In reality, the first birthday in the mission was basically just like any other day, but that was okay with me. We had lunch with our branch president and his family, and they went to the trouble of blowing up some balloons for me (your Castellano word of the day is globos. it means BALLOONS!) which was nice of them. It really good and they also made me a cake, also really good. I do love cake.There is a man in our ward that also has his birthday either the 28 or the 29, I am still really not sure, and we tried to go to his house but he wasn't home=( ALSO I need to send a little shout out about him because he is super cool and had the collection of Liahona magazines from 1997 and he gave it to me last transfer, I'll show you guys when I get home. The January one is General Conference from that October, I assume because they needed to translate it and stuff. anyways...
Later we went to the house of the part member family that we are working with. We had a really good lesson about the Plan of Salvation and I really like this lesson even if it is hard for me to teach in Castellano. We have all these promises that God wants to give us, We just need to live worthily and even though hard things will come, God will help us live happy. I love that promise=) They also fed us an we left happy.
The next day I got a package from my parents! or should I say, TWO PACKAGES! AND THREE BOXES OF CEREAL! Thanks family I love you. (Future wife, the way to my heart is cereal. Just so you know and read this one day.) We had lunch with another family and we got another cake=) ¡¡PERMITANOS COMER LA TORTA!!
We worked hard this week trying to maintain our group of investigators, but lessons fell through and we got denied and so our investigating pool has gotten small. But hey, that's all part of the mission, right? We are doing a lot better job at getting members to help us, but this week with lessons canceling it took away from the lessons we could have taught. BUT this week we had more Lessons with Members than I have ever had in Los Polvorines, and they were all pretty good quality lessons. One of my favorite things about being a missionary is listening to an investigator's first prayer. They are so sincere and so humble, they make you so happy!
One of my favorite parts of the week was yesterday, it was an example of the life of a missionary. We were waiting on 2 families and one other investigator in the church yesterday, 8 investigators total. They all had a plan to get to the church, we had taught the importance of church attendance and we were hoping for a good little group at church. Not one came. I kind of just have to laugh about it, I mean we can't take away their agency, but Satan is working really hard on these people here=) This is one of our biggest problems here I think with investigators. JUST COME TO CHURCH AND FEEL HAPPPY OKAY! But there is always something in the way. Personally, I'd take the happiness thanks very much.
Also we were invited to my very first Ward Council in this area! It was really great, they talked about there goals of the branch and now we have a better understanding of what they want to accomplish. They also bumped up the baptisms from 4 (what they had originally told us) to 10. They also want to have 60 people in the church every week. Right now we have right around 30, but I like their attitude. They have big plans for the year and I really want to help them achieve them.
This week I completed six months as a missionary in Argentina. This place is crazy, but I love it. Give me a little bit more time (or like 15 more months) and I'll be a true mormon porteño.
Keep being really great and do something nice for your family. Or for my family, they are a pretty cool crowd. See you all soon enough!
Elder Hardcastle
Pictures
1. Elder Gutiérrez and and I. He is one of the Zone Leaders and I have known him since I got here. He was doing exchanges with the missionaries of San Miguel so we had a party and a half that night.
2. Birthday lunch with the Juarez Family=)
3. I put the balloons to good use
4. Cereal
5. Soccer.
Yes I still hate it. Yes I still can't play it.
Yes I yell a lot like I did in tennis to distract from the fact that I don't play well.
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