The Work of Salvation Continues Forward!

Questions from the family: 

how are news on the piojos front?

lice = killed. victory.

What are the transfer news?

I cant believe it, but I'm staying here in Saltos!! and with hermana nethercott too!! we are shocked but super happy :) hooray!

The transfer mark is this Wednesday, and then six weeks later is the 25th of February, and then 6 more weeks is the 8th!! My official release date on my papers is the 7th but with traveling I wont get home until the 8th.

Hey so I got my package this week!! It was waiting for me at the office, and super fun to open! After we did, Hermana Nethercott said ¨hey that actually felt like christmas!¨ haha :) thanks for everything!! 

So this Tuesday I was at consejo, which was awesome! They introduced a new way that we'll be counting numbers, which is super interesting. And exciting! Its coming from the Area presidency, and instead of asking for all of our numbers (lessons with members, other lessons, baptismal dates, contacts, etc.) now they only want TWO numbers. Confirmations, and total attendance in the branch. And then each mission can pick two more numbers to use within their mission, so in the consejo we picked lessons with members and references. Anyone who is not a missionary might not understand the significance of that change, but its gonna be really really different. The area presidency said they did that to hasten the work and to truly focus on baptism, retention, and reactivation. ...which the Argentina Posadas mission has been working on those three things as a focus since a year and a half ago when it started. President LaPierre truly is an inspired man, and the Lord truly leads his servants in the direction He wants us to go. 

Then this week was just traveling and normal stuff until Saturday, when I did divisiones with the Hermanas. It was... probably the weirdest and most stressful divisiones I've ever done. I told the zone leaders about it after and they were just laughing at me and called them ¨Divisiones from the Black Lagoon¨ oh man. one of the biggest parts was that awkward moment when we got locked out of the pension (which belongs to the branch president) and we had to sit outside for 3 hours while we waited for him to wake up from his nap and break the door down. my life. 

The only thing that made it better was that we got home Saturday night and had planned to go to an FHE with the Elders in their area. And why was I so excited about this...? 

Because if you look on Google maps, there's one part of Saltos called 29 de Septiembre. Its a neighborhood literally right on the border of Brazil. Like one side of the street is Paraguay and the other is Brazil. And on the way there, the road you have to take turns for like 5 yards into brazil and then goes back out. sooo..... I'VE BEEN TO BRAZIL!!!!!! hahahaha :) 

And then life got crazy again (wait... I think it's always crazy) because we got back home Saturday night and I just go SO sick. Like terribly so. I don't remember if I've ever thrown up that much in my life. I basically spent all night in the bathroom. I'll spare you more details. So when Hermana Nethercott woke up Sunday morning I quickly informed her that we would not be attending church that day (super weird as a missionary) and I stayed all day in bed. The Elders came and gave me a blessing and blessed the sacrament for us and I've felt better ever since. Can I just say I am soo grateful for the Priesthood? 

In the blessing it talked AGAIN about how I'm supposed to use my experiences now for people after my mission. Interesting. 

And then cambios today informed us that we get to stay!! I didnt believe the Elders when they told us. Too good to be true!! God loves me :) 

I've got no time left but in consejo I also got a whole ton of SUPER exciting news from Virasoro. our efforts never go to waste and the work of salvation continues forward. 

love you all!!
-Hermana Rawlins

this is me and my smore. may or may not have almost cried :)

this is from consejo, its me and a bunch of the missionaries that I came with

can you say... trunky papers?? (thats what they're called here I cant remember if that's just in our mission or in others too) this is me and hermana gonzalez, my "mom" in the mission- she trained me so early that we go home at the same time :) I love her so much, it was SOO good to see her. We curled up together on a bed in the mission home and just caught up and laughed and I just love her a ton :)

second christmas!!

the owls we see everyday outside our house. my goal is to make friends with them and tame them. ...its not going so well

cliche walking missionary pic 

new zone tshirts! anyone who does some google translating and has seen nacho libre will get our inside joke. We always joked around with the elders in our district about this and I teasingly said that I didnt want a zone tshirt unless it said this. Well... we got the zone tshirts and the Elders had put this on the inside corner of just our four tshirts. We think we're really funny :) 

we did divisiones, and lost the keys to the hermanas pension. The person they rent from is their branch president. So this is their branch president, breaking the door open with a hammer and a crow bar. Super awkward.

this is me and brazil!! 

THAT IS BRAZIL!!

our zone in our new zone shirts