I Baptized Someone for the First Time!

Alright, so I realized that my emails are really crazy long, so I'm going to start doing a really quick overview at the beginning and go into more stuff later in the email.

Monday- just normal P-day (preparation day). Not much, but Alma asked me to baptize her during our lesson that night! So that was cool.

Tuesday- not very much happened, but we had a few lessons. That night, we went to Santa Fe for some paper work stuff the next day

Wednesday- first half was in Santa Fe doing the paperwork, or what is called traumitus. So just some paperwork to make sure I stay in the country. The second half was a few lessons and contacting.

Thursday- lesson with Pamela, who is new. She accepted to be baptized in a few weeks! Then during the interview for Alma's baptism, she brought a friend. We taught her, and she has a baptismal date in a few weeks also!

Friday- morning, we had a few lessons and handed out a few Libro de Mormon during contacting. That night, one lesson with a lady named Camela, she is being baptized in a few weeks too! Elder Mamani likes to challenge everyone to baptism. I feel like I'm in the best two years with Elder Calhoun!

Saturday- the whole day was devoted to the baptism and I baptized Alma! Really cool! We contacted people the rest of the night and didn't have much done.

Well I actually, I can't do much for a letter this week, I'm so sorry guys. I'll write more next week for sure.

Love,

Elder Haley

Alma at her baptism.  Like the artwork?

 the leaves of a different kind of tree are flipping huge

 My first haircut in Argentina.  I found the glasses in the pench.

Trees here called "arbol borracha" or drunk trees. they have these crazy spikes all over the branches and trunk. You should look them up

This is my pet scorpion that I found in the pench. Sadly, it died last night out of nowhere.

First Baptism

Kind of a crazy busy week, I’ll try to get all the stuff in. 

Tuesday

We had another lesson with Mario. We are trying to teach him all the Commandments again after his baptism. Then we bought some soap for me and a toothbrush and paste for Emiliano because he has a toothache or something and we wanted to help. We also bought Carnela, or cinnamon for our breakfasts this week. We tried making french toast. With the help of the Hermanas in our district, we were able to do it. For the first day or two, we didn’t have anything to put on the toast. So later in the week, we went to a hippie herbal store and bought some peanut butter. The ingredients say that its mostly made out of different grasses and weird stuff, but it tastes pretty dang close to the real thing, so it will work. That night, we had a lesson with Emiliano. We had contact with him every day leading up to Saturday.

Wednesday

In the morning, we tried contacting people and finding new people to teach. We got a few people´s contact information, but nothing much other than that. Lunch was with HNA Palota. She is a really sweet lady and loves to make fun of Elder Mamani because he is Chilan. I just wish I could understand the Spanish, because she goes on rants about Chile and I don’t understand any of it. I just laugh and smile because I’m sure it was really funny. We taught Alma and her family again. Alma commited to being baptized this coming Saturday! So that’s awesome! We had another short lesson with Emiliano and met with his parents for a little bit to get their permission for Emiliano´s baptism this last Saturday! They were okay with it and so we were set. That day, we also met with a member family who has a daughter around Alma´s age and asked her to help us with Alma so when she is baptized, she has a friend. She said she would help!

Thursday

Thursday didn’t have much for us. We went into the plaza here in town, which is kind of the downtown or middle of the city. It has tall buildings, stores and clothes shops and other things. So its pretty crazy at times. We bought some paper for a goal calender for Alma. We used a few different colors of paper to make a calender with different goals such as "read the book of mormon" or "pray". We also bought some smiley face stickers for her to mark when she does each thing every day. I’ll try to get a picture of the one we make this week for a different Investigator. That night, we met with Emiliano and his family again to get more information for his baptism. He was very excited the entire week and had plenty of questions for us. 

Friday

In the morning, we looked for new investigators from a list of previous investigators and other contacts. Again, not much success, but we found one lady who had gone inactive after she was diagnosed with cancer. She said that its just hard for her to get to church because her body can’t handle riding her bike the whole way across town. We told her that we hoped to see her at church this week and if she can’t make it, that we understood. That night, we taught a lady named Adriana. She was so ready to hear what we had to teach her. Her father was LDS but she never went. Her two children live with her, both are in their 20’s. I think she just wants a better life for them and to be a better example for them. We challenged her to be baptized on the 3rd of February. So with her, we will have 3 baptisms in a row. Emiliano this past week, Alma this week, and Adriana after that. We also want to get another one of our Investigators to get baptized, but she isn’t keeping her commitments, yet. 

Saturday.

Saturday was all about Emiliano´s baptism. We did some teaching in the morning, but the rest of the day was dedicated to the baptism. We got to the church and started filling the baptismal font, set up chairs, cleaned some stuff, and studied in the church while we waited for the font to fill. We picked up Emiliano around 6:30 and headed to the church. The baptism was great. Members that were able to make it showed up and helped welcome Emiliano. Alma also attented, and she said that it made her excited for her own baptism. So it was amazing!

Sunday. 

We confirmed Emiliano and he was really happy. The rest of the Branch welcomed and congratulated him as well. Elder Mamani and I spoke during sacrament meeting also. I spoke on the Atonement and used scriptures from Alma 26 about how repentence gives us joy and Luke 9:62 about how we can’t look back on our sins after we repent. Let me explain the branch real quick. We have a really small branch with about 25 people who attend every week. We have a lot more members, but a lot of them are inactive. So we try to work a lot with the inactive members and get them to church, while also looking for investigators and helping them prepare for baptism. We had lunch with a really nice member couple. 

So this week, I studied in the first few chapters of Alma. Good golly are they powerful. I love chapter 5 and how strongly Alma speaks about repentence. It reminds me of how I need to never wait to repent. I also love in later chapters how he reminds me of my duty as a missionary and how to best serve the people with love, charity, and kindness. 

The food that we usually have for lunches with members is called Malinesas. I think thats how it is spelled. It’s basically like country fried chicken from back home. I like it a lot. The thing they do different here is they don’t have much potatoes, and when they do, it’s never mashed potatoes. So on the malinesas, they love to have mayonaise. The mayo they buy here has some lemon juice in it. I love it a lot. Of course, we drink tang and soda with everything. 

Oh yeah, the freaking perros (dogs) here. They are flipping everywhere. Strays and domestic alike. Everyone has dogs because they are all afraid of being robbed, but they are usually nice. There has only been one that I’ve been scared of, and it lives by the church so we see it every week. But other than that, the perros just hang out and scavenge for food. If they ever get close to you, you just yell "Fuela!" which is like "go away" and they usually leave. But the way Argentine´s say it, it sounds like "Juela!" with an H sound. Its one of my favorite things to say.

Elder Mamani is awesome. Yes, there is a siesta, the town basically shuts down. I don’t know how to make tortillas yet, but I’m hoping to get the recipe from Elder Rivera, who is from Mexico. The leather scripture cases I want are from a guy and Elder Rivera has his information, along with a guy who will receive packages from the families of missionaries and deliver them to the missionaries. I will try to get his info this week. We buy normal stuff when we go grocery shopping. We shop at Pingüino´s for all of our food and it is basically a Sonny´s from back home. Most of the families are very happy to serve us lunches. At church, they tell us what day they want to serve us, and we show up.  I’ll try to get more pictures of the city this week. It’s a lot more of a city than I was expecting, but the town I’m in is one of the bigger ones.

So yeah. Pretty crazy week. Can’t wait for what this next one brings!

Con Amor,

Elder Haley

Donut from this morning. It's a chocolate covered, cut in two, with dulce de leche in the middle. So rich and delicious

The candy here is amazing. The toffee is fantastic and the fruity taffies are my favorite

In the Plaza

My Zone Leaders being goofy

The keys they have here

Elder Mamani and I in the city and our favorite drink!

Emiliano on his baptism day.  The picture in our white clothes did not turn out. 

First week in Argentina

HOLA!

Ok. So the plane rides to Atlanta and Buenos Aires. Holy freak. I knew things were going to be really different. Especially as a missionary, but why did it have to be this bad. On the plane ride to Atlanta from SLC, I had the pleasure of sitting next to an old, really atheist and anti-religion lady. As soon as we sat down, she looked over to me and the Elder I was sitting next to and said "I’m just so sooooooooorry for you guys" and we were thinking oh she’s nice because we have to say goodbye to our families, but no. She said "no, I’m sorry that you guys have been BRAINWASHED for your entire lives. "The rest of the flight was her trying to bash us and our religion. The elder I sat next to and I tried to be as nice and charitable as possible. She just kinda hated us I guess, but I tried my hardest to love her and treat her with charity, like a good missionary should. The flight to Buenos Aires was super long with a highlight of really crazy. It was about 2-3 o’clock in the morning and I was sleeping when I heard over the radio or intercom "Would (so and so, a doctor on the flight) please come to the back of the plane. We need your assistance." So I woke up and the doctor came to the seats right ahead of us and helped the flight attendants try to help this lady. She couldn’t breathe or something and it was kind of freaking me and the Elder I was sitting next to out. The lady puked into a bag and passed out! The doctor laid the lady down and started taking her pulse and stuff. After like 10 min, the lady woke up again, but wasn’t really talking, but she ended up being okay. How you may ask?? I’m not totally sure, but I’m pretty sure it was because of the power of prayer. When I woke up, I said a prayer. I also woke the Elder I was sitting next to and he said a prayer too. I think 2 or 3 other missionaries said prayers for the lady. And guess what, she was okay. Coincidence?? Maybe. But I believe our prayers absolutely helped her. 

Okay, first day in Argentina. Basically, we were in a bus the entire day for something close to 5-6 hours. After a 10 hour plane ride from Atlanta to Buenos Aires. So that wasn’t my favorite. But the naps I took on the bus were some of the best I’ve ever had, so it was a fair trade. That night, we had dinner with the Mission president and his wife. We had empanadas (Oh my freaking goodness I love Argentina food), loads of soda-including Guarana (I love it here), and other meat and cracker stuff. The missionaries that work in the office were there also. They are all really cool. We slept that night in their pench (apartment).

The next day, Wednesday I think, we met our trainers, only after about 1.5 hours of rules and guidelines for the mission. I met my trainer!!! His name is Elder Mamani and he is from Chile. He loves to speak English, which is both good and bad for me. I can most of the time ask him what words are in Spanish, so that is good. But then it’s really easy to just speak English most of the time. But we are doing really well and speaking Spanish as much as possible and if I don’t understand something or I have a question about something, I can ask him in English. After we met our trainers, we had a really good lunch with some sort of dish thing and tons of soda. They love their soda here. And I am very grateful for that. We had to take a bus to our area, my first area. The city is called Rafaela. It is about 2 hours away from Santa Fe by bus. We bought our tickets and were waiting for about 1.5 hours. But we missed our bus. So we had to redo our tickets and wait for another 30 min. When we finally got to Rafaela, the first people we met were the Zone Leaders. Their names are Elder Grecci and Elder Rivera. Elder Grecci is from Sao Paulo Brazil and looks like he could be from the USA. Elder Rivera is from Mexico and is this big, kind of scary looking Mexican, but he is super nice and funny.  Both of them have about 20 months on the mission. Oh yeah, my companion has 17 months on the mission. Elder Rivera trained my trainer. There are also sisters in the same city as us, but they go to church with another branch, so we don’t see them much. They made my companion and I a carrot cake. Oh and on Friday, the Zone Leaders and us made tacos. They were the best I’ve had in a long time, no offense mom

My first day in the mission field was pretty good. We taught a lesson to a recent convert, Mario. He is really nice. Then we walked for a mile or so and contacted some people. Then we had lunch with a nice family. The food here is really good, no matter where you go. Oh yeah and the people love to drink soda and tang juice packets. That is just about all that they drink. So I didn’t have very much water and got super dehydrated my first day. And we were in the sun all day and that wasn’t too good for me. By the next morning I felt a lot better. 

Friday was good. We had a few lessons and contacted a few good people. That night, we had a lesson with an investigator who has a baptismal date. His name is Emiliano and he is a really nice kid. He is 17 and I love him already. I don’t understand most of what he says, you know, because my Spanish stinks, but Elder Mamani does. He says that if I only knew Spanish, I would understand how funny Emiliano is. 

On Saturday, we had a few lessons planned for the morning, but most of them fell through. The only one that I remember us having was another lesson with Mario. He understood all that we said and committed again to live la lay de Castidad. Not that he had messed up or anything, he just recommitted. That afternoon and night, we had splits with the Zone Leaders so Elder Rivera could be with Elder Mamani for a lesson with an investigator. So Elder Grecci and I were together. We did some contacting and taught a lesson with a less active family. The mom and grandpa are less active, but the daughter, Alma, hasn’t been baptized. She is 13. So we taught the restoration and challenged the whole family to attend church the next day. They all said yes. Then we also asked Alma to be baptized. She didn’t say yes, but she also didn’t say no. So we will work with her and her family a little harder and get her to do that soon. Hopefully.

My first Sunday was really good. We got to church and I had to help pass the sacrament because there is only like 25 people that attend the branch. But it was good. I had the opportunity to share my testimony and that was really good. The lessons we had were great and I understood most of what was being said. The problem with my Spanish is that I stink at “life Spanish”, but my Church and Gospel Spanish is really good, or as least as good as it can be after 7 weeks. But when we are talking to people during contacting or just in stores and stuff, I don’t understand a thing they are saying. But during lessons and church, I understand almost everything. I contribute most of it to the Spirit. I can’t take much credit for anything about my Spanish. But the rest of the day we were walking around looking for lessons with people. We didn’t have much of anything, but we contacted two really good people. 

So the culture here is different from what I’m used to, obviously, but I love all of it. Well, most of it. The families here usually don’t have cars. There will be a family with 2-3 kids, and they all fit on one motor bike. So the dad will drive, the middle kid will be behind him, mom behind the kid, and the older kid in the back holding onto the mom. The mom or dad then holds the baby, or one of the kids will sit in front of the dad. So pretty crazy. I also had my first rainstorm this week!! It was on Saturday. It started at about 10 and lasted for the rest of the day and into about half of Sunday. The rain wasn’t too bad most of the time, but at about 11 on Saturday, Elder Mamani and I were walking for a good hour straight trying to get to lessons and then back to the pench for lunch and studies, and the raid was POURING. I had my rain jacket and my bag is water proof, but Elder Mamani didn’t have anything. He was straight soaked. My feet and shoes were soaked but that’s about it. But the streets here aren’t the best when it comes to draining rain. Some aren’t terrible, you can jump over the streams on each side of the road. Some are terrible and have close to a foot of water that you have to run through to get to the other side. So we were wet and cold.

I love it here. People always ask where I’m from, how old I am, and how bad my Spanish is. They are always interested to hear about the USA and how old I am, but are never too surprised when I say my Spanish is no bueno and muy maul.

I can’t wait to hear more from you guys! 

Con amor,

Elder Haley

Waiting to leave the MTC.  We had a lot of luggage.

Buenos Aires Temple spire

My companion/trainer Elder Mamani

I found a snail!

Our street

Our apartment...

My desk is the one on the right

Bedroom, my bed is on the right. 

Welcome!!

Dear Family of Elder Morley Aaron Haley,

We wish to thank you for the support given as you sent Elder Haley to the Mission Argentina Santa Fe. For us, it represents an immense responsibility and blessing to work with one of your family members. We inform you that Elder Morley Aaron Haley, arrived to the mission happy, well, and without inconvenience. Today Elder Morley Aaron Haley is already working in his respective area and is receiving support from his new companion. We will send you a photo taken on the day Elder Morley Aaron Haley received his companionship assignment.

We will also send you a link to the Mission Blog, http://www.misionsf.blogspot.com.ar, so you can view photos of moments in the mission. We remind you that your children are under the promise written in DyC 84: 88 “And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”

With love,

President and Sister Pérez

Mission Argentina Santa Fe

Meeting his companion for the first time.  We don't know his name yet.

Elder Haley and his companion.  

Elders with their Mission President and his wife.

President and Sister Perez and Elder Haley

ARGENTINA!

Hey! 

We just got to the Mission Home! The flight was crazy and long and tiring and a little crazy. I'll tell you all about it in the email this week. We arrived safely and everyone is being really, really nice and fun. I love it here already. The people are awesome (the few that I've met) and the Mission President is really nice.

Talk to you later!

Love,

Elder Haley

Week 6

My last week in the MTC was pretty awesome! I worked harder than I had in weeks before and because of it, I learned so much more and had more Spiritual experiences than I thought possible.

The week started really well! On Sunday, our lessons and classes for Church were really good. During Sacrament Meeting, my District and I sang a special music number. We sang I’ll go where you want me to go, but with a small twist that made it really cool. We would sing all of the verses in English, and then for the chorus, we sang in Spanish. There should be a picture of it coming around. Then, that night Brad Wilcox spoke at the fireside. It was a really awesome and motivational talk about our role and responsibility as missionaries. He also spoke really strongly and powerfully about how we have power and authority over Satan. He also brought one of his friends, a girl named Lexi Walker. She is a really good singer. Like crazy good. She was invited to a lot of really big and important parties, one of them being the Vice-President's first dance. But the craziest part, she was only 15! So that was a good day. 

Monday wasn’t much of anything special. We started doing In-Field Orientation (IFO) which is basically more specific stuff about what we are going to do in the Mission Field. So we talked about how to contact people and share really short messages with them. But other than that, we didn’t do much. We had class as usual. 

On Tuesday we had IFO again, which was alright. We talked about weekly planning and how to set goals. But the only other interesting thing that happened that day was the devotional. We were blessed to hear from Bonnie L. Oscarson and her husband. She shared a lot of really cool mission stories and lessons that we can learn from them. She left us with 5 different things to remember to help us become better missionaries: 

1. Work Hard

2. Learn how to listen to the Spirit

3. We are never alone in the work

4. Learn to love the people and your companion

5. The power of prayer and fasting is real

After every devotional on Tuesday night, we have a short kind of District Testimony Meeting. At the meeting, we all go around and share what we learned and the different thoughts we had. These meetings are always really spiritual and I love them a lot. 

Wednesday was just a normal day. The only part that was different was that we had a Skype TRC. So we go to this lab and teach a lesson with someone over Skype. The people we teach are random volunteers from all over the world. Its good because it gives us a bit of an idea of how the people in Argentina are going to speak and how fast the talk. But the TRC's are kind of lame because Skype almost always has problems with the connectivity or most of the time the camera's don’t work. So other than the kind of failed Skype lesson, it was another good, normal day. 

The news of President Monson passing away was hard. It was pretty sad. But I feel happy for him at the same time, he had an incredible life of service and love. If you watched the video that LDS.org has, in his very first talk during general conference he promised that he would devote his life to the church. And he absolutely did that. And his wife died a while back, so I know they are very happy now, being back together. We watched also watched the tribute video for President Monson that was on lds.org. It was amazing.

On Thursday, we didn’t do too much different. The only thing I can really remember is that our teacher, Hermana Christensen came back from Christmas and New Year's break. So we got to have a few more lessons with her. So yeah, the day was pretty normal. But it was still good. 

Friday was a pretty normal day. Except it was my last normal day at the MTC!! So yeah. We just had class and stuff. But the night class was really cool. It was our last class with HNA Fletcher, and she had us go around and share some of our favorite experiences in the MTC. We also went around and everyone said a few things about what we love about our companion(s). Elder McCown must not know me too well though, because when it was his turn, he said I'm always happy and smiling at people. Yeah right...Ha ha.

Today, basically the only thing that stood out was our session at the Temple. I went in with a question in mind and a prayer in my heart that it would be answered, and guess what?? I got an answer!! It was amazing! So maybe someday I’ll share that experience. Maybe when I’m like 80 or something. I also learned a lot about the promises I’ve made with God.

Thank you for your emails, thoughts, and prayers. And as far as my mission being a sacrifice, I’ve learned two things this week. First, is that missions are a blessing for those that serve them. We learn from Ammon in Alma 26 that we should be grateful for the great blessing that we have been given to go out and serve others. The second thing I learned today was in the temple. I learned more or just understood more about the Law of Consecration. We know that everything we are given is a blessing from God. So my giving back two years of my life and time here on Earth isn’t much of a sacrifice, at least not for me.

Alright, so with this being my last full week at the MTC, I wanted to take advantage of the Spirit that is felt here. So I made a few personal goals that would help me make the best of my time. I just wanted to study harder, pay attention in class better, and work to have more charity and love for others. My studies this week were amazing. I read a lot of the Book of Mormon/Libro de Mormon. During class, I made the effort to participate more and help myself learn Spanish better. And I learned how to show more charity and love for people, which has really blessed me and feel closer to my Savior. I love this Gospel and how much it has blessed my life. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to serve my Heavenly Father and his children in Argentina. I cannot wait to get out of this place and just get to work. I love the MTC, but I can’t wait to leave. I want to be out helping and teaching the people in Argentina and not just talking about it. This next week is going to be one of the most special weeks in my life. I can’t wait to share my stories and experiences with you guys. 

See you in a week!

Love, 

Elder Haley

Saying goodbye to Hermana Fletcher

My District singing in church

Elder Hansen and I.  See Mom...I am taking pictures!

SIX guys sharing a room...and sorting and packing to leave for Argentina

 HI!

I love my tie!

I am so excited to go to Argentina!

We are all traveling together to Santa Fe! It is going to be awesome!