Angelica's Baptism

Hola!!

This week was awesome! I got to go to the doctor and get x-rays! My back is really messed up. It started one day when I couldn´t get up out of my bed. It was incredibly painful for many days. I feel like I am like 90 years old when I am really 20 hahaha. I now have special permission from my mission president to use a little backpack. It is my mochilita. 😊 It has been helping. The biggest help for me was when I got a Priesthood blessing. The Priesthood we have here on the Earth now is from God. It is the same Priesthood given to Jesus Christ in his time on the Earth. It can work miracles. My back doesn´t have as much pain as it did before. I am able to walk now without a ton of pain. I will find out more about my back on Wednesday when I get the x-rays back.

Angelica is baptized!!! She is not the same Angelica I met my first day here in Argentina. She has changed completely through the gospel. Her testimony of Jesus Christ is incredibly powerful. She was prepared to receive the gospel at exactly this time. She is a huge example to me of how we can use the Atonement of Christ each day in our lives to become better.I gave an impromptu talk about baptism. Hermana DeGolyer sang and I played the piano as a musical number. Angelica bawled so much. It was beautiful. After the baptism she basically ran to me and she hugged me in the tightest hug ever and said ¨thank you for everything. You have changed my life.¨ It was so beautiful. 

I want to challenge all of you to learn a little bit more about the life of Christ each day. I have been learning more about him every day and how I can try to become more like him in my life. It has been an amazing experience for me. 

Love you all lots! I am really sorry if I don´t get to your emails right away. 

Love,

Hermana Stewart

My mochilita

Whitewash art

A youth activity in our branch about La Obra Misional

Me and Angelica!

Angelica, Hermana DeGolyer & I

Another Week in Concordia

A mural with some of the history of Argentina

Hey guys!

Angelica is getting baptized this Saturday woo! She had her interview yesterday and is all ready to be baptized! Something really spiritual this week was that we taught her about temples. She got emotional when we said that they are really a piece of heaven on earth! 

Another really amazing thing that happened with her this week was that she said that the first time she saw me (My first day in Concordia) She felt like she had seen me before. It was truly a testament to me that I am supposed to be here at this place at this time and that there are specific people that the Lord has prepared for me to teach. 

We had a young adult activity on Saturday. There were traditional Argentine dancers and there was a rock band. Hermana DeGolyer and I had planned to play the piano and sing Mas Cerca Dios de Ti. We practiced and planned to play it on the nice piano in the chapel. They ended up calling us up after the band and they let me play their keyboard! I was so hyped. Hermana DeGolyer sang really pretty and my keyboard version wasn´t as pretty but hey! It was pretty dang cool. 

Anyways love you guys lots! I have a couple videos I would love you guys to watch! Talk to you next week!

Hermana Stewart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spGtVY6L5jY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EgpvCLUq8k

Hermana DeGolyer and I in the collectivo

A church in Centro

The wall above my desk

General Conference

Danyy Quiros, Hermana DeGolyer and I

Hey everyone!

     This week was really awesome! We got to hear from the prophet of God on the Earth and his apostles. General Conference was truly a powerful experience. If you were not able to watch it, I would invite you to go to lds.org and watch it! It is as if Jesus Christ is directly speaking to us. I feel a bit bad that I have never really realized it´s huge significance until now. Please take the time in your lives to watch it! I promise you will receive blessings and answers from the words that are spoken. 

     We have been teaching Angelica and she is so ready to be baptized next week! She is really a miracle. Her daughter has been a member for over 10 years and Angelica never wanted anything to do with the church at all. But now she has made a HUGE change in her life. She is trying to become more like the Savior every day. She is studying the scriptures every day. Everyone that meets her can see the light of the knowledge of the gospel shining through her. 

     I feel so blessed to be out here teaching about Jesus Christ. He truly knows each one of you. He loves you. 

Also, I would love if you guys watched this new video about Easter that the church has come out with! It is short and simple, but beautiful and powerful also. Love you guys so much!

-Hermana Stewart

https://youtu.be/Ly9xk59Qkfc

Questions from Mom:

What is a "normal day schedule" for you?

-We wake up at 7. Go to work at 10. We have lunch at 12:30. Then studies. Then we go back out after studies and we have to be home between 9 and 9:30.

How are the boys that got baptized? Are they still preparing to go on missions?

-Valentin is an incredibly valiant and strong member of the church. He is attending seminary and preparing for his mission. Junior is struggling a bit and we have been trying to visit him but he is never home. We are always praying for him!

How are your clothes/shoes holding up?

-Pretty good. They are all getting a little worn out and used from walking in the dirt streets all day and hand washing them in buckets haha. 

I watched General Conference in English with all the other Yankee missionaries in Concordia on a TV at the church.

I had to cut some of my hair. It was only a super small part because it got caught around a button on my shirt hahaha.

Castellano

Hey everybody!

(Maren answered some questions people had asked her)...

Do you cook your own meals mostly or do you go to other people's homes?




-We usually eat lunch with someone each day but a lot of the time they fall through.




What foods or drinks do you miss that they don't have there? 




-To be honest I miss healthy food. They eat meat, bread and pasta for every meal, so don´t be surprised if I come back way fatter hahaha. 




What did you do on your p-day today? 




-We went to a bunch of museums here in Concordia which were super sick! It was way cool to see all the old artifacts like swords and guns and stuff. So cool!




Is the weather cooling off yet?




-The weather cooled off a bit at the beginning of the week and we had a lot of rain one day. But now it is way hotter like it used to be 😥




Any visits this week? 




-We have been visiting Angelica and really she is so amazing. Her testimony is growing and growing each week and you can tell she is making a huge change in her life. She is soo happy!!




     The only news this week is that my Castellano is so much better! I don't get scared to speak anymore! The members have been telling me it is way better. I can understand most of what people are saying too which is way cool! I never really thought I would improve at all. I know that my prayers are being answered and I feel so blessed to be out here serving my mission!! 

     This past week I finished reading the Book of Mormon again. It really is so powerful and gives specific answers to questions I have in my life. I know I definitely wasted my time and took them for granted before the mission. But I hope I can keep reading and studying them! If you haven't yet, I invite you all to read and pray to know if it is true. I know you will receive your answer! Love you guys!!




-Hermana Stewart







     ~Oh something funny that happened this week. I was spraying spiders with Raid and it got in my mouth and my tongue and lips were numb for the rest of the day but I am fine jaja!! Love you guys and don't worry about my health I am just clumsy lol. 

No transfer, staying in Concordia

Hello everyone!!

This week was soooooo good! At first it was honestly pretty dang hard with my ankle and with all the rejection we were getting. We lost all our investigators. It was a rough time for me and my companion. There was a LOT of walking around with nothing this week. We both got sick and I ended up messing up both my ankles! I also had some weird allergic reaction on my leg haha. We kept praying and working hard but no one wanted to listen to us. But as the week went on we saw some real miracles!! 

We were walking down the main street of our area on one of the days that we had been rejected a ton. We decided it was late and time to start walking back to our apartment. We were walking and I looked down a little dirt street where our old investigator Claudia lives. I turned and looked at her street 3 times. I did not know why. I felt like we should go see her, which was weird because she dropped us last time. We got to her house and she said the same öh come by a different day¨excuse. We walked away not knowing why we felt we needed to go there. As we were walking home, 2 guys on 4 wheelers rode really really fast past us. They were on the other side of the street where we had been previously before we went to Claudia´s. A few minutes later, we saw a huge gathering of people at the part of the street where we would have been if we didn´t go to Claudia´s. The body of one of the guys that had been riding the 4 wheeler was face down on the ground. The 4 wheeler was flipped. We know that if we had not received the impression to go to Claudia´s, we would have been hit. It is crazy to see how blessed we are as missionaries. We know we are protected as we are doing God´s work. 

Another miracle is that we found a new investigator! Angelica! She is 10/10! She is the grandma of our convert Valentin and the mom of the family Raponi in our ward. Her daughter has been a member for many years now but she wasn´t interested before. Now, she truly wants a change for her life. She started coming to church after Valentin´s baptism. She loves it. She has smoked for 41 years. But as of today, she hasn´t smoked for a month!! We taught her the first lesson and when I asked her to be baptized, I said the first word to the question, her eyes lit up so big and she said YES!!!! She is so amazing and you can see the change she is making in her life every day. She says Hermana Degolyer and I are part of her family. She is literally the cutest!! 

Something I have learned recently is the power of prayer. I have learned it is important to ask for things specifically in your prayers. God is our Heavenly Father and he loves us. Because of this, he wants to hear from us and help us in our lives. I have received a lot of answers to my prayers this past week and it has been a powerful experience for me. I know that if you guys will kneel down and have a sincere conversation with your Heavenly Father, he will help you. 

Thank you all for all your support! I love and miss you tons! Also just to let you all know, my Spanish is getting better finally!! Woo!! Anyways see you all next week!! 

Hermana Stewart

HOT WATER!!!!

Hey everyone!

This week we got HOT WATER WOOO!!! 

Now we won´t scream every time we get in the shower haha. I don´t have much today about this week. I hurt my ankle badly somehow and we couldn´t leave the pench for 2 days. It was sad. But here is a funny thing of the week! 

If you have seen The Other Side of Heaven you know who Kolipoki is. The branch president and his family had us watch part of it with them. Kolipoki gets attacked by mosquitos and can´t speak the language very well and Presidente Quiros said ¨Hey that´s Hermana Stewart!!!¨ It was really funny. Also that movie is dead on with missionary work so you should all watch it! Also The Joseph Smith movie is amazing and really is powerful and testifies to the truthfulness of the gospel! 

I love you guys a lot! 

I will answer some questions my mom sent... 

How is your Spanish coming?

-Not very well. I can understand a lot but not speak a ton. It is improving a little bit every day. 

Are you eating a lot of meat?

-We eat meat and bread with every meal 

Does someone do your laundry?

-No we hand wash everything.

Do you have hot water? 

-Now we do and it is glorious!!

Love everyone lots!!

-Hermana Stewart

2 Months as a Missionary!

Hey everyone!

This week was good! It was super hot, like extremely hot. Carnaval happened which was really wild and actually quite scary. Especially when we had to walk through the huge parade that was outside our apartment building. It was a really cool but pretty sketchy experience. 

I had tramites this week(visa stuff to live here) so I got to travel to Santa Fe with Hermana Wright! It was really fun! Mission HQ is 5 hours from here by bus so that´s how long the journey was there and back. We stayed there overnight. The best part was, WE GOT MCDONALDS. It was incredibly delicious. Which is slightly disturbing but hey it was way good. 

We got home to Concordia about midnight on Friday. It was a super long trip but it was really really fun. It was cool that Hermana Wright and I don´t really know Spanish at all but we were able to make the trip and make it back!

A cool experience we had this week was that we were walking in the more dangerous, dirt roads part of our area. This really sketchy guy came up to us and I was a bit scared I´m not gonna lie. There was that guy, his wife and daughter and another guy. They did not look like people that anyone would want to go up and talk to. They talked to us about the church. We gave them The Restoration pamphlets and the Book of Mormon. You could see the joy in their eyes as we talked with them. The main guy quizzed us a bit about a page of the pamphlet. We were able to answer all his questions. He said ¨Because you 2 girls gave me these things, I am not going to ask you for money or anything. People in Jesus´ time did not ask him for anything. I know you 2 are from Jesus.¨ It was so awesome! Then we taught them how to pray and I said the prayer with them. It was so cool to see how grateful and happy they were. 

I hope you guys are doing really well! I miss you a lot! But also Concordia feels like home now! I love it here soo much! Love you and miss you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Stewart

Mcdonalds with Hermana Wright, Elder Brown and Elder Garaza!!