More Photos and Emily's Address

Hello All,

Emily sent me her address if any of you would rather mail her a letter instead of emailing me to forward any letters. After talking to her on Mother's Day, she is still quite worried that any packages sent to her might not make it, or the fees to pick up packages might be more than they are worth. The boxes containing food were especially difficult to receive, so she discouraged us from sending any food. She said that some missionaries had luck getting anything that was in a padded envelope, so if you want to try that, it might work. Her mission address is as follows:

Hermana Emily Thatcher
Casilla de Correo 631
5500 Mendoza
Mendoza, Argentina


She receives this mail from the mission home about every 2 weeks.


Thank you all for your love and support towards Emily. As you can tell from her letters, she can feel it and she's doing great!


Sincerely,


Brenda Thatcher

May 23, 2011 - First Transfer!

Hello Familia y Amigos!

Well I officially ended my first transfer! We just got transfer calls and I am staying here with Hermana Richins!!! YEAAHHh!! It could change, at least with her but I am staying here for sure the next 6 weeks so I am excited!

This week. Wow. I learned a lot about myself, the scriptures, ummm and what feeling like having bugs and a sinus infection at the same time feels like haha. All in good fun though! Yes it was hard but really I laughed through most of it. Monday my stomach started feeling bad and by Tuesday it was bad news bears. I knew I would get sick because people serve us all sorts of interesting things. Some of the drinks I can taste the dirt in my teeth haha. Oh well! The best part of the story is that I stayed in 1 day and went stir crazy and the antibiotics (which you just go up the the pharmacist and ask for and he gives you a certain number of pills without labels or instructions) helped with both immensely! But that picture is truly how I felt on Tuesday. Thanks to a priesthood blessing and the crazy part of me that loves to work in any situation, I kept on going until my companion got it haha. I really hate being sick, not because I feel uncomfortable but because I hate missing the work! SO this week was a great lesson on patience. It is really a ton harder to teach in another language when your nose is running and your stomach hurts. Builds character! 

BUT, we still did work and we found another awesome family of 6. They are Evangelical so they promised to come to church if we go to theirs. So Wednesday night we are going! I'm pretty excited! Also we got permission to go to this local dance performance in a nearby park that one of our newly baptized 13yr old Marlene was performing in. SOOO sweet!!! I loved it probably too much but it showed so much of the culture here! Tango, salsa, folk, all sorts of sweet stuff! I took videos and loved every second of it. She did awesome too. We sat next to her mom Claudia who is one of our investigators and I think won some points with her. So all around great decision and I was very glad to go.

The last picture is this family we visit. They are 96 years old members! They love love love when we go over so we try to stop by every other week to just sing a hymn and share a scripture. Family Ponce. Precious angels! 

So things are on the upswing and I feel a hundred times better! Learning so many lessons here it is amazing. The work is just as great as even and yes the church is still true, even here in San Rafael Argentina! Thank you all and please help your local missionaries if you can. We are all in this together and what joy you will feel!!


Love, Con Amor,
Hermana Thatcher

Folk Dances

La Familia Ponce (96 years old!)

More Folk Dancing

Just Hanging Out

Feeling Pretty Sick

May 16, 2011- First transfer almost gone!

Fun Jump!

The life of a missionary

Noche de Hogar

PAZ!

Small Doors

Table Foundation

Hola All!

Well another amazing week in Argentina! Could not ask for more. This week wow we were exhausted in all aspects. We set really high goals this week and met 8 out of 10 of them! Which means today I am exhausted and last night we barely made it home because our legs would barely move we were so tired! But I wouldn´t have it any other way!

Funny Highlights of the Week:

1. Family Home Evening, "Noche de Hogar"- We recently baptized a family with 6 kids. They have a million friends. So we had the idea to throw a huge family home evening for them all at the chapel to invite their friends to. We did 2 of them! One Tuesday and Wednesday night. They went fantastic even with a million little crazy Argentine kiddos running through the gym. We taught them to pray, come to church, and read the scriptures and did games for each. The final game (which the picture is of) is they had to make house out of tables and blankets to "have a firm foundation from the storm" which we related to reading the scriptures. It was great! It would have been hilarious to video us trying to explain how to play some American games to these kids but they figured it out, even with our yucky spanish! Then from that we went to 4 houses of those kids to teach their families! A great way to get new investigators!

2. Futbol riots and parties- Well these didn´t help how tired we were but we got some good laughs. We live in an apartment above some stores in downtown San Rafael. Our neighbors above like to throw "get togethers". But here in Argentina, everything has a different timing than the states. People wake up at 11am, have dinner at 10pm and go to bed who knows when. So it makes our 10:30 bedtime and 6:30am wake up a little weird for them. It keeps me up lots of nights but I am getting better at sleeping through it. Well, Im guessing this was a big week in soccer here because EVERYONE knows when they win. Everyone riots in the streets and honks their horns for hours and runs around waving their flags. It is quite entertaining! I wish I could take a picture but it isn't really safe or in accordance to the rules. But, just know that Argentina is one big party. Even though we don.t join in, it is still entertaining to watch haha!!


Well, this is the last week of my first transfer as a missionary! It flew by! We will see where I go from here!! Love you all! I am so grateful to have you all and thank the Lord each day for all he has blessed with with!

Hermana Thatcher

May 9, 2011

Mayo 9, 2011 (Officially 3 months on the mission today!)

Hola Familia y Amigos!

Well, another amazing week in San Rafael Argentina. I wake up most days so humbled that the Lord has trusted me to take care of the beautiful people here and in such an amazing area. So here are the top thoughts of the week.

1. Angels are undoubtedly real. I try to use all my resources. When people here try to speak English to me {because all the kids here learn it for a few years in school} I tell them I will if they let us in to teach. I also pray for angels everyday. I read a talk by Jeffrey Holland that talks about how we can ask in faith we are promised them as missionaries. So Ihave been working to increase my faith and asking, and miracles have occurred. We found 15 new people this week, 7 with baptismal dates, taught about 30 or so lessons. We worked out tails off but wow, we had some extra help and guidance that we hadn't had before. I really have been amazed. Missionary work isn't called work for nothing. It is hard, but I feel that I have been doing well adjusting and been sent extra help from your prayers and faith and those angelic ministers in this world have been on our right hand and our left. 

2. Argentines are ALL religious. I have yet to find a person here that is not been baptized or has not read the bible multiple times {the ones that can read of course}. So lots of times people let you in your house to have religious debates which hasn't been easy but wow I have learned a lot. I realized that the more powerful teachers we can be, only by letting them feel of the spirit, the less of an arguement it will be. It is hard, but I feel I am improving each lesson with lots of studying before and afterwards. Well, lots and lots of prayer too. We taught some interesting people this week- a atheist doctor, a man and wife who made up their own religion from the Bible, a woman who said Mary was more important than Christ, and more. Hard no? If you have any ideas please send them on down! We are working hard to answer questions and doubts but it had only made my testimony of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ even stronger. It is hard and takes creativity, but like I said, we have been very blessed with higher help.

3. We think being members is hard in the U.S., here is a whole other category. There are no Young Men, 3 Young Women (2 of which we just baptized), and everyone has about 2 or 3 assignments in the Church. But gosh these poor members are faithful! The Bishop is about 25yrs old, and there are about 3 strong families that do everything here. We even get fed here about 4 times a week with the 30 member barrio (ward) we have here! How lucky we are! Anyways, my point is it is hard for them. Two people in the ward have autos and the rest walk to church. So that means many of the older people can't even get there so we try to visit them a lot. The temple in Chile is 13 plus hours away and they take bus and train through the mountains to get there and is very expensive. They give so much of themselves to be strong members of the church. So what I am asking you in the U.S., if you have a temple even 3 hours away> GO! If you feel like not going to church, you probably have a ward of loving people and you have a car and just have to show up. Please be faithful when things are convenient because there are so many people here who give all they have for this church. It touches my heart everyday!! Love them!!

Well that is all! The pictures are from a Natural History Museum we went to in the middle of nowhere today haha. We did a little shopping too. The other pictures are what downtown looks like, the apartment I live in with the other 3 hermanas about a store downtown. And yes, we do all the laundry in the sink! Fun no? The baptism pictures are Lardado and  Nazalena Ortiz (9 and 8yrs), the sweetest kiddos we have been teaching. Their family is all inactive members and we found them about 4 weeks ago and they finally got baptized Saturday! Such an amazing night! 

Thank you for all you prayers! Hermana Richins and I are working very hard feel the prayers. Please pray for our investigators Innocencio Galera and the Garrido Family. We are trying to get them both married right now but having some trouble with the process. Thank you and LOVE YOU ALL!!!!


Hermana Emily Thatcher!!

My bedroom

Cooper!!!

Downtown

Evolution

Gauchos

Laundry....yuck!

May 1, 2011 - Photos

Hello All,

 

Well I promise you will get a good long letter from me next week. Things are still amazing everyday here in San Rafael! Hard work but I feel so happy here! My camera SD card just got erased at this cyber cafe so I have been trying to fiddle with it in hopes my 300 pictures will be restrored. For now, this is it! I love to serve the Lord and what a marvelous work this truely is! I am SOOO blessed!!

 

Hermana Thatcher

After 4 hours tracting in the rain!

Cheap cheap ice cream here

Garrido baptismo

Hermana Angela....my first lunch

I love these girls, our investigators.

Inncencio miracle

Marcello baptism

Santa Fe, NM maybee?????

Talking in the street

Zone conference

Zone conference with my roommates & Hermana Lindahl