Saturday, February 20, 2016

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAST FRIDAY MOM

and happy birthday tomorrow Grandma!
and happy birthday to all of you too!

Whelp, there goes another week in the life of Elder Hardcastle here is Los Polvorines. Here's the low-down.

So remember a few weeks back when I said we had around 14 possible baptisms for February 14? Well we had zero. But it is okay! As much as I want to make people come to church, I can't do it. Because I'm not Satan. In choir one time we sang a song that says 'Satan ain't nothin' but a snake in the grass' (Elijah Rock, if you even want to look it up. It's pretty magnificent), and I feel that. There is always some sort of obstacle for these people every Sunday in the morning! But this week we have a few baptisms lined up, so I am hoping for my first baptisms here in Los Polvorines and if we don't have them, We have transfer calls that next day, and with 4 and a half-ish months here it is likely that I will be leaving, and I can really feel like I have seen some progress here. We had lunch with our branch president and we ended up talking about transfers and he said he hopes they let me stay a bit more. Probably just because he likes to sass me a lot. I could do another transfer here, I think. 

We had a pretty interesting week, as far as work goes. Early in the week we stopped by the house of our branch mission leader and had a mini correlation and then after I asked if we could share a message with him and his family, because, you know, Elder Hardcastle is my name, extracting referrals is my game... when I remember (my memory really is not one of  my fortes, just ask my family). We ended up leaving the with our mission leader to look for some people. The first house was kind of a no go, but the second house was great. The person we were looking for wasn't there, but we ended up talking to his niece, who was semi interested, She told us she had lot's of doubts about God, and luckily we were able to answer some of her questions. She wanted to know that if we are supposed to be made in the image of God, why is there so much bad in the world? Does that mean God is bad too? We talked a bit about the Fall of Adam and Eve how yes we look like God, but we aren't of his nature, because we are in a fallen state. It was interesting but neat and she was satisfied for the moment. 

Just to let you know, almost 99.756% of the time someone is blasting regatón music down the street (it's a mix of rap with heavy rhythmic beats and usually inappropriate lyrics, when I can understand them). The other day (yesterday) we were walking down the street (like every day) to look for a less active and his neighbor decided to get in on the trend... and was blasting classical music. He's done it other times but I have just so much respect for this guy trying to bring some culture to the area. The best part was that on the other side of the street there was some sort of fiesta and lot's of teenagers were outside and had to endure a little bit of refinement, 'Twas delightful.

Another fun fact, My fanny pack wonder bag that I bought from the mission offices came this last week and have been proudly sporting it throughout my proselyting time. Basically all the other elders think it is hideous, but I figure there aren't many other times in life where I will find myself wearing a fanny pack, so I need to take advantage of the moment. Hay que aprovechar. 

We found a man on the bus that wanted a magazine of the church, so we gave him the second best thing, the pamphlet of the restoration, Maybe a Book of Mormon would have been good too, but we didn't have much time and we can give him one when we meet with him this week.

We had a zone conference with President Ayres on Thursday and we talked about the importance of working through the members, He showed us a lot of numbers, like how we don't have a lot of new investigators in comparison with other missions in our area, but we have lot's of baptisms, and President Ayres credits that to working with the members, and I do too! It is really the best way to do the work.

Hope you all have a great week! And use your agency to do something good this week! And invite a friend to church! Or if you are not a member just find the nearest chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and go and visit this Sunday! 

See you all soon enough!
Elder Hardcastle
Photos- 

1- A quick trip to San Fernando because I lost our cell phone in a bus... oops. But yay for Facturas from Bruno's!



2- The Church building in San Fernando


3- The Mission. 
They posted this in the mission offices a little bit ago and it is so nice to actually know where I am in the mission. 
Before, I was a disoriented mess.



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