I got transferred to Jesus Maria

hola familia :)

So, I`m here in Jesus Maria with hermana Amaya again! It is very rare that companions get back together for a second time!  So, I left San Francisco this morning at 5:30 am and I got to Cordoba at like, 8:30 am! I traveled with Elder Mellor, Connor`s friend. He`s finished his mission!   

I got to the terminal in cordoba and hermana Amaya came to come get me and when she came i just felt love for her. Hermana Amaya and hermana Miranda opened up an area here in jesus maria, they're the first hermanas to be here, so they had been living with some members for 2 transfers while looking for a house to live in. They found a house and moved in about a week and a half ago. So when I came to the house today we only had 2 beds and a toilet and a sink, we didnt even have lights hahaha. But Elder Blanco, the pensionero, and Elder I cant remember his name drove hermana amaya and i up to jesus maria and they bought us some things for the apartment, plates, bowls, shower curtain, light bulbs, we have electricity now, haha :) And the best part is we got to pick out all  of our stuff for the house, and there are SO many pink things im in love with it!! And tomorrow someone is going to bring us a refrigerator and a closet for our clothes and a washing machine and some other things. Im really excited seriously. Something that hermana amaya told me, we were sitting in the car waiting for elder blanco and the other missionary, she said, i was so excited when they told me you were going to be with me again, I feel like i get one of my best friends back with me! We`re in a different area, with different missionaries and what not. And this time I'm not the junior companion. we`re both senior companions - so its a co-companionship. So thats cool too, well have to share all the responsibilities. We don't have a phone, haha they lost it on Saturday so I'm not even sure if well have a phone this transfer but thats okay, way less stress for sure. 


I heard the area here we have is really big, so well be taking a lot of collectivos haha. And the ward is really big here, they have like 140 members of the church, thats a lot! We had like, 40-50 in san francisco. they just had 3 baptisms too, they're working really hard out here, i feel really excited, nervous too, but more excited and ready more than anything. I am going to miss san Francisco, but when i got out of the car today in jesus maria, i just felt like this is where i need to be. I feel really good, i feel really excited to start working. 

The house we have isn't very big at all, its really small, but i am in love with it! It means there's not that much to clean on p days, haha we wont have to spend hours cleaning anymore lke we did in san francisco. I want to learn the area as fast as i can so i can hurry and learn it so i am able to help my companion. So I suggested that in the mornings when we go running we choose a house to run to of a member, or an investigator, or a less active, and so i can have more help learning everything and ya! if i get us lost, well that sucks we just have to run more hahaha. 

But, it was sad to leave san francisco, i really love the people there. it was hard leaving norma and joaquin, i wanted to see them get baptized so bad. but more than that, i am so excited that they're even getting baptized. its not important if i see it or not, because none of this is about me. its about them making covenants with god.  
So thats whats going on this week in my life! Thank you for the family letter, i read it last night after i printed it and it just gave me so much strength and made me think that this is all possible. 

like you said mom, i just have to believe in god, but not only believe in him, trust in him. I promised him i would do everything that he needed me to do when i accepted my mission call, so here i go. :) 



Espero que ustedes tiened una gran semana, llena de muchas cosas buenas. Voy a estar orando para ustedes, como siempre. Ustedes me dan la motivacion wue yo necesito para seguir adelante. Mi consejo para ustedes esta semana es seguir adelante tambien, recuerdense que amo a ustedes, ustedes son los mejores. La mejor familia en serio :) LES AMO!!
Hermana romeril

Me and Hermana Amaya!

My new PINK bathroom!

Last day in San Francisco :(

Week of January 12th

Hola familia! :) 

How`s it going?? Good job, Mitch with basketball seriously!! I am so proud of you and so excited to watch you this next year :) I almost hit my 8 month mark!! Crazy no? And then my 9 month and i`m, like, already half way done with the mish! That`s crazy to me. Mom and dad, good job with your health goals :) I`m so proud of you guys! Keep doing the exercise! It might not be super easy sometimes, but I`m with you that it`ll help you be happier in the long run, I know that :) I`m so proud of future Elder Platt!! I know he`ll be such a great missionary, I`m so happy for him seriously!! 

That`s really cool what bishop said. It is really easy to focus on the hard things of life, because that`s a lot of what takes up our time and our worries. But yeah I was actually just studying that this week, and i related it to the atonement! Like,  a lot of times we have these rocks in our backpacks, and we keep putting more and more in and with the rocks, our backpacks keep getting heavier and heavier. But there`s someone who already payed for it, someone already is offering to carry the rocks in our backpacks, but we have to decide if we`re going to let him or not. That someone is Jesus Christ. We have these rocks, and Jesus is saying, let me take them, i already payed for all of that you don`t have to do it anymore. So..it`s like, when we`re carrying all of this unnecessary weight on our backs and we have a way to let it all go but we want to cling on to the extra weight so bad that we`re not realizing that we have a way to escape. Does that make any sense? It`s different explaining it in english than it is in spanish!! 

But anyways, i have written a letter to both dad and mitchell, i just need to remember to send them. I know, i gotta be better about that stuff! But mom don`t worry, in 10 months i`ll be home to go to whatever movie you want to go to!! :) 

So we had a pretty good week this week. We have our investigator Norma and her son Joaquin! We found them on Christmas day and we started teaching them! And we`re teaching english to Joaquin right now too! So the other day we were with them and we were talking about the Book of Mormon and we were talking about how we need to pray to god to ask him if what we teach is really true. So we asked her if she had done it and she said, do you want me to be honest? We were like, oh freak, shes going to say its not true. And shes like, I know this is all true. I`m already going to talk to my pastor of my church and tell him i will no longer be going to their church, because im joining with the mormons. We were like, what!!!! We were so excited and then we invited her to be baptized and she said yes!! So it was going to be on january 24th but she had to go to church at least 2 times but she couldn't be at church this week so her date fell though, but we`re going to try it for the next week :) But the sad part is, transfers are on the 24th and i think i`m going to leave, and it makes me really sad. This transfer I have really been trying to love my area and finally we have people! we have norma and joaquin and then i might have to leave. that was kinda hard this week, but ya know..god is wise. haha. 

I hope you all have a great week, i love you all so much. I hope you have a wonderful happy lovely nigth and week and everything!!! 

Les AMO!!!*

Hermana Rmoeril

Week of January 5, 2015

HOLA FAMILIA!! 

How´s it going? is it going good?? That sounds SO fun about your mini vacay to Carlsbad!! Sounds so sweet about the place you all stayed out, sounds like a blast man!! I wish I coulda been there hahaha! I love you so much!! Chelcey´s wedding sounds super fun and pretty! seriously! I can´t believe she´s already married, actually I can well like every one is getting married!! haha. I miss you guys so much!! 

I can´t believe I come home this year :) Well, there´s stilll ike 11 months, but ya know, it´s going fast. I really tried to take your advice by making San Francisco my home for now, so I decided to rededicate myself this week. So i did! And I decided I was going to try to give my all to Heavenly Father. I came home every night and my feet hurt so bad, i have blisters on my feet and got so sun burned, but when I got home at night I really felt like I had given my all to Him. Obviously I wasn´t perfect, but I did try harder to be better. And guess what?? Yesterday we got to church and the first hour is relief society and young womens and stuff like that so hermana gonzalez and i were going to teach the lesson in young womens and we got into teaching and elder toledo said, hermana, laura alvarez is here at church, one of our investigators :) ANd seriuosly i almost started crying!! I was so excited i totally didnt know what to do! So i went and got her and we went to relief society and then gospel principles class and hermana gonzalez taught it and the spirit was sooo strong. After we got to sacrament meeting and took the sacrament and then we heard the testimonies from the members because well, it´s the first sunday of the month and seriously all of the testimonies were about what laura needs in her life, and she was listening so attently and her little boy, maxi was there and hes like 4 ywears old or 5 i cant remember so i gave him stuff to draw and i gave him a picture of jesus christ and asked him if he could draw it for me and he drew a picture of jesus and oh my goash, it was the cutest thing ever. Laura was just smiling and listening to the members still. Laura was the first investigator san francisco has had for 6 months, no joke. And laura came to church because when we were teaching her this week we committed her to going to church, and she came, we didn´t remind her or go to her house to make her come, she just came. For me, it was such a special moment. It made me feel like really Heavenly Father knows us and knows our efforts. When we give all we have he´ll keep his promises by giving us blessings. God is good. Seriously. Who knows what´s going to happen with laura, we´re going to keep teaching her and invite her to be baptized for thismonth, and Ipm just going to give everything to heavenly father, including my faith. im just going to trust in his will and in him and i know that his will will be done :)

But ya, I´ve been studying a lot about how to better myself and with my district leader I´ve been making some goals for this week. This week it´s to talk with more people and to not be afraid to talk to them and to direct 3 planning sessions. I´ve been studying a lot about humility, i realized i don´t really have a lot of that. I learned that pride is not trusting fully in heavenly father, not showing complete faith in him and also pride is getting offended when people try to help you and correct you, like being defensive. i realized i do that alot, bueno, i always have known i do that but i realized this week that that was pride. So those with other things are what im working on changing. Patience too. Not being so impulsive when i get frustrated or annoyed. i realize i get really annoyed really easily and say rude things to people and then after i have to say im sorry because what i did wasn´t okay. So this week when i feel annoyed or frustrated i say a silent prayer until the bad feelings arent there. It really works. seriously!! Sometimes i have to keep praying for a while, but heavenly father always helps me feel less annoyed and he always helps me feel better. so bueno, this week i havent had to say sorry to other people as many times!! 

So guess what? There is like an outbreak of lice here. yes, yall read that right. My companionand i have been keeping our hair in buns the whole week, and so many people in the branch have it. when i first found out, my companion already knew how afraid of lice i was and i almost cried seriously it just scares me so bad!! I am super careful with who i hug and i feel bad because i dont want it to seem like im being rude but seriously that has brought sooo much stress this week!! Luckily up to this point i dont have it, ill update you all if i do. hahaha. 

Pero, quiero decirles que les amo, mucho enserio. Si he aprendido algo que ha llamado mi atención mucho aquí en la misión, es cuan gran es mi amor para mi familia. Yo amo a mi familia y ustedes son una gran bendición en mi vida. Aún aquí en Argentina puedo sentir el amor de ustedes. Quiero decirles que sigan adelante con todo, la vida puede ser difícil, y muchas veces no entendemos porque tenemos los dificultades que tenemos. pero sepan que su padre celestial les ama, que Él siempre va a estar allí ayudándoles, amándoles. Y yo támbien! Les amo, estoy  muy agradecida por cada uno de ustedes. ustedes tienen un lugar en mi corazon tan tan especial. Les verémos en 11 meses :) :) 

Hermana Romeril

Me and my companion and Mia :)

Our Christmas Door!  Thank you Mom.  I'm pretty sure we were the only one in Argentina with a door decoration like this!  And this is our Christmas dinner. 

Banana bread...not as good as yours for sure mom!

My twinnie!

Awkward handshake #1

Awkward Handshake #2

Zone Leader!

November 24, 2014

Hello family! Yesterday we were in Córdoba all day because we had a zone conference and there were so many missionaries there! I met one of Hermana Rivera’s old companions. She's hilarious!  I saw Hermana Wooley and she is doing really good.   At the conference there were about 20 to 30 missionaries who were going to leave this transfer and they all gave their testimonies. One elder said, I remember when I had six months and my mission and I was listening to all the missionaries who were leaving and I sat there and thought, the day when I give my goodbye testimony is never going to come but here I am. The time goes by so fast I was sitting there thinking, that's exactly what I am thinking that time is never going to come. But I know it will. It's Thursday already! Can you believe it?! Yesterday we had a really neat experience and opportunity I told you last week about the English Institute. Yesterday night at 8:30 we went to it again, but this time it was with adults from ages 21 to 59. There were about eight students there. It was really fun! They asked us questions about what we do and things about our countries, what we like to do,what are families are like, it was a lot of fun to be able to talk in English! It was cool too because the students were able to feel a little bit how I do not being able to speak perfect Spanish! There was a 21-year-old name Ishmael and whenever he asked questions he would always relate it to California. He asked us if we were able to have a boyfriend here in Argentina and it was really funny. After Hermana Gonzales said "I think Ishmael is now an expert on California y la vida Hna Romeril!" After the class that English teacher gave us a thank you gift and it was perfume! I was like what! It was really nice. It's really neat having opportunities like that. I really love Argentina <3.

Today was up-and-down. Really reflective today. In the beginning of the day we did all of our studies and I was feeling really discouraged – I was feeling stressed out because all of the people we had is investigators are not wanting us to come back anymore and it's sad… I felt pretty down this morning. I was reading in my book of Mormon study third Nephi and I read the part where Jesus Christ came to the earth and he was talking to the people staying in 3 nephi 17 "I perceive that ye are week, that you cannot understand all of my words which I am commanded of the father to speak unto you at this time. Therefore, go unto your homes and ponder upon the things which I have said, and ask the father, in the name, that you may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow and I coming to you again"  I read that and I felt like heavenly father was giving me counsel. He already knows of my imperfections and my weaknesses, he just needs me to be humble so I can learn and be the missionary he needs of me. After that I felt like we could follow with the rest of the day. We then had weekly planning with Elder Toledo and Blotter and then I got really bad diarrhea (sorry so graphic haha)and came home and I took my medicine and we planned and now I'm writing in my journal! My companion told the elders I got sick… Changa.. I didn't want them to know. So the elders called us tonight and asked us if they needed to go to the pharmacy? Soup? Something? My companion yelled Gatorade so they're bringing me Gatorade ha ha. It's a little embarrassing that they know but it's okay. It is what it is. It happens all the time with me. The diarrhea part. :) I feel very happy to be with my companion Gonzalez. We work really well together. She's really hilarious too. I can really count on her and I feel so grateful to have her at this point of my mission.

I hope you all have a wonderful week off.  Please tell me everything that you do this week.  I love and miss you all!

Love, Hermana Romeril

Thanks for the new top Mom!

 I got one of the packages!  All of the American missionaries ate the Swedish Fish with me :)

November 17, 2014

Hola! Today is going to be cool – we're going to do English academy because one of the members here has her kids in this English Academy and they told the Prof. there's a missionary(me) who's from the US and the professors wanted to meet with me and talk in English with me! I think it's a pretty neat opportunity. Hola! So the English Academy went really well. We didn't talk with the adults this week, we talked with some Chillens:) chiquillos. We are going to go back next Wednesday to talk with the adults in English. I'm really excited it's such an awesome opportunity we have. 

Today is Saturday the 15th. Today we are going to white out our area which means, start out from nothing. There's a whole huge slab of our area that we haven't worked on since I've been out here. So yes, we're going to tract all day. The weather is already super hot and very humid and to be really honest, I'm scared to start all over. Last night we were planning and I was trying to think of names to visit and I got so stressed looking at our huge list and thinking and realizing that we have nobody who is really progressing on the list. I told my companion that and I just felt like a horrible missionary. She gave the idea of going contacting all day and we talked and agreed on it and she said Hermana, I know we are going to find a family of four at least to be baptized this month. Do you want to put a last name to this family? I told her she could and she said how does Alvarez sound? I agreed and she said, tomorrow we are going to find her family Alvarez. This morning during studies we sang the song I'll go where you want me to go and then we planned out which neighborhoods we were going to go visit – today we are going to be working and giving everything we have to find this family. We are going to pack our lunches and we are going to go with our Books of Mormon, invitations, and our name plaques and we are going to go out and give everything we have today and we are going to represent our families and Jesus Christ. Even if we don't find anyone today – not one person, we will be able to return home with honor tonight at 9:00 PM I'm going to bring honor to the two names I wear on my plaque – Romeril and Jesus Christ.

So we did it today! We found our family Alvarez even though the two families we found didn't have that last name ha ha :-) I'll tell you about the two families. We were walking to the farthest neighborhood in our area and we were walking around and we saw a mom with her two little kids. We started talking to her, just giving her an invitation, and she asked where we were from and then she asked why we would be here in Argentina so far away from our families.  We got the chance to tell her about what we do and then she asked us if we could visit her this upcoming week and we were like yes! She told us she's an alcoholic and she's trying to get off of alcohol, but that she can't do it alone and that she said she thinks we are her answers to her prayers! I think she and her husband are in the process of splitting up and I think that's why she started drinking.she was really looking forward to us coming this week. We invited her to church but she is going to be traveling tomorrow but she said after the trip :-) we're visiting her on Wednesday!

After that we were walking home and we have been walking for three hours already not finding anyone in the siesta and we walked in the street and we felt like we should walk back and go to this particular house. When we walked by the house a motorcycle pulled up and we talk to this lady name Carolina and she gave us the day we could visit her too. She's a single mom as well. I feel really good with what we did today we walked so much and our lunch appointment canceled on us and we didn't eat all day except the oatmeal I had in the morning. It was so hot… Some of the time I caught myself thinking I wanted to go back to the house because of how tired I was. But every time I thought that stuff I imagined Jesus Christ walking along my side and help me to keep going the whole way.

I'm still having my stomach problems but Hermana silva, the mission nurse, has me on a special diet and I'm already feeling better. I have a list of foods that I can eat and the list isn't very big… but it's making me healthier and slowly it's helping me feel better, too. I feel healthier for sure and my weight has been dropping with me running every day and eating healthy. One of the jackets that I got from Tillys before I left was too tight for me at the MTC and in catamarca. It now fits my arms and I can button it up!

I don't know what my plans are for Thanksgiving yet but I think we're going to be doing something with elder Toledo and elder blotter ..we are like family out here… We've got to stick together. 

I love seeing daddy with his golf girls, they really do love him and he can lighten up quite a bit when he is with them :-) it's really cute... that's the best! I still remember golf with him and he would drive the golf cart so crazily fast and you felt like you were going to fall out of the cart ha ha Ha

I love you guys so much and I think about you on the daily. The distance doesn't change the love I have for you guys, if anything my love grows for you each day. You're amazing. Have the best week ever, okay. I love you.

Kelbs

Me on P-Day

In my pension :)

The medicine I have to take for my stomach :/

Elder Blotter and Hermana Gonzalez!

Daddy I thought of you on your mission when I saw this sign!

Don't ask me how, but the key broke off in the lock when my comp was trying to unlock them!

Hermana Romeril's Update 10/13 & 10/20

Hola! Today is going to be a busy day. Hopefully a good one too. We're sitting in the chapel, eating lunch that Hermana Fino, A member in the ward made. It's this rice, with herbs and lemon and some chicken! She is such a good cook, we've only had lunch with her one other time and last time we had grilled chicken with grilled onions. I didn't eat the onions though – surprised?

Hola! Today was a good one. We started off with our district meeting and then we had lunch with the Roldan family--The daughter of President Perusia. They are seriously so awesome. We had the salad stuff for lunch with green olives and I ate everything except the green olives and Hermana Perusia said "you don't like olives?" I said to be honest I don't… And she said… I remember you told me you're trying to grow your hair out – this helps it grow. So I ate all of the olives and afterword they were talking about how it wasn't really real. They just wanted to see if I would eat olives. So… I did!

Yesterday night was really good we had a fireside with all the youth – we actually had a fire pit! The four missionary shared our conversion story and after we sing a song that was in Spanish. elder Toledo and Hermana Amaya did great! Elder blotter and I were just trying to figure out how to pronounce all the words! Ha. Plus other blotter was sick so he sounded a little bit like he was hitting the highest point of puberty! But the whole night was really good. Spiritual. With mosquitoes. A lot of them!

So two days ago we went to contact a reference and the reference wasn't there, but his dad pulled up to visit him and he started talking to us and asked us where we were from. Hermana Amaya told him she was from Mexico and they started talking about Mexico and how cool it was and what not. And then he asked me where I was from and I set the United States and he said why don't you go back to your own country and serve? Why do you think we want someone from your country here preaching God's word? And then he continued for a while and said, do you think we are that much more inferior you can come here and preach? Yeah, I don't think he liked me too much. It's sad that people have to be like that but what can you do? We are having little success in finding people. A lot of people want to listen but not let us come visit them again.

Every day I learn more about who God is and the value this church has. People ask me why am on my mission and I told him because I've been blessed to have my family for eternity and I want other people to have there's forever too. The mission is crazy, the events you have in your life don't just go away… They are more emphasized. I don't even know if that makes sense. But to answer your questions no I haven't been sick lately! We run every single morning except Sundays.  And yeah! I'm getting faster! In my ward it's actually a branch… But an average of 60 people come every week. My favorite part of my day is the evening when we visit people and teach them and get to know them. I love my calling! I haven't gotten your package… I will one day :-)i'm so excited to get it.

I want to give a shout out to Jessica for the email! And grandma Romeril for the card! I love you both so much. My family is my motivation to keep going :) thank you all for everything you do… Have the best week ever! Seriously :-)

You were all in my heart, Hermana Romeril 

First Week in San Fancisco!

Well, I’m in San Francisco!  My companion is Hermana Amaya and she’s from Mexico.  She has 11 months in the mission.  She runs every morning, gets up exactlyat 630am, turns off the lights exactly at 1030 pm, starts studying exactly at 800am.  She is super disciplined and I am so grateful for that!  Seriously.  It makes me feel so happy and productive and exactly obedient!  I really like her.  I have a feeling we are going to have a really good transfer!  Yesterday we visited our ward mission leader.  Hermano Lorenzo, to figure out lunches for October.  In our ward the missionaries are me and my companion and then our district leader, Elder Blotter and Elder Toledo.  We have lunch every single day!  Our mission leader said “You’re like my kids.  I have to make sure you’re taken care of!  I’m very grateful for him, and my companion, and Heavenly Father.  This morning was really hard to get up because I knew we had to run—so I prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me get up and have the energy…and it worked!!!  One of the members from Catmarca, Javier, put some piano guys music on my pen drive so I listed to that while I got ready.  I loved this morning!  I love listening to music!  Sorry, I’m just really happy!!  Anyways, we were riding bikes in this area and guess what?!  My bike is pink!!! I’m so serious, it is so AWESOME!

So yesterday was really hard.  We rode bikes the second half of the day and we were on our way home and the house we were at was 3 or 4 miles away from the apartment.  The beginning of the bike ride was good, then 1 mile into it I got so tireed. We’d been walking and riding bikes all day (this area is so much bigger than my last area).  I literally felt like I couldn’t go anymore.  My companion was way ahead of me and I was so tired.  My legs were hurting so bad.  I prayed to HF and I think that was the most desperate prayer I have ever said.  After I said the prayed I really wanted to give up, get off the bike and start walking.  In that moment, I could almost feel someone just pushing my bike, helping me along the way.  My legs stopped being tired, my breathing got lighter, and I was able to keep going until we got home.  Seriously it was the coolest thing I have ever experienced. Really, when we’re doing our best, and when we go to HF when we can’t think we can go any further, He will make up for the rest.  He doesn’t expect us to do everything on our own-nor do we have to.

We have about 200 referencias (referrals) and we started contacting them and so many of them don’t want anything to do with us.  A lot of doors were shut in our face today.  There was a lady named Elena that we talked to and right when she saw us she’s said “NO! I don’t want anything to do with you guys.” I said “Oh, it’s only an invitation.” After I said that she gave us a disguisted look and she said “I know who you are. No I don’t want anything to do with you.” After that I was ready to leave but Hna Amaya just kept talking to her.  Amaya is the best.  When we were planning our day today she said “Do you want to do something crazy, something different?” So when we knocked on doors we talked wit hthe people and sang a hymn to them!  It was actually so fun.  I love my comp. She is so spiritual and fun..and super positive.  I’m teaching her English words—she already knows a little English from other companions. But seriously I am so grateful for her. We just click.  It’s just me and my companion in the pension.  We don’t have anyone else living with us which is nice—not as many distractions and we are more focused on the work.  I miss Catamarca.  Catamarca will always hold such a special, special place in my heart.  This is a new chapter of my mission.