Nov. 3, 2014 Esta hermanita fue completamente mojada! (This little sister was completely wet!)

Nov. 3, 2014 Querido Familia y Amigas,

WEEKLY CHALLENGE!!!! STUDY 1 Nephi 8 as a family and discuss it! Talk about the different types of people and which one you are going to be. 

   The greatest thing in life is to see someone progressing towards their Heavenly Father! During Sacrament meeting on Sunday Hna M- nudged me and I looked over and saw Hna R- sitting there! She is a Menos Activo (Less active) for I don´t know how much time, that we have been visiting. She has a lot of difficulties in her life, and has to work on Sundays, so she can´t attend the church. But she was there yesterday! I was super happy. :D (I think it might have been because of the rain. Usually, rain stops people from coming to church since people don´t want to leave their house or do anything when it rains. But I think she works selling things outside, so the rain stopped her from working so she came to church!) 

    Side note on the topic of rain:Argentina can not make up it´s mind. The beginning of this week was super hot--in the 80´s farenheight. And now it is back down to the 60´s, pouring rain every day. Which makes it a bit difficult to find new people since they don´t want to leave their house or talk to us, etc. But, we are perservering! And it is actually kind of fun, since we get to use boots and walk through rivers of water in the gutters a veces. But, we also get very wet! Yesterday we were completely soaked when we came home, but the good thing about being completely wet is that you can´t get more wet, so you may as well keep working. :)

    Also, yesterday we had an investigator, R- attend church! It was his first time attending, and he had a lot of questions such as why we use the term "Elder," etc. But he is very open to learning new things since his church is "Escuela Basilica.....???" and they believe in learning always and so are always changing their religion--from what I gather. But we will see how things work out. We can only teach him on Saturdays because of his work, but he is reading the Book of Mormon and believes that it is possible and also that the first vision is possible. 

    This week we found DOS NUEVAS FAMILIAS!!!! One was by street contacting, and then later when we returned, V- (the mother) who we talked to before wasn´t there, but we had a very good lesson about prayer with M- her daughter. I think they are going to progress very well, since they are open to religion, and M- wants to casarse con su marido. And V- gave us a reference for Y- the mother of her other grandson. We met Y- and talked to her for a little bit, and then returned on Saturday to invite her to church. She is very easy and open to talk to, and agreed to come to church with her 4 brothers she is taking care of and her son. She didn´t end up coming because she was sick (or maybe it was the rain?), but we have an appointment for Wednesday, so we will talk to her then!

    Probably the best part of missionary work is getting to see how the Lord works through you to help others make the changes in their lives that they need to, and the joy you feel when people follow through with commitments because you know how much it is going to bless them. And having a clearer idea of your purpose and what you need to be doing with your life. One of the harder things is figuring out where to focus and keeping that focus without distractions from things of lesser importance. 

    Keep up the great work at home! Don´t forget the importance to always hold tight to the iron rod (the scriptures) so as not to be lost in the things of the world! And keep up the great member missionary work! Truly, members are the key to missionary work, and more people will be converted and come to Christ as more members get involved in helping them in their journey!

¡Les amamo mucho!

Hermana :Durfee

 

Oct. 20, 2014 A new investigator

Oct. 20, 2014
¡Hola familia y amigos!

No tengo mucho mas tiempo para escribir, entonces este carta va a ser un poco corto. 

WEEKLY CHALLENGE!

1-Find an opportunity to serve someone every day this week! 

2- Email me 3 sentences about your experience! 

¡Tenemos una nueva investigadora, y ella asistió la iglesia!!!! Se llama N-, y tiene dos hijitos y es de Paraguay. Ella tiene 19 años. Ella es muy tímida y tiene mucho tiempo solo; entonces la iglesia fue difícil para ella porque fue muchos personas. Pero vamos a hablar con ella hoy sobre como ella siente y más sobre nuestro propósito de ayudar personas a venir a Cristo. También, vamos a tener hermanamientos para ella entonces ella puede conoce más personas antes de la iglesia y tiene amigos en la iglesia cuando ella asiste. Tenemos un poco desafíos este semana con ayudando investigadores progresar. Trabajamos muchos con los miembros este semana para ayudarles pensar en la obra y en como ellos pueden dar a Cristo. Entonces este semana vamos a trabajar más con los miembros con nuestros investigadores. Siento que esto va a ayudarles progresar mejor, y especialmente asistir la iglesia. También este semana los elderes y nosotros tenemos un reunión con el nuevo obispo y hablamos sobre como vamos a trabajar con el barrio mejor, como vamos a tener correlación mejor (un representativo de cada organización va a asistir los reuniones), etc. 

¡Les amo mucho!!!

Con Amor, 

Hermana Durfee

A little help now from Google translate:

Hello Family & Friends,

We have a new investigator, and she attended the church !!!! It is called N, and has two children and is Paraguay. She is 19 years old. She is very shy and has a lot of time alone; then the church was difficult for her because it was many people. But we'll talk to her today about how she feels and about our purpose of helping people come to Christ. Also, we will have twinning for her so she can learn more persons before the church and has friends in church when she attends.
We have some challenges this week with helping investigators advance. We work with many members this week to help them think about the work and how they can give to Christ. So this week we will work with the members with our researchers. I feel that this will help them make better progress, especially attending church.
Also this week the elders and we have a meeting with the new bishop and talk about how we'll work with the best neighborhood, as we will have better correlation (a representative from each organization will attend the meetings)

Oct. 13, 2014 Tenemos 7 investigadores!

Oct 13, 2014 

Todas las hermanas en mi zona

¡Hola familia y amigos!

First! WEEKLY CHALLENGE!!!

This week´s challenge is to have a missionary experience!!! 

1-Read DyC 33:9, Jacob 5:70-75, and Elder Bednar´s talk from Conference, (and I think there is a chapter or something about this in the Every Member a Missionary book if you want to read that to.)

2-Pick a date by when you want to know who and do it. 

3-Pick a name of a friend and pray about them to see if they are ready and what you can do to help them and what you can invite them to

4-Invite them to FHE, Mutual, Church, to meet with the missionaries, have a church discussion with them, etc. 

5-Write me about your experience! Tell me what you liked, how it went, what you{re going to do differently next time, who you{re going to invite next!!!!

This is really annoying, since every single word is underlined in red because it is a Spanish computer and doesn´t understand how to read English. Also the ´button is in the wrong place. { Is where ´is supposed to be, so sorry about the misspellings and stuff. 

 

Todos los personas de el CCM who came to BAW plus one random guy

First of all, ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡el don de lenguas es muy muy real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously. Today is the start of my 4th week here, and I can already understand the majority of what people say, and can express myself decently. And my compañera says that I have a fantastic accent. So that is good. It´s funny, since every time I pray, my r´s are very rolly, but when I talk normally they´re not. Now I need to work on learning more words. 

We have 7 new investigadores this week! One is J-, a chico que tiene 12 años. He is super awesome! He loves to read and to learn and was really earnest when we were teaching him. I think he is Evangelico? There are a lot of those here. But we gave him a Book of Mormon and a folleto about the Restoration, and he said he would read and pray. And he has a baptismal date. 

 

    F-o is the abuelo de J-. He is not religious, but believes in God. But he is a very analytical thinker, and has a lot of tough questions he throws back at us. And he does not want to commit to anything. Every time we ask him to read, or pray, or attend church, he always says "trataré" (i will try). But then most of the time he does it. We made him pancakes on Saturday as incentive to go to church and to gain his trust more. I think he really enjoys the company, although he does not say it. 

 

    R-o is a young man que tiene about 23 años. He changed his religion one year ago from Catholisism to School of something or other. He was very persistant that he has his religion, but he shared his version of the plan of Salvation with us, and then we taught what we believe. He is very open to new ideas, but at the same time very set in his ways. But I think that we may be able to reach him since his church ("escuela"=school) believes in always learning new ideas and incooporating them into their religion. He agreed to read the follet and to be baptized in Noviembre if his prayer about it is answered. He understand the importance of baptism, but he was baptized as a niño en la iglesia Católico, entonces we will have to work on that. 

 

¡Hoy es mi cumple-mez! ¡Entonces tengo dos mezes en la misión!

 

Funny story: The office elders were bringing us another dresser, but it was very large and awkward. One of the elder´s said "Necesitamos planear. ¡Tiene su agenda?" (We need to plan. Do you have your planer?) (Because we use them constantly, etc.) 

Con Mucho Amor!

Hermana  Du-free (They can´t get our name right in Spanish either! It´s hard for them to say Durfee, but when I met someone for the first time and they read my nametag, a lot of the time they say it Dufree. No sé porque. :)

Oct. 6, 2014 This little sister esta en Atalaya!

Oct. 6, 2014

 

¡Hola familia y amigos!

WEEKLY CHALLENGE!!!!!
This week´s weekly challenge comes from Elder Andersen´s talk.

1-Find scripture in the Book of Mormon that you know are true and share them!

2-Read the Testimony of Joseph Smith in the Pearl of Great Price out loud. Record yourself saying it, and listen to it in your own voice. Share it with friends!

3-Write me about how it went, how your testimony grows, what you learned, how much you loved doing it etc. by Monday October 13, 2014 in the morning!

So I´ve been here for about 20 years now. The work is going well. We got 5 new investigators this week. Some of our investigators with Baptismal dates are struggling, so we are going to focus on commitments, and how they can make personal plans to keep them and to get better. We are going to have a Baptismal service either this or next week depending on how our investigators are progressing.

Birdseye view of Buenos Aires
 

My area is called Atalaya in the Zone of Ramos Mejia. Apparently this is the hardest zone in the mission, but I think it is great! Hermana M- told me that our Zone is the most city-like of the mission. Downtown where the Mission Office/Stake Center are kind of remind me of New York City except the buildings are not quite as tall or  as claustrophobic, and there are not as many people. It takes us about 40 minutes in the "colectivo" (bus) to get from Atalya to Ramos Mejia. But our area is more of neighborhoods with lots of houses all crammed together. Some people have some yard space, but there is not a lot of green yet. But the trees have flowers on them since it is spring, so that is pretty. All of the windows have bars over them, and all of the houses have gates in front of them. So we rarely knock on doors, but rather we clap outside the gate and the people come unlock it to talk to us. A lot of people run businesses out of their houses--like mini stores. So the bars over one of the windows is changed so there is a box like space where they can pass things out. And people will come ring the bell and buy things from them. We also have a "supermercado" that we usually get our food at. It´s probably 2.5 times the size of our garage and has 5 or 6 aisles.

Hermana Durfee y Hermana Rasmuson

We had "divisiones" (splits) on Saturday and most of Sunday so I could come into Ramos to watch conferenc en ingles. My companion stayed in Atalya with anothe rmissionary so that she could be with our investigators, but unfortunately none of our investigators came. But the internet connection was bad, so we ended up listening through the radio function of the Mormon Channel. It was so great! If you did not get to watch it, por favor watch it!!!!! I loved how they had people speak in their native languages (althogh they had a translator who changed it to English since we were listening and not watching), but we could hear parts of their language when there were pauses between the words. I loved President Packer´s talk about Christ. I loved his story about how there were 18 pages of references to Christ in the Topical Guide. I am going to start studying from there to understand better the Character of Christ. Mom: To answer your question, we saw the Women´s conference in Spanish in between sessions on Sunday. I loved the focus on temples. The assistants/office elders are going to make DVDs of the womens and priesthood conference and give it to all of the missionaries. We asked them to make copies in English and Spanish, so hopefully they are able to. (The elder´s couldn´t watch the Priesthood session on Saturday because it went from 9-11 pm!)

¡Yo sé que Presidente Monson es un profeta de Dios! Cuando seguimos los palabras de él, tendrán seguridad y felicidad en nuestros vidas.

¡Les amo!

Hermana Durfee

Sept. 29, 2014 Estoy en Argentina!

Sep 29, 2014 

 

¡Hola familia y amigos!

First, my new address is: 

La Iglesia de Jesucristo do los Santos de los Últimos Días

Hermana Breanna Annette Durfee

Misión Argentina Buenos Aires Oeste

C.C. 92

1702 Ciudadela

Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

At the Temple with Presidente y Hermana Robertson

 

So my mission is super huge. It takes probably 10 hours (on a train?) to get to the farthest area. My companion is from Northern Argentina, so the Spanish is coming along. I can say the basic ideas that I want to say, but it is still a little difficult to understand. But I can understand the general idea of what people are saying now if I pay a lot of attention. I figured out that that is a good thing, though. For example, we had a lesson in the street and my companion was distracted by what was going on around us, but I had to be super focused so that I would know what he was saying.So my goal this week is to have that focus and use it to teach according to how I feel and what I do understand. 

 

Mi mamá´s name is Hermana M-. She is taking great care of me! She makes me breakfast every morning and tells me where we are going (since I have no idea. Although I´m starting to recognize the area). And she translates things for me--I can understand her when she speaks spanish, but not always other people. Pero no sé por qué. ¿Posiblemente ella habla menos rapido? No sé.

 

We taught a lesson yesterday to A- and her dad and her friend B- after church. Both girls are about 10 years old. A- has a baptismal date, but her dad is less active. Yesterday was the first time he came to church for a long time. He said he wants to perform the baptism, so I think we are going to push back the baptismal date a little, but I am not sure. We taught about baptism and the Holy Ghost and making covenants. B- said that she wants to be baptized too, because when she came to our church she felt something (the spirit) and felt happy and good--which she hasn´t felt at any other church. So we are going to teach her and her family. Woohoo! 

Buenos Aires is un poco loco. Everyone has a dog, and there are a bajillion wild dogs running all over the place, too. I don´t know how the sidewalks work, but I think they are individually maintained, because one place is smooth and nice and the next is all broken, the next just rocks, and then dirt, etc. Also, the drivers are a bit crazy. You have to be careful when you cross the street to look for cars, because they do not stop. But it doesn´t feel extremely dangerous, just a little bit crazy. The bathroom in our pench is weird. There are two toilets--I guess the second one squirts you clean or something. But we don´t use it. My companion likes to store her stuff--like her straightener, etc. in it. So we buy toilet paper, but we have to throw it away instead of flushing it. I keep forgetting, so I have to keep fishing it out with the toilet scrubber, since it won´t flush. 

The work here is amazing! The members are awesome, and the people are super good. Everyone greets each other with kisses, so that´s really cool (except we only shake the men´s hands, we don´t kiss them.) And the little boys have a different handshake--you go straight on and then put your hand around the thumb. Sorry that´s a bad discription, but I don´t know how else to describe it. 

I played the piano for Sacrament Meeting on Sunday, and the wife of the Elder´s Quorum President was VERY excited. No one in the Ward knows how to play the piano, so that was a huge deal. She said it made such a huge difference, etc. etc. The Bishop also had me and the other elder new to the are bear our testimonies. One of the members thanked me for my testimony afterwards and said how much people needed to hear that and feel the spirit, etc. I think that is interesting  because my Spanish is not the best, and I need to pause and conjugate words in the middle of a sentence. But, THE SPIRIT SPEAKS PERFECT SPANISH! The most important thing is to testify and bring the Spirit. Even if people don´t understand every word that I say, they will understand the Spirit speaking to them!

 

Con mucho mucho amor,

Hermana Durfee

 

Sept 22, 2014 La Semana Final from CCM!

Hola amigos y familia!                                                  Sept. 22, 2014

Holy moly! Last letter from el CCM!!!!!!!!!!!!! This week has been nuts. Hermana R- and I had our last lessons with "Miguel" and "Leonor". 

 

Elder Scott came for Devotional on Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was sooooooo gooood!!!!!!! He talked about different points about prayer, and it was super great. The first thing he told us when he walked in was "I don't want you to just have a good time on your mission. Have a blast!" I love his personality. It was really evident, especially when he was walking in and when he was leaving after the devotional. He gave us thumbs up, and then waved at us with both hands." 

Our district with our teacher, Hermano Wallace

Yesterday we had In-Field Orientation. It was awesome! We bussed up to Main Campus to join the rest of the missionaries leaving this week, and spent the whole day there. We had a lot of different meetings where we discussed different aspects of missionary work in the field, such as planning and setting goals, street contacting, and working with members. It made me really excited to get to Argentina and get going! Although it feels really weird right now to think that we only have a day and a half left in the MTC and we're not even going to be doing normal things like having class. 

Our district with Hermana Boyce
 

On Sunday we get to watch the Ogden Temple Dedication! So excited! And the two districts that are leaving are singing the EFY Medley, but with different words for the Sisters of Zion part. Janice Kapp Perry rewrote Sister in Zion for sister missionaries, and it is super awesome! Also, the part where it says "we will be the Lord's missionaries" is changed to "we ARE NOW the Lord's missionaries." It's SO awesome! 

 

Hermana S- got her temporary assignment! She's going to the California Oakland/San Francisco mission! Woohoo!
 

The Sisters of Zion

The sisters of Zion are called to God's labor, 

We willingly serve Him with Spirit and might!

We go to the nations with truth everlasting, 

We teach of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. 

We thank thee O God for a prophet to guide us, 

We trust in his word and our purpose is clear. 

The angels of heaven are walking beside us, 

We'll share our glad message with all who will hear. 

 

We go forth enlisted with Helaman's Army

In numbers far greater than ever before. 

With power and Spirit we'll faithfully witness,

The heavens have spoken and truth is restored!

Well, I don't have a ton more to say. I'm going to Argentina on Monday!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got a calling card, so I will call you from Georgia, so make sure everyone is home. We are landing Tuesday morning at 8:30 AM, so that's going to be rough. But luckily I am flying straight to my mission. An elder from our zone that left here two weeks ago said he had to travel for five days to get to his mission in Neqeuin, Argentina. 

 

¡Yo sé que el evangelio es verdadero! ¡José Smith fue un profeta! Jesucristo les ama cada persona y sacrificía por todas personas. Dios es nuestro Padre Celestial. Él les ama y quiere cada persona volver a Él. 

 

Con amor, 

Hermana :Durfee