Week 38: El TEMPLO!!

What a week it has been indeed! I've got lots to tell and little time to tell it, so I'm going to try and type really really fast!

This week we started off with a great P-day, we had our actividad de Distrito, (district activity) It was pretty awesome, different than what we had planned, but it was good. We made some great pizzas, and we watched the new disney movie Zootopia, it was way good. I'm not sure if it is out on disc there yet, but the movies here come out of nowhere from the street venders with there illegally copied movies so yeah. It was great though! 

The rest of the week has been filled with a few different things, but first a quick investigator update, 

we're still working with Juana and Gustavo, they are super great we are going to have a family home evening with them tonight, they still need to go to church and get married, but we're seeing good progress with them. 

As well we are working with Pamela still, the miracle from the Capilla abierta, she is sooooo amazing, we taught her about the plan of salvacion this week and the whole time was asking all of the right questions and asking questions that are a lot more complex than the normal investigators that we have here, and she is only 12, so that's pretty amazing! We're hoping that she can be baptized here in July, but her dad still is thinking about giving permission.

As well we are working with this great man and his family, his name is Vicente, it's like Vincent, but in Castellano :P He's super great, he has lot's of desires to know more, he's having a little bit of trouble know with work and everything, but he's super excited to go to church this next week!

As well we are working still with Fidel and with his daughter, he is really great, he is accepting and remembering everything really well, but.... He didn't come to church this last week and it was so sad. But we'll keep working with him!

As well we are working with Agustin and Patricia, we had talked with only Patricia once this last Saturday and she said only she would be able to go to church, be we were just starting the Gospel Principles class and BAM! In walks both of them!! Whoo! It's so great!

Those are the main investigators! It's the best thing to teach the people here and to invite them to come unto Christ. It's the best!!

Outside of that, really quick I've gotta give a shout out to the best dad in the world, I'm not sure when Father's day is in the USA, but it was yesterday here in Argentina! I Love you Dad so much! You are the best!!

As well, we had a Zone Conference this past week, we all went to the temple and we did a session and then we were able to have a good discussion for like 2 hours in this other building really close! It was the second to last time that we are going to see our mission president, he is going to leave this week and the new one comes in. We'll see him and his wife this wednesday. They are so awesome, I have learned so much from them! 

And this morning, we got a surprise visit from the Hermana Thurgood the wife of the president! Her and the secretary of the mission passed on by to do a 5 minute inspection to make sure we are maintaining our apartments really well and everything! It was awesome! And they gave us a kit kat!

Anyways, there's not a lot of time, but I went on 2, I don't know what they are called in english, but inter-cambios in spanish, like a split or something like that. With 2 elders in our district this week! I love learning and serving the Lord! I love you guys!! 

Chau!!

some members gave us some food to eat and the end of the night in our pench, so we ate the four of us!

this is the kit kat

Week 37: President

Hey everyone! Just thought I'd let you know that I'm enjoying a ton being on the mission, it's the best thing in the entire world

This week in my life I've had a few exciting things happen, but overall we've been doing lots of missionary things! Whoo!! I kind of realized as well that I haven't told you anything about our investigators or like how often we teach or anything, so I'll try and fill you in a little bit. 

Right now we've got about 12 different investigators, I'd say the hardest part with working here is that the people don't have a lot of time. It's hard, depending on the person, to find them in their houses, but overall we get to teach a lot.

We been working with this man and his wife, but they are really young so I don't know if you'd say man. But they are living here and they are really amazing. Gabriel has been having problems in the past with drugs and things like that and now he is living together with his girlfriend Laila. They are really awesome, really dedicated to learn and they've got a little boy that's 9 months old. We haven't been able to find them this last week though, so we'll have to see how that all goes.

As well we are working with an old investigator that was investigating the church a few years ago. He's from Paraguay and now he lives here with his family. He's really interested in the church and knows that it is something important for his life. He's got a little bit of a brain problem where he forgets things sometimes, but he's really awesome, his name is Fidel, and he lives with his wife and kids and he's been progressing a lot and he's normally in his house so we can find him pretty easily. He wants to be baptized too!

In another part of the ward we are working with this couple, their names are Gustavo and Juana. They are this amazing couple always working, but we are able to find them at the end of the day. They love hearing about the Gospel and are really talkative. As well their daughter has a little bit of interest as well. They weren't able to come to church yesterday because they had to work, but they are super excited to go this next week, and we are going to pass on by tonight to talk with them some more!!

As well we've been teaching Pamela, this girl that is 12 years old, she is super excited about everything that has to do with the church, she is always reading in the Book of Mormon, she's actually almost finished it now! She came to church yesterday and had a super time being there with the young women and as well the president of the young women is super excited to have another young woman here and is working a lot with her so that she can be all ready for her baptism and be really active in the activities that we have here in the ward!! She's planning on being baptized the 25th or the Saturday that is close to that!

And we've got a few other investigators as well that are pretty new, as well we are working with this other couple, Patricia and Agustin, Patricia is already a member, but less active, we are working with Agustin right now so that we can teach him and so that he can understand better the church and to reactivate Patricia and he can be baptized too.

This week has been great!! 1 Highlight of the week, on Thursday we were able to go visit a few people with our mission president, President Thurgood. We will be changing presidents here in a few weeks so we've got our zone conference this week in the temple and he helped us out teaching with us and teaching us so that we can become better servants of God. It was super great to go and see him teach and everything! He really is an amazing man! We'll be getting a new mission president this month, he's from Chile. I'm super excited to go to the temple this week!!

Elder Cordeiro and I we've been working really hard here. I've been helping him out a lot with his English, he speaks really well already, he took 6 years of English classes in Brazil, and now I'm helping him with his conversations and things like that. And as well, he is in turn teaching me a little bit of Portuguese! It is so cool! I can almost completely understand Portuguese because it is so similar to Spanish, and I can converse pretty well with him as well now. It's pretty great. 

All of this week has been full of fun, my companion and one of the other Elders in my pension got sick this week. On Tuesday we took a quick trip to the hospital and everything. We all crammed into a little tiny car on the way there and back, like a taxi type thing. And spent the day there, they did some tests on my companion and stuff, they said that it could be appendicitis, but after the tests they just said it was something like gastromnoitis, or some weird name like that, essentially he ate some food that was weird or drunk some bad water. But that's what happened, so we spent a day there. But now he's all good and we're working a ton!!

It's been getting pretty cold here as well, I have now determined that I essentially hate the humidity, Argentina is great, but the humidity no! Because when it gets cold.... IT IS COLD!!! We've been bundling up everyday and winter hasn't even arrived yet. The members tell us that this is one of the coldest winters that they have ever had here! They said there are chances of snow!! Whoo!! Haha! But it's all great here in villegas!

I love you all! Have a great week!!!

-Elder Slack

Week 36: Fun in the Mud

Hey hey! How's everyone going! 

It's been another great week in the missionary life of Elder Slack. On a scale of 1-10 I'd have to say it was an 8 of a week. So that's pretty good right! I'll try and sum up some of the most exciting things that happened this week, but overall we'll see how this turns out

Tuesday: We were heading out to teach some amazing people and it was around 6 o'clock, just starting to get dark, we were all geared up in our cold weather clothes. And we just barely get into our area when we look over and see a car stuck in the middle of the mud. We headed on over to help them out. We tried in many different ways to push pull or put rocks underneath to give it some grip, but nothing really seemed to help. Before we finally got it unstuck there had to come... about 9 teenagers passing by to try and push, a little car that couldn't do much and then finally something that is called the Gendarmeria. It's sort of like the police, but like 1step above it's essentially the people's army that they help out with lots of stuff and they had to come in with their huge truck and everything. Pretty sweet, but when all was done, we were a little lot messy, we had to run to the church to teach English classes.

As well, we've been working with our new investigator Pamela, she's this golden investigator who is 12 years old. She knows a ton of things. Came to church yesterday, but when she asked permission from her Dad, he put a few rules. One of which is that she can't get baptized yet. So, we'll be talking with him sometime this week if we can find him. Haha! But all in the time of the lord!

As well, with my new assignment to be District leader, I had to go this week on Thursday to a meeting with all of the district leaders and the president of our mission. It was way good, we were able to talk and I know a little bit better about how I can be a better missionary and leader now as well.I'm super excited to learn lots of new things and help out all of our District. 

Speaking of our District, my companion and I had an opportunity the other day to help out some Elders in our district. They called us up as we were in the middle of our Language study this last Saturday night and they tell us that they ate some bad chicken and one of them has been throwing up all day. They asked us to pick up some peaches because that is recommended to help, or at least the juice in the can, when you are a little sick. After completing that little mission we felt pretty good being able to help other people is always good!!

As well we had stake conference here in our ward this last week! It was amazing! We had this seventy come who was from Chile, and as well all of the people who talked were able to teach some amazing things, and on top of all of that, we had 3 investigators there with us as they were talking. They talked a ton about the importance of the family and shared some great experiences! It was such an amazing conference! As they were talking about the families I thought about my family and as well I realized that all of the people here are our family, Me and my companion have to take care of all of the investigators and help them to grow and become better people! 

It's the best to be a missionary!! I love you all!! Thanks!!

-chau!!