Hermana Gonzalez in Argentina!: One day older and Wiser too!

I am very sorry for the delay updating Suzette'a blog, this is from January 30th, 2012 My birthday!!

Happy Birthday mom!!!!!!!

You are so wonderful and I am so grateful that you are MY MOM! I´m so lucky!!! Hooray! I hope you have a wonderful day! You are just great.

I was really happy to know that you were so excited to celebrate your birthday with your sisters, nieces and friends. I love your nerdy scrapbooking style. :) It´s really so beautiful! Did I already tell you how much I loved my birthday card you made? So amazing!

Well, Ushuaia. It´s kicking my little buns into shape! We walk, we talk, we climb, we run, we fight off ravenous dogs, we teach, we invite, we study, we find and we LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT! It´s seriously so great that Hna Shelley and I are together again. We have been kind of feeling like it´s some incredible honeymoon we get to enjoy. It´s just fun! We get each other´s best sides out and we get to work. We are so excited to keep working with the members who are all slowly starting to come back to town after all the holidays. Lots left right before Christmas and are just getting back. Life goal: Be a STAR member that missionaries can count on for support in the missionary work! Done and DONE!

Last week we were really enthused about Daniel and while we haven´t given up on him, we have found out a lot more about the things we will have to talk about with him, like, his sister-in-law is a pastor in the evangelical church, though he doesn´t go and has never been baptized. He will have to invite his wife and family to listen with him and we are ready with members to back up the invite. It´ll be great. ALTHOUGH his house is where we had to fight off the dogs. I seriously have never been afraid of dogs before but I´m starting to develop a complex that they are out to get me! Paranoid? I don´t know, when 4 huge dogs close in on all sides (beauty and beast style with all the wolves) I started to get really nervous but not let Hna Shelley know. I picked up a huge rock and most of them took off running in fear I would chuck it at them. I don´t know if I could bring myself to do that. If they get me or Hna Shelley, yeah, I guess, but luckily we had our very own Beast that came and saved us, that was Daniel´s sweet little father-in-law. Whew! Lived to see another day.

We have been working with this great family with a sad story but the Brother and his two sons are holding tight with a lot of help and love from the ward. We have Family Home evening with them tonight. They are great and very musical. We have been helping them with some English pronunciation so that they can sing along with the BEATLES songs that they play so well. It was so fun and they love having such a strong spirit in their home.

We are going to share a message about how we are children of God so that little Santi, 5, will know that he is loved. His mom is no longer with the family and that hurts a kid. We love him and are starting to be friends with him. I teach him tricks and he´s still in the impressionable stage so he LOVES it. We WILL be best friends soon.

We have been missing Walter because of all the extra hours he´s working right now in the factory. Because everyone ELSE is on vacation, he´s picking up all the extra hours he can. He went with us to the baptism last night, that the Elders had, and said that he will be prepared to be baptized THIS SUNDAY! Pray for him! He´s sooo close! He has such a great big heart and is SUPER forgiving because there was one day he didn´t show for an appointment we had and we called him tons before we realized maybe he had been called in early to work. Whoops. Good thing he´s SUPER kind hearted :)

Familia Diaz is a fav. haha They are so great. The three grandkids of these great members were baptized last month, the youngest of which, David, turned 8 on the day of his baptism. It was such a sweet experience for them and they are keeping strong. We study the scriptures they´ve read that day with them and we just feel so much peace and a visit to them can turn any frown upside down.

It has been on and off, cold and hot this week. It´s the worst when we dress ready to freeze and then end up baking ourselves into oblivion because we´re wearing too many clothes. Or freeze to death because we dressed lighter and the wind wants to take us the rest of the way to Antarctica.

Speaking of Antarctica, there was this awesome member who showed up to our meetings yesterday. Brother Olsen currently from Salt Lake City was doing a conference tour for nerdy tech stuff but was all over Argentina and in a base in Antarctica with Argentines, Chinese and Russians peeps. He was in Chile on Saturday and then ended yesterday here in Ushuaia and will head back up to BS AS for a day before heading back home. Great member! He talked to everyone he was traveling with about the church and placed a Book of Mormon in Antarctica. Super SWEET!

Once upon a time, there´s this really great album by Jericho Road that Hna Erickson had that is now stuck in my head but I can´t get it out because I don´t have it.....it has a song called Come to Jesus on it but I can´t remember what the album is called. Does mom have it?? It has Homeward Bound on it too and Abide with me tis’ eventide. Super beautiful! Listen to it!

I have started the Book of Mormon over again and plan to finish by....Mayish....yeah. It´s going to take 6 pages a day and I can do it! I LOVE the Book of Mormon. I learn so much and remember the things I´ve learned from companions and leaders and teachers and my wonderful parents, every time I read it! It´s such a wonderfully wonderful book full of great teaching and counsel and comfort from a loving Heavenly Father. Everyone needs to know about this book. We are looking for the people the Lord is preparing because they are His children and we love them TOO!

I am so excited to get this week started. It´s already under way!

This morning we went to Hna Matamala´s house to drop off some letters that she is taking to Rio Gallegos for me. She is traveling by car there tonight and will be staying with my dear lovely friends, Hno Juan and Hna Olga Urquia. I LOVE them and got to talk to them a little while making arrangements for Hna Matamala and her son Agustin to meet them tonight in Gallegos. It´s going to be so great. My worlds combine again :) As we were walking to her house, though, we helped a woman carry her groceries to a school because she was loaded down with bags and a 20 day old baby! We talked to her about our message and the wonderful family center and we have an appointment to meet at her house tomorrow! Hooray! I love the tender mercies of the Lord. Sometimes we look so much for the incredible that we miss the daily miracles. I love this work and I am so happy to be a missionary and servant in the Lord´s royal army. We are called to serve and it´s such a blessing to be here!

Love you all,

Mom, party it UP! Listen to “I believe in a thing called love”, for me. Ruth knows. It´s a great dancing and jumping around song :)

Until next week, LOVE YOU ALL!