How Do You Have a Face Like That?!?

how are yalll!!!!!! so guess what!! i've decided that i can still write and read english but i can' t speak it! hahahaha i tried to pray in english for my companion during our study and it didn't work out hahahah 

so yeah this week has been bomb.

well bomb and sad. hermano juan is having really bad rections to not smoking. he is really depressed and right now almost impossible to find. so that's really hard but we're praying a lot for him. i know it must be very difficult to stop an addiction-- all we can do is pray and trust in God! 

this week however has been super awesome! we've found a lot more people and they are progressing. there's this one investigadora and her name is jackeline and she is awesome! she has been reading the Book of Mormon and asking God if it's true but feels like she hadn't receive an answer. we asked her what she felt (after describing the fruits of the Spirit are happiness, peace....) and she said "happiness and peace," and so we were like, "THATS YOUR ANSWER," but she has a history of dreams and how God in her life has helped her and responded to her through dreams, so she thinks that that will be the way. so we knelt down in prayer with her and asked her to pray right now and she did and ah the Spirit was so strong and she felt super good but still was not sure that that was her answer, and so the next day we had zone training and we practiced with other missionaries and I LOVE THE PRACTICES i used to hate them but you can receive so much revelation for your investigadores! so me and hna rengifo were jackeline and her husband and some elders were the missionaries obvio haha and ahhh we told them our situaction and they were like... snap, i don't know, but we did the practice and  GUESS WHAT SCRIPTURE THEY USED? (revelation) during the practice!!! doc y cov 6 22-23! read it its glorious! and so were gonna use that!!! and she's gonna be baptized! she wants to but when we talked with her she wants to be SURE. 

also, there's perla and her brother cristian and they are still progressing well. they have fechas for the 22 and the 29 de noviembre!!! everyday so much happens and every second there are opportunidades to be bold and follow the Spirit or to not. how are yall doing with your family reading?

oh we have rats in our pension their names are ramon and i forgot the other 2. they're the worst. they like cheetos. so we plant cheetos and poison but they're super smart and only eat the cheetos... we bought a new poison and so hopefully that yields some serious results. hahaha 

and yes, ahh hermana fraga is the greatest!! haha her and hermana harper were in tucuman! and yes... the bugs love american blood... 

haha also i sent a foto were i have a gigantic spider bite hahaha Concepcion is awesome, downtown it really is nice and city-like but we have half of the CITY so there is also pretty country likeness. 

oh and tell camille thank you so much for the letter i just got it! tell her that argentina is awesome and that her schools sound like super awesome!!! ill try to write a card she told me to write her back but as yall know i havent written one card... sorry 

oh and can yall send me the recipes for pancakes and the easiest banana bread you can find! thanks! love you all 

hahaha oh yeah we went to visit this one family and they were like,  "where are you from?" (a few say that i have a peruvian accent) --2 of my comps were from there and so maybe hahaha--but when I say "USA" they're always surprised and this one man was like, "WHAT. you don't have any latina blood.? how do you have a face like that?" 
hahahaha and i was like,  "well my mom is greek" and he was like, "OH THAT'S WHY!" hahahha 
also theres a lot of respect for italians down here {fist bump dad hahaha}
 love you all know that i'm well hahahah

chaowcitos!!!

hermana dascanio
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creo que por fin tengo tiempo!

hahahah i literally wrote that sentence and then was like... english right. vamos hahaha 

well snap crackle pop its snowing in texas? like whaaat!!! i'll just say that thats nutsos. guess what it's not doing here?? snowing. it's the opposite of that hahah well for like 2 weeks its actually been nice so it's all good. 

good news!!! i think that the whole rat family died. we bought poison and put it EVERYWHERE and we haven't seen them in a week!! they like to hang out and eat cheetos behind our suitcases and under the fridge (that doesn't work ps, that's fun) but yeah #THEYGONE

haha crazy that dad's the gospel doctrine teacher and so is maddy cuz guess who i am?? the gospel doctrine teacher!!! hahaha me and hermana rengifo switch off every week. it's fun. here it's actually gospel principles. so it's more basic. and it's fun and the awesome thing is that the people love to help. normally, we have more investigators and recent converts than members in the class (cuz all the members have callings and welp were stretched pretty thin but hey, la iglesia continuará!) and they're all so excited it's awesome. 

this week we had Stake conference (district conference actually) and it was super good! president chaparro and hermana chaparro came and spoke both saturday and sunday. i LOVE THEM. they are tooo awesome! and yall will probably see fotos on facebook of that. hermana chaparro LOVES to snap them pics haha she is precious!!!! also on saturday., we had interviews with President! every other transfer we have interviews with him so this was only my second! i love the interviews! the Spirit is like, BAM! ahh its too good!

oh and hey hermana rengifo cut my hair! it grows sooo fast i was like, " i have a mop for a head." i felt like fred and george weasley in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hahaha, and so she cut my hair. i was a little nervous, but she was like, "no don't worry, its simple." and so in a moment of desperation i agreed, and was like, "kay do it!" it was like hallie and annie in Parent Trap, and she cut off like 6 inches of hair hahaha, but still, it's really long. and hey, it turned out! i got muchos compliements on my hair hahaha, and then after she cut it she told me that that was the first time she had ever cut hair -____- hahahahah chistoso 

i don't know why i had thought that she had previously cut hair before but hey, it all worked out hahaha

i have a package waiting for me in the offices... i assume based on your questioning that it's not from yall. i have to pay 40 pesos to receive it... also i don't know when i can cuz now im in tucumán. the thing with the packages is that no, we shouldn't recieve them . because it's expensive for the mission. algo así. yes people continue to send them but in a conference we had the leaders bajaron la caña (laid down the law--literally means brought down the cane hahah) and they said what hna chaparro said. only paper and fotos. and so that is the answer. they do have the missionaries pay fees and they aren't much, the fees. like that is like 5 bucks, but the point is that we shouldn't, so thats my answer. but send as much oragami and letters and please not an elf on the shelf and oooh fotos! all i want for Christmas is FOTOS hahaha if you could, of friends too and of extended family, and not of right before i left cuz nobody told me that i got fat. hahaha well, tis life. i lost a lot of weight so now i think i'm back to my normal hahaha. 

the work is marvelous. i don't have words. every time i open my mouth i'm like,  "whaaaaat." The Spirit is real. the promises that we will know what to say are real. i love you all

 and pray for hermano juan, cristian, emiliano por favor 

love hermana dascanio

Oops, I'm In Tucuman!

welp #oopsimintucuman

we had cambios and i'm now in my second area Tucuman, Concepcion! don't ask me where it is, cuz i have no idea! just that it's about a four-hour bus ride then a two-hour bus ride from the mission offices. hahaha

new area and that means a new compañera! her name is hermana rengifo and she is from peru tambien! and she is awesome! she looooves harry potter so were already tight! hahahah

well i really wish that i had time to write but i've got about 7 minutes! so let's see what these little fingers can do!!! ah so much happened! 

first of NARA! so we hadn't seen her in a whole transfer! she doesn't have a phone and we can't go by her house because it's her uncle's and it's idk but literally we rely on miracles for her. and so we were walking and i saw her! and i was like NARA! and ahh too cool and something was like ASK FOR HER NUMBER and so i did and she was like oh yea! i have a phone! so we set up an appt and that day came around and we called her to remind her and she seemed frazzled and was like, i'm having problems and can't talk,, bye! and so i was like, hmm weird. and then it was like 6:30 (time for the appt) and i just felt that i needed to call her. (okay it was before then) and i did and she was like, i'm here  [cuz we meet in the park] and we went and she was crying and crying and we were like, what happened?! and she was like having bad, bad problems with her boyfriend and other stuff-her life is rough. like really bad. and she was like, you guys called at the perfect time cuz i didn't know if i wanted to come or not and yada yada and we had the most powerful lesson ever! 
and she accepted a bautimso date!!!!!!! ahhh!!!!! 
i wish i could elaborate more but i don't have time.

another awesome thing is that we were in this one barrio and its pretty humble there--like realy poor. and pretty rough. and we were walking and hermana olazo felt very strong the spirit- like stopped in her tracks and then i felt it too.
i've never felt the Spirit so strong i dont think.
and so we were like trying to listen to see if we should go anywhere specific but didn't feel anything specifically, and so we went back to the member's house we were at and talked to her and then went on our way.
a little while later i was thinking like what was that? and we were talking and can only think that there must've been bad news ahead of us, cuz we were just about to turn the corner when we got confused and turned around. i know that we were protected just then and the THE SPIRIT IS REAL! 

another thing awesome is that we were visiting mercedes. she´s super old and super awesome. she'd always been soo timid and shy and doesn't understand much so there was part of me that was like why are we teaching if she doesn't understand what were teaching? but we both felt to keep teaching her and so we did. we explained and explained using the simplest of words and finally -we thought we got through to her. we invited her to say the prayer and then and there ask if Joseph Smith was a profet and she did.
the Spirit filled the room and after the prayer she was a changed person. she said she felt joy and happiness in her chest and that then she was actually talking with us. i don't know how to explain this-as it is with most spiritual experiences- but she changed.
it was like in the Book of Mormon when it says that the hearts change with conversion.
we witnessed before our eyes this.

well i'm sorry to word dump and go. it was such an awesome week and part of me is super sad to leave tribuno and see these miracles through, but hey thats the mission and hey that´s life. 

adonde quieras iré, Señor.

love you familia! tenga una buena semana!!!!!

paz y bendiciones

hermana dascanio :)

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first off wassuhh mama and dat chilli!!!!! too good! ahh i want soome! except not cuz its hotter than africa here! and guess what! i've got like a billion and six bites on my legs! hahaha bienvendios a tucuman.

sorry that i don't have too much time. ahhh this week was toooo goood! ahhh!

Hermana Rengifo is the coolest! hahaha she is ALWAYS HAPPY AND SMILING! and ahh we work really well together!!!! so basically this area is ´´la tierra de leche y miel´´ if you work for it. thats what Hermana Rengifo told me and so we have been working so hard and we have been seeing the fruits of our labors! the people are letting us into their homes and we're teaching so much!!!! its not about the numbers para nada, but our leader de distrito was like whhaaat, i don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it!!

ahh, we've had so many awesome things happen! like this one reference we had we went and he has an illness and can't talk too well but understands just fine. and we were teaching him and nothing was right and so we switched to teach baptism (we hadn't planned for that) and when we told him that he could be baptized he cried and the Spirit was so strong he wants to be baptized so bad it was sooo awesome! and so we invited him and he said yes yes yes!!!! ahhh! there have been so many things just soo awesome. ahh! im soo happy!!!!!!!!!! yall this week was awesome and sorry but i've gotta go and i just wanna say that my legs itch!!! oh also i had this wicked blister that we popped three times but kept coming back and so Hermana Rengifo did a little surgery hahaha love yall

hna dascanio

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well, i think i owe yall a better explanation as to where i am--
"better" meaning "an explanation" haha
well, i'm in Tucumán [that is the state] and Concepción is the city. we share the entire city of Concepcion with the liders of the zone. haha. we live in their area which is a little aggravating considering that we have to walk out of their area and into ours, but hey we´re professional walkers right now. olympics 2016 here i come!

real quick, i had some back problems last month and they thought that i had scoliosis but it turns out that i just needed a week of physical therapy. the x-rays didn't show anything bad, just that the end of my column is too big for the socket thing--he said that it could be that i was born that way or could have been caused by an accident...[cough cough 2010] haha but dont worry im all good!

fun stuff now! ahhhhh i love Concepcion! it's gigantic! we have like 23 barrios (neighborhoods) and so we walk a looooooooot hahaha but its awesome!

also update on my legs: they're all good!!!! i got an infection but that's gone.

update on the weather! the first half of the week it was hotter than africa! 44 DEGREES CELSIUS! and then it rained a bunch #thanksamilliongrandmaforthoserainboots!!! they came in handy! hahaha some of the streets were super flooded like six inches of my rainboots hahaha so yeah thanks!

ohhhh my gooodness milagrossss! [miracles!] 

so, our presidente de la rama (branch) is presidente Santillán and so his wife´s dad isn't a member. he´s evangélica and has always dodged baptism and mormonism despite the fact that he reads the Book of Mormon and other manuals. he smokes and has for years and so that only adds to his not wanting to think about being a member. BUT. we were out and about and my compañera said that we should go to the house of presidente. i was a little hesitant at first cuz they looove to talk and i didnt want to waste time but i felt that we should go too. so we went and Hermano Juan (him) was waiting for us!!! we were just talking and he had some questions about the LDS manual he was reading! and so we answered his questions and the discussion led to him saying that he can't understand mercy. like the mercy God has for us and that he can't stop smoking and stuff like that. and my companion whipped out this scripture that talks about how when we keep the commandments, we earn God´s mercy. (justice and mercy is awsome to study ps) haha and so he paused. and the Spirit got super strong and he said, ´´i'll tell you what, missionaries. i will be baptized. but you have to give me the time to make the change. don't drag me to the font saturday. i want to see this change in me. i want my family to see this change in me.´´ and then he bore his testimony and we were like crying!!! 
he said, (i like have it all memorized!) 
"I KNOW the church is true. I KNOW the Book of Mormon is true. and i don't want to waste anymore time. i just want to be saved. and i know that God will help me stop smoking.´´

HOW AWESOME!!!! and so we posted the day of 29 de nov!!!!!
he said earlier if he feels ready!
HOW AWESOME!!!
ahh, there have been so many miracles! i want yall to know that God really does understand us! and really does answer our questions!!!! we have been extra bold this week. asking people to pray here and now and they recieve answers! it's undeniable because it's true.
 i love you all and keep strong! 

lovvvvvvvvvvvve hermana dascanio :)