Peace and Love *** Paz y Amor

I had such an awesome week and I seriously love it here so much!! El Bolsón is such a special place and it is absolutely beautiful here.  My "title" of this email is peace and love becasue lots of people her are hippies and granolas and I just love it!  El Bolsón is a major tourist area but it is easy to distinguish the people who live her becasue they will usually have dreads, long hair, hiking clothes with hippy style, and they always talk about God being an "energy force within us" haha-it is the best!  Besides that though, I am surrounded by huge mountains, beautiful rivers, log cabins, and lots and lots of pine tress so what more could I ask for? I absolutely love El Bolsón.

The members here are great and we actually have a ward with about 120 people going to church each week!  A lot different than Chos malal!  Unfortunately we aren't going to have lunches every day here either though because lots of the members when they found out that I had celiac disease apparently decided that they just don't want to deal with that by having to cook a little differently haha but it is okay and we will see how things go!  Anyway, it is funny though becasue instead of the ward members asking me- "What part are you from in the US?"- they now ask me- "What country are you from?"- because they all say that my Castellano is really good and that I talk like a Latina!  My comp even though that I was from Columbia when she first met me!  Speaking of my comp, Hermana Lopez is just wonderful to work with!  Like I said last time she is from Argentina, and she is a great missionary!  She has a strong testimony, works super hard, and tries to talk to everyone!  I already love her so much and I kow that with our hard work, great desires, and the help of the Lord, we are going to see lots of miracles here. 

Being in a new area in the mission has made me want to recommit myself as a missionary in order to become more obedient, have the Spirit with me more, and do all I can to take advantage of the 7 months I have left here.  There are lots of things I am trying to do in order to accomplish these 3 things, but one thing I am trying to be better at is praying.  Everyday I pray about 18 times a day, but even as missionaries who pray a ton, we slack a little bit with our prayers and this is something that I've wanted to be better with!  So this week I have been making a big effort to have better prayers and actually talk to my Heavenly Father with more love and respect, and let me tell ya, we have seen lots of miracles!! New investigators, finding old investigators, and people just coming out of the wood work!  It has truly strengthened my testimony of the power of prayer and I know that the apostles were inspired when they put a big focus on prayer in the Liahona Magazine of last month.  I know that Heavenly Father loves us SO much and loves to hear our prayers.  And I know that he listens to every single one of you as you kneel down to pray at night :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week!!! I will now be emailing around this time from here on out but thank you for all your love and support!! I am so so happy here and I love being a missionary soooo much :) LOVE YOU ALL!

xoxo

Hermana Anika Van Boerum