woohoo!

Exciting update!!! This week we met with Fernando and Mariella. We were a little nervous since we needed to talk to them about chastity and marriage. They are living together right now and had never even discussed marriage, so we weren’t sure how this lesson was going to go for them. Anyway, we gave the lesson and it went fairly well, and we asked them at the end to go home and pray individually and then pray together as a couple to ask God if they should live the Law of Chastity, and then if they should get married. A few days later we met with them again and asked if they had thought about what we talked about last time. Mariella looked up with this huge grin on her face and said that they had prayed and talked together and decided to get married and want to be baptized!!! So we are helping them organize a super quick wedding for this week, and then a baptism the week after. So please pray for them! We want everything to go through and want them to remain true to the faith they have gained. It’s crazy to see how much they have changed and how closer they have grown to Heavenly Father and Christ just in the past two weeks. They never really prayed before, but now Mariella says she reads the scriptures every day and loves to pray and talk with God. It’s amazing! And Fernando has smoked his entire life (he started with his friends when he was twelve years old). And since our first lesson with them he hasn’t smoked once!

Also, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY! I’m going to try to send some pictures after this email. But lots of the computers here don’t have a functioning SD drive slot or whatever it’s called to upload pictures. Hopefully this computer does.

Transfers this week! My companion is going to Paraguay! I’m staying here in Santo Tome and apparently my new companion is also from the U.S.! I’m so excited that I will be able to communicate! haha. I’ve missed English a little bit. So on Wednesday we are going to Posadas to meet our new companions and go our separate ways- super exciting and also really sad since Hermana Tapia won’t be able to be here for the baptism.

I love you all! The Book of Mormon is true and I know that by reading it we can grow closer to Christ than by reading any other book! And having faith in Christ is something we constantly should be working for. We will never reach a point where we can just say, “Well, now I’m a perfect person and know everything. I don’t have to work anymore or read the scriptures or pray. I’m good.” We constantly have to be praying and working to gain a stronger testimony and a deeper conversion to the Lord! 

"But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not." MOSIAH 4:30

Hermana Simmons

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Also, just a fun little fact. I’m super glad that I have had so much practice with not using a restroom during long car trips, because about 95% of the bathrooms here are nasty. So lots of times I just wait until we get home or pass by the church or the house of a good member to go to the bathroom. It’s WAY nice. My poor companion has to go to the bathroom like every other hour it feels like haha. And sometimes she says she’ll walk into someone’s bathroom and decide not to use it since it’s so gross. She’ll just stand there for a little bit and then turn on the faucet and come out without doing anything so that the member or whoever doesn’t feel bad. haha. thought I’d let you know.

love ya!

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Now that you've been in Argentina for a month or so, are there any items that you really can't get there, that you miss??

I miss the Kirkland canned chicken!!!! haha the only meat they have here canned is tuna. so we eat a lot of tuna because we don’t really have time to wait around and prepare other meat from scratch. I also miss s’mores! (especially those s’mores bites!) I don’t think graham crackers are a thing here. and tortillas. they don’t really believe in tortillas. But other than that the food here is great. They eat A LOT of bread and rice. But that’s okay because i LOVE the bread here. It’s so good. I’ve probably gained a lot of weight but i don’t even care haha. yeah we do a lot of walking and a half hour of exercise in the morning (crunches, squats, leg lifts, sit ups, etc...) which is good because if we didn’t we’d be little gorditas!