"new" transfer

Hello and Happy Belated Thanksgiving!!!

As you may or may not know, transfers were last week aanndd.... nothing changed! Ha, Hna. Quintana and I will be spending Christmas ("Las Fiestas" como dicen acá)  here in Esperanza.  Not gonna lie, hearing the news of the transfer (or lack thereof) was... super duper hard.  There is so much that I want to learn and do and experience and yet (with the exception of Texas and the MTC) an entire half of my mission will be rather static. Looking at the transfer sheet though only 2 of the companionships of Hnas. (out of 13) changed.. and that was because 2 Hnas. finished their mission. ... I don't really know whats going to happen next transfer.  Our district leader told us that President said that 60 missionaries will be coming next transfer, most of which will be hnas.  We could be whitewashed out or I sould die here in Esperanza. Maybe I wouldn't mind.  I've just come to be so tired.. emotionally.  And not because of the work, our lack of investigators that eligible for baptism (a.k.a. married instead of juntada), or anything else but just the instability of the members.  Satan truly knows how to destroy people and it always seems to be over the silliest things.  Sometimes we just try to forget about the problems in the branch for a bit and work hard with our investigators but Sunday it all comes back to the choas of our church mtgs and doing everything possible to help our investigators feel the Spirit. 

Pero buueeeenno.  Have I told you that a few weeks ago I saw my very first ever firefly?!? Omgsh!!  Im obsessed.  Sadly they dont stay lit like in the movies but whever we go out in the campo or out to the Orilla at night they are all over in the bushes and I even caught one. haha. definitely a highlight of the new schedule and staying out later.

As far as this week goes, it was awesome.  After putting my frustrations and disappointments aside and accepting what was to come I just focused on how I could accomplish the goals I had set for myself for this transfer.  My companion and I had a nice long inventory and set goals as a companionship as well.  Living with someone that chews louder than Cyd is for 6 months is a challenge haha but honestly things are good now.  We are focused on bigger things than ourselves and I'm excited to see what comes in these next 5 weeks.  

Thanksgiving was a bit of a downer.  Ha, I have never missed home so much in these past almost 8 months that I have been away.  It's always the little things that you take for granted.... but Heavenly Father blessed me with a tender mercy of rain and stormy skies all day that made Thanksgiving feel more normal and homey.  :) I made corn pudding in a pot in the over and we put up a strand of Christmas lights and have been singing Christmas hymns ever since.  Unfortunately the Christmas weather didn't last and once again the sun is shining and we are sweating and smiling but it's good.  As I mentioned we found awesome investigors which is always the highlight of this work -- people that want to listen to us.  One (rather 4) of which is a family of Columbians that moved here and sell muebles.  Ha, they are a little hard for me to understand but so funny and polite.  They ask all sorts of questions and even came to church yesterday.  Makes me wish I was called to Columbia... lol. But, yes. they too are juntada...  But maybe we are supposed to marry the entire city of Esperanza before we baptize them... puede ser?   

Thanks for all the wonderful pictures! I´ll send some our way as well. 

¡Felicitaciones a Taralyn y su esposo!  Your wedding looks like it was absolutely gorgeous. Sorry I couldnt quite make it but I look forward to meeting him when I get back. :))

Con cariño,

Hna. Morgan

thanksgiving day...

me and ramon monzon (baptized last month and helped us fix our sink haha) :)

These next five pictures are from my companion's camera.

pte gudiño and his wife at their house for lunch during conference

"cayó piedras!"  ...aka hail but the people here are deathly afraid of hail and lock themselves away until the radio says its safe.

reunion de zona con las hermanas de rafaela y algunas miembros

another rainy day.  lol pardon the hair. agostina. a young woman in the branch

chickys!!  

old district picture (tranfer 3)

my bbq chicken pizza!  :)

this is my favorite pic from the mission so far i think.   baptism of máximo. :) he reminds me of papa.  thats our baptismal font btw

maximo got to baptize his neice Araceli (to his left) and great neice Rocío (far left) :)

us outside..... lol cyd, photoshop me skinnier. :P

me in the plaza.  PURPLE FLOWERS EVERYWHERE!!!!

the comp and i in the plaza. :)

ha, the bus stop in recreo.  ...we tend to spend many an hour here...... defintiely not on purpose.

HAppy HalloWEEN!!

The Hermanas in Rafaela when we did divisions there.  ...isnt their pench beautifull.... sigh.  its ok, were going to be moving soon!! wooohooo!!

sleeping arrangemtns. :)  me in my Colón jersey. choosing a fútbol team was actually super hard but.. im content with my desicison

me and a random horse on the side of the road

cool sunset and sweaty greasy me. 

us amd máximo before church one sunday.  Sharp looking grounp no?  :)   also the color theme is perfect

zone pday with my first asado! I ate my weight in meat.  it was delicious.

zona rafaela hnas!

me and araceli for her bday

our pday in santa fe.  haha i was in heaven. such an amazing place.

my mcdonalds. :))  dont know why my cadbury mcflurry didnt make the picture..

walmart!  and a real like glazed donut in my hand!  mmm..  also, note how the walmart slogan is in vos.  ..only in argentina..

bus back to town

 random lucnh in hna. susanas house. eating salamin and pan.

Picturas!.... finally.

Me and Tamara in the chapel :)

 Me and Hna. Susana. She feeds us every Thursday. muy muy rico.

Our district.

 this was conference weekend (before the tragedy of my camera)  and yes, that is blood sausage.   it doesn't taste that bad but its just knowing what is stuck in between your teeth that gets ya.  i was offered it a couple weeks ago at the asado for zone p-day but... i had to draw the line with cold blood...  reheated and steamy.... no thanks. lol

please note the wonderfully healthy dish in the background. (yes that is mayo)

bautismo de ramon monzon.  this was like.. the first saturday of october.

viaje a hawaii... decorations and all

my 6 month celebrations! (torta grido)

ha, dont post this one on the blog... its for your enjoyment nada mas.  but this si my sad life.  was my sad life. i havent eaten antyhing of the sort for awhile now but ya... soo yyummyy.... (I know Lyndsey said don't put this one on the blog, but I couldn't help myself....enjoy..haha)

verano for realsies

Hello my wonderful family,

Weeks always seem like such a weird blur... there is always so much to deal with apart from the work itself and our area is so fetching large that I feel like we spend 3/4 of our time just walking.  My companion never really sets specific return appointments and I have learned over these past 3 transfers that it is because we never make them on time. It kills me.  With transfers in a week though I am really hoping to get some bikes soon.  Our district leaders told us too that the misison will be gettin 60 new missionaries in the next two transfers and instead of opening new areas the presidents is going to be reinforcing the weaker, larger areas that he already has (that is just screaming Esperanza!)  I´m crossing my fingers.  Being able to focus on half of this city and finding all the inactive members and having time to work with them would be amazing.  The first 2 transfers I was here I really fought going to Barrio La Orilla because its a good 20 pesos there and back in remisse and we can´t go often enough to really work with any investigators that we found.  It is a very humble area though and the elders that were here hace 2 years worked a ton out there so it´s filled with inactives that hace seems to slip through the cracks. Gosh, ha. Things seem so overwhelming when I really sit and think about them but at the same time I know I need to do more.  I have become complacent again and it is evident in the amount of miracles we see and the steady flow of the work.  We had 4 literally miracle baptisms last month but without the help of the branch, instead of continuing to find, we still spend as much time, if not more, with them and it is incredible the amount of problems that have seemed to spring up.  But really the branch is progressing in different ways. 2 of the members are going this month to take out their endowments after years and years and years of membership. We have 3 future elders and the primary is... insane. literally. lol I don´t know.   It will be interesting to see how things change with transfers.  

Speaking of changes, this week because of the heat our study schedule changed as well. Over the weekend a crazy tormento rolled in and dropped us back into the 50s for a nice break but all week leading up to that was in the low 90s.  It doesnt sound bad but the humidity makes things absolutely unbearable.  We dont have a fan or airconditioning or anything so we literally just sit in our sweat as we study or what not. its great.  But ya:

Nuevo Horario del Verano

06:30: Levantarse

06:30-07:00: Ejercicios

07:00-08:00: Desayunar y Prepararse

08:00-08:30: Planeamiento Diario

08:30-09:00: Estudio Personal (30 min)

09:00-14:30: Proselitismo

 -con una hora de almuerzo

14:30-15:00: Estudio Personal (30 min)

15:00-16:00: Estudio en Compañerismo

16:00-16:30: Estudio del Idioma

16:30-17:00: Tiempo Libre

 -Diario, Ropa, Etc.… ¡NO DORMIR!

17:00- 21:30: Proselitismo

 -22:00 si están enseñando

22:30: Acostarse a Dormir

Ha, crazy huh?  I dont know if I mentioned last week but we are in the process of doing all we can to move. Our future pench is beautiful and has airconditioning and... it will be a nice place to study.  I´m excited.

Today was awesome.  Ha, we went to Wal-Mart!  I have never been so excited to go to Wal-Mart in my whole ever life.   ... it wasn´t all I thought it would be but I bought some peanut butter and face soap and stuff like that.  More exciting was our trip though centro in Santa Fe.  Gosh, it is like ... a real live city!!  I was blown away.  We had to walk through the peatonal which is like... a big beautiful strip mall.  A whole street just for walking and shopping instead of cars and what not.  Aannndd guess what else was there.  McDonalds!  Ha, it was glorious.  I had a delicious hamburger and fries and a Cadbury McFlurry which was super rico. Caro pero valió la pena.  

Thats pretty much it for this week though... I miss you all, gosh, especially as the holidays are coming up.  

Love, Hna. Morgan

ha.lo.

Hello home,

Ha so I feel like I missed a ton this week! ...and by a ton I really mean Disneyland.  I'm so glad the weather has been so great for y'all.  This week hasn't been quite so bad either but the humidity is seriously going to kill me.  Every Tuesday we go to Recreo for disrict mtg. and this week I made a point to stop by the Tincho factory to buy juguitos. They are essentially otter pops but super cheap, esp from the factory. Lol so now our freezer is loader with at least 100 juguitos nice and frozen and ready to cool me off. :)  

Halloween here pretty much just came and went.  I didnt even remember that it was Halloween until 8:45 when we were walking back to the pench.  Theyre were roughly 6 people dressed up as ghosts or with a mask no más going around "trick or treating"  Lol on a whim though I ducked into a despense, bought a little zapallo, a candle, and a candy bar.  We went home, planned, and carved our little pumpkin and ate our chocolate and... that was it. haha woooo.  

Crazy that now it is November... I don't know where the time goes.  On Friday we got to do divisions with the hermanas in Rafaela.  Ha, it was actually a lot of fun.  Its a good hour and 20 min bus ride so we both went there and worked. our poor area kinda got over looked but it was nice seeing how other hermanas work and talk and .. ya, everything. 

We are still just busy finding people.. contacting, doing callbacks... etc.  Our lack of solid investigators right now is sad but this week we'll get eveything going again.  Gosh though, Sunday was awesome. Araceli and Rocio were confirmed and even though our attendance was still pretty low, Maximo, our recent convert, blessed the sacrament.  He even knelt to do so!  I didn't know he could kneel!   Hno. Spies blessed it with him and Ramón Monzón, our other convert, passed.  It was so amazing to see the priesthood of Esperanza.  One day we are going to have our very own presidente de Rama and everything. :)  

Today we have a zone pday because our zone had the most baptisms for the month of October.  I don't really like traveling on pdays because we dont get anything done that we need to but.. it will be a nice break from the usual.   Anyways,  I guess thats it on my end.  Thanks for the updates on NY and the election and todo.  It is incredible how far removed I feel from enveything.. Keep me posted.

I love you alll!!!!

Chau

Hna. Morgan