Hello family,
This week was totally hectic and crazy, pretty much just like every week when you think you will have a baptism. You feel a lot better when the crazy, hectic week actually ends with a baptism, but that isn´t the story this week. We thought Rocío was totally ready to get baptized, but then she had to turn in a ton of papers for school and do a ton of stuff and said that she would feel better if she could wait and get baptized another time. We don´t really know what to do with her. We look at her and we just see how much better her life would be with the gospel and how much it would change all her situation. We can´t force it on anyone though, so we´re just waiting for her to realize and looking for other people who are going to be a little faster in realizing.
We did have Zone Conference this week though and it was totally awesome. It gave us that boost of energy that we needed to not collapse at the end of the week. They didn´t even make us do any practicing, which we were probably a little bit too happy about. But President talked a lot about the Atonement. He said that as missionaries, we probably don´t understand the Atonement like we need to. We need to try to understand it better and apply it to ourselves. We definitely aren´t perfect and will not become perfect while we are in this mission. But the work we are doing is so great and important that we really need to rely on that power to help us. Then we had a workshop about having "the vision." They said that we need to see the vision of our area and what it could really become. So we thought about what that means for Puerto and Mar Del Plata. In our area (South America South) there hasn´t been a new stake in over 5 years. That´s such a long time, but now we are getting ready to split the stakes here and there would be three stakes in Mar Del Plata. That means that we all have to be working really hard so that we can actually achieve this goal. And we also talked to President and he said that he´s going to put another companionship of hermanas in Puerto! So cool! So basically we have to get our ward clued in on the vision so that we can all work together to achieve this huge goal. A new stake! And there is always the vision of a temple in our mission, Bahía Blanca. We are always talking about how someday we will have a temple in our mission and we will hear it announced in Conference and we will jump up and shout for joy (Prez said that we will do it when we´re in the Conference Center without even thinking and then we´ll look around and notice that everyone thinks we´re crazy, but we´ll see someone else on the other side of the Conference Center who served like ten years before I did and he´ll also be shouting and jumping. I think I would probably just bawl uncontrollably for like an hour instead of jumping.) I can definitely see that happening and I know that one day, we really will hear that announcement and it will mean so much to all the people here and so much to me. We have a ways to go before we get there, but we´re on our way.
So now Hna. Clark and I are really excited about getting the ward excited about missionary work and putting a new plan in effect to get people working and inviting their friends. We´re aware that it´s going to be really hard and probably not give any results for a while, but we´re willing to stick with it and really get the ball rolling here.
Also, Hna. Clark sings really well and she can do the alto part on the songs so I like to take advantage of that and make her sing with me in the houses of investigators. It´s really awesome because it would probably be an okay performance in the States, but here it´s "hermosa" and the best thing they´ve ever heard. It makes us feel good. The other day, we found this new investigator named Mariana and we sang a song for her and her son, Salvador, who´s like 4. He liked it a lot and even asked for another one so we sang a verse of " I Know that My Redeemer Lives." He totally loved it. He loved it so much that he couldn´t contain himself while we were saying the prayer and started singing" Señor, vive..." He couldn´t remember the words or the tune, but it was really cute hearing him try to sing.
Well, I think that´s pretty much it for this week. That and also, the secretary sent me my travel plans to go home. It totally freaked me out. I have a seat number assigned on a plane so it´s pretty much sealed that I am actually going to go home. I still don´t think it´s hit me yet. I´m going to Miami! Woo! That´s where all Argentines have relatives. Maybe I´ll be able to find some of them and baptize them real quick before my layover. We´ll see... But I´ll be getting home on Wednesday, July 27th at 2:40 pm if everything works out well. Pretty freaky. I´m excited, but it´ll be totally weird to not be a missionary anymore. I have been doing it for a while now. It definitely has its hard times. It is hard. But at the end of the day, I´m always still happy to be here and grateful that Heavenly Father let me come. It´s taught me how true this church really is and how much it can help us in our lives if we just let it. And how the Atonement really can change us if we let it. That´s the challenge we have - letting Him help us. Well, have a lovely week and good luck with that challenge. Love you!
Hna. Seegmiller
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