Hermana Tess Crawford: 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