"...Hermana, no grite..."

¡Hola Amigos y Familia!

Tuesday morning, 2 seconds after turning off my alarm, and that's the first thing I hear from Hermana V. To translate into English: "Sister, don't scream." There was a pretty gnarly looking bug chilling next to me in my sheets. I woke up pretty quick after that. 

Zone conference was Tuesday and it was awesome! Mostly because I understood the majority of what was being said. "Majority" = 65ish% but that's progress! President Orquera always feeds us really well except this time no one really ate breakfast because we took the lids off of the factura boxes only to find the bread COVERED in dead bees. That was such a bummer. Hermana V. and I were asked super last minute (welcome to the Argentina Salta mission) to play a music number during the conference. Hermana V. plays the violin so I hopped up onto the piano, said a little prayer, and whipped out "Joseph Smith's First Prayer." It went really well and when we sat down Hermana V. leaned over to me and said, "I'm going to miss that" which broke my little Spanish heart. We've played a lot of musical numbers together looking back on it but have never taken a picture! What the heck. 

This week we started teaching Hector, Rosa, his wife, and Rocio, his daughter! Hector is the guy I waved my little missionary planner in front of asking him if he could feel the wind. He felt it alright and had a TON of questions for us when we visited him and his family to teach lesson 1. I recited the first vision from memory for the first time and the Spirit was muy fuerte. It was kind of one of those moments when I sat and thought, "I know why I'm here" so that was awesome. I could tell his daughter, Rocio, was reallllllly paying attention. She is about 30 and had a ton of questions too! She even offered the closing prayer, literally 5 minutes after learning HOW to give a prayer. I was like "You GO girl!" except I just said it in my head because I didn't know how to say it in Spanish. One day. 

The little mission rollercoaster is still moving. Some days are up, some days are dowwwwn. Friday it was going down and we stopped to visit a woman named Mariana. I was SO hot, SO tired, and SO ready to get back to the apartment and wind down for the night. My brain had been maxed out and so I just sat and listened to Hermana V. and Mariana talk. Once I had been silent for an awkwardly long amount of time, Mariana looked at me and said, "You don't talk very much." I hate it when people say that, because I DO talk a lot, just in English. So then I went into the whole spiel on how "I'm new here" and "I've only been in Argentina for 3 months" etc. She got SO excited about that and started asking me a million questions about why I decided to serve, leave all my family and friends, and all that fun stuff. After I answered all of her questions she looked at me and said, "I can tell you have a lot of charisma about the work you're doing, and joy, even if you don't speak perfect Castellano. I can see it in your face." I almost laughed when she said that because I had been sitting there for an hour, probably looking like a total zombie, bored out of my mind. But, I was grateful she could see it. The Spirit must have carried some part of my silence to her heart haha because I do have a lot of charisma and joy for this work. Even though it's reaaaaallly hard sometimes. 

Yael was confirmed! FINALLY! Like 3 weeks later but now she's a member! She keeps telling us she wants a calling in Primary but we'd love to actually keep her active so I don't think I'm going to pass that information onto the Bishop... :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZY LOU! Everyone fly to California and hug my sister because I can't and I'm way bummed about it. 🍾 oh emojis are kinda fun

Went on splits this week with Hermana Montgomery and oh my HECK I LOVE her. We had so much fun together and I am so SO sad she's dying (going home) at the end of this transfer. She wrote me the cutest note and told me she was so bummed we couldn't have been companions because we were meant to be best friends. When we got back to my apartment that night after contacting and visiting, I went into "wind-down" mode. She put on my glasses and I don't know where my brain was in this moment but I looked and her and said, "Oh my heck! Those look way cuter on me!" I guess my English is trash too because I totally meant to tell her my glasses looked cuter on HER. 

This week the rain came down and the floods came up. Hermana V. and I NEEDED to make all our visits but didn't have our umbrellas so we just walked around DRIPPING water and smiling big time. I think people thought we were crazy......and we were. 

This week Hermana Steed and I are going on ANOTHER 20-hour trip to Salta to finish up our paperwork to become documented...I want to say citizens but I'm not sure what the documents are for to be completely honest haha. It's going to be a party because I love that girl. She's had a ROUGH couple of months out here and we always joke about how in 2021 we're going to be laughing at all our mission stories while having lunch in Park City.

Welp! That's kind of the majority of things this week. Lots of spiritual experiences and lots of miracles. Two weeks from now and I'll be out of training and a real missionary! Can't believe it. I'm thinking I'll get transfered but we'll see....

Gracias por todo! Les amo y espero que todo está bien!

Love love loooooovvvvveee,

Hermana McKinlay

Zone Conf!

Hermana Hall! (Hermana Steed's comp)

My Artistic Skills