Año Nuevo - 31 diciembre 2018
Well we had some ups and downs this week. Disaster struck and Edén did not get confirmed... I´m not really sure what happened. On wednesday, we had a lesson with him and everything was great. He was excited to come to church and recieve the Holy Ghost. But then, the next day we got a text at about 5 saying that he had to leave for Jujuy at 6, and wouldn`t be back until like the middle of January. I was like you can`t be serious. We tried calling him and we went straight to his house, but no one was there. We haven`t heard from him since. We´re guessing that he´s on guard or something, but supposedly he was on a 4 week break from the army, so we´re not really sure what happened. I guess we just got to wait and see.
I´m not sure if I mentioned Abril last week? I think in the video call I talked about how a girl came running after us to ask what time church started. Well anyway, she came again yesterday to church. She was pretty close to being ready to be baptized. But then she suddenly left during the middle of sacrament meeting. And she sent us a text explaining that she was sorry for leaving early but she didn`t like the meeting at all because she is in favor of abortion (which was mentioned in one of the talks). And in the other talk plural marriage got mentioned for some reason and she said she was confused about that. Sooo.. I guess we`ll see if we can explain all of that to her this week.
Other than that the week was pretty good tho. We got 5 people in church yesterday, which was good. They all have different stuff that´s keeping them from being baptized though, so we´re gonna have to pull off some magic.
I guess I forgot to mention that transfers were on saturday, but I´m staying a 4th transfer here to finish the training of Elder Hill.
Anyway, Happy New Year!
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? - James 2:22
-Elder Shelton
Monday, December 31, 2018
Monday, December 24, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Dec 24, 2018
and all the elements combine to hedge up the way - 24 diciembre 2018
Well it has been an absolutely insane past 3 days. To be honest, I don`t even know where to start.
I guess I`ll start out with what happened to Edén. Like I said last week, he was a ¨seguro¨ for this saturday. Everything looked good during the week, we planned everything with him and the ward, and the baptism was going to be at 6 on saturday. Well the elders in Castillo 1 were also going to have 2 baptisms on friday, but due to a long story that I don´t really want to type out, they had to cancel it and so they just replanned it for saturday so that we could have the baptisms together. Then saturday morning, we were out contacting and happened to run into Edén in the street. He was excited for his baptism, and he said that he didn`t have work or anything all day so it was going to be a really chill day for him. Well, the baptismal font takes about 4 hours to fill up, so right after lunch at about 2 we went to the church to start filling it. Then at about 5, I went with Elder Ramirez to go pick up the 2 kids they were going to baptize. Well, we got to their house, and like always, there were a few problems, and we didn`t end up getting out of their house until like 5:45. Then, I get a call from Elder Covey, who was still at the church, saying that Edén still hadn`t shown up. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. So I gave him a call, and he answered, but of course there was this dog like 2 feet away from me barking as loud as he could, so I basically could understand like 0% of what he was saying. Although I got the feeling like something had happened and he was no longer here in Castillo. I finally just hung up and called him again when we got to the church. I called him like 30 times but he didn`t answer. By this time it was already past 6 and everyone was asking where he was. Finally, at about 6:20, I got a text from him that said there had been some kind of emergency with the national guard and they had called him in to the Capital. Well, I had to be the guy that broke the news to all the members that were there that Edén couldn`t come. Luckily they were pretty understanding.
Alright so I`m just gonna skip a bunch of details to this story because I figure I could just tell it all to you tomorrow in the Skype call. But basically, we baptized Edén yesterday afternoon. So it was a pretty happy ending, although we will have to confirm him next sunday in sacrament meeting.
I´ve got a few more good stories from this week, but I think it will be easier to just tell you them in the call tomorrow.
Hope you have a great Christmas!
-Elder Shelton
Well it has been an absolutely insane past 3 days. To be honest, I don`t even know where to start.
I guess I`ll start out with what happened to Edén. Like I said last week, he was a ¨seguro¨ for this saturday. Everything looked good during the week, we planned everything with him and the ward, and the baptism was going to be at 6 on saturday. Well the elders in Castillo 1 were also going to have 2 baptisms on friday, but due to a long story that I don´t really want to type out, they had to cancel it and so they just replanned it for saturday so that we could have the baptisms together. Then saturday morning, we were out contacting and happened to run into Edén in the street. He was excited for his baptism, and he said that he didn`t have work or anything all day so it was going to be a really chill day for him. Well, the baptismal font takes about 4 hours to fill up, so right after lunch at about 2 we went to the church to start filling it. Then at about 5, I went with Elder Ramirez to go pick up the 2 kids they were going to baptize. Well, we got to their house, and like always, there were a few problems, and we didn`t end up getting out of their house until like 5:45. Then, I get a call from Elder Covey, who was still at the church, saying that Edén still hadn`t shown up. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. So I gave him a call, and he answered, but of course there was this dog like 2 feet away from me barking as loud as he could, so I basically could understand like 0% of what he was saying. Although I got the feeling like something had happened and he was no longer here in Castillo. I finally just hung up and called him again when we got to the church. I called him like 30 times but he didn`t answer. By this time it was already past 6 and everyone was asking where he was. Finally, at about 6:20, I got a text from him that said there had been some kind of emergency with the national guard and they had called him in to the Capital. Well, I had to be the guy that broke the news to all the members that were there that Edén couldn`t come. Luckily they were pretty understanding.
Alright so I`m just gonna skip a bunch of details to this story because I figure I could just tell it all to you tomorrow in the Skype call. But basically, we baptized Edén yesterday afternoon. So it was a pretty happy ending, although we will have to confirm him next sunday in sacrament meeting.
I´ve got a few more good stories from this week, but I think it will be easier to just tell you them in the call tomorrow.
Hope you have a great Christmas!
-Elder Shelton
Monday, December 17, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Dec 17, 2018
Carne y Huevos - 17 diciembre 2018
Alrighty well it was a pretty good week. We are pretty hyped because we have a ¨seguro¨ for this saturday. A seguro is somebody who already has everything he needs to be baptized (2 church attendances, all the lessons, interview, and desire to be baptized). Remember the guy I talked about last week that came to church in his army uniform? Well he came with us again yesterday, and we did the baptismal interview last night, so he is now considered a seguro. So unless something completely unexpected happens, we will be having a baptism this saturday.
So here´s something I found pretty funny. We were teaching this new couple in their house, and we started talking about the Plan of Salvation. I started it off, and then I turned it over to my comp to teach the pre-mortal life. Well he did pretty good, until he said that ¨Dios tiene un cuerpo de carne y huevos.¨ I was trying so hard not to laugh, but the look on the investigators face killed me. We all ended up laughing when my comp realized what he said haha.
Well I just got some good news. Remember that huge family of 9 that I found in my last area? Well Elder Duarte (the elder I trained) just told me that the parents got married and the kids got baptized. I am pretty shocked to be honest. It´s really good to hear though.
Well I can´t really think of much else to say. Christmas is coming really fast, and I kinda forgot about the video call thing so I´ll try and get on that this week so we can find somewhere to do it. It´s definitely starting to get really hot here, which is unfortunate.
Anyway, have a good week!
-Elder Shelton
Alrighty well it was a pretty good week. We are pretty hyped because we have a ¨seguro¨ for this saturday. A seguro is somebody who already has everything he needs to be baptized (2 church attendances, all the lessons, interview, and desire to be baptized). Remember the guy I talked about last week that came to church in his army uniform? Well he came with us again yesterday, and we did the baptismal interview last night, so he is now considered a seguro. So unless something completely unexpected happens, we will be having a baptism this saturday.
So here´s something I found pretty funny. We were teaching this new couple in their house, and we started talking about the Plan of Salvation. I started it off, and then I turned it over to my comp to teach the pre-mortal life. Well he did pretty good, until he said that ¨Dios tiene un cuerpo de carne y huevos.¨ I was trying so hard not to laugh, but the look on the investigators face killed me. We all ended up laughing when my comp realized what he said haha.
Well I just got some good news. Remember that huge family of 9 that I found in my last area? Well Elder Duarte (the elder I trained) just told me that the parents got married and the kids got baptized. I am pretty shocked to be honest. It´s really good to hear though.
Well I can´t really think of much else to say. Christmas is coming really fast, and I kinda forgot about the video call thing so I´ll try and get on that this week so we can find somewhere to do it. It´s definitely starting to get really hot here, which is unfortunate.
Anyway, have a good week!
-Elder Shelton
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¨Dios tiene un cuerpo de carne y huevos" = "God has a body of meat and eggs"
- "carne" is the equivalent of either "flesh" or "meat", kind of depending on the context
- "huevos" = eggs
- "huesos" = bones (so you can see why the greenie mixed these up)
Monday, December 10, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Dec 10, 2018
Santa´s comin´ to town - 10 diciembre 2018
Well I´d say it`s been a pretty good week. We got 5 people in church yesterday, and only 1 of them has to get married, so we have 4 people that could be baptized very soon. This old lady named Laura came last sunday, and yesterday, so we potentially could baptize her this saturday. But she wasn`t home like at all last week, so we still need to teach her a few things... We`ll see what happens. We actually got 6 people in church, but one of them showed up after sacrament meeting, so it doesn`t count as an attendance. His name is Eden and he`s a capo. He`s in the army, and he had to go to some kind of training saturday and sunday morning. He left as soon as he could, rode like 2 hours in a bus back to Castillo, and made it to church just in time for Elders Quorum. He didn`t have time to change out of his uniform or anything. After the class, a bunch of members came up to him and started chatting. It seemed like he hit it off really well with all the members, which was good to see. He kind of has a crazy schedule, so we`re hoping that he`ll be able to come next week.
Well I´d say it`s been a pretty good week. We got 5 people in church yesterday, and only 1 of them has to get married, so we have 4 people that could be baptized very soon. This old lady named Laura came last sunday, and yesterday, so we potentially could baptize her this saturday. But she wasn`t home like at all last week, so we still need to teach her a few things... We`ll see what happens. We actually got 6 people in church, but one of them showed up after sacrament meeting, so it doesn`t count as an attendance. His name is Eden and he`s a capo. He`s in the army, and he had to go to some kind of training saturday and sunday morning. He left as soon as he could, rode like 2 hours in a bus back to Castillo, and made it to church just in time for Elders Quorum. He didn`t have time to change out of his uniform or anything. After the class, a bunch of members came up to him and started chatting. It seemed like he hit it off really well with all the members, which was good to see. He kind of has a crazy schedule, so we`re hoping that he`ll be able to come next week.
Do you remember me mentioning a deaf couple a couple of months ago? Well they came to church the sunday before yesterday. We visited them thursday night, and I told them they needed to get married. They said ok. Luckily, there`s a member in the other Castillo ward that speaks sign language, and she is going to go with the couple to the registro civil and help them with all the paper work and stuff like that. So in about a month, I think we`ll be having a wedding! Hopefully I`ll still be here to see it.
So on wednesday, Elder Ramirez and Elder Covey had just got done saying their prayer to end daily planning, and Elder Ramirez suddenly gets up and is like, ¨I just recieved revelation.¨ We asked him what it was and he was like ¨We need to all buy Santa hats and where them when we go proselyting.¨ I kinda thought he was kidding so I laughed, but he was actually serious. So the next day on Pday we went and bought ourselves some Santa hats haha. We have already seen the benefits. We basically don`t need to contact people anymore, because they contact us.
Well, hopefully you all have a great week!
¡Cuídense!
-Elder Shelton
"Cuidense!" = "Take care (of yourselves)"
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PS: My comps mom sent socks for each of us haha
Monday, December 3, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Dec 3, 2018
La Casa del Señor - 3 diciembre 2018
Well I think we had a pretty good week.
On P-Day we went to the temple, which turned out to be an adventure. It was my first time going to the temple since I left the MTC, so I was pretty excited. The zone I`m in right now is basically the only one that has permission to go to the temple because we are pretty close to it. Well turns out we picked the wrong day to go, because apparently it just happened to be the day when like every president from every country in the world(including Trump) was coming to Argentina. By the way, the temple is really close to the airport. So we were on the bus to the temple, when all the sudden the driver was like, ¨turns out they have the airport completely blocked off and we can`t even get close to it, so you`ll have to get off here.¨ So we got off the bus in the middle of this freeway and we had no idea where we were. We asked this old dude that got off with us if he happened to know where the temple was and he was like, ¨¿la iglesia mormona? está por allá.¨ And he pointed in a general direction. So we just started heading in that direction a couple of miles. We ended up walking through a neighborhood, and then a huge wheat field, and then somehow we ended up finding the temple. By the time we got there a session had just started, and we didn`t have time to wait for the next one, so we just ended up doing initiatories. In the distribution center they had the new Saints book, the one that`s about church history. It looked sweet and it was only 41 pesos (like 1 dollar) so we all bought one.
Also, we found out that there`s a ¨Tex Mex¨ restaurant in Ramos Mejìa and we could hardly believe it. We went there after getting back from the temple and it was like heaven. It had been way too long since I`d eaten mexican food.
We found some really good people this week and we wanted to get all of them in church. We left the pensh sunday morning at 7:45 so that we could pass by like 8 houses before church. We passed by everybody we possibly could to try and wake them up and tell them to come to church. We did that until about 9:20 and then finally we went to church and got there right when it started at 9:30. Unfortunately, after all that, we only had 3 investigators in church. Two of which are a couple that have to get married... But it was still good I guess.
Anyways, hopefully we´ll be seeing some baps pretty soon.
Have a good week!
-Elder Shelton
¨¿la iglesia mormona? está por allá. - "The Mormon church? It's over there"
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This pic was sent to Sue via facebook. We have no explanation to go with it.
Well I think we had a pretty good week.
On P-Day we went to the temple, which turned out to be an adventure. It was my first time going to the temple since I left the MTC, so I was pretty excited. The zone I`m in right now is basically the only one that has permission to go to the temple because we are pretty close to it. Well turns out we picked the wrong day to go, because apparently it just happened to be the day when like every president from every country in the world(including Trump) was coming to Argentina. By the way, the temple is really close to the airport. So we were on the bus to the temple, when all the sudden the driver was like, ¨turns out they have the airport completely blocked off and we can`t even get close to it, so you`ll have to get off here.¨ So we got off the bus in the middle of this freeway and we had no idea where we were. We asked this old dude that got off with us if he happened to know where the temple was and he was like, ¨¿la iglesia mormona? está por allá.¨ And he pointed in a general direction. So we just started heading in that direction a couple of miles. We ended up walking through a neighborhood, and then a huge wheat field, and then somehow we ended up finding the temple. By the time we got there a session had just started, and we didn`t have time to wait for the next one, so we just ended up doing initiatories. In the distribution center they had the new Saints book, the one that`s about church history. It looked sweet and it was only 41 pesos (like 1 dollar) so we all bought one.
Also, we found out that there`s a ¨Tex Mex¨ restaurant in Ramos Mejìa and we could hardly believe it. We went there after getting back from the temple and it was like heaven. It had been way too long since I`d eaten mexican food.
We found some really good people this week and we wanted to get all of them in church. We left the pensh sunday morning at 7:45 so that we could pass by like 8 houses before church. We passed by everybody we possibly could to try and wake them up and tell them to come to church. We did that until about 9:20 and then finally we went to church and got there right when it started at 9:30. Unfortunately, after all that, we only had 3 investigators in church. Two of which are a couple that have to get married... But it was still good I guess.
Anyways, hopefully we´ll be seeing some baps pretty soon.
Have a good week!
-Elder Shelton
¨¿la iglesia mormona? está por allá. - "The Mormon church? It's over there"
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This pic was sent to Sue via facebook. We have no explanation to go with it.
Monday, November 26, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Nov 26, 2018
Boca vs. River - 26 noviembre 2018
Alrighty well it`s been a pretty good week. Mi refuerzo is Elder Jackson Hill from Lehi, Utah. He`s a capo. His spanish is kinda lacking but that`s pretty normal haha. Needless to say, I do most of the talking, and all of the listening. We found some good people this week which was exciting. We have been lacking progressing people for quite a while, so hopefully these new people can help us change that.
So basically the biggest troll ever happened on saturday and yesterday. Well I don`t know if you remember about Boca and River, but they are the two biggest teams in Argentina and it is a heated rivalry. Well the Copa Libertadores is going on, which is the tournament between all the teams from South America. Well it just so happens that both Boca and River ended up in the championship game, which was supposed to happen on saturday. Well to make this long story short, basically what happened is that as the Boca team bus was on the way to the River stadium, a huge mob of River fans chucked a bunch of bottles, rocks, and smoke bombs at the bus as it was passing on the street. They shattered a ton of the windows and several of the players unded up getting cuts. They ended up having to cancel the game and moved it for sunday(yesterday). So on sunday everybody got hyped up again, but apparently there were some more problems, so they had to cancel it again, and now I think the game isn`t going to be until Tuesday or something like that. Basically the whole thing was a huge letdown because everyone was hyped out of their minds for the game. It also made it hard for us on saturday and sunday because everyone was in their houses and wouldn`t come out all afternoon because they were expecting the game to be played.
Being with Elder Hill reminds me a ton of when I was getting trained. The confused look on his face that he has when people talk to him always cracks me up because I remember what that`s like. It has also reminded me of the importance of the Spirit. Our first day, tuesday, we contacted this guy and we started talking about the Book of Mormon with him. We gave him one and then I told Elder Hill to share his testimony. He simply said: Yo...sé...que..el Libro...de Mormón...es verdadero. It took a while for him to get it all out, and it sounded pretty Gringo, but yet it felt very powerful to me. It made me think of the first time I bore a testimony in the mission field. It reminded me that when we put in our best effort, the Lord makes up for the rest. ¨For my strength is made perfect in weakness.¨
Alrighty well it`s been a pretty good week. Mi refuerzo is Elder Jackson Hill from Lehi, Utah. He`s a capo. His spanish is kinda lacking but that`s pretty normal haha. Needless to say, I do most of the talking, and all of the listening. We found some good people this week which was exciting. We have been lacking progressing people for quite a while, so hopefully these new people can help us change that.
So basically the biggest troll ever happened on saturday and yesterday. Well I don`t know if you remember about Boca and River, but they are the two biggest teams in Argentina and it is a heated rivalry. Well the Copa Libertadores is going on, which is the tournament between all the teams from South America. Well it just so happens that both Boca and River ended up in the championship game, which was supposed to happen on saturday. Well to make this long story short, basically what happened is that as the Boca team bus was on the way to the River stadium, a huge mob of River fans chucked a bunch of bottles, rocks, and smoke bombs at the bus as it was passing on the street. They shattered a ton of the windows and several of the players unded up getting cuts. They ended up having to cancel the game and moved it for sunday(yesterday). So on sunday everybody got hyped up again, but apparently there were some more problems, so they had to cancel it again, and now I think the game isn`t going to be until Tuesday or something like that. Basically the whole thing was a huge letdown because everyone was hyped out of their minds for the game. It also made it hard for us on saturday and sunday because everyone was in their houses and wouldn`t come out all afternoon because they were expecting the game to be played.
Being with Elder Hill reminds me a ton of when I was getting trained. The confused look on his face that he has when people talk to him always cracks me up because I remember what that`s like. It has also reminded me of the importance of the Spirit. Our first day, tuesday, we contacted this guy and we started talking about the Book of Mormon with him. We gave him one and then I told Elder Hill to share his testimony. He simply said: Yo...sé...que..el Libro...de Mormón...es verdadero. It took a while for him to get it all out, and it sounded pretty Gringo, but yet it felt very powerful to me. It made me think of the first time I bore a testimony in the mission field. It reminded me that when we put in our best effort, the Lord makes up for the rest. ¨For my strength is made perfect in weakness.¨
Monday, November 19, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Nov 19, 2018
Training - 19 noviembre 2018
Today is yet another holiday in Argentina, so there were no cibers open this morning.
So I guess as you already know, Elder Pereira is leaving the area, and I´ll be staying in Castillo and training a new elder. It was definitely a surprise to me when they told us the news. Today in the mission offices I took a peek at the pictures of the new elders that are coming, and it looks like it´s very likely that I´ll be training a Gringo, which will be interesting.
For the meeting with Elder Gong, Hermana Resek told us we should all take our suits to the dry cleaning. So last saturday we took them in. We only took one suit each because we were all low on money. We picked them up on tuesday, and it costed us 600 pesos each. So basically none of us have money for the rest of the month haha. Well on friday Elder Gong came and it was pretty sweet. We were combined with the North mission and the elders from the MTC. I saw Preston Willie when the MTC missionaries walked in. Now that I think about it, I probably also saw the elder that I´m going to train. The meeting was really good. When Elder Gong arrived, we all got to shake his hand. When he spoke there was no denying that he had the Spirit and that he was a special witness of the Lord.
Since we have our district meetings in Ramos Mejía, where the mission offices are, we got to see the missionaries that are going home. One of them was Elder Pietz, my trainer. It´s hard to believe he´s already going home. I remember when we burned one of his shirts when he hit the one year mark haha. We talked about Mariano Acosta and it brought back some good memories.
Anyway, I don´t have very much time because it´s already about 6 here. I´m sure I´ll have more stuff to say next week.
-Elder Shelton
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Here´s a pic we took after the meeting with Gong.
Mi padre, Elder Pietz (with the white tie)
Mi hijo Elder Duarte (on the left)
Mis hermanos, Elder Atwood and Elder Ventura (the two other elders that Elder Pietz trained)
Today is yet another holiday in Argentina, so there were no cibers open this morning.
So I guess as you already know, Elder Pereira is leaving the area, and I´ll be staying in Castillo and training a new elder. It was definitely a surprise to me when they told us the news. Today in the mission offices I took a peek at the pictures of the new elders that are coming, and it looks like it´s very likely that I´ll be training a Gringo, which will be interesting.
For the meeting with Elder Gong, Hermana Resek told us we should all take our suits to the dry cleaning. So last saturday we took them in. We only took one suit each because we were all low on money. We picked them up on tuesday, and it costed us 600 pesos each. So basically none of us have money for the rest of the month haha. Well on friday Elder Gong came and it was pretty sweet. We were combined with the North mission and the elders from the MTC. I saw Preston Willie when the MTC missionaries walked in. Now that I think about it, I probably also saw the elder that I´m going to train. The meeting was really good. When Elder Gong arrived, we all got to shake his hand. When he spoke there was no denying that he had the Spirit and that he was a special witness of the Lord.
Since we have our district meetings in Ramos Mejía, where the mission offices are, we got to see the missionaries that are going home. One of them was Elder Pietz, my trainer. It´s hard to believe he´s already going home. I remember when we burned one of his shirts when he hit the one year mark haha. We talked about Mariano Acosta and it brought back some good memories.
Anyway, I don´t have very much time because it´s already about 6 here. I´m sure I´ll have more stuff to say next week.
-Elder Shelton
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Here´s a pic we took after the meeting with Gong.
Mi padre, Elder Pietz (with the white tie)
Mi hijo Elder Duarte (on the left)
Mis hermanos, Elder Atwood and Elder Ventura (the two other elders that Elder Pietz trained)
Monday, November 12, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Nov 12, 2018
Bring on the Gong - 12 noviembre 2018
Well I guess I´m pretty excited for this Friday, because Elder Gong is coming to visit us. I realized that this will be my first time seeing an Apostle in person. Weird that I had to come all the way out to Argentina to see one haha.
On Friday, it was simply too hot. We had interviews with President so we had to go into Ramos in our suits. I about died. We sweated it out all day. In the night we played soccer with the Quorum. I think it had to be about 200% humidity. Sweat kept dripping into my eyes, which burned. I could tell by the humidity that a huge storm was coming.
On saturday it rained a ton. And when I say a ton, I mean a ton. We were visiting this one family at about 12:30, and we had to leave for our lunch that was at 1:00, with a family that lived about 6 blocks away. Well, just a few minutes before we had to leave, an absolute downpour started. We decided to just leave anyway since we didn´t have to walk too far. Well... we made it about half a block, and after that, we realized that the dirt roads no longer existed, and that Castillo was now a giant lake. Long story short, we walked through knee-deep water in a downpour to get to our lunch. Luckily when we got into their house they gave us some clothes to change into. And we put our dripping clothes next to a fan so they could dry a little. It never stopped raining all day, so we just got wet again after lunch, and had to walk through some more deep water. Needless to say it was kinda hard to visit a lot of people on saturday. That night the bishop´s wife called and told us that the church had flooded and there were electrical problems, so we had to have sacrament meeting in the church in Los Pinos. So basically we didn´t get anyone to come to church this week, which was a downer. My shoes are still wet to this day haha.
This is week 6 of the transfer, so on saturday we are going to get the call to see what will happen next tuesday. I think it´s about 50/50 if I´m staying or going, so we´ll see. I think I want to stay one more.
I am fairly certain that a lot more stuff happened this week but I can´t seem to remember any of it right now. We are still trying to find more people, so hopefully we can have more success in that this week.
Hopefully you all have a great week.
-Elder Shelton
Well I guess I´m pretty excited for this Friday, because Elder Gong is coming to visit us. I realized that this will be my first time seeing an Apostle in person. Weird that I had to come all the way out to Argentina to see one haha.
On Friday, it was simply too hot. We had interviews with President so we had to go into Ramos in our suits. I about died. We sweated it out all day. In the night we played soccer with the Quorum. I think it had to be about 200% humidity. Sweat kept dripping into my eyes, which burned. I could tell by the humidity that a huge storm was coming.
On saturday it rained a ton. And when I say a ton, I mean a ton. We were visiting this one family at about 12:30, and we had to leave for our lunch that was at 1:00, with a family that lived about 6 blocks away. Well, just a few minutes before we had to leave, an absolute downpour started. We decided to just leave anyway since we didn´t have to walk too far. Well... we made it about half a block, and after that, we realized that the dirt roads no longer existed, and that Castillo was now a giant lake. Long story short, we walked through knee-deep water in a downpour to get to our lunch. Luckily when we got into their house they gave us some clothes to change into. And we put our dripping clothes next to a fan so they could dry a little. It never stopped raining all day, so we just got wet again after lunch, and had to walk through some more deep water. Needless to say it was kinda hard to visit a lot of people on saturday. That night the bishop´s wife called and told us that the church had flooded and there were electrical problems, so we had to have sacrament meeting in the church in Los Pinos. So basically we didn´t get anyone to come to church this week, which was a downer. My shoes are still wet to this day haha.
This is week 6 of the transfer, so on saturday we are going to get the call to see what will happen next tuesday. I think it´s about 50/50 if I´m staying or going, so we´ll see. I think I want to stay one more.
I am fairly certain that a lot more stuff happened this week but I can´t seem to remember any of it right now. We are still trying to find more people, so hopefully we can have more success in that this week.
Hopefully you all have a great week.
-Elder Shelton
Monday, November 5, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Nov 5, 2018
Civil War in Castillo? - 5 noviembre 2018
Well... it was a pretty interesting week.
On thursday (P-Day), we ended up going bowling with the other elders from Castillo, and the hermanas from San Justo and Atalaya. It was kinda weird because the bowling balls were super small, like just a bit bigger than a softball, and they didn´t have holes. But it was pretty fun. Then that afternoon when we left to go proselyte, things got kinda interesting. We were near the bishop´s house, which is the most hood part of our area. We were just walking when we saw a ton of black smoke coming from the next street. As we got closer we noticed two huge fires in the middle of the street, with people throwing stuff into them. At first I didn´t really think much of it. (It´s not uncommon to see people burn their trash on the side of the streets). So I was like, ya, just another day here in Argentina. But then I noticed that the fires were a lot bigger than normal, and they weren't burning trash. It wasn't until we got to the street corner where the fires were, and turned onto the next street, that we noticed that there were people everywhere. Everybody was outside of their houses and on the street. That's when we realized that something was going on. We just walked casually on through, then after about a block we asked a lady on the side of the street what was going on. She told us that the day before, 5 chorros (chorros are people that steal) broke into a house, which happened to be a house of a policeman. The policeman ended up shooting at them, two of them died, one got injured, and the other two ran away. Well apparently the people weren't very happy with the policman, so they were protesting outside his house by burning a bunch of stuff in the street.
Then we went to our citas that we had, and at about 9 when we were heading back to the pensh, we passed by the same place and all the people were gone, but there were about 20 cop cars and a squad of police in full body amor and riot shields. I guess we missed the part where things got interesting.
So on Friday we had divisions with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Sparks from Canada. It was a really good time, Elder Sparks is really funny. I hadn´t talked so much english for months. Anyway, in the middle of the day, our bishop called me and asked us where we were. I told him we were in San Justo for the entire day. He was like, good, just make sure you don´t come anyway near my house today. There´s a civil war going on. I was like ¿que? He said that huge mobs of people tried to burn down the house of the policeman, and the whole police force came in to intervene. He said he heard a bunch of gunshots and that the people were throwing a bunch of rocks and bricks at the police and their cars and trucks. So basically, friday was a good day to be in San Justo. On saturday, they still had the entire block blocked off where the policeman lives. We noticed that there were bricks everywhere on the road and the police vehicols had broken windshields. But things seemed to have calmed down.
We also had a pretty crazy experience with the elders from Castillo 1 on saturday, but I don´t have time to write it out.
Anyway, hopefully this week is pretty chill and we can focus on getting some people baptized.
Oh yeah, and I did buy some new shoes with the money I pulled out. They´re pretty ¨cheto mal¨, o sea, they´re pretty dope.
Que tengan una semana maravillosa,
-Elder Shelton
o sea = "in other words"
Well... it was a pretty interesting week.
On thursday (P-Day), we ended up going bowling with the other elders from Castillo, and the hermanas from San Justo and Atalaya. It was kinda weird because the bowling balls were super small, like just a bit bigger than a softball, and they didn´t have holes. But it was pretty fun. Then that afternoon when we left to go proselyte, things got kinda interesting. We were near the bishop´s house, which is the most hood part of our area. We were just walking when we saw a ton of black smoke coming from the next street. As we got closer we noticed two huge fires in the middle of the street, with people throwing stuff into them. At first I didn´t really think much of it. (It´s not uncommon to see people burn their trash on the side of the streets). So I was like, ya, just another day here in Argentina. But then I noticed that the fires were a lot bigger than normal, and they weren't burning trash. It wasn't until we got to the street corner where the fires were, and turned onto the next street, that we noticed that there were people everywhere. Everybody was outside of their houses and on the street. That's when we realized that something was going on. We just walked casually on through, then after about a block we asked a lady on the side of the street what was going on. She told us that the day before, 5 chorros (chorros are people that steal) broke into a house, which happened to be a house of a policeman. The policeman ended up shooting at them, two of them died, one got injured, and the other two ran away. Well apparently the people weren't very happy with the policman, so they were protesting outside his house by burning a bunch of stuff in the street.
Then we went to our citas that we had, and at about 9 when we were heading back to the pensh, we passed by the same place and all the people were gone, but there were about 20 cop cars and a squad of police in full body amor and riot shields. I guess we missed the part where things got interesting.
So on Friday we had divisions with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Sparks from Canada. It was a really good time, Elder Sparks is really funny. I hadn´t talked so much english for months. Anyway, in the middle of the day, our bishop called me and asked us where we were. I told him we were in San Justo for the entire day. He was like, good, just make sure you don´t come anyway near my house today. There´s a civil war going on. I was like ¿que? He said that huge mobs of people tried to burn down the house of the policeman, and the whole police force came in to intervene. He said he heard a bunch of gunshots and that the people were throwing a bunch of rocks and bricks at the police and their cars and trucks. So basically, friday was a good day to be in San Justo. On saturday, they still had the entire block blocked off where the policeman lives. We noticed that there were bricks everywhere on the road and the police vehicols had broken windshields. But things seemed to have calmed down.
We also had a pretty crazy experience with the elders from Castillo 1 on saturday, but I don´t have time to write it out.
Anyway, hopefully this week is pretty chill and we can focus on getting some people baptized.
Oh yeah, and I did buy some new shoes with the money I pulled out. They´re pretty ¨cheto mal¨, o sea, they´re pretty dope.
Que tengan una semana maravillosa,
-Elder Shelton
o sea = "in other words"
Monday, October 29, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Oct 29, 2018
Well it seems like the weeks are passing by way too fast in my opinion. Monday mornings is when we do our weekly planning and I always wonder where the week went. Today for comp inventory we combined with the other elders and did it as us 4 together. Anyway, basically we decided that we had been slacking on our exercises, and so we decided that we´re all going to start waking up a little bit earlier, like at 5:50, and go running. So we`ll see how that goes this week. We play soccer every friday night at the church, and it makes me realize I`m out of shape because it always wears me out. Although it appears my soccer skills have somewhat improved in the past year, because I actually score a lot of goals. They are always surprised to see a Gringo score a goal haha.
Well this week was a little bit tough. We tried to focus on finding new people, and so we contacted a lot. But unfortunately that did not bring much success. So this week we`re gonna be on the same grind because we need a lot of new people. There are a lot of people to be found here, but it takes some diligence and patience.
Hasta Lunes,
-Elder Shelton
PS: here`s an argentine asado that we had on saturday
Well this week was a little bit tough. We tried to focus on finding new people, and so we contacted a lot. But unfortunately that did not bring much success. So this week we`re gonna be on the same grind because we need a lot of new people. There are a lot of people to be found here, but it takes some diligence and patience.
Hasta Lunes,
-Elder Shelton
PS: here`s an argentine asado that we had on saturday
Monday, October 22, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Oct 22, 2018
22 octubre 2018
Well I think I´ll be pretty brief today since we got to talk yesterday. Oh, and since I had to end the call pretty quick I forgot to tell mom ¡Feliz Día de la Madre!
Well my birthday was pretty chill. Like I said, my comp made me a cake, and so did two other families, so basically I ate more cake that day than I have in my entire mission combined. Made me kinda sick. I forgot to tell you last week, that I was pretty sick one night and threw up several times. I still felt a little iffy in the morning so I called the family that we had lunch with to tell them that we probably weren`t going to be able to come to lunch. That was when they informed me that they were having an asado. Well, I´ve never been someone to turn down an asado, so we decided to go. It was really good, even with an iffy stomach.
Well things are going pretty good here in Castillo, but unfortunately we haven`t seen much progress in the people we´re teaching. So basically right now we`re in the process of finding new people. It`s always pretty easy to find people that want to listen, but the hard part is finding people that are willing to change. Hopefully we can find a few of those this week.
Que tengan una buena semana,
-Elder Shelton
Well I think I´ll be pretty brief today since we got to talk yesterday. Oh, and since I had to end the call pretty quick I forgot to tell mom ¡Feliz Día de la Madre!
Well my birthday was pretty chill. Like I said, my comp made me a cake, and so did two other families, so basically I ate more cake that day than I have in my entire mission combined. Made me kinda sick. I forgot to tell you last week, that I was pretty sick one night and threw up several times. I still felt a little iffy in the morning so I called the family that we had lunch with to tell them that we probably weren`t going to be able to come to lunch. That was when they informed me that they were having an asado. Well, I´ve never been someone to turn down an asado, so we decided to go. It was really good, even with an iffy stomach.
Well things are going pretty good here in Castillo, but unfortunately we haven`t seen much progress in the people we´re teaching. So basically right now we`re in the process of finding new people. It`s always pretty easy to find people that want to listen, but the hard part is finding people that are willing to change. Hopefully we can find a few of those this week.
Que tengan una buena semana,
-Elder Shelton
"Que tengan una buena semana" = Have a great week
"¡Feliz Día de la Madre!" = Happy Mother's Day (which is was in Argentina yesterday - Nate got to call us)
Monday, October 15, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Oct 15, 2018
Veinte - 15 octubre 2018
Well I guess it´s my birthday tomorrow. I knew it was really close but I didn´t really realize it was tomorrow until I was just reading the mission newsletter and I saw my face in the birthday section. I´ve had about 6 families invite me over to eat for my birthday, so I don´t know how that´s gonna work out.
Well my comp and I are getting along fine, although sometimes the communication is definitely lacking haha. He only has 5 months in the mission, and he still has a really thick accent, so sometimes I have no idea what he says. He knows a few phrases in english, which really only makes things worse because when he says something to me and I don´t understand it, I have to sit there and think, ok, is what he just said spanish? Or maybe it was english? And if it´s neither of those two then I usually come to the conclusion that he was speaking Portugues haha. But despite that we´re still doing good.
Yesterday we had a kind of emergency Stake Conference, because our Stake President is moving to Moreno or something, so he needed to be released. He had already been stake president for like 7 or 8 years, so it was basically time for a new one anyway. So they announced the new presidency and we also got to hear from the Area Seventy. Although to be honest I didn´t hear much because I sat next to Lautaro and he talked with me a lot. Well we didn´t actually ¨talk¨, but you know what I mean.
I think I forgot to mention that last week I finished el Libro de Mormón, for the first time completely in spanish. It was a cool experience. I remember when I started out in first Nephi it took a lot of effort to understand each verse, but in not much time it became a lot easier, and even reached the point where I could read basically just as well as I could in english.
Oh yeah, and I also learned last tuesday that my district got changed. Instead of just having the elders from Los Pinos, I now have Los Pinos, the hermanas from San Justo, and the zone leaders in my district. Which is a way bigger district than I´ve ever had. It´s kinda crazy at night with all the numbers and making sure they all get home. Today we have our first district meeting with the new district so hopefully it goes well.
I think I´ll end with a scripture that Lautaro shared with me yesterday during stake conference. He kept signaling 3 numbers: 1,4, and 7, and I had no idea what he was talking about. I finally figured out that it was a page number in the book of mormon, page 147. So I opened up to it and he pointed to Jacob 4:6. Here´s what it says in english:
¨Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.¨
And I also like verse 7:
¨ Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.¨
Hasta Lunes,
-Elder Shelton
Well I guess it´s my birthday tomorrow. I knew it was really close but I didn´t really realize it was tomorrow until I was just reading the mission newsletter and I saw my face in the birthday section. I´ve had about 6 families invite me over to eat for my birthday, so I don´t know how that´s gonna work out.
Well my comp and I are getting along fine, although sometimes the communication is definitely lacking haha. He only has 5 months in the mission, and he still has a really thick accent, so sometimes I have no idea what he says. He knows a few phrases in english, which really only makes things worse because when he says something to me and I don´t understand it, I have to sit there and think, ok, is what he just said spanish? Or maybe it was english? And if it´s neither of those two then I usually come to the conclusion that he was speaking Portugues haha. But despite that we´re still doing good.
Yesterday we had a kind of emergency Stake Conference, because our Stake President is moving to Moreno or something, so he needed to be released. He had already been stake president for like 7 or 8 years, so it was basically time for a new one anyway. So they announced the new presidency and we also got to hear from the Area Seventy. Although to be honest I didn´t hear much because I sat next to Lautaro and he talked with me a lot. Well we didn´t actually ¨talk¨, but you know what I mean.
I think I forgot to mention that last week I finished el Libro de Mormón, for the first time completely in spanish. It was a cool experience. I remember when I started out in first Nephi it took a lot of effort to understand each verse, but in not much time it became a lot easier, and even reached the point where I could read basically just as well as I could in english.
Oh yeah, and I also learned last tuesday that my district got changed. Instead of just having the elders from Los Pinos, I now have Los Pinos, the hermanas from San Justo, and the zone leaders in my district. Which is a way bigger district than I´ve ever had. It´s kinda crazy at night with all the numbers and making sure they all get home. Today we have our first district meeting with the new district so hopefully it goes well.
I think I´ll end with a scripture that Lautaro shared with me yesterday during stake conference. He kept signaling 3 numbers: 1,4, and 7, and I had no idea what he was talking about. I finally figured out that it was a page number in the book of mormon, page 147. So I opened up to it and he pointed to Jacob 4:6. Here´s what it says in english:
¨Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.¨
And I also like verse 7:
¨ Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.¨
Hasta Lunes,
-Elder Shelton
Monday, October 8, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Oct 8, 2018
Bautismo, Conferencia, y Confirmación - 8 octubre 2018
I guess I´ll start off with transfers. I will be staying here and getting a new comp, Elder Pariera, who´s from Brasil. And I´ll remain líder de distrito.
Well, Lautaro ended up getting baptized this week! Which I wasn´t really sure was gonna happen. But it definitely wasn´t easy. On wednesday we taught him all of the commandments, which wasn´t easy because we have to have our friend Marcos translate for us. (Did I mention that Lautaro is deaf?) So we had to teach everything very simply. He was so excited to get baptized, I don´t know if I´ve ever seen anyone get so excited for baptism. He wants to bless and pass the sacrament really bad too, and serve a mission. But we told him that there is an order to things. We used our fingers to count out 5 steps, and then acted out each one: 1. Bautismo 2. Don del Espíritu Santo 3. Sacerdocio 4. Partir la Santa Cena 5. Elder/Misión. He´s really excited to do each one haha. But after we taught him everything he got really sad and told us that him mom wasn´t going to let him get baptized. That really surprised us because we´ve talked to the mom several times and she never had any problems with us. So thursday we went to see what was up. She told us that she wasn´t going to allow him to get baptized right now because he wasn´t ready. He had only been to church 2 times, and she thought it would be better if he just kept going to church, and maybe in a couple of years, when he was really sure, then he could get baptized. I´ve had this problem a lot in my mission so I already had some stuff ready. I shared the story in Acts 8, about the man that asks ¨what doth hinder me to be baptized?¨ And in Acts 22 ¨And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and washaway thy sins¨. And also a little bit about how faith is not a perfect knowledge, and that if we don´t get baptized, we are only stopping ourselves from progressing onto greater things. Well, pretty suprisingly and miraculously, we somehow convinced her, and she signed the ficha and we had the baptism the next day. We confirmed him in our capilla in between sessions on sunday, with our bishop and a few other members. (Which we had recieved permission from our President and bishop to do).
As you know, Conference was very good. I watched all the sessions in english in la capilla in Ramos Mejía with several other missionaries, except for the sunday morning session, which I watched in spanish in the house of obispo, because we had to confirm Lautaro right after. Watching it in spanish made me realize how much I´ve really learned in the past year, because I didn´t have any problems at all understand it. Which is definitely a lot of progress from a year ago haha. Elder Holland´s talk was very good, even in spanish.
Well I´ve already run out of time so I guess that will be all. Have a great week! And enjoy the 3 hours of church while you still can! ;)
-Elder Shelton
I guess I´ll start off with transfers. I will be staying here and getting a new comp, Elder Pariera, who´s from Brasil. And I´ll remain líder de distrito.
Well, Lautaro ended up getting baptized this week! Which I wasn´t really sure was gonna happen. But it definitely wasn´t easy. On wednesday we taught him all of the commandments, which wasn´t easy because we have to have our friend Marcos translate for us. (Did I mention that Lautaro is deaf?) So we had to teach everything very simply. He was so excited to get baptized, I don´t know if I´ve ever seen anyone get so excited for baptism. He wants to bless and pass the sacrament really bad too, and serve a mission. But we told him that there is an order to things. We used our fingers to count out 5 steps, and then acted out each one: 1. Bautismo 2. Don del Espíritu Santo 3. Sacerdocio 4. Partir la Santa Cena 5. Elder/Misión. He´s really excited to do each one haha. But after we taught him everything he got really sad and told us that him mom wasn´t going to let him get baptized. That really surprised us because we´ve talked to the mom several times and she never had any problems with us. So thursday we went to see what was up. She told us that she wasn´t going to allow him to get baptized right now because he wasn´t ready. He had only been to church 2 times, and she thought it would be better if he just kept going to church, and maybe in a couple of years, when he was really sure, then he could get baptized. I´ve had this problem a lot in my mission so I already had some stuff ready. I shared the story in Acts 8, about the man that asks ¨what doth hinder me to be baptized?¨ And in Acts 22 ¨And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and washaway thy sins¨. And also a little bit about how faith is not a perfect knowledge, and that if we don´t get baptized, we are only stopping ourselves from progressing onto greater things. Well, pretty suprisingly and miraculously, we somehow convinced her, and she signed the ficha and we had the baptism the next day. We confirmed him in our capilla in between sessions on sunday, with our bishop and a few other members. (Which we had recieved permission from our President and bishop to do).
As you know, Conference was very good. I watched all the sessions in english in la capilla in Ramos Mejía with several other missionaries, except for the sunday morning session, which I watched in spanish in the house of obispo, because we had to confirm Lautaro right after. Watching it in spanish made me realize how much I´ve really learned in the past year, because I didn´t have any problems at all understand it. Which is definitely a lot of progress from a year ago haha. Elder Holland´s talk was very good, even in spanish.
Well I´ve already run out of time so I guess that will be all. Have a great week! And enjoy the 3 hours of church while you still can! ;)
-Elder Shelton
Maybe these are obvious, but just in case, here are the translations for Nate's 5-step program 
1 = Baptism
2 = Gift of the Holy Ghost
3 = Priesthood
4 = Administer the Sacrament
5 = Elder/Mission
"ficha" = baptismal slip
"capilla" = chapel
"obisbo" = bishop
Monday, October 1, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Oct 1, 2018
Mi cumpleaños, y un fin de semana de milagros - 1 octubre 2018
So friday I hit the one year mark, which was pretty crazy. I read the entry in my journal from my first day in the MTC and it was hard to believe that that was really a year ago. I still feel like a new missionary haha.
It was an amazing weekend for the mission, with 80 baptisms and confirmations. Which made in total 167 baptisms in september, which is by far the most I`ve ever seen. The unfortunate part is that for Rafael Castillo 2, the weekend was a real downer. The worst part is that it started out looking really good. We had Mauro, who we considered a sure baptism. Then we had Guadalupe, who already had been to church twice. We finally were able to teach her for the first time on tuesday. We taught lesson 1 and lesson 3, and then invited her to be baptized on saturday. Everything went perfect and she was really excited to get baptized. Also we had Lautaro, who wants to get baptized really bad, we just need to teach him a few more lessons. So, in the middle of the week, it looked like we were going to have 3 baptisms, and achieve the highly coveted 4xCristo in september. But then things got interesting. It started off on thursday with Guadalupe. She didn`t show up in the church for the cita we had planned to teach her what she needed to get baptized. So we called her friend who`s a member to ask if she knew what happened with Guadalupe. She said that Guadalupe talked with her mom about getting baptized, and that her mom isn't going to let her get baptized, or even come to church anymore. So that was disappointing.
Then we kept passing by Lautaro`s house so that we could teach him, but nobody was ever home. We found out through one of his friends that Lautaro´s little brother, who`s like 5, got mauled by a dog in the street and got cut open pretty bad and was in the hospital. So basically, we weren`t able to teach Lautaro this week. And just when we thought it couldn`t get worse, on friday we got a call from our bishop. He said that he, the bishop from Los Pinos, and the parents of Mauro had been talking, and that they decided to postpone the baptism for about a month, because they have another kid that´s about to turn 8, so they want to baptize them together. So we ended the week without a baptism, which is not what we were expecting.
But at least we got some lined up for october. Hopefully we can line a ton up for the 13th, since we can`t confirm this week due to Conference. I don´t know if you can tell in this letter, but my english skills seam to be weakening. I´m kinda forgetting how to spell some words. We had our interviews with President this week, and I talked in english for the first time in quite a while. It was almost impossible to talk without saying a spanish word, so I gave up and basically spoke Spanglish with him.
Anyway, that´s about all I got. Hopefully everyone has a great week, and a great Conference Weekend.
-Elder Shelton
"Mi cumpleaños, y un fin de semana de milagros" = my year mark and the end of a week of miracles
So friday I hit the one year mark, which was pretty crazy. I read the entry in my journal from my first day in the MTC and it was hard to believe that that was really a year ago. I still feel like a new missionary haha.
It was an amazing weekend for the mission, with 80 baptisms and confirmations. Which made in total 167 baptisms in september, which is by far the most I`ve ever seen. The unfortunate part is that for Rafael Castillo 2, the weekend was a real downer. The worst part is that it started out looking really good. We had Mauro, who we considered a sure baptism. Then we had Guadalupe, who already had been to church twice. We finally were able to teach her for the first time on tuesday. We taught lesson 1 and lesson 3, and then invited her to be baptized on saturday. Everything went perfect and she was really excited to get baptized. Also we had Lautaro, who wants to get baptized really bad, we just need to teach him a few more lessons. So, in the middle of the week, it looked like we were going to have 3 baptisms, and achieve the highly coveted 4xCristo in september. But then things got interesting. It started off on thursday with Guadalupe. She didn`t show up in the church for the cita we had planned to teach her what she needed to get baptized. So we called her friend who`s a member to ask if she knew what happened with Guadalupe. She said that Guadalupe talked with her mom about getting baptized, and that her mom isn't going to let her get baptized, or even come to church anymore. So that was disappointing.
Then we kept passing by Lautaro`s house so that we could teach him, but nobody was ever home. We found out through one of his friends that Lautaro´s little brother, who`s like 5, got mauled by a dog in the street and got cut open pretty bad and was in the hospital. So basically, we weren`t able to teach Lautaro this week. And just when we thought it couldn`t get worse, on friday we got a call from our bishop. He said that he, the bishop from Los Pinos, and the parents of Mauro had been talking, and that they decided to postpone the baptism for about a month, because they have another kid that´s about to turn 8, so they want to baptize them together. So we ended the week without a baptism, which is not what we were expecting.
But at least we got some lined up for october. Hopefully we can line a ton up for the 13th, since we can`t confirm this week due to Conference. I don´t know if you can tell in this letter, but my english skills seam to be weakening. I´m kinda forgetting how to spell some words. We had our interviews with President this week, and I talked in english for the first time in quite a while. It was almost impossible to talk without saying a spanish word, so I gave up and basically spoke Spanglish with him.
Anyway, that´s about all I got. Hopefully everyone has a great week, and a great Conference Weekend.
-Elder Shelton
"Mi cumpleaños, y un fin de semana de milagros" = my year mark and the end of a week of miracles
Monday, September 24, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Sept 24, 2018
bautismo - 24 septiembre 2018
Well we had a few disappointments this week, but the good news is that Edwin got baptized on saturday, and was confirmed yesterday. Technically it was our baptism, but really the elders in Los Pinos did most of the work since they taught him most of the lessons. But the good thing was that the baptism actually came to pass, which is always a relief. Also, this saturday we should be having another baptism of a kid named Mauro. It´s basically the same situation as Edwin, the elders in Los Pinos taught him all the lessons, but their bishop isn´t going to let him get baptized over there because the kid technically lives in our area. So basically Los Pinos are carrying the team right now.
We´ve also got a lot of good possibilites for the first week in October. There´s this girl named Guadalupe who has come to church twice now with her friend. Technically she could be baptized this saturday, but since we haven´t been able to teach her hardly anything yet, I think we´ll have to wait a week. We also have Lautaro, who is the deaf kid I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago. He is a capo and has already come to church once and he really liked it. One of the young men in our ward is friends with him and translates for him. We visited him and his mom a couple days ago and taught him a little bit. I don´t speak much sign language, but the sign he made at the end was pretty obvious. He told us he wants to get baptized. Hopefully we can get him to church this sunday so he can get baptized the next saturday. We also had Esteban, an 11 year old who´s already been to church 3 times and we´ve taught him everything. We went on tuesday with the ficha bautismal to have the mom sign it so we could have his interview and baptize him last saturday, but the mom wouldn´t sign it because she says ¨he´s not ready¨ and that ¨he needs more time¨. She told us we should wait like 3 or 4 months before he gets baptized so he can be ¨seguro¨. We tried to convince her otherwise but she didn´t really listen. It was pretty frustrating, and Esteban was pretty disappointed that he couldn´t get baptized. Also, remember the family with the parents who are inactive and 3 kids who we were planning on baptizing? Well we went to their house last monday and the dad told us that they didn´t come to church on sunday because they decided to go to the church that´s around the corner from their house, and they liked it, so they don´t really want to go to our church anymore. That was disappointing.
Well that´s about it. The weather is starting to warm up down here, which I´m not a fan of. But anyway, ¡que tengan una buena semana!
Hasta Lunes,
-Elder Shelton
Well we had a few disappointments this week, but the good news is that Edwin got baptized on saturday, and was confirmed yesterday. Technically it was our baptism, but really the elders in Los Pinos did most of the work since they taught him most of the lessons. But the good thing was that the baptism actually came to pass, which is always a relief. Also, this saturday we should be having another baptism of a kid named Mauro. It´s basically the same situation as Edwin, the elders in Los Pinos taught him all the lessons, but their bishop isn´t going to let him get baptized over there because the kid technically lives in our area. So basically Los Pinos are carrying the team right now.
We´ve also got a lot of good possibilites for the first week in October. There´s this girl named Guadalupe who has come to church twice now with her friend. Technically she could be baptized this saturday, but since we haven´t been able to teach her hardly anything yet, I think we´ll have to wait a week. We also have Lautaro, who is the deaf kid I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago. He is a capo and has already come to church once and he really liked it. One of the young men in our ward is friends with him and translates for him. We visited him and his mom a couple days ago and taught him a little bit. I don´t speak much sign language, but the sign he made at the end was pretty obvious. He told us he wants to get baptized. Hopefully we can get him to church this sunday so he can get baptized the next saturday. We also had Esteban, an 11 year old who´s already been to church 3 times and we´ve taught him everything. We went on tuesday with the ficha bautismal to have the mom sign it so we could have his interview and baptize him last saturday, but the mom wouldn´t sign it because she says ¨he´s not ready¨ and that ¨he needs more time¨. She told us we should wait like 3 or 4 months before he gets baptized so he can be ¨seguro¨. We tried to convince her otherwise but she didn´t really listen. It was pretty frustrating, and Esteban was pretty disappointed that he couldn´t get baptized. Also, remember the family with the parents who are inactive and 3 kids who we were planning on baptizing? Well we went to their house last monday and the dad told us that they didn´t come to church on sunday because they decided to go to the church that´s around the corner from their house, and they liked it, so they don´t really want to go to our church anymore. That was disappointing.
Well that´s about it. The weather is starting to warm up down here, which I´m not a fan of. But anyway, ¡que tengan una buena semana!
Hasta Lunes,
-Elder Shelton
"ficha bautismal" = baptismal form (i.e. paperwork)
"seguro" = sure
"¡que tengan una buena semana!" = have a great week!
Monday, September 17, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Sept 17, 2018
17 septiembre 2018
Well, it´s been another week. I´d have to say the highlight of the week was definitely Zone Conference. Elder Gomez, a setenta, and his wife came. Presidente Resek, his wife, Elder Gomez and his wife all talked and they were all amazing. From start to finish the Spirit was strong and by the end we were all kinda blown away. I think we all agreed it was the best zone conference yet. I learned a lot of things that I could be doing better, which is always good.
As for la obra, it was a bit of a tough week. We were able to find a few new people, but none that seem too promising. The most frustrating part is that we weren´t able to teach our investigators with asistencia hardly at all, and thus, it feels like we made no progress at all this week. Weeks like that are always a little bit of a downer, but it usually means that a good week is just around the corner. Also, from my experience, good weeks seem to happen because you make them happen, so that´s what we´re looking to do this week. Oh, and I almost forgot, Edwin will be getting baptized this saturday. (I´m pretty sure I mentioned him last week, but if not, well...there you go)
Well unfortunately that´s about all I got for this week, which isn´t much. I´m pretty excited for General Conference in a couple of weeks. I hadn´t even realized it was coming up until a couple of days ago. It´s hard to believe it´s been six months since I saw the last one while I was in Alvarez. Time seems to be flying, y por eso, hay que aprovechar de cada momento.
A random quote that I thought was profound:
¨Si los hombres no entienden el carácter de Dios, no se entienden a sí mismos.¨ - José Smith
-Elder Shelton
Well, it´s been another week. I´d have to say the highlight of the week was definitely Zone Conference. Elder Gomez, a setenta, and his wife came. Presidente Resek, his wife, Elder Gomez and his wife all talked and they were all amazing. From start to finish the Spirit was strong and by the end we were all kinda blown away. I think we all agreed it was the best zone conference yet. I learned a lot of things that I could be doing better, which is always good.
As for la obra, it was a bit of a tough week. We were able to find a few new people, but none that seem too promising. The most frustrating part is that we weren´t able to teach our investigators with asistencia hardly at all, and thus, it feels like we made no progress at all this week. Weeks like that are always a little bit of a downer, but it usually means that a good week is just around the corner. Also, from my experience, good weeks seem to happen because you make them happen, so that´s what we´re looking to do this week. Oh, and I almost forgot, Edwin will be getting baptized this saturday. (I´m pretty sure I mentioned him last week, but if not, well...there you go)
Well unfortunately that´s about all I got for this week, which isn´t much. I´m pretty excited for General Conference in a couple of weeks. I hadn´t even realized it was coming up until a couple of days ago. It´s hard to believe it´s been six months since I saw the last one while I was in Alvarez. Time seems to be flying, y por eso, hay que aprovechar de cada momento.
A random quote that I thought was profound:
¨Si los hombres no entienden el carácter de Dios, no se entienden a sí mismos.¨ - José Smith
-Elder Shelton
Here's the weekly translations:
- setenta = 70 (as in quorum of the 70)
- obra = work (as in missionary work)
- asistencia = attendance (at church)
- y por eso, hay que aprovechar de cada momento = and therefore, we should take advantage of each moment
- ¨Si los hombres no entienden el carácter de Dios, no se entienden a sí mismos.¨ = if men don't understand the character of God, they will not understand themselves
Monday, September 10, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Sept 10, 2018
The Sabbath Day is a delight, but sometimes a little disappoiting - 10 septiembre 2018
assistancia = attendance (at church)
fecha = date
obisbo = bishop
pensh = appartment
lended = loaned ☺
Well it`s been a pretty good week, but unfortunately it ended up pretty disappointing because we were only able to get 2 investigators in church. One of them, Esteban, is an 11 year old who´s a capo and now already has two asistencias. He has a fecha for this saturday, but yesterday he dropped a bomb on us and said that his mom isn't going to let him get baptized. We were definitely not expecting that. We talked to his mom about a week and a half ago to ask permission to teach him and to bring him to church and she didn`t have any problems with it. So we`re going to go talk to her today to see what`s up. Hopefully it goes well. Also la familia Juarez wasn`t able to come, which was one of the biggest disappointments. The parents are members but have been inactive for like 10 years or more, and they have four kids above the age of baptism. They had fechas for this saturday too, but they weren`t able to get their 2nd asistencia yesterday, so we`ll have to wait another week. The other person we had in church was a 16 year old named Edwin. He is also a capo. He`s kinda a long story, but basically he started attending in Los Pinos (which is a ward that borders us) because he has a lot of friends there. So the elders in Los Pinos started teaching him, but the obispo there won`t allow him to get baptized in his ward because Edwin lives in our area. So basically now he will be getting baptized here in Castillo 2 on the 22.
Also, I`ve been learning a little bit of sign language because we are teaching a deaf couple. They have already been to church several times and they love the book of mormon. The mom read the entire thing in like 3 days. Their son got baptized a couple months ago and he translates for us. Like always, they just need to get married. They are currently trying to pick a date to do it, so hopefully it can happen somewhat soon. Also we happen to be teaching another kid that is deaf, so we use their son a lot to help us translate. I´ve actually already learned quite a bit of sign language. But for some reason, Argentina seems to have it`s own version of sign language so it`s a lot different from American Sign Language.
Well so it turns out that our pensh is haunted. My comp and Elder Ramirez have told me quite a few crazy experiences they`ve had here. And then, on thursday, our Pday, my comp had another one. In the morning we went and played soccer with some of the kids from the ward, and when we got back we decided to take a nap for like half an hour. Well, I was just laying there ( I sleep on the top bunk) and then all of the sudden my comp yells really loud. Apparently he felt like he couldn`t move or speak, and that something was grabbing at him. He said he started praying and that when he was finally able to gain control was when he let out the yell. We told the other elders about it, and they said that they felt like something was not right in our pensh. So they decided that we should bless our pensh, which we did, so hopefully nothing crazy happens from now on. We told the bishop about it and he said that a member used to live in our pensh before the missionaries started living there. And he said that one time he got a call from the member at 1 in the morning because they couldn`t sleep and crazy stuff was happening in the pensh. So he had to go and give the member a blessing. So apparently we aren`t the only ones haha.
Oh also, our bishop lended me one of his guitars, so now we have a guitar in our pensh and I play it a little bit before we go to bed. It´s been a long time and my fingers have gotten really weak, so I gotta toughen them up again.
Anyway, that`s about all I got. Hopefully you all have a great week!
-Elder Shelton
assistancia = attendance (at church)
fecha = date
obisbo = bishop
pensh = appartment
lended = loaned ☺
Well it`s been a pretty good week, but unfortunately it ended up pretty disappointing because we were only able to get 2 investigators in church. One of them, Esteban, is an 11 year old who´s a capo and now already has two asistencias. He has a fecha for this saturday, but yesterday he dropped a bomb on us and said that his mom isn't going to let him get baptized. We were definitely not expecting that. We talked to his mom about a week and a half ago to ask permission to teach him and to bring him to church and she didn`t have any problems with it. So we`re going to go talk to her today to see what`s up. Hopefully it goes well. Also la familia Juarez wasn`t able to come, which was one of the biggest disappointments. The parents are members but have been inactive for like 10 years or more, and they have four kids above the age of baptism. They had fechas for this saturday too, but they weren`t able to get their 2nd asistencia yesterday, so we`ll have to wait another week. The other person we had in church was a 16 year old named Edwin. He is also a capo. He`s kinda a long story, but basically he started attending in Los Pinos (which is a ward that borders us) because he has a lot of friends there. So the elders in Los Pinos started teaching him, but the obispo there won`t allow him to get baptized in his ward because Edwin lives in our area. So basically now he will be getting baptized here in Castillo 2 on the 22.
Also, I`ve been learning a little bit of sign language because we are teaching a deaf couple. They have already been to church several times and they love the book of mormon. The mom read the entire thing in like 3 days. Their son got baptized a couple months ago and he translates for us. Like always, they just need to get married. They are currently trying to pick a date to do it, so hopefully it can happen somewhat soon. Also we happen to be teaching another kid that is deaf, so we use their son a lot to help us translate. I´ve actually already learned quite a bit of sign language. But for some reason, Argentina seems to have it`s own version of sign language so it`s a lot different from American Sign Language.
Well so it turns out that our pensh is haunted. My comp and Elder Ramirez have told me quite a few crazy experiences they`ve had here. And then, on thursday, our Pday, my comp had another one. In the morning we went and played soccer with some of the kids from the ward, and when we got back we decided to take a nap for like half an hour. Well, I was just laying there ( I sleep on the top bunk) and then all of the sudden my comp yells really loud. Apparently he felt like he couldn`t move or speak, and that something was grabbing at him. He said he started praying and that when he was finally able to gain control was when he let out the yell. We told the other elders about it, and they said that they felt like something was not right in our pensh. So they decided that we should bless our pensh, which we did, so hopefully nothing crazy happens from now on. We told the bishop about it and he said that a member used to live in our pensh before the missionaries started living there. And he said that one time he got a call from the member at 1 in the morning because they couldn`t sleep and crazy stuff was happening in the pensh. So he had to go and give the member a blessing. So apparently we aren`t the only ones haha.
Oh also, our bishop lended me one of his guitars, so now we have a guitar in our pensh and I play it a little bit before we go to bed. It´s been a long time and my fingers have gotten really weak, so I gotta toughen them up again.
Anyway, that`s about all I got. Hopefully you all have a great week!
-Elder Shelton
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Nate's Letter Home - Sept 3, 2018
Castillo - 3 septiembre 2018
Well my first week here in Castillo was a great one. I´ve learned that although it´s hard to leave an area, there´s always amazing people to meet in the new area, and Castillo is no different. I was kinda worried when I heard that I was going to the zone of Ramos Mejía, because I was afraid that my area would be cheto. But luckily when I got here I saw that it was the ghetto, which is what I like to see. My comp is Elder Aparicio, he´s from Perú. He´s my first Latino comp, and it took me a few days to get used to the fact that I can´t speak english when we´re alone haha. Like sometimes when we´re sitting in our pensh I´ll ask him something and he´ll look at me really confused, and then I realize that I just spoke to him in english. We also live with the elders from Castillo 1, Elder Ramirez from Chile and Elder Rojas from Guatemala, so I am the only shanki. It´s definitely a new experience to never hear english, but it will be good. My spanish is definitely going to improve this transfer.
Also, apparently I am the first gringo in this area in like 3 years. The first thing we did after I unpacked was go meet the bishop. And he was like yeah, you´re the first gringo we´ve had here in a long time, you´re going to be recieving a lot of attention. Well, he was definitely right. When we walk down the street I can feel everyone staring at me like I´m an alien or something haha. We have been taking advantage of it though. We got 6 new people in church yesterday, and they all have fechas for the 15th. We set a goal to baptize 8 people this month, and we´re going to make it happen.
So I don´t know if you´ve been following the news of Argentina very much, but the economy is kinda in shambles right now. The inflation is real. This week it went from 31 pesos to a dollar, to 42 to a dollar. When I got to Argentina, it was only 16 to a dollar. So basically nobody has money to buy anything. People in the street always ask me if I have any dollars haha. Hopefully things can stable out a bit.
Anyway, that´s about all I got. I already love my new area and my comp is a capo, so it´s going to be a great transfer.
Disfruten Labor Day!
-Elder Shelton
"cheto" = snobby, conceited
Well my first week here in Castillo was a great one. I´ve learned that although it´s hard to leave an area, there´s always amazing people to meet in the new area, and Castillo is no different. I was kinda worried when I heard that I was going to the zone of Ramos Mejía, because I was afraid that my area would be cheto. But luckily when I got here I saw that it was the ghetto, which is what I like to see. My comp is Elder Aparicio, he´s from Perú. He´s my first Latino comp, and it took me a few days to get used to the fact that I can´t speak english when we´re alone haha. Like sometimes when we´re sitting in our pensh I´ll ask him something and he´ll look at me really confused, and then I realize that I just spoke to him in english. We also live with the elders from Castillo 1, Elder Ramirez from Chile and Elder Rojas from Guatemala, so I am the only shanki. It´s definitely a new experience to never hear english, but it will be good. My spanish is definitely going to improve this transfer.
Also, apparently I am the first gringo in this area in like 3 years. The first thing we did after I unpacked was go meet the bishop. And he was like yeah, you´re the first gringo we´ve had here in a long time, you´re going to be recieving a lot of attention. Well, he was definitely right. When we walk down the street I can feel everyone staring at me like I´m an alien or something haha. We have been taking advantage of it though. We got 6 new people in church yesterday, and they all have fechas for the 15th. We set a goal to baptize 8 people this month, and we´re going to make it happen.
So I don´t know if you´ve been following the news of Argentina very much, but the economy is kinda in shambles right now. The inflation is real. This week it went from 31 pesos to a dollar, to 42 to a dollar. When I got to Argentina, it was only 16 to a dollar. So basically nobody has money to buy anything. People in the street always ask me if I have any dollars haha. Hopefully things can stable out a bit.
Anyway, that´s about all I got. I already love my new area and my comp is a capo, so it´s going to be a great transfer.
Disfruten Labor Day!
-Elder Shelton
"cheto" = snobby, conceited
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