I am a new training mom! And my new missionary chika is from Argentina.

Sister Hortal is adorable; I'm super excited to be her first companion.

Tuesday morning, 4:50am we got up and packed up S. Barton to drive over to the church and join the caravan down to McAllen. When we got there they had all the trainers sit on one side of the chapel and then the greenies walked in and sat on the first two rows. One by One they called us up as the trainers and announced where we were serving then called up our greenies. 

Also, no one knew about transfers until there at the meeting so we found out that S. Barton was off to serve in Edinburg!! 

We got back to Laredo at about 5pm, and then went grocery shopping and got S. Hortal situated. We were able to knock a couple of doors at the very end of the night and first one we knocked - a Jehovah Witness opened the door and told us to go google, 'easter' because we were extremely misguided in our celebration of a pagan holiday, she ended the encounter in telling us to go home. We walked away from the door and I looked at S. Hortal and said, "welcome to the life of a missionary."

The rest of the week, I was just showing S. Hortal around our area in Laredo and introducing her to all the people we visit on a regular basis. 

Through this whole process I realized how much I love the people here. After this transfer, I will have served in Laredo for 6 months! That is a long time! Throughout that time, I've set specific goals for different people. Before we meet someone, I sit and give a run-down of our plans and how we are working to be a blessing to that specific family. Basically I am just flooding, poor S. Hortal's mind with information, but its all important. Heavenly Father has unique goals and understands our unique backgrounds perfectly! As a result, He blesses us in the ways that we need - perfect to help us reach our goals and potential.

Okay so the rest of the week, one of my favorite members moved away - the Quintanilla family is now residing in Virginia. We got all of their extra food though, that was fun. 

We were also able to get Raspas this week from Penquinos (basically happiness in a cup), as an introduction to Laredo. Then as a bonus - there has been flash flooding these last couple days - so we've been working in the rain! 

Overall life is looking pretty good from little missionary Hortal and I. 

Lots of Laredo Love

H mckenna Crawford