June 14, 2010
hi family!
I'm back on my feet-- on Friday I was finally able to get out and work. On a day of pouring rain-- I was a bit of a zombie, but I think that getting out and working was the only thing that was going to make me better! I felt so dead and out of energy on Thursday that elder Argueta told me he was thinking about not even letting me out on Friday. He said `if you were my brother, I'd have you here in the doghouse another 3 days! ` But it felt good to get out and work-- i missed it! We were so bored. Between long naps and study sessions, we found a chess board and so between those three things, we kept our sanity. But the bronchitis and laryngitis and sinus-itis and all the other itis`s are out. I'm still on the anti-biotic for a couple more days. This week we'll have another fun medical week i think—I'm going to go have a parasite test. I've had the runs for 5 straight weeks and the AP that replaced me has already graduated in Chile as a doctor and said I should go get that test--it costs 100 dollars—I've still got some money left over from buying my robbed stuff back, so I'll just use that. I'll let you know how it goes next week!
So far, Elder Argueta and I have entered in a new house every day we've worked. Its only been 6, but here in this area that is quite the run. We've got 3 fechas that are really solid for this transfer, so that is helping us keep going. 2 of them are getting baptized on the 26th and the other on July 10th. They all have come to church the past 3 weeks, so they are doing very well. The 2 that are getting baptized in 2 weeks are really interesting. its a mom and her 22 year old daughter. Supposedly, the mom has been on the verge of getting baptized 3 times already. She's the one me and elder Argueta found a month ago. They have been overcoming a lot of problems, and it's been really fun to watch them and how the gospel has helped them find peace and calmness as things around them crumble a bit. That's the magic of the message we are sharing!
This area is easily my hardest that I've had so far. I came in with the mentality that it's going to change and become an area where we are teaching a lot. I need to keep that in mind and just have patience with the area-- we have a lot of really really big houses in our area and those houses are not the nicest to be knocking! We have 2 `normal` neighborhoods of normal argentine houses and the rest are huge houses and mansions and cabins and touristy stuff. Those 2 neighborhoods have been knocked for years by missionaries, and they aren't too big. Last night we went out to one of the other `bigger house` neighborhoods to knock. In 2 hours, 11 people opened the door. Of those 11, I think about 3 actually listened to what we said. It was very frustrating- the people don't even listen to us. at one point I threw my arms up in the air and said `what are we doing here if no one is even going to listen to a thing we say!` I felt like we were just wasting time-- just walking and knocking without a chance. I am trying to have faith in this area. Like I said, we've entered in a house each day we've worked, so that's really good. I just want to be able to teach in this area. We taught 10 lessons this past week--elder Argueta went out on divisions on Wednesday for 3 of those-- so 7 in 3 days is not bad historically in this area. But that's the thing-- I don't want to just keep going along with the norm here in pioneros. I don't like hearing that it's a tough area, or that we just don't teach as much here. I know I'm going to be frustrated for a bit, but we'll just keep working hard and get through it. I've asked myself what's more cold-- the weather or the people. Hopefully the weather because its about to get really cold here!
The mundial began. In the states, that's no big deal. But here, its insane. I love it. But we can't watch any of the games, so that makes it interesting to figure out what to do, especially while
Today we are in Esquel-- we are here to do divisions and p-day. It'll be fun. It's hard being a zone leader. It's a fun experience trying to motivate elders with all different kind of levels of commitment and excitement. Some jump right on whatever you say, and others you have to really push. We're trying to figure out how to jumpstart the zone-- we've got 12 fechas as a zone right now. We really need to baptize at least 10 this transfer as a zone, and so we are really trying to get the missionaries to put fechas and accomplish their goals. We are having our own little `mundial` here in Bariloche. Its fun----it's animating the missionaries to achieve their daily goals and get as much done as they can. We'll see how many fechas we can put as a zone this week!
Next Monday we have zone conference. I'm excited to see elder Crandell again. I miss those office elders a lot-- luckily I can call them up and we have to work with them a bit as zone leaders. But it will be good to get the zone together and talk about what we need to do specifically here in Bariloche to have success.
*trunky moment of the week* elder Argueta and I were falling asleep and he slaps his forehead and says `I've got only six months left!` then he paused and said `maybe I shouldn't have said that... you have 10 weeks left!` it took a little while to fall asleep after that!
Have a great week, family! I'm excited for a week of finding and going back to the basics. It's super fun with elder Argueta because this area is super hard, so having a friend already really helps. We have a good time together.
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