June 6th: First Week Out!

Since it´s been a week and a half there´s a little more to share, so please bear with me.

Some last looks at the CCM: There´s poem that I discovered and felt like I needed to share, so I typed it up at the bottom of the email. 

We had infield training all day on Friday and were going up and down the stairs between the big room and our district rooms. A thought from that: we need to repent everyday not becasue our companion sees us, but because God sees us, and He knows if we need to repent, and He won´t give us His Spirit if He knows we aren´t worthy, and we can´t do this work without His Spirit.

Funny story: I found a talk last week by James E Faust that talked about hope. That was all I knew about it, I´d found a reference to it in PMG, and thought I should look it up, so I did. One page into it, it said something like ´I met with Elder so and so of the Buenos Aires South Mission...´ :D =0 Wow!! I got so excited, I stopped reading, and went to the closest person I could find (which happened to be Latina) and tried to explain why I was so excited. I finally settled down, and started to read what I assumed was an inspirational story from my mission. It was inspirational, but not in the way I´d anticipated. You can read the talk to find out what happened :D. But right before the story, Pres. Fasut said something that I really liked, and needed to hear. ´A mission is one of the safest things you can do. You are in the Lord´s hand.´

The last time proselyting was about the same as last week. The man we set an appointment with didn´t show up :(, but we think it´s because he´s a firefighter and it looked like there was a lot of activity at the station. 

Another thought from another meeting: You can count the seeds in the apples, but you can´t count the apples in the seed. Hma Benton shared that and then shared the story of Abinadi. I´d always thought it was cool that Abinadi converted Alma and Alma converted hundereds of other people, but she traced it even further to Alma the Younger teaching the people of the Nephites and his friends the ons of Mosiah teaching the Lamanites, and Alma´s son Helaman led the stripling warriors, and Helaman´s son Nephi converted thousands of Lamanites and Nephites with his brother Lehi, and it all traces back to Abinadi refusing to be intimidated and refusing to deny The Christ.

Along with that ´The work is not easy, because salvation isn´t cheap.´ Along with that is the poem at the bottom.

So that´s it from the CCM. ... ready for the real news??!!

I´m a real missionary!! Unfortuately I´m a real missionary without a cord to attach my camera to the computer. Sorry Fam!! I´ll find a way to do it next week.

I´m in Villa Madera of the Aldo Bonzi Zone and my compañera is Hma. Walters. She´s short with beautiful red-brown hair. She´s from California and speaks really good spanish. (It´s funny, because she really was forgetting english and would say things like ´touch the button´ or ´take some water´ because those are the verbs in spanish) Her mom´s actually Argentine, and so it was really cool for her to be able to come here. 

We met at the mission home, where they fed us empanadas, pizza, and chocolate cake with chocolate and dulce ice cream. mmmmm... Then we took a rented car to our ´pension´.

Neither of us had been in this area, and elders had been living here before. I didn´t believe the stories about elders´ apartments before. ... Instead of unpacking (I honestly didn´t think I´d want to unpack) I spent 1 1-2 hrs cleaning out the fridge from when some chocolate syrup exploded, or something.
We´ve found approx. 5 socks behind beds, desks, etc. We bought a lot of cleaning supplies our second day. :). But the elders made sure that we had lunches scheduled for every day this past week, and are always ready to fill us in on questions we have about people in the area book.

After cleaning we had an appointment with a family who met the missionaries right after praying for direction: Paula, Niko, and Taina (24, 12, and 4, Taina´s her daughter and Niko´s the son of her husband). We had a great lesson, but haven´t been able to return, and so are going to try extra hard this week.

The next morning we were waiting outside the chapel (which is behind our aparatment) for the elders who were going to show us where the bank was so we could have money :). Another woman was waiting for them with a scripture case she´d made for one of them. We talked to her (actually, I just listened) and found out she actually wasn´t a memeber, but had attended seminary for five years and introduced the rest of her siblings to the gospel, and they were all baptized, but she said there was a complicated situation so she couldn´t be baptized. We talked with her until the elders came, and then went to the bank.

We have eaten instant pea soup in a cup, cereal in a cup, oatmeal in a cup, a banana smoothie (courtesy of Hma Walters), spaghetti (ditto), and cinnamon rolls (courtesy of me :)). The member that have fed us have been great and the food is always amazing.

My journal entries are one-5 words summaries of events, and I´d hoped to expound more in my letters, but I only have 15 mintues left. :(.

Later that day (Wed) we visited Adela, a 89 yr old less active. She reads scriptures and just has health problems for church.

On Thursday we went to the bank again because we needed the rent money. When we paid it they told us that we actually nede 100 more ollars (US) because the aptment had been rented for a year. So we let the elders in charge of aprtments know, and they took care of that for us. 

We went around trying to find people from the area book and found Maria Ester, and Less active. She´s trying to quit smoking, and we´ve been able to visit with her a couple more times. She´s very friendly. We then had lunch with the primary president, who is super sweet and her son Juan kept climbing around a running (reminds me of Maia). THen she refered us to a less active who lives up the street. Her name is Anali, and she wants to come to church but has a tough work schedule. She´s also worried about her 14 yr old son. Her daughter is going to serve a mission soon (Dafni) and has gone with us to try to teach Paula and some other people.

We also tried to meet with the Pres. of RS that day, but we took a ´short cut´and couldn´t get past a fence. At the same time it was pouring rain, so we were soaked (except for one spot on my coat that was covered by my little brown bag :)).

We spend a lot of time walking to a place, only to be turned away or need to reschedule. We can use the bus, too, but need to budget :).

On Friday we spent our time for Weekly Planning cleaning and making the rooms more cozy (pics next week). We had lunch with some other members and their granddaughter. We met with the RS Pres, who is an amazing lady who needs a wheelchair but is always calling us and letting us know about someone else who needs us to visit. 

We met with the elders in charge of aptments and they helped take some things out, and then dropped us off at our next apptmtn. Unfortunately we had the wrong addres written down, but were able to visit with the investigators who did live at the house. We´re meeting this Friday with the woman we were supposed to meet with :D. By the time we got back to our aptment we needed four more contacts, so we went back out and met two amazing ladies. One of them took two items and the other didn´t accept any but was willing to talk there about the gospel.

Saturday We got weekly planning done and were able to meet with a recent convert and a less active. We got a reference from the rc, and were able to find another less active family who also gave us a reference. Satureday was harder for me because I felt sad, but was able to be better becasue a lady on the bus home looked at me and then grinned and said ´Hola!!´ and gave me a greeting kiss. Then she wass embarrassed and told me she thought I was someone else, but it was still great!

Sunday was Stake conference, and the bishop gave us lunch. So we still haven´t met a lot of people in the ward, but were able to sit by the recent convert, and later wnet around contacting people from the area book.

I´m having a great time and love you all!!

If you guys have any ideas for finding new investigators either from missions you´ve served, or just ideas you have, that would be great

Also any short recipes.

Thanks, love you!

´Where were you that Night?´

On that night of darkness

Millions lay abed

Millions more were wakeful

On this night so red.

Deep within the stillness

The Master bowed His head

And He saw your faces

As He moved ahead.

That night a woman labored

To bring a babe to life

That night our Savior struggled

To pay for worldy strife

A father rested soundly

From his day of work

Another Father cried

As His Son refused to shirk

A sinner in the city

Cried for all the pain

A Stranger in the Garden

Had blood that dripped like rain

That night there was a child

Who died before their time

And appeared before our Master as

He paid for every crime

His mother lay in slumber

Hands peacefully entwined

As He felt her sorrow

For the road He had to climb

That night the angels praying

Were spellbound at the scene

Of their brother suffering so

In the garden green.

One of us approached the throne

Of Father in the Air

Then descended and stood by

Tio help our Savior there.

Where were you that evening

As the weight pressed down?

As you were asleeping

Your Savior won the crown

The night seemed nothing special

His friends could not see why.

So they lay their heads down.

They didn´t hear Him cry.

That night the gates of death and hell

Strove against the Rock

But Christ our Lord would close them

His blood would place the lock

Perhaps the night seemed longer

For watchmen on the wall

How could they know the Son of Man

Had made up for the Fall.

After all He´d suffered

And alll the pain He bore.

Perhaps He had to pause--

For there was one life more.

One more lamb to rescue

One more child to save

After all He´d carried

After all He´d paid

Where were you that evening

As He knelt again?

No doubt you were before His face

As He took your pain.

So rise up, mighty warrior!

Shake off the chains of hell.

Your Savior and Redeemer

Sounds the clarion bell.

Awake from sin´s fell slumber

And take upon His name

Keep His face before you

And He will do the same.

You need not stray and wander

Far from Home´s warm light.

For Jesus did it for you

On that one dark night.

Sister Tova S Biesinger

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission