Week 58: Outside the Box

Hello to all of my friends and family!

Another week has just flown by! It's been incredible all of the things we've been able to do and learn! 

On Monday we headed on over to Spegazzini A to spend the week with Elder Martinez and Elder Affleck. We spent the week teaching lots of repentance and almost baptizing some converts. We taught lot's of lessons, and found lot's of people I guess you could say it was a successful week!

On Tuesday we had District meeting, Elder Martinez was our District leader for the week, we've been talking lots about teaching repentance and baptizing converts, so that was a lot of his focus. Elder Lima and I, we gave a little workshop about teaching repentance to the people, we did a practice with the missionaries and we could all learn a little bit better how to put in practice what we always say we should do. Elder Martinez then whipped out a few examples and then for the last 15 minutes we all left the church and we went out looking for people to teach and contact! It was super great being able to put in practice what we had learned right away. Sometimes we finish the District meeting and then we go back to our areas and we eat lunch and then when we finally get back to proselyting we have already forgotten the majority of what we learned. This time instead of waiting  we were able to get right to it and try it out!

On Wednesday Elder Lima and I we had to head on over to Banfield to have our Leadership Counsel with all of the leaders of the mission. We all talked about what we think the mission needs to change, what are the things that we need to make better and what we can do to achieve all of these things! And at the end we had about 35 minutes really quick, we did the same practice that we did with the District leaders, the ETM's were the "leaders" of 4 different teams and we went out and we did proselyting for a short time! One of the new sayings of President and the assistants is "The best way to learn is doing!" Which I think is 100% correct! So we're trying out lot's of new things!

On Thursday, I had to come all the way back to Burzaco, which is super close to Adrogué (where the mission offices are) I came with Elder Martinez so he could do some of his Visa paperwork. So this week I had to do a ton of traveling, but it was good, I had some time to get to know Elder Martinez a little bit better, we talked about how good the changes are that President is doing with the mission, how it's hard when some of the missionaries don't want to accept the changes and we talked about how we're trying to put in practice what President has asked us to do. There are lot's of changes, but change is a great opportunity to learn and to try new things.

This week has been such a great learning week for me, throughout all of the week we've been talking about how we can think outside the box, how we can change, how we can break the old traditions and try different things, just because our forefathers taught us something in a certain way, doesn't mean that we can't try something new! We've been trying lot's of new ways of teaching, lot's of new ways of talking with the people of doing follow-up of planning lot's of different things. And we've been seeing great results. We fought all week long so that we could have a baptism, but then the one girl that was ready to be baptized on Friday she decided to go to her dad's house for the weekend. But this week we're coming in with some new ideas, new plans new everything! It's going to be a great week!

This week we're going to San-Vicente! San-Vicente is right next to Alejandro-Korn! In the Zone of Longchamps!! So I'll get to pass through my old area real quick!! Whoo!! We're super excited for this week!

On Thanksgiving we ordered some empanadas and we ate them in memory of Thanksgiving, but I hope that the rest of you all had a great week! That you enjoyed thanksgiving and that you could eat some pie and enjoy Black Friday! I love you all!! Chau chau!!

-Elder Slack

PS: Here are the photo's from the week!! I forgot to tell you all! We also did a service project on Saturday! We helped a sister in the ward to replace her roof, but right when we finished taking off the old roof it started RAINING! A ton of rain! We all got soaked! And we couldn't even finish putting on the new roof because the electricity went out because the rain got to the electricity box! AHH!! So we through some chapas (as they call them here, it's like metal serrated roofing) on top and covered up the majority of it all. We ate some asado, and the ward decided that we would finish on Monday! Elder Martinez and I we had to go back to the pench to change in the pouring rain so we got just a little wet! haha! But don't worry we got all dry and changed before we went out to work again! That's all Folks!! Until next week!

-Elder Slack

Week 55: A storm is coming Mr. Wayne

HELLO! Hey hey! Welcome back all of you to this weeks news, coming straight from Argentina where you can get all the up's and down's, all of the left's and the right's, and if you even want we can give you the zig-zag's! Coming up right now straight from the life of Elder Slack, don't miss a chance like this to hear directly from me what's been going on!

Well well my friends and family, this last week there have been some mild changes in the mission. We received an email from our mission president this last week, there have been a few changes in the rules! We now have the exclusive opportunity to listen to only music from the Mormon tabernacle choir, or from the church! WOW!! #blessed! Am I right or am I right? As well, a few other changes, in the photos that we take, president has asked the we always look like representatives of Jesus Christ, because we are! So, I guess you will all have to say farewell to the funky faces of Elder Slack because we're just going to be all smiles here :D!! As well, we are not going to be having any more zone activities, we can have 1-2 district activities every transfer, Disney movies, that would be a no, because we are going to be having cleaner and safer and more productive activities from now on!! WHOO!! :D And as well, we can't visit the temple, even with investigators only if we have a convert who goes to receive their endowments or be sealed or if we go with the mission president. A few changes, but we're all good! It's all for the better of all the things! WHOO!!

Anyways, outside of that this week we've been doing a ton of prep for a ward mission activity that we are going to have this week, we're going to put on something that's called a Kermese here, it's like a fair or carnival type thing, but we're going to do it in the church, all of the members are going to invite tons of friends and family and we are hoping that we can help all of the people to get to know the inside of the church, and we are going to relate it to the plan of Salvation. Everyone will be given a certain amount of tickets, they can play all the games they want, and depending on how well they do on the games they will receive a ticket of a different color, at the end of it all the different colors will represent the different prizes that they will receive, the prize will represent the three kingdoms of glory. It's going to be great!!

And!! Just to make this week even better than ever, we had exchanges, you are not going to believe with who! With ELDER CORDEIRO!!! WHOO!! Yup! With my old companion from back in Villegas Elder Cordeiro! It was super great, he's a district leader here in our zone so we got to go on exchanges and be companions again for a day! It was super awesome, we got to remember a few of the fun and crazy things we did back in Villegas and we got to see how much we have both grown and changed!! It was great!!

On Thursday, we had a super Family home evening in the ward, Elder González and I, we put on a little musical show, we put on santa hats and we were able to sing a Christmas hymn for part of the ward. And we planned with those who were there what kinds of activities we can do as a ward to help the other people get to know the church through the Christmas season!!

And, the week's fun doesn't stop there, on Friday we had interviews with our mission president! Presidente Calquín! He's super awesome, I can see that he really loves every one of the missionaries and has lots of desires that we can become even great than we are! And in the same day we received a little bit of training from the assistants to the president, wow, I mean WOW! We did a practice of a whole lesson, it was super great, we learned a ton from what they taught us!!

And, I think I told you last week that we were going to have a baptism, well..... The investigator didn't come to the interview again! NOO!! So close! But we understand, he's 81 years old, what can you expect? We're hoping that this week we can get things together and he can be baptized this weekend. 

Anyways, it's been an incredible week, full of miracles and fun! This week is the last week of the transfer, so probably my last week with Elder González, but I'm still super excited to keep working hard here with my new companion if I get one!! Anyways, until next week, we'll be seeing us!! I'm still in search of a camera, so we'll see what we can find. Anyways! Chau chau!!

-Elder Slack