I had another action packed week. I´ll try to share the most important parts.
First of all, HAPPY MOTHER´S DAY, Mom! No, I´m not confused about the date. In Argentina, Mother´s day is celebrated in October. So yesterday was mother´s day. Hermana López and I made little notes that said "Happy Mother´s Day" and stapled candy to them. Then we gave them out to the sisters in our branch and used the extras to contact women on the street. That was fun. I spent some extra time thinking about you, Mom, how lucky I am to have a mother as wonderful as you are, and how much I want to be like you. I wish I could have given you something too! I heard that the native Argentine missionaries got to call their moms yesterday. I was a little jealous! :)
The big event of the week was doing divisions again, this time with Hermanas Hulen and Salazar from Ciudad Evita. And this time I stayed in Luján with Hermana Salazar to "direct the area"-- that meant I had to plan who to visit, start all the lessons, and be responsible for meeting our daily goals, not to mention find my way around the area without my companion´s help! We switched companions on Wednesday afternoon and switched back again after lunch on Thursday. I was nervous, but not as nervous as had thought I would be. Things went well. Using my trusty map I was able to find where we needed to go and our Wednesday night teaching appointment was a success! Our new investigators, Victor and Lorena, really liked the pamphlet of lesson 1 and said they would pray about it. They were really talkative and loved to share their opinion(like many Argentines), but when I started sharing the First Vision they fell dead silent and just listened. It was great! It helped that Hermana Salazar was there to help me out. She is from Noequen, a province in Southern Argentina. She was so warm and friendly! She treated everyone we met like an old friend and it worked wonders. The investigators and members we saw that Wednesday night liked her so much that they were all feeding us and giving us things to take home to our apartment-- even the taxi driver who took us home didn´t charge us! I felt like all those people being nice to us were sort of a reminder of God´s love for me regardless of my imperfect missionary abilities. It was really special.
Things got harder that night in our apartment and the next morning. Since we visited our investigator Amalia the night before we had double checked that she still wanted to be baptized on Friday and that she knew everything for the interview. We had the green light on both those points, but that meant that I had to rush to organize the baptism and the all important baptismal interview by myself! I had to make phone calls and ask people for favors (both things I am not fond of) in Spanish! And it was all last minute, which made it more awkward and stressful to ask people to do what I needed! Thursday morning was hectic because I had to keep calling people, then beg my district leader to make a last minute visit to Amalia´s house to interview her. I wasn´t even sure Amalia would be home when we got there! When we got to Amalia´s house, she wasn´t home, but we started talking to her neighbor (also an investigator) and by the time we were done talking to him, she came home! I called the district leader and we managed to pull off the interview! Somehow everything worked out. I felt so worn out! Boy, was I glad to see Hermana Lopez again! It was a good experience for me though.
Yikes, I´m out of time again! Here are the other really important things that happened briefly:
-- Amalia´s baptism fell through! We went to pick her up to go be baptized and she wouldn´t come with us! She said she was tired and all sorts of other excuses and no amount of pleading and explanation of the importance of baptism could get her to come with us. We had to go to the chapel and explain to the 10 or so members waiting there that we weren´t going to have a baptism after all! That was a disappointment. I was able to take it in stride, but Hermana Lopez was pretty torn up about it. The next day though, a member from the ward told us that he had seen Amalia smoking recently. She lied to us, apparently. So maybe that´s why she didn´t want to be baptized. There are some hidden blessing though. At least we only spent a week working with her, so we didn´t waste too much time that could have been spent working with better investigators. And learning to love Amalia and serve her was a really good experience, even if she didn´t get baptized. In case you´re wondering, we usually don´t go back when someone lets us down like that. We have to spend our time with people who are ready for the gospel and keep their commitments, so I doubt we´ll ever visit her again. I feel bad because I wanted to help her, but it was her choice not to get baptized.
-- My first transfer (6 week period) is over! We have transfer meeting on Wednesday. We just found out last night that Hermana Lopez is receiving another assignment, so she will be leaving Luján and leaving me here. This is very unusual, because trainers don´t usually leave their new missionaries until after 2 transfers. Since she is my "mother" in mission slang, I have had a very short childhood! My next companion will be my "aunt". I´m kind of freaked out. I´m going to miss Hna. Lòpez! AND now I will have to direct the area (just like during divisions), even though my "aunt" will be the senior companion. This means a lot more responsibility to coordinate things and having to talk and communicate a lot more with the investigators. So I have some challenging weeks ahead. But I´m excited for this challenge because I know that I´m going to grow a lot. I know Pres. Benton wouldn´t have given me this assignment if he didn´t think I could do it. Still, I know there are some rough moments coming up ahead. Please continue to pray for me so that I can have the confidence and courage I need to fill my responsibilities.
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