Argentina~week 22

Another great week here in Argentina again. At the end of each week it always seems weird to think that another week already passed.

Monday - After PDay we had a family night activity with a family.

Tuesday - We set goals as a zone to give away one book of mormon every day. We had intercambios that day, and I was with Elder Stevenson. Several people asked if we were brothers or cousins or something because of our similar names. We had several good lessons that day.

Wednesday - We had missionary correlation in the morning. Almost all of our plans got canceled, so we spent some time finding new people to teach.

Thursday - A crazy day. In the morning, the Zone leaders moved into our pension, because theirs lost its contract and need a new one. They will be with us like a month. Then the people that fix the pensions came to fix some things. They decided to cook an asado for us (which is like a bunch of steak), even though we already had a lunch planned. We went to our lunch first and it just happened to be an asado also. So we ate a whole bunch. At the lunch he was telling us a story of elders in his mission that the same thing happened to them.

Friday - About half our lessons got canceled, but we found a whole family to teach.

Saturday - We had a lunch where I cooked pancakes and my companion cooked 'arroz chaufa' a type of peruvian food.

Sunday - We had 2 family night activities with less actives. And we found a new investigator named Claudio.

This morning was zone activity. We made little music videos in groups, and ate pizza.

Anyways it was a good week. We got several new investigators. It's crazy because normally its really hard to get them to pray at the end of the lesson, but with the 2 families we found, they easily accepted to do it.

Anyways, the pictures I attached are: 1. The big Bible and Book of Mormon we made to catch attention when we go to the fair (probably next friday). 2. The meat for the asado. 3. The cups from the movie Minions that we bought at the store for 10 pesos.

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Severtson

Argentina~week 21 -6 months!

Another great week this week. I always forget what happened this week, and what happened other weeks because the time goes so fast here. I can't believe I already have 6 months here.

Last Tuesday we went to pick up the new missionary, Elder Venegas from Chile. That night we had an appointment to teach the Bayona family. I think I mentioned before, the parents are members, got baptized like 15 years ago when they were a young couple, but haven't gone to church since then. Well, we got them coming back to church, they came 3 times to sacrament meeting but came halfway through it every time. And here, sacrament meeting is the last meeting. But anyways, we're praparing their 10 year old son for baptism and they're really excited. We're also preparing his dad to be able to baptize him. Anyways, on Tuesday we arrived at their house a little nervously because on Sunday he told us he's having a problem with his kids and needs our help. When we arrived, he told us that his 2 kids, the 10 year old son, and the daughter, 7 years old that is too shy to talk to us, always fight on who's going to say the prayer, haha. We were worried that it would be something completely different.

Wednesday was great, because now we don't have to work in both areas as a group of 3 missionaries, and were able to work in our area all day. We set lots of plans for the week, and contacted some new people.

Thursday my companion had a meeting since he is district leader. I was in exchanges almost all day. We returned around 6 oclock, and ready to work. We brought a member with us to teach, and the 4 lessons we had planned to teach all fell through.

Friday was pretty good. We had planning in the morning, and after lunch we met with a few people to teach. We have a new investigator who listened to missionaries before, but didn't like it because we have the Book of Mormon. When we explained what it was, and that we believe in the Bible too, they were really excited.

Saturday morning we were able to go to an activity of the Young Men to play soccer, eat pizza, and then share some scriptures. We had a service activity in the afternoon that took way more time than we thought it would.

Sunday after church we had lunch with some members, and watched part of the movie 'The Saratov Approach', when 2 missionaries get kidnapped in Russia. There is a part when someone calls their families and tells about when he was kidnapped in his mission and how he felt. Then he said he served his mission in Argentina. That scared us a little bit... not really but it was funny.

Anyways, this morning we took a bus about an hour to Quilmes to go to Walmart, Jumbo, and look around at some places. It was pretty cool.

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Severtson

Argentina~week 20

Another great week here in Argentina. On Tuesday we traveled to Quilmes, our new mission office to meet our new mission president. He is President Núñez from Chile. He's really cool. He's changed  a few rules also. Now we can play instruments in the pension, meet with our zone every P-Day, and drink Mate (the national drink of Argentina). Also, I heard that he helped organize the video of David Archuleta (Nunca Pensé).

Wednesday we had District Meeting in the morning. Thursday was Argentina´s independance day. The youth organized an activity in the church where they danced, we ate Locro, and then played soccer. Here are some pictures below.

The past few days we've been trying to have more family nights with the members to get the in the habit of doing it. It seems like many people only go to activities in the church and nothing else. We have a family night, and invite other closeby members so everyone can meet other members close by.

Late last night we received the information about the transfers. Everyone was nervous because normally we receive the information Friday or Saturday, and they wouldn't be able to say goodbye to anyone. Hardly anything changed because this transfer was only 2 weeks long because of the mission split. Now I'm with Elder Racchumí in my same area, and Elder Pazmiño, who was in our trio, is going to train. A new missionary comes tomorrow and I hope he is from the United States so I can help him with Spanish. Anyways it's exactly what I thought would happen. haha.

Anyways, the weather here is still the same. It rains a ton, gets muddy and cold. Then it slowly warms up then happens again. It just rained a ton yesterday, so we'll be walking in mud again the next few days.

Anyways have a great week everyone. I'll send a video and a few more pictures in another email.

Agentina~week 19

Another great week this week, especially busy this time, being in a trio and working in both areas. I'm with Elder Pazmiño from Ecuador and Elder Racchumí from Peru. They both have about a year in the mission and are great.

We've been running all over the place, literally, to be able to work in both areas, especially with the baptism. We had the baptism Saturday at 3 (we moved it back a few hours than we planned because of the big game, haha), and it was great. We were a little scared because they arrived 30 minutes late, but all went well. I was able to baptize them both, and confirm them the day after. We had an investigator come with us too. Her name is Melani, she's 16, and we found her while working in the fair. She told us once she didn't have any friends. But she went to the baptism, and then to church sundaymorning, then an activity, and then to the lesson we had with our new converts. It looks like she's good friends with them all now, we didn't realize she lived so close to our new converts. We have a baptismal date set for her now too.

This week was also crazy because since the mission split things were a little unorganized. We didn't get our money for the month until a week late, and a lot of missionaries were barely getting by, but I had enough to be just fine, haha. Luckily we had lunch and dinner almost everyday this week with members. They always give us so much food, and I feel like I probably gained weight haha.

Anyways, the baptism went great. They chose the songs 'come all ye faithful' (it's kinda normal to sing the christmas songs in whatever time of year here, it's kinda weird), 'called to serve', and our conpanionship sang the song about the first vision in the tune of 'come thou fount'.

Anyways, that's all for this week. Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Severtson