And we´re back to flu season

Dear family and friends,

So this week Hermana Ihler got sick.  I was feeling pretty proud of myself that it wasn´t me until saturday when I got sick too.  I´ve been feeling horrible for the last couple of days but whatcha gonna do?

This week I was also called fat twice.  Well actually, in the same day.  We were at lunch with an Hermana on friday and her less active son came in.  He lives in Salta and visits about once a month, so we already knew him.  He always says some rude comments, but it´s all good fun.  Until I asked him how long the drive is from Salta.  He said 10 hours and that one province was 43 C on the way there.  And then he said that I should ask president to transfer me to that mission a transfer before I go home so that I will sweat off all of my fat.  That was low.  Especially because he made 2 other comments during the lunch about my weight.  But I felt better when he asked Hermana Ihler why she couldn´t speak and I spoke so well if we got to Argentina together.  He´s just a mean man.
The other comment came from a lady that night.  I was finishing eating something when she came to say hello.  Then she said, you should stop eating because you´re "re gorda".  Again, thanks.  I didn´t need that.

This week Beatriz accepted a concrete date!  April 19!  But she couldn´t come to church because of work.  This next week she´s coming though.

We also met a new investigator this week named Patricia.  She´s orthodox catholic which isn´t too common.  But all of her concerns, we can answer!  So we taught her the restauration and she´s going to read the book of mormon.  I´m excited because I really think she´s interested in what we teach and not just because we´re two young girls from the states!

Another cool thing this week was that Jonathan and Andrea came with us to another investigator´s.  How about that?  An investigator coming with us to another one.  And he bore testimony and everything.  It was awesome!  He just needs to be baptized!

Hermana Borup

A Week of Contacting

Dear family and friends,

Well another week has gone by.  I can´t believe how fast the time goes by.  Pday happens and then all of a sudden you´re at weekly planning and then the week is basically over.  There isn´t enough time in the days to get everything done!  Especially since we have the lovely siesta.  We don´t even go out working until 5!  And mornings are hard because everyone has things to do so we usually end up contacting all morning.  Yep, so this week was a lot of contacting.  And we didn´t really find anyone that good.  But we did talk to 3 atheist kids for a while.  It broke my heart.  In Spain, when the kids just drank and wanted to have fun my attitude was, "well that´s dumb but there´s nothing I can do about it."  Here it´s like "what are you doing!? You´re throwing your lives away and you have so much to live for!  Getting drunk and doing drugs every day is not a life.  It doesn´t bring happiness."  I just want to kick them and their parents for not being there to parent them.  That´s why this gospel is so important.  Of course they´re going to do those things when they don´t have an eternal perspective.  Or any sort of perspective.  

Sorry about my tangent there.  So this week we had transfers and we spent a good part of Wednesday in the terminal.  I met our new zone leader and he´s also going to be working in our ward for us.  He´s pretty cool and I think he will help this ward out a lot!  I´m excited.  And then Hermana Mueller left, which made me super sad, and Hermana Sanchez came.  She´s super quiet.  I don´t think I´ve heard her say more than 10 words.  She´s from Peru and she´s super little.  Nice, but the pench isn´t the same.

Saturday afternoon we just really needed a lesson.  We had been contacting all week and so we were desperately trying to find someone who would let us in.  We stopped by a former investigator, Beatriz and she still wants to get baptized during holy week.  But it´s still hard to teach her because she talks so much.  But we taught a little and then on Sunday she came!!!  I was not expecting it!  Her nephew is a strong member and so he was there and showed her around and even came to our class with her and convinced her to stay for sacrament!  And she stayed!  And his daughters stole her heart.  That little act shows me that she actually can be ready for baptism by that date.  I´m super excited for her because for so long she´s felt alone and you could tell at church she felt like part of a family.  

Jonathan´s also doing really well.  We taught the law of chastity this week so they have to make some hard decisions now.  Hopefully they can make them!  Please pray for him and Andrea!  

So yep, that was basically the week.  Hope you all are great!

Hermana Borup

Transfers

Dear Family and Friends,

Ahh!!! It´s transfer time again.  I don´t know how the time seems to always go by super fast.  But nothing´s changing for us!  Wahoo!!!  I get to stay with Hermana Ihler here in Pergamino.  Super excited because she´s the first companion since my trainer in Utah that I get to be with for more than a transfer.  Guess I have someone that can stand being with me.

Unfortunately Hermana Mueller´s leaving.  And she´s going to be companions with my last companion, Hermana Garbin.  Kind of funny.  They´ll have fun together but I´m sad we won´t be living together anymore.  Until BYU.

Nothing really exciting happened this week.  We got to meet with Jonathan several times and he went to church again.  He even got work off to come!  But they want to hold off on getting married.  So we´ll keep teaching and have the faith that he will be baptized this transfer.

We also contacted a ton.  Good thing the weather´s been perfect.  I actually enjoy contacting because you never know what you´re going to find on the other side of the door.  It makes things exciting.  Also it´s a challenge and I love challenging myself.  It´s also about the only number the missionaries can control.  So if we contacted, it shows that we were working.  Whereas lessons are sometimes really hard to get in this area.  People are too busy. they need to realize we have the truh and this is more important than anything else!  Sometimes I just want to yell that to the world, but then people would think I´m weird and that´s the last thing I want.  People already think we´re weird, I don´t need to make it worse. 

Oh and there was a race this week.  I want to join so badly!  Can´t wait to run again.

So yep.  Sorry I have no fun stories for the week.  Sometimes it all just seems like we do the same things every week.  Because we do!  And I love it!  This gospel is amazing.  Please share it. 

Hermana Borup

Pictures!

We made empanadas with Andrea and Jonathan.

Messi!

Our zone at the zone meeting on friday.  I´m going to miss them.

Foot Infection

Dear Family and Friends,

So this will have to be short because the cyber closes really soon.  Sorry!

This week was pretty good.  Everything was going really well, we found a new investigator named Ivana, our hope in Alejandra was renewed and some other things but then we ran into trouble.  Thursday while we were contacting, Hermana Ihler got bit by a beetle.  Except she´s a allergic to bites like this and she swelled up bad.  So friday was painful for her and saturday we couldn´t work.  And then yesterday we finally went to the doctor and it´s infected.  We can´t work for the next 3 days!  I´m going crazy!  But I did make tortilla española.  Yum!  So there´s one blessing I´ve found from staying in.

So since we weren´t able to work on saturday, I thought no one was going to come to church.  But to our surprise Jonathan and Andrea came, and we haven´t seen Jonathan in weeks!  Sweet!  But instead of wanting them to get married, I want them to seperate and just stay friends.  And then Jonathan can get baptized.  But yes, he loved church and we have a cita with them  on tuesday.  Hopefully we can get there in a taxi if Hermana ihler´s doing better.  Now I know how all of my comps felt when I got sick!

Love you all,

Hermana Borup

P.S. I can´t believe it´s been a year!  It´s gone by way too fast.  It really feels like only 4 months has gone by.  Scary!

Pictures: One year mark!  We went to Grido´s of course to celebrate

The drink at our ward dance.  They used ice packs to keep it cold and a stick that they found somewhere in the kitchen to stir.  Without washing!  That would never happen in the states!

My spanish tortilla!

Baptism! And exchanges...

Dear Family and Friends,

Lauren´s getting married?  That doesn´t surprise me that much, but that´s super fast!  Another wedding I´ll miss.  Oh well. 

Mom, yes we have senior companions, but with Hermana Ihler and I, we´re both senior companion.  Also, I haven´t paid much attention to leadership on the mission.  Like I said, we have 2 sister training leaders for all the sisters in the south.  We hardly ever see them and hardly ever hear from them.  Except last monday we got the email saying that the next day we had exchanges with them.  What?  They couldn´t have let us know sooner.  Very bad planning on their part.  We had to cancel lessons that we had planned because of bus schedules and trios with the other hermanas and things.  It was a mess and I was pretty mad.

But the exchange was fun.  I had to travel 3 hours and went to Roldán and we had awesome lessons there and awesome contacts.  I miss the pueblos!  Cities are hard.  But I was with Hermana Chambi who´s from Peru and is great.  So much fun.  She´s also a convert and left on her mission a few months after she turned 1 year as a member.  So cool.  We laughed lots, I got to sleep on the bus and so it was overall great there but i heard it went horribly wrong in our area.  Oh well.  The Hermana that came to our area might have destroyed our relationship with Alejandra.  She´s making it hard to meet with her and Hermana Ihler wants to drop her.  which makes me super sad.  

The other big thing that happened this week was Brisa´s baptism!  We picked up a less active for church and got to church about 5 minutes beforehand.  The elders were worried that the baptismal font door wasn´t going to open.  We got that solved in very short amount of time only to find the bigger problem.  There was already water there from the last baptism 3 months ago!  It was so disgusting and it wouldn´t drain!  So we didn´t go to relief society or principios del evangelio, we worked on trying to figure out the font.  Brisa´s mom was ticked.  She blamed the elders, which is wasn´t their fault at all, and said some horrible things.  But we finally got it figured out before sacrament.  The baptism was supposed to start at 1 but the bishop was in a rush so they started at 12:30 without Brisa!  And half of her friends came late.  ugh.  But in the end it all worked out.  Everyone was mad at us but what are you going to do?  The important thing is that she got baptized and that she´s happy.  Just sometimes I would like a little more support from the members.  Please treat your missionaries good.  All the missionaries in this city get treated very badly and it´s hard to want a baptism when we´re not sure if the convert will be welcomed or not.  Really hard to want another baptism when everyone gets mad at you for everything.  I´m 21 I don´t know what i´m doing half the time!  I´m not perfect!

But other than that the work has become a little slow.  We had to drop almost all of our investigators and we´re trying to find.  But there are good people here and I know there are some waiting to hear the gospel!  It is the best news!

Side note, we had to counsel a less active this week on some serious issues she has and it was amazing!  Hermana Ihler and I were exactly on the same page and we know that it was exactly what the Lord wanted that sister to know!  I love being a missionary!

Hermana Borup

Pictures: Exchange with hermana Chambi

Elder Villalon cleaning out the nasty spiders and cockroaches 

Brisa!  I do love her.

Valentine's Day

Dear Family and Friends,

So this week was the week of cat calls.  Every week in Argentina actually, but this week was worse than normal.  We decided it was thanks to Valentine´s day.  Tuesday was especially bad and I decided that Hermana Ihler could not wear her boots again, and she decided that I couldn´t wear my black skirt again.  I think it´s just because two americans are together.  It was always bad with Hermana Smith and Dean.  I think it´s also because Hermana Ihler is tall...

So besides that we had a great week.  We started teaching Brisa, the girl getting baptized this Sunday.  We had to teach her almost everything in a week, her interview is today, and then we have to teach her everything else this week.  And then her younger sister also wants to get baptized, but I think she´ll have to wait a few weeks.  That took up most of our time because they don´t live in our area and they don´t even live in the city!  So we have to take the colectivo there and then walk about 15 minutes on the freeway to get to their house.  She´s great though and so ready.  All of her efy counselors are coming for the baptism and a lot of her friends too!

Alejandra´s doing great.  This week we went with a member in our ward to her house and she loved it!  The member gave her a Liahona to read and a living christ sheet!  But she didn´t come to church and we don´t know why yet.  Really, all that´s laking with her is the smoking.  She just can´t give it up!  We don´t know what else to do!  We taught fasting this week and she´s even willing to fast!

We weren´t able to see Jonathan this week because of this work but we have an appointment for today! 
The mission is starting a new thing.  today until easter we´re trying to get 500 baptisms.  Crazy!  Considering we have like 50 a month usually...  But there´s a plan and I´m pretty excited about it!  We know Alejandra, Brisa, Brenda, and Jonathan can be baptized soon, but we still have to find a few more.  Yay for contacting.

Saturday I felt really homesick.  Probably the most I´ve been on my mission.  I just really wanted to be at that wedding, but it´s done now.  Hermana Ihler´s cousin married her roommate on friday, so we were both thinking about weddings all weekend.  I hope at least some of my friends will wait until I get home to get married.  I just want to witness a sealing I guess, and have friends when I get home.

Sunday I was asked to play the piano again.  I should have never told the elders I play.  This week went a lot better though.  And since I don´t know any sacrament hymns, I got an excuse to just play with one hand!  And it was the best hymn I played! 

So that´s it.  Mom, could you look into when I have to sign up for classes?  I have a question on whether my Bio 130 lab covered the bio lab I have to take for dental school or if I have to take molecular bio lab.  Thanks!  You´re the best!  Happy Valentine´s day and every other holiday they don´t celebrate here!
Hermana Borup

More Food

 10 Feb 2014

Dear Family and Friends,

So this week I got lots of letters.  Thanks!  I love letters.  But mom, I still didn´t get either of the packages.  I´m worried too.  I´ve noticed that the envelopes have a harder time getting through than the boxes. I don´t know why.  But I did get the calender from weston!  I love it!

So I really don´t have time today. But some of the highlights.

This week we became best friends with the bishop.  The elders were in Rosario at a zone leader capacitación and so us, the second couselor and the bishop met on wednesday night without them.  I brought banana bread with dulce de leche on top (request of the bishop) and we talked about what was going on in the ward.  He gave us a few names of less actives to visit and we planned an activity for the less actives to come to church.  It was very productive and fun.  Turns out our bishop is super cool and funny.  And now he loves us.  he even gave us his own key for us to go and get a copy.  Awesome!  We´re going to have a key to the church finally!  

After that we updated the elders and then the four of us cleaned the church on friday.  I have a new respect for these elders.  They were good cleaners.  And we seem to be working as a team now with the bishop rather than all of us doing our own thing.

This week was rough for getting lessons, but we did have some good lessons.  One was with Jonathan, the less active´s pareja.  We went with a member and the member was just awesome.  Taught priesthood better than I could have.  But Jonathan couldn´t come to church again because of work.  We´re praying that he can find another job.  

Hermana Ihler and I made every day special this week.  As in every day has a theme.  On thursday we bought little candies and ate one every 30 minutes.  And on friday the theme was pictures and saturday was grido (ice cream) day.  Tomorrow is fruit day and wednesday is chocolate.  Sometimes missionaries just need a little ánimo to keep going.  Especially on the days where no one will let you in and you just walk and walk and walk.

At church I was asked last minute to play the piano.  it was a disaster.  Hermana Ihler was asked last minute to give a talk.  I would have rather given the talk.  I was shaking so bad that all the notes were off.  Oh well.  I did my best.

Oh and the bishop announced a baptism on sunday for the 23rd.  It´s a 14 year old from an incomplete family and she was just waiting for her dad to baptize her.  Her dad just started coming back so now she´s ready.  Except, she hasn´t had any of the lessons.  The bishop asked us to teach her even though she´s in the elder´s area because she felt uncomfortable with the elders.  We feel bad for them because they did nothing wrong, but the important thing is that she´s getting baptized right?  Hopefully we can get her 10 year old little sister on board for the same day.  Shouldn´t be a problem.

Well have a great week.  Also, the creek flooded.  That was fun.  And a lot of people have water in their houses.

Hermana Borup

Me killing the fungus  and it didn´t work.  Hermana Giuliani told me I had to have rubber gloves, goggles, and a mask.  This was the missionary version of that.

And pictures of the flood disaster.  And it´s still raining!