Yay for Order!

February 3, 2014

Dear Everyone,

This week has been great! This week has been a week of new beginnings!

We went to one of the Elder´s area called Lavalle and had an
asado! (like a big barbeque) My first one! Nobody could believe I
haven´t had one in my two months here. ha. The Argentine´s LOVE asado!
It was super fun and we were able to do some Zone bonding!

On Tuesday, we had Consejo, which is a meeting for all the leaders of
the mission that we have once a month. They talked a lot about how we
need to talk to everyone that we see on the street! Sometimes we
forget about that and just walk fast to our appointments because we
are late. But my companion and I have been on fire this week! We have
been stopping everyone on the street! A lot of them aren´t interested,
but we´ve found some awesome people because of it.

Especially because this is what happened this week. We both had really
strong feelings that we needed to start all over and look for new
investigators. None of our investigators have been progressing and we
felt like we can use our time doing more effective things. It was
really hard to leave them, but I know that they will be more prepared
soon. It took a lot of faith to start over, but we´ve already seen the
miracles!

Last night the Elders found this kid, Maxi, that´s been going to
church in their ward and attending the youth camps and really wants to
be baptized! He lives in our area, so he would go to our ward. They
passed us the referral and we´re going to visit him tonight!

Also, last night the Carballos in our ward invited us over because
their cousin was in town and isn´t a member. She recently lost a child
and was really confused about where she was. We taught about the Plan
of Salvation and told her that her daughter was happy and that she has
the opportunity to be with her again. How blessed we are to know about
God´s plan for us! It brought a peace to the room and she was able to
feel the Spirit and know that everything would be okay. She lives in
Buenos Aires, so hopefully she will be baptized up there soon!

We´ve been doing a lot of cleaning in our apartment and our area book.
(I don´t think either have been cleaned very well in 2 years) We were
scared to start it, but as we have made our apartment and our area
book cleaner, we have felt the Spirit more and we are more receptive
during studies and planning to the promptings and inspiration that the
Lord wants to give us. Now I understand why it´s so important to have
a house of order. :)

We did exchanges this week with the sisters from Mendoza! I stayed in
my area with Hermana Norr from Washington and we talked to so many
people! We saw miracles and had so much fun! And ate some really good
alfajores. (they´re like little cakes)

They have the best junk food here. Alfajores, facturas (pastries),
pizza. And ALL way better than the ones I´ve ever tried in the states.
If there was one reason I ever moved here, it would be for the junk
food.

This week we had a huge miracle with one of our recent converts in the
ward. Magali was baptized in November, right before I got here. But
when the missionary that taught her left, she got super sad and didn´t
want to come to church. We always passed by, but never could find her
and no one from the ward could find her or talk to her. On Thursday
our ward mission leader, Alan, invited us to go visit her. We went and
her mom said that she didn´t want to hear from us, so we sat down and
started sharing a message with her mom. She came out in the middle and
we instantly became best friends! She is the sweetest girl! She
started to share her story with us about why she stopped going to
church and why she distanced herself from everyone. She told us she
didn´t know why she came out, she just felt like she should. That
night she walked to the Bishop´s house to have an interview, and the
YSA group was there getting ready to go to a camp in Uspallata. So she
went home to pack and left with them. Apparently the camp went super
well because 5 of the YSA kids that were inactive left camp, deciding
to go on missions! It was sweet! Magali is coming back to church and
wants to come out to appointments with us this week!

This week has been crazy, but we´re excited to start fresh in our
apartment, in our finding,  and with ourselves. That´s the great thing
about the Gospel. We can always start over!

I love you all sooooo much! I am glad everything is going well and I
hope that it continues! We are so blessed! Thanks for informing me
about the Superbowl and relating it to missionary work! ha! I love
getting your letters and hearing how you all are doing! Keep on
keeping the faith and being examples! And have fun with the Mag´s this
weekend!

Love love love!
Hermana McKenna Lawrence

Ps. The message that we shared at the Baptism of Jorge was the
Restoration! It brings the Spirit every time! :) Love you Uncle Larry
and Aunt Laurel! Oh story for you! The other day, I cut a picture of
the prophet out of the Liahona in the kid section and I turned it over
and Uncle Larry´s face was on it! So I turned the page and it was an
article that you wrote! About your dad :) I loved it so I cut it out
and put it in my journal! It was a fun surprise.

I love everyone!