Wednesday, July 21, 2010

A week of Growth

I was so sad to hear about Bunny´s passing. I was sitting here crying because I can feel the sadness from everyone´s email and I agree with Ben, I think our family has a connection , across the many miles that we are apart, we still have a special connection. I am so grateful for the Plan of Salvacion - it´s times like these that test our faith in the Lord and His will for us. I am so grateful for the knowledge we have of eternal families! I have often contemplated how hard it would be to lose a parent or sibling or loved one, but I know that everyone happens for a reason. I am certain Bunny misses her family, but she is in a place so wonderful that we all should hope to go - a paradise to wait for the wonderful day when Jesus Christ comes again. And when He does, oh what wonderful things will happen! But for now, I will pray for Luke and the girls. Oh, I hope they will feel of Heavenly Father´s love for them right now!

This has been a Week of Growth! I feel like I´ve grown up a lot - I´ve heard about the horrible things of this world. I have seen a lot of suffering in the streets here lately. There are people who have nothing, NOTHING! They look at me with my clothes and bag ¨full of stuff¨ (with scriptures and folletos really) and they ask for help. Oh, my heart cries! I have talked to so many other people who have so many problems. We visited a menos activo family and talked to a 12 year old girl. Her mom left her dad to be ¨ a lady of the night¨ and this poor girl is ignored by her father and family. She´s 12 and smokes and I don´t think she gets to eat very much.

I don´t know if you all heard, but Argentina just passes a law that Gays can get married and that they can adopt children. Our investigator Rocio told us and started crying, ¨What has happened to the family?¨ she said. The Relief Society president also told us and started crying. These women understand the significance of this decision. Rocio is a lot like Mom - more than just the significance, she was calculating the cost of the government for this decision and the impact it will have on other laws... Aunt Adrienne heard about it too. Yes, it´s horrible! Rocio is sure there will be demonstrations because, ¨We´re Argentines, we demonstrate when we don´t like something!¨

Many people have told us lately that the law is very relaxed for chicos under 18 - they can´t get put in jail for hardly any crimes. That´s why there are so many gangs of chicos in this area - they all want to steal as much as they can before they turn 18. It´s their ¨job¨ so they can provide for their future family. There are have chicos watching us and even coming to the house. We are taking so many precautions lately. But don´t worry, they can´t mess with Princess Storm! :) Plus, we have the Lord on our side. And sometimes I pray for angels to accompany us - I trust in the Lord.

And after all of these horribles things, after I have learned much of the world, STILL I trust in the Lord! The more I learn, the more grateful I am for my family and background in this gospel! The more I see, the more I look for answers in the scriptures and in prayer. And the more I hear, the more I want to proclaim to the people here the PEACE and JOY this gospel brings!!! With Bunny´s passing, the more I want to testify of the Plan of Salvacion and the importancia de Familias!

We planned an activity for Pioneer Day (for next Martes) and I am REALLY excited! It´s Pioneer themed- we are going to tell Pioneer stories and sing! One of the brethern here plays the violin/fiddle and said he´d play for us! La Hermana Abarzua del Canto and I are going around inviting ALL of the menos activos on the ward list! ALL of them! Many of the addresses don´t exist, but we´ve talked to a few families who are great! And as we are doing so, I took the advice from Ben and Dad, and we´re trying to find the imcomplete familias - members who have family that aren´t members. and we want to teach and baptized THEM ALL!!!! :) Well, that´s MY goal! My comp has a much more realistic goal, but it doesn´t hurt to try and do miracles, right?

I have a quick question for returned missionaries and for those who have felt the Spirit (which I´m sure is all of you! :) ) How do I recognize the elect of the Lord? When I´m contacting and trying to get to know people, I sometimes feel the Spirit, ¨Go talk to Him!¨ and I do and he waves us away. OR, this happens all the time, I always seem to be drawn towards the people who are very religious. La Hermana Abarzua del Canto said, ¨Hermana Tingey, you ALWAYS find the Testigos de Jehovah! How do you do it?¨ haha Maybe it´s because they have the light of Christ shining - and I see it! But I need a little advice or direction with this.

I LOVE ALL OF YOU SOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!! Satan is working hard against us, but WE WILL TRIUMPH!!!! There WILL be miracles! And I always pray that there WILL be baptisms!!!! Because I know it will come in the Lord´s time. I just need to try my hardest and FIND THE ELECT!
Please, ALWAYS keep the commandments!!!!!! We will find peace, joy, we will be liberated from the cares and sins of the world. We will have salvacion through Christ´s name when we keep the commandments and we will be forever happy! I hope I can teach the people here in Argentina this principle - oh how they need it! Please pray for them!

Love always,
La Hermana Tingey

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Traslado 3 - La Falda otra vez, con la Hermana Abarzua del Canto otra vez!

7/14/10

We´ve been having horrible weather here! Rain, sleet, and we´re expected to have snow! SNOW!!!! They had snow last year for the first time in YEARS! And it´s expected again. I´m smiling, but nobody else is! (Typical Park City girl! :) haha)

La Hermana Abarzua is a great girl. She and I are so different. During a comp inventory the other day, she said, ¨We are completely different, Hermana Tingey.¨ I couldn´t agree more! It´s not easy being a good comp 24-7, and I am learning so much about how to love her more and more. It is so important to have the same goals, to have unity, and to be working together to make things happen. I can´t imagine pulling the whole load by myself. It makes me grateful for the example of my parents, my aunts and uncles, and grandparents. They are such great examples to me of working hard, together as couples. That´s how the Lord´s wants it - and that´s what we´re working towards, having families learn the gospel together. But every day I learn patience and I´ve been learning that perhaps one of the reasons I am here is for Hermana Abarzua del Canto.

ROCIO went to church!!!!!!!!!! And ELISABET went to church with her daughter Solange!!!!! WOOHOOO!!! Rocio is nuestra investigadora. We went to talk to her about church and she really liked it. She has a Catholic background, so she had questions about the Santa Cena (Sacrament) and things like that. The theme in church was Sacerdocio (the Priesthood), so that was good to try and clarify with her. She read Alma 32 from the last time and marked her favorite verses! She´s GOLDEN! The only problem is a BIG problem: she´s living with her boyfriend (and they have a daughter) and it takes over 2 months to get a civil marriage here! Rocio wants to get married to her partner, so that´s good. I don´t think we´ll have a baptism soon with Rocio, but I´m shooting for a wedding date and baptismal fecha in 2-3 meses. And if she can eventually get baptized, I will be THRILLED!

Elisabet is the menos activa (inactive) that we´re working with and she went to church with Solange (4) and Solange loved it! Her husband is NOT interested in talking to us now, but if Elisabet continues to come to church, Marcelo´ll probably eventually come.

We don´t have any more investigators. I´m DYING! I want to teach and find investigators so badly! We are contacting a TON - we got the most contacts last week in the entire mission - but they are not all very successful, so I´ve been trying to be creative and use the ideas that Ben and Dad gave me. I loved the humble people of Harding Green and their willingness to listen, so we went to the poorest part of La Falda to try to find the humble. Everyone has been telling us not to go there: ¨It´s very very very dangerous! Two girls walking alone in that area - Don´t even think about it!¨ But I´m Princess Storm - and although the Hermana got robbed, we felt safe going up there in the morning. We walked up and talked to a few people - and almost every person we talked to was wonderful and loving and said, ¨Sure! Come over whenever and we can chat!¨ So now the challenge is praying and figuring out which one of these people are actually interested! :)

Goto - I contacted a man named Goto from Japan! He said, ¨No hablo espanol, no hablo espanol...¨ and I said, ¨Do you speak english?¨ He put on a HUGE smile on his face and we chatted for a bit. I felt the love of the Lord for this man. I thought about my friends and cousin Nick who served with the Japanese and how hard it must be to teach people of a God and of a Savior. Goto didn´t want us to come over because, ¨No in Cristo, no en Cristo, I believe in Buddha, Buddha!¨ But he told me a man he worked with at the University was Mormon. I hope and pray Goto will one day accept the gospel!

I´ve been trying to rely more on the Spirit with contacting and especially with tocando puertas (knocking doors/clapping doors!). Oh yeah, to knock usually we stand at the gate and clap. It´s AWESOME! :) I´ve felt very grateful because a few of the instances when I just acted on how I felt, I had successful contacts. Now we just need to return and enter the house and preach the word of the Lord!

I gave a talk on Sunday in Church about the Savior - I felt the Spirit so strongly as I testified of the importance o¨f:
1. Knowing Christ (His different names, his life, his sacrifice, his background, his teachings, etc.)
2. Acting on our knowledge (Fe, Arrepentimiento, Bautismo, making and keeping coventants, etc.)
3. Building a relationship with the Savior (Knowing him personally) - this was my favorite part. Because I can honestly testify that I know my Savior loves me because I have a very special personal relationship with Him. I have felt His love, His healing power, His joy when I do what´s right. And I want all to have this - we can only have this personal access to the Atonement through His teachings, through faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, through keeping the commandments, and through the only true church on the earth! I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!!!!!!!

Thank you all SOOO much for your emails and prayers!

ANIMO Y ADELANTE!!!!

La Falda (Week 2)

7/7/10
FAMILIA!!!!!!
Como estan, todos? I´ve been thinking about all of you a lot lately - about Mom with Camp and moving, about Dad being released and the email about his Diabetes, about Jack and Abby with all the changes, about Elizabeth en la Capital and her decisions, about Ben and Jackie and their wonderful and crazy life ahora - know that I love all of you and pray for you every night. I am so grateful for your ejemplos, for your amor, and for your prayers en my behalf. I am also grateful for all my ¨supporters¨ :) I am not sure who is still interested in my mission, but thanks to Grandma and Grandad Hales who also write and Aunt Charlene, my main cheerleader! MUCHAS GRACIAS A TODOS!!!!

Mom, gracias por fasting for me and everything, for CHEERING FOR ARGENTINA!!!!!! Wow, I did NOT know devastated until I saw la gente after the game - frowns, todo el dia.. and the dias depues... Everyone was upset, everyone was devastated! But still the flags are flying in Bahia Blanca - there´s still patriotism because Argentina is still the best! :)

We had some horrible news... Nahir got burned by chemicals she and her tio (whose her age) were playing with and now she can´t get bapitzed for at least a month!!!!! Por lo menos, she still wants to get baptized! We taught her the Plan of Salvacion and after we asked her to teach us the Plan back to us - she did it PERFECTLY! She´s wonderful, I´m going to miss her! We went back to say goodbye and I wrote in her Book of Mormon - I love that girl!

I´ve been really struggling to figure out why I haven´t had baptisms or fechas that work. I´ve had 3 baptisms that didn´t happen. WHY haven´t I had success? It kills me to see these people that I love SO much get down or Satan get in the way - Oh Satan is so cruel! But in the end they have their agency and I tried my best. That´s what matters. I can´t do anything more. I still pray for them and I will probably pray for them for a long time... they have changed my life and I love them to death!
As a mission we are studying the Preguntas del Alma (Questions of the Soul) in Preach My Gospel. (In ch. 5, BOM) I love them - todos have these questions, ¨Does God answer my prayers? How can I balance my career and family? How can i have peace in this life? Is there life after death? Why is there suffering in this world?¨ I´ve been loving learning the answers because SOOO many contacts in the streets, SO many people ask these questions, but it´s so hard because ususally these people don´t want to know the answer. ¨¨No, NO estoy ocupado... NO tengo interes... respecto tu religion, pero por ahora NO....¨ But the answer is in the scriptures! It´s in the Book of Mormon! In my personal study the other day I decided to write down some of MY personal preguntas del Alma (questions of the soul). Many of mine right now are related to missionary work, ¨How can I bring more people unto Christ?¨ ¨How can I better my relationship con mi companiera?¨ ¨How can I be MORE obediente?¨ etc. I wrote them down and as I´m studying in Jacob, I´m looking for the answers. It´s been AMAZING!!! Honestly my personal study in the mornings are my favorite part of my morning! I LOVE reading the Book of Mormon and finding these answers - I LOVE the profetas en the Book of the Mormon. I can relate to them when Jacob talks about his calling and office to preach repentance and baptism and how he feels like he has the sin on his head if he doesn´t proclaim the gospel with all of his soul. I had a testimony of the Book of Mormon from seminary and my personal scripture reading, but it´s grown exponentially on the mission. It´s tangible evidence of the difference of our religion - because EVERYONE says, ¨But God is the same in all religions, no? We all worship the same God?¨ And then they walk away. Yes, God is the same God but we have personal access to the Atonement through THIS church, and we have it through the Restauracion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith, and this book is evidence to his work here on earth . The Book of Mormon testifies of Christ! It is a record of a fallen people who were once a thriving people as they followed the commandments of the Lord (well, on and off). It contains the fullness of the Gospel - as well as the D y C and Pearl of Great Price. I feel so blessed to have this knowledge!!!

**I challenge all of you to write down your questions of the soul NOW: Why did the Lord want us to live in Montreal? What will happen in the future for me? How can I strengthen my relationship with my family? What can I do now to serve the Lord? etc. I promise you that you will find answers because I have and the Lord always blesses us when we follow his commandments and when we are faithful.

Ok, quickly I want to tell you about a miracle in the street... we contacted 83 people on Monday - WOOHOOOO!!! (That´s really good here! ;) haha) It was a blessing after a few weeks of Hna. Abarzua not working hard. Now she has more animo to work hard! She´s been struggling with first the two areas and now all of the changes, but I have faith and continue to pray for her and try to cheer her up and get her going! Anyway, as we were contacting on Monday a girl yelled at us, ¨Misioneras misioneras!¨She stopped her bike and said, ¨¨I´m SO glad to see there are hermanas en La Falda now! I am an inactive member and my husband is not a member. I want to come back to the church with my daughter (who´s 4) and maybe you can teach my husband. Would you like ot come over?¨¨ (My mouth about fell open!!!!) YES YES YES!!! Her name is Elisabet and we went over the other day. We have a cita for tomorrow to meet her husband, I HOPE he´ll open to us! I know the miracle happened because we worked HARD that day - it was the first day in a LONG time that la Hermana finally worked her ¨little tushy off¨ (as Mom would say! hahaha). I was so grateful for Elisabet! And I was so grateful to the Lord because he helped us see that yes, La Falda is one of the hardest areas in our Estaka, but this is HIS work and He has plans for La Falda!!!

Will you all say hi to everyone in Park City and BYU for me? I´ve been thinking about SO many people lately - all the boys my age from PC Hunter, Jake McClaws, Scott and Dave, etc., my friends from BYU who are coming back from their missions, etc. I can not wait to greet them again. I am so proud of ALL of them and I can´t want to hear of their experiencias! Let me know when I need to write to the Jeremy Ranch Ward - I´m stoked to do so! ;) Let me know when you guys are all moved in back to Park City. Oh, and I LOVE letters! :) I´ll write you back if you write me! I PROMISE!

ANIMO Y ADELANTE!!!
La Hermana Tingey

La Falda

6/30/10

I laughed so hard when you said that Ben was angry with the ladrones. Thankfully nothing of mine was stolen, but boy, now I am extra cautious! And like Mom and Elizabeth said, Ukraine helped me SOOO much to be ready for this!

I CHANGED AREAS!!!!! The assistants and President want us to be safe and a lot of other things have happened around Villa Mitre II lately, so they moved us out in the middle of the transfer! We switched houses with the Elders... our clean house to a dirty dump! haha We cleaned it up, so now it´s a LOT better, but the shower only has hot water for 5 minutes! Gotta love the mish! :)

So, I traded my beautiful dirt streets and humble people to a richer area with haughty people! haha It was REALLY hard saying goodbye to all of my investigators but THANKFULLY we get to continue to teach Nahir until she gets baptized next week. We have to take a taxi from our area, to her house, and back again just to be safe. The assitantes and Zone Leaders have been SO helpful! One of the Assistantes said, ¨Why didn´t Hermana Tingey hurt the theives? She could take ém! ¨ Haha, apparantly I have a rep already here! (it´s just cause I´ve beaten the Elders at Ultimate a few times on P-days... :) haha)

Now we live en LA FALDA! A rich, more ¨normal ¨ area. There are actually cars here! A TON of them! And NOBODY wants anything to do with us! So many people let us in - I had NO idea how blessed I was in Villa Mitre and Harding Green! But we are in the ward of the familia Detlefsen - my mission President! We had lunch with El Presidente and La Hermana Detlefsen el otro dia. It is a blessing to be around them - especially La Hermana Detlefsen. She is a lot like Mom in that she taught seminary and she always smiles. She´s a lot more timid than mom though - but I feel her love for me and for this work. They have a daughter who is 17 (but acts more like 19) who reminds me of Biffy, and she´s going to be helping us with la obra misional! Woohooo!

Los Abuelos - we live in a house behind a house of ¨Los Abuelos¨ of the ward. They are HILARIOUS! They are these old, Chileno people who are SO funny and SO loving! La Abuela always makes sure we´re safe and that we´re happy. And El Abuelo and I get along great - he´s a mix of Grandpa Tingey and Grandad Hales. How blessed we are to have them!

My companion has been having a hard time lately. She won´t always talk to me about her feelings and thoughts - she gets bugged that I can´t understand everything. And she´s VERY stubborn (...reminds me of Biff! ;-) haha I love you Biffy!), but I continue to be patient and I try to learn to understand her. I have been learning patience and love more this transfer with everything that´s happened. And you know, in the end it´s all the will of the Lord. I am supposed to be learning a lot from her. I am supposed to be with her and supposed to be here. The rest of the time, we are amigas and laugh together a ton! Creo que es lo que hay! La mision!

So, we are in a new area and don´t have a lot of investigadores, pero si uds. puedan orar (can pray for): Nahir, Romina, Rocio (nuevos investigadores), Victor y Cristina (nuevos investigadores), La Hermana Abarzua del Canto, That we can FIND people to teach!

LOVE YOU ALL!!!! And where are all the letters?!?! DearElder.com only works half of the time...

Animo y Adelante... en LA FALDA!!!!!
La Hermana Tingey

ROBBERY!!!

6/23/10
Gracias por su apoyo y amor! I did not know how difficult my first area would be - apparently it´s one of the most difficult areas right now! But wow, I know that the Lord trusts me and that I am going through the refiners fire for a reason, or hopefully for many reasons.

ROBBERY - bueno, yesterday La Hermana Abarzua del Canto and I were walking home from the church. On Tuesday nights we have FHE in the capilla for people who don´t have family. We taught the lesson , played games, and left the capilla at 9:25ish (because we can leave late with the permission of the Zone Leaders). As we were walking home, we felt different all day. Many of our areas are VERY PELIGROSO (very... unsafe), but we use caution and we are protected. However, as we were walking home, a moto passed by, grabbed La Hermana´s bag, and sped off. It was a harmless burglery, but a robbery nonetheless. La Hermana had many precious things inside, two cameras, her scriptures, money, etc. Pobrecita! It was really scary though because they had been watching us and planning it - they know how faces, AND they had our keys. We didn´t know if they knew where our pension was or not. We quickly called the Zone Leaders (who were leaving the capilla at the same time as us) and they rushed to us in the auto of the obispo in the other ward. We then walked away to a members house and on the way, we SAW THEM again! I told the ZL´s - ¨ Estos chicos!¨ I pointed them out and they saw me and sped off. But we couldn´t call the policia without the permission of the President. We then had to wait at a members house and then talk to the police. We went to a different member´s house to sleep and this morning, they changed the locks on our door to our pension. It was really scary at first, but after a while we calmed down. La Hermana del Canto couldn´t sleep very well last night and as we´re walking now in the street tonight, my heart was pounding. The assistants have been calling us to see if we feel unsafe and need to change areas. WOW! Crazy, huh? I keep saying, ¨This will be such a good ¨mission story¨to tell after the mish!¨ haha But now it´s really crazy. I´ve prayed about changing areas - I feel peace about staying here. Honestly, I would prefer to change areas for security´s sake, but I can NOT give up Harding Green right now. There are SO many wonderful people in Harding Green. Harding Green is worse in segurity, but we are very very careful and always leave at 6-6:30 when the Sun´s going down. But I´ve had some really special experiences in Harding Green ward area and I can not imagine leaving now! But Villa Mitre is crazy - it needs so much help right now! I don´t know if switching and having Elders here is what is best or no, all I know is that I will follow the will of the Lord and I will follow Spirit with this decision. I think we´ll probably stay. So, animo y adelate en esta obra maravillosa! The Lord will protect us - this is our area and we are in it the time directed by the Profets. We are going to take special precautions, but I don´t want Satanas to get the best of us now. We will we conquer because we are on the Lord´s side of the battle!

VAMOS ARGENTINA! Woohoo - we are doing GREAT in la Mundial! Messi is the favorite player - they are ALWAYS talking about Messi, so keep an eye out for him. We try to work during the games, but honestly it´s SO difficult! We get invited in and ¨Sit down, we´re up 1 - 0! ¨ and it´s so hard not to watch! I must confess, I have watched a bit of the games because of these situations and Argentina looks great! WOOHOOO!!! VAMOS ARGENTINA! The team is a lot like Argentina - con many different skin colors of people. Futbol is everything here - chicos play in the street, everyone has banderas (flags) de Argentina in their windows, EVERYONE watches the games, everyone loves their country and their team. It´s AWESOME! But it is difficult for our mission. We haven´t had much work during these days.
Esta semana es la SEMANA PERFECTA! (This week is the ¨Perfect Week¨) for our mission! We are having 100% Obedencia and 215 contacts semalamente (weekly). It´s HARD to contact a lot in our area because we have basically 6 areas that are far away from each other. We also have investigadores to teach and it´s hard to contact, BUT we are trying our best to reach this goal with the mission! El Presidente Detlefsen is amazing - he believes in miracles and in us - I KNOW that he receives revelation for our mission and for us as missionaries, with what we need to do. I will follow his guidance and Semana Perfecta with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength, because I want to bring many souls unto Christ through baptism and also bring back these menos activos familias.

Many of my investigators are struggling - Cristian doesn´t believe anymore. Romina is second guessing everything. Ariel and his wife separated for now - she moved to Buenos Aires. Rodrigo won´t let his wife Natalia learn more from us until he understands (but he doesn´t want to understand). BUT Nahir (in HG) is progressing! woohoo! Ariel y Eva y su familia are great and want to keep learning and progressing. Mary y Maira want to learn more and are reading the Book of Mormon - woohoo!!! La Familia Herrera are mejorando y cambiando. I have to have faith in them and I do - I am learning SO much from La Hna Abarzua about trusting and believing in our investigadores and believing in the Lord. She doesn´t show how much she loves them or how badly she wants baptisms, but she always trust in the Lord and says to me, ¨Everything will work out in the Lord´s time. Hna Tingey, we need to believe in our investigators! Believe that they will change!¨ I DO believe and I know that what will happen in my mission will be the Lord´s voluntad (will). So, animo y adelante!

HUGS!!!! Gracias por TODO!!!! I love you all and pray for you daily. Thanks for your examples and service in the church - Mom, Dad, Ben, Jackie, Elizabeth, Abby, Jack, and the rest of the clan - I love you and thank for you for your love!

Con amor,
La Hermana Tingey