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

Adios Florida!! Hola Argentina!!

Yup! It's true! I'm flying out to Argentina TODAY!!

Buenos Aires from the air!

I'm pretty darn nervous about it too haha but I'm mostly excited :) It's going to be a crazy adventure, and it's where the Lord needs me now. I'm happy about that! Haha sorry, my brain is kinda scrambled haha I can't think straight. . .but here's what I wrote to Prez:

Hello President,
It's pretty crazy that this is the last letter I'll be writing you to already! It came SO much sooner than I was expecting, especially after being able to talk with you at interviews and get such amazing words of wisdom from you. I'm so grateful from all that I've learned from you in such a short period of time and I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to serve here! In the past 6 weeks I feel like SO much has happened. When we started out here, we were "white washing" which was a new experience for all of us. We tried to do a lot of contacting old potentials and teaching, we also did a lot of work with the members to try and get to know them better. Toward the beginning of this transfer though, I felt like we as a companionship weren't working as hard as we could have been and I'm so grateful that we were able to have Sister (Hermana) Ackley come. She is just such a hard worker, and she straightened up some paper work things that weren't like that should have been. . .and we just ALWAYS come home exhausted and that is the BEST feeling as a mish haha I've learned a ton being here in Florida, and found a lot of things I can be better about and work on. I'm going to do my best to let my light shine to the people of Argentina and use the skills and lessons I've learned here to make that happen :) Thanks for all you do and I love you and Sister Berry so much!!
Love,

Hermana Conger :)

He asked us to account about what we had done during the transfer, and I could probably do a much better job answering that, but I'm just kind of a mess in the head right now haha

This past week has been a roller coaster too. Satan knew that my Visa was coming I think cuz I was just in a funk I've NEVER been before. I was super down on my self and stressing about stuff that I hadn't been stressing over which made it hard for me to be myself and be smiley and all of that. No good. But, I have the most fantastic companions and I got a priesthood blessing and I got to have an interview with President and all of that helped out a ton!

Hermana Conger, Sister Blake, & Hermana Monson

But nothing helped as much as when President called me Friday night and said I got my visa! Haha I felt like a HUGE weight lifted off and it was WEIRD cuz I was expecting to be scared out of my mind haha but I've just been SO much more at peace now and I can't wait to go learn some ESPANOL!!! :D Haha ok I gotta go! I look forward to sharing all the details with you next week! have an awesome week and day ok?!

Hermana Conger, Hermana Monson, and Sister Ackley

I love you soo very much! The gospel is the only way we can be happy in this life, and I am so grateful that I get to learn that everyday and have my testimony of that strengthened everyday as well!! I love my Savior and I'm gonna let ALL of Argentina know that :)

LOTS OF LOVE!!! <3

Hermana Conger :) or Larissa :) <3

Uggh - I wanna be creative but can't think of anything...

Hey All!!!!

Ok so my brain feels a little fried right now. . .not totally sure why haha but I'm gonna do my best to inform you all on my week!

So, Sister Blake was Emergency transferred out of our area today. . .I'm not completely sure why. . .I have a few hypothesis but yeah we had to get her all packed up last night so she could head out this morning! We had a new sister come here to train and her name is Sister Ackley and she is so smiley and just one of the happiest sisters!! I'm really super excited to get to know her! We actually both got here the same transfer, so she's been in the field the same amount of time as me! Aaannddd. . .since I was in the MTC for about a month longer I'm the "oldest" in our companionship! haha It's pretty crazy. . .we're young but I feel like we are going to be a power house and just keep the area growing!

Don't know exactly when they got flooded, because she never talked about it - but clearly they had quite a rain at some point!!

As for investigators, we are doing better, we have one cool guy named D who has been to church 2 times now! The first time we just knocked on his door to talk to another guy that lived there who was a potential investigator. . .and as we were walking away he asked us for the address of the church so he could come! We hadn't even taught him at the point. . .but yeah he likes church, except he thinks we need a choir because no one can sing good haha so he can be a character. Other than him, it's kinda off and on with some of the other people we are teaching. 2 of them are 16 so they are obviously keeping themselves busy this summer :) Then we found an old lady this past week named D! She is from Cuba and she is adorable haha we taught her completely in Spanish so that was fun! I feel like I'm getting better. . .so yeah it's great!

Here are my thoughts on what Pres Berry asked of us this week:

Ok, this week you asked me to share what it means to me to be a disciple of Christ. I've been thinking about that this week quite a bit. I've had a couple things happen that have made me feel just really down on myself and just kinda shifted the mentality I've had since I got to the field, BUT as I've thought about what it means to be a disciple of Christ, I've got an even better perspective now! So don't worry :) Really, I think that the biggest thing about being a disciple of Christ is our attitude and mentality. As we humble ourselves and are willing to submit our will to Heavenly Father's try our best to live the gospel of Jesus Christ and show love for all man just as Christ would, I think we are doing our part, but we can do even more! Knowing that I am a child of God and that I can be happy and repent because of my Savior Jesus Christ is awesome, but then I have to SHARE that knowledge with my brothers and sisters so they can feel that love of Christ as well. . .I really feel like that's what life is about. Christ and His gospel is all about love and service to others. I know that it will be a long road for me to get to where Christ was. . .it's gonna take practicing it everyday, regardless of how people treat me back. I know there are going to be hard times because Christ wants me to use the Atonement in order to feel His love :) That's why we have to call others to Repentance, so that they can feel Christ's love for them. It's incredible. I'm just gonna keep trying every day for the rest of my life to do that so that in the end Christ can say to me "Well done my good and faithful servant."

There is this new song I heard on Sister Blake's iPod and we listened to it over and OVER cuz it's incredible! It's called "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul" by Vocal Point. Look it up!! I've been thinking a lot about the words to that song. . .and I'll have to talk about it more next week cuz I've gotta get going! Sorry I've been slacking these past couple weeks. . .I need to repent and do better SO I WILL!! haha

I love you all sooo much! Have a great week ok!!

LOVE YOU!!! xoxoxo 

Larissa :)

Kiss. . .im. . .mmee :)

Hahah I have no idea what that's supposed to mean but the name just cracks me up so I had to just show how it says Kiss mee :)

So yeah! I'm in Kissimmee :) It's sooo great I love it. It's been kinda hard because we did what you call "White Washing" the area which means all three of us are brand new to the area. We spent most of this week going around contacting a huge list of potential investigators the other Hermana's left us. Neither one of them were trained very well so the paper work wasn't really kept up like it shoulda been and we're pretty lost about where everyone is at as far as people they have as progressing investigators and their potentials seem pretty uninterested. . .but it's still been great!

       

I have used Spanish EVERY SINGLE DAY I've been here! Haha it was pretty intimidating first, knocking on a door, saying "Hello! How are you today?" and getting a "No habla ingles. . ." and just as their shutting the door going "O esta bien! Hablamos poquito espanol!" haha and they get interested that we even tried and it's actually been really neat! They all seem to enjoy that we are at least trying. I had  pretty neat experience with a lady and it was actually the first door we had knocked on where she didn't understand ANY english and I just started saying the words that entered my mind without hesitating about wether or not I was conjugating right or using the exactly right verb or whatever. . .and I ended up sharing the promise in the last two paragraphs in the introduction of the Book of Mormon. She was soo sweet and said it was beautiful and that she wanted to read it So I told her to read and pray to ask if it was the word of God and she said she would, then I asked if we could come back and she said she was only visiting but she would try to meet with other missionaries when she got back. IT was awesome! And she said my spanish was beautiful which is ust nuts haha I know that was most definitely the gift of tongues and it was incredible :)

Oh maybe I should talk about my new companions!! So Sister Blake has been out 6 months (she came out the same time as Sister Mevs) and I absolutely ADORE her! She is so great and such an incredible missionary. I've already grown to love her so much and learned so much from her! She doesn't speak a lick of Spanish haha but it's OK! Me and my other comp, Hermana Monson (I KNOW RIGHT! I'M SERVING WITH A DISTANT RELATIVE OF THE PROPHET!! haha) are doing our best to teach her :) So, Hermana Monson is straight outta the MTC which is neat cuz she still conjugates everything correctly and all that kinda stuff that I need some serious work on haha she is SO loving and a total people person! She has just been working on realizing that it's good to just be herself and even though the Restoration sounds a little crazy, it doesn't matter cuz it's true and it has changed our lives and means everything in the world to us :) <3 So yeah. All three of us are very alike and I'm so glad to have the opportunity to learn from these Sisters! (They are both 21 so I'm a baby haha but it's great)

I don't have a lot to report on as far as investigators go. . .we are having a baptism on Saturday for a families daughter who is 9 and they haven't consistently gone to church in a really long time. . .we're gonna work on that a lot! There are a ton of members here who just don't come to church. . .ok!!

So that World Wide Leadership Training last night!! If you haven't watched it yet. . .GO WATCH IT NOW!!! It is absolutely incredible.

I know that if I wasn't already serving a "mission" and this wasn't my calling to preach the gospel that woulda been "Exactly the pep talk we all needed" -quote from Sister Hall, because it's soooo important that we do member missionary work! I have seen already how essential members are in helping investigators gain a true testimony. SO all of you members, do ALL you can to help the missionaries :)

I know that my life has already been forever changed because of the perspective I have on missionary work and our obligation to share the gospel. I know that up to this point in my life I have taken my baptismal covenant seriously, but I was passive about it. I thought that as long as I wasn't doing the wrong thing, that meant I was standing as a witness of God. But I've realized that being a witness of God means that I will be proactive about making sure that others know that this is the way that they can be truly happy and find peace and joy not only in this life but in the life to come. Whether it's by just being a good friend, helping someone in need, or sharing your testimony with someone you see could benefit from the knowledge you have, share your testimony!!! I know that not only will you bless the lives of so many people, but you will also strengthen your testimony and become more happy in the process!! :)

Alright, well that's it for the week :) I love you all SOOO much and am so grateful to every single one of you. Keep being you and shine your light to all those around you. Act on every prompting you receive from the spirit, no matter how silly it seems haha I do it all the time and I've never felt the spirit so strong in my entire life. The Savior Lives. He loves each one of us more than we can comprehend. He wants us to return to live with him again. I love HIm and am going to do all I can to help prepare the earth for His second coming :)

LOVE YOU ALL!! Have an amazing week :) <3 xoxoxox –

Hermana Conger. . . Larissa :)

Sharing the Light in Sherwood Forest

Well heya erey body!!! :D

How are yall?! I'm doing fantastic :) My hair and face are loving the humidity (I do sweat like 24/7 though haha) and the work is just the best. I told mom a little about the work I've been doing out here! I mostly tract and teach in a neighborhood called Sherwood and it is the COOLEST thing! It's like Sherwood Forest on Robin Hood haha so all the street names are like Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Nottingham, ect. It's soooo awesome haha And all the people that I teach there REALLY need the gospel. K is our strongest investigator right now, but he's on house arrest cuz he had too many traffic violations so he can't come to church, but he LOVES the Book and really loves that it just adds on the the truths in the bible. M is out next investigator with a baptismal date. He is like the funnest most happy guy! He's always got a huge smile and I told mom but when he was describing the feeling of the spirit to us the first time he said "my heart is beating like a million miles a minute and I think I have a fever. . ." Haha it was the COOLEST thing. I love how excited our investigators get when they realize what the Holy Ghost is. He has some hang ups with the Word of Wisdom and just that it's such a huge change in life style but I guess he really wants to go to BYU-I since that's where Sister Payne and Sister Mevs went before there mission.

Oh I'll tell you about my comps in a minute. . .

With Sister Payne and Sister Mevs

First real P-day letter!

HEY!!!!

How are you all doing?!?! I'm still doing soooo awesome! I am loving it, it's hard work, but the reward is incredible :)



So, as I was saying before I had two investigators Maria and Eric. Teaching them has been a rollercoaster of emotions! We have spiritual highs and times where we just wish they could understand what we have and they could just really embrace it. These first teaching experiences were mainly to humble us and show us that teaching isn't easy, and there is NO WAY you can teach with out the spirit. That has been a gigantic testimony builder for me. I can't believe the way I've began to apply the Atonement in my life and how strong my testimony of the truthfullness of this gospel has grown in jjust a short week, as well as how much spanish I can speak/understand!!! It's CRAZY!!

Loving the MTC!!!! ...except maybe eating that cricket.

Hola Mi Familia!!

I have a half p-day today, so I get a little time to e-mail you! This only e-mailing for 30 minutes thing kinda stinks but I'll get out as much as I can real quick!!

I absolutely LOVE it here!!!! My first day I got all of my stuff (name tag!!), took my bags up to my room, and then went STRAIGHT to class!! I walked in and my teacher immediately started asking me stuff in Spanish haha I did pretty good answering her actually, but luckily she's a super nice and awesome teacher so she didn't just speak spanish the whole time. When I first got there there was one other sister, Hemana Campbell and one Elder Connors. Hermana Camacho (my teacher) had us decorate the room while we waited for the rest of our district to get there, which was fun! Then eventually the rest of our district got there, besides me companera!! SO yeah mom I was without a comp for a couple hours. .. pero, esta bien! :)

First letter home!!