It's All Bright in Argentina!: One Month Anniversary!

(This e-mail is a long and good one! But there is a picture at the end!!)

Hey everyone! News straight from the CCM or MTC in gringo lingo. We got to stay up past our bedtime!! (Missionaries are normally in bed at 10:30 every night and wake up at 6:30 every morning... early bird gets the worm!!)

Fourth of July was yesterday and it was a FIESTA! We had so many treats from everyone's parents, so we brought them up to our classroom and had a party all day! Don't worry, we were learning too. Then we had a little patriotic devotional, followed by..... 17 Miracles!!! (17 Miracles is a movie about Pioneers in the Willie handcart company. The Willie handcart company are people who were Latter Day Saints that traveled from Iowa to Utah. They left late in the season and had many trials, but were blessed with more miracles. Click here to learn more about the movie You can also watch it on Netflix if you have an account). Such an amazing movie, you should definitely watch it if you haven't! Or watch it again if you have haha. But it definitely reminded me of how easy our life is. And how much our Heavenly Father loves us and helps us. I know that He truly cares for every person and miracles really do happen.

After that, we got to stay out until around eleven to watch the fireworks!! So much fun! They were super awesome. It was way cool because we started singing all the patriotic songs that we know as we were watching them. We are so blessed to live in this country at this time, with so much freedom and a great government system, and so many people out there fighting for our rights. I hope you send a little prayer out to our leaders and our soldiers, because they need all the help that they can get to defend such a worthy cause.

Wednesday we got to host the new missionaries, which was SUPER fun! You know all those missionaries that were on the sidewalk when I came in, welcoming everyone, and one of them helped me with my suitcases? Yup that was me this week! It was super awesome to see the reinforcements come in (haha we really do feel like an army sometimes.) We get to help them and give them a mini tour as we find their room, stuff, and classroom. It's real fun because they have an immediate friend here. I've already been able to see my missionaries that I hosted multiple times after that, they're so great!

Anyway back to answering questions:

Sister Training Leader is kind of like a zone leader for the sisters. We interview them and help them out however we can. But we still answer to our own district leader and zone leaders (who are elders, or boy missionaries). It's an interesting dynamic but definitely a necessary one.

Normally we get to go to the temple on our P-day, (the missionaries get one day a week to get their personal things taken care of. This includes doing laundry, grocery shopping when they are not in the MTC, writing letters etc.) then on Sunday we walk around the temple, and we exercise in the field in between the MTC and the temple pretty much every day. So that's the most of the outside world that we get but it's all that we need! But the temple is closed now for cleaning so no more temple trips on Pdays. But our district was asked to help out the cleaning which will be super fun! I'm super stoked because I've always wondered how they cleaned it and now I get to see! I feel so much like a secret agent sometimes, going into all these restricted access rooms here in the MTC and now I get to go to the temple and clean some rooms.. ya we're legit!

So class is three hours at a time. Some days we have two classes and some days we have one. Both of our teachers are AMAZING though! Seriously. I love them so much. they help us with everything and always know exactly what we are struggling with, even emotionally when we try to hide it, and they know exactly how to help us everytime. It's so crazy. The Spirit is definitely helping us all out so much. I know that the Lord gives us direct revelation everyday!

Haha I can speak a lot in Spanish, so now the problem is understanding paragraphs! Normally I can understand like a sentence or two but as soon as our teachers or investigators just start going off about something.. I'm a goner! Haha and they're so easy on us too it's going to be crazy hard understanding real people out in the field! Oh and the intermediate class is for people who have had like seven years of Spanish in school. I'm definitely in the beginning class.

Oh I almost forgot! TODAY IS MY ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY!! Woot woot! So my district pretty much claimed that half of the fireworks last night were for our own celebration. And one of my sisters' moms sent us those confetti / popper things so we're going to pull them tonight to celebrate together. So much fun! It's so crazy though it definitely just FLEW by! Ah! I cannot believe it! This time next week, I might have my travel plans for my reassignment! I definitely don't feel ready yet, but I don't think I ever would. But the best part is when I remember that the Lord is on my side, so it doesn't matter what I know because He knows all things!

I want to challenge you all to think about how the restoration applies to you this week. It's so crazy how many lessons we can continually pull out of it, but it's just so easy to just think about it as just a story in history. I know that God and Jesus Christ really did appear to Joseph Smith in answer to His prayer. And I know that this is the true church, restored though the power of God. How blessed we are to have this knowledge! I know that in weakness, God makes us strong. Think about how little importance Joseph would have seemed to the world at the time--an uneducated, fourteen year old boy! But through the help of God, he was able to accomplish so many great things. When we rely on the strength of God, we too can accomplish great things. I know this to be true. And I hope you all pray about it to know for yourselves.

I love you all! And I hope you have an amazing week!

Here's a picture of Heidi cleaning the shower. Looks fun, don't ya think?