Alma Fuerte – December 17, 2012

Hello Christmas Family,

Just a short one again this week. Things are great here in Argentina. Hot and great.

I am sending a few photos and some explanations:

One of the biggest perks about having a companion whose family lives just a few blocks away, is that we get to visit them all the time and all of a sudden I feel like I have all these new aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews. Last Monday we spent the afternoon with her family and her adorable 6 month old twin nephews were in town and I am now best friends with baby Alejandro. He and his mom and brother live in a tiny town far away, but they come to Formosa a few times a months for treatments for little Ale´s club feet.

Yesterday was the best day for two reasons. Reason 1: We had TONS of investigators in church (6). We went to go get a couple of them and then we took the bus and it just kept stopping and MORE members and investigators would get on and by the time we all got off at the plaza a few blocks away from the chapel there were over 10 of us.

Reason 2: We found an adorable abandoned puppy on the side of the road and we SAVED her. Hna. Luna named her Alma and we carried her around with us in Hna. Luna´s sombrero all afternoon. We wanted so bad to keep her, but we did the second best thing... we gave her to one of the families in the branch that we visit often so we can see her almost every day. They loved her right away and we know they will take good care of her.

The last photo is very recent, taken just one hour ago in a store down the street. SAXOPHONE SANTA!

Merry Christmas! I don´t know exactly when I´ll be calling but you should send me all the phone numbers you have (home phone, all of the family cell phones, etc.) I will probably have more details when I write on the 24th, but I am sure we will communicate.

Love,

Hna Parker

AC AC AC! – December 10, 2012

Just a short email this week--we don´t have a lot of time. ...But I will make up for the length by sending pictures!

If all goes well, today we will have a new air conditioner for our bedroom! We have to go see if they sent the money though, and then go and buy it. I am so happy! After taking a quick poll of ALL the sister missionaries in the province of Formosa (there are like 10 companionships) I found out we were the only ones without AC. Anyways, this will be remedied soon. It has been soooo hot, and our one fan is so pathetic that I literally have not been able to sleep many nights and instead just lie in agony all night tossing and turning in my own sweat. Okay, haha. That was dramatic. It is not that bad. But AC will be a welcome improvement.

Besides the extreme heat, everything is going well here in Formosa with Hermana Luna. She was originally supposed to stay with me until this Wednesday, when we have transfers. But it looks like we are short on sisters and she will likely stay with me for my entire next transfer. It is weird serving with someone who lives here in Formosa (just a few blocks from our apartment) and is not a set-apart missionary. She lives so close by that we are always stopping by her house to drop off dirty clothes for her mom to wash, or to eat lunch or dinner (whenever we don´t have anyone in the branch to feed us). It is sort of like having a second home and a second mom. It is definitely a different feeling.

We have had several investigators disappear or drop out on us this week. We had been teaching one woman, Olga, and her two daughters and they were preparing to be baptized this month. However, we have a requirement in our mission that investigators must attend church at least 3 times to be baptized. This week was CRUCIAL if they wanted to be baptized on the 22nd. Well, this Friday they just flat-out disappeared on us and we still aren´t sure where they went. And they have no cell phone for us to call to see what´s up.

A few notes to accompany the photos I am sending.

1. The miracle of the umbrella! We found a perfectly good big blue umbrella in the trash just before a surprise mid-day storm hit. 2. These days ice cream and sun hats are a MUST. 3. Meeting a sheep.

A few notes to close:

Birthday: Mom! I received my birthday package several weeks ago, I am not sure if I told you. THANK YOU. The clothes are perfect. Also I got my birthday card from Ashley this week and it is the best card I have ever received. I loved it. :)

Mail: I sent out a package of letters over a month ago but for some reason it was returned to me and I am just now sending them out again. So if some of you get letters that say "happy thanksgiving!" in January, that is why.

Christmas: I still don´t know how Christmas phone calling will go. Everything is crazy and confusing with the sudden change of mission president. But I will let you know as soon as I know something.

That´s it!

Ciao,

Hermana Parker

A Miracle and a Nightmare – November 27, 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

It is amazing how much can change in just one week! I was not in the best spirits last week, as I am sure was evident in the tone of my email, but this week is a different story. SO MUCH has happened. Where do I begin?!

First, let me tell you about the MIRACLE of Ramon and the NIGHTMARE of Antonia.

Ramon was our golden investigator that we “lost” last week due to the interference of his semi-psychotic woman-friend Antonia. Antonia is very active in another local church, but despite this, at first she received us very well. She welcomed our visits, listened and participated and even went to church a few times with Ramon. However, to be honest, I doubted her sincerity from the very start and was not surprised to see her attitudes begin to change as Ramon got closer and closer to his baptismal date and to their wedding. We did everything we could to respect and strengthen her relationship with Ramon (for example: always invited her to lessons and to church, invited them to go to a couples dinner at the church, and helped get them the paperwork and everything they needed to get married). However, Ramon, from the very start was a little uncertain about whether he was ready to get married or whether he preferred to move out and separate from Antonia. In our very first lesson, before we ever met Antonia, he mentioned to us that things weren't going very well with his girlfriend and that he was thinking of moving out and going to live with his sister. We tried not to push him one way or the other, but told him that the important thing was to live the Law of Chastity and that he and Antonia needed to pray and ask God about what they should do and that we were only there to help them with their decision.

Anyways, Antonia began to say things like “the only reason I went to your church is because I was jealous.” She also insisted that the only reason Ramon ever went was to look for a new girlfriend. At this point she began to be very controlling and manipulative with Ramon, screening our calls, and saying awful, hurtful things and finally she told us that she didn´t want us to come back to her house. Seeing that it is her house and not Ramon's, we respected her wishes. We didn't want to cause any more problems, and no longer felt comfortable teaching Ramon or stopping by the house. So we just dropped him altogether, even though he was one week away from his baptism.

That was last week, Monday. Tuesday, we had a zone conference, and our zone leaders and district leaders were all very stressed out about the fact that we were not going to reach our goal of baptisms for November. A lot of the planned baptisms were falling through and our zone leaders started asking us what we could do to “save” Ramon's baptism.

Side note: I have to admit, all of the goals and numbers aspect of missionary work really stresses me out and sometimes irks me. I KNOW it is necessary to, with the guidance of the spirit, set goals and make plans. But sometimes I feel like the elders get a little distracted and carried away in the numbers game.

Anyways, at first I felt pretty annoyed that they were even asking us this. We had done EVERYTHING we could, but it was just a really complicated situation, especially considering that Ramon is a man and we are two young women and he had a crazy jealous (possibly dangerous) older girlfriend. So, they asked if they thought it would be any different if they tried talking with Ramon. We agreed and passed them his phone number so they could set up a lesson with him in the chapel and we “washed our hands” of the entire thing.

Well, the next thing we knew the AP´s and our Zone Leaders were doing his baptismal interview and filling out all the paperwork and they even brought the mission truck over to his house to help him move all of his stuff out and move IN to his sister´s house so he could get baptized three days later. We were not there for all of this, but we were told that Antonia came out and began to scream all sorts of obscenities and said she was going to call the police—so they had to stop moving stuff out of the house, and Ramon moved in with his sister with nothing more than a single change of clothes.

I am running out of time, so I will have to write part 2 of the story next week but, well, the miracle is, RAMON GOT BAPTIZED! When he moved in with his sister, he moved out of our branch and into the area of some other hermanas in our zone (hna Warnick and hna Hobbs). We had already taught him all the lessons, so all they had to do, basically, was make baptismal invitations and fill up the font.

Lots of other things happened this week. We celebrated Thanksgiving! I think there is nothing I love more than celebrating Thanksgiving with cute South Americans who have never ever celebrated this very North-American holiday.

We also organized a very successful branch activity Saturday—we played games and ate food and watched the movie 17 Miracles. It was a lot of fun and good way for Hna Medina to say goodbye to the branch.

Hermana Medina left yesterday morning for her mission in Colombia. It was bittersweet. I was very sad to see her go, but excited for her to finally get to her assigned mission.

And now, for these last two weeks of the transfer, I am serving with a “mini missionary” Hermana Luna! She is the very same member that threw me my surprise birthday party and gives us lunch every Thursday. Well, for the next two weeks, she is my companion full-time and I couldn´t be happier. She is amazing and in our ONE day together we have already had some great experiences. Specifically with a young woman named Julieta. Julieta is another mini miracle... but that is a story I will also have to save for next week.

So, next week you´ll have to tune in for the Ramon & Antonia Saga Part 2 and for the story of Julieta. And for PHOTOS.

Well, love you all tons and tons!

Happy Holidays!

Hermana Parker

Folklorico - November 12, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Another week has passed, and, as always, too much has happened to even begin to be able to recount it all.

I was reminded last night that the week isn´t over until it is really over. It was 9 PM, Sunday night (usually at around 9 PM on Sunday night we are arriving home exhausted from a week of work, ready to sleep) and somehow, at this hour, I found myself seated by the side of the road with a group of slightly drunken middle-aged men playing Argentine folk music. We were passing by on our way home, and Hermana Medina recognized some of the songs so we started up a little conversation, and the next thing we knew they had invited us to sit down and they were enthusiastically playing us love ballads. We gave them pass-along cards and invited them to church. One of the men kept talking to me in Portuguese for some reason, and I kept having to remind him that I speak Spanish.

Anyways, the best part of the week was our multi-zone conference with Elder Viñas. He is an area 70 and a very inspiring, spiritual man. He spoke to us for over 2 hours and I loved every second.

Before the conference he asked every missionary to come prepared with a 5-minute talk about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how it helps us in our missions. Everyone assumed he was going to select a few of us to give our talks in front of everyone, but in the end he just led a big discussion and had us all share what we had learned in preparing our talks. I love talking about the atonement...there is nothing else I would rather talk about. It is the root and the heart of my testimony and the reason why I am here. He invited us to make our lives and our missionary-work more centered in the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I left feeling inspired to be better and hopeful and determined to change, which proves that teaching true doctrine changes behavior much more effectively than talking about behavior changes behavior.

Well, it´s going to be a short one this week. I love you all very much,

Hermana Parker

From the Streets of Buenos Aires - November 5, 2012

Dear Friends and Family,

The biggest news from this week is that I WENT TO BUENOS AIRES!

The elder that was supposedly organizing the whole trip told us he was going to call us Monday to give us all the details. Monday came and went and we heard nothing. We figured he didn´t have everything set up yet and he would call Tuesday. Nope. We began to assume we had misunderstood and that we were going to go some other time. "Maybe it´s next week," we said to ourselves. I tried calling a few times but couldn´t get through. Finally, Wednesday morning, the day we were supposed to be leaving, I called again and finally got through. I explained that we were just a little confused because we thought we were going to be traveling to Buenos Aires, but we hadn´t heard anything, and asked if it was for next week. That is when Elder Flores said:

"NO, Hermanas! It is today! You are leaving today! Your bus leaves Resistencia at 7:30 tonight, you need to be here in the offices by 6:30."

Apparently he thought he had already called and told us all the details. Nope!

So, basically, we had to drop everything right then, go home, pack up our bags and hop on a bus to Resistencia. It is nearly 3 hours to Resistencia and then 13 more hours to Buenos Aires. To top it all off, right before we got on our first bus to Resistencia, Hna Medina fell and sprained her ankle pretty bad and scraped up her knee. Poor thing. Such awful luck! But the good part was that with looong bus rides ahead of her, she wouldn´t have to do her usual amount of walking.

We took a luxurious sleeper bus to Buenos Aires and they put us in the first class VIP seats. It was spectacular! The seats were soooo comfortable and folded back 180 degree to turn into beds. It was much more comfortable than my actual bed here in Formosa. There was lots of space: a personal curtain to draw around every seat for privacy, personal movie screens in front of every seat. They fed us a full hot dinner and breakfast, offered us free champagne and wine, played bingo, gave us toothpaste and toothbrushes, showed a movie (that I didn´t watch) , etc.etc.etc.

Okay, enough about the bus.... But I have never traveled in first class anything, so it was quite the experience for me.

When we got to the terminal we were greeted by Hermana Medina´s parents!

It was really cool to meet them. She lives right there in the city, about 15 minutes from the bus terminal. So she was freaking out the entire time about being so close to home. Her mom gave her a giant bag of clothes and gifts for the little kids here and hand cream and lots of other random stuff.

Then, we met up with the representative from the church offices and he took us all around the city in his car. Buenos Aires reminds me a lot of New York City. I had a

lot of fun even though it was basically all business all day. We went to the Colombian Consulate building, waited a whole lot, went to the bank, waited some more. Back to the Colombian consulate. Here's a photo of Hna Medina outside the Colombian state building with the Colombian flag. Outside we met a Colombian woman selling "arepas" (a typical food there, it is like a round cheese cornmeal bread thing). We began to talk to her and a whole bunch of other Colombian people. It was fun. They have a very different accent and Hna Medina

was stoked to meet so many people from her future mission land.

At one point, when we were waiting outside the bank, I got my shoes shined. Later, our new friend from the church offices took us to a huge shopping mall and bought us McDonalds for lunch. It was wild. I felt like I was back in the states. There is no such thing as malls or Mcdonalds (or ANY fast food) here in Formosa.

We took a plane back to Resistencia Thursday night. It was much faster, but much less comfortable. I liked how they spelled my name on my ticket: "Broocke." I think I will consider adding an extra C to my name, just to give it more pizzaz. What do you all think?

Well, after our brief little adventure, we returned back to work here and things are going so well. We found a new investigator a few weeks ago named Ramon. He is amazing. He has come to church two weeks in a row and this week came in a white shirt and tie, passed out hymn books (without being assigned, he is just super helpful and attentive), paid his tithing (!!!, keep in mind that we only met him a couple weeks ago and he is not a member), and is already making all sorts of friends. The only problem is that he needs to get married to get baptized so we are working on that.

I spent so much time writing about Buenos Aires that I don´t have much time to write about anything else. To close I´ll add that this Sunday was the first Sunday in a while that it didn´t rain and, so, for the first time in a long time our chapel was full! So many people came. And many many people who have been inactive for some time, who we have been visiting, came back. All of a sudden my little "rama parque" was HUGE (comparatively), and everyone was greeting everyone, and we had a lively, active Sunday School lesson, and lots of people got up to share their testimonies, and I just was filled with the most immense joy for the whole 3 hours. I don´t think I have ever felt so happy at church before. It was an amazing feeling. I was just smiling and smiling the whole time. I think it’s because I love this branch so much, and feel so invested in its success that I feel like when it is thriving and happy, I am thriving and happy.

So, I guess that´s it. I´ll end here. I am happy. I hope all is well at home.

Love,

Hermana Parker

Guaycolec - October 15, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

My letter today is coming directly from my personal journal. I am just typing up some excerpts from one of my entries... I do not usually write this much in a day (I wish!). I just happened to have a lot of time and thoughts this particular day...

Tuesday, Otober 9, 2012

Today we paid a grand total of 8 pesos to hop onto a colectivo and travel about 40 minutes out of the city to the Guaycolec wild animal reserve. Sol came with us and she prepared a delicous picnic lunch of swiss chard empanadas and ham sandwiches. We also brought an ice cold thermos of pear-mango tang (they have every flavor of tang imaginable here in Argentina!) that kept us going all afternoon.

Driving out into the countryside I was able to enjoy a little more of the natural landscape of Formosa. This land really is beautiful and greener than I imagined. Lots of lowlying scrubbish brushland dotted with tall slender palm trunks that explode into a firework of fronds and leaves. Every once in a while the vegetation became thicker and greener and a smill windy riacho cut through it. The weather was pretty perfect—hot but breezy. The sky a brilliant blue with tall white puffy clouds.

The reserve itself was a little empty and unkempt. Entrance is free and as we walked in we crossed paths with the hermanas from another district who were on their way out. Other than that, the whole place felt rather abandoned, and we were the only ones there.

A friendly guide smelling heavily of beer and cigarettes showed us around to some of the nearby cages—big scarlet parrots, a lovely happy little toucan, a funny rodentlike animal called a carpincho (they eat them here!), a little deer-like animal—then the guide gestured off in the distance to the path we´d have to take to see the monkies and jaguars and he returned back to his station (and presumably to his beer and cigarettes).

The monkies were my favorite. We could walk right up to their cage and stare at them nose to nose. They fascinate me. I think it´s because with their perfect little hands and facial expressions they seem so much like little furry humans. We spent almost 40 minutes staring at them and watching as they ate orange slices and climbed and jabbered and screeched.

On two separate occasions as we walked around the park a GIANT black and white iguana-like lizard creature darted across our path. I am not exactly sure what it was, but it was not caged in and it moved FAST, unlike what I usually expect from giant lizards.

On the way over, the colectivo dropped us off right in front of the reserve, but on the way back we had to walk back along the highway about a mile or so, crossing a bridge to a tiny busstop near the entrance to what seemed to be a rural farming village.

The walk was pleasant (we still had plenty of pear-mango tang) and when we reached our little out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere bus stop (seriously, there was just a little shelter with benches and then endless highway streching out for miles and miles cutting through wildnerness), we sat down and waited patiently for our bus to pass.

We ended up waiting for HOURS and getting back to our area an hour late, which was a stressful experience, but the bus never passed when it was supposed to. Still, as we waited I was overcome by the beauty of the landscape, the sky and the changing light, and I felt peaceful and happy. At one point a cow escaped from the pasture lands and several older fully-decked out Argentine “gauchos” (aka cowboys) came to corral it back in.

Sitting there, I had a lot of time to reflect and I began to think a lot about my mission and my short time here in Argentina which, wow, before I know it, will come to a close. When I first got here I thought all the time about home. For almost the first time in my life I struggled with feelings of being legitimatelyand painfully homesick. I didn´t write much about it here but I longed to be home, probably because it was familiar, beloved and much more comfortable, secure and altogether a lot easier than being a missionary. Now that home is closer in sight, I can feel my attitudes shifting. It is not any easier to be a missionary but I love being here, right where I am. I love this land, these people. I lately am struck by feelings of extreme tenderness and appreciation even for small moments—a child calling out “hermana!”, directing hymns in this tiny branch, drawing pictures of the plan of salvation. So many little things.

And lately I am starting to realize that “real life” and coming home to make very real, life-changing decisions about life and the future isn´t easy either. They are just hard in different ways. One thing at a time I suppose. I will cherish this while I still can and then move on to what´s next.

My Birthday/Conference Weekend - October 9, 2012

Family and Friends,

I don´t have too much time to write because we are going to a local Zoo/Animal Reserve! I have no idea what kinds of animals we will see, but it should be fun (although traditional zoos tend to depress me a little....but I think this place is more open and jungly).

This week was fantastic and my birthday was very unexpectedly remembered by many and very thoroughly celebrated. I received THREE cakes and many little gifts and phone calls. Celebrations started on Tuesday when my old companion Hna. Pack who recently was transferred to my zone, organized a little post-district meeting party. On Friday I received phone calls all day starting with my district leader and his companion in the morning calling and singing happy birthday. Around lunch Hna Hobbs and her new companion called and sang. Mid-afternoon the mission office called and a sweet Argentine Elder made his best attempt to sing me happy birthday in English and then, right before bed the other sisters in our district called to give me birthday greetings and sing.

Friday night, about an hour before we had to be back in the apartment, my companion managed to organize a little surprise birthday dinner for me at Sol´s house. Sol is one of my favorite people here in Formosa. She is actually in a different ward but she lives just a few blocks away from us and is basically best friends with all the sister missionaries in all of Formosa. She has me and my companion over for lunch every Thursday. She is about our age and is preparing to go on a mission herself.

Anyways, I suspected something was up, as sometimes my companion had rather random, cryptic phone conversations with Sol earlier in the week. But I chose not to pay too much attention -- and they really ended up surprising me! I walked into a room decorated with a birthday sign, and balloons and home-made pizza and cake. It was soooo sweet!

THEN, Saturday night, one of my favorite families in our branch told us that we HAD to stop by their house after the last session of conference. So we stopped by and they surprised me with a GIANT delicious creamy vanilla-y cake. The husband is a baker, and you could tell. It was delicious!

I loved General Conference. It was a little bittersweet to think that it was my last conference in my mission... I have a lot more stamina for listening to conference as a missionary. I was BLOWN AWAY by the announcement about lowering the mission ages. I think it´s pretty exciting! I think a lot more girls will go now that they don´t have to wait so long.

Aaron is right, I loved the Saturday sessions more than the Sunday sessions for some reason. There was just one great talk after another. I especially loved Elder Cook´s talk, Elder Uchtdorf´s talk, Elder Ballard´s talk about bees and honey and I was very interested to hear Elder Oaks’ talk about protecting children. There are a lot of children who need a lot of protection here in Argentina.

More thoughts and pictures from my birthday (and the zoo) next week!

Love,

Hermana Parker