Week 48: Living the Alejandro Korn Dream!!

Hey everyone! 
I've only got 2 minutes left so I'll write super fast!! I'm zone leader, I got transferred, I'm in the zone of Longchamps and It's super great! We've got bikes and my companion is from Viña del mar Chile!!! It's super awesome here the ward is super great! I love you all and hope to be able to write more next week, I'm going to through some pictures on real quick! Chau! (my companion told me that I can spell chau with U or O, so we're all good!

-Elder Slack

P.S. I met up with Elder Cordeiro!! He's in our Zone and we went and had another Capilla Abierta on Saturday!! It's raining a ton and there is a ton of mud in our area! The mud gets all stuck in the bikes and everything!

Week 46: So little time, so much to do!

Hello! Hola! I'm back again! Elder Slack, one more week has flown by!

I hope all your worlds are doing well! Mine is great! Missionary life as usual doing all of the things and none of the things. But we keep on chugging here in Villegas!

Well this week has been full of fun! We started off last monday we had our District Activity! I cooked Stroganoff (BRAZIL!!) and we had some great conversations, and at the end we kicked a soccer ball around for like 20 minutes. We were going to do a scavenger hunt for photos, but it started raining! So, we are going to do the scavenger hunt part this week! WHOO!!

Then Tuesday we had our district meeting and fun stuff! It was great! We had some great fun classes and I've got some great ideas for the district meeting this week, it's going to be super awesome!! I'm not a big fan of having meetings where we all sit around for a lot of time people start getting sleepy so I always try to include some sort of game in the teaching, this week I've got planned to teach about baptism! But in a super way! We're going to do a practice baptismal service!! Without water and stuff, and we don't have anyone to baptise, but we are going to practice all of the other things, taking of the photos and the invitations and all that good stuff, to help keep in mind the goal with our investigators is that they can make it to baptism!!

Well, Wednesday and Thursday we had to do 2 intercambios, or I think they call them exchanges in english. They went great! I went with Elder Villegas one day and then the other day I went with Elder Ramos! They both are still being trained, but they are super awesome! I was able to learn a lot from the both of them! They are going to be super great missionaries! Elder Villegas is in our ward here, the ward of Villegas, (Yes his last name is the same as the ward!) And Elder Ramos is here in Ciudad Evita, which is where we live, It's super great!

On Saturday night, we got together 2 familias from our ward, the familia Cortez and the Familia Quiñones and we had a family home evening in the house of Juana and Gustavo! It went super well! We got there at around 7 and we were super stressed out for like half an hour because the other families were already supposed to be there, but they weren't, so we tried calling them and calling them until we called son of the Familia Cortez who could give the phone to his mother and everything was "mas tranquilo" as we say in castellano! (It's like... More chill?) And then when everyone got there we talked about the importance of the small things with a fun activity that my companion did, and then we talked about how we have to trust in God, and we played that one game where you have to fall and have someone catch you and you have to trust in them to not let you fall! Whoo!! It was great!!!!!!

And Rufino! This week, we've got a baptism planned, we need to line up the interview for our investigator Rufino and if he passes Saturday we've got a baptism!!! WHOO! It's going to be great!!! Rufino is a bit older he's got around 50 years. And he's really nice and just likes to know more about God! So, I'll be updating you guys next week how that goes!

Juana and Gustavo are going great, they didn't come to the church yesterday, so that was a bummer, but we went by their house later with a member and we taught them about the sabbath day, and they are super great and excited to go to church this next week. Now we've just got to work with them so that they can start the process of getting married!

As well, Elder Marty and I we are trying to figure out better ways to plan and we are putting all of the less active members and the old investigators on our map to with their house number and we can plan super fast with them on their, so that's great too!

But yeah, that's pretty much a full week, it flew by! This upcoming week we've got transfers AGAIN! What! It went by so fast! So we'll be seeing what happens! But until then we are going to keep working super hard! There are so many things to do, but not a ton of time to do them. So we'll do all that we can and leave the rest to the Lord!

Lot's of love and hugs for everyone! It's been warming up a lot this week, it looks like summer is coming really early, winter is mostly gone. Thanks for all you guys do! 

Chao! 

-Elder Slack

P.S. My companion told me that I've been spelling chao wrong my whole mission, so that's whats up. 

Here are a few photos from the intercambios, where they've got an empty pool outside their pension, and the district activity and fun times with elder marty sneaking the camera around in the area!

Week 45: Sermon on the mount!

Hola everyone!! How's it going! I'm Elder Slack again! Reporting from Argentina! We're living the Villegas dream and hope you guys are all enjoying life!

Well, this week has been pretty interesting to tell the truth, full of adventures, changes, lies, tears, joy, and drunk men!

So... What this week had in store for us was pretty interesting, we started off pretty normal, we've got a hecka ton of appointments and lessons to teach, some of our investigators are progressing and some are not, but it's all good in teachingsville. Juana and Gustavo are doing great, they are going to get a date for their marriage during this month! Whoo! Um, Fidel, we haven't been able to find much, sad face, Rufino is progressing really well, he's got to fix a things before his BAPTISM this SATURDAY!! And yeah, that's pretty much the week in a really really small nutshell!! We had a sweet family home evening on Saturday night with Hermano Quiñones, our ward mission leader, and Juana and Gustavo, where we made up an obstacle course inside their house and we blindfolded them and we taught about the Holy Ghost! WHoo!!

Friday, we got this really important call, we were on our way to our area to start our day of proselyting, when we received a call. I answer, who is it? Well it's the traveling assistants! (I think that's the correct translation) WHOO!! Elder Cortez and Elder Miller! I don't know if you remember Elder Miller, but he's a stud from our high school, I found him here on the first week in the field! And they told us that they were going to be staying with us for a week in our area! WHOO!! We were super stoked! We had a ton of ideas planned to get everything prepped for a super mission week, but then.... Sunday during lunch, they gave us another call and they told us that they weren't going to be able to come to our area because there had been some changes in plans, so we cried on the inside and we moved on. 

And yesterday, we had our own little sermon on the mount! Elder Marty and I, we received a referral from the Hermana Medina here in our ward, she sent us to visit a woman with her family and told us that she was really nice and that her father had died about a month ago. We went looking for the house, when we went to knock, a man with a wine bottle shouted at us from this field, he came over, and told us that the woman we were looking for was on this HILL in the field. We look over and sure enough, we see two people and a child on top of this little tiny HILL! A HILL! HILL!! The first hill that I have seen in all of Argentina! Whoo!! So we marched on over, we talked with them, and the man was slightly drunk, but the woman was really nice, they had an old mattress up on top and we sat down with them and had an interesting chat, the slightly drunk man was convinced that we had to come to his house to eat an asado (the argentine barbeque) and tried the whole time to convince us, but the woman listened really well and was so happy to listen to us and hear our message! It was great! And we taught as the sun was setting from on top of our little mount. Well, we are going to go back to see them on Saturday, we'll see how things turn out!

That's about all for this week, I've put a few Photos, we ate hamburgers for lunch yesterday! We ate asado for lunch the other day, and a few other things from the week! Life is good! I love being a missionary!!! Love you all so much!! We'll see you next week!! Chau!

-Elder Slack

(note from Elder Slack's mom: this was a baptism that Elder Slack and Elder Marty helped at)

Week 44: Say it like it is!

Hello world!! I'm here again! Elder Slack!!! It's been another week already and now is the time to write all of you!!

This week has flown by, it's been jam packed, as ever week is, but I've just got a few things to tell you to sum it all up for you guys!

First things first! This week we had the cumpleaño of Hermana Cortez! (that's birthday for those who don't speak Castellano) WHOO!! Hermana Cortez is a sister here in our ward, she is super amazing, she washes our clothes and always helps us if we need help with anything, and she is super excited all the time and is helping and motivating the ward to keep growing here! And she is super funny and has tons of great stories! But... Anyways, that was this last Tuesday! So, what did we do?? Well we cooked her up a peach cobbler! I don't really know how turned out, we prepared it Monday, and then just cooked it Tuesday but we didn't really finish cooking it before we could bring it over. But we did it! And now all this week the Hermana Cortez has been eating it. But that was super fun, and then that night we went on over to her house really quick to have a little birthday celebration!! Whoo! I'll put a few photos.

All this week, just so you are all informed, it was a ton of Rain rain rain, and then lots of mud, and then more rain, then sun for one day, then rain again and again, then more mud! So, it was................... AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOO!! Haha! It was a pretty great experience! To get to our area, we had to cross from where we live, through a little forest type thing, and right in the middle, when it rains, it makes a mini river. Haha! So we got a little wet this week, but it was awesome!!

And, what I think the highlight of the week was, INTERVIEWS! This week we had interviews with Presidente Calquín! He is so amazing! He taught everyone of us essentially the same thing, it was really different than how Presidente Thurgood did the interviews, but I loved it all the same! He taught us how to open our mouths, how to contact people effectively. Essentially what he taught us is that we need to be Simple and Direct in the things that we say. We are searching for the prepared people, not anyone that wants to hear a quick bible story and that's all, no! We are looking for the people that God has prepared to receive the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ!! And, after the interviews, that's what we have done! When we talk with someone, we tell them how it is! We are representatives of Jesus Christ! And God and Jesus Christ sent us here to talk with you right now! To share with you the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to tell you that there are tons of blessings that God has prepared for you, just waiting for you to grab them! And I know that if you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ that you are going to be Happy! Your life will be filled with Joy, you will know and have a sense of security that you are doing exactly what God wants you to do. Can we pass by your house tomorrow at 4? We say something like that (but in Castellano, obviously) And if the person is prepared by God, they'll say SÍ! All we have to do is remind them of the things and the plan that they already accepted in the premortal life.

Anyways, yesterday talking to people directly, we were able to find 5 new investigators, so I think it's working! Anyways, that's about it for this week, I'll put a few quick photos below, I hope you guys liked my video last week! I love you all!! I hope you know that!! And I hope you can all be as happy someday as I am right now!!!

-Elder Slack

We've got here, all of our shoes and boots trying to dry so that we can use them the next day, after we got drenched walking through the little river! 

And we bought lots of bananas!

And all the mud

And Elder Marty cleaning off his shoes in the sink!

Elder Phillips, Elder Villegas (yes, like that name of our ward and area), Elder Slack (that's me), and Elder Marty