Week 42 - Versalles 2

This week was good. So I'm in a new area, Versalles 2, which actually shares limits with my old ward Caballito, so it's not super-different. My companion is Elder Hernandez, from Orem, UT he has 7 months in the mission. His parents are from Mexico, so everyone thinks he's from there but he just learned Spanish here in the mission. We had a good week. On Wednesday we had a District Meeting and we ended up leaving the mission on accident because we took the bus on the wrong side of the road. We ended up 1.5 miles from the chapel, so we got there a little late to the meeting.

Easter sunday was very good, the whole mission made a big push to get a ton of people to the meeting. We had a really good Sunday. We are kind of starting over here and trying to find some new investigators. Elder hernandez' last comp finished his mission last transfer and I suspect he wasn't all that focused.... but we have some potential baptisms coming up.

• Did you do anything for Easter?

Nothing special, went to a good lunch and then family home evening

• Do they do Easter egg hunts in BA?

Not that I saw

• Do they do anything interesting to celebrate Easter?

No pretty normal

• Did anyone feed you an Easter dinner?

Yes, we ate a lot of food for lunch and the family home evening too

• Tell me about your companion's family?

Parents both served missions came to the states for college

• What does he like to do?

Really quiet, I think video games


Address is:

Dante 59 Villa Luro,
Buenos Aires

About the District and Zone

I'm the District Leader, Elder Wallace and Vasquez are the Zone Leaders. Wallace is from my group, so I know him pretty-well, and Elder Vasquez was my very first District Leader so I know both of them... The District is 3 companionships and so 4 elders and 2 sisters (Including me and my comp)

Elder Hernandez, from Orem, UT & Elder Christensen

View from Versalles 2

Week 41 - Caballitos

This week was good but pretty boring.  Nothing crazy happened. On Thursday we had to go to the mission office to do a bunch of visa paper work for Elder Santos.  We did see a guy peeing in the middle of the intersection, so that was sick.

As for our investigators, we are going to baptize the kids of a less active family.  The kids remind me of Katie and Garret.  They are 15 and 10 years old and they already know everything and are very smart.  We have been working hard to try and work with the members more to get them to bring us to their friends.

This morning Elder Deyes (?) one of the other elders with whom we are living, finished his mission so we said our goodbyes.  This is the last day of the transfer today so that means that I am probably going to get transferred.  So yeah, pretty good week.  I'll let you know next week what area I'm in.

From Emily:

Tanner and I talked on Google hangouts this week.  He seemed really happy. He said that he was really enjoying his mission and that he was really feeling fluent in speaking Spanish.

He apparently almost pooped his pants this week and it reminded him of the time that he did poop his pants.  He was too embarrassed at the time that it happened to tell us, but I guess it has been long enough so he shared the story with me today.

It was his first Sunday out on the mission.  Remember, he doesn't speak Spanish very well at this time and his comp was from Uruguay, and didn't speak any English.  He said that he had eaten some questionable chicken on Saturday and had had the rumblies all day Saturday, but that he had felt pretty good on Sunday.  But then during sacrament meeting, he really needed to go to the bathroom.  He told his comp that he needed to go to the bathroom, but his comp told him that he couldn't go because the ward always had the new missionaries come up and introduce themselves and bear their testimonies.  So Tanner said he was walking up to the stand and clenching his butt checks as hard as he could.  He didn't remember what he said but he was just glad he made it back to his seat without pooping his pants. He told his comp as soon as sacrament meeting ended that he needed to go to the bathroom, but his comp told him that they had to go and teach the gospel principles class.  Tanner followed him to the class and sat down, but only for about 30 seconds.  He then got up and started running to the bathroom.  Of course the hallways were still full of primary kids who wanted to talk to the new, extremely tall elder.  Tanner got through them and got into the bathroom and before he could get into the stall, pooped his pants.  He said that he went into the stall and just sat there for the rest of Sunday School time thinking "what am I going to do"? He said he finally decided to take off his garments and put his pants back on (luckily they were still clean).  He didn't know what to do with his garments so he decided to put them in the toilet tank.  (Remember he is a 18 year old boy still.) He never went back and got them and free balled it for the rest of the day.  Silly Tanner.  He was so funny telling the story.

Zone Conference

View of the subway tracks

Email from Franco Silio

Updates in Spanish from Franco Silio, member of the Ward Tanner is serving in, about Tanner and the baptism of Franco's father, Jose....


--> Muchas gracias por dejas venir a su hijo a la mision el es un genio
"Many thanks for letting your son come to the mission, he is a genius"

--> Hola que tal ? Si estamos en el mismo barrio  y cuando puedo salgo a caminar con su hijo  su hijo es muy buen misionero y muy buena persona se lo quiere mucho en el barrio y en BA esta todo trankilo por ahora

"Hello, how are you? Yes, we are in the same ward and when I can, I go out and walk with your son, your son is a very good missionary and a very good person, I know they love him a lot in the ward and in Buenos Aires, everything is going well here right now."

--> Hola !! Hoy gracias a el poder de la palabra de su hijo mi padre se pudo bautisar mi papa estuvo 20 años intentando para bautisarse y nunca quiso y hoy su hijo hiso milagros con mi papa gracias por ayudarlo a que venga a una misión!!!

"Hello! Today, thanks to the power of the word from your son, my father was able to be baptized, it was 20 years of trying to get him baptized, and he never wanted to, and today your son worked miracles with my dad, thanks for helping him that he could come on a mission!"

Franco Silio, Elder Christensen, Elder Santos

Elder Santos, Jose Silio, Elder Christensen

Week 40 - Caballitos

This week was pretty normal. We had our District Meeting on Wednesday, then we had interviews with the Mission President on Thursday.  Friday, a lady in our ward made us "sopa de mani" (peanut soup) and we helped her out and it was super good. Then after that I went out with Elder Savage?? (can’t read his handwriting) on divisions which went pretty normal.  Saturday was conference and it was good. Sunday was good too.  I really liked the talk from Elder Juan Pablo Villar. I think that was his name.  The one where his brother took him out all day on the mission.  I also liked Elder David A. Bednar’s talk but I found it really hard to focus on  the talk because another elder had told me earlier that Elder Bednar uses a toupee and that he’s actually bald so that threw me off.  But the conference was really great.  I learned a lot and really enjoyed listening to the Prophet speak.  I was also super surprised to hear Moses Lake will get a temple. But anyways that’s my boring week.

Week 39 - Caballitos

Pretty crazy week.  On Monday night we had a lesson with Jose the investigator that smokes.  He was watching his grandkids and couldn’t leave them alone.  So we say to him, bring your grandkids.  They can play while we talk.  So we are talking and they are being rowdy so I say to them “hey be quiet. We are trying to baptize your grandpa.  Take these markers and go to the other room and draw on the whiteboard.” That was my first mistake because these kids are 8 and 6 years old. So we leave them alone and have the lesson for like 30 minutes.  At the end of the lesson we go and get them and they come running.  I didn’t see the room where they were playing, but Elder Santos did.  Jose asks if there was a problem and Elder Santos says no, so Jose and his grandkids leave.  Then Elder Santos is like “Elder, there’s a huge problem” and we go into the room where they were playing and these 2 kids had drawn all over the walls with the markers. I almost had a heart attack.  So we spent the rest of the night scrubbing the walls trying to get the marker off and it kind of came off, but oh well.

Tuesday in our district meeting Elder Savage made pancakes. Then after I went w Elder Loarte the Zone Leader for divisions.  At the end of the day we played soccer in the church with a ton of investigators who were Peruvians.  So it was me and 15 other Peruvians, but I actually scored 2-3 goals so I felt cool.  Oh Thursday we had the interview for Jose’s baptism with President Feduska, who is President Smith’s councilor.  So it went well but President Feduska told us he had to talk with President Smith to see if Jose could get baptized.  So Thursday night and Friday morning were very stressful but then we found out on Friday that he could get baptized the next day. So we scrambled to get everything organized.

Saturday was a super special day and everything went super smooth with the baptism, which is a first.  All Jose’s family came (all of his kids are members, but only 2 are active). His son Franco baptized him and Jose was so happy. Sunday morning gave me a scare too. We call Jose at 9 to make sure he comes on time to church at 9:30 to get confirmed and he’s like “yeah don’t worry”. So its 9:25 and all his kids show up without him.  So we sprint to his house to find out where he was and then get to the chapel at 9:45. But luckily he was able to get confirmed after the sacrament.  It was a relief and I was so happy.

Very good week.

Baptism of Jose

Baptism of Jose

Scribbling on the walls from the grandkids of Jose

Scribblers

Apartment-mates, on the roof

Stocking up on "Dulce de Leche"