Week 81 - Retiro

 This week was super good.  On Tuesday we did divisions with the Elders from Constitucion 2 and I went with Elder Jones who used to live in Spokane until he was 11 so that was fun.  (Tanner also told me when we talked that this Elder Jones now lives in Utah and went to Lone Peak High School and knows Jackson and Hayden Enloe).  On Sunday we had 12 people in church including the Sarzuri family.  Also Veronica and Omar, converts from my first ward in Boulogne came and visited and they are doing really well. (Tanner didn't have his camera with him so he asked this other American couple that happened to be visiting the branch to take a picture of Tanner and his comp and Veronica and this American couple texted the picture to Kirt.) The Sarzuri family has been progressing really well except for the dad.  All the kids went to a primary/youth activity and loved it.  But Ramiro, the dad, is having some troubles stopping drinking and hasn't been present in the last threes lessons.  They are getting married and baptized in a week and a half so that's very worrisome.  Another that we are teaching is a guy name Luis Poca who is 25 and his cousin who is 11.  Luis is super interested and come to church the last two Sundays and is preparing to get baptized on the 8th.  His little cousin Anali is super funny and super intelligent.  She has a question every two seconds and wants to know everything.  On Sunday I was supposed to give a talk in church but the other speakers spoke too long so I was ok with that.  Today for p-day we are gonna go to to a famous restaurant here called Siga la Vaca (Follow the Cow) which supposedly is like a huge meat buffet so that will be good.  It was a really productive week and tonight we get the new transfers so I am probably gonna get sent to another area. 

Week 80 - Retiro

This week we had some very good things happen and some not so good things happen.  The good thing is that the parents from the Sarzuri family did all the paperwork and they are going to get married on the 6th of February and then on the 8th they are with the three oldest children going to get baptized.  We are so excited.  They came to church yesterday even though they had only slept for like three hours because they were visiting a relative.  The whole branch is really excited especially the branch president is going nuts.  Another good thing that happened is that we found a guy named Luis in the street and this dude wanted to go to church.  So he brought his niece and came to church.  We set a baptismal date with him for the 1st of February.  He is super excited.  The bad news of this week is that we were scheduled to have the baptism of Cristofer on Saturday.  When we went to go pick him up we couldn't find him.  And everyone we asked had a different opinion about where he was at.  So we couldn't find him and the baptism got canceled which was really frustrating.  We found him later that night and he gave some lame excuse but basically it came down to the fact that he doesn't know how to express himself so he thought hiding would be better than telling us he wanted to wait a little bit longer before being baptized.  It was a good week and we are going to keep working hard in this last week of the transfer. 

Week 79 - Retiro

 This week was really good.  We have been teaching a lot of really good people. Cristofer an 18 year old is going to get baptized on the 18th.  On Sunday morning we had to go get him to go to church.  When we got there the door was shut and Cristofer was sound asleep.  So his dad and mom were sleeping upstairs and we got them to come down and open the door.  Then we went and woke Cristofer up.  Then we had to make him breakfast and iron his shirt for him.  We were like his mom for a second.  We had the Sarzuri family in church for the second time and they were so excited and loved church.  It was awesome.  The three kids are getting baptized on the 25th and possibly the parents as well if they get married.  On the 8th it was Guachito Gil day. Guachito Gil is a Saint that the people worship here and all the people went  crazy.  On every block there were grills with like 500 braught wursts (otherwise know as bratwursts-that's how he wrote it) on them.  We did divisions three times this week and on last Monday we did a proselyting activity as a zone where we all went to the area of Palermo.  We contacted a ton of people and found some really good people to teach.  This Monday before emailing we played basketball and President Zuniga and the AP's came and we played in la Boca and it was awesome.

Week 78 - Retiro

 

Week 77 - Retiro

 This week was really crazy.  On Tuesday it was Christmas Eve and everyone in the villa was going crazy and drinking a ton and on top of that it was insanely hot out.  It was nice.  We had dinner with a part member family and shared a message then went running back to the pension.  On Christmas morning it was literally a ghost town and nobody was awake.  We did end up having a lesson with Cristofer a kid who is 18.  He is really interested and ended up going to church on Sunday and really liked it.  We had a really fun lunch with the Herrera family on Christmas and then went to the chapel to call our families.  On Tuesday it was another great day.  We found a ton of new people to teach even though it was raining a ton.  On Friday I went to San Cristobal to do a baptismal interview for a guy the elders are teaching that is literally a baptism on a plate that fell from the sky.  This guy was about to join the church in Venezuela but then had to flee here to Argentina so he was really excited and prepared.  On Sunday we had several people in the church.  We are teaching a family that has a 6 year old kids named Emir and to get him to be quiet the other elders used to give him our flip phone which had some games so he would play and be quiet.  So now whenever we go over he always asks for our phone.  On Saturday I told him that when he came to church on Sunday we would let him play on the phone.  Then on Sunday morning they show up like 10 minutes late and Emir burst in and yells at us " Elder can I play the games now?" It was pretty funny.  We also had a dude from Haiti come to church.  I'm pretty sure he didn't understand anything but I think he liked it.  We have really been focusing on working with the members more this week and have been bringing them everywhere we go with us.  We have had great success and both the investigators and members are getting more excited.