Last e-mail home! 11/18/14

Mommy!

Well, last letter from Argentina!!! So, I’m finished! Wow! I can’t believe that it has been a year and half!!! This week was the best way to end the mission! Like I told you, President Ayre made this the week of miracles! He challenged everyone to break the records in their area. Well, as a zone we set some goals and we got ‘em!!! We set a new record in Parque Patricios, 30 of 50 lessons with a member present in a week!!!!!! We worked so hard, and the Lord truly blessed us!!! Then on Saturday, Elder Christofferson came! It was an incredible experience! I will tell you all about it later, but it was exactly what I needed!!!

And then on Sunday was our Despedida, the meeting that they do for the dying missionaries where they can share their testimonies with all the members and investigators and other missionaries. So, Hermana Duran and I sang Jesus the Very Thought of Thee. They said it was great! I was worried because I was losing my voice, but I know that the Lord blessed me in that moment to be able to sing! Then, I actually made everyone laugh twice while I was giving my testimony.

Then, on Monday I had my last interview with President, and boy was that spiritual! The mission is indescribable!! And then that same day the Relief Society threw me a going away party! That was really special! I will show you everything when I get home!!!

Now I am with Hermana Jensen, and we will be companions for a couple days more! I love this so much, and I just don’t want to leave! It is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do. It’s just so true this work! You can’t participate and not know the Lord; that He exists and that He loves all of His children dearly because He gives you that love for them. This is the truth.  I know it.

Love!!!

Hermana Arntsen

November 10, 2014 E-mail

Mommy!!

This week the weather was so beautiful!!!! But, now the clouds came again and it heated up. It is getting into summer after all! 

It has been a very jam-packed 18 months! I feel like they’ve flown, but at the same time it has been a long 18 months. It’s a strange combination of feelings.

So, this week was great, as always! I hit a new personal record for member present lessons taught in a week! And, this week President has challenged the entire mission to break the records of the area in lessons with a member present, investigators in sacrament meeting, and investigators with a baptismal date! VAMOS!!!!!!

As a mission this year we have the goal of 2000 baptisms, and we are well on our way to hitting it by the end of December!!!!!! 

This weekend an apostle is coming! I think it is Elder Christofferson!!

The Relief Society has announced that they are throwing me a farewell get together next Monday! I couldn’t ask for a better time to be a missionary!!!!! Or a better time to honorably finish a full time mission!!!!!!! Quite literally the BEST 18 MONTHS OF MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE!!!!!!!! Oh, and President Ayres did a flip on the trampoline! (www.bsasno.blogspot.com)

Do the work!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Arntsen

Hermana Arntsen and Hermana Zendejas

Zone Conference

Hermanas doing community service painting

November 3, 2014 e-mail

Mommy!!!

I actually did know about Hermana Heyman (her illness in the mission field). In the Caballito ward I met one of their (the Heyman’s) missionaries and a fellow mission president of theirs, and they told me about it. The mission field is a place of incredible opposition so that there may be incredible miracles!

A few months ago we had a similar stake conference broadcast with a few stakes in Uruguay and Paraguay too. Elder Bednar spoke about repentance! How strong!

So, this week we had all the seasons in one week!!! It was incredibly hot and then really cold and then we had about three or four consecutive days of rain. All day! Even right now as I write. This morning it was so cold that you could see a little bit of snow in the rain (we are on the 11th floor)! It melted almost instantaneously, but it was a cool experience!

This weekend I had a wonderful experience with fasting! It quite literally brings us closer to Heavenly Father! It’s a little personal so I won’t share it, but know that my testimony has grown this week about the power of fasting and prayer. The two of them have to go together to get a solid result (Hel. 3:35) That’s why in Doctrine and Covenants it says that we need to establish a house of fasting and a house of prayer! That is how our homes can become more like the temple! I felt a piece of the Savior’s presence so subtlety powerful accompanying me yesterday that I almost felt I had a little part of the temple with me! I know that renewing our covenants every Sunday is an essential part of our purification as children of God, and that the simple act of taking the Sacrament brings us closer to Him!

I love you!!!

Hermana Arntsen

October 27, 2014 E-mail

Mommy!

So, this week we finally got to teach the cousin of Hermana Nelly, a member in the ward. Her cousin, Alan, has been involved in the scouting program with the church for the last five years and has started going to church the past month. We finally got to sit down with him on Saturday and teach him a lesson. He really liked it and said that he had been missing a chat like that before! He seems really anxious to read and seems pretty golden. Only problem is that we can only see him on the weekends, but I think that he will progress well! 

Also, we found out that Anita and Domingo probably won't get their documents until the 20th of November. So, it looks like I won't be here for their baptism, but it has been a privilege teaching them! And, it’s not over yet!!!! The ward is really helping them feel welcome, and they have more and more friends every week!

The other picture is a man who was painting this building all morning. Keep in mind that you can't see the ground and I took that picture from an 11th floor window. I watched him start in the upper right corner of the building and work his way down the building and then come back up and move a little to the left and go down the column again and then come up and work his way left and down again and again and again all morning long..... And on top of that, I think he will have to go back and do a second coat because the first was a little thin. Wow! What a job! And, considering my incredible fear of heights, what courage!! I think that that is how life often is. We have such and incredible mountain of tasks in front of us that sometimes just looking at all we have to do, we give up right there without having started! But, if we have the courage to say “Yes! I can do it all!”, then we can work section by section, up and down, over a little more until we finish! We just have to pick a task and decide to do all that we can with that task, and then leave it and move on. That’s what this man would do. Wherever he was, he would paint all that he could reach and then lower himself, and then paint all he could reach, and then lower himself.... Pretty cool, huh?

Love you!

Hermana Arntsen

Anita and Domingo, Hermana Dickson & Hermana Arntsen

Man painting a wall