We are officially survivors!

Humor happens just gotta see it! One adventure after another. If my mission were a t.v. show it would get some pretty high ratings I think. With Hna. Marchant, its even better. I swear we have been friends since the pre-exsistence because we can already read eachothers minds. I love to laugh and im laughing alot with my new greeny. Shes such a doll. and is so very entertaining to me because shes so worried about a few bug bites she has on her ankle and worried about getting dirt on her skirt and she makes me laugh. So we have bikes now and we put pics of christ on them so we have luck with not getting them stolen from us haha... but let me tell you that just when we think we are pro and riding all smooth the funniest things happen. My comp was worried about the leaves touching her helmet when we passed under a tree on the sidewalk and she put her head down but looked up too late and screamed all high pitch and her left handlebar took out the bark of the tree and she amazingly and gracefully landed hands down without getting her skirt dirty haha she just hopped up and looked at me like... uh oh im sorry, but look im okay, and look my skirt doesnt have a spec of dirt on it! haha shes so funny! Well the news is we have gotten lost less, we are having lots of success and working very hard each and every day but its like 200 degrees plus humidity and rising. Sometimes its so hot we have to pause in the middle of studies and step into the shower with our clothes on just to cool off. (air conditioning doesnt exsist) Except this week as we were washing all of our clothes in the sink our water stopped... we were completely out of water for almost three whole days! We couldnt wash our dishes or shower or anything. We would come home so tired from working all day and so hot and sit down and laugh at eachother for how horrible we looked. So I just told my comp, dont worry hermana, not having water will one day be a story for us to laugh about and we can tell our kids... sooo back in the day... haha. She eventually went to our neighbors yard who wasnt home and she stood there with the old hose in her hand and her hair all a mess she said... hermana im serious this sucks and I want to shower so bad. im going to figure something out! haha I love her! so we got creative and endured through the drought haha we finally have water... and you can bet that we rejoiced over it! Water ... BLESSING!

So Jesi is progressing incredibly! her family is now active again as of this last Sunday!!! whooo! Jesi will be getting baptized this coming weekend. The ward council was completely shocked that we helped this family back in the church because they said for over 6 years everyone tried and no one could get through to them even once. We care so much about them though that it wasnt hard, we just love them enough and then the work is easier. Also we contacted a reference from a member in the ward his name is Ignacio and he has lost his father, and brother and had lots of trauma in his life. He came to church this sunday and he has a baptism date set for feb. 11th. The same day we are baptizing Emiliano which also came to church. And all of family Diaz is progressing now! They all came to church together and are reading the book of mormon together as a family. We have a lot of progressing investigators that we love and care about. We worked hard all week to have them all in church this sunday and they had a great experience and came to all the classes. We have two couples planned to get married in the month of looooove FEBUARY! Valentines is my fav! and im so excited to see these families completed. SPEAKING OF FAMILIES COMPLETED!!!! guess what!? Family Medina from the first of my mission with alexis david maria and luis and them .... THEY ALL TOLD ME THEY GOT SEALED IN THE TEMPLE this last week!!!!!!!!!!! nothing better than that news! I feel so happy to know that family is so strong. David leaves on his mission when I get home! and another David from almagro leaves right before I get home! SAWEET! We are seeing lots of miracles.

Elder Foster from the 70 came here and spoke to all of us and it was so amazing! President Gulbrandsen is getting more and more inspired by the days because we are really growing as a mission. I feel the impact all of the teaching has made on my life and im amazed at how much ive learned. Elder Foster spooke about the billions of numerous galaxies in the universe and our relationship to God and our potential. We studied our Personal blessings and we all learned so much about selflessness and focusing on all of our generations to come and the generations here that we are saving. We expanded our vision. He asked if we were visionaries in all things of this work and if we were doing right. Real growth of the church, strengthening everyone around us in all of our conversation and deeds. How important it is to be mindful of our value and relationship with Heavenly Father. He spoke about knowing each and everyone of our investigators by name and knowing them deeply like the savior knows all of us. It was some really great stuff we learned.

Anyway... we have another training meeting coming up this week in san fernando and interviews with president.... my last interview until I go home... crazy... I look forward to it. Im learning a lot in this last of my mission. I feel like it all sinks in different now.

I really miss all my converts so bad though. I wish they could all come up here for my despedida and they cant. I really miss Natalia. I really struggled when i had to say bye to her. She will have to come see me in the states though sometime. Im so excited for the day that she gets married in the temple! The mission is so amazing!

So Mom, im glad you got my flight plans but please dont tell anyone because I really just rather have the family there at the airport. Ill talk to everyone else later. Jocelyn you should totally try out for that dance audition and tell me how it goes! Im so proud of you! and depending on school and stuff mom but if I have to Im pretty sure i can fit a trip to Disneyland into my schedule haha. Especially for joces birthday! I wanna spend every second with the fam! I miss you guys like crazy! It will be wierd to be home and not have a companion 24/7 haha. Mom please check with the temple and see about a session that day! and I know you wanna run around and do a bunch of stuff but Im exhausted at this point so we all need to hit the spa first and then the gym then we can do whatever you have planned. Thanks for your emails and questions and all your love, I hope I answered everything. LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!! have a great day and keep being missionaries! Its the best thing to be!

Love,

Hermana Ashley Ann Gillum

New Gratitude: American Street Signs

What an adventure this has all been...

So ill be happy to update you all on the latest news by starting off this way... ive never been so lost in an area in all my mission. Its the little things in life that we as Americans can easily take for granted. Such as organized addresses, phonebooks, street signs and so forth haha. The majority of our area is made up of dirt roads and the regular random housing of Argentina, we are lucky to find numbers on the houses or fences or sometimes spray painted on their trees but more then half are without the name of the street. Our area is pretty huge so we were given permission to use bikes. Im not sure if bikes were a blessing or not because the chains are always falling off and these are not bikes made for mountain climbing so its an interesting way of travel... especially when my sweet new companion has all of the boys in the street yelling blonde woman at her. (not the typical latin hair color) haha shes a great sport. Getting completely lost so many times now has actually led me to get the hang of this place a little better. Ive found all the ways NOT to go so now im narrowing things down to the correct streets to get to our destination. Apart from the disorder in addresses the majority of these streets will cut off on a dead end and have a huge field in between until the same street continues miles away... thats what makes the altura or numbers even more tough to find haha. I dont see why they dont just go around putting the names and numbers on all the same places and changing the street names when they cut off. No because that would make sense. haha Gotta love it! Its an adventure and no im just that much more greatful for the things we have at home. We need to see how much we have. Ill never complain about being lost again. I feel like I can find my way around anywhere with the experience of the mission.

So heres some news... the last two weeks have been full of changes and new things. Last week with Hna. Gonzales I kept complaining for how white I am from being in the south so long and so when we were doing studies out on our back patio I chose to bask in the sun while she stayed in the shade on her half of the table.... I figured Its going to take a week or so before I actually get enough sun... wrong.... I have never been so burnt in my life and Ive got the pictures to prove. I have quite the nice farmers tan mom you would laugh. My comp was laughing when I had to sleep all wrapped up in frosted towels from our freezer. Shes like "I told you not to sit in the sun" haha thats sooo like me, not listening and then finding out why I should have! I always have to find out the hard way. BUT its finally tanned out this week and im so glad! Hna gonzales and I were just focused on our baptism of Diego the first week, the next week was spent teaching him and his family and going to training meetings in San Fernando and then San Isidro to get our greenies to train. Ofcourse I should have known I wasnt going to have to JUST open the area, but train at the same time.. that made things fun.

We all marched in singing "called to serve" and it was crazy watching my comps face and remembering my first day and how lost I was haha. She is so much MORE than I ever could have hoped for in a companion. She is loving and full of life and love and ready to get to work. She has had lots of life experience and is similar to me in many ways and she is always asking questions and wanting to progress and learn. I love her with all my heart. I feel as if we were friends before the mission. She grew up in Michigan, (near aunt teresa) and moved to BYU Idaho for school, then went to L.A. (where our family is) for hair school and now her family lives there too. Her name is Abby Marchant and I am doing everything I know how to do to be a good example and loving companion for her. She has struggled just a bit with the big culture shock and missing her family but I bore my testimony to her that the mission is the best thing in the world for her life and family and after a few quick pep talks shes up and at em and ready to work again. I love her energy and we are seeing so many miracles. Its hard but its kinda fun training. Hard because I have to translate 75% of the time for her and pay attention to everything going on, but its fun because I know that I can greatly impact her and help her to become the missionary the Lord knows she can. In the beginning we just dont know what we are made of exactly, and in the end we have a much more clear perspective. Its also fun because she notices things that are NORMAL to me and she says how strange they are haha. I remember when I used to think those things were all strange and now im used to it. She was really suprised at how many wild dogs are roaming the streets all the time  and how crazy the bus drivers are. Shes always wanting to take pictures but i told her that she will have plenty of other time throughout her mission. She comes from a very sweet family, her father served here yrs ago and her mother served in the states. I am more than happy to be her companion and this companionship has been very great for me. Its keeping the fire of my testimony going. But nearing the end of the mission is a very emotional time... for your guys´s info, I have kept myself from crying to be strong for her and focus on our time here and now so I havent let any of this emotion show dont worry. But it is a very wierd transition. I have dreams about when Im going to come home and its a wierd feeling but Im going to love being with the family again!

So our new zone is awesome, E. Bruce, Arrowchis, Stronks, Pino, Lemo, and Burga and me and hna. marchant!

We have seen many miracles. We have been talking to everyone we find. We have been focusing on gathering whole families as President has asked and we have had tons of success. We went to contact a family that was a reference from the bishop and THEY ARE SOOOO AMAZING! They have a date to be married on feb. 17th and be baptized with their 8 yr old son on Feb. 18th! Then we have a couple with a marriage date for feb. 10th and baptism Feb. 11th! They are progressing greatly! whooo ITS ALL ABOUT FAMILIES!!!! We found a ton of new ppl this week and we are super stoked to work with them. The members are gaining so much confidence in us and giving us references everyday. We are working really hard! Last night was one of the most spiritual nights of my mission. So theres this guy named Guillermo, hes been less active for 6 yrs and used to be a great leader in the church. Him and his whole family stopped going to church 6 yrs ago and their daughter was never baptized. Well in our ward council we asked our bishop to pray with us all on our knees for families that need to be completed and who we all need to work on bringing back and the family of Guillermo kept coming into our minds. After much prayer and discussion over this family my companion and I walked all the way to their house share with the entire family how important they are to the ward, to the Lord and to us. It was a very spiritual lesson. I was so impressed with what the Lord had me share with them. I could feel the saviors love so strong for this family that we were all in tears. I asked the father to read Doctrine and Covenants 6:20 and put his name in the beginning and he could hardly read it because his emotion was so strong. It built up my testimony even more to hear him say, "you know hermanas, we have felt all of the prayers for us this last week, we have truly felt each one of them, so thank you." I was so happy that Heavenly Father heard our prayers. Then I asked the little daughter (not a member) to come stand by me. The spirit prompted me to have her express how she felt about her father while she looked at him... then her mother... then how they felt for her.... all of them were in tears and full of gratitude for one another that I knew it was the time to commit them. I said, " familia, this is not me or my companion asking you, but this is the Lord inviting you with open arms to return back to him, to forsake your sins and renew your covenants you made with him by attending church with us this Sunday and every Sunday that follows so your sweet family can be eternal!" They all said that they wont miss another sunday and that they want their daughter to grow up in the church. We have faith that the Lord will help them recieve the answer in their heart that she can and should be baptized this weekend according to the will of Heavenly Father. We will be seeing them tomorrow and asking them to pray to know if its right and we will make sure that she is well prepared and has met the bishop and his counselors so they will be welcomed back with great love! We are also very excited for the progress we are having with Diego and teaching his children that he brought to church this last sunday. Also the daughter of Zuni finally came to church and we are seeing her progress more each week.Theres a lot of work to be done and we are always trying to improve and find more to do.

Damian is a great help to us, flia. garcia, flia. maidana and flia. chen are all such a great help because they are all married returned missionaries and they are awesome when it comes to helping us out! We are seeing the work grow each and every day! Keep us in your prayers so we can continue finding these families!!!!!!!!!!!!

I miss you guys so much. I love you tons and its been hard being away from you all but I also love the mission and its made so much more out of me than I could have alone without it.  ITS THE BEST! ill see you soon anyway! Well I love you guys tons! keep being missionaries!

 

love hna. Ashley Ann Gillum

SARMIENTO

Bueno dear loved ones of mine, hows it going this week? Hope all is well. Sorry I didnt have time to write last monday because I just had to write President and then print off my itinerary for my flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires. Leaving Rio Grande after 4 months of hard work, was harder than I thought. I cried like a baby when i parted ways with Natalia. I gave one of my plaques to Flia. Tello because they are for sure a second family to me and I love them with all of my heart. They said they want to build me an extra room in their house their building haha. I left waving bye to Hna. Milmont and Hna. Gutierrez out of the bus window and oneof our really important investigators came running up to the bus to give me his guitar pic and tell me thank you for everything and goodbye. And because Elder Christensen and I have been in the same zone since july I was sad to say bye because hes taught me a lot. I just wrote on a sign "thanks for making it hit!" (talking about Gods love and the atonement) and he just gave me a thumbs up and they all waved bye. The poor lady next to me watched me read what everyone wrote in my diary and bawl like a little baby. I went through a good 5 packets of tissue or so and she just kept looking at me like, wow, what happened to her! but I could barely muster the words "im fine im just really sad to leave some of these people here because I really love them." Then I closed my book, and started teaching her about the Book of Mormon. Ushuaia was welcoming as usual. Its so pretty! Christmas was a good time. We baked all kinds of goodies, sang tons of christmas songs to everyone, exchanged christmas gifts within our zone and watched the best two yrs (which is a lot more funny as a missionary) Then after skyping the Fam we went out to work and we saw some amazing miracles that Ill never forget. I love sister Malhue and Shelley so much! They are kapa missionaries for sure. Ushuaia was so heavenly because the weather was absolutely perfect!

AIRPORT

Elder Smith and Elder manjarres dropped me off at the airport and I started teaching this grandma sitting next to me. She kept hugging me and kissing my hand because she was glad I speak her language haha. Then one stop in Calafate where I switched seats and taught all of lesson 1,2, and 3 to a guy named Daniel who sat on my left. The gentlemen on my right was a nice father and husband who spoke english and has been traveling for work. I gave him a card with our info on it and he helped me with my baggage to meet the elders in the airport. I hope to see him one day and see how his family is doing. He lights up when he speaks about them. He speaks highly of his kids and his wife. It makes me happy. I want the same for my family one day.

TIGRE

Elder Johnson and Elder Neilson, picked me up and we drove off to Tigre! seeing all the big city again was like being HOME because thats where I started the mission. and seeing them was good company. Elder neilson had to go home and return because of an accident he had and Im so proud of him for finishing. Tigre is the place I always wanted to go my whole mission! YES ROMO I THOUGHT OF YOU THE WHOLE TIME! love you! I just was there for a day with Hna. Salas whos in my group and a greeny Hna. Allen whos from utah also. They are cute girls.

MISSION HOME

Then in the morning I was off to the Mission Home where all the zone leaders were having a meeting and President called me and Hna. M. Gonzales into his office. "you two have the responsability of opening an area today and I have full confidence in the two of you to get the job done okay, Hna. Gillum will be waiting for her jr. comp in a couple weeks for the area." I LOVEEE hna. Gonzales and we work super hard together so this was great news to me. President told us of the revelation he recieved for this and asked us if we could feel the spirit as strong as he could... it was surely present.

OPENING AREA IN SAN MIGUEL SARMIENTO WHOOOO!

So having the experience of opening an area before now, this was easier... but this time starting from scratch, no carpeta, no materials, no map, no chairs or bedding we moved into our brand new cute little house and made due with what weve got. We organized anything and everything we had and went out in search for what we lacked. We as hermanas tend to organize in detail so you better believe that we have everything colored, tabbed, filed, and in alpha-betical order. haha. We work better that way. Less stress later. Elder Leiva (1 yr in mish) and greeny Elder Winward FROM ST. GEORGE UTAH whooo! met us to show us around the new area of Sarmiento, San Miguel. Let me tell you, this area is HUGE! I am really wanting a pedicure because my feet are all bandaged and blistered from walking so much. Its like 60 quads both ways. The elders have bikes in their area so we have also been given permission to have bikes for our area.

We have seen thousands of miracles in just these 6 days here! I wish I could share them all with you because its been so amazing! I absolutely love this area! Its golden for sure!

MIRACLE/ BAPTISM/OUR WARD

We were working on wed. and prayed to find someone who has attended church enough times that could be baptized this weekend... sure enough just for opening our mouths to talk to everyone we found in our path, miracle after miracle we came across a man running into his house and right before he went to close the gate on us, I caught him and asked if we could share our message with him.... As we began teaching through the fence we thought he was just a man who had probably never seen missionaries before... but our prayer was answered... he had gone to church many times, he had even had a baptism date before in his life... He was a miracle. So right before we wanted to asked him to follow christ and be baptized we thought it was a better idea to ask greeny E. Winward if he wanted to... he got a big smile and looked a little nervous but sure enough...he did just fine and when Diego said Yes E. Winward looked so happy we all said good job buddy! You did great! He was like wow... he said yes! haha Elder Winward is a very good missionary. Very humble. He is always writing things down in his notepad and askes a lot of questions. Hes a good example. So since Diego lives in our area we were responsible for teaching him all the lessons and commandments and then on Saturday December 31st at 2:30 pm Diego entered the water of baptism and came out a new person. we all felt the spirit really strong in his baptism. "He has recently seperated from his wife and said, I need God more than anything else in my life and if I want an eternal family then I need to change myself first for my family and kids, thats why I want to be baptized. I need a new heart to have an eternal family!" HOW SWEET! We were obedient in all things and getting to know the Bishop. He is from China his name is Bishop Chen. His wife is a return missionary from Argentina and their kids are DARLING!!! We had lunch with them one day and their love story had us all in tears. They look at eachother like they are still getting to know eachother because they are so in love and so happy in the church. She converted him to the church by taking him outside the Buenos Aires temple blindfolded and after he saw where he was she told him how important it is to her that shes married in the temple to have an eternal family. Then she left on a mission and he learned more about the church, and waited for her. When she returned He would talk to her on the phone with the dictionary so he could speak in her language better. Now he is the bishop who was recently called only 3 months ago and they are happier than ever. Honestly EVERYONE in our ward is super happy because there is a huge variety of age groups and youth. All the couples are return Sister and Elder Missionaries with beautiful kids and everyone that didnt serve missions who were converted later on are all WARD MISSIONARIES! The organization here is perfect! We are Preparing 2 other families to be completed within these next two weeks! There is a couple who has a date to be married for feb. 10th and they are preparing for baptism! Also we felt the need to sit down on a street corner and talk to three teenagers about 19 yrs of age and they all appeared sad about things. long story short we taught them a great lesson, they felt the spirit, they turned their frowns upside down, we read scriptures together, and they are preparing to be baptized on the 28th of this month! Their golden! Sunday was AMAZINGGGG!!!!!! Getting to church was interesting haha... we were stopping by the houses of our investigators to get them and at one house the uncle whos about 24 yrs old said, they are not here but I need to go to church... so we told him we would see him there... but walking behind us there he was... following us and pleading DONT LEAVE ME I NEED TO GO TO CHURCH TOO!... by the way he was walking and slurring his words he was wasted from the new years partying all night. (which in Argentina all parties start at 1am and goes til 10am) We were praying that he would just go another way or something but he followed us the whole way. So I said a prayer as we walked that went a little something like this... "oh dear heavenly father, thou art ALL powerful... please make this man instantly sober before we get to the church!" haha Well as we entered we explained to him, that the house of God is sacred and he must respect it and sober up. Seeing him slouched over laughing all goofy one minute has us worried, but ill tell you that our church is powerful haha because the second he entered the gate and walked inside and shook the leaders hands who greeted us at the door this kids spine shot straight up and wide eyed and very collected he shook their hands and said very clearly something that would translate more or less like "good day sir, beautiful sunday in the church of the lord." We just laughed to ourselves and let them know someone needs to watch him. The leaders took him to the bathroom to splash some water on his face and give him water to drink and he was happy as ever singing hymns and participated in everything just fine. Infact Diego (our new convert) was lecturing him on all the reasons why he shouldnt drink haha. DIEGO´s confirmation was absolutely beautiful! He has a light now that he didnt have before. I loved walking into the sacrament meeting as everyone whispered "ooo look we now have sister missionaries too!" haha we sang a special number and bore our testimonies about why we decided to serve and I just kept smiling as I looked into the eyes of all of our investigators that all came to church! And just as we were counting how many people came, I felt sad that Charly (a rehab recovered investigator who lives with a member) wasnt here. He has a mental disorder and so we just like to teach him slowly while we teach the whole family he lives with and he promised every day this week that he was excited for church but didnt show... The family was, but not Charly... and just then while we were singing... a knock at the window in front of the whole congragation he had a HUGE grin and waved at us all dramatic like saying, " HERMANAS! AQUI ESTOY! AQUI ESTOY!" (sisters, im here im here) I got teary eyed and we ran to the door to greet him. He rode his bike pretty far to get there and walking through the door he took his hat off that he wears everyday, combed his hair with his hand and sat with his family. I WAS SO HAPPY!!! the people in the ward all had smiles and kept telling us, great work hermanas!

NEW YEARS 2012 WHOOO

Taking the sacrament with all of our investigators is the best feeling! Especially for the new year 2012!

New yrs. night our neighbors were lighting off fireworks and had a lot to drink and when we woke up at midnight from all the noise and sirens we stepped on our porch and I just saw this huge firework from the groud flying right towards me from their yard! That thing hit me straight in the knee exploding in between my calves and I had to go to the hospital... just kidding... about the hospital part... im totally fine but my pj pants have a burned hole in the leg and my companion died of laughed when we ran back in the house. haha. She told me a was dancing like a leprechon and looked so scared. I just told her im glad I was the one that could take the hit haha My garments protected me because my skin wasnt harmed at all but now ill really never forget this new years and Ive got the pjs to prove it! The next morning we just heard how everyone had a bunch of fires and accidents... argentina for ya haha its just a lil crazy.

Our Zone leaders right now are Elder Bruce (frm cali whos parents are mission presidents in Chile right now) And Elder Nueffer (who goes home with me in 11 weeks) , and then we have Elder Brown (frm arizona) and Elder Rodriguez (frm Uruguay, whos our District leader, he goes home with us too) Elder Leiva (kapo de chile) y Elder Winward (from st geezy)

Anways... you guys all asked about the weather... bueno... im dying of heat... just like I like it. Im FINALLY GETTING TAN!!!!!! back to my normal color! its beautiful right now!

welp people, this is my update for now, ill have to send you guys photos later but ive taken a ton. I think I have 7 pen drives full now and 5 cds from my whole mission. I love you guys so much thank you for all your love and support! The miracles just keep coming so thanks for all your prayers!!! have a great week! I send you my love! BESITOS!!!!!!!

love ash