rafaela week 1 - aug 9

hola familia!

LOVED the pictures! i love getting pics, so thanks! sounds like you guys had a fun week, Dad, i´m so sorry you got sick, that´s a bummer, maybe there is a lesson you are supposed to learn from it:) Maybe they´ll give you some extra days off. And Joe got married...wow! tell him congrats, cuz that is exciting!

My week has been pretty exciting too:) I love my new comp! Hna, Hansen is just super sweet, and we think very much alike. This is her first time being comp mayor, and she still struggles with speaking the language, so i actually get to talk alot more! But we are very much a team and have a lot of desires for this area. We really need progressing investigators right now, and i feel like the Lord has blessed us with finding a few great people this week! so we´ll see. I have a lot of drive to work right now! Hna. Hansen is from Utah, and comes from a family of 9. She is beautiful too, long brown hair and prefect skin:) but just super sweet.

Rafaela is different than Vendado Tuerto. It´s a little richer here i think. The houses are a little more spread out and the streets are a little cleaner. And there are some big parks. But i feel like our area is huge!

My comp told me how worried she was though about one of the families they had been teaching. the familia Garza. But hna. Davis (the missionary that was here before me) she is the one that found this family and had been with them for 4 months. And she went home, and the familia Garza is a little attatched to her and would talk with hna. Davis about her leaving and how they were going to miss her. So my comp was just praying for a comp that would get along well with this family. So the other day when we were over at the Garza´s house we were talking, and Ruben turns to Hna. Hansen and tells her that he was very content with me there. They say i am always smiling. But Hna. Hansen later told me how i was an answer to her prayers and how she was worried about that. Just another testimony to me that the Lord is aware of us and our needs.

But the people here have been super sweet. I bore my tesimony in church yesterday, they always ask the new missionaries to do that..but my comp and I had to teach 2 classes yesterday. We taught Gospel Principles and then we went to RS and they asked us to teach the lesson there too. So we just stood up and started teaching. haha. it went well i think. I still don´t understand anything the natives say. well, i can if it´s slow and if it's a common phrase. They say my accent is really good though when i talk, i just don´t know how to say very much. But i´m learning:) i know it will come. and hna. hansen can totally relate to me, because she really struggled in the begining and she recently just started understanding everything they say. (she has been out for 10 months though).

We live with 2 other sisters, both from Chile, and they don´t speak English. They are moving though because our pench (apartment) is far from their area. The pench here is bigger, but not nicer. The bathroom is kinda yucky, but it´s all good. It´s all part of the adventure! to flush the toilet...you have to fill up a big bucket of water and dump it in the toilet, like 1.5- 2 gallons worth of water. And our shower, which is still the bucket shower, leaks a lot. So we fill it up all the way, and by the time the water is warm the water is half gone. So it takes a little longer for 2 people to shower. oh! and last night we had 2 surprise visitors. I was at the kitchen sink washing off a knife, when all the sudden, i see this giant cockraoch climbing up the wall in front of me. biggest cockraoch i have ever seen! so i start yelling to the others "GUYS! LOOK! THERE¨S A GIANT COCKROACH!" of course no one wants to kill it. I hate killing bugs. There´s just something about the crunchiness of it and snatching away it´s poor little life that gives me the heeeebie jeeebies. i´d rather drown it, than crunch it. So one of the Chileans takes off her shoe and starts smacking the wall. but she was too short to reach it. so we waited for it come back down a little lower where we could get a better shot at it. anyway...we got it! I think...we injured it at least. and then a few minutes later my comp. sees another one crawling up the window behind me! almost just as big as the first. But Hna. Alvarez got that one. It´s still lying dead on the floor. When our District leader called we told them what had happened. and then he says "there are never just 2, if there are 2 then there are more." well, i guess we´ll see. haha. i don´t mind them that much, i just don´t want them crawling in my bed or anything.

anyway! i love you guys so much! thanks for your love and support. I talk about you guys all the time. when the people here see my pictures they always say, "que linda!" which is like "how beautiful!" all the ladies here say that about you mom . "que linda mama tiene!" well really they say it about everyone. some of the argentine girls want me to indroduce them to Kris too...haha.they think he´s cute! heck, the men here think that we as missionaries here are just so beautiful. i can´t tell you how many times i´ve been told how beautiful i am by random men and boys in the street. ¨que amoroso que son." An old man winked at me the other day as he rode past me on his bike. don´t worry though...nothing super creepy! alright, gotta go! love ya!
todo mi amor,
hna. amundsen