I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills......

We´ve had fun here this week singing that beloved camp song, but changing the words to things about Argentina. But usually they´re things we don´t really love... like the burning garbage in the streets and the creepy men and the pot holed streets. But it keeps us entertained and I can usually keep Hermana Collette laughing for a long time :)

By the way, I´ve heard some complaints that her emails are better than mine. I say you should just be glad you´re getting the information from somebody! She´s new and she still thinks about what she´s going to write beforehand :) I´m just old and lazy and I remember the strange things that you apparently don´t want to hear about :)

Anyway, this week has been great. We finished my lab studies and next week we´ll know what´s inside of me. Aren´t you just waiting in anticipation on the edge of your seat to know what it is???

We found some great new investigators this week. First Perla and David. David is the brother-in-law of a less-active woman in the ward.

We see him ALL the time and his wife is always at this member´s house.

The problem is that she works all day every day at the beach and he´s busy with the kids (isn´t that the life? "Working" at the beach and leaving the husband with the kids :) but the other day it was raining so we figured she´d be home and we passed by... and they were there!

So we talked about the Book of Mormon and how they can know it´s true and they said they would read it and they want to know. They have 2 young kids and I´m excited to help them progress. We also taught a woman named Lidia. She´s a member woman´s friend and is living in her house right now so she came to church once. We had a lesson with her yesterday (we called it a family home evening and talked about the Book of Mormon) and invited her to listen to us to decide if it´s true and she said she´s going to start reading the Book of Mormon right away! She´s really nice and already goes to all the Relief Society activities (they have one every week) and she loves the friendships in the Church. We just have to get her to go a couple more times and feel like it´s true and then she can get baptized :)

Last Monday we also taught Iara´s dad, Alejandro, again... he didn´t want to listen to us for about a month, but we finally found him and I think he really wants to change his life now! It´s going to be hard for him to admit he was wrong (he laughed at his wife for a long time for going to church and insisted it wasn´t true...) but he´ll come around with time and testimony. The big news is that he´s actually trying to get a new job now! With his current job, he can´t go to church on Sundays, but there´s a member (our ward mission leader :) who works in the port making nets and we think that Alejandro is going to work there with him! And his whole team will be Mormon! hahaha! He won´t be able to resist...

So basically it was just a really good week and we´re really happy to be here and be missionaries. We have so many great experiences and we´re learning so much!

I got the letters from Mariah and Aunt Melissa and I´m in the process of writing back... and I´m glad Sam has those new scriptures, but he better be reading them, too! haha

Love,

Hna. LaPray

P.S. I was looking at my birthday calendar and I realized something that might be slightly embarrassing. I sent a birthday letter to "Laura" back in September, and now I realize that the birthday of "Laura" is coming up in March... That should have been to Laura Cook and I´m sorry if you´re birthday isn´t in September! I actually can´t even think of another "Laura" and why her name would be on my birthday list... So just pretend I haven´t sent that letter yet!

Special day!

Happy Valentines Day, everyone! I would like to spend a special greeting on this special day to someone VERY special... Mommy! Happy baptism day! Thank you so much for following the spirit and deciding to be baptized. You were a special miracle for those Elders who taught you, especially the one who baptized you. And you´ve been a great influence and example in my life. I just want everyone to know that I love my mommy :)

This was a good week with a lot of sun, I practically have latin skin now. Just that pesky hair keeps getting blonder... If I would just die it black I might fit in here! We´ve been enjoying the weather now that it´s not as hot and humid. We had a couple days of good, solid RAIN but now just blue skies and sun. Great for missionary work!

Elder Aidukaitis came again to the zone leader conference and congratulated us for how much we´ve improved, but warned us to keep going uphill. Our goals for this month are 1000 new investigators and 180 baptisms (as a mission). President is focusing on more meaningful prayer to recieve revelation. It´s really true that as we pray more (and really mean it more) that Heavenly Father will talk with us. I just wish there was more time in the day! This past week I have felt the Spirit much more strongly and I know it´s because of my increased communication with my Heavenly Father. He is ready to guide us and show us where we need to go, just sometimes we don´t take the time to ask.

This week we´ve been working with the Relief Society president to find the inactive women that nobody knows anything about. We´ve found some great incomplete families and more women who are willing to have visiting teachers. Some of these women don´t even know why they stopped going to church, they just missed one week and never went back. Luckily the Church is fairly organized and we can always find them :) I really liked the Ensign of this month. How much do we really FIGHT to get a less-active or inactive member to come back? I know I never did before. I didn´t even know they existed! So now I just need to be a better member for the rest of my life and really try to help our lost hermanos :)

The gospel is so great and so perfect. I´m so grateful to have the knowledge I do and I wish everyone could just understand how perfect it is! Some people just have a hard time seeing how much the commandments really protect and bless us, they just see them as restrictions. But everything the Prophets have revealed to us is really for our good and benefit. I really know that now. Share it with your friends! (Well, have the missionaries come over and share it with your friends.)

Andrew, have a great mission! We´ll Spanish it up when you get back.

See ya in 2 years! I also sent him something in the MTC, so could someone let me know if he gets it? And forward me his emails?

Guatemala is going to be so great, and you´re going to be an awesome missionary! Go change some lives!

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Hna. LaPray

Transfers!

It´s the moment you´ve all been waiting for... where in the world is Hermana LaPray? Well, SURPRISE! I´m in Puerto, Mar del Plata with Hermana Collette! President did some crazy things with the hermanas this transfer (closed an area and opened 2 new ones) and for once just left me alone! I am SO glad. And Hermana Collette and I really get along, so a third transfer together isn´t even going to be a big deal.

I actually think President left me here because Mar del Plata has the best doctors to figure out what´s going on in my stomach... But I´m really going to enjoy this last transfer here! And then I could even just go to another area in Mar del to die! (Die = go home, I don´t think this stomach virus is going to kill me, don´t worry.) Every companionship in the ZONE changed except for ours. And every other companionship of Hermanas. President just knew we´re so powerful together that he´s never going to separate us :)

We had a good week. We found some new investigators. One of them is a very interesting man. He´s a librarian and he loves to read and he says he´d like to know which church is true. He´s really taking a scientific approach into finding out if the church is true. He wants to study Joseph Smith´s writings to decide if he could be a prophet and read the whole Book of Mormon. It´s kind of funny to watch him think sometimes. In our lesson we focused on really feeling the Spirit and letting the Lord guide us in our decisions, not just thinking and studying. Both parts are important!

We´ve been working a lot more with the members, too. Having them give us names of their friends and then going to visit the friend WITH the member. (Actually, the visiting part is going to happen this week.) I´m really excited about it, especially working with the youth. My biggest regret is that I didn´t share the gospel more with my friends in high school and I don´t want the youth here to have that same regret, so we´re taking away their agency and going to work with them.

It´s going to be great! And I feel like it´s really going to help the ward and we´re going to have some great experiences with it.

It´s starting to cool down, so some cold P-day Hna. Collette and I are going to go to the beach to play frisbee. I´m REALLY excited :)

Well, I´m out of time. I hope everyone is doing well and sharing the gospel :)

Love,

Hna. LaPray