Week 74: HEY! I feel like I've been here before...

Heeeeeeellllloooooo!!!!

It's been another incredible week here in Argentina! I'm still loveing it here in the mission and!!!!!:...... We have a transfer!!!!! WHOO!! Haha! Last night I slept my last night on an air mattress because today I'm going to have an area again!! Yay!!! And I know my area probably sounds familiar because it might be... I'm going to Villa-Celina!!!!! (Or sometimes known in the mission as Villa Zion. Villa (pronunciation: Vee-sha Se-lee-na) means like ghetto.) WHOOO!!! Villa-Celina is the area where we went where there are a ton of people from Bolivia and Peru! It's going to be great! I'm super excited, and I'm going to be Zone Leader.

Last transfer we went there the first week of the transfer, we were there with Elder Jones and Elder Hernandez. I'm going to be on the other side of the ward, with Elder Gonzáles who is from Bolivia! It's going to be a super awesome transfer I'm super stoked. We are going to work a ton to be able to help the zone grow and to be able to help the ward grow a ton! We're going to work work work, and that's not all because then we are going to work some more! After being an ETM (traveling missionary) for 3 transfers I'm pretty thirsty to help tons of people repent and be baptized! AHH!!! WHOOO!!! Haha!

Anyway's, other than the transfer it's been a super great week here. We were in Villa-Fiorito this week. And I was with Elder Ribeiro again! yay! (but now he uses his moms last name instead of his dad, so he's Elder Branco) He was my second companion here in the mission and I trained him! He's progressed a ton, and he's still working super great as a missionary. It was awesome to be able to work with him this last week. 

In the ward on Saturday there were 4 baptisms. But last minute on Saturday, when we had everything planned out super well, there was a problem. I was with Elder Branco (Ribeiro) and the my companion Elder Cedeño and the other Elders, Elder Portugal and Elder Curo (we had a trio of missionaries as well) called us, and they tell us that there isn't water in the church or anywhere near there! AHH!!! So we start trying to change the baptism to do it in another church really close, but they have an activity and they tell we can't do it there! AHH!! So we had to move the baptism to a church super far away, in the stake-center, which was about an hour, hour and a half in bus. We had to run around all day to make sure that the clothes would be all ready, we had to do a quick service project in the morning and we had to run to all of the houses of the investigators who were going to be baptized and then we went with them all the way to the other church, in a ward called Banfield. Anyways. It was super crazy, and there wasn't anyone from the bishopric there so we called the branch president and he said that we could do it. So my companion conducted the meeting and I presided! Whoo! It was short, simple, but sweet! 

It was a great week, but now I'm super excited to be able to work once again in my own area! It's going to be GREAT! Anyway's I love you all! I hope you have a great week!!!

Chau!!

-Elder Slack

Waiting at the bus stop

The baptism that we helped plan and prepare for

Elder Slack is the one in the front

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Week 73: Small Town

Hello starshine! The Earth says Hello!!!

Um... Actually! I say hello to all of you!! HELLO!!! 

YAY! Another great week has past by here in Argentina. I can't believe sometimes how fast the time is flying. It's the last week of the transfer right now, by next week we could have some change, or maybe not! But, we'll just wait and see! 

It's been a pretty awesome week, this week we were in Cañuelas, it is the 3rd farthest area in the mission from everything else. It's a little city in the middle of not a whole lot. But now it's grown a little bigger because a giant, like literally GIANT, oil factory is there. We had a great week! We were with Elder Vergara from Texas and Elder Curtis from Montana! It was super awesome being with them this week! I loved it!!!

Cañuelas is a little bit of a small town kind of place, but it was super fun! A little bit of an interesting experience, the elders there told us that sometimes when the missionaries get called there they feel like they have been banished or something, because it's super far out, but really they were doing really great and it was good to see that they were always really excited as they were working!

We taught this really nice lady this week that they had found 2 weeks ago, her name is Isabel and is about 65 years old, she is super awesome, she always reads in the Book of Mormon and she is super excited to be able to come to church. She can't really walk well because she had a stroke a few years ago. But she was so nice! We taught her about the Word of Wisdom and how God has revealed to the Prophets in these days that we shouldn't drink tea, and right before we had gotten to her house she had prepared herself a tea to drink, when we taught her about that and we asked if we could throw her tea in the sink she was like "Of course! I don't even really like tea that much" Haha!

Also there was a storm this week on Thursday, some of the trees had fallen down or some big branches in some places and stuff like that, when we went to visit Isabel a tree had fallen in her yard and broken her power wire, so she was without electricity, we were able to help her, the 4 or us missionaries, to cut up the tree and move all of the branches that had fallen and then her son came and reconnected the cable! She was so happy! I was so grateful to be able to serve her and help her!

Last night when we got back to Monte Grande, where we stay on Sunday nights, we talked with the elders a little bit and we found out that their neighbors were a little bit angry with them for a few of the things that they and we had done, careless things, like forgetting to close the gate a few times, but still we felt bad. I was thinking a lot about that last night, I kept thinking and thinking about what we could do to gain their confidence again. We could buy them a little dessert, or bake them something, we could leave them a little card to say that we were sorry, or we could pass by and ask them what it is that we can do to not annoy them so that we don't keep doing it, lot's of things. We are representatives of Jesus Christ and we hope that we can act in such a way to have the trust of the other people. While I was pondering a little bit about that I realized that it really applies to repentance all of that, when we mess up or do something wrong we should always think like that. I want to be able to recognize what I have done wrong and then think of all of the possible ways to make it right and all of the ideas and things I can do to be able to avoid the problem again! That's what I thought, so that's what I am going to try and do! 

Anyways it was a great week, it's starting to cool down now as fall is coming very slowly. I loved being able to work with the Elders this week and learn and teach with them, they are so awesome! I hope you are all well! I'm loving the mission! It's so great! Until next week! Chau!!

-Elder Slack

P.S. Sorry can't send photos this week, the USB drive doesn't work.

Week 72: "______"

Well, I think this happens almost every week, I get here and I sit down at the computer and my mind just goes completely blank about what happened during the week! Haha! 

It's been another great week here en La Misión Argentina Buenos Aires Sur! It's been pretty awesome! This week we were in the area of González Catán 2B, with Elder Dispirito, from Virginia, and Elder Piñol, from Tucumán, here in Argentina!! It was a pretty awesome experience being able to spend the week with them back here in Catán. Let me just think really quick about the things that we were able to do.....

Oh yeah! I remember now!! Well, this week we were focusing a ton on Repentance and baptism, but as well our President has told us that we need to Flood the World with the Book of Mormon! So! That's what we did! All week we used a ton of books of Mormon to invite the people to come unto Christ. It was interesting to see the looks on peoples faces when we asked them if we could give them a free book, when they were expecting us to pull out a little pamphlet and we would take out this big blue book! haha! Everyone was super surprised, but they normally accepted it as well! 

This week as part of the interviews that President is doing with the missionaries, whilst he interviews some of us, the rest sit and have a chat with the Asistents. It was really interesting this week. They asked us all the question if we could do 1 thing to make the mission better, what would we do? There were lot's of different answers. One of my favorites was that we should sit in silence for at least 15 minutes in our pench everyday, so that we can invite the spirit and have a little bit of time to meditate. We're going to try and start doing that every night. As an ETM, we always have at least 4 elders in the same pench, so there is almost no quiet time! Haha! It's super fun, but we've seen that it would be great too, to have a moment of silence.

The craziest thing I think that happened this week, as we waited to take the bus to go over to the church one afternoon, there was this guy that was pretty drugged up, and he put himself right in the middle of the busy street and started yelling at all of the cars and then he would stand right in front of the buses and make them stop, then he would run and smack the mirror a few times and let it pass. Then after doing that for a few minutes he decided to take a nap right in the middle of the street! Yay! Not good! haha!

Anyways! I love you all! until I see you next week! Here are a few pics!! Chau!!

-Elder Slack

Week 71: Time Management

Hello to all of the world! I love you all!

This week was AWESOME! Just like every week here! It's been a really different week actually though, it was pretty weird. But I liked it, I learned a lot and we got to help lot's of people!

This week we were in Guernica! With the Elders Santos from Brazil! And Elder Kautai, from Texas! They are both really awesome, it was super fun to be able to work with them. We had a blast!

It was a different week, why? Well, I'm not sure. At the beginning of the week we had to help clean the pench of the Elders, because there were a few things that needed a good cleaning, then throughout the week to be able to work in the area we had to travel a lot more than normal to work in the area that we wanted to. Just lot's of little things seemed to eat our time little by little, in the moment it seemed like it was alright, but when you sum up all of the time of the little things it adds up and in the end you end up losing lot's of good proselyting time. We were trying and trying all week to get in some good working day's, but it we had to push up until Wednesday Thursdayish we finally go out working. 

Anyways, no more time, but I love you all! Until next week!!!

-Elder Slack

Elder Kautai and Elder Santos helping with the service project 

Elder Stockton Slack and Elder Santos out proselyting 

The baptism Elder Santos and Elder Kautai had and we helped get ready for