Week 50 - Versalles 2

This week went really well.

On Saturday we had the baptism of Omar Flores.

The other elders also had a baptism at the same time and a bunch of the ward members came and it was probably the most organized baptismal service I have ever had.

Everything went super smoothly and all we had to do was show up basically.  Omar got baptized by Brother Sanchez, the one who played for Boca and is the Young Men's 1st counselor.  Omar was super happy and his family came too.

On Friday we had our last interviews with President Smith and we had lunch there.  It was really nice and it is kind of weird because President Smith leaves on Friday.  So President Smith was really into giving us pyramids with the goals of the mission and so for this last time he gave us 3D pyramids and every one went nuts.  (I guess you had to be there to understand.)

 On Friday night we go to check up on Omar to make sure everything is good for the baptism and we see that he is missing a huge chunk of his eyebrows.  Turns out he like tried to make himself a gangster and cut a line in his eyebrows but kind of failed.

But anyways it was a good week and today for p-day we got together in the church with the Elders from Versalles 1 and we made a bunch of pancakes.  So that was fun.

Week 49 - Versalles 2

This week went well.

We did divisions Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

We got the baptismal interview done for Omar.  So now he is going to get baptized the 22nd.  It is going to be awesome.

On Sunday morning the lights went out in all of Argentina basically so we had our sacrament meeting in the dark.  It was also raining a ton so that's probably why it went out.  It rained basically the whole week.  But it was a good week and we got soaked everyday, but oh well, as of right now our building still doesn't have electricity and its not because of the power outage it's because our building is stupid.  We are the only ones without power.

But anyways this week will be great because Omar is getting baptized.

Week 48 - Versalles 2

This week went really well.

 On Tuesday we had a ward council where we talked about the new vision of the mission which is super focused on church attendance for the investigators.

On Wednesday we had a zone conference in San Fernando and it went all good.  We talked a lot more about the attendance and how for every investigator we need to find  the "3 Nephites". Someone to pick them up, someone to give them the welcome, and someone to sit with them.  The zone conference was supposedly going to end at 3:00 but ended up finishing at 5:30 of course so that took up all of our day on Wednesday.

On Thursday we took this 15 year old kid we are teaching, Omar, to the mutual activity and then we played soccer with them for 10 minutes and it turns out a member had brought three friends because they all wanted to meet Ruben Sanchez the famous soccer player in our ward who is in the Young Men's Presidency.  But it went really well.  Omar really likes being with the other young men and feels comfortable.

On Friday, we did divisions with the zone leaders and I stayed in Versalles with Elder Manica from Brazil.  So Elder Manica and I contact a lady in the street and she just explodes and starts going off about all the problems our church has and Elder Manica is trying to respond politely and then she starts talking about how we dress and says that women aren't allowed to wear pants and then finally I lose my patience and say to her "fine, you go to church in pants and I will go in a dress on Sunday. See you there."  Well she didn't end up coming to church but oh well.

That Friday we taught a first lesson to this 21 year old dude Juan who is super good and had a ton of good questions.

 On Saturday we walked a ton but we had a really freaking weird lunch.  It turns out that the woman who we were eating with had married the man who used to be her step-dad so that was really hard for me to get my head around. Like I said before Omar is really excited and we have his baptism scheduled  for the 22nd of this month so that will be awesome.

Week 47 - Versalles 2

On Tuesday this week there were transfers and I am staying in Versailles 2 with a new companion named Elder Meza.  He is from Salta Argentina and he is kind of crazy but he's a really good missionary.  He's got 15 months in the mission.  He kind of reminds me of Donkey from Shrek because he always has a bunch of energy.

I am still the district leader and now instead of having 2 other companionships in my district there are now four other companionships in my district.  We had a leadership meeting on Friday in the mission home and basically we are making our main focus church attendance.  And now every companionship has the goals of committing at lest 20 people to come to church so that at least 10 of those people come.  The goal is to have 6 people in the church at least.

So anyways our investigators are kind of not progressing so this week we need to find a bunch of new ones.  We had a kid who was gonna get baptized this Saturday but didn't show up to church yesterday so now we will have to see.

Honestly it is just super hard in this area to have lessons with people and to get members to accompany us because everyone works way too much.  President Nelson is coming on August 28 and supposedly we are all gonna go to a big event in some soccer stadium but we will see in the future.

Tanner

Some other info from chat with family:

His companion has 13 brothers and sisters.  He is a convert.  Only he and one of his brother's joined the church.  He works really hard and he's funny.

There are 2 sets of elders and 2 of sisters and Tanner and his comp in his district. 4 americans, 3 brazilians, 1 chilean, 1 argentine, and, 1 bolivian.  Non of the sisters are cute.  On of them, Elder Ruston likes to play basketball.

He seemed to be doing really well.  He was super excited for his new comp.  His last one didn't really like to work as you can see from his letter last week that he was sick 3 times last week.