Im Singing in the Rain!

Wow this week has been. Long. haha

Monday: My comp and i made arroz chaufa for the whole zone. THat was an adventure and a half. We then played soccer for the rest of the day. We had to juggle things because just that day people wanted to come and fix some things in our apartment while we were cookingin the church. Fun times. 

Tuesday: Zone interviews with president. We got new mattresses that are chinche free that he brought up. We showed up to our apt to load in the new matresses to find our floor flooded because the things that they fixed monday actually made things worse. woops. That was an awkward moment with the mission president and an ap standing right there.

Wednesday: Not sure not too much happened. Tried to make up for the time we lost tuesday. 

Thursday: Planning. Stress. Our baptism officially fell through. 

Friday: We had a great lesson with a new investigator. She is so awesome and super cute. A great experience

Saturday: Rained all day. We walked and walked and walked and walked. haha

Sunday. Church. Rained cats and dogs. Coordination meeting. WITH HOT CHOCOLATE!

THats a pretty good rundown of my week. That and THE LINES ARE LEAVING THE MISSION! im so sad. but theyre being called to something bigger and better. 

love you all!

love

 hermana ostler

No Mas Chinches!

NEW MATRESSES! CHINCHE FREE! (chinche=bedbugs)

The Gospel is Service

Well this week has been really mellow. We thought that hermana vargas was going to leave but as it turns out shes staying! i guess im going to be in zarate for a bit longer haha 

This week we had a lot of fun and a lot of errands to run haha The bed bugs have returnedddddd! 

Something that has been a recent topic that we have been talking about for some reason is charity and service. I really like that people have been talking about doing things out of love for their fellow man and serving those who need it. It would be so simple to fix so many problems everywhere if we had more love for everyone, no matter what. The topic of the email is 'the gospel is service' Its what a member told us yesterday when we were at her house. She was talking about how she loves that when she doesnt feel very well or is sick or has problems she still moves on with life and magnifies her calling, visits the people who need it and so on. She says that every time she does that she not only feels good but she realizes that she forgets about her own problems and theyre a lot easier to deal with. I feel like if everyone did that, we would have zion. one heart and one mind. I guess one of the reasons why Chirst has always had 'his church' is so that we can minister to eachother and serve. Its all good to worship God on your own and not have a church setting but we are here to serve one another and do what christ did when he was on the earth. Thats how were true disciples of Jesus Christ.

I guess thats food for thought for this week haha

love you all!

love 

hermana ostler

Hey, Its Cold Outside

Whelp, as i have hit and passed my year mark, I am starting to repeat the weather that I experienced last year when I first got here, AND MAN IT IS COLD. Holy hannah. Although I would venture to say that its even worse here because were right next to a river. WHoooo. But ya know, I have never been so glad for fleece lined leggings in my life. And at least my nose hairs dont freeze like in rexburg. Haha

Other than that it has been a pretty chill week and quite possibly the longest week 1 in my mission but ya know so is life. But the good thing is is that it looks like its gonna be a great transfer! 

Sorry its short but im not exactly sure what to say and not too much happened this week haha

LOVE YOU ALL!

Hermana Ostler

People, Places, and Pizza

divisions :)

 1st pday of the transfer

 sunrise from our apt

 

argentina

pizza libre

Death by Ninja

elder nunez died haha

playing ninja pday while on the phone with the zone leaders... they made me lose the game

What is Time?

Well this week has been one of the craziest weeks of my mission doing meticulous things. Heres a general play by play:

Monday: Pday in San Pedro. We got home and worked for the 3 hours after. 

Tuesday: Consejo de Lideres. Including: waking up at 4:45, travelling 3 hours to San Fernando, participating in a mind blowing meeting of the leaders of the mission about how to work more efficiently, eating lunch, and travelling home for 3 hours; during the which we found out that one of the hermanas was really sick with a fever of over a 101 because her body was fighting off a huge case of BED BUG BITES. Yes bed bugs. Which bites we had realized that my companion has too. So after calling them, the offices and a bunch of other people. We decided that we had to wash ALL of our clothes in a laundromat, and fumigate our apartment. We also had a zone meeting the next day and wanted the companion of the sick hermana to be there so were going to do emergency divisions. So we get home at 6:30 pack up all our clothes, blankets, sheets etc and send it to the laundromat (note we have about 13 blankets for when the hermanas visit). Then start looking for a fumigation bomb. With no luck and about 20 minutes til the last bus leaves for where the hermanas live, we call a taxi to take us there. It shows up WAY late and we miss the bus by LITERALLY 2 seconds. No joke. We go home and prepare for the zone meeting the next day. 

Wednesday: Zone Meeting. It was awesome. Then we went and ate as a zone which is always wayyyy fun. We got ice cream and went home to plan and call the hermanas. We then went on our search to make a copy of our keys and find a fumigation bomb. It was an adventure to say the least. Finally found the bomb and got about 2 hours of work. 

Thursday: Fumigation day. We were supposed to plan this day but we had to prep our house to be fumigated. We brought all our food to the elders apartment (yes we trusted them enough to do it) and put our matresses in a more efficient position in the living room. Set off the bomb and left for the day. Our member cancelled and we spent about our 2 hours to work tracking down members on the list who just about everyone had moved then went to our apartment to open it up to let it air out, bought some cake to celebrate my year mark and then went to our coordination meeting. 

Friday: we actually planned, which weirdly took pretty long and worked for the rest of the day

Saturday: Worked (finally) all of the day. Sum up of the week til now. were tired have no investigators and frustrated.

Sunday: Walking to church praying for a miracle, not excited to write president the next day that we still after 5 weeks have nothing. Show up to church and in the middle of the prayer someone comes in and sits next to my companion (im in front cause i had to lead the music) i had no idea who it was (i thought it was a less active) then in the middle of the sacrament realize its someone we had contacted during the week showed up! (that never happens. ever.) I started to cry, so grateful for the miracle. Then after while we were working we began to see even more miracles happen. 

Seriously, if we wait with patience and are obedient, miracles will come!

love you all sorry its such a long letter

love hermana ostler

San Pedro

 river. this river looks like a big version of rivers of america in disneyland....

 shadows

Meetings with People

 on the way to consejo de lideres

 on the way with the zone leaders 

hermanas!

after lunch after the zone meeting

missionaries of zarate

"Working" in Argentina

 hermana vargas and i

 argentina

Exploring with pictures

 picturesss!

 our member exploring

san fran wannabe. also the view of about a 6th of our area

Operation Fumigation!

before fumigating

  

the bomb

our laundry after being cleaned

Adventures in Baradero at night

#likethepioneers

Waiting. Waiting! Waiting on the World to Change

Pacience. Pacience. Pacience. Wow these last two weeks have tested my pacience. Flip. haha I would probably venture to say that I have never talked to so many people in my life, much less my mission, than in the last two weeks. Seriously. We basically havent been able to find anyone! Like we can usually find someone to teach here and there at least and if theyre not interested its fine we just drop and move on. No problem. But this is like a drought! wow. Were just about out of ideas of what to do. BUT were looking for the miracles and waiting with pacience, KNOWING that the lord will bless us. I guess the drought proceeds the stormy downpour right? 

As I mentioned in my previous letter, we had a mission get together last monday! It was literally awesome! We had a giant soccer tounament zone vs zone. It was awesome. Seriously. Then after we met meet the mormons. The mission cried at the missionary part. Go figue. 

Last week I had the opportunity to (FINALLY) do my tramites (papers to get legal in the country.... ive been illegal for about 8 months haha) and seeing that we are from the zone that is super far away in a corner of the mission we convinced elder lines (our mission grandpa) to take us out for lunch because we were going to get back after the fact and had cancelled ours. He agreed and we walked to Subway! Whooo! haha it was fun to be in my old area of San Fernando. It was even cooler to talk to him during lunch.

Now something about Elder Lines. He served in the Argentina North Mission (technically the same mission that we have now but were wayyyyy smaller) about 50 years ago with Elder Christofferson, with Elder Scott as his mission president. He had the privilage two weekends ago to be in the temple dedication. We asked him what his favorite part of the weekend was and he told us the beautiful story of what they did that weekend and all the miracles he had seen. He said that when he served his mission they never thought in a million years that they would see a temple in Cordoba (it was one of his areas). He told us that all the good we are doing now we will be able to see in 50 years and it will be 100 times the growth that he has seen in Argentina. He told us so many inspiring things. Including that he was able to see and talk to other missionaries from this mission (that i met at the begining when i got here or only heard of) and he said that it was such a great experience, that he was able to see them with their wives in the temple dedication, or that an hermana had directed the youth of her stake in the dance for the temple celebration. It was amazing and inspiring. 

So yeah that is about it for the last 2 weeks :)

love 

Hermana Ostler