Less English and More Talking...

Hola!

I wish I could remember everything from this week, but it is hard. From what I remember, this week was pretty good over all. For the first half of the week, we were really just looking for a bunch of people to teach. We are still going through all of the Antiguos investigadores but we aren't finding too many people. But we also are starting to talk to a lot more people, mostly just out on the streets too. So before, it would be a lot harder to talk to people because there is always just the thought and fact that they might not want to have anything to do with us. But this week we are working a lot harder to just talk to everyone and give everyone the opportunity to hear our message. The thing that really helped us this week was divisions/exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Peña from Mexico who is a really good and a super consecrated missionary. I learned a lot from him and he shared a lot of tips and ideas with me. One of the things that he shared was the talk by Jefferey R. Holland called Missionary Work and the Atonement. https://www.lds.org/ensign/2001/03/missionary-work-and-the-atonement?lang=eng  He only shared a really small part of it with me because he didn’t have the whole thing but basically what he said was that missionary work wasn’t easy for Christ, so why should we think it would be easy for us. So that has really helped me a lot this week to not be so darn hard and down on myself when we don’t have a good day or things don’t work out with certain people or we don’t have the success that we think we should. Another thing that I learned, or was at least reminded of, was that as a companionship, Elder Robinson and I need to start speaking a lot more Spanish to each other. So we have the kind of game or challenge that the person to speak English last, has to buy an alfahor (caramel cookie) for the other. So that has been helping us a lot, mostly because we both love alfahores. Also, it’s been really interesting to see how much more success, or at least more opportunities and blessing we have when we try our hardest to do the small things. Like speaking to everyone and not speaking English as much. 

A few other things. We rescued Soledad, the sweet old grandma that stopped taking the lessons because her family didn’t want to her be baptized. We just kept coming by and sharing a short message and emphasizing that we love her and want what is best for her. Just the other day she told us, “I’ve decided that I want to be baptized and it doesn’t really matter what my family says and wants.” Well, we were very happy to hear that, but also want to help her family understand that what she is doing is what makes her happy.

Also, we have a really awesome friend named Adrian who is a complete baller. I love the guy so much. We are trying to teach him, but he is a halfway athiest guy that doesn’t really share our same beliefs of God. But we did give him a Book of Mormon and told him that the book is like a cake and that if he just tries the cake, or reads the book, he will understand how delicious it is. Then, a few days later when we met with him again, he gave us some alfahores and told us, this is my cake and you guys need to taste it! Geez, what a great guy. 

Alma, the girl who was baptized when I first arrived, is good. Ariel and Alma’s mom split up after his baptism, so he hasn’t been coming to church, but we are working with him. And Emiliano is a freaking capo. Meaning dude or awesome guy. He loves the lessons, always comes with really good and deep/profound questions, and is really excited about working with us to go to lessons and to also receive the priesthood soon. I love the guy so much. 

So yeah.

Sorry for not sharing too much, it is tough with only an hour or so, but I love you guys and hope you all have good week. I sent a lot of pictures!

Hasta proxima ves.

Elder Haley

I showed my Nebraska pride and made some choclo

In-front of the sign at the Juan de Garay church building

Emiliano!

Our visit with Lucas this week

A milanesa napiliano or something like that. Chicken milanesa with sauce and cheese

Our investigador y bueno amigo, Adrian

We made some good papas fritas

I found Vegas!

Empanadas de hoy!

Spanish, ping pong and Tobias

Holy smokes, what a Pday. It’s been a little stressful but I’m just going to highlight the stuff of this week

For the most part, we didn’t find anyone new to teach this week. We have a few futuros investigadores, but that’s about it. We were looking through all of our carpeta de area`s because we technically have two areas to work with. So we do have a whole bunch of people we can talk to, but sadly, none of them want to talk to us. So that’s lame and kind of hard, but we are trying to stay positive and hard working. 

We had an activity this week for our branch and the other two branches here in Rafaela. At first, it wasn’t too fun because no one showed up, but then it turned out to be really cool when more people showed up. We had a bunch of games and food which always makes for a good time. I sent a bunch of pictures.  Yes, that is sweat on my face playing ping pong.  It is flipping hot here!

The Zone Leaders had a baptism this Saturday! It awesome to see more souls accepting the Gospel! The kids name was Tobias. He has 8 years and is a complete stud. Love the kid. But one of the parts of Saturday that was almost as big and remembral was the ZL’s haircuts. They got theirs done at a different place than they usually go to and it turned out terrible. Elder Duval looks like a flipping Military guy and Elder Peña just got his hairline wrecked. Its seriously the funniest thing ever. On Sunday, all of the members of our branch and the ZL’s branch were making so much fun of them. It’s so funny. I had to send you a picture of this also.

That reminds me, on Sunday, we were pleased to hear a farewell talk by HNO Josue Rohrmann, one of the guys in our Branch. He’s going to make a great missionary down in El Salvador. Oh dang. I guess from where I am right now, it’s actually UP in El Salvador. 

Also, from a few weeks ago. What is tramitus? Traumitus is the paperwork stuff we have to do to stay in the country, but you usually only have to do it twice for your entire mission. Lucas isn’t progressing too well right now, but prayers always work.  We are praying he can find a new job so he can come to church and bring his family.

But that reminds me of another thing, sometimes it really crazy and weird to think that I’m actually here in Argentina. I love it here. It’s really weird and hard to explain. But at other times, it’s so real and hits me right in the face.

But yeah.

Some other small things. The weather this week has been terrible. The week before, it was cold, rainy, and wonderful. But this last week, its been hot, humid, and killer. But it’s all just part of the mission I guess. Oh yeah, I also tried to pay for some pictures today, but I guess one of the bills I used was a fake 100 peso bill. So that was funny and I am going to save it forever.

As far as the Spanish, I’m at the point that I can talk to just about anyone and understand just about everything they say. So that is amazing. The gift of tongues is real and prayer works. 

Other things of note, I’m addicted to facturas, or little pastry like doughnuts that are sold literally everywhere here, and my comp and I are getting along really well. We are just trying hard to work hard and not getting too much done, but still working at working hard. But we know that with all the prayers and faith of us and you guys back home, we are capable of doing anything. 

So yeah. good stuff. 

Well. That’s about it. Love you all and thanks for everything, especially the prayers and emails. 

Ciao

Elder Haley

Sweaty playing Ping Pong!

Having fun at our Branch activity!

Elder Robinson and kids from church

Tobia's baptism!

Elder Duval's terrible haircut!

Lunch with Hermano Deck.  Guarana...my favorite!

Now, that is a glass of Tang!

All of mom's letters finally arrived after several months.  Thanks for sending the quotes.  Especially the ones in Spanish. I have been handing them out and they love them.  This is my nice desk.

Cheeseburgers, walking and teaching

I’m not going to lie, this week was pretty tough. We didn’t teach too many people and we did a bunch of walking. But it’s okay. We have plans to be better this week and are going to put in our best effort. I finally received 6 letters that Mom mailed!  One was from January and the others were from 5 weeks ago.  I don't know why it takes so long, but I am happy to have received them. 

Tuesday was pretty alright. It was the only day of the week that we had decent success really. In the morning, we had to spend almost all of our working time trying to figure out some money problems. Our financiero in our mission office accidentally put the rent money for the Hermana´s pench onto our card. We thought we had gotten lucky and gotten a few extra thousand pesos for this transfer, but it turned out that we were wrong. So we had to take out the rest of that and pay the rent. We also had District Meeting that was really good. I was asked to be the lesson person. Alright, so we talk about our investigators for the first half, and then a short lesson at the end. I gave it on the Christ like attribute of Hope and related it to faith and I felt really good about it and Elder Robinson gave me nice complements about it afterwards. For the afternoon, we had a few lessons that went really well and we scheduled return appointments with a few people. They didn’t really accept the baptismal challenge, but they also didn’t NOT accept it.

The only thing that happened on Wednesday was a lesson we had with our investigadora, Soledad. She is a really nice old lady and we taught with a member named Carlos Fernandez, again. We taught the Plan of Salvation and she loved it. She had a lot of questions about the life after this one because she had a son die. So she said that the lesson was very beautiful and she now has a different hope and love for her son. 

For Thursday, not much at all happened. We had a lesson that we picked up for the Zone Leaders because they were out of town, but that’s about it. We also had a good council meeting without Branch President. He is a really cool guy and always has ideas to help us. Oh yeah. That night we also had a cool experience. We had a few minutes at the end of the night to do some contacting, and found one house that had a kind of intercom thing as a door bell. So a lady answered, talking through the intercom and after I introduced ourselves, she said, in English "I don’t understand you" And then we started talking English and she came to the door and asked us " have you eaten? I’m a grandmother and when I see young people, I always think, have you eaten? So that was funny. She asked us to come back the next day.

So when we went back, we were a little disappointed that the lady was crazy, super Catholic and only wanted to have a bit of a bible bashing lesson with us. So whenever she would ask a question, we would answer and bear our testimonies, but she would cut us off and start going on a different question. So that was not fun. But for lunch, we had a lunch with our mission leader of the rama and he was cool and told us "go buy three pizzas, one for each of us" as he handed us a few hundred pasos. So that was cool. When we got done, we were fat and happy. The meeting afterwards was really good too. That night, we also had cheeseburgers with Lucas, and they were pretty good, but also nothing compared to a real American burger. But it’s the thought that counts. 

Saturday was an ok day. In the morning, we went to invite a bunch of people to church the next day, but no one was home. And in the afternoon, we had a bunch of plans to get into contact with some less active members, but ended spending the afternoon worrying about a money problem of one of our investigators and walking to see Soledad. When we finally got there, we were really disappointed to learn that she didn’t want to take the lessons or be baptized anymore because her daughters and other family didn’t want her to. So that stinks. Especially because her baptism was planned for this Saturday. 

Sunday was alright. Church was good except for not having any investigators in the church. But the lessons were really good, about prayer and miracles. In the afternoon, we were not really having too much success which was not good. But alright. 

Pday has been awesome today, we got to be in the stadium of a futbol team and we made some dang good cheeseburgers, the Haley way with cebolla and bacon in the patties. So good. We took a picture on the roof of the Zone Leader’s pench.  Pretty cool. We also found street signs this week called “America” and “Santa Fe”  on the same corner.  That is me…American in Santa Fe.

Alright, no more time, see ya guys next week . Thanks for prayers and everything

Con Amor,

Elder Haley

Amazing Cheeseburgers

Roof top pictures

Santa Fe futbol field

Bus ride.  The shadows on my face make my skin look really bad

bus ride with the Zone Leaders

Elder Robinson, being Elder Robinson

Chocolate covered churros filled with dulce de leche

This week was filled with the good stuff

Not too bad of a week. But, not the best either. We had a bunch of success at first, but then the week kind of died down again. But yeah, so this is how it went.  Elder Robinson is a boss.  I love this guy, we are getting along great and are working great together. 

Wednesday morning we planned a whole bunch of stuff. So we had back up plans for our back up plans. But in the morning, we went to one of the rougher parts of town, the neighborhood that we didn’t do too much working in during my first two transfers here. But we had a really good lesson with a girl named Sofia. We taught her the Restoration and scheduled her for the 28th. So that was really good. Then we also found a few more good people that we could end up teaching. Lunch was at HNA Palota´s home and we had this really, really good Ravioli stuff. Plus it was just cool. I love her family so much. We had our first District Meeting this week too and Elder Robinson was really good as the new District Leader, especially for it being his first DM as a DL. In the afternoon, we visited a bunch of people and talked with Lucas. We taught him about the Priesthood and also told him that we were going to Fast with him this last Sunday. He was really happy about that. We fasted with him because right now, he only has work on the Weekends. But it’s a job that he really loves. You would never guess what it is though. He is the guy at car races that waves the flags to signal what lap they are on. But we ended fasting with him and he is doing really good and ready to look for other work. We actually ended up teaching 4 lessons that day, which is really, really good, especially for our first real day of working together. 

For Thursday, we made all of these plans again, but all of them didn’t work out. But that’s okay. It made for a bunch of contacting, which didn’t work out too well, but that’s alright! What we did do was we had Family Home Evening with a family from the Branch. I was really looking forward to it because it was the first Noche Hogar (Family Home Evening) that we were invited to. Plus, Elder Robinson has a really cool diagram thing of the Plan of Salvation that was going to be really cool. Sadly, it was a pretty hectic hour or so. The kids were a little crazy and lets just say, we weren’t feeling the Spirit too well. But like Grandpa Haley always says, we learn the most from our losses. Or in other words, we can be grateful for our bad lessons and days because we have more opportunities to learn and change for the better. 

For Friday, it was basically the same thing. We planned a bunch and had a bunch of people that we wanted to visit, but none of them were home, or they couldn’t talk right then. But that’s alright. We found a few people that we are going to try to visit this week and hopefully get them all to church. But other than that, we didn’t have anything happen. We walked for a really long time in a few different areas. One really cool experience was when we sat down to break for a little bit, Elder Robinson read Alma 26:27: “Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: “Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.” So that was awesome because it applied to us way too well, but after that, we were kind of pumped up. So we went and found a really cool kid that we want to visit more. And ended the night without lessons and tired feet, but also with light, happy hearts. 

Saturday was a pretty long, but awesome day. In the morning, all of our cita’s feel through again, but that’s okay. But in the afternoon, we had a lesson with a really awesome lady named Soledad. She is the most amazing and sweet lady. She loves to sing and writes her songs. She lives alone and so we had to bring a member. Hermano Fernandez was more than willing to come and he rocked the lesson. He basically taught the whole thing, which was good because his Spanish is a lot better than ours. He missed a few things that we covered really quickly. But it was one of the best lessons. Then we had to walk quite a ways to get to the terminal. But when we got there, the place to charge our TEP card, or the bus system card, was closed. We were lucky though, the bus driver was nice enough to give us a ride for free, and he wouldn’t accept a single peso for it. So we took the collectivo to a lady for the Hermanas (Sister missionaries) because one was sick and they weren’t going to be able to make the appointment. We got there and invited her to church and left because she couldn’t talk at the time. So we had a long walk back to the pench. and when I say long, I mean, loooooong. We walked for a good hour and half or so. But I was happy. Oh, and I forgot to mention, it was raining all day Saturday. I loved it. We got back to the pench really tired, but I was actually pretty happy. I felt blessed and I recognized a few tender mercies from the day that made me pretty happy. 

On Sunday, the only investigator that made it to church was Soledad. She loved it. And the only other thing that we did that day was visit her really quickly. She is a really amazing lady. I can’t wait for next P-day because we are planning to get a video of her singing. She is also going to feed us Noquis tomorrow night, and I love Noquis. 

So yeah.  We ate good food this week.  Empanadas.  Yum.  Also, tacos with the Zone Leaders.  The new Zone Leader is Elder Pena and he is from Mexico. There are some really weird and crazy murals around the city also.

Really quickly, one of the Spiritual thoughts of the week, was a talk by John C. Pingree Jr from April 2017 called, I Have a Work for Thee. I really liked it and applied a lot of it to my work as a missionary, but thought it would benefit everyone back home too. Please read it.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/10/i-have-a-work-for-thee?lang=eng

Thank you for all the prayers and everything. I love you. 

Con Amor,

Elder Haley

I LOVE empanadas

Noche hogar con una familia en la rama

A cool flower 

They have weird murals all over the place here. I swear they guys who did this one were high out of their minds. 

meal with the Zone Leaders & Elder Robinson. Elder Duval and Elder Pena is from Mexico

Holy Freaking Conference!!

Well yeah. So this was a pretty crazy week, but it ended really, really well. 

On Tuesday, we had to leave for Santa Fe at about 4:00 in the afternoon so we didn’t get too much work done. But for the rest of the night, I met a lot of really cool guys. We had to go to Santa Fe because I had tramites (formalities) in Rosario the next day. But when we got there, to the office, all the ZLs and Assistants and Hermana Capasadoras were having a big ole leader council. So afterwards, I met a lot of really cool missionaries and got to talk to President Perez for like 30 seconds. He had a lot of interviews to do. But that was really cool. Then the next morning, we got up really freaking early so we could travel to Rosario, which is about 2.5 to 3 hours away. The bus rides here are kinda lame, but also kinda cool. Once you get out of the cities, the area around here looks so much like Nebraska. Super flat, except here they actually have trees. In Rosario, all we did was wait in the Tramitus place for a few hours. I talked with an Elder from my group, or the Group of Missionaries that get to the mission field at the same time. His name is Elder Trau and his Spanish is crazy freaking awesome, so that was really cool, because it gave me a good reason to be humble and start working even harder on my Spanish. But other than that stuff, we didn’t do anything. We saw a really crazy drunk guy outside the bus Terminal in Santa Fe that was standing in the middle of the road, yelling at the buses to kill him and just make it all end. So that was crazy. 

Then the rest of the week, nothing happened until the amazing and powerful General Conference. We had General Conference in our church building and it was really cool. All of the missionaries had lots of investigators who showed up and that was cool. The conference, was sadly in Spanish. So that was kind of lame because I couldn’t understand anything. Okay. Alright. I probably could have understood a lot more, but the English voice in my head was still on, a little more quiet, but I could still hear it. So I was fighting with my ears, trying to listen to only one language, but it was tough. I had a headache by the end of each session. But I still learned quite a bit, and felt the spirit in high voltage, especially in the sustaining President Nelson part. That was flippin crazy. I had to fight really hard to not just start bawling. But the end of conference when they announced the new temples was really cool too. The new Argentina Temple is pretty far away from here, but it’s still cool. I think I’m more excited for the Russia Temple more than anything. That is just crazy cool.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference?cid=HP_SU-1-4-2018_dPFD_fGC_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng

And another point of interest, I learned this week that I’m actually not going to be training this transfer. It turns out that President Perez just tells all of the new guys that to help them study more and get their butts into “missionary “shape faster. I will say that his strategy does work. So I was a little disappointed, but more relieved than anything. So I have a new companion, Elder Robinson. He’s from Utah, or as the Argentines call it, La Fabrica. He’s actually from Layton, UT, where they just announced a new temple. But he is super awesome. We are getting a long really well, which is a nice change from last two transfers. But he only has one more transfer more than me in the mission. So we are both learning, but are ready to get out, baptize people, and have fun while doing it. I am still in Rafaela. 

So yeah. A really nice end to the week. I can’t wait for the rest of this week. We are going to be doing a lot with our Branch President and Mission Leader in the next little bit of time, and I am really ready to just start working hard. 

Love, 

Elder Haley

Asados we ate this week.

My new companion, Elder Robinson

Group that went to Rosario together

My Easter package!

I tried to "color eggs"

Lucas.  

Elder Duval and Lucas

Lucas fed us pizza!