Hola! 02.16.2009 (Email)

Hello my family! How are you doing? I hope you´re all doing great. First off, Orrin! Two weeks late, happy birthday! I feel so guilty. I even wrote on February second, Orrin´s birthday! And then I read all about Uncle Richard and totally forgot. But I really was thinking of you on your b-day. I hope you did something fun to celebrate. 25 right?

Also, happy valentine´s day everyone! It´s funny, because it turns out that valentine´s day doesn´t really exist here. It´s a holiday, but I didn´t hear one thing about it. We actually reminded one of the couples in our ward here. Funny.

Good news! Hermana Riquelme sent me a picture of Marí and Miguel´s baptism! They were baptized the 31st I believe. Miguel cut his hair, and it appears as though he stopped smoking! Yay! Miracles. Also, Hna. Riquelme wrote on the picture that John and Judith, parents of Gabriela, had a wedding AND BAPTISMAL date for February 13th! This also means that John has quit drinking. Wow. Miracles. I´m so happy!

More good news. I FINALLY sent a CD with all the mission pictures I have taken just now. The CD should get there in 15 days or so they said. I hope it gets there safely. :D

So things here in Allen are going well. I think I mentioned about making the changes of where we are eating lunch. That now we will only be eating in our area. So it has been a fairly hard hit for some of the members, but they´re handling it well. We taught the doctrine, of why we´re doing it. We compared our area to the ward, and how we don´t have ¨the keys¨to work in other areas.

Therefore, when we were in the elders area, we couldn´t feel prompted to knock on someone´s door, etc... and thus weren´t using the Lord´s time wisely. Obedience. I think they all understand.

We laughed because a couple of the families aren´t attending church, and we said that now if they want to see us, than they´ll have to go to church! ¨Nos vemos en la capilla!¨

So yesterday we went to eat with one of the families for the last time. We got there before the food was ready, and met one of their family members - a cousin? - who isn´t a member of the church. They live a good ways out in the fields, so we couldn´t really leave to do contacts, etc... So we asked if we could watch ¨The Restoration¨while we were waiting. So we watched it. Then afterwards we talked to her for a good while about our beliefs, the need for a prophet, a little about the plan of salvation, etc. I have found here the common belief that we don´t need to go to a church, because churches are of men, and that God is with us - within our hearts. It´s true, that God is with us, but we need the ordinances that are found only in the church of Jesus Christ. It was a good talk. The mission is really very interesting. I really don´t see people as a mechanic, lawyer...I just see people as children of God who need the ordinances of the Gospel.
It was all very interesting because it turns out that she hasn´t been to their house in years, and she decided to go the last time we ate lunch with their family. We ended up giving her a Book of Mormon, and we´re praying that she´ll read it. I wish she lived in our area!

Here´s a story. Someone had mentioned that there´s an older lady in the ward who knows English. I really didn´t think anything of it. So we recently got a ward directory, and we´re trying to tract down all the members in the ward in our area that we don´t know. So we tracted Irene down. We started talking to her and introduced ourselves, and she started talking to me in English! It caught me a little off guard. It turns out that she´s from Pennsylvania, but moved to Argentina when she was 15! I´m impressed she still knows english so well because she´s 95! Anyway, it was very enjoyable. There´s just something different about talking in your own language.

Dad, I´m just winging it with english. I like the idea of really teaching it like it should be done. I think I need to do much better about really teaching - with a plan. I don´t know how it would be better. To send everything here or what. I really have no idea how to print things here so I would have to ask around. Whatever you think is best, but it sounds good.

We found a lady named Carla about a week or so ago. She´s a teacher, and her husband a policeman. We talked to her for a good while in a park, and then went to her house one day. She has two kids. We shared a little about how the gospel blesses families, and read ¨The Family: A Proclamation to the World¨ and I think it went well. We´re going to go to her house again to teach and we´re really looking forward to it. We still haven´t met her husband, but she, and he sounds great. They seem really similar to our family. They´re always doing things outdoors - hiking mountains, etc... very fun. And she reminds me A LOT of Becky Stubbs (Houston now :D). We´re praying that things will go well with them.

The other day we were trying to find the house of a couple, in a neighborhood we weren´t familiar with, and it turns out they had given us the wrong address. But, we asked Clara, a lady who was outside, for help. We ended up asking if we could talk with her and share a message with her. She said we could go in. She has eight kids, and she and her husband were baptized in another church, but she seems interested. We´re excited to go back to their house and finish teaching The Restoration.

A while back we were doing contacts, and met a less active couple in the ward - in our area! So we went to their house, and talked a little bit. Went a second time but the husband wasn´t there. And then we went the third time last night. It was interesting, because they were telling us how they used to always feed the missionaries, but then they were transferred or something a while back, and the missionaries never went again. Crazy. They asked us if we always have somewhere to eat. We explained that we´re making changes, and so no, we don´t have lunch several days now. So they invited us to eat with them Sunday! So we´re excited. I really don´t have a doubt that meeting them, talking with them, and now going to their house more regularly is an accident. It all just fits too well together. We´re eager to help them back to church.

I love when new ideas come to my mind when I´m teaching. Yesterday we were teaching the Plan of Salvation to a member, Victor who´s 20 I believe. He´s basically in training/tryouts for soccer right now, and we compared his training and preparation before tryouts to our life here. His preparation before will have an affect on if he´s on the ¨A¨ or ¨B¨ team. Equally, our life here and our preparation, will have an affect on where we live for the eternities. It was fun. I think he understood better.

I love you all. The church is true. Families can live together forever. We need to do our part to be worthy of such amazing blessings. The Book of Mormon was written by God through His prophets. We need to share what we know! I hope you´re praying about how you can share the Gospel. :D

Love always,
Hermana Jamba Pincock

P.S. Elder Scott is coming to Neuquen the 25th and 26th so we get to listen to him! Yay!