Just Another Normal Crazy Week

So this week has been good, thank you all soo much for your love and support last week!! Helped a ton and I am so so thankful for all of you!

On Thursday this week, President and hna Lapierre came to virasoro to do interviews, and it was just SO good. I really love him and Hermana Lapierre and am thankful for them and their love and advice. 

Saturday was loco. It rained, but not enough to wash the dirt streets clean, only enough to wet all of the loose dirt and make a TON of mud. We left as usual so we were trucking through the mud and rain to visit J. There had been some confusion because his dad talked to us one time and said that he was already baptized, so we were like, but why does nobody know him? Soo the night before we were looking through the records and discovered that he, indeed, had already been baptized. Haha. So we went to deliver the news to our investigator that "surprise, you´re baptized!" and we got there very muddy and J. was very busily stabbing a huuge frog in front of his house with a large metal stick. Not being phased, we talked to his grandma and asked how old he was so she went and got his documents and we did the math and said "J., you´re 12!" and he was like "no I´m 11!!" (still stabbing) and we were like no you´re definitely 12! and he was like NO I´M 11!!

So at this point I started to chuckle because my life is ridiculous, and then we walked out into the street in front of the house and a chico was herding a bunch of horses down the road so they all started stampeding cause he´d just gotten them started, so hna gonzalez screamed and ran against a fence to get out of the way and at this point in my life I stood in the middle of a muddy Argentinian road with horses galloping around me, and started laughing hysterically. 

Rest assured the rest of the day continued to be loco, but I´m running out of time. I´m learning to love the craziness and find enjoyment in it :)

What happens with the cyber is it closes at noon for the siesta, so we come back later at the end of the day and I use that time to email the President, and we also do anything we need to on a computer, like print out invitations or something.

I love you all a ton and will be praying extra for our family right now!! I know the Lord is always, ALWAYS watching out of us and His plan is greater than we can understand. Sending you all my love from here in Virasoro!!

-Hermana Rawlins

Questions from the family:

Can anybody write you at your email address, or is it limited?

anybody can write me! the limited part is my time to read and respond to things other than thank you!! and love you!! Haha

We didn't know you had elders in your branch til your last letter. Tell us more about the organization of your area.
So Elders have been here for a while in virasoro, and then they divided the area of the town when we the hermanas arrived. Like what happened in Morrisville. Same ward, two areas for elders and hermanas to work together in the same ward. Then Santa Tome has the same deal, and they´re also in our district so our district leader who is in charge of us and our well being and work is there, and then our zone is apostoles so it´s us and another district of elders and hermanas in aposotoles. Hope that makes sense and is what you wanted! I found out yesterday that we have 9 active Elders (of the priesthood) in our branch. So that gives you an idea of numbers and what we´re working with here

Any letter mail yet?

Yes! I got a Christmas letter from all of you with the picture of the Savior, and a Christmas card from Grandma and Grandpa Rowe (thank you!) So I haven’t gotten the announcement still which I´m mad about, and the fabric. The letters I´ve gotten have all used the little global forever stamp, I don´t know if you´ve always used that or if that makes a difference.

my shoes after the really muddy day (but actually pretty clean compared to what they had been), rip the nice tan color I liked. Everything is tinted red here, including my ankles. Never comes off.

a cool sign here in the centro

This family has a really sweet grape tree in their backyard, and their little boy stood on a chair to make sure he would be in the picture as well. I think he´s pretty funny

there´s a brand here that´s called Amanda so random buses will drive by with AMANDA really big on the side and in the groceries stores there´s huge bags of mate with AMANDA on them as well. We think it´s really funny, so we bought some rice to take pictures with. My goal is to get a picture with a bus!