Never underestimate the far-reaching influence of your testimony

LUIS GUILLÓN, Argentina - Hey family! Happy July... tomorrow. Where did June go? I have no idea :) But I hope you all are enjoying summer.  You are all swimming and eating watermelon and I pulled out my gloves and beanie this week :) Gotta love living on opposite sides of the world! I heard everyone is going up to the cabin for the Fourth!!! How fun :) I am a little bit jealous but no worries hermana mills and I are going to try and eat something american and have a mini party. The real party will be the 9th of July... Independence day in Argentina! WAHOOOO! 

THis is what we rode bikes in. Wahoooo! Adventure time :) I love being sister training leader. adventures every week haha

Guess who rode a bike this week? :) 

This week has been great. As always, time is just flying. We are almost half way through another transfer again. What?! I am learning lots in my new area. It’s always hard to change and get to know a new area and the people but it is also great. Heavenly Father expects us to love everyone and share the gospel with everyone. No matter if you know them for 6 months, one year, 2 weeks or a whole lifetime. Thats the amazing things about missionary work... its something we have to work at daily! This week we saw some miracles again for sure! We had 8 less actives at church again and have a family of 4 on date for July. I hope everything goes well. They want it so bad but have to figure things out with work :( I just found out that one of my investigators who we gave a baptismal date to before I left was baptized this week! wahoooo!!! :) I am so excited. gotta love the work no matter where you are.

Swappin clothes with hermana Mills.... we are a little tired of the same clothes everyday.

We are so excited to be serving missions!

This month has been pretty interesting with the World Cup. We obviously are not allowed to watch it but every house we go into that is all the family wants to do is watch. So sometimes we have to ask them to turn it off. If Argentina is playing? haha usually we spend a good couple hours outside walking the streets in silence and knocking doors. It’s quite the experience. We have a big activity this weekend but might have to postpone it due to the world cup haha gotta love Argentina :) 

Nothing like a good hot malta on a cold winters night ;) 

THis picture is of Mondongo... cow stomach.... Mmmmm ;

Hermana Mills and I are doing great. We still think president made a mistake with our companionship because we just have too much fun and too much in common. ;) We are hard workers but love to smile, laugh and have fun. So, it’s pretty easy to get a long with her. You think i am crazy? you should meet her! haha ;) She is a hoot and a half! 

 We are working hard with the less actives right now and have some investigators progressing as well. I love doing in all types work. One thing I have really noticed that is great about this ward is how much the members help out. Its amazing! I could not do it without them :) 

With the Elder's at a Baptism

We watched Ephraim’s Rescue the other DVD which was SOOO good. If you haven’t seen it you should! It is like 17 miracles. Anyway, I was watching it and almost in tears. I love and respect the pioneers’ sooo much! They gave everything to be part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There was a quote I loved from Pres. Monson and is talk called Be thou an example:

 ¨Never underestimate the far-reaching influence of your testimony. You can strengthen one another; you have the capacity to notice the unnoticed. When you have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel, you can reach out and rescue others of your age.¨ Share your testimony and light of Christ with everyone this week and watch miracles happen! :) 

I hope all is well there in the States. Sorry its so short but I gotta get going! Sure do love you all with all my heart :) Keep me updated with what’s new there. Brit sent me a quote a couple weeks ago that I loved. So for all of those who are stressing listen up: ¨Life by the yard is hard, Life by the inch is a sinch!¨Tear it up this week! 

Hermana Newman :) 

Fun with Sister Mills

LUIS GUILLÓN, Argentina - HOLA from Luis Guillón!

Mom wrote me something about 4th of July plans... WOW! Where has June gone?  Seriously June has come and left! Things are going great. Made it through my first week in the new area. And I love it! It is very different than Columbia 3 or Banfield 1 but ya gotta love everything the Lord puts in your path.

 

The view from my new apartment

My companion is great. She and I have lots of goals to get this area moving and help the members get reactivated and invite their friends. We are quite the companionship. She is short and I am tall.. she has crazy big hair and I cant get volume in my hair for the life of me. She is a white girl and everyone still thinks I am Latina. You think my laugh is loud?... hers is louder. haha Basically we are just a big ball of fun. We saw President in a meeting this week and he said, ¨uh oh. I don’t know if i can have the two crazy girls together. You are going to have waay too much fun. But the Lord wanted it so, here we are!¨ haha

Tired of our clothes, so we switched.

This week has surprisingly been really slow but no worries we are ready to pick up the pace this week. We have lots of less actives to help and are on the search for new investigators. The sister who was here last was pretty sick so they didn’t get to do much work here. But lucky me... I am very healthy and ready to work so this area is perfect! :) 

We had some great lessons this week with all sorts of people. Its amazing how different life is for everyone but we all have the same goal... to make it back with our Heavenly Father again. I don’t remember who I told but our mission is doing a 25 week program to really read and understand and study preach my gospel. This week we are starting chapter 3 lesson one. The restoration. I was reading this morning and found a really simple but powerful quote that I liked. I don’t have my English PMG with me but I will try and translate it in English. Sorry if it is not word for word but you will understand what I mean. It is the very first line on page 29 I think. It says: ¨The lessons of this chapter contain the doctrine, the principles and the commandments, essential that you should STUDY, BELIEVE, LOVE, LIVE and TEACH!

I know it is really simple but I LOVE simple things. They are so powerful :) I read that this morning and knew it was perfect for me to hear. How true is that. The gospel is not just things we study and teach... it is what we believe, live and love. Those are words of action. We need to be active and doing things in the Gospel. Not just studying and think we will be good. No, God doesn’t work that way... he wants us to DO! :) 

Me and débora again :) She is a shortie hee hee we took a normal pic and yep i preetty much looked like a giant!

AL righty, that’s all for this week folks! I hope you have a great week and have some awesome experiences. In the words of Hermana Mills--- ¨KILL IT!¨

Las Quiero! BESITOS :)

-Hermana Newman 

Changes and enduring to the end

Luis Guillón, Argentina — Wow. What a week.... to say the least. I have been on quite the roller coaster ride. With way more ups than downs! But what I mean is lots of emotions and changes this week.  

First things first: drum roll........ Débora was baptized on Saturday! I couldn’t be happier for her. She is amazing! She is definitely a strong member already and only has 2 days as a member. I will miss her a lot!

All the sisters that worked with Debora pose for a picture

Because yep, I got transferred. 8 months in Columbia 3rd and then chau. 6 months in Banfield 1 and then chau. And now I am in a place called Luis Guillón. My zone is called Monte Grande. I don’t know anything about it, because I have only been here a couple hours. It is pretty close to my other area (30 mins) but different zone. Funny story: Hermana Kent is in Banfield with my Maryland companion, Hermana Crotzer. Yep my ¨daughters¨ (trainees) are companions now.

Debora's family

And I am here with Hermana Mills. She is from South Jordan, Utah as well but lives closer to the Jordan River Temple, so we never knew each other in the states. She seems awesome and is a fireball. Love this girl. SO crazy! I don’t know what Heavenly Father was thinking putting us two together because we are just one big ball of fun and craziness ;) I will write more about her next week when I know her a bit better.

And shock. I will know be serving here as ¨capacitadora¨ or Sister Training Leader. I think Brittany was that in San Diego as well. Should be interesting and keep me very busy as well!

This week was great. Like I said the Baptism went well. We have another date for 28th of June so that will be awesome for my companions there in Banfield 1. This morning I had tons of things I wanted to tell you but know I am sitting here with a head ache and can't remember anything whoops :P

Hermanas Newman y Kent being silly.

Last night was crazy trying to pack. We didn’t have electricity. so imagine this silly Hermana Newman trying to pack in pitch black. Luckily,  I found a lil candle to help out a bit. I got it all packed and am now here with in my new area and ready to learn what the Lord has in store for me to learn and do with my new brothers and sisters here in Buenos Aires! :) Let the adventure begin!!!

I am going to keep it short and sweet this week. Lucky me, I am a very simple person and I can do short and sweet very well ;). 

I shared something this week in church, because I gave a talk about enduring to the end. I thought a lot about what I should say to the members as the last thing I would say to them for a while. I prayed a lot about it and came to the conclusion to talk about enduring to the end and my testimony.

We learned from a Seventy this week what it truly means to be active in the church and it has a lot to do with perseverance. If we are not doing something, we are not progressing. And we all know we need to progress to return with our Heavenly Father. He made it very clear to us that we need to help the members to be DOING, not just sitting back comfortable. We all are a team. A team works together and progresses together to make the basket or the goal right? So just the same: we need to work as a team and get to the Celestial Kingdom together. It is a doctrine.

Brave Hermana Newman (she doesn't like birds on her) with a parrot.

 Super basic, but also very important and I think a lot of people forget that, myself included. Before my mission there were some things I let others do and I just sat back and watched but that’s not how the church works!

Alrighty, I better get going, but I love you all to pieces have a great week!

Tear it up! Smile lots... Life is good!

-Hermana Newman :)

Happy Father's Day

TEMPERLEY,  Argentina - HAPPY FATHERS DAY 

 Happy Father's day to my awesome dad.. brothers, grandpas and uncles! :) and everyone else who is a Dad ;) I am sending this today because the next week will be the day after. I hope you all have a wonderful day. Dads sure are awesome. I want to tell my dad how great I think he is. Thanks for all you do pops. Thanks for putting up with you crazy Sara! I have learned lots from your example. Keep up the good work! 

This week has been another great week. We planned Déboras baptism. She is pretty excited for Saturday. Only six days until her Baptism! :) Wahooo! She is amazing and a special daughter of Heavenly Father.  Seriously, I have never met anyone quite like her. She is sooo ready and I am excited to see all the great things she will do. I am most grateful that Heavenly Father made it possible that we could meet and be friends. She truly will be a friend of mine forever! 

This week we had Ward Conference. It was fabulous! The Bishop and Stake President spoke. The topic basically was that we are doing great but need to be doing better. Bishop said to us missionaries that he is pleased with the ward but worried as well. Worried because ¨we are comfortable.¨ I can totally understand what he means. It is so true. Comfortable is not a good thing. If we are comfortable we are not progressing. It reminds me of something Brit told me right before I left on my mission.  She told me to get out of my comfort zone and that she hopes I am uncomfortable my whole mission. It is true, if we are a bit uncomfortable we are truly relying on our Heavenly Father and then we can grow. Our goal is to always be doing something to progress.

There is a scripture in the bible that says ¨Que mas mi falta?¨ I think in english... What more can I do? Like what more do I need to learn. I love it. I hope we can ask ourselves that every day... ¨Que mas mi falta?¨ I KNOW without a doubt if we are striving to be better everyday we will grow and become more like our older brother Jesus Christ.  If you are comfortable... something is wrong.  Get up and change something! Get up and do something new! Make sure you a ¨moving and progressing and not ¨jogging in place¨  for lack of better words. Make goals and do them! That is the key... action. My Zone leader shared this with us a couple weeks ago. It is by a boxer but I cant remember his name right now. But he says, ¨Words are cheap- don’t tell me show me.¨ So true. Put your words into action this week. That is my invitation to everyone who is reading this. I want to hear your miracles and how everything goes. 

This is the last week of the transfer. We are going to work as hard as ever and tear it up!!! Next week I don’t know if I will be here with Hermana Kent or somewhere else. Weird to think about. I will update you on that next Monday. 

Have a fabulous week! Love ya like crazy!

-Hermana Newman :) 

This is our room. It is a normal apartment. A little different in the US because we dont have heat or air conditioning but its similar... depends on your area and where you live

Nick asked me to describe my apartment here in Argentina. But I thought it might be more fun to see it than to read my words about it... change things up a bit ya know? ;) 

This is the view from my room into the neighbors yard ;) 

The reality of the Holy Ghost

TEMPERLEY, Argentina — FAMILIA!!! HOLA Y FELIZ JUNIO!!!

Wow. Can't believe it is summer there already. Does that mean everyone is getting out of school soon and ready for some summer fun? :) Here in Argentina — In South America, really —everyone is getting excited for the World Cup. Should be interesting to see how that works out for the missionaries ;)

This week was FABULOUS!! Probably one of the greatest weeks of my mission. I can’t exactly explain why. But, we were able to see so many miracles and be part of them. My favorite part was being an instrument in the Lord's hands. I have had experiences this week that I will treasure forever. I don’t want to write them down today in the email because they are very special to my heart, but I can testify that the Holy Ghost works! It is a gift for us all. Heavenly Father wants us to use it and feel it in our lives daily! Don’t waste this precious gift.

This week, my testimony of the Holy Ghost has grown tenfold. If you want to be an instrument in the Lord's hands stop thinking so much about it: do something about it! Get down on your knees and pray for these experiences. YOU can make a difference. I wish I had realized that a bit more before my mission. You don’t have to have a tag to be a missionary. Just need the desire and help from our Heavenly Father. 

I heard this quote in Zone Conference two weeks ago... ¨Don’t walk... You know how to fly! ¨ (Luke 18:26-30) we have what we need... we have the gospel... we have our wings to fly. Give them a try!!! :) 

I promise you will fly. You might have a couple of trial runs where you might fall but get back up and I promise you will fly!

I am about out of time but, I want to share a song I found this week that I really love and think we can all relate. It's by Aaron Edson.

 I think it's called Wondering.

 
 

I am so grateful to be here in Argentina and help others repent and grow closer to our Heavenly Father. So thankful for my Brother, Jesus Christ and his Atonement. The only thing I can do to try and repay him is serve him... serve him and help my other brothers and sisters here use His sacrifice to return to him one day! 

Love you all with all my heart! I hope you have a spectacular week! Give it all you've got and tear it up!

Con amor, 

 

hermana newman :) 

p.s. Don't forget to smile :) Life is good!