermana Sperry and I were standing on a street corner talking about what we can do to help this one member in our ward who is less active.  Then this random guy walks up to us and says ´´excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt. But I'm a member of the church. And I'm a little inactive and I want to be active again, and I really miss the church´´.  And then this other guy stopped us later and asked us ´´where are we going after this life? Why are we here? And I don't think men should be punished for Adams sins can you explain this to me? ´´ Those questions are exactly why we're here! Usually we have to ask people if they have ever thought about those questions and then tell them the book of Mormon has your answers, but he just asked us! And this happened over and over again... It's like we didn't even have to look this week.  People were finding us! Both of those two people were so prepared. It was amazing! Well so much more happened that I wish I had all the time in the world to write, but I don't!  I love you all so much and hope this week is full of miracles for you all too! xoxox

love,

Hermana Marchant

We got to go to capital this week to sign papers to be legal to live here so there are a few pictures from that!! so many people speak english down there its crazy!

pictures of the view from our building at sun rise!

pictures of santi being a gentleman carrying my bag because he got hermana sperry a flower from a tree and then i told him i was sad cause i didn't have one so he got me like 5 flowers from a tree and carried my bag to make up for it! haha he´s so cute.

a picture of SOME of the water that over flowed haha it was so much worse then it looks!

hna sperry and i, and then our faces right after she got robbed last week!

a HUGE CATERPILLER. sick.

a member that was helping us for the day.

A little girl with our tags! she was the most WILD little girl i've ever seen!! so much energy!!