La Semana Santa and President Obama

Hey Everyone!

I wore a sweater this week one day, just so you are aware.

Well, It was a week! Haha not to much to report. Sorry to have been a little off the radar, I have been wanting to answer back some of the personal emails I have been getting from other people. Lot's of things are happening in the world! Speaking of the world, us folk in Argentina received a visit from the one and only President Obama! I think they like him here. I thought it was a little paradoxical, because I was closer to him this week here in a foreign country than I ever was in the USA. Isn't that fancy?

This week was a bit of a downer. Elder Juzga and I have decided to work with finding elegidos, which means elect. They are people that pass the filters (married, don't work Sundays, have desires to learn more) and accept a baptismal date in the first contact. Woah, that is a lot, right? And this week it was tough and we didn't find anyone who fit this idea. But we did have the chance to get to know some good people, and I think we planted some good seeds for future missionaries.

Fun fact: Holy week is a biggish deal here, and some members got confused about the differences between catholism and, we had to clear up that no, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, It is not a commandment that you have to eat fish like Friday or something. =) 

I am running out of time (like ALWAYS), But I hope this satisfies you until next week. 

See you all soon enough!

Elder Hardcastle =)

No photos because no.

A Man of Many Nations

Greeting greetings, one and all!

Would you like a little explanation of the title of this email? Well, being an extranjero (that means foreigner) and not having the perfect porteño accent (one day...), I get asked a lot, ''¿De dónde sos?'' Well I got bored of just saying ''Yo soy de los Estados Unidos'' and, since I am not the type-A super white Yankee and have been told I that I done have a very yankee accent, I have decided to throw the question right back at them and ask, ''¿De dónde piensa?'' I have received French, British, Chilean, and Mexican within the last two weeks, so you can say I am pretty dang fancy, if I say so myself. 

Nothing to extraordinary happened this last week. Jokes, something did We have one investigator that is progressing quite well, AND HE WENT TO CHURCH! Which is a requirement here for investigators to progress, and it is SOOOO HAAAARD sometimes. He is around 35 years old and is separated from his wife and they have two kids. But anyways we invited him to church and he said yes and we asked if we could stop by his house before church to make sure he got there okay. He was like ''No, I want to go by myself'' which lot's of people say, and means that 'No, I do not want to go to church thank you very much.'' But we did what we could. Sunday came around and he didn't show up for the first class. But while we were in Gospel Principles he came! And it was a really good lesson on the Restoration and the teacher bore strong testimony about his conversion. So all is well in Soldati. I'll just testify once again about the importance of members. I am so glad I got called to this mission! We try to do everything with the members. Finding with members, finding through members, appointments with members. And if plans fall through with members, we find other members! Some days it is less than easy, we may not always have a ton of investigators through this method of finding and teaching, but it is the direction of our mission and helps us to find the people that are more likely to progress and be baptized, more likely to flourish in the gospel. It's so great!

Speaking of members, this last week we had a lesson with a less active family. The mom started telling us about how they don't go to the church any more because they don't know what church is true. Okayyyyy. We spent quite a bit of time with this woman and her daughters about the importance of the Book of Mormon in our conversion to the Gospel, but they kept coming up with silly excuses for leaving and staying away from the church, so we left them with an invitation to return to the church and to start reading the Book of Mormon again, and we testified with power.  I don't know if they felt the Spirit because they were so set on their points of view, but I did. I have such a testimony that we don't get a testimony by sitting down and complaining about it. We need to act. 

Also I forgot to say this last week, but two Sundays ago we were walking to church with a family in our ward and as we were walking in the street there was this doll thing made from woven grass. I thought it was pretty cool, so I investigated it for a second. The others noticed and told me it was a doll thing from a macumba, which is like a ritual or something like that from satan worshippers. So that's neat.

Also I am the official mom of the pension. I cook, I clean the bidet (I LOVE BIDETS), I cut Elder McBride's hair. So yeah. I just keep finding all sorts of fun things to do!. (Jokes they do have their limits, in soccer, I am still one of the worst players for all of you who were concerned)

Well, that's all, folks! Love you all and see you soon enough!

Sincerely, 

Elder Hardcastle

Pics--- later. we are having issues here

Two weeks in, six weeks more

Buenos días from Buenos Aires (third time using this is the charm)!

Hey so guess what. I totally spaced it this last week and didn't even tell you that Elder Bednar came to visit us this last week. He came to give a televised conference to the whole South America South Area and it was transmitted from the Chapel in Caballito, in Buenos Aires North Mission boundaries! So it was doubly cool because I saw Elder Bednar in person and we didn't even have to travel that far! All the missions in Buenos Aires came over for the occasion, and I even saw someone from school that's in Bs.As. Este and I totally didn't even recognize him! I had to play the whole act-excited-until-you-see-the-nametag game. haha oops. But hey! It's all good. Elder Bednar asked us to read three of his talks before the broadcast to prepare, and they were about faith and conversion, and also about being agents that act rather then being acted upon, and they were sooooo good, the talks and the conference. I love the whole ''go and do'' motto of the church. JUST GO AND DO PEOPLE HAVE FAITH IN GOD AND FORGET THE REST.

And now, back to this week. I kept a pretty current journal this week (my struggle of a lifetime) because we had quite a few pleasant occurrences throughout the week. Let me explain. 

So Tuesday we were talking with a less active at her kiosco (it's like a little store people make in their houses to sell food or general commodities) and as we were talking, another woman came up to us and started talking! Neither I nor my companion knew who she was, but she told us she was a less active! So we talked with her and she basically thought that we were the cream cheese, and she was holding a bag which had muffins and cupcakes and she like gave us a few cupcakes and a TON of muffins in this little Winnie the Pooh plastic bag. They tasted pretty good, but I didn't want to carry the bag or the muffins the whole day, so we ate some and gave the rest out to members=) 

Wednesday was a sad day. So last Monday I took my laundry to the lavandería to get washed. Well we went to go reclaim our clothes the next day but I didn't need anything from the bag so I just sort of put it on a desk and left it there. I opened it up the next day and LIKE ALL MY WHITES HAD BLACK STAINS. Little black and yellow marks. I'm not sure exactly how it happened , but I think it had something to do with a pair of pants I have that had a pen explode in the pocket (just so you all know, that it is the second time pens have destroyed  my pants here and I am not amused). I separated the white clothes from the colored ones before we went but I think the lady must have just thrown everything in together. Ughhh. I could not concentrate at all that day during my personal study time. But I am all okay now=)

Saturday we had a member accompanying us for visits that is super funny. She reminds me of Sister VANessa Pixton, so just a quick shout out for that. But we were going around looking for people, and there was a small army of Jehovah's Witnesses taking their turns around the area. Like literally they lined the whole street! So we started talking about them with our member and she told us that she doesn't have a problem when they come past her house, that we have the same God and the only difference is that they don't have all the truth. This wasn't anything new I had heard but it struck me. I am so happy to be in the fullness of the Gospel, and I am also glad that other people act with what truth they might have to try and make the world a better place. Now we just have to help everyone have an opportunity to experience the whole truth and we'd just be perfect!

That's about all from this side of the world. Hope your week is fun and spiritually uplifting! Now go use your agency to ACT!

See you all soon enough!

Elder Hardcastle

Oops I never explained the topic line. This transfer is weird, the church changed this transfer to eight weeks instead of six. So yeah. 

I got to use the subway today.

As you can tell by the topic line, I am quite content because I love the subway. 

AND I LOVE MY AREA AND BUENOS AIRES CITY.

Really, I am so happy.

Greetings people!

So I figured I should give you all a littler fill in from two weeks ago. I was just kind of in awe and I forgot to write some of the important things that had happened! Like Baptisms! So remember those Valentines baptisms that never happened? Well, they finally did. We baptized two grandkids of a less active that is re-activating herself, and the wife of a part-member family. My testimony is growing so strong that the secret to missionary work lies with the members! Members, members, members. 

I also forgot to mention that a cockroach attacked me during one of my last days in the Sarmiento Zone. There was a 4 cm roach on our balcony window/door and I went over to investigate. Well it charged me and jump/flew onto my arm I freaked out a littl bit and then stomped it to death. So yeah. I am really happy that this new apartment that I am in doesn't have the same cockroach problem that we had during our time in Los Polvorines.

And now for the new news!

Okay, so let me start out by saying that I love love love love love this transfer. My Peruvian companion Elder Juzga and I get along really well and have the same teaching style, and so we have been able to do some pretty good lessons! The problem is that we get so into them that we just keep rolling on! We need to keep an eye on the clock! 

I love Villa Soldati! It's like a little city inside a bigger city! The members that live in the Villa are sooooo great. They give us so many referrals and always are willing to help us make visits! There are also two families with twins! and they are about my age too and we get along great. We also have a great investigator named Felicia that is probably one of the greatest investigators of all time. She takes notes on what she reads so she can ask us questions and whatnot the next visit. We have a family home evening with her tonight and she told us she was going to cook for us=) I don't have any complaints. 

My chef skills have resurected and I am once again the designated cook. We didn't buy food this last week and so cooking ingredients were pretty slim, But twice I made pasta with 'alfredo sauce' which consisted largely of powdered milk and mozzarella, but hey in my humble opinion it tasted pretty dang good! I guess I was pretty inspired to take all those cooking classes back in the day. 

That's all for this week! Love you guys and see you all soon enough!

Elder Hardcastle

 Three of the four of us

 Hno Lozano, from Los Polvorines

Bright Lights Big City

Really it's just one bright light and it is called el sol, but hey, I MADE IT TO THE CAPITAL. I am currently serving in Soldati 3 which is a villa or for lack of a better word, it is basically the ghetto. Once upon a time when we would have family Survivor time there was a lady from New York or somewhere over there and she said ' the hood is not the wood' and that just keeps coming to my brain and I keep laughing to myself. I do that a lot. It's fun. But it is true. It is a completely different vibe but I am in love with it. 

Let me explain what a villa is, for those of you who don't know. Villas are property that the government doesn't own, and therefore the people that live there do not need to pay taxes. So everyone flocks to them, and when you can't build out, you build up. They kind of just pop out every so often here. They can be slightly dangerous at times, but they have another thing coming if they think they can mess with Elder Hardcastle.  Haha procedure is if they try to rob us we give them what they ask, so I will be doing that.  =)   But DON'T FREAK OUT WE HAVE THE PROTECTION OF THE LORD. I am in an apartment of 4 again, so that is jazzy. Us elders share the area, which sounds a little weird but it's all good.  We do not share investigators, they are first come first serve.  =) Right now we don't have anyone with a baptismal date, but I hope we can change that up soon. 

For my last Sunday in Los Polvorines, I was blessed with three baptisms. It was good to see the fruits of my labors pay off, and I was able to baptize a chica we were working with. =)

I will miss my friends in Los Polvorines, but now we are off to another area in the Lord's vineyard!

Love you all, got to go but see you all soon enough!

Elder Hardcastle

Baptisms, Me and My favorite Brasilero, 

Elder Lobato (please note the cute heart in the back), 

and we seriously had some of the best views in San Miguel

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.

Happy Birthday to me!

Hey thanks everyone who has been wishing me a happy birthday. I'm all new and 19 and ready to take on the world! haha

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.