One of the most dynamic Church experiences affordable to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the opportunity to serve a mission.  When one has decided to serve a mission, the sacrifice consists of a departure from family, friends, and the conveniences of home to live for up to two years in one of hundreds of different missions in the world.  The location is up entirely to Church leaders and is completely unknown to the missionary until the correspondence from Church Headquarters arrives with the President's signature.
 
 

Called to Serve My older sister Renee decided to serve a mission in 1990.  She was called to Spain, but was not able to get there because of visa problems.  She ended up serving in the Oakland, California mission. When I saw the wonderful experiences she had and the incredible growth she underwent, I knew that I needed to serve a mission also.  I sent in my papers before my 21st birthday and was called to the Buenos Aires North mission in Argentina.  After spending two months learning Spanish in the MTC (Missionary Training Center), I was on my way.     The Adventure Begins Argentina is a beautiful country with quite a diversity of people and terrain.  The citizens range from Native Americans to European descent to transplants from Africa in search of work.  Buenos Aires looks like any major city you would find in the US with the exception of Spanish being the language of choice.  I quickly found that the Spanish I learned was nothing like what I was hearing.  There was no English accent and they spoke ten times faster.  The first month I had a constant headache from concentrating so hard to understand.  Lucky for me they were patient with me and I received an Argentine as my second companion which improved my language immensely.  Argentina stretches from the tropics to the Arctic with every kind of climate in between.  There are some beautiful places that I would love to visit someday.  Click here for a small sample of Argentine glory.   It is easy to love the people of Argentina because they are so warm and loving themselves.     Areas My first area was called Floresta.  Coming from the small town of Tollhouse to the huge city of Buenos Aires was a culture shock all in itself.  The view you see in the picture is from my first apartment.  Nothing but buildings as far as the eye can see.  The apartment was one room, with a tiny kitchen and a minuscule bathroom off of it.  My companion and I shared it with another set of sister missionaries.  Most of our furniture consisted of crates and that was true for every area I was assigned to.  I was there for 5 months and had 3 different companions, Hermana (Sister in spanish, hereafter noted as Hna.) Lewis of Utah, Hna. Conde of Montevideo, Uruguay, and Hna. Perez of Mar Del Plata, Argentina. Next