ephesians 4:29

this week we have been running around everywhere. haha it has been crazy. we have lessons all over the place.

something that hermana bailey and i have been talking a lot about are the things that happen "behind the scenes" of missionary work..like all of the miracles that God works when we aren't watching. As a zone, we have a conference call every morning to share the miracles that are going on in our areas and then we pray together to have success in the day. it has been really uplifting and edifying because we are always thinking about what we can do better, how to  help our investigators and how to better use our time. with that in mind, i have come to the conclusion (in the past month or two) that the small and simple things really make the big things happen. small actions help others feel really nice. one of our investigators had her birthday on saturday, so we bought her an alfajor and when she answered the door, we started singing happy birthday and clapping all while we stood in the street and she was so surprised to see us, more that we even remembered. She said that nobody really celebrates her birthday and doesn¡t remember the last time they sang to her. it made me way sad to hear that... because birthdays in latin america are a huge thing. so she said she was really grateful and surprised that we had remembered. I just feel like the small things like that really don't cost us anything. we always have the ability to take one more step, and with more and more steps, we will have gone the extra mile. God doesn't expect us to do everything all at one, but he doesn't want us to keep progressing. Everyday, when I learn something new, I have more and more love for Gods great plan of happiness. He is SO SMART. haha i am always like, why didn't I think of that??? Such a NICEY Guy. 

This week, we have also seen some seriously great things with the Book of Mormon. As we have left committments with our investigators, we have found that all of them are reading!! and they are all feeling good and want to know more. One of our menos activas, whose boyfriend isn't a member, quit smoking because instead of buy cigarettes, her new book of mormon was calling her name, and for 3 weeks now, she hasn't smoked, because she has been reading! also, Eugenia, has been reading and praying and says that she feels peace and calm when she reads even though she doesn't understand much. As HermanaBAiley and I studied this morning, we realized that the Book of Mormon is so important because it really is the test of our faith. Without the book, we wouldn't have any reason to believe what happened to joseph smith, but with it, we can have the surety that its all true. I feel so blessed to have a testimony of the gospel and that i can share it everyday.

Also, we are trying this new thing where if we take a taxi, we are going to start with a prayer with the driver and try to teach him thoughout the drive and then leave him with  a prayer. yesterday it worked lik e a charm! and turns out that his wife is a less active member!! he totally said that we could go by their house one day. wahoooo. i love it. 

random question: which country are gnoccis from? 

keep working hard my homies, stay happy and look up!

xoxo

Hermana Terry

WOOORRKKK

HEY EVERYBODY! ... this week was really sweeet.. i am just loving it here with hermana bailey. in the beginning I was a bit sad because I wanted to end with hermana Maldonado, but I know it was very inspired...it really is genius because I'm learning a TON from her and her love for missionary work. She is seriously SO funnny. she is like a mix between aunt amy and hailey. so i am basically just having a really good time. We have worked a lot ... but like, A LOT. unfortunately it was like we only had three days of work because on Monday we did not do much fbecause she didn't get here until like 8ish..., then she had to write on Tuesday and we had a district meeting, Friday had Leadership Council and Sunday we had ward council and planning for zone training and it took a long time.but we had a way dope week!
On Tuesday, we had to bring a box of books of mormon to the pensh and we also did grocery shopping so we had a ton of stuff to take to the house and not enough arms... so we decided to borrow a shopping cart from la anonima... haha dont worry, we brought it back today.
WE have 5 new investigatores and we taught a ton with the time that we had. we found this guy named juan, and his wife cecilia. juan told us about his drinking and drug problems.. it was pretty sad. and he also told us that hes been to jail 3 times. luckily, heavenly father is always protecting us. haha nah, jk he is way chill, he says that he wants to change, but he is struggling a bit. cecilia is sucha cutie nicey but i don't think she understands hermana bailey and i very well. hahah poor dudes. we had a rough time trying to explain the apostasy.. they just weren't getting it. hermana bailey was like.. its like being thirsty in your heart.. and im like, you know when you do something bad, and you feel bad and want to get better? thats what it was like... haha just picture elder christensen and elder moreno from the district teaching german about the law of chastity. it was about like that... lol.
i just love seeing all the miracles that god is putting in our path. i seriously have no complaints...
EXCEPT. on friday, when we were coming back to zapala from neuquen, i totally got sick on the bus.. and threw up everywhere. even worse is that we had eaten chocolate ice cream at lunch. i can't imagine many worse things. hah it was TERRIBLE. i felt so sick. and then i got back to the pensh and was still throwing up. i don't think i have felt so bad in awhile. but no worries i woke up feeling better.
we taught a way sick lesson about the law of chastity with our investigators and it was so spiritual. gustavo, the investigator, was like, i have been thinking so much about this and trying to put it off, but now i know that the spirit was trying to tell me something. Gustavo is SUPER CAPO. because he is so active and knows so much, but he is waiting for his divorce to finalize and meanwhile, him and his girlfriend, a member, have been living together. that is why we decided to try to help them be super obedient so that the divorce will finish and they can get married and baptized. keep them in yoru prayers!!!I feel that this transfer will be full of miracles. wahoooo (:

xoxo
Hermana Terry



leadership council baby. .love it.

titles man...

hey party people! hows it going? 

my week was very nice. it literally FLEW BY. we just finished the transfer, and hermana Maldonado got transferred to Bariloche. luuucky. ha but it was a bummer.. our time together literally flew by. i feel like i just got here like yesterday. my new companion is hermana Bailey and she will get here later in the afternoon. 

this transfer we have had the focus to share the first vision with the members and it has been really special. As we shared yesterday with a less active sister, her eyes were filled with tears and she shared her testimony with us about her love for the gospel and the feeling of love she felt from her Heavenly Father. It helped me strengthen my testimony. I realized that I have seen many wet eyes and heard many strong testimonies in this time... I love the gospel so much. I love sharing it and helping everyone feel the spirit. It has been so nice and I have loved seeing our investigators progress and feel the spirit. ITS SO FUN TO BE A MISSIONARY. 

We had a sweet activity on Saturday to celebrate halloween. we had a haunted house in the church.. haha my compy and i were dressed as dolls.. we took pics, but i don't have them. sorry. haha it was tight though. 

hey, keep gustavo and cintia, juan and vanessa, celso, milton, pamela and luis in your prayers this week! Get ready to see some baptisms... Pamela wasn't able to get baptized this week because she had some family issues bu she will get baptized sooooon! 

sorry this is short, we don't have much time because everything here closes for the siesta... boooo. thats my least favorite thing about argentina. hahah

all is well here... just living it up! my last transfer... eeep freaky freaky. stay cool

xoxo

hermana Terry

sweet 16 and never been... robbed?

ahahah well.. check the date folks.. crazy right? its true, I have never been robbed in all of my mission. que suerte. maybe i could write all sorts of sentimental nostalgic things about the mish.. but i'll save it for later (:

This week has been really crazy and busy. We have awesome investigators. Juan and Vanessa continue progressing. Vanessa is such a cool kid. She is really grasping onto the principles of the gospel and trying to live better. Juan is too. He has an alcohol problem, since he was 11... so his trials are a little bit bigger because hes now 29. But its cool because he went 6 days without drinking. wanna know the coolest part? we haven't even taught him about the word of wisdom! When he decided to stop drinking, he had only received the restoration, and had gone to church one time. YOU GUYS THE GOSPEL IS REAL. haha its been a really great process. Everytime i see someone choosing to repent and make good decisions because they WANT TO, i want to jump for joy. Its too much for me to even handle. the love and joy and excitement I feel can't be explained with many words. So there's a little bit about them. 

Then, this week while contacting, we have had some great success. We were on our way to a lesson and there was a man outside washing his car. We said hi and kept walking... something in me was like, duuuude contact him! but i told my comp, hey if he is still outside when we come back, lets contact him. Sometimes i am not very smart, but heavenly father has a lot of patience with me. (: our lesson got cancelled because the family wasn't there... so we went right back to the guy and luckily he was still outside. We contacted him and he said that we could come back the next day to teach him and his wife. They have 2 little niños and his wife is prego. WE went back and his wife wasn't there.. boo. so we started to explain to him the rule we have about being alone with men... he started asking us MILLION super INSPIRED QUESTIONS. it was the coolest thing ever. We tried to peace as quick as we could, but his wife showed up and they kept asking so many questions. haha it was so awesome. we didn't even get to teach a full lesson because they had lots of doubts and thoughts. the cool thing is that they have friends who are members and work with a few members and like what they have seen and heard. i can hear the bells... (wedding bells because #notmarried.) wahooo and then water splashes because #baptism (: 

then another contact we did, we were explaining to a lady about the activity we had and all of a sudden she hands us the invitation and says, no its okay, i don't believe in all of that. 2 months ago, god took my dad away from me.. it has been the hardest trial of my life... wow. she literally broke my heart in two. we started explaining as fast as we could about the plan of salvation.. she tried rejecting us but its like the spirit was holding her right there on the street so she could open her heart. she started to cry and told us about lots of sadness that she was feeling. we tried to comfort her.. she was kind of mean in the beginning and at the end, didn't give us her address so that we would visit her. buuut we gave her biig tight bear hugs and she apologized for being mean and said that she would read the pamphlet. hopefully she calls. but basically i love seeing how the spirit works through us. it is such an awesome feeling. so special to help people feel a little bit better in the day. and the cool part is I am totally not afraid of hugging any stranger that comes in my way. I LOVE EVERYONE. I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY WITH THE GOSPEL. POR FAVOR. haha so theres that. 

we had an awesome activity and we have 4 investigators there.. and like 10 menos activos. HOLLA. it was like a live, active presentation of the restoration. it was tight.. and after, we did improvised skits which was fun.. as you'll see below.. haha. 

this week i have learned lots of interesting things.. mostly what kind of husband i want, and what kind of mom and wife i want to be... life is crazy and the world isFULL of tempations and problems but i for sure know that I want my family to be in the gospel. a cool quote that i heard last week was "preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words." that is going to be my motto.. at least i am going to try (: 

well.. thats all folks. love you all, be good, take good decisions and choose to be happy!!! (:(:

xoxo

Hermana Terry

Hermana Barrera "making ñoccis"... haha and me being an annoying daughter.. typical (;

i don't like thinking of titles.

okay.. sorry kids, i don't really feel like writing today, and i don't have much time, but this week was super crazy, lets just put it that way. crazy like my face in the pictures below. but this week has been full of a lot of learning! i am loving every single day as a missionary. this week was slow, and we didn't have really pretty numbers, but the pretty part is that my spirit is content and desires to see more success. We have a few investigators that are progressing and doing well, its awesome. We went to Chos Malal this week to do some exchanges ( this week, i actually discovered that intercambios is not an english word. hahaha oops) with hermanas Vilca and Anampa, both from Peru. Its a small little town that has only had missionaries for a year. they rent a small place to have meetings and there are only like 15 members, its a dope little group. So it was way fun to go visit. the only wack part is travelling in the middle of the night... and the other wack part is when the assistants called at 730 PM to tell us that we had zone conference the next day with Presidente. haha so the 10  of us rolled up on the collectivo at midnight to travel back to zapala and get ready for the conference... it was crazy. we had a slumber part of sorts with 6 hermanas in our tiny pension. haah i was SUPER tired this week, needless to say. but something cool that has happened is that I have been working really hard on being exactly obedient... and ihaven't even felt really tired, sprititually that is. I have all the energy in the world to keep going hard. 

something cool that we are doing in the mission is sharing the first vision with members and then inviting them to invite a friend to a fhe to hear the first vision. so far, everyone has accepted to do it!! we have like 4 appointments this week with new investtigators. there is so much power in the restoration and first vision. it is incredible. i love the gospel. i am so happy here. i love my heavenly father for giving me this incredible opportunity to share the gospel and become more converted myself. if you guys could keep vanessa and juan, elena, belen, celso, adriana, and alexis in your prayers this week, that would mean a ton to us here! thanks so much (:

love you all tons, have a great week, keep restudying the conference talks.

xoxo

 it snowed this week. A LOT. way crazy, i got soaked all the way to my skin.. it was miserable. haah luckily my compy let me borrow her coat (: you can see it on my face that i am not actually thaaat happy. hahaha

physically tired...

Well, this week has been very interesting. I have felt very tired physically. That's good, makes me happy because I know I'm working. But there were many things that prevented us from working as much as we wanted. On Tuesday, we had the zone training then we did intercambios, and this weekend, we had the general conference ... There is no excuse, but I feel that we do not work as we could have. :( boo.... Still, I feel that the Lord shows us miracles every day. I still feel great changes in my heart, personality and way of thinking.

We have 4 new investigators from the week, 11 new investigators since I got here to Zapala.. the only hard thing is getting back to teaching them. Buuttt... we contacted this really cute nice girl named Adriana.. she looks like she is 24, she is 37 and has an 18 year old son. crayyy cray! haah but its okay, we taught her and her son about the plan of salvation.. because I asked her if God and Jesus Christ were with us, what would she ask them, or like to know? and she told us that she wants to know with what purpose he created us.. what are we supposed to do here? And it was like, perfeeccttt! haha so we started to teach the plan of salvation. the 18 year old at first was like, okay this is kinda lame.. but as we started explaining what happens after death, he read alma 40:23 and didn't really understand. so we explained about the resurection and everything.. you guys, the light in his eyes, i can't even explain it. Its like there was a spark that clicked and it just made sense and he was like, wow that is so cool.I always thought that it ended with death, and then we would go to heaven or hell.. but this all makes so much more sense and its way better than just finishing. It was a really spiritual experience. We promised them that if they went to conference, they would receive even more testimonies of the plan... well, we were right, they talked about the plan of salvation a lot on saturday in the morning.. but. they didn't go :( boooo. 

I learned a lot in general conference this weekend .. I felt a strong desire to change my character. Some questions I asked were a little "Trunky" because I have fear of going home and  all the temptations will just be right in my face waiting for me to fall.. but I feel that the Lord will help me if I keep striving to do right. I am eager to return and continue to strengthen my testimony .. I want no part of the world... I want to be in it, but not part of it. I love so many things of the the world, but I am really thinking about my future and I want to make sure that I stay spiritually strong. I want to have the companionship of the Spirit forever, I don't want to be far again.. there's not greater joy I have ever felt than learning more about the gospel and feeling the spirit.. I love the changes I'm seeing.(:

Some of my favorite talks were by pres. uchtdorf in the womens session, elder ballard, sister marriott, eller lawrence, elder hales, elder oaks, presidente monson, al the testimonies of the new apostles (PS.. TOTALLY CALLED THAT ELDER STEVENSON WOULD BE AN APOSTLE. WAHOO. REVELATION. ;) ), elder nelson, elder christofferson, elder eyring, elder durrant, elder keetch, elder bednar, sister stephens... basically i loved the whole conference. if you didn't watch... you suck. haha just kidding, but you are definitely missing some serious modern revelation! get to it!! (: I feel so blessed to be part of this church and enjoy the blessings of the prophet, apostles and the priesthood.

love you guys so much!!

challenge this week: do what elder lawrence and elder durrant encouraged us to do (:

xoxo

Hermana Terry

it snowed this week.. haha

also a tigghhhtt rainbow after conference. God is such a capo. (:

grateful.

This week has been really lovely. We got to do lots of fun things and I am learning so much. I am loving being here in zapala because I am seeing a bunch of people that i LOVE and I am getting to know a new area so that is dope. I really am loving it. 

this week we had a fhe with our investigator gustavo, who is so freaking cool. he has been an investigator for 4 months, because he waiting for his divorce to get married and be baptized. it is kind of a crazy situation because he technically isn't breaking any commandments, but the leaders here adviced him to wait.. anyways he is suuuper smart and reads a ton of doctrine and scriptures and books of the church. He prepared the lesson about faith. It was just what I needed. It literally brought me to tears. He shared a mormon message about faith.. it is called simple and pure faith or something like that. it is a cutie asian girl telling her story about money and stuff. it is really nice, look it up. So we talked about the fiath and the requirements of faith.. we could literally do anything that is good if we had enough faith in God. I can't really explain it but I feel super grateful to my Heavenly Father for putting me here in Argentina and to know all these people who have shown me such great faith. It makes me feel like I am a woman of little faith, and I need to be more like some of the people here to be able to be humble, patient, faithful and loving.. basically to be more like Jesus. 

Also this week, we have a ton of new investigatores, two of them have a baptismal date.. dooope. We also went to Neuquén for Leadership Council, which is always a good time.. There are a lot of changes in the mission, which is good and bad. Good because it is going to help us be a mission of more faith and obedience.. bad because we still aren't a mature mission.. so we have had to take away a lot of priviledges to help us be more obedient... 

I was just reading in 1 Nephi 16-19  this morning and reading aout Nephi when his family was in the wilderness and when he broke his bow and arrow and everyone got so ticked, even his dad, who was super awesome, was murmering against God and he just kept going with his great faith. isn't that so sick? and his brothers tied him up in the boat and he was like, I wasn't mad because I trusted in God and I know that he does everything for a reason. I just want to be like Nephi. so faithful and loyal. CAPO. 

Anyways...thats all folks. love you,

portense bien, besos.

xoxo

Hermana Terry 

Leadership council

we rescued this fweaking kitty from the street.. super cutie.

and feliz cumple to hermana rodriguez.. thanks for the decorations mom, they continue being helpful (: