Week 79: Trio time!!

Hey everyone! It's been another awesome week here in Villa-Celina! It's been such an incredible and tiring week this week! We were all over the area and the zone and we just did almost everything anyone can do I think, it's been incredibly crazy and awesomely fun!

We started out on Monday with a district activity, we had an "asado" or we grilled a bunch of meat up and played a little bit of soccer! So that was fun! Then on Tuesday we had to do another district meeting training, but this time it went horrible, if I do say so myself. Haha! HORRIBLE! I definitely learned this week the importance of preparation, God will only help us if we do our part and prepare!

The rest of the week as well we were preparing everything possible for the baptisms that we had on Saturday. Oh, I forgot to mention, yes, we are now in a trio companionship. One of the elders from our ward that lived in our pench with us went home for personal reasons and his companion Elder Hernandez will be working with us during this week! Yay! So... We had to prepare everything for the baptism of Junior, one of our investigators, and the baptism of one of the investigators of Elder Hernandez, Ronald! We had one of the interviews on Wednesday, and then we did interviews on Saturday as well and Saturday evening they were baptized!! WHoo!! It was super great and awesome! Junior has been investigating the church for probably 3 or 4 months now, he was going to be baptized the first week I got here, but he wanted to wait some more, even with our pression to get baptized. So, about a month later now, he was baptized!! WHOO!! He's from Peru, and is always excited to learn!!

As well, on Monday night this week we got a call from the assistants, and they told us, "Hey, we have a new goal for the mission, we want to find 1000 new investigators every week!" So... That's a lot!!! They told us that it's about 11 new investigators every week per companionship!! A ton!!  So we talked with the district leaders on Tuesday to see what we could do to achieve this goal and we decided to do something that's called a tormenta blanca, or  a white storm! I don't know if it's the same in english, but essentially all of the missionaries in the zone we all get together and we work in one ward for a few hours, but instead of doing it like normal we changed it a little bit. Instead of just in one ward, we worked in 4 different wards together! We went to every ward in the zone for 2 hours on Friday, it took a little bit of time, but it was great! We tried to find as many new investigators as we could. It didn't work as well as we thought, but! We'll see what we can do this week so that we can make it go better! Whoo!! Haha! 

And yeah! That's about the week for you!

One of the things I realized yesterday while we were in church was how awesome this ward is! There are lot's of people and many are ready and willing to work in the work of the Lord! It's incredible! They always help us with everything we need! I'm super happy here in Villa-Celina, it's been a huge blessing for me to work here and to work with Elder Gonzales. I hope everything goes well for you this week! Have a great one!! We'll be seeing you! Chau!!

´-Elder Slack!

 the middle of our area 

On the edge of our area we found an abandoned bus stop, but it's HUGE!

Week 78:

Hey Hey Hola!

It's been another incredible week here, we were running around teaching a ton and inviting everyone to read the Book of Mormon and to Pray and all that good stuff, it was nice.

We had some exchanges this week, I was with Elder Hall!! YAY! My MTC Companion! Yeah! you know that's what's up, Elder Slack and Elder Hall back in action, teaching repentance in Villa Celina! Whoo! haha! It was super great, and as a plus, in the night time we bought fried rice, which is something that apparrently they eat a ton in peru, next to our pench and we ate it and it was very tasty!! It was way nice!

Also, on Tuesday we had to do a training for a district in our zone, so we did a workshop on Love and unity. Sounds a little weird now that I write it in english, but it's true, love and unity are very important in missionary work! To pracitce our unity, we bought some bungy cords and we bound everyone together in the district and we made them do some activities. The original idea was to bind them together for a day, but we weren't that sure if it would go over very well with the president when he finds out that we make the missionaries do that, and we weren't sure the missionaries would like it either. So we decided for the less drastic version, but it was great!!

This week was holy week, down here in Argentina, there is a ton of preparation for easter and a ton of traditions about holy week. From Thursday to Sunday everyone was on a fish only diet, with bread and noodles and stuff. But it was awesome! I had my first experience of eating fish that has pokey bones! I didn't know why everyone told me that it was going to be pokey until I started eating and I realized that the the fish that I normally eat is not the same as the fish here, but it was awesome!

We were working with a ton of investigators this week, some of who have made us sad because they don't pray or read the book of Mormon, but others, for example Junior, is super ready to be baptized this week!! WHOO!! we're going to have the interview on Wednesday and then he is going to be baptized! WHOO!! 

And on Saturday, we had a really awesome experience! When me companion started his mission, he started in the ward that is right next to ours and that shares the church with us, he contacted an older man more than a year ago, and on Saturday he was baptized!!! And he asked Elder Gonzales to baptize him!! He was so happy! He has diabetes, and only has one leg, so we had to baptize him as a group, so I and one other elder helped out so that he could be baptized! We were all in white, it was so cool. And Afterwards Juan Carlos was so happy, that's his name, because now he knows that he will have the opportunity to see his wife and his son again, who passed away a few years ago! It was great!

Great week! I be happy! I hope you happy too! No time! Chau!! Much Love!

-Elder SlaCK

Week 77: In your dreams!

Hey hey hey!!! Hellos to all of my friends and family! I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Haha! this week has been awesome! 

On Tuesday I went on exchanges with Elder Torres! YAY! i was with Elder Torres before when I was an ETM, he is a super awesome missionary, and has probably become one of my best friends here in the mission! It was great to work with him again! he's from Chile, and just a stud! I learned a ton from him once again, as we were teaching I could see and feel the love that he has for the people here. I realized the what really makes a great missionary. It doesn't really matter if you know how contac really well, or talk really well, or teach really well, what's really important is the person that we are, the person that we become. Who we are is more important than what we do, because who we are will affect 200% what we do and how we do it. The people can feel if we truly love them or not, they will know if we are sincere with our words or not, they will know and we will know. If we want to help them we need to love them.

The other thing I was thinking about this week was how little we truly do in this work, I realized what it means to be truly an "Instrument" in the hands of the Lord, I realized that He is the one that makes the changes that touches the hearts of the people. I kind of understood this before, but I really saw it in action this week as we worked and as I was able to pray sincerely for the well being of the people and know that I can't do much to help them, just invite and pray that God will make the difference for them. 

This week we had a baptism!! Whoo!! her name is Liliana! She is a young Woman and she has been going to church for about 5 months now and was never baptized because there were always problems when the elders tried to have her be baptized. But this week was incredible, she had been interviewed before, but didn't pass because she wasn't sure if the church was true. This week when we asked her if she had prayed about it, she said yes! And that she was now ready to be baptized and had received her answer! She said that she had dreamt that night that she was outside the church and that she heard a voice calling her telling her to come inside, and that was her answer! We were so happy and we went running around the rest of the week to get everything ready! It was great! 

Anyways! I love you all! It's been a great week here, a little bit of rain now as the winter starts to come.

Love,

Elder Slack

A visit to the pants factory

Asado!

Week 76: A week without breath

Heyllo everyone! (yes that's a new word I just invented, combining hey and hello)

It's been a great amazing week here in Villa-Celina! It's been so crazy how fast this week passed by. On Friday we had a Zone Conference and Activity, so that took almost all day. Then Saturday and Sunday we watched General Conference which was super great! 

 

I don't have a ton of time so I'll share some quick highlights. A bunch of investigators came to the conference! It was awesome, on Sunday morning we went running (literally running sometimes) to all of their houses to wake them up and to tell them to go to where the bus was going to take them to the stake center, that was super crazy. But sadly as well a bunch of investigators decided to go do other things on the sabbath day... Sad face. But! We're going to call them to repentance this week so that they can come to church this sunday! 

I loved conference! One of my favourite talks was by Elder Costa (you can read or watch it here), if you saw it you'll know why. And especially because we were sitting right by 2 of our investigators while he gave the talk! Their names are Istanislao and Sabina, (sorry if you can't pronounce them) an older couple, they are so nice and kind and it was there first time coming to church this Sunday!! It was so awesome to hear the talk and to look at them and see how happy they were as they heard him talk about his experience of getting to know and his conversion to the church. I learned a lot from this conference and I'm super excited to be able to apply it now!

The rest of the week was super great, we didn't find to many knew investigators this week so we are going to be focusing on that, but we helped a little bit the investigators that we have that they could progress. But now we just need a little push more so that they can start getting baptized we hope! 

Anyways! Until next week! I love you all!! 

-Elder Slack