A little piece of Chile in Argentina

This week was just so crazy, I don´t even know where to start. I guess maybe I could start by saying that I now have a new companion! She is named Hna. Latoja and she´s from Chile. She actually lives in the same mission that Jessica served in! How great is that?? She´s only been a member for less than 2 years, and is a little shy, but is way great. She has tons of desires to work hard, so it´s wonderful.

  This week was a little tougher than most, but we have to go through the hard times to appreciate the good ones, right? In a reunion we had this week, President Thrugood was talking to us and said that the time we are in right now has never been a better time to be a missionary or to raise a family. I loved that! The church is growing so much and is so accessible to almost everyone who lives in the world. The gospel is being preached to all corners of the world and we are living prophesies being fulfilled! I feel so grateful to be here! 

   It was interesting this week, because as we were riding the train to go meet our new companions, I realized that I felt completely comfortable here in Argentina. I didn´t really have any fears, as far as actually living here goes, and it was the best. I never thought that there would come a point where I would feel like Argentina was my home, but it seems that day has arrived! This week we were blessed with a ton of rain! I don´t know if I´ve mentioned it before, but almost all the roads are dirt here and so when it rains, everything turns to mud. My area that I´m in right now is pretty big and this week we were riding from the bottom of our area to the top. It takes about 15-20 minutes and as we were going it was sprinkling a little bit, and then it just started pouring. We were so not prepared and we ended up just getting soaked alll the way through! Haa it was crazy! There was not an inch of me that was dry. By the time we reached the other end of the area, the rain had let up a bit, but we were still soaked. Then later that day we were in another part of our area that is all dirt roads but it was dark outside. This part is not really near the city so the lighting there is not very good and as we were riding down the road to go to an appointment, my bike slipped on some mud and I fell into a nice big pile of mud :)

     It was interesting how things had happened that day, because I was just already not having that great of a day, and then this was just like kind of hitting rock bottom. When we got to the pension later that night, I started thinking. Sometimes the Lord lets us fall and get up and fall again, sometimes even literally, so that we learn to turn to him, and appreciate all the blessings that he has given us. I´ve been thinking a lot this week about our desires. I have this talk by Dallin H. Oaks, and it´s amazing. He talks about how our desires are our motivators, and that our desires really determine what it is that we will become. If we will become what our Heavenly Father expects us to become. If our desires are temporal, we will never be able to reach our full potential, and the times when we fall will seem so much more harder and dificult. If our deepest desires are the things of eternity, we will gain the power to overcome whatever trial that we pass through. No matter how hard of a day we may have, our eternal desires will be what keeps ups going through the thick and the thin. 

Con amor,

Hermana Feldermann

Good-bye Hermana Wood!

 After just one transfer I am saying goodbye to Hna. Wood! She´s off to a new area...in the other mission. So there´s a good chance that I´ll probably never see her again, at least in the mission. I don´t know who my companion is going to be yet because I´m going to be training again! I´m way excited and it´s going to be the best. Tomorrow we get to go to Banfield to the mission home and meet our newbies. President lines all the trainers up and all the newbies and then he calls your name and you step forward to meet your new companion! It´s going to be so great.

   This week was crazy! We had so many appointments and so few lessons! It seemed that no one really wanted to listen to us this week. However, we did end up finding two amazing families and we´re praying so hard for them! AND ONE OF THE COUPLES IS MARRIED!!! that was the best news is the whole world! We´ve been having trouble getting our investigators to progress, but with a little faith and a lot of prayers, I know that the Lord can work miracles.

    A funny experience happened this week with Hna. Wood! Along the sides of the roads in the more poorer areas there are these things called sanjas. They´re where all the waste that you have from your house goes, like from the kitchen and the bathrooms and all that stuff and basically it´s just a ditch on the side of the road filled with this nasty water. We had just finished talking with one of our investigators and we were leaving on our bikes. The road we were riding on was horrible. Hna. Wood went to cross from the road to the sidewalk and without knowing it...went right into the sanja!!! Poor thing! Her bike wheel went right in and she flipped over her bike right onto the ground. Luckily she was okay and didn´t get hurt. She didn´t get super dirty either. Just her hand went in and her skirt got a little dirty, but other than that she left without a scratch.

    This Sunday we were able to watch the dedication of the temple of Córdoba, Argentina! It was so beautiful. We all went to the Stake Center and were able to watch it live. D. Todd Christofferson served his mission in Córdoba, and he came down to direct it with Dieter F. Uchtdorf who did the dedication. It was so cool to hear him talk in Spanish! The dedication was beautiful, and I think the part that touched me the most was seeing how much it meant to the people here in Argentina. The saints here are so diligent and seeing the church grow in this part of the world so that they now have two temples, was something indescribable.

    This week we had a death happen in the ward. The dad of one of our families here died in a car/moto crash just a few days ago. Their family was sealed in the temple and at one point he was one of the counselors to the bishop, but the family has been inactive for about 8 years now. He died so suddenly, and the family is just absolutely destroyed. It´s so sad and awful to see. However, this is their chance to return and come back to the Lord. If they had been active during this time, this still would have happened, but they would be in a much better state. This is the thing that I learned about he Lord. The covenants we make with him are so sacred and he will fulfill his promises. HOWEVER the Lord says that, "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." If we make covenants with the Lord and we don´t keep them, we can´t expect to be blessed. If we break the commandments, we can´t expect to be happy. The Lord makes covenants with us so we can receive blessings! Keeping them will bring us happiness, it´s literally as simple as that. Trials will still happen, and we will still be faced with challenges, but everything about our perspective changes when we make the choice to follow Christ.

Love,

Hermana Feldermann

Happy Mother's Day!

I thought about not writing a letter because we just talked yesterday, but I figured that might not go over too well! Haa! This week was different, in the best way. It was different because this week changed my whole perspective on missionary work. We have been talking a a lot about faith this week, and about not doubting or complaining about the things that are happening. If we start doubting that the people we´re teaching are going to progress, they probably won´t. If we complain that we don´t have anyone to teach and we can´t find anyone to teach, we probably won´t find anyone. FAITH IS KEY! I never realized how important faith really is. It´s a subject that we talk about all the time in church, but have we ever taken the time to really study and learn what faith is really about? If by faith mountains can be moved, then sure as the sky is blue, faith can help us find new investigators!! it does no good to pray to God and ask something if we don´t believe it can actually happen. We started this week looking at everything from this brand new perspective. That everyone single one of our investigators is going to get baptized, that we´re going to be able to find the people that the Lord has prepared for us! When we complain about the situations that we´re in, we´re saying to God that we aren´t happy with what He is doing with us or where He put us. That we would rather do our own will than what He wants or knows what´s best for us. More power than we know comes from faith, and there are countless examples of that in el libro de mormon. We have to BELIEVE that when we ask, we will receive! This is our Heavenly Father, the most powerful being that we´re talking about here! The being that just by his word alone, worlds were created. How can we doubt this miraculous power?

    One of the best things that I´ve been able to see this week is the change that people have been making in their lives. Sometimes it´s not a huge change, but little things, like everytime we go they are a little bit more open to listening to the spirit and what we have to say. A little bit more less argumentative and willing to accept and do what the Lord asks them to do. This gospel changes people´s lives, and true conversion is true change. Change that lasts because the closer that we get to our Heavenly Father, the better we want to be. We have this less active girl named Juliana. She´s 22 and has a little boy named Axel. Her dad is named Eduardo and her mom died about 2 years ago. Her mom and Dad were sealed in the temple and baptized more than 20 years ago. When Juliana was a teenager, her parents started drinking and smoking and eventually left the church. Juliana moved out when she was 16 and began to live a pretty rough life. She returned home, and by this time her mom had cancer and was dying. We started just visiting Juliana first. She told us that she wants to come to church and return, but there are some hard feelings and things about what happened with her parents. She knows it´s the best thing for her son though. After a little time we met Eduardo, her dad. The first lesson we had with him was....awful. He wouldn´t listen to anything we were trying to say and all he had to say were bad things about the church. We´ve been visiting them for about the last month now and the change we´ve seen is incredible. This last week we came by to visit Juliana and we were singing a hymn, the favorite of her mom. While we were singing Eduardo came home. For once he didn´t say an anything, and just stood in the door listening. Then he came around behind Juliana and joined us in singing. Afterwards we had the best lesson ever. Instead of arguing with us, he actually listened. He´s starting making those first little steps and it´s incredible. I had to kind of chasten myself with the lack of faith that I had in that he would progress. We are all God´s children and he wants ALL of us to return to live with him. I think I´ve already mentioned this quote, but I´m going to say it again. It´s from D. Todd Christofferson in the last conference. He said, "No one is predestined to receive less than all the father has." Have a great week!

Hermana Feldermann

Bikes and Mud and Dirt Roads

      Winter is coming to Alejandro Korn! And this means....rain. and lots of it! This week it started getting colder along with some rain. Because the streets are mostly made of dirt here when it rains everything turns to mud. and I mean everything! We had some pretty fun adventures with the mud. You can stand straight up on your bike and it will just tip over because it´s so stuck in the mud! This week was....kind of different.

     We taught some lessons this week. The thing about the Argentines is that they love to talk. They can talk and talk and talk and talk for hours and they get so sidetracked by everything so easily. It´s hard sometimes to start a lesson because they´re talking and talking and then we have to be careful with the questions we ask because if you ask one that is too broad or too general they start off on a tangent about whatever other thing. That happened quite a bit. We were able to find a few people to teach....but we´re really struggling to find people that can actually progress and are ready to progress in the gospel. However, the Lord is preparing people right now, we just have to find them!

     This week we found this less-active member named Juliana. She´s 22 and has the cutest little boy ever. Her parents have been members since before she was born but went inactive around the time she was 15, and then she got into some pretty bad stuff. We stopped by her house and she told us how she wants to come back and return to church, because she knows it´s the best place for her and for her child. She lives with her dad, and when we stopped by to see her again he was home. The less actives break my heart because they HAD all the blessings of the gospel and then they just left it! And then to see their hearts so hard against something that is only good is so so sad to me. There are people I´ve realized that are past the point of listening. They are so set in their ways and they don´t want to listen to anyone or anything. I hope that we never reach that point in our life, where we´re so set in my ways and so against changing or against listening to anyone who could helps us. Anyways, Juliana came to a ward activity that we had on Saturday and it was great. The members all just kind of embraced her and I know that she was able to feel loved!

    One other neat thing that happened this week.....so there´s this house next to the church that they´re going to knock down to make a field for fútbol. A family moved into this house like 3 days before they were supposed to demolish it so they had to kick them out. They´ve been having 24 hour security in the church because they were afraid that these people were going to come back and do something to the church building. So this man that watches the church from 7 in the morning to 7 at night is named Andrés. We started talking to him and the members gave him a Book of Mormon and then he came to the Family home evening that we had Thursday night as well as the activity on Saturday AND to church on Sunday! The members just invited him to everything and he loved it!! We taught the class principios del evangelio on Sunday and the members brought him in and he was participating and everything. Then he raised his hand and made the comment that he loves everything about our church. He loves the people and the spirit that he feels being here with the members. He said that he would like to continue learning more and continue in the church because all of the good that he´s seen and felt from the ward. It was amazing! Sadly he doesn´t live in our ward boundaries, but it´s been a great experience for the members of the ward to be able to reach out and take someone in. If we all did that with all our friends then everyone would join the church....well maybe :)

     I´ve been learning a lot of things from Hna. Wood. It´s been harder to talk in Spanish all the time with her, but I made a goal with president to talk in Spanish as much as possible and I´m going to fulfill it! We have seen some amazing miracles together and I´m grateful for everything that I´ve been able to learn! It´s amazing because the more I learn the more I feel I have yet to learn! I think that´s the amazing thing about this gospel. Sometimes it´s easy to think that we know everything there is to know about the gospel or about a certain subject, but that´s so not true. There is never an end to learning in the gospel. That is the blessing of having revelation. Through the spirit we can know the truth of ALL things. When we let the spirit be our guide in our study of the gospel we will learn marvelous things. Then we will have desires to be better and to keep learning. As we come closer to Christ, we realize more fully His hand in our lives and all the blessings he´s given us. This gospel is a gospel of ACTION. Only through acting on things that we learn will we gain the testimony we need to stay strong and firm in the gospel. 

Con amor,

Hermana Feldermann