Bautismo Numero 2!!!

¡Hola! ¿Comó le va amados hermanos míos?

Haha that's probably not gramatically correct but whatever :) Yup that's right! We had another baptism this week. I absolutely LOVE Mariela. She is incredible. I only got to see the end result of her finding the gosple but her light shines so bright and she is so loving and SO gosple smart. She has ALL the books already and has read a ton of them haha Her baptism was absolutely beautiful :) Two of her kids were able to make it, Rocio and Juan. They are both great and it was so good that they were able to come see their mom take this step.

Rocio is learning and reading but doesn´t talk much yet. We LOVE going over to teach them, and we told Rocio that we could only keep coming as much as we do if we could teach her. I think she's thinking about it :) But the spirit was just so strong at Marielas baptism, Hermana Vincent gave an amazing talk on the Holy Ghost and really, you could just see in Mariela´f countenance how important it was to her :) That is by far the most rewarding part of being out here. Helping people find purpose in there life and find a path that will bring them real and lasting happiness :) We are working on finding more people who are ready, cuz this path isn´t the easiest! But we are just going to keep working hard and surely the people who are ready will be placed in our path :) Hermana Vincent had a bit of a crazy week this week. . .she's doing great but if you all could send prayers both of our way that would be so awesome :) It´s tough being two greengos out here haha but with the help of our Savior we manage! We had a fun week in general though! We had some good laughs and let off some steam being goofs in our apartment (don´t worry, there's videos as proof ;) but I just love her. She is so strong and I´ve learned so much from her already. I know Heavenly Father knew this would be hard for us, but as we both are willing to turn to him for help, He's there for us.

This might be silly, but to anyone who is or was a missionary you probably understand how sad this is, but I lost my planner this week.  I think in a collectivo (bus) so there's really a VERY slim chance I´ll ever find it. That thing is like a mini journal for me. . .somehow I think I misplaced my first one too. . .so yeah, I cried but it's sort of ok now haha (You all know me, I cry about everything (haha)

So! Here's my fun facts about Argentina for the week :)

- This week there was a BIG protest about something to do with fish and fish workers (that's all me and Hna. Vincent were abe to get out of it haha) happened and ever since then they have been cutting the power off every so often. . .the first time is happened I was like "It wasn´t me this time I swear!!!" haha but yeah, they cut it off yesterday morning so we didn´t have power most of church, luckily we have a small branch so we could still hear for the most part :) but that has been weird!

- Instead of the peep holes in the door that you can look through from the inside and the people outside can´t see, they just cut a hole out of there door and put a little circle over it that twists, so when we knock, this little hole opens up with an eye looking back at us and normally we just stand there and talk to the eye cuz they don´t wanna open the door haha it´s great :)

-Did I talk about Malta last week? Cuz if I did whatever I´m talkign about it again cuz I´m absolutely in LOVE! It makes me think of Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Larry cuz it smells like toffee (like coffee but sweeter) but it's like a hot chocolate mix!! You make it with milk and add a little sugar and dip in some crackers (yeah, wierd but SO good) and it's like a little piece of heaven haha LOVE IT!

Welp, that's me for the week! I have been realizing just how flippin cool the Book of Mormon is this week. Yeah, so of it´s teachings are super repetetive. . .BUT THAT'S BECAUSE WE ARE A FORGETFUL PEOPLE!!!

haha They only repeat themselves to help us REMEMBER because that's what it´s all about. When we remeber to say our prayers, we do, and we are blessed. We we remember to read our scriptures, we do, and we are blessed. When we keep the commanments cuz we remembered them when we read our scriptures, we do, and we are blessed! Isn´t that cool?!

Just, always remember Him, and he can bless our life like He wants to, but it takes action on our part :) I´m grateful I have this time to develop habits that can bless me and those I know for the rest of my life!! It's so great :)

I love you all and hope you have a FANTASTIC week! ¡¡¡¡AMO Y EXTRAÑO MUCHO!!!!

Con Amor,

Larissa :)

¡¡¡UN BAUTISMO!!!

Hello All!!!

Whoop Whoop! We had our first Baptism in Argentina yesterday! It was SO fantastic. I can´t remember how much I´ve told you all about Priscila but she is 10 and the daughter of a less active. She is so fantastic and was so stinking excited for her baptism. I got to give the prayer at the end and afterward her mom told me somthing along the lines of "Your prayer was so sweet. Your spanish sounds like that of a litte child." Haha uh. . .not sure if that´s a compliment or what but I´ll take it! It was really great though! It was so great that her mom and grandma came! I hope that they keep coming! 

We will also be preparing for Marielas baptism this week! She quit smoking on Saturday and has been going strong so that has been so neat to see. She is such a great example of Faith. She just knows Christ is going to help her overcome this addiction and she believes with all her heart she will do it with his help :)

I don´t have a ton of time cuz we only have an hour now so this is gonna be short haha I´m loving the work here! We had divisions this week and two native Argentina Hermanas came and worked our area with us for a few days this week and we found 15 new investigators with them!!! It was absolutely nuts haha we'll see how they deal with having to learn from two gringos who can´t speak too well, luckily the spirit is the true teacher and if they wanna listen to that they will just feel the truth :) 

Here's some of my random facts about Argentina!! (HOpe you like that I do this haha)

- So, instead of Wal-Mart for regular everday stuff, here they have Kiosko´s which I think are absolutely genious. They are just out of home businesses where the owner buys all the stuff they want to sell from big retailors. They have everything from candy to clothes from soap to toilet paper, really just all kinda of stuff. You can pay bills there and refill phone and bus cards. The best thing about them is they are literally on EVERY STREET! and most of the time there are multiple on one street. It´s so cool and I really think they need to get these going in the US haha

- Every panel of sidewalk is different. Haha in front of every building the sidewalk changes is texture, hieght, rock or concrete, all of that! I´ll have to take pictures and show but it is just the wierdest thing when you are used to one straight plain concrete sidewalk haha (sidenote: I night not be able to send any pictures home :/ The ones Hermana Vincent sent the other day got earased and it messed up her memory card. I think the computers here could wipe off all my pictures and I don´t want that happening :/ but we´ll see!)

Well, that´s all I have time for. I keep learning this over and over again while I´m in the mission that really the best way to find true happiness and joy in this life is by serving others. I feel like I´ve always known this, but I see that truely when we are focused inward it´s so easy to get upset, be angry, find fault with others, all of that stuff. But when we focus on others and see the light that they have and share out light through helping them and loving them, we find more happiness and joy and that light within us is increased. It´s so cool. D&C50:23-24 (thanks Uncle Brock!) I love this scripture, so look it up :) haha but really, that´s what this life is all about. Sharing the light :) Enjoy everyone you meet and find some way to serve them. 

Ok, I LOVE YOU ALL!! Have an absolutely fantastic week! Come closer to Christ through service ok? That´s what I´m gonna be trying to do :) 

LOVE YA! 

Larissa :)

Semana Dos en Ingeniero White :)

Hola Familia! Que tal? :)

Haha Hey everyone, how have you been doing this week?! This week felt like one of the longest of my life. . .but it kinda ended up flying by. The full immersion in Spanish is starting to take a bit of a toll on me. I´m trying to just enjoy it and understand all that I can, but it gets exhausting when everytime I get asked a question and I attempt to answer I say this wrong thing cuz I misunderstood or whatever haha but people are super patient with me and are doing all they can to help me learn! I just need to be patient with myself and know it´s gonna take a lot longer than 2 weeks here to become fluent.

On the learning a new language note, me and Hermana Vincent are going to start teaching English classes :) I´m really excited and our ward members and other people we´ve told are excited about it too. We´re hoping that through the classes we´ll be able to find some people who are ready to hear about Christ too. I¨m excited to see how it goes!

We´re gonna hammer out the details this week and hopefully start it up next week, so if you have any good ifdeas for teaching English send them our way :) In my e-mail last week I neglected to mention ANYTHING about the people we are teaching! I´m such a bad missionary haha ugh, but, I´ll fill you in this week :) First of all there is Mariela. She is just amazing! Hermana Vincent and her other companion found her knocking doors and she actually thought they were from a different religious group so when they came around she went inside and closed the door, but they decided to knock anyway and told her that they were Mormom and she got super excited and invited them in and pretty much since that day has wanted to get baptised :) She is a super quick learner, she says it´s because everything we teach her just makes sense.

Whenever we´re teaching she just says ¨Claro¨ over and over haha which is like "Of course" in spanish. (Side note: I just figured out I´ve been using the ¨ instead of the " quote marks since these are Spanish key boards everything is all moved around haha) She is working toward a baptism date toward the end of the month, but everyone here in Argentina smokes, so she is working on quiting right now. She really wants to and she has gone from 20/day to alomst 1 in just 2 weeks, it´s absolutely incredible :) We did a fast with her this past week and she said that helped strengthen her a lot, so that was really neat! We also have been sorta teaching her kids and they are 19, 24, and 26. The gospel makes sense to them and I think with small steps they might accept it too. They all smoke though so that´s a bit of a large problem haha but if they believe it´s what will make them and God happy, then they will do it, so we´ll just cross that bridge when we get there :) We also have been teaching Priscila who just turned 10 on Sunday :) she is getting baptized this coming Sunday! Her mom is a member but hasn´t been to church in quite awhile, but she wants her daughter to have the chance to grow up in and be a part of the church, and Priscila absolutely loves it :) She is really smart and loves reading her "El LIbro De Mormon" para niños :) We have a few other people we are teaching but no one that we see often, so I´ll let that be it for now!

Here´s some more random facts about Argentina!:

-We knock doors here, but we also clap :) At houses with big fences around them, or ones with mean looking dogs at the door haha, we clap!

It´s way cool and fun haha

- There is this stuff that is absolutely AMAZING!! It´s called Dulce de Leche which literally translates into Sweet Milk :) It´s a lot like carmel, but it´s got more of a peanut butter texture. It´s in rolls, churros, in between cookies, on fruit, you name it! But seriously, it is some of the best stuff I´ve ever tasted :) We also have this incredible bakery in our area and we treat ourselves to the sweets in there every once in awhile and pretty much EVERYTHING has dulce de leche in it haha

- The bread here in general is just amazing. None of that spongey stuff like we´ve got in the states haha but it´s cool cuz the bread here, the outside is super tough, so for lunch or at meals they just put out a BIG loaf of bread (like the skinnyish kind they always pretend to use as swords in cartoons :)) and you just break off pieces of it as you want more bread! Its a bit of a mess, but super handy really :)

Haha ok, now for the funny moment of the week. . .how many of you have seen Leap Year? Haha I know my mom has ,) and if you haven´t seen it this is still funny but if you have seen that it makes this just that much funnier haha it was just to crazy haha ok, so I brought this converter because the voltage here is way different from the states.  It´s been working absolutely GREAT and I´ve been able to listen to music and charge my camera and I even blow dried my hair once. So yesterday, I decided I wanted to curl my hair! I know right, haha so I plugged in my handy dandy converter and turned on my curling iron. All is well at this point and I beging curling my hair haha (mind you, Hermana Vincent is in the shower.) So, I´m going along, I hear Hermana come out and go change, still. all is well. I dunno how much longer after that happened, I´d been curling my hair for probably 10 minutes cuz I only had about half done, when all the sudden there´s this HUGE pop and everything went dark. PITCH DARK! Haha yep, my dilly surling iron tripped the breaker, and I´m pretty sure my converter is fried haha but Hermana Vinvent was mid changed in the other room and she goes¨"Oh my gosh. It´s dark. I´m scared." and some other really funny stuff which I think I´ll just keep to myself haha but we found the phone to get us some light and I was freaking out that I blew the power in the whole building, maybe even block like in Leap Year haha but we went outside and found the breaker box and tripped our apartment back and all was well once again :) haha except I´m a little worried I won´t be able to charge my camera for the rest of my mission, but I brought some extra fuses for my converter so weçll see if I can change it out and get it working again :) The problem was I needed it fuctioning on the high setting and I had it on the low seting :/ so it´s totally my fault haha but it´s so funny now it was almost worth it.

Alright, I´ve gotta get going! I love you all so much! Keep praying for me and ask that I´ll recaive some help with learning this language quickly! I now it´ll come in the Lords time, but prayers never hurt anyone! I keep realizing more and more everyday how blessed I am to have a knowledge that brings me so much happiness, peace and purpose in life. I am grateful for this oppertunity I have to share that with others and just as if not more importantly really understand that for myself. I love my Savior Jesus Christ so very much and I know I´ve taken Him for granted for far too long and I´m working to do all I can to make up for that time and give Him all of me now <3

Have a great week everyone OK?! I love you all so very much :)

HOLA DE ARGENTINA!!!! :D

HELLO EVERYONE!!

Oh my goodness. I´m in Argentina guys. Can ya believe it?! haha I definitely feel like I´m here but I guess sometimes I still just can´t believe it. Obviously it´s been an AWESOME week :) So, I flew out of Orlando to the Georgia airport where I met up with the rest of my MTC district which was SO awesome and a TON of other missionaries! From there, our flight left around 9:00 and we flew all night, like 11 hours to Buenos Aires. I gotta sit by Elder Jaggi (he´s the Elder that is way into hunting from Wyoming that reminded me of all my crazy brothers haha ) it was great catching up with him! Even on the plane, it was like the beginning of my culture shock haha everyone was speaking castellano (that´s the dialect of Spanish we speak here, it´s when you turn all the y and ll into a sh sound instead, it´s super beautiful, and all the accents are like Italians haha) but then when we got off the plane and went though customs there were a BILLION people holding signs haha and then when we found the one that said ¨misioneros la iglesia de jesucristo¨ that was awesome, but the members picking us up only spoke castellano as well, so that was a cool experience trying to communicate right off the bat :) from that point on, it´s definitely been full immersion. We spent a few hours at the Buenos Aires mission office and met all the missionaries going home that transfer and a TON were from Bahia Blanca. We talked to the Sisters and they told us all about our ¨madres¨or trainers and some advice and all that stuff. That was also my first experience with real Argentina food which ALWAYS contains meat and mayonaise (haha sorry mom, there is literally no avoiding that here haha) but it is SO good. While we were there, the lady in charge of the Visa´s for all the missionaries of not only Argentina, but Chile, Paraguay and Uraguay as well, explained to us that the only reason we were ale to come is they decided to make all of our visas the ¨tourist¨visas that don´t take as long to obtain, but are only good for three months and have to be changed into long term ones, which it didn´t sound like there is going to be a problem doign that, but just pray that it´ll all go smoothly! Then, we finally went back to an airport so we could fly out to Bahia Blanca! I didn´t sleep too well on the way over so I was just flat out exhausted haha but it was only and hour and I slept the whole way. It was dark once we got there (it gets dark at about 6.00 right now) and raining, but oh my word, I was SO excited! We got off the plane, and went through the doors and there was President and the Assistants :) They just looked so darn happy and they greeted us with HUGE hugs (well, hand shakes for me and Hermana Tolman, oh yeah it was us and like 14 Elders haha) but it was awesome :) Then we took a little 30 minute drive to the mission office (passed the only Wal-Mart in the mission haha) and ate a quick dinner there, then us Hermanas, there were 3 others from the Buenos Aires MTC that had been there all day, went to crash at President and Hermana Perreno´s house. Then the next day we had a little training and then found out our area and companions!!

With Hermana Vincent

SO!!! I´m really near Bahia Blanca! My area is called Ingeniero White and it´s like 30 minutes from Bahia and I LOVE it! It´s kinda poor and there are a lot of factories, but the people are absolutely wonderful :) My companion is Hermana Vincent!! I met her on FB before the mish! She came out one transfer before me and has only been in Argentina for a tranfer as well! She was in Salt Lake before that (which is ike 20 minutes from her house, poor thing) but she is AMAZING! I love her so much and she is doing an AMAZING job teaching me spanish :) I believe we are the first both American Hermana companionship the mission has had haha it´s a little bit of a struggle, but Hermana Vincent is amazing :) We are already really good friends and we are working hard!

Ok I guess to finish up here's some random facts about my area:

1. There are dogs EVERYWHERE!! I absolutely love that. Except when we see ones that are really sick, hungry. . .or mean. BUt mostly they are all really healthy. There are two who know who we are and run up to us whenever they see us :) They´re names are Tigra and Spike haha I´ll try to get some pictures.

2. It´s really not that cold haha I mean yeah it´s winter and we don´t have American heating systems but I wearing sweat and a tshirt to bed and I´m fine :) granted I have like 5 blankets but yeah haha

3. We getta walk EVERYWHERE and it´s so awesome cuz we can work literally ALL DAY LONG! No riding in the car or working with silly bikes haha oh and my leggings keep me plenty warm mom I promise, and I getta wear my boots like everyday so that´s pretty much the best thing ever!

4. We have a branch here and it has about 6ish active families, which is so fun. Granted, the work is a bit slower here, but they are incredible people and they feed us good lunches! Oh, here their big meal is Lunch and then they don´t really eat dinner and breakfast, they just eat like small things throughout the day which I also LOVE!

5. Prepare brothers haha you´ll wanna live here after I tell you this...literally everyone rides motorcycles. haha ok not everyone but a TON of people. and if not a motorcycle it´s a bike with a motor haha which is pretty darn neat :)

Alright, that´s it for my time today! I love you all so much and the gospel is just as true down here as it is in the US! Keep praying for me and I´ll be praying for all of you :)

TE AMA!!! :)

Hermana Conger