Hola!
One
thing I will always remember about Argentina is the number of holidays the
people celebrate. Yesterday they celebrated “Dia del Niño” or “Kid Day.” Apparently, it’s the biggest holiday, after
Christmas, and all of the kids receive tons of presents and there are tons of
parties. Another thing I’ve learned about Argentina is that at every big city
plaza there is a Catholic church on the corner.
The Catholic church and the Argentine government have an agreement to do
this. Legit, there are Catholic churches
everywhere!
To be honest, this week was a long and exhausting one.
Every night when we returned to our pench, I was dead but I’ve learned to love this
feeling. I keep telling my companion
that a mission is two years without sleep. We had a full week of trying to
avoid getting lost and trying to get to know everyone in the ward. We walked a
ton but we made a lot of progress. “Washing”
the area has actually been harder that I thought, but at least we didn’t get
lost.
Well, I took another L this week. Behind our pench we have a nice strip of
grass where I’ve started to do my exercises.
One morning, I was doing some sprints behind our apartment in this strip
and it was about 7:45. The sun wasn’t completely up yet it so, it was still a
little dark. I was running and without
even realizing it, I ran right into the neighbor’s clothesline. Legit! I almost
clotheslined myself! Then, I was slowing
down to see what I just hit, and another clothesline came out of nowhere and nailed
me right in the face again. It cut my mouth pretty bad. To be honest, this was
one of the biggest Ls I’ve taken so far on my mission.
This week as we were getting to know the area we set the
goal as a companionship to talk to as many people as possible, so we talked to
everybody we saw. It was actually really
fun because I put on the act of the “lost gringo” and pretended like I was
totally lost. I approached people to ask them where a street was and then
turned the conversation to the church. One morning we saw a lady sweeping off
her porch so, we went to help her and we talked with her for a while. She was such a nice lady and we set an
appointment to come back and talk to her whole family. We went back later that night and met Roxanne
and Marcelo who told us that they received lessons from the missionaries about
four years ago, but when the missionaries were taken out of the area, they lost
contact with them. As we were getting to know them, they told us about some
recent problems they’ve had and they told us that we had come to them at the perfect
time to help them. As they were telling
what they had been going through in their life, I came to admire their faith. They know God has a plan for them! It’s just
amazing how the Lord puts people in your path and prepares them to hear the
message of the Restoration.
We
are also teaching a young girl named Emily, who happens to be the first person
I’ve met in Argentina with the same name as my Princess Emily. She is the daughter of a less-active family
and she hasn’t been baptized, due to the lack of permission from her dad. Emily
has a grandma who has always been firm in the church and so it’s really nice to
have her grandma join our lessons because she is supportive and guides Emily
along. Our lessons are usually filled with grandkids and the grandma does most
of the teaching, with just a little help from us. I’ve learned to love working with the
less-actives because they always have specific needs and when the missionaries
come over, it’s a great way to get the whole family together.
I love this area of Villa Krause and as I met the members
on Sunday, they gave us a warm welcome and made us feel right at home.
I love you!
Elder Roderick
