4 Weeks Left!!!

The work in Fernandez Oro is going really well!! Remember Julio and Andrea who I talked about last week?  Well they went to church yesterday and totally loved it!!  They are keeping all their commitments and doing all they need in order to be ready to be baptized the 2nd of April!  Matilde and Orlando are two other investigators we have who are also progressing a lot.  Their son was baptized in February and now we are working with them so they can be baptized as well!  All they need to do is get married and Orlando needs to stop smoking (he smokes about 25 cigarettes a day!  That's a lot...), and then they are ready to go!  They are supposed to get married the 27th of May but we are working on moving that date for a sooner day because they want to get baptized sooner.  Pray for us please so we will be able to make this miracle happen!!  Lastly, we have Guiliana who is 22 years old and Orlando's sister!  She lives right next door to Orlando and is living with Matilde's brother Daniel (who is very uninterested in the church).  Guiliana has 2 young kids and told us that she just wants a better life for her kids, but her boyfriend, Daniel, doesn't want to change.  They live in a wooden house that is about the size of a large suburban car and every day when Daniel gets home from work, he goes straight to the bathroom to smoke marijuana for 4 hours straight.  It is sad because even the 2 year old daughter named Alma knows what her father is doing while he is in the bathroom for so long and says "Papa is smoking!"  Daniel even has his very own marijuana plants growing right outside of their home.  So Giuliana told us that she has considered leaving him and taking the kids with her many times, but she knows that isn't the solution because she wants her kids to be able to be with thier father.  Overall, she just wants her husband to change.  We explained to her that through her faith, prayers, and example, she will be able to change him.  That once he sees the light and happiness in her, he will want that too.  And he will change.  So those are just a few of our progressing investigators and Hermana Chavez and I are very happy with how the work is going in Fernandez Oro!  We are seeing lots of miracles and the Lord is truly guiding us to the people that are ready to hear the gospel :)

Well in two weekends is General Conference and I hope you all are excited as I am!!! What a blessing it is to be able to listen to our living prophet and his 12 apostles speak through revelation from our Heavenly Father.  I invite you all to take a minute and think of a few questions that you would like to be answered  by your Heavenly Father this conference and I know that our questions will be answered through faith and prayer!  I love you all soooooo much!! Have a wonderful week!!! :)

Quote of the week:

The most realistic self image of all is to conceive of yourself as made in the image of God.  

Maxwell Maltz

xoxo

Hermana Anika Van Boerum :)

Pics with my favorite little kitty that we just gave away this week.
There was a cat that lived behind our pension and had babies,
so we had to find people to take them.

Pics with Orlando and Matilde's kids.
I LOVE them!!!!

Look who is in my zone this transfer!
A bunch of old comps
Hermana Huisar, Hermana Vilca, and Hermana Houston
So much fun to see them!!!

Adventures in Fernandez Oro!

This week was pretty crazy to say the least!! Basically Hermana Chavez and I were put into a random city just 30 minutes away from Neuquen and we were given a map, a few names, and addresses of the members here.  It has been quite the week trying to figure everything out and I don't think I have ever been so lost in my entire life, but we have had some fun adventures!!  To tell you all a little bit about Fernandez Oro, it is a little town right off of a bigger town called Cipolletti.  It has tons and tons of houses and our area is HUGE.  Sometimes we even have to walk an hour from our pension to get to different parts of our area and visit investigators.  We don't have a church here yet so every Sunday we take a 15 minute bus ride to get to church in Cipolletti.  The members here are few, but super super great and I think that within a year from now they will probably start to form a group like the one we had in Chos Malal!  The people here in Fernandez Oro are really wonderful and receptive towards our message of the restored gospel; they are very different from the people in San Martin.  In San Martin I could talk to 80 people and not one of them would listen to what I had to say!  But here in Fernandez Oro the people here are super sweet!! Although I am sad to have left beautiful San Martin and my ward family there, I sure am grateful and excited to be here in such a great area and serving with Hermana Chavez to end my mission.

We had a really sweet experience with two new investigators we found tracting our first day here.  Their names are Julio and Andrea and they are Catholics that invited us to go their home Saturday to share a message with them!  They have 3 kids that are 14,  7, and 5 years old and they are just the cutest!  We shared a message about the Restoration that went really well and was super spiritual.  As I recited the first vision to them, Andrea had tears in her eyes and it was a very special moment for all of us.  By the end of the lesson Julio and Andrea committed themselves to being baptized the second of April!  They thanked us for the lesson, said that they had felt something really special with us, and that they know God had sent us to them.  What a wonderful family and I look forward to teaching them some more!!  

Overall we had a great week and I hope that all of you have a good week as well!! Love you all so much!!!!

Quote of the week:

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Albert Einstein

Love y'all, the countdown is on!! Only 5 weeks left!  

p.s. DAD HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON SUNDAY!!! I will be giving you another shoutout next week :) Also, Toshy, have fun at prom you beautiful girl!  And Britty, I hope your lax tourney went well, I am sure you killed it out there!! :)

xoxo

Hermana Anika Van Boerum

pics:

pics with hermana houston and my new comp!! basically I have to mooch off of everyones cameras and ask them if I can stick my memory card in to take a few pics haha.  

pics of my last pday in san martin with hermana webb, we went to this place that had a bunch of statues of Jesus Christ, but mixed with the mapuche argentina culture here! very interesting.

random pictures with hermana webb!! We took more pics with the members in san martin our last day there but we didn't have time to pass the photos onto my pendrive!! 

Chau San Martin

Well well well where do I start???  Yesterday I didn't email because I was in a 7 hour bus ride being transferred to my new area.  It was a big surprise because I thought that just Hermana Webb was leaving since she had 6 months there, but that wasn't the case!  We both left and now I am going to end my mission in a place called Fernandez Oro.  We still haven't gotten to Fernandez Oro because I had yet to write my family an email and apparently there aren't computers over there, so for today we are staying in a bigger city called Cipolletti.  Next week I will fill you all in on Fernandez Oro and the miracles we see there this first week.  I am going to have lots to tell you because my new comp and I are white washing the are, but I am going to go into it with full faith and trust in the Lord.  We may not know much about Fernandez Oro nor the people there, but the Lord does and I know he will guide us.

Oh and by the way my new comp is Hermana Chavez from Peru!!  She is great and I'll tell you all about her next week. :)

I don't have much time today but I do want to say that I sure loved San Martin and it was hard to leave.  I may have only been there 12 weeks, but they were some of the best weeks of my mission because I was working hard with one of my very best friends, Hermana Webb, by my side.  I met wonderful wonderful people there and it is a place that I will never forget.  It was probably the hardest of all my areas and was a great trial of my faith, but I know that after trials blessings do come.  I am excited to end my mission with Hermana Chavez in Fernandez Oro and I know we are going to see miracles together.  I love my Heavenly Father, I love my Savior Jesus Christ, and I love this great work.  Today is the beginning of the end; the beginning of my last transfer in the mission! My last 6 weeks. And I hope to leave all of me during these last few moments.  :)

I love you all!!! Have a beautiful week!! 

Oh and p.s. I will probably not be sending any photos for the next few weeks because someone robbed my camera like I had said before, and my new comp's camera broke so I can't use hers either...bummer!!! 

and shout out to Hilarie!!!!!!!!! Happy happy birthday, I love you!!!!!! :)

xoxo

Hermana Anika Van Boerum

pics:

a few pics with my new comp!!

Next week I will send my last pictures with Hermana Webb!! I forgot the pendrive that I put the pictures on :(