Week 9 ~ Two Months Down

Hello!

I don't have much time to write, but not much has changed this week. We were able to set a baptismal date with one of our friends this week and it was so exciting!! As soon as we left their house and were around the corner my companion and I screamed and started jumping because we were so excited. I think almost every missionary can relate to that excitement hahah, it was awesome!!

This week we had a huge activity with some members at the lake and it was so fun! We got to get closer to the members and our investigators, and also spend some time with the other missionaries. We had a huge water fight and everyone had a good time. It's times like this that I know I will remember long after my mission.

Spiritual experience:

I think I have been sick since I came on my mission haha, but last week I was superrr sick and not feeling well. Our district leaders found out and called to ask me if I wanted a blessing, and I felt prompted to say yes. When they gave me the blessing I was filled with so much peace, and they blessed me with help for things I was worried about - but hadn't expressed to anyone. It was an amazing testament to me that Heavenly Father knows and loves each one of us so personally and hears our prayers!

Funny experiences:

One of our investigators dogs followed us to church and ran inside during the middle of sacrament meeting, we had to chase it out haha

One of the little boys we are teaching has a little crush on me and gave me a flower on our way to church last week hahaha so sweet

One of our investigators this week asked us if adam and eve were before or after the dinosaurs

Well that's all I have for this week! Hope you all are doing great and I love hearing from you each week!

Love,

Hermana Spackman

Kate's companion planned a little surprise trip for their P-Day and took Kate to the church to email and do google hangouts since she knows Kate worries about spending too much money at Internet Cafes when she wants to visit longer with her family.

Week 8 ~ A Week of Miracles

Hello!!

I can hardly believe another week has come and gone here in Argentina. This week has been a week of miracles for us! We had eight friends at church yesterday and found 19 people who want us to teach them this week! We had Zone Conference and learned a lot about how we can be better missionaries and work with members. Zone Conference is awesome because we get to see our mission friends and spend time learning from each other. 

On Thursday we had our 2nd lesson with our sweet friend Alicia and I asked her to be baptized and she said "Yes!! And I want my grandson to be baptized too!" We were so happy. We set her baptism date for November 18th and we are so pumped. She has some hurdles she will have to get over before she can be baptized, but we have faith that she will be able to!

This week we had lessons with our investigators and many of them are progressing well. We met with one of our investigators and he said to me, "I decided I'm going to be baptized in January!" I said "Great, but why not right now?" My companion just looked at me like what the heck are you doing, haha. But, he says "Okay, we'll meet in the middle - I'll get baptized in December!" We were so excited because he's been saying for months he will be baptized, but now we can actually nail down a date with him.

Spiritual experiences:

My companion and I were looking for a person named "Dario". We were walking all over and looking at the house numbers and we passed a man on the street and I said hello. After a few minutes I turned around and realized he was the man we were looking for! We asked him if he was Dario and he said yes and asked us to teach him and called his brother and daughter to come hear our message, too. Afterwards we were walking home and were talking about how his reference sheet didn't mention his daughter or brother, so we were confused. When we got back to the apartment, we realized that the reference was for a whole other person named Dario and had a different address. I don't know where we got the address we had, but I can't help but think it was God leading us to him!

Funny experiences:

It is true, there is a dog that follow us everywhere. His name is Samuel and he is soo cute! But, the problem is that all the dogs in all of Santa Rosa chase after us when he is with us. So it's actually pretty scary and sometimes we have to run away from Samuel, haha.

Everybody here breastfeeds in public like it is normal, it has shocked some of the new Elders.

We had a lesson with someone and he was insulting me for being American but I had no idea what he was saying so I just nodded my head and said, "It's true."

Missionary work is hard! Some days I don't understand anything and I feel so tired when I get home at night - but I just have to remind myself that this is all for the Lord. I am not here for me or for any other reason than to serve these wonderful people of Argentina!

Hope you all have a good week!

Love,

Hermana Spackman

pictures!

A much needed ice cream break

Our cute bautista walking out of the baptismal font last week

Week 7 ~ I Survived!

Hello Friends and Family!

I can't believe that I'm actually writing this email from Argentina! It has been a crazy few weeks and I don't have nearly enough patience to write about it all, but I will write a little here.

My companion's name is Hermana Arechaga and she is from France. So she has been teaching me a little French. She's been here about 7 months and speaks Spanish, French and English. So she's pretty awesome. 

Our area is in Santa Rosa, Barrio 4. It is a super safe area and there are soo many dogs. We have a dog that supposedly has followed the sisters everywhere for the past 7 years - but he has yet to follow us. We will see, haha. The people here don't have a lot of money, but they are sooo generous. We have lunch everyday with the members and they always feed us so much that we leave stuffed full, haha.

The language has been really hard for me and I've found myself being frustrated sometimes. My companion encourages me to share a lot in lessons, and I've had to really rely on the Spirit to allow me to know what to say. Most of the time I only understand about 10% of what is said when we're speaking with people, but somehow I have always been able to share what they need to hear. It has been really cool!

I had my first baptism on Saturday! It was really awesome and the Spirit was very strong. I'm not sure how to do pictures today, so I will send some next week - but it was of a little boy named Bautista and he is 11. He was so happy and excited and it made me feel like the work is all the more worth it.

Funny experiences:

Funny and also kind of sad, haha. This morning while cleaning we lit a lighter and because we have a gas heater some of the gas was in the room and it exploded. It was funny until I realized that it had really burned my companion's arm and singed her hair. She is doing okay now though!!

We meet a lot of people contacting on the streets and while shaking hands with an abuelo he tried to steal a ring right off my hand!

The church is 45 minutes from our house so for the baptism on Saturday we slept over at the STL's house and there were 6 hermanas in one tiny bedroom haha. It was a good time.

A lot of people here catcall us on the streets, they're not used to seeing Americans, haha. But some people have told me that I look and sound like an Argentinian.

Our house sometimes doesn't have hot water, and we live in a very poor place. But, it has been really humbling and made me very grateful for my house back home and even my dorm room at Utah State.

Spiritual experience of the week: 

We were tracting and we had a strong impression to stop by this lady's house. When we walked in the ward mission leader was already there, before we were. We shared a little message with her and I had no idea what was being said, but I shared my testimony with her. Afterwards she began crying and told us that she wanted to eventually come back to church. We told her that it was no coincidence that all of us had shown up at her house at the same time. It was a strong testimony to me that the Lord knows who we are and what we need, when we need it!

While we were tracting I had a feeling we should talk to a lady we passed by, but I ignored it and thought we would talk to her later. We spent 10 more minutes looking for this investigator when we finally turned around to go talk to the lady. We found out she was actually the investigator we had been looking for. It taught me that when the Spirit tells you to do something, you should do it quickly and the first time instead of putting it off.

I have a lot more I could write but we don't have more time today because we are at an internet cafe and have to pay by the hour, so hopefully I can write more next week. So if I didn't reply to your personal email I'm sorry and I'll try to write next week!

The mission is hard, but the blessings of the Lord are immense. I'm grateful to be here and have this opportunity to serve with all my heart for this short amount of time.

Love and miss you all!

Hermana Spackman

Dinner in Buenos Aires her first night

Arriving in Argentina after flying from Mexico City

Her new District

Google Hangouts with Mom at an Arcade. She had to pay by the hour to use the Internet

Working in Santa Rosa

Her first Baptism

Week 6 ~ Kate's First Email from Bahia Blanca

Hola!!

I don't have a lot of time to write - but I made it to Bahia Blanca! After our flight on monday we stayed in a hotel in Buenos Aires, and then we flew to Bahia Blanca yesterday. We met our mission president and his wife and I love them!! They're super sweet and we did interviews with them yesterday.

My companions names is Hermana Arechaga and she is from France/Argentina. She's very sweet and speaks pretty good English! Our area is Barrio 4, which is in Santa Rosa. Hermana says that it is the safest area in all of our mission and that we have a dog that follows us everywhere haha! We also apparently have a baptism on Saturday haha.

I'm happy and doing well, this adjustment has been much better than the first one. I'm probably the most tired I've ever been - but it's all good haha. We have a 6 hour bus ride to our area at 7 tonight and then we will get there sometime in the night. My pday is monday so I'll email you then!!

Love you guys and miss you!! Talk to you soon.

Love,
Kate

Week 5 ~ The Final Countdown

Hola familia y amigos,

This week went well! We got our itineraries on Monday and we will be flying to Argentina on Monday!! I AM SO EXCITED!! Our bus leaves at 6am to the airport and then we have a nine hour flight to Buenos Aires, and possibly another flight after that. My time here in the MTC has been great - but I am so pumped to finally get out and do what we've been practicing for. 

On Saturday we had a special devotional by Elder Godoy and Elder Clayton - two members of the Seventy! It was awesome, they shared conversion experiences and gave us motivation to continue working hard. My companion and I also got to be in the choir for the devotional. 

One thing that I loved that Elder Clayton shared was, "Talk to people, be friendly and warm. You don't have to teach them the entire gospel in the first 5 minutes you meet them." I loved that! Oftentimes when we are practicing teaching lessons I catch myself getting so caught up in our message, and not taking time to really get to know the person I'm teaching. My goal for this week is to connect with all of our investigators on a personal level and really get to know their struggles and their lives!

We've had some awesome teachers here in the MTC, they will be some of the people I miss the most. Hermana Cabrerra and Hermano Perez only speak to us in Spanish, but we've been able to form such a good friendship with both of them. Our whole district is going on the same flight, and 10 of us are going to the same mission - so I'm happy we don't have to say bye yet.

Funny experiences:

On Tuesday we had a devotional for the entire CCM and our branch president made my companion and I sit on the stand in front of like 900 people.

Our teacher got confused and didn't show up to class on Monday. While we were waiting for our sub, we decided to watch the LDS Addiction Recovery videos. As soon as we started the one about drugs, our substitute teacher walked in. She looked at the TV and listened and then just turned around and walked out, hahahah. 

S/O to my mom for sending me treats every week I've been here. Despite her efforts, I've managed to still lose weight.

Spiritual experiences:

On Sunday we watched a devotional by Elder Holland. It was a video I had seen before called "Feed My Sheep". The first time I watched it I remember feeling overwhelmed, but watching it this time as a missionary it gave me so much motivation!! It made me want to focus more and take every chance to study. If you have the chance, watch that talk, it's so good!

I don't have much more to write about this week, all I can say is that I'm so pumped to get out in the field. Even though I know my Spanish isn't very good and I still have a lot to learn - I feel sooo excited.

The church is true!! If you're thinking about going on a mission - DO IT! It will change your life. 

Talk to you all next week, FROM ARGENTINA!!

Love,

Hermana Spackman

pics this week:

our favorite elders - they always have something weird to say

our cute teacher, Hermana Cabrerra

a selfie from the dorm mirror :')