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