Wow wow wow this area is huge and a lot of it is centro but its great! I feel like I am in a fiery inferno everytime I walk out the door. I thought it was hot in San Rafael......ya.....that was a cake walk compared to here! They usually never send gringos here in the summer because it is so hot so I am not really sure what president was thinking!!! Especially since I am a red head!! Oh well I am looking more tan for me....haha so thats a plus. Sorry I wont have pics this week cause I can upload them on this comp.

 

Okay so first off I left San Rafael and was really sad it was hard to leave Hermana Pelton....she has become one of my best friends and I learned so much from her it was like leaving a sister! But after going to bed at 1 and waking up at 3 to get to the terminal I was exhausted to say the least. Hermana Crapse and I jumped on the bus headed for Mendoza and then we split up there she is going to San Luis and me to San Juan. So I was standing outside the terminal pulling my bags and this little peruvian Hermana runs out and all I hear is HERMANA ANDERSON!! hahahaha. I was like HOLA! Hermana Gutierrez is seriously hilarious and I love her to death we have already had a lot of fun and I can feel my spanish improving daily. So we ride the bus to San Juan and the first thing we do (keep in mind we both have had little to no sleep) is clean the pench. There were 2 hermanas in this pench before...yes just two..and they both died there. Hna. Burnett and Deem the two we did splits with a few weeks ago. So we get in and this pench is disgusting.....seriously. So nasty. So we go right to work skirts and all....I of course got the honor of cleaning the bathroom. I second what Scott said in his last letter Thanks mom for the slave labor! Also thanks to the Chinook Lodge I know the value a good bottle of bleach can have. So we clean for a hour or two getting all the dust cobwebs and grime off everything. I cleaned the fridge and freezer again.....I hate that job. And yes we found a rather large cockroach in our room which we killed quickly. You can smell them in our pench and its so gross but we have a good supply of raid and air freshener to help.. Its so funny the first thing we do every night when we come home is turn on the light and get the raid to kill all the little ones on the counter and in the sink. They like to come up the drains....Anyways now that you are all probably wanting to barf...this area is seriously so different than San Rafael! The people here are so much nicer! I was caught off guard when I was doing my ALB and the people are like yes come by! I was like wait....what?! hahaha So ya its pretty great. Hna Gutierrez is great and is very patient with me. She helps me with my spanish and I help her with her english. She speaks very well so I really am not helping her all that much. This week has been great. We worked really hard and we have some great goals for this week. We have a few people that we are really wanting to progress but it always the get them to church clincher!! Its so hard! But we have some great ideas about how we are going to do it so cross your fingers! So yesterday we had Pday and we went to McDonalds!! Now before you gasp in horror thinging that I finally succumed to the big M let me tell you. It tastes waaaaaaay better here and its the only thing that is similar to home so don´t judge me. It was so good. Especially since it took us like a hour to walk there! Here in Argentina people aren´t very good at giving directions! They are like go down there two blocks and then its more over there and like in this general area and ya...we are like what?! How is anyone supposed to find anything!! But after a lot of walking in the sun....we found it!!! So good. Then we went to email and I think it was a holiday yesterday was a holiday or something so add that to the fact that like everything closes down here in the siesta and you have San Juan in a nutshell. We couldn´t find a cyber anywhere!!! We walked for an hour and a half all over the place looking for one!! We were so mad because it was pday and it was a terrible one!! But the odds are it can only go up from here luckily! haha. So we had our zone and district meeting tonight and it was so great. My district leader is named Elder Jacobs and he is amazing! We had the sweetest district meeting and I felt the spirit really strong. I felt a fire inside me when I left and was so excited to go out and work. Very different than my last district. We set some great goals and Hna. Gutierrez have some really great ideas for success this week that we are going to try out! I am really excited to go out and work and just light this place up. It was so funny last night Hna. Gutierrez and I were walking back to the pench and she was like WAKE UP SAN JUAN!!! So of course I added THE HERMANAS ARE HERE!!! So we both have a lot of drive and animo this transfer so expect to hear about some miracles!! One Scripture Elder Jacobs shared with us was Moroni 7 26 and 33. Such great scriptures about faith and about asking god. I love in 33 how it talks about whatsoever is expedient in Christ. We talked about that for a little bit about how this work is expedient in christ its expedient that we baptize its expedient that we learn this language ect. That got me thinking about other things and especially when I was at home and what I will take home after my mission. What is expedient. Do we pray with that in mind? Do we pray with the spirit and let the spirit direct what we say to our father in heaven or our we just praying becuase we want certain things. Yes that is good but I think what I have learned about prayer is its important to ask for the things the Lord wants us to ask about whatsoever is expedient....just something to think about...I will get off my soapbox now. Anyways so its been great I have seen my spanish jump as I am not a afraid to speak in lessons and in the street and I have more confidence in speaking....trust me I still am terrible....but I am learning and I have found the importance of having that confidence in the spirit so that it can testify with power! I love this gospel it changes lives I have seen it in the people we teach but more inportantly in myself everyday I change and feel myself looking back and thanking Heavenly Father for the tender mercies and patience he has had with me....look for those in life and you will be surprise how much we have to be thankful for!

Beso!
Hermana Anderson