Rain & Miracles -- August 27, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Northern Argentina is bipolar and decides every other day that it wants to be a different season. Blazing summer heat one day, and bone-chilling winter cold the next.

On Thursday my companion and I went to help Sandra, an investigator, break up pieces of bricks and rocks with mallets and hammers so that she can create some sort of flooring in her dirt-floor house. I think we were working for 15 minutes and I already felt my neck and shoulders burning and sweat beading up on my forehead. Sandra loaned me her son´s Argentine cowboy hat to shade me from the sun, and a pair of gloves because after 15 minutes I also already had several nasty blisters (I felt so weak and self-conscious about my delicate hands...I so wanted to be strong and helpful and work for hours without tiring and with no signs of wear. Instead I hammered for 15 minutes and already had broken stinging skin. Pathetic. Oh well.) Sandra was amazing and kept on bringing out cups of cold juice and we would rotate, taking turns hammering.

Anyways, the point is, 2 days later I was bundled up in three layers of clothes trying not to freeze. The weather here never ceases to amaze me.

Anyways the cold rain proved to be a challenge in getting investigators to commit to come to church once again. For some reason it seems that it is lovely and sunny all week and then the rain hits on the weekend, right when we are running around like crazy trying to get everyone ready to come to church. The truth is that the cold rain and thick deep mud really does make it complicated for most people to come and so it is understandable, but it doesn´t make it any less frustrating.

Still, we had a little miracle I wanted to share. On Saturday night the elders and hermanas in the neighboring ward had a giant double baptism. Two older couples were getting married and then baptized. We were really excited to invite investigators because it´s always good for them to see what a baptism is like and there was even going to be a fun little party afterwards to celebrate. The elders only told us the night before, though, so we spent the morning visiting people and inviting them to come. One of our investigators, a teenage boy named Ezequiel, told us he wanted to come and his younger sister also excitedly asked if she could come too. We said "Yes!" (of course) and made plans to come get them at 6:30 PM. We got there at 6:30. No one was there. The house appeared empty. Finally, after much knocking, a little boy (I think the youngest brother) came out and told us that everyone left.

We were pretty sad. We can only go to baptisms if we bring investigators with us. We hadn´t made many back-up plans and the night was cold, wet, windy, dark. What would have been an enjoyable, spiritual night, turned into a 3-hour romp around in the mud knocking on doors and being rejected. At the very last hour, before turning in for the night I suggested that we pass by one last time for Ezequiel´s house so we could at least confirm with him about church the next morning and offer to come pick him up. When we got there he still wasn´t home but we talked to his younger sister and she said that they were already planning on coming to church and that they would be ready at 8:30 when we came by in a taxi. It was nice to hear, but I still didn´t feel very assured just because people often say one thing and do another (as our experiences that day had proved).

Well, we passed by yesterday morning and the mom (Raquel) came out, ready to go to church at 8:30 and Ezequiel (our investigator) and his younger brother too! Ezequiel´s mom loved church! It was beautiful to see her there. Ezequiel has already been to church several times but we had been trying to talk to his mom for WEEKS and then, all of a sudden, she just CAME. We had been feeling for weeks that Raquel would be the key in helping Ezequiel to progress towards baptism because she kept telling him that he should wait, that he shouldn´t do it, that he needed to learn so much more, that he shouldn´t go. Then at church, Raquel came to us, with tears in her eyes after the classes and told us that she wants Ezequiel to be baptized, and she wants to get baptized too, and she wants to help her family and make more time for God in her life, and she knows this will help her family. After all the meetings, one of the counselors in the branch presidency gave her a blessing, because she has been struggling with big health issues recently. It was simple. We went to an empty classroom, and the brother anointed her with consecrated oil and then put his hands on her head offered a short, simple prayer asking god to heal her according to her faith. Simple, but powerful. Raquel sat weeping. She stood up afterwards and touched my arm and whispered, voice-trembling "I felt the presence of God, I felt the presence of God."

These are the beautiful moments I cherish and hope to never forget.

I hope all is well back home.

All my love,

Hna Parker

Mud, Keys, Visas, Zone Conference – August 21, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

As usual, I am writing on Tuesday because Monday was a national holiday. And, as usual, I am not sure what the holiday it was or what we were celebrating. So much happens in a week it is hard to know where to begin.

I forgot to include an important detail about my life here in my letter last week.

Here is the detail: We are currently living with 4 Hermanas in one cramped apartment. I have not even been able to unpack my stuff since I arrived because there is literally no room. The other set of Hermanas are moving into a new apartment soon, but in the meantime we are sharing, which means we have double the furniture and double the suitcases squished into our tiny living space. There are two wooden bed frames that take up most of the space in the kitchen, the bedroom is filled wall-to-wall with our four mattresses, we have two stoves, two refrigerators, muddy sister-missionary shoes scattered EVERYWHERE etc. Don´t get me wrong, I LOVE sharing our space with the other hermanas. We have a lot of fun and I will miss them when they are gone. But it is pretty chaotic. It´s hard to focus and study and get through all of our morning showers in time. Also, we only have ONE set of keys. This makes life difficult.

In fact, right now we are locked out of our apartment, because bright and early this morning (4 AM!) Hna Lythgoe and I (she was in my same group when I arrived in Argentina and now she is one of the Hermanas living with us) had to travel to Resistencia to do visa paperwork. Our phone died while we were traveling, so we were not able to call and coordinate with our companions about the keys. We got back and they were nowhere to be found and all the doors are locked. Fun!

Anyways, that explains why I can´t send pictures this week. My camera is locked in the house. But here are a few fun things that happened, and I promise pictures in the weeks to come:

1. Monday after I wrote we DID go to the jungle. We met up with Hna. Green and my lovely little hijita Hna. Hobbs and they took us to a jungle in Hna. Hobb´s old area. We did not see any monkeys, sadly. But we did see viney trees and exotic brush and ferns and have an empanada/pasta picnic by a muddy river. It was a lot of fun and really great to enjoy the wildlife and catch up with my dear old companion.

2. I mentioned that I went to the offices this morning to do visa paperwork. In our mission "visa paperwork" can only mean one thing: You´ve hit ONE YEAR in the mission. Hey! Can you believe it? On Friday I hit ONE YEAR in my mission! Hna. Lythgoe did too, and as she is living with us right now, we figured it was the PERFECT opportunity to have a little combine "birthday" party. We had cake and balloons and even sang and blew out candles.

3. This week it rained and rained and rained and rained some more! There is SO much mud, seriously it is mud up to your shins--- and I haven´t slipped and fallen in it yet but I have come very close. The Hermanas were scheduled to move out this past Saturday but it was postponed for the pouring rain. Also, because of the rain, the attendance of our already tiny branch this Sunday was a cozy little congregation of 12 members.

4. We had Zone Conference yesterday! I always enjoy zone conference. My mission president is just such a good, Christ-like man and I love listening to his inspired counsel. He knows how to manage a mission, and how to work with the numbers and statistics side of things and how to implement plans and make necessary changes. But it is always so clear that he cares most about people, individual lives, making a true difference in the lives of others and becoming good disciples of Christ ourselves. He always emphasizes that the best indicator of success in our mission will be whether or not we are better disciples of Jesus Christ afterwards than we were before. He also talks about how our objective is to bring souls to Christ--emphasizing that the definition of SOUL is body AND spirit--so we are talking about true conversion and never about numbers.

5. My dear sweet companion got sick several times this week, and yesterday after zone conference while we were getting ready to go out and work she FAINTED in the bathroom. I just heard a loud CRASH and found her collapsed in the shower. SO SCARY. She woke up right away, but still, she got a good knock to the head and we are puzzled about what´s going on with her body. We made lots of calls to the mission nurse and area doctor. Health challenges seem to be ever-present lately. If it´s not me, it´s my companion.

6. I don´t think I mentioned last week that Hermana Medina is actually officially called to the Colombia, Cali mission and is only waiting for her visa to come through. This means that she could abandon me at any moment! ANY MOMENT! Hopefully we will make it through this transfer together though.

There are so many small stories and moments I wish I could share but I better go! My time is up!


Love,

Hna Parker

Hermosa Formosa - August 13, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Remember how last week I said that transfers were coming up and that this week I would probably be writing you from Posadas? I guessed wrong. I am now in FORMOSA! I can´t believe it. This means I have now had the chance to serve in all 4 provinces of my mission (Corrientes, Chaco, Misiones and now, Formosa). Hermana Griffeth stayed in Posadas for her 6th transfer in a row and she is training the only new sister missionary to arrive this transfer.

My new area is called "Parque" which means "Park" and I have already gotten a lot of hilarious jokes about "Parker in Parque". My companion is Hermana Medina from Buenos Aires and she is really great! This is only her second transfer in the mission so technically I am training again because we have to finish the new 12-week training program together. I love her already, she is hilarious and interesting and fun. One cool connection we recently discovered: her brother is also currently serving a mission in Bolivia, Cochabamba. When she told me that I said, "Cool! A boy from my home ward is serving there!" When I said that she started to ask me all sorts of questions because her brother´s current companion is from Hawaii and in no time we discovered that her brother is serving with Bryan McArthur!! In fact, just a second ago she showed me a photo of her brother and Brian McArthur together. Small world!!

So far I am loving my new area. Everyone always talks about Formosa like it is the promised land of the mission and I could seriously feel a difference the second I arrived. There is just something about this place. I have gone from city city (downtown Posadas) back to country again. We have lots of lovely dusty winding dirt roads, wide open spaces with makeshift soccer fields where little kids play soccer barefoot all through the afternoon, trees and brush, and (when it rains) LOTS of mud. As we were out walking last night, when the sun was going down, I watched a father and son flying a kite, I took a deep breath, looked at the clouds, felt the wind... It felt a little like coming home.

There are things I am going to miss so much about Posadas. I am definitely already missing Hna Griffeth. I love that girl. I will also miss desperately our investigators and amazing new converts. The mission can be a little cruel in that you form bonds with people, love them, feel very invested in their lives and progress, pray for them night and day and then you are often ripped away with little warning. Our phone call about transfers came at 9:30 PM and by 1:30 AM (4 hours later!) I already had to be packed and ready to go. But I am sending them letters and photos... and in the meantime I intend to love this area and these people just as much.

Something I love about Parque (besides that it is country again) are all the kids. There is nothing better than cute little kids yelling "hermanas!" and running to hug you. The only thing is I am pretty sure all the kids here think I am actually Spiderman´s real live sister. When I introduced myself as "Hermana Parker" they all said "oh, like Peter Parker! Like Spiderman!" and I said "Yeah, he´s my brother!" Their eyes got really big, and now they basically adore me and are always talking about Spiderman when we come by. I am not sure if I need to break it to them that I am not actually Spiderman´s sister. I think I might let them live with the fantasy...

Well that´s all for this week. More stories and pictures next week. Now we are off to go visit a JUNGLE with MONKIES! I am very excited.

Love from the jungle,

Hermana Parker

Sacrificio - August 6, 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

It is transfer time again and Hermana Griffeth and I are very anxious to know what will happen to us (we find out tomorrow night). Next week I will probably still be writing to you from Posadas, but I could be writing to you from somewhere else, and I will most likely be writing to you alongside a new companion. But, as always, anything is possible! Maybe Hna. Griffeth and I will stay together and have 4 transfers together! It is strange living life in short 6-week segments...but now I only have five six-week segments left before I return to living life in...semesters, or seasons, or sunsets, or 525,600 minute-moments, or what-have-you. I can hardly believe it.

This week nothing very notable or grand happened. We continue to visit the same wonderful investigators and recent converts and less-active members and that is very fulfilling, wonderful, satisfying work. But at the same time we are having a very hard time finding new investigators to teach and a lot of the time it feels like we are just walking and walking and walking around and accomplishing very little. About 3 times a week (or more!) I have a little mini breakdown where I dramatically exclaim "HOW do you find new investigators???!!!" I know there is no magical secret (just ask for references from everyone, talk to everyone, go door to door, etc. and eventually we´ll find them) but sometimes I feel very overwhelmed by the prospect. It´s like: "Okay, Hermanas, here is Downtown Posadas. Ready? Go!!! Find people who want to be baptized into a new religion!"

Anyways, I have been thinking a lot today about sacrifice and since not much happened this week I thought I´d write about that. We finally got our Gospel Principles teacher back at church yesterday after acting as substitutes for over two months while she took the "Teaching, No Greater Call" workshop--and I am so grateful to have her back! Our investigators and new members need to hear some other voice besides ours (we are already visiting them several times a week and smothering them with sister missionary words and wisdom), and Monica (our teacher) is an excellent teacher. It was the first time I saw her teach and she truly stunned me. The class was on sacrifice, and I have been pondering on it all day long. Monica has this amazing intensity--and somehow, even though we were basically just reading from the manual, she taught in a way that really sunk in deep. Before reading the first paragraph in the chapter she just said something like "this first paragraph is really great, and I want you all to pay close attention and think deeply about every single line! every line!" Then she read it with lots of emotion. Then we spent a long time just going over every sentence. She is good at leading a discussion and inspiring people to share stories and insights and interpretations. She emphasized several times "it is saying here we must be willing to sacrifice everything. absolutely everything. for the gospel cause." We read the story about the young rich man who lived all the commandments and asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responded that he must sell all his riches to the poor and come follow Him. He could not because he was very rich, and in his heart, deep down, was not willing to sacrifice his worldly comforts and riches to follow Christ. That story is really resonating with me right now. It is a story for self-reflection and examination. Sometimes it feels like obedience to commandments should be enough, but I love how Jesus shows us here that He requires of us a life of complete consecration. He requires us to give him our very hearts. Today I have been thinking about what things are especially hard for me to sacrifice and I am praying to have a change of heart.

Thank you all for your love and support. You are in my prayers, keep me in yours.

Love,

Hermana Parker