Another week in Tina

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Hey everybody, so thanks to everyone who sent me their favorite scripture. That was really awesome! 

So this week was interesting. We are working pretty hard out here, but we are not seeing a ton of progress. It is how it goes sometimes. Life never was an easy ride. But it is cool. It just must not be the time for the people to progress yet. So that is how that is going. But cool, like all the wise people seem to say, the mission is a lot of learning about yourself and while we are serving other people we are the ones that grow and change. Often times that means we get to hang out for a while in the refiner´s fire, which is where I think I have been for awhile. But it is cool. It is always part of His plan. I dont really have investigators to talk about because none of them are really progressing, or we really have no way of helping them. We are still out there looking for people. The good news is that me and my companion talk to more people than the rest of the district. The only bad thing is that none of them seem to be progressing. Also here, we are working with lots of less active members. Lots. Somehow there are like four or five times as many less active members as there are active members. We are trying to help the active members too. It is like trying to build a house without having the foundation. Well it was. Then we decided to try to build the foundation and the upper parts at the same time. We will see how that ends up going. It is pretty stressful sometimes. There are some really great members here though. They are really good friends. Everyone here in Argentina loves this cartoon called Dragon Ball too, so that is fun. Everybody watches it. So that is cool. Also everyone here is getting excited about the world cup. And River beat Boca in the Clasico. So that sucks. 

Anyways that is about how things are going. Also, mom my package is in the offices here and I will have it at some point. Thanks for sending it! 

Entonces se que vive mi salvador. Se que nos ama y que el quiere que hagamos lo bueno aqui en la tierra. Esta es la meta jaja. No es facil, pero con el es posible! 

Love you guys! Hablemos pronto! 

One Week Less

Hey everybody. I am still alive and still in Argentina. All I really wanted to ask is for people to send me emails with their favorite scriptures. If you can, awesome, if not I understand haha. All good here. Just not much to say about the week. Love you guys. 

Another Week of the Mission

Well it was another week of the mission. Not much really happened. We are working and trying to find more people, it just is not the easiest thing for people to progress here. But it is cool. I can pretty much say now that I learned Spanish, well I understand almost all of the things that the people say now, so that is a good thing. There are some really cool members here in Santiago Centro and we are trying to help the ward out and make it a really cool place. It is just going to take a lot of work, and I am going to have to do a lot of things that I dont know how to do really, but it is going to be awesome. Hopefully. But it has been ok. I am learning a lot of stuff. More than anything else, I am seeing the outcome of a lot of people´s choices, which is interesting. It is a pretty big difference between the people that keep the commandments that God has given them and the people that do not do that. It is really sad too, when we go and talk to people and they just do not really want to change and have a better life because it takes ´effort´, but it is Argentina, so not sure what I expected haha. But yeah that is most of how it is going. But yeah. I am definitely seeing first hand that the gospel is what helps us to be happy. When I was younger, I always thought of the commandments as restrictions from fun things, but as I have grown older and seen the outcomes of all the things and all the people here and all the missiony stuff, I have learned that God has given us these commandments to protect us and to keep us happy. It has been an interesting change of perspective, and has really helped me out with all these rules that with have as missionaries. That said, I am nowhere near perfect. And I never will be haha. But I know that I can do all that God has asked of me! 

Love you guys! Have a great week! 

Voice Recording from this week:

I Let Elder Shaw Cut a Word in My Leg Hair

Hey everybody. This week was another fast one. So I am senior comp still. It has been two weeks of that, and I am quite tired. My companion is named Elder Alonso and he is from Paraguay. He is pretty cool, he just likes to listen to the song perfect by ed sheeran multiple times everyday. But he likes to work and he is a stud so it is all good. 

   We did start doing something new with this companion. He likes to put appointments with people for the siesta, which is when most people are asleep because it is hot as an oven in hell here during that time. But we do it. It bothers me sometimes because it doesnt always make sense to leave and try to find people during that time, but we have found some new people, so it is all cool for now. So yeah we are doing that a lot. We are trying to start to change the culture of the ward here now so that they can all be ok, because they are just a lot of less actives that rotate coming to church. We always have between 35 and 40 people coming to church. It is kind of frustrating, but we are going to see what we can do. We are trying to help a couple families to come back to church or to be strong in the church. One of the most frustrating things to do as a missionary is doing literally everything you know how to do, bringing spiritual power to the people, getting them to say yes to going to church or being baptized, and then after they just dont do anything. I have not really seen anyone change because of the gospel yet, and that is another thing that kind of bothers me. I believe that people can change because of the gospel, but these people just arent changing. It is a rather frustrating time haha. But it is ok. I know that everything happens in God's time and not ours, so I just need to be patient out here. But it is cool. We are just going to keep working. 

   As for investigators, for the moment we only have two that are going to need a lot of help. We have Elisa Barrionuevo and Daniel Basualdo. And we are working hard with the families and everything to try to get them to understand the gospel and do the things they need to do. It will be an interesting challenge. 

   Also this week I have been a little bit sick, so that has been another challenge. It is an interesting twist in the whole plan that I got going on here. I am really tired haha. 

   And to explain the title a little, I let Elder Shaw cut the word love in my leg hair, cause he was bored and I was bored, and we are stupid boys that do stupid things sometimes. Also I just dont care about all that much at this point haha. But yeah I dont have any pics so, sorry... 

   Pero bueno. Asi fue la semana. Se que ser misionero es algo dificil, pero es posible y si confiamos en nuestro padre celestial, podemos hacer todo. 

   Well I hope you all have a great week! Chau!