Sister Chloe Walker Buenos Aires West Mission: What Up Friends?

Hi all,

I had a good week. Everything is great! Tuesday I went on exchanges, and it was fun! I'm loving and hating the heat at the same time. Sometimes I just close my eyes in the 100+ degree weather and let the sun rays go into my skin. I always feel at home. I pretend I am sitting on the boat, and am going to jump in the water in 5 minutes when the heat gets too much to handle.

Wednesday we had zone conference, and it was awesome!! President and Sister Eberhardt are so nice. He is the most humble happy guy around. She was on the Young Women’s general board, and she is my kind of lady. She dresses so cute and stylish and age/mission appropriate. We talked about where the real success of a missionary comes from. It was really great to hear. Also with our new mission we have a new Spanish area in Park City with a family history visitors center! I think it would be fun to serve there. I also really like the Eberhardts because they don't know me as a visa waiter. Everyone is new to them, and they are just trying hard to get to know everyone. This is nice for now since I have been feeling really down about being a visa waiter for half my mission. After thinking about that a lot, it was nice to be able to spend time with other missionaries, the APs, and the Eberhardts at Zone Conference.

I have one more thing to add to my list of what not to say to visa waiters. This is one I have heard about 10 times lately and it makes me crazy, "As soon as you really learn to love the people and the area, you'll leave right away". Like I don't already love the people and the area! I hate that one. That one stinks. I know that I am where the Lord wants me to be, and I hope that I can do what the Lord wants me to do while I am still in Utah. I really do love it here, but the waiting and lack of any communication regarding the status of my visa is very stressful. I just had a mini freakout. Did you read Sister Carter’s blog about the the new policy for visa waiters?! I just read it and it kind of takes my breath away. I guess after 6 months (waiting for a visa), the mission president in the temporary mission can request a permanent change. (6 months for me is in less than 4 weeks.) The paperwork has to go back to the Apostles for a determination. I hope I can still go to Argentina, but sometimes hope is hard.

My companion is Sister Guerra. She is from Georgia, but her mom is from Honduras and her dad El Salvador. She lived in El Salvador for 6 years and then moved to California until she was sixteen. She didn't learn English until she moved then to Georgia at 16 so she doesn't speak English very well, and I don’t speak Spanish very well. So communication is sometimes a problem, but we are figuring it out. She went to Savannah State for Marine Biology. She is 23. We are getting to be a good team.

Thanks mom and Camron for taking care of the pictures! I am glad all of the pictures are fine! Relief!! I don’t know why I was obsessing about that. Even on a mission I am still a little crazy:)

We stayed busy this whole week. Finally getting used to the area which means, yes, it is time for transfers. Transfers are in one week. We have no idea what is going to happen with the new president doing transfers and everything. I think he will really change things up. With parts of two missions being combined to form our new mission here, he hinted that things could really change in an effort to unify the new mission.

Two of our people fell off date yesterday for not coming to church, but hopefully they will just be pushed back a week. We are working hard, and seeing miracles.

Kaleb and Braize’s talks sounded awesome. Wish I could have heard them.

Tell Marcus to write me.

Love you all,

Hermana Chloe

PS. Today we are going bowling today and that should be fun. We have a hook up at the bowling ally.