Nate's Letter Home - Jan 8, 2018

I´m a little late writing this because we attempted to get a rabies shot today after district meeting, but we failed. My comp got bit by a dog a couple days ago and the mission nurse told him he had to get the vaccine. So she gave us the address to this place in Marcos Paz, and we went there today but basically they told us we could only get the rabies vaccine in Merlo. At least that´s what we understood, but we´re not entirely sure. Anyway, he might be getting a shot soon.

Well it´s been another week. It was definitely a surprise when we got the text saying President Monson had died. He has been the prophet for pretty much all of my life that I can remember. I remember a little bit of when Gordon B. Hinckley was prophet, but not a lot, so it feels a little weird to have a new prophet. It was also kind of weird when we did contacts and taught our investigators and testified to them that we have a living prophet in these days. We would look at each other like, well mas o menos haha. Also a couple days ago my comp had to do a baptism interview for the zone leaders. As we were walking there, my comp asked how he was going to ask the question about the living prophet. The zone leaders just told him to ask him if he accepts Thomas S. Monson as the prophet because that is what he was taught haha.

Yesterday we ate lunch at a members house, and the guy showed me some highlights of the Spurs game where Ginobli scored like 26 points or something like that. That dude is a beast! I can´t believe he´s still playing at age 40 haha. It was pretty big news here, is he Argentine? That would make sense if he is. He also showed us some of the videos of the eastern US. It looked crazy. Hopefully Rach and Ian don´t freeze.

It´s looking like we´re going to get some baptisms this month. Hopefully I didn´t just jynx it, I don´t want to cry wolf again haha. But we have Karina and Victor for the 20th. To get baptized they have to have two asistencias (attendences? that looks wrong to me) so they both had to attend yesterday and next sunday in order for them to be baptized. It was quite the ordeal getting them both to church yesterday, but we were able to do it. They live on the complete opposite sides of our area, and Victor is on crutches, so we had to get help from one of the bishop´s counselors who had a car. We did it somehow. In fact, we had 5 investigators in church this week. For the 27th, we have a 18 year old called Fernanda. It might be difficult to baptize her so soon though. She works pretty much all day, including sunday, and I don´t think her family likes that she is talking with us. Both times we´ve taught her we´ve had to stand outside her gate on the street. But she is really nice and we´re going to try our best with her. 

Then we have Gabriela. She´s the nine year old we should have baptized several weeks ago. Things just got a lot harder though. On saturday we went to their house to try and talk with their family and set a new date for her baptism. It definitely did not go as planned. We were aware of a lot of problems that the family was having, but we learned a lot more. We were sitting outside with all the kids ( they have four girls) and we could hear the parents arguing about something. Then the dad came out and it was pretty clear he was drunk (We did not know he drank). The mom came out too, and long story short, we listened to them yell at us for about an hour about all their problems they´re having with each other. It was unbelievable how different the dad was. Usually he seems like the nicest guy ever. He always welcomes us in, gives us a lot of food and talks to us. While he was drunk it seemed like Satan was able to gain control, he was not the same person. I definitely learned about the power Satan can have over people. The family seems like it´s being ripped apart, and it is a very sad thing to see. I pray for them a lot.

Also, about a week ago I finished the Book of Mormon. Only took me about 3 months. I´ve started it again, as well as the New Testament. Each day I am able to feel the power of the words in the Book of Mormon, and it helps me be able to declare my testimony of it to the people we meet. 

Well that´s about it, hopefully we can get some baptisms this month. Cuatro por Cristo!

-Elder Shelton