I am still here doing great!!! I was happy to get all of your emails and see all the pictures. Mom the pictures you took of Jenae and her family are way cute and I love the pictures of little bust and Sophie are adorable. Everytime I see pics of the bust I cant believe how stinkin huge he is. Like seriously he is a tank compared to when I saw him in hawaii. WoW!! its crazy to imagine what he is going to be like when I get home. OH my goodness I am still in shock at the people here and breastfeeding. Today we were at wal mart buying things we needed and I look over and see a lady crossing the street holding her kid breastfeeding. Seriously?? how does she do that. and then the other day we were teaching one of our investigators and she has 3 children and all of a sudden in the middle of our lession she takes it out and starts feeding her (i think 3 or 4) yr old son. I always feel so awkward but these people have no shame. I was waiting for her to start feeding her 6 yr old son too but she didnt. haha
Anyways this week was good. We have been kind of struggling lately because we havent had very much luck finding new people to teach. My companion and her last companion apperantly just had a baptism and I guess usually when there is a baptism after it you kind of have to start over with the work and finding people. So we are at that point right now. We are trying to find new people to teach but everyone is rejecting us. We talk to so many people throughout the day and a lot of times they will listen to us and set up a time for us to return and then they are never at the house when we return. It is so frustrating because we walk all the way to their house to have nothing. Our area we have is pretty big to so we are walking a lot! The other day we started talking to this lady and she was way friendly and let us teach her the whole first lesson and we said a prayer with her and everything. and she seemed to understand everything and then when we finished and tried to set up a time to return she said oh I am really not interested I just like to hear what other religions have to say. So basically we spent a whole hour teaching her for her to say that. ahhh how frustrating. but we just have to think positive and remember that we tried and somehow I am sure we planted a seed for her to prepare her for sometime in her life to accept our message. The people here are VERy very catholic! which is a good thing in the way that they all believe in god and jesus christ and have a lot of faith but it is bad because they are so stuck on their catholic religion that they cant change. Most of the people say that it is a family tradition and they cant change something that is a family tradition. As we walk around we see so many houses with glass boxes outside of them with all of their catholic saints in them and they light candles in them and worship them. ya it is pretty extreme! but I am trying to stay positive and remember that even though there are a lot of people like that there are people that are ready to here our message.
We have a family that we are teaching and they have 4 children and all of the children are members but the parents are not members. They have been attending church for 7 years now but they cannot get baptized because they are not married. The dad was married previously and never officially got divorced because his previous wife wouldnt sign papers so its a big ordeal. and this family stopped going to church for like 3 years and just recently for easter started coming to church again. and they are so happy. so last week we went to their house to visit with them and my companion started talking to them about baptism and getting married and apparently before they didnt want to do it and everytime the missionaries talked to them about it they always rejected but this past week when my companion brought it up they were totally open and last night we made goals with them to do the divorse, get married, and baptized and they committed to it all. We were so happy and as of now the plan is for them to get baptized on the 25 of June if all goes well with the divorce. so that was exciting!
I have been realizing more and more how much impact the members can help with the missionaries. We are constantly asking the members for referrals but not one gives us anything. It is so frustrating! I now realize when the missionaries came over to our house and asked us why they asked because when you have referrals it is so much better for finding new people to teach. It is hard to just go out on our own and try to find new people. Our branch here is so small and the church is just beginning here. Everyone is converts and they dont know very much and they dont help a lot with the church. The church is so much different here than the united states. I mean obviously it is the same but the people do anything and everything to fulfill their callings in the united states. Here it is not like that. It is kind of frustrating as missionaries because we need the help of the members but we dont really have it and they kind of expect us to do everything. but I am staying positive because things will be good. The language is still hard but I am trying everyday. I have been speaking more in lessons lately. I testify a lot and say a lot of prayers. Keep praying for me because I need it. but I can def say that I am learning a lot. I just need to be patient. One thing that they do here is instead of knocking on peoples doors we get to the door and we clap and the people come out. It is really weird but it is just what we do here. It is weird to get used to.. oh and Lauren stinkin everyone here has Toms! well not really toms a fake brand of toms but so many people here wear them. when i first saw it I got really excited!
Wow pretty sure I just wrote a novel. and it is probably going to bore you but ya things are good here. I am still trying to get used to the walking everywhere but the nice thing about it is I am always so excited for 1030 and everynight I fall asleep so stinkin fast because I am so tired. My companion told me yesterday that the whole sending 4 packages throughout your mission isnt really true. She said for christmas there were some elders that recieved 7 packages. so I just thought you would like to know that. but like I told you she said that her mom wraps each individual think in wrapping paper to keep it more secret and also to use UPS i think if you send packages. and I think I told you this in the last letter but you can send me real letters and my comp said that doing this is a lot easier than doing pouch and if you do this you can just send it to the mission home address and I think it will arrive in about 3 weeks. and also the padded envelope thing I think is one of the best things because they wont open it and it should arrive in 3 weeks too.. just thought you would like to know these things. Grandma was asking for my address. I dont have it with me so maybe you should give it to her.
ANyways i think that is all for now. Im sure I will have another novel of crazy adventures in Argentina next week. I hope all is well and I love to hear from you so keep writing! pictures are amazing too!!
love you all.
love,
Kara
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