Hello again...
I dont have any pictures this week... I forgot to take them. So hopefully next week I will have some.
Tuesday - In the morning we were planning on going to our District Meeting, but before we left we got a call from the district leader telling us that the meeting would be in the afternoon, during the Argentina game (since nobody is in the street during that time anyways). So time to leave for the meeting rolled around, and right as were about to leave we get a call from some guy that is going around installing smoke and gas detectors in all the apartments. So we had to stay, and by the time he finsihed, it would have been useless to go to the meeting. So we just sat in the pench... at least we ´´heard´´ the game (everytime Argentina scored a goal, the entire country starts screaming, so naturally with all the houses so close, it gets loud when Argentina scores).
Wednesday - We were in the middle of personal study time, and my companion remembered that he had a doctors appointment in captial at 12. So we went to the offices, and from there we had to take a taxi to Capital. We got back to our area around 2. Went to teach a lesson at a members house but the investigator wasn´t there, so the family went and got a few people that they knew and we ended up teaching 3 lessons in their house. Pretty cool.
Thursday - We had a lesson with Silvia, baptism 3 or 4 weeks ago. We taught her about temples and baptisms for the dead and things. She really liked it, and is still attending church every week. Woohoo!
Friday - We had a lesson with an investigator family that had a baptism date about 3 months ago. We actually went with the bishop. The mom has a lot of problems, and she spent most of the time talking about them. she told us that she would attend church this Sunday, and we said that we would stop by and pick her up a little before 9. That night I had to call like 6 people on the phone. i understood basically everything of what they said. That was pretty cool.
Saturday - We had service in the morning with the youth. We cleaned up a VERY dusty room with tons and tons of books in a school. We were there for like 3 hours. Then we tried contacting 3 or 4 references that we received, but nobody was home. That night it started raining.
Sunday - We went to pick up the family that said they would go with us to church. We knocked for 10 minutes, but nobody ever answered the door... Then we went to pick up another investigator. He said he hadnt drunk (drank?) or smoked in 2 weeks. Well he walked in, and he told us that he drank that morning. So we poured out his bottle of booze, but he wouldnt give us his cigarettes. How lame. Then Argentina played in the afternoon. So nobody was in the street. But they won! woohoo. United States got kicked out, so I still have Argentina to cheer for!
I really like my new companion. He is from Chile, hes 23 almost 24, and actually speaks a bit of english. But I still speak about 90% spanish with him. And I have a lot more fun during the day with him too, as compared with my old comp. We teach alot of lessons, do a lot of contacts, and still have time to go to members houses and things. Its really nice.
Oh, by the way, for anybody reading this... if you have any church music at all (and classical too!) either upload it to me in an email, or burn it to cd or dvd and mail it to me. Classical music includes things like Lord of the Rings, which apparently we can listen to. I was thinking of that CD ´´As Temples Fill the Earth´´ and any weird songs that mormon tabernacle choir sings, since apparently they sing some really weird stuff, and not just church music.
Hmm, thats more or less it for this week. Til next week..!
Collin
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
June 21, 2010
So this week went by pretty quick. I´ll start off with the beginning of the week, like always.
Monday - So it basically rained hard the entire day. And it being P-day and all, we didn´t have appointments in the morning. So we just stayed in our apartment all day. I studied some spanish and things, and then slept for 2 hours before we headed outside. The rain drizzled off at night. That night we went and visited an old investigator family. They had had baptismal dates, and only needed one more church attendance. Then the missionaries went to pick them up in the morning during a rainy day, and they said they heard ´´we´re not going´´ when the family says they said ´´we´re coming´´ so the missionaries left and the family got mad. so now we are trying to bring them back to church again. they have 3 kids, and all the kids are pretty cool. they´re not doing any drugs, and don´t have any girlfriend/boyfriend problems, which down here is a rare family.
Tuesday - we received breakfast this morning again. I really like apartment delivery breakfast. It´s nice. We had district meeting that day as well. We got to the train station and nobody was selling tickets. So they told us to just walk in. And then when we got off at the other train station, where they make sure you have tickets before you leave (except the lazy employees
who just let everybody pass, which is 80% of the employees...) the employee there looked at me as I was walking through, and was about to touch me, so I hurried through quicker, but still acting normal and just kept walking on. I´m not about to be fined 20 pesos when I tried to pay, hah. We taught a man named Mario Ruiz. He is pretty cool guy. We read the book of mormon with him, Alma 11, I think it was. He still doesnt attend to church, but I think he is at least progressing.
Wednesday - Today we met a recently returned missionary. The son of our former ward mission leader. Everybody says he changed a lot, but I obviously have no idea. Tried to go to a TON of people that day, but nobody was home.
Thursday - In the morning we had a lesson with a CPV (cita para volver, or basically a return appointment that we contacted in the street). She is really nice, and we have another follow up lesson with her next week. She gave us a referral of somebody that lives a block away. We visited her, and she has like 8 boys living in her house. and ALL of them listened to us.
And they weren´t noisy or anything, which was really surprising too. They actually paid attention. Then in the afternoon we had a lesson with Silvia, our recent convert. We talked to her about family home evening, and gave her a book about it. That is one old book... they really need to update it, hah. I said, ´´wow these pictures are from like the 70´s or something.´´
and my companion asked when it was printed. It was 1981...
Friday - Friday was cloudy the entire day. The first thing we did was go on splits in the morning with 2 members. One was a convert 5 months ago, the other was the recently returned missionary. I went with the recent convert, but some number of years ago he had some brain attack, I forgot what its called, but it makes him move really slow now. So we weren´t able to do much. I contacted as many people as I could, but we weren´t able to make it to any appointments. The old bishop showed me something interesting. Paull Allen, the co founder of microsoft or whatever, apparently wrote something about the mormons a few months ago about how they are the best people he has ever met. I read it in spanish though... so I dont know if it was real or not. We also taught Osvaldo today as well. He can´t really attend church because he is a cab driver and gets off work at 7:30 in the morning, but he listens to us, and reads what we give him. So he is a potential baptism. Mmm. That night we were teaching a really old investigator. We found out she is one of the people who receives free milk from the province (the province gives free milk to certain people to pass out to whoever they want, its like that in all of the provinces in argentina apparently). She told us
she would give us milk every Saturday. Free milk, woohoo! Oh by the way, this picture with all the food is my typical breakfast in the mornings...
Actually just kidding. That food was given us from the welcoming home party from the return missionary.
Saturday - Today my comp used all the credit on the cellphone, because he loves to just call people and talk forever. So now we cant call people for who knows how long. It was also really cold today. I had my coat on the whole day, and never really had to take it off. We taught a family about family history. It was aimed at their son who isn´t a member. He participated a lot as well. We also talked to a guy who said that when he was a kid, he went to the church a lot with one of his friends. This friend went on a mission as well. We have a return appointment with him sometime this week, so we´ll see how that goes. That night Elder Vita, our district leader, called me and told me that I am going to to the campo (where there is a ton of walking and basically nothing. not even food). then at the end of the call he told me it was ajoke. I am staying in the area, and my comp is leaving.
Sunday - Oh I forgot to say, all this past week, my comp was saying goodbye to everybody. So we spent a lot of time in peoples houses. Especially Sunday. And that is basically all the happened that day...
Which leaves today. We had a transfer meeting. I have a new comp! his name is Elder Flores, hes from Chile. He doesnt speak much english, mostly the slang that he has learned from other elders. Now I really think my spanish will take off now that I wont be speaking english all the time to my companion. I think I will like him too. He doesn´t talk 24/7 like my old companion, hah.
Oh by the way, just so everybody knows (since EVERYBODY knows it down here) United States tied again. 2-2. they almost lost. Whew. and Argentina won, against south korea. 4-1. and south korea beat Greece last week 2-0 I think, so I´m pretty sure Argentina is going to beat Greece. Woohoo! :)
During transfer meeting, they told us that we are now going to carry our cellphones around with us during the day, we just can´t use them in the street. They also said that we are going to start having modified schedules to go around the games of the World Cup, since NOBODY is in the street during these times, and a little afterwards people can get kind of rowdy and
things. So that was pretty interesting, I thought.
If I think of anything else I´ll write it... til then...
Collin
Monday - So it basically rained hard the entire day. And it being P-day and all, we didn´t have appointments in the morning. So we just stayed in our apartment all day. I studied some spanish and things, and then slept for 2 hours before we headed outside. The rain drizzled off at night. That night we went and visited an old investigator family. They had had baptismal dates, and only needed one more church attendance. Then the missionaries went to pick them up in the morning during a rainy day, and they said they heard ´´we´re not going´´ when the family says they said ´´we´re coming´´ so the missionaries left and the family got mad. so now we are trying to bring them back to church again. they have 3 kids, and all the kids are pretty cool. they´re not doing any drugs, and don´t have any girlfriend/boyfriend problems, which down here is a rare family.
Tuesday - we received breakfast this morning again. I really like apartment delivery breakfast. It´s nice. We had district meeting that day as well. We got to the train station and nobody was selling tickets. So they told us to just walk in. And then when we got off at the other train station, where they make sure you have tickets before you leave (except the lazy employees
who just let everybody pass, which is 80% of the employees...) the employee there looked at me as I was walking through, and was about to touch me, so I hurried through quicker, but still acting normal and just kept walking on. I´m not about to be fined 20 pesos when I tried to pay, hah. We taught a man named Mario Ruiz. He is pretty cool guy. We read the book of mormon with him, Alma 11, I think it was. He still doesnt attend to church, but I think he is at least progressing.
Wednesday - Today we met a recently returned missionary. The son of our former ward mission leader. Everybody says he changed a lot, but I obviously have no idea. Tried to go to a TON of people that day, but nobody was home.
Thursday - In the morning we had a lesson with a CPV (cita para volver, or basically a return appointment that we contacted in the street). She is really nice, and we have another follow up lesson with her next week. She gave us a referral of somebody that lives a block away. We visited her, and she has like 8 boys living in her house. and ALL of them listened to us.
And they weren´t noisy or anything, which was really surprising too. They actually paid attention. Then in the afternoon we had a lesson with Silvia, our recent convert. We talked to her about family home evening, and gave her a book about it. That is one old book... they really need to update it, hah. I said, ´´wow these pictures are from like the 70´s or something.´´
and my companion asked when it was printed. It was 1981...
Friday - Friday was cloudy the entire day. The first thing we did was go on splits in the morning with 2 members. One was a convert 5 months ago, the other was the recently returned missionary. I went with the recent convert, but some number of years ago he had some brain attack, I forgot what its called, but it makes him move really slow now. So we weren´t able to do much. I contacted as many people as I could, but we weren´t able to make it to any appointments. The old bishop showed me something interesting. Paull Allen, the co founder of microsoft or whatever, apparently wrote something about the mormons a few months ago about how they are the best people he has ever met. I read it in spanish though... so I dont know if it was real or not. We also taught Osvaldo today as well. He can´t really attend church because he is a cab driver and gets off work at 7:30 in the morning, but he listens to us, and reads what we give him. So he is a potential baptism. Mmm. That night we were teaching a really old investigator. We found out she is one of the people who receives free milk from the province (the province gives free milk to certain people to pass out to whoever they want, its like that in all of the provinces in argentina apparently). She told us
she would give us milk every Saturday. Free milk, woohoo! Oh by the way, this picture with all the food is my typical breakfast in the mornings...
Saturday - Today my comp used all the credit on the cellphone, because he loves to just call people and talk forever. So now we cant call people for who knows how long. It was also really cold today. I had my coat on the whole day, and never really had to take it off. We taught a family about family history. It was aimed at their son who isn´t a member. He participated a lot as well. We also talked to a guy who said that when he was a kid, he went to the church a lot with one of his friends. This friend went on a mission as well. We have a return appointment with him sometime this week, so we´ll see how that goes. That night Elder Vita, our district leader, called me and told me that I am going to to the campo (where there is a ton of walking and basically nothing. not even food). then at the end of the call he told me it was ajoke. I am staying in the area, and my comp is leaving.
Sunday - Oh I forgot to say, all this past week, my comp was saying goodbye to everybody. So we spent a lot of time in peoples houses. Especially Sunday. And that is basically all the happened that day...
Which leaves today. We had a transfer meeting. I have a new comp! his name is Elder Flores, hes from Chile. He doesnt speak much english, mostly the slang that he has learned from other elders. Now I really think my spanish will take off now that I wont be speaking english all the time to my companion. I think I will like him too. He doesn´t talk 24/7 like my old companion, hah.
Oh by the way, just so everybody knows (since EVERYBODY knows it down here) United States tied again. 2-2. they almost lost. Whew. and Argentina won, against south korea. 4-1. and south korea beat Greece last week 2-0 I think, so I´m pretty sure Argentina is going to beat Greece. Woohoo! :)
During transfer meeting, they told us that we are now going to carry our cellphones around with us during the day, we just can´t use them in the street. They also said that we are going to start having modified schedules to go around the games of the World Cup, since NOBODY is in the street during these times, and a little afterwards people can get kind of rowdy and
things. So that was pretty interesting, I thought.
If I think of anything else I´ll write it... til then...
Collin
Monday, June 14, 2010
June 14, 2010
Hello everyone, again.
I´ll just start out with what happened during the week.
After we finished internet and things last week, my comp tried cleaning up his hair a bit, and used a number 3 on the sides with my cutter thing. well, he thought something was a bit short in the front apparently, and so without changing the number, he cut about half way
into his hair, and so he ended up having to cut the rest of his hair that length. so now, it is really short.
the next day we had interviews with the mission president. they went pretty well. he basically told me i had better know the area since i will be getting a different comp in a week. we ended up being really late to lunch that day. we had to wait for an hour for sister missionaries who weren´t supposed to be there to finish, and then we had our meeting. took a train back, and halfway back they said there was a crash in capital, and for some reason they made us all get off the train. took 15 minutes for another train to come back. then we took a bus, and i got in line to pay for a ticket. well, my comp didn´t pay attention that i was still in line, and he got on the bus, and the bus took off. so we went on divisions with the bus. yeah. i just waited 2 minutes for the next bus to leave, and when i got off he was waiting on a bench.
on wednesday i went on divisions. with somebody that has one transfer less than me (read: this is his first transfer). it went alright for 2 yankees (they call us that down here) who cant really speak all that well. one of their investigators they have said i looked exactly like her old boyfriend who she dropped a while back because he was doing bad things. she took it as a sign that she was doing the right thing... that night the power went out in their area for like 40 min, and we went to get flashlights and things, and right as we knocked on the door for the appointment, the power came back on. that night, the other elders that went on divisions came to the area. they didn´t have the key. thats what happens when your comp doesnt like to hold the keys...
thursday. before we finished divisions, the elder i was with bought 100 alfajores (little chocolate cake thingies). 100 is a lot, most people buy them one or 2 at a time. got back from divisions and immediately went into weekly planning. then we had a pretty normal day after that.
starting friday, the mundial began. every time argentina plays, the streets are completely empty. as in, nobody is in the streets. they are all watching the game. its good that argentina won. i dont know if any of you are paying attention to it at all or not, but the united
states tied 1-1 with england. its a nice way to make contacts. friday night we had dinner with a family who has just started to become active again. we played charades with them, and they all had a ton of fun with it, it was really nice.
it rained basically all day saturday, and is raining again today. I mentioned Silvina a while back, a referral from another area. well we were finally able to contact her again, and apparently she is moving to the country sometime this week. her husband (but not really, since they aren´t married) is cheating on her, and so she is trying to get away. so she doesnt want to listen to us anymore. we told her to look for the missionaries out in the country when she eventually moves.
on sunday, we had churros for breakfast. they are basically cooked things of bread with a ton of sugar on them, and then sometimes they have cream or some other sweet thing stuffed on in the inside. on sunday, mario showed up. that is the first time he has actually shown up while i have been here. then we went back to apartment, and comp didn´t feel like traveling to eat lunch, so he cancelled it. so we ended up eating (more or less) bread and sugar for lunch. woohoo, what a day for meals. went back to the church to start some divisions with some members, but one guy didn´t show, so we spent the next hour and a half walking with the one who did show, showing him where members lived that he didn´t know. he was a slow walker too, it was kind of irritating. had a good day with lots of lessons and contacts and things. my eye has been twitching for the past 2 days now. i dont really know whats making it do that, but it is really frustrating.
its raining again today... this is also the last week i have with my current comp. also last week of the transfer. as the president told me, this transfer will mark 5 months in the mission (3 in argentina). time really does fly.
that is a pancake. i could only eat so much until i was full.
As far as the recent convert goes (Silvia), we will continue teaching her every week on Thursday at the Campos house. She is doing well. We gave her a triple, since she had asked about D and C back when we had first started teaching her. We also plan on ordering her an lds bible. The lds version of the bible has only come out in spanish within the past year or so. before that, they had to use the catholic version, so everybody is still buying the new ones. there is a ´new convert packet´ that contains tons of books and pamphlets and things for new members, so we plan on having a member share a new book with her every couple weeks, so she doesnt get too overwhelmed with so many books right after baptism. but yeah, she is doing very well. its started to stay cold here. before, it would get cold hot
cold hot every other day (a bit of an exaggeration) but it was annoying. now, its more or less staying cool, and doesnt exactly get hot anymore. i actually used my coat the other day for the rain, and it worked out very well.
I hope everyone is having a good time doing whatever the heck they are doing.
this letter was short, i was a bit preoccupied.
til next week!
I´ll just start out with what happened during the week.
After we finished internet and things last week, my comp tried cleaning up his hair a bit, and used a number 3 on the sides with my cutter thing. well, he thought something was a bit short in the front apparently, and so without changing the number, he cut about half way
into his hair, and so he ended up having to cut the rest of his hair that length. so now, it is really short.
the next day we had interviews with the mission president. they went pretty well. he basically told me i had better know the area since i will be getting a different comp in a week. we ended up being really late to lunch that day. we had to wait for an hour for sister missionaries who weren´t supposed to be there to finish, and then we had our meeting. took a train back, and halfway back they said there was a crash in capital, and for some reason they made us all get off the train. took 15 minutes for another train to come back. then we took a bus, and i got in line to pay for a ticket. well, my comp didn´t pay attention that i was still in line, and he got on the bus, and the bus took off. so we went on divisions with the bus. yeah. i just waited 2 minutes for the next bus to leave, and when i got off he was waiting on a bench.
on wednesday i went on divisions. with somebody that has one transfer less than me (read: this is his first transfer). it went alright for 2 yankees (they call us that down here) who cant really speak all that well. one of their investigators they have said i looked exactly like her old boyfriend who she dropped a while back because he was doing bad things. she took it as a sign that she was doing the right thing... that night the power went out in their area for like 40 min, and we went to get flashlights and things, and right as we knocked on the door for the appointment, the power came back on. that night, the other elders that went on divisions came to the area. they didn´t have the key. thats what happens when your comp doesnt like to hold the keys...
thursday. before we finished divisions, the elder i was with bought 100 alfajores (little chocolate cake thingies). 100 is a lot, most people buy them one or 2 at a time. got back from divisions and immediately went into weekly planning. then we had a pretty normal day after that.
starting friday, the mundial began. every time argentina plays, the streets are completely empty. as in, nobody is in the streets. they are all watching the game. its good that argentina won. i dont know if any of you are paying attention to it at all or not, but the united
states tied 1-1 with england. its a nice way to make contacts. friday night we had dinner with a family who has just started to become active again. we played charades with them, and they all had a ton of fun with it, it was really nice.
it rained basically all day saturday, and is raining again today. I mentioned Silvina a while back, a referral from another area. well we were finally able to contact her again, and apparently she is moving to the country sometime this week. her husband (but not really, since they aren´t married) is cheating on her, and so she is trying to get away. so she doesnt want to listen to us anymore. we told her to look for the missionaries out in the country when she eventually moves.
on sunday, we had churros for breakfast. they are basically cooked things of bread with a ton of sugar on them, and then sometimes they have cream or some other sweet thing stuffed on in the inside. on sunday, mario showed up. that is the first time he has actually shown up while i have been here. then we went back to apartment, and comp didn´t feel like traveling to eat lunch, so he cancelled it. so we ended up eating (more or less) bread and sugar for lunch. woohoo, what a day for meals. went back to the church to start some divisions with some members, but one guy didn´t show, so we spent the next hour and a half walking with the one who did show, showing him where members lived that he didn´t know. he was a slow walker too, it was kind of irritating. had a good day with lots of lessons and contacts and things. my eye has been twitching for the past 2 days now. i dont really know whats making it do that, but it is really frustrating.
its raining again today... this is also the last week i have with my current comp. also last week of the transfer. as the president told me, this transfer will mark 5 months in the mission (3 in argentina). time really does fly.
As far as the recent convert goes (Silvia), we will continue teaching her every week on Thursday at the Campos house. She is doing well. We gave her a triple, since she had asked about D and C back when we had first started teaching her. We also plan on ordering her an lds bible. The lds version of the bible has only come out in spanish within the past year or so. before that, they had to use the catholic version, so everybody is still buying the new ones. there is a ´new convert packet´ that contains tons of books and pamphlets and things for new members, so we plan on having a member share a new book with her every couple weeks, so she doesnt get too overwhelmed with so many books right after baptism. but yeah, she is doing very well. its started to stay cold here. before, it would get cold hot
cold hot every other day (a bit of an exaggeration) but it was annoying. now, its more or less staying cool, and doesnt exactly get hot anymore. i actually used my coat the other day for the rain, and it worked out very well.
I hope everyone is having a good time doing whatever the heck they are doing.
this letter was short, i was a bit preoccupied.
til next week!
Monday, June 7, 2010
June 7, 2010
Well, this week has been interesting I suppose.
I’ll start off with Tuesday. In the morning, a member made us breakfast. It was a typical American movie breakfast. Eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon, orange juice. There were some other things too, dulce de leche etc. which is just Argentine food. Anywho, that day we had our meeting fireside thing whatever you call it with Elder
Atchukitis (spelling?). A member of the 70 (first one on the list!) He got lost (hah) and so we started 30 minutes late. Hes from Brazil. We started off the meeting with the 3 sets of zone leaders that we had with us talking. He dropped the cane (is that saying in english?) on us because people werent baptizing every week, and basically how
poorly everybody was doing. Then after that, he gave a pretty good talk about contacts and lessons with members, and focused on always getting as many referrals from people as possible, and how to go about contacting them and things. Pretty good stuff. Then we ended at almost 6 at night, and so we didn’t get back to our area until 8 (every single train was packed full and we couldn’t get on.. so we had to keep waiting). Then there was a ward council at 8, so we went to that, and by the time that ended, we didn’t have time for anything else at all.
Then on Wednesday, we went to Silvia. We used something we learned from the day before, and ended up getting like 15 referrals. Started contacting them, and apparently we werent supposed to talk to family or something, so one of them got mad, but Silvia was completely cool with it. We started inviting EVERYONE we talked to to go to the baptism (it didn’t do much good though.. only members and friends showed up). Then that night, Mario called. The one who now doesnt want to get baptized. He wants us to have dinner at his house Sunday afternoon.
Thursday, we were supposed to do divisions since the other missionaries would be in our area for the baptismal interview... but we didn’t end up doing them. Something about wasting time. Not really sure. Anywho, one of the members gave us like 2 liters of ice cream, so we brought it to the church while we waited for Silvia to show up for the interview. While Silvia was being interviewed, I did “mini splits” with another elder, who has 1 less transfer than me. Which means he has been in the country for a whole 3 weeks! yeah! It went alright, we talked to some guy who talked REALLY fast, I dont think I have ever met someone who talked faster, and I was actually able to understand most of what he said. I was really surprised. Oh yeah, when Silvia walked into the church, she told us that as she was passing the bus stop, 2 people got off and one of them said you know that there is a baptism here on saturday? its at 7. Silvia was thinking thats my baptism!! but they didn’t show up so... Silvia passed the interview so... woohoo!
Friday... Didn’t do much today except invite a ton of people to the baptism. We had a lesson with an english teacher. She wanted practice talking english, and we wanted a lesson, so we taught her in english. What better way! Anyways, she spoke pretty good english, and understood everything that we taught her in english. First lesson in english, check.
Saturday... Today we were supposed to do almost 3 hours of service by cutting some branches and things for a member, but she cancelled in the morning. Today my comp went tronky(home sick, not wanting to work... etc.) and we ended up spending the first 2 hours of the day at an inactive members house, and the next 3 hours at another less active member, where we ate lunch. Effective day so far, right? Then we stopped by the church (at this time it being almost 4 oclock) because we had to start the baptismal font. Good thing we started it 3 hours early, too. We got back to the church at 6:15 and the water was barely up past my knees. then.... BAPTISM time!
I’ll start off with Tuesday. In the morning, a member made us breakfast. It was a typical American movie breakfast. Eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon, orange juice. There were some other things too, dulce de leche etc. which is just Argentine food. Anywho, that day we had our meeting fireside thing whatever you call it with Elder
Atchukitis (spelling?). A member of the 70 (first one on the list!) He got lost (hah) and so we started 30 minutes late. Hes from Brazil. We started off the meeting with the 3 sets of zone leaders that we had with us talking. He dropped the cane (is that saying in english?) on us because people werent baptizing every week, and basically how
poorly everybody was doing. Then after that, he gave a pretty good talk about contacts and lessons with members, and focused on always getting as many referrals from people as possible, and how to go about contacting them and things. Pretty good stuff. Then we ended at almost 6 at night, and so we didn’t get back to our area until 8 (every single train was packed full and we couldn’t get on.. so we had to keep waiting). Then there was a ward council at 8, so we went to that, and by the time that ended, we didn’t have time for anything else at all.
Then on Wednesday, we went to Silvia. We used something we learned from the day before, and ended up getting like 15 referrals. Started contacting them, and apparently we werent supposed to talk to family or something, so one of them got mad, but Silvia was completely cool with it. We started inviting EVERYONE we talked to to go to the baptism (it didn’t do much good though.. only members and friends showed up). Then that night, Mario called. The one who now doesnt want to get baptized. He wants us to have dinner at his house Sunday afternoon.
Thursday, we were supposed to do divisions since the other missionaries would be in our area for the baptismal interview... but we didn’t end up doing them. Something about wasting time. Not really sure. Anywho, one of the members gave us like 2 liters of ice cream, so we brought it to the church while we waited for Silvia to show up for the interview. While Silvia was being interviewed, I did “mini splits” with another elder, who has 1 less transfer than me. Which means he has been in the country for a whole 3 weeks! yeah! It went alright, we talked to some guy who talked REALLY fast, I dont think I have ever met someone who talked faster, and I was actually able to understand most of what he said. I was really surprised. Oh yeah, when Silvia walked into the church, she told us that as she was passing the bus stop, 2 people got off and one of them said you know that there is a baptism here on saturday? its at 7. Silvia was thinking thats my baptism!! but they didn’t show up so... Silvia passed the interview so... woohoo!
Friday... Didn’t do much today except invite a ton of people to the baptism. We had a lesson with an english teacher. She wanted practice talking english, and we wanted a lesson, so we taught her in english. What better way! Anyways, she spoke pretty good english, and understood everything that we taught her in english. First lesson in english, check.
Saturday... Today we were supposed to do almost 3 hours of service by cutting some branches and things for a member, but she cancelled in the morning. Today my comp went tronky(home sick, not wanting to work... etc.) and we ended up spending the first 2 hours of the day at an inactive members house, and the next 3 hours at another less active member, where we ate lunch. Effective day so far, right? Then we stopped by the church (at this time it being almost 4 oclock) because we had to start the baptismal font. Good thing we started it 3 hours early, too. We got back to the church at 6:15 and the water was barely up past my knees. then.... BAPTISM time!
We ended up having about... 40 people, more or less at the baptism. The water was warm, which was good, ended up being just below my tie. I got the baptism done right on the first try, spoke clearly. All in all, it went very well. Then right after the baptism, my comp didn’t feel like staying too much longer (read: he didn’t want to stay). So we left without talking to anybody. Yeah, Silvias friends wanted to talk to us... and we werent there. Goodie. Good thing this is the last 2 weeks!
Then Sunday. This week again, there were only 4 of us in priesthood class. Then an investigator of ours showed up halfway through, and he had a lot of questions. So many in fact, that the teachers for the next 2 hours couldn’t even get through the entire lesson. Oh well, at least he showed up. Then right after sacrament was over, he left.
Not even the whole meeting... just the passing of the sacrament. Maybe we’ll be able to talk to him sometime this week. who knows. We went to lunch at Mario. He didn’t really say anything about baptism, but he did ask us a lot of questions about what has been going on at church recently. So at least we know he is interested. Then we had
divisions with some members. I went with a 16 year old priest. That doesn’t really talk all that much. That marks the first time that I have ever taught lessons more or less by myself to actual investigators. And it went surprisingly well. I was able to understand more or less what they were saying, and if they ever didnt understand what i was saying (which was only once i think) my priest friend told them in real castellano.
So here is the last picture that I have of who I baptized.
Then Sunday. This week again, there were only 4 of us in priesthood class. Then an investigator of ours showed up halfway through, and he had a lot of questions. So many in fact, that the teachers for the next 2 hours couldn’t even get through the entire lesson. Oh well, at least he showed up. Then right after sacrament was over, he left.
Not even the whole meeting... just the passing of the sacrament. Maybe we’ll be able to talk to him sometime this week. who knows. We went to lunch at Mario. He didn’t really say anything about baptism, but he did ask us a lot of questions about what has been going on at church recently. So at least we know he is interested. Then we had
divisions with some members. I went with a 16 year old priest. That doesn’t really talk all that much. That marks the first time that I have ever taught lessons more or less by myself to actual investigators. And it went surprisingly well. I was able to understand more or less what they were saying, and if they ever didnt understand what i was saying (which was only once i think) my priest friend told them in real castellano.
So here is the last picture that I have of who I baptized.
As you noticed in this picture and the others, I am way taller than basically everybody there. Thats more or less the story of Argentina, except for about 10% of the male population. Tomorrow, we have our interview with the president. wow, that was a quick transfer. It could have felt like last week I was in there with him. As far as another baptism goes for this transfer... I dont know how likely it is, unless we baptized a girl who was apparently already baptized but nobody can find her records. Technically that is a convert baptism that would count for us. Cheap, I know.
David Bednar is going to stake conference? Really? Are you kidding me... He came to our mission during the past July... but I wasn´t there, obviously. That is kind of annoying, hah. With my knowing President Allen, I probably could have talked with him for a bit! haha. Anywho... until next week.
-Collin
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