Chaucitos El Carmen

Well last night was filled with quite a few tears, but here I am off to a new start in...Bella Vista, Tucumán. It`s another small pueblo like El Carmen. My new companion is Hermana Vargas a Peruvian ¿yes Amanda I'm super excited about that?  I traveled with Hermana Quispe for 8 or so hours to get here. It's super hot here still so I'm going on my 10th month of summer.

This last week was quite stellar which made it all the more hard to leave. Hermana Thompson and I super loved teaching Ismael and his little sister Malena. Ismael has already accepted to be baptized but of course we have to stay on top of things so when I invited him again to prepare to be baptized he was all ´´isn't that what I'm doing right now talking with the missionaries?´´ Aw it was so priceless. After church on Sunday, we stayed to watch the Joseph Smith movie with a couple of our investigators and all of the other hermanas too and with Oscar and Milton. It was so spiritual and it reminded me of why I am here doing what I'm doing.

We taught a lesson with Oscar to a girl who has a similar life story. She was talking about the loss of her mother and how she didn't really know if God listens to our prayers and Oscar bore the MOST powerful testimony I've ever heard in my life. When he said goodbye to me, he said now that both Hermana Gentry and I would be gone, he feels like a baby who has to take his first stops on his own and how he just doesn't
want to fall. It was so tender! It was hard to say goodbye but as Faca told me ¨Its not adios, its chaucitos.¨

This week we also went to look at a few apartments to move into because mold is growing in our pension in El Carmen, there are holes in the ceiling, the fridge is tempermental, the lights dont work, and we hardly ever have water. But all the apartments we looked at were no better or super small. I thought I escaped the chore of moving but my new companion says we have to move from the apartment here too because we have to share a bathroom with the whole building and a bunch of other things. Its just a small one room apartment and by one room I mean there are only 4 walls. We have mattresses on the floor which is next to our study table which is next to the counter which is next to the fridge.

So this week we heard the best excuse of why someone couldn't talk to us! We knocked on a door to contact a referral and the daughter told us her mom was brushing her teeth so we said perfect we can wait. And when she came out we talked for a bit and set up an appointment. She told to come at 5 or 6 because at 4 she'd be watching her soap opera! haha.

Well wish me luck in Bella Vista!
Hermana Pearson