A not so surprising surprise

Monday night we got a phone call from the assistants. They said there had been a mistake and in reality we did have transfers (I soo called it.) So we did surprise transfers a day late. My new companion is Hermana Resendiz from Mexico. She lived in Utah for 5 years and graduated from East High.

We saw lots of miracles! Last week (when I was not in Tafi) Hermana Perez and another Hermana tried to have Gloria sign her daughter´s baptismal record but she said “mas adelante”(later). Well, we tried again but this time instead of asking her to sign her daughters form, we invited her to sign her own. She was reluctant but by sharing a few scriptures she softened up and signed. And signed her daughters too!

We’re teaching Wanda, the girlfriend of a member. She’s 19 and sooo GOLD! Her boyfriend brought her to General Conference and she loved it and started coming every Sunday. We’ve only taught her three times but she getting baptized on Saturday! She’s been having a lot of problems in her family and she says she loves reading the Book of Mormon because it gives her peace and helps her feel that God is close. When we invited her to be baptized November 1st, she hesitated because she has to move that day. We explained the symbolism of baptism and how it’s new beginning and she loved the idea of a 100% fresh start. She is a grand example to me. She shows me the reality that what we teach makes life EASIER, more enjoyable. I feel like being a member my whole life, sometimes I forget that the basics are what works miracles, if we live it. I know that the same peace that she feels by reading the Book of Mormon is what we can experience too.

Alberto came to church. He’s 40 but has some mental handicaps. It was so cute because he was telling everyone that he prayed and God told him that this is the only true church and that the Book of Mormon is true. He offered to read and pray in the classes. He’s already so involved!

I did exchanges with Hermana Keetch from the MTC. I can’t believe how much time has flown. It feels like we were in Provo just a little bit ago.

Never forget that I love you all so much!

Besos (kisses),
Hermana Pearson

The beginning of the best

I was pretty sure we’d have transfers because with it being my last transfer *gasp* Hermana Perez would have to stay at least 2 transfers and so the possibilities would be 7.5 months in Tafí or only 1 transfer in a different area. But I was wrong. We’re together again!

This week we had a meeting with all the hermanas in Tucuman. Hermana Perez and I planned it with the help of Hermana Chaparro. It was great to have just the sister missionaries in the meetings with President. We talked a lot about our worth and potential using President Utchdorf’s talk “Four Titles.” It talks about how we are 1. Children of God 2. Disciples of Christ 3. Healers of souls 4.Inheritants of eternal life. We ended up using it in a bunch of lessons afterwards because it’s really a message to lift hearts and encourage. We shared it with a family that’s coming back to church. We were walking past their house on our way to see someone else and right as we were at their door, the daughter stormed out angry and the other daughter followed crying. We acted like we had planned to see them and were able to share in the perfect moment so that things didn’t explode. God really guides our smallest actions so we can be there when someone needs it.

Victoria and Miguel got baptized!! They are the sweetest little people. It took Victoria ten minutes to take off all her bracelets and rings. They are a little slower at understanding but they give us a grand example of just following Jesus because it’s the right thing to do.

Funny story. I was in Simoca this week and as we were walking, there was a house where they sell large picture frames. They had examples of the frames outside. I saw the Beatles, the 3 Stooges, Violeta (Disney Channel Latino) and I had to do a double take as I saw the next one: Thomas S. Monson with his counselors. I was taken off guard and Hermana Griffiths just said “yeah, they’re members." In Simoca we had an encounter with a little old drunk guy. He explained why he drinks so much and as he talked his bread flew out of his mouth unto my hand. I was worried the next thing to fly out would be his dentures!

I’m looking forward to this last transfer because like Ryan told me:“My first tip is to not think of it as the beginning of the end. Think of it as the beginning of, potentially, your best transfer. All the previous transfers have been leading up to this one, You're a better, more experienced missionary than when you started. You're a better teacher, better Spanish speaker, and better at recognizing the promptings of the Spirit than you've ever been before. If you can remain focused, you have the potential to reach more people and do more good than any other single transfer. You also have the potential to reach individuals that you couldn't when you first started.”
So here goes the beginning of the BEST!

Love,
Hermana Pearson

I´ll try to send the pictures next week. The computers are a bit "special" today

Hermana Perez y Hermana Pearson

Sisters Conference

Hermanas de zona Tucuman

Bella Semana

I don’t even know where to start! In Salta I had a mini reunion with Hermana Quispe and Hermana Rallison. Hermana Quispe traveled to Salta for the meetings and we stayed in Hermana Rallison’s apartment. I love them sooo much!

On Wednesday we had exchanges again. With BELLA VISTA! I GOT TO GO BACK! It was probably the best day of my life! The best reaction I got was from Jose Luis who stared at me with the most puzzled look while we shook hands and said “you’re back.” He visited Noemi with us. On his four wheeler. We passed by Familia Toledo because it was Lauty’s birthday and the hermanas had a gift for him. Only the grandparents and dad were home, but still. When we went to Familia Torres, Adriana started to cry. And when we visited Fernanda she was so shocked she couldn’t talk. Oscar and Emilce did visits with us. I was literally in heaven all day long because there are only 2 people sufficiently obsessed with Bella Vista. Hermana Harper and Hermana Pearson. And we were together again LOVING every little bit of the little town. I saw a bunch of other people. We ate with the branch president and saw members in the street. We taught Apolinario Ysfran. He’s a grandpa that I mentioned once who when we asked if he read the Bible he said no but that he read another book called the Libro de Mormon. Yeah well he´s gonna get baptized! Bella Vista is on FIRE! I am soo grateful for the chance I had to go back, especially to be with the same companion. That’s not too common. I felt like I was in a dream the whole time.

Returning to my lovely Tafi Viejo was great too. Victoria and Miguel are excited for their baptism next week. And on Saturday we had a ½ baptism. Luz is 8 and her mom was inactive for the last half of her life. She got baptized at 16 and was only active for a little while. We’ve been teaching the whole family and since the mom is technically a member, it’s a branch baptism, not a mission one. But it was just as sweet because we had to teach the whole family from scratch. The two little girls participated in the primary program and the mom brings the girls to church now. It was a really sweet baptism.

Today for Pday we went up the hills in to visit the “Cristo Bendicente.” We asked someone to take a picture and they said they were Mormons. Later we asked someone else the same favor and she is Mormon too. Haha. It was nice and relaxing and beautiful!

I love you all so much!! Besos!

Hermana Pearson

Reunion with Hermana Quispe and Hermana Rallinson

On splits in Bella Vista

“Cristo Bendicente”

on P-day

Luz's Baptism

Quedate en el barco (no it's not quédate, at least not in Argentina)

Well this week was crazy! We did exchanges twice and then had 2 days of conference. And today we’re traveling to Salta to go to the mission council meeting with the zone leaders and sister training leaders.  In our travels we stopped by WALMART. It was the BEST supermarket I’ve seen but sadly it wasn’t that great. Everything here is very expensive!

General Conference never disappoints! My companion listened to the Saturday sessions with me in English, she understood most of it!

A less active, offended member came to the last session of general conference and he felt like Elder Ballard’s talk about staying on the boat was just for him.I mean it just makes so much sense. STAY ON THE BOAT! He brought his nonmember girlfriend and she really liked it. We’re going to teach her this week.

Our investigators Gloria and Celina (mother/daughter) and Victoria and Miguel (grandmother/grandson) came to the conference too! They liked it too although I’m not sure how much they understood. When we asked Miguel his favorite part he said “the air conditioner made the room nice and cold.” Haha

I especially loved the Woman’s conference. We watched the rebroadcast.

Sorry this letter is so short.  Gotta run!

Hermana Pearson

Suffer the (grand)children to come unto me

We did exchanges with hermanas that work in Concepcion. They don’t have a phone and we don’t have a phone, so we made arrangements with their district leader. He told us we’d be able to travel there in a half hour. 3 hours later we finally made it. And the hermanas were no where to be found. We wandered around asking people if they’d seen the mormon missionaries and 30 minutes later we finally found them. By the time I made it back to Tafi with Hermana Rengifo it was already 2 in the afternoon. Rough! Haha but I loved working with Hermana Rengifo beause she’s Hermana Howards “hija!”

Sunday was the best ever…Hermano Suco came to visit me!! He’s the grandpa of the Familia Toledo. I was in heaven! But even better news from Bella Vista, Fernanda and Miguel got baptized!! Even though I’m sad I wasn’t there (because I love them so much! Especially Fernanda) I’m really happy for Bella Vista’s improvement. In 7 weeks the branch had 7 baptisms!!!!!!

We’re working with the Familia Carrizo. The mom is inactive since her childhood. We taught them about eternal marriage and chastity and asked what they thought about it. She started to say that before she had never wanted to get married but that a while ago she started to want to get married. She had mentioned it to her pareja and he didn’t have a problem with it! They committed to get married! Their daughters participated in the primary program on Sunday. It was super cute!

We teach 2 older people and this week we started teaching both of their grandsons that live with them. The lesson with Nicolas was so great because the Spirit helped us be really united and we were able to invite him to baptism and he said yes! When we asked why he said he had made a lot of mistakes and he wanted to be clean. Meeting the grandson was the answer to prayers because we didn’t know how to help the grandpa progress. It’ll definitely be by working with Nicolas.

Love you all lots!

Hermana Pearson

Zone Conference

Get up and get out

Sorry if this letter ends up short. I'm a little short on time.

Rosa is an investigator that wants to get baptized but wasn't living the law of chastity. Her daughters got baptized a couple three weeks ago. Well we had a lesson promising her that God would open up the path to live the commandments and that she would need to sieze it before she lost the chance. Later in the week we couldn't find her or her daughters at home. We finally got a hold of the daughter and she explained that they weren't home because they MOVED OUT!! Rosa saw a fight as an opportunity to up and leave. The girls are happy because they didn't like their mom's boyfriend anyway. The problem is they moved to another town. It's still in our area. Really it's not that far away. In car if would be 20 minutes away but in bus it's pushing for 3 hours. So we're gonna do all we can to keep contact and help her get baptized!

Georgina always answered our questions perfectly but then showed so much doubt. Finally we asked if she answered the questions how she really felt or if she just said what she thought we wanted to hear. She admitted it was only words for her. But knowing that will help us teach her better.

The son of the branch president (it's still a branch until we get an average asistance of 120 and right now we're at 80-90) got baptized. And it was so nice to witness a baptism without all the stress that comes when you´re a missionary. Without the stress and worry, it was easier for the Spirit to testify that this is God's plan.

To answer mom's questions.
My companion is 20 and she is from Santiago. The oldest of 4. I'm the senior companion because I have more time on the mission. Transfers were normal. We met in the capital of Tucuman and took it from there.
My apartment is by far the nicest I've had but it won't be like home until there is a washing machine and dryer! And carpet.
The center of Tafí is really nice and developed but it's all stores. The houses are like the rest of Argentina. We divide the area in the center. We work in the North and the other hermanas work in the South.

Besos,
Hermana Pearson

Tafí I'm Old

We had a conference with Elder Zaballo from the seventy this week with a whole bunch of missionaries. Elder Zaballo took a little time to tell the Latinos that they need to learn English so Hermana Perez is talking in English when we're at home. She is alreadly really good at it! When she asks me questions about how to say a word, I realize I've already forgotten so much. In the conference I saw Hermana Harper again and she gave me all the details of good ol' Bella Vista.

The Family Toledo (from Bella Vista. The family I always talk about with Marta and Luis and Sofia and Eduardo) have their aunt and cousins here in Tafí. I had already met her a few times in Bella Vista so when we went to eat lunch with her family. I felt right at home. She pulled out pictures of Eduardo on his mission. As if I didn't miss the Toledos enough...

We already did exchanges, after being together only a day and a half. I went to the other half of Tafí Viejo with Hermana Gimenez. She has an article about her in the church area news. She is from Paraguay but from a tribe called Nivaclé and she is learning spanish. She is the first sister missionary from her pueblo. She is super great! And we live with her so I'll have her teach me how to speak her language!

I don't have so much to write about this time around because I'm still getting to know the area and the investigators. But I love Tafí Viejo because it's really green and beautiful! But I miss the bakery church. It had a certain charm to it! But no, it's great to have a real church here! Everyone here is saying that I've come here to die. The name is fitting because Viejo=Old. I'm an elderly missionary now. So crazy how the time flies!

Amor,
Hermana Pearson

Hermana Pearson and Hermana Perez with Elder Zaballo and his wife

Mom's note: Emily said Hermana Perez is from Chile as is Elder Zaballo and she knows him, so they were able to get an individual picture with him.