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.¨
Monday, November 26, 2018
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
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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"
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)