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 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

Add caption