Amazed, grateful, blessed.

As I was trying to come up with a catchy title to the email, I thought of ''What just happened'' ''The work and the wait'' and some other great things. Really, yesterday was a day I never dreamed of. We always hear of these wonderful missionary miraculous moments, and I think yesterday I received one of mine. 

The vision of the mission is to work through the members. This week we worked through the members, we tried receiving refferals through the members, we visited less actives, and tried to get members to help us out in the street so we could do some contacting. I'd love to say that it all came out perfect and that we received lots of referrals and that the members never fell through when we asked them to help help, but that would be lying. The only day we had a member in the street it was for about an hour and a half, and it was because a member from Elder Caifual's last area came to show us a referral she had for us. We tried to ask a member questions to help think of people to give us as referrals that L Whitney Clayton gave us in the Missionary Seminar (do you guys even know how much I love that man? He is the best ever), but she couldn't think of anybody that fit into those categories in our area. At the end of the week though, we had a list of around 8 people that we were were waiting to see in the church, 6 less actives and 2 investigators. 

Out of all these people, only one less active actually came to church, but she attended with the ward of San Miguel (but for the time being I am just super happy she came to church). So much for our efforts of the week. But then the miracles started to occur. About an hour and a half into our church attendance another less active came with one child and four grandchildren. The grandchildren aren't baptized and she wants us to teach them. Then, later on I was talking with an Hermana and she told me she was going to visit a less active family that evening. I asked if we could come and she said yes (we'll get to this later.). So with hopes a little higher we continued on our way.

After church we had lunch with a part-member family. This family has had the missionaries working with them for a while, there are like 3 registers for them in the Area Book. Last time we ate with them we talked about baptism and invited the nonmembers to be baptized, but they told us no. During the lunch I shared the spiritual thought about the OLA, and after Elder Caifual expounded a little bit more. We were talking about about the Book of Mormon or something along the lines of the Restoration and the wife of the member told us she never had heard of Joseph Smith. WHAAAAT? In the registers it says that she had already had that lesson before, but I don't know what happened, so we quickly changed and gave the lesson of the Restoration. She told us after that now she understand the importance of the Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and all that good stuff, and she accepted the invitation to be baptized the 14 of February, as well as one of her kids (we need to get the signature now, but we have the oral consent) and her mother. The wife already has the three church attendances but we are still planning on three weeks with her so we can teach them all as a family. They are so prepared! 

After lunch we had the visit with the hermana. We applauded outside the gate, but no one came. She turned to us and asked, ''Alright, where are we going now?'' ready to get some missionary work done (this hermana is the person most dedicated to the missionary work in the branch. She loves to accompany but due to complications could not help out this last week) we started off and a little bit later I said hi to a person in the street and right after she asked us if we wanted a drink at her house in the corner. It was a day pretty dang roasty and we accepted her gesture and this opportunity to spread the Gospel. So as we sat and drank she told us she loved the missionary work. We got talking and she told us some things and it was was pretty clear that she was wanting some help. We talked about our purpose, and taught in a very roundabout way the Restoration with her as well. At the beginning of our visit she wasn't the type of person that goes to church, but by the end her perspective changed and she accepted the invitation to be baptized (she might have a vacation but we will see what we work out).

After that, we went to the house of a referral from the elders in San Miguel. We talked with the lady there and began to work with CoCo (Como comenzar a enseñar, or How to begin teaching for you English folk). I asked her why she gave her direction to the elders and she told us she likes to listen to other peoples' perspectives, but wasn't going to change her own ideas. My companion said a few things about how we aren't here to change people, rather to help them follow Christ (or something like that, I still don't know exactly what happened at this point) and then he invited her to be baptized and she said yes! I was so confused, I though she was going to say no, but hey Elder Caifual knows better. 

I'm still kind of in awe, but just like that, we have five people in our three semanas. We also did some math and figured that if we congregate with these two women we found and receive the signatures of those grandkids we met in the church, we have the possibility of around 14 baptisms February 14. What a happy Valentines Day it will be. This area has been so hard for me. I have been trying to work a lot here and I have been really sweaty and stressed and frustrated sometimes, but it seems like things are starting to fall into place. Our efforts didn't reap a whole bunch of results this week, but I believe that God saw our desires to follow the vision of the mission (and really, of the Church) and work through the members, and even though there weren't very many fruits from our efforts, He saw them sufficient to give us one day jam-packed of miracles, with people in the right places at the right time. God is good, and I feel really blessed, guys. He works with me, is patient with me, and helps me to learn, because let me tell you all, I have a lot to learn. It never stops amazing me how perfect everything is, and I love that about the Gospel.

I hope you all have a great week and also HAPPY BIRTHDAY Thursday to the best twin even and the best Dad ever. =) 

also SEE YOU ALL SOON ENOUGH!

Elder Hardcastle

Hola señor sol, por favor vayase

Well, week one with Elder Caifual was super great. We walked a lot and I filled him in on the goings on in Los Polvorines. Elder Caifual has about a year in the mission, and is really great. I am kind of leading the area right now because obviously he is new in this territory, and it has given me a good opportunity to talk some more and be a little bit more outgoing. He is less extroverted than Elder Molina was, so I get to participate more in our daily activities as well. We both really want to find people in this transfer and that is our goal. One thing that I really admire about my companion is that he is really brave. In Spanish there is term- bajar la caña (drop the cane)- which is basically means 'to call to repentance', like a mother reprimanding a child, for instance. Anyways he can ''bajar la caña''  that I wouldn't ever try to say, but he can do it in such a way that they don't even get offensive, it is glorious=) 

We found some new investigators this week and we have one really good possibility. She is the granddaughter of a less active and seems to have a desire to learn more. We are waiting on the signature of her mom so we can officially start to teach her, but she is really great. We put a baptismal date on her but we will have to change it because she couldn't go to church because she was sick =(  but we will keep visiting with her and hopefully she will be able to see that the pathway to happiness is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Yesterday was a super duper day. When we got to church our Branch President wanted to talk with us and we had a little meeting with him and talked about some of the inner workings and history of the branch, and now we feel a lot more up to date. He also gave us a key to the baptismal font! We helped with the baptism of a girl in the ward too. We helped plan this baptism with her grandparents and they wanted me to sing as part of the baptismal program A Child's Prayer from the Primary Songbook, and I agreed, even though we don't even have a primary songbook in the apartment. anyways, yesterday came around and I saw on the program that I was going to sing it with the ward chorister... SURPRISE I was like 'okay cool this will be different'. So without even practicing together we sang together. For those of you that know the song, there is a child part and an adult part. The 40ish year old hermana was the child and I was the adult. We didn't have accompaniment and she started off singing in a pitch lower than I had anticipated, which totally threw me off and left me singing all confused and whatnot. Anyways it only lasted like 3 minutes so whatever, anythings to be helpful.  =) 

After lunch we started up the work. We tried to find a less active that we have in our directory but we ended getting super lost (and found a poor dead frog in the street  :(), and we come to find out that the street doesn't even exist anymore, it's like a rich people country club. After that we decided to dump the plans we had and went to search for another family in our branch that I know because we were dying of a killer thirst. So we went and caught a bus and it didn't even go where we wanted it to! Like I told him where we wanted to go and he didn't even tell he that it was to wrong bus... whatever. So we had to walk a lot more but we got to the house we wanted eventually and the less active father was there so we were able to talk to him and share a scripture from the Book of Mormon and drink like 6 liters of water (you think we are kidding... it was a lot of water). After that we went and searched for another hermana in our ward that lived more or less close and we only got a little bit more lost again. She is probably one of my favorite people in all of Los Polvorines; She's super religious and is always praising The Almighty and LOVES the missionaries, so we ended off the day with good smiles and happy feelings.  =)

That's about it for the week. ¡¡Espero que todos estén bien y que disfruten esta semana!!

Bye. See you all soon enough!

Elder Hardcastle

photo 1- Chorrillana con Élder Caifual

Spot the non-Chileano (hint: it's me)

Just some more pictures from bowling today. I placed 2nd of 22 Elders with a score of 124... BEAT THAT!

Also Elder Parraguez gave me a haircut today and didn't even mess up this time.

Chileanos are my friends.

When I finish the mission I think I will haveto make a trip to Chile. I seem to be making more friends in the mission from Chile than any other Latin American country. AND THIS MAKES THE PERFECT BUILD UP FOR MY NEXT BIG NEWS: TRANSFERS. We were starting to feel like I would be leaving Los Polvorines and Elder Molina would be there for another transfer, but that was not the case. Elder Molina (And Elder Holtry too, only one transfer over here) has left and Elder Caifual has come, and you want to guess where he is from? Yep, CHILE. He is super great. He has about a year in the mission and seems really sincere and super kind and I am expecting a good solid transfer here in Los Polvorines. I have told him about some of the problems we face and he isn't too scared yet, and I have a feeling that as we strive to be obedient God will help us with our needs.  =)

We had interviews with Presidente Ayre this last week. He said something near the very beginning which stuck out to me. He ask me how I was doing and I told him this area is hard but I was doing okay, and he told me that really I should take this area as a compliment, that God knew that I could take on an area like this. I hadn't ever really thought about it like that, and it made me feel a little bit blessed and it made me remember that Presidente Ayre doesn't make the transfer calls, God does. We talked a lot about goals after the mission and he told me to go big, and to work really hard in my 20s to enjoy the fruits of my labors later in life. Wow, sounds like what my dad says. =)   We also talked a bit about marriage, and I figured I should let mom and dad know that he told me I don't need to get married right after the mission, so they can take a deep breath and relax a bit.  =) 

This day I also had exchanges with my great friend Elder Parraguez. It was so great and he is such a great example of the type of missionary I want to become. This might sound super duper cheesy, but I very well could have found my best friend here in the mission. He is so flipping funny and we decided that he is going to be my cuñado, or as we say in the USA, brother-in-law.  =)   Sorry to break it to you Audrey but I found your future husband. He isn't a 10/10 with his English yet but we are working on it. 

 

That's about it from the land down south! I'm really looking forward to this new transfer and hope to see some great things over here. We have an investigator who read the Book of Mormon the other day and felt something so we are going to be setting up a lesson with her up here soon and help her on her pathway to conversion, and maybe we'll find some other people along the way in these next 6 weeks. 

See you all soon enough!

Élder Hardcastle

This last week we found these two GIGANTIC cucarachas, yummy. When they are this big they begin to scare me. WE LIVE ON THE FOURTH FLOOR OF OUR APARTMENT BUILDING HOW DO THEY EVEN GET HERE

Elder Parraguez and I. The pizza here is sooooo good. 

Elder Caifual and I

Miracles are good.

Today was a good day and I even went bowling, so beat that=)

In retrospect, this week was a lot better than I had originally planned. We had quite a few miracles and for that I am grateful. We had a lesson with our investigator of 16 years and we put a baptismal date down and everything, and we were going to schedule a day to get the signature of her mom but her mom said that she needed to stay in her church for right now. It was a little sad, but the lesson was great, and we called basically every single active male in our branch to try to help us have this lesson (she told us she only lived with her mom) so we could pass by (haha because we had the lesson at the gate=)), and I really felt like it was a blessing to have a member and his son accompany us after trying so hard to find someone. Then Tuesday I had exchanges with Elder Edmonds and he gave me some good ideas for how to really utilize our time. 

Then Wednesday we had another miracle. We were walking down the street and this lady stopped us and asked if we could come and stop by her house sometime, because her niece was visiting from Utah and is a member of the Church and they wanted to have a chat with us. OF COURSE WE AGREED! This happens approximately never here=) She gave us her phone number and we called her that night and set things up for the next day. We also got to talk to her niece, Camila, who is a return missionary from the Washington DC South Mission. She was born in Argentina but moved to the USA when she was young. Anyways everything was perfect and we were ready to ''do some damage'' as Camila told me=) We went to the house and met with Camila's extended family to teach them about the grand lesson of the Restoration. It was great. One of Camila's friends from the mission, named Kylie, was also visiting, so it was like having four missionaries teach. Oh it was so great, they were really feeling what we were teaching. I lead the conversation into baptism and then Elder Molina asked if they would be baptized. AND... they said no, that they had conformed to Catholicism and didn't want to change. Kind of a build up to nothing, but I know that if nothing more they have a seed planted and maybe in the future things will change. They were super nice and kind, I really can see them being members one day. 

On Saturday we had another miracle. We arranged for a male member to help us with a meeting with a less active so that we could enter and get to know her. We hadn't been able to contact her all week but we decided to try anyways and... she didn't answer. After trying to go around and visit other less actives, this member decided to take us around to visit some acquaintances and introduce them to the missionaries. After not a lot of success we finally found someone that could be really great. We are going to check up with her this week and maybe we can finally have one progressing investigator!!! I sure hope so. 

I was reflecting on the events of this last week and what we lack from doing better, and I realized that if we try just a little bit more every day, those little efforts would make quite a difference by the end of the week. I will try to do a little bit more every day in order to see results by the end of the week. 

It's good to see some little changes here in Los Polvorines. I have some ideas about how to change this area, and by doing those things it will help me in return become a more well-rounded and successful missionary. I hope to see some good things here in the future!

Love you and you all are doing well. I wish you all a great new year and will see you soon enough (in the next year)!

Chau for now

Élder Hardcastle

I WAS going to send some more pictures from Christmas and other stuff, but when I put my SD card in the computer I think something happened and now it doesn't work. So Sorry=(

Note from Mom:  Kylie texted a picture to me of the power teaching appointment!  Yay!

It's all good here.

¡Buenos días y felices fiestas a ustedes! ¿Cómo estan?

Well, things have happened here, as I am sure things have happened. I'll write about some of my favorite occurrences of the last little bit, I forgot to bring my journal so I'll try to write them as well as I can=)

Firstly, like a week or so ago I completed six months in the mission! Yay!! Wow, I am going to sound cliche and all but it has gone by really fast. It's so satisfying to see the growth I have made in such a short amount of time, and I am eager to keep up the work. For you frequent readers, you will know that Élder Holtry and I arrived at the same time and were MTC buddies, so naturally he completed 6 months as well, and to celebrate we each burned a tie (don't get offended please Shelbie but I burned the tie from prom... it was just getting so dirty so easily). 

We finished up all of our Christmas concerts and now I am actually kind of sad to be done! It took up a lot of time, but I like to think that it could have helped some people feel the spirit and strengthen their journey to conversion as our choir shared our talents and layed down powerful testimony of our beliefs. I think it is on the Bueunos Aires North Facebook page if you want to hear some of the songs and also on YouTube, just search Buenos Aires Norte coro de navidad or something like that and I'm sure you'll find it. We gave our last concert during our mission Christmas activity and I finally got to sing my solo in Santa la noche (O Holy Night), so I was especially pleased. I also help out in another special musical number at the activity and we sang this song called ''He's Born'' I think Vocal Point has done it as well. I JUST LOVE MUSIC AND SINGING, GUYS. It's some of the things I miss the most here. I mean I do it anyways, but it's just not the same. And now that the choir is over it's back to everyday normal life in the mission field.

Christmas Eve we had our mission Christmas activity, which was great. It's so fun to see old friends that I have made and to talk with them again. We got to watch the Christmas Devotional (and choir stuff by us in between the talks) and ate hamburgers (Dad yours are still numero uno), and after lunch we did a white elephant in which I won Pringles and a back massager which is affectionately called Bug (pronounced Boog), and then we got to talk with Presiente Ayres and Hermana Ayres and receive our 'facebook', which is a pamphlet of all the missionaries currently serving in Bs As Norte and their names. My good friend Élder Parraguez brought his selfie stick and we were taking lots of pictures during the whole day, and I even snagged one with the Ayres=) 

Christmas day was  special to be sure. It was our Pday and it started off with my studies. During personal study I turned on some EFY 2014 songs to give me some nice background noise, and I as I pressed play to one of the songs and it began to play I was hit with some pretty dang strong nostalgia. I played this album almost every time I went to the temple this last year at home. I got thinking about how I was back then and all the things that were on in my life and my worries, and then about the change that I have seen in myself here in the mission (newsflash, you change a lot in the mission), and I was overcome with such a peace and a gratitude for this Gospel and it's influence in my life. I can't write down all the blessings I have received from this understanding and this belief that there is truly more to this life than existing. So, so much more. And then some other elders came over and we played Uno and chilled until the afternoon when I got to talk with my family (even Holden in Japan a little bit!), and it was just a good day. Good good goood.

That's some of the highlights of this week. The work goes on hard and stressful, but what happiness I have to believe and to feel and to testify that there is a God who loves me and helps me, who knows of my imperfections and forgives me when I mess up. I sit here content with this understanding. 

Sending out positive vibes to you all. Shoutout to my big brother Holden who turns 21 today and to Kelsey and Rees who are tying the knot this week. I wish I could be there with you guys!

Everyone, take a quick moment and think about life. And then think about Christ. How can you make these two things more complimentary in your day-to-day dealings? I promise that as we chose to follow Christ, he will bless us in the most wonderful ways. 

See you all soon enough!

Élder Hardcastle

photos

6 months, bug, and selfies with the Ayres=)

Howdy Gang

Buenos Días from Buenos Aires! 

I'm pretty sure I have already pulled that one, so if you are offend that I have nothing more creative to say, desculpenme.

 

Anywho, some news from this week.

It was a so-so sort of week. It's still pretty difficult here in Los Polvorines, but we are still alive and moving and having some great experiences, even when it is 34 something degrees Celsius (what does that even mean? I don't know exactly, but it does mean it HOT) with 60-70% or more humidity. Yummm. I smell so good here. I had exchanges with our District leader this last week, Élder Parraguez. I have made quite a few friends here in the mission, but me and him had a crazy great friendship for like 2 weeks knowing each other he's like mi mejor amigo acá. I even forgive him when he cuts my hair and leaves a bald spot on the side of my head (more of this later). 

NOW DON'T SCROLL DOWN TO GO FIGURE OUT MORE. Have patience, my young padowon. 

Anywho, we had a meeting with our investigator who didn't know Christ came to the Americas (surprise...) The appointment fell through more or less and myself and Élder Parraguez both felt like she wasn't ready for the Gospel yet, so we dropped her. I did show her where in the Book of Mormon Jesus came to visit His other sheep. She has had a good first meeting with missionaries and now we can just hope that somewhere down the line she is more ready.

This week we were walking down the street and I felt to contact a lady outside her house. She took some time to talk to us about our church and to tell us some about her church. She's 'Evangelica' (I don't know what that is in English, Evangelist?) Which means she does have a love for and faith in Jesus Christ already. Anyways, as we were talking she brought up a very good point: "What if you guys are wrong?" I showed her in the introduction of the Book of Mormon that if we read and ponder about the book and pray to God if it is true, He will answer our prayers. It's not a promise from us, it's a promise from God. We invited her to take the book but she reclined, basically saying she already had too many religious books she wasn't reading=). I may not be the greatest missionary that ever lived, but I am pretty sure that you aren't going to get an answer if you don't read! SO READ! 

Now for some fun Argentine/Castellano Facts for the day.

-There are many Chinese folks here in Argentina. They all own little grocery stores, it's quite thrilling. I have a favorite market near our apartment called The German. I just loved the living breathing paradox we have here. 

-Crocs are still a thing here

-Mockingjay in Castellano is 'sinsajo'

-The word for tired here is 'cansado' and the word for married is 'casado'. I always have to be very aware...

-Even though the weather here is super bipolar, Argentina is blessed to have some of the most spectacular sunrises in the world.

Now to wrap it all up today, here is the hair adventure from this morning. When we had exchanges, Élder Parraguez told me that he cuts hair. Which is great, because I was needing a haircut! So this morning he came over to the apartment to cut my hair. He cut my hair and I went to the bathroom to go check it out, and it wanted it to be cut just a little bit more, so I sat down and he started up again. Well, while he was cutting, Èlder Molina said something and Èlder Parraguez started to laugh, and, well, he bumped my head a little bit with the machine. I have an almost bald spot on the right side of my head. He feels so bad, I feel a little embarrassed too but it'll go away in a week or two and I forgave him because that's the sort of guy I am, and we are still best friends=) We all need stories like this in the mission, right?

Have a great week guys, see you all soon enough!

Èlder Hardcastle

thanks Mom and Dad for the jazzy Christmas Tree Advent Calendar!

Élder Holtry and I getting some morning bulk on with some creatine we have in the apartment

 Élder Parraguez and I 

the dirty deed

The bus story and MORE!

Hello hello hello. 

One week DOWN. Five more to go this transfer. 

Well well well it has been a week. WE FINALLY FOUND SOME PEOPLE! So that is nice. Lamentably we didn't have lessons with them this week, but we have one scheduled for tomorrow and one person we are going to call and one person we'll pass by his house to see if he's home, and then we'll have a lesson with him=) he scheduled to meet him this last week but he was at medical so we'll try once more and if he's not there, we'll drop him. THE SECRET IS TESTIFYING, I know it probably sounds basic, but it's the key. This last transfer I was kind of scared to testify... well I would try to contact and then they'd tell me they're Catholic or something and I'd be like ''Oh, great!... and lose everything in my brain. I made an effort to testify one day with all my contacts, and while I wasn't able to do it with all I did it with the majority and I just felt so much better. Now I just have to find members to accompany us and I'll be a testifying machine. I say a member because the vision is that we incorporate the members and the missionary work. We have been told that the miracles of the mission lie with the members, and so they really stress lessons with members, referrals, and having members accompany you while you are working. Thus, it's kinda of hard to motivate myself to contact if we don't have a member, because I don't want to waste time with people who really aren't ready for the gospel. It's a mental tug-of-war that never ends it seems, because there is only one member (50 or 60 years old hermana) that is really active in helping us, and she is amazing, but we need more. 

Fun story of the week. We spend a lot of our time looking for less actives. We have a pretty large list and we look for them and stuff. Our branch has about 30 active members and 200 less active families... or so it says on the list. Most of them have died or moved! Anywho, we were looking for one less active this week and his address number didn't even exist. So I went to a house that was close to his number and decided to ask if they knew this person. A woman came and we started to talk with her about this person but them later changed to the Gospel, because, you know, I'm a testifier now=) and it was super great. She goes to a church in the capital (that's like 2 hours away, wow) and we start talking about our church and we gave her a quick version of the lesson of the Restoration and we talked about the Book of Mormon. As we were going over the introduction and talking about Christ, we got talking about when Christ came to the Americas and she was like ''Christ came to the Americas?'' with this look of utter shock, and we were like '' Yes, He did!'' and she said ''Ohh... I didn't know!'' and she looked so content. We have a meeting with her tomorrow, POR FAVOR pray that all goes well tomorrow. That was probably my favorite finding experience so far in the mission and she could be someone who is ready and willing to listen to our message.

Now for the fun bus story of last week, slightly less spiritual but nice none the less. =) Actually, it was more than a week ago (Nov. 27 to be precise) but ya fue. We were on our way to choir practice on a rather rainy Friday morning. In order to arrive in San Fernando where we have the Mission Office and choir practice. We left the apartment at around 6:55am and needed to get to San Fernando at 8:30. Like I said before, you need about two hours to get to the Capital, and San Fernando is just outside the Capital, so we usually plan our trip to be an hour and a half. So we were going to be cutting it close. Anyways, we leave the apartment and it is raining. Flooding, better said. We get to the bus stop and the bus comes pretty quickly. Usually the bus is pretty busy, but I think because of the rain nobody wanted to go anywhere, and it was empty and the bus driver let us on for FREE! Which was a small miracle because I was running short on my Sube card (public transit card) so we sat down pretty dang happy. Were on on our way, and the bus is cruising, I think most the cars were going pretty cautiously because of all the rain, and there wasn't much traffic because, well, rain (did I mention it was raining?) but Mr. Busman was driving as if there wasn't any problem. Literally water was flying up the sides of the bus. We landed in San Fernando just after 8am. Almost less than one hour for a trip that is usually an hour and a half or more! We had time to kill so we went to this bakery I really like called Bruno's and I bought facturas with some of the money I was going to use to fill up my Sube. There was this little peach one that I think is one of the best things I've eaten here yet (Mom and Dad, when we come back one day I am taking you here and you will try them. Sooooo good). So, it was a good day. =) God is good.

That's some of the biggest excitement I've had these last few weeks! We began our choir performances, so if you are in the River Plate area, come on down and watch us! 

Thank you all for the support. Happy Holidays from Buenos Aires! See you all soon enough. =)

Sincerely, 

Élder Hardcastle

Elder Parraguez has a selfie stick... =)

Today we played volleyball and soccer.

La Zona Sarmiento, traslado uno

Elder Cunningham and I at his despedida.

It was raining really hard one day so we went to the house of a member.  He ended up giving me some pretty jazzy rain wear.  I felt like Sherlock Holmes or something.

¡Vengan!