Awesome week

The sister that made me a cake!

Roasting hot dogs

Elder Yaques (my trainor) is my Zone Leader and Elder Walker (an Elder I trained) are in my Zone! The generations!

The member´s here are awesome!! This week, two sister´s in the branch made me dessert´s, something that´s never happened even once before in my mission. One sister made a cake and the other just called it "postre" (dessert). It was awesome!!

Sick story (got a lot of them but not very much time). On Saturday, I woke up feeling pretty sick, and just wanted to call the mission nurse and complain and stay in all day. What made it worse, we had no set plans that day (we had recently dropped ALL our investigators because nobody was progressing and had been meeting with the missionaries for a long time). But, I asked Elder Sousa for a blessing, and he said (in the blessing) "According to your faith, be healed." And I felt great afterward! It was pretty cool, and we had a great day saturday. Miracales are real.

At 8:50 pm (still saturday), on the way back to the pensh, I felt like we should contact a certain building. This building is super rich looking and I didn´t think we would have any luck if we have to ring more than 1 doorbells. So, we looked at the various doorbells, and rang one. "Hola?" the guy said. "Hola! We´re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ..." and before I said anything else he said "Hold on a sec", and him and his wife came downstairs, opened the door, and we had a great contact. Turns out, his brother is a recent convert and they invited us to come back! We are headed back tonight (with his brother that´s a member, of course).

Lot´s more good stuff happened this week, but, I´m outta time. ¡Que estén bien todos!

Elder Brown

Isaiah 55:8-9

A baptism the first week is a pretty good start

A baptism the first week in an area is always a fantastic way to start. I wish it would happen to me. The sisters have been teaching a Brazilian guy named Douglas (I too was surprised to meet an Argentine from Brazil named Douglas). And he got baptized on Saturday. One of the sisters is brand new to the mission, got here on Wednesday, and on Saturday, she got a baptism. Elder Sousa baptized him. I think that Douglas chose him because Elder Sousa is Brazilian and they always talk in Portugues (I´m not sure if that´s how it´s spelled in English). So she got a pretty dang good start.

Ate asado twice last week. The Sister´s in the Branch weren´t too sure what to make without lactose or gluten, so, we got asado twice. Unfortunately, I didn´t have my camera with me either time.

We got a few sick investigators. One in particular is Freddy (Federico but goes by Freddy). He´s a 23 year-old student who reads the Book of Mormon like crazy. He met the missionaries like two weeks ago and has already read 1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, and Jacob. The challenge with him will be getting him to church. He studies here in Venado Tuerto, and lives in a little town about 2 hours away by bus. He lives here during the week, and goes home on weekends to visit his family. There is only one bus that goes there, and it leaves every day at 12. So, he leaves Saturday at noon and comes home Sunday night. This´ll be really tricky trying to get him to go to church. He´s a capo.

Found a less active lady last night who went less active lady who went less active when her 28 day-old baby died two years ago. I say found because she got baptized elsewhere and moved, and we contacted her house last night. It was almost 9, it was time to start heading home. But, we contacted it. She cracked the door open to see if we were robbers. She recognized us and came out. She told us her story and we shared parts of Moroni 8 and Alma 40. We´re heading back tomorrow.

Have a great week!

Elder Brown

One-Eyed Deer

This week flew by. Lot´s of stuff happened.

We had divisions with our District Leader. It was pretty sweet. Got to go to the river to visit some people that live over there on the banks. That place is what I imagined all of South America to be. Kinda poorer area. Lots of houses made out of bricks and sheet metal. The river was really pretty though. I would have taken pics, but, had I brought my camera there, I would have gotten robbed for sure.

This week we had transfers, and, Elder Sanchez... stays in Empalme! Elder Brown... does not stay in Empalme! 😢 I shall miss that place. I learned a TON. Worked really hard. Made a lot of friends. That place shall forever be in my heart. I loved it. It was tough, but, I loved it.

We had a sick lesson with César. He´s gonna get baptized next week! I´ll send the pic when Elder Sanchez sends it to me. I´m so excited for him!!

In church on Sunday, I got asked to speak about tithing. I got asked at 8:58, and was to give the talk during sacrament, which started at 11:00. Luckily, I was the last speaker and the other two speakers took up the first 50 min of the meeting. And I had to leave a little bit of time there at the end for the closing hymn, so, I didn´t have to talk for too long.

My new area is Centro 2 C, in the Venado Tuerto Zone ("Venado Tuerto" means "One-Eyed Deer"). I am in the city of Venado Tuerto. In the Center. So our area has all the shops and stuff and there´s are tons of people out all the time. Contacting will be much easier here than it was in Empalme.

My new comp is Elder Sousa. He is from Brazil. From a place called Fortaleza. He´s 19. He´s a really cool guy. We get along pretty well. This transfer is about to be a blast!

Love you all, hope you have a great week!

Elder Brown

Sick Week!

Some taco pizza (tasted like the meatball marinara from Subway),

mashed potatoes and an omelet

Had a pretty sick week! In both senses of the word.

Got "farangitis", no clue what that is in English, it´s not in my Spanish-English dictionary nor in Google Translate. Nothing serious, just a little annoying. The doctor gave me some pills that taste and look like those bottle cap candies. So, I can´t really complain.

But, a lot of "sick" things happened.

Firstly, we had a rather humorous (idk if that´s spelled right, I don´t have English spellcheck) contact last night. We contacted a 50 year old man. We asked him if he believes in God. This was his response, "Yes I do. I´ve seen him. I saw the Saint of Death, Jesus, and the devil. I saw all three of them when I got shot. The Saint of Death was excited to see me. Jesus was wearing a white robe with a yellow belt and yellow sandals. The devil told me to shoot back at the guy, and Jesus told me not to. So I didn´t." His breath reeked of alcohol. He was from Rosario so we passed his address and phone number to the Rosario Zone Leader´s. The Elder´s over there are gonna have a fun time trying to teach about the Restoration and the First Vision.

On Saturday night, I felt like if I were to get transferred this week, I would like to speak in sacrament meeting before I left. After I thought that, I totally forgot about it. Yesterday was fast and testimony meeting. I still had forgotten about it. Then an Elder got up to bear his testimony, and I remembered what I had thought the night before, and remembered what I felt like I had to share. So, I got up and shared it, and felt the spirit testify through me, and I felt really peaceful about my time in Empalme. I really wanna baptize here, but, I felt like if I go next week, it´ll be fine, cuz I´ll have given my all for the time I was here, even if I don´t baptize. I would definitely prefer baptizing to leaving next week, but, I feel tranquilo.

Found a bunch of new investigators this last week, and 3 of them accepted a baptismal date. So, we are hoping to have at least 1 baptism this month. It will be the first in two years here in Empalme. Pretty excited and hopeful!

Hope you all have a great week!

Elder Brown

Doctrine and Covenants 18:15-16

I HATE Dogs

Almost got eaten alive yesterday.

We  were knocking on doors looking for a referral that didn´t have a super clear address, and one guy that answered said "Voce fala portugues?" If you don´t speak portuguese, you have about as much of an idea of what that says as I did when I heard that. Then he came out and told us that we needed to stop bugging people so late because at that time people start going to bed (it was 6:30 pm, some people wake up from the siesta at that time, and nobody goes to bed until 11, at least). Then he asked us if we like dogs, Elder Sanchez said that he does, and I said that I´m allergic. He went off on me for about 5 min on how that´s not possible because we are all "sons and daughters of God, dogs included". Then asked if we wanted to see his dog that has been trained to kill. I opened by mouth to politely decline, repeating that I am allergic to dogs, when Elder Sanchez, who wants to be a cop, said yes. So, we went in.

He said we would be fine if we were with him. Not true. That German Sheppard was insane. It was fine with my comp, but, apparently I was wearing a jacket that looked just the the jackets the cops wear to train the dogs and they train the dogs to wreck the guy in those jackets. I thought my life was over. The guy kept trying to get me to put my hand by it´s mouth, by the little devil kept trying to bite my hand. So I wasn´t having any of that. But, he had my hand in his, and put it by the dogs face, and the dog was growling at it. Finally, he put the dog in the garage. (Un)fortunately, the guy wanted nothing to do with the church so we won´t be going back to that house.

I have learned alot about happiness this week. I learned that to make other people happy, I´ve gotta be happy first to be able to make them happy. I´ve been focusing on the making others happy part and skipping over trying to be happy myself for all my mission. I have noticed during this last week that I like being happy. And when I am happy, it´s WAY easier to make everyone else happy too.

THE GUTIÉRREZ FAMILY WENT TO CHURCH!!! César is on date to get baptized the 16 of July, and transfers are the 10th. So, I hope I don´t get transferred cuz I really wanna see this kid get baptized. He is SUCH  a stud! He reads all the assignments from the Book of Mormon that we leave him and prays every day! And, he´s 10! I might have prayed once a week when I was 10. And read the Book of Mormon even less than that. This kid is definitely an example for me, and I hope my little siblings and cousins and all that read this follow this kid´s example. I´m so stoked for this kid!

Elder Brown

Ether 12:6

Wacky Week

Gluten free banana bread!

This week was pretty nuts.

So we finally saw progress with the Villegas family, and we had set up a time to stop by on Wednesday to meet up with the kids that understand and can remember. When we went on Wednesday, there was a HUGE crowd gathered around their house, and a bunch of cops. Their less active neighbor waved us over, and told us to not go over for about a week or so. Apparently, Bro. Villegas´ nephew assaulted a 9 year old girl, and then came to Empalme and hid out in their house, and the cops found him. They were chilling outside waiting for order to break in and take him. Griselda was going nuts the whole time cuz she didn´t want her nephew going to jail. Since then, he has been thrown in jail and stabbed and beat up by the inmates. So, we are going to give them some time for things to calm down a bit before we go back.

On Sunday on our way home from church, we saw another huge crowd, this time near our pensh. There were a few women crying and a lot of people were on the phone and whatnot. We didn´t understand a lot of what was said, but, we did make out the word "gunshots" several times.

Sunday evening, all our plans failed. So, we decided to go visit a less active guy who lives in a neighborhood that is really unproductive. On our way, I saw a lady standing by her front window, and shouting from inside. I thought maybe it was joking until I saw the lights flipping on and off, and saw a man inside hitting the walls. She booked it out of her house holding her 1 year old daughter, closely followed by her husband. She booked it to our side of the street, and he jumped in the car, and peeled out. When he turned, he lost control for going too fast on a dirt road and almost flipped. He ended up facing his wife, and gunned it, right at her. She sprinted as fast as she could to get out of the way, and did. He peeled out of the neighborhood. She ran back in her house. We went over to see if there was something we could do to help out. We shared a scripture, and found out her name is Mauru and her daughter´s name is Angelina (pronounced how and English speaker would say it). We are going back tomorrow (wednesday) to try to teach and help her out.

This week I have felt the spirit really strong, and, aside from these crazy events, we have seen a lot of progress here in Empalme, and we hope it continues.

Elder Brown

Alma 37:35

Hace frío

The Carovana´s, one of the sweetest families I´ve ever met

So it´s pretty cold. Elder Sanchez and I had to buy gloves (and yes, they do match), and as my parents know, I hate gloves. So, for me to buy gloves, not just wear them, it would have to very cold, and it is. I guess it´s not the actual temperature that´s that cold, it´s the humidity. The humidity makes it just downright impossible to get and stay warm.

Fixing our shower box

So, the prospect of Domingo getting baptized is pretty bleak. The lady who takes care of him got mad at a member. We went over saturday morning with a member so Domingo could have a friend in the church that would support him. When we knocked on the door, the his nurse answered. We asked if he was there. She said, "No, he´s not here." later, "He´s sleeping." later, "He´s about to go with me to San Nicolás" (San Nicolás is a nearby city, about an hour or so by bus). So, the member asked which it was, whether he was getting ready to leave, sleeping, or simply not there, and she flipped out. She started insulting him and threatning to call the police (he´s the chief of police, hehe jokes on her) and whatnot. So, we left. Empalme is a small town, so everybody knows everything about everybody. Our member being the cheif of police, and us being in a small town, he literally knows EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY. He told us she is a drugaddict and basically steals Domingo´s money and is trying to sell his house so she can have more money. We also have to get her permission to baptize Domingo, so, it´s not looking like he´s gonna get baptized. Hopefully she softens her heart. Maybe we´ll just fast again.

Sorry for the depressing start. Other than the cold weather and cold hearts, things are going pretty well.

A fancy restaurant, with Coke

We had a sweet lesson with the Gutiérrez family. Our ward mission leader told us he wanted to go with us to visit them. So we did. On Friday they went to visit them with us, and we have a beast lesson. Bro. Gutiérrez is Catholic, and doesn´t want to change. Our WML was Catholic, and they hit it off. They are pretty good friends now and chat on Facebook and WhatsApp (basically a group chat/ texting app). So it went pretty well. We hope to baptize the 10 year old son, César, on the 9 of July.

Banana bread!

We pretty regularly stop by the Villegas family twice a week in the morning, and we´ve kinda felt like we´ve been running into a brick wall with them. I love them, but, they are not very intelligent. We literally repeat the same three words with them 5 or 6 times, and when we ask them what the words are, they say ".....Me mataste" which, literally, is "You killed me" which basically just means "I have no clue". But, on Sunday, we were able to talk a little bit to their 15 year old son, Rodrigo, and their 9 year old daughter, Morena. They are more intelligent. They pass their classes, they remember what we teach, and all that good stuff. We haven´t taught them in over a month (cuz they´re usually at school when we stop by), and they still remember what we taught the last time we went there. Rodrigo asked us to stop by on Wednesday at 3 in the afternoon when he´ll be there, even though that´s during the siesta. He´s willing to give up his nap time to talk with us. We hope to baptize him either the 9 or the 16 of July. We´ll see how he progresses.

The Villegas family is really teaching me a lot. They are suuuuuper poor. They literally can´t afford a heater. For their heat, they make a fire in a barrell in their "living" room. When we stopped by on Thursday, we ran into a social worker that helps them out. She asked if they had bought shampoo. She taught them how to use it right to properly wash a little kids hair (some of you may think "Is there really a proper way?" the answer is: no. according to the social worker, you get their hair wet, rub the shampoo in the hair, and then rinse, really simple). This family is making me really grateful for all the things I´ve always had that I never knew I did.

Those are just a few of the awesome things going on here. I honestly love this work and happy to be a part of it!

Elder Brown

Alma 5:27-28