Parque Leloir- Week #88

Earthquake free...


Hey Family!!!
Well, this week has been a pretty good one. Obviously, we have been bombarded by news of the earthquake in Chile. Everybody is talking about it. Everybody…and we were visiting a recent convert when he decided to turn on the news to prove to us that Hawaii was under Tsunami watch, so we saw some footage of that, but it wasn’t that exciting. They looked like normal waves. I didn’t feel any kind of aftershock or anything, too far away. There are a ton of Chilean missionaries in the mission though and so naturally we were worried about their families. President Benton authorized all Chilean missionaries to call home to see if their families were even alive. Most missionaries I have talked to got through and their families are doing well. Elder Rivas is the only Chilean in the zone, but he couldn’t get through. I guess where he lives is where it hit strongest. He finally got a hold of the family last night. Elder Palacios my old companion was talking to me on the phone and told me that his parents didn’t know where his sister was for two days, because cell phones weren’t working and the road to their town was blocked. I guess she went out on a date to another city and was trying to get back but couldn’t for two days. That would be scary. So all in all, we are doing well here as far as natural disasters are concerned.

I don’t know if that old man’s car was a Toyota, Mom. I don’t think it had anything to do with the type of car it was, though. I think he couldn’t brake just because the car looked like it was made in the 20’s. I remember looking down and seeing the street through the holes in the floor of the car. The zone is doing better. We still need to improve in some aspects, but there will always be something to improve, so you can’t be disappointed. Tomorrow is zone conference, so Elder Hinckley and I will be trying to give the most motivating training we can on…companionship study. No, last week’s email was not a joke; we actually have to talk about companionship study for 50 minutes. Haha, no it should be fun. After the zone conference, Elder Hinckley and I have a meeting with the Stake President of Castelar and President Benton to talk about the work in the stake. They are thinking of splitting Parque Leloir into two wards, which would be interesting. Yes I remember growing pains, and I loved that show. I loved even more how Kirk Cameron (troublemaker, Mike Seaver) became some kind of spokesman of Christianity, and Alan Thicke (the responsible dad, Jason Seaver) did commercials for couple only resorts in Vegas or something like that. See Parents? Your children really were influenced by television. Watch less TV kids. Read a book…or write one…do something that requires you to exercise more than your thumb to change the channel. Our baptisms are still on for this weekend! Sebastian and Daniel Esteche will be baptized by their father (recent convert who just got the priesthood yesterday) at 7:30 Saturday night. I love baptisms.

So I did divisions with Elder Klein this week, from my MTC district. It was pretty fun, because we both know how to work, so we could just go out and learn from each other. He is training right now, so Elder Hinckley continued the training of Elder Heims, while Elder Klein and I went to his area Ituzaingó 1. This one lady rejected us hardcore, but we could only laugh and love her for it. We walked up to her to ask her how her day was going, and as always offered our hand for her to shake. “I will not shake your hand.” That is pretty serious. Argentines rarely use “will” or “will not” because their word binds them into a commitment that they might not keep, and they don’t like for their image to be tainted by broken promises. So the fact that she said that she WILL NOT do it, was the first hint that she meant business. We are more used to “I am not going to shake your hand”, or “I don’t want to shake your hand”, or “No.”, all of which seem to be softer ways to reject someone. So Elder Klein naturally asked why she would not shake our hands. What came out of her mouth next was a series of not so nice words and false accusations that we came here to steal everything Argentina has and take it back to the States, leaving the people here homeless and hungry. She capped it off with a fierce, “ANDATE A TU PAIS!” (in essence, “go back to your country”) More Spanish lessons can be learned from this haha. The fact that she was speaking in “Tu” form, implies that she was only speaking to one person, because “Tú” or “Vos” means you singular. So I thought maybe she just didn’t like Elder Klein…hence I tried to contact her…the result was similar. Elder Klein couldn’t stop laughing, after being an appropriate distance from her of course. It was kind of funny, in the sense that it has been a long time since someone has ripped into me like that, and last time it happened I didn’t really understand what was being said. I am going to miss Argentina anyway. Maybe she was just having a bad day. Elder Hinckley and I are having a great time together. I think he might go be AP next transfer because Elder Aceituno is leaving and Elder Hinckley has the perfect time to replace him. We will see though. That is probably it for this week. I realized I have like 3 video cards filled up that I have never sent home, dating back from when I was in the offices with Elder Sabey, so I will send those home I guess. Love you guys!


p.s. forgot to tell you this story this week:

We found our Amulek in the ward, which lead to almost all of the success we had. On Wednesday after lunch we had planned to visit a member we didn't know that well. We knocked on the door of Hermano Juan Juarez. Best decision we ever made. He answered and we asked a little about him to try and get to know him. He lives alone, and has been a widower for 23 years. I think he is about 65 years old. So we "shot the breeze" for a few minutes and then asked if he knew someone around him that would be interested in knowing more about we believe. He said that he had been praying that someone would come visit him, because he had been feeling alone, and then said, "I have lived in the neighborhood for 40 years. I know everybody! I'll change my pants and then come with you." Jackpot! He lead us around for the next couple of hours presenting us to all of his friends and conocidos in the barrio. He was just what we needed to get into some houses that usually we probably wouldn't have gotten into. The best part was that he was just happy to be out of his house and serving the Lord. He started doing contacts, and then would get nervous and tell us to talk to the person. It was really fun, kind of like training again, except our refuerzo was 65 years old. He went out 3 times with us this week, and we were able to find a lot of good people to teach. At first he was really blunt with people, but then would start copying what we said with contacts, so he was learning and applying what he learned really well. The very first person he was just like, "We have the word of the Lord!" Haha, we had to kind of smooth the contact over because of the strange look the lady gave us. It was pretty great.