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

"ficha bautismal"   = baptismal form (i.e. paperwork)

"seguro" = sure

"¡que tengan una buena semana!" = have a great week! 

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

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

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

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 

Nate's Letter Home - Aug 27, 2018

Me Voy - 27 agosto 2018

Well the call came saturday, and as expected I´m leaving Alvarez and I´ll be going to Rafael Castillo 2. I will be the district leader there. It is really hard to leave this place after being here 6 months. I may or may not have shed a few tears last night when I said goodbye to a few families.

The good news is that Mariané got baptized! We´ve had a lot of baptisms fall through the past few months, so I was really glad that this one was able to actually happen. It was a good way to end my last week in Alvarez. And it was good to see how happy she was when she got baptized and when she comes to church. She has a lot of problems going on in her house, so hopefully going to church will continue to help her.

Well, I don´t have much for this week. I´ll probably have more to say next week when I see what my new area is like.

Have a great week!

-Elder Shelton