Dear Mom and Dad,
I did get transferred. It was really really weird. I was not expecting that at all. Not even a little bit. At first it was a bit of an unpleasant surprise, but I am really enjoying the ward and the area now. It really is a completely different world. There are a lot of missionaries in Mar del Plata. I really have no idea how many there are. There are four of us Hermanas that are working in Barrio Puerto. It is really really pretty here.
Hermana Isrealsen is really great. She has only been in the mission for 5 months, so she still feels like she can´t talk very well, but she is going really well. My goal is to help her feel confidant in her ability to talk. She really does better than she thinks. She is from Logan, Ut. Her family has a farm there, they raise cattle among other things. Random fact about their farm: The hay that they grow they sell to Hoogle Zoo and it is the hay for the elephants. Isn´t that cool?! She comes from a family of 10.
The weather is heating up, but it has rained hard a couple of days. I have gotten SOAKED. But that is okay. I do love the rain. Some days it is noticeably humid, and other days it really isn´t too bad. I do have a secret fear that it is only going to get worse, but we will see if that happens or not. The one bad side of our ward is this, it always always smells like fish. We are the part of the city where all of the fish factories are and where all of the boats come in. It really cool, but really smelly.
The ward is really fantastic. I am feeling a little bit useless. I am used to wards or branches that don´t have much of anything, so we are teaching lessons, and doing a lot of other things. But this is a really really established ward. And it is flourishing. They only need us to do the missionary work. (Okay, and I played piano on Sunday) But it is really weird. They have a ward mission leader. And we have a meeting with him every week. And we actually have this meeting. Every week. And we have 7 ward missionaries. That is right seven. And they are with us basically everyday. And if we don´t talk to them for a couple of days, they are calling us, asking when they can come with us. It is like the heaven for every missionary. I just don´t really know what to do. I suppose I´ll get used to it some day, and as soon as I do, they will pull me out again.
We also have all presidencies in all the auxiliaries. There are about 100-120 people every week. I just don´t know what to do. We are going to do missionary work. I am excited. I think it will be really good.
The only problem right now is that we don´t have very many investigators, and it is hard (at least right now) to find new ones. We have Graciela and Carlos. They are waiting to get married. And getting married is hard here. Seriously. They are waiting for the government to give them a day that they can get married. That is how it works here. You have to go and talk to the government, and they give you a day that you can get married. It is mildly obnoxious. Right now it looks like they are going to have to wait until April. We are hoping we can help them get that figured out for much MUCH sooner. But we´ll see, They actually had a mildy tramatic experience on Saturday. They were attacked in their home. Some police came and did some damage. I don´t really understand why exactly, but it was really bad. They are doing okay, and I don´t think that they will have any lasting affects, but it was unpleasant to say the least. They got blessings at church yesterday and that has helped them both calm down a lot.
We also have Pedro, who came to church for the first time! Who hoo!!! The first giant hurdle! His date is for the 18 of Dicembre. We de-demonized his house the other day. He has a neighbor who deals in Satanic things (again, something I didn´t completely understand), and it has been a struggle for him, and he has had some weird things happen in his house. So we went with some of the ward missionaries, and gave him a blessing, and dedicated his house. It was really good, and it helped him feel a lot more comfortable. And then the next day he came to church!!! So that was great. And now he wants to bring his mom and his sister. Here´s hoping.
Three of our ward missonaries already have thier misson calls. Two to chile (different missions) and one to Rosario, Argentina! Two more are filling out thier papers and two more are thinking about it. We are going to do all we can to help them make the right decision. They really are great. One in particular works with us a lot, his name is Franco. And today he took us on an "insiders" tour of the beach at Mar del Plata. Hna Isrealsen and I kept thinking that we were going to arrive somewhere, since that is how he made it sound, but we ended up walking around all day. Seriously though ALL DAY. It was really fun, but I didn´t take as many pictures as I should have. We are hoping to do a mini repeat next week and take more pictures.
Also, it started raining A TON. So when we wanted to take more pictures it was really really dangerous to take out our cameras. They would have been ruined. But that is why we are wet in the pictures we took.
Okay, so the pictures.
1. Mar del Plata is famous for the seals here. So we took pictures with the giant cement ones.
2. We also went to a park where there were these..things...that we are on. I dont´know how to describe them, but they were really really fun.
3. Hna Israelsen and I. Wet. But happy.
4.Franco and I.
5. We also went to the cemetary. I really like Argentine cemetaries.
6. Another picture of the cemetary.
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