I awake tangled in my sleeping bag and glance groggily at my wristwatch-- 6:30. Why hasn´t the alarm gone off? But a split second later the cell phone alarm sounds, right on time. I roll reluctantly but automatically off the mattress into praying position: knees on the floor, arms resting on Hna. Duarte´s bed. She´s already kneeling. There is a long silence-- it must be my turn to pray again. So I begin, trying to pronounce the words in castellano intelligibly with a tongue that is still half awake. I arrive at the amen and automatically turn and flop my arms back onto my own bed to say my personal prayer. When I´ve finished, I pull on my running shoes, Hna. Duarte grabs the keys, and we leave down the stairs and open the door
that leads to the street. The plaza around the corner is quiet, but not deserted. A handful of people are leaning against the train station, waiting for the train to arrive so they can travel to work. We begin to jog around the plaza. As we round the first corner a wave of glorious scent hits us--- fresh bread and facturas from the panaderia across the plaza. I can almost taste the bread-- it´s like eating and jogging at the same time. On the other corner a shopkeeper is sweeping leaves and bits of paper off his sidewalk into the gutter. The black dog that lives nearby trots up to us and begins to run along side us, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, taking breaks to chase the occasional car that slides by. All too soon we hear the
bells of the little Catholic chapel sounding the hour and we ascend the stairs back to the pension. My face is dripping sweat because of the humidity, but I don´t mind because I´ve somehow landed the first turn showering. As I wash I can hear over the sound of the shower the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack (allowed because it´s instrumental) that Hna. Daniels has turned on, which makes me think of home. I put
on my favorite skirt, throw my hair into a messy bun, and follow my nose, which leads me into the kitchen where Hna. Duarte is making the Paraguayan version of churros for breakfast. They look like little doughnuts. Is she going to share? Yes! I take my share of the "churritos" and a plastic mug of ultra-pasteurized Argentine milk to my desk. I kneel to pray again, this time to bless my breakfast and start my hour of study. Another day of the mission has begun.
Note: Characters and events are not intended to represent real people
or occurrences. Copyright 2011 by Hna. Clark. Haha, not.
So far I´m loving Las Heras. It´s small enough that I´m already
learning my way around. The sleepy tree-lined streets remind me of
Moscow, which may have something to do with the fact that I already
feel at home here. I had to master Luján-- the streets, the buses,
the taxis, how to order sandwiches in a kiosco-- to feel comfortable,
but Las Heras has welcomed me (metaphorically) with open arms.
The branch here is small, but great. There´s another super family, the
Familia Miguez, that (like the Peraltas in Luján) lives all together
in the same block and takes on half the callings in the branch.
Presidente Miguez and his brother, Maxi, are very funny.
We inherited two awesome investigators from Hna.s Claros and Daniels, Ludmila and Aldana (10 and 8) who can´t wait to get baptized, but we´ve visited
every day this week and still haven´t found their mom to get her
permission. What else? We had four investigators in sacrament
meeting-- Ludmila and Aldana and two other girls their age, Rocio and
Brisa. We found R and B this week and they already love church.
We´re teaching Rocio and Brisa´s mother too, but she slept in and
didn´t come. We`re going to focus on her more this week to see if we
can help her progress and come to church with the girls next week.
I love being companions with Hna. Duarte. She is funny and always
positive and easygoing. We laugh together a lot. In a lot of ways
she reminds me of Katie W.-- they both have curly hair and similar
facial expressions. And when Hna. Duarte practices English, her
accent reminds me of how Katie sometimes pronounces her vowels with a
Spanish accent when she´s goofing around. (cheeps instead of chips) :)
Hna. Duarte has been a member for about 9 years. Her mother was
super Catholic, but Hna. Duarte always hated going to church and
wouldn´t pray to the saints. Then one day she and her brother met the
missionaries and click! She knew almost right away she wanted to get
baptized. Her brother got baptized right then, but it took Hna.
Duarte about two years to convince her mother before she finally got
permission and was able to be baptized. Her parents still didn´t want
to anything to do with the church, but about two years ago they
suddenly changed their minds and got baptized. According to Hna.
Duarte, Paraguay sounds like a missionary paradise-- parents don´t let
their 11 year old daughters go dancing in clubs (but that´s another
story), people are lining up to be baptized (Hna. Duarte´s ward got so
big they had to split, which still left them with 60 girls in Young
Women´s), and mango trees grow everywhere (ok, so that has nothing to
do with missionary work, but it sounds delicious). Still, I feel
perfectly content to be serving here in Argentina. That´s how I´ve
been feeling in Las Heras-- very content and happy to just be here
with Hna. Duarte and be a missionary doing what I´m doing, working as
hard as I can to help people get baptized.
What else? Our roommates are Hna. Daniels and Hna. Scanlon. Hna.
Daniels has just this transfer left before she goes home. She has an
amazing, almost latina accent, and is helping us get in the swing of
things here because she´s already spent one transfer in Las Heras.
Hna. Scanlon is fresh from the states. She was in the same ward as
Rachel at BYU, so she knows her, which is cool. She´s very nice and
seems to be dealing well with the stress of learning castellano and
all the mission stuff at the same time.
Well, I´ve got to go, but I love you all and miss you! Mom, the only
thing I can think of for you to send me in my Valentine´s package is
spearmint gum (I can´t chew it in the street of course, but every once
in a while I like to use it while I´m studying to help me focus). If
you can somehow fit in peanutbutter (I saw some once that came in
snack size plastic cups), Hna. Duarte would be thrilled because she
loves peanut butter and it´s hard to find here, but if not don´t worry
about it. I will be perfectly happy with whatever you send. Oh, can
you send me the chocolate chip cookie recipe we use, a good brownie
recipe, and the tortilla recipe? You can just email those of course.
Ok, now I really do have to go. I hope you all have a great week!
Cheer on Dan in the pinewood derby for me.
Love,
Ellis
Monday, January 24, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
New Area: General Las Heras
Dear Family,
I only have about ten minutes to write because the cyber I'm at didn´t have two monitors side by side, so I´m sharing with my companion and we only have a half hour-ish each.
The big news: I´m doing a whitewash with my new companion, the fabulous Hna. Duarte from Paraguay. That means that we are both new to the area. Our area is General Las Heras B. It´s the same area where I fell down the stairs, but Pres. Benton just split it into two areas. We have half of the pueblito of General Las Heras and another pueblito called Villars. We´ll be sharing the pension and the capilla with Hna. Daniels, who has served in the area for one transfer, and her new companion, who is arriving fresh from the MTC tomorrow. The branch here is pretty small, about 50 people. The capilla is actually a few rooms at the end of a long hallway, like a house that´s part of a larger building. I´m in the real campo now-- there aren´t any buses and it looks like a ghost town during the siesta. I thought I would be more nervous about changing areas, but I´m just thrilled. It´s going to be an exciting challenge. I'm excited to have my first latina companion and to do a whitewash. We are going to work a full as we say here and help this ramita (little branch) grow. Thanks to the work of Hna. Daniels and her old companion Hna. Claros, we already have two investigators who will be baptized on Saturday. This is going to be an amazing transfer!
Other news: for my last Sunday in Lujan, president Benton came to speak. It was a Sunday of miracles. We had twelve investigators in sacrament meeting, 6 of whom were a family who showed up at the last minute with a visiting aunt, uncle, and nephew. Twelve investigators was the new record for me and Hna. Lewis too. AND there were 110 people total in sacrament meeting, which was the record in the branch and the goal Pte. Peralta had set-- to reach in March. When he announced over the pulpit that there were 110 people in the meeting, I almost cried I was so happy. Another miracle was that Hna Maidana'´s non-member husband came to church for the first time. But I think my favorite miracle may have been that Judy came to church. She is the American sister we went to the zoo with. Ive visited her nearly every week for three months, and she finally came back to church. I told her on Saturday that I was praying to have 100 people in sacrament meeting and that if 99 people showed up and she wasn't there, then I would be sad. And then she came and because she was there the branch met its attendance goal! There was a special spirit in the chapel that Sunday, the joy of fellow saints enjoying and being strengthened by each other´s company and the excitement of people beginning to learn the gospel. It was the perfect ending to an amazing 4 months in Luján.
The hardest people to leave were of course Celeste and Mario. As soon as Mario renews his ID he and Celeste can set a date for the marriage and their baptism. Hna. Lewis has promised to take care of them and keep me posted, and president says I can visit when they get baptized. For now all I can do for them is pray and write letters, but I have faith that they will get baptized soon.
Well I'm way out of time, so chau! I love you all and think of you often. I miss you and I love reading your letters and emails. Keep your feet dry in that wet Moscow weather!
Love, your very excited Hna. Clark
I only have about ten minutes to write because the cyber I'm at didn´t have two monitors side by side, so I´m sharing with my companion and we only have a half hour-ish each.
The big news: I´m doing a whitewash with my new companion, the fabulous Hna. Duarte from Paraguay. That means that we are both new to the area. Our area is General Las Heras B. It´s the same area where I fell down the stairs, but Pres. Benton just split it into two areas. We have half of the pueblito of General Las Heras and another pueblito called Villars. We´ll be sharing the pension and the capilla with Hna. Daniels, who has served in the area for one transfer, and her new companion, who is arriving fresh from the MTC tomorrow. The branch here is pretty small, about 50 people. The capilla is actually a few rooms at the end of a long hallway, like a house that´s part of a larger building. I´m in the real campo now-- there aren´t any buses and it looks like a ghost town during the siesta. I thought I would be more nervous about changing areas, but I´m just thrilled. It´s going to be an exciting challenge. I'm excited to have my first latina companion and to do a whitewash. We are going to work a full as we say here and help this ramita (little branch) grow. Thanks to the work of Hna. Daniels and her old companion Hna. Claros, we already have two investigators who will be baptized on Saturday. This is going to be an amazing transfer!
Other news: for my last Sunday in Lujan, president Benton came to speak. It was a Sunday of miracles. We had twelve investigators in sacrament meeting, 6 of whom were a family who showed up at the last minute with a visiting aunt, uncle, and nephew. Twelve investigators was the new record for me and Hna. Lewis too. AND there were 110 people total in sacrament meeting, which was the record in the branch and the goal Pte. Peralta had set-- to reach in March. When he announced over the pulpit that there were 110 people in the meeting, I almost cried I was so happy. Another miracle was that Hna Maidana'´s non-member husband came to church for the first time. But I think my favorite miracle may have been that Judy came to church. She is the American sister we went to the zoo with. Ive visited her nearly every week for three months, and she finally came back to church. I told her on Saturday that I was praying to have 100 people in sacrament meeting and that if 99 people showed up and she wasn't there, then I would be sad. And then she came and because she was there the branch met its attendance goal! There was a special spirit in the chapel that Sunday, the joy of fellow saints enjoying and being strengthened by each other´s company and the excitement of people beginning to learn the gospel. It was the perfect ending to an amazing 4 months in Luján.
The hardest people to leave were of course Celeste and Mario. As soon as Mario renews his ID he and Celeste can set a date for the marriage and their baptism. Hna. Lewis has promised to take care of them and keep me posted, and president says I can visit when they get baptized. For now all I can do for them is pray and write letters, but I have faith that they will get baptized soon.
Well I'm way out of time, so chau! I love you all and think of you often. I miss you and I love reading your letters and emails. Keep your feet dry in that wet Moscow weather!
Love, your very excited Hna. Clark
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Eduardo Peralta, the Amazing District President
The highlights of this week:
Teaching Edward. On Monday night we taught a lesson about the Restoration to Edward, our twenty something pentecostal investigator who is a soldier from Columbia. We watched the 20 minute Restoration movie with him (the one about the first vision), and at the end we asked him how he felt. (one of those loaded missionary questions. What we really wanted to know is "Don´t you just feel the Spirit so strongly that you want to get baptized right now?") He said "I feel like it´s just a story from a movie." Well, lesson learned. The church movies are great, but they aren´t perfect for everyone and they don´t replace a solid lesson. Afterwards we explained more about prophets with a lot of help from our amazing district president Eduardo Peralta and Edward left the lesson seeming slightly more convinced. On Wednesday we taught Edward again in Eduardo´s house and focused on how commandments help us be happy and how prophets help us keep the commandments (by teaching us what the commandments are and giving advice on how to keep the commandments more fully, like in the Strength of the Youth pamphlet). I think he liked that, because Edward cares a lot about living in "santidad", ie holiness. Eduardo explained to him a lot about eternal marriage too, because Edward really wants to find a good girl and raise a righteous family. Edward is a good kid. We´re kind of hoping he might want to get baptized this Saturday, but that seems kind of soon considering where his testimony is at. But I think if he just keeps reading the BoM and prays about it, he´ll want to get baptized soon.
Crazy women en la capilla! On Tuesday some of the elders in our zone showed up to district meeting with two women they had met on the train who said they needed help. We called Eduardo Peralta, the district president, to come talk with them. While we were waiting for them to arrive, the two women told their story to Hermana Lewis and I (they didn´t feel comfortable talking to the elders). One was from the Dominican Republic and spoke a strange mix of Spanish and English and the other one was argentine. The woman from the DR told this crazy story about how she came to Argentina to work but then was kidnapped and imprisoned for three years by sex traffickers and finally escaped, which is when she met her friend the Argentine woman. The two of them apparently went to investigate a job offer in the capital but when they got there it was another sex trafficking sceme and they barely escaped. They had also somehow spent the rest of their money on bus tickets to return to Mar de Plata, but they missed the bus and were stranded. They decided to spend their last pesos to take the train to Luján and find an out of the way place to commit suicide because they were so depressed, but then they met the elders on the train-- a miracle! Or not. At first we were super convinced and when President Peralta showed up he was convinced to and he was going to help them buy bus tickets with the district credit card and give them money to buy food on the trip. But then when he left to go buy the tickets he prayed to know what to do and had a weird feeling and then the district credit card from the church mysteriously didn´t work and he slowly realized they were probably lying. Sure enough, when he came back to the chapel the women started asking for other things like perfume and deoderant that they didn´t really need from us-- once he explained everything we started thinking it was strange too. So in the end Pte. Peralta just escorted them out of the chapel and showed them how to find the bus station, but didn´t use any of the district´s money to help them. His theory is that they were actually prostitutes from the capital trying to scam the poor credulous, helpful Mormons. It was a disturbing experience overall. It´s not fun to find your feelings of compassion turn to unease and distrust. Next time we meet people who ask for monetary help from the church I´m going to try to be a little more cautious and pay attention to what the Spirit is telling me.
Celeste and Mario: Today Mario is going to travel to Mercedes to get a copy of the divorce paper. If that goes well Celeste can go sign up for a marriage date at the Civil Register, which means the whole family can have a baptismal date! I am so excited! I´m repenting of my impatience with them. I don´t think I appreciated fully how difficult the changes are that they are making and how much they have progressed. They are so excited to be able to finally be baptized-- I can´t wait either!
Other stuff: We had 6 investigators in sacrament meeting. Not quite as good as we hoped, but not bad either. Mario came for the first time in two weeks (because of the situation with not being able to leave the house alone), which I think was really good for him. Edward came too, so he now has enough attendance to be able to get baptized (3 times in sacrament meeting is required). My most recent convert, Alex, showed up too after a couple weeks of missing church, wearing his own white shirt and a tie borrowed from the branch president. I was so proud! I love to see my converts and less active members in sacrament meeting.
Also, this week I will pass my six month mark in the mission. I can´t believe it. It´s going so fast. I´m determined to use the time I have left as fully as I can to become the person God wants me to be, learn a deeper love for others, and help as many people as possible. A year should seem like a long time, but I have a feeling it is going to feel too short by the time I am done. The transfer ends next Monday and president has already told me I am being transferred--eek! The other hermanas predict I will be Hermana Tucker´s aunt (second companion). That would be a lot of responsibility, but fun. I am excited and scared to see where I will go and sad to leave Luján. I´ve really loved it here.
One last thing: I got LOADS of letters on Tuesday: two from Grandma, one from Sammy Smith, one from Michelle (I can´t believe she is pregnant!), one from Brandon, and one from each of you. ¡Qué suerte! I was very pleased. AND I got a Christmas package in the mail from Mark and Barbara Nielsen. It was great! What they sent was perfect! They sent post it notes, which I really needed (to write notes to investigators who aren´t home when we pass by) but had run out of, hot cocoa mix (yum!), reeses cups (which Hermana Lewis and I very much enjoyed devouring this week) and some other useful stuff. Can you tell them thank you for me? They are amazing!
Thanks for your wonderful letters. I love reading them and finding out what is going on at home and what you are thinking about. I love you and I miss you!
Love,
Ellis
Teaching Edward. On Monday night we taught a lesson about the Restoration to Edward, our twenty something pentecostal investigator who is a soldier from Columbia. We watched the 20 minute Restoration movie with him (the one about the first vision), and at the end we asked him how he felt. (one of those loaded missionary questions. What we really wanted to know is "Don´t you just feel the Spirit so strongly that you want to get baptized right now?") He said "I feel like it´s just a story from a movie." Well, lesson learned. The church movies are great, but they aren´t perfect for everyone and they don´t replace a solid lesson. Afterwards we explained more about prophets with a lot of help from our amazing district president Eduardo Peralta and Edward left the lesson seeming slightly more convinced. On Wednesday we taught Edward again in Eduardo´s house and focused on how commandments help us be happy and how prophets help us keep the commandments (by teaching us what the commandments are and giving advice on how to keep the commandments more fully, like in the Strength of the Youth pamphlet). I think he liked that, because Edward cares a lot about living in "santidad", ie holiness. Eduardo explained to him a lot about eternal marriage too, because Edward really wants to find a good girl and raise a righteous family. Edward is a good kid. We´re kind of hoping he might want to get baptized this Saturday, but that seems kind of soon considering where his testimony is at. But I think if he just keeps reading the BoM and prays about it, he´ll want to get baptized soon.
Crazy women en la capilla! On Tuesday some of the elders in our zone showed up to district meeting with two women they had met on the train who said they needed help. We called Eduardo Peralta, the district president, to come talk with them. While we were waiting for them to arrive, the two women told their story to Hermana Lewis and I (they didn´t feel comfortable talking to the elders). One was from the Dominican Republic and spoke a strange mix of Spanish and English and the other one was argentine. The woman from the DR told this crazy story about how she came to Argentina to work but then was kidnapped and imprisoned for three years by sex traffickers and finally escaped, which is when she met her friend the Argentine woman. The two of them apparently went to investigate a job offer in the capital but when they got there it was another sex trafficking sceme and they barely escaped. They had also somehow spent the rest of their money on bus tickets to return to Mar de Plata, but they missed the bus and were stranded. They decided to spend their last pesos to take the train to Luján and find an out of the way place to commit suicide because they were so depressed, but then they met the elders on the train-- a miracle! Or not. At first we were super convinced and when President Peralta showed up he was convinced to and he was going to help them buy bus tickets with the district credit card and give them money to buy food on the trip. But then when he left to go buy the tickets he prayed to know what to do and had a weird feeling and then the district credit card from the church mysteriously didn´t work and he slowly realized they were probably lying. Sure enough, when he came back to the chapel the women started asking for other things like perfume and deoderant that they didn´t really need from us-- once he explained everything we started thinking it was strange too. So in the end Pte. Peralta just escorted them out of the chapel and showed them how to find the bus station, but didn´t use any of the district´s money to help them. His theory is that they were actually prostitutes from the capital trying to scam the poor credulous, helpful Mormons. It was a disturbing experience overall. It´s not fun to find your feelings of compassion turn to unease and distrust. Next time we meet people who ask for monetary help from the church I´m going to try to be a little more cautious and pay attention to what the Spirit is telling me.
Celeste and Mario: Today Mario is going to travel to Mercedes to get a copy of the divorce paper. If that goes well Celeste can go sign up for a marriage date at the Civil Register, which means the whole family can have a baptismal date! I am so excited! I´m repenting of my impatience with them. I don´t think I appreciated fully how difficult the changes are that they are making and how much they have progressed. They are so excited to be able to finally be baptized-- I can´t wait either!
Other stuff: We had 6 investigators in sacrament meeting. Not quite as good as we hoped, but not bad either. Mario came for the first time in two weeks (because of the situation with not being able to leave the house alone), which I think was really good for him. Edward came too, so he now has enough attendance to be able to get baptized (3 times in sacrament meeting is required). My most recent convert, Alex, showed up too after a couple weeks of missing church, wearing his own white shirt and a tie borrowed from the branch president. I was so proud! I love to see my converts and less active members in sacrament meeting.
Also, this week I will pass my six month mark in the mission. I can´t believe it. It´s going so fast. I´m determined to use the time I have left as fully as I can to become the person God wants me to be, learn a deeper love for others, and help as many people as possible. A year should seem like a long time, but I have a feeling it is going to feel too short by the time I am done. The transfer ends next Monday and president has already told me I am being transferred--eek! The other hermanas predict I will be Hermana Tucker´s aunt (second companion). That would be a lot of responsibility, but fun. I am excited and scared to see where I will go and sad to leave Luján. I´ve really loved it here.
One last thing: I got LOADS of letters on Tuesday: two from Grandma, one from Sammy Smith, one from Michelle (I can´t believe she is pregnant!), one from Brandon, and one from each of you. ¡Qué suerte! I was very pleased. AND I got a Christmas package in the mail from Mark and Barbara Nielsen. It was great! What they sent was perfect! They sent post it notes, which I really needed (to write notes to investigators who aren´t home when we pass by) but had run out of, hot cocoa mix (yum!), reeses cups (which Hermana Lewis and I very much enjoyed devouring this week) and some other useful stuff. Can you tell them thank you for me? They are amazing!
Thanks for your wonderful letters. I love reading them and finding out what is going on at home and what you are thinking about. I love you and I miss you!
Love,
Ellis
Monday, January 3, 2011
A New Year, and Praying for Angel
Here are the highlights of this week:
On Tuesday we had interviews with President Benton during district meeting. He said some nice things to me and we talked about how I could improve. He said all three of my companions have been impressed with me and said that I´m doing unusually well for being as new as I am in the mission. He helped me set goals to use my time more effectively, which was helpful. Oh, and Dad, he wanted me to pass on a message to you. He said “Tell your father that despite being a reprobate lawyer, he has raised an excellent child.” I hope he can get away with that because he´s a lawyer too—a “ladron legal” as he likes to say. President Benton also mentioned that Hermana Lewis and I only had 2 investigators in sacrament meeting last week—unusually low for Luján. He told me to figure out what helped us have more investigators before and to do that again. Yikes!
New Year´s eve was on Friday. We went to Open Door after lunch as usual and took Paula. We´ve been having a lot of success in Open Door recently (more details to come), and I think it´s because of Paula´s help. Every lesson we teach there is a lesson with member, which really helps the investigators progress. We had a good lesson with a new investigator named Vilma. She seemed pretty interested in coming to church! We also taught Susana, a single mom I found my first week in the mission. We´ve been teaching her every week for the last couple weeks because her work schedule changed again so she could meet with us. I really like Susana. She is very friendly and cheerful. She´s started telling her friends at work that she´s mormon and she says she´s felt much more at peace since she met us, but she´s not progressing very quickly. We showed her the Joseph Smith movie about the first vision and she promised she would come to church (this is the third week in a row that she said she would come). After we got back to the pench (pension, aka apartment) Hermana Lewis and I stayed up late talking. When midnight came, all our neighbors lit off fireworks, even more than on Christmas Eve. We watched from the window. It sounded like a war zone—explosion after explosion. Some of the fireworks were pretty spectacular. I was so happy and content. One more exciting year of life is ahead of me and I get to spend it all in Argentina being a missionary! What could be better?
On Saturday we were busy making a final push to invite investigators to sacrament meeting. As usual we ate lunch with the district president, Eduardo Peralta, and his wife, Marina. Marina´s brothers and sisters and their children (all church members) were visiting, so we ate lunch all together. Marina´s family, especially Eduardo and his brothers in law, were joking and laughing and teasing and talking about church stuff just like our extended family does. I felt almost like I was at one of our family reunions. I´ve never felt so completely at home since coming to Argentina.
But my favorite experience of the week ended up being finding a man named Julio. He was working in his yard and I contacted him and started explaining a little about the church. Hermana Lewis and I shared some of Lesson 1 (prophets and the Restoration) with him, then asked if we could say a quick prayer with him before leaving. It was a completely normal contacting situation until I asked him if there was anything we wanted to ask God for, anything that he especially needed. Hermana Lopez taught me to ask that to contacts and I almost always do it. Most people say “salud”, ie health. Some people want to ask for work. But Julio said- “Just a minute, I´ll show you.” He disappeared inside his house. Hermana Lewis and I exchanged confused looks. When Julio came back, he was holding a small boy in his arms. It was his son Ángel, who had burns on his face from an accident with fireworks on New Year´s. The poor little guy had had his eyebrows singed off and he had a large patch of painfully pink skin around his eye and cheek and more burns on his ear. The burns weren´t serious—I doubt that little Ángel will have any scars—but I was touched by Julio´s concern and love for his son and his faith that our prayer could do something. I remembered the part of the Finding Faith in Christ movie when the father brings his sick child to Jesus to be healed. I felt like, in a smaller, humbler way, I was standing in for the Savior. There in Julio´s front yard I prayed aloud and thanked God for Julio´s faith and I asked that Ángel could recover quickly and not feel pain and that his family could feel the spirit and learn more about the church. It was a special moment. Julio said a very sincere thank you and we told him we would come back on Tuesday. I don´t know if Julio will ever get baptized, but I feel blessed for that opportunity I had to do some small part of what the Savior would have done for Ángel and Julio.
Well, I´m out of time as usual, but let me some up Sunday. IT WAS FANTASTIC! We had 8 investigators in sacrament meeting, which broke Hermana Lewis´s previous record of 7! We brought with us a new investigator couple, Gisela and Hanibal. They are 17 and 19, respectively, and have a 2 year old son named Oscar. They look and act older than they are, but when I remember that they are roughly the ages of Ben and Eliza, it weirds me out. They are really great though—very very creyente (believing? Religious?). And Eduard, an investigator we´d lost contact with because of a bad cell number, showed up on his own! We are going to teach him tonight and we have plans (plans he doesn´t know about yet, hehe) to baptize him this transfer! We were a little disappointed that Susana (from Open Door) and Celeste and Mario´s family didn´t show up, but then Vilma (the other woman from Open Door) walked in just before the opening hymn with her husband and three sons! That´s such a good sign that they showed up as a family! It was a miracle. I was grinning like the Chesire Cat. Success! President Benton will be proud. And, more importantly, 8 very special people are 1 step closer to baptism!
Quick Celeste and Mario update: The registro civil people told them they need to show the paper from Mario´s divorce with his first wife. Only Celeste and Mario don´t know where it is, so they might have to travel all the way to Junín to look for it at the grandmother´s house where a bunch of their stuff is stored or maybe ask Mario´s “exmujer” (i.e. exwife, but the literal translation is “ex woman”, which not only sounds sexist but makes me think of the x-men. Maybe the “exmujer” looks like Storm?) for her copy to photocopy. With Mario´s work schedule and Celeste and Mario´s fear of the house being robbed if they leave it empty, this could take a very long time. I´m going to have to ask permission to visit for their baptism because I won´t be here next transfer—if they even get baptized by next transfer. I really hope they do. Aaaargh! I need to learn more patience though. I´ve seen a lot of miracles and some very real positive changes in this family. Their lives are honestly a lot a lot (not a typo) better because of what they are learning about the gospel. I can tell Mario in particular is becoming more patient and loving with the kids. They are even reading and praying together as a family—even though they didn´t come to church because Celeste felt sick, they read the Book of Mormon and the Liahona as a family instead and prayed together too. They are so awesome! Considering that becoming a member requires some pretty dramatic lifestyle changes and lots of commitment and involves their ETERNAL SALVATION, three-ish months of investigating is really not that long. I´m going to work on that patience thing and try to have more faith that Mario and Celeste are going to make it to baptism—they have the desire to change, which is the most important thing, and they are feeling the spirit. They´ll get there. If I can just set a baptismal date with them before I leave Luján, I will feel content.
On Tuesday we had interviews with President Benton during district meeting. He said some nice things to me and we talked about how I could improve. He said all three of my companions have been impressed with me and said that I´m doing unusually well for being as new as I am in the mission. He helped me set goals to use my time more effectively, which was helpful. Oh, and Dad, he wanted me to pass on a message to you. He said “Tell your father that despite being a reprobate lawyer, he has raised an excellent child.” I hope he can get away with that because he´s a lawyer too—a “ladron legal” as he likes to say. President Benton also mentioned that Hermana Lewis and I only had 2 investigators in sacrament meeting last week—unusually low for Luján. He told me to figure out what helped us have more investigators before and to do that again. Yikes!
New Year´s eve was on Friday. We went to Open Door after lunch as usual and took Paula. We´ve been having a lot of success in Open Door recently (more details to come), and I think it´s because of Paula´s help. Every lesson we teach there is a lesson with member, which really helps the investigators progress. We had a good lesson with a new investigator named Vilma. She seemed pretty interested in coming to church! We also taught Susana, a single mom I found my first week in the mission. We´ve been teaching her every week for the last couple weeks because her work schedule changed again so she could meet with us. I really like Susana. She is very friendly and cheerful. She´s started telling her friends at work that she´s mormon and she says she´s felt much more at peace since she met us, but she´s not progressing very quickly. We showed her the Joseph Smith movie about the first vision and she promised she would come to church (this is the third week in a row that she said she would come). After we got back to the pench (pension, aka apartment) Hermana Lewis and I stayed up late talking. When midnight came, all our neighbors lit off fireworks, even more than on Christmas Eve. We watched from the window. It sounded like a war zone—explosion after explosion. Some of the fireworks were pretty spectacular. I was so happy and content. One more exciting year of life is ahead of me and I get to spend it all in Argentina being a missionary! What could be better?
On Saturday we were busy making a final push to invite investigators to sacrament meeting. As usual we ate lunch with the district president, Eduardo Peralta, and his wife, Marina. Marina´s brothers and sisters and their children (all church members) were visiting, so we ate lunch all together. Marina´s family, especially Eduardo and his brothers in law, were joking and laughing and teasing and talking about church stuff just like our extended family does. I felt almost like I was at one of our family reunions. I´ve never felt so completely at home since coming to Argentina.
But my favorite experience of the week ended up being finding a man named Julio. He was working in his yard and I contacted him and started explaining a little about the church. Hermana Lewis and I shared some of Lesson 1 (prophets and the Restoration) with him, then asked if we could say a quick prayer with him before leaving. It was a completely normal contacting situation until I asked him if there was anything we wanted to ask God for, anything that he especially needed. Hermana Lopez taught me to ask that to contacts and I almost always do it. Most people say “salud”, ie health. Some people want to ask for work. But Julio said- “Just a minute, I´ll show you.” He disappeared inside his house. Hermana Lewis and I exchanged confused looks. When Julio came back, he was holding a small boy in his arms. It was his son Ángel, who had burns on his face from an accident with fireworks on New Year´s. The poor little guy had had his eyebrows singed off and he had a large patch of painfully pink skin around his eye and cheek and more burns on his ear. The burns weren´t serious—I doubt that little Ángel will have any scars—but I was touched by Julio´s concern and love for his son and his faith that our prayer could do something. I remembered the part of the Finding Faith in Christ movie when the father brings his sick child to Jesus to be healed. I felt like, in a smaller, humbler way, I was standing in for the Savior. There in Julio´s front yard I prayed aloud and thanked God for Julio´s faith and I asked that Ángel could recover quickly and not feel pain and that his family could feel the spirit and learn more about the church. It was a special moment. Julio said a very sincere thank you and we told him we would come back on Tuesday. I don´t know if Julio will ever get baptized, but I feel blessed for that opportunity I had to do some small part of what the Savior would have done for Ángel and Julio.
Well, I´m out of time as usual, but let me some up Sunday. IT WAS FANTASTIC! We had 8 investigators in sacrament meeting, which broke Hermana Lewis´s previous record of 7! We brought with us a new investigator couple, Gisela and Hanibal. They are 17 and 19, respectively, and have a 2 year old son named Oscar. They look and act older than they are, but when I remember that they are roughly the ages of Ben and Eliza, it weirds me out. They are really great though—very very creyente (believing? Religious?). And Eduard, an investigator we´d lost contact with because of a bad cell number, showed up on his own! We are going to teach him tonight and we have plans (plans he doesn´t know about yet, hehe) to baptize him this transfer! We were a little disappointed that Susana (from Open Door) and Celeste and Mario´s family didn´t show up, but then Vilma (the other woman from Open Door) walked in just before the opening hymn with her husband and three sons! That´s such a good sign that they showed up as a family! It was a miracle. I was grinning like the Chesire Cat. Success! President Benton will be proud. And, more importantly, 8 very special people are 1 step closer to baptism!
Quick Celeste and Mario update: The registro civil people told them they need to show the paper from Mario´s divorce with his first wife. Only Celeste and Mario don´t know where it is, so they might have to travel all the way to Junín to look for it at the grandmother´s house where a bunch of their stuff is stored or maybe ask Mario´s “exmujer” (i.e. exwife, but the literal translation is “ex woman”, which not only sounds sexist but makes me think of the x-men. Maybe the “exmujer” looks like Storm?) for her copy to photocopy. With Mario´s work schedule and Celeste and Mario´s fear of the house being robbed if they leave it empty, this could take a very long time. I´m going to have to ask permission to visit for their baptism because I won´t be here next transfer—if they even get baptized by next transfer. I really hope they do. Aaaargh! I need to learn more patience though. I´ve seen a lot of miracles and some very real positive changes in this family. Their lives are honestly a lot a lot (not a typo) better because of what they are learning about the gospel. I can tell Mario in particular is becoming more patient and loving with the kids. They are even reading and praying together as a family—even though they didn´t come to church because Celeste felt sick, they read the Book of Mormon and the Liahona as a family instead and prayed together too. They are so awesome! Considering that becoming a member requires some pretty dramatic lifestyle changes and lots of commitment and involves their ETERNAL SALVATION, three-ish months of investigating is really not that long. I´m going to work on that patience thing and try to have more faith that Mario and Celeste are going to make it to baptism—they have the desire to change, which is the most important thing, and they are feeling the spirit. They´ll get there. If I can just set a baptismal date with them before I leave Luján, I will feel content.
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