Monday, December 26, 2016

Goodbye Zarate.... Is This Real?!!

Yep, you read that right. My time here in Zárate is officially coming to an end. Feels weird and so not real. There are a lot of changes happening here in la Gran Misión Buenos Aires Norte. A lot of missionaries are going home, which means a lot are coming in. 27 to be exact. Last night I got the call from the assistants telling me that Im going to train! And that Im going to open a new Sister Training Leader Area. So this should be fun. Hope my new companion has a lot of patience..  

I got to see one more miracle before I leave here tomorrow. Last Friday we got to see Juan be baptized. It was such a cool experience. He is one of the most faithful converts I have, He´s going to be a big help and an even bigger example to the ward. 

Sadly I dont even have anything to say in this email. Not a lot happened this week. We had a good Christmas! And it was great being able to talk to my family and my brother out there in Peru. Last Christmas I didnt understand when everyone said that Christmas in the mission field was the best. But this Christmas I definitely understood. To be able to testify of Christ and bring everyone to Him during the Christmas season is amazing. 

Today I officially start my last 12 weeks of the mission. Im not sure how... But here I go! Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and will have a great New Years!!! Love you all!!

Hermana Prestwich 

1. Christmas Eve dinner!! 


2. Sisters in the zone.. and president´s daughter :)




3. The Zone! minus the hermanas from lima 


4. Hernon, Favorite Ward mission Leader ever.


5. Familia Garcia.  They are one of my favorite families here.



6. Familia Ramirez.  One of my other favorite families.


7.  Juan's baptism



Monday, December 19, 2016

One Week Until....Navidad!!!!

Hi everyone!  

This week was great as usual and went by so fast, also as usual. But seriosly I think this was one of the fastest weeks in my mission, and they´re just getting faster. 

Tuesday we went my comp, the zone leaders, President, and I went to Baradero to have a meeting with the stake president about the stake. It was a good meeting, but took up almost all of the day. We had about an hour car ride there and back with president asking us questions about everyone in the zone and what´s going on, since we´ve been having some problems. It was a nervous car ride hahaha

Wednesday was also short, because we went to Campana to sing in the plaza again. It was cool, but nothing different from the other times. 

Thursday we did divisions with Lima, and I went to Lima with Hermana Sparks. That is a hard area and I totally admire the sisters there for never being discouraged. I don't know if I would be able to work there and be happy all the time about it. Hermana Sparks and I ended up awake until 3 talking about who knows what.. we were exhausted the next few days.. but it was fun. 

Friday we had our ward Christmas party.  It was supposed to have started at 7 but no one showed up until 8, and then it took forever to get started. We did a piñata with the elders, which was fun. But we were also supposed to do that activity that I was super excited about, but due to lack of time, we werent able to... we didnt even get to eat :( 

Saturday was another good day. The elders had some baptisms so we got to go to that which was cool. 

We´ve had some lessons with Juan, our progressing investigator. He´s preparing to be baptized this week, on Friday. We´re super excited! He has continued to express some doubts about Joseph Smith. He believes in him and everything he´s done, but he doesn't believe he really saw God and Jesus Christ. But we had a pre-interview with him and one of the zone leaders on Sunday and he said it went really well. I guess he hasnt said anything to his family yet even though we´ve tried to have him invite his family since we met him. He´s worried about what they´ll think. So we´re going to meet them this week. He´s very self sufficient. He comes to all of the activities and the meetings alone and stays the whole time. He came early to help out for the ward Christmas party and stayed long after we did. He´s pretty great and he´s going to be awesome for the ward!!

We´ve also had a few people express interest and so we´re working with them. None that are progressing yet, but we´re working on it. Transfers are in a week and its most likely that I'm outta here so I'm trying to give everything to this last week I have here!

I read a talk in the Liahona for this month that was about the grace of Christ. It talked about Peter and when he walked on water. It talked about how he had such faith that he was able to walk on water, but looking at the storms around him, began to doubt and sink. The talk then says "When Peter fixed his eyes on the Lord and and acted in faith, he had the power to do what he could not do on his own- walk on the water." This is so easy to apply to today. We have storms all around us, but when we fix our eyes and faith on the Lord, we will able to walk on the water. 

Have an amazing week and FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!!

Love,
Hermana Prestwich 

1. One of the sons of my favorite family 




2. Santa, or better said, our murderer-looking ward mission leader 


Monday, December 12, 2016

12 December 2016

Friends and Family!  

This has been an awesome week! 

First, let me start out with Juan. Juan is our investigator that we found last week. We had planned on committing him to baptism on Tuesday, but ended up not doing it, because we we finishing an activity and felt like it wasn't the right spirit. Well the elders had a different idea and ended up committing OUR investigator to baptism. Haha I couldn't believe it. The elders saw the look of unbelief on our faces when they were doing it and thought it was so funny. But we had a lesson Thursday with him and committed him to baptism in a more spiritual way.. He accepted and he´s set to be baptized on the 23rd of December! He has some doubts though so we´re going to work with him. We want him to be sure of his testimony before he gets baptized. 

We had our leadership meeting in San Fernando this week. We analyized the progress of the mission and made a new "action plan" for the mission. It was super cool. We then got to eat at everyones favorite Peruvian restaurant. :) 

Then we had a zone meeting on Friday to present the new plan to the zone. It was a super cool meeting. This plan focuses on being consecrated and we decided that we´re going to read Jesus the Christ as a mission. I´ve read it once since being out here but I'm super excited to read it as a mission. Sadly, the plan will end after I'm already home, so I won't get to see the end, but I'm excited to be here for part of it! 

On Monday we had a cool little miracle. We had an appoitment in an apartment complex, but had some time before so we decided to knock doors. The first door we knocked, a woman opened. We started talking and she interrupted us and told us to come in. When we sat down she told us that she saw us through the peep hole and said "nooooo. I'm not going to open." and then decided to open and said it was exactly what she needed. 

We´ve had a lot of mini miracles happening here. The ward and zone are progressing. Christmas is close. Life is good. I will never fully be able to express the love I have for the mission and the love I have for my Savior and Father in Heaven. I will never be able to repay Them for allowing me to have these experiences. I´ve heard a lot that missions are to "give back" for everything They do for us, but in reality, They have given me so much more than I had before. I love this gospel. 

Love you all so much! Have a great week!! 

Didn't take any pictures this week because I'm the worst but next week I promise I will send some!! 

Monday, December 5, 2016

5 December 2016

Hi everyone! This was another super busy week that seemed to just fly by. I'm not sure how we're already half way done with the transfer here. Blows my mind. But good things are happening!  

Let me start off with the biggest miracle, Juan! Juan was a reference from the bishops nephew (who isn't a member). He said he had a friend who was pretty depressed and in a hard spot in his life and he thought the church would help. He came to the activity we had on Tuesday and loved it and accepted a Book of Mormon. We set an appointment with him at the bishop's house later that week, and he came to church yesterday. And stayed all three hours!! There are active members that don't even do that! (jokes but.. not really). He also told us he had prayed and felt a lot of peace. RE eligido! We´re super excited. We plan on committing him to baptism this Tuesday. Pray for him!

This week has been super busy. We spent a long time in our district meeting talking about being consecrated missionaries, and then we had a little council type thing with the other missionaries in the zone. It was really good. Then Wednesday we spent allll day in another area in our zone called Baradero. It's pretty far and due to the inconvenient bus schedule, we had to leave super early to get there. We ate there with the zone, contacted a little, practiced for the choir, and then went to the plaza and had another light the world activity where we handed out Books of Mormon. It was awesome. 

Thursday we went to San Fernando for a zone conference. It was AWESOME. I don't know why.. It was just everything I needed to hear. I honestly had been struggling a lot with all the changes President has been making in the mission. But this conference just confirmed for me that he was called of God and recieves the inspiration for this mission and I need to follow him. We had a leadership meeting after the zone conference with President and the assistants and after it finished I was sitting by the assistants and they were just staring at President and one of them goes "Wow. President is amazing." That really stood out to me. Because I had a hard time thinking that before. But in that conference it really showed me that I was wrong and I needed to trust in him. 


This week I started something called the "purificación misional" that is pretty much a way to purify your mind and all the to consecrate yourself to the work. We´ll see how it goes. I'm pretty excited because I really want to be able to say I gave everything here. We´ll see how it goes.

I hope you all had a great week! 

Oh.. and the pants came. 

Love you all!!!!

Hermana Prestwich 

1. The zone fell asleep on the way to san fernando.. 



2. The sisters in the zone




3.  Contacting in the streets



The Zone in Baradero


Pants



Read this. This is what my convert in Palermo said. Made me cry 

Como esta? como estuvo su semana? como esta su rodilla? como esta su familia? como le esta yendo a su hermano en la mision?
Por casa estamos todos bien, mama bien, le extraña mucho y dice que quiere verla antes de que se vaya de vuela a los Estados...
Papa bien, preguntando que es lo que hacemos en la capilla las 3 horas
Panda bien muy muy mimoso, creo que cada semana que pasa sigue mas cariñoso y algo muy lindo es que cuando vienen las misioneras a casa el las busca a usted y Hermana Ruiz
Ayer pude conocer a su presidente de misión y le comente que era conversa de usted y Hermana Ruiz , el dijo que eran muy buenas misioneras y tiene toda la razon, son las mejores misioneras que nuestro Padre Celestial nos podía enviar...   
Gracias por todo lo que ha hecho por nuestra familia, recuerde que siempre va a tener una familia en Agentina
Le amamos mucho
Que tenga una hermosa semana... 

Monday, November 28, 2016

28 November 2016

Another week down here in Buenos Aires. To be honest it was a pretty normal week.  

We went to visit Roberto this week, the man that had come to church with us last week. We felt like we needed to committ him to be baptized so that's what we did. It was a cool lesson. We had taught him about the Book of Mormon and we were asking him a bunch of questions about if he would read and pray and his answer was never a yes or no. Then he would always try to go off on some other topic. I prayed really hard that the spirit would be there so we could control the situation, and so we asked "Roberto, if you receive an answer that these things are true, will you follow the example of Christ and be baptized?" and he simply said "yes."  Well the next day we went by to see what he felt and he goes "I like this but I don't want you coming by every day. Every few days is fine. And I won''t go to church every week, only when I wake up and feel like it" and so.. that sucked. We havent gone by in a few days though. We´re going to pass by soon to see how he´s doing.

I did divisions this week with some sisters from Lima. I was with Hermana Doxey. She is the most humble, charity-filled person I have ever met. She is such an example. It was a good day too. We reached our goals and found a lot of people with potential. Sadly the majority of them live in the Elders area but.. it is the same work right? 

This week I was studying about faith, and I read something in the bible dictionary that I liked. It says: The Lord has revealed Himself and His perfect character, possesing in their fullness all the attributes of love, knowledge, justice, mercy, unchangeableness, power, and every other needful thing as to enable the mind of man to place confidence in Him without reservation.

Christ is perfect. And because He is perfect, we are able to be 100% confident that He will never fail us. Whatever we´re going through, we are able to place our complete confidence in Him and know that it will all be alright. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Prestwich 


I totally forgot to write about this in my group email.. This week we had an activity in one of the plazas en Zárate. We got some stand up things of the "light the world" christmas cards from this year and the card from last year, and one of Christ. We got together as a zone at 5 to practice singing. It was awful. Hahah like none of actually sing. And there were only 4 of us sisters since 2 couldnt come and they made us sing alone like 70% of the time. So we got to the plaza aroung 7 with some members, a ton of Books of Mormon, and santa hats. Only a few people shouted "its still november!" at us, as we started singing Christmas hymns. We went around the plaza singing and it was actually super cool. Except for all the people that took picture and recorded us, it was fun. We´re going around the zone doing it.. Hopefully we´ll see some success!!  

Caroling in the Plaza




4 sisters in the zone



Monday, November 21, 2016

Buscando una familia

This week went by demasiado fast. It's so weird how fast time is going by, because I remeber in the beginning that every day felt like it would never end. Now I wish time would slow down. 

It's been a really good week! My companion is awesome. We get along really well. We started off the transfer making some goals for what we wanted to do this transfer. One of those was that we wanted to find a family. So we got to work. We focused 100% on families. All the reference we asked we for families, we let the whole ward know, our studies are about families and every prayer is about finding families. When we made the goal I felt really strongly that it's possible, we just need to work for it. 

The elders in our ward gave us 2 references this week. One for a man named Roberto. We went by and he let us in, and told us that his wife and son had passed away. He´s older, but very open. We taught the plan of salvation. It was a really cool lesson. We committed him to coming to church with us, and yesterday he came! He really liked it, so we´re going to try and committ him to baptism this week!!

Another reference was Arturo and his family. We went and they let us in. They were so awesome!! They had history in the church, but never got baptized. I asked them if they could change one thing in their life, what it would be and the mom goes "everything. I wish I could be born again and start over" and the dad goes "I could write a book of everything I want to change". So there is a LOT of potential there. I'm super excited to keep working with them. And it's a family!!

We´ve planned a lot of activities as a ward and a stake to start sharing the Book of Mormon more and we´re super excited! Time is going by so fast and it makes me so sad! I love Argentina with all of my heart. 

One of the counslers in the bishopric is one of those people that knows everything, and we had lunch with them yesterday. So we went with a list of questions to ask him, and he gave us the answer to all of them. Then we read a scripture in Alma that talked about the mysteries of God and how if we have faith they will be revealed to us. It made me think about something a companion taught me. That to me, the mysteries of God are like.. how any worlds there are and things like that, but she told me the mysteries of God are in the scriptures. It's personal revelation. Everything that we need to know to have eternal life is in the scriptures. The hermano told us that those who know so much about how many worlds and how God became God and all that slowly drift away from the church. Because yeah, they know all that, but they wouldn´t be able to explain what the Atonement is. The most important is the doctrine of Christ. The basic things that are in the scriptures that are actually so profound that we´ll never understand everything. Look at the prophets and apostles. They never talk about worlds or Gods or anything, just the basic doctrine of Christ. 

Just thought that was interesting. Love you all and have a great week!!

Love,
Hermana Prestwich


Tuesday, November 15, 2016

En el cora

So much has happened since last Monday.  

My comp left to Oregon on Wednesday. It was so sad. Its so cool how the mission introduces you to people from the other side of the world that become your best friends and helps you build that relationship that will last even longer than the mission. I miss my comp :( But anyway, when she left, I was put into a trio with the other sisters from Zárate. I was not looking forward to it to be honest, because working in 2 areas is not that fun.. but it was SO FUN. Haha the sisters are awesome, and we had such a good time together! I love their ward.

Alicia was baptized on Saturday! We had set up her interview for friday, and when we got to her house with the elders, she wasnt there. So the elders went tracting while we went looking for her. We found her and she told us that she couldnt be baptized. That she had been thinking a lot and that she wasnt in a position financially to be able to pay tithing. So we called the elders and they said that we should have the interview still just to see how it goes. So they went in, and we waited outside. I could hear and see though, and that interview is exactly what she needed. I was praying so hard that Elder Dote would be able to say what she needed to hear, and from what I heard, what he said was pretty dang powerful. Even I was touched, just from being outside overhearing. 

So Alicia was baptized on Saturday. It was weird because I was without a companion. I dont like doing missionary work without someone to go through it all with me. BUTTT the bishop called me yesterday saying that when he said hi to Alicia on sunday, he smelled cigarette smoke. So we might have a small problem there. We´ll see what happens this week. 

Monday was the day before transfers, and honestly its the day the no one does ANYTHING. Theres a member in the other ward that does hair so we went. Well, she ruined my hair, do Im gonna have to figure out how to fix that, so if you dont get many pics these next few weeks, well.. im saving myself from embarrassment. But it was one of the elders birthdays, so we had a little surprise party for him. It was super fun. 

But transfers came!! Im still here in Zárate! My comp is named Hermana Urgilez (still have yet to pronounce it right) from Spain. She´s 26, and a convert pf 2 years. She seems super cool so Im excited for (hopefully) one more transfer here in BautiZárate!! 

The other week was stake conference, and the had the returned missionaries share their testimonies. One of them shared a testimony that hit me hard and made me think a lot. He talked about the Atonement, but in a way that I had never heard it before. He said how he was studying one day and imagined Christ suffering in the garden, and imagine the moment when Christ asked if there was another way, and if it was the Father´s will, to not have to do it. Instead of thinking of it from Christ´s perspective, he imagined it from his own view. He said that he pictured himself in heaven watching this happen and just pleading and praying that Christ would be able to do it. Because he needed the Atonement. It made me think and I applied this to myself this week in my studies. I imagined myself up there watching Christ suffer and just pleading that He would be able to do it. Because I need the Atonement. We all need it. We´re going to make mistakes. We DO make mistakes. But thanks to Christ, we can forget them and move on. We can start again, and we can live with our Father and Heaven again. 

I challenge you all this week to think about the Atonement and how you can make it more personal. 

I love you all! Have a great week!

Love,
Hermana Prestwich





Alicia's baptism




"Ketchup to my Fries"



Celebrating Birthdays


Pedro, our dog 



 Zárateee




This is the perfect picture to describe our workouts in the morning.. 



Monday, November 7, 2016

11 November 2016

Friends and family.  

This week was good, but I'm afraid this email won't be as long as nothing that exciting really happened.

Tuesday we had leadership council. We at 6 in the morning with beautiful weather, and when we were in the bus it decided to start pouring down rain, and didn't stop. So we showed up at the mission home soaked from head to toe. Literally. And we werent able to get that dry so we were wet for about 10 hours. That was fun.

Wednesday we had our zone meeting. Which was fun, and then we were supposed to have interviews with president and the asistants, but as we were eating lunch and waiting, we got word that the assistants were in an accident and we being sent to the hopsital. Turns out that they hit a semi. We saw pictures and they were COVERED in blood and the car was destroyed but they literally didn't even have whiplash. They crawled out of the windshield and took pictures in front of the car. It was insane. So we cancelled interviews.
Alicia is set to be baptized this coming Saturday, but she hasn't come to church for the past 2 weeks so we might push the date back. She's been progressing well, and sharing the gospel with EVERYONE. We´ve found so many people through her. We´ll see her tomorrow and probably change her date. :(
My comp leaves for Oregon on Wednesday. So I'm super sad. I'll be in a trio with the other sisters for a week since transfers are next week. It will be a challenge working in two areas but it should be fun.
Sadly that's about all the happened this week. I''m super happy. Lifes great. The mission is great. Times going by fast. The mission is the best experience of my life. In my interview with my president and with his wife it hit me how much I love my mission and how much I've really grown here. Something that I don't really notice every day. But I think that just comes with being involved in the gospel, not just the mission. The more we learn and study the gospel the more we understand and are able to progress.

Love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!


Love,
Hermana Prestwich.

Didnt take a single picture thiss week. Next time I promise!


Monday, October 31, 2016

31 October 2016

Its been an awesome week!  

Tuesday started out with a district meeting that started out with everyone upset and fighting and ended with everyone laughing until they were crying. The day started out with super nice weather and so we left the house in practically summer clothes, and it ended up pouring.. pero mal. We got home literally dripping wet. It was so fun though. 

Wednesday we did divisions with some hermanas and I got to go to.. ESCOBAR! It was so awesome. I got to see familia Rios, well, at least some of the kids. I tried to see Dana but she wasn't home. And I got to see some other members throughout the day. It's kinda hit me there how much I´ve changed and how much everything has changed since I was last there. It´s been exactly a year. Crazy. It was cool though because I was able to understand everyone and they were able to understand me.. since when I was there was when I started and couldn't speak to save my life. 

On Thursday we went by to see the man who had stopped us in the street asking for a book and who was super interested last week. We got there and he goes "I've decided not to continue. I´m more on the side of the JWs-" Well.. Jws: 1 Us: 0. That sucked. But then we went to Teresa. It was our second time back at her house and she said the prayer both times. We challenged her to baptism but she said she didn't know yet. But we´re going back tonight to see what´s gonna happen. On the way to Teresa we were stopped in the street by someone on the bike who wanted to see the Book of Mormon and we showed it to him and he goes "Nope. thats not it". I asked if we could talk to him about it and he said no because he works at a radio and he was late. We ended up going in the same direction and about 20 mintues later we passed the radio and he came running out to explain that he thought it was a bible and wanted one. We explained what it was and he accepted. His name is Maxi. We´re gonna go by this week to see what he thought :)

On Friday we had lunch with the bishop. We´ve had a hard time as missionaries developing a relationship of trust with him.. Not sure why. But we went and we shared a scripture at the end that talks about how the structure of the church should be. We talked about how we´re here to help and do what we can to stregthen the ward, and the bishop started crying and said that when anything goes wrong, everyone blames it on the bishop. It kinda broke my heart. I left that lunch finally feeling like we got that relationship and we´re going to be able to help. 

Saturday was super busy because the elders had a baptism. The needed the clothes that we had used in our baptism for the hermana godoy, and we accidentaly forgot to wash them and they were still wet in a bag. We were in the church when the elders got there and we saw them open the door to the closet where all the clothes were and so we hid and we hear "the clothes are in here.... HERMANAS." Hahaha we promised them that everything would work out and not to worry.. and it did :) 

Sunday was a good day. We all wore some form of brown as "la obra misional", and we had lunch with my favorite family. :)

Alicia is progressing well towards her baptisms. Well, she didn't come to church yesterday but she´s been doing well. We taught the word of wisdom and she committed to quit smoking. So hopefully that's been going well. We´ll see this week! :)

This past week my zone leaders father passed away. It was a hard first couple of days as no one really knew how to act around him. He found out on Monday. It was one of the most hearbreaking moments as we were together when he found out. This elder has been the biggest example to me on my mission and I´ve never seen him without a smile on his face. On Saturday we asked him how he was and he said he was doing really well. He said he got to skype his family and after felt really good. That his family said that families are forever and he will have time after the mission to think but right now is his time to give double of what he has been giving. Watching him has really strengthened my testimony of enduring to the end. I don't think I would be able to go through what he´s been going through, and even more with a smile on my face. I love this gospel and I'm so thankful for the opportunity we have to be eternal families. 

Have a great week everyone! Love you all!!

Love,
Hermana Prestwich


1. familia Rios :) 



2. Enzo :)


3. Alicia y Emilio :) 




Monday, October 24, 2016

24 October 2016

These weeks are starting to fly by. Probably because it was an amazing week!  

To start off.. We had our baptism!! It was amazing. Hermano Godoy was able to baptize his wife and son and it was so awesome. So his son, Valentin, doesn't count as a convert because he´s 8 and the son of a member, but he counts for us becuase we taught him, and the mom, Laura, finally was baptized. She told us she can't wait to go to the temple. That´s what called her attention. She didn't even really believe in God, but when she heard that families can be together forever, she loved it. 

We found a couple of new people who were interested this week as well. They had accepted a Book of Mormon and we went by and they actually let us in, and told us they wanted us to come back. It was awesome. 

Last week we were knocking doors and this guy comes running out of a building and goes "are you guys from some religion?" and we said yes and he goes "give me a book. give me something to read" so I tried to give him the book of mormon and he wouldn't take it haha so he asked for a pamphlet and luckily I had one, so I gave it to him. He told us to come back the following week. So we went by and he said that he´s super worried about the end of the world because that means Christ is coming and no one understand that they need to be prepared and the world is wicked and he can't find anywhere that will help him be prepared. So we taught the restoration, applying it all to how it can help us be prepared for the second coming, and he LOVED it. He asked so many questions and goes "okay. stop there. I'm going to go home and meditate this, and I'm going to read the pamphlet again. come back next week please" so awesome. 

We also ran into even more crazies this week. Knocking doors and contacting does that I guess. We knocked on the door of one guy who I guess had been shot in the head and was crazy and looked at me and made a gun out of his hand and goes "tomorrow when I shoot you in the head you´re gonna realize that im crazy" and I was like.. "...uh huh.. okay well. bye!" And we met with some guy who was drunk when we got to our appointment and tried to make us go in a house that was pitch black and then looks at my companion and goes "you have a light about you. Christ is in you. I know because I´ve seen him. I'm an apostle like Peter and John. I know. (looks at me) You.. well. You need to get to know Christ more." THAAANKS.

We also had a meeting with all the missionaries, bishops, ward mission leaders, stake president, and one of the counselors of president smith yesterday. We talked about an action plan for the stake and the importance of the relationships between members and missionaries. It was really good.

Life is good. And crazy and stressful and just awesome. I´m happy. Bieng a missionay is literally the best thing ever. Its hard and demanding and challenging, but so so so rewarding. The happiness that comes from sharing the gospel and watching someone make covenants is the most rewarding thing. I love this gospel. 

Have a great week! 

Love,
Hermana Prestwich


It's wet!


The Godoy Family


Hermana Zanotti and Me



Dogs



Rooftops



Valentin Godoy


Dani and Flor