May 12 Letter

(Talking to Cara on Mother's Day was awesome!! She sounded soooo good and happy. I could have talked to her for hours but had to share. It was great to hear her voice and to know that she is doing so well. Thanks to everyone for your prayers, support and for writing her.)

Anj---you can totally e-mail me! I can't write you back, but I always have time to read e-mails because I print them out, so fill my inbox baby! Thanks for your e-mail! I love you! =)

HOLA QUERIDOS!
Okay so this e-mail will consist of all the things I wanted to tell you on the phone yesterday and I COMPLETELY forgot! Not really my fault since there was kind of a circus at the house yesterday...what are you gonna do? =) I'll answer the questions Dad asked first...yes, I'm all settled in my new area, I love my companion, I love the mountains in my area and I love the sunsets here in this area. They definitely blow Arizona ones out of the water. I thought those were the best, but you do NOT know sunsets until you've been to Carlos Paz, Argentina. The apartment I'm in now is considerably smaller than the one in Rio Cuarto and is on the third floor of a building with no elevators. Pero, ni importa, I love it and I'm happy here! As far as the work goes in this area...I'm not really sure. We've been trying to talk to as many people as we can and this week, every evening is filled up with people we need to visit from contacting so we'll see how many of those turn into investigators. Hermana Brown and I are going to do as much as we can, but both of us only have almost 5 months in Argentina. Neither of us is senor comp so we're really trying to be as obedient as week can and speak as much spanish as we can so that we both can grow a lot and have the spirit with us so the Lord can bless us regardless of our inexperience. It'll be tough, but, this is where we are and we can't not try! =) It gets pretty cool here at nights, but the afternoons are still pretty warm. It doesn't get as hot as my first area, so that's a relief, but we still do a lot of sweating! Hermana Widmer, the cockroach Hermana, has lost 22 pounds since being here. It's her second transfer. She's short and kind of bigger and her body's not used to all the walking so she's dropping it fast. Jealous... The mission pays for our transportation to and from our area. We give them the receipts for everything at the end of the transfer and then they put the money in our account at the beginning of the next month...I think. I'm not sure how that works...I've never been senior comp, but Hermana Brown and I have to switch off with paying for stuff now, so...we'll see how that goes!Moving on to the other things. First item of business: May 1st is Dia del trabajador. Translation: day of the hard worker. Do you want to know what they do here on that day? NOTHING! Every business and every store are closed and everyone and their dog takes the day off...well, the dogs not so much because they are CONSTANTLY molesting people. Every Argentine, with the exception of a few eat a thing called locro. I don't know what's inside this soupy dish, but Hermana Capener told me that it does NOT taste good. Hermana Brown and I were praying REALLY hard that we wouldn't have to eat it. Nobody made it for us and we had 2 or 3 appointments with members that day! We were so happy! Next thing...going back to dogs: I hate them. I do NOT want a dog EVER. They bark and bite for no reason, they pee on EVERYTHING, they follow you around unless you scream at them (which I've done a few times) to name a few. I could really go on and on about how much I hate dogs. Being here in Argentina has completely cured me of wanting a dog any time in my near future. If you would like to try to convince me otherwise, be my guest, but good luck. Other animal stories: My comp and I were walking to an appointment and there was a cat laying on the ground. This is not uncommon, but we dedided to stop and stare at it to see if it was alive. I recognized it was not after a few seconds because its stomach wasn't moving. I looked dead. I said, "Hermana, I'm pretty sure this cat is dead." However, her hand was moving towards it when I said this and she scratched it. Realizing that it really was dead she immediately withdrew her hand and began to freak out! I said, "I TOLD you it was dead ya wack!" Hahahaha it was soooo funny. So now every time we see an animal lying on the ground we have to stop and stare to make sure it's living. With dogs it's easy because once they hear us they immediately start barking and want to attack us. I told Dad about two of the things I wanted to say yesterday. We found a woman street contacting and when we went to her house for the appointment we made, we sang "I Am a Child of God" and we almost made her start crying. It was awesome. Also, we ran into some crazy man knocking doors who informed us that God is just enery, but contradicted hismelf when he said that we are all children of God. I said, "Yes, we are all children of God, so He can't be just energy." Then he started using really big words and things that didn't make any sense at all. When he woulnd't shut up about his way of thinking, I said, "well, Roberto, it was nice meeting you, but we have a meeting we have to get to so we'll see ya." (I wasn't lying about the meeting, but we weren't going to be late for it for another 10 minutes or so. Oh well...I'll repent for that one later.) He then responded, "oh, you don't want to hear the word of God?" I said, "No, we preach the word of God, but we've gotta go, have a nice night." Then he said, "Chau, un gusto, que Dios las bendigas." What a weirdy!!!!! Yesterday in the Principles of the Gospel class, the teacher was talking about when Christ was teaching in the temple when he was like 12 or 14 or something. My mind zapped back to the seminary lesson when Mom was my teacher. The day she talked about this story made me laugh so hard because she said, "I don't know what I would have been like if I were them, they were probably thinking, oh my HECk we lost the son of God!" Hahaha thanks Mom! I don't know if you remember that, but it's ALWAYS been in my head and it ALWAYS makes me laugh! You're the best! My companion has been feeling kind of bummed lately because she feels like no matter what she tries to do, the members are always telling her what she needs to do better. Not in a loving way either. We've been doing tons of tracting lately and talking to EVERY person we see in the street. By chance we've found a few less active members so we've been visiting with them, too. Our zone leader was less than thrilled about that when she talked to him. He said that our purpose here is finding new investigators and working with the members to get them, not focusing on less actives. When she told me that, I got...let's just say I got a little more passionate than necessary, whipped out Preach My Gospel and showed her the quote by President Hinckley that says our purpose is what my zone leader said, but also, to help those people get back to church. I was like, BAM! Take that! It helped my comp feel better, too. Then in our mission conference on Thursday, Elder Zivick said many times that a big part of our work is helping less actives get back to church. HAHAHA! I love it when I'm right, and it feels so good to be right when you're backed by Preach My Gospel and a member of the Quorum of the 70. I love being a missionary! Well, my dearest ones, I hope everything is just wonderful for everyone. It sounds like the house is staying busy and that everyone's having a lot of fun! It was awesome to talk to you all, I love hearing your stories! Thank you for your prayers and support! Have an awesome week! Give Kaden and Brendon kisses for me!
All my love,Hermana Shumway