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

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 

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!! 

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...