Nate's Letter Home - Jan 28, 2019

a surprise - 28 enero 2019

Well I finally have some good news. Laura got baptized! Although we almost had another disaster. We had visited her several times during the week, and everything looked good. Then we went and visited saturday morning just to talk to her a bit, and we asked her if everything was still good for the baptism in the afternoon. That was when she was like: ya so i`ve been thinking about it, and I don`t want to get baptized today. I couldn`t believe it. We had just talked to her the day before and everything was fine. So we asked her what happened and she said she had been talking with some of her family about her baptism, and they told her that it was way too soon and that she needed to wait a long time to make a decision like that. We assured her that in God`s view, she was ready, because she had passed her interview and met all the requirements, and we explained that baptism is an act of faith. After talking with her for a few minutes her doubts went away and she wanted to get baptized again. So we had the baptism in the afternoon, combined with a ward baptism of an 8 year old kid. He lives with just his mom, and he wanted me to baptize him, so I baptized both him and Laura.






Also, something really cool happened yesterday afternoon with Hermano Alcaraz. His wife, and his 3 daughters and 2 sons are all members and are super active. In fact the oldest daughter left on a mission to Brazil two months ago. But he is not a member. He knows the church is true and everything, in fact he has a pretty strong testimonay, but he has a few problems with the members of the church, and he also smokes and drinks a bit, and so he has never been baptized. Well I´ve kinda been chipping away at this guy during my 5 months in Castillo, but he is a very stubborn and prideful dude. But then on friday we had a serious lesson with him and his family. We talked about baptism and asked him what things were in the way of him getting baptized. He talked about a few things, and suddenly a story from the Bible came to my head, and so I asked for one of their bibles, and I opened up to the last chapter of John. I read him the story when Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him more than he loves the fish. After reading the story, I asked the dad if he loves God and his family more than he loves the things that are stopping him from being baptized. He said he loves God and his family more. I told him that I know he does, but right now he`s not showing it. He tried to give some excuses, but then I asked him the exact same question again. He gave the same answer, but this time he didn`t say anything after. I could tell that it hit him pretty hard, but by the time we left, he still hadn`t changed his mind about baptism. But then on sunday he showed up to church. And after the church the mom asked me if we could stop by their house in the afternoon. She said she wanted us to give a blessing to her daughter that was sick, but I had a feeling there was another reason too that she wanted us to come. So we went by yesterday and sat down outside behind their house. At first, only one of the daughters and the dad came out. We sat their for a few minutes, and then the daughter was like, dad, did you give them the paper yet? And the dad said, no, not yet. I was like, alrighty, something`s going on here. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Then from his wallet he pulled out one of the little cards about baptism that we always use to contact. He gave it to me, and on the back I read: 
     
09/02/2019, el bautismo de Mario Alcaraz.

I couldn`t believe what I had read. He was just sitting there with a grin on his face. I was like, is this some kind of joke? Then the dad said, ¨Elders have been coming to my house for over 8 years trying to convince me to be baptized, but they could never do it. But you two have done it.¨ 

So that was basically the happiest I`ve ever been. Also, that date, the 9th of february, is most likely my last weekend in Castillo, because transfers are the 12th. 

But anyway, I`m out of time.

Have a great week!


-Elder Shelton

Nate's Letter Home - Jan 21, 2019

Tree:1 Nate:0 - 21 enero 2019

Well...where do I begin?

I guess I´ll start with Laura. Everything was looking good for the baptism on saturday. In fact, it was looking a little too good, which made something seem fishy. I was waiting the whole week for some kind of problem to come up. But we actually made it to saturday without any problems so I thought we were in the clear. But then after lunch we got some bad news. We ate with Familia Arcos, who live in the same apartment building as Laura. After we ate, they told us that Laura was...how do I put this... ¨ella estaba menstruando¨, and was freaking out because she didn´t want to have to get baptized while that was happening. I could not believe it. Of all the things I thought could go wrong, that was not on my list. So we had to move the baptism to this next saturday. So it was unfortunate, but hopefully things will still work out.

Oh yeah, also, early saturday morning we helped a family in our ward move. It just so happened that they were moving into the apartment right next to Familia Arcos where we ate lunch. But anyway, that´s not important to the story. So we loaded all their stuff into this big dump truck and then we rode in the back with all the stuff while the guy drove to the new apartment. Well as we were going down the road we passed this big tree on the side of the road. The big dresser that was right in front of me pushed back one of the branches and then it whipped back and smacked me right on the crown of the head. It hurt pretty good and kinda stunned me, but luckily I have a Shelton head because it didn´t seem to phase me as much as it should have. It did leave a little cut on the top of my head though that blead a little bit. I guess you could say I got taken behind the woodshed haha. But it´s all good. Then we had to haul all their stuff up two flights of stairs to the apartment, which was fun.

I feel like there were more noteworthy things that happened this week but they seem to be escaping me. Maybe because I got bopped on the head haha. 

Anyway, hopefully you have a great week,

Hasta Lunes


-Elder Shelton

"ella estaba menstruando" = I don't think I'll translate this one... figure it out for yourselves 

Nate's Letter Home - Jan 14, 2019

r.i.p. my watch... 14 enero 2019

Well we now don´t have a phone or my watch, but I´ll get to that later since it was the icing on the cake for this week.

Well, Walter did not get baptized this week. Everything was going well this week until I got a text thursday night at like 1 in the morning from Walter telling me how he´s been talking to his dad who lives in the north of Argentina, and that his dad forbid him to be baptized so now he doesn´t want to get baptized. I was like, this dude is 38 years old, can´t he make his own decision? Anyway, we stopped by his house several times and he never came out. And he doesn´t answer our phone calls. So, yeah. 

Although there was some really good stuff this week too because we found some awesome people. We contacted this one lady on wednesday who had literally just moved into the house that day, She was really nice, and said that she had talked to elders before, like 10 years ago and they had given her a book of mormon. We set up a time to come back on friday, and when we came they let us in and we sat down with the entire family (the dad, mom, and their 3 daughters that live with them) Which is not something that happens very often at all. We taught lesson 1 and then invited them all to be baptized and they said yes. The only thing is that we don´t know if the parents are married... so I guess we´ll see. 

Also we found this cool dude named Alejandro whose 28 years old and lives with his girlfriend and their 2 year old kid. We were contacting him, but then he brought out some chairs and we sat down in front of his house and taught him lesson 1 and gave him a book of mormon. He was listening super intently and he actually understood everything really well. Afterwards, we somehow got on the topic of Boca vs. River (the two big soccer teams of Buenos Aires). I told him I like Boca, and he went into his house and came out with a sweet Boca jersey and he just straight up gave it to me. It was pretty sick haha. 

The crowning moment of the week had to be on sunday morning when we were out looking for investigators to come to church. It was raining slightly so there weren´t very many people out. Long story short we ended up getting robbed at like 9:30 in the morning. We were also in the less-sketchy part of our area, so it was neither the time nor the place that I expected to be robbed. All we ended up losing was the phone and my watch though. Although I was pretty sad to see my watch go, because I have worn it every day of my mision without fail. I also had my nice spanish triple combination with me because I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting, so luckily he didn´t take that. The look on my comp´s face was priceless too because he didn´t understand anything that was going on. He told me he didn´t even know that we were getting robbed until I gave up my watch haha. 

"The Tan Line Comes to an End"

But anyway, all is well here in Castillo. Oh yeah, we should be baptizing a lady named Laura this saturday, we just need to do the interview tonight and then everything will be set. I know I probably sound like the boy who cried wolf haha but hopefully this one actually happens.

Have a great week!


-Elder Shelton

Nate's Letter Home - Jan 7, 2019

7 enero 2019

Well it´s been a pretty good week.  We got 7 investigators in church yesterday, which was pretty lit. One of which was Walter, who´s been to church 3 weeks in a row now, and he is getting baptized this Saturday. Unless some kind of disaster strikes. Also this single mom named Laura that we found this week came, and she has a fecha for the next saturday, the 19th. Her 2 kids came as well, but unfortunately the oldest one is only 7... :(  Then this guy named John that we found last week came up clutch and came to church with his 4 kids, 3 of which are old enough to be baptized. Although he told us that his wife goes to a different church because the brother of the wife is a pastor, so that might be kinda hard.

New Year´s was pretty awesome. We had another huge dinner with the bishop´s family. (We had permission to stay out until 11 again.) And the next day we had lunch with them again and we had a huge asado. 

Oh yeah, and this week I got to meet the family of Elder Pereira (my last comp who was from Brasil). It´s a long story why they´re here in Castillo and I don´t really want to type it all out, so it sufficeth me to say that they are here and I got to meet them. They are really cool. The dad actually talks pretty good english. The mom only talks Portuguese, but because of my 6 weeks with Elder Pereira I was actually able to understand what she said to me.

Anyway, I think that´s about it. Have a good week!

And Happy Birthday!

-Elder Shelton


p.s. Here´s a pic with the fam of Elder Pereira