Down for the Count

This is a duel meaning title haha For starters. . .ROCIO went down in the water on Saturday!! :) Oh man that was so awesome. She is just amazing and is going to be SUCH an amazing example for her family. I can´t wait to see what the future brings for her <3 She had a bunch of family at her Baptism, including her Sister Magalee who I´ve always loved. She is an English teacher, so if I don´t understand something it´s So nice to have her there because she can just explain it to me in English haha but it was so cool to see her there supporting Rocio. Who knows, maybe one day she´ll listen to the missionaries!

Haha meaning number 2 - My "cold" turned into full on fevers, headaches, and 4 rolls of toilet paper for this waterfall of a nose I have haha I was stuck in bed Wednesday, Friday and most of Saturday :/ I still feel pretty gross, but it is what it is and I definitely think I´m on the uphill climb haha (I didn´t make it even past a year like my Superman. Failure haha) My immune system is like that though I think. . .if it´s gonna give in, it´s down for the count haha came up with that while I was trying to muster the engery to shower this morning haha it´s the darn weather down here! It´s beautiful one day and then the next day it´s freezing cold and pouring rain, so my body gets all sorts of confused. But, I got this Argentina medicine that´s working on sweating it all out of me, which is really gross I know haha but I think it´s working! So yeah! Don´t worry about me but prayers are VERY much appreciated :)

Being so sick, I got a TON of sleep, but I also did some reading of the Ensign of past conferences and I got so excited for Conference. I´m really excited too because our Zone has decided to do this Purification fast, I think Aaron mentioned this to me once that one of our friends from SVU did it on his mission, but we start with a fast from food and ask Heavenly Father to help us determine a list of 10 or however many things our natural man is holding on too that is keeping us from having the Spirit as our constant companion. Then, we make a covenant with the Lord that we will do all within our power and with His help want to fast from the things on the List for 40 days. Everyday, start by telling Heavenly Father what you want to do, and then end telling him how the day went. Eventually as the 40 days come to a close, we should be able to see that the Spirit is with us and those natural man desires have disappeared. 

Click to watch this devotional address

I also read His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox :) Read it if you can! It´s an amazing talk. But I´m really excited to start my fast and see where it takes me by the begining of November :) It should be neat!

Well, that´s all for this week!!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! Keep up the good work :)

xoxoxo Larissa

The Adventures of Batman and Superman (Well...their women.)

Haha I was struggling to come up with a creative title this week haha so this is what I got! Hermana Harris is super obessed with Batman (yup Kix. . .she might actually be more obessed than you haha) and everyone knows I love my Superman! We've only gotten in one disagreement about it, so it´s all good! We have a good time though!

This week has been a great one! Seriously, Hermana Harris is such a missionary boss, we find SO many new people to teach every week it´s just nuts. . .now we just have to find them again afterward :/ haha but the people we do see are doing fantastic!! Really, that´s basically just Rocio and Mariela. They had a big struggle with smaking that´s been a long battle but they beat the junk out of that and QUIT!! They are so amazing. It´s still a big struggle and temptation but since the whole house is trying to get on the same boat about quitting I think that has made things easier for them. Rocio is getting baptized this Saturday and I am just so happy and excited for her. She has so much faith that this is just true and it´ll make her happy. Her and Mariela are already FANTASTIC missionaries! One of their neighbors came over while we were there and they were telling him about our beliefs with the Word of Wisdom and invited him to Rocio´s baptism! I think we might go over there to talk to him one day so that would be awesome :) 

I dunno why but everytime I get to here I forget EVERYTHING I WANTED TO SAY and I didn´t write it down this week so I´m in a bit of trouble haha and I´ve been distracted because poor Hermana Harris and her e-mail isn´t working so we've been swtiching computers trying to get it to work but it´s still not working, poor thing :( 

I´ve learned So much from her. I´ve realized all of us are children of God and we are both Sister Missionaries serving in Argentina. . .but we are very different and we even see the gospel differently sometimes, but that´s ok because we each walk our own path through life with Heavenly Father and Chirst, as long as we are walking it with them and keeping the commandments and doing our best to live a good life, that´s what's important :) It´s been cool to be reminded of that over and over. It's been building on my patience as well, which I need haha but I love her to death and more importantly I love this gosple and I can´t imagine my life without it. I´m grateful that I get to spen so much time and energy now focusing all I have on Him and learning how to live my life as He would have me live it. We walk by faith and if we have a perfect brightness of hope and love everyone we meet as we go along and love God and His Son with all me have in this journey of life we will be happy :) 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!! Until next week, have fun and love living life :) 
xoxoxoxo Larissa

Wet here in Argentina, but appartently not as wet as YOU!!

HOLY FLOOD!!!! I can´t believe you all are having to deal with this FLOOD! What the heck happened to always being in a drought haha so yeah, it´s been raining a ton here this week and is back to freezing cold. It was getting nicer, so I´ve got a constant runny nose and stuffy head going on which can be annoying but oh well! I think spring is coming... haha

Click the picture to see a slide show of the Colorado flood

This week was SO great! I just feel really good and happy. So, sorry i didn´t write a letter last week! It was kinda crazy! Transfers here are SO much more of a party than they are in the states haha since our areas are so far apart the missionaries have to take anywhere from an hour to like 5 hour bus ride to their new area. My comp, Hermana Vincent, got sent out to Mar del Plata which is about a 5 hour ride I´m pretty sure, but we had to go to the terminal around 5pm so she could head out. Man, I miss that girl. We´re gonna be good friends always haha but yeah, so then the madness begins as tons of missionaies are leaving and saying goodbye and getting big welcoming hugs and yeah it´s just awesome! I was in the terminal for about 6 hours haha I got to meet a TON of missionaries and I also taught all of the basketball, track, football, soccer, hockey, and other random words in English to one of my Zone Leaders haha It was so funny to act things out and try to understand each other. But yeah, my new comp Hermana Harris didn´t come in until around 5 the next morning, so at 11 when the last Hermana came we went to another apartment of Hermanas to spend the night, I slept for about 4 hours cuz the other missionaries comp was coming in at 3am, so I went back to the Terminal as her companion and then waited another 2 hours for Hermana Harris with the Zone Leaders. They got to know me and my awful Spanish probably a whole lot better than they ever wanted too haha but it was a good time!

This week was AWESOME as I was saying. Hermana Harris is from Northern Utah really close to Idaho,  I think the town is Boxelder (like the bug haha) or something, but she is awesome, missionary and person :) We get along good, we are SUPER different, but it´s fun haha for those of you who know Jeremy Loutensock and Justin Gerlach she is like a perfect mix of those two in girl form. Super wise and deep and has a really just smart sense of humor. The thing that has been incredible to me is the way she always knows exactly what scripture to share with people. It´s what they need to hear to increase their faith. I´m glad I have time to become like that (she´s gonna die after this transfer, so she is such a boss when it comes to missionary work!)

We found a TON of people this week, a lot of them have already been baptized and fell away for one reason or another and want to come back but don´t know how. I´m excited to help them out :) Rocio is doing awesome! We´re still cruising toward her date on the 28th of September and she seems really happy about it. She was able to come to church yesterday and it´s a bit tough with Leon (the CUTEST kid!) but her comments and knowledge that she already has is awesome. Mariela is starting to feel the weight of Satan on the righteous and we were able to help her remember some of the teachings of Christ (like He will ALWAYS love us and we can always repent it´s just our choice to let Him take the burden from us, but that doesn´t come without some hard times for us and that He never wants us to feel inadequate) all thoughts that I know all of us have to battle every single day. We really do just have to remember that Christ loves us and will always be there for us. We will always be imperfect in this life. We will ALWAYS be tempted to do wrong and sometimes we´ll give in and sin. But, we have the Atonement and as often as we repent with a sincere heart we can be forgive and not only that but strengthen for the next time Satan tries to tempt us :) WE ARE STRONGER THAN HE IS!! And always will be, even though he wants us to believe we are nothing and have to be miserable. We know that´s false. He loves us and His loving arms are ALWAYS reaching out to ua :) I love my Savior and I love the perfect plan our Heavenly Father has given us :) I LOVE YOU ALL!!! Have a great week ok?!

Love, Your Larissa :)

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!! (on the 20th) Hope you get my card :)

P.S.S. Be sure to talk Aaron´s ear off about how he´s been for me! I expect him to be able to tell me next week that he was able to talk to every one of you and you tell him so he can hear that I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!! haha ok I´m back in missionary mode and out of crazy girlfriend mode ;) LOVE YOU!!!

HeyOH con exítO y animO de White! :)

Haha well, my heading is probably only funny to me, but still HeyOH!!!

How are all of the people in the United States that I love so very very much?? I´m doing so great, It was a really awesome week (minus the fact that I got sick for the first time here on the mission, not so fun. . .I have a bit of an ear infection so my head ached and I was just completely drained of engery but I'm so much better now!) I just gotta get it out there some news about my Aaron. He´s going home for an appointment to get his shoulder looked at with the military doctors on Sept 17th, so here in a couple weeks. Pray for him that it all works out smoothly and that they figure out what they need to do from there! Sounds like he might get to go back out to the mission if there is a long wait until surgery and then if he does end up getting surgery and having to go home he´ll have to re-do his paperwork and the missionary process and the Brethern will decide if he will go back to Twin Falls or if they want to reassign him. . .CRAY CRAY!! But kinda neat. I just want him to be healthy and whole again <3 So yeah, keep my man in your prayers will ya? Thank ya!

Now for my week! It was awesome, we actually knocked a TON of doors this week since both of our progressing iunvestigators got baptized. We´d been working a lot with Mariela of course, and a little bit with her daughter Rocio, who I talked about a little last week. She has a 1 year old son named León and he is the CUTEST thing! But anyway this week we asked if we could reteach her all the lessons, she´s been reading the gospel principles manual that her mom had so she already knows a FLIP TON!! But after the first lesson we were asking her if she prayed to know if it´s true or not and she said yes, but she can´t ever remeber her dreams so she didn´t know if she got an answer. . .but she knows it´s the true church!! Haha it was SO awesome! So then we explained that she didn´t have to have a dream to get an answer :) She said she loves church and wants to be baptized! We´re gonna work for the 28th of September cuz she wants to be completely done smoking before she gets baptized and I know she can do it! She is so smart and is liek a sponge when it comes to learning and she always has a TON of questions which is awesome because she really wants to understand! It´s great. Mariela of course is wonderful and is already being active in Relief Society activities and making lots of friends. It´s SO amazing to see. We had a miracle at church yesterday! We found a refferal that had been in the area book for who knows how long, and when we went to talk to her she said she had gone to church before and liked it, then we taught her a breif version of the Restoration and she enjoyed that and seemed really receptive and then we asked her to be baptized and she was like no way haha which is completely understandable, but then when we tried to go back she never would come out and we were bummed thinking maybe we scared her off with baptism haha but yesterday SHE SHOWED UP IN CHURCH! Her name is Noelia and she said she just woke up with the idea that she needed to go to church so she came and brought her 9 year old nephew and they LOVED it! She said that she wants to keep coming and learning more and then when she knows for sure she´ll keep coming and make the baptism covenant with God she´ll get baptized! I was so happy for her :) and her nephew Alan loves church too and thought that the sacrament was special :) So we're going to start teaching them both and I´m super happy about that :)

Fun Facts about Argentina for this week :)

- So, they have the trucks that I think drive around White ALL DAY, but it´s only like Saturdays and Sundays. . .and they have a loud speaker and their truck is full of veggies, fruits, eggs, milk, you name it haha and they just say all the things that they have on the loud speaker and drive around really slow and people come out of there houses and buy the stuff. But the FUNNIEST thing is YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND A SINGLE THING THEY ARE SAYING!! haha it´s seriously hilarious. They are like 50 times worse than an auctioneer (and maybe that´s just cuz I can´t understand Spanish ;) haha but yeah!

- They don´t have dryer´s here so we have this dryer rack that we hang all of our clothes on and we leave them out for a couple days to dry :)

- There is eggs in literally EVERY dish. I dunno how I didn´t realize this sooner. . .but seriously. Haha they LOVE their eggs. This one really popular dessert called Flan (I´m sure you can look up a recipe) is just milk and eggs. It´s ok haha

So yup! That´s me for the week :) I´ve been super grateful for my mission this week. I think, no, I KNOW, I couldn´t handle being a mother and really be the diciple of Christ I need to be the rest of my life without this mission.  For that, I´ve been working my heart out and trying my best to live every moment!

I taught the gospel principle class yesterday about the Holy Ghost and it made me think a lot about how much more I need to be aware of Him and try every minute to be worthy of his precense. . .not only so I can teach with Him but so he can teach ME what I really need to learn and the things I need to change. So yeah, try to feel God´s influence and love in your life this week :)

FIVE months since we started together at the MTC!!

I LOVE YOU ALL!! Have an awesome week!!!

Larissa :)