Quiero que sea tuyo

Well this was another rollercoaster of a week. There is just no way to have like a consisstency in this whole mission thing. Everything just changes everday. Seriously one day all is well the next day all is bad or sometimes it mixes together into one day, but hey I guess that is what my life is now. Also, I am literally awful at two languages now. I write a whole lot in English, but a whole lot of it turns into Spanish for some words. So yeah that is a fun thing. The good news is, I can pretty much do the Spanish thing now. To understand and to speak the language is really progressing. Helps to have a comp from Guatemala haha. Let's see what else happened, well we had to have a couple of direct talks with some people this week and that was interesting. The result of one so far is that we have three less investigators. Maybe they will come around later. After that day though, Monterrico had me thinking I would be lucky to baptize my own kids haha. It was rough. Everybody cancelled on us or quit on us. It was a long day. Yeah but it got better the rest of the week. We had a talent show and we sang some songs as a group of 8 missionaries, which I still do not know all the words to, but it pleased the people. Yeah, also our most stud of a member performed a rap for his mom. They were not going to be able to go, so we kind of broke some rules and gave the guy money in secret so that he could perform in the show and so that his mom and sister could come. It really is not something that missionaries should do, but it felt like the right thing, and I would do it a million more times over, so no regrets. We also had a Zone Conference with Presidente, which was interesting. Some rules got changed, like now we can write the fam for 30 minutes longer, but also have to fill out like thirty minutes of stuff on the computer too, so it is basically just more work. The president of the mission was kind of disappointed with our zone because we have 0 baptisms for this weekend. It made me feel pretty bad to be honest, I have been trying and it really just has not been working out. But we should have a baptism or two soon, and if we don't I might just fill up the font and stick my big toe in just to say that I have been in a baptismal font in Argentina one time in my life haha. Nah mentira haha. Things are looking up haha, at least now they are. Other than that I am just pretty tired haha. We had one investigator in church, se llama Macarena, and we have a baptism date with her for the 11 of November. Hopefully it works out. But yeah, this was a pretty good week at the end, but also I am glad that it is over haha. 

Bueno, Se que Jesucristo es mi salvador y que El murio para nosotros. Me encanta el amor que El tiene para nosotros. Siempre estoy agradecido por eso. 

OH I FORGOT, to explain the headline part haha. So here is out it went down, secondhand story but for the sake of the fun I am going to tell it like I was there. So dude is about to have this baby with his girlfriend and he was talking to his mom about it. She asks "Quiere que es una chica o un chico?"-"Do you want it to be a boy or girl" and this guy without skipping a beat shoots back "Quiero que sea tuyo"-"I want it to be yours..." HAHA I was dying when I heard this story pretty great. pero bueno!!! As for today, we went and played a little basketball and soccer. I am slowly taking my vengance for America since we didn´t qualify for the world cup. And we are doing a whole lot of stuff and it is super hot in Argentina now. It is pretty sweaty all the time. So yeah that is about it. Take care everybody! 

Un Latino Por Fin!

Hey everybody! This week flew by haha. My new companion is Elder Garcia. He's from Guatemala and he is awesome. He knows a lot of words in English too, enough to be very funny, but now we pretty much just talk in Spanish. It's funny because sometimes I am trying to talk Spanish and English words just come out. Also there are a lot of times with other gringos that we are talking in english or spanish and we like mix languages and we can understand eachother because we are all bilingual idiots haha. It is funny. So that happens. We are using the bikes a lot more now. It is time efficient, but it is not very fun. My arms got pretty sunburned, don't tell my mom. (I know she reads this too, I just like this joke) But yeah. Last monday was pretty crazy because we had transfers, so Elder Batman left and I stayed in Monterrico and we waiting in the terminal forever for Elder Garcia to arrive, so that was Monday. 

The rest of the week was pretty basic. We found somebody that actually really wants to be baptized though so that is a blessing. She is a little girl named Antonela, and she is part of a less active family. But Elder Garcia asked her if she would be baptized and she said "Ya quiero ser bautizada" -"I already want to be baptized." Pretty cool. The mom said we just have to teach her really well, so we are going to do that. We invited like 15 people to church this week and 1 came haha. The mission life is just like that. Also I am getting fat, so I am going to start exersizing again to not be fat. We also went and did some service, we liked moved a bunch of brinks and mixed cement and stuff like that for a member of the church out here. It was fun, there is a kid there named Alan and he loves the missionaries, but his mom hates the church, we think. Makes it interesting, but he is great. There are fotos of the service day and Alan and other stuff probably. But yeah, we are teaching a lot, the goal is to build the branch into a ward so we have been visiting a bunch of less active members as well as trying to find more people to baptize. As for spanish, it is pretty good sometimes haha. It is getting better all the time now. So yeah. It is pretty fun. I think I can finally say that I love my mission haha. It is pretty great to be honest. We are working a ton and I am sure we will see a baptism or a few this transsfer. Also I am going to try to send a recording with this, if it doesn't work or happen feel free to write me a strongly worded letter. 

A ver, se que Jesucristo vive. Se que mediante la expiacion que El hizo, podemos cambiar. He visto aful de cambio en mi vida y en las vidas de otras personas. La vida es algo que debemos disfutar tambien. Adan cayo para que hombres puedan tener gozo y felicidad. Jesucristo ya pago el precio para nosotros. Todo que necesitamos hacer es confiar en El y su evangelio. Es sencillo. En el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.

Oh also for this pday we are just keeping it chill. Lunch and practicing some sort of song for a talent show. We will see how that goes haha. Les quiero! 

Two Transfers Down

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Hola a todos! In the words of Wiz Khalifa- It's been a long day without you my friend.  Anyways this week has been interesting. I can definitely say that I am learning a lot here in Argentina. This week we had a pretty cool experience. On Wednesday we went to a member's house out in the fields and we were about to go visit a different family. We got out to the road to hitchhike to where we were going, yeah we hitchhike pretty much all the time. But we got out there and we were waiting and then Elder Batman looked at me and said he didn't feel like we should go there. After he said that, I also did not feel that it was a good idea to go there. Neither of us knew why we had this feeling because this plan was pretty much all we had for the day, but we walked the member back to his house and we did not go. While we were walking the member back, we got a phone call from some sister missionaries in our district. One of them was like crying and wanted a blessing, so we dropped the member off and olympic speed walked back to the road to hitchhike back to Monterrico to hitchhike to a place called Perico. I guess hitchhike isn't the right word, it is more like find taxis that are random people. Doesn't sound safe either way, but hey it is all good. Anyways, we got to Perico and found a member there and went to the sister's apartment to give a blessing. Luckily this sister knows English so I got to give a blessing of health in English for the first time, I think haha weird. It was actually kind of difficult to say the words in English since all we do is give blessings in Spanish. But yeah, from this we really learned that we just need to trust the spirit and he will show us exactly what we need to do and when we need to do it. Hmm oh we also got to attend a baptism. It was awesome. The spirit was awesome, the person was awesome, it was all just awesome. 

So yeah it has been a pretty good week overall. Yeah. Spanish is coming along too. I can understand like 60% of what people are saying now, which is enough usually to make conversation. So yeah that is getting better. Oh before we went to the baptism, we went to Perico and did some service. To get to this particular house though, we had to pass a basketball court. We saw two argentinos playing basketball and Elder Batman decided that we would contact them by beating them at basketball. We played 1's and 2's to 5. It was fun, but also effort and I do not like effort. I played a classic Max Gueller game, 0 for 5 from the 3 point line and 2 points in the paint for a lack of defense. Elder Batman scored 3 points and did many defensive things, blocking shots and grabbing steals. It was fun. We won, 5-4. They were surprisingly good for the country we are in, usually people don't know how to shoot or dribble correctly but they pretty much knew. So we won and we shared a short message and we went and shoveled dirt and concrete out of someone's house for like an hour. So yeah, I think that about hits all the fun or spiritual stories of the week. Yeah, I will definitely miss this district and Elder Batman. But also I am excited for the future. It is a pretty interesting thing when your Branch President leans over to you guys at the sacrament table and says to your companion that is probably leaving "entonces se va de este posso?" translated would be "So you are going to leave this pit?" Encouraging words to hear for someone who will continue to work here for at least 6 more weeks haha. Nah he just knows that it is tough here too. But it was pretty funny. Oh there was also a cool experience that was shared with us by a nonmember that is the mother of a younger member said that sometimes when she feels alone she prays and it feels like we are like kneeling beside her. That was pretty cool to hear too. The spirit is pretty powerful, no lie. So yeah that is it for real I think. Today, Monday, we have changes, so... Today we went to the terminal and dropped Elder Batman off to go to Tucuman. I get to hang out with Elder Taylor for now, but some drunk guy was following us and I think still is outside of the church right now haha. He is pretty drunk. He thinks we are trying to rob the church or something. Weird. But hey I got to write the fam and friends haha. I bet he will still be there. We are going to go pick up my new comp in like an hour so that will be fun. He is from Guatemala. Pretty neat. Love you guys! 

Some sort of part of my adventure here

Well I am almost finished with my second transfer in the misión. We have changes next Sunday or something so either me or Elder Batman will be leaving Monterrico. Or maybe both of us, but I am not sure. It will be sad to not be around Batman all the time anymore. We have become pretty good friends. But I am kind of hoping to have a latino companion next so I can really get the whole Spanish immersion thing going because I have my whole life to live with gringos. Not much to really share this week either. We are still working with investigators but there is not much progress, so we started to look for more new people. It is pretty interesting when you do that because you really meet some crazy people. Some cool ones too but some crazy ones. 

We did have a trio one day with one of the Assitants because he wanted to visit Monterrico and that was cool. We worked super hard with him. But also we had a trio of three white dudes walking around South America so I was surprised that anyone would really talk with us haha. But they did and it was good. Oh boy, on Thursday, I just about died. I woke up and threw up twice among other occurrences and felt pretty awful the whole day so we did not get to work at all Thursday. It felt kind of like my stomach was trying to twist itself out of existence. Definitely interesting. But I lived and will continue to. 

On Saturday we did some service with the members in the morning. We cleaned up a park. Throwback am I right_ But yeah we cleaned up this park which had garbage in all the grass and bottles everywhere and everything. I have now officially swept the dirt with the people of Argentina, how about that_ Yeah so that was fun. We had a nice lunch with some members in Perico on Saturday too. They really love the elders. There are sister missionaries in Perico, but I think the family just has a heart for the elders. They make really good food too, so bonus. But they said something during our spiritual thought that really hit me because thus far in my mission it has seemed like people like missionaries and all but that is about it. They said that they will always want us to come back and visit, maybe even after we are married and stuff. But the way they said it was just so powerful for me individually, I don´t know it was awesome. On Sunday, we had Stake Conference. No one in our branch told us we had a bus in the morning that would take us there, so we missed that bus and arrived a little late to conference. We also missed the ride back because they were some people who wanted us to take pictures and talk with us, so 0 for 2 on free bus rides. But because of that, we did get to go eat lunch with some awesome members and with some other missionaries, so it all worked out pretty well. It was definitely more fun than a bus ride back. For Pday we went to a dam because I guess people think that that is fun… but it was pretty fun. I am going to miss this district. It has really been quite the party with them. We are probably too good of friends haha, but it is awesome. 

Anyways, let´s see what am I learning... Well there is a lot of difficulty here haha I have never been one of those missionaries to just say everything is great, because sometimes things just are not great, but at those times it is really interesting because no matter how many times I make mistakes in speaking or how many people laugh at me or whatever goes wrong there is always some comfort from the Savior. And I will tell you haha I make a lot of mistakes. Like that is life though, we are not perfect. No matter what happens though I do know that I want to finish this whole mission. I have seen a lot of changes in myself and also learning Spanish is fun. It has helped to have a few uncles in the back of my mind that I will get to say some fun things to when I return haha. But learning all this stuff has really helped me learn the importance of the family. It is really key to the plan God has for us. Also mistakes. Mistakes help us learn more than anything else, they also help other people learn too. And it is a lot easier if we just listen to God haha He knows what he is doing.  But yeah Argentina is interesting. I don´t know if I love it yet. I love parts of it, and other parts of it can leave me throwing up in the bathroom, but for the most part it has been good. I´ll miss Elder Batman, but I am also excited for what comes next. 

Sabe que? Hay muchos dificuldades en esta vida. Se que estoy viviendo en un lugar mas pobre que mi hogar. Por eso estoy aprendiendo mucho tambien. No necesitamos muchas cosas que tenemos porque aca no existen. esta bien, pero estoy agradecido para mi familia y para mi pais. Y mas, se que Jesucristo esta caminando con nosotros. Se que podemos tener felicidad imenso si seguimos su plan y si confiamos en El. Si Jesucristo nos salvara. En serio ya estamos salvado, pero para tener mas gozo tenemos que seguir los mandamientos y mejorar cada dia. Se que podemos lograr esta meta. En el nombre de Jesucristo Amen. 

There are some photos here. I got my scripture folders. They are pretty cool. And there are some pictures from Stake Conference. Also I am trying and praying pretty hard to roll my r's, which would be awesome. Yup that is about it. Love you guys! Hope you all have a great and vomit free week! 

It only could have been better if Dr Pepper existed in this soda deprived country!

This week was pretty crazy but also mostly a lot of traveling so not all that much happened. We had a few lessons and such, which was usual. I am not really sure as of right now if any of our investigators went to General Conference in Monterrico because we went to a different place to watch it in English, which I am extremely grateful for because General Conference was awesome. For anyone reading who is not aware of what that is, we have General Conference as a way to hear from modern day Prophets and Apostles that are called by God to preach to the people. Like they had prophets in olden times to help people know the words and wills of God, we believe in the same structure of church. We have a prophet, Thomas S. Monson, and 12 apostles and a quorum, like a group of people, of 70, which are more apostles to help with the world because if it was up to 13 people, they would probably lose their minds. So on the day of General Conference, we watch these people speak to us for a few hours on Saturday and on Sunday. So that is General Conference. 

 

I really like this years sessions. The talks were really powerful. They seemed to stress the family and the Book of Mormon this year more than anything. I love that! Those two things are really all you need to know and have an understanding of. The importance of the family and the Book of Mormon. I really love my family, and I have been very blessed to have a great family as well as great people as extended family. For that, I am really glad that it is part of God's plan to have families forever and to continue living with the people I love. It brings me great joy to have this knowledge. There was also one talk that someone gave that went really in depth to how the Book of Mormon was created. I can't remember the name of the Elder who gave it and I do not have my notes, but it gave some hard facts of how the only way that it would have been possible for Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon, was through the power of God. It has really affirmed my testimony of Joseph Smith being a prophet and translating the Book of Mormon. I don't know if I had a strong testimony of that before the MTC to be honest. But now, I can really feel the power there is behind the words of the Book of Mormon and the accounts of Joseph Smith that are in the Book of Mormon. One of my favorite things we do in sharing the Book of Mormon with people is, we read the introduction with them. It is pretty long so we share like the first and last paragraphs with people that explain that the Book of Mormon is an account of when Jesus Christ visited the Americas in His perfect state and that we invite all people to read it and ask God for themselves what is right. I love it so much that it says that in the Book of Mormon. Ask God for yourself. Don't ask the internet or people in the street, ask God Himself about these things, and if it is done with a sincere heart then you will receive an answer. I love it so much. 

When we had English class come, I had a little miracle happen. We only had one person show up, so we just taught some basic days of the week and months and stuff. Elder Batman usually does most of it since he knows a lot more Spanish than me, but I got to do it at the end for a little, so I think I taught her two words when she asked me a question. What church is this?  ALL of you missionaries know that this type of question is what dreams are made of. So I got to have a nice little discussion with her about what our church is and what we believe and all. I invited her to church and she looked at me like I asked her to do something ridiculous, but that is ok because I felt some real comfort afterwards because I was sharing the gospel. I think eventually she might come around and attend one time. But also if not, todo bien. OHHH we also got to go to Salta this week, which took a lot of travel time, but we got to go to.... wait for it.... McDonald's!!!! It was awesome. They have a triple mac! It is like a Big Mac but with more! It only could have been better if Dr Pepper existed in this soda deprived country. But it was still awesome to have a little miracle of that in my life. I am keeping the cup just to remember the event. 

And as for Pday, we went and played a little soccer and basketball with some other missionaries. Elder Taylor and Elder Vasquez spent the night in our apartment after conference and that was fun too, although in the morning me and Elder Taylor were slow to get out of bed, we were awake, just not alive, so Elder Vasquez flipped the mattresses on top of us. It was pretty funny. That was not enough to make us move either so we were just laying there on the floor under mattresses, so Elder Vasquez jumped on top of the mattresses too. That didn't work either. At one point my foot felt pretty warm during this, turns out that this was from Elder Vasquez too. Apparently he got pretty innovative with trying to get us to go, so he lit some of the hair on my toe on fire. Have a Peruvian burn my toe hair can officially be crossed off of my bucket list, not that it was ever on there in the first place... But it is all good, nothing bad happened from it and it is all just a little funny. It has been a good time so far in the mission, even though we really are not having much success and have had some really interesting moments. 

This week I got to do a lot of self reflection and I am pretty happy with my somewhat crazy decision to live in Argentina for two years. Se que el Libro de Mormon es la palabra de Dios. Se que estoy haciendo decissiones correctos. Se que tenemos profetas hoy como en tiempos antiguos y que ellos pueden recibir revelaccion para el mundo. Testifico que los profetas son llamado de Padre Celestial y son partes del plan de el Senor. Se que Jose Smith es un profeta y que el traduccio el Libro de Mormon directamente de Dios. En el nombre sagrado de Jesucristo, Amen.

Here are some pictures. Some are good. Others are not. Like them or don't like them. I do not really care. Sometimes I have better pictures. That is all.

Love you all! Hope that everything goes well this week! Hasta ver!