Castelar!!!

Hi,

So in case anyone was wondering if I got transferred...What are you thinking? This is the mission of Hermana Walker. Of course I got transferred!!  I am now back in my first area to die in the same place where I was born. (In mission lingo the place where you are born is your first area and your last area is where you die.) It is kind of surreal to be back in Castelar.  One of the investigators that I found here 9 months ago is engaged to get married so that she can get baptized before I go home! It will be a super bitter sweet moment. 

As for Castelar, it has been surprisingly great to be back.  I was a little scared when I saw that I was coming back, and when I walked into our apartment on the first day I couldn’t hold back the tears.  I was caught off guard by the flood of emotions from my first transfer here in Argentina. I have come full circle, and I’m so grateful to be here. While in this area the first time, I was destroyed in every single way—emotionally, spiritually, physically. I arrived in Argentina full of fear and anxiety about the country, language, and worries from home. It got to the point where I didn’t think I could do it.  At the end of my first 3 or 4 weeks in Argentina, I left Castelar struggling to survive and clinging to a tiny particle of faith, and I went to 9 de Julio where the Lord helped me become who he needed, not who I  had wanted.  The sting of those first weeks hurt when I came back.  But then like He always does, the Lord has just poured out the blessings.

The sisters were teaching a lady before I got here, and on my first day in this area we had a lesson with her and invited the Dad to listen as well.  On my second day, we had a lesson with the Mom the Dad, the son (12), and the daughter (10).  Then, they all came to church on Sunday! They have a fecha to be baptized on the 26th, and today at 6:30 in the morning we went to the registro civil to get them a turno to get married.  They will be getting married on 25th of July and then baptized as a family on the 26th.  As I stood in the crowded bus this morning after my companion and I went with Barby to the registero civil, I had to hide the tears. I could not believe how strongly I could feel the spirit in that bus.  I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I have hardly ever felt like I stood in a holier place than that bus.  It was one of the most sacred experiences of my mission.  So in addition to the family we found back in Oct., that is two families we have getting married in July! Yay! Yesterday, we had dinner with the bishop and when his wife was talking about our three families of investigators she started to cry.  I love this ward, I love the mission, the work is going great, and I still have 7 more weeks!!!! I’m so lucky!!!!

In what ever happens this week, just love it! Sometimes it is the only thing we can do.  I love you all!

xoxo,
Hermana Walker 


P.S. My companion is Hermana Reid from Arizona. She’s great; I’ll tell you more about her next time.  I think she is my 9th companion in 9 months. Crazy! Especially crazy for a girl who used to fear and despise change. 

Hermana Reid

For My Brothers--What Every Elder Needs to Know to Get through His Mission with All These Sisters. . .

To Marcus and Nicholas,

Because of recent experience and observations, I feel motivated this afternoon to address a topic for my handsome little brothers, who will be leaving on their missions in one month's time.  This advice is so that they can know how to appropriately and respectfully handle being in the same mission as sister missionaries.  I will start out by saying that I feel for you bros, sister missionaries while in general are great, can be quite a problem. Sisters and Elders are now often the same age. Sisters have a unique work to do as missionaries and can often reach people that the elders can't; however, the increase in awesome sisters creates unique challenges for the elders. Here are some tips and thoughts that will guide you through many potentially difficult situations and help you stay focused.

-First, you need to have a the general understanding of who a sister missionary is exactly.  I have decided that there really are 4 different types of gender in this world--all so significant that they deserve their own category--these are: male, female, pregnant, and missionary.  Therefore, in your mission you will be missionaries and the sisters will be missionaries.  It will help to just think you are all the same gender.  Some missionaries wear skirts and some wear pants and a tie. Also, as for respectfully talking to and dealing with the missionaries in skirts, I would say that a good general rule is to treat them like someone else's grandmother--meaning super nice and respectfully--but nothing more.  If you wouldn't say it to a Tanner's or Braize's grandmother, then you shouldn't say it to a sister. If you wouldn't do something for Sister Imlay or Sister Stubbs, then you shouldn't do it for a sister.

-Second, you need to be careful with pictures. (This advice is not reflected by the first few months of pictures from my mission before I got smart.) It will really help you out to set some personal rules before you go into the MTC.  Here are my suggested picture guidelines. First, if a sister missionary wants a picture with you, NEVER take a picture without your companion, and she should also be with her companion in the picture.  However, because you should also not take a picture two and two like a double date, there should be one other elder or sister in the picture (for example, the companion of whoever is taking the picture) in the picture or have a member or other person in the picture.  Meaning, if you take a picture with a sister missionary in it there, will be at least 5 people in the photo!  Why is this important you ask? Because in my time as a sister training leader, I have seen some crazy stuff.  And some sisters are nuts and look through the pictures in their camera a lot.  Just imagine if she had a picture alone with you.  Don't let her get any ideas!

-Another thing,  If there is a group of sisters talking at a mission event.  Don't talk to them.  Go to a group of elders and talk with them.  A mission is a complete bromance.  Embrace the bromance! Avoid at all costs any romance!!!  You speak with the sisters only when you have to. If you enter a room with sisters, you shake their hands to be polite and greet them, then you go talk to elders.

-Fourth, as a leader, district or zone leader, you should accept the importance of Sister Training Leaders.  They have the responsibility help the sisters in every aspect that is outside of the general district or zone capacity.  Meaning that you can help the sisters all you want within a district or zone meeting, but outside of that meeting you have the priesthood responsibility for accountability and nothing else.  Every-other-thing you want to say, you should say to the STLs, and they will let the sisters know.  Even something little in the work should be communicated through the STLs.  For example, you can't just call and tell them things.  Let's say that a companionship is having a hard time finding new investigators, and you as their district leader call them and give them all sorts of advice for only their companionship to help them find new people.  Then what happens?  (1)They feel all special because you are helping them, and (2) they want to call you after and tell you about all of their successes and say that you are just the greatest.  Bla-bla-bla! It is just easier to call the STLs, and then have them call the sisters, if you just can't wait until the next district meeting to give the help to the whole district.

Other general stuff:
-Do everything in your power to do nothing that would make a sister think that she is special to you.
-Do not go easy on them, but also do not be overly hard. Good luck with that balance :-)
-A general mission rule, for working with sisters and others in your mission, is to learn to say sorry. If there is a misunderstanding, apologize first. Swallow your pride, and say sorry!

Other than that, I will do some more thinking of other things you need to know.  You guys will be awesome. Just be wise.  Don't do anything stupid.  Don't act your age.

xoxo,
Hermana Walker

P.S. Have mom by you knee length spandex shorts to wear under your basketball shorts for exercise or activities. The sisters don't want to see your underwear hanging out of your shorts :-) You're too classy for that.

Rainy and Cold and Tired and Probably Being Transferred Again, but at least Messi scored a goal for me!

Hello,

The whole country is soccer crazy! I'm not going to lie, this was a hard week.  It was rainy and freezing! We hardly taught lessons this week, and yesterday we couldn't go out and work after 7 for the game.  But everytime that Argentina scored we could hear the cheers! That was fun! Did Messi score the first or the second goal??

Well, in our area nothing is really happening.  We knock on a lot of doors.  We literally get rejected every single day.  We walk for hours and hours--all day, every day.  Good news is that from all the walking and stress, I have lost a little weight. Haha.  We have gone multiple days without teaching any lessons, and for the whole week last week we only found 1 new investigator.  In this mission anything less than 8 is an embarassment. This area is seriously kicking my trash! But I still feel okay, it's just really hard. It's a good thing I can do hard things, right Mom?

Last week our best investigator wrote us a text message confessing his love for Hermana Walker, which I had to show to the Assistants, and means I am probably going to be transferred this week. I had to tell them that he has a baptism date, which really means I'm most likely getting transferred. I am almost getting used to getting transferred so often, almost. I really hoped to finish my mission here. I also don't like leaving on a bad week, and I've really grown to love the sisters in the zone. It is out of my control. I will find out tonight if I'm being transferred and transfers are on Wednesday. Worrying about transfers is stressful for me, but surprisingly I still came out of this week feeling pretty happy. Just keep swimming, that's what I do--just swim, swim, swim. 

I can't believe Nick leaves in 30 days! Que loco! You just keep swimming, too, Mom!

How is Lexi? That is so weird that she is home; I am freaking out.  AHHHH.  Boys, will you make me a playlist of all of the good music I missed? It will help with my transition. Haha. I'm afraid we're all going to be so weird. This last transfer will be 8 weeks, and so I am in the first week of my last transfer.  And I am getting slightly depressed about my mouse colored hair and my grandma clothes. My emotions about all of this are so conflicting!!

I find it best to just focus on the day and the week. No worries about the future.  All is well. I'm keeping the faith and still loving the mission despite a difficult couple of weeks. God has a plan for me--I know this! We'll see about transfers. I love you all.

xoxo,
Hermana Chloe

Elle Woods Moment

Hi all,

Soo...I am really starting to feel very unmotivated to write emails these days.  Seriously, I have a little over two months left and there is nothing new to write, but I will tell ya how the week went.

Our area right now is really hard.  We opened up the area after being closed and getting the members moving again to help us has been a little slow.  We are going to keep going with that though and we know that everything will improve.  We found a really legit man name Ricardo...I might have talked about him last week.  Well this week he didn’t come to church so we went to his house to see what happened, and guess what happened? HE WAS CAR JACKED! Saturday night his car was stolen at gunpoint, and then he couldn’t make it to church.  I was like, seriously Satan—you had to had two men with guns steal his car to get him to not come to church, low blow.  But he is still on board to be baptized this month so that is good.

On Tuesday, I went on my first divisions as an Hermana Training Leader. It was really fun. Hermana Benson (from Springville, Utah) is amazing.  We served in the same ward in Las Heras, so it was a pretty fun division.  On Friday we had a leadership meeting with all the zone leaders and hermana training leaders. Funny story. I was kind of nervous about the meeting. I definitely had an Elle Woods moment.  I got up that morning and could not pick an outfit.  I went through all of my pink shirts and sweaters and finally settled on a black skirt, black tights, and a white button down shirt, and a grey blazer—a very serious outfit. Haha. That was the only outfit that I felt comfortable wearing to go to the “big leadership meeting,” so obviously I started remembering Elle on her first day of Harvard Law School when she put on her ugly, serious, studious clothes. I don’t usually worry about what I wear on the mission, but wearing “serious” clothes did make me feel more comfortable about going to the meeting.  Haha. However, I will need an intervention in two months...

Nothing else really happened.  I am reading Jesus the Christ.  It is good.  We are working hard.  I love the mission!

Hermana Chloe

The whole country is soccer crazy! These are my boys and my boyfriend, Messi, in the middle. He's going to score lots of goals for me. Haha.