Happy New Years (Email) 01.05.2009

Hi! How are you all doing? I hope you´re all doing great. Well, things here are going well. AK, I just got my birthday package from you, Ryan, and Nyah. Thank you! Shari and Orrin, thanks for the tennis shoes! I got some Nike´s. I hope they are good. As far as spanish vocabulary with tennis shoes goes... it was a little bit of an adventure. :D Good times. I also got two short sleeve shirts so I think I´m good to go unless something out of the ordinary comes up.

Lisa, I just got a letter from you as well. Grac! :D

Aaron, I loved hearing about your invitation to church as a ward missionary haha. :D Good work! You make me giggle.

Paula Beltran, the girl in my ward who has decided to go on the mission, got her mission call on Saturday! She´s going to the Santiago West, Chile mission and leaves on April 23rd. I´m very excited for her.

I have been in Neuquen for the morning because Hna. Riquelme needed to do some paperwork. I´m now in the middle of Neuquen, and it makes me grateful for good old quiet Plottier! Speaking of different cities... who knows where I could be this next week on Preparation day. Pretty crazy.

Well, about the people. Clara had her baptismal interview on Saturday, and it went well, so she´s all ready to be baptized this Saturday. Yay! I really admire her because she goes to church by herself every week. I was trying to put myself in her shoes yesterday. She´s in a different country, with a different culture, and she goes to church by herself where she´s just learning to get to know the people. Pretty amazing. Her whole family needs the gospel so much. When I hear about her struggles it about breaks my heart for her. I hope that others will follow her example.

So we are still teaching John and Judith. We had a lesson with a ward member this last week and it went really well. They recognize that they need to get married. Their little girl Graciela is the cutest thing. She´s 4 I believe. One of my favorite things is that when we stopped by one day really quickly, she RAN out to us in the street saying ¨Hermanas!¨and threw her little arms around us.

Then one day as we were teaching she noticed that I have rings, and wanted to keep my CTR ring. I told her that I had a different ring for her. So the next day I gave her one of the HLJ rings that Lisa, Jordan, Aaron, and Hallie sent me for Christmas and she was so excited. She knows exactly what it stands for. You all were inspired when you sent the CTR rings. Thank you!

She has a hard time remembering my name or how to say it. The other day she was ¨writing¨and I asked her what she had written. She said, ¨What´s your name again?¨When I told her she said, this says ¨Pincock te quiero¨. ( Pincock I love you). She pretty much has me wrapped around her little finger. :o)

John and Judith weren´t able to go to church yesterday. They slept in. But we went over afterwards and talked about the importance of church attendance, and we just let them ask us a bunch of questions. We feel like it was a good thing that we could build a relationship of trust with them.

So on Friday we had FHE with Marí and Miguel and their family with the Valenzuela family ( the members who introduced them to us) and Andrea and Andres with their two kids. Hno. Valenzuela taught the Plan of Salvation, and it was so good! It was fun to be taught for a change. We made tacos and that was fun. It turns out that the majority of people here don´t know what tacos are or have never had them. Who would´ve thought? It turns out that we really do have food from all over the world in the US.

Anyway, I think that everyone really enjoyed the FHE. I think it was especially good for Andres, Marí and Miguel. Members are so important in missionary work!

Miguel and Marí had full intentions of going to church yesterday. Miguel had been working all night and he hurried home to help them all get ready for church. When we passed with the bus they still weren´t ready so they said they´d take their car. They never showed up. When we called last night to see what happened they said their car wouldn´t start. So sad. They really wanted to go! Marí said that they didn´t have the day yesterday that they had hoped for. :o(

In FHE on Friday Miguel talked about how since they had gone to church on Sunday that their whole week had gone so much better. They wanted to find a church that focused on the family, and everything in church focused on how to help the family. It really is amazing. Sometimes I forget how different my life is because I have the Gospel, and how much other people really need it - not just theoretically, but really! It changes everything.

Andres is doing well. Andrea wasn´t able to go to church yesterday, and Andres went by himself. That was a BIG step for him. I´m excited for him. We have noticed a lot of changes in him recently. He mentioned in the FHE that before he never would have thought that he would be in an FHE like that with people talking about Heavenly Father. But there he was! Miracles.

So I hope you´re all doing well. It sounds like you all had a good New Year celebration, and I´m very grateful that you´re all home safe. My New Years was a normal day. Kind of funny though, because there really was NO ONE in the streets. It turns out that they stay up pretty late here and pretty much stay inside the day after. The day worked out just fine though.

Well, tell everyone hi for me. Did you all set goals for this upcoming year? I´d love to hear your goals. The church is true and I love you all tons.

Love Always,
Hermana Jana Banana Pincock