Week 61: BAUTISMO!!

Hey Hey Hey!! 

It's been a great week here! This past week we were in the ward Ciudad Evita 2A! We were with Elder Reyes and Elder Ramos! The ward shares a chapel with my old ward Villegas! It's was an incredible week! Full of learning and lots of great experiences. 

First things first, on Saturday we had a few baptisms! It was super fun! Three little brothers that the missionaries had found about 3 weeks ago that they had been teaching, and another woman that they had been teaching for about a month now. It was so great being able to work with them this week and help them prepare for baptism. The woman´s name is Karen, it was really interesting because just this week she was going to be baptized and everything seemed to go super crazy in her family, one of her daughters decided to fight with her and she was super stressed out, but when we passed by and talked with her we were able to help her feel better and she realized that it was like the Elders had told her before, that the devil is going to do everything possible to stop her from being baptized, so it's important that she can be firm and strong! And she made it!!

The other 3 kids, there names are Ismael, Alexis, and Arión. They're brothers, well Alexis and Ismael are brothers and Arión is there cousin I think. They're super awesome these little dudes, 2 of them are 12 years old and the other is 10. We taught them a few times, they had heard about Joseph Smith before from the Elders so when we showed up the second time, they showed us how they had buried a Book of Mormon in their front yard so that they could be modern day Joseph Smith's when they dug it up. I have to admit it was pretty awesome. 

On Saturday in the morning we did an activity in the ward where we brought all of the missionaries from the zone and we did something a little different that's called una Tormenta Amarilla (Yellow Storm). It originated from an activity that they normally do that's called una Tormenta Blanca (White Storm). Where you send lots of missionaries to contact all of the people that they see, more or less. But in the Tormenta Amarilla, we all put on those Mormon Helping Hands shirts/vest things and we went and talked with everyone possible and we knocked on a bunch of doors and we brought brooms and we offered to sweep their sidewalks! It was pretty awesomely fun! And we tried to teach the person while one of the others was sweeping! It was different than how we imagined it, but it worked great!!

It was such a great week, being able to work with the Elders was great, they are both incredible missionaries, I loved getting to know them and I loved learning from them. I could see that both of them love so much the people that they teach, and I loved seeing how they weren't trying to act to be a missionary or anything, I could see it was actually something that they want to be doing, they would talk with us in the pension in the same way that they would talk to the people that they are teaching or that they would contact. It was a great week! I hope all is well with all of you! I'm super excited to be able to skype my family this coming weekend!! I love you all and I hope you enjoy your Christmas's!! Until next week!! Chau!

-Elder Slack

Below are some pics from the Tormenta Amarilla and the kids that were baptized!

And here are some other photos, We also had the christmas ward dinner this week, I loved the costumes that the kids used to dress up, it was pretty funny their play type thing.

And we did 2 services this week, we helped adjust the water tank of a family that was about to fall down, and we helped to dig out some trees and I got a little "boo boo" on my finger. 

 

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!!