Word of the Week: Enguardar (To gain weight)

This week was filled with lots of really delicious food and members anxious to feed us. Spinach canalonis (spelling???), stuffed pasta, squash tart, and my very first home canned black olive! Just this afternoon we ate home canned grapes (it was more like a chunky grape marmalade....on crackers with slices of Parmesan cheese....YUM!). When all else fails, at least the food is good!

This week's highlight:

One of my first days in San Rafael, I talked to a woman on the street corner about the church. She told me that when she was little, the missionaries came and taught her family. I'm not sure what happened and why she/her family didn't get baptized. She told me that recently she had passed some elders in the area who said they were going to visit. She gave me her address and we tried going by just a few days later, but she wasn't home. We went by her house again this week and taught her. Come to find out, she has 9 children! They live in very humble circumstances (we taught Lorena and 4 of her children, sitting on beds just inside her door while her kids climbed up and around the bunk beds inside the door as well.) She was very attentive and interested in what we were teaching. She had thought lots about why there were so many churches in the world...she even surprised me by telling us that she thinks it's so sad to see all the bas stuff going on in the world right now, but knows it's because first, the Bible said things like this would happen, and second, it's not's God's fault, it's the people's fault because they aren't following God. She is really the first person I've talked to here that has that perspective--the right perspective! We taught her and her 8 year old son Claudio paid close attention as well. We invited her to be baptized when she knows this is the true church, and she promptly agreed. She didn't come to church this week, but I'm hopefully that she will continue to progress.

She told us that she had a Book of Mormon and that they often read it as a family. One of her daughters had a horrible illness a few years ago (they thought it was cancer because it runs in their family). They read the Book of Mormon lots when all that was going on. I'm excited to see her again and continue working with her and hopefully the rest of her children. She really cares about her family and wants the best for them. Her husband is Catholic, but we're hopefully he'll be open and accepting to our message as well, or at least open to letting his family pursue this path.

Last week, like every week, we were trying to track down some less active members. We came across one woman who lived close to an investigator, but she wasn't home the times we tried going by to see her. This week, we were walking to our investigator's house, when this woman (Delia Baron) was outside watering her plants and stopped us in the street. She introduced herself as Hermana Baron and invited us in. She is really wonderful and inactive because she works on Sundays (reoccurring problem here in Argentina). She is 67 and just as energetic and European as they get! She was born here in Argentina, but her parents immigrated from Spain. She gave me my first, home canned Argentine olives and grapes that she grows in her back yard. DELICIOUS! Being in her home and talking to her, I feel like I'm closer to Europe than South America. We had lunch with her today and after eating, she made us the Argentine equivalent of the cappuccino (Mormon Style of course). It's like Choffy, called Malta. (I think it exists in the states). I haven't liked it the other times I've been offered it, but she made is strong with chocolate and sugar and only a little (in a little mug---about the amount of a shot glass or so). It was really tasty with our grape marmalade and crackers with cheese...I felt so European-Argentine.

that's about all the time I have for this week. My Spanish is coming along...slowly....slowly...I'm at a weird phase where I can't really speak English or Spanish anymore....ha!

Thanks for your love and support. It is much appreciated. Hope all is well in the United States...while things are starting to cool down there, we are starting to warm up down here.

Love you,

Hermana Pelton!