Trial and Trail Experiences

We started off the week with limited running water in our apartment.   One night late last week, (I think it was Friday night) we were about to turn the lights off and go to sleep when the lights went out on their own - a blown fuse.  Dave got out of bed to check it out and our fuse box is in the small laundry area off of our kitchen.  The smell of smoke was strong as he walked into that area.  But it wasn't any of the inside appliances that were burning.  We were able to figure out that our outside water pump was the problem.

New pump in foreground, burned out pump in background.

Most of our water comes from a well that an electric pump pumps up into a storage tank on the roof.  Every time the water level gets down, the pump automatically kicks in and pumps more water up to the storage tank.  Some part of the motor on that pump was burning out.  So we turned off the pump and called in about the problem.  The next day we had a service man here who took the pump away to repair it.  Which meant we were limited to the water in the tank at that point in time except for the cold water out of the kitchen sink which comes from city water.  We lived frugally at that point and made the water last until late Sunday night.  We were hoping and praying Monday the repaired pump would be installed, but Monday morning dawned with pouring rain that lasted all morning and into the afternoon.  Still no water by Monday night.  Dave spent most of Monday wearing his McGyver hat and rigging up a work around that got some running water into the washing machine so we could do a few loads of wash. The dirty clothes had really piled up.  Finally on Tuesday by afternoon we had a new water pump installed and life was back to normal. Dave managed to turn this into a missionary moments as he got the name and address of the repairman for the elders to visit, so it wasn't a totally wasted experience!

Tuesday night we did a FHE with our former fireman friend and his family.  I had promised to bring brownies for desert so Tuesday was my second attempt.  Luckily, the spirit inspires in temporal needs as well as spiritual affairs, just before adding the cocoa powder I decided to check the conversion chart and I figured out that my measuring scoops were not accurate and the 1/2 cup was really sufficient for my recipe that called for 1 1/4 cups of cocoa powder (or maybe the cocoa powder is more potent here than in US).  But the bottom line is they turned out wonderful!  Thank goodness because we wanted to make a good impression with them.  The Lucarelli family you will be hearing more about.  I honestly believe we are here in Venado Tuerto for them.  We both have a lot in common with them, not just Elder Rhoades.  I learned that Veronica (the wife) is a return missionary, who married later in life and is a twin, not identical but still a twin!  We gave a lesson using a fireman experience Dave had with a small child, a ball, a drainage ditch and popsicles.  The child had his arm stuck in the drainage ditch because he did not want to let go of a ball he had grabbed below the bars and his closed fist was too wide for the space between the bars.  Dave managed to get him to let go of the ball by tempting him with a popsicle (as this was a very hot summer day).  We then shared I Corinthians 2:9 and an Ezra Taft Benson quote that will be at the end of this post.  We wanted to plant the idea into his mind and heart that God's plan is the popsicle and offers amazing blessings.  Doing our own thing is holding on to that ball and keeps us limited in our growth and potential.  We then showed one of the Easter videos the church has about Jesus Christ.  Those are such powerful videos that really bring the spirit.  His eyes were moist by the end of our lesson.  They fixed us a great dinner of ravioli and we visited until late.  Thank goodness the curfew doesn't apply to us!

Wednesday we caught up on housework since we hadn't been able to do that on Monday due to the lack of water.  We did go visit an inactive sister, Loreta Sena, who is married to a non-member.  She was very nice.  She is an acquaintance of Javier Olmos, the church maintenance man who has helped us so much.  He was concerned about her as she is slated to have surgery soon and is new to the area.  We did confirm that she is set to have carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists on May 2nd.  She says she has her sister coming to help her out but will be 15 days without the use of her hands, so we will need to get the Relief Society to be a support for her.  Her husband was friendly with us as well.  He has a business of motorized kids cars that he sets up at the main plaza on the weekends and rents them out to the kids for rides.  It is going to be hard to get him coming to church because of his business I think.

Thursday April 18th, was the day we had been looking forward to for quite awhile.  It was the day internet connection was going to be installed in our apartment.  Thursday was also the day for district meetings due to the transfers earlier in the week.  Dave had to stay home for the installers and I went to the district meeting.

Venado Tuerto had a lot of changes with the younger missionaries.  A number of the missionaries had been here a long time.  Multiple areas had both missionaries transferred out.  They call that a whitewash when an area gets a complete new set of missionaries.  Sisters are back in the area and live only a few blocks away from us.  Both are North Americans, Hna Condie from Cedar City and Hna. Salmon from San Antonio, Texas.  Hna. Condie has been out only 6 months and Hna. Salmon has been out only 4 months.  We have a new district leader, Elder Galindo, as well who has a very green elder, Elder Fuentes who has been out in the field only a week. (Still need to get photos of our new team members).  Both of these elders are from Peru, Galindo from Huancayo and Fuentes from Chiclayo.  We are familiar with Chiclayo, which is located in the north of Peru, as we visited there before leaving Peru.  The other missionary district in Venado Tuerto had many changes as well.  We are starting over learning missionary names and developing a relationship with them.

We did get internet connected in our apartment on Thursday.  Hooray!  First thing we did was try using our Vonage phone to call the states.  Alyssa was our lucky phone call recipient.  The good news is it worked.  The bad news is she couldn't call us.  Apparently, only we can call the states and not vice-versa.

We had a full schedule of appointments for Thursday night and all of them held.  We visited the new converts from Branch 2.  First we visited Perla, a 12 year old girl.  She has an older sister 15 years old, who was baptized before but has since gone inactive.  We reviewed with her the first missionary lesson about prophets and the restoration.  We were pretty discouraged at how little she seemed to know.  She did get the lessons from the elders, but somehow it didn't stick.  We gave her the assignment to read 1 Nephi 3-4 for our next visit.

We then visited the Mercado sisters, Dahlila (12) & Guiliana (15)(pronounced Juliana) and their mother Maria.  The mother needs to get married before she can be baptized. We reviewed the restoration lesson as well.  They seemed to remember a bit better the information.  We gave them the same reading assignment.  We were surprised to find this family living in a shack in the back yard of a house owned by the father's family.  They have no electricity or running water.  Dirt floors and when it rains the yard is a mud pit.  They recently came to Venado Tuerto and are looking for a place to rent.  They are poor, however.  It would really help if the mother could find work.  She indicated she would like to find a cleaning job, but apparently here it is all about references, which she has none.  We challenged them to read I Nephi 3-4 as well.

Our last appointment was with Zaida, a 12 year girl and her mother, Marta.  The mother was baptized a month ago and now Zaida this week.  We are reviewing with them both.  We asked them to share their conversion story and the mother took so long telling us her history that we didn't have much time to review a lesson.  So we showed them an Easter video and challenged them to read I Nephi 3-4 as well.

Interestingly, they live across the street from a Boy Scout camp.  This got Dave's attention.  That's another thing that took up time in our appointment.  Apparently Zaida actively participates in the program.  She told us about going to the church ranch, Kilgrumen, and doing activities there.  This gave Dave an idea for generating good will for the church here in Venado Tuerto and he has been actively pursuing his idea of setting up a sister city arrangement with the scout program here and at home in Pleasant Grove.  It will be interesting to see how things develop with that.  More later.

An interesting development this week in regards to the church trek program here in Argentina involved us.  The couple currently running the program, the Goesches, out at Kilgrumen ranch, which is about an hour from Venado Tuerto (where the traffic is good), leaves at the end of this month.  They have been running the program for 2 seasons and can not come down next season due to family needs at home.  On our paperwork, we had indicated we were interested in serving there, but did not receive a call to work the trek.  There was also a local Argentinian couple interested in serving there as well, but they did not get a call to the trek, rather to Nauvoo.  So currently, the area does not have a couple to replace the Goesches.

We got a call out of the blue from Elder Jones in the area office in Buenos Aires assessing our interest in replacing the Goesches.  After talking to us about our backgrounds and current assignment, he asked if we would be willing to go out on Friday to participate in the last trek of the season to see how it is run and what it all entails.  We told them we could do that.  We quickly tried to make the needed arrangements and Friday morning we were up before dawn, meeting with Elder Jones and Elder Burton from the area office and riding out with them to the church ranch at Kilgrumen.  It was an hour drive from Venado Tuerto.  We arrived in time to join the group for breakfast and the days activities.

This group was from Mar del Plata, south of Buenos Aires, part of the Bahia Blanca mission.  They had come on a bus the night/day before.  It was a 12 hour bus ride and then did a half day of activities, camping over night.  We were told there were 81 youth and their leaders in the group.

Above, part of the group eating breakfast.  Below you can see what breakfast consisted of.

As the group broke camp and packed up.  We went around and checked out their flags.  Here are some of the ones we particularly liked.

We were surprised at how much they carried in their carts.  A lot more than the groups we have trekked with in Wyoming.  There are no mountains here or hills.  The ranch is in the middle of the Argentine pampas, so it is flat as can be.  I guess the extra weight in the carts helps to make it more challenging.

They played the typical pioneer games and sang hymns in Spanish as they walked.  What was cool was the group had matching trek bags.  They gifted me one, so I've got that for a souvenir.

Here we are just before taking off on the trek.  Do we look authentic?

Even though April is not the season for mosquitos, I was dousing myself with repellent often and still got a few bites.  Since I developed a reaction to mosquito bites while in Cuzco, I had brought my ointment that will keep the reaction at bay and applied that as soon as I realized I had one.  That helped.

If we were to handle the trek next season, Dave would have to be able to give two short talks to the groups about the Willie & Martin Handcart history.  Above was the talk given by Bro. Goesch in the morning before they took off.  He talked about how the pioneers subsisted on 150 grams of flour and that many of the men lost their lives because they were giving up their portion so their wives and children could have more to eat.  It was a very moving talk.  Below is Bro. Goesch giving the talk at the end of the trek, once the group reached the main ranch grounds, called Zion.

The women's pull turned out to be a challenge.  Even though it wasn't far to go and the weather was not that hot, we had two girls become dehydrated and suffer from heat stroke.  One fainted and we could not revive her well enough for her to go on.  She became one of the pioneers who lost her life on the plains and the men had to come back and take her into a local clinic.  Once she got an IV into her she was fine.  Another girl further into the women's pull showed the same signs but was not as far gone as the first one.  She was able to recover and continue on just walking.  As we reached the spot where the boys were lined up on both sides of the trail waiting respectfully for the girls, she collapsed again and had to be assisted past the line of boys to the end of that section of the trail.  The men gave her a priesthood blessing and all worked out well in the end.

The challenge for the girls was not hills, but bogs.  The carts would get stuck if the girls did not push hard and fast enough through this section of the trail.  Because my feet got wet and I walked the rest of the way in wet socks and shoes, I managed to get a good sized blister on my left foot that I am now recovering from.  

I was impressed how well the girls supported one another and worked together during this part of the trek.

After lunch, the group continued on and walked 4 miles total.  Not that far by Wyoming standards, but plenty far for these kids.  The heat and humidity took it's toll and it took them most of the day to roll into Zion - home camp.  They did take an extended lunch period and during the afternoon part of the trek they get ambushed and are forced to retrace their steps and take another direction.

Here's the group as they approach the end and near Zion.

Here is the victory photo of the group once they all arrived safe and sound.

They then had a few hours to clean up - the camp had a building with indoor showers, 30 on the girls side of the building!  and flushing toilets!  You didn't see that on the treks in Wyoming.

In the evening they held a square dance.  We would have to learn how to teach these dances in Spanish to the group.  After dancing, they watched the movie Ephraim's Rescue with Spanish subtitles.

Interestingly, we got a photo of a sapo, or toad, in the morning as one of the boys released it from a bottle he had it in.  As soon as it turned dark and cooled done, these toads were everywhere!!  As you walked through the grass they would jump out of the way.  I was amazed I never squished one.  I wondered how they kept them out of their tents.

We left halfway through the movie with the area leaders and headed back to Venado Tuerto.  We treated outselves to ice cream once we were back and had a nice visit with Elder Jones and Burton as we ate.  I'm not sure what their recommendations will be, but we left the experience with a lot of respect for the Goesches.  It is not easy what they are doing.  That mission call is not for the faint hearted whatsoever!  Our opinion that we shared with them was that we didn't believe we could take over all the duties required and still be able to do our member support calling here in Vendao Tuerto very well.  We told them if they could find someone handle the maintenance of the ranch facilities, we could probably handle the communications with the groups and go out to the ranch during the treks to oversee everything.  I think we will be Plan B.  Plan A would be to find another couple to serve full-time with this.  But couples willing and qualified to do this trek are few and far between.  We'll see what happens

This happened to be Easter weekend or Pascua.  The big tradition here for Easter are Huevos de Pascua.  We ventured into a young women activity where they were making these goodies.

 As you can see above, they make chocolate eggs using molds and then fill them with M&M type candies.  Below you can see the finished egg of one of the girls.

This is what you saw in all of the stores this week, the professional Huevos de Pascua.

In fact, the ice cream store had this huge, and I mean huge, Easter Egg on display.  It must have been 36 inches tall or thereabouts.  I wonder who got to eat all of that chocolate!

Sunday morning we were church hopping trying to be everywhere we needed to be.  We started out at Rama 1, then ran over to San Martin branch area to pick up Hna. Panetti, one of the inactive sisters, and take her to church.  The members were very welcoming to her and expressed joy in seeing her there and encouraged her to keep coming.  As soon as sacrament meeting was over, we had to run down to Rama 2 to play the piano for a musical number the young women had prepared "I Know My Savior Loves Me".  Then we ran back to San Martin branch to take Hna. Panetti home and then attend a baptism of Manuel Contreras.

It was very satisfying to see a potential priesthood holder get baptized and hopefully a sealed eternal family one year from now.  He has good family support as his wife is the sister to the branch president's wife and is already a member.  We will visit with him, but aren't sure how much support he really will need.  Above are the elders involved in his teaching.  The two elders on the outside are new to the area and sort of inherited this baptism.  Elder Rios in the white shirt did teach him, but was still in the district boundaries so was able to attend.

The rest of Easter Sunday we enjoyed skyping with some of our family members and we invited at the last minute Maria and her family to come have dinner with us.  We even got Juan, her significant other, to come as well.  He is super quiet.  We had fixed a roast and potatoes, but they were so shy about eating.  It was hard to know if they liked it or not.

After dinner we told them our family tradition was to play games after eating and we brought out the Yahtzee game.  We taught them how to play and as we played the ice started to melt with a few of them.

Here is the family standing in the order of how they did on the game from right to left, actually.

The champ was the 15 year old daughter, Guiliana.  If you can't make out her score, her total score was 426!  She rolled two yahtzees in the one game.  She had so much luck on every turn.  She definitely had fun.

Spiritual Thought of the Week: 

“Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He can deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, and pour out peace.”  -- Ezra Taft Benson

New Discoveries and Challenges

Today, April 15th, is transfer day - "traslados" in Spanish.  Our first transfer day in the mission field.  Nothing changes for us, thank goodness, as we are just settling in.  But many of the missionaries we've been working with are either going home or transferring to another area.

So we took a photo of our district on last Tuesday as we knew the next time we met the group would be different.  Elder Cannon is in the very back, next row forward is Elder Rhoades, Matias & Sovereign, next row forward is Elder Martinez, Moraga, Navarro & Allen and in the very front is Elder Nerey.  Every 6 weeks the composition of the district will change to some degree, but we will be the constant.  We are not going anywhere for the next year and a half.

Mondays are probably going to be my baking day.  Last Monday I jumped in and attempted to bake a few things.  The ovens here do not have degrees marked on the oven.  We found an oven thermometer that we can place in the oven to give us an idea of the temperature.  Without that, it would be impossible.  I owed some lemon bars to Brother Olmos who has helped us so much so I made some of those.

They didn't come out perfect, but passable.  I also wanted to make a cake for an elder in our district who's birthday was last Tuesday, April 9th.  I took the easy route and bought a cake mix.  It doesn't call for any oil so the cake comes out a bit dry, but I made frosting to put on top and that helped.

Here's Elder Cannon happy to get a simple birthday cake at the district meeting Tuesday morning.

 These two additional elders - Martinez on the left & Mathias on the right are going home with this transfer.  Martinez is from Chile and Mathias is from Portland, Oregon area.  Elder Rhoades is instituting his shoe tradition once again here in Argentina.

Elder Mathias and Elder Cannon work in Branch 1, which is the area our home is located in, so we've gotten to know them a bit more than the others.  Mathias on Sunday gave me a going away present.

His jar of left-over molasses!  There is no brown sugar here in Argentina, but the work around is to add molasses to white sugar and beat and beat it together.  Most cookie recipes require brown sugar so this was a very valuable gift.  Elder Deem is photo bombing in the back.  He goes home this transfer as well.  We didn't work with him much, as he was out in one of the outlying areas.

Today I attempted to make brownies as we have a family home evening scheduled for tomorrow night and I'm supposed to bring the brownies.

Here are the results.  The chocolate flavor is too strong of cocoa powder.  The powder here may be stronger than in the states.  I'm going to have to make another batch tomorrow with less powder.

Missionary work was a bit slow this week.  We still don't know enough of the leaders and members.  We went to two choir practices for the district conference this weekend.  That is helping us to know some of the members.  Most importantly, the president of the San Martin branch was one of the basses and his wife was the choir director so it has really helped us get to know them.

We also went out with one of the sets of elders working in the San Martin branch one morning.  We visited four inactive individuals.  It was enlightening but discouraging at the same time.  We heard the same reasons for their inactivity every time.  These members all complained about the leaders offending them in the past, for some of them many years in the past.  They have nursed those hurt feelings until it almost seemed like they can't see past them.

The first member, Naomi is in her seventies.  She is one of the pioneer members here in Venado Tuerto she was baptized  47 years ago.  She worked as a social worker when she was younger and has very good people skills.  Her heart was pretty hardened and not opened to the idea of reconciling and going back.  That doesn't mean we won't work with her, however.

The second member was Henry, a single man in his early 40's.  He is very well educated and travels alot.  He was baptized over 20 years ago and knows the scriptures more than a lot of the members here.  Elder Rhoades was able to work with him, as he has a pretty good command of English.  Dave challenged him to read Jacob 5 and promised we would visit him again in a couple of weeks.  He was a bit easier to work with.  He would be such a great resource to the church if we could get him to be active again.  He is definitely leadership material.

The third member was Jorgelina.  She came to the door with a baby less than a month old - her granddaughter.  She has five children ages 19, 16, 11, 8 and 5.  She had family visiting so we did not stay long.  We invited her to district conference.  During our visit we learned that her youngest was having a birthday the next day.  We tried to make it out there to leave her a treat and small gift but Thursday was not the best of days so we went Friday but missed both Jorgelina and Candela (the 5 year old) but left the gifts anyway.  This member didn't seem to have the offended issues that the others had.  This member just has the demands of life issues that get in the way of commitment to church I think.  

The last member we visited was Lola and her daughter Luciana.  This member again is one of the pioneer members of the church here in Venado Tuerto.  She was baptized 48 years ago.  I don't believe she has lived in Venado Tuerto the whole time.  It has only been since her husband died that they have moved here.  This member is an endowed member and has been very active, but she is very bitter about the leaders here and their lack of concern for the difficulties they have been through.  She told us of some very difficult things she has gone through and hasn't felt like the church members have been there for her.  We invited her back to church.  We'll see if we can't soften her heart.  She would be such a help to the branch as well (as long as she doesn't have a critical attitude).  They are struggling financially.

Apparently, Argentina is going through some difficulty financial times right now.  We have heard that a number of times from individuals here.  Finances may be tough, but we keep comparing things to Cuzco and life is pretty good here compared to what we saw as we served in Peru.  

Thursday was a difficult day and not much work was done.  Wednesday night as we were almost ready to turn the lights out and go to bed, a fuse blew and the lights suddenly went out.  We were in bed reading scriptures and so Dave got up to check things out.  As he went into the kitchen/laundry area to the breaker box he smelled smoke and the heaviest smell was in the kitchen.  We checked to make sure the stove/oven had not been left on and following his nose, he was able to determine that the strongest smell was at the far end of the kitchen near the back window, which made him suspect the water pump outside.  As he opened the door, a wave of smoke smell hit him and the closer he got to the water pump the stronger it was.  We quickly turned off the pump and removed the cover from the pump and called our friend, Brother Olmos, even though it was 11:30 pm.  He didn't seemed bothered at all with the call at that hour.  In fact he told us to call him whenever we needed to and not to worry about the hour.  He indicated he would be in VT the next day and he would come to our house first.

So this meant we needed to stick around Thursday morning and deal with the water pump.  We called our landlady who has been out of town and found out she was due back in that day but in the afternoon.  She arranged for an electrician to come over at 4:30 that afternoon.  Which meant we had to be at home in the afternoon for that visit.  It turned out that they had to take the water pump apart and take it away to be refurbished or something.  The water pump is ancient!  I should have gotten a photo of it before it was taken away.  Anyway we are now without a water pump, which means we have very limited water in the apartment.  Luckily the water tank was full and with frugality we made it last until Sunday night.  But we now have no hot water and only cold water out of one tap, our kitchen sink.  We had hoped they would return today with the repaired pump, but no sign of them yet.  Dave's McGyver skills are being tested on this one.  Monday is when I typically try to clean house and do laundry but not much of that is happening today.

Thursday I also wasn't feeling well.  I guess I picked a good day to be sick as we were stuck at the house anyway.  In the morning I was just dragging due to lack of sleep the night before.  The firm bed we have is just really making it hard for me to get a good night's rest.  In the afternoon, I had stomach cramps and ended up having a short bout of diarrhea.  This is the second time this has happened to me and it seems to be an issue with something I eat making me sick.  Both times Dave has eaten the same thing but has had no problems.  

We did manage to get out of the house in time for choir practice at 7 pm that evening and then for a visit with Branch 1 elders to a family that have been perpetual investigators for more than 20 years.  Juan Jose (his nickname is Comi) knows a lot about the church, has received the missionary lessons multiple times.  We found out his son, Francisco who is 21 is a member and has even attended seminary but currently is inactive.  He is living with a girl, Catalina.  Juan Jose's mother -Marta - has now moved down from Cordoba.  She told us she was Evangelista.

I was pretty blunt with them and asked him directly what was holding him up with becoming a member as he indicated he knows the church has the truth, more due to a book he read called "La Vida Sempiterna"  or Life Everlasting by Duane Crowther, than from a testimony of the Book of Mormon.  This book appears to be about near death experiences and what is learned by them.  His response was he needs to get married to his partner.  I do believe there is more to it.  The gentleman had a pack of cigarettes on the table so there is a word of wisdom problem that would have to be overcome as well.  The elders are hoping we are the key to getting them to change from perpetual investigators to converts.  I'm thinking the key is the Book of Mormon and not us.  But we will see what we can do.  

Friday we did some more shopping in the morning for things we need,mostly to see if we could find a solution to the hard bed problem.  We did manage to find a small think foam pad that we bought and took home to see if that might help to some degree.  It seems to be an improvement but not wonderful.  And we discovered a wonderful bread store.  We've been disappointed with the bread here compared to Peru.  One of the sets of elders recommended this bakery - La Libertad - and told us where it was located.  It turned out to be a great recommendation.

 We bought some empanadas a typical Argentine food staple, four different kinds and ate them for lunch.  We tried chicken, ham & cheese, salted meat and sweet meat.  It turned out chicken and salted meat was our favorite.

The french bread was excellent.  We scarfed down the loaf that very day.  It didn't last us very long.  And lo and behold, we found cookies that are pretty darn close to American style chocolate chip cookies.  They were a bit expensive so we won't be buying those often.

In the afternoon we tried to visit Norma however she was not at home.  But we did call her by phone and set up an appointment for Saturday morning. 

Friday night we had our second Noche de Hogar with Branch 2 to help get to know the members and help them get to know us.  It was not well attended but those who were there had a good time.  We did our presentation and then did a relay race using plastic cups, building pyramids and taking them down.  It was a close finish and the adults took the challenge seriously.

Saturday morning we had a good visit with Norma.  We were able to share with her President Nelson's Sunday morning conference talk and invite her to prepare to go to the temple.  We learned that she too is in a relationship with a gentleman.  It is a long distance one, but it does make her unable to get a temple recommend even if she does become active, unless she gets married to him.  Her boyfriend has "promised" to marry her once he retires in 5 years, but who knows if that will come to pass.  She also admitted to us that she feels uncomfortable going to church as she is not very out-going and not well educated.  We do feel we've made a connection with her, so perhaps we can fellowship her and help her to feel more comfortable with the rest of the saints in Branch 3.

Saturday early afternoon we went to a festival near to the chapel.  It was called Festival de las Collectividades and sponsored by some of the international schools in the area.  Apparently certain schools (elementary) have a focus on a foreign country.  We saw booths for Italy, France, Arab, Ireland, Paraguay, Chile & Argentina.  The booths were offering typical food from those countries for sale.  Our choir director works at the Italy school and the Lucarelli daughter attends there as well.  They were just getting set up so there were not a lot of people there early afternoon.  We bought some "briochettes" pork meat on skewers and grilled cheese kebabs (those were delicious by the way).

 Festival decorations - lots of international flags.  Elder Rhoades in front of the Ireland booth.

 Haha and look what we found there.... Seems like we may have to confess to our mission president for a few "indiscretions" (a pipe Elder Rhoades? really??)

And it does look like kids are the same no matter where you are in the world.  Look what was set up for them to enjoy.  A skier just to make us feel at home.  And we loved the chameleon.

There were vendors booths set up.  We went just to look but ended up buying a number of things.

We just had to take a photo of this booth above.  It had such a large variety of bombillas, I think they are called.  They are the containers they drink mate out of.  Argentines live for mate, a tea made from the mate plant.  We have not tried it, nor do we care to try it.  Apparently mate is to the Argentines what tea is to the English.  Every afternoon they prepare and drink it.  They use a silver straw with holes at the bottom that keeps the herbal leaves from coming up into the straw and only the liquid gets through.  It is very common to pass around the mate and everyone uses the same straw.  No worry about germs here, apparently.

We knew Argentina is know for leather products.  One vendor had belts, wallets, purchase, backpacks all made from leather.  I've been looking for a smaller purse and this one above was such a pretty design I had to buy it.  A leather purse for $7.50.  Can't complain about that.

We went back to the festival after the district meetings ended Saturday night and it was just packed with people!  A family friendly concert was going on.  We learned that the performer was quite famous -  Piñon Fijo - at least to the Argentines.  Here is what wikipedia says about him.  "Piñón Fijo (Spanish: Fixed-gear; born August 20, 1965) is an Argentine clown. He has a self-titled children's television series in El Trece. His real name is Fabián Gómez. He has also appeared in a children's movie, "Piñón Fijo y la magia de la música" (Spanish: Piñón Fijo and the magic of music).^[1]  

The district conference meetings held this weekend on Saturday night and Sunday morning were great.  We attended the leadership meeting because we knew it would be a great place to meet and get the names and contact information for each of the branch leaders.  And it was.  We still need more names, but we made a big dent in the hole of  information we had previously.  President Allred as part of his talk also had us stand up and he introduced us and asked the leaders to work with us.  Nice plug.

Sunday conference meeting was a joyous time.  The chapel and the overflow area were full.  Even seats on the stage were taken.  The members were excited to be there and sang the hymns with enthusiasm.  Sure wish Utah Mormons sang that way.  The talks were excellent.  Each of them had a great message.  The district president particularly talked about the need for the members to do more missionary work.  The district leadership knows that Rosario will never be announced as a temple location as long as Venado Tuerto remains a district.  They must grow to be a stake for there to be any chance of a temple in Rosario.  Venado Tuerto's population is about 100,000 - 120,000 people and currently active members number between 350-400.  Many more names are on the membership rolls, probably around 2,000.  Even if all of those were active there would still be many, many individuals living in VT to teach and find.  Sister Allred read a talk and did very well with her pronunciation.  Both her and President Allred stressed to the members the need to read the Book of Mormon. 

After the meeting we spent some time outside visiting with members.  We met a group of saints from the Laboulaye group.  We learned that they have to travel two hours one way to get to the district center building.  Some of those saints were new converts of only a couple of months and some were even investigators (the church isn't using that word any more but old habits are hard to break).

Here's a group photo.  Good looking bunch don't you think.  One of the speakers at the conference was from this group.  Fifth from the left in the back.  A return missionary who served in Lima, West mission.  He has been home for only a month.

Sunday evening we attended two baptisms.  The first was in Branch 3, an 11 year girl named Rosario.  We had met her and her brother during the week as they had a final teaching lesson.  Apparently, I made an impression on her because she asked me to give the talk on the Holy Ghost.  So I prepared a talk about gifts and how this gift of the Holy Ghost would require practice before she could use it well but it would be the best gift she ever received!

Baptism of Rosario - Dave, Me, Rosario, her brother Nicolas, Elders Navarro & Almendras

The second baptism we went to had three young girls, two sisters - 12 & 14 and another 12 year old.  The second counselor in the Elder's Quorum who oversees missionary work conducted the meeting.  He and his wife served a MLS mission to Salta and have been home about a year, so he has a good idea of what we are supposed to do.  After the baptism he hooked up with us and took us to each of the girls and their parents and helped us set follow up visits.  He asked us to teach them the lessons, which was confusing to me.  I thought, haven't they already had the lessons?  But apparently they do a review of the lessons with new converts.  He indicated that Branch 2 has had 26 baptisms in the last three months and they are having trouble keeping up with the follow up.  We are happy to do it!  That is exactly what we are here to do.  So he is going to get us a list of these 26 people so we can work with them as well.  We left that baptismal meeting with a full slate of appointments for Thursday evening next.  It was great.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:  We live in a time of great trouble and wickedness. What will protect us from the sin and evil so prevalent in the world today? I maintain that a strong testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of His gospel will help see us through to safety.  I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. As we do so, we will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive heaven’s help in our lives.  -- President Thomas S Monson  April 2017

And the Missionary Work has Began

This may be our second week in Argentina and third week of the mission but it is the first week to "labor in the vineyard" as the scriptures say.  The labor was minimal as we still had a lot of temporal needs to take care of but it felt good to get our feet wet.  Soon we will be diving right in and the triathlon will be in progress.

Monday was our first P-day in the mission field.  We learned that it goes until 6 pm and that the young missionaries start every P-day playing soccer from 8-10 am at the district chapel.  So of course that is where we headed as Elder Rhoades had the inspiration to harness their knowledge of the area and the members as we are still riding with our training wheels on and without a list of members.  We tried to get lists on Sunday from two of the branches but we were unsuccessful.

Sure enough maybe not all the elders, but about a dozen of them were there.  Most importantly the zone leaders were there.  We ran past them our idea of going out two hours at a time with a set of elders and having them take us to the in-actives/less actives so we could meet them, introduce ourselves and invite them to attend general conference and hear the prophets speak.  They were helpful and announced to all of them there to go home during their planning sessions and see what would work for them.

Monday Elder Rhoades was able to have his first chiropractic appointment here to get some relief for his back.  He followed up with a second appointment during the week and a third appointment last Monday.  He is doing much better and we are able to walk around more.

Monday felt like Christmas as our missing luggage was delivered along with some additional furnishings for our apartment.  Elder Rhoades was so happy to have more than one pair of trousers to wear! I am happy because our apartment is looking and feeling more like a home.

 We now have drapes up on our big picture windows.  We open them during the day and have them closed at night.  It helps block the cold air from coming in but most importantly helps cut down on the echo we hear when people talk since the walls are cement and the floors have no carpet on them.

Our couch arrived and the church bought us the futon we had mentioned we preferred.  The sofas are not very comfortable down here and this futon not only was the more comfortable of all we tried but it has the added benefit of being able to become a bed.  So we are now set up for family visits (hint, hint).  There is not a lot of tourist sites in Venado Tuerto, however.

My excitement on having a couch did not last long as within minutes of having the futon set up, Elder Rhoades got a bit carried away pressing down the cushion to flatten it out from having been rolled up that he put a bit too much pressure on the wood and....

In Dave's defence, right where the wood cracked is a knot that weakened the wood.  Luckily, the men had not left yet as they were setting up our washing machine/dryer.  So the next day they were able to bring a replacement part for that section of the futon and we have been enjoying it ever since.  Dave has gotten an afternoon nap on it and I have stretched out to do reading/studying on it from time to time.

Our laundry area is quite small which must be normal because they sell a machine that is a washer/dryer all-in-one.  It's crazy but most of the load settings go for close to two hours!  They have one setting that is a rapid wash and that only takes one hour to go through.  The first load we did that included the drying cycle, we found out that "dryer" is a relative term.  The clothes come out damp rather than wet but still require some time hanging up to completely dry.  We have a clothes line up going across our backyard and the sun does a good job drying them, but we are limited to how much clothes we can do at one time.

Tuesday is district meetings from 9 - 10:30 am  So we followed up with the elders the next day and we had three sets of missionaries set up times to work with us.  Score.  We would have liked more, but it was a start.

Wednesday night we went out with a set of missionaries assigned to Branch 3.  They took us to meet Javier, an inactive member and his partner Denisa, a non-member and they have a little 2 year old girl.  Javier's work schedule makes it hard for him to attend but he grew up in the church and now wants to become active again, and become an eternal family by going to the temple.  Interestingly, Denisa is not so keen on that idea.

L-R: Elder Almendras, Danisa in back, Javier in front, Elder Navarro

We learned that the following Saturday was Denisa's birthday so we made some chocolate no bake cookies, which didn't turn out real well but we made due and took them to her that day.

The chocolate I used was pretty weak.  I had to grate the chocolate from a bittersweet chocolate bar.

And the peanut butter here is real runny so the cookies turned out to be more peanut butter than chocolate.  I have since found cocoa powder in abundance so I will be able to make these again and have them turn out more normal I think.

We hope to build a relationship with her and Javier.  Denisa is a bit timid and reserved but will open up once she feels comfortable with you according to the elders.

Elder Rhoades was pretty inspired as we dropped the elders off from this visit as he asked the elders where Javier was with his commitment to the church.  He then proceeded in his limited Spanish to discuss with the elders the need to strengthen Javier and have him living the gospel in his home, especially reading the Book of Mormon, hopefully with his family.  His point was then the spirit would be in the home 24/7 rather than just every 15 minutes whenever the elders visited.  As well as the key to conversion is The Book of Mormon and Javier needs to be converted before this family can become an eternal family.  This may then help Denisa's heart to soften and her stance may change.  The spirit testified that he was spot on and the elders could feel it too.

Thursday we went out with the elders assigned to Murphy, a small town just outside of Venado Tuerto that is part of the district.  It's about a 15-20 minute drive from our apartment.  We were able to meet the branch president and a few inactive members.

L-R: Elder Allen, Presidente Mario Escudero, Elder Maraga

One lady went inactive when she was released from working with the young women a number of years ago.  It made her feel unwanted that they released her.  We told her that was just normal procedure within the church and that she was needed and asked her to return, but we did not feel much positivity during that visit.  Another lady we visited is inactive due to her work schedule.

L-R:  Lucio, Naomi, Martina

 She has a group home for elderly people and it is an around the clock work schedule.  If she can get someone to come in for a couple of hours that is qualified she can get to church but that is not easily accomplished.  She had a good spirit about her and as we discussed conference she could name off a number of recent conference talks she had enjoyed.  Her 13 year old daughter just recently got baptized two weeks ago and she has a cute 6 year old that drew a picture of us while we were there so of course we had to put it up in our apartment.

Sorry for the close up of my face.  We are not very experienced selfie takers.

Friday we went out with the zone leaders who also work in Branch 3.  We met one sister, Mirna, who claims to be inactive because her husband, who is not a member, is not very supportive of her spending a lot of time at church.  She has a two year old daughter, Cristal.

L-R:  Elder Sovereign, Mirna, Elder Nerey

They live with her mother, who is a member, but doesn't come much due to health issues.  The mom was not at home when we stopped by but we did meet her on Sunday because they both came to the morning session of conference.  The zone leaders had explained to us that they had never met her husband but that the sister described him as being immature and into playing sports and hanging with his guy friends.  Elder Rhoades had no fear while we were there and asked if her husband was at home.  She said yes, and so Elder Rhoades asked to meet him.  He came out and we had a good discussion with him about sports.  We learned that he has recently taken up playing paddleball.  This is a sport that isn't played in the US that we know of but apparently is all the rage in Argentina.  He described how it is played and brought out his racket that he uses to play.  He mentioned that Monday night he would be playing it with his friends at a court nearby.  We asked if we could stop by and watch to see what it was like.  He said sure.  So that is what we did.

 Here are a few photos we took while our non-member friend, Juan, was playing.  They are not the best quality. The best way to describe this sport is it is a cross between tennis and racketball.  They play on a tennis court with a tennis ball and net, but they play off of the three walls that surround the court and they play with a racket that is much smaller than a tennis racket and has holes in the paddle, which is very light weight.  It almost looked like it was made from some sort of styrofoam and covered in a plastic covering.

Our hope is to be a friend to Juan and change his outlook on the church so that he can at least allow his wife to attend church more frequently. Mirna talked a lot about working with the Primary and she got very animated and happy doing so.  You could tell that was something she had enjoyed. We would like to get Juan to have an interest in the church as well.  We felt we may be able to use the conference talk by Elder Villar about the muscles as a springboard to opening up a dialog with him about spiritual things, once we have more of a relationship with him.

Friday night we also met Norma, an inactive single sister that is struggling not only with her activity but in general due to her 18 year old son dying in a motorcycle accident 5 years ago.  It was clear that she is still grieving.  (I forgot to take her photo when we met her)  I tried to console her the best I could and buoy up her faith.  Elder Rhoades again was very inspired as he offered her a priesthood blessing, which she accepted.  So Elder Sovereign anointed her and Elder Rhoades with his limited Spanish gave the blessing.  You could feel the spirit there as well.  We invited Norma to attend conference and she accepted our offer for a ride to the chapel for the later Saturday session.  She was ready and waiting when we arrived and looked very nice.  She even had a friend with her, named Norma as well.

Unfortunately, the talks that really spoke to her issues were given on Sunday morning rather than Saturday afternoon.  We particularly felt President Nelson's talk about eternal families was very apropo for her.  Both Dave & I had the same promptings during conference - that we need to challenge Norma to become worthy to go to the temple.  We are planning a follow up with her and will share his message and challenge her to do that.  When we shared it with the zone leaders they didn't seem convinced that was the way to go as Norma currently struggles with just doing the basics - read scriptures and attend church.  My answer to that is sometimes a goal you really want can motivate you to do the little things you struggle doing. And besides, why question the spirit's promptings.  We need to have faith.

Saturday we took the time to walk to church for the conference sessions.  We live only about 7 blocks from the chapel but we have always driven our car (which we are appreciated the name suggestions and are torn between Pepe or Cricket).  It has been very nice weather here, sunny and not too hot, just very pleasant so I wanted to get outside a bit.  I also wanted to take some pictures of the park that we pass going to church and I've walked around for exercise.  I figured the grandkids would appreciate seeing what a playground looks like in Argentina.

 The name of the park

I just find it so interesting that you have palm trees and pine trees growing side by side.

 The playground equipment reminds me of the 1950-60's - all metal.  The swings creak pretty bad when being used.

But what's really cool is the tree next to the playground.  What an awesome place for kids to climb and play on.  Makes me think of the book The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

Elder Rhoades got excited because on the way back from the morning session, look what was sitting at the park.

A fire truck!  They are yellow here apparently.  He of course had to check it out and talk to the bomberos (fireman) who were setting up for a free CPR demonstration as it was World Health Day apparently.

We learned that firemen are all volunteers here and get paid a very minimal sum each month.  You could not make a career out of it, that is for sure.  There were quite a few female fireman at this event.

We saw some spring blossoms on the trees at temple square during the conference broadcast, which gave me hope that spring had arrived in Utah.  But it seemed strange because this is what we are seeing everywhere we go in town - signs of fall.

Not very many members were in attendance on Saturday at the chapel for conference.  There were probably more missionaries than members.  But I do think a lot of them listened at home.  Access to the internet is much more common here than it was in Cuzco.  Since we are three hours ahead of Utah time the morning session of conference didn't even start until 1 pm here.  That meant the afternoon session started at 5 pm and the priesthood session went from 9-11 pm.  Crazy, but Dave said that was the session that filled up the chapel.  In between the first and second session of conference, the Goesches treated all the missionaries (that included us) to ice cream at a shop that is only about 3-4 blocks from the chapel.  We offered to help pay but they said our turn would be in October as they will not be here to continue the ice cream tradition.

Forgot to take pictures of the missionaries while they were eating so all you get is the store sign.  If I'm remembering there were 18 of us total.  It was a good size group.  You can get a quarter of a kilo (1/2 lb) tub of ice cream for $3 US.  They have lots of flavors and the quarter kilo tub allows you to choose up to three different flavors.  The Goesches promised this was the best quality of ice cream in all of Venado Tuerto.  It didn't disappoint.

We went to our first restaurant here in Venado Tuerto as well on Saturday with the Goesch between the second session and the priesthood session.  They introduced us to Drops.  They said it was the closest restaurant here that is like an American Fast Food restuarant.  Will have to go again and take photos of the food.  Dave got this big plate of thin sliced steak, salad and fries for just under $7 and I had a milanesa sandwich that was huge which cost even less.  I couldn't eat it all.

More members came to the chapel for the Sunday sessions.  Elder Rhoades was able to listen to the talks in English in a separate room with the gringo missionaries.  I listened to most of the sessions in Spanish as the English feed tended to have periods of delay as it downloaded which were driving me crazy.  It was good ear training for me to listen to them all in Spanish.  So many of the talks revolved around the Doctrine of Christ, the very topic missionaries focus on each and every day.  So if the apostles and prophets preach the Doctrine of Christ, we missionaries are in good company!

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Comes from what I thought was the most powerful talk from General Conference.  President Russell M Nelson's Sunday morning talk "Come Follow Me"  Now, as President of His Church, I plead with you who have distanced yourselves from the Church and with you who have not yet really sought to know that the Savior’s Church has been restored. Do the spiritual work to find out for yourselves, and please do it now. Time is running out.