Week 6: The Weekly Letter

Some delicious food from this week: My companion is a spinach smoothie pro, and also makes some fried rice cakes that are things I´ll eat for the rest of my life** I found out that the {normal{ word for hootenannies is puff pancakes, and they tasted just the same here as in America :D. Also, I´ve discovered my favorite food from Argentina isn´t the milanesa --although that´s a close second. It´s Pastel de Papa. Oh my goodness, it´s so good*** --those are exclamation points again, just like this is in parantheses :D--. Also, the most delicious treat is ¨divinity¨ --something my mom makes at Christmas-- and a cookie with a thick layer of dulce in between and all covered in chocolate. Heaven*

Anway...

I was reading in True to the Faith last monday, and found their section on Judging Others. A lot of people try to define what exactly is good and what is bad to judge, but I was happy to find a doctrinal place that talks about it. It had a beautiful scripture in Alma :

On Tuesday, we were teaching a lesson to a neew convert and his daughter when his grandson ran up behind me calling, ¨Abuela* Abuela*¨ Then he came up next to me, and looked at me for a second, before asking, ¨Abuela?¨ 

Oh* And a miracle from last week: I´d lost my name tag while walking somewhere, and so was just using my other one and moving it back and forth from my coat to my shirt until I could get another one. Then one day, we were passing the house of Maria Ester and stopped for a quick visit. Towards the end, her daughter was rummaging through their blankets and pulled out my name tag** She´d seen it in the street as she was walking to work, and recognized that it was probably one of ours. Yeah*

A few more scriptures about the Atonement and missionary work: 2 Nephi 2:6-9, Alma 17:15-16, 36:24

On Thursday we taught Nora again. Her testimony has grown so much, and she is recognizing the Spirit in her life.

We also found an old investigator of the last hermanas, and taught Patricia about repentance and prayer, and how it can bless her life.

We taught another daughter in a less active family who really wants to be baptized. She goes to church with her uncle sometimes, and really likes it. She hasn´t really read or has a Book of Mormon, so we´re going to get her one and help her with that. She´s super sweet, and her older sister is going to help her, as well.

We met an amazing member family on Saturday and after lunch they went through basically all of their relatives and friends, giving us their addresses and names so we could visit them. A missionaries dream come true** We found a couple of them yesterday, and are going to visit them in this coming week. 

Another lady we found yesterday was a little surprised to see us and asked, ¨Hermanas, you didn´t call me?¨ This was our first time meeting her, so we told her no. Apparently she´d been receiving the lessons for a while, but had lost contact. We got her number, and are going to call her :D.

More thoughts from the Atonement: mosiah 4:2-3. Alma 5:33-34-- ¨Repent, and I will receive you. Come eat and drink of the waters of life freely.*  

I started a list of things the Atonement does for us/brings us: peace, enduring joy, understanding, healing, liberty, light, wisdom, eternal life, immortality.

The Atonement and Jesus Christ are truly at the center of our work. He is how we are able to bring people joy. The Book of Mormon testifies of Him, and teaches us how to become like Him. His prophet leads the church today, and brings light into our lives. He really doesn´t ask that much. All that we give, He will replace and then give us more. It´s like Uchtdorf´s talk about the umbrella: Heavenly Father is raining blessings on us, if we will just put down our umbrellas.

Sister Tova S Biesinger

Week 5: One Transfer Down

Hola everyone!

Everything is the same with my companionship (thankfully! That´s what we expected, but it was good to be sure :))

I´ve been studying the Atonement a lot and how it applies in missionary work. It´s cool, because in so many scriptures in Alma and DC, the scriptures about missionary work are aften acompanied by scriptures about the Atonement (Alma 29:1-2, D&C 18:10-16, also Matt 26-28 (28:18-20)). Also, in PMG, it says that the better we understand the Atonement, the greater desire we´ll have to share the gospel.

Last Tuesday we found an investigator--Miriam-- that had been taught by the Sis. missionaries that had been here before, and she had a Book of Mormon, but hadn´t read it. We taught her about the Word of Wisdom (following the inspiration of Hma. Walters) and thought we´d taught simply and well. But then at the end of the lesson, she asked us if we wanted some tea or coffee. :S. We explained it again, and she gave us some hot chocolate. She was super sweet! We also talked to Gabriela from last week, and she told us that she´d try to arrange her work so that it wouldn´t be on Sundays anymore. What an amazing example of faith.

There was a cool thought about fasting in Sunday school. The teacher taught that fasting is showing our physical self that our spiritual self is in charge for those 24 hours (or 2 meals). Looking at it that way, it was easier for me to fast on fast Sunday. :)

We taught a less active from Mark 10:46-52, about faith, and how it leads us to act on what we´ve received. We´ve also been working with a couple of youth in the ward and helping them be missionaries. One of them actually gave their friend a pamphlet of the Restoration! It´s so exciting when they catch the spirit of missionary work!

As part of my Atomement study, I studied forgiveness. I love The scirpture in Luke 23:34, and the talk from last conference--The Healing Balm of Forgiveness (Kevin R Duncan). 

We got to teach another investigator--Nelida-- in the little pasillo (alley) where a woman told us none of her neighbors were interested, and where we´ve found 3 prepared people :). She doesn´t have any religious background, but believes in God, and has had a hard time understanding what we teach, but accepts it with faith. 

"The Atonement is the ultimate example of God´s love for us, and of the Savior´s love for God and us." (john 3:16, 1 John 3:16) Romans 5:10-11, Helman 5:10-11

We were able to teach Maria Ester (less active) on Saturday, and she shared that one reason she knows the church is true (besides the Book of Mormon) is that the members are always nice when they see her, even if she isn´t attending church, and we´re always willing to visit her. So really, as we´re showing our love for people, they´re going to be able to see God´s love for them, and have a desire to change.

We also found Patricia, who started crying when we told her how happy the gospel could make her. She was very active in the lesson, and asked questions. She´d been taught once or twice before and had a Book of Mormon, and hopefully we´ll be able to help her and her faith.

FInal thought... I LOVE 2 NEPHI 4 !!!! I´m there in my scripture reading, and was able to get over the shock of vs. 27-28 fairly well, but then I hit 32, and fell again. Hma. Walters describes it as the Psalm of Nephi, and I think that´s a perfect description. 

I know this gospel is true. I love the Book of Mormon, and the chance I have to help other people love it.

Sister Tova S Biesinger

Knock-Knock Mission Jokes

So I put stars in my journal next to things I want to share, and there was a really funny day last week (Sunday) so I put a lot of stars next to it.

I SHARED EVERYTHING WITH YOU GUYS EXCEPT FOR THAT DAY! :S

Bueno, here´s that Sunday:

We knocked on a door (old investigators from the area book) and someone inside asked their friend ¨Who is it?¨ ¨It´s the missionaries¨ ¨Oh¨ ¨Do you want me to get rid of them for you?¨ :(. Apparently they didn´t know we could hear them. Hopefully they didn´t hear Hma. Walters and me laughing. 

We couldn´t find a contact, so were knocking on a door (inside it was dead quiet) to ask if they knew where our person was, but when we knocked someone yelled ¨Quien sos?!¨ Followed by a lot of people bursting into laughter. But when they opened the door, they were surprised to see us. Apparently they were expecting friends... and found us! :D

(stories that happen while knocking on doors are now known as ¨knock-knock¨ stories ;D)

 

**********************

Dad had his own reply:

"These are funny stories. I have a knock knock story. We were tracting in a lakotelep, those large russian-made apartment buildings. We knocked on one door and heard:

-Who is it?

-Elder and Biesinger and Elder Vail

-Who?

-Elder Biesinger and Elder Vail

-WHO?

-Elder Biesinger and Elder Vail. We are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

-WHO?!

-I don't think you know us.

-And I never will.

And they never did. Because they didn't answer the door. And it was a good thing because we thought it was pretty funny and were laughing. "

Week 4:Hola de Buenos Aires

Hola Familia y Amigos

This week has been one of the best weeks I´ve had on my mission. My companion and I are closer, I´m feeling the Spirit and recognizin the hand of God in the work, and feeling more of a love for the people I´m teaching. 

Last week, after writing, we had my first district activity. It was great, I got to see and get to know more the other elders in our district. It also gave me a chance to read the letters I´d printed off last week-- sorry to anyone I didn´t respond to, I ran out of time D: ...

Thoughts of the week on umbrellas... they should be made to cover two people instead of one and a half :D. Also, we were able to tell the weather with them this week. When we brought them it wouldn´t rain. When we forgot them, it would. --not all the time, but often enough to be weird :D-- There was quite a bit of rain this past week. Especially yesterday, when I finally gave in and wore my rainboots. I´m so grateful that I did.

Also last Monday, we went to see a less active young man, but he wasn´t home and we met his sister, who wasn´t baptized. Noellia had heard the lessons before, and had felt that the church was true, but no one had invited her to be baptized. :O We invited her, and she accepted. yeah** --my exclamation point isn´t working :S--

We also met with her on Friday, and brought a member. It was amazing, because as Noellia us about the path she´d been on looking for religions, it was similar to the path the member had been on, and she was able to testify that the end of the path could be found in our church. 

Our last lesson on Monday was with the daughter of a less active we´ve been visiting. I was so grateful for the Spirit that night, because as I started to say the opening pray, I realized that we´d only heard her name three weeks before, and I wasn´t completely sure what it was. So I said the name the Spirit gave me --Camila--, and I´m 80 percent sure it was correct. Yeah** She and her mom have gone through a lot of challenges, and still have a lot of challenges, and we hope to show them that as they exercise faith and attend church, they´re unlocking the door to the blessing that can help them with their trials. 

Flash back to last week -- So when I came out here, one of my worries was avoiding the *Besa* or the kiss that´s the traditional way of greeting, even from men to women. It´s fine for us to do it with other women, but I´ve been worrying about how to avoid it from the guys. Well, I´d forgotten about that worry, because it had been 5 weeks, and no one had tried to do it. Until intercambios**.. There were three guys who tried to do it that day, and it was like a boot camp on avoiding the *besa salud*. 

On Tuesday of this week, as we were walking up the street, Hma Walters had the impression that we should turn around and try to contact a less active that we haven´t been able to find. We went and tried, and she was home** We weren´t able to visit then, but set an appointment, and got to know her a little. Then, as we were walking again, who should we run into on the sidewalk, but another person we´d been looking for** Two people, because Hma. Walters followed the Spirit. 

We had a lesson this past week with the less active we met on the sidewalk, and were able to find her needs, and hopefully we´ll be able to help her with them. We´re going to have a FHE with her, hopefully this week.

On Wed., on our way to lunch, we contacted a contact from earlier--she´s 20, and  a strong believer in Christ and the Bible, and doesn´t believe that any other book can be from God. She accepted a Book of Mormon anyway, because she was curious. We hope that she can be touched by the Spirit as she reads it, so that we can talk with her about it in our next meeting. 

That night all of our visits fell through, but while knocking on one of their doors, their neighbor called out that they weren´t home. We asked her if we could visit with her instead, and she said yes. So we got to meet Gabriela, who´s son is baptized in the church, and who has questions about God and Jesus Christ. We have an appointment with her tonight, and really felt guided this morning as we were studying what we should teach her. 

On Thursday, we tried to find a girl that the Elders had contacted and referred to us, but she wasn´t home. Her madrasta --step mom-- answered the door and asked if we wanted to come in. ... Por supuesto** We were able to teach her and her two sons the Restoration, and this Tuesday we´re going to take them on a tour of the church. It´s amazing when we can find people that the Lord has prepared. 

We met with Jorge on Friday. He´s a recent convert, and has actually inspired me. He has a lot of challenges and you can see him struggling to overcome them. When we walked into his house, he was studying his scriptures. He´s coming to church almost every Sunday. He´s working his hardest in order to receive the blessings and guidance from the Lord. 

We were able to have lunch with a member that day, and she was determined that I would start talking to her in Spanish, so she kept asking me questions--which was good, because I need to be better at talking with the members. She found out about our family, and was surprised. *Su mamá es un angel genial*** she kept saying, and I agree. 

We also had dinner with the bishop that night. It was good to be able to get to know his family, and he said that he wanted to invite some of his family that weren´t active in the church to have a meeting with us. We were able to share a scripture with them, and then run to our apartment to do nightly planning. 

Saturday we had lunch with the member that went with us with Noellia, and she made Hma. Walter´s favorite meal--niocis, I think. They were delicious little noodles with tomato and a white sauce. Can I say again that I love all of the food here?*

Speaking of food, we stopped by a panaderia for a factura, and the lady gave us mini alfajores when we told her we were missionaries. She was super sweet, and we talked to her about temples.

We found a less active family, who live on the limits of our boundary. They have the cutest kids, and just had the last one, which is the reason they haven´t been attending. We´re going to go help the mother this week with cleaning, and when she and her baby are all good, they want to start coming to church again. 

That morning, we also met with a recent convert. She´s so excited to be able to go to the temple this week and do the work for her family, including for her husband who passed away a year ago. It´s so cool to see the comfort that the gospel can bring to people. 

Sunday was amazing, I love attending the church. One of the less active families we´ve been teaching attended** We were so excited to see both of them there, and met with them last night to share a spiritual thought. That family really feels the spirit of missionary work, and have accepted a Book of Mormon and a pamphlet to give to their friends at school. 

From my studies this week I´ve learned a lot of things. I found this awesome scripture in Acts that says *they rejoiced to be counted worthy to suffer for his name.* It´s similar to what Elder Ballard said in a talk that we should get up in the morning, look at the rain, and say *What a beautiful day to suffer for the Lord in the rain** :D Thankfully, I haven´t felt like I´m suffering, just trying my best. Also in Mark 10:9, Jesus is talking about the rich young man, and said *Jesus... loved him, and said... Come follow me.* It´s because Jesus loves us that He askes us to follow Him, and do the things that are hard for us.

I´ve also been studying a lot about faith. Ether  is amazing, and I spent one morning just studying that and these are some verses I pulled out: 4, 8, 32, 37 --God has prepared a place for us. 6, 12, 16, 18, 29-- we are able to see miracles after our faith ... I also thought about the story of Peter walking on the water, how after he acted on his faith, even though his faith started to fail, Christ reached out to him, and was able to help him. I also love the story in Helaman 5:;21-50 talking about the faith of Nephi and Lehi and the other people in the prision. --a few other scriptures on faith: DC 6:36, Moronio 7:33 Romans 5:1--

There´s also a beautiful talk that I was reading from this last conference, it´s by Paul V Johnson and is called A There shall be no more Death --or something like that. :S I was really touched by the message he had, and the comfort that he and his daughter were able to offer people. .

Oh, and Happy Independence Day** We´re going to celebrate with icecream, and this morning I read --not planned-- in  2 Nephi 1 vs7, a perfect scripture for today. 

Sister Tova S Biesinger

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Week 3: Pictures

Tova's "happy pillow" that Lily bought for her right before she left...posing at the airport on Tova's way down south.

Due to a lot of things, this email will be filled with typos ans errors, because I only have a short amount of time. :S But pictures are coming!!

This past week has been nice and warm, and I´ve been wearing my rain coat rather than my winter coat (although they both look identical :S).

On Martes (tues) we had district meeting, and I switched my winter coat for my rain coat jsut as we were heading out the door, so I left my sube (bus pass), the phone, and my agenda with my money in the other coat, and didn´t realize it until we were catching the bus. :S Thankfully my companion is patient, and helped me out.

We also had our first corolation with the mission leader of the ward this week, which went well. I didn´t say much :), but could understand about 1-2 of what he said. 

Cool thought: reading the Book of Mormon from a missionary´s perspective is so cool because I can totally tell when the prophets are teaching the lessons. The restoration, the plan of salvation, the gospel of Christ, they´re all through it! (for an example, see 1 nephi 13-14 about the restoration, esp. vs. 13:40 and 14:7)

This week I also managed to catch butter on fire :). Apparently the wrapper is aluminum, and so when I put it in the microwave, the microwave spazzed, I quickly turned it off, and opened it up, and there was a little flame in the butter and on the wrapper. :S. Note to self--check the wrapper for metal. 

We had our last zone conference with Pres. >Thurgood this week, and so we all went to the temple. It was so cool! And what was even more special is that it was on a Thursday, which is P0Day for the CCM right next to the temple, and so I got to see a couple of the girls that I knew that had stayed in the CCM for three more weeks!

While we were there I was able to get a spanish Liahona with the conference talks of the last conference. I have a goal to read through all of them before October. 

So I opened up the first talk (Gary Stevenson about the Keys fo the Priesthood) and read the first sentance, and almost started crying. I had no I idea what he was trying to say. Thankfully, it was just because he was talking about skiing down a hill in winter, and none of those words are in missionary vocabulary (although now they´re part of mine! _:D) 

2 Nephi 4 is definitely my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon. I read it while I was in the temple, and it lifted my spirits (just like it does everytime). Then there was a song on one of my CD´s called "I love the Lord" and is based off of that chapter. It´s beautiful, and you can listen to it for free if you can find it :).

Quote: It´s going to be ok. How can you know? For God so loved the world... (Max Lucado)

Missionary promise from Pres. Uchtdorf: Counsel, use your resources, seek inspiration, and ask for confirmation, then go to work--and you will find who what when and where you need to serve.

We met an amazing member this week who was less active for years, but recently was reactivated, quit smoking, and wants to go out teaching with us! She has such a sweet spirit, and a lvoe for the church. We´re trying to teach her son and granddaughters who are all lessactive, and she´s very helpful in that effort as well.

Unfortunately, one of our other investigators told us she didn´t want us to come anymore. She was never enthusiastic before anyway, but we were praying. We´re still praying for her, and hopefully she will remember what we taught someday and feel the desire to know more. 

We met another recent convert, and she served us malta (my first time--it tastes good if you put enough sugar in it :)) with galletitos (cookies-crackers). 

The family that we found last week met with us again. And holy cow! they have a lot of questions. They´re very sincere and want to learn more, or at least want to know what the Church teaches. I felt pretty helpless, though, because they talk very fast. :) Thankfully, mi compañera helped me stay caught up, and helped me share my testimony. Then I was able to offer the prayer. We left them some things to study that will hopefully answer some of their questions.

I´ve learned how to do laundry in the sink. :) I wish I´d helped my mom with laundry in Hugnary when she did it out of the sink. But now I know. 

So, the reason this email is a day late. Yesterday was the day of the flag here in Argentina and no one was open (besides one shop that had a mini card reader that I used today--blessing!!) So we had zone conference and went shopping, and now I´m here :). 

This is also our mission president´s last week. Next week Pres. Calquin (sp?) is coming from Chile. For our last district meeting, Pres. Thurgood will be there, and we have a surprise musical number ready for him (so don´t say anything ;)). I get to play the piano!! :D

I love learning about life as a missionary. It´s very different and sometimes scary, but always improving. We´re learning to get along with the members of the ward, and how to receive referrals. 

Until next Lunes (mon)!

Sister Tova S Biesinger

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Week 4: Hola Familia y Amigos!

So I don´t remember everything I wrote last time and don´t really have time to read my last email, so if I repeat somethings, perdón!

We had our first zone conference last Monday (and now that I write it I think I sent it before :S). We practiced the song for President. Then on Wednesday we had our last meeting with President Thurgood. We had pictures with him, sang the song, and listened to their testimonies. Then we got a book with pictures of all the missionaries and a mission pin and OREOS! (mmmmm...) It was a bitter sweet meeting, especially for Hna Walters and the other missionaries who had known the President. 

Here´s some amazing scriptures in case I didn´t send them before :) : 1 Nephi 3:7;17:3 Genesis 18:14, Luke 1:37, Romans 4:21(13-22 are amazing, as well). See also 1 Nephi 17:50

I think that Nephi could be the ultimate example of prayer. For examples see chapter 7, 16, 18, and others. 

I´ve been slacking off in my journal writing already. :S It´s true that the longer you spend in your mission the less you have to write. But whenever I do take the time to write, I find that there are a lot of things to say. So I´m still writing :D

Quote from hna Walters (actually from a general authority, but I don´t remember who) "We become who we want to be by consistently being who we want to become day by day." 

Thought from PME: Study is an act of faith. It also says that planning is an act of faith. And talking to people. So I´ve come to the conclusion that missionary work is an act of faith.

Thursday was a good day. I´ve been able to be more comfortable with myself and this lifestyle, and have started laughing more at myself and at the things that happen. Hma. Walters is good at helping with that, too. 

We visited a recent convert: Nora. We helped her clean and taught her out of the scriptures. She´s super excited to be going to the temple for baptisms in a week or two with the ward.

Hma. Walters had a doctor appointment, so we went into another town for that, and by the time we got back home we only had an hour left of proselyting. So we stopped by a couple houses, and contacted people in the streets. The last one was a woman waiting at a bus stop who had recently converted to christianity and was willing to take a Book of Mormon and said she´d read it! We sent her info to the missionaries that are in her area.

Another tidbit on Nephi: 1 Nehpi 18:16

On Friday and Saturday we had intercambios (I mean swaps or exchanges or something). My companion had A LOT of energy, which was awesome, and we managed to find a new investigator and teach a less active along with contacting a lot of people. 

Amazing realization-- on Pdays and Sunday mornings, I can make almost everything in the little cookbook Oma sent with me! I´ve made brownies a couple times during the past month (today we´re going to share with the elders in our district) and made scones yesterday for breakfast. It´s so much fun! Also, I have loved all of the food here. Milanesas and empanadas are delicious!

Funny story from this week. So I´m supposed to be inviting the new investigators to be baptized at the end of the lesson, right? So it was our first lesson after we´d talked about it, and I totally forgot. My companion kept on leading the conversation into baptism, and looking at me. I talked about how we´re baptized (kind of, my spanish isn´t really there yet :S), then the blessings, she looked at me again and I thought of a scripture to share. Then I finally remembered, Oh yeah! I´m supposed to invite him to be baptized! So I did with our nifty phrase from the CCM, and he accepted!! But afterwards, my companion told me that she was about to invite him herself. :S Ah well...

On Sunday, one of the less actives we´ve been working with attended church! She usually doesn´t because she works nights and sleeps days, so she was tired throughout it, but she was there! She´s an amazing woman, and has a strong testimony, and I know that attending church will help her so much. 

We also had a first lesson with one of our contacts from earlier that week. A lot of her grandchildren were baptized, and she had attended their baptisms. When we invited her to be baptized (I remembered this time :)) she said yes, and that when she had attended the baptisms of her grandkids she´d felt impressed that this was the church she needed to be baptized in. yeah! This next Sunday she and her grandchildren (and hopefully some of her children --crossed fingers) will attend the church with us. 

Cool quotes: "God does not send thunder if a still small voice is enough" Neal A Maxwell.

(I´m not exactly sure what this translates into, but here´s my best shot, and you can find the talk so see how close I got): We can´t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. --Thomas S Monson.

I know that this is God´s work, He´s behind it and He supports it.

Love you all!

Sister Tova S Biesinger

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission