Hermana Tess Crawford: I Love San Rafael

Tess's letter from San Rafael May 26, 2014

Hola.
Haha thanks for writing even though you didn't have internet! It's insane how much work they're doing on the house, it's going to look amazing afterwards. Can't wait to see it!

That's cool that Trennon's back! Does that mean I'm the next one to come home now? What the heck.

It looks like Rustin's graduation was awesome- loved the congrats sign. He's finally free now! Well, for like 12 weeks until he starts college.

That's awesome that he and dad are having fun in Baltimore and that Chloe got to go to Mexico! I'm jealous that they get to go to girls camp in Flagstaff! I wish I could go again now that I'm not an immature teenager who didn't really understand spiritual things.. It would be great. I'm sure I'll go someday though!

This week for me was really good! I forgot how much I loved San Rafael, even though it's a lot colder than it was when I was here and I'm going to die. Traveling here was an adventure. As you saw in the foto I'm an illegal immigrant. My visa apparently expired like April 9th and I never made an official Argentine citizen ID thing so when the border people got on the bus to check our ID's I only had a laminated copy of my passport and so they made me get off the bus, go inside their government building/station thing and they had to fill out a notification. Supposedly I have to present myself in some legal building in a few days but I guess the secret is that you don't really have to because they don't put it in a computer or anything it's just a paper that gets thrown away in like 30 days. It was fun though, I felt like I was in a movie. For a second I thought I might get deported haha. Hopefully when we travel today to Mendoza for the leadership meeting with Pres. it doesn't happen again or on Tuesday when we come back, or they'll probs deport me for real this time.

My new comp is amazing! Her name is Hna Anderson and she's a 23 yr old from Iowa. She's been a member for 2.5 years, and it was definitely a crazy process. She used to be atheist (from age like 11 to 19) and then a friend who had just gotten baptized 3 months earlier introduced her to the church. The craziest part is that her parents are actually extremely anti-mormon. In fact her mom wrote an anti-mormon book when she found out her daughter was listening to the missionaries.... Yeah. My comp is incredible and she's an awesome missionary! She goes home in a couple weeks but I'm really glad I got the chance to meet and work with her here. She was here in this exact area a year ago with Hna Medrano and so she knows the people really well and has had a lot of success.

There's some really great people here. The ward is a lot bigger than the last ward I was in here (there's like 50 actives here and like 9 there). We have a family that are eternal investigators- the familia Ibañez. It's a married couple with 3 older kids (2 boys- Renzo & Erick, and 1 girl named Belén). They're pretty much mormon- they have stuff from our church all over their house: Liahonas, 5 copies of the Book of Mormon, Jesus the Christ, pictures of Christ, and they use the Restoration pamphlet as their centerpiece on their kitchen table. They're super nice and they love us & our message, but they have really strong testimonies about the virgin Mary that they can't let go of, and they don't really like the members here besides us.. It's actually a really complicated situation so we're trying to figure out what to do with them.

We have a really cool recent convert named Angel who got baptized a few weeks ago. He was a referral from a member and when the hnas first went he said that he was never going to join our church because we "worship Joseph Smith and don't drink coffee". He was baptized exactly a month later! He's really sweet and selfless and he got the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday!

We also teach a weekly English class to about 6 kids (5-10yrs old) who are so cute. The hnas have taught them "head shoulders knees and toes" the song and duck duck goose. It's not very organized or intense, but it's fun!

The hnas we're over are Hna Aguilar who I was just living with last transfer, Hna Landeo from Peru, Hna Reyes (Hatch's "daughter), Hna Japa from Peru, and Hna Tanner & Bentley from the US. They're all great so there shouldn't be too much drama or anything this transfer. Our first exchange will be next week and I'm going to go to my old area!!

There's not a ton more to tell you guys from this week, I'm just trying to figure out the area and the people quick so that I don't freak out when Anderson leaves..! It's awesome here though, I'm glad I get to DIE here (;

I hope you have an awesome week and that you enjoy this letter- there's only going to be 10 more after this one...... ahhhh.

Love,

Hna Tess