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"

Week 38 - Caballitos

This week went super fast. On Tuesday we had our District Meeting, and we all bought a bunch of ice cream and ate it after.  That Tuesday, we were going to have a baptism interview with Jose, but we found out like 2 minutes before that he had smoked, so we had to cancel the interview and the baptism.  On Wednesday, this lady came up to us in the street and starts asking a ton of questions about the church. Then she pauses mid-sentences and looks at me and says “I remember you! You talked to me in that house over there like 20 years ago” and I was like, "well this lady is crazy", but anyway, we teach her a little bit and then plan to come back the next day to see if she read the Book of Mormon we gave her.  As we are leaving the chapel the next day to go and visit her, we see her approaching the chapel with the Book of Mormon in her hand.  She says to us “I’m the twin sister of Graciela. She told me to give you this book back” and then I said to her “but Graciela told us she was an only child.” This lady was even wearing the same clothes as yesterday.  She tried to convince us that she was a different person, but it was really just her.  I said to her that that was the worst lie I had ever heard.  Then she left and a bird pooped on her so that made us laugh.  The rest of the week was pretty normal.  As far as our investigators go, Jose should get baptized this Saturday if he can just freaking not smoke.  Norma will get baptized on the 7th, after General Conference, then will get confirmed on the 14th.  We have another lady, Cristina, that’s progressing pretty well that should get baptized on the 13th.

Tanner

View from the roof of their apartment, downtown BA

View from the roof of their apartment, downtown BA

Elders in the Zone

Making tacos on P-Day

Elder Castillo, the super-nerd

Week 37 - Caballitos

This week went by super fast. On Tuesday we did a super good family home evening with Arleanys and Oscar with another young married couple and it went super well. And we ate a ton of pizza.

Oscar hopefully will get baptized on the 30th, if he can stop smoking. On Wednesday we had another family home evening with Jose the investigator that will get baptized on the 23rd. We met with the Madariaga family who are in the BA temple presidency and they just like waved their hand and said “Jose you will stop smoking “ and Jose was like “Yes I will stop smoking”. Anyway we also had at a ton of food there.

Wednesday night we had another interesting ward council. I wish I had brought some popcorn cause it was pretty entertaining as usual with shots being fired left and right. I don’t know why people complain about ward council. For me it’s pretty entertaining as long as they’re not mad at us.

Thursday we had a huge zone conference in our chapel in Caballito with 4 other zones and it went well and we ate McDonalds for lunch. Then after the zone conference, we had a lesson with Jose in the chapel and Jose really likes to talk about whatever random thing that comes to his mind. So he was telling some crazy story about some bar fight he was in as a younger dude, and then President Smith knocks on the door and asks if he could join us. So I cut Jose’s story off and we had a good lesson even though Jose can’t shut up and listen for 5 seconds. Saturday was pretty busy trying to track down all the people to come to church. Then Sunday was good.

We had an investigator named Norma that showed up thankfully, and she’s like “Yeah, I’m gonna get baptized the 6th. Is that Ok? I already bought a plane ticket for my niece to come in from Tucuman”, and I was like “yeah that's ok”.

Anyways a good week overall and we are super excited for general conference.  Sounds like there’s gonna be a lot of changes.

Tanner

Elder Peterson, Christensen and Smith, from the same district in the Argentine MTC that started on June 28th, 2018

FHE

Baptism of Kati, an investigator that he taught in his first area, Boulogne

Elder ?, before going home

Elder ?, before going home

FHE

Week 36 - Caballitos

This week was pretty normal. The Sisters got taken out of our ward, and we got two more Elders so that is cool, they are Elder Haynie and Elder savage.

This coming week, we are gonna have a baptism of my dude Jose who finally quit smoking, we just got to get him an interview with President Smith, because let's just say he's had an interesting life. But I am still living, with Elder Santos and Reyes and Norton in the same crowded apartment. We hope to find something new, but to be honest now I'm just waiting till I get transferred. We are teaching a guy from Queens, New yYork who has a really thick accent and he's really cool, and Elder Santos is working on his English.

Anyway pretty boring week. Funny thing that happened, Elder Santos almost wet himself when we knocked on a house that had a huge rotweiler dog that almost killed us :)

Elder Christensen

Week 35 - Caballitos

This week was pretty fun, nothing interesting really.

Went on Divisions with the Zone Leaders on Friday and Saturday, and I went with the Peruvian Elder Loarte in my area, and that was pretty fun. On Friday it was Elder Norton's birthday, so we got a ton of pizza and cake, and we ate everything super-fast that night it was fun.

Anyways, a cool thing that happened we have this dude José, who all of his family are already members, and he has been smoking for like his whole life...  So yesterday, he went a whole day without smoking for the first time in 12 years, and he is getting baptized on the 16th of this month, it's gonna be pretty sweet. Then we got another lady named Norma thats getting baptized on the 23rd, but she went to Salta this week, so we talked with the missionaries and had them go get her and take her to church there. So yeah it's been a good week, sorry I'm really distracted this week, and can't write much :)

elder christensen