From Buenos Aires December 5, 2011

I´m doing really well today. It´s so crazy to think that in two days I´ll hit my three month mark. Thank you so much for your letters and advice and for sending me the ones from my friends at home. It really means so much to me that I have others thinking about and praying for me. I don´t have a lot of time today, and I´ll try and make sure I have more time next Monday to write. Will you tell the Garibaldi family and Mary and Pres. Patterson how grateful I am for their letters? They were really what I needed this week.



This week has been difficult, but good at the same time. All five of our baptismal dates fell through in the last two days and we lost two of our investigators yesterday. I thought I would feel a lot worse, but I only feel peace. I guess that just goes to show how God has a plan for everything and this is really His work. Of course it hurt to hear these two people, Juan and Lizandro, tell us that they weren´t interested anymore, that they didn´t have any faith. I don´t think that will ever get easy to hear, and it probably never should. Hermana Reales and I just feel like we need to work a little bit harder, plan a lot better, and trust a lot more. God will take care of us if we will do our part in the work.



In our last District meeting every companionship set baptism goals for the month of December. We really felt like three was a good number. The rule in the mission for baptisms is that a person must attend Sacrament Meeting at least three times before they can be baptized. That means that in order to have anyone get baptized this month we basically have to have them come every Sunday for the rest of the year, since we didn´t have anyone come to church yesterday, despite our efforts. We have faith in the inspiration we´ve received and trust that it will happen if we do our part.



Hermana Reales and I get along great. I´ll try and get some pictures taken and send them to you. She has helped me a lot, especially since this week has been hard and I haven´t been as motivated as I´d like to be. She keeps me going. Argentina is beautiful, though the days are getting hotter and hotter. We bought a little Christmas tree today to decorate and put in our apartment. We´ll be spending Christmas with one of the member families and a recent convert so she doesn´t have to spend it alone. They do Christmas very differently here, so it will be interesting to experience.



I haven´t really had to face my food fears yet, though I´m sure I will. It´s a lot of beef, potatoes, and they put hard-boiled eggs on and in everything, even pizza. Tang is a huge staple here, too, but they have all kinds of different flavors, not just orange. I like it a lot, but really miss my real orange juice.


I had an interview with President Carter this morning. It went well and I learned a lot. I know he´s been called by God to lead this mission. He reminded me of how important it is to have faith and patience, that the two are pretty much inseperable. I need to focus more on how far I´ve come and how bright the future is if I have the faith and patience necessary to make it so. Since today was la Conferencia de los Resfuerzos (conference of the reinforcements - newbies) we got to meet with all of my friends from my district at the MTC as well as the local newbies.



One of the sisters is a mini-missionary. She´s only here for one or two transfers and lives in the mission. She´s only 18 and has been a member for about a year. Hermana Gomez´s strength and willingness to serve really inspired me. Sister Carter said that the missionary who found and taught her family said he would have worked as a missionary for ten years to find them. It reminded me of the story in the Bible where Jacob worked for 7 years for Rachel, but it only felt like a few days to him because of the love he had for her. It was an amazing and spiritual experience for me. If I love the people here and love God even more, every minute of every day will be worth it to me. They time will go by too quickly and I won´t want to leave when the time comes. That´s the kind of missionary I want to be.


Thank you all for your examples, prayers, and love. I feel it all more than you know. I love you and pray that God will bless you in all that you do.

Hermana Erin Litster