Saturday, May 28, 2011

May 23, 2011   Salta Argentina
 
 
Wow! It's so great to hear that things are going well! Hopefully the sun will break through a little more. Don't take it all from me though!  haha!  It has been pretty nice as usual but I take my sweater with me everyday because it gets cold in the evening.
 
This last week was great! We had a baptism and she is pretty set on going on a mission! It's so exciting! She had my companion baptize her and me confirm her.
 
This weekend we have another baptism. They are getting married first though (Friday morning). It's a great feeling to help people make goals to keep the commandments! They have a son who my companion blessed on Sunday who is 4 months old. The dad (he is about 23) has had a pretty colorful background but is so excited to go to church and to prepare to raise his son in a good environment. He just got work and is working 7 days a week from 10pm till 8am. Church starts at nine so he waits at the church till then since his work is somewhat close and he rides his bike. He even wanted us to come over afterwards to teach him a couple small things that we hadn't yet. We will be going over them again cause he was pretty tired but what a guy!  
 
 We have another person getting married the following week and baptized on the 4th but he didn't make it to church the other day and missed his appointment with us... will see what happened because he was our second best investigator! He has read so much and has stuck with us for awhile waiting for the marriage date.
Elder Romney was my companion's companion before I got here and they found him!
Well, I've got to get going. 
 
Love you all very much!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

May 16, 2011   Salta, Argentina

 This week has been a busy one! So, pretty much the same as last week, haha. We eat alot of emenadas here. And this week I had some from a member with guinea pig in them! It was good. I didn't think it was chicken and often times the people tell us that rabbit is chicken when the kids are the table but I didn't think it was rabbit either. It was really good but it's hard to explain. Just another white meat...    The last time I had rabbit, I thought it would have been better if they had de-furred the thing before throwing it in the stew... it was good but I just tried to not look at it... as long as I didn't see the hair it didn't bother me.
It's amazing how many people are missing teeth here... they drink soda from the time they are born till the day they die - mainly because they have to buy the water they drink since out of the sink  isn't the safest. I geuss even more people are missing most of their teeth in Tucuman and Jujuy. They are poorer areas.
This week we have a 27 yr old girl getting baptized who is awesome! She just keeps reading and reading the Book of Mormon and you can really see how it has changed her life! It's such a great feeling. Her family is all over so she lives alone here in Salta and really feels a hole in her life in that area which the gospel/atonement has filled. The ward has been great for her and she has lots of friends already. She is one of two investigators who comes to church at 9 am. Alot of the members don't come till 10 or 11 and that is why the sacrament meeting is at 11 instead of 9 like it is at home.
 
We have another baptism this weekend for a 9 yr old girl whos parents are inactive.
The hard work is paying off and it looks like we should have a few in June too.
 
One family we are teaching is great. We just told the mom (who was still undecided) that we are there to help her out and answer questions and to keep teaching her. She accepted a new baptism date so we are going to continue working with her. We were teaching her husband and we asked her if she wanted to join us (this is when we first started teaching there) and she said yes. She later said that we were always so happy and she wanted to know what it was that we teach because we are happy. We know she felt the spirit at the end of our last leeson so we think that is why she wants us to come back. We are really hoping and praying for this family to follow through. The husband at least will be baptized next month.  
 
Love you all very much!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

May 2, 2011  Salta Argentina
So today was transfer day! I am still in my area - Salta (La Loma - that's the county, I guess, but they are way smaller here. So the wards are divided up by those boundaries which might be on google but I'm not sure).
I am still with my trainer but this is his last transfer in the area for sure because they have recently made it a rule that missionaries can´t be in an area more than 4 transfers(6 months). So that means I will probably stay in this area for at least three transfers maybe 4. I love it here though! I didn't want to go and neither did my trainer because of the baptisms we have lined up. About 7 months before I got here the misionaries were not doing anything in this area. They were going to less actives and spending all day with them. Not the best use of time. Anyways, they left the area. The next missionaries and then my trainer have been working hard here to find people since the others didn't leave them anything. About that time is when I really started praying hard for Heavenly Father to prepare the people and put me with a good trainer. I feel both of those prayers have been answered! We have lost some of our investigators but we have one couple who is getting married the 27th and the other on the 1st of June and both will be baptized after that. We are still working with a girl who has some friends serving missions and decided to go to church once and liked it. She is reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and loves the people at church and even stays late and hangs out with them! She has found family outside of her family which is what she needed because her family, I guess, isn't very close. Makes me feel so blessed to have the family and friends I have!
It has been pretty cold here lately (like 50F). They said it was going to be about 10C though the next few days at least at night. I think the days will be a little warmer.
I saw 2 people and a dog in clothes on a motorcycle the other day! That's a new one! haha
I got asked what my day to day schedule was here.
I wake up at 7. We go play soccer at the church nearby sometimes in the morning which I like but would rather do the regular exercising. Soccer usually takes us into our prep time which goes into our study time. We study for an hour alone and an hour with our companion and  have a half hour for language. We leave by 11am and usually go knocking doors till lunch unless we have an appointment, but that's rare at that time of the day. We go to a member's house at about 1 to 1:30 and leave at 2:30, sometimes later if they didn't have lunch ready. From about 1 till 4 people are eating lunch so its a bad time for knocking doors. Then till about 5, people take naps but there is always someone. We just try to find doors that are open and people are standing inside so we know we will talk to someone, haha. This week we had 11 lessons with members present which is really good! But we had alot more lessons without them too. We had enough appointments this week so we hardly had to go find people. We usually find new people while teaching other lessons because family or friends happen to be there when we go back. At 9:30 we are supposed to be in our apartment unless we are teaching. We seem to always be there at 10 because of appointments. Then we have to be in bed at 11.
With 4 people in the apartment there is alot going on and so the evening planning gets drug out through the whole time till we go to bed. We are trying to do better at this routine.
Anyways, I have to go! Love to you all!
Elder O