Dec. 12, 2011   Tartagal  Argentina

Hola! Este semana fue muy bien pero a vezes dificil como todos. 

I don’t think I told you and don’t know if I should but last Sunday morning before church we went to go get someone and we were at the door and talking to her when a drunk guy walked behind us (passing us) and started talking to a couple other drunk guys on a motorcycle and then they parted and the one walking pulled out a pistol and shot it in the air! He was laughing and still drinking the beer in his other hand... it was kinda weird. I wasn’t worried or afraid at all because we have to go out there and visit with these people. Like Proverbs 3:5-6 says - trust in the Lord!

Well the wind and sand storms are just a normal thing here. One hit today just after we got done cooking hamburgers on the grill outside! They were great! It’s nice to eat meat that is not fried!!! That’s how they cook almost everything here. Salad and more veggies are part of our diet now because of the time of year so that’s nice!

This week we had some pretty good experiences with the recent convert Franco and another family who has a friend who is getting ready to be baptized this weekend!

Franco’s uncle is 12 and has a bit of influence coming from all directions. He didn’t come to church again even though Franco went to look for him. The owner of the house he lives in is a good friend of the family and is there alot but she is from the universal church and does some sort of healing in her home certain days of the week. When we went there to go get him one evening he wasn’t there and the lady told us he escaped out the back right when we came cause he doesn’t want to listen to us. But Franco’s mom(non member) said that he does want to listen and that it’s a good path for him to take and seemed a little irritated for what the lady had done. She told us when we left what had happened. She had told Walter (Franco’s uncle) to run out the back cause the Mormons were coming and must have said some other stuff for him to really do it. Anyways we met with him a couple days this week and he is reading with Franco. When Franco went to get him this Sunday morning he wasn’t there so we will see what happened. The great thing was that he understood everything well and was reading and asked us when he could get baptized before we got to that point in the lesson! We told him he had to come to church and he was really excited to go but that’s where we are now.

Belen, who has listened to many missionaries, is 14 and didn’t have the desire or permission before but because of the example of one of the members who is her same age, changed both of those. Her mom is letting her go to church now with no problems and she has a desire to get baptized but she hasn’t been reading much in the Book of Mormon. We read with her a bit and left her with questions to answer in the first chapters. It’s a way for the investigators to apply themselves more to the book and get into it. Also to see if they read. She really liked it and now we have to go back today to see if she read and prayed.

In our studies we have been studying alot on commitment and inviting people to keep commitments like going to church, reading, and praying. We practice different situations and excuses for the commitments. We had to drop alot of the people we were visiting cause of time and because they weren’t progressing for a long time. We keep going back but every couple weeks. 

There is always so much going on in the mission it’s impossible to think about the things outside of the mission. 

I really don’t know where November went and it doesn’t seem like December one bit with this weather here. After it rains the humidity is horrible! But we keep on going!

   

I love you all very much! Les amo muchisimo y espero que todo esta bien!

Tu misionero Alex :)