So this week has been super hard. Harder than i every
thought it would be. it is so frustrating to not understand someone respond to
your question or to not know what is going on. i´ve pretty much cried every
night because i get exhausted trying to understand and i cant ever take a nap.
i´m in a trio right now with hermana pereira (pa ray da) and hermana rayburn.
hermana pereira is from buenos aires and hermana rayburn is from utah. it has
actually been pretty nice being in a trio and i love it. it might end soon
because they might have hermana pereira train a brazilian sister who may or may
not get her visa in the next week. we will see but i sincerely hope that she
doesnt leave because i love her guts! i´m in an area called godoy and it is
super cold and windy here. i like it much more than the heat and helps me feel
close to home. i absolutely love it here. the spirit has been my constant
companion which is the only reason i have been able to handle what is
happening. i think i´m worse with my spanish than when i left the mtc which is
frustrating. i´m sorry i´m not using caps, the keyboards are different here and
every time i try to use caps i push some other dumb button.
the reason this is not a depressed email is because the
lord taught me a lot last night.
we have set three baptism dates in the past week and i
keep thinking it will be just like sinton and those dates will fall through. it
was hard to have hope in anything different and my lack of faith was catching
up to me. last night, after we set a baptism date with a sister named natalia,
i broke down crying because i wanted to be excited like my companions but i
just didnt know how to let go off all the disappointments and broken hearts
from the past. this is what i learned and wrote in my journal this morning:
"a small thought about agency popped into my head but i brushed it off,
but as i was praying last night heavenly father gave me a miracle and helped me
see things clearly. all the people that chose different, misused their agency
because they had the holy ghost testify to them that this is the truth. their
agency is not something i have control over and i tried my best with each and
every one of them and heavenly father doesnt expect more from me. in sinton, it
was so easy to think that satan was winning the war because everyone seemed to
be choosing him, but last night i realized that this is more of a game for
satan than a war. satan has already lost. it is similar to the last inning in
baseball where it is clear that the winner will be the lord but satan wants as
many people to lose their salvation as possible. the reason i am here, the
reason that i am fighting everyday to be better is because even one soul that
comes unto christ is a soul who now has the oportunity of eternal life. that is
one more soul that can have eternal joy instead of eternal suffering. it will
never cease to break my heart when people loose sight of eternity, but i
understand that i am only in charge of
myself. this time here (on earth) is so short and we only have to endure it for
so long before we can understand everything. we should be learning heaven now
so that we can already know the blessings of eternity."
about grandma passing away, i´m unusually ok about it. i
feel like that is one more angel that can help bring souls unto christ. she
isnt really gone anyway. For every single thing that she is going to
"miss" she wont really be missing. she is not limited by her earthly
existence and i´m actually pretty excited for her. i would love to see and
speak to grandpa again.
something that i feel impressed to share is something i
learned from zone conference yesterday (which is the reason i´m on today
instead). My mission president was talking about righteous routines and this is
what i have in my journal that is something we all should consider: "think
about whether every action i do edifies me or makes it so i´m fighting the
savior." we need to remember the focus and purpose of everything we do.
all of our actions have eternal consequences or blessings and this time that we
have in life is so that we can make the choices that will make us happy in this
life and in the next. we are so blessed in so many ways.
i love argentina with all my heart. the food here is
amazing and i love how they talk and how we clap instead of knock on doors. i´m
not a huge fan of all the dogs around here, but they dont bother us too much.
there is something i want to clear up for people in the states: things are not
cheap in argentina. it is about 5 pesos to a dollar but they charge the same
price for everything many times even more (i saw a shirt for 300 pesos which is
$60) . i wish i hadnt gotten rid of anything before i came no matter the extra
weight because i´m just going to pay more for the stuff here. leather is really
expensive too, but there is a man that engraves pictures of christ in scripture
cases and he does an awesome job (i´ve seen his work) so if you would like a
scripture case like that then let me know. i´m going to find leather journals
somewhere and see how much they cost and i will let you know. it costs a
buttload to send anything because of the charge so if you want to give me
anything have it be money on my visa card in my checking account. I cant think
of anything else, but if you want to know something write me! LOVE YOU ALL
Hermana Allen
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