Going to Puerto Rico??!

......I hate you guys... Not really, but what the.. I'm so jealous right now. Puerto Rico looks AMAZING!! Don't tell my companion, but I'm getting on the next over plane there right now. No joke.. Haha but really, it looks like you guys are having an incredible time and I might as well not write anything so that you don't lose any beach-time.. así que ciao!

...................................................................................................................................

Ha ok as you can tell I'm in a slightly strange mood this morning. During our companion study this morning Hna Cheta and I almost died laughing over something that wasn't funny at all. But anyways, en serio, I'm glad you're getting a little taste of what it's like to be surrounded by Spanish all day long though, it's pretty cool right? (Well, most of the time it's cool. There's always those days where it's not cool at all.) But anyways, I hope you bought me something nice (; That's awesome that you got to eat steak with chimichurri sauce because I have a bottle in my fridge and I literally put it on just about everything that I eat. So good.

This week was a little bit better for las hermanas de Maipú B. We were able to talk to Mauricio and Roxana, and they're both doing well but we still have a lot of work to do with each of them. We worked hard though and found some new families that are awesome! I'm definitely never listening to gossip about other missionaries ever again because Hermana Cheta is the coolest! We have a ton of fun together and she's seriously an amazing missionary- I'm learning a ton from her about how to teach to peoples needs and not just teach lessons that aren't applied to specific investigators. I hope I'll be able to teach half as well as she does one day. We'll see! But yeah, I don't have any super crazy stories or anything. One great thing that happened was that this sunday we talks focused on missionary work, a girl in the ward gave her goodbye testimony, and the choir sang our hymn. This ward's been a little bit tough to work with since I've gotten here, but I think that they were able to get excited about sharing their testimonies with their family and friends after sacrament meeting. It was awesome! Hopefully they'll remember how they felt and not lose focus on how important and seriously rewarding this work really is. Other than that it was pretty normal, so now I'm gonna use the rest of the time I have to send pictures- yayy.

Love you guys, que les vaya muy bien!

<3,

Hermana Crawford 

(no one, including my comp. can pronounce my name here, it's so cute)

PS- Don't let dad smuggle any wild reptiles home..
PSS- My flight to P.R. should land in about 18 hours so I'll see you soon (;

PICTURES IN POST BELOW!!

Pictures from Aug. 26, 2013

The Mendoza Zoo! (which we're not allowed to go to).. ;(

the next few are of El Cerro de la Gloria that we went to last P-Day

El Cerro de la Gloria

Tess and Hermana Cheta on El Cerro de la Gloria

Monument on top of El Cerro de la Gloria

View from the top of El Cerro de la Gloria

Wasted 50 pesos on a nasty burger (the bun had mold on it, but I ate it anyways.. soy re tonta) that I threw-up later that night. I blame the because they chose the dang "restaurant".

Gemelas! (unplanned, obvio)

The difference between the slightly more expensive Micro and the normal one. Miraculously there was hardly anyone on them the day I took these pics- normally they're packed and we have to stand and try not to die when they make harsh turns, which they do, because they're not the greatest drivers in the world..

Random house in Lunlunta that I thought was cool for some reason

our luxury washer & dryer that are pretty much useless because there's about 877 steps involved, so I usually just wash my clothes by hand in a bucket..

the cheesecake for Hna Ruiz's b-day last week. Their candles (aka fireworks disguised as candles) are a lot cooler here..

my favorite ward member here in Maipú.. que precioso que es, no?

Drinking Malta at the Rossi's house for Hna Ruiz's b-day

I thought you'd like a picture of an asequia.. they're everywhere.. luckily I haven't fallen in one yet, but tons of other hermanas have

My comp and I eating empanadas at the Rossi's

Forgetting English... Argentine Walmart?!

So once again it's been a pretty stressful week.. On Monday we went to pick up my companion at the Terminal for the Micros and her bus took a different route so she came like an hour late. Hermana Cheta is from Santa Fe (capitál) in Argentina. She's been out on the mission for 8 months now and she's gotten transfered into a different area every single transfer so far. She's pretty awesome so far though. Random fact- I don't know if anyone's told you this yet but in Argentina the word Cheta means someone who's really snobby, so she's always had a hard time with that because everyone always laughs at it. She was studying to be an English translater (BTW it just took me like 2 minutes to think of the word translater in English..) and she knows a little bit of English but can't really speak it fluently or anything yet. I've been helping her with pronunciation and teaching her some slang like probs and sketchy, which has been fun. My Castellano is doing pretty dang good now, which is awesome too. 

The crazy part of the week though was that we literally had no time to do ANYTHING, and the time that we did have NONE of the investigators were home or had time to talk to us in the moment.. We're literally dying because as a missionary it really sucks and is the most stressful when your're not working as much as you'd like to be able to. It's the worst! Time goes by super slow and you have too much time to think about home and stuff like that. Some of the reasons that we had no time were that first of all we had intercambios (exchanges) on Tuesday, the day after my new comp arrived, and she had to go to Godoy Cruz Centro while Hna Salcedo (de Peru) came to Maipú to work with me for 24 hours. Hna. Salcedo is great but she's 42 years old.. so that was interesting to be living with someone who could literally be my mother... But I learned a lot. 

After that we had district meeting on Tuesday which took forever and then my comp. was in pain and so she had to sleep for a bit. Thursday we had entrevistas with Presidente Avila, and even though mine was supposedly at 12 and my comp had already had hers the past week, we had to wait 3 hours for the others to finish theirs and then Presidente had another interview with my comp which lasted 2 full hours. Then on Friday we had to do weekly planning which takes 3 hours, and is the worst day of the week- ask any missionary. Saturday was Hna Ruiz´s birthday and we ate lunch (empanadas) together at the house of the ward mission leader, and then we had the English class (which no one came to again so we're giving up on it) and choir practice which included a small b-day celebration for Hna Ruiz. And then yesterday of course we had church and then it just happened to be one of the billion holidays that they've invented, El Dia del Niño in this case, and so hardly anyone was home. 

So as you can tell it's been a little interesting and I've had to show Hna Cheta the area as well as tell her all about our investigators and everything. Yeah.. I'm trying to maintain the chillness that I usually have, I'm hopeful that this next week I'll be able to get somewhat back to the normal me and be able focus again. But anyways, that's about all I've got. One other funny thing that I wanted to share is that now that I'm living next to another North American, we've been able to speak English obviously, but the thing is that it's the most awkward english that I've ever spoken in my life because we're already forgetting words and using Spanglish like no other, and I'm in the habit of using no? at the end of almost every sentence.. Hahah I'm going to be the biggest weirdo ever when I get back, just to warn you guys. Praying in English is also incredibly awkward and I tried to do it once with Hna Cheta but literally couldn't, and gave up after 30 seconds of trying. So weird, but kind of cool too.

Anyways, have a great trip and watch out for sharks (; Get well soon, Chloe! I love you guys!

<3,

Hermana Crawford

PS- Kendal's letter was hilarious, I wish I was that funny!

Last P-Day we went to Chango Más aka Argentine WalMart. It's not even close to the real thing, but at least they tried.

Inside Chango Más. We were hoping to find peanut butter and cream cheese but they didn't have it

What we did find was Oreo & Chips Ahoy alfajores, pringles, and doritos

1 & 2- Mi nueva compañera, la Hermana Cheta! She looks way younger than me but she's 24.

Companionless and Sleeping on the Floor!??

Hey mom! Haha I loved the pictures you sent of Nellie and of the day that everyone came to BYU. Good times. The one of Rustin sleeping in Sacrament meeting is classic, haha nice one Amanda. I think your hair looks awesome, the girls are locas! It's so weird to me that the kids are starting another year of school while I'm out here.. It feels like I'm in a strange alternate reality sometimes. But at least homework doesn't exist in this reality (; I'm glad you found the song I recorded a while ago but I can't believe you posted it on facebook, woman! Haha oh well.. 

So this week wasn't much less strange than the last one. Hermana Sidan and I did our best to knock doors and find new investigators, and we were able to find a few who have some potential. We visited Roxana two times and both times two different pastors from her church happened to show up to buy something and both tried to keep her from listening to us because "there words are the only ones she should listen to". They weren't too friendly for being supposed followers of Jesus Christ, but Roxanna decided that she would keep listening to us and investigating even though her pastors scold her for doing so.

We had some other interesting lessons with people who let us in but weren't really willing to find out the truth for themselves and  really just wanted to argue. But we also had a lesson with Mauricio that went really well- he's reading been reading the Book of Mormon and is really interested in the story of Lehi and his family. He's also been praying about whether Joseph Smith was a prophet and he feels good but still feels like he hasn't gotten his answer, but we watched the 20 min video of the Restoration and he loved it because he says that he feels a lot like Joseph felt when he was searching for the truth and wasn't sure where to find it. I'm positive that he's going to get his answer soon and that he'll find what he's been searching for for years. That lesson made all of the craziness that had happened earlier in the week worth it. Seeing him progressing and reading makes me extremely happy because I know what happiness he's going to find in the church. We still got lost quite a few times but it wasn't terrible and we had fun!

We tried to have the English class on Saturday but no one showed up.. It's all good though, cosas que pasan. The choir was a success though and we're going to be singing Mas Cerca Dios de Ti to Thee this Sunday! But anyways, as you know, Hermana Sidan left yesterday because she had to go vote and she also starts college today. T

he most stressful part of the week was that for the last few days I've been hearing a million different things about what's going to happen about my new comp. They still hadn't given me any sort of a solid answer about who was going to come and when yesterday, so when Hna Sidan left I was stuck in a trio with the other two Hermanas and I slept on their floor (as you could see in the picture I sent). This morning I finally was told that my comp is going to be Hermana Cheta, and that we have to go pick her up today at 4. I'm a little nervous because I've heard some interesting things about Hna. Cheta, but I'm going to form my own opinion of her and try not accept everything that I've heard as the truth. We'll see what happens..! That's all I've got this week. I hope the kids have a fun week in school and that you and dad enjoy having them out of the house for at least part of the day. I miss you and love you! Wish me luck with the new comp!

<3,

Hermana Crawfish

PS- The package you sent may or may not have finally arrived, I'll find out for sure on Thursday!

me in my temporary bed aka the floor

the Elders' attempt at making a pizza.. yeah, no.

enjoying the first p-day of the transfer. The elder on the left replaced the elder from Gilbert as a Zone Leader, and he's from Portland, Oregon (Elder Dowdle)

I pulled a Chloe and spilled an entire bottle of Diet Pepsi- it shot across the kitchen floor like a rocket, which was pretty entertaining (especially to missionaries who have few things to entertain ourselves with)

a lady from Vegas came and visited a family in our ward and brought things from the US for the American missionaries. Obviously it was the best peanut butter I've ever eaten.

the Maipu chapel

a pic of our zone from the meeting we had last week

to appropriately top-off this strange tiempito companionless, it decided to rain this morning