Hola!
Well, I am still alive! I am here in Zárate and after about 45 minutes of walking around town, we found a place with internet! The great news is I love the area and my companion seems pretty cool too. It is super small town here with lots of small houses. Nothing like Belgrano which is one of the richest areas in the capital! I am still going through culture shock. The people here are a lot nicer and friendlier. You say hi to people in the street and they actually respond! My companion is from Chile! Her name is Hna. Malhue and she is from a tiny pueblo Buin, that is a part of Santiago. She is my 6th companion and 3/6 have been from Chile, Go Back! She speaks spanish great and teaches great. I really can´t complain. She is also super good at imitating my american accent. :)

Well, this has definitely been a learning experience.
So, we got to the apartment tuesday night, which was a huge mess and super dirty, and found the area book (which hadn´t been updated since may) and a map. Then we called the bishop (who was out of town until later in the week). We still haven´t quite figured out who all their investigators were, but we did get permission to call the Elder that was here and ask him about them. He just told us of two families we should keep teaching.

Yesterday, we almost had a baptism. It was going to be a miracle. We found a part member less active family on wednesday, and they have a son that´s 10 that isn´t baptized. We put a baptismal date for sunday, but then a bunch of complications arose and he didn´t make it. Hopefully we can get baptizing soon. This last week we spent most of the time trying to find and meet converts from the last year and the investigators.

The ward is way different than Nuñez as well. There are hundreds of members on the ward list, but yesterday there were only 20-25 people there. There are very few active families. We have lunch with the same families every week, I am glad they are super nice here and want to feed us every week.
President said it was inspired that he sent us here. I definitely felt that this week as well. Everyday at least one person (convert, less active, active) told us they thought it was great and inspired that hermanas are here now because the ward needs a lot of help. The bishop also seems to be happy and we both had to speak in church yesterday on the spot. The chapel is super tiny though so it was not as scary. Also, speaking in public doesn´t really make me as nervous as it used to.

The area itself is pretty big, and actually we have bike! I am in a bike area!!!! But, the sad news is we can´t use them with skirts because the top tube is too high. Saddest thing ever. We are trying to talk president into letting us buy other bikes. There isn´t the public transportation here like in capital so we have been walking between 100-200 blocks a day. We´ll see how that goes.

Well, the showers are cold, we have about 1 minutes of warm water, but I´m just the glad people are nice and my companion is super nice. I like being in an area that´s not so crazy busy and full of people running everywhere with high rise apartment buildings. It´s like a nice breath of fresh air here. It will be even nicer when we get baptizing tons of people!!! and activating all this less active and PART MEMBER families!!! Well, I´m sure I´ve forgotten to say a lot of things, but I´ll write again soon. Like in a week. Chau!

Love,
Hermana Jones


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