hey everyone!!!

Its hard to believe its been another week! crazy. haha its been a crazy crazy week.

I feel like no one has really wanted to talk to us this week. its been really hard to find people and then we do find people and we go and teach lessons and they last a really REALLY long time. the people just dont be quiet sometimes. haha that sounds terrible but a lot of latins have a lot to say about everything so you say "and i know that joseph smith was a prophet" and they start talking for 5 minutes about something.... its funny sometimes. i usually dont understand what they say so i just smile and nod. but i love the people so much i am okay just sitting and smiling. But for example we had a family home evening last monday with a convert. and we invited another convert and her grandson and she had other people there and jorge came and brought a friend. and the plan was to watch the prophet of the Restoration video and then share a scripture about Joseph Smith (the one about he lived great and he died great..) to help strengthen their testimonies about Joseph Smith. And no one here really knows anything about church history. But so in Oran every now and again they shut of the power. to everywhere. and when we got there they had turned off the power in that subdivision (barrio in argentina) great. there goes the video plan.  So we turned to a lesson we were gonna give this convert about charity and love.  :) and about halfway through the power came back on so they turned on the video (which is like an hour and a half to 2 hours...) we left them while watching the video bec we had to get back to the pension.  yeah i felt bad about that one. but the friend of Jorge´s is now meeting with us. and it did strengthen their testimonies.

Oh mom!!! so im turning into you a little bit. :)  So we had a family home evening for the branch last night.  We have them every sunday for our investigators and converts but tomorrow one of our branch missionaries is leaving for his mission so the branch president wanted a big one for the ward. So we centered it on missionary work and Jorge gave a talk about the importance of missionary work. but i get frusterated sometimes bec i feel like our family home evenings are just another lecture time for these people. they just arent fun. i wouldnt go... so i decided to plan a little missionary activity for the branch. (we actually had a pretty good turnout which was exciting bec ive heard that here no one shows up to activities...)  but so my activity was i called them all on missions. I actually had little papers with missions on them i was gonna have them all open up and then leave on their mission but there werent enough people to make 10 papers for 5 different missions functionable.  so i numbered them off. and they moved to their missions. and then i paired them all off into companionships. then i gave them 2 minutes to get to know their companion. they were all confused for a little bit bec i still cant explain things very well.  but so then we had them practice. because in the mtc and in mission meetings we practice. and in our studies we practice. a lot. so i had them practice contacting someone on the street and bearing their testimony to them.  then i had 3 people come up and share what they learned. :) it was pretty exciting. and i thought "im becoming like my mom!!!" and had to smile because you always come up with stuff like that. But doing stuff like that at family home evenings is foreign to them and having food they all like having food but when we were planning it they looked at me like i was crazy when i said we should bring food and have a little activity. but they liked the idea of food. so it turned out really well and we had investigators there and got a new one too.

So that was probably the most exciting part of the week. IT was Hermana Callejas´ birthday this week though. wednesday she turned 23.  So the Cabana Family had us for lunch that day. and htey bought a cake for her. and so i ate all this food cause they always give you a lot of food here and then cake. and hermana callejas cut the first piece and i guess here the birthday person cuts the first piece then gives it ot the person they like the best. I didnt know this. so she cuts this ginormous piece and everyone closes their eyes nad she gives it to me and im like uhhhhh great.... a big  huge piece that i cant finish and everyone cheers. i felt a little bad and was so confused but i figured it out and gave her a big huge hug.  it was fun. but a lot of food.... everyone gave us food this week. and then we made food for another family whos birthday was the same day.and made food for the baptism we didnt end up having.

So we were supposed to have a baptism this week... that made it crazy. Because Marcelo is handicapped mentally. hes supposed to be 13 mentally but he seems so much younger a lot of times. younger than aubri (hes actually 35) but when he came to church for the first time he came up to us after sacrament meeting and said he wanted to be baptized. and weve really been working with him.  using pictures and drawing. the only thing he remembers constantly is the spirit. and he wants to have the gift of the spirit. He feels it so strong.  but when we say key words he remembers. he remembers quite a bit when you really work with him for the answer. but so we go to get his moms signature for permission and hermana callejas had to talk to her for forever to get her to sign and she said we had to talk to the sister first and get her signature too. okay so we figure out when shes gonna be there and come back at that time and shes sleeping and no one will wake her up.... for like 2 days so finally they say to come back in the morning. which is when we had the interview and so we double, triple checked to make sure they would both be there nad they all said yeah shell be there and he will. great. so we get there with the elders for the interview and they told us that everyone went to bolivia for hte day. and wont be back til night time. great....so stuff like this went on until past the time for the baptism nad finally they told Facundo that they dont want him baptized and then we could find them. yeah... itw as crazy. and im a little sad but i am glad the family really cares about him.  They are very protective of him. i just want to help them understand that  this is a good thing.

so i guess this isnt a very uplifting letter. im sorry.

oh and if anyone has recipies for things we can make for baptisms nad activities and stuff like that could you please send them (cookies, brownies - they dont have box mixes.., anything) im getting tired of the carrot bread stuff hermana callejas makes and banana bread. or even a good recipe for banana bread would be great... thanks...

So ive been studying the last couple days about the destruction of hte nephites. its a little depressing to read. especially on days where you walk and walk and nobody really wants to talk to you. but it mormon 9 i found a few verses that i really really liked.  3 of the verses (21, 25, and 27 i think) say believe in Christ, never doubting.  that is what i needed to hear this week. never doubt. i do that a lot. i feel like i should do something and then i dont because im not sure if thats just me being crazy or not paying attention in lessons, or yeah lots of different reasons to doubt. but its important not to doubt. i was planning a family home evening for tonight and my mind kept going back to that and the verse in joseph smith history "i had seen a vision, i knew it, i knew that god knew it and i could not deny it" and how i need to be more firm in my convictions.  everyone needs to be. Joseph Smith was. He died for what he had seen because he didnt doubt and lots more people are examples of that. thats one thing that i learned this week.  i learn so much here.

but i love yall! its been a good week
les quiero!
hermana applegate