One of These Emails - January 30, 2012

Family and Friends,

I hate to have to send one of these emails, but here it goes:

I just wrote a wonderful, beautiful, eloquent, spiritual email full of interesting details and then BAM the power went out in the whole internet cafe. I was writing in a word document because the email window was being glitchy so I lost it all.

I am including an excerpt from Hermana Hobbs email because hers automatically saved on myldsmail.net and that way you can know some of the things we have been up to. We´ll just think of it as having a guest-poster on my blog this week! :)

Here you go:


I decided to get more serious about this language learning business. One night I was talking to my district leader (he calls every night to ask us about our lessons and investigators), and Elder Garret told me what he did, so we copied his genius idea.

We made a language contract, and it says,

"We hereby declare that the days of Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday shall be dedicated to the speaking of the castellaño tongue. Any who dare to violate this contract by polluting our ears with the foul sound of the english language shall be punished with three lashings to the back, and one minute off of their weekly epistle to their beloved for every paragraph spoken."

Needless to say, my email this week is only 55minutes....Starting tomorrow we are modifying the contract to be every day except Monday (our preparation day and day of rest!!). I will learn this language if it kills me!

I had an experience this week, that I didn’t love, but I learned from. Let me start off with saying that I am gawked at, yelled at (good and bad things), chased by dogs, laughed at for my terrible Spanish on a daily basis. I am used to it. I can handle it, but this one day was a little different. We were invited to sit down with these girls and we were teaching them lesson one about Joseph Smith. They were being pretty rude and giggling and just completely uninterested. I wanted to go right away, because it was pretty clear that they did NOT care about what we had to say. I was dreading talking, and I figured that maybe sis. parker would just teach the whole thing because it was not a wonderful teaching environment...and then she turned to me. I start talking and the girls could not contain themselves, just laughing a ton, one of the girls had to leave because she was laughing so hard. ugghhh....it was painful. I am used to being laughed at for my terrible accent and language skills, but in a nice friendly way...they weren’t being friendly. In that moment I remembered the Apostolic Blessing from elder Cristofferson. He said that every trial, heartache, rejection, door slammed in your face will be swallowed up in the joy of Christ by coming to truly know Him and by truly becoming His disciple. I knew that everything would be ok. For a second, on a very small level, i felt like a got a glimpse more of what the savior went through in His mortal life. Being laughed at and ridiculed. Anyways this other girl comes over and starts asking these really antagonistic questions, and is just really rude....there is no way we will get anywhere with their attitudes. And then they started asking us about where we are from, what we do here, if we can have boyfriends in our church, and if we can date here, do we like it, do we miss our family...this was my chance. Sis Parker told them that yes, our church allows you to date, but we don’t date while we are on missions, and then I said that "we left our families, we left boys we were dating, we left jobs (my little boy!!), we left our lives for 18 months because I know that our message can change your life if you let it. We gave up everything to share with you this message because it has blessed our lives so much, and we want you to have the same joy that we do." In that moment it really felt like everything changed. The girls were nice and calm, and one of them said that anytime we want to come and teach we are welcome. I know it was the spirit carrying the message to these girls hearts, because nothing else could have. And really the apostolic blessing was fulfilled...my little bad experience was swallowed up in the Joy of Christ!

Mom, you asked how people say my name. They say every name but Hobbs..They cannot say the letter "h". That much I figured, but I didn’t know that they couldn’t say the "b" either. They say "ops". Almost like "hops", but with no H. They also say "ohps".

We taught one of our investigators, Karina, the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. She said she would try it...she was testing God to see if she really would be blessed like we said she would. I told her a story of Yvette (love you Yvette!) in nursing school ,and for our very last test in nursing school how Yvette didn’t study that Sunday. I had told Yvette that she would feel so much better and refreshed and that the Lord promises to bless us when we keep his day holy. In nursing school it is sooo hard to not study on Sunday. But Yvette didn’t study that Sunday and she told me how great she felt taking a day of rest...and then of course she rocked that test (God helped)! So Karina said she would try just like Yvette and see how she felt. Karina loved it! She felt so great. Her kids loved it because usually she makes them clean on Sunday. She said that someone had owed her money for years, and they just happened to pay her this week out of the blue, and she knows its because she kept the Lords day holy. Isn’t it kind of funny that the Lord gives us a commandment to rest--and we fight Him over it!!! Shouldn’t we love to take a break? There is this scripture that i found in Isaiah..and of course I don’t have the reference, but it says that when we keep the lords day holy he causes us to "walk upon the high places of the earth"...that’s beautiful. It shows that he helps us to live happier, better lives by keeping his day holy.

We had an investigator, Martin, and we had to drop him. Its sad when you drop your most promising investigator. He would come to church every week, he was always there when we went to teach him. I bet all of the Returned missionaries are yelling, NOOO! Well, we realized that he was in love with my companion (Editorial Note: This is Brooke. I wouldn´t say he was in love IN LOVE with me. But he might have a had a small...crush...and we slowly gathered that he didn´t have one hundred percent pure interest in the message necessarily...), and he would keep every commitment that allowed him to see her (like church and appointments), but he wouldn’t keep other commitments like reading and praying because he wouldn’t see her by doing those things. He just wasn’t progressing. we went over there to tell him that we need to not see him anymore. Sis. Parker said she was going to tell him, but as soon as we got there she gave me the "help me" look. I am very familiar with that look because I give it to her at least 26 times every day. For the first time I got to bail my companion out!!! It was a great moment. Dont judge...but it felt like a break-up. Because he was saying no, no. I told him that we liked to teach him, but it just wasn’t going anywhere, etc, etc. It was really sad. As missionaries we have a very specific purpose..invite others to come unto Christ through baptism....and if it is never going there, then we really need to move on and go to the people that are ready to make covenants with God, because there are people out there that are eagerly looking for the gospel/answers to life questions.

Con AMOR!!

Hna Ops, or Ooops, or Ohbps. or Hobbs ;)



Hermana Parker again. Here is one detail from my lost email:

I was electrocuted for the first time this week! It was weird. But I am fine. Plus, Hermana Hobbs is a nurse and she studied electrocution in nursing school and she said as long as I don´t have blood in my urine or kidney pain then I should be good to go. I am just trying to scare you. It was just for a moment but it was intense.

Here are a couple pictures to make up for the lost email.

Love,


Hermana Brooke Parker

All Is Well - January 23, 2012

Dear family and friends,

I got the computer with the awful keyboard again, but this place is full (mostly of adolescent boys playing internet computer games, drinking orange soda and smoking) and there is no computer to switch to, so I am going to just deal with it again. Excuse any missing letters or apostrophes.

My second week of training went well. Hermana Hobbs is fantastic and we are already growing to be good friends.

She grew up in a whole slew of little towns in Southern Arizona because her parents are adventurous sorts that liked to pick up and move every few years. They would often move to one small town, spend a few years building a house there, then sell it and move to another. Once they even lived on an Indian reservation in the little town of Havasupai in the base of the Grand Canyon.

Anyways, Hna Hobbs is bringing a great energy and spirit to the work and it is fun to be with her as she is learning Spanish and discovering Argentina and South America for the first time. She’s really cute too and I would send pictures but I keep getting old defective computers! I will send them as soon as I can.

The work is going well. We are trying to involve ward members more in our teaching and this week we taught a lot of lessons with a lot of different ward members. We have some great investigators, but progress is slow. It still feels like a unique joy and privilege to help people learn more about their Savior Jesus Christ and draw closer to him, even if it is with little baby steps.

This week I gave my second talk in church here in Barrio 4 and my 3rd talk in Argentina. It went well. After teaching impromptu lessons in Spanish all day every day it hardly makes me nervous at all to get up and give a prepared talk. Which is crazy because before my mission giving talks made me quite nervous.

Sorry to keep writing short emails without many details. I always have a list of interesting things I want to share but these computers are really slow and buggy and the keyboard is terrible. I am going to hunt for a better internet cafe so next week I can finally write a better email.

I hope all is well at home. I would love to hear from more of you! My contact info is on my facebook.

Love,

Hermana Parker

It's A Girl! - Jan 16, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been a very eventful week. It is still incredible to me how everything can change from one day to the next in the mission. Transfers were on Wednesday and as a result Wednesday morning I woke up with Hermana Griffeth, helped her lug her suitcases down three flights of stairs and waited with her at the bus terminal as she went off to her next assignment in the province of Misiones. Then I headed to the mission offices and met up with all the other missionaries who are training this transfer.

So...I´m training! I feel kind of like a teen mother and I am still a little shocked but things are going well. A lot of elders arrived this transfer but not too many sister missionaries. There were three new sisters and, interestingly enough, the other two sisters training arrived with me in September, so I don´t feel too alone in my young motherhood. It seems that Pres. Heyman is choosing a lot of younger missionaries to be trainers.

My daughter is Hermana Hobbs. She is from a little town in Southern Arizona. She is actually here to be the mission nurse, but for her first 6 months she will just be a normal missionary as she practices and improves her Spanish. After 6 months she will probably still function basically as a normal missionary but carry around a special cell phone and take calls and consult sick missionaries. Before her mission she worked as a nurse for children with terminal diseases. She is amazing. She is still struggling to speak and understand Spanish but she is learning very quickly and I know she is going to do great.

Her first days in the mission have been quite eventful so far. On her very first night proselyting it was raining and all of our appointments fell through on us and then I got us hopelessly lost and we walked around in circles for about an hour. I didn´t realize before Hermana Griffeth left how much I was still relying on her to make our way around this area. I have most of it down but there is this part in the middle with tons of apartment buildings that is hard to navigate. But I am proud to say that I am getting better at reading maps and I haven´t gotten us lost again since that first night.

She also was almost robbed by this punk kid on a bike on Friday. He started grabbing at her backpack and then she pulled it back and moved away quickly. I was a little ahead of her but when I realized what was going on, I turned around and yelled at the kid in Spanish for her and he ran away and everyone was fine. In crisis situations I tend to lose my ability to move but I still have my voice and thankfully in this instance it managed to scare him off. I just yelled "QUE ESTÁ HACIENDO?! NO TENEMOS NADA!" (translated: what are you doing?! We don´t have anything!)

Then this morning she woke up with a nasty stomach bug and was throwing up all morning. But we called the elders and they gave her a blessing and after sleeping for a few hours she woke up good as new. It´s been a rough start but she is quite resilient and excited to work and I think we´re going to have a good transfer together.

Wish me luck!

More next week with pictures,

Hna. Parker

Passing - January 9, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

First of all, this key board I am typing on is AWFUL and has lots of stuck keys and cannot do apostrophes. Sorry if there are more typos than usual and if my email is short.

I am sad to hear the news of Grandma Truitts passing. My thoughts and prayers are with her and mom and her other kids and grandkids as they make funeral preparations and commemorate her life. I love Grandma very much and after getting your emails and reading moms tribute I have been reflecting a little on my memories of her. I remember going to her house as a little girl and I remember that she would buy me colorful hair ties and do my hair up in a high tight ponytail and it made me feel fancy and special (and it made my scalp hurt!). I remember going to visit her when I was a little older and going to the store with her and how she would show me off to all her friends and acquaintances ("this is my granddaughter!") and how she would treat me by buying me a magazine at the cash register. I remember her sweet Virginia drawl. I remember how she always remembered my birthday and her birthday card was often the first one I would receive any given year. Including this past birthday when her card arrived just a week or so after my birthday (but about a month before any other birthday greetings from home arrived). I love her and will miss her.

As I think about grandma and my mission experiences thus far, it really strikes me how powerful and important and sacred these relationships we form here and earth can be. There is one old woman we have visited on occasion here in Resistencia who is in her late 80s. She had 16 children. About 8 years ago her youngest daughter died of lung cancer at the age of 33 (the same age as Jesus, she reminded us more than once). She was so shocked and traumatized and saddened by her daughters early death that she went into a state of emotional shock and for TWO years she sort of walked around in a daze and spent most of her time shut up in her house in bed. Even now, when she speaks of her beloved youngest daughter she speaks with a sort of reverence and longing and lingering pain. Part of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the testimony we shared with her, is that we can be with these people after we die and for the eternities. These beautiful relationships we form here will continue to grow and flourish in the world to come. I know this is true and look forward to the day I can be reunited with loved ones:
D&C 130:2 "And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy."
More thoughts and experiences from the field next week. It is HOT (in case you forgot) but I am well. Just a little (or VERY VERY) sweaty.

Love,

Hna. Parker

Happy New Year! - January 3, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great Christmas break and that all is well. All is well in Barrio 4. Life is moving right along and, if you can believe it, another transfer is almost over. I still feel like I am settling into Resistencia and I am just starting to feel in tune with my life and the work here. I am also still making wonderful discoveries and meeting great new people.

One of my best discoveries this week is that not only do mangoes and grapefruits grow wild here but so do POMEGRANATES! This is great news. I can´t tell you how excited I am about this. We also walked by a house yesterday that had an entire shaded canopy made of grape vines, full of delicious ripe purple grapes. Also, now the mangoes are just dropping off trees left and right and people often hand us big grocery bags full of them to take home. We can´t keep up! So the other night Hna. Griffeth took a few precious minutes to peel and juice a bunch of them and we have been putting that into smoothies. So fruit-wise we are doing very well here.

My living arrangements here are also pretty sweet. I can´t complain. We live on the third floor of an apartment complex and have a pretty big apartment and a nice view of the city. We also have air conditioning, which at first we tried to use sparingly but which we have lately been running full blast almost every minute we are indoors. I feel a little bad but it feels so nice after spending 6 hours in the sun. One of my favorite things about where we live are our pets. WE don´t really have pets but they practically live on our doorstep and on the stairs by our apartment so it kind of feels like we do. There are 3 cats which we have named Charles (the tabby), Hans (the black cat) and Fabrisia (the the fluffier black cat). There is also the cutest little dog that lives in the apartment across from us named Lola. She is always jumping up to greet us when we come home and she often escapes and tries to follow us out when we are leaving to work. She reminds me of a miniature Sego, for those of you who know Sego (Hi Elisa! I love you!)

One of our neighbors is this fantastic old man named Ismael. He has talked to many missionaries over the years and is pretty firm in his Pentecostal faith, but he also likes to read the Book of Mormon every once in a while and sometimes we stop to leave him passages or to talk for a moment about a scripture. He works as a metalsmith of sorts and is always making benches and planters and other decorative things with metal. The other day Hermana Griffeth asked him if he could make her a ring out of a peso coin and he agreed to do it free of charge! He is a great neighbor. He is also one of the only people I know (including members of our ward here) who can remember our names. Every time we pass by he shouts "Hola! Hermana Parker! Hermana Griffeth!" And it surprises us quite a bit because usually when we introduce ourselves people respond to our names as if they are some kind of impossible alien tongue and just laugh it off and call us "Hermana."

Just to summarize, Christmas and New Years both went well. Lots of fireworks and lots of Ananá Fizz (a fizzy alcoholic pineapple beverage). For Christmas this year Hna. Griffeth and I made these cool little origami boxes and went around to all our members and investigators and sang to them and shared scriptures about the birth of Jesus Christ. On Christmas Eve we came home a little early and made dinner and opened presents (as is the tradition here). On Christmas day the Patriarch for pretty much all of Northern Argentina invited us to have dinner with his family. Hermano Amutio, the Patriarch, is actually one of the coolest people I´ve met. When he called us to invite us over, I answered the phone and he said "Hermanas! What are you doing on Christmas Day? Well what I really mean to say is, whatever you were planning on doing, drop it, because you are eating dinner with us!" So, we accepted his invitation happily. Amutio is either the first or one of the very first people to be baptized here in Resistencia. He also served his mission here in Northern Argentina at the time when Elder Scott was the mission president. He works in some very intense top secret FBI job and is always traveling around the country and having adventures. He likes to go on adventures in the jungle and to bring back this special kind of rare wood and also different kinds of crystals and stones. For Christmas he gave Hna. Griffeth and I both a pendant made out of some of the crystals from his collection. Before he gave it to us he first gave us a very heartfelt speech about how life can be like these crystals. There are rough edges and there are hard times but it is our job to form and to shape our lives and to smooth out the rough edges and to make what we want of them. It was very nice of him. We also all sat together (with his wife and daughter) and read from the Book of Mormon together and he bore a powerful testimony of the Savior and of the Restored Gospel and it was all very sweet and very personal and powerful. It was a good reminder of what Christmas is all about.

New Years Eve we were also in our apartment early. We had a very laid back night. We went to bed at 11 as usual but set an alarm to wake up just before midnight to welcome in the new year. At 11:55 we popped out of bed, strapped on our party hats (thanks mom!) and blew our party blowers and looked out the window at all the fireworks! HAPPY 2012!

I hope the world doesn´t end this year, to be honest. But if it does, I will be a missionary and I will be happy.

Until next week i send my love from Resistencia,

Hna. Parker

Letter from Resistencia Barrio 4 - 27 December 2011

Dear Family,

Merry Week After Christmas! I didn´t know this when I called on Sunday but yesterday was oficially a holiday so, as always, our Pday was moved to today.

Christmas was nice. It has been over 100 degrees here in Resistencia (with humidity!) but on Christmas Eve a storm moved in and it was cloudy and rainy and dropped at least 20 degrees and stayed like that through christmas day. Hna. Griffeth and I were pretty happy.

I have more to tell about Christmas but I am actually out of time!
It took all my time to upload the photos. Here are a few explanations:


Many of them are old and from Goya. The photos of me standing in a field with horses and walking down a dirt road with Hna Da Silva are from my last few weeks there. The picture of the baby in the tub is also from Goya can go with the email I wrote about that day we found Sandra sitting by the side of her house reading her Book of Mormon. That is her baby Bruno I wrote about who was sitting beside her playing in the tub. The one with me and the little girl giving the thumbs up is also from Goya. That is Dalila, one of the most amazing little girls in the world.

All the Christmas ones are self-explanatory and can probably go with the email I wrote last week about our tree and ornaments and stockings. Or with the email I am going to write next week about Christmas/New Years. There are pictures of our christmas dinner too, which I will write more about next week.

The one of my feet is just to impress you with HOW INCREDIBLY TAN I am getting. But that doesn´t need to go on the internet because my feet are gross.

The one with me next to a map is just to show off our hard work. We made that entire map and it took days. It also gives you an idea of what I look like after working for 6 hours in 107 degree heat.

Okay. Gotta go!

Thanks for the emails and the SONGS! I am thrilled.

I love you,

Brooke

Letter from Resistencia Barrio 4 - 19 December 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

The trees are shaking with cicadas (or some other loud buzzing bug), the mangos are ripening (the other day I watched as a group of kids picked the green mangos from the lower branches of the tree and chucked them at the taller branches to try to knock down the riper red fruit which always seems to first appear just out of reach for some reason), the air is full of smoke from the constant explosion of fire crackers and the smell of asado (argentine barbecue), the streets are littered with half-moon watermelon rinds and bees are bathing in the sweet nectar, meanwhile small plastic swimming pools are popping up in every yard and children are happily splashing and bathing in the (sweet) cold water, santa is playing his saxophone and even the smallest corner kisok is stocked full of packaged sweet bread. What does all of this mean? Christmas is near, of course!

So far I am enjoying my summertime Argentine christmas. Like I said above there are lots of santa statues in stores and street corners and for some reason he always seems to be playing a saxophone. I was heretofore unaware that santa played the sax but...I like it!

The work is going well here in Resistencia. We are working hard and meetings people and things are looking up. Last week we got a reference from the elders for a man that lives in our area. His name is Julio. We passed by his house several times and he never answered. The last time we passed by one of his neighbor´s, Ramon, saw us leaving and said "Julio isn´t answering? Here let me try!" and he proceeded to knock yell ("Julio! Julio!"), slam windows and, finally, push the key through the key hole. Julio finally emerged. He is going through some rough times, it seems, ever since his girlfriend left him. He doesn´t get out of bed much. But he had been reading the Book of Mormon which the elders had given him when they met him on the street. We are just starting to teach and work with Julio but I will keep you updated on how it goes. I have a soft spot in my heart for him. and for Ramon who helped us get him out of his house and who is also listening to our message.

Last week Hna. Griffeth and I bought a little Christmas tree for the equivalent of $5 and we have been decorating it little by little this week in our rare snatches of down time. I made a popcorn string and Hna. Griffeth has been making really cool origami ornaments. We also bought ourselves some stockings and are going to fill each other´s stockings with little gifts.

Yesterday we watched the re-broadcast of the first presidency christmas devotional in our chapel here and I loved it. It is nice to remember the true spirit of Christmas and to be spending this Christmas visiting people and teaching and singing and praying with them. I can´t think of anything better. I know the savior lives and that the atonement is real.

Merry Christmas,

Hna. Parker