Some Fruits of Our Labor

HOLA AMIGOS                                                                                                   

It was another great week in Salto! At the beginning of the week there were some crazyyy winds that knocked out the power for a few days and the town looked exactly like a ghost town that you might see in a movie. It was freaking me out! Apparently, during the power outage there was a little jail break in a nearby town and twenty prisoners escaped to Salto where they hid in the fields. Fortunately, all of them were eventually caught. This event made an exciting start to the week!

This week was probably our best week of missionary work so far! We were able to go out with the two members who were called to help us and “Wow!” it was amazing to see how much of difference their participation made. We were able to teach Francisco with both of them present and it was so great because the three of them are such good friends. They helped us explain to him the steps he needs to take in order to be baptized. Having two of his good friends explain certain things, instead of two missionaries, made a great difference. Francisco knows all of the lessons and he has a great understanding of Church principles, but he really just struggles with attending church. So, it becomes tough for us when we don’t have a ton to teach him. Now it’s just up to him to make the conscious decision about whether or not he wants to be baptized.

Wednesday night was probably the most rewarding day so far here in the mission. We taught Daniel again, along with his wife and kids. Luis accompanied us to this lesson and it went so smoothly. The Plan of Salvation is always a little tough to teach because of the unique vocabulary and the complexity of the whole thing but, with the help of Luis, we were able to explain it clearly for them. Because they are a family with two young kids they loved the eternal family aspect of it all and it seemed like they were engaged during the whole lesson! We connected with them so well and it felt like we were all just a bunch of friends talking and discussing, rather than us two missionaries just lecturing. At the end of the lesson, we felt prompted to extend a baptismal invitation and they accepted!! We explained how we do it differently and they loved the concept. The Spirit was so strong during the lesson too and it was just so great; the best feeling ever for me. Nights and lessons like this one with Daniel and his family always make the long days of not talking to anyone so worth it. I’m so excited to help them start preparing for their baptisms!!

The rest of the week went really well and we found a couple of new people who want to talk to us and they also have families. “Yay” for eternal families! We went back to the “hidden neighborhood” to find an investigator and we got extreme responses from the people we approached while trying to find him. Every other person was either super nice and tried to help us find him or, they wouldn’t even let us get a word out because they knew we are missionaries. I was so confused. This neighborhood is technically the most dangerous one we have in Salto, so walking around in it always makes things more interesting!

We had another big zone meeting this week and it was such a great feeling to see another missionary who has less time than me in the mission! Oh man! I’m not the youngest anymore. What a great feeling that is. I’m still the water boy in the mission, but at least I have a back-up!

This week I really just tried to have as much fun as possible. Even with my poor Spanish, I tried to talk to everyone I could. I probably butchered half of the conversations, but like my momma used to say on the ski hill, “If you´re not falling, You´re not trying!”

As the work is starting to pick up here in Salto, so is the heat! Oh man! There have been a couple of really long hot days here and there is never a way to escape the heat, but we are all good! There were lots of miles covered on the bikes, which is always a good thing and there will be plenty more covered this coming week!

¡LES AMO!

Elder Roderick

P.S. The one-year anniversary of the “Miracle on 17^th”was yesterday. #GORAMS (even though they lost)

A Vacation in Mendoza

Hola Amigos,                                                                                                         

 

Happy Halloween! Argentina doesn’t go crazy for Halloween but there are some stores selling costumes and that good stuff, but nothing like the States!

It was a slow week out here in good ol’ Salto. We spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the glamorous city of Mendoza where I participated in my second training and completed some legal work so I can be an actual Argentine citizen. That’s a frightening thought.! Lucky for me, Elder Fredrick and I were together for all three of these days and we had a blast; three days just chillin’ in the offices and cruising the streets of Mendoza. It is so nice to have a familiar face in the mission with me. It was also so much fun to be with all of my MTC friends once again! Talking about our experiences from the last six weeks was so fun and it got me so excited to see what the future holds for me in the mission field.

Since we took a short little “vacation” to Mendoza, we didn’t have a ton of time with our investigators this week but all of them still want to talk with us, so that’s a good thing! Also, we found two more people who want to listen to us. Yay!! One of them was half drunk, however, so we´ll see what happens. 

Last week in church two of our members were called to be “missionary helpers” and this is such a blessing for us. No one in the Salto ward technically has a calling, so to have two people called to help us is kind of a big deal. Basically, we just need them to try to be friends with our investigators. Salto is a pretty small little town so everyone literally knows everyone. Conversion goes a lot better when an investigator has a friend in the Church because they have someone to go with, instead of us two gringos trying to push them a long! Our helpers actually had some success this week with our man Francisco. They took him to the Stake dance this weekend. However, when Sunday morning rolled around, he was nowhere to be found! I guess we´ll just have to start getting some more Young Women to attend church. They could give our boy some motivation! This is some good progress though! Every week we get just a bit closer.

Being in Mendoza for half of the week with all of my friends really made me look back on the last six weeks. I felt a little bit of de ja vu for when we were all back in that stake center all together on our first day in the mission. That was only six weeks ago, but in those six weeks so much had happened. I realized how much I have learned in such little time! Obviously, I have so much more to learn and I always feel like a little Freshman on the football team, but everything is going smoothly. 

This Sunday I got my first taste of being sick on the mission and it was awful. One good thing about having our meetings in the pench is the ability to be in bed literally seconds after the last “AMEN” is said. I woke up with a migraine and then for lunch I made some pasta with a chicken breast and I’m pretty sure that Argentina doesn’t have the same FDA regulations as the States, so sometimes our food can be a little sketchy! I really don’t know exactly what happened because my comp didn’t get sick and I cooked the chicken all the way through, but I had a long couple of hours with a bad stomach ache.

Argentine chicken: 1

Elder Roderick: 0

We have a number of things already planned for the upcoming week so it should be a busy one! A busy missionary is a happy missionary.  I’m hoping we can get some baptismal dates set! I know it’s going to be a good week!

Scripture of the week 1Samuel 16:7

“But the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as a man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the lord looketh on the heart.”

Elder Roderick

Small in Number but Strong in Spirit

Holaaaaa!                                                                                                      

My first transfer in the field is in the books! What a great six weeks it has been and this week was another great one!

I thought the Ls were over on Monday, but I was wrong. We tried to replace the gas but the two of us gringos don’t know a ton about how to actually do that, so long story short, we ended up breaking a tube that went from the gas tank to the pipe. Dad always taught me “Righty Tighty” and “Lefty Loosey” but apparently that doesn’t work here in the ARG. On Tuesday, we tried to buy a new tube, but the store was closed so we weren’t able to replace it until Wednesday. It was a couple of long, cold days. Of course, the days without gas were the only days that it has rained here. So, it was great timing! It basically rained all of Tuesday and Wednesday and this really slowed us down because everyone lives so far away!

But, on Wednesday, a little miracle happened. We were able to find Daniel, an investigator we have been looking for since I arrived here. We were able to teach him about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. Literally, it was almost a miracle that we found him. He also has a wife and a daughter, so that is really exciting!! We ran into him two more times this weekend (Yes, after not seeing him for a month, we saw him three times in four days.) and he said he is excited to talk to us again. Yay! It feels so gratifying to see some rewards from our weeks of hard work!

The bad news of the week is that our man, Segundo, is going to visit his family in Buenos Aires for twenty days.  That means “Bye Bye” to his baptismal date. 

On Saturday, we attended our first baptism and it was amazing. It really was a great spiritual experience and I'm praying that a baptism can be ours soon too!  The lady who got baptized is a new mother and when we were singing and waiting for the crowd to come back to the chapel, she started to breast feed her baby right on the front row. I guess that’s one way to celebrate being baptized! But, in all seriousness, it was a great ceremony and an awesome spiritual experience.

In Sacrament Meeting this week, we had the opportunity to hear from the Bishop of the larger ward that we are a part of and he said something that really stood out to me. He said, “We had a few members who had the great opportunity to go to the temple!” (We are soooo lucky to have so many temples near us.) Then, the Bishop talked about their experience in the temple and about how strong the Spirit was. While looking at Elder Hyer and me, he said, “We don’t need a congregation of 300 to feel the spirit. Our 15 people in Salto de Las Rosas feel the exact same Spirt as a congregation of 300 in Salt Lake.” This comment really struck me. Of course, I miss the large P1 building with hundreds of people in Sacrament Meeting but the number of people in attendance doesn’t necessarily mean the Spirit is stronger there. Even with only 15 people in Sacrament Meeting each Sunday I’m so lucky to feel the same powerful feeling of the Spirit as I do in P1. Even though we are tiny in number, the strong Spirit will always strengthen us!!

After Sacrament  Meeting, I saw Santiago, who is a 21-year old member, pay his tithing and it was such a cool experience for me. Santiago doesn’t have much at all.  In fact, he has a bad family situation and as I watched him make the sacrifice to pay his tithing, I couldn’t help but think, “WHAT A STUD!” Obviously, paying tithing is a commandment, but it was really cool for me to witness Santiago’s sacrifice. 

With the enormous amounts of rain and our multiple trips downtown, the work was a little slower than we hoped this week, but we are lucky to have some investigators. We still struggle to get people to come to church and partake of the Sacrament, but that will come with time. I swear, each week we get closer and closer to getting more people to come to Sacrament Meeting, but that will happen real soon!!

My favorite scripture of the week is Alma 38:9.

“And now my son, I have told you this that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn of me that there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold he is the life and light of the world. Behold he is the word and truth and righteousness.”

Have a good week!

Elder Roderick