A Perfecting Process

¡Hola Mi Familia!

¿Como estan? It sounds like you all had a great time with Kyle and his family and the baby blessing! I was able to watch the video of Owen so that made me smile! Right now I am in Marcos Paz which is about 30 minutes from my area because we came here to have an activity with the Elders in my Zone. We ended up playing Paddle Ball (I think that would be the translation of it.... It´s like tennis and racket ball combined into one). It was fun. Then we went to the church and played soccer. Yeah they made the Hnas be goalie and I was awful... but so was my comp and she´s latin so I didn´t feel too bad... ha ha we both got hit in the head with the ball. Good times.

This week was great. It is getting really cold here right now which makes it a little bit harder to be excited to walk around in the street all day but good all the same. We were told that it was suppose to snow this weekend but didn´t so I guess I should count my blessings right? I now sleep with a two liter bottle of hot water to keep warm if that tells you about the level of heat in our apt. Ha ha but all good memories right? :)

This week we had the farewell meeting of Pte and Hna Benton. They will be heading back to the States on the 30th of June so only a few more days before we get a new mission president! I am really excited to meet our new President although it is a bit strange and sad to say goodbye to the Bentons. It will be interesting to see what things change with a new President and how the mission is affected. It was interesting because Pte Benton was telling us that his first transfer here they had 60 something converts and now every transfer since I have been here we have had more than 200. He truly is leaving a legacy and helped change our mission a ton so with a new President it will be interesting but everyone is excited!

Other news is that this will probably be my last week in Las Heras. So crazy! My comp has planned with all the members (ha ha ok so basically the Miguez Family) a going away party. The Bishop joked with me that everyone was going to wear black! It´s hard for me to imagine my mission anywhere else but in Las Heras but I really do feel that it is time for me to go. Leaving here will definitely help me grow a ton and as my favorite saying goes "If you´re not uncomfortable you´re not growing" so here it goes to growing pains! Also a plus is that it is almost certain that I will go close to the offices so I will get mail every week! Yahoo!

SIDE NOTE: I haven´t received any of the packages that you have sent.... I am hoping that I will this coming week when we have transfers....

This weekend we will also have the baptisms of the parents of a family we found during the first week of this transfer, the Flia Ferrari! It´s super exciting. They have had so many problems this transfer because the dad doesn´t have work and they are being evicted from their house (today). The Bishop has really been a blessing because he has taken them food etc and they are also helping with their housing problems. The Relief Society President has to go to their house to fill out the form and it made me think of Beth and definitely has strengthened my testimony that the church is the same everywhere.

Update on my spanish. I had to give a talk yesterday in church about patience... 1. I had one night to prepare it 2. I only had Ensigns in english so if I wanted to use a quote I had to tranlate it myself 3. I ultimately didn´t really have time to finish it, much less review it... Luckily I am a missionary and therefore I believe more blessed since everyone at least seemed to understand what I had said and told me that they had appreciated it. So I guess I am progressing :) Now but I feel tons more confident and can actually basically do everything on my own now as far as normal life talking to people goes. It´s still hard at times because I can´t communicate in spanish like I can in english... ha ha but then my comp reminds me of my favorite talk by Elder Utchdorf about Patience... ha ha which is also probably why I had to talk about it on Sunday as well!

Ok so my hands are so cold that typing this hurts my joints so this will probably be shorter than I had anticipated.... Man humid cold is FAR worse than dry cold.

I will end with a few thoughts that I had for my talk yesterday. I think that I send you all little thoughts about basically the same things but remember that the gospel is made up of small and simple principles that we need to consistantly work to develop so that therefore we can gain exaltation! :) Ok so there are 3 Types of Patience
1. Patience with yourself: This life is hard. And since we are not perfect we are going to make mistakes. And we are not going to progress as fast as we want to. Often we will not see results as quickly as we want to either. But patience is a divine quality and we need to remember that this life and the task of becoming perfect is a process!
2. Patience with everyone around us: My main purpose is talking about this was focused on the ideals of the prodigal son and the lost sheep. I read a story about how we need to always keep in mind that we don´t know everything about others and need to accept them and help them. I hope that none of us will be the reason that a less active member or a recent convert doesn not come to church because they feel that they are not worthy to do so due to the judgements of others. Also Pte Packer had a interesting article in the Feb Liahona where he talked about the fact that less active members etc are the one who need to have important assignments like talks etc to help them.
3. Patience with the Lord and His time: We don´t know how long it will take us to learn from our trials in this life or what we need to endure to learn and become the people that the Lord needs, but He does. The children of Israel had to wait for 40 years in the wilderness, jacob had to wait 7 years for Rachel, Joseph Smith had to wait so long in jail that he questioned the Lord, "How long?" God has a purpose and a plan and we need to have patience so that we can be perfected!

Ok I have to go!

I think about you often, pray for you always, and love you forever!

Hna Scanlon