Hola!!!!

Happy Late Birthday Grandma Alvey!! (please remind me if there is anyone else I forgot. I can´t remember when Rachel´s birthday is)

Well, another week has gone by and we are one week closer to the temple. Thank you soooooo much for all the emails, packages, and letters. Also, thank you for answering all the questions I have. I couldn´t ask for more. You have all been so amazing during this time. I know that time has moved quickly. I can´t believe that Hermana Reed (my trainer) is leaving for her home right after the temple. The next transfer, Hermana Milmont is leaving. The transfer after that, Hermana Alfaro is leaving. I can´t believe everything that has happened and will happen still. I have a lot of growth still to do. My patience is something that I am working on a lot during this transfer. I have also learned how to control my thoughts and desires. It´s not easy being with someone who keeps talking about the end of their mission. You know that I have always looked forward to the time when I would get married. Because my companion is leaving soon, she is talking and thinking a lot about the same thing. On top of that, there is a sister here in this branch that is getting married soon, so that just adds to everything. Every day I have to remind myself of my top priority and forget everything else. That is the only way that I can grow on the mission. As much as I love you all (which is aaaaalllllooooootttttt) I finally learned with Hermana Milmont how to put my family and friends out of my mind and into the hands of the Lord. Now, I am working every day to put my goals and my dreams out of my mind and into the hands of the Lord. I know that it is a year into the mission and I should have done that a long time ago. I thought I did, but as I said in one of my first emails: everything you don´t take care of before the mission comes before your face until it is truly taken care of, or you cannot continue to grow and be molded by the Lord. I know that I will continue moving forward. I feel your prayers everyday and everyday I feel your love. Thank you.

This week has been an interesting one. So, I found myself on the otherside of a closed fence for the second time in my mission. This time, we were trying to get an investigator to church and this is the first time that the fence has been closed. Instead of climbing over the fence, this time it was easier to crawl under. He came to church, though, and has a baptismal date for this coming weekend. We are working hard with him so that he can go to the rededication of the temple. It is an exciting time and we want everyone to be a part of it. That´s almost all we can think or talk about, but that is how it should be because it is only in the temple that we can be together forever and receive the greatest blessings that God has for us. In order to go to the temple, you first have to be baptized. Nobody who isn´t baptized will return to their Heavenly Father; nobody. That has been a real motivation for me. There are many people that I love who aren´t baptized and can´t return home to their Father with their family. Our responsibility as members is to open our mouths and share the Gospel. I have forgotten that many times in my life because of fear, but that can´t be. We are in a battle and we are concious of that. Keep pressing forward. Never give up. This week, I recommend studying about the armor of God this week.

I believe that this email is going to be pretty short this week, and for that, I am sorry.

I love you all soooooooo much. I pray for you all every night and wish you the best. You are all special in your own way and I wouldn´t change any of you for the world.

Love
Hermana Alvey

Hola!!!!

So I just realized that I sent the pictures before I wrote the letter. As you probably have guessed, my companion threw me a surprise birthday party. It was a lot of fun. She pretended like she had forgotten my birthday the entire day. I was dissappointed but realized that it really wasn´t that important so I tried to forget my birthday as well. Later we went to the church to drop something off for the elders and there was a surprise party with some of our recent converts. It was nice to see them there. There were treats and chatting. At the end it was time for the cake and nobody brought candles so they tried to use matches. It didn´t work that well, but it was thoughtful. At the end everyone said that it was a tradition in Argentina to eat the first bite with only your mouth. Of course we all know what they wanted to do so I was a good sport about it. Luckily nothing got on my clothes or glasses. ^_^

We are very excited to go to the temple. I think I translated a little incorrectly the promise that was given. He said ¨Un nombre va a venir a su mente cuando está en el cuarto de sellamamiento que será su esposo.¨ It´s a struggle not to think about that every time we talk about the temple with the less actives. We saw the official photos of the temple and it is beautiful. I hope that we get to do at least one session during our mission or at the end.

Thank you for responding to my questions. I appreciate everything that you do for me. I wish that I could express my gratitude and love properly, but I hope you know how much I love you. We were talking with our elders about their line of authority and I realized that I don´t remember Dad´s. What is your line of authority? Out of the 8 elders in our group, only two knew theirs. Two others had their papers, but didn´t know their line and the rest. I know that this knowledge strengthens the testimony of the priesthood bearers to know that, in reality, their line of authority comes directly from Jesus Christ. I would hope and encourage all worthy priesthood holders who read this to look for their line of authority and remember it and remember that they literally hold the power of God to bless the nations of the world.

Not much has happened this week. We are doing better about finding people. We have three baptisms scheduled for this month and have dropped about three baptisms this month. It´s always hard and sad, but we need to find those people who are prepared and we know that they are there. We have that promise from the Lord and I know that He does not lie.

I feel all of your prayers every day and I am soooo grateful for them. I have found that I am not happy when I am not working and that has probably been one of the greatest blessings I have received. There are still hard days, but I am enjoying doing the Lord´s work. Yes, I can still do better, but I have come a long way. I still have a long way to go and I know that I have such a short time. I don´t know how time has been working for you, but it seems like yesterday I just arrived in the MTC and I am approaching my year mark. As I look back to see how far I have come, I am happy with the progress I have made. I am sad that, because of my pride and laziness, I have missed out on a lot of opportunities and changes, but I know that if I am faithful, the Lord can help me make the most of these last months of my mission. I pray for the charity and humility every day for the Lord to work in my life.

Well, it´s time to go play sports. I love you all soooooo much and pray for you daily. Stay safe and well. Don´t do anything that you aren´t supposed to.

Love
Hermana Alvey

 

Zone/district
front row L-R Hermanas Alvey & Alfaro, Elders Gregory, Haws, and Rose
back row L-R Elders Pino, Figueroa, and Warburton

other Elders in our Zone
Elders Brown and Ocares

my surprise birthday party
L-R: Leonardo, Elders Warburton & Gregory and Hermano Vargas

Hola!!!

Bienvenidos al CCM, Anthony!!!!
These first three days tend to be the hardest, but it is an amazing experience. Hope you enjoy your district. They make the experience even better.

So it was transfers yesterday and I know that you are all waiting to see what will happen. We are all still here in Rio Gallegos. Nobody left and we are all going to the meeting and the temple dedication. We are so excited for the temple. Our zone leaders had a wonderful experience in the temple. Last Tuesday, they had a special meeting with the three missions in Buenos Aires and President Arnold. President Gulbrandsen told all the zone leaders to be two hours early and to be doing their studies for that time. All of them were obedient and President Arnold saw that. When it was close to the time for the meeting, the other missions were just arriving. President Arnold asked President Gulbrandsen if all his leaders were there and he said yes. President Arnold then told President Gulbrandsen and his missionaries to follow him; they were going to get a tour of the temple. Can you imagine an experience like that? There´s more. When they arrived at the sealing room of the temple, President Arnold stopped and said: ¨I´m going give you a promise. This is for your entire mission. When you are in the sealing room, the person who you are going to marry will come into your mind, through the Spirit.¨ What a promise. Now, I´m not going to tell you the answer when we go to the temple, but I wanted to show you the amazing blessings we receive by being obedient; especially to our leaders.

This week has been a pretty quiet week. We have not had any baptisms recently and are still looking for investigators.  We are working better with the leaders of the branch and gaining their trust. There wasn´t a lot of trust between the missionaries and the leaders about 4 months ago and Hermana Alfaro has been working with them. Now I have joined the cause and we are continuing to see progress. We are happy to be moving forward.

Thank you so much for answering my questions. I´m going to let the elders know the answers. Were you able to find any more information about the different kind of visas? Do you have Anthony´s email address? I´m sorry about all the funerals. I hope Brother Hort gets better soon. How is Brother Ramirez healing? Tell Jared I say Hi back. I´m glad that things are moving along well at home. Stay well, Dad, and do exactly what the doctor says. You won´t heal otherwise and may even make it worse. I can testify to that.

I just realized that I don´t really have much to talk about this week. We are all still thinking about the temple and can´t wait for that time to arrive. We still don´t know what we are going to be doing as part of the cultural event, but we hope to hear soon.

It´s time to play fútbol, so I will talk to everyone again soon.

I love you all sooooooo much.

Love
Hermana Alvey

Hola!!!

Happy Farewell, Anthony!!!!!

So another week has gone by and I have some amazing news. First of all, we had another baptism this weekend and it was great. His name is Nelson and his sister is a member of the branch here. We weren´t 100% sure that he should be baptized because of some mental disabilities, but I remembered what President Gulbrandsen said about one of our investigators in Vicente López. Ask a series of simple questions such as: If you took a cookie and your mother asked you if you did, is it good or bad to say ´no´?¨ Simple questions like that help us learn if they can choose between good and bad. If they can, they can be baptized. We asked how we would teach him, since he could not understand or retain everything. President Gulbrandsen told us that if he has desires to be baptized and is showing a change of heart, he is ready. From that, he was baptized. It was wonderful to see the support of friends, family, and the branch.

Good news about Leonardo, as well. He just received the priesthood this last sunday and is very excited to become a fully active member of the church. He is the first to volunteer for things and really wants a calling. We asked him yesterday to accompany us for an appointment today and he was very happy to say yes. The whole family is doing great.

We just had our interviews with President Gulbrandsen and it was amazing. We received some wonderful news. He asked us if we were ok with staying with our companions for one transfer more. We said yes and he told us :¨This is the only way that I can find that you all can go to the meeting for all the missionaries in the three Buenos Aires Missions with President Eyring, Elder Ballard, and Elder Christofferson.¨ We could not believe our ears!!!  If it is the Lord´s will that we all stay the same this transfer, we will get to go to this meeting and participate in the cultural event for the temple!!! I am beyond happy right now. It will be an amazing experience and a once in a life time opportunity. Please pray that we get to go.

I was writing in my journal the other day and I want to share some of my thoughts.

¨I am reminded of when we would make pies with Mom. She didn´t need our help and it might have been easier without is. Still, she let us help. as we waited for the pie to be done, she gave us little treats; parts of the pie crust with cinnamon sugar that were delicious and helped us wait for the big treat while getting a sample of what it would taste like. Our Heavenly Father is much the same. He is letting us help with His work and His glory which is to bring to pass the inmortality and eternal life of man (our own included). This is the pie; after all the hard work, that is the ultimate goal and it is delicious to the taste. He lets us help with His work even though, at times, it may be easier if we didn´t. As we wait to receive this grand gift, we are given blessings that help us know what the ¨pie¨ will be like and they are also delicious to the taste. If we do our part, we will receive this great gift from our Eternal Father in Heaven. We may ask, ´Well, what if I mess up? What if I use walnuts instead of pecans? What if I burn the pie?´ You´re not going to do everything right the first time. I messed up my first three pies. The lemon pie didn´t have enough starch in it so it didn´t set up, but it still tasted good. Sometimes things don´t turn out the way we expect them to, or we ´mess up´, but we have the promise that if we do our best, everything will be ok; the Lord will make up the rest. The pie wasn´t pretty, but it tasted wonderful. ´What if I use walnuts instead of pecans?´ An experience from the life of Aunt Jane can help with that. She has a hard time telling the difference between a walnut and a pecan. One day she made walnut pies and pecan pies without knowing it. Turns out that the walnut pies tasted better than the pecan pies. The Lord knows what He´s doing. He knows better than we do. Though, things may not turn out like we want them to, the Lord knows the end result and it turns out to be better than our own. ´What if I burn the pie?´ One of the greatest gifts that our Heavenly Father has given us is the Atonement. Through His Son, Jesus Christ, we are able to repent. We can be clean again; we can start over. Even though we may burn the pie, we can start over and try again. It´s true that you will have to clean up and buy new ingredients, but it´s possible. Just as repentace can be hard and there are a lot of consquences, it´s possible. It is an amazing thing. One last thing I want to share before I move on is something that happened with Aunt Marie. Grandma Alvey was pickling and making jam, so she had a lot of sugar and salt. It turns out that this time, Aunt Marie´s pie was made with 2 cups of salt instead of sugar. The adversary has a counterfit for everything and if we are not careful, we fall into temptation and the end result is bitter to the taste. Salt looks just like sugar, but does not taste like sugar. Just as the adversary´s promised results appear the same, they are not. We need to be careful and look more closely to see if we are using salt or sugar.¨

There were my thoughts and I wrote them down. I testify of the counsel given by the prophets. Keep and inspiration journal nearby. Always write what you receive. Ask if it is correct. Ask if there is more and then write again. Keep repeating this process and you will receive some of the most precious and tender impression from your Loving Heavenly Father. He has not forgotten you here on this earth and is waiting to talk to you. I, sadly did not ask for more, so I do not know, this time, what more He had to say to me, but I am happy for what I have right now. He will use our own experiences to teach us in the moment and years after. It´s been about 14 years since some of those experiences and I was taught from on high through them.

Thank you soooooo much for the letters. They always bring light to my day. Thank you for your help with questions, research, and patience. You have all blessed my life greatly and I cannot thank you enough.

I hope you had fun at Pioneer Days. I bet it was exciting as usual. I can´t wait to see pictures. I´m happy with the fruits of your labors. I know that you are enjoying yourselves.

Have fun in Arizona. Take pictures of your haircut Mom. I still like your silver hair, but I understand if you want to color it. Say ¨Hi¨ to everyone for me (including Nathan). Best of luck and love, Anthony. Enjoy every minute of your mission; it´s too short to miss even one minute of it. Talk with everyone.

Dad, thank you for the research that you have done. I really appreciate it. I have one more question, what are the different type of visas? I know that you are working hard and I am very happy with all that you do. With all that everyone does. You are all doing your best and I can see the many blessings of the Lord for all of you.

The pair of shoes I have are boots meant for walking in the cold/snow and snowboarding. One of the Elders here said that the brand I have is an amazing brand and will last me for 2 years or more. If they are meant for snowboarding as well, I assume that they will last up to all the walking I have to do. I won´t need other shoes until I get back into the north. It will be too hot to wear my ¨snow boots¨ when I get back into the heat. I appreciate the offer, though. I am going to try and send some mail so I´m going to take out about $25 more. I am trying to be 100% obedient and I feel that writing people through you (though I greatly appreciate it) is breaking the rule of only writing emails to family. I´ll send all my letters in an envelope to you; please, then, send them to the addresses on the envelopes.

Wow, this letter is getting long. I love you all sooooo much. Please stay safe and well. I pray for you every day.

Love
Hermana Alvey

Nelson's baptism
Hermana's Alvey & Alfaro, Nelson, Matias, Elders Gregory & Warburton

Leonardo's baptism
Cintia, Hermanas Alvey & Alfaro, Leonardo holding Amor Mia, Elder Gregory

Hola!!!

Happy Birthday Benjamin!!!
Congratulations Anthony!!!

Hope all is going well for everyone. I am so happy to hear about the things that are going on. The pictures are awesome. I can´t believe the difference in the backyard. The fruit looks gorgeous.

You all look sooo happy in the pictures at the temple. It´s an amazing experience. It´s ok if you don´t understand everything. I had almost no idea what was going on my first time, but as I went every week in the mtc, I saw the blessings and understood more. I can´t begin to explain how I feel about the temple. It is a place of peace where you can receive counsel and comfort. You are literally taught from on high. Right now I am 5 hours away by plane from the nearest temple and it´s not even finished. Let the desire grow within you to go to the temple every week and then keep it for your entire life. I have been speaking with a member of the Branch here who just got back from his mission 3 months ago and it surprised me how much he had forgotten about being on the mission. Make the mission your life, not just a part of it. Look for the talk about the Fourth Missionary. There is great help within this talk to teach you how to serve a full and worthy mission.  Then you want to be able to say that you gave the Lord everything in these last two years. The choice you made when you signed the letter and sent it back to the Prophet was that you would give everything to the Lord. These next two years are not yours. They are the Lord´s and he is still blessing you along the way to grow and become stronger. It is an amazing blessing to be a part of His work. I have made a lot of mistakes on my mission and continue to do so. Please learn from my mistakes so that you can have a better mission. I am still learning how to give everything to the Lord. I want to be in control, but on the mission you learn that He is in control.  Let Him mold you. He doesn´t make mistakes; you can trust Him with everything. My habit is to know everything before I do something and be in control. It can´t be that way. There is sooooo much that you learn on the mission. You draw so much closer to your Heavenly Father and learn how to talk with Him. You see the Atonement work in your life and can share it with your investigators. Your example will make the biggest difference. If you don´t live what you teach, the Spirit will not be with you. Study the basics. Study them again and again. You will never learn everything about them, and the promise we have is that as we study the basics, we will be able to teach them in the simplicity that our investigators need. Look for the good in your companion. You won´t always have a perfect companionship, but you can still learn from them. Talk openly with them. Remember that your first loyalty is to the Lord; second, to your mission president; and third, to your companion. You are your first convert and your companion, your second. Pray for charity every day. Never lose a day without praying for charity. Study Preach My Gospel. Become a Preach My Gospel Missionary, it will change your mission and your life. Obey with exactness. The president of the MTC counseled us that obedience brings blessings and exact obedience brings miracles. Write in your journal every day. If you don´t one day will turn into a week and into a transfer and before you know it, your mission is gone. The small moments and things that make you happy, make them a big deal. You will enjoy your mission more.

I am not trying to sound self righteous or that I´m perfect. I have a lot of faults and don´t do all the things I have just said, but when I have done them, I have seen miracles in myself and in my mission. These can be two of the best years of your life, or two of the no-so-good. It all depends on you. The mission prepares us for our life to come now and in the eternities. All of this, also applies to those who are not in the mission. Just as Preach My Gospel isn´t just for full time missionaries, the things we learn on the mission aren´t just for the mission. Read about Zion´s Camp and why they did what they did. I believe that it will help you understand the ways of the Lord better.

Life here has been interesting. It´s been hot during the day, about 40 degrees Farenheit. (yes I did just say that it was hot) Yesterday at about 7 pm, all the lights in the neighborhood went out. It was also cloudy so there was no moon or stars. We were in the chapel when it happened so we had the emergency lights, but we had appointments to go to. We prayed about it and decided that there was one appointment that we couldn´t miss, so we called the others and said that we wouldn´t be able to make it. This appointment was with Leonardo. It really was my first baptism. He was so prepared and I was excited to be a part of it. He was baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday. The filter here in Rio Gallegos for the water isn´t working too well, so in order for Leonardo to have warm water (instead of freezing to death) that was remotely clean (instead of brown) we stayed in the chapel all day boiling clean water and filling up the font. We didn´t have time to do that for the entire font, so we had to use some of the dirty water, but we were in the chapel for 6 hrs. Hermana Alfaro was stressed out and she was surprised that I wasn´t especially since it was my first. It all turned out well. His wife had to work and she just barely made it for the baptism. It was awesome.

Friday we had an activity set up by the missionaries. It was a movie night and guess what we showed the members, ¨17 Miracles¨. I love this movie and I hope that you had the opportunity to watch it. Everyone who came loved it. We didn´t have permission from President Gulbrandsen to watch it, so us 6 missionaries stayed in the kitchen making popcorn and talking. We had a lot of fun.

I hope all goes well with the doctor dad. Let me know what he says about your nose.

We might be having interviews next monday so that´s when I´ll be receiving my mail. I noticed that I kept spelling Hermana Alfaro´s name wrong. There is only one ¨r¨. Thank you soooo much for your letters, packages, and prayers. They help so much. Can somebody send me the address of Anthony´s mission? or his email? And the email or address of Nathan? I´m trying to do better about writing.

The computer that I am on doesn´t have a way for me to send pictures. The USB drive is broken. (did you put the music on the USB drive?) I have a lot of pictures to send, especially abou the baptism. Next week I will be able to send the pictures.

Well, it´s that time to play fútbol again. I love you all aaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllloooooooooooootttttttttttt!!! I´ll talk to you soon.

Love
Hermana Alvey