Tess is going to be a MOM?!!

Hola familia. 

Thanks for all the pics! The girls already look so much older to me and I can't believe Stretch had babies! What the?? Haha and I approve of the choice to repaint the bathroom, it looks great. I'm glad you liked the pictures too. The mountains are so amazing, I wish you guys could see them in person. 

It's been kind of a crazy week because transfers are coming, Hermana Gimenez is leaving, and my comp got really sick a couple days ago so we had to stay the house for 2 days straight. The weather has been pretty much perfect though, and yes, we have warm water! Mauricio and Dylan are doing pretty well too. We gave Dylan a recorrido (I don't really know the direct translation of the word but it basically means tour) of the church. He's so adorable. Mauricio accepted a baptism date so hopefully he continues to progress more and more! We still have a lot of work to do with both of them though. And we haven't been able to have another lesson with the store couple, but hopefully we'll have one soon :/ 

So I have a bit of news that's kind of freaking me out that I want to share with you guys...... I'm "PREGNANT" figuratively, of course. And by that I mean that I'm going to be training next transfer.... ahhhh!! We just found out yesterday, but we pretty much all knew that we'd be training because TEN new sisters are coming, there are only 13 sisters in the mission, 2 are leaving today, and 2 are already training so they can't train next transfer. Also, 8 of the new sisters are North Americans who don't speak Castellano, so I'm pretty sure I'll be training one of them... I'm not ready for this!! My comp is going to leave to some place in the mountains to train and pink wash an area. I'm going to miss her so much, but at least Hermana Ruiz (mí vecina) is staying so I'll still have her. I'm super nervous though, as you can tell, but for whatever reason the Lord thinks that I can do this so I'm just going to have to trust Him on this one. It's definitely gonna be quite the adventure though, there will be plenty of interesting stories to come in the following 6 weeks so get ready haha! The good thing is that I've been here in Maipú for a while now so hopefully I don't get us lost too many times, and I know the ward pretty well too. Ahhhhh.. I'm still freaking out though and I can't concentrate or think of anything else interesting to write so I'll just leave it at that! 

Hopefully you have a more relaxing week than the one I'm about to have (I'll receive my hija on Wednesday) and you enjoy the last little bit of summer. Pray for me that my new comp and I won't die out here and that we'll be able to find more people to teach as well as help the investigators we already have to progress and get baptized. It's gonna be awesome! I hope..

Les quiero mucho. Hasta luego!

<3,

the mamá-to-be, Hermana Crawford

my crazy compi

here's the second attempt at banana bread making, and it actually turned out perfect- we ate it at the despedida of hermana Gimenez and the ward loved it

here's an example of one of the "salads" that my companion makes. This one included rice, tomatoes, mayo, corn, palmitos?, vinegar, and boiled eggs.. (also, milanesa de pollo con espinaca is what's on the plates)

Snow and blessings!

Hey mom!                                                                             July 22, 2013

Sounds like you guys had a more relaxing week than the last one. Tell Liv congrats on 2nd place in the dive meet!! The pics of Chloe and her friends are awesome too! Tell Kim congrats on her new baby girl! My least favorite rule here is still the one that we can't hold babies.. I'm dying.. And I'm jealous that you guys had a fun game night- we're gonna have to have a whole game week when I get back to make up for what I missed out on! 

Haha I had a pretty great week down here too though. I did get the banana bread recipe and attempted to make it last P-Day. The thing is that they don't have shortening here so I used margarine instead, and also the measuring is all different because they don't use cups. I had troubles when it came to the baking part because our oven sucks. Apparently they don't use temperatures here on their ovens. They just wing it, which is what I had to do, and the oven uses an open flame on the bottom so as you can imagine the bottom burnt way before the top was cooked.. but somehow it didn't end up being too bad and I just cut off the whole bottom. Thanks for sending it so quickly, hopefully my next pench (house) has a better oven so I can give it another shot.

To answer Bro. Francom's questions, my comp is from La Plata (Este) and she went to the Berisso ward. Her dad is pure German and her mom is part Argentine and part Japanese.

It has been pretty freezing this week though (as you can tell from the pics), which isn't my favorite. There was one random day where it was probably about 70, but then the next day (Saturday) it dropped down to about 35ish and it snowed that night a little bit. The best part about the snow was that the other sisters were freaking out and screaming with excitement because Hna. Ruiz has never seen snow in her life, Hna. Gimenez has only seen it a few times, and my comp. had only seen it once before! So yeah they were going crazy and taking all sorts of pictures and videos. It was cute. That day was also el dia del amigo, which is really big over here, and so we had a little fiesta with super good hot chocolate (our hot chocolate is crap compared to what they have over here) and a gift exchange which they call "the game of the invisible friend" or something like that. It was a lot of fun.

The next day (yesterday) there was still a little bit of snow, but not a ton in the city of Maipu, but we had lunch in Lunlunta which is a lot closer to the mountains so over there it was snowier, of course. The Riveros family (the always-sleepy investigator Ana who has no teeth and her husband & kids who are active members) invited the other two sisters to have lunch with us too, so we all got to go and play in the snow a little bit before I got to have my first official Asado experience! It was a little bit sketchy because the family doesn't have a ton of money or the nicest house, but it was awesome that they were willing to share what they have with the four of us. The asado itself was pretty good, but then they brought out the Morcilla (blood sausage). I tried it, of course, and it actually wasn't as disgusting as I was expecting, but the texture was really gross and so I couldn't finish more than a few bites haha. It was a good day though.

David, our recent convert, is doing awesome and he recieved the priesthood yesterday! He's really a great guy and he loves going to church and learning & reading the Book of Mormon. It's a great feeling to see him progress & to know that he's on the pathway to eternal happiness. 

We were also able to have a few recorridos with members this week and they went pretty well except we're still missing the paintings that we're supposed to have, but we're still excited to be able to start doing them for real with investigators.

Speaking of investigators, I'll tell you a bit about some of the people we're teaching. One is a young guy named Mauricio. We ran into his wife while tracting, who is a less-active member, and she told us that her husband would be interested in taking the lessons because he has a friend that's told him a lot about the church and given him a Book of Mormon, and he likes learning spiritual things. We met him a week or so ago and he's pretty great, he's progressing little by little and hopefully he's able to get his answer soon that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. We also are starting to teach a 12 year old kid named Dylan who is really good friends with a member family in our ward and practically lives at their house even though they're an older couple with 3 kids over the age of 20. He's the cutest kid ever and has a rough relationship with his parents, so that's why he loves being at the Rios' house because they're so loving and their home has a peaceful spirit rather than the one in his house. His dad has some problems but he told the member Hna Rios the other day that he wants to change his life and quit smoking, and so she told him that the church/God could help him with that. We met him the other day and he was happy to learn and listen so hopefully we can start teaching him more and give him the tools to be able to change. There's also another lady that a crazy old man in our ward told us about who's really awesome too. She and her husband own a little shop and she practically lives there, so we've gone over and taught her a couple times in the store when it's pretty much empty in the mornings. We got interrupted a couple times by customers but the lessons went pretty well, and we finish them off by buying an alfajor. She doesn't actually live in our area though, so we're gonna have to pass her off to the Elders at some point, but she's hardly ever at her actual house so we'll see what happens.

So yeah, that's about it for investigators at this point. We've still been knocking doors a lot and contacting old references from the area book, so hopefully we have some more soon and the ones that we do have will keep progressing! I also always forget to write about the success we've had with helping to reactivate less active members. So far on my mission (including Utah) I've been a part of helping to get at least 11 people back to church. It's so great to see them start to remember how awesome it is to go to church and be able to feel the spirit that's there and renew their covenants. It's hard for a lot of them to make it because they live far away and have to take the micro super early in the morning when it's freezing because they don't have cars, but they're starting to realize that they get so many blessings when they put in the effort to do it.

Not a ton happened this week besides that. We only have one week left in this transfer so we're starting to speculate on what's gonna happen and if we'll be together again or not. Presidente Avila has already told Hna Ruiz that she's leaving Maipu, and Hna. Gimenez is going home, so we already know for sure that we won't be with them anymore :/ I'm hoping to stay with my comp because she's the coolest, but I'm worried that they'll throw a curveball at me and make me train or something because there's a bunch of sisters coming in and there's barely any here right now (plus there's some leaving). Pres. is notorious for surprising missionaries with transfers, so we'll see what happens..

Thanks so much for sending the package and for everything! I'm excited, even if it doesn't get here till Christmas (; And I'm glad you got my package from Utah finally! I knew you'd like the videos of the songs and Hna Vergara.

¡Que tengan una muy buena semana! Hold lots of babies, play lots of games, take lots of naps, and eat a lot of healthy food for me!

Love,

HermCrawf

so cold and so cute

Snow covered mountains

my comp with a giant palta (avocado).. I never knew that avocados that huge existed- and it was only 10 pesos!

celebrating el dia del amigo (I promise we work hard and don't just party all the time)

outside of our pench

 the dirt field by our pench looks so much better covered in snow

mi Mexicanita, Hna Ruiz, doesn't quite know what to think about the snow

playing in the snow in Lunlunta

 finally got a good picture of the mountains!!

David's Baptism!

Hola familia! I'm glad that you made it back from your trip(s) safely. I can't wait to see the video that Chloe made! It sounds like it's been kind of a crazy last few weeks. California looks like it was a blast and the lax boys are just as crazy as ever. Way to pass your tax test too!! I can't believe you and dad are going to Puerto Rico- you'll be a tiny bit closer to me down there. That's going to be so fun- I want pictures! Fiji 2016 would be awesome, I'm in for sure! That's too bad that Olivia's dive meet didn't go as planned :/ She'll get em next time.

So it's been kind of a crazy week down here in Argie-land. The cold actually isn't too bad, I hope it does warm up a little bit though. To answer a few of your questions, Malta is made from some sort of crushed grain/herb that you mix with sugar and hot water or milk. I would describe it as tasting a little bit like coffee, but not exactly. As far as the food goes, it's good but I'm already so sick of pasta and bread!! I'm getting fat! I still haven't had any beef, but I have had Milanesa which is pretty delicious. The reason that I haven't had it is mostly because my comp. has Chrons disease as well as ulcers, so she's not supposed to eat red meat (or fried food, soda, juice, sweets, etc.) because it makes her sick. Also, it's pretty expensive and the people here aren't rich or anything so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it too. Shopping for food is still pretty weird for me. Everything is in bags, they love ham flavored snacks and grape flavored candy. Also, just a few random things that I wanted to tell you in the last letter are that there are wild parrots in the trees here & they're super loud, as well as pink peppercorn trees everywhere. (The peppercorns actually taste pretty good, I'll have to bring some home.) And as far as Riley Crist saying that Chileans are the best, the people here would beg to differ. They basically hate Chile. My companion especially hates it, and told me all about how Chile betrayed them in some war that they had recently. I'm gonna have to take her side on this one, sorry Riley.

 

We had 2 big meetings "capacitaciónes" this week, which is mostly why it was so crazy. One was with our zone, and the other was at the mission office with Presidente. The main thing that we talked about was the "recorridos" (church tours) that we're going to start doing! It's going to be such an awesome opportunity for people to be able to feel the spirit that's in the church building and learn more about our beliefs and what goes on inside the building, so that they're more comfortable with the building and they have a greater desire to come and learn more. It's going to take a lot of work to be able to coordinate them with ward members, but hopefully we'll be able to start doing some soon. Besides that, we also had the baptism of David! David was working with the other Hermana's in Maipu for a while, but he actually lives in our area so they had to let us start teaching him a few weeks ago. He's an awesome guy who's ex-girlfriend is actually a member of our ward. He had a testimony that the church is true since the beginning that the sisters started teaching him, but he didn't want to have a baptism date because he felt like there was too much more to learn, which is understandable. However, we worked with him along with a member of the ward named Selene and set a goal for the day that he would be baptized because we knew he was ready, but then on Thursday he ended up texting us and saying that he wanted to get baptized this Saturday! Pretty crazy. It took a lot of work and 4 hours of cleaning the church building alone, but it's all good because he got baptized! It didn't go perfectly because while my comp and I were singing Divina Luz (Lead Kindly Light), the lights turned off, which was pretty ironic. And also, a bunch of ants infested the cake that the other sisters made to eat afterwards.. But it was awesome and he got confirmed in sacrament the next day, and is going to recieve the priesthood next Sunday!

We also threw a mini-party and burned the clothes of Hna. Gimenez, who just completed 18 months of being a missionary, which was a lot of fun. (Speaking of that, I just had my 5 month anniversary on the day of David's baptism- isn't that crazy?) And also, we have been having more success with investigators recently and we have a couple new ones that are awesome, but I don't want to write all about them yet because it seems like we get jinxed or something when I do, so I'll have to tell you about them another time. Things are looking up though, no se preocupen!

It's pretty exhausting being a missionary here and having to walk all over the place and catch buses to the middle of nowhere, but it's an adventure and we've at least started to help change a few lives for the better. It's the best, (and sometimes it's the worst, too), but I'm excited to see what the next year of missionary life has in store! ¡Que andan muy bien! Les quiero mucho.

<3,

Hermana Crawford

On the way to an investigator's house in Russell

(this one's for Jenna B.) A poor one-eyed doggie.. at least he has a sweater and got to lick the remnants of my banana con dulce de leche ice cream

 this is the best pic I've been able to get so far of the mountains

Hna. Gimenez with the sorpresa fiesta we threw for her- the theme was day of the dead because she's about to "die"

the quality is crappy on this one but it says "Maipú, the best place to live"

Hna. Keller & Gimenez celebrating the 18 month anniversary of Hna. Gimenez in the mission

¡SORPRESA! We had a baptism this Saturday for an investigator named David

David was pretty nervous so that's why he looks kinda freaked out in these pictures

David with the elders in our district, the ward member who baptized him, our ward mission leader (who does he look like to you guys?), and the bishop's 18 year old son

Pictures of Tess's area, a winery and museum tour and more!

Hey guys, 

So I just decided to send a bunch of pictures this week because, as you can tell, I found my camera; and I thought it´d be more interesting than telling you about our week because nothing really terribly eventful happened besides the fact that it got really cold all of a sudden. We´re still working hard but it´s been difficult because for whatever reason the cold is making the people less receptive to us. It looks like you guys had a blast with the Stewarts though! I loved all of the pictures and I´m glad you had a ton of awesome stuff to do and traveled safely. Hopefully this week goes better for us and it doesn´t get too freezing. Have a great week and enjoy the pictures I sent you!

Love,

HermCrawf

My comp and I

This is the street we live on

The outside of the museum

We saw a tiny bit of Buenos Aires itself when we were driving from airport to airport

some old ones from the first day in Argentina from the Buenos Aires airport (the 2nd one is of the Elders from my MTC district- the only one missing is Elder Smith :/ )

some more of Lunlunta (our toothless demon-hunting ex-investigators live in one of the houses pictured)

Another of Mendoza City, taken from Pres´ house

 A creepy abandoned house next to the museum that´s under construction

 Enjoying the not too cold day outside the museum

Inside the house of the winemaker

The outside of the house that we toured

H. Hales and I the first day in Mendoza at Pres´ house

Staples of my new diet: mate cocido, dulce de leche, and an alfajor

Antique toilet

My comp Hermana Keller and I last p-day eating Helado from Gridos with our district before we went to the wine museum

My comp heating up water for our "showers"

Our lovely tour guide showing us some of her faves.

Our neighborhood

What half of our area looks like (this one was taken in Lunlunta)

 One of the vineyards in Lunlunta

My new mom and I

Élderes... the two on the right are our zone leaders, one of which, Elder Biggs, is from Gilbert AZ

Another candid shot of our tour guide, Elder Biggs, and Elder Ruiz Diaz (our district leader who´s from Buenos Aires)

Candid shot taken during the tour

No hot water and crazy salads!

Hey mom (& everyone else that reads my letters)! 

It´s so cool to hear about all the missionaries that are heading out to the MTC/field and about all the ones that will be invading Gilbert pretty soon! I can´t believe it´s already sooo hot over there. I definitely miss the heat but that´s probably mostly because I´m freezing over here. It´s actually not too bad yet though- there´s no snow or anything. It´s still taking a lot of getting used to though, being here. I´m lucky I have such an awesome "mom" to help me with the language and understanding the culture and everything. She hasn´t taught me how to cook anything, but she does make really strange "salads" with the most random ingredients, and so I showed her how to make a real American salad the other day with lettuce (it didn´t end up being completely normal though because she decided to put hot-dogs on it). We drink the Mate that´s in the tea bags a lot too because that´s the only kind that´s allowed. It´s actually not too bad. She´s a ton of fun to hang out with all day and I think she really is relieved to be with someone who´s chill and easy-going unlike her last companion (yes, it was her who tried to punch the crazy guy in our ward after he tried to punch her). 

We´re doing our best not to speak too much English but after long conversations with members who are talking about things that I don´t have the vocab to understand, in order to survive mentally I have to talk to her in English for a little while. I also ask her in English how to say certain things in Spanish, but we´re doing our best. The neighbors are a lot of fun most of the time, we´ve had a little bit of unnecessary drama with one of them for various things but we´re doing our best to resolve them. The pension isn´t too bad but we did have a slight problem as of a few days ago with our water-heater. We haven´t been able to get any hot water, and so as a result we´ve been heating up water in pots on the stove and using a bucket & a cup to bathe ourselves in the mornings. It´s pretty much the same way that we bathe the dogs now that I think about it.. except I´m not on all fours trying to escape every 5 minutes (but I am shaking from the cold like they do). But it´s more just funny than anything, and we should be getting it fixed soon. 

As far as investigators and stuff it´s been an interesting week. We have a ton of new potentials and a few really good ones, but the one´s that we had last week are not looking too great. The craziest day was last Friday. We took the Micro (bus) to the city of Lunlunta, which is pretty much just a bunch of fields and vineyards with a few houses scattered randomly around. There´s an awesome view of the mountains there, but a lot of it is pretty poor. The crazy demon-hunting lady lives there and so first we went and visited her and her cousin Mario who has no teeth. They live in a little brick "house" that doesn´t have electricity, and they have about 8 dogs and a bunch of rabbit skins hanging on a wire outside. We wanted to go talk to her about how she could find more happiness if she wasn´t always seeking out darkness, but she wouldn´t listen and claims that she helps people find light by casting out demons and basically she told us that she believes that she´s a prophetess and has been called of God to do what she does.. Then we talked to Mario for a little while and found out that not only will he not quit smoking, but that apparently he´s skitzophrenic. We went by a few days later and they told us that they didn´t want us to come back anymore because they were happy in the Evangelical church. We were a little suspicious though because as soon as they made that decision they happened to miraculously have the electricity that they had been begging for from their Evangelical church for years. 

Anyways after that first visit with them we went to visit another investigator named Ana, who also lacks teeth. She´s married to an active member but she´s Catholic and always says "no me llama la atencion" about the church and the Book of Mormon even though she goes to our church all the time and has been listening to the missionaries for a long time. We ate some interesting pasta with her and then tried to teach her a lesson, but she literally kept falling asleep while we were trying to teach her.. It was super frustrating. After that we tried to find some new people to teach and we talked to a few people. We taught a lesson to a really old lady and her 6 cats through a gate while she was in the house listening from the window because she was didn´t have the key. 
It was quite the interesting day. We did have some really good lessons the rest of the week though, two of which were with girls in their 20s who were really receptive but one of the girl´s mom tried to commit suicide the same night that we met/taught her so we´ll see what happens there- hopefully she turns to God for comfort and wants to talk to us some more. We´ve also been talking a lot with members and having more lunches/visits with them. Pretty much all of the ward is older people, which is kind of different. They LOVE talking and speak really rapidly so it´s kind of exhausting to visit them, but they´re very nice and willing to help us with whatever we need. The food isn´t too bad- it´s way to much pasta, cake, and bread for my taste, but it´s all that a lot of them can afford to feed us. I still haven´t eaten beef though :/ We do drink a ton of Malta, but fortunately I like it a lot. 

That´s all I´ve got time for today! I have a lot of awesome pictures but the computer isn´t letting me send them, so hopefully next week you´ll get some. Have a super fun & safe trip to Wisconsin! Tell Katie & Daniel and the kids that I said hi and that I love them. I love you guys too!

<3, Hermana Crawford

From her letter to Chloe:

The culture here is definitely different. People here are a lot more straight-forward and not afraid to say what they think about something- they LOVE talking. We get stuck at appointments for so long because they just won´t stop talking. They´re really friendly though and everytime you greet any woman (member, investigator, etc.) you have to kiss them on each cheek, and then you have to do the same when you´re leaving. It´s a lot of kissing. Even the guys kiss other guys and women on the cheeks. It´s a little strange but that´s just because we´re so used to only shaking hands when we see people.