July 23, 2012

This week was a walking week and very tiring, plus it warmed up again so I was always hot. Mirna left to Lambare with her mom while she is doing her Lawyer stuff, so we didn´t get to talk to her.

     Monday after we passed by Miguel, who wasn´t home, we decided to explore the area. Later after looking at the map we discovered that we had done at least half of our contacts in Villa Anita. Looks like we´ll be giving them a lot of references tomorrow. On Tuesday we went to have interviews in the office with Pdte Agazzani. 3.5 hours for a 10 minute talk. He didn´t even try to get to know me. All he said was "You have little time left. If you want to end your mission with more baptisms you need to do this..." I´m not offended or anything, but I thought it was a waste of time for information that I already know and have been doing. At least we got to eat at McDonalds afterwards. Then when we went to visit Miguel we discovered more good news. His wife bought him glasses! Now he can read! Yay! He wasn´t home, but we gave her a pamphlet so that he could read it, ha ha. ;P

     Wednesday I finally got my Birthday package. Our lunch appointment fell, so then I ate a bunch of candy. Bad decision. It made me feel bad later. The candy disappeared before Saturday. On Thursday during Noche de Barrio I handed out all the Warheads and watched all their silly reactions. That is true fun. I wish I could have recorded it all. I laughed until it hurt. Carlos Ledezma, a member that we usually leave with to teach, got mugged and now doesn´t have a cell phone. It was in the middle of the city, so now I´m never going to bring valuables around at night.

     Friday they cut down the giant mango tree in front of the capilla. We had nothing to do, so we walked around Capilla Del Monte (A place where there is only 1 house on each block and a forest in between each). Surprisingly there are a lot of members who live there so we made a bunch of appointments for Saturday. Then on Saturday we had to sacrifice some of those appointments so that we could teach Miguel and have "Mission Correlacion". When we taught Miguel he asked us to move his fecha back more because he doesn´t understand anything yet. That was the plan becuase he really isn´t ready, but I was kinda surprised he remebered his baptismal date. He really does want to get baptized.

     Sunday Miguel came to church by himself again. Yay! I gave a talk about the importance of Members doing Missionary work. They all "paid attention", but I don´t think they "Paid Comprehension". It´s hard to apply what you learn if you are hearing, but not listening. Then after church we taught Miguel and we finally got him to say an entire prayer by himself. It took much patience and rephrasing to get him to understand. Did I mention about how happy I was that he has glasses? Yay! One of the recent converts who Elder Ackerman baptized isn´t coming to church anymore. We talked to Carlos about why and he said that Church is Boring and he says he doesn´t like me because I don´t talk to him or something. When we taught him I talked the entire time! I don´t get it. We will have to work with him this week.

This week was kinda slow, so that´s all I got.

Love Ya!

Elder Zachary James Singson

July 16, 2012

Hola Familyo,

     This week has been a good one. I forgot to bring my journal with me so some of this information will be incomplete. On Monday after the Pday had ended we went to teach Miguel. He and his wife were there, so we decided to watch the Restoration hoping that he would strengthen his testimony and his wife would get some amount of interest to actually listen for herself and not just to support her husband. I don´t know if she changed, but I know that he felt the spirit. I´m not sure how to get him to express himself yet though, but it will come with time.

     Tuesday we finally started teaching Mirna, the reference of the Hna Aguilera. I felt so happy that we are teaching her with them in their house. Unfortunately we didn´t get to finish the entire lesson. We were about to teach the Apostasy when her kid came over and said that the baby woke up. Dang Satan. She likes learning, but I´m not sure she is listening for more than just pure curiousity. That´s going to change though. Even more unfortunate was that after she had left the Hna Aguilera began to tell us her life story and cried for nearly an hour straight. I´m calling her Ms.Waterworks from now on because I seriously have no Idea where all that water came from. It was like she had sat on a hose and she was a sprikler. Fortunately we had the excuse that it was almost nine o´clock and we had to go home or she would have just kept on crying. I´m not even sure why she was crying.

 

     Wednesday we had the fortune of finishing the restoration and we even watched the restoration movie, so the Hna Aguilera wouldn´t change the subject so much. She really liked it, but she had the question. What happens to all the good Christians that follow God and don´t baptize in your Church? Luckily that´s the Lesson 2 the Plan of Salvation so we made a cita for Thursday.

     Thursday we taught lesson 2 to Mirna and I finally got to use my puzzle from Missionary mall for the first time in a long time. She said that she really liked the way that I presented it too. I asked her what she knew about the plan of God and she said that we live on the earth, we die, we get judged, and we go to heaven. I filled in those puzzle pieces and we talked about because of the apostasy most people don´t know the complete plan of God, but because of Revelation given to Prophets we know the Entire Plan of Salvation. She really liked that. Then we filled in the rest of the Puzzle and she said, "I have always believed this even though I never have really learned about it. I know God is a just God and now I see that your God is just".

 

     Unfortunately, again, The Hna Aguilera had to talk too much and would distract the lesson from it´s current course. She talked about Temples, Baptisms for the dead, Marriages in the Temple, Outer Darkness, The fall of Adam and Eve (The Deeper Doctrine) and all the deep doctrine that she didn´t need to know yet. Mirna said that lesson 1 was something she had never heard of before and that we were practically overloading her hard drive, but then with lesson 2 The Hna Aguilera was trying to shove all the information that she knows down Mirna´s Throat. I could see her trying to process it all and I tried to cut off Hna Aguilera several times and return the basics, but She would continue on the course she was on. One of these days we´ll have to teach Hno and Hna Aguilera how to teach an investigator in the correct way. Hno Aguilera isn´t that bad though (He is the Patriarch).

 

     Later on we also watched the Prophet Joseph Smith at the church with a bunch of Jovenes and Miguel. I don´t know what else to do because he needs new glasses, so he can´t read the Book of Mormon. He really liked it and he came by himself.

     We finally had a "Consejo De Barrio" on friday, even though only half of the people showed up, but we did get to eat sausages afterwards, so that was cool. On Saturday we were walking to a lesson and we saw Miguel walking with one of his friends. He said that he was going to the "Cancha" to play Volley. We thought nothing of it till later when we were in somebody´s house and we saw him walking back towards his house. Sunday we asked him what happened and he said that they were all drinking and he wanted to escape from temptation. That was sooo cool, because the reason he started talking to us is because he wanted to change and now we can see that it´s sincere. He hasn´t drinken since we started teaching, but smoking is going to be a little harder for him. 

 

     Saturday we also taught a random Noche de Hogar with the Flia Cristaldo. We were invited that evening and we prepared something for that night. Turns out that they had a surprise investigator for us. It was kinda crazy because Charlito is "Cabezudo", but I think that she felt the spirit. She is the Girlfriend of a Non-member brother and they think if we get her first then he will eventually turn to the Gospel as well. Crazy conversion stories abounded in the lesson.

     Sunday Miguel came to church by himself and on time. I don´t think he is quite prepared for his baptismal date, but he is definitely progressing. I think he and Mirna are our "Golden Investigators" for now. There were many people that didn´t come to church because of the cold, but there was still 80 or something. Felipe, a really funny recent convert, says he wants us to move in behind his house. I want to if we can break our contract with the current house. It is so much nicer than ours.

What a good week, And Yours?

Hit me up on Dear Elder! Love,

Elder Zachary James Singson

July 9, 2012

Now officially begins the reign of the Agazzani, The Reign of Argentina!

     Last week we wrote our first Letter to Pdte Agazzani. It was strange. I didn´t know what to say. On Monday we ate at Real to celebrate me and Elder Henrie´s B day. Tuesday was fun though because we went on Divisions with the Zone Leaders after the District Meeting. I went with Elder Marple to Villa Elisa and Elder Durrant went with Elder Ackerman to Paí-Ñu. It was a crazy and very tiring day. First we had a random lesson with a Pentecostal guy. He was good and receptive, but his schedule will make it difficult for him to go to church. Next lesson was with a guy who was super slow. I don´t know why but he had no idea what we were talking about. With a simple question like "Do you believe in God?" he didn´t know what to say. After that we went to a guy who has a baptismal date to make sure he´s progressing with Keeping the Word of Wisdom.

     Then we went to talk to Edgar Pavon and his Mom to see if she would give her kid permission so he can get baptized. This was the hard part. She is like a wall, no emotion. We had brought 3 members with us to help Hna Mara (Friend of the Mom), her daughter, and Diego (Friend of Edgar). 

Basically Elder Marple did a quick and simple lesson 1 and asked Edgar to share his testimony. Honestly Edgar´s testimony sucked. I think he was scared of his mom, but he didn´t say more than 3 words at a time. Anyways to make up for it the Hna Mara gave her testimony and said that the church will help her son, then Her daughter cried when sharing her testimony. Next the Hna Pavon said I don´t think he knows enough yet to make a decision and I destroyed her doubt with Acts 2 and that we have to act on faith and not depend on knowlegde. The spirit was so powerful, but she said "We´ll see": UGH! No human could have denied the spirit!... Unless... SHE´S A ROBOT!!! AAAH!!! ROBOT INVASION!!!

     Anyways the next lesson was just as interesting. We were teaching an investigator, the Hna Fernandez, with a Recent Convert and at the very end of the lesson her drunk husband comes in and Elder Marple made the mistake of saying "Que tal Hermano?". The drunk husband runs to his room and yells "I´m not your brother I´m Athiest!" and then he slammed the door. Less than a second later he opens the door and yells "AND I HATE THE UNITED STATES" and slams the door again. Then repeats the same action and yells something random for 2 minutes straight. Then suddenly he comes over to us and says "I Just Want To Find Peace, Don´t you teach that in your church?" Of course we said yes and we gave him a lesson 3 pamphlet and told him to read it when he is sober. He talked for another 5 minutes about nonsense and then he joined us for the Prayer. The Hna Fernandez was really embarrassed. Fun Huh?

     Wednesday I turned 21 and going back to my area I discovered that our lunch appointment had been cancelled. Of course it happened on my birthday. I didn´t feel like cooking so we ordered a pizza instead. We visited a lot of other appointments that Elder Durrant had set the day before, but just like lunch, they all fell. We did kinda celebrate my birthday with the Flia Estigarribia Martinez. The Hna Made us all sandwiches and Sebastian, her son, made us Juice. I don´t like celebrating birthdays when you are new in an area.

     Thursday we went to meet the Pdte Agazzani and his wife for the first time. It started to rain, but I don´t have an umbrella and Elder Ackerman gave his for 2 Hermanas to use. So I was soaked. It was interesting meeting the new Mission President. He is really different from the Argentina Prototype. He is very young, 43, and new so I don´t know what to think of him yet. After getting back from the meeting in Asuncion I was surprised when we left with a Member, Carlos, and we taught 3 lessons with the little time we had left.

     The rain from yesterday made it freezing cold. Friday we had an appointment in the Church at 3. I decided that we should go early just in case they came early. Turns out Carlos was preparing a surprise for my birthday. I discovered them. We ate pie-ish substance and hot chocolate. Then we got to know his friends who want to learn more about the church. They are all jovens, but that's ok. Later we went back to the church to have Mission Correlation Meeting thingy, but Charly (The ward mission leader) didn´t show up and he didn´t answer his phone, so we sat outside of the Capilla pointlessly for 30 minutes.

     Saturday I woke up with my socks on, but my feet were like Icicles. We had lots of appointments, but ended up teaching only 1 lesson in someone´s house and 3 in the street while contacting. Sunday I was surprised because Miguel, an investigator that they taught on Tuesday, was waiting for us to take him to church. He actually came! That was fast. He said he really liked it. Next week we are going to bring all of Carlos´ friends too. I´m glad to see that 100 people still come to church even though it´s cold.

     It was impossible to teach because Cerro and Olympia were playing. That would be like Real Madrid and Barcelona, so nobody wanted to listen to us. They were out in the cold watching the game. The only time I´ve seen so many people outside when it´s cold. Anyways Cerro won and the Olympistas are all going to be bitter. Not fun.

I love you always,

Elder Zachary James Singson