Mi Hija (My Daughter)

In the mission when a sister missionary trains a new sister missionary, the trainer is known as the Mamá (mom) and the new missionary is known as the hija (daughter) haha.  It is just a term that the missionaries use for fun, but on Thursday I met my hija, Hermana Vilca!  She is 27 years old and from Peru (yes my hija is 8 years older than me)!  Hermana Vilca is super funny and came with a big desire to serve the Lord so I am excited to work with her for the next 12 weeks and train her the best I can! Although training can be a little stressful sometimes, I feel super privileged because new missionaries come into the mission field with SO much faith.  I remember my 12 week training and I was just full of faith and ready to share the gospel with any person that looked my way!  Those 12 weeks with my incredible trainer, Hermana Pérez, were full of miracles and I am excited to fill these next 12 weeks with the same.  It has been a wild week but so far everything has been going pretty well and it is such a blessing to have the opportunity to train Herman Vilca!  I almost think she is teaching me more than I am teaching her! :)

Speaking of miracles, I have been wanting to tell you all about our 40 year old investigator, Juana!! This happened about two weeks ago but I haven't had time to tell you all!! The other day Juana was walking in a school building and noticed a book lying on a set of stairs that everyone was walking on top of.  She decided to pick it up because it caught her attention and then took it home.  Juana started to read it and said that the words touched her heart so much that she just wanted to find what church teaches from this special blue book!  Two days later after praying to Heavenly Father to help her find this church, she walked past the missionaries in the street and something told her to go back and talk to them!  It is all history from there but my comp and I are now teaching her!  Such an amazing miracle and you can just see the Lord's hand in helping Juana find her way to the true gospel!  We have only been able to teach her twice (Hermana Huisar and I) but she says that she wants to be baptized!  After teaching her the necessary steps to prepare for baptism, she realized that she isn't quite ready yet because she can't quite forgive someone who hurt her really bad.  We are hoping that through lots of prayer and scripture study she will be able to find strength to forgive this person.  We have a lesson with her planned for this week and I have felt impressed to share the "mormon message" video about Chris Williams and his story of forgiveness, so we will see how things go and I am just sure it will help her soften her heart :)

Hope you all have such a great week!! Oh also hope that you are all enjoying the warm weather there because it is 22 degrees today and I am in a skirt...IT IS SO COLD! haha love you all so much!

Quote of the week:

A candle that lights another loses no light itself.

Anonymous

xoxo

Hermana Van Boerum

Few pics of Hermana Huisar and I, sure miss her!

My "Hija" and I!

Today is the celebration of something in Argentina but
I am not sure what haha
(there are a million holidays here)
They gave me this cute little ribbon for the celebration :)

All the Trainers and New Missionaries

Alrighty so here is the scoop, I don't have too much time this week but I will try and give y'all a quick little update!! Also, I would send pictures but I lost my camera...so hopefully I will find it by next week and be able to keep you posted with pics of my experience here in Argentina! :)

On Sunday we got to go to the Stake Center in Zapala and watch the dedication of the Córdoba temple! It was absolutely amazing and I feel SO blessed to have had the opportunity to enjoy the dedication of the House of the Lord.  Elder Uchtdorf dedicated the temple and it was so wonderful as well to see Elder Christofferson direct the meeting in Spanish.  What a beautiful experience and it truly made me realize my goal here as a missionary.  I am not only here in Argentina to help people be baptized, but what I am really here for is to help them one day go to the House of the Lord and make the sacred covenants of salvation with their loving Heavenly Father.  I sure love my mission and I am more than grateful to be here :)

Well here is the big surprise, I am training this transfer!!! Yes I don't think I have ever been this nervous in my entire life but I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to train a new missionary and also learn and grow myself through this experience.  Right now I am in Zapala with Hermana Aguero from Paraguay, and I will be serving in her area untilWednesday night, which then we will travel to Neuquen and have a training meeting there all of Thursday.  Then, that same  Thursday we will also get to meet our new companions and I will head back that night to Chos Malal with my new comp!! I won't know who she is yet until Thursday night when President announces it in front of all the new missionaries and trainers but I will let you all know next Monday!!! So fun!!! I am SO so happy and excited :)

Hope you all have a wonderful wonderful week, love you guys so much!!!!

xoxo

Hermana Van Boerum

p.s. if you could pray for our investigators Andrea, Alejandra, Alicia, Juana, Daiana, and Mica that would be such a blessing to them! 

We had a wonderful week but I have to say that my favorite part was Skyping my family yesterday!! Best thing ever, I love you so much Mom, Dad, Toshy, Britt, Torby, and Jake (even though I didn't get to see you Jake :) )!

This week we visited a reference from the Elders named, Alejandra!  She is 40 years old and has 3 children.  We went to her house and tlaked for about 2 hours about her doubts, hopes, struggles, and all the hard times in her life.  She told us how just a few years ago, she was in the hospital bed, weighed 80 pounds (mind you she is about 5 foot 5 inches), and her kidneys had dried up and weren't functioning.  After an operation on her kidneys, she then had a miraculous recovery and believes that she is now living this very day for a reason.  She now lives with just two of her children and is looking to find peace and happiness in her life.  We bore our testimonies and I was able to tell her that I know with all of my heart that this church and Gospel of Jesus Christ has all the peace and happiness she is looking for.  The lesson went really really well and I just know she felt the Spirit so strong.  She told us she would like to be baptized but she wants to receive an answer from God first.  So now, Alejandra needs all the prayers she can get in order to receive her answer and if you could keep her in your prayers that would be so great :) She really is such a sweet woman and I know that this gospel is what she truly needs!

Yesterday was Mother's Day and I would like to give a shout out to all you mothers out there, especially to my beautiful mother! One of my favorite stories in the Book of Mormon is about the 2000 stripling warriors and I love the scripture in Alma 56:47 that says "yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them."  I love this scripture because it reminds me so much of my very own mother.  Those of you that know her, already know how truly amazing she is.  My mom is one of the most humble, sweet, genuine, and loving people I know and I am not just saying that because she is my mom.  As the mothers of the 2000 young stripling warriors taught, my mom has always taught me to never doubt and to confide in my Savior in all things.  I have been so blessed to be raised by such a wonderful mom and grow up trying to follow in her footsteps each and every day.  She is the perfect example of Christ-like love and selflessness.  She has taught me in the same way that the Savior taught, through divine example, and I know that I wouldn't be here or have the testimony I do without her.  I could go on and on about my incredible mom but I just want to give her a big thank you for all that she has done for me.  Mom, I LOVE YOU with all my heart and I couldn't ask for a better best friend than you.  Thank you for everything and for being my "shot gun rider" (Tim McGraw song )   :)

Hope all you mothers had a great day yesterday as well and Happy Mother's Day yesterday to Mimi, Grandma JoAnne, Hilarie, Joni, Heidi Monson, Ashley, Holly, Heidi Nielson, Jane, Suzi, and Lori!! Love and miss you all! 

Quote of the week:

Remember that our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ, know you best and love the most.

-M. Russell Ballard

xoxo

Hermana Van Boerum

pics:

-pics with the missionaries in Zapala!

-pics of me and my comp

-Skype selfie with my darling family!

-pic with the package my mom sent me, loved the little "beach in a bag" from Maui and the delicious gluten free candy!!!!

-pic with our investigating family Mika, Silvia, and Matias!

Not too much happened this week but we are working hard to progress the work in our area!  We have knocked on doors for hours and hours almost every day for the past 4 weeks but nobody wants to listen or know more! So it has been a bit of a struggle in our area and our faith is definitely being put to the test!  We have very few investigators, but we are hoping and praying to see miracles before the transfer ends in two weeks when Hermana Huisar moves to a new area!

This week we had exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders and I got to serve with Hermana Scofield for a day!  She is from Arizona and super sweet.  We had an awesome day together and found a few new people to contact! We also found an old investigator named Emi who is 17 years old and her and her mom, Norma, had tons of questions to ask us about our church!  So we sat down in their home for 2 hours and talked all about temples, the prophet, missions, the Plan of Salvation, Joseph Smith, and many more!  Although they don't quite agree with some of our beliefs they were really nice and invited us back to learn more.  We had a great lesson and I am excited to see where things go with them!

In our district meeting this Tuesday we talked about what we can do to become better missionaries and more like our Savior Jesus Christ. Often times as members of the church, we are overwhelmed with the goal to become perfect like our brother Christ is perfect.  But, my district leader brought up something that I really liked and I would like to ask all of you!  Who is the most Christ-like person you know?  My district leader asked us this question and the first people that came to my mind were my mom and dad.  Two of the most loving, humble, charitable people I know.  Becoming like Christ might be quite the feat for now, but what we can do is start with a smaller goal and try to become like the most Christ-like person we know.  I would love to become more like both of my parents who hold many attributes of the Savior and as I try to do so, I myself with slowly become more like Jesus Christ.  So I challenge all of you to think of that one person you would like to be more like and as you become more like them, you will become more like the Son of God :)

Hopefully that all males sense and I hope you all are happy and enjoying the Spring weather!  There is a special someone whose birthday is in two days so shout out to TORBEN!!  Happy birthday big guy! I can't believe you are turning seven, stop growing up so fast!! I miss you and love you sooooooooooooooooooooo so much.  Go to Seven Eleven and buy two slurpees to celebrate; one for you and one for me :)  Have the BEST day ever and I love you with all my heart Torb! Toshy, good luck with your AP tests, you are going to do SO well!! Britty, good luck with your lax tourney!! Score lots of goals, you are amazing!  Family, see you all next Sunday through SKYPE!!!! I am more excited than you even know, woohoo!!

Quote of the week:

Our only concern should be to do better than we did yesterday.  Step by step is the law of growth.  God does not expect the acorn to be a mighty oak before it has become a sapling.

George E. Carpenter

xoxo

Hermana Van Boerum :)

sorry I don't have time to label pics but we did celebrate four months in the mission for my darling comp, Hermana Huisar!!