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
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