Santa Maria- week one

Another week in the mish flew by! Things in my new area couldn't be better, Santa Maria is a gold mine! Our 1st day here the 2nd counselor (hermano Victor) of the branch took us around to contact less active members, recent converts, and investigators the previous missionaris we're visiting. The last sisters here got injured and couldn't work so I am once again opening an area for sisters and there hasn't been missionaries in a couple months here. Opening a new area has a lot of challenges because you don't know anything, and you're starting from square one with all the investigators and everything, but thanks to the help of Hermano Victor we are flooded wih work and people to visit. As soon as people heard there we're new sisters in the area they we're calling us begging us to come over and visit them and we are so excited for all the work there is to do here! (nothing like Til-Til). Some special investigators we have are Mario and Pamela. They have a 4 year old boy named Esteban who is crazy hyper and they are havig a lot of problems in their relationship, but we're workig with them with the faith that the gospel will strengthen their relastionship. Pamela wants to get baptized and we invited her to beb baptized the end of this month and she agreed and says she feels the need to be baptized. It's a bit complicated with Mario because he commited a serious crime and he doesn't think he can be forgiven. We can't invite him to be baptized unless he feels the true desire to do it and would need a special interview with the mission president. But before any of that can happen they need to get married! A big issue here is that people cohabitate and have kids so we have a lot of work to do with them but I love them both and see the potential happiness this message can bring them and their son. Another investigator that we have is Javiera who´s 16. She also accepted to be baptized the end of this month but she's 16 and we don't know if her mom is gonna give her permission cause she was very hard on her older brother when he wanted to get baptized, but she gave in with him and we're hoping she softens her heart with Javiera a well. We have a lot more families to work with and invite to be baptized but I'm happy with  done in just 1 week and our names appeared in the Mission News because of our numbers, woohoo! Being in a trio is a lot of fun, but also challenging. Me and Hermana Casique we're trained differently and she's learning a lot from me and what I learned from Hermana Rodriguez and we get along great and laugh so much, we crack eachother up mainly because I speak spanglish ad make up words in spanish ha ha. And Hermana Cottle is just a sweetheart, I'm trying to seve her in any way I can because she's only been here 3 months and even though she's training us her spanish needs work and she feels self-conscious all the time of her spanish and unqualified to train us, but I am constantly supporting her and telling her what a great trainer she is and helping her improve her spanish any way I can. I'm used to be a tour guide and presenting information with a lot of energy and excitement, but Hermana Cottle is teaching me to teach with the spirit and to be more tender and loving during the lessons in order to invite the spirit and she is a great example to me. The house we live in is HUGE, the only bummer is that it's crawlig with spiders and we we're having problems with the water heater so we had to take a coupole cold showers. We have 2 bathrooms and 6 rooms including the kitchen, dining room, and bedroom so it's possible that some more sisters might move-in with us and that they divide the sector, but as of now we don't know. Also Fall is here! The weather is getting chillier and the leaves are falling and I'm sweating less which is always awesome! Anyways, love you all! Send me Dear Elders and tell me what's up in the states!

 

xoxo,

Hermana Ibarra

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