Ruins! - June 25, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

I´m sorry I don´t have much time to write this week. We spent the day exploring the ruins of San Ignacio-- one of the old Jesuit missions that is about an hour bus ride from Posadas. We wanted to take advantage of what will possibly be one of our last P-days together and maybe one of our last P-days in this area. Transfers tomorrow. It was great fun and really fascinating. We took a guided tour and then spent the rest of the time just sort of climbing around the ruins and taking pictures. I kept on thinking about the movie The Mission...

Some great things are happening with the work lately. This week a mom with 4 kids that we just started teaching walked with her little ones over 30 minutes to church. It was a miracle! It was beautiful to see! I so admire the bravery and faith of people who make such sacrifices and come to church for the first time even though it is an unknown place with a bunch of unknown people. I know that that type of faith is rewarded! It was so nice to sit with them, and take up an entire bench and to help them learn how to sing hymns and hand the kids colored pencils and coloring sheets to help keep them occupied during sacrament meeting. They had a great time!

Well, I better go. Lots of photos and some good stories coming next week.

Love, love,

Hermana Parker

Cocacola Crochet - June 18, 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

First of all, HAPPY FATHER´S DAY!

It has been another interesting, beautiful week. My weekly weather report: It´s warmed up again. Everyone has been saying "oh, this is normal. It´s the ´veranillo de san juan!´" Which roughly translates to "St. John´s Little Summer" or something. I guess they often get warm streaks throughout the winter.

The most exciting thing that happened this week is that we just happened to run into the owner of Cocacola, Pepsi, Disney and The World Trade Center Towers. Who would have guessed she´s a middle-aged overweight Argentine woman who smokes like a chimney and lives in a little concrete house in Posadas?! She is originally from Arabia but that was thousands of years ago and she has died and resurrected several times since then and eventually she ended up here. People are always stealing her money, though, and she needs our help to get a phone number for the police of North America!

Anyways, Aaron talked in his last email about having a lot of schizophrenics in his area, and on missions you DO tend to meet a lot of pretty crazy people... but this woman was by far the most delusional paranoid person I have ever met. We were just walking down a street and she called us over and asked if she could talk with us. She said she was struggling with a sickness and she wanted to talk. We agreed and followed her to her house. She sat us down and started to talk, and it didn´t take long for us to realize she is clearly a paranoid schizophrenic. At one point the conversation went like this

Her: You two are both North American? Us: Yes Her: So you know about the twin towers? Us: Yes. Her: Ah, yes. Those were mine!

In other news, Hermana Griffeth continues to do crazy experiments with my hair.



And a less-active family in the ward that we have been working with is teaching me how to crochet! It is my new favorite hobby that I practice in the 15 free minutes I have before bed. At this rate I will finish a scarf maybe sometime near the end of my mission!





We have transfers again in about a week and yesterday I hit 10 months in the mission. It is crazy how quickly time passes.

I love you all,

Hermana Parker

Invierno - June 12, 2012

Dear family and friends,

Winter has arrived! I remember before I left on my mission I asked my friend Rachel about the weather here, because she served her mission here as well, and she told me she had never been hotter in her life. Then she said that she had also never been colder in her life. Now I believe it. We almost froze to death this week. The temperatures got down to -2 C (which is like 28 F) and there is humidity and wind which makes it feel a lot colder. The houses here are not really built for winter. and we do not have heating or even a space heater in our apartment...SO, we were literally sleeping with 4 blankets each and LAYERS of clothes.



After a few nights of that we mentioned at lunch with the 2nd Counselor in the bishopric that we were very excited to get our space heater from the mission this Tuesday. He couldn’t believe we had been living without one, and insisted on loaning us one from the chapel. We went to pick it up on Saturday night and found it waiting for us with this loving drawing (picture coming next week, camera died. basically it was a snowman-missionary). It is pretty accurate.

I am trying to think of some experiences from this week...the work continues to move along slowly but surely. We are teaching a great little girl named Victoria! She is really a joy to teach. She is 8 and her mom is an inactive member of the church who is not very interested in coming back but who doesn’t mind letting her daughter come to church every week with her grandmother (also a member). Victoria is VERY excited about the things she is learning with us and VERY bright. She is reading her Book of Mormon and can repeat back what we taught her days later. This impresses me because often we teach adults who cannot repeat back to us what we teach them even a few minutes later.

We also found 2 really great young couples that we are working with. They actually have a lot in common. In both cases the boyfriend is a member (inactive) and the girlfriend is not. They are both expecting a baby in a few months. Ismael is trying to come back to church and his girlfriend Florencia loves the gospel and wants to be baptized but they have to get married first. That complicates things just because even though they want to get married, Florencia is from Buenos Aires and her whole family would want to come up for the wedding. We are going to try to see if they can plan something simple and basic first (just get the legal paperwork signed) and then maybe in a few months have the big party!

The other couple needs to get married as well. They are a little more hesitant about everything, but we have been having good lessons anyway.

Anyways, I am not sure what else to write. As usual, only time will tell what will happen with all these people. Pray that I won´t freeze to death this winter.

Love,

Hna Parker

Ninety Three! - June 4, 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

It´s June! Where does time go?

On Wednesday we had zone conference. At every zone conference we watch a video with mission pictures. I am not in any of the photos (I didnt send any in) but it gives you a good idea of what my mission’s like (including lots of sweet photos of Iguazu Falls and baptisms in rivers and stuff). So check it out if you want. Search on youtube: "La Mision Argentina Resistencia May 2012" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCo8Y7lNEN4).

Anyways, conference was good. Our mission president had some very profound insights about relying on the Holy Ghost in our missionary work. He also spoke on Mark 8:22-25. I don´t think I had ever paid much attention to the story before. We talked about how there are three types of vision in the story: blind, partial vision and full sight. We discussed that as missionaries we can have one of those 3 types of vision. It also relates to how we see the people we encounter on a day-to-day basis. Do we see them clearly, as real people of great worth and potential? Children of God? Or do we see them only partially, as objects or obstacles--like "trees that walk."

I am still loving Posadas and my area. I am feeling all at once challenged and filled by this work. When I was struggling in Resistencia Jared sent me an email once and it said something simple like "just remember you´re not there not to make a difference in the lives of people." and I have been trying to take that to heart and this last week we have been focusing more than ever on filling every moment with meaningful work. It is not the easiest just to walk around and find new investigators here like it was in past areas. But there are pages and pages and pages of names and addresses of people who once belonged to the church and who we have been working on finding and getting back. Through these efforts we have found people who have been long estranged and just needed a visit or a word of encouragement. We have also found spouses and children and cousins and neighbors that are not members of the church but who are interested in listening. As I have found and worked with these people I have tried to remember what Jared told me and remind myself that even though, right now, I don´t have scores of amazing progressing investigators (right now)--that doesn't mean I am here just to sit around and not make any difference in the lives of these people and in this ward. Every night my prayers have filled up with the names of these people and with concerns for the ward and I find myself thinking about them and worrying about them and trying to find ways to help them all the time. I have felt great meaning and happiness as I have done so.

One short anecdote: Last night we came to the house of an inactive member. We stood hovering outside the open door for a moment because we were uncertain if it was the right place, but then, all of a sudden this old toothless woman wearing a skirt and a red beanie came out to greet us. We said hello and she grabbed us and slobbered all over our cheeks in greeting (two kisses are traditional, but with no teeth it got a little wet). She cried "hermanas! hermanas!" with tears and invited us in. Then she sat down with us and babbled and babbled and babbled mostly incomprehensibly for 10 minutes straight as we tried our hardest to understand her. I did catch several enthusiastic "I am NINETY THREE!"s Finally her granddaughter, whom we had come to visit, came home and we had a great lesson with her. We are going to start teaching her daughter because she is almost 9 and not baptized.

That’s all for this week. I love you all and you are in my prayers.

Love,

Hna Parker