New area

special thanks to the waltons, hna. patino, jen w, carrie, sam, ma, pa, rachel, jmag, gee and hna mangum for the emails this week! and happy birthday to gma harris this wednesday! and feliz pascua a todo!

this has been a pretty crazy week. hna vega´s new comp didn´t get here until wed, so thank goodness i was being transfered into a trio because i could stay with her until then (normally transfers are on monday). wednesday morning i moved to my new area, tres cerritos. it´s pretty "cheta" ("wealthy"--think pasadena. and my area before was more like covina/azusa), but i was pretty glad to see some "normal" homes. most of our citas that day fell through, so i didn´t get to meet very many of our investigators. the next day (thurs, during our long weekly planning session), hna levrino called and said that another hermana in another area was way sick and would be staying at their house while she got some tests done, so could i be ready in 20 minutes to go to her area to work with her comp for an undefinite amount of time? i threw a bunch of stuff in my carry-on bag and now i´m in guemes. guemes is about an hour north of downtown salta--and i love it! it´s more in the country. we passed fields of sugar cane and tobacco on our way here. it´s not a pueblo, but has a small-town feel to it. people are more friendly, relaxed. they treat me like i´ve known them my whole life. lots more homemade pan (bread), baked in an horno de barro (adobe oven in the backyard). mmmmm, que rico! lots more dirt streets, lots more dogs and roosters running around. the ward is a bit bigger than tribuno´s. the bishopric spoke. i played the piano. the area is smaller than tribuno (and a lot smaller than 3 cerritos) because there´s another companionship of hnas that works here. they all live together in an apartment above a doctor´s office. i have never lived with another companionship--athough i´m a bit of a solitary creature, it is kinda nice to have human contact with someone else other than the comp you´ve been with all day long. hna castro (chile) and hna buchanan (sandy, ut--and no relation to our buchanans) are the other two hnas. hna buchanan is brand new. my "comp" is hna villena, born in chile, currently from san luis, argentina. she is a really hard worker, a great missionary, and is everything that i am not--fast thinking on her feet, can quote scriptures from memory, speaks/teaches passionately and with conviction, is always laughing, hugs everyone--so i´m glad i can be learning from her. all her investigators love her because it´s obvious that she loves them.

it´s good to be here, but a little tricky too. i feel like a substitute teacher--just filling in for someone else. it´s hard to invest emotionally in the people here when i´m not sure how long i´ll be staying. and i feel a bit like i´m camping--i don´t have a pillow, took a cold, dribbly shower this morning (but after 7 months, i guess it was due...), i forgot all my makeup (and just ran out of mousse) so i´m going all-natural, only grabbed one skirt and a few shirts, so i´m wearing the same three outfits...but life is good. the investigators here are more into the church--they have harder lives, so the message means more to them.

i would tell you more about my "real" new area, but i don´t know really anything about it. but i did find out why we´re in a trio--hna varga has learning disabilities and can´t really function as a contributing companion, so that´s why there´s 3 of us. should be an adventure when i get back.... in tres cerritos, we live in a little apartment behind someone´s swanky house--the only way to get to our place is to walk through their home--a little weird, but they´re fine with it. they´re not members and very definitely not interested, but they love the missionaries because they´ve rented there for a long time.

out of time. the church is true!

hermana magnusson