Well..... here I am again in the north!!! haha. To answer your question, the reason that you couldn´t find San Ignacio is that it is the name of the Ward. I am in San Miguel, a suburb of Buenos Aires, about an hour and a half or so north. It is in the stake Sarmiento. San Miguel is very big, but I am on the outskirts... it would be like serving in the far out part of Gilbert where everything is dirt roads and such... Ya... and... we ride BIKES!!!!!
Yep, you all read that correctly. We, the Sister Missionaries, are on bikes... in skirts... on mostly dirt roads (about one in 4 is paved and the others are all dirt/rock). Ya... that´s about exactly what it sounds like. I´m getting used to it. And in all honesty, it is a blessing because the area is really big. I´m not sure what they did before they recently spit it... it would have been HUGE! haha. Good times. Funny story about the bikes later.
And yes, as everyone realized, on Friday I hit my 9 month mark. I really can´t believe it! Where does the time go. It has been such a blessing to be serving the Lord full time for this 9 months and I am looking forward to 9 more, full of miracles and memories!
I finally met Hermana Alvey!!!! She is the Houston´s niece. She is so sweet! Since we flew in about 1AM last week, I stayed with some Hermanas in Capital for the night and she was there. It was great to meet her and spend some time there. Hermana Milmont, one of my favorite people, was also there and it was wonderful to see her! She was serving down south and we got to see them every now and again and we really just clicked.
Also, Elder Araboa (I can´t remember if that´s exactly his name)... is in my district! He´s the Holaday´s nephew... the one who sings. It´s been fun having him the the district. He seems to be doing well.
Hermana Dunn is great! Really, it is the biggest tender mercy to be back with her and not in a trio. We work really well together and have enjoyed catching up on the last 6 months of our lives as missionaries. She is doing really well. She has had a hard week, because they had a lot of success last transfer, TONS of baptisms... like 5 in 5 weeks, but didn´t find any new investigators, so we don´t have very many right now, but we are working like crazy and trying to get things back up. It will all be great. I was worried how Hermana Dunn would feel about me coming here, but she was great about it! She has grown a lot and I have grown a ton and now we can grow together.
The area is pretty tranquil... um... is that a work in English? um... not sure. But everyone is pretty chill. I love the Ward. It is really good to have a ward again. It´s fun sharing it with the Elders and they are awesome. We are really trying to win the ward over. They are still not totally used to having Sisters and their first experience wasn´t the best. But the BIshop told us that he has really seen a difference and that he is excited to work with us! That was EVERYTHING!!! The ward council is really great and we know that we will see many miracles for working with them!
It is HOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! I thought I was just about going to die. Crazy! And I wasn´t even here for the bad part of the summer... we will see what happens come November... But it is starting to cool down and winter is coming. I hear that it FEELS crazy cold here because of how humid it is... we will see.
So. Bikes. The first day, my chain fell off about 10 times... all I could think was "oh man! Why wasn´t I paying closer attention when Brother Mickelson showed me all this bike care stuff????" But somehow I got it back on each time... Well, at night, there was a CRAZY storm and we left our last appointment as the rain finally stopped and rode home through literally a LAKE! I forgot to mention that the burn their trash here... so we were riding with water up to the top of our tires, mud like crazy, and trash floating by that had been waiting in the street to be burned... ew. That´s when my chain broke. Our awesome member Marcos, fixed it, but then it just fell off again. Fixed it again and about 5 minutes later it fell off again. So we just had to walk home. It was crazy! We were sinking in the mud, trying to get home while wheeling our bikes and with water and trash up to our knees. haha. Oh what an adventure! We were going as fast as we could, which was not fast at all. When we finally got home, we were a mess! haha. We cleaned up and kept on with the day, planning, etc, but it was quite the adventure!
So leaving Ushuaia was HARD!!! I knew it would be, but I just didn´t think about all that it met... after 6 months, it was a very difficult move, but it is also exciting to start in a new place. It was neat, because a bunch of members and converts went to the airport to see the 3 of us off and it was great to see them. They even gave us some Tshirts and some other things. So nice! I loved every moment down there! And now, it is time to get off on a new adventure up here!
We had a mission conference this week for Easter and it was AMAZING!! President has never done a full mission conference and it was the first time ever for him, but he felt like he should. It was all about how we too can start a new life and give truly everything that we are over to the Savior and let Him make us what He needs us to be. It was really powerful. We have made some great goals about how to become better and we know that we will see many blessings for doing it!
I saw Hermana Hill and Hermana Binks there and got to talk to both for a time and it was AWESOME! I love them. I am hoping that I will get to be with Hermana Hill again since I seem to repeat companions. haha. I also saw Hermana Malhue, but didn´t get to talk to her because they came in right before it started and we were released zone by zone so that we stayed reverent. Sad to not be able to talk with her, but it´s ok.
I have to run... we have to go pay our rent and the bank is PACKED!!! I love you all. I love the gospel. I love my Savior. I love the work!!!
With much love,
Hermana Shelley
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