Put that thing back where it came from or so help me!

I want to tell you about the miracles that are happening here to me in my mission and how good the Lord is being to me. 

 Sunday I witnessed a miracle that I'll never forget- Remember Nora? Her baptismal date was set for the 28th of March and she was all set, progressing and super excited about how she was able to quit smoking after recieving a Priesthood blessing.It was super hard for her to give up smoking and she was always a little self concious of it. Until a member made a remark in church this last Sunday about how her breath smells different. The member meant to say that it smells better- not so much like smoke. But Nora took it way wrong and got super offended, thinking that she was accusing her of smelling like smoke. I've never seen anyone change their mind about something so quick. Nora said bluntly and directly, "I'm not going to be baptised." She was so angry and offended that she didn't even want to stay for Sacrament Meeting. Somehow we got her to stay, but the whole meeting she was crying tears of hurt. Before the closing prayer ended she murmured "You'll never convince me to change my mind" and up and left. After the meeting we were super distraught, praying like crazy that we could find the means of letting the Spirit touch her heart once more. 

We flew on our bikes after church to the rescue haha. She invited us in and we started small talk. Then she stated again "I'm not going to do it. I've already decided" silence....... We invited the Spirit with a song and prayer, listened to her carefully and I'll tell you right now every word that came out of my mouth that lesson was not mine. We read 2 Nefi 31 and explained the whole reason for baptism and how it is a commandment. After reading verse 10 And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?

we explained that if she made the choice not to be baptised she would probably go on living a good life. The Lord would continue to bless her because He loves her. The scriptures say that whosoever shall not be baptised shall be damned. Another word for damned could be "Unable to progress" Like a beavers dam, the living water that Jesus Christ wants us to partake of is kept from us, the real blessings that come from participating in Jesus Christ's Atonement are haulted, and we are impided from recieving them, until we open up the door of baptism, break the dam, and begin to excersize the gift of His grace. We testified that baptism is necessary, that it's not just something we do to be part of a congregation. The blessings of Eternal Life are only recieved as we take upon us His name and are changed by Him- little by little, every day until we reach that perfect day and we realize that we have become like Him. Nora will be baptised this coming Saturday. I never lost faith in her :) After feeling the Spirit testify to her heart  she accepted to follow Jesus Christ and put away her feelings of hurt and anger. She is such an example to me. 

Guess what I did this week for fun? We went to the lake and saw the wild Carpinchos. They are like a weird animal- hippo and wombat mixed together and they only live in Las Flores! Haha how lucky am I to meet the Carpinchos! Tell Payton that I am among my own kind! I'll send pics next week causeI can't in this place. 

P-Day at the Park



You better work hard, you better not cry! 

You better preach right I'm tellin you why....

Hermana Flake is comin to town! 



Model shot with the Carpinchos ....... intense

Just MMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOvin around town........ 

 hehe haha hae hae he ha ho! 

Model shot with Carpinchos

On the road again.... I cant wait to get OFF the road again.... 

 Dad- You´'re right about all the traveling!!! Its driving me bonkers! 



I FOUND ROBERT CRAIG! 

Travis- you need to add this to his facebook page

 and tag him in it hahaha!!! 

Un elefante se columpiaba sobre la tela de una araña! 

Como veía que resistía fuera a llamar otro elefante! 

 :) I LOVE YOU MOMMYYYYYY!!!! 

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!!!!  

HASHTAG TIMON AND PUMBA EN BURZACO

 

LAS FLORES!!!!

 

I can't tell y'all how much I'm loving this tiny town. We are so isolated out here haha our branch consists of about 25 active members and it was super easy to get to know all of them pretty quick. I've become the new Gospel Principles teacher and I think we'll be giving quite a few talks in Sacrament Meeting. The members here are few but they are amazing! We've actaully met the very first pioneers of Las Flores because the first member was baptized 40 short years ago. 

 

So technically there's not a rule against taking pictures  while BIKING. Besides, we're in Las Flores Argentina where it's chill, during nap hour when NO ONE's outside and even the dogs are sleeping. 

Everything is so chill here, it reminds me a lot of Snowflake haha everyone knows everyone. 

These first weeks have consisted of trying to figure out a routine. We've had a lot of distractions like looking for a new pench (Our little square room is growing mold), getting new bikes (The Elders left us broken ones) getting a new phone (that was broken too)  figuring out where everything is (That wasnt too hard given this place is tiny) and on top of all of that: TRAVELING. Just to get to a zone meeting we had to take a million buses and trains to arrive there the day before and then stay there two nights before coming home to our comfy town. Our District Leader actually told us this week that we're technically not even part of the mission haha. That made us feel special. :) 

I've told ya about Nora, she is amazing and progressing a lot! Which makes us happy cause she's our only progressing investigator. We have make a lot of goals to just talk with EVERYONE here! We figure that if we can fill this tiny town with knowledge of the Book of Mormon in the time we have here there must be a handful who are ready to accept it. 

 

Planning with our helmets on. Sometimes we need it. 

I Believe I can Fly!

I LOVE LAS FLORES!

I love my compa haha we have some good laughs. Today we decided to have a P-day picnic and we rode our bikes to the Las Flores lake and tried out all the cool exercise machines at the park haha. 

New Wheels



Hola Familia!

WOW I am the most excited person in this Argentina Cyber right now!!!  I AM SO PROUD OF YOU LOBOS!!!!! I was praying every day for them this week! I am soooooo happy and proud of my trav man! 

Well now I cant remember anything that happened this week cause I'm so excited haha! And even more, this week has been so crazy with the Whitewash and everything! All I can say is that I love the people of Las Flores. This place reminds me a lot of Snowflake. Its our first week and we already know basically all the streets. We have one investigator named Nora and she is so amazing! She is trying to quit smoking to reach her baptismal date and she rode with us to church this Sunday on our bikes. Its only her 2nd sunday and she bore her testimony in Sacrament Meeting! 

Our branch is super small.. 30 people more or less active. But there is a strength here and I love it. Sorry I can write a lot this week! 

Love you all know I am so happy for ya! 

Hermana Flake 

New Wheels

    Zone Activity - Flour Fight!!!

With Hermana Alldredge From MTC District

We Found The Forbidden Fruit

DON'T DO IT EVE DON'T DO IT!

I Kill You! Hashtag Flour Fight

Meanwhile...... Back at Home Travis is winning the State Championship!!

AHHHHHHHHHHH MOMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! 

I cant tell you how happy this makes me and how happy the pictures made meee!!!!!!!!!!!!!I love the first one and Travis's face!!!! It is so awesome my spanglish utterance cant describe it!!!!!! I am sooooooooooooo happy and proud of him!!!! and the whole team! I was praying for them thursday friday and saturday! haha wow how is Travis??? I am just so happyyyyy!!!!!!! 

 

WHITEWASH- Getting Lost in the work..... Literally.

Just saying goodbye to good ole Bishop Shopfer:) oink oink 

WELL it happened-- that t word TRANSFERS. Right now I'm sitting in a cyber in Las Flores Argentina, a teeny tiny town thats completely isolated from the rest of human society  haha but it's good to know that the Cyber music is still the same wherever you go- nothin like rockin out to "I'm on the highwayyy to Hell" as I write my spiritual missionary message to mi familia.     Well forgive the late letter, we traveled 3 hours in Taxi today to arrive at our new home and on top of that it took me and mi compañera about 15 walking blocks of asking directions to find this cyber! You may wonder why...This is the cool part about this transfer. 

Saying goodbye to mi familia. 

 It might look like we're crying but we're not

......promise

            So President Thurgood has been making a LOT of changes here in the mission. Today at the transfer meeting there were 86 companionships that had changes. It was HUGE! He is opening new areas and closing others, and one of those big changes is what they are doing to this isolated area of Las Flores. The Elderes have been in this area for over 20 years, without Hermanas and now he is taking the Elderes out of here and putting in us Hermanas. So we are doing what is called a complete Whitewash, where two missionaries jump into an area without knowing ANYTHING and they get started from there. I am so excited! My new compa is la Hermana Cóncenes from Peru and she is a newbie in the mish- just finished training. She is so cute and sweet and we've already had some good laughs together. It's the funnest thing in the world to do this whitewash thing cause neither of us know where anything is or what we're doing. We are completely dependent and guided by the Spirit. I feel so much like Nephi this week in 1 Nefi 4:6 "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing the things which I should do." or at least I think its that in English haha. "Y iba guiado por el Espíritu, sin saber de antemano que tendría que hacer" I am praying a lot more often cause I need the Lord's direction in every moment. I love it because it forces me to depend completely on the Spirit! Shouldn´t it always be like that? :) 

On top of opening up an area with a newbie, we are literally in the middle of nowhere. If you check out the map, Las Flores is completely isolated from the rest of the mish haha. We have to take a days trip to go to District Meetings and a 2 days trip to go to Zone meetings. Like literally we leave the day before and stay the night in another pench in Eseisa to go to the meeting the next day, and then we get back the next night.  It is super chill here. There are more cows than people haha. Our pench is one room in total. And we were happy to find out that the Elderes left in nice and clean and even filled our fridge with food before they left. Do you remember Elder Sandberg from my MTC District? He was here before so he is giving me all the advice.  

 We basically got sent out here with an almost broken cell phone haha and our District leader doesn't have one so..... we're gonna roll with it haha we don't even know where the church is! But we have the area book and a map so we're off to a good start :) 

I can't tell ya how hard it was to leave the people I love so dearly in Gutierrez. Especially saying goodbye to the familia Gonzalez. They played Soy un hijo de Dios as the closing hymn on Sunday and we all cried together. Seban and Aylen always wanted to sing that song. They are so special to me.

I know that changes are for our own good though. I have learned that here in the mish. Every change is coupled with new experiences and blessings. I can't tell you how excited I am for this new project :) I just want to lose myself out here... Not only like in the aspect of directions haha cause I already know that's gonna happen.. Shoot, it already happened today! But I feel like out here in Las Flores I can lose a little bit more of myself, consegrating my whole self to this work, being guided completely by the Spirit and no one else. Heck, it's either the Spirit or asking the cows for help for Pete's sake hahaha but no I am excited to get to know the people too not only the cows :) 

 I love this work so much. I know our Heavenly Father doesn't call us to do something unless we are completely capable of doing it. 1 Nefi 3:7  I know that we must depend on Him always in prayer and speak to Him all day in our hearts. If we do this we will never fail. 

I love you all so much! Go LOBOS! 

Con amor, 

Hermana Flake 

Just chillin with the Argentinan One Direction here. 

My compa just carries around a dead body bag while we proselyte sometimes.....

WE'LL BE BUNKIN IT THIS TRANSFER! I CALL THE TOP! 

New home! Clean Pench! 

Hola Hermana Thurgood! 

I just wanted you to know that not only did these Elderes leave our pench looking fabulously clean, they also filled our fridge with food to start off a great whitewash! We are in good hands! Thank you for everything! My mom told me that you called. That is so sweet of you :) You are in our prayers! 

Hermana Flake 

We made pizza to celebrate our first lunch here! 

Hermana Flake & Hermana Cóncenes

Yeah.... look up the scripture on the bathroom door......You can tell the Elderes were living here last hahaha   ( 14:23 And the scent thereof went forth upon the face of the land, even upon all the face of the land; wherefore the people became troubled by day and by night, because of the scent thereof.)

Hey Distrito hashtag viajealtemple hashtag estadosunidosmasuno hashtag mascasenmcdonalds




Hey Distrito hashtag viajealtemple hashtag estadosunidosmasuno hashtag mascasenmcdonalds I dont know how to do the hashtag on these dang argentine keyboards. 

 Vive Yankees 




Visiting la hermana Bouquillard cause she broke her arm. We made lunch together 

It's been a great one just like all the others! The Familia Gonzalez is so happy. We have felt such a difference in their home since Aylen and Seba's baptism. We have been teaching them how to do a Noche de Hogar and they love it. I think I've said this before but I have never felt so much love for another family here in Argentina. I feel at home with them. Sebastian got confirmed this Sunday and the whole family is being accepted into the ward with a loving welcome and I'm super grateful for that. 

We're just being locas 

This week we finally found ourselves a service project and painted a members door. It felt so good to get dirty in paint haha. 


Her names Vanessa, she needed her door painted... Shes a mormon. 

CAPAS 



LOOK AT THAT CONCENTRATION! 



YOU BOYS MESSED UP MY DOLLAR......AMA! 

We have an investigator right now that basically is teaching herself. Right when we were about to talk to her about the Word of Wisdom she told us "I talked to God and He told me I need to stop smoking before I can be baptised. So I'm quitting this month" It's amazing how the Lord answers our sincere prayers! 

umm mom? I DONT KNOW WHY I'M GETTING FATTER I'M NOT EATING HARDLY ANYTHING! said no one ever in the mission Buenos Aires South. 

hashtag iloveneukies 

We celebrated the Bishops birthday this Sunday with a little ward party. I think he invited the entire town. He is so friendly. 

We love being awk. 

I went to Quilmes this week for an intercambio and we had a lesson with a past investigator that told us she really knows she's going to be Mormon some day, but just not right now. We testified of the Book of Mormon. It's amazing to me how when the Spirit testifies, it can literally not be denied. She told us she knew it was true, but didn't want to change. I have realized here on the mission the divine role and mission of the Holy Ghost. Every day I am recieving answers and inspiration from him. We truly can have spiritual experiences EVERY DAY. (Nacho voice) 

Chillin with parrots.... They talk but not in English 

I love you all so much! I really dont want to get transfered haha I'm nervous for Friday. This place is my home! 

Elder Nord - He gone.

escritorio



La Cocina



El Bano

dormitorio



The Zone