Things I've learned

My mission President has a son who recently got back from his mission.
my mission presidents wife told me that in their son´s  last letter he only said “see you
soon”.  I thought it was pretty funny but I also thought that you
would kill me so I decided to go in another direction.

A lot of things have happened on my mission (and this week too):

Last Monday celebrating the marriage ceremony of Patricio and Mariela-
I learned how to machete old crates to make a bonfire to cook a
ridiculous amount of asado, and how to be a make-up artist with their
little kids for the after party. And this Saturday in his baptism I
was able to see the atonement work miracles and bless their family.

This week we also had the baptism of an hermana that wasn´t listed in
the churches records, and had been inactive for years.  We got to see
her remember the importance of the góspel and the love our Savior has
for her even when she feels alone.

I´ve seen people humble themselves to put God´s will before their own
.  A really great family that we are teaching didn´t go to church last
week- because they (and basically the whole town) didn´t have water
and didn´t want to go to church without showering.  When we told them that we
went anyways and testified of the Sabbath day and it's importance- they felt the spirit.
And this Sunday when there wasn´t wáter again they went anyways.

I´ve developed a love-hate relationship with mangos because we were
given a garbage bag full. And we keep receiving more every day.  (And
I've learned how to use a blender really well)

I learned how to speak Spanish.  And speak English a little bit worse.

I learned the importance of the sacrament, and how it can take away a
bad week and give us a fresh start.

I´ve learned how to smile for hours without having your face hurt.

I´ve learned the importance of health and safety codes.

I´ve seen people pull an Alma the younger, completely changing their
desires and actions and the light that it brings to their eyes.

I learned that the sister from Troll 2 is in a really cheesy New
Testament seminary video!

I´ve seen the góspel bring hope to families, and give them a reason to
keep pressing forward.

I´ve learned to love the scriptures.  They make me cry, sometimes
laugh, and help me to feel the love of our Lord.  I can honestly say
that I feel like I am that much closer to Him by reading His words.

I learned the importance of not just living the góspel for obedience,
but with real intent and a pure love for God.

I love my Savior, I know that He lives.

I know that I was sent here for a reason, and could feel it in every
visit, street contact, sacrament meeting, baptism, study time- every
single moment that I had the privilege to spend in Argentina.

I will never forget what I felt- or how I´ve grown.

I love you so much, and I hope that everything is well because
everything is perfect here.

two and a half weeks

This week I felt more like the Savior.  We learned a little bit of
carpintery!  We have an investigator that wants to be baptized but her
parents won´t give her permission.  So, we helped them with their
house expansion.  Then we taught them doctrine.  But they have some
sort of spirit repellent so…. We´re still working on that.

Mary had a Little lamb bécame a reality this week.  Sort of.  It was
actually Maria had a huge dog.  And instead of following her to school
it followed her to church and entered while we were taking the
sacrament.

We´ve been without wáter a good part of the week, and not being able
to shower I´ve actually had a little bit of free time!  I was able to
write a little bit in my journal.

I was in a small reunión with my misión president going over the
statistics from the last transfer in our zone- and my president made a
back to the future reference.  It was probably one of the most
subtlest, greatest things I´ve ever heard.

I´ve been fighting with bugs a lot lately.  I put on one of my skirts,
and a few moments later a palm sized spider crawled down my leg!  I´ve
swallowed 2 mosquitos, and one landed in my eye while we were talking
to a few people in the street and I felt like a pirate contacting thim
with my hand over my eye trying to act like nothing was happening
untill we said goodbye and my companion helped me get it out.  And
during a really spiritual lesson a couple of little bettles crawled
down the back, and front of my shirt.  It was a little bit hard to
concentrate after that- but we were able finish strong before we left
their house and removed them.  Those are only a couple of little
things that I´m not going to miss.

I had to give my last testimony a 3 times in different zone and
leadership trainings.  I thought maybe I´d start to feel sad and it
would hit me, but no.  I feel the same as always.  It´s great!

THIS MORNING WE WENT TO THE WEDDING CEREMONY OF PATRICIO Y
MARIELA!!!!!!  It was the best thing ever.  To see a happy family
starting their way to having an eternal family.
Even though it was one of the happiest moments- it was a little bit
sad because their family wasn´t there to support them.  Patricio made
a lot of really big mistakes in the past and almost lost his family a
few times.  His inlaws aren´t supporting thier decisión to be togather
and didn´t go to the wedding.

It´s really sad when people don´t trust in the atonement enough to
believe that people can change.  And it´s only that much harder when
the whole family isn´t working togather to help their loved one.  We
can´t deny the godly potential of everyone walking on the earth in
this moment.  People who need a reason, and the help to change.
I´m so grateful to have been able to see the atonement work MIRACLES
with people, especialy families.  Even when it´s really, really,
really hard and it doesn´t look like there is hope.
Hermana Shumway

Christmas party

Christmas Party and first look at her newest companion

Hermana John Wayne

In Preach My Gospel there´s this really cute story about a taxi
driver.  That as the missionaries are walking home after a really long
day a cabist takes them for free and ends up getting baptized and
going to the temple with his whole family.  I think they put it there
to inspire every missionary that they too can have a marvelous
experience such as that.

All of my taxi driver stories have just ended up being creepy.  But I
haven´t lost my faith.

More people should sell figs.  I didn´t even know what a fig was like
apart from fig newtons! (But I´m pretty sure that that doesn´t
actually count)

My companion washed a turtle this week to be servicial.

Being Hermana leader over my old area, I´m always in contact with the
Hermanas that are there right now. On Sunday they told me that my
convert Nehemías bore his testimony in sacrament meeting- it made me
cry a little bit.  I´ve been so worried because since I´ve left the
other Hermanas haven´t been finding him.  It´s a great comfort to know
that the Good Shepard is always working infinitely harder than us.

This week we have a wedding! And a baptism!  AND WE´RE COMPLETING A
FAMILY!!!!!!!!!

We are always reminding them that they have to have their family
prayer.  So they made a prayer schedule.  One for everyday of the
week- and because there are only 6 of them- they´ve included us too!
Every Saturday because we lunch with them, and we do feel like part of
their family.

They have a hard time remembering how to pronounce my name.  So now
thay just call me Hermana John Wayne, because in their accent it
actually does sound like Shumway.  (In my second area there was a guy
that we always talked to in the street that called me that too!)

 The father (who is the one going to be baptized) used to smoke a lot.
Even though it´s been about a month since he´s quit, he had a really
bad day this last week and tried to smoke.  But as soon as his kids
saw him trying to lite up they began to toss water on him from the
kiddie pool.  All his little kids are really excited to help since we
held a family council with them started Operation: "Basta de Fumata".
(stop smoking)

We literally scared them when we taught the penalties of sin- and they
have composed a song to remind them to not break the law of chastity.
It´s to the tune of jingle bells.  There´s a really nice verse verse
describing how we are going to be verifying with them all the time. I
love being an insistent missionary.

Yesterday we accidentally locked our house keys in- and we started
freaking out.  I was thinking that we were going to have to call a
locksmith from a big and far away town.  We went to go ask our land
lord what to do- and he just told us that we had to find a little kid
to break in.  We have barred windows, but luckily the slots were big
enough for a 4 year-old.  I love Argentina.  I also have some really
funny cop stories, but those will have to wait.

A different family that we are teaching are really progressing.
They´ve started to give us a million references, all their extended
family members.  They´ve invited us to go to their next family
reunion.

One of the biggest fruits of repentance and using the atonement are
our desires to share the gospel.  And we don´t even need to understand
or live the gospel for a long time to be able to do it.  We can go to
church 1 time and recognize the importance.

Our sacrament assistance has jumped from the beginning of my time here
of 30 to about 60.  I´ve seen the Lord work so many miracles- and
we´re just about to baptize 2 men who can be priesthood holders.
Looks like we might get an elders quorum president!  And one of them
is named Julio Cesar (Julius Ceaser)  He has really great leadership
potential.  Haha.

I love you.

fruit cake is no longer a gag gift

How did your Christmas goat?  That´s actually just a really bad pun
because I´m super stoked that we ate goat for Christmas.

And watched a pretty fun dog fight.(They run wild)

 It was probably one of the best Christmases I´ve had- and there´s a
couple of other personal stories that will have to be told in person
when I´m back.

I have decided that I´m going to always wear a watch for the rest of
my life because my watch tan is SO RIDICULOUSLY good that people who
see it are just going to be jealous.  And I just don´t want to be the
cause of a bunch of envy.

This week was a little bit crazy.  In the beginning of the week had to
wake up at 4:30 in the morning to go to a 2 zone Christmas conference.
And we stayed up really late organizing the trip.  Our zone is
geographically the biggest in the mission because we are a bunch of
little branches entering Bolivia so it was crazy rounding everybody
up.  I only slept 3 hours- but  I was only a little tired.  We
played white elephant gift exchange and our mission president´s 11 year old son kind
of rigged it a little bit so I got to go last and pick whatever gift I
wanted.  (Because  we became really good friends when I served in his
ward)  Then he made fun of me because I stole a Barcelona jersey only
because it came with a cool artisinal bag and a wooden carving.

The next day we worked our butts off because we were excited to be
able to work and not sleeping caught up to me and I almost died but it
was worth it because we brought 10 new people to church and 9 of them
have baptismal dates and they are families!!!!!  Best Christmas
present ever.

After we skyped, we got to know a little bit the member who lent us
her computer.  (because it wasn´t in our area, we didn´t know her, we
were really grateful for her letting us into her house- and everyone
loves listening to scriptures)  She had suffered a stroke a while back
and was a paralyzed in half her body and couldn´t say more that a few
words if she tried REALLY hard.  She looked a bit sad.  We watered all
of her plants, shared a little Christmas message and then tried to
understand her.  We told her we would sit as long as it took for her
to talk- she started crying and the words slowly came out.  I think
it´s been a really long time since she´s had anyone try to communicate
and not only talk to her.  Through hand signs, little words, and the
spirit she was able to express her concerns and problems in her life
right now and we were able to offer her the best cure that we had- The
Book of Mormon.  We committed her 10 year old son to read to his mom
everyday.  The Elders in her area are going to give her a blessing as
well- but I know that there isn´t a better way to feel peace in this
life, then having daily scripture study.

It made me think back a lot on the beginning of my mission.  When I
couldn´t communicate with everyone.  But I´m really grateful for those
hard months because I feel like there are a lot of people that just
want to be understood- and I now know the importance of helping them.
The importance of our Baptismal covenant to ease the burdens, comfort
and cry with those who need it.

On Christmas Eve as we were re-gifting what our family sent us- we
were in the house of a less active family that were so touched that
they wanted to give us something too.  Here they aren´t usually a lot
of presents but normally the families have a little tree that they put
fruitcakes under to eat Christmas day.  They didn´t have very many-
but they picked the biggest one that they had and give it to us.  And
all we had given them were a couple of pouches of Scooby-Doo fruit
snacks to their kids.

It doesn´t sound like that big of a deal but it gets me chocked up
every time I think about it.

The world is full of a bunch of really, really wholesomely good people
who just want to help others.  I feel so blessed for having received
love and service from so many selfless people- and knowing my Savior
better because of it.

I hoped you all had a really Merry Christmas.

I wanted to share this scripture with you when we talked, but here it
is now: D&C 123:17.  If we are really, honestly doing everything that
we possibly can we never have to worry.  There is peace in trying
harder than you think you can.

I love you all.

Missionary Disneyland

Basically I´m ridiculously happy.  Being with Hermana Erikson makes me
feel like I´m starting my mission and not finishing it. She was one of
the first people that I met in the MTC. And I really, really, really
love teaching an area to someone.  It´s like taking someone to
Disneyland for the first time and getting to explain everything.

This week we were leaving the house of an less active convert family
and when we were already a couple houses away, one of the little kids
ran to us with a bag of 4 humitas.  Which  are like vegetarian tamales
and freaking delicious.  And a couple of mangoes because everyone here
just throws them away.  It was a little bit weird because in this area
it was one of the first time that someone has gifted us food.

We then went to a visit a family that we had recently met that are
really great.  They had read  what we left them and were excited to
learn more.  We explained about the Restoration, priesthood, and
Joseph Smith and they understood really well. It was a really
spiritual lesson.

When we asked If they would like us to ask for anything specific in
our prayer she asked if we could ask that they could find a way to
have food for the next day.  She told us that her husband had left
about two months ago and they haven´t heard from him.  And her job was
finished until the next planting/harvest season in February.  Nobody
in her family had eaten that day, ant it was 8 o´clock at night. She
didn´t say it in a begging manner, but humbly.  A lot of people think
that prayers from the missionaries are more powerful.

After the prayer we gave them the 4 little humitas that we had and the
couple of dirty mangoes.  It wasn´t much but I´ve never seen someone
so grateful in my life.  She looked like she was about to cry- and
when she started to protest we cut her off, said our goodbyes.

Sometimes the Lord works miracles in really strange ways.  I have no
doubt in my mind that God organized everything perfectly that day
because he loves his children.

One night when we got back home there was a HUGE frog in our bathroom.
But there isn´t really much more of a story there.

The last half of the week it´s been well under 100 degrees.  I´ve
celebrated by drinking hot chocolate.

In missionary heritage I´m now a grandma because my daughter now has daughter.

We are working on a wedding of a part-member family!  We already
helped the dad quit smoking- and we are just waiting for all the
paperwork of the wedding ceremony to work out to get him in the water
and be one step closer to their eternal family.  They are already so
excited to go to the temple.

Well, I´ve heard that the time difference is 4 hours.  I will be
calling around 2 o´clock here which I think would be 10 o´clock your
time.  I´m pretty sure that I´m going to skype- but don´t be surprised
if I end up calling.  We are going to try to go to Oran with a member
that has internet.

All of the packages that have been sent have been held captive by the
grinches in the Argentine Mail system (because there are so many) and
will not be released for the mission home to pick up untill after the
holidays.  But I´m sure I´ll get your package soon!

six weeks left.

I asked Courtney what transfers were like.  I knew her companion was going home so I wondered if she had to travel 7 hours back to the mission home with her.

HAhaha.  Well- your question has the most complicated answer. It´s always
different.  But I´ll tell how my transfers went today for example.

La Colonia Santa Rosa, is so special small and incurrupt that it doesn´t
have a bus terminal.  So we have to go to the bus terminal in a neighboring
 town to send my companion off and receive my new one.  It´s also ridiculously hard to leave
my area. Especially at really wierd hours of the day- and normaly they
don´t give us our itinerary until late Sunday night.

  So, we were bugging our zone leaders because we´re really good friends
the whole week that they had to tell us our schedule as soon as they found
out so that we could organize everything well, and actually be able to leave.

They didn´t.  They let us know late, late Sunday night.

We had to leave our apartment at 5;30 in the morning- and we didn´t have any
idea who we could ask to take us.  We called about every taxi driver that
we knew.  Nobody was available.  And to make things worse the 2 female
members who were going to wait with me untill my new companion arrived had
to bail out.  The other members that we could have asked don´t have
cell-phones.  It was 2 in the morning and we literally had run out of
options.

When finally, finally our district president offered to take us. And then
my sweet, sweet district leader called all the members in his area to see
if one of them could acompany me.  And when they couldn´t-  the elders
offered to wake up ridiculously early and wait with me! And, we only had to
make  a really long series of stressful phone calls.

My new companion traveled 9 hours by bus to get to me.  And her bus left 2
hours late so we just sweated (because it´s already ridiculously hot at 6
in the morning here), talked and waited for a really long time in the
terminal with my district leader and his mini misionero that`s from
one of my old areas.

I slept 3 hours.  I thought I would be dying by now, because my internal
clock has gotten really good (I wake up about 10 minutes before 7 everyday,
and my eyes start to hurt at 9:15 at night and I know that we have to start
heading home. )

But I actually feel amazing.  I don´t think that missionaries can feel the
same physical stress as a normal person.

It´s one of the worst things in the world watching someone end their
mission.  My companion LITERALLY gave everything she had her last day- but
it was a super spiritual act that would have to be told in person to do it
justice.

I honestly don´t feel like I´ll be finishing my mission  in a month especially
because MY NEW COMPANION WAS IN MY DISTRICT IN THE MTC!!!!!  I
feel like I´m just starting over.  I´m with my 2 companion that isn´t
latin. (she extended her mission- which is the bigest relief that we won´t
be finishing togather.  Our area doesn´t have a map.  It would be
impossible to learn if someone didn´t teach it to you.)

I kinda like transfers because there is something magical about spending
the whole week talking about everyone that exists in your area.  I really,
really, really love the Colonia.  I´ve never met such hardworking people
even thought they take a 5 hour nap eveyday.

I love my mission.

Sometimes I just want to cry because I´m so freaking happy, and because
it´s so freaking hot and humid every day that I don´t remember what it
feels like to be dry.
Love ya, Hermana Shumway