Baptism Pictures

Wendy, Alfredo (their newest convert), & Hermana Jensen


Familia Rodriguez, Alfredo, Hermana Jensen & Wendy

Living & Loving in Argentina! - Monday, February 21, 2011

Hey All!

 

It was really good to hear from so many of you! Thanks so much for all of the letters! I´ll try really hard to answer all of your questions. 

 

This week was pretty crazy.  Really cool though.  We are experiencing so much success here in Portezuelo II (that´s what my area is called).   It is right in downtown Salta.  We live about a block West of the Mission home so where you were looking is pretty accurate on where I live. Not very accurate on where we work.  I think all of you would be pretty shocked at some of the things I see.  Everyone lives in houses made of cement.  The culture here is really laid back so everyone lets their houses go.  No one, and I mean absolutely no one has carpet.  There are a million dogs with fleas that run around in the streets and just poop whereever they want.  Lice is pretty prevelant.  I´m pretty much guarenteed to get it once or twice during my mission, so I´m looking forward to that one! haha!

 

My companion is amazing.  She is so awesome!  Like I said she is from Draper.  She had a pretty hard time learning Spanish so she is super patient with me.  She really is my mom. She is so kind and makes me feel so comfortable.  I love her.  She makes me drink water and put on my sunscreen so don´t worry mom. 

 

Well, I was pretty sick this week.  We went to an investigators house, Stella, she´s the one that gave me the purse.  Anyway, she gave us bread from a street vendor.  Number one no no here in the mission, don´t eat anything from street vendors.  Well I really regretted it.  I was really sick for about 3 days.  We actually had to end up coming back to the pension early.  I tried so hard a few days to stay out and work because we have quite a few investigators that need us, but I just couldn´t take it.  My stomache was actually churning.  I never threw up but I had nausea really bad.  I had diahrrea pretty bad too.  TMI I know.  I thought you´d all like to know about that! haha!  I feel a lot better now.  For the most part though the water here is alright, we can drink it.  The thing I struggle with the most though are the eating habits here.  The eat a huge meal at like 2 in the afternoon.  They stuff themselves until they are completely sick and then they sleep for a few hours, they sleep so much here!  And they don´t really eat anything the rest of the day. So i am sick pretty much ever afternoon.  I hate it!!!! They eat so much sugar here too.  Just so you know I will not be drinking pop when I get home.  I´m already sick of it.  But the food here is really good!  They all are excellent cooks.  I could learn a thing or two. 

 

Anyways, We had a baptism on saturday!!!! Wahoo!!!! His name was Alfredo Torres.  He was actually the first real person I had a lesson with here on the mission!  He is a really sweet guy, so it was pretty cool for me to sit in on that one.  We have 2 more baptisms on Saturday.  We have been blessed with a lot of success in this area.  I asked my companion if this much success is common.  She said it´s not but it can be.  Anyway, it was really exicting.  We are working really hard and having a lot of success here in Salta. 

 

On Thursday, we were out working and it started to pour down rain.  I´m not kidding you it was pouring.  Water was like rivers in the streets.  I forgot my coat so I was pretty much miserable.  My companion just said we need to keep working.  I didn´t have a very good attitude but we kept working.  We knocked on this one door and a kid came to the door, then he went and got his dad.  Anyways we ended up teaching a family of 7!!! That is freaking amazing.  Anways they are Catholic, pretty strong Catholic.  Everyone claims that here.  Anyways, turns out their family was praying that day for their Priest to show up and we showed up.  We are really excited about them. Faith, attitude and hard work are  incredible things. We will have to see how it turns out.  We have another appointment with them on Wednesday. 

 

My Spanish is coming little bits at a time.  I think I expected it to just turn on once I got here.  The Argentines have an insanely wierd accent so they are pretty hard to understand.  But I can tell I understand more and more everyday, and I speak more and more everyday.  Anyways, its a process, but its getting better daily...

 

Mom did you get my stuff from the MTC.  The mail system is pretty reliable so send stuff to the mission office just throught the United States Postal service.  Also tell everyone else who is not immediate family to use Dear Elder.  It takes about a week.  It might take a while to write back, but oh well I guess. 

 

Tell dad I saw a drunk Gaucho yesterday.  Thats a pretty common sight, drunk men.  They love my red hair down here so I get stared at and cat called at quite a bit.  Ahh the beauties of the mission. 

 

I love you all and I pray for you everyday.  Thanks for the updates.  Did Cam get surgery.   Tell Grandpa I love him and that he has to make it until I get home.  I cant believe that Grandmas siblings and inlaws are all almost gone.  Sheesh.  Life is crazy.

 

I love all of you,

Hermana Wendy Evans

Monday, February 14, 2011 - First Week in Argentina!

hey family

 

the shift button on this keyboard is really stinky so sorry my punctuation is going to be really bad. so here i am in argentina.  holy cow. i don´t even know where to begin.

 

well we got into buenos aires at about 8 in the morning.  we got in a car totally just trusting this guy named alberto.  we had no idea what was going on or what anyone was saying.  we started driving into buenos aires.  i guess the driver realized that we forgot our passports or something.  so we turned around.  anyway we couldn´t find our passports.  so we ended up just pulling off the sides of the freeway and waiting for our passports.  this wouldn´t have been scary except that the drivers here are NUTS! I really don´t think I can emphasize that enough.  After we found our passports...which was scary just handing them off to people.  My identy could´ve been gone.  They drove us through Buenos Aires.  We had no idea where we were or where we we going.  Turns out they were dropping us off at the airport to fly to Salta... we were soooo tired, not to mention we already had culture shock.  Well we almost missed our flight.  Luckily nothing in Argentina is on time. Haha!

 

We flew into Salta... President Northcutt was there waiting for us.  He is super nice, quiet and tough, but way nice. His wife is such a sweetheart. 

 

The first thing he told us was, we´re going to take you to the mission office and you´ll be working in your area tonight.  What the heck.  I just got off like a 24 hour flight. I was tired.  I´m sure I looked like it too.  ´The office Elders gave us a little orientation.  We said goodbye to my District.  That was hard because I know I probably won´t see some of them again.  They only let Hermanas serve in areas in Salta and Jujuy.  All of the Elders went to Tucuman. 

 

Anyway, I am serving right in downtown Salta right next to the mission office.  Me and 3 other Hermanas live in a Pension right next to the office.  Sister Amanda Jensen, who Aunt Mary Kay knows lives with me.  My trainer is SIster Heather Olsen from Draper.  She´s so great.  She has two transfers left in the mission.  She´s really positive and that´s good for me.  She´s great. 

 

The first night I got here, we taught two lessons.  I realized really really quickly that I have no idea what anyone is saying.  When I left the MTC, I had a pretty good grasp on what everyone is saying.  The accent here is totally crazy though.  I pick more and more up everyday.  Now I can pretty much follow every gospel conversation. 

 

The people here are really humble.  The houses are maybe the size of our kitchen, dining, room, and living room. They pretty much have nothing but each other.  It is pretty shocking for me to see.  They are so happy though.  It´s really crazy how faithful a lot of them are.  They are willing to give up so much for the church. 

 

The food here is really good.  They eat a huge meal at Lunch time and then they don´t really eat the rest of the day.  It´s killing me... I don´t like to stuff myself and then not eat the rest of the day.  Everyone is right about the beef though! IT´s delicious. 

 

It´s been pretty mild here as far as weather.  It is sooooo humid.  My hair freaks out. 

We have a lot of really good investigators.  We are working with a really great family right now.  They love me for some reason.  THey have like 6 kids.  The kids are baptized except for 2 and the parents aren´t either.  The parents aren´t married so we´re working on getting them married.  The mom is so faithful. She has threatened to leave the dad if he doesn´t come around.  They are such an awesome family. They gave me a purse yesterday and they´ve only known me a week.  I´ve probably only spoken 10 words to them.  Ahhh! It´s so frustrating not to be able to communicate...it´s even more frustrating when you get laughed at because your Spanish sounds so American.  I bore my testimony in Church yesterday and the kids laughed at me.  It was pretty hard. 

 

We walk a ton.  Yesterday we did doors all day.  I can´t really help because I can´t really understand or speak, so I¨m basically a prop.  We did pretty good though we have close to 15 investigators. So that´s exciting. We should have a baptism Saturday.

 

Everything is so much different though.  I just wish I could carry a camera around with me and let you see everything that I see.  I think you´d be shocked.  I´ll try and take some pictures but I can´t carry around a camera because it´ll probably get stolen.  Hopefully next week I´ll have some for you. 

I´m getting eaten alive by mesquitos! Ahh!!

 

Good luck with the surgery Cam... I wish I were there to nurse you back to health.  You can DearElder me. It takes about a week for me to get them.  Will you send me some US stamps through the mail mom.  It´s easier to send stuff back through the pouch system.  Well there´s so much I want to tell you but I really don´t know how to explain it all... I´ll try and explain the cultural things a little at a time through emails.  I hope your weeks all go really good. I love you.

 

Love, Hermana Wendy Evans

Hermana Evans Has Arrived!!!

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to let you know we received an email from Wendy's mission president.  She made it safe and sound...whew!  She has been assigned to her first area and is out preaching the gospel.  We couldn't be more proud of her!  Please keep her in your prayers!

Love,

Cheryl  

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Hola Family!

Can you believe that I'm in my last week at the MTC.  Holy cow! I never thought that this day would ever come.  I got my flight plans! We leave on Monday, we leave the MTC at 11:30 and we leave Salt Lake at 3 PM.  We have an hour lay-over in Dallas Texas then a 16 hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina.  We stay in Buenos Aires for a day for visa processing and then we fly to Salta.  I've heard that Salta is pretty remote so i really might not make it to my area until Wednesday or Thursday.  I'll email you as soon as I can though.  I need you to DearElder me and tell me you got this email.  It's an assignment from our Branch President that we hear back from you about it. 

Dad I got the dresses! Everyone is so impressed that you have such great taste! I'm really sad that I have to send the brown one back, it just doesn't fit.  I was super sad! But I love the other two.  So thank you Daddy! I have the best family in the whole world! Thanks for the backpack and the duffle bag mom! I love the backpack and the duffle bag will work great! 

This week has been a really tough one.  I know right, I've gotten hit with about everything the MTC can throw at me so how can it get worse.  Well my companion, the one I love so much from Morgan left the MTC.  I'm pretty much heart broken right now.  I'm with the two other sisters in my District but things just aren't the same.  I miss Sister Cameron.  I didn't get a chance to learn a lot of Spanish this last week because I was trying to help Sister Cameron figure some things out.  But you know, that's okay.  I have learned so much in the last week.  I have come to find out what a mission is really about.  It's just loving God's children, wether it be our companions, our investigators, members, whatever.  I didn't know that I had this capacity to love someone that I just met 10 weeks ago.  Sister Cameron is an amazing person! She taught me so much! She taught me what I'm really here to learn, that's Charity.  I miss her, but she's going home to fulfill a different kind of mission.  Anyways, so I'm sad.  It kinda scared me these last couple of days, I really don't want to fall into the state that I was in a few weeks ago, especially right before I leave.  I wrote you a letter mom explaining all of this, but I sent it to the house.  So look for it when you get home.

I'm going to miss the Elders from my District so much! They are going to another mission in Argentina.  It's going to break my heart to say goodbye to them on Monday.  It's going to be really hard to say goodbye to all of my teachers here too, I've really come to appreciate them.  Heck, let's face it, I'm going to miss America! haha!

The Spanish I know isn't as good as it should be, but you know what, that's okay.  The Lord has accepted my sacrifice and will continue to support me.  I'm just really excited to get out of the MTC.  These next couple of months are going to be difficult, but one thing I've learned here is that a miracle isn't very far away.  As long as I'm looking for those and not focusing on myself, I'll be okay.  I just have tendencies of taking life way to seriously.  But you all know that! haha! 

Mom in my letter I asked for a pouch thing that Aunt Mary Kay carried around Europe.  They've warned us about Argentina, it's a pretty sure thing that we'll get mugged at some point.  I just want my travel documents to be safe, so if you have time send one my way. 

Thanks for all of the updates.  PLEASE keep them coming.  I just love hearing from all of you! I just want you to know that I love all of you.  All of your faith, prayers, and examples are the reason that I'm doing what I am doing.  Even though I get frustrated, I know that this is where I am supposed to be.  This mission is meant to change me,  I need this, my life wouldn't be enough without this experience.  Thank you! I love you! I'm really excited to talk with you on Monday!! Woot! Sometimes I look at time and it seems to be flying, before I know it I will be with you all again.  Love you!

Hermana Wendy Evans