Queridos amigos,
It has been another beautiful week here in Buenos Aires.
Let me start off by saying that I love my district. Even
with the 3-6 sister to elder ratio I love it. We´ve been practicing memorizing
the baptisimal invitation, the missionary objective, and the first vision. I am
the only one so far that has them all down. We were practicing as a district,
and Elder Belnap noticed that when I recite them, my right eyebrow twitches! I
practiced saying them in front of the mirror, and it really twitches! I am now
working on saying them while controlling my facial expressions! Everyone thinks
I´m a hoot!
The Elders also love to comment on my hair. I don´t think
that it is that humid here, but my hair does. I have beautiful curls every
morning when I wake up. Elder Hazelgren´s quote of the week is "Hermana
Chaffin must be stressed, her hair is poofier than normal"
Saturday we went proselyting in Banfield. We got dropped off
at 12:15 and around 12:30 we saw a guy riding his bike. We shouted a greeting
across the street to which he waved, paused, started to turn towards us and
then decided against it and continued on. We were sad that he rode away because
he had the biggest smile on his face. After 4 more hours of walking and talking
to people, we came across this man again! This time he rode right up to us! We
were soooo excited!!! He told us his name is Jorge and then talked about
himself and his family. He said that he´d never seen sister missionaries before
and was very interested to hear about why we would give up everything to serve
missions. He accepted a Book of Mormon and said that he would read it. He even
gave us his phone number so that some other missionaries (that can speak spanish
better than us) could come visit him. It was such a wonderful experience. I was
able to understand everything he said, and I was able to give (simple) answers
back.
It was just amazing! My companions did great as well! Their
spanish has improved so much!!! After we said good-bye to Jorge, we were
talking about how well our discussion went. Hermana Wunderli shared something
so sweet with me. She said that while I was talking to Jorge she was praying
that I would be able to understand him and be able to respond to his questions.
I feel so blessed to have a companion that loves me so much. She is so
wonderful. I´m sad that after the CCM I won´t have the opportunity to be her
companion because she is going to the Bs. As. Norte Mission.
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| My comps and our roomates |
Sunday was wonderful (as usual). Elder Lambert (a new norte
americano) was conducting and asked me the night before if I would give a talk
in sacrament meeting - IN SPANISH! It is so fun to write a talk in spanish when
you are given the topic at 7:30, don´t get done with class until 8:00 and have
to shower and then have lights out at 10:00. Just kidding, it was great. It was
actually a fairly nice talk.
Tuesday we taught a fake investigator (all investigators are
based on real ones that the teachers taught on their missions). The teacher
that was acting did a fabulous job! He was pretending to be drunk and was very
believable. At one point in our lesson, he was sharing how hard his life was.
His family didn´t want to see him, he felt that his parents´divorce was his
fault and that he couldn´t be forgiven because of all of the things he´s done.
He then started to tear up! This teacher can cry on demand! We were able to
testify about the Atonement and forgiveness when Hermana Wunderli shared a
scripture. Unfortunately, she shared the wrong scripture...... She shared Alma
32:3 (I´m not going to type the scripture because I´m almost out of time, so
look them up!) when she meant to share Alma 36:3. The teacher went with it, and
it turned out really well. When we got back to class and looked up the
scripture in english, we were dying laughing! At least we are making mistakes
here and not in the field.
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| District of goof-balls |
Yesterday, we watched a recording of Elder Bednar giving a
devotional at the Provo MTC. There are not words to describe how wonderful it
was. It wasn´t a topic that I´ve ever really thought about, and it made me
contemplate a lot. He then shared that for several years he´s been writing a
song in his head, and recently he worked with some people to make it into a
song. At that devotional, some primary children and some missionaries sang it.
That was the first time the song has been sung. It will be appearing in next
month´s New Era magazine, and I implore you all to look it up.
Well, time´s up. I love you all!
-Hermana Chaffin
