Hola!!!!

So another week has gone by and it´s getting hotter. ^_^ It´s been a wonderful first week with Hermana Hill. As far as transfers and temple goes, Hermana Hill and Hermana Sperry are going to the temple together tomorrow and me and Hermana Kapp are staying and working in the area. I´m a little bummed about that, but I´ll get to go to the temple soon enough.

I am going to have to apologize, because the computer I am at right now is slightly broken, so I am not able to send pictures today. Everything here is so expensive so there are not many people that put up lights and decorations. It kind of reminds me of the states where through out the entire year, there are some people who never take down their lights and you still occassionally see some lighted houses. That´s pretty much how it is here. There are some ornaments and things on the doors, but not like the decorations at home. I like it, in part, because it helps remind us that there is more to christmas than snow and lights.

I am very excited to see what President Gulbrandsen is going to do for Christmas. Monday, Dec 24th, the entire mission is going to the mission office and I have no idea what is going to happen. I think he might have told us over the conference call, but I didn´t hear what he said very well. As you saw, we get to do skype the 25th or 26th. We are planning at being the house of Flia Curbello Christmas evening and doing skype around 6-7 pm our time here in Argentina. We don´t know if we will be doing internet next monday, so we will stay with that time for now. If we do get to do internet next monday, I will tell you the for sure plan.

Just so you know, it rains a lot here. Last thursday there were giant floods, because of how much rain we received. It´s pretty fun walking in water up to your waist. Luckily, thursday is weekly planning, so we were inside all day planning our entire week. By the time we left, there was only water up to the ankles in some areas.

Hermana Hill has a Leavitt line and I was hoping that you could send me the leavitt lines in our family. It starts with Sarah Sturdevant Leavitt. Two of her sons are our ancestors: Jeremiah Leavitt and Dudley Leavitt.

We are excited for our investigators that we are teaching. They are two families. We are still working with Yolanda and her children. We also found a family that lives in the same building as Romina (the recent convert who received the last minute surprise birthday party): Jazmin and Susanna are the only ones old enough to be baptized. We are so excited to be working with them. They all have their challenges and I know that it is our role to help them feel the Spirit to have the testimony to keep moving forward. It is so hard to teach people not lessons. You feel as if you are doing a good job and helping them by teaching lessons. They receive a lot of information and seem to understand it, but then you realize that they don´t really comprehend it. They aren´t applying it. They aren´t living it or don´t see the importance and fall away. It´s so frustrating sometimes when you realize that you aren´t teaching as you should be: with the Spirit. I have often wondered how many baptisms have fallen through because of that. It´s hard, but we never give up hope. So far, none of the investigators we found last week with Hermana Vargas and Hermana Shelley are progressing, but it was a faith builder week to say the least.

We are not sure how this transfer will end up with Elder Rose, Hermana Sperry, and Hermana Hill. It could be that Hermana Kapp and I take care of the entire area alone. It could be that we receive a couple new latin companions to train (they sometimes come in in the middle of the transfer). We are interested to see where this goes, but it sure is different having four North Americans in the same pension. As we were speaking english, I realized that I talk funny and that I have forgotten a lot of english words. I would sometimes say :¨At what time...¨ instead of ¨What time is...¨ I know that it´s proper the first way, but it´s so strange. I also could not remember what ¨mayoría¨was in english (It´s majority). Things like that just make life funny right now for all of us, because I´m not the only one doing it. I´m just the one that doesn´t notice, but you will all hear my funny way of talking soon. Something else that seemed natural to me was to say that we received references to visit instead of saying referrals. You can say ¨references¨ instead of ¨referrals¨, right? I can´t remember and eveybody here speaks spanglish so I´m not really sure. By the way, Hermana Hermosa goes home this transfer, too. I won´t have any companions left in the mission by the end of this transfer. I can´t believe it. The only ones will be the hermanas from the MTC.

Well, we are heading out to Once. It´s an outdoor market that´s famous here. I love you all sooooo much and I´ll talk with you soon.

Love

Hermana Alvey