September 9, 2013

This has been a great week!

First of all, we had a day of rain, which was really beautiful... I´ve missed those grey Oregon skies.  The only problem is that now it´s humid and it´s actually pretty warm today.  I´m not quite ready for that.

This week our district leader had his birthday, so we had a little celebration for him, which was a blast.  One of the sisters in our district is from Mexico, so she made burritos... first time I´ve had anything like that in a long time.  Argentines don´t like spicy food.

And the best news of all... we found an incredible new family that we´re teaching... 10 of them!  Okay, so it´s a family and their cousins, but it´s so great to see them all!  And get this- the parents are MARRIED! Woooo!  That´s an anomoly and a half here in Argentina.  But they´re super receptive of our message and always have a ton of great questions.  And all of them are super excited to read the Book of Mormon and actually follow through with their commitments.  It´s a miracle.

This week is transfers, but we still don´t know what´s going to happen.  We´re going to get a call today to know if we need to buy tickets to travel to Ramos Mejia, but we won´t find out until tomorrow night which one of us goes.  I hope I stay here because I absolutely love Junín.  Everyone here is super friendly and just great.

Dog?  Or is it?

Anyways, that´s basically it for this week. But I send my love!

Hermana Walton

Local Animals

September 2, 2013

Feliz Septiembre!  I can hardly believe how fast the time is flying... we only have one more week in this transfer, and I´m hoping that I´ll keep here in Junín.  I really love it here.

This week was a bit crazy... we lost quite a bit of time to work because we had to travel to Ramos Mejia on Sunday, and then on Monday we travelled to Chivilcoy for a Zone Conference, and then finally returned to our own area in the evening on Tuesday.  By the time we finally got back to our area we were exhausted from too much time sleeping on floors and in colectivos, but happy to get back to work.  

So I´ve been getting a lot of emails over the last few weeks with requests to know more about what I´m doing here in Argentina. If anyone has specific questions that they would like answered, pregunteme!  I am happy to respond to any questions. 

This week Hermana De Leon and I officially became Argentinas.  As I mentioned last week, Hermana De Leon finally took care of her Argentine ID, but even more important than that, we MADE EMPANADAS for the first time this week!  Woo!  Other than that, we mainly just ate a lot of gnocchis, because it´s the end of the month and that´s all we could afford to make. Nevertheless, they are delicious!

As far as the work goes, this week Hermana De Leon and I decided to start visiting less-active members of the church... we have probably about 15 active members in the church, but we have probably a few hundred inactive members... so we have plenty of visits to make.  We found a great little family of 5 through our efforts with that, who we are now teaching.  The mother has a problem with smoking and for that didn´t feel comfortable in the iglesia, but she welcomed us into her house and was very happy to talk to us.  The youngest children are not baptized, but we set a date with them to be baptized at the end of this month.

Speaking of the end of this month, it´s almost Spring!  Wooo!  It´s been absolutely gorgeous here in Junín, and everyone has been out on their motorcycles lately.  One of these days I´m going to get a photo of the streets absolutely full of bikes to send home.  It really is something to see.  But anyways, Spring!  Here ¨dia de primavera¨ is actually a pretty big deal.  Everyone has plans to go to the Laguna or lo que sea to spend the day with their family.  Who would have thought.

Anyways, until next week!

Love,

Hermana Walton

 

August 26, 2013

I had my first baptism this week!  His name is Aldo and he is 75-years-old.  He is the best. He will talk your ear right off, but I love him to death.  He has been visiting with missionaries before our little branch in Junin even existed, and he finally decided to get baptized.  It was a very lovely day.

Today we are in Ramos Mejia in the mission offices again because my companion had to take care of her DNI (ID) for here in Argentina.  But funny story... we took the wrong bus... and ended up in the Capital.  Luckily that´s only about 40 minutes away from where we needed to be, so our lovely office senior couple came and picked us up.  But I have some pretty bad luck with traveling. Before too long president is going to move me back to somewhere close to the offices and keep me there for the rest of the mission!

Speaking of traveling, Hermana De Leon and I had more flat tires this week.  Surprise, surprise.  But we´re hoping to get our bikes all fixed up this week and hopefully we won´t have any more problems this transfer.

So I included a couple of pictures this week.. the first is of the baptism.  The second is of one of a recent convert´s dog.  I don´t know his name, but we call him ¨nuestro amigo fiel¨because he follows us everywhere.  If we pass by their house, he follows us for hours, running from one end of the city to the other, alongside our bicycles.  It´s a little bit ridiculous, but sort of funny.

Other than that, Hermana De Leon and I are working hard.  We´re losing a few days of work this week because of all of our travels (we are leaving here today to go to Chivilcoy for a zone conference and then returning to our area Tuesday in the afternoon), but we´ll make up for it.

Love you all and hope you´re well!

Sincerely,

Hermana Walton

Aldo's Baptism!  It's my first!

August 19, 2013

So this week I received the best gift of my entire mission... a dead bird in my helmet.  Thank you, random neighborhood kids of Argentina.  That was very thoughtful. 

Luckily for me, that wasn´t the theme of the entire week.  Other than that (and three flat tires between Hermana De Leon and I), it was a pretty good one!  We had our first baptism in our ward this transfer!  He was an investigator of the elders, but he´s super friendly to all the missionaries!  His name is Ruben.  I was so excited because it was the first baptism I´ve seen for the entire mission... I always seem to leave just in time to miss the baptisms.

Also, hopefully Hermana De Leon and I will be having our own baptism this week, for one of our investigators, Aldo.  He´s 75 years old and a funny little old man that rides his bike everywhere.  That´s something funny about Argentina... it doesn´t matter how old you are.  Everyone rides bicycles and motorcycles.

This week we had weekly planning as a district, with our zone leaders there to help us out.  It was actually super great.  Our zone leaders are all-stars and gave Hermana De Leon and I advice that we should try to find something fun to do everyday as a companionship.... I guess we´ve been working too hard all the time.  So we´re trying to have more fun everyday and focus on enjoying our time, not just working ourselves to the bone.  Hopefully there will be some good pictures to come with that.

Other than that, I finally remembered my camera and took some pictures of my area!  Yes... dirt roads and shacks.  I love the mission.  But I also got some shots of the city.  Enjoy.

I hope everyone is well.  I send my love to you all.

Sincerely,

Hermana Walton

My area at its best.... yeah, it varies a lot.

August 12, 2013

Hellloooooo, friends and family!

´´I am so tired... all the time.  But I´m so happy.  I don´t understand it.´´

-The best line from The District videos, and also the sentiment that every missionary experiences for the majority of their time of service.

Yes, I am tired, but it´s because we´re working hard.  I really love Junín.  It´s very different from Caseros, but we´re working.  Wow, I just realized I don´t have time to write a real general email this week, so I´m sorry.  

But things are going well!  I´ll write more next week, I promise!  

Love you all!

Hermana Walton

August 5, 2013 - 1st Transfer in Argentina - Junin

Helllllooooo, family and friends!

Transfers were last week and I am now serving in.... (drumroll please!)  Junín!  Woo!  For those of you who don´t know where that is, don´t worry, you´re not alone.  I still don´t know where that is.  Five hours by bus away from the mission offices?  But I´m here and that´s what matters!

A bit about Junín... everyone thinks it´s campo (country) and they´re partly right.  We do have a bit of city-like areas, but only about half our area is city.  The other half is dirt roads, wild dogs, and shacks.  I´ll try to send pictures sometime, but I am very limited as to when I can carry my camera.

We don´t have a ward here.  We have a branch.  We have roughly 15-20 members that are active here, which is definitely a change of pace from Caseros, which I found out last week was the first ever ward in all of Argentina!  Very well-established, very different from here.  But that´s okay, that only means that my new companion, Hermana De Leon, and I have plenty to do!

A bit about Hermana De Leon... she is from Guatemala and arrived here in Argentina about 3 weeks ago.  She only has one week more in the mission than I do, so it´s interesting for the two of us to work together.  Even though she´s young in the mission, she is very hard working and very powerful.  She´s the senior companion of the two of us and is dedicated to transforming our area.  I´m really grateful for her desire to work hard and really make a difference.  She has some very different habits and methods of doing things than myself, but we are learning a lot from one another.

This week was (obviously) my first week here and it just so happened to be the same time that President Carter was coming to visit to do interviews with the missionaries and to show the Work of Salvation broadcast that happened last month.  President asked us to work especially hard to bring investigators to this reunion... we ended up having more investigators in the meeting than members!  What a sight that was.

I think I´m going to wrap this up for now, but first... pictures!  One is of me and Hermana De Leon in our apartment (which is super nice!... except that it smells like mold, but ya know, you win some, you lose some...) and the other is of me and one of my favorite people in Caseros, Marta!  We visited her maybe once or twice a week while I was there and she was the sweetest.

Anyways, I love you all and hope everyone is well!

Love,

Hermana Lauren Jane Walton

Louisiana

Some pictures...

The first is the baptism of Ana and Leah, a mother and daughter that my companions and I taught when I was in Louisiana.  I was so sad to miss out on that, but I am so excited for them!

The second is me and all of my companions in Louisiana the day before I left.  Love those girls!  (Hermanas Blauer, Rohm, and Walker)