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 42: I hope you guy read good, beauze zome of theze do't work!

WeII, I'm writimg from zome where here im Argemtima, It'z bee a great week, zorry for the bad writimg, but the Ietterz dom't work, zo I am puttimg other omez for them. I hope that you guyz umderztamd my mezzage!

Zo thiz week haz bee awezome, I am here with EIder Marty, he iz a great ompamiom. We are aIready Iearmimg a tom together! I'II zum up the week for you guyz!

Momday, we got together with my mew ompamiom, EIder Marty, Amd them we bought our food, wrote you guy, made the pemziom zmeII good. (I hab to zubztitute other word zometimez) Amd yeah, it waz pretty great! 

The highightz from the wrezt of the week, we had our diztrit meetimg, amd, that wemt reaIIy weII. I'm ztiII Diztrit Ieader, if I didm't teII you guyz. We taught a tom of perzomaz, amd it waz reaIIy fum! We'be got our imbeztigatorz, Juama amd Guztabo, they habe dizappeared, they were aII ready to go to the reIigiouz houze yezterday, but them they ztopped rezpomdimg to our mezzagez, zo we are goimg to fimd them tomight. 

Thiz iz turmimg out to be a Iitte harder tham I thought, to write, but, we keep goimg... EIder Marty amd I habe beem workimg a bit om our umity, we are pretty differemt, but at the zame time, I thimk it iz goimg to be a great tramzfer! We are ztiII gettimg to kmow the other ztiII, but he iz AWEZOME! 

Thiz week it waz reaIIy reaIIy freezimg! It waz quite the zite! It ztiII hazm't zmowed here, but it pazzed beIow freezimg the other might, zo I am hopimg! Mot mamy of our imbetigatorz ame to the reIgiouz houze thiz week, that waz reaIIy reaIIy zad. But I kmow that we wiII keep workimg!!!!

I am zuper duper exited for thiz week, I'be got a great diztrit meetimg pIammed for tomorrow!! it'z goimg to be amazimg. Thiz week, om thurzday, I wemt to a traimimg with our mew mizziom prezidemt! He iz reaIIy Great!. I'm zuper happy to zerbe with him! Zorry, more iz hard to write, but, I zemd hugz amd heartz to you aII, Mo puedo write amor, im EmgIizh.. With Amor for eberyome!

.EIder ZIak

Photoz of the freezimg amd zome zerbize that we did, amd zome other ztuff.

Week 41: We're the kids from America!

Hey howdy hey! That's me on my yoyo!

Just kidding, but hello everyone! This week has been super and a lot different to tell you the truth. But we've got a lot of things in store for us here in Argentina!!

TRANSFERS!!!!! Well............ My companion is gone! What!? I know, it's so fast, but he is now gone! Elder Cordeiro, and Elder Torricella have both gone, and my new companion is!.... Elder Marty! Yup! That's right! I'm here with Elder Marty right now! Now, who is Elder Marty you might ask? Well, he's pretty legit, he's originally from Puerto Rico, but, when he was 9 he moved to Florida and then to Texas sometime later. So, he also speaks English, so my first half "Yankee" (as they say here) companion! Whoo!! I'm super excited! He's got about 6 months in the mission, which is pretty interesting, why? Because my past 3 companions all got here in the same day to the mission! Haha! It's pretty cool. So now I've got like this inception thing going on, I had the first three months of Elder Ribeiro, then the second three months with Elder Cordeiro, and now I've got Elder Marty who has 6 months! WHOO!!

I'm super excited for this transfer, I've got a feeling that it is going to be great! Now, this week in the life of Elder Slack...

-Well, we've had transfers, that's now said and done! 

-This week I had a new idea to help out the district to talk with more people and to work really hard the last week. We had a competition, against ourselves! We all sat down and said that we would do 300 ALB's this week, ALB means Abrir La Boca, which is Open the Mouth. So we determined that if we, as a district, could do 300 alb's all together we would buy ICE-CREAM!! So... We worked a full all week and at the end of it all, the last day we were working down to the last minute Friday Night and we had to do 33 ALB's, and We pounded them out all day and finally finished at around 8'oclock at night! Whoo! And then we ate ice cream! So that was super awesome!

This week as well, we've got our super investigators going right now, like I've said before their names are Juana and Gustavo, WOW! They are amazing!! They came to church yesterday and they are working to be able to live the word of wisdom and they are just having huge progress! It's the best thing in the world to see the progress of our investigators!!! I'm super excited!! We'll be working with them so that they can be baptized at the end of the transfer, they still have to get married, but we're working on that too. WHOO!

This week has been a crazy week, we've been working a ton, we had to manage all week working in the two area's with Elder Torricella and Elder Cordeiro, they are so amazing the two of them and it was super fun being in a trio for 2 weeks, now it's going to be a little bit more tranquilo here, still super excited to work with Elder Marty. And just to keep the Brazil in me alive, we've got a Brasileiro in our district!

This last week, we had our last district meeting, it was super fun, I gave a little class on the balance of espirituality and energy that we need to have as misioneros. We did 2 little practices, the first I put some smooth music and I shut off the lights and told everyone to listen to the music and try and sleep for about 2 minutes, then they did a practice of a door contact. Then for the second part I put on some up-beat EFY music (of course misionary appropriate) and we did like a mini Zumba/Dance/Excercise class, super fun!! Never thought that I'd see 7 missionaries dancing in the middle of a District meeting, but it was way fun. Then they did a door contact again and we talked about the differences of the 2 different practices that we did. As people, we need a balance in our lives of activeness and energy and as well spiritual experiences, it's something that we all need to be happy!

As well, this week we got up a little bit earlier to go and do some excercises in the church, well, we just played dodgeball, but that was excercise enough. And as well, The fourth of July!! We went over to the church our last P-day and we played some Ping-Pong and dodgeball with the 5 Elders that we've had here in our pench. It was pretty great.

The week as a whole, well, it's been super awesome, I'm super excited to work with Elder Marty and to stay here in the ward of Villegas!!! The members and the people here are so great! I love being a missionary!! Love you all! Until next week!

-Elder Slack