¡Vamos que se puede!

Hello and hi and hola!

Wow, it´s been quite the eventful week! We´ve been running around like crazy and traveling to San Fernando and back a few times, but it all came to a wonderful end with the baptism of Susana! We were worried earlier in the week because we weren´t able to teach her for a few days straight because she hadn´t been home. We thought she was avoiding us, but it turns out her daughter had been having some health problems, so she was with her a lot. We finally were able to find her and teach her and help her to have her baptism on Sunday! It was awesome. It´s amazing because we had only known her for two weeks. She knew very little, but her testimony is so strong. She knew she was making a correct decision because of the way she feels every time she goes to church, reads in the Book of Mormon, and has lessons with us. And that is all the knowledge you need! When the Holy Ghost testifies you just need to seguir, no más! Also, it was so great that Hermana Jones and I were able to share such an awesome experience on our last day together. That night, we went to her despedida and on the way home, the Elders called us to tell us about TRANSFERS! This is how it went: Elder Lane: "Hermana, have you been exactly obedient?" Me: "Yes...." EL: "Hermana Hill, you are going to be training next transfer." Me *small heart attack* "You´re lying!" EL: *Lots of laughing in the background* "You´re right. You´re going to stay in Zárate with Hermana Vargas!" Ja. Ja. Very funny. So here I am, sitting next to my cute new little Guatemalan companion! This is her first time being senior companion, but I can tell she´s going to be great. She is super nice and I am very excited! Let me tell you though, it was tough saying goodbye to mi mamá. It´s definitely going to be super different, but change always comes and I know I will learn a ton from each of my companions. 

It sounds like Thanksgiving was wonderful! For our Thanksgiving dinner, we ended up eating alfajores on the roof...long story. So, a little different than the usual! You´ll have to keep filling me in on all of your holiday adventures! I´m not sure what I´ll be doing on Christmas exactly, but I know that we have lunch at one of the member´s homes, so that will be good. It´s going to be super weird having Christmas in the middle of summer...kind of like when we went to Hawaii but a little different :) Oh! I was going to tell you! Tell grandpa that the daughter of one of his missionaries in Mexico is in my mission! Hermana Gonzalez. Her dad´s name is Daniel. I guess he was AP when grandpa got to the mission. And she said she´s even stayed at his house before. They live in Orem now. So yeah, cool story :)

Well gotta go! I will try to send pictures.

Love, Hermana Hill

Pictures

Sunset in Zarate

This is for Haley Loveland

Got myself some pantalones flojos!  Girls are always wearing pants like this.
But these are definitely the most colorful.

My helmet fell in a NASTY gutter full of moss, mud, poop, garbage, and who knows what.
So, Hermana Jones washed it for me and hung it out to dry.  She's the best.

Flowers in Argentina are really pretty.

We made lots of jugitos :).

Noche de Hogar...jaja.

Lucas, Oriana, Lara.  Cutest kids ever.

Pochocio

Dear Family,

Thank you for the wonderful emails and pictures! It was so fun to see what you´re all up to. I can´t believe how successful you all are...half marathons, swimming champs, and concert symphonists (I think I made up that word). Also cute Halloween costumes everyone! Also, those were some awesome pictures from England, ma! And Easton is the cutest! Kaylee, I can´t go to your blog, but feel free to email me your posts every now and then. I loved hearing all about that kid and seeing the pictures! Wow. Oh and isn´t Thanksgiving ths week? That cracks me up that Kaylee asked if they celebrate Thanksgiving in South America......still the same ole sista :) Oh and I was laughing at your boy meets world comments as well. And Cade´s jokes :)

So much I want to say! So many questions to answer! About Hna Shelley...she got transfered the transfer after she got here. Long story but she was in a triple for a while and then got transfered to the south where she is serving with Hna Jones´ last companion...who she trained. So in other words, this Hermana just barely got done getting trained and now she is training! I´ve heard she´s incredible, though. She´s from Chile. I´m sure they´ll be an awesome companionship. Oh and she had to go buy a bunch of warm clothes haha. Hna Jones is leaving next Monday and I´m super sad. But I know that´s just a part of the mission and we will both keep going forward and learning and having new experiences! As far as holidays go, they have a lot of random holidays all the time where the kids don´t have to go to school. Nothing too huge though. I can´t believe Christmas is coming up so soon! And it´s going to be smack dab in the heat of summer...weird.

Susana is awesome! She is like our little mom here in Argentina. Everytime we go there she gives us all this food and she´s just so funny. Also, pretty much every time she prays, she cries. At first when she started praying, she would only pray in her head with us, but in the last lesson we had, she prayed out loud and it was so sweet. She came to church this Sunday again, and they announced her baptism. Things are going really well, thank you for your prayers! I know this is the week she will need them most, because right now is when the most adversity will come. But she always says "I´m not getting off this horse!"

More good news: on Sunday Pablo Baldis received the Aaronic Priesthood! It´s so exciting to see how much their family is progressing. The church in South America is in dire need of priesthood holders. The large majority of our ward, and the church in general, is women. So it is awesome when there are complete families, with a father who holds the priesthood. Let me just take this opportunity to say THANK YOU to my wonderful dad who is a worthy priesthood holder and an amazing example to me! It´s just so apparent to me, especially being here, how much the gospel truly does bless people. I wish I could somehow let people know that more than I am. I try so hard to tell them how happy the gospel has made me, but the trick is getting them to believe me...or do the things they need to do to receive that happiness. I was talking to a woman at a kiosko the other day, Griselda. We started talking to her and getting to know her a little and found out that her daughter had died two years ago. You could just tell by looking at her how sad she was. We told her that Heavenly Father has a plan of happiness for us, but she didn´t seem to believe that anything could make her happy. She told us that we had no idea what it was like to lose a child. All I could say is that she is right...I didn´t know. But I know that Christ knows and that he could help her. We testified to her that she could feel hope and peace. Even after we left, I´m still not sure she believed us. And people never will believe us unless they are willing to experiment--try for themselves....pray, read the scriptures, go to church. This is what helps us develop a stronger relationship with Christ and feel his love in our lives every day.

So keep it up :)

Oh, we had our noche de hogar and the numbers were a little sparse, but more will come as we do it every week. I hope haha. We talked about missionary work, Libro de Mormon, watched an awesome movie about sharing the gospel, and had them write their testimonies in a LDM to give to someone. And ate popcorn. Also, keep thinking of ideas!!!! And let me know. Thanks :)

Love you all a whole lot!

Hermana Hill

Pictures

This is cow nerves.  I ate a bite.  They taste pretty much exactly
how they look...Thank you, Famlia Montaldo.

These are misperos.

Picking misperos at Hna Rive's

Eating misperos.  I eat them crouched over the garbage can  so I can spit out the
seeds, and also because they're really juicy and spray everywhere.  Jaja...

Chile!  Hna Salas is the one on the end. Hna Alfaro is from Vina del Mar!

Argentine mosquitos me aman.  Delicioso!

Mondogo

Hi Fam!

Right now I am in Capital because I had to do all my paperwork stuff to make sure I´m legal. Don´t worry, I am now in Argentina legally. And I also got to talk to the guy who did all my paperwork stuff a little about the church. Bonus!

Well here are the scriptures that I found about "when thou art converted, strengthen your brethren"
-Helaman 6:4-5
-Alma 36:23-25
-1 Nephi 8:12
-Mosiah 18:1-3

Those are my favs and I´m sure there are lots more examples. If you find some more good ones, let me know!

The interesting-thing-I-ate of the week is mondongo. Cow stomach. It wasn´t THAT bad, but it was just kind of slimey/rubbery. I guess they eat it in all different forms, but we had it in like a stew. I´m sure there will be more where that came from...

To answer your questions: Facturas are delicious pastries of many sorts. We had wash our clothes by hand and hang them on a line. It´s cute. We are three hours before Utah time. I was asking about Lawrence Corbridge because he wrote this awesome talk called the fourth missionary. It´s super long and I haven´t read it all but it´s really good. I got the package today!! Thank you so much, I´m so excited to give the pictures and stickers and CTR rings to everyone :) As far as Christmas goes, I don´t think I need anything! Just the knowledge that my family is sharing the gospel :)

We are going to start doing Noches de Hogar every Friday night. I would love to hear all of your great ideas! If anyone that is reading this right now has a good idea, send me an email, will ya?

On Thursday we had an interesting experience. We were just about to start weekly planning and we got this call from our Zone Leaders saying we needed to evacuate immediately and go to the mission office with what we would need for a few days because there is a nuclear plant in our area that was in danger of exploding. Hna Jones and I were frantically throwing stuff in our suitcases, running aimlessly around the house. I remember yelling "should I bring my Preach My Gospel??" And Hna Jones yelled back "No, someone else will have one you could use....but don´t worry, I´ve got the brownies!!!" as she threw them in a grocery bag. (She made brownies that morning). She called a remis (taxi) and we were out the door. Right when we got to the bus station, we got another call saying it was a false alarm, they were just doing some sort of practice and there was nothing to worry about. No wonder everyone else in Zárate seemed so calm....

Earlier in the week we did divisions again! This time Hermana Salas came to Zárate and I had to lead her to all our appointments and everything. It went pretty well! We taught a lot of great lessons and found new investigators to teach. The miracle of doing divisions was that Hermana Jones and Hermana Alfaro found 4 people to be baptized on Saturday! It was really cool to hear about.

Last night we had a great lesson with a lady named Susana. She came to church with Hna Montaldo and loved it. That night Hna Montaldo came with us to a lesson with her. She now has a baptismal date for the 27th. Please pray for her!

Now I will leave you with a list created by Hna Jones and I entitled "You Know You´re in Zárate If......."

• a rooster across the street wakes you up in the morning, during breakfast, and during studies
• you burn your garbage in the streets on a regular basis
• you water the street to keep the dust down with a bucket (instead of watering your grass)
• you crank your efy music to drown out the constant cumbia music next door starting at 9am everyday
• you are short a couple pesos and they tell you to pay the rest the next time you come in
• you sleep on top of your covers at night, even in the springtime
• everyone uses the same cup at the watercooler/dispenser
  
• little kids have free reign in Sacrament meeting, including going up on the stand
• the main boulevard is blocked off without warning so everyone drives down the wrong way
• men try to kiss you on a regular basis, at times succeeding
• you can buy juguitos (good version of otter pops) on every block
• small children are constantly shooting off firecrackers unsupervised

I love Zárate.

I love you all.

Love, Hermana Hill

Acts 18:9-11

Well hi!

Sounds like you all had a great Halloween, I can´t wait to see pictures! Great job on all your accomplishments, everyone! My family is so talented. Thanks for all the updates on life, I love hearing about it.

To answer some of your questions...we eat with the members pretty much every day for lunch. They make so much food! We usually eat cereal in the morning, or facturas which are delicious. We usually don´t eat dinner and just eat a little when we get home at night. Hna Jones leaves in three weeks. I can´t believe it! I will more than likely stay here in Zárate when she leaves unless something crazy happens, but I´m pretty positive I´ll stay here. I´m super nervous to have her leave and have to show my new companion the ropes because I still feel like I have no clue what I´m doing. Also, you think I was directionally challenged before? You should see me riding a bike in the streets of Argentina...yikes. But it´ll be a learning experience :) Especially because I´ll probably have a Spanish speaking companion. Oh boy!

Speaking of bikes, we have been having technical difficulties with ours lately so we´ve had to take turns riding on the back of the bike while the other one rides, while the other bike is getting fixed. It is a sight to see! All I can say is thank goodness for spandex. And I thought people stared at us before......Oh well, any publicity is good publicity right? I wish I had a picture.

It´s starting to get pretty hot here, it´s weird to me that it is winter for you. I´ve already started sleeping on top of my covers at night because our house is an oven. It´s going to be crazy hot in a few months! It´s nice though. I love summer.

Oh...about that family with five kids. Well we talked to the dad and he said he didn´t want to go to church. He feels like so many churches are trying to convert him and he has had enough. He said we are welcome to come talk to him and his family, but he doesn´t want to go. We came back a few more times and tried everything to help him see the importance of the gospel, but finally we decided we need to move on and find others who are ready. It was pretty tough because they are such a great family and I know the gospel would help them so much and they would contribute greatly to the church. I hope that someday they will realize what it is they are missing. This is the case with a lot of people we have been teaching. They are so close, but they don´t want to commit to anything....they feel obligated. Which is when the scripture Alma 42:27 comes to mind.

Our biggest success here in Zárate has been in helping bring menos activos back to church. And many of these people have been helping in the obra misional. It´s awesome because their testimonies are coming back to life and they want to share the gospel with others. We are having a lot of them accompany us in lessons with investigators and it´s great. It reminds me of the scripture in Luke (22:32?) that says "when thou art converted, strenghen they brethren." Our mission has been focusing a lot on árbols of conversion (trees) and how we should be having recent converts and less active members help us in the work because they will share with their friends, and their friends with their friends, and so on until you have this giant tree of converts. Right now our tree is pretty small but I know with time it will yield lots of fruit! I was studying about this concept this morning and found some good scriptures about it that I will have to share next week because I don´t remember the references :)

Who was Cade´s mission president again? Was it Lawrence Corbridge?

Well I love you all a lot and hope you continue enjoying life!

Love, Hermanita Hill

Pumpkin Head Harrrvey

Dear Family,

EASTON CADE BENNETT IS THE CUTEST!!!!! Thanks so much for the pictures, Kaylee. Awww, I wish I could hold him! Tell him I´m his favorite aunt, okay? He better know all about me! I´m glad everything went well. I´m sure you´re the best little parents ever. And I can´t believe my parents are grandparents! Blows my mind. Hopefully I can skype with you on Christmas and see him in "person."

LORENZO WENT TO CHURCH!!! It´s seriously a miracle. He hasn´t been for like at least ten years, and the last time we talked to him, he had no intention of going. But there we were, sitting in the chapel and in he walks...in this nice suit and everything! It was awesome, I wish I had a camera. I really was starting to think he would never come back. We visted him after church and he told us how on Saturday, he had a dream that his dad needed him to be baptized for him. So now he is going to become active again so he will be able to go to the temple! His wife also has a goal of going to the temple, so it´s just really great. Things like that are what makes all this work worth it.

On Friday, we did divisions with the Hermanas in Campana. They are both from Chile! I went to Campana with Hna Salas. It was a good experience! It was tricky with the language barrior though....I really saw just how much I don´t know. It´s definitely stressful not being able to express what I want to to people, but that´s how I´m learning to rely a lot more on the spirit. I´ve still got a lot to learn though! That´s a huge thing I´ve noticed being here on a mission...that I have a billion things I need to work on. As hard as it is, I realize it´s a good thing because I have this opportunity to work on making all those weaknesses strengths. A lot of times I want to have everything fixed all at once but I know it´s a process....a lifelong one. It´s all about repenting and mejorar-ing every day!

Want to know a scripture I read this morning that I like? Okay. Alma 62:41. I thought about how a lot of people become hardened in life because of difficult times they go through. A lot of people talk about that here, actually...how the world is becoming worse and worse and how hard life is and so on. But here´s the thing, when we go through hard times and stay humble and "soft" we can be molded into something really great instead of becoming calloused and gross.

Do I make sense? I feel like I´m at the point where I can´t speak in Spanish or English...meh.

Happy Halloween! Everyone tell me what you were for Halloween okay? And pictures are required.

Dad, good luck with your talk in the good ole Farmington Hills Ward! Yes, definitely give a shout out for me :)

I love you all a whole lot!

Read your scriptures, say your prayers, and go to church. And don´t ever stop. Promise? Good.

Love, Hermanita Hill

Misperos

WOW!

What an exciting week you all had!!! Kaylee and Cade: FELICITACIONES!!!!!!! Awww Easton Cade Bennet. I love him already. I can´t believe I´m an aunt! Hna Jones kept calling me Tía Hill all last week haha. I´m DYING to see pictures now. DYING. Literally. I hope all is still going well. Save me some diapers to change, will ya? Also congrats to Mark and Sarah! New nephew and cousin all on the same day. How cute.

And CARLI BAHM! Congrats gurlfriennn! I am so excited for you! Missions are pretty great, I must say. You will be such a blessing to the people you teach, I´m serious. Maybe I´ll write you a letter so I don't have to say all this mushy stuff for the whole world to see. But for now, just know that I think you´re awesome.

Sounds like Grandpa´s party is going to be hoppin! Make sure you share my testimony while you´re there too: The church is true :)

Well it has been kind of a loco week. Well...every week is loco actually. Let me start off with kind of a cool thing. Remember how that one night I kept waking up with Matthew 11:28 in my head and shared it with Lorenzo and he really liked it? Well the last time we visited him, he told us about his conversion story. Basically one day his Bible fell open to a scripture and he read it and it really touched his heart and made him want to change his life and come unto Christ. And guess what scripture it was? You got it. So that was pretty sweet. We´re still working on helping him have the desire to go back to church, but maybe that helped a little bit.

Last week we did a ton of searching for new investigators by visiting former investigators who had been to church before. We ended up finding 25 new investigators last week and were really excited because they all told us that they were going to go to church on Sunday. They even told us what time they were going to wake up, what time they were going to leave, how they were going to get there and everything. We called as many as we could in the morning and even went to pick them up. We were pumped. Guess how many ended up going? Cero. It was pretty disappointing. A lot of them were extended family members and neighbors and because one family wouldn´t go, the rest wouldn´t either. It was really frustrating. But then we got to church and a whole bunch of less active members that don´t usually go to church were there and it was awesome. And one of the high councilmen gave a talk about patience and having a positive attitude. Later that day we went to visit a lady who we randomly stopped to talk to one day on our way to another appointment. Turns out she and her family had been visited by the missionaries before and have been to church a bunch of times. She has five kids and they are awesome. They want to be baptized but she said she needs to talk to her husband about it, I guess he´s not quite sure about the whole thing. But we are going to go back to visit them today, with the husband. Wish us luck!

My new favorite fruit is misperos. There are a bunch of mispero trees around here. Sooo good. They don´t have that in the states do they?

Well I love you all... almost as much as I love misperos. Or maybe a little more. Have a wonderful week and if you ever feel the urge, send me stickers. Little kids love them. I have gotten to the heart of many a child through stickers. The kids here love Bob Esponja, so thanks to my friends who send me those. Oh and also they love Ben 10 (Ben Diez haha...) So yeah.

YOU ARE AWESOME!

Hermana Hill