Sunday, August 27, 2017

"Washing" and a Clothesline

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

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