The Joseph Smith Bible

This new area is awesome! The ward is great. The members here work really hard. I love it.

Our main investigators are the Mir´s (their last name is Russian, and they all went nuts when I told them that I have a little sister from Russia). They went to church as a family yesterday for the first time and just loved it. He (the father, Pablo) has been working as a taxi driver for the last 7 years. He has a lot of really crazy stories. If anyone decides to move to Rosario, I recommend not being a taxi driver.

They all are reading the Book of Mormon, and they get along really well with a lot of members  here in our ward. Pablo is a bassist in a heavy metal group, and there (surprisingly) are a lot of members here that like heavy metal. I, personally, am not a fan. We get along well anyway´s though, and they are progressing a lot.

Our ward mission leader was born in Utah, and raised in Las Vegas. He and his wife are capo´s. They have seen big wards in the States, and they know what it takes to have that kind of ward, and are willing to do what is necessary to do to achieve that. They are hard workers.

Yesterday, we were walking in the street, and a car stopped right next to us, and a super buff guy jumped out of his car and started heading towards us. It was 8:30 ish at night. Naturally, I thought he was gonna try to rob us. He reached out his hand towards me, and I thought he was gonna try to punch me. Something miraculous happened though. He said "Do you have a Bible you could give me? You know, a Joseph Smith Bible?" We said "Of course!!" We gave him a "Joseph Smith Bible" (a Book of Mormon), and wrote down his address. We will try to pass by this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend... don´t forget to watch conference!! General Conference here is all afternoon long. From 1-3, 5-7, and 9-11. The times are a little better in the states haha, but, it´s still amazing though, even though it goes a little late.

I really just absolutely love being a missionary. I love being happy and making others feel happy too.

Elder Brown

Moses 1:39

39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Making asado with our Zone Leader´s in Azcuénaga

Milanesa´s with oats instead of bread crumbs

Elder Doolin and I

Alberdi

These last six weeks flew by so fast. I feel like Elder Terrell just barely got to Azcuénaga, and that I too just got there, even though I left Venado Tuerto December 26th. Time really flies.

I actually am no longer in the Azcuénaga ward. I got transferred. I am still in the city of Rosario though. I am now in a ward/ neighborhood called Alberdi. It´s about 5 minutes away from where I was in Azcuénaga. I´ve even got some of the same streets. But, it feels like a totally different world.  The layout is really different. In Azcuénaga, the streets were really orderly and neat. Here, they change direction at random, names change out of nowhere. It kind of reminds me a bit of the states. Here, in Argentina, the streets are normally about 100 meters apart, and are really straight, which forms blocks. A neighborhood is a group of blocks. Subdivisions are really, really rare here. So rare, in fact, that I have only seen one in my whole mission. Normally, the blocks are really perfect and orderly. Here though, like I said, it is totally random, even though I am in one of the richest (and in some places, this poorest) parts of Rosario.

My new comp is Elder Doolin. He´s from Cedar City, Utah, my second comp from Utah.

My last week in Azcuénaga was awesome.  I think I left that area in the best condition out of all my areas. In April, there will be at least 4 baptisms (there are a total of 9 that have accpeted a baptismal date for the month of April, but, 5 of them are kinda iffy).

Lorena and Ulises Guardo. I have spoken of them a few times. They are making a ton of progress, and are pretty excited to get baptized the 8.

Leonel and Mara (Leonel´s aunt) are on fire. They both are reading the Book of Mormon and are praying. They will get baptized the 15th.

Here in Alberdi, we´ve got 5 investigators that have accepted the invitation to be baptized the 29th of April, and Elder Doolin says that we have 4 or 5 more that could get baptized in April too.

Elder Brown

Moroni 7: 33

  33 And Christ hath said: ^aIf ye will have ^bfaith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is ^cexpedient in me.

Twenty

I turned 20 on Wednesday, and I don´t feel any different. Maybe a little heavier, because I ate a lot of junk food this last week. I got spoiled with a cake and with a lot of asado. Unfortunately, I couldn´t take any pictures because of technical difficulties with my camera. Luckily though, a member took a pic with his phone. In the picture you will see that I am with Elder Ostler (a former comp). He is my Zone Leader and he and his comp felt like we needed to go on splits Wednesday. So, Elder Ostler (who, coincidently, or not, was my comp on my last birthday), got to enjoy the cake and the asado.

This last week has been filled with good food and good experiences.

One huge miracle was Leonel. He showed up to church with his friend. His friend is from another city, Baigorria. He however lives close to our church, and that is were his friend brought him. He has been going to institute with some friends (one of which is about to go to Chile for a mission) and they invited him to go to church. He did, and there we met him. He said he loved church and we will visit him on Wednesday.

Elder Brown

Moroni 7:45

  45 And ^acharity suffereth long, and is ^bkind, and ^cenvieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily ^dprovoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

The Godoy's

So something pretty funny happened two weeks ago, and I forgot to tell about it in my email.

Two Monday´s ago, we went to Downtown Rosario cuz my comp had to buy shoes and wanted to see the monument. We went with a guy named Ricardo. Ricardo was born in Rosario, and moved to California when he was 15. He lived there for 30ish years. He moved back 4 years ago and is a friend of every missionary that has lived in our pensh. He is the security guy for our neighborhood (that means he rides his motorcycle around at night to scare away robbers) and knows everyone, but really likes the missionaries. He offered to take us in his car to see the monument when he found out we were gonna go. He knows all about history, and basically gave us a free guided tour.

When we were there in the monument, waiting to go up to the top (it´s 70 meters tall and you can go up in an elevator to the top), and old coulple comes up to us and said, "¿Is... quince... pesos... sufishientay?" Haha they thought that we were Argentines and tried to ask us in spanish if their purchase of 15 pesos was all they had to do to be able to go up. We three busted up laughing and said "Yeah, that ticket that costed 15 pesos was sufficient." The woman said "Oh! You speak English?" "Yes," we said, "we´re from the States." We told them which states we were from, and they said that they were from Wisconsin, and had come down for the winter to escape the cold (down here, it is anything BUT cold right now, so they came to the right place).

When we were up top, Ricardo explained them everything that there was to see (which isn´t much, Rosario borders a river and the province of Entre Ríos, which, just like Santa Fe, where we are, is just pure fields). He told them about the river, the city of Rosario, the inpendence story, why this particular monument was in Rosario etc. He then pointed to a certain spot and said "And over there, you´ve got the tomb of the unkown soldier," and the woman said "Oh yeah that´s right, I saw their names written on the sides."... HAHAHA!! I just about died laughing, I tried so hard not to laugh. Luckily, nothing escaped, because she might have felt bad, but, Elder Terrell and I died laughing later haha.

Anyway´s, we´ve been having lots of success here in Azcuénaga.

I saw Leo Godoy (my most recent convert) the other day, and he is still strong in the church. He baptized his little brother and blesses the sacrament in church. I am really grateful to have been able to help him. I guess I didn´t really do anything anyways, but, it´s still awesome to have been able to help him out. He said he plans to serve a mission when he finishes high school. His high school is a Technical School, kind of like EVIT, where one goes to learn a career and graduates fully capacitated to work. Down here, these types of schools take longer to graduate from, and he will finish high school when his is 21. Kinda strange huh? But, that´s how things are down here. The important thing is that he has these desires to serve the Lord.

We had 6 investigators again. This time, it was differente. Instead of the four little boys from this family that went last week, only two went yesterday. The two that made up for them were Ulises and Lorena. I believe I mentioned them last week. They have progressed quite a bit. All the members looked really excited to see someone who went to the Church Open House in the church services. It was really neat to be able to take them to church. They are awesome.

Remember Lucas Godoy? Probably not, I only mentioned him once I think. He is a younger brother of Leo Godoy. He got baptized on Saturday. When I was teaching him (he is living in other ward boundaries, therefore it was not our baptism), he decided he didn´t want anything to do with the church, until Leo got baptized, and then Leo baptized the youngest, Santiago, and then Lucas got interested again. He has now made the decision to get baptized and Juan Escobar (recent convert from our ward) baptized him. It is really neat to see a recent convert so actively involved in sharing the gospel. He and his wife, Angélica, are really awesome and really hard workers. They fulfill the call "Every member a missionary" and have only been members (she, active) for 3 months.

I truly love being a missionary. These have been the best 19 months of my life, the toughest too, but, without a doubt, the best.

Elder Brown

2 Nephi 2:25

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

Sorry for not sending pics, this computer doesn´t connect well with my memory card. Next week I´ll send pics