Parque Leloir- Week #98

Demon Kidney Stones and I'm a Grandpa !!!!!!!

Hey Family,

Well, I just got back from transfer meeting with my new companion,
Elder Carlton Royce Hinton. He is pretty cool, and my fears of having
an awful companion to end my mission have been put to rest. He has
lived in a few places: Utah, Idaho, California, Indiana…but his
parents are currently back in Lehi, Utah. This is his first transfer
as zone leader, and he goes home one transfer after me, so we are a
pretty old companionship. He went to BYU before the mission as well,
so we were there at the same time. Also, I just love his name.
Anyway, it was a great meeting! I am now officially a “pastor” which
is what we call the missionaries going home. Elder Sabey came in from his area as well because his companion got changed, so it was really fun catching up with him. Today is our last first day of the transfer…TRUNKY!!!!! Anyway, President, during his message had all of us in our last transfer stand up, and exhorted us to give it all we have. We are 16 in our group, and we have 1 AP, 1 Branch President,
10 ZLs, and 4 DLs. So everyone is a leader, and pretty much the whole
face of the mission is going to change when we go home. There hasn’t ever been such a loaded group. The mission is really young right now, too. So President had us stand up, and said that we are the best of the best, and that the mission needs us right now to teach the missionaries and prepare them for leadership positions. I can’t really express it well in writing, but in short it was like an
inspiring war speech. Kind of like in the Lord of the Rings when
Aragorn gives his pep talk to the small army of men about to take on
the orc forces of Mordor, and in essence, all the forces of evil. It
sent chills up my spine. I am a leader in this mission. People are
counting on me to act, and to succeed. I have never really felt the
pressure like that until after the meeting. This is my last transfer
to leave it all on the table, leave it all in the street, and give it
my all for my missionaries and for the Lord. It has definitely
heightened my sense of dependence on the Lord. President really
inspired me to sprint to the finish and work until my last minute in
the field.

So in other news, I also got my flight plans. How do they expect me
to be a focused machine when they throw trunky stuff like that around
in front of my face? So I get into Billings on the 22nd at 12:37 or
something like that. I go from Buenos Aires to Atlanta to Salt Lake
to Billings….fun fun fun. But I guess I will suffer it if I have to.
Obviously the best news I have to give is that my hijo, Elder Latorre,
is training this transfer!!!!! My posterity continues in magnificent
glory!!!! I am a grandpa!!!!! So the Gilmore curse really HAS been
broken, Dad, and I will meet my grandson before I die. That was about it for transfer meeting.

So I already told you the story about Beatrice. For the rest of the
family I will quickly tell what happened. Beatrice was baptized on
Sunday, but not in our chapel. We got to the chapel in the morning
for PEC meeting and Bishop said that there was no water, because the
pipe was cut or something like that…for the record it is hard to have
a baptism without water. So we kind of sit there dumbfounded and ask what we could do. He just looked at us and said, “Call another
building! Tell them to fill the font! We are going to baptize
somebody today!” It was kind of dramatic. So we knew that the
Hermanas in Ituzaingó 4 had baptisms so we called Hna. López and Hna. Hobbs to see if we could crash their service and baptize someone as well. Obviously it was fine, so after sacrament meeting a fleet of members took us all over to the other chapel to perform the baptism and everything turned out great.

The Rojas family came as well, but unfortunately Alicia, the mom, is
crazy…haha. We think she might be possessed, because something is not right with her. In the middle of Sacrament meeting she got up
screaming, “God help me!!!! It hurts!!!!! It hurts!!!!!” over and
over again. Then she started crying, and trying to make her way to
the door. A hermana tried to help her and was supporting her to the
door when all of a sudden she just passed out and hit the floor face
first! It was crazy!!!! I don’t know why I didn’t remember to tell
you on the phone. This was all when the deacons were passing the
water around during the Sacrament. So she obviously gets swarmed by
members wanting to help, but she is out cold! I thought she literally
died. After about 30 seconds she came to and they helped her out
where an ambulance came to check her out. The cause? Elder Hinckley
and I say a demon…the medics said kidney stones. Either way, it was
an interesting experience.

Well, that is all the time I have for this week! Here goes nothing!
6 weeks left…

Elder Gilmore