Hola Chamigos.

Sorry this one is short, but my time has been cut short by a four-day training session that I have to attend as a trainer. This training session is for Zone Leaders, District Leaders, and trainers, and yours truly qualifies under the third one... So today until thursday I will be holed up inside the stake center with some serious intensive training. Its really fun to learn more about how I can do my work better and more efficiently.

Its very rare because I am an Hermana, and the size of our area is great, that we can experience such up-close and personal training from our mission president... I rarely ever see him otherwise. So, all in all, I am really exited. The sad thing is that my compi has to go work in another area leaving me all alone with 15 other elders... does not make much for company... jaja.

This past week, during the baptism of Jorge Alvarenga, a member brought with her a neighbor of hers, and her sister to the baptism, which, like good little missionaries, we quickly put a return appointment, and assured her that what was happening was really special, and that we could tell her why.

We went to her home, and found her, (Pamela) her sister (Maira) and her mother (Christina) waiting for us. We taught them the first lesson and it went very will. The mother had many questions and everyone was very open with us. So, following the Holy Ghost, we immediately put a baptismal date with them, and they accepted!

When I told the hermana later what happened, she was in shock, because it was exactly what she had been praying for. The hermana could not come with us because she was in the temple for the monthly temple trip to Asunción, but went to the temple praying that she would accept us, and that God had answered her prayer. It was so neat that we could be instruments in god´s hands to answer the prayers of this woman.

We are working all speed ahead with her, with all faith that the day will come.

We continue to work with Zulema, and tonight we have a Noche de Hogar to see if we can convince her family that she is not crazy, if we do, she might just be our next baptism....

Pray for us!!!
Hermana Tritsch

Greetings from the other side of the world!!!

My poor compi manages to survive without the suitcase that had the majority of the clothes, which was lost somewhere between Atlanta and Buenos Aires... its supposed to come today, after a great fight for it in the office "Elder, where is her suitcase?" "I don´t know, I was gonna call them today." "no, you will call them now." "I am kinda busy right now." "Elder, she has two changes of clothes, what would you do if you only had two changes of clothes?" "Okay I will call them now and call you back in 10 minutes." "Thank you elder, muy ambable."

But she still does not have them... I might need to call them again, jaja.

Back in our area, We also went to see a part member family as a direction of Elder Foster that we had originally written off, and we taught the grandfather (Pedro), who is a member, the granddaughter (Rosita), whom we had taught previously, but we stopped visiting because she stopped coming to church, and the grandmother (Rosa), an evangelista that has never been so friendly with us. We tried to get the First discussion out, but it was almost impossible, but the really cool thing happened when Rosita, the granddaughter started defending the church against her grandmother, she gave an awesome testimony (although I can´t imagine that she knew that was what it was called) which nearly silenced the grandmother.

It really suprised us, because we had almost given up hope on Rosita, but her testimony was strong, and expressed a desire to come to church, and to eventually be baptized. We are going to start working more with Rosita and her family to see if we can´t instil a little peace and help out Rosita with her desire to be baptized.

But the highlight of the week was something that noone expected ni planned for.


On Wednesday, we were also suprised to find out that the Father of Jorge Alvarenga, my convert, wanted to seriously move forward with his baptism after a big spiritual conviction he recieved after a Noche de Hogar and a night of prayer. "YO QUIERO BAUTIZARME YA!!!" and so we arranged with the bishop and we, with our Ward Mission Leader, put together a baptism in four days.

But it was really special, because, he had many years learning about the gospel, and a rough road at that. Had to quit drinking and doing all sorts of other feo things, but after 3 months sober, he had his answer and could not wait long enough to be baptized. We orginized it that his son, Jorge would do the baptizing, and with the suprise of everyone, it went off without a hitch.


Many people thought he would never get to this day, especially because he had a baptismal date before, and failed the baptismal interview, but I felt that this baptism, I could clearly see the atonement taking over in a man that many people thought would never turn around. It just goes to show you that the mercy of Christ is sufficient to pardon all sins, not because sin is little, but because His mercy is so great.

The spirit was so strong, I had never felt it so strong, I never got to see someone get baptized who had to change so much, but he did it. He changed. and now he is clean, and he is so happy. in his own words, "yo siento como estoy en el aire."

I know that the atonement is real, and now, I can see it even more than ever. I am glad that God let me stay here a little while longer to witness it.

Les Amo Mucho,
Hermana Tritsch

Hey All!

So its true that when you get comfortable that it is time for a change, and a big change happened, just not the change that anyone expected. Hermana Madariaga became senior companion with a girl that has been in Argentina less than two weeks in Formosa, and I boarded a bus to look for my nuevita in Resistencia...

Thats right I AM TRAINING!!! AHHHH!!!!!


When I thought that I would leave the area and have to start from scratch, Hermana Madariaga was not even CLOSE to being prepared to go, but off she goes to greater heights and new adventures. And I get my first North American companion since Hermana Schmutz, my own trainer. Hermana Kylara Papenfuss from Fountain Green, Utah now runs around with me in Posadas.

She is really a great person, a great sport, and luckily, studied alot of Spanish before her mission, so that really is not so much of a barrier for her. She has a lot to learn, but her willingness to serve, and her willingness to learn makes her one of the best and I am lucky to have her. Sometimes I feel like she is actually teaching me.


This past week we ran around like crazy getting everyone ready to go to Stake Conference, the seventy wanted to talk specifically with the new members and the investigators before the general session of stake conference, so we wanted to make sure that we had people there to hear it. Jorge Alvarenga and Julieta came with the combined efforts of the members, and Hermana Papenfuss and I made a beeline for Maria Mancuello, remember her? The Circus Matriarch? well, we were getting fed-up with her not come to church, so we were really focusing on her, we knew that if she went, that it would put everything in perspective, and that she would feel something really special.

We told her that we were going to pass by in the morning to look for her, and so about 7:00 in the morning we called her to wake her up, and she was all, "Don´t worry girls, I will go all by my self" but she has given us that before, so we just told her we were coming and that we were not going to take no for an answer and that we were going to be there in 45 minutes, "sogetreadyweloveyouchao(click)."

And made a beeline for her house. When we got her, she said she wasn´t going to go, because there was noone to watch her house. She said that she sent us a text message, but luckily, our cell phone does not recieve text messages. So we told her that now was to decide was was important for right now and what was important for eternity, and she went and prepared her granddaughter and herself and we left for the conference.

We are going to see her later today to see how it went for her.

In the conference, we also were suprised to see tons of less active members that we hadn´t seen come to church in forever in the conference, we are hoping that it will put a fire under them to come to church.


The next day we had Zone Conference (I love zone conference) and Elder Foster was there too. He told us that the church is completely changing the way that they do missionary work in Argentina, with the main focus in reactivation and the union of part member families. He told us that there was a ward in our stake that had 600 less active members, and that by reactivating them, we would strengthen the church, and find baptisms (like the kids or spouses of less active members.)

It would also require a greater participation of the ward in the Obra Misional. It changes everything, but we are really exited.

These changes are going to be good for us, I hope anyway.

Love Ya,
Hermana Tritsch