Keeping up the Faith

Awesome sister in the ward

Jesus Loves You, ALL NIGHT LONG

This week was kind of mundane. Actually, truth be told, it was a good week, just there wasn´t a whole lot that went down.

So, like I said, not a whole lot went down. The work has been really slow. Literally every single appointment we´d set up fell through. We have had to spend more time outside of Empalme than in, and, because of the cold, literally nobody is ever outside/ willing to talk to us. So it´s kinda dragged by.

We did have about 2 solid lessons though (one of which we dropped in at an unscheduled time so they wouldn´t know when to not be there). The first was with a less-active family. This family (Gutierrez is their last name) used to be a solid family, they fed missionaries, the sons went out with missionaries, gave tons of references, they were just a golden family. They were, that is, up until the Branch in Empalme closed down. We´ve met with the mom before, and she hasn´t progressed at all. We always leave just one verse for her to read, and she never reads it. This last time, however, we met her two oldest sons. They are total capos. They haven´t read the Book of Mormon in years, and were stoked when we left them something to read and invited them to church, like more stoked than a little kid that just got asked if he would eat a chocolate bar we were about to give him. It was really cool to see. Unfortunately, they didn´t show up at church. Next week we´re gonna stop by their house in the morning and try to motivate them to wake up and come.

The other was in a lunch appointment that we had with a family whose daughter recently returned from her mission in Brazil, but the father is less active because their son died a few years ago in a motorcycle wreck. He usually leaves at the end of the meal before we can share a spiritual thought, so, we whipped out our scriptures during the meal, while everyone was still eating, and had a super spiritual moment. The mother bore a powerful testimony of keeping the commandments, even though she was super stressed about her husband not being active. After the meal, they gave us HUGE chocolate eggs for Easter. The members here are awesome. They are few in number, but are all capos.

Haven´t been able to talk to Juan José more than 2 minutes at a time. He´s never at home when he say´s he will be, and won´t come to church, it´s not that he can´t, cuz we´ve offered to pay for him, it´s that he won´t. We have stopped by his house in the morning, but he won´t get out of bed. Member´s have stopped by to pick him up and drive him but same story. Dude worries me and stresses me out. I have never once in my life been really worried or stressed about anything at all, but this guy is gonna give me some gray hairs. I really hope my kids don´t worry and stress me out like this man does.

Long story short, this work is really, really hard and super tough. However, it is super rewarding and pays off a ton. I love it.

Elder Brown

John 17:3

Ray Ban´s and Building Houses

Our super cheap Ray Ban´s

Real pretty sunset

Making raisins with our old grapes! We´ll see how well they turn out!

 

Horse that stopped by our pensh and left me a birthday present on our porch ;)

Laying bricks

So Empalme is a really different place. When I was in Casilda, I thought I got that small-town missionary game down perfectly. I was wrong. Empalme is so much smaller, and way different. I don´t know if I´ve talked about the siesta before, but, it´s basically national nap time. In Casilda, most people sleep from 2-4:30ish, but there is almost always someone outside you can talk to, and people are out in the streets all morning. In Empalme, people are outside (or inside and willing to talk) for like 3 1/2 hours a day, which makes missionary work really, really ineffective and super slow. Our effective hours are: 10:15-11:30 a.m. and 6-8:15 p.m. These people take their daytime sleep very seriously. I like it a lot, I would totally down to be live in an area like this. But, it just makes missionary work really slow and ineffective pretty much all day. Also, I feel like we are always on the bus going from city to city. I´m not even district or zone leader, and we have to leave our town, not just the area, the whole town, about 5 or so times a week.

Things are going great though. Even though it´s tough, I´m loving this place. Pretty much everyone we do talk to is super nice and willingly to talk for a few minutes in the street. The people are hilarious. The few members are awesome. One family in particular, family Cabanilla, is prolly the best family a missionary could ask for in his/ her area. They feed us every week. The husband always invites himself to go out and do visits with us (which is especially nice cuz he has a car, which definitely beats walking). And they bought me a tie pin of Argentina for my birthday. That was really sweet and awesome of them. Also, we have really proactive mission leader´s, both from the ward and the stake. Always ask us when they can come visit certain less active member´s or investigators with us. It´s way sweet.

So we found some super sweet Ray Ban´s for 100 pesos (like 8 bucks). Pretty sure they´re fake, but they look real and are pretty nice. So, naturally, we each grabbed a pair. Now we got two pairs.

So Juan José Pilotto is totally changing my mission. This guy is really awesome, but worries us a ton. He made a ton of changes in his life, and stopped drinking and smoking cold turkey, and kept at it real well for about a month. About a week and a half ago, he messed up. We had a real great talk with him that day, and the spirit was super strong. Then, after that, he dropped off the map. He wasn´t at home when he said he would be, and when he was home (when we dropped by at unscheduled times) he wouldn´t get out of bed to talk to us. So, we were really worried he had been going to another town or city to drink. So, we decided we needed to do an intervention (that´s prolly the first time I´ve ever used that word other than to quote Nemo). So, we left the pensh early, and went to one of the farthest out bustops in Empalme, and got on and off every single bus that passed by, and asked the same question that we already knew the answer to "is this bus going Rosario?" the answer "No you have to catch a bus going the other way." The idea was, if JJP was on that bus, we would just buy a ticket anyways and ride with him until the last stop in Empalme, and try to convince him to get off with us there. I don´t think I´ve ever felt dummer in my missionary life than I did getting on about 10 or 15 busses asking the same question, getting the same answer, and getting off and facing the same people who had heard our previous attempts. Luckily, we didn´t see him on any bus. And ended up being able to talk to him later that night. It was a good talk.

We spent about 4 hours organizing our area book. I found out it was a complete disaster the other week, so, this week, we bought some things we needed to organize it, and then spent four hours organizing it. Hopefully it saves time in the future and someone can get baptized because of it.

On Friday we helped a less active guy build his house. It was pretty cool of him to let us lay the bricks. Most people we help don´t even trust us to make the cement mix, just enough to move the bricks. Laying bricks was pretty copado.

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Brown

Matthew 22:36-38

happy birthday to me, happy birthday tome

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me!

Well, technically my birthday is tomorrow, but, I can´t do anything tomorrow, but I can today on P-Day.

So Elder Ostler is a pretty cool guy. We get along really well. He literally has the exact same personality as my brother Zach, even more so than Elder Yaques did. He has the same sense of humor as Zach and has the same quirks as Zach does. It´s really weird sometimes how much he reminds me of him.

This week has flown by and been filled with stuff to do. Unfortunately, don´t have a ton of time to write about most of what happened. Guess I´ll just write the more significant things.

Juan José is such a capo. He has his baptismal interview next week and we are SUPER stoked! Seeing the changes the gospel and atonement have brought to this man´s life are really inspiring. At some points in my life, I have felt like it might be better to be born without the Gospel to be able to sin in ignorance and not have as high of a penalty of sin. Juan José is really opening my eyes up as to why those thoughts are so wrong. The stories he has told us of his life, and all the pain he has felt from sin, make me way grateful to have had the gospel all my life. Even though living the Gospel is a harder and higher lifestyle, it definitely is worth it, and I have seen firsthand why.

I got sick on Tuesday, just as we started division´s with our District Leader in Villa Constitución (the city where we have to go for literally everything, church, shopping, email´s, etc.). Then it started raining, and I didn´t have my rain jacket (I had my umbrella but it was way to windy to pull that out). So I was miserable and pretty out of it, not really feeling like sharing the Gospel. Then I noticed how my attitude was affecting the level of my effectiveness, and I felt bad for letting that affect my attitude and letting it drag me down. So on Wednesday after we got back from division´s, and before Elder Ostler and I went out to work, I asked him for a blessing so I could feel better and thus be able to focus better and work harder. I thought Heavenly Father would drop the cane during the blessing and tell me to get my head out of the clouds. Luckily, and very gratefully, his ways and thoughts are nowhere close to my ways and thoughts. Literally as soon as Elder Ostler said "Scott", I felt a huge wave of love just crash into me, and it didn´t stop coming during the whole blessing. It was amazing. I know that God loves us a ton. Like more than we can imagine. I am so grateful for these two years I have to be able to share this love with everyone down here. If any of you ever have doubts as to whether or not you really have a Father in Heaven who really loves you and knows who you are, I am here to tell you the answer, straight, clear, and simple: You do. He loves us a ton. I honestly can´t find words eloquent or big enough to come close to describing the love I felt, nor do I think such words exist. It´s truly amazing.

Anyway´s, that´s about it for this week. Have a good one!

Elder Brown

John 3:16

The Juan´s pull through!

Pig herd that passed right across the street from us during studies

So Juan´s are just capos. In Casilda, all my best investigators were named Juan, and that is no different here in Empalme. We have three totally golden investigators, two of which are named Juan and the other is the wife of one of the Juan´s. And there´s a less active Juan who is trying to get active again and wants to baptize his wife.

Juan José.

The type of person you think of when you think of a golden investigator. He is a 45 year old man. He was a reference from some other Elder´s that met him in an internet café. He sneezed and one Elder said "Bless you!" and Juan José was just super touched and goes "Thank you so much!" They got to talking, and he accepted the invitation to have the missionaries over. So Elder Ostler and his old comp went and started teaching him. After their second visit, he handed them a paper bag and told them not to open it because it had all the inappropriate videos and pictures he had had in his house, then he put his earings in and said watching and wearing those kinds of things and wearing earings makes him feel farther from God. This was about 3-4 weeks ago. We didn´t teach the law of chastity until this last Friday. He literally reads the Book of Mormon side by side with the Bible from 9am-1pm every day. He studies and reads so much he knows more about the Gospel than I do. He comes to church every Sunday. Also, he´s single, so we don´t have to worry about a girlfriend that doesn´t want to get married. But he tried to share the gospel with his ex so she would get interested in this and then they would be able to get married in the temple after both getting baptized. She wasn´t interested, but, he´s a boss.

He went to stake conference with us this last weekend to meet Pres. Zanni and when one of the speakers started asking questions and the guys walked around with mic´s, Juan José raised his hand to share. He gave a really awesome and copado response to the question. I can´t believe that guy. I have never even raised my hand in a class to share, much less in a session of a stake conference, and I´ve been a member my whole life! This dude´s been an investigator for 4 weeks! But afterward, Satan made sure to hit us with temptation. The session got out at 9:30, and our bus didn´t leave from San Nicolás (the city where the stake center is) until 11. So we got on the bus, just us three and another member from Empalme. But holy cow. That bus got sketchy, fast. It was the last Saturday night before school starts, and all the night clubs in Rosario had huge parties. That bus got totally filled with girls in super tight and revealing clothes (every bus going to Rosario passes through Empalme). Then the driver turned the lights off. I don´t think I´ve ever felt more uncomfortable as a missionary. This even topped when I was conducting the music in sacrament and the lady in the first row started breastfeeding without a blanket. Then, the next morning at 8 we got back on a different bus to go the morning session in San Nicolás, and ALL the same girls were on that bus going home. That bus reeked of puke, alcohol, and sweat. Plus all the girls were staring at us the whole time, trying to attract the attention of the two handsome nicely dressed guys.

Juan Carlos and Ely.

An awesome couple. This Juan is probably the best example of a loving father I have seen in Argentina. We went over on Friday for the second visit and the first thing he did when he got home was kiss his wife and then go say hi to his kid (don´t worry, we weren´t alone with a person of the opposite sex). Most people don´t read what you leave them the first time, but, they read Moroni 10 together and then prayed and totally understood everything they read and understood their answer from God. And Juan looks exactly like Kevin James.

Juan Pablo and Romina.

The less active guy. We stopped by last night and started sharing a spiritual thought that Elder Ostler felt like we needed to share from Enos. Then Romina (the nonmember girlfriend) asked why we always share scriptures from the Book of Mormon and not from the Bible. Then we had a bomb lesson about the Restoration and Juan Pablo clarified everything our limited spanish kept us from saying and bore his testimony to her so many times. It was awesome.

Anyways, that´s about all the exciting news I´ve got from this week, hope you all have a great week!

Elder Brown

Alma 5:59-60

Pig herd that passed right across the street from us during studies

Us with Juan and his girlfriend. Prolly the two coolest people in Casilda

Saying bye to pres

Elder Brown and Elder Ostler

So 6 months of service came to an end in Casilda. That was a really fast 6 months and I will really miss the people in Casilda. My new area is a city even smaller than Casilda. The whole city is smaller than the neighborhood San Tan Ranch. It´s about a mile long and a quarter mile wide. We are in the middle of nowhere, and there isn´t any unit of church there. We have to take a bus to another city to go to church. It´s gonna be pretty interesting. My new comp is Elder Ostler. He´s from Virginia. He played a lot of soccer before the mission so Argentina was a great place for him to get called to.

So it was a really interesting week to finish off my time in Casilda.

As the title suggests, we exorcised. Without going into too much detail, a lady in the ward called us and told us her friends sister was in the hospital and her friend wanted a blessing for her sister. So, we went and wound up exorcising. The elder´s in Casilda are gonna start teaching the Mom who was really interested and felt really good when we were there.

Had a great lesson with Juan Acosta and his girlfriend (I´m still not quite sure what her name is). The first time we taught them, the spirit told me that they would get baptized, but I wouldn´t be there when that happened. This lesson that prompting got reaffirmed, that they will get baptized, even though they have doubts about getting baptized. I´ll definitely miss teaching them.

One thing the Branch Pres in Casilda does, is the last night before a Casilda missionary leaves, he invites the missionaries over for dinner and then dumps flour on them when they least expect it. I, having seen this happen to many missionaries, was not about to just stand there and let him freely dump flour on me. So, I came prepared. I brought my own package of flour. When we went outside to take pictures (almost 100% of the time this is where he dumps flour on the missionaries), I reached into my bag to grab the flour. He didn´t suspect a thing. I am sure he thought I was looking for my camera. The look of surprise on his face when I whipped out a bag of flour and the flour came flying out of the bag on him was priceless. Prolly my proudest pranking moment ever.

Had a great first day in Empalme yesterday. Taught some BOMB lessons to some new investigators. One guy (who looks just like an Argentine Kevin James) told us he never let´s missionaries in his house, and doesn´t really know why he did this time but just feels really interested in our religion right now. Another lady, whose parents recently died, totally opened up to us and we had a great lesson. With her, there were several times when I felt like the lesson was missing something, and a thought would come to my mind about a question I should ask her, or a comment I should make. Every time, she would answer the question without being asked it or my comp would make the comment. It was really sweet.

Also, Elder Walker and I dropped a lot of cane this last week. That always brings a really strong spirit.

I hope you all have had a great week, I know I have.

Elder Brown

Alma 5:16&22

Is it really Valentine´s Day?

It´s so weird to think that it´s Valentine´s Day. Here in Argentina, it´s just another Monday that is dreaded by workers, whether they be single, married, or dating.

It´s Elder Wagstaff´s (our District Leader) last Monday in the mission, so, naturaly, we made an asado. I love the meat down here. I wish we had these cuts up in the states.

Things are finally starting to change here in Casilda. Kind of a bummer that it took so long because Pres. Zanni sent me a text the other night and said "Start saying good-bye to people, but don´t get trunky!" (trunky is like homesick, or when a missionary gets it in his head that he´s about to leave and looses his desires to work). So I think I´m going to get transferred this next week.

One thing in particular is we finally have an investigator that we can totally count on to keep her commitments and not bail on our appointments. She is a super loaded 50 year old psychologist (psychologist´s down here are really respected and make a TON of money). I find her proffession to be really interesting. I say that because the first time we met with her, she totally opened up to us and told us everything. Every problem she has. Everything she´s gone through. Everything. The mission is a really interesting place, I doubt there is any other setting in the world where a rich middle aged woman would tell two 18-year old kids all her problems, and expect them to know what to do to help her out. It blows my mind.

Another thing is the church attendance. We have been stressing the importance of coming to all 3 hours of church a ton, and finally just switched the schedule, so now we have sacrament the first hour, and priesthood the last (most wards in Argentina have sacrament last). We thought that there would only be 5 people (Branch pres and the 4 missionaries) in sacrament last week when we started, but, we have about 30ish people last week (we´d been hovering around 20) and we had over 40 yesterday. That hasn´t happened since November. It was really awesome to see so many people show up to take the sacrament and renew their baptismal covenants. Thinking about those American wards with 400+ people seems unreal and dream-like to me. 40 seemed crowded and full.

The pride cycle is real. Every time I humble myself, I find myself thinking something really prideful, and then I end up killing the spirit and just damaging myself. I think that´s the thing about pride, it hurts us more than anyone else. That´s one thing I´ve learned here, pride hurts us more than anyone else. Everytime I get prideful, I always do more harm to myself than good. So I recommend to all of you to not get prideful.

Anyways, sorry this letter is kinda weird. Kinda rushed cuz our time for P-Day got cut, and we didn´t find out until we sat down and read the letter of the president.

Hope you all have a great Valentine´s-Day!

Elder Brown

D&C 43:35

Holy Cow!

Ate a cow this week. Not like a burger, or a steak, or ribs or anything, but a full on cow. On Friday, we ran into the branch pres in the street, and he said, "I think we´re gonna eat the asado tonight." Elder Walker and I had no clue what he was talking about, and thought he was just joking and trying to get our hopes up to tear them down. So we played along, and found out he was serious. The other Elder´s had sweet talked their way into getting us an asado. We didn´t up eating the asado on Friday, but we did on Saturday. Not just any asado either, but literally every part of the cow. Intestines (large and small), stomach, heart, kidneys, and appendix (we would have eaten the brain, but, president dropped it in the dirt, so we left it there for the dogs, several dogs sniffed it, but none seemed to be starving enough to eat brain, so the flies did). I say "Holy Cow" because it was bought and cut up by the branch pres, and cooked and prepared by missionaries. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I´ll send a pic next week after the other Elder´s give us the pic.

Taught a total of 4 lessons sitting down this week. So we contacted a ton. Found a lot of crazy people. One guy in particular said, "There are 3 Bibles. 1. The Bible you two have. 2. The Bible the Catholics have. 3. The Bible the Roman Catholics have. Which one is the true and real Bible?" We didn´t really know how to answer that, so he went on to tell us that we don´t believe in God because we didn´t know what to say to that question, and then to explain how the Bible written in stone that the Roman Catholics have is the true Bible, and again how we don´t believe in God, and his wife was saying "amen" and "that´s the truth" every few words that he said. 

Talked to one lady who was really surprised when we started talking because she had thought Mormons can´t talk to people with dark skin. She seemed really interesed in our message though.

In other news, it was really hot this week. It´s really weird to see pics of state-side missionaries bundled up in coats with scarves and snow pants, with snow blowing all around them. Down here, we are always wet, weather or not it´s raining. Not really sure what to think of the rain, because it feels really nice outside while it´s raining, but, after the rain, we get totally slammed with humidity. I guess I´m really glad that when they split this mission in July, they cut out the really humid parts of provincia Santa Fe and all of provincia Entre Rios (which, as the name suggests, is filled with rivers and the humidity levels never dip below 90%).

Taught Lorena Avalos (the lady that got baptized my second week here) with the Branch Pres´s wife and his niece (an RM), and wow, girls talk alot. They talked for 75 minutes without even a 15 secod pause anywhere before Elder Walker or I said anything. Then, when we started to teach, Elder Walker and I said about 10 minutes worth of stuff, and they said about 45 minutes worth of stuff. I suppose that´s good though, it´s better for recent converts to develop solid relationships with members than listen to missionaries that they already are close to.

The mission is a really insane place. I am about 100% sure, that there is no other setting in the world where middle aged men and women open up and tell 18 year old kids about all their problems, and expect these 18 year olds to know how to help them. During this last week and a half, we saw more than one full grown adult (meaning someone much older than us) totally open up and bawl while tellling us about their difficulties in life, all of these instances happened just from street contacts. One such was a lady who I had just thought was a nut. I had always seen her yelling at one kid and dragging the other kid by the had whilst that kids was kicking and screaming. I really got humbled when she started crying though, and I realized that it´s not important to God if someone´s got a few screws loose, cuz they still have problems and challenges in life, and God loves them just as much as he loves me.

Speaking of that love he has for me, a popular hymn has been in my mind a lot this week. It goes, 

1. I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,
Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.
I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,
That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died.

[Chorus]
Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me
Enough to die for me!
Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

2. I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine
To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine,
That he should extend his great love unto such as I,
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.

3. I think of his hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!
Such mercy, such love and devotion can I forget?
No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat,

   Until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet.

It really amazes me the love Jesus has for and offers me. Even with all my sins, all my shortcomings, and all my dumb choices that I make, he still loves me more than I can imagine, and is too merciful with me. Even when I feel like I mess up big time, I still feel his merciful hand lift me up and provide a way. Sometimes I wish I could do better and help more people, but, I feel like the harder I work, the harder the hearts of the people get, and the less I can do to help. Oh well, Just gotta keep pushing and working and loving

Anyways, hope you all have a great week up there in the nice cool air, without crazy mosquito viruses. Hasta luego!

Elder Brown

Mosiah 28:3-4