Christmas Miracles

Happy almost New Year!!

First and foremost, I have another birthday shout-out to my hermanito Kyle!! Wow, 21. I can´t believe it!! FELIZ CUMPLE!!! Don´t drink too much sparkling cider. ;)

Holy cow, Christmas has come and gone. It didn´t feel like Christmas at all, thanks to all the hot and the humidity, but we still had a good lil Christmas here! For Noche Buena we had a BBQ with Dorisu´s family. Asada, chicken, sausage, potatoes, salad. SO MUCH FOOD. Here they don´t usually eat until midnight to celebrate Christmas and then they have fireworks and party all night and then sleep all the next day. This family was kind enough to eat early so we could be in the house by 9:30 and in bed by 10:30. Yeah, party animals!

And it looks like we had a white Christmas afterall, and not the kind with snow... Yeah, that´s right, NICO GOT BAPTIZED!!!!! :D :D :D And he was just so happy. We had our own little Christmas miracle with him. He told us on Tuesday that his family had changed their minds and decided to support him, that if this was something he wanted to do, then he should do it. He told us he knows that through prayer and fasting miracles can happen. And he was SO excited about his baptism. We had it after church but he said that he didn´t really sleep the night before because he didn´t want to miss it! This kid. He is so happy and so willing to follow the Savior and he is being richly blessed because of it. LOVE IT!

Oh fam, it was so good to see you! Thanks for all your love and support. I couldn´t be doing this without you! ¡¡Feliz año!! Have fun ringing in the New Year! We´ll be in bed by 10:30 like normal, haha.

Con mucho amor,

Hna Chipman

Our Christmas feast!

Christmas BBQ!! That´s a new one...

Just look at all that MEAT.

Argentine sparkling cider. Woohoo!!

Victory pose!!! :D

Pancakes and homemade syrup on this HOT Christmas morning.
Not quite waffles, strawberries, and whipped cream, but still tasty!

Finally, a BIG Christmas tree!

Aww, Nico. Best day!!

#whitechristmas #chiste

Feliz Navidad, dun dun dun dun. Feliz Navidad, dun dun dun dun. Feliz Navidad, prospero año, feliz edad! Yeah, that song has been playing in my head for weeks now, haha.

Well Merry Merry Christmas fam!!!!! But, ok, what´s with all this no snow?? Don´t worry. We don´t have any here either. But hopefully you´ll get some for Christmas! Can´t believe that´s this week!

I´ve finally got my nueva compañera!!! :) Her name is Hna Saunders. She got here at 1am this morning. Pobre. We´re gonna do lots of sleeping today, haha. She´s from Ogden and has almost 9 months in the mish. Hna Heumann lived with her before and always says the best things about her. Stoked!!! Speaking of Hna Heumann, she got transferred to Santa Rosa in La Pampa and Hna Bermudez is here finishing the training of Hna Tovar, who arrived when I did. Now there are two greenies (new missionaries). Oh boy!!

Things with Nico are so good. He is SO golden. He loves being in the capilla and he asked us to let him know when we are teaching other lessons there so he can come read his scriptures. Yeah, for real. AND he´s already asking questions and talking about a mission. HOLLA!!! Next weekend he´s going to Buenos Aires to talk to his family about why he wants to be baptized. He´s calling it his mini mission. He has been SO prepared!! :D

I´m sure most of you have seen this by now, but either way, go to Youtube and watch "He is the Gift". I just love that video. I can´t tell you how many times I´ve seen it now, but I never get tired of it. It´s so beautiful. He is the reason we´re celebrating right now. He is the reason this wonderful life and all our blessings are possible. I invite all of you to take a few moments and ponder what the life of our Savior means to you and then think of one thing you can do to show Him your gratitude for His life, love, and sacrifice this Christmas. He is what this is all about.

Oh boy, I can´t wait to see your cute faces in a few days!! Merry Christmas!!! I love you all to the moon and back!

AMOR,

Hna Chipman

One of our sweet investigators Maria de los Angeles at our weekly Noche de Hogar.

I ate liver and blood sausage in one meal. Blood sausage, pretty tasty. Liver... no gracias. :)

Church con Nico!! He even came early to read his scriptures. So proud of him!!!! :D

Our sweet lil´ hijo Brian. One day I´ll be able to give this kid a big hug.

My new compy, Hna Saunders!!!!

Milagros en MdP!!

Well hi there familyyyyyy!

We´ve had a lovely week here in MdP! So many good things/miracles.

We had our missionary Christmas party on Tuesday! Presidente and Hna Parreño were here, as well as the missionaries from all the zones in Mar del Plata. What a blast. We sang at a couple retirement homes, ate a big Christmas lunch (with Motab and David Archuleta playing in the background - holla!), and had a Christmas devotional and talent show. Hna Pinnock and I sang a rendition of "I Am a Child of God" with fake mustaches... don´t worry. I got all the awkwardness on video, haha. We are quite the duo. ;)

I can´t believe this transfer is over already! Hna Pinnock left yesterday to start her journey home. :( Yeah, we cried. I miss her already. I could not have asked for a better trainer. I actually won´t get my new companion until next week, so right now I´m in a trio with the other Hermanas, Hna Heumann and Hna Bermudez.

We had people at church this week!!! First, this cute lil´ lady and her two niños. We met them in the street the other day and invited her. We passed by her house in the morning and she was ready to go! Heck yes! She liked it and now I´ve got some really pretty art in my agenda from her kids. :)

Second, our boy Nico. Lemme tell you about him. He is a BOSS. We started teaching him three or four weeks ago and everything has really just clicked with him. He´s been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it and he knows it´s true. But things have come up that have kept him from coming to church and this past week he told us that if he gets baptized he can´t live at his house anymore (he lives with his parents and sisters). Dang. That´s tough. BUT he know this church is true and he wants to be part of it. He wants to be a good example for his family and he knows this Gospel can help him do that. So right now we´re fasting and praying real hard that his parents will support him in this decision. They don´t mind us coming by and they always greet us, so we´re not exactly sure what´s up. For now, we´re gonna keep teaching him; he´s gonna keep reading, praying, and coming to church. Future missionary/bishop/leader right hurrrrr! But seriously, his faith is INCREDIBLE!

Oh, I just love you all so much! I hope you´re having fun getting all ready for Christmas! Throw some snowballs for me!

Con amor,

Hna Chipman

So fancy eating at McD´s. But seriously. This is like SUPER fancy here.

Going to sing for the cute abuelitos! :)

MAR!

Matching pens for Christmas. Presh.

Facturas. Oh yeah. This was our dinner one night. Bad idea, haha, but SO yummy!

Our boy Nicoooo! :D

I love this woman. Miss her already!

Still not a Latino...

Oh heeeyyyyy fam!!! It´s your favorite day of the week! :)

Lunch with our favorite abuelita Adela! She´s hilarious.

Someone decided to turn on the hot and humid buttons at the same time this week. Don't worry, mom, I'm drinking lots of water and wearing lots of sunscreen. And I'm working on some sweet missionary tan lines. I'll send some pics at the end of summer when they're even better. ;) Also, there are HORDES of dragonflies here in the summer. Sometimes the sky is just full of them. Better dragonflies than grasshoppers or cockroaches! We found two cockroaches in our apartment this week. Yum!

Noche de hogar with our conversos recién

I've officially been in Argentina for over a month now! I'm basically Argentine. Nope, still a white girl from Idaho. But, it's cool. The people here think we're really interesting. People think we're from all over. We've been asked if we're from Germany, Ukraine, England, Russia, the US. They def know we're not Latin. ;) And everyone calls us "bonitas" and "hermosas" (pretty and beautiful). One guy asked us if we were from another planet, haha. Good one!

So rich. Actually, this is only equal to about $100

I feel like it's really hard to describe what the mission is like. It's SO good but SO hard. You go through your week trying to do some good and for the most part you don't see a lot of results (at least we aren't right now). You hope your efforts are making a difference in someone's life. Every once in awhile you have some really great contacts or lessons and you are SO happy. It just makes your day. You spend your whole week getting your investigators pumped for church and then it's Sunday and none of them come and your heart just BREAKS for them because you know how much they need this in their lives. You KNOW how much the Gospel will bless them and give them exactly what they're searching for. It's hard, but it's good. It requires a lot of faith. And by a lot, I mean more faith than I've ever had to have before. Yeah, hard to describe. We just keep going forward trying to help people come to the Savior. We can't force them. We can only invite them and then do all we can to help them.

Love ya mi querida familia. Enjoy the snow for me!! And drink some hot chocolate! :)

Con amor,

Hna Chipman

Ward Christmas dinner - yum!!

Merry Christmas!!! :D

Just hanging out...

Helping our amiga Lydia decorate! We love Navidad!

Our zona!!!!! Yeah, we´re crazy. And we love it.

An Argentine Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Hola fam bam!!!!

First of all, I´d like to give a shout out to my hermanita!! Happy BIG 18 this week!!! I can´t believe you're so grown up. And I hope you have a fabulous birfday!!!  Love ya, sis! :D

I hope everyone ate lots of turkey and pie this past week! We had our own Día de Gracias here with our recent converts and some awesome members. We made hand turkeys and wrote our blessings. Then we watched the Joseph Smith movie (LOVE that movie) and ate pie and popcorn! We made pumpkin, lemon, and chocolate pudding pie - Yum!! They loved the pumpkin pie. :)

Yeah, we made this pumpkin pie from scratch. Bosses!

So, this week I learned some really cool/big things. First, sometimes I wonder - why Argentina?? I would be a WAY more effective missionary in the states, where I already speak the language and understand the culture. Why would the Lord send me here and have me "waste" time adjusting to all that? Well, I think He wants me to learn how much I really depend on Him. If I were in the states I feel like part of me would feel like I could do the mission on my own. I could communicate and share exactly what I feel and think, precisely how I want. Here, I can't do it how I want. I HAVE to rely on and trust the Lord for everything. He wants me to learn how to rely on Him and follow His Spirit. I want to learn how to do that and better recognize His voice guiding me in my life.

Second, it really doesn't matter what the people are thinking when I talk to them. Obviously we want them to feel the Spirit and feel the need for the Gospel so we must be sharing with love, but we don't need to fear what they think. If they think we are dumb or silly or crazy, who cares?! All that matters is what God thinks and He sent us to share His Gospel and His truth. Every time I talk to someone, I know Heavenly Father is proud of me because I did what He asked. I tried to share His love with one of my brothers or sisters. His Spirit will be there to guide me as I try to share with love.

I love you all so so much! You are the light of my life and I pray for you EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!

Besitos y abrazossssssss!  (kisses and hugs)

LOVE,

Hna Chipman

They even have statues of dogs here...

¡Viva España! :)

Thinking of all our blessings! :D

Rain or shine, here we are.

Lunch with our favorite Hna Romero!
She is an ángel. Hna Bermudez... haha

Viva Argentinaaaaaa!

Lab!!! So many dog friends

Hola fam! Happy Thanksgiving week (right???)!!!! I hope you all are doing something fun! But of course you are, because we always have the best parties! :)

I officially turn TWO today in the mission! I can't believe it's already been two months. But at the same time it feels like an eternity. Time is so weird here. I realized the mission is like the first years of our lives, and once you turn 18 they kick you back into the real world to fend for yourself! Guess I still got awhile though. ;) 

The Spanish is still... coming. But I´m understanding MUCH more! Like 80 percent now. :D It's still hard thinking in Spanish but sometimes I dream in Spanish. That's a good sign, right??

Yeah, I ate that WHOLE tomato piece Grandpa ... still not a fan, haha

So I thought I'd write a bit about the Argentine cuisine. A typical meal consists of meat, bread, and potatoes, but they have TONS of different types of potatoes. Super yummy. Sometimes we have pizza or pasta too. And they put mayo and salt on basically everything. You learn to love it, haha. For dessert we eat lots of dulce de leche, helado, and some divine pastries. Oh yum. Don't worry, I'm eating pretty well here. And we need it because we walk and walk and walk some more. :) The big meal here is lunch, which we usually eat with a member. Then dinner is either really small or we don't eat anything at all because we are STILL full from lunch. Seriously. Like everyday, haha.

Just look at all that food! And our amigo Damian, haha

The lightning storms here are incredible, btw. We had a couple this past week. God's fireworks are def the best.  :)

Cute lil´convert Brian bought us a whole cake! YUM! :D

This week we found an investigator named Facundo. He works for a circus and he has a trampoline and trapeze bars IN HIS HOUSE!!!! It's sweet. He's super open to learning more and he really is interested in knowing if this is true.

Bus surfing... told ya, pro

I really love studying and teaching this Gospel. The more I do it, the more I know it is true. God's plan for us is incredible. The way to the greatest happiness and joy in this life and the life to come is right before us. We just have to choose to walk the path.

I LOVE YOU!!! Times a gazillion. Eat lots of turkey and potatoes for me! :)

Love, love, love,

Hna Chipman

Well hi there, can I share a message with you?!?

Week of Esfuerzos!!

Visiting the playa last prep day!

A big HOLA to all my favorite people in the whole wide world! Seriously, I hope you all know how much I love and adore you. I have been so blessed with the people in my life. MUAH! I hope you are all happy and healthy and getting all pumped for the holiday season! :D  Christmas stuff is appearing in the stores here, which is kinda weird because it´s also summer here... Haha, welcome to the southern half of the world! 

I'm still adjusting to life here. It's definitely different than I´m used to but I'm getting the hang of things. Slowly but surely. For example, our washing machine is broken so I got to learn this week how to wash all my clothes by hand. :) Yahoo! It really is the little things in life. Count your many blessings every single day because there are a TON of them (like working washing machines ;)).

Hola playa :D

Classic jump shot. Presh.

Seinfeld in Argentina! Thought of you daddy-o when I saw this!

Also, I´m getting REALLY good at bus surfing. My wakeboarding/wakesurfing skills are coming in handy here. I'm gonna be a pro by the time I come home!

So this week we did something called Esfuerzos. Every day this week all the missionaries in our zone worked in one area of the zone to find people. Our zone leaders said we found over 200 new investigators! We got some work to do now! :D

We also had zone conference on Tuesday. Presidente and Hna Parreño are just the best. Seriously. People say you actually get called to the mission with the mission president that you need. I believe it. They are incredible, so loving, and supportive. They are taking good care of me!! In the conference we talked a lot about working more with members, not only to find and baptize people but also to retain and reactivate people. The members' help is SO essential in this work!!!

Speaking of the members, the members here are also incredible. They are SO strong and you can just feel the love that they have for the Gospel and for other people. I still can´t speak or understand very well, but I can feel their love. I´m excited to work with them in this great work. There is a woman named Dorisu and she´s probably the poorest woman in the ward, but she LOVES to help the missionaries. She comes out with us. She feeds us some of the most delicious food. She sacrifices so much to help us. I just love her. And the youth here are incredible. We´ve gone out with several young women/young adults that just love missionary work. They love this Gospel and are so firm. Wow. They blow me away.

Well, there´s the report for the week. I love you all, to the moon and back. Really, my heart just overflows with love and gratitude when I think of all the love and support I have from home. :)

Abrazos y besitos!!

Hna Chipman

Welcome to our cute casita!

Gourmet chefs making some tortas fritas. Yum!

Photobombed. :) Gracias elderes

The other week where I have no idea what´s going on!

HOLA DESDE ARGENTINA!!!!!

Holy cow, there is a montón de things that I want to share with you all, but very little time. Don´t worry, though, I´ll pick the best things!! :D

Celebrating my last night in Provo with some Popcorn!! Lani, I thought of you MUCHO!!!

First, if you want to send me a little note, I definitely recommend sending an email (emily.chipman@myldsmail.net). DearElder works, but it takes A LOT longer and sending letters back is much harder.

Oh, hey, just getting on a plane (not to Spain this time ;))

BUENO, so a week ago I was sitting on an airplane bound for Argentina. That feels like a year ago, en serio. I thought my first half week in the MTC was long. This has definitely felt longer. But it´s also a much bigger change, so it´s all good! We spent two days traveling to Bahía Blanca, where the mission home and office are. We flew into Buenos Aires from the states and then we took a van to another airport where we waited for like six or seven hours to take another airplane to Bahía. That flight was only about an hour. But I sat next to this woman who lived in a little city close to Bahía and we talked the WHOLE TIME about my mission. She was super intersted in learning more about what we believed and I was able to answer a ton of her questions. I also "just happened" (yeah, definitely was NOT an accident) to have a Book of Mormon in my purse. I had decided to move it from my carry-on to my purse because it just fit better in there and I wanted to unload some of the weight in my carry-on. Well, that was perfect. She wants to read it and she gave me her address so if I´m ever in her town, I can stop by her house. I need to pass that on to the missionaries in her area... Seriously, this is the Lord´s work. He is def in charge here and He puts people in our path who are ready to hear and accept this message. SO COOL.

My first friend! I have a feeling there will be lots of dog friends...

Missed our bus...

So, my first day here, Wednesday really, we had our transfer meeting and we got our trainer companions. Her name is Hna. Pinnock. She is so great. I couldn´t have asked for a better trainer. This is her last transfer so she´s really excited to do all she can before she goes home. Everyone thinks we´re really sisters because we look so alike. It´s funny. Literally everyone asks us that. Anyway, after that meeting we had some time before we were supposed to take a bus to the area we´ll be working in so we went out to do some contacting. Well, we were so excited about talking to people that we ended up missing our bus. Oops, haha.  The next bus didn´t leave until 10:30pm so we had even more time and we took a taxi to one of her old areas. Now picture this, two Americans just walking down the street having a good old time and of course, it starts pouring rain. So now we're running through the rain looking for cover, trying to keep our cards and books dry. All I could think was "Yup, now I´m really a missionary." :)  We decided to pray for someone who would let us in and who we could teach. After that, the first door we knocked on let us in! Milagro. Heavenly Father was watching out for us FOR SURE. Fun first day. :)

Just knocking on some doors!
(actually, we don´t really knock doors here)

I´m working in a little (or big, yeah big) city called Mar del Plata. Google some pictures if you want to see what it looks like! It reminds me a little of Spain, but I definitely feel like I´m in a very different place than anywhere I´ve ever been. It´s pretty neat actually.

Ok, the last thing I want to share is something I learned this week. I was reading in Mosiah 4:5-8 and my call letter as well and these thoughts just started flowing. I was wondering why I am here in Argentina and this was the answer I received.

"I have certainly come to a sense of my nothingness and my worthless and fallen state here. I CANNOT do this on my own and thank goodness that´s not what Heavenly Father is asking me to do. In my call letter it says that I must serve with all my heart, might, and strength. It does not say mind, which I think is interesting. This doesn´t mean that my mind should be elsewhere, that I don´t have to focus, or try and learn this language, or study the Gospel. All my mind should be here. But to me this means that I don´t have to KNOW everything. I don´t have to have all the answers. I just need to put my heart into it, and my might and my strength. I doesn´t say put God´s might and strength into it. Just mine. And I am weak, but I´ve got something to give, even if it is small. God will give the rest and He is mighty! I have come to a knowledge of the goodness of God, His matchless power, His patience, and His long-suffering (He has been VERY long-suffering with me). I have come to a knowledge of this wonderful, incredible Atonement, which has strengthened and healed me countless times. Now I must put my trust in the Lord, be diligent in keeping His commandments (be exactly obedient!), and continue in faith even unto the end of this mission (for now - the rest of my life after). Then shall I receive salvation. Then shall I receive greater blessings and more happiness than I have yet experienced, just like my call letter says. I have to believe that this is true. It was given to me by a prophet of God. Just think, if I can live up to this, and try to see if it happens by testing it out, my testimony of prophets and my conversion to the Gospel of Christ will sky rocket. I know we have a prophet on the earth, but then I will REALLY KNOW that He is a prophet. I will know that the promises of Christ are SURE as given by Him and His prophets. I want this!! I want my testimony and my conversion to be even more sure. I want to glow with testimony and confidence in my Savior. That´s the kind of wife I want to be. That´s the kind of mother I want to be. This is HARD. Countless times this week I´ve thought a lot about coming home. But just think what I can become through this refiner´s fire. I can come to know and trust my Savior even more. This is why I am in Argentina, where I can´t understand or speak the language, where I essentially know nothing, where I can´t do this of myself. Heavenly Father is trying to make something of me, and I am going to let Him, because I KNOW that´s who I want to be and I know it will be worth it. I will provide my heart, might, and strength. He will provide His love, His might, and His strength."

Hermanas!!!

I hope you all know how much I love you all. I can´t even express in words that love. I miss you more than I can say, but I know you are in good Hands. And so am I. Until next week mi querida familia!!

Con mucho amor,

Hna Chipman

Hna Pinnock and I, yup we´re twins :)