FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Hey everybody! Not going to write a whole ton about this week. We had a really good week though. We had one baptism on Saturday. We also had a really awesome Christmas Conference with our Mission President and a whole bunch of missionaries. The Mission President even dressed up like Santa! It has been great. We spent Christmas Eve with a family from the ward that is awesome and ate some asado and apparently everybody here lights fireworks for basically every holiday, and since there are not really laws here, basically every house did it. We got to do some too. And like a little firework fight broke out between us. All these kids just get to play with fireworks and it is crazy!! It was really fun and really loud. Anyways, this has been an awesome time of year and it is great to talk about our Savior during this time. I love you guys!!!

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!! 

Crazy Weeks in Tucuman

Hey everybody! So this week was another pretty good week. One thing about this place though, if Hell had a sauna, it would be my new area. It was literally like 45 degrees Celsius half the week. It wasn´t until Sunday that we got blessed with some clouds and some cool weather. So we had a really cool find. Rather, we changed something we were doing. Elder McDonald and I decided that we are really terrible at finding new people. Which is true, because most people you contact literally do not care. So then I was like, why don´t we just start praying for the people to find us? So we started doing that, and we were in a lesson with our investigator Jarold (Harold in Spanish) and his mom told us there was this other kid that wanted to go to church that lives real close. So we went and visited him and his name is Thiago, and he just loves church and the gospel. So we had Jarold and Thiago committed to go to church with a member that lives close by. The real crazy part is, on Saturday we asked Jarold at the end of our lesson to go and look for Thiago in the morning to make sure that he could make it to church. So when they both arrived, both these kids are 10 by the way, Jarold told us that he had to go to Thiago´s house and knock and the door for like 20 minutes and had to tell Thiago to get ready and everything, and this kid is not even a member! Crazy stuff of miracles. All of the members of the ward also totally thought that these two 10 year old investigators were already members because they showed up and wore shirt and tie and were super helpful in the primary. So we are going to be able to baptize Jarold the 23rd and we will see how fast we can get Thiago in the water. It has been a really good time. 

There are not a whole ton of new fun stories for this week. Elder McLovin and I went to see the San Javier Big Jesus Statue today. That was pretty cool. Oh also, we live in this kind of dangerous area, and our door is broken and doesn´t lock, and we always hear things at night, and McLovin will always tell me to get out of bed and go check it out. So while we cleaned out the apartment before, I found this random metal tube which has become the most useful thing I own. It is a hammer, and also now it is a go-check-the-noises-in-the-night-tube. Yeah, and if anything happens McDonald won´t be able to help me really cause he needs glasses to see, so I am pretty much on my own for that. But it is fun. Makes it interesting. Also, there have been more cockroaches in this apartment than the other, so we totally have a lighter and a large bottle of raid and burn the cockroaches to a crisp. Then we decided it would be a good idea to make a pile of the burned roaches by the door of the apartment, so that the other ones will know their fate if they choose to enter. So that has been good. 

Other than that we are working a lot through members and references. This ward is actually pretty god at sharing the gospel considering how little it gets brought up in any of the meetings. As long as we are baptizing and bringing people to church, I don´t think the bishop really cares what else we do. 

Y bueno, en la navidad, lo importante es pensar de Jesucristo. Este semana, aprendimos mucho de la gracia de Jesucristo y como es suficiente para ayudarnos volver a la presencia del Padre Celestial. Y este es porque nos preguntan hacer el evagelio, vivir digno de esta ayuda, para que podamos cambiar y mejorar hasta que estemos listos volver y seguir vivir con Jesus y Dios. Por eso Jesucristo murio. Estoy muy agradecido saber que este sacrificio fue directamente del corazon de Jesucristo. Se que es la verdad. 

Here´s some pictures! Love you guys! Besitos! 

MERRY FESTIVUS

Alright so this week was really great. We had my first baptism of an investigator. Angel Nazareno Flores. He was pretty much ready when I got transferred here because my boy McLovin´ was singlemomming this area for the last three transfers and taught them a lot, but I got here in time to see it finished. So that was an awesome moment from the week. He got baptized on the same day as his 8 year old brother Thiago, so I had some flashbacks of my baptism. It was a really great experience. Then we also confirmed them. Now there is an interesting story haha. So there are two parts to baptism, first the baptism by water and second, recieving the Holy Ghost as a constant companion. Before we get baptized and confirmed we can feel the spirit, but it is not until after we are confirmed that it is a constant companion. So McDonald and the Dad each baptized one of the kids. and then the dad was supposed to confirm both of them, but for Thiago the dad asked me to do it on the spot. Well first he asked McDonald, then McDonald said I would do it. So I confirmed Thiago a member of the church. On the spot. Crazy time to be alive. Other than that we cleaned the baptism font and had a large ward activity for Christmas. I really do like it here. Other cool experience we had this week, we left on Sunday in the night with plans to go visit some people, and we just went a completely different way and found this guy who we have been trying to teach forever. We taught him and at the end he asked for a blessing of health because he has to get surgery. He said after the blessing that we were not alone in that moment. It was a super strong spirit that we felt. It has been a super good week. We have been teaching a lot and the members totally love the missionaries. My comp, Elder McDonald is from Las Vegas and is really cool. We get along really well. Our apartment is just the two of us and now it is finally clean after our diligent efforts. And we are working hard to do what Jesus would do. 

Well to explain the pics

There is an ugly Christmas tree we found and have been decorating

My "Red Sweats" for Christmas

Pics of us cleaning the font

Pic of the activity

Some members

And a pic from our baptism

Se que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador. El nos limpia para que podamos sentir el espiritu y ser salvos. Si continuamos en el evangelio, todo saldra bien! LES AMO!!!!! 

LOVE YOU GUYS A WHOLE LOT

MERRY FESTIVUS

El Nacimiento de las Cocodrilas

    

    Hey everybody! This week was super great! I am doing really well and am really happy with pretty much all the aspects of life. So now I am in Tucuman and my area is called Parque Guillermina. We have a ward and like 60-80 people come every week. It is a nice upgrade. My companion is Elder McDonald. We are two white dudes walking around Argentina haha. He is great, not a robot, and he knows how to work. We are pretty similar, so you could say that this transfer is going to be one for the books. 

    Alright, first things first, shout out to my cousin Benny! He got baptized this week! What a stud! I am really proud of you Benny, and also I am sorry that I could not be there, but I am kind of in Argentina. Anyways, Love you Ben, miss you, and keep following the Lord´s path for you. The Savior is always with you, and also now the Holy Spirit. 

    So this week, we have seen some really cool things going on in the area and other interesting things too. One day we were outside this guy´s house waiting for him to come back and these crazy gypsey women started talking to us. Yeah they did not want to learn about the gospel I can tell you that.... Haha one of them told us that we could go next door and there would be other gypsy women to be our girlfriends over there. NO THANKS. Also sometimes  when we are just walking around the streets girls make like kissing noises at us, or blow kisses, or whistle. Haha what a world to be white in this crazy country. Another sort of funny story was, this week was testimony meeting, so anyone can get up and bear their testimony in the front of the church. So this little kid, who was probably like 11 or 12 years old, and who is also from a different ward, got up and started to give his testimony. We talked to him before and he was a little bit odd, so I was not expecting a ton, but he gave this testimony that me and my comp said taught better than both of us haha. He made perfect sense and said that if we have problems, all we have to do is read the scriptures and pray and God never forgets us. It was crazy awesome, everybody was just thinking, WHAT. It was super great. So church was a pretty good day. We have like an actual church now, so that is nice. We are also working with a couple of families and investigators that are awesome. I will tell you all more about them when I actually get to know them better. We had a really awesome day one day too, where we did a companion study where we watched a BYU devotional talk of Brad Wilcox about the Grace of God. This video blew our minds and filled us with the Spirit. Then we left and we taught and the Spirit was so strong. So strong. It was incredible. We also one day, found this street, and McDonald was like, "Hmm never been here before." So we went down there and we found these three houses in like a dead end alley. So we contacted the first one, and this shirtless dude comes out and tells us that nobody can change his beliefs and tells us to contact his neighbor. So we do that, and this grandma and two grandkids exit and she says a bunch of stuff about being Catholic and not caring and tells us to contact her neighbor. So it is the last house in this little place, and we go and we contact it. We clapped our hands, it is how you knock on the door here. And there was already an older man sitting outside doing some sort of paperwork, and he tells to come in. We didn´t say a word and he let us in. Never happened like that before, and apparently that was obvious from the face McDonald gave me. So we entered and talked to him and found out a whole lot of stuff and he agreed to let us come back and teach more. So we have been doing that little by little since there are so many people to visit. 

    That is about it for this week as far as stories go. I really am loving this transfer. These members are great. It is going to be a good few weeks! 

    Siempre estamos en lugares donde podemos ayudar. Siempre hay personas listas para escuchar el Evangelio. Y realmente podemos sentir mas del Espiritu Santo si compartimos el Evangelio. Se que Dios no nos olvidara. Se que debemos compartir este Evangelio sentir feliz, porque el Evangelio es lo que nos da la felicidad. Y digo estas cosas en el nombre de Jesucristo, amen. 

   Well I did not take any pictures this week...... Too busy living life I guess haha. But I got one from my comp that we took today after playing soccer. Oh and as for the title, there is a saying missionaries will know and that is snakes. Well crocodiles are like snakes but actually dangerous. And if you don´t know, then you just don´t know. 

    Anyways! Love you guys! Have a good week!