Hola! 03.09.2009 (Email)

Hi! How are you all doing? Things here are going well. First off, Shari and Orrin, Happy Anniversary this week, and Shari, happy birthday! O... Feliz Cumpleaños! I hope both days are wonderful. And Happy Birthday to Grandma Stephenson as well. :D Lots of good days this week.

Lets see, to answer couple of questions. Meals are pretty much figured out. As of now we don´t have lunch on Wednesday or Thursday, but it´s okay. It´s better than it was! Have I mentioned that everyone works with fruit? They´re either actually picking the fruit, or sorting it and preparing it to be sent to the other countries. So this is the season that everyone is ALWAYS working. So maybe we´ll have more lunch opportunities towards the end of April when the fruit season isn´t in full swing. We´ll see.

I´ve never seen so many crazy pears in my whole life. Did you know there are red and green pears? Pears that look like apples? Pears that look a little like bananas? Pretty funny if you ask me. But they´re all delicious. :D I took a picture of different pears a while back. I don´t know if I sent that picture as well...

I´m so glad you got the CD of pictures okay! I guess that means I can delete the pictures off my camera now. I didn´t want to delete them off my camera until I was 100% sure that there are copies safe somewhere. I have another CD here as well that I assume works great as well.

My favorite argentine foods so far? There´s a type of meat, called Milanesa. There´s Chicken milanesa, or basically like beef. Anyway, it´s a thin slice of different kinds of meat, and then they put it in a type of bread crumb thing with different seasonings. Then they fry it, or put it in the oven. So anyway, my favorite is the chicken milanesa, and above it they put a tomatoe sauce and cheese. Delicious! And we ALWAYS have bread (basically french bread) when we eat lunch, and with milanesa we eat mashed potatoes alot. Of course, since I´m an Idaho girl, I love the mashed potatoes. Can´t go wrong there.

Alright, so about mission work. :o) We worked hard this week! We changed the way that we count lessons, so now they´re only a lesson if we actually enter the house, with prayers and everything. So now, we´re realizing how much we´re actually in the houses, and how much we´re out and about talking in the street. It´s good, because we need to be in the houses, where there aren´t distractions and they can feel the spirit. More motive to get in! So we´re working on that.

We found some new investigators this week, so that was good. We have an ¨area chica¨that we´re knocking on the doors, and things are going pretty well there. We have found more people recently who met with the missionaries before. Elders mostly. It´s good to see the fruit of other people´s hard work.

Oh here´s a story. We need to keep inviting more people to english. As of this last week, there was just Hna. Wilches and I, and three other 12-year-old girls. One a member, and the other two aren´t members, Paula and Rocio. The member, Maria, is actually friends of the other two. Anyway, we always start with a song and a prayer, but other than that, we don´t talk much about religion. Sunday, as I was playing prelude music before sacrament meeting started, Paula walked in to sacrament meeting! Wow, quite the surprise! Maria, the member, did everything on her own as far as inviting her and everything. I´m so proud of her! We´ll see if we can get into the house of Paula so we can teach her and her Mom. :D

Carla Ruiz is still progressing. We´re really talking to her, and Hna. Panero, alot about marriage, and what they want for their lives. Their goals. Carla went to church this week for the THIRD time in a row. Yay! She learns super fast, and is great. She´s reading a good amount in The Book of Mormon and the book ¨Gospel Principles¨. We´re excited for her.

I forgot to mention last week that Hna. Wilches and I went for a while last Saturday morning and cleaned the church. It was actually very enjoyable. We were cleaning the outside because it REALLY needed it. It looks much better now, and it was pretty funny in the process. Trying to reach high places without a ladder can be interesting. hahaha

This last week in english we learned about the seasons of the year, and what we do. Vocabulary like ¨leaves, snow, rain, etc... ¨pretty simple. I try to teach some kind of song to liven things up and help them to remember. So guess what song I thought of? I originally thought of ¨Once There Was a Snowman¨ but then decided not to, because it´s summer here. So guess what song we sang! ´Once There Was a Tulip¨!!! Lisa, I thought of you, and giggled as I taught it. I´m afraid they didn´t want to do the actions with me. haha

Everyone, thanks for the letters! Shari and Orrin, good luck house shopping! That´s so exciting! AK and Ryan, Nyah is doing so many fun things. I love that she´s walking backwards. It´s a pretty fun trick. Give Nyah and Hallie a hug and a kiss for me.

The temperature is cooling down here, and I´m LOVING it! I love the fall! The leaves are thinking about changing colors. It turns out that they don´t carve pumpkins here. Crazy. Funny how I don´t realize that culture is culture, until I´m in a different culture!

We had a great lesson with Clara and one of her daughters the other day a well. There are things that she would like to be different in her family. As she explained some of her concerns, it made me SO GRATEFUL for my family! We talked about how she can see changes in her family. We told her that if she wants to see changes, she has to make changes in her life. As missionaries, we´re always inviting people to make changes in their lives (repent) in order to find more happiness and purpose in their lives, and most importantly, in order to come unto Christ. We talked about how she can´t expect things to be different, if she´s not willing to make changes! It made me think. Often times when I´m teaching I realize that I should be directing my words to myself as well. Change has never been easy, but change is good. We need to change every day - for the better! What changes do we want in our lives? What are we going to do in order to achieve those changes?

Well, it´s time to go. I love you all a ton. Thanks for your continued love and support. Remember that I have a testimony that the church is true. It´s true, I miss you all, but I need to be here. Choose the right, and like grandma always wrote in her letters, ¨make it a good day¨.

Con Muchísimo Amor, Para Siempre,
Hermana Jamba Pincock