Week 30 - Caballitos

This week has been quite crazy, on Monday night we got the transfer calls. I am now in an area called "Caballitos 2" (Little Horse 2).

I am training a new missionary and we are opening up a new area. So there were already sisters in the ward, and now it will be us and them, so we showed up without knowing anything or anyone. My companion's name is Elder Santos and he is from Natal, Brazil. We get along super well and he's a really funny guy. His Spanish is very good, for being here for 3 weeks in the MTC. But, it's basically just a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese, and I can understand it. He's been teaching me a lot of phrases, but at the same time he has been messing up my Spanish with all the Portuguese words mixed in. He is really funny, he always asks me when we are going to do a "bible bash", with somebody, and I tell him that we don't really do that haha :)

Tuesday I spent the day in the Mission Home when we went to pick up our new companions. I got to see a bunch of Elders that I hadn't seen in a while. Tuesday night we showed up to the pension, and we are sharing it with the Elders from Juncal, in another area called Villa Crespo. It is very, very cramped, and we are very urgently looking for another pension in our area.

Wednesday and Thursday were kind of long because we didn't know anything, or have a map or a clue what was going on so we basically just contacted all day.

Friday, we finally sat down with the sisters and divided the area. We had a District Meeting too and my District Leader is my old Zone Leader from the other area, Elder Dominguez, and we get along really well.

Saturday we finally got some things done, had a couple lessons and found a couple possibilities for new apartments.

Sunday was pretty sweet. First of all, I realized everyone in the ward is rich, because our area is super rich. There are probably 25 returned missionaries in our ward, which is a stark contrast to the 4 that were in the last ward. It reminded me of church back home, a lot of very firm, mature members. There are not a ton of youth, which is different also. Sunday night we got invited to eat dinner with a family, where the Dad is in the Buenos Aires Temple Presidency and we had some really good tacos. Their son who was there, also served his mission in Spokane about 20 years ago, and speaks perfect English, so we got to talk a lot so that was cool.

I am super excited for the potential that this ward has, and I'm sure that many baptisms will be coming.

Elder Christensen

• What is your comps name? (send a pic of him)

Elder Santos

• Is he a greenie?

Yes

• Where is he from?

Natal, Brazil

• What is his family like? (Mom, dad, brothers, sisters)

Older brother on a mission in Brazil, parents are converts for about 25 years

• How long has he been a member of the church?

From birth

• What does he like to do?

Martial arts

• Do you know your new address? We like to look at the area on Google maps

Luis Viale 183, temporarily we are going to move

• Does you apartment have a washer?

i washed by hand today

• Have the members in the new area fed you lunch this week?

yes

Week 29 - Boulogne

This week has gone by super fast. We did divisions twice this week, and I went with the Zone Leaders on Thursday to their area, and then the District Leader on Friday to his area. On Saturday, we had the baptism of a 13-year-old kid named Lautaro. Now the story behind Lautaro is that we were searching for a reference that the Elders from another area had given us. That was like three weeks ago. We went looking for this reference, and the address was a block from the chapel and we were looking for the house, but could never find it. So we go asking all the neighbors in the area if they know the person we were looking for, and everyone says no. Eventually we get to Lautaro's house and talk with his mom Julia. She says she doesnt know who the dude is, but we get to talking and she's mildly interested, so we give her a copy of the Book of Mormon, set up a date to return, and I don't think too much of it. We pass by a couple of days later, and Julia is there with her son Lautaro. We go in focusing on Julia, but it turns out she just likes to talk, and thinks its a novelty that we are Americans. Nevertheless, we extend her a baptismal invitation and she shoots us down in 0.2 seconds. Well, I'm about ready to wrap up the lesson and leave, when Lautaro says in a soft voice, "Can I  get baptized?" We end up going by their house almost everyday for the next 3 weeks, up until his baptism. He got baptized on the 19th, which was his 13th birthday. We have been taking him to his neighbors and friends, and 2 of his neighbors are now getting baptized in two weeks. He lives 2 blocks from the chapel, and we had passed his house 1000s of times and never had talked with him. The Lord provides ways for His children to recieve the gospel (some random guy giving a fake address to other missionaries), we just have to receptive enough to listen.

Tomorrow we have transfers, it's looking like we are going to get two more Elders in this ward, which would mean I stay here, despite already being here for 6 months... I would be sad to leave for sure but 6 months is a long time! I'd probably get a new companion and Elder Haycock would probably get a new companion, and the 4 of us would live in the same house for now.

Elder Christensen

Nobody likes the current President of Argentina, Macri... Grafiti says "Macri to Jail in 2019"

Week 28 - Boulogne

This week has been pretty normal. Time is passing by quite fast. We had a couple of setbacks this week, but we are excited to finally have another baptism in the coming weekend. We had two investigators that had scheduled baptism dates for this coming weekend. One of them, Maria, had her interview with the District Leader, and found out that we had to have an interview with President with her. We scheduled the day for the interview, and she was super excited about it... Then the day of the interview comes and she gets really sick, and has to go to the hospital... She's been in the hospital since then, and that was a week and a half ago. Kati, the other investigator, was super excited too, to get baptized this coming week the 19th, but then I guess she forgot about the Word of Wisdom or something, because when we went to pick her up she was very, very hungover, so now she has to have another interview with the District Leader before she can get baptized.

The bright spot is we have a kid named Lautaro, who is 12 years old, and is super excited to get baptized this Saturday on his birthday. I am going to baptize him and Elder Haycock will confirm him. We have been going by his house everyday for like 3 weeks, so we kind of ran out of stuff to teach him, so we just take him with us and visit all his friends and neighbors. It's been pretty fun with him.

Anyways, something funny that happened this week, we were walking through the Villa on Saturday afternoon, which is like when everybody is out, and a bunch of dudes shouted at us and did the "Heil Hitler" sign thingy, and I was just like, "Thanks, not Germans, but thanks". The Villa is a strange place filled with wonder and mystery.

The mission is going well, the time passes by quite fast. Transfers are this coming week, and Elder Haycock has survived his infancy, so I guess I'm not that bad of a Father! I finished reading the Book of Mormon this past week, and I think reading in Spanish has helped me slow down and appreciate how important it is. The mission is simple, if a person reads the Book of Mormon and prays, they get baptized. Simple as that. I love you guys!

Elder Christensen

Week 27 - Boulogne

Hello everyone, this week we had a great week!

Tuesday we did divisions with the Zone Leaders and we both went to their area, which is called José Leon Suarez, all the missionaries say that it is the ugliest area in the whole mission, and they are right. Very humble, to say the least. I was getting quite a lot of looks walking through there. This one dude came running and sprinting up to us, and I'm like "oh no, we are about to get robbed." But then he just asked me for a picture with him and all his buddies, so that was funny.

Wednesday we had two baptismal interviews to do, so Elder Haycock stayed in our area with Elder Rodriguez, the District Leader and I went with Elder Willie to Villa Adelina, his area. Elder Willie started the mission like 3 weeks ago, and had no idea what we were doing all day. So we walked and contacted a lot, but it was actually really fun, because a funny guy. In the morning we got three calls on their phone from a private number, and each time we answered, all we heard was breathing and no one ever said anything, so we just forgot about it and moved on. Later that day we went to less-active member's house, and he was like, "hey I called you guys three times today", and we realized those were the calls we got.... Then he takes out his phone and holds it in front of us and dramatically goes to our contact and deletes it, and he's like "well there you go, get off my property now!", what a grumpy old guy. Wednesday night we all slept in their apartment, and it was an oven, so I took my mattress and slept outside on their balcony and it was actually pretty nice.

Thursday we had interviews with President in the afternoon, and that took up a lot of time because President is always late!

Sunday, 5 minutes before church, the bishop comes up to me and says, "Hey I forgot to remind you that this less-active lady over there wants you to bless her baby today" and I was like what the heck, why me, and then I blessed the baby, when I got up there i realized I didn't even know how to it in English, let alone in Spanish, so I had the bishop help. The lady told me the baby's name, but I couldn't understand, even after the third time, so I just said it as best I could, so iIguess when that kid gets up to the Pearly White Gates she's gonna have some completely differently pronounced name but oh well, you win some you lose some i guess.

Monday morning, we get a call from Sister Smith the Mission President's Wife, and I'm like,  "Oh crap, what did we do wrong? We never get calls from her?" ...But she invited us to go play basketball with her 16-year-old son in his International High School that supposedly has a super-nice court, so I'll let you know how that goes next week!

Elder Christensen

Christmas Day 2018, Elder Christensen

View of the "Villa"

Elder Haycock and Elder Christensen with the Mangini family

On the streets, trying to get their cell phone to work

Knock-off watch he bought in the streets