Aug. 25th Email (with pictures!)

"This week has had it´s ups and downs. we talked to Veronica (investigator who has loads of faith), and we found out that she is having a lot of family problems right now. It´s hard to see her suffer so much! We waited for her in church but she didn´t show. I was so sad! We found out that she is sick, so i understand this time. Let´s hope she comes next week! Also, her family doesn´t want her to listen to us. That´s hard! When we arrived at her house the other day, they started to blast spanish music and it was really hard for us to bring the spirit in with random music in the background. haha, but she really does want to learn more and she kept appologizing because of the music. She felt so bad. We made an appointment with her for next time in the capital (chapel) here in Adrogué, so that we can talk without the distraction of her family. 

I got a virus that´s been going around here. Woooooooot haha it started with a HUGE migrane throughout the day, I could barely function cause my thoughts would not gather correctly. I was so out of it, it was bad! Also, my body was super weak and i coud barely walk, let alone speed walk (which is what we usually do here) haha. It was rough, but after a day or two that left and i got clogged nose and cracky throat which i´m fighting right now. It´s not too bad cause i took a lot of the emergency first aid things I have, so that´s a huge blessing!

A lot of our menos activos don´t want to come to church aparently... that´s really hard too! We decided that we´re done with 'telling them in loving ways', we are going to be straight forward with them haha talking about how, really, faith without actions is dead. And that we can believe, but if we don´t change our life because of what we believe it doesn´t do any good for anybody. We really are working hard with these people, but none of them have come to church yet. 

Oh, also, funny stories. there was this one time when this older lady was walking with us and she obviously could tell that i wasn´t from Argentina. So she asked me where i was from. At this point, she was super nice and just chatting with us. I told her i was from America, and she thought that was cool, and then i said 'estoy acá porque soy una missionera de la iglesía de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Días', and right after I said it, she RAN for her life!! haha it was kind of funny. I have also come to realize that there are a lot of drunk people here at night.. ya, slightly creepy. The other night, we were walking and a drunk guy started to yell at us asking if we were saints or wiches... ya.. creepy! He kept yelling it, and then started saying that we were wiches... we ran for our lives after that haha. Kinda freaked me out but whatevs, i´m protected right? So ha. Lol but ya, that´s my life right now. Not anything too exciting, but hey ;)"

LOVES!!! 
-Hermana Alldredge

She DID send pictures! So here are a few of those. I was also able to chat with her for a *short* time because we were on our emails just before she had to get off the computer! It was so cool to see her respond to my emails, and know that she really is ALIVE! Hahaha, it was weird but I am so grateful to have had that opportunity. Anywho, here are the pictures. Enjoy! 

Aug. 18th Email Update!

"My week has been pretty chill! The other day we got a new investigator named Veronica, and she is amazing! We taught her the first lesson and we asked her the baptismal question: ¨will you be baptized... and before we could finish asking the question she said 'sí!'. It was crazy! We paused for a sec and then finished with the rest, 'with someone holding the propper authority'. Haha, I gave the last prayer and i started bawling because of her amazing faith! It was crazy! I knew that the Lord had prepared her to receive the gospel, but at the same time it´s up to her to accept it or not. Here in Argentina there are a lot of couples who are 'parejas', which mean that they are together, have a family, and live in the same house,  but still aren´t married. It´s a weird concept/life style for me but hey, alright. We set a date for her but then we realized after that she´s married, so it´s going to take at least a month for her to get the certificate and be able to be baptized and that´s if her husband wants her to... it´s kind of sad but that´s how people live here. But wow, her faith/Spirit. It blew me away. It was insane. 

We also had an investigator drop us (idk if i told you that or not...) her name´s Estephanie, and her mom is a menos active (less active), and so one day when we were at her house her daughter (who is like 24) came in and we started talking to her but the next time we came she just left. So it was kind of sad but, you can´t force people. We are here to invite. But we are also hoping to help reactivate her mom. Because she didn't want to listen, her mom was super sad 'cause she realized how much she wanted her daughter to listen to the gospel. We are going to try to find a way to tell her nicely that she has to be an example before her daughter is going to want to have anything to do with the gospel. But ya. 

We also have another family that are menos activos that we are trying to help activate again. They want to get married in the temple. They are the Bustamantes, and they are way awesome but gosh they like to talk soooooo much! Argies LOVE to talk. We are at people´s houses for 2 hours trying to give a 20 minute lesson haha it´s so hard to stay on shedule! But this family likes to talk more than any other. it´s mostly the dad though. We were at their place for 3 hours!!! We finally had to say, we have to go now because it was already 9pm haha. They are great people though and they are the family who cooked the assada (argentinian bbq) which was heaven!  

Ya, it´s a new thing The Church is starting in some places (working with the menos activos). Also we are to teach the 1st 4th lessons of the gospel to people after they are baptized, so that´s cool too! Oh, does joel know about the alfajores? idk if he had them on his mish... but oh my gosh, heaven! The ones with moose and the oreo ones are the bomb! 

But ya, the language is... coming... i think... it´s hard to know the progress cause i don´t feel like i´ve made that much progress at all but i don't really have anything to compare it to. The other day, my comp started feeling stressed because of things here with families that we can´t control. One member (not menos activo mind you) won´t let his wife go to church because he doesn´t want her to... we don´t know why... but it´s way sad cause she just got baptised a little while ago. But in my blessing it talked about how i have learned a lot, and that he would bless my comp with patience. That actually helped me feel a LOT better. I was able to talk to one of my zone leaders who´s way cool and is from Spanish Fork, and he made me feel a lot better too cause he felt the exact same way, but his trainer wasn´t patient with him at all which is sad. 

But ya, that's been my life here this week!

LOVES!!!!

-Hermana Alldredge"

No pics again this week :(

The 18th also marked 2 months in the mission field for Hermana Alldredge!! Which meant another trip to Tropical Smoothie for us :D haha We loved having a little celebration in her honor.

August 11th Email

"The men here are kind of creepy lol i´ve been hit on by so many men it´s crazy haha, nothing major, but they're like that with every woman! But i think even more to female missionaries, especially because we are wearing nice cloths lol. This one time, a creepy old man was on a bus and we were waiting for another bus at the stop, and the bus stopped by us and i made eye contact with the old man, (first mistake) and then he gave me the 'creepy eyebrow' nod haha it was so creepy cause his jacket was covering his mouth so i could only see his nose and eyes, and oh my gosh, so creepy haha!

It´s crazy that i´m here right now! I still feel like it´s a dream! But i know now that this is where i´m supose to be! the things in this life helps us be where we need to be, so long as we´re doing what we are supose to be doing!  I know now that i needed to serve a mission not only for others, but for myself! I have already learned so much here that i most definately would not have learned outside of the mish. I absolutely love it here even though there are rough times especially since i´m here in arg. without knowing spanish... it´s super rough. But i wake up everyday at 6:30 and think to myself how truely lucky i am to be here, in Argentina, and to learn more every minute of every day! it´s crazy how blessed i really am, and i hope that i keep this feeling throughout my mission! when people ask me how i´m doing i always say that i´m doing super bien- porque yo soy una missionara! idk if i told you but we clap at doors, not knock! i thought that was a fun thing! haha also we clapped doors the other day and we found a bunch of new people that actually wanted to hear the gospel!!!! we were so excited! apparently argies are a lot like europeans, and are comfortable in their own traditions and ways- so it´s really hard to get new investigators. But we´re working on it! one of our investigators actually dropped us :( haha ya, sad, but hey, we are here to invite others to listen, even though sometimes we may want to force them haha. my spanish is... coming... haha i´m not sure how different it is right now compared to how it was in the beggining. i hope it´s better but idk. I need to get a little more confident with it! 

The work is continuing and i´m just happy to be a part of it! i don´t regret my decision to come at all! i´m a missionary doing the Lords work, therefore, i´m happy! but ya. I love it here! Absolutely love it! oh, idk if i ever told you, my comp and i hug every night, like Joel advised us to, and it really does help our relationship- and me personally 'cause it makes me feel like I'm not alone. We also say that we love each other every night, which may sound cheesy, but it´s nice to hear it from a person... you know?! Anyways, i should probably head out. 

Bye! Have a fantastic week!"

-H. Alldredge

No pics this week :( 

First Week in Argentina

"OH MY GOSH... I LOVE ARGENTINA!!! It´s so amazing here! there are a lot of 'poor' people, but it helps me see how blessed i really am and how i really have have bunch of stuff i really don´t need haha! Ya, it´s crazy to be completely surrounded by Spanish, but it´s nice too, 'cause i´m learning pretty quick. I still can´t talk perfectly, but at least i can understand.. most of it... haha. My comp is awesome! She´s from Panama and is one of the nicest people ever! I love her cause she´s always helping me and is EXTREAMLY friendly and SUPER loving. She tells me to call her 'madre' 'cause i´m her 'hija' (cause she´s my trainer me haha). Her name is hna. Quintero and she rocks!!! Idk if they're doing the same thing there that we´re doing here but, our mission is actually focused on the menos activos (less actives). If we find new investigators, it´s great, but our job is to go after the lest active. In one ward we have about 200 menos activos... ya... not good haha only about 40 actually come to church, so we have a lot to do! I love the people here! absolutely love them! they are all like mom haha. Family means a lot to people here so i get to teach a bunch of families and that´s way fun! we also have the oportunity to eat with the members almost everyday, and let me tell you, we eat well! haha. i ate tortillas here but they aren´t like the Mexican ones... they are more like fried bread! they are soooo good! also, some of them people sell on the streets and they have pig skin in them which is actually really amazing haha. Their popcorn is with sugar and it´s delish. The other day i tried this stuff that was so good! i´m not sure what it was called but it was like a mush that had flour, corn, water, and cheese and it was kind of grainy. Not sure what it was, but it was good haha. We are in Adrougé B area and it´s way pretty. I´m not sure how close we are to the city, but i know that we have so much diversity here there are houses that are super nice (like average houses in the USA kind of) and then they have cement block houses that sometimes don't even have cement floors. it´s crazy! one of the less actives asked why i like it here because i come from the 'fabrica' (Utah). I told her i love the people, culture and i just love how beautiful it is! it´s so cool! I see kids playing with really old and torn stuff and they are so happy and it helps me see that we really don´t need all the stuff we have in the states but we are really lucky to have it! i mean, i have to put my toilet paper in a trash can by the toilet cause we aren´t supose to flush it in the toilets! it´s crazy how nice we have it! "

Something called 'dulce de leche' which is from the cielos (heavens)!

We were able to see a kid get baptized by his father, who use to be a non member, and he did not like the church. Now he loves it, and feels so bad about talking rudely to the missionaries when they were trying to teach him. He speaks english and he always wants to practice with me haha.

This family that we ate the assada with was named Baustantes, and they are a huge family! I can´t remember how many people are in it.. but i remember that there are a lot! they are less actives who decided that they want to be married in the temple so we are working with them to help them reach their goal. they are so nice i just wish i could talk to them more haha. The dad has a collection of 'yerba mate' cups and he has a little over 70... 70! crazy!