Final note:

I guess I will just see you on Wednesday morning. I can't wait to see you all! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!! Hna. Pelton

Word of the Week: despedirse (to say goodbye)

This was a full week with lots of memorable events. Event #1: road trip to Mendoza…again. Yes, we had to unexpectedly go to Mendoza again this week. This time, so I could update my visa information so the church doesn’t get fined when I leave the country next week. Essentially, I, with about 5 other elders, stood in lines all morning in order to get our fingers printed and to sign on a few dotted lines. It was a very weird day though because Hna. Goddard stayed in the office with the mission nurse while I left with all the elders. I felt so lonely not having my companion there to chat with and make random comments and laugh with. It was a real wake up call for me and what life will be like in the next few days….weird! Event #2: Final interview with President Avila I was so nervous for this final interview. I had no idea what to expect. I wrote my final little paper about my mission experience, but had a really hard time putting into words what this past year and a half has meant to me. As I sat with President Avila, he shared some counsel with me and then asked me to share a powerful experience I’d had on my mission. I was a little caught off guard—there have been so many, yet so few—but as I calmed down, the spirit whispered to me which experience I needed to share. Now I can see that I needed to share that experience for my own benefit and not for that of President Avila´s. The spirit testified to me, as I shared my experience, that I have done enough, that I did my best and that the Lord accepted my service and sacrifice. Everything President Avila said to me was exactly what I needed to hear so the spirit could confirm and testify to me of my role as a missionary and to cast out the doubts and worries I had about my weaknesses in serving Him. I felt completely saturated in His love, as if I were a small child wrapped up in the arms of their perfectly loving father. I sobbed as the interview ended and President Avila just looked at me with a big smile on his face and said, “You haven’t even been released yet. You can still go out and be a missionary.” He told me that there are lots of emotions when you end a mission—that might be the biggest understatement of the century!! About every 5 minutes I flip-flop between being excited to go home and sad to leave Argentina and the people and culture I’ve grown into. It will be rough to leave, despite however excited I am for the next chapter of my life. I’ve waited my whole life to serve the Lord by being a missionary and here I am, at the end of that dream. It’s sad to see that dream end, though I trust that the Lord has great things in store for me and my family. What a blessing it has been for me to have such loving and supportive parents and family members who helped me keep going, even when I felt like there was nothing more to give. Thank you. Event #3: Zoe’s baptism! Yesterday’s baptism was PERFECT! Not one hiccup! Like usual, we were running on Argentine, Mormon Standard Time, so nobody showed up (including Zoe) until about 6:20 or 6:30, when the baptism was scheduled to start at 6pm. Hna. Goddard and I started filling the font with the lovely San Luis famous green water (when the fonts are filled, the water is an algae-ish green color….yes…Zoe didn’t want to get in it at first.) and then we went back to our apartment to pick up the goodies we’d made to share afterwards. We had a good little group of members, including quite a few primary kids, of about 20 people. Marcela (Zoe’s mom) had tears in her eyes the whole meeting. Zoe was quite nervous and wasn’t her normal bubbly self, but everything worked out just fine. She practiced with Elder Evans before getting into the font, which helped calm her nerves. All went quite smoothly in the end. After Zoe finished changing and came back to her seat, 4 cute girls from the primary stood up and sang a surprise song about the Holy Ghost before Zoe was confirmed. It really hit me of the simple truths that we learn as we listen to children singing. Their testimonies seem almost more pure as they valiantly declare through song eternal truths that, we, as adults, are likely to ignore or downplay. Their song invited the spirit into the meeting with more power. As I sat there during the meeting, trying to soak up every last ounce of the experience and the spirit, I was sincerely touched by the warmth of the spirit that filled the room and my heart. It has been a long time since I’ve been to a baptism where, right afterwards, they are also confirmed. Being that Zoe got baptized on Sunday (since it was her birthday), the bishop let her get confirmed right after. The spirit was so strong in the room after. Everyone was perfectly still and quiet as they respectfully uttered their “amen” in agreement. I was so impressed by the power of the influence of the spirit in filling the room, but most impressively, as it filled my heart to overflowing. The miracles continued. After the closing prayer, we brought out our yummy goodies and started snacking and laughing and having a good time. Between spilled soda pop and crushed potato chips, Reuben (Zoe’s non-member father), leaned over to me and asked me where he could get a copy of the movie we watched while Zoe was changing. We had watched a few segments of the Special Witnesses of Christ video the church did quite a few years ago with President Hinckley. Reuben just looked at me and said, “I just watched a few, but it kind of left me hanging.” We lent him the copy we had brought and he gratefully accepted it with the promise to watch it and promptly return it. It was so sweet to see his support and love towards Zoe, especially since he is not a member. The Lord has been working wonders in this family recently. Reuben will get baptized. I’m so glad I listened to the spirit who whispered the name of that movie so the spirit could testify to Reuben and soften his heart that much more to accept the Restored Gospel in the appropriate moment. Reuben, after all was said and done, came up to Hna. Goddard and I and shook our hands and repeatedly thanked us for the change we had inspired in his family. He told us that we had done wonderful things in helping his family and that he would be eternally grateful for what we did for them. I was so touched. They are small moments like that which make all the pain and discomfort of a mission worth it. As I stood there, all I could say to him was that it was our privilege to be a part of the process and to have been welcomed into their home as other family members. The spirit whispered to me of the Lord’s work in changing this family, and not of my own strength. I truly felt like we did nothing, that the spirit worked through us even when we weren’t conscious of it, and converted this entire family and helped them be one step further along the path towards an eternal family It’s overwhelming to think that this might be my last official letter home as Hermana Pelton. There are so many things in my heart that I want to express, yet I find myself without words. I recently came across a quote that was shared with me while I was in the MTC. When I read it, I felt as if it perfectly expressed what I feel right now, as I look back on the past year and a half of my life and the years that preceded this pivotal experience of my life. “I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, or be still. My past is redeemed. My present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low-living, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need pre-eminence, positions, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk with patience, am uplifted by prayer, and labor with power. My face is set, my gate is fast, my goal is heaven. My road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few. My guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, divided or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won’t give up, shut up, or let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, and paid up for the cause of Christ. I must go until He comes, give until I drop, preach until all know. And when He returns for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My banner will be clear.” -Henry B. Eyring. I love you all! Hna. Pelton

Word of the Week: “Morcilla” (Blood sausage)

As my word of the week might suggest, this was a unique week here in San Luis—to say the least. Hna. Goddard and I had a great cultural fill as we learned how to make homemade alfajores (traditional sandwich cookie with dulce de leche) and then tried some morcilla. The Godoy family is a ward member family that was recently reactived and who recently went to the temple in Santiago, Chile to be sealed as a family. They are really sweet and have huge hearts. Hna. Godoy, is a great cook, so we asked her to teach us of her delicious ways. This week, we went over to their house one evening and she taught us how to make alfajores. Early in the week we ate lunch with them and planned it all out. I love eating lunch with them because we always have the most random conversations. This week, we talked about going hunting and fishing. Needless to say, Hna. Goddard and I learned a whole bunch of new words, particularly in regards to native Argentine wildlife, thanks to the aid of Google Image Search. Thank goodness for modern technology. We also had fun watching them find their house and the local church building on Google Earth. During this fun hunting/animal conversation, the topic of weird foods eating on our mission came up. I told them of how I had never eaten anything weird in the course of my mission, only a little bit of cow stomach in soup. I told them that I wanted to try just a little bit of this blood sausage stuff because lots of people had said it was good. After a few bites, I was done and had had my fill. It wasn’t disgusting, but it was not something I would ever crave in my life. Check that one off of the life to-do list. We also were invited to have dinner with the Serra Family from Amppya (my first area). Hno. Serra is in the stake presidency here and they are an amazing family! They have become another family to me. When we got there, while they were finishing cooking, Hna. Goddard and I taught Martina (their 11 year old daughter) how to play Phase 10. It was just like being at home! We joked all throughout dinner and planned what Augustina and I are going to do (their 16 year old daughter) when she comes to stay in Utah for 3 months from December to February. It was hard to say goodbye to them, not knowing if I will ever see them again. What a blessing they have been to me not only over the course of my mission, but in my life. It’s amazing to think that I’ve lived my entire life until now without knowing these people who have changed who I am. I makes one wonder what other people are out there that we are supposed to meet… This week, Evelyn didn’t do much progressing. She finished reading 1 Nephi and has been praying and asking the Lord if she should get baptized on the 17th, but essentially she has cold feet. She is ready and very prepared, but just too nervous to take the step. To make matters worse, we went by Sunday morning to help her get to church with all her little kids, and she wasn’t feeling good, so she didn’t get to church. We were really sad, but had to remind ourselves of our role as missionaries and the importance of Evelyn’s personal agency. In other investigator news, ZOE IS GETTING BAPTIZED! This has been such a huge miracle! (knock on wood). Last week, Hna. Goddard and I made a study calendar for Zoe to get her exciting for her baptism and to help her feel more personally prepared. I was a little nervous that it wouldn’t work like we wanted, but this week, it worked like a charm! If not better than we had hoped! Zoe has been faithfully reading her scriptures everyday and answering the study question along with each verse. She is excited to share what she’s read with us and her little sister is just as excited and she’s not even getting baptized. I feel like we are a part of their family now. I love it! Whenever we get up to leave, Mia (the little sister) runs over to me, wraps her arms around me and whines saying that she doesn’t want me to go. We then give each other butterfly kisses (with our eyelashes) instead of the usual Argentine beso and then the separation isn’t as traumatizing. J This week was particularly miraculous, not just with Zoe’s progressing, but that of her entire family. Marcela, Zoe’s mother, is a returned missionary who is unofficially married to a non-member man as of the past 11 years or so. She kind of went inactive, but was reactivated by some hermanas last year. Zoe was taught by MULTIPLE missionaries over the past 2 years, and has never been committed to getting baptized (until now that is). Marcela just looked at me this week and told me that the most important thing I have done in my mission is help her daughter get baptized because it has been quite the challenge. Marcela has been telling everyone of the change that has occurred in their family over the past month, especially the change in Zoe. This week, they had a family crisis when they family dog (Balto) got lost when the gate to their house wasn’t closed all the way and she escaped. This is the family dog they bought for Zoe when she was 3 years old and is another member of their fanily. Reuben (the dad) spent all day looking for the dog, he even sacrificed a day of work to find her with no success. When he got back to their house late Friday night after searching all day, he saw Zoe’s scriptures open on the table and sat down and started flipping through them. With everyone asleep, Reuben went outside to the patio and knelt down to pray (keep in mind that he is not a member). He told us how he just cried to the Lord that He guide him to where the dog was, that he would find her alive because his daughters were so devastated by the loss. He told us later that he’s never prayed so sincerely or so fervently in his entire life. With tears in his eyes, as he told just Hna. Goddard, Zoe and I of this experience, he testified that he knows that God answers the prayers of the sincere in heart. The next morning, after praying, Reuben got up and went straight out to look for the dog some more. He ended up by Wal-Mart where a man asked him how he was doing. Reuben replied and told him that he wasn’t doing so great because he had lost a family member and that two little girls were horribly sad. This man offered to let Reuben make an announcement on the radio about their lost dog and within 5 minutes, all sorts of phone calls started coming in. Within a little more time, Reuben found their dog with the help of the people of the community. We were at their house when Reuben brought Balto back home. He came back inside a few minutes later and asked to imterrupt our lesson to share his experience with us. I was so touched by his sincerity, this big man who normally just says hi and bye to us, who impatiently waits for us to finish our spiritual thought when we have lunch with him and his family. For some, this may not seem like that miraculous of an experience, but I know that the Lord heard the prayer of His son and is softening his heart so one day, Reuben will join his daughter in the waters of baptism. The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways. To sum things up, the Lord truly prepares the hearts of His children. Not only has He been preparing Zoe to get baptized now and the hearts of her family members to see such miracles, but He has been preparing me and Hna. Goddard to be effective tools in reaching Zoe when no other set of missionaries could. Everything that has happened to me through the course of my mission and up until now in my life has made me who the Lord needed to be so Zoe could be ready to get baptized. Her mom told us about how Zoe was saying that she wants to serve a misson now and that she’s already planning so she can be spiritually prepared for that step in her life. Woohoo! Love to you all, Hna. Pelton

Word of the week: “esmalte” (finger nail polish)

Yes, for the first time in nearly a year and a half, I painted my finger nails…don’t worry….I only painted them clear, but man was it so refreshing!!!!! I have been feeling so girlie, that I went out and bought a cute little dress as well…woohoo! This was an odd week because Hna. Goddard and I had to go to Mendoza for a training meeting with President Avila and the Assistants as a follow-up training for all the new missionaries (and their trainers) in their second transfer. So, we jumped on a bus early Wednesday morning and rode for 4 hours to then have lunch and a 2 hour training meeting, just to jump back on the bus for another 4 hours. We got back to our apartment around 11pm…lovely! Needless to say, the week was a little off, but Evelyn and Zoe are still progressing along quite well, and that’s all that matters at this point. Hna. Goddard and I had been thinking a lot about Zoe and the situation between her and her parents regarding her baptism. On our long adventure to Mendoza, we had lots of time to think about how to help Zoe and her parents get ready for her baptism. When we got back to San Luis and in communication with Zoe and her mom, we were able to discuss the situation with her mom. When I told her mother that Zie can answer all of the baptismal interview questions and then asked her if she thought Zoe was ready to be baptized, she relied quickly with a straight “no.” I was shocked. We set up an appointment to visit them the following day, and then we started thinking extra hard. We settled on the idea to make Zoe a calendar with scriptures to read every day that relate to the baptismal interview questions. Each day, after completing the reading assignment, she will be able to put a little sticker to mark it off. She loved the idea (as did her mother). We were even sure to ask her mother if she felt like Zoe would be prepared to be baptized in 2 weeks if she did all her tasks on the calendar. She told us yes….WOOHOO! I couldn’t have been more excited! Zoe came to church on Sunday and we even started talking about her baptism with some of the other primary kids! Things are looking good with her! Evelyn was a bit of a rollercoaster ride this week. After her Sunday experience, we were sure she would just slide right into the baptismal font on her baptismal date, but that’s not what she was thinking. We went over to her house Monday night to chat a little bit more about her experience at church, but she received us with a very cold attitude and with quite a bit of scepticism. First, we asked her how she’d been doing with her goal to stop smoking and drinking tea. She just laughed and said straight out that she had smoked with a friend Sunday night and that there was no way she was going to be able to give up her tea because she just didn’t understand why she couldn’t drink tea since it doesn’t do her any harm. I felt crushed, but just reminded her of the importance of praying and having a testimony of Joseph Smith in regards to commandments that may seem difficult for us to understand the Lord’s reasoning. She then jumped in with some questions about tithing (since that was the Gospel Principles lesson in church). She asked if she had to pay tithing, to which we told her no, not until she was baptized. She just laughed and said, “well then, I just won’t get baptized….” I wanted to die. Something had to be wrong…how could she say that when she’d been progressing so well and when she had been raving about how much she loved church!?!?! I was just confused and more than a little bit sad. We left her house a little defeated, but hopefully that she would keep reading in the Book of Mormon and praying like we re-invited her to do. When we went back to Evelyn’s house on Thursday morning, we went having prayed and studied and planned very carefully a lesson specially tailored for her about tithing. I was very nervous, but the spirit helped me stay calm and kept telling me that everything would work out. I just wanted to go and see her as she has become someone so special to me. The lesson started out kind of cold like the one earlier in the week, but I tried to stay cheerful and positive. Within a few minutes, as she was putting shoes on one of her son’s, she started to relate to us about the chapters she had read in the Book of Mormon. I was thrilled! She even said that she stopped drinking tea and that she hadn’t smoked either! It was as if she changed 180 degrees, back to the Evelyn we first met. It was such a relief! We taught her about tithing and she accepted the invitation to pay tithing without any problem. It literally was a miracle! She shared some interesting thoughts with us about her church experience, one thought in particular stood out to me. She told us how “well off” she viewed the members in the church building. Even though surely they were all struggling in their lives in one way or another, she said that everyone seemed happy and like they had a reason to hope. She compared that to the people who are in serious need who go to the Catholic Church to cry and pray and they leave the cathedral just as bad off as when they went in. She didn’t see that at all in the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That really struck me. How perceptive she was in seeing something that is not necessarily a message we share through words, but is definitely shown through our example. What a testimony it was to me of the true importance of our example, even when we aren’t doing anything in particular, we are still sending forth a clear message, just as simply as the way in which we carry ourselves and the bright light that shines through our eyes. We may not recognize it in ourselves, but those who are searching for this light, will be drawn to the brightness that radiates from within us. This week should be a normal week (though in reality, what week is ever “normal”?). I’m particularly looking forward to the Family Home Evening we have planned with a ward family who offered to teach us how to make alfajores! (a traditional sandwich cookie). Woohoo! Thanks for all your love and support. I will see you all in just a few short weeks! Start practicing your Spanish!!!! ¡Los amo muchísimo! Hna. Pelton