Ready for lots of pics!!! - October 24, 2011

Hola Family!!!

Well I spent a ton of time uploading pictures for you all. I will let the pictures tell the story of the week. It was a GREAT week!!! This Saturday Familia Navarro are getting BAPTIZED!!!! They have their temple date picked out for 1 year, Matias the older son wants to SERVE A MISSION!!!!!!!!!!! HOW AMAZING IS THAT!!! He is anxious to go out teaching with us. Knowing that we have the fullness of the gospel has just lit them on FIRE. They want to know EVERYTHING!! (It keeps me on my toes with hard questions!) Anyways, I am super stoked and the members are finally helping a ton with them. 

Pray for this week to turn out well. We are going to work very hard. This week Pte Audikaitis (quorum of 70) comes to do a training. He is notorious here and usually tears the missionaries apart on everything they are doing wrong. I am excited, it should be interesting! That is this Friday and the Saturday night is the baptism. Great week no?

Well, I love you all and thank you for your prayers. Shall we not go forward is such a great cause?!

Hna Thatcher
 


Eating with all the Elders and Hna at a family´s house this pday



Familia Navarro!! This is their second Sunday and this week they all bought church clothes and dont they look SHARP??

  

One of the many sweet signs here



tourist board



visiting flia Garrido´s new house

Visit to my 2nd favorite family



This week everyone voted for the Argentine President. Here it is a law to vote. There are these posters ALL over but now Cristina won so I thought I should take a picture!



When I met up with Hna Diaz and Zepeda during my training meeting in Mendoza

Tortuga!

goofing around like I love to do



walking an investigator to a primary activity




The last pday we did a picture scavenger hunt in two groups and this was the last picture we needed



Familia Navarro is ORO‏ - Oct. 17, 2011

Springtime in San Rafael. I love it.

I officially have spent three seasons here. I got here in fall, went all the way through a very cold winter, and now spring! This week was lots of HARD work but great. We were so tired one night I am pretty sure I walked home 30 minutes while power napping. But so it is on the mission....I LOVE IT.

Familia Navarro is amazing. We found them in a very simple way about 1 month ago. We have to do a certain amount of contacts each day and I always try to contact every family I see, kind of like I have a radar for them. I saw this cute family walking in centro and introduced myself. Knowing quickly that I was not a native Spanish speaker, they began to speak broken English to me. The hav¡d lived in Florida for a few years. We both laughed as we talked in a fun mix of English and Spanish as I asked if my companion and I could come by during to week to teach their family. They agreed and we went by the next day. 

We faught with them about 2 week. They were never there, but Hna Dana and I stopped by about everyday to see hopefully if they were there. We would run to their house at the end of the night to see if they were there. Well, lets just say our efforts were worth the time. We brought a member couple who were converts in the church 15years ago and now are the Stake Relief Society President and in the Stake High council, and they were instant friends. Familia Navarro have been assisting a baptist church (one that has a rock band to sing to and they shout and scream in their meetings) but every lesson we showed them love and showed them the spirit of reverence and love. They are a super unified family and already pay tithing in their church and have lived the word of wisdom as a family for some time. It took a lot or re-teaching, but finally they came to church yesterday. The family consists of Gustavo (dad), Virginia (mom), Matias (18yrs), Luna (7) and Morena (4). They are fireballs and have tons of doctrinal questions but have come to love the Book of Mormon. They are on fire right now and know the church is true and have been reading and praying as a family. The ward members helped us SO much this Sunday because we called them all ahead of time and let them know we had a special complete family that needed lots of support. Sunday each class they felt comfortable to comment, participate and ask questions in which each member testified to them and helped them along the way. I have never felt so much joy since the night Karina and Marcelo Garrido got married and baptized. They are scheduled for baptism the end of this month!!

To make the Sunday even better, we got permission to visit Flia Garrido in the country since we met our goals early in the week. We took the 30 minute drive out there with the help of a member with a car and surprised them. They CRIED when they saw us! I played for about 2 hours with the kids in the vineyards and orchards and we had a great family home evening after. Their branch is small and seems like they are having a hard time adjusting to being in the middle of nowhere but I am sure they will be ok. It was overall a great day! (It was Mother´s day here so it was a little sad to wait and study while Hna Dana called her family but it is ok, I will have my chance in May).

Thank you for your support and love. The Lord is putting amazing people into my hands I am sure I dont deserve but I am soooo grateful. We are being obedient and working hard to keep receiving the blessings. The vineyard really is ripe and ready to harvest here, even in your 7th month in San Rafael!!

Love,
Hermana Thatcher

Lovely Week - Oct. 10, 2011

AMAZING WEEK!!!

Well there is great news and bad news this week.

1) Bad news first. Familia Garrido moved. The owner of the house recently passed away and a lawyer came last week and told them they have one week to leave. So we scrambled and helped them find a house but they found a great house in the country far into the boundaries of another branch. I tried to be happy for them even though it will be hard not to see them basically every day. It will be good for them because the neighborhood they live in is kind of harder. I think it is small steps preparing me for the day I have to leave here permanently. I will ask for permission to see them outside of our area before I leave. They made me a huge poem in a picture frame they all signed for me. So Sunday morning we helped them move and I will pray the new branch will keep them going strong. Sad........

2) Good news. We are teaching FOUR complete families!! Wow the Lord has blessed us!! They are all very strong in the catholic, evangelical, and methodist churches but they are ALL reading the Book of Mormon and have had small answers to prayers. YEAH!! I am so pumped!! 

3) I forgot, more good news. We went to Mendoza this Thursday for special training. It was a long bus ride there early in the morning and back late at night but we learned A TON from PTe Avila. I was sooooo happy to learn more. You can never learn it all and I loved to hear the new ideas from our new assistants. Plus I got to see Hna Zepeda there! 


Well, I love you all. The pictures wont upload this week so very sorry. Pray for our families! I pray for you!!!


Hna Thatcher

Week 25 in San Rafael, I still love it!‏ - Oct.3, 2011

Hello All!!! 

Wasnt Conferencia General amazing!!!!!??? I loved everything! I loved the Japanese Elder´s talk (long name I don't remember) about missionary work and Elder Scott´s on scriptures, and Elder Christofferson on repentance and Elaine Dalton´s. Overall I was taking notes like a mad woman. I am also very proud to say that I watched the whole thing in spanish and understood it all. I had the choice to watch it in English but it was amazing to hear it and understand the apostles and prophet in spanish! I am so grateful for both the amazing conference and the gift of interpretation of languages. We had a few investigators there and I think besides being overwhelmed, they overall liked it alot! 

So this week has been pretty calm. Lots of good hard work. Found another choice family, Flia Araniz. They are married thank goodness! Hna Dana has been amazing this transfer, and is no longer nervous or timid. I am helping her learn English and she throws out the funniest one liners in English that keeps me on my toes laughing all day. She has come out of her shell so much because she feels better she is no longer the ¨new one¨. I am having a great time and loving everything more than ever!

Hna Anderson is training Hna John who is from Fayetteville, North Carolina which I was excited about. She is quiet, but we will soon change that haha! It is going to be a great transfer I can tell!

So the pictures will tell all the fun from the week:
1.´Making tacos in between conference 
2.3.4.  There was a spring concert and parade downtown so I convinced the other Hermanas to make a stand and talk to people. I had a super time and there were TONS of people we contacted!
5. To end the last transfer, we had a slumber party in the living room!
6. Hna Dana´s sister just had a baby so we sent this to her in honor
7. Hna John and Dana made us something since we are their ¨mothers¨ on the mission. How cute!
8. Part of our zone
9. San Rafael view from the hospital (we were visiting someone)


Love you all!! Keep close to the Savior and He will be there in every pain, joy, and experience of this life. He is watching me and blessing me as I try to bless His sheep. How marvelous is this work!!

Hna Thatcher