Feliz ano nuevo!!

Well hello. This week was actually super dang good. We got a lot done, taught quite a few first lessons, and now we have even more plans for this coming week or two. This week actually made me pretty happy with just a bunch of good old fashioned work, and with results from that work. 

Christmas day was so amazing.  I talked to and saw my family for an hour!!! Our connection wasn’t super great, but we made it work. They said I have an accent. I saw Drew’s new leg and saw him walk without his crutches!! It was great to hear their voices and see their faces.  I loved all of the gifts that were sent. I played my ukulele for them and also bore my testimony in Spanish for them.  I know they couldn’t understand me, but I know they could feel the spirit of what I was speaking. We had Christmas dinner with la familia Penno.  We exchanged some gifts, it was awesome. Mari also gave me a Christmas gift.  A mate mug with ingredients. She gave me a plant the helps it taste more minty. It was very thoughtful of her. Christmas in Argentina was something I will never forget.  

Wednesday morning we started divisions with the other Elders, and since we live right next to each other, we can just have divisions for all of one day, and not carry it over into the next day. I was with Elder Sandler and in my area. We left to visit a few people and hoped that we would have a few lessons. The first house that we passed by, the person was home. Her name was Araceli. She is the daughter of a lady that Elder Gonzales and I had contacted a long time ago. The mom turns out to be a former investigador who didn’t really want too much from us. BUT! Her daughter, Araceli, who is about 26 years old or so, was interested in what we had to say. So, after a few weeks of trying to find her when she was at home to set something up to teach her, we were finally lucky enough to catch her at home. She let us pass by into her backyard area and sit with her and chat for a little bit. So we got to know her, and then shared with her the message of the Restoration of the Gospel. It was a great lesson! One of the best I’ve had in a while. I really love training Elder Moore and his Spanish is actually pretty good, but having a companion who could speak and understand everything in Spanish and add to the conversation helped a lot with this particular lesson. We could really go off of each other and Araceli was loving it. She followed along super well and understood everything. She even did the one thing that I love. As we were sharing the First Vision and everything about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, she just sat there smiling, saying "Wow... I didn’t know that. That’s amazing." I love it when people do that!! And then, in the end of the lesson, we were explaining about how she could come to know for herself that what we were saying was true, and when we extended the Baptismal invitation, SHE ACCEPTED!! WooHoo! It was a great morning. The lesson did take quite a bit of time, but with this lesson, the Spirit was present the entire time. She was loving it. And I was too!! After that, we went to the pench to change quickly and head to lunch. We changed because after the lunch, we had a service project with the family that we ate with. It was a good time. Super hot and humid, but for the project we used a machete to cut some crazy tall grass and chop a few tree branches. At the end, we were pretty well tired and dirty, so we headed back to the pench, changed again really quickly, and then headed out again to visit a few people. We didn’t have too much time to visit a bunch of people before our weekly meeting with the ward mission leader, but we passed by a few people. But after that, we had the meeting, and that was the end of the day. 

We also taught and have a new investigador named Magdalena. She is super cool and the lesson went really well with her too. We had contacted her last week sometime and planned to go by again in the morning this week. We went over and started talking to her and when we asked her about the pamphlet that we had left her with, she told us that she had read the entire thing! It was great! She told us a bit of what she remembered and a few parts that she liked. She could remember most of the main, important parts. But the part that was the best was when she said "But my question is how can I know if Joseph Smith actually was a prophet?" And that’s when we said "Well! Lets talk about that!" So we sat down and went through the lesson and taught her all that she needed to know and answered her questions. It was a pretty good lesson and the Spirit was working on her a lot, even when her little baby daughter was walking around and falling and crying every few minutes. And, in the end, we were able to extend the baptismal invitation also. She didn’t accept quite as openly as Araceli, but she still accepted the invitation to be baptized IF she comes to know that the Book of Mormon and the Church are true. It was a great lesson. And, Elder Moore was able to participate a little bit more than usual and share his testimony, which he totally rocked! Even though he doesn’t say too many words, he doesn’t have to because the Spirit he brings is more than enough. 

And yet another lesson that we had was on Sunday, after the siesta. When we went by to visit a woman that we had met the day before and get to know her husband and teach them. When we showed up, Juan, the head of the house, answered the door and let us pass into his home. So we chatted for a little bit to get to know him a little more and his wife, Antonia, who we had met the day before, and shared with them a little bit more about what we do to help them understand a little more. It was a good time. They are a really great family with the mom, dad, and two kids. The oldest is a 10 year old boy and a four year old girl. We were able to talk to them and share a few laughs and about where we come from and all that, then we got into the lesson. The lesson, once again, went pretty well. We were able to teach about the Restoration again and to explain to them why there are so many different churches, and which of them is the one, true church. They were pretty attentive to what we were saying, Antonia more than Juan, but it was a great lesson anyways. In the end, we didn’t really feel the Spirit prompting to extend the baptismal invitation, but we will be passing by again soon to follow up on the commitments that they did make and also to teach them a little more and get the baptismal invitation in. 

Also, another day as we were looking for a reference from the other Elders, we were contacting and met this girl named Ingrid. She was super great and seemed to have a lot of interest, even right off the bat. She invited us in to sit down with her outside (something a lot of people do here because of the heat and the sun that turn almost all of the buildings here into complete ovens). So we sat down and started to get to know her a little more. She is a college student and likes to do what most college kids like to do. We were able to share a little bit of the Plan of Salvation with her and explain to her what the Atonement of Jesus Christ is and why it is so important to her. It was a great little time to share something short with her and set another time to pass by again. We also met her mom, who right away told us that she was already attending another church and that she didn’t want us trying to "preach" and "prophecy" to her, but that we are more than welcome to teach her daughter. Yeah, well see about that....

Oh yeah, and we are also starting to try and teach the mom of one of the less active kids in our ward. The kids name is Uriel, I think I talked about him last week. Well, long story short, he got baptized about a year ago and his mom took the lessons from the missionaries too. But she couldn’t get baptized at the time because she was living with a guy and couldn’t get married to him because she was still technically married to her old husband and just never did the divorce papers. So now she is actually divorced, but still lives with the guy. So, we are trying to get the kid to come back to the church, especially because in our ward we have very few, or should I say, almost no young men. We have 1. Well, two, but only one comes to church every week. So we are trying to get all the young men active again and also get some more young men baptized. But, last week when we passed by them and met them for the first time, the mom was a little closed. Not that she didn’t like us, but she just didn’t open up to us. We were trying to find a way to get her to open up to us a little more. So, when we visited this week, we were just chatting, talking about the weather or something super basic like that, and then started to talk to her about what she does for work and stuff like that. She told us that she cleans houses and different places like that, but her work is super hit and miss, as in she almost never has a set schedule. But, she also didn’t finish high school. So she told us that she is trying to finish school and then hopes to move on to college and take a nursing course that would be her dream job. So, as we were talking to her about that, she was really opening up to us and we were finally able to have more a conversation with her and not only us talking. So that was amazing. We then turned the subject onto the church and how she was investigating before and reading the Book of Mormon and stuff like that. It was a great little chat that we had about that. She showed us her copy of the Book of Mormon and all the scriptures she had marked and all of that. She actually seemed pretty excited when we invited her to start reading the Book of Mormon a little bit more and start praying normally. We also invited her to talk to her boyfriend about coming to church again and maybe taking the lessons again. She said she would do it, so we are hoping to pass by her again early this week and follow up on that. 

As for Paola this week, we were able to pass by a member family and set up plans for a family home evening with Paola and her daughters in the house of this member family. So we passed by a day or two before to invite Paola and her two daughters to the FHE, and they said that would go! So we were super stoked to help them meet a few members and they they would have a few people to be friends with and see in the church and not be complete strangers. But, just before the thing on Saturday night, we were passing by to pick them up and go to the house of these members, who lived just a block or two away, we were met by Paola in the street. She approached us and told us that she had to take care of her mom and wasn’t going to be able to go to the activity. Her mom was super sick from diabetes and she was the only one that was going to be able to take care of her. It was pretty disappointing.  We weren’t too excited to have to pass by the members home, just when we were meant to be showing up for the FHE and have to cancel on them. It was pretty lame, but the members were at least pretty understanding. It always stinks when we plans don’t go down too well. Hopefully we can do it again in the future. 

That’s what was going on in the week. We had a bunch of lessons that we were super proud of and happy to teach. Elder Moore is starting to become a little more confident with talking and teach a bit more. So we are getting that going and starting to see real results from the work we are doing. It’s amazing. 

I love the work I am doing here. It’s something I say a lot, but it completely true. I love the people of Argentina, I love the culture, I love the Gospel that I can share, and I especially love the Spirit I can feel as I share this Gospel. 

Love you all for all that you do inside and outside of the church. You are all amazing people, and I love you.

Chau

Elder Haley

Saying hi to Elder Moore's family during his call

Christmas dinner with Penno's

My Christmas gifts.  Forgot to include my American flag and family calendar.

Family on my computer during our call.  Drew's leg is sweet!

Crazy weird animal we saw this week.

Christmas gift from Mari.

The plant is a kind of weed that people use in their mates. You have to grow it out more and dry the leaves, but it gives a kind of minty flavor to the mate

We love pizza!