Opposition in All Things

Just as we were getting in the groove, picking up steam, and starting to see some good outcomes, along comes Mr. Opposition to mix things up and slow things down.  He showed up in the form of sickness.

The weather has definitely become cooler at night and during the day.  The good news with colder temperatures is we haven't had to use bug spray or had mosquito bites for weeks now.  Hurrah! 

We've been a bit challenged to stay warm enough, however.  We've bought some sweaters and warmer clothes to help us get by,   We've got a heater in our bedroom so we spend a lot of time in there and just yesterday we bought an electric heater for the living area so life should be getting better.  The cold also gives me an excuse to bake a bit more as having the oven on for an extended period of time helps heat our apartment.  I made a mean batch of snickerdoodles for the missionaries just before transfers as a going away treat.  Made the mistake of not taking a photo before putting them out.  We had one elder in our district, Elder Niu, who is going home.

 The two districts in Venado Tuerto.  Notice my new mustard colored sweater that is helping me to stay warm.  Elder Niu is the first elder on the right in the back, behind Elder Rhoades.
Back row: Elders Galindo, Allen, Rios, Navarro, Sovereign, Fuentes, Nerey, Niu  Front row:  Hnas Salmon, Condie, Rhoades, Elder Rhoades

You can see they are all bundled up in coats and/or sweaters trying to stay warm.  Back Row:  Elders Cantaro, Smith, Fugal, Raven  Front Row:  Hernandez, Backus, Margaria, Verdejo, Hna. Rhoades

Elder Rhoades came down sick first.  He was actually sick at this district meeting.  He got a priesthood blessing and went back to bed.  Luckily he was only down Tuesday through Thursday.  While he was fighting the cold bug, I used the down time to get caught up on a number of things we just haven't had time to do.

I was able to print out some piano material.  My goal was to start piano lessons June 1, but with having been confined to the house, it may take another week before it is up and running.

I was able to read through a lot of trek material that we've been sent.  The well is deep with information so I'm sure I've only skimmed the surface, but I'm further along than before.

And I've been catching up on our mission blog.  This is the third post since being confined to the house.  I do have one more project that needs my attention.  I told Dave I need to get that done, because then maybe I'll get better.

Yep, you guessed it.  As soon as Dave felt better on Friday, I woke up with a very sore throat.  I could hardly swallow and it just progressed from there.  I've spent the whole week in bed and am still fighting to get well enough to go out.  Today is the first day all week, my head has been clear and I feel like I have the energy to be up and doing and have it last longer than a few hours.

But here's the good news about that.  Dave is so much ahead with his Spanish abilities on this mission than he was when we went to Cuzco, Peru that he has been able to go out on his own and take care of the most important appointments we had set up so the work hasn't come to a screeching halt, only a slow down.

This shows how the city is divided up between the branches.  Branch 3 is the section at the top of the map.  Branch 1 is the middle left section.  Branch 2 is the middle right section. And Branch San Martin is at the bottom of the map.  The photo cut off a lot of that branch area, it really has a lot more area than what appears on this photo.  Same with the Branch 3 at the top of the map.

AND... the miracles have not ceased!  We have two amazing stories to report this week.

The first one came at the tail end of Elder Rhoades illness.  He woke up Friday morning and informed me that he had received revelation during the night regarding the young 18 year-old son of the Alvarez family we had visited.  The one that had basically run away from home.  Dave told me that during the night he knew that the boy would return home and the impression he got was that we needed to be sure to talk to the family about receiving him home with love and kindness like in the prodigal son parable.  However, before we even had a chance to get back in touch with them, we were contacted by the the mother with the news that her son had come home and all was well.  Wow, was that revelation quick in coming to pass.

The Venado Tuerto prodigal son

Dave followed up and went out for a visit on Saturday night to meet the son in person and start to build a relationship with him to see if we can have a good influence on him and help him make better choices.  Dave had to go alone as I was really sick by then.  The district was holding a youth fireside on Sunday and we wanted to make sure both Alvarez boys attended that fireside.  The topic?  Dating and Sexual Relationship standards for LDS youth.  A perfect reminder for this 18 year old boy to hear.  Dave attended the youth fireside as well.  He said it was very well done.  Hopefully the Holy Ghost was doing his job that night and hopefully this boy was listening!

District Youth fireside on dating

The second miracle comes because of our sickness.  When Dave first got sick, we headed to the pharmacy to see if we could find the Argentine equivalent of a decongestant/flu med.  We went to a pharmacy we typically don't go to much.  I talked Dave into going there rather than our normal one that he likes to patronize.  While we were in there, a lady came in and overhead us talking and mentioned that she had a sister in Utah, of all places, that was coming down for a visit and would be here on Sunday and she could bring us anything we needed.  It's that Argentinian hospitality coming into play here.  We found out she is an in-active member of the church.  We got her name and number and later that day told texted her that we would like her sister to bring us some things.

Here is what we had delivered to us.  Real US medicine and TWO bottles of mapleine.  I was a happy camper for the medicines and Dave was a happy camper for the mapleine.  We have our 1.5 supply of maple syrup now.  We can eat pancakes whenever we want now.

But when we picked up these items and visited with the sister and her husband at her in-active sister's house.  We learned that the 20 year old nephew of our Santa Claus, who was sitting right in the room with us, is an in-active member as well.  In fact he is one of the names on our YM member list that we are trying to locate.  We also got the name of another sister of hers that her whole family has gone in-active and their address.  So even while we are sick and can't leave the house much, we've been able to see the hand of the Lord leading and guiding us to his children that he wants to reach out to and let them know he is aware of them and hasn't forgotten them through us his servants. 

There always seems to be surprises around the corner when you are on the Lord's errand.  We just need to put our shoulder to the wheel and push along and watch what happens.  Oh, and not get sick.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Alma 26:27  ...the Lord comforted us, and said:  Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success.
D & C 98:3 ...all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good, and to my name's glory, saith the Lord.

The Miracles Keep Coming

I forgot to post a photo showing our Mother's Day lunch here in Argentina on May 12th.

We found some crinkle cut potato chips, some hamburger patties (that were actually a bit disappointing) and some fruit.  If we have hamburgers in the future, I think I'll be making them from scratch.

We had our first mission interviews with President Allred this week.  Since we were self-reliance missionaries the first time around we didn't work under the mission president so this was a new experience.  As the mission president he travels around the mission and interviews all missionaries once every six weeks, on top of doing zone conferences every six weeks as well.

May 15th was Javier & Denisa's anniversary, 5 years together.  We had an appointment with them that night so we brought flowers and chocolate no-bake cookies.  Javier's dad was visiting and he is solid!  His comments showed that he is active, studies the gospel and his counsel to Javier is the same as ours.  Get active and Denisa will follow.  Good to have some back-up.  But even with his dad visiting, he still didn't make it to church on Sunday.  It was disappointing.

We bought a women's bike this week!  We've been looking around for some used bikes in good condition so we can go around on bikes during the day and get some exercise.  We found a women's bike we are happy with so that now sits in our garage.

My new used bike.  This is what everyone goes around riding.  We didn't want to buy anything too fancy since that would make it a target for thief and we are going to need to leave it behind when we go.  I think it is very classy looking.  Dave says it looks like a grandma bike.  Well, isn't that what I am??

We need to get a helmet and lock before I can start using it.  And Dave needs to have one as well.  Not sure how much we'll use bikes now that we are entering into the winter months but we'll be able to start using them as soon things start to warm up again.

I've branched out and starting taking various routes for my exercise this month and I started to notice that the sidewalks change from property to property.  The next door neighbor is doing an addition and laid some tiles on the sidewalk in front of their addition and this caused me to put two and two together and realize that home owners are responsible for their own sidewalks, not the city!  I've taken some photos so you can see how that works.

 Here you can see probably one of the most common sidewalks with the red and black stripe.  But you see how it changes in the middle because the homeowner there used a different type of cement work.  Here are a few other designs.

Below is one of the more fancy designs.  Of course these are all in good condition.  It is fairly common that the sidewalks have deteriorated and are no longer as nice.

We live close to a train tracks and the station is not to far away.  One day I walked down there as my exercise route.  I wanted to take some photos so we could show you a bit of our neighborhood.

I was surprised to see an orange tree as I walked down there.  It certainly isn't feeling real warm for oranges right now.  But we've also seen banana trees so it is warm enough for these fruit to grow.

 Venado Tuerto train station above.  Train mural below.

 Up by the street is a pretty pergola with flowering climbing plant and off to one side is this abandoned train car.  Would make some good sketches for you, Emily.  Very picturesque.

We had another phone conversation with Elder Burton from the area office about Kilgrumen and the pioneer trek program.  He sent us an email showing what activities and currently already booked for next season.  Take a look.  Not only do church groups come but community groups come and use the camp grounds as well.  And they believe more groups will reserve as we get closer to the summer months.

Scheduled groups for next trek season:

12 – 14 Oct 2019 Estaca Castelar – Trek (I think this is Landon's stake)

17 – 18 Oct  2019 Escuela No 1329 Cultura Inglesa

24 - 25 Oct 2019 Escuela Part. Aut. De los Padres

31 Oct – 1 Nov 2019 Instituto de Enseñanza Comercial de Arias

21 – 24 Jan 2020 Estaca Santa Rosa – Trek

10 – 13 Feb 2020 Estaca Buenos Aires Monte Grande – Trek

22 – 24 Feb 2020 Estaca Santa Fe Norte – Trek

4 – 6 April 2020 Estaca Marcos Paz – Trek

9-12 April 2020 Estaca Sarmiento – Trek  

Currently they are looking for a full-time couple to handle this, but the reality is those couples are hard to come by.  We are Plan B and we have made it clear that we would need help with the maintenance and clean-up.  So, we've been sent a lot of study material that we are working through in our spare time.  The problem is, we don't have much spare time!

This week we did our Family Home Evening presentation in Branch 3.  We are down to just one branch in Venado Tuerto, San Martin, that has not seen our presentation "Getting to Know the Rhoades"  They are scheduled for June 1st.

We continue to teach the Daily Dose English class. but this week will be our last time.  The sisters will take it over.  We've been asked to help with EnglishConnect which will be starting in the next few weeks.  EnglishConnect is the English class associated with BYU Pathway and is a preparatory English class to help members get their English up to the level they need it to be to participate in BYU Pathway and beyond.  We are not the teachers, but only assistants.  They have called two local members to be the instructors. They have 70 people signed up so they are offering two classes.  We are sure the actual numbers will end up less as interest is always high, but commitment and perseverance is always harder to come by. 

Our service project for the week was helping a new convert repair her kitchen.  She lives in pretty humble circumstances and the kitchen counter and cupboards are pretty beat up.  Here is a before photo.

First stage was Saturday.  Dave stabilized the counter and cupboard by attaching them to the wall.  Next week will be step two, applying the silicone at the back where the counter meets the wall.  We are also having new doors made.  For about $30 we can upgrade her kitchen.  Look for the after photos once it is done.

Saturday afternoon we visited a less active family in Branch 3.  The parents are great!  They have been sealed as a family in the temple and they both have church callings as counselors - she in the Primary, he in the Young Mens.  But they have been struggling with their 18 year old son and just 3 days ago he had stormed out of the house with his things.  The mother has felt like a failure because of the choices of her son.  Sound familiar ladies?  I certainly can relate to that as a mother.  Because of this she has not been coming to church.  I had a heart to heart talk with her about the error of her thinking.  I told her now more than ever she needs to be keeping her covenants as there is power in doing so that will reach out and influence her son.  They have five other kids that will be watching her that she needs to be thinking about as well.  We asked for the phone number of her son,  Briant, and told her we would reach out to him as Elder Rhoades has been assigned to strengthen the young men in the district.  We told her to pray a lot and we would pray as well.  Be patient and have faith.

Saturday night we had a late dinner appointment with Louisa and Bruno. They had invited us to eat pizza with them  Bruno has studied gastronomy and prides himself in his cooking ability.  The dinner apointment was for 9 pm.  That is a fairly early dinner appointment here.  9:30 or 10 is more common.  We were at their home until midnight.  Good thing we have more flexibility with our hours than the young missionaries do.

Louisa and Bruno

During our visit we learned that in the past when they were active, Bruno had been ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood.  At one point I very directly asked him the reason why he was in-active.  He was very direct in his answer to me and told me it was laziness pure and simple.  We invited him back and told him the Lord needed him.  This was after we had shown the video "The Hope of God's Light" which we could see had obviously touched him and based on impressions we had received as we prayed for them between visits.  We felt this man was needing to find some purpose in his life.  He didn't make any commitments or promises to us that night, but both he and his mother were at church the next day and they stayed for both hours.

The missionaries asked Louisa to offer one of the prayers at the baptism to be held later that day and both came to the baptism.  After the meeting they shared with us that during the afternoon they had google-mapped Manhattan for an LDS chapel because they want to attend church while they are vacationing in New York in August and September.  The bombshell, however, was when they told us they had set the goal to go to the temple and take out their endowments by the end of the year!  WOW!  The Lord had obviously been preparing their hearts and they were just waiting for an invitation to come back.

We just love to watch how the Lord uses us when we are willing to follow the promptings of His spirit and be bold.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:  President Steven Allred, Rosario Argentina mission, response to our letter telling him about the miracle of Louisa and Bruno. "Faith can wake up a soul that is sleeping".  Love that, so poetic!

  

Miracles in May

We started the second week of May off with revelation.  We were contemplating how to reach the in-actives here and convert them and the current active members more to the Lord.  We've realized that there is way more work then we can do alone and that we can't bring members back to activity on our fellowshipping skills alone, not permanently anyways and that is what we want.  We were inspired to find an old talk by Elder Uchdoft from October 2016 general conference - Learn from Alma & Amulek.

It was the perfect talk for what we are doing here and we will be referring to it when working with leaders in each of the branches.  We had a family home evening on Monday with the Menchie family from  Branch 1 and this talk was our lesson.  Brother Menchie is on the high council assigned to the Young Men and Elder Rhoades is working with him on finding and activating the young men.  We were given a list of 151 names of young men in the entire district between the ages of 18-25 (mission age) to locate and determine whom we can help to bring back to activity.  The district has only 3 young men serving full-time missions currently and their goal is to have 15.  So there is a lot of work to do.  Most of the branches have very few active Aaronic Priesthood holders as well.  Sister Menchie is the Relief Society president in Branch 1.  They are a great family.  They have a son who is one of the 3 full-time missionaries.  He is serving in Brazil and will return in November of this year.  The lesson was received well by them.

We have hired Maria and her son, Ricardo to come to our house every other Monday and help us with cleaning.  We have to wash our own vehicle, keep our apartment clean and the garden we have out back is our responsibility to maintain.  It takes up a lot of our time on Monday just to handle those responsibilities, let alone the shopping, mailing the mission president our weekly report and doing our weekly planning.  That is part of the reason for not keeping up on the blog.  Maria is very thorough and my house was sparkling when she was done.  Our car was extremely dirty due to the wet weather and mud roads so it took quite awhile for Ricardo to get the car clean both inside and out.  This family is living without running water and electricity in just a make-shift shack in the backyard of a relative.  We are hoping this bit of work will help them earn a bit more money so they can afford to rent a place of their own.  We also hoping we can act as references for Maria as she tries to get other cleaning jobs.

We met with our in-active families this week. Javier and Denisa we have challenged to read the Book of Mormon each day this month together.  We are hoping they will feel the spirit and that Denisa will gain a testimony of the book.  We promised them an American meal if they do not miss a day during the month.  We had a great lesson with them and Javier shared with us a spiritual experience he had while reading.  Javier is an in-active member and his wife is a non-member.  We have promised him if he will come back to activity and live the gospel, we believe his wife will see the difference and then follow his lead.  That is the goal.

We also continue to work with Norma and we did another Family Home Evening with the Lucarelli's, the part-member family where the husband was a former fireman.  This time we invited them over to our house and fixed them a meal.  Our message was about service using the King Benjamin address in Mosiah. So far we've gone easy on Eduardo Lucarelli as we are wanting to build a relationship with him first.  He has met with a lot of missionaries over the years, but has not been willing to be baptized a member...yet.

We met with two inactive sisters, Alicia,the mom and Claudia, her daughter.  Alicia was more open to us than Claudia.  Claudia seems to have had some negative experiences with the members.  But they were kind enough to invite us over for a pizza lunch this week.  Alicia is a seamstress and she offered to repair a pair of pants for Elder Rhoades.  Of course she would not let us pay her, saying she wanted the blessings in heaven rather than the money.  We learned that Alicia was giving the Relief Society lesson on Sunday so we made sure to attend the second hour there to support her.  She did a great job.  She did not teach like an in-active.  We are going to need to follow up with her and get better acquainted with her story.  She has a great knowledge of the gospel and testimony.

We have started working with the Arana family in the San Martin Branch.  Brother Arana has been called into the branch presidency.  But prior to this, he was the ward mission leader and had some great ideas for a missionary activity so we wanted to support him and make that happen.  His wife, has been called as the Relief Society president and has a great missionary spirit.  They are wonderful to work with.  We have set up June 1 for a Family Home Evening in their ward.

We have also started working with the Sanchez family.  We met them at a Family Home Evening held in Branch 3.

Sister Rhoades playing the Family Home Evening game at Branch 3.  There were two teams, one with ties and one without ties.

The Sanchez family are recent converts.  They were baptized about a month ago, so just as we got here to Venado Tuerto.  Both the husband and wife were baptized and two of their four children.  The two older boys are 11 and 10.  Their daughters are younger than 8.  We heard about how the father had a very powerful spiritual experience when receiving the missionary discussions.  He had a word of wisdom problem that he didn't believe he would be able to resolve.  The elders teaching him suggested a fast to help him.  He agreed to do it but with little faith himself.  He says it really was the faith of the elders that must have worked because he really didn't believe it was possible for him to change.  But that fast worked and his ability to keep the word of wisdom changed overnight.  The mother is dynamite.  She is so converted and has high expectations for her family.  The challenge will be for her to have patience with the others as they try to keep up with her.  We are reviewing with them the missionary discussions.  They are a joy to meet with.  Next post we will need to include a photo of the family.

Our English class student, Louisa is part of a miracle that we witnessed this week on Friday night after the English class.

We have another in-active sister who happens to live 2 blocks from Louisa.  This in-active sister had carpal tunnel surgery on both hands on May 2nd.  We've been checking up on her through text messages and finally we were able to set up an appointment right after the English class to take her some canoles for a prepared meal and see how she was doing.  Since she lives close to Louisa and we were giving Louisa a ride home, we invited her to come with us to visit this sister.  Louisa agreed.  It turned out that Louisa knew the husband of Loreta (the sister who had surgery) and grew up with him, knows his whole family in fact.  So this set off a catch-up conversation between her and the husband.  Louisa is a retired social worker and so she spent some time discussing with the husband some options to help him with his disability (he has an amputated leg and uses a prothesis).  This also established a comfortable atmosphere for all.  Soon it came out in the conversation that both sisters were in-active and yet they shared with each other their past involvement in the church, including callings.  Both have many talents and skills and have been heavily involved in church service in the past.

The next thing we know, Louisa is telling Loreta she needs to be going to church because it is important to renew your covenants each Sunday and be faithful and true to your covenants.  She admitted that she is wanting to return to activity within the church and was planning on attending the coming Sunday.  Keep in mind, Louisa is an in-active sister and yet she was being the missionary!  Elder Rhoades and I just looked at each other in amazement and we were thinking the same thing -- we have found an Amulek! (refer to Elder Uchtdoft's talk - Learn from Alma and Amulek, Oct 2016)

In that talk, Elder Uchdorf talks about using the in-actives and inviting them to return and serve within the church.  This is exactly what we did that night, and Louisa was ready for it.  The Lord had been preparing her and she did a much better job than we would have done visiting Loreta that night.  She was just the right person to visit with them.  As we left the home, I gave Louisa a big hug as we walked to the car and thanked her for coming and told her she had been a big help that night!  And sure enough, she came to church on Sunday!

Saturday we got over to the Boy Scout camp and Dave was finally able to visit with some of the leaders and we watched as the kids worked on the activities for the day.  Here are some photos we took of the group.

Sign at the entrance to the Boy Scout encampment

Uniform badge

 Middle age group leaders

 The wolf pack flag.  They have both boys and girls participating in the scout program here.

The wolf group giving a wolf howl. 

 The middle aged group.  Our new convert, Zaida, is part of this group.  She is seated on the right behind the girl with the black and pink jacket wearing a grey T-shirt.

Dave talks with the oldest group of scouts.  They had just completed constructing that table for the camp site.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Our beloved Savior knows where you are. He knows your heart. He wants to rescue you. He will reach out to you. Just open your heart to Him. It is my hope that those who have strayed from the path of discipleship—even by only a few degrees—will contemplate the goodness and grace of God, see with their hearts, and hear the life-changing words of the Savior: “Come, follow me.”  I urge you to heed His call, for surely you will receive the harvest of heaven. The blessings of the Lord will rest upon you and your house.  --"Learn from Alma & Amulek"  President Dieter F Uchdoft  Oct 2016 Priesthood session

May

I've gotten behind in my blog posts so I'm only going to include the highlights from the first week in May.

We started May off doing a YM/YW combined activity in Branch 2.  We taught them to make chocolate no-bake cookies and the game Yahtzee.

 We divided them into three groups and made the recipe three times.  While one group was in the kitchen making a batch of cookies the others were learning to play Yahtzee and then we would rotate them through.  We gave them a small lesson about how following a recipe to obtain cookies is like following the plan of salvation to obtain eternal life.

Yahtzee Time

 Lesson about Recipes & Plan of Salvation

 Concentrating on creating their cookies

It was interesting how each batch of cookies came out differently.  The first group's cookies came out dry and wouldn't form.  We had to press it into a pan and hope they would stay firm when set, but at the end of the night they still didn't work.  They are going to use it for yogurt parfaits at a future activity I think.  The second group's cookies turned out great!  The third group's cookies came out too soft and tasting waxy.  They all followed the same recipe and yet had different results.  I think that is a good example of how important it is to follow with exactness the recipe/gospel plan.  I will probably use this example in a future talk.

We attended our first zone conference of the mission on May 2nd.  We traveled down to Pergamino and joined with the zone there.  We thought, oh boy, we can see more of Argentina.  Well it turns out that the more we saw is the same as what we see in Venado Tuerto - pampas...flat farm land with small cities every so often.

We left at 6:30 am and it was a 2+ hour bus ride one way.  Luckily they rented one of those tourist buses with lots of leg room and comfy reclining seats and curtains on the windows so you can sleep if you want.  The conference went all day just about.  There were good talks and workshops and the younger missionaries enjoyed visiting with each other.  The conference ended at 4:00 pm and we got back to Venado Tuerto just before 7 pm.

Apparently at zone conference, missionaries with birthdays since the last zone conferencee are recognized and given some sort of goodie bag prepared by Sister Allred.

Returning missionaries at next transfer sharing their testimonies to the group

We were able to visit with one of the other senior missionary couples serving in the mission.  Elder & Sister Moreno.  They are from Buenos Aires and are set to finish their mission in June.  They have been serving in a very small town where the church only has a small group.  He has been serving in the branch presidency.  They told us when they first started there were 4 people attending regularly.  Now there are about 40.  Wow!  Job well done, Morenos!

Here is a picture of our Venado Tuerto Zone.  This involves two districts.
Back row l-r:  Backus, Allen, Smith, Magaria, Mayer,Maco, Raven, Perdejo, Fugal, Fuentes, Galindo, Hernandez  Middle row l-r:  Navarro, ?, Rios, Niu, Sovereign, Nerey, Martinez, Cantaro  Front row l-r:  Rhoades, Salmon, Condie, Allreds, Morenos

We've started a Daily Dose English class here in Venado Tuerto.  Actually the sister missionaries have, but we've been the teachers for the first two weeks of class.  We have only had one student come, Louisa.  She and her son, Bruno, have a trip planned to New York at the end of August and she needs to improve her English skills.  Her son Bruno speaks English quite well.  Louisa happens to be an in-active member.  So we have followed up and done a home visit with her, which went very well.

We also have gotten involved in Self-Reliance here in Venado Tuerto.  Saturday the Self-Reliance manager for this area, Hno. Ullua, came for a visit.

President Allred asked us to attend the meeting with him and the counselor in the district presidency who is over self-reliance, Esteban Gorena.  Currently the Self-Reliance program has not been functioning here in Venado Tuerto and with our background serving as Self-Reliance missionaries in Cusco, Peru, we figured we could help.

A member from the district has just been called to be the self-reliance specialist for the district.  We had already introduced ourselves to her and offered her our services.  She came to this meeting as well.  Much of the meeting was spent in discussing the new EnglishConnect program.  The district has two members called as instructors and we are being asked to be assistants to the teachers.  Apparently they have 70 members and/or non-members signed up to participate in the program so they will be offering two classes.

The EnglishConnect program requires that local members be used as the instructors, but allows full-time missionaries to assist.  This English program is much more intensive than Daily Dose.  It has a once a week class that goes for 1.5 hours versus the 30 minute class with Daily Dose.  It also has the expectation that they are going to practice English 10 hours during the week.  This practice includes using a speaking partner (like the Pathway program requires) and watching movies/tv shows in English, or listening to conference talks in English.

We will also be helping Fabiana, the self-reliance specialist as she works to get the self-reliance workshops up and going for the members here in Venado Tuerto.  Needless to say we left the meeting feeling a bit overwhelmed, wondering how we were going to keep all the balls in the air we are being asked to juggle.

The first Saturday in May I helped with a district service project while Dave went to help an Enrique with a car distributor.  The district is working with the Billion Graves website and attempting to map and record all the graves in the city cemetery.  The members take their smart phones to the cemetery and log into an app for Billion Graves and then take photos of the headstones and grave markers.  You then go home and upload the photos to their website.  Once the photos are on their website, you then view each of the photos and log in the names, birth and death dates recorded on them.  This will then create a database that anyone in the world can access.  This is preserving the histories of these people as well as making it easier for others to locate their ancestors' data.

Here are some photos from that service project.  The cemetery is very different here than in the states.

 They have rows and rows of family crypts.  Some rather ornate and others more plain.

 Here are some of the members who came out to help.  L-R: Martina Menchie, Cecilia Menchie, Emilia Alasia - all from Rama 1

Some of the graves are really deteriorating and needed some deciphering and repair.  This one was written in English and was for a gentleman from Ireland who had immigrated to Argentina. There apparently was a wave of Irish immigration in the 1800's to Argentina.

I decided to walk home rather than have Dave come get me.  The cemetery is a ways out from the main part of the city so it was a good 50 minute walk back to our apartment.  But is was a very pretty walk.  They had a nice walking trail that is tree lined and you walk past fields, horses, sheep and

a few other scenic items.  This old jalopy for one.  Emily, I know your dad wants you to draw the old truck he found but this is my choice for a painting.

The first Sunday in May we visited the Murphy branch with the district president.  It was a bit depressing, as only a handful of members were in attendance and most of those were women.  The full-time elders and Elder Rhoades and one Aaronic priesthood member handled the sacrament.  The branch president had no counselors in attendance and there were only three other men in the congregation.  The women who were there were great!  During the Sunday school discussion on Come Follow Me it was apparent these women had read, studied and pondered the material.  We learned that the majority of the members are all family members in one way or other to one woman, Rosa.

Murphy's challenge is soccer.  Murphy, a town in the middle of nowhere with a population of 4,000 is a soccer player factory.  Apparently, they take soccer playing to a whole new level.  There is a soccer training program like no other there and it has produced a number of world famous soccer players.

Paulo Gazzaniga and Mauricio Pochettino are the big name ones currently.  This is a huge billboard that one sees as they enter town.  Apparently, Murphy is to soccer what LaVell Edwards was to BYU Football. 

I got a bit peeved at the lack of priesthood in that area.  I couldn't help but think that if the men's home was threatened by fire or flood they would be right there doing everything within their power to protect it, and yet in the battle to protect their family from the spiritual threats of the world the men are completely absent.  The more I thought about it the more I wanted to knock a few heads together and/or throttle a few throats, but then I realized that wasn't a good missionary approach so I had to let it go and just resort to pleading with the Lord in prayer on their behalf.

But I am learning to be bold and not be afraid to speak the truth plainly to those we work with.  Elder Rhoades is just learning to speak the truth in Spanish.  He already has no fear to be bold and speak up. :)

Spiritual thought for the week:  I Samuel 17:47  "And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear;  for the battle is the Lord's."  and 2 Chronicles 20:15  "Thus sayeth the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God's."

Goodbye April

We finished April strong!

We started the week after Easter off with a great family home evening with a young couple that are committed to be baptized but need to get married – Enrique and Maria.  They currently have a 6-month old girl named Hannah.  The elders have been teaching them and they are coming to church.  When we got to their house, their Books of Mormon were on the table and they mentioned that they had just finished reading them.  They had a calendar on their refrigerator with a reading schedule, one chapter a day, that they are following.  When we asked them to share their story, they both talked about feeling the spirit and knowing the church is true.  It was so nice to see a potential eternal family here in Venado Tuerto.  The only drawback was when we asked them about their marriage plans they indicated they were going to get married in November.  That is like 6 months away!  We did not press them about it, but as we build a relationship with them, we want to encourage them to move their date up.  Enrique has really taken a shine to Elder Rhoades.  So perhaps, Elder Rhoades can twist their arms a bit. J

The following day was Elder Nerey’s birthday.  He is one of the zone leaders here in Venado Tuerto.  He is from Los Angeles, but looks and talks like a latino.  We have been impressed with the spirit he carries with him.  He mentions a lot that the mission has changed him a lot.  Well, we like who he has become!  I had forgotten it was his birthday so I did not make a cake for him, but I quickly walked to the nearest store and found individually wrapped “mini tortas” and bought enough for each one in the district to have, then at the end of the meeting, built him a pyramid cake and we sang to him. 

Elder Nerey is a great zone leader.  We've been impressed with his lessons that we've heard him give.

We are continuing to work with a new converts and have had a number of lessons with them.  We have assigned them to read sections of the Book of Mormon for each lesson, hoping to develop with them a daily reading habit.  We know this will keep them committed and growing spiritually.  If we go to the lesson and they haven’t read, we read the assigned reading with them.

With Maria, Guiliana & Dalila we assigned them to read from I Nephi 3-4, which they did and it allowed us to give them a great lesson on how the spirit works and can guide and help us in our lives.  The two daughters will be getting the gift of the Holy Ghost this coming Sunday.  Second visit we assigned them to read 2 Nephi 31-32 which allowed us to review the 5 commitments to the doctrine of Christ.  Our emphasis was on persevering to the end and that is now the step they are on.

We are working with Perla as well and went over the same reading assignment of I Nephi 3-4.  She had read it as well.  She is not progressing as much as she doesn’t always read the assignments and we haven’t been able to give a lesson each time we’ve set up a visit.  We had a good visit with her mom, Estela, after the first visit.  I think it helped build some good will towards the church with her.

This is Perla and her niece.  Often she is tending small kids when we come, making it hard to teach her.  But she has been consistently coming to church since her baptism.

Later in the evening on Tuesday, April 23th, we met with Branch 3 presidency.  They had prepared a list of in-actives they would like us to work with.  They had 21 names.  They took the time to talk about each one and give us some background about them.  We were thrilled with this help. 

Wednesday was not a very productive day.  Our appointments fell through and the correlation meeting we thought was being held was not.  The only good thing that happened was the inactive sister of Perla who is 15 years old, came with her to the young women’s activity that evening.  That came out of the blue!  While at the church, we did volunteer to plan and present the next week’s youth mutual activity and asked that it be a combined one with both girls and boys.  We thought it would be a way for Elder Rhoades to get better acquainted with the young men.

It seems like un-productive days come along somewhat regularly.  We are going to need to get better at having back-up plans in place and learn to punt from time to time.

Thursday, April 25^th, we had a good day with three appointments.  We started out with an active family, the Monsalvos in the San Martin branch.  It turns out that the father is brother to Juan, the spouse of Maria who we are working with.  Maria’s son, Victor, who is 18 years old, is also living with them.  He has been taught by the elders and wants to be baptized but has some things to work out first.  The father also was raised by our in-active sister Lola who we are working with.  He was able to give us some insight about her and where she is at.  Apparently Lola and her husband took him in when he was a teenager living on the streets.  He is a member of the church because of his exposure to the gospel in her home.  He is very grateful to her for that.  Cesar, the father, was just ordained to the Melchezidek priesthood at the district conference this month and the family is now working towards getting sealed in the temple.

We then meet with Maximiliano, a 25 year old member in the San Martin branch.  This member has a good handle on English and really just wants to practice his English with us.  But, he needs strengthening to stay active in the church.  We will try to work with him on his testimony.  Since our first visit we have run into him a couple more times.  I don’t think it is a coincidence.  I think we are being nudged and directed his way for a reason. 

Thursday evening we went to a family home evening the sisters were doing with an inactive family they found while knocking on doors.  This family has been inactive for over 30 years, but now is showing interest in coming back.  The mother, Griselda, came to church on Easter Sunday & the following Sunday.  Her husband, Victor, has a word of wisdom issue that may hold him back from returning, but the Lord is extending his hand out to them inviting them to return.  It is up to them if they will respond to the invitation or not. 

Friday, April 26^th,  was a good day as well, with two lessons in the morning to our new converts Perla, Dalila & Giuliana.  All had read their assigned readings.  It works better when that happens. J

Friday afternoon we met with the sister missionaries and introduced them to Daily Dose English program as we learned that they plan to start offering classes in an effort to find people to teach the gospel to.  They were impressed with the lessons and format and Dave’s salesmanship sold them on the program.  They are offering the class Friday evenings at 7 pm.  They did not have anyone come that evening but I don’t think much publicity is being done about it.

Friday evening we had a lesson with Zaida, another recent convert and her grandmother.  It turned out to be a long lesson as Marta gave us a very long history of her conversion.  We left them with the I Nephi 3-4 reading assignment as we find that works really well to teach them how the spirit works in our lives and the blessings that come when following the spirit.  We’ve tried to have additional visits with this family, but they have been a bit flaky.

In the course of our visit, we learned they live across the street from a Boy Scout camp.  This has energized Elder Rhoades.  He has excitedly been video messaging the scout leaders back home working on setting up a sister city type arrangement between the scout troop here in Venado Tuerto and Pleasant Grove.  We have met the Scout leaders here and they liked the exchange idea that Elder Rhoades presented to them.  You will probably hear more about this project down the road.

Friday evening we had also set up a family home evening with the Taverna family.  I had made deviled eggs to take to it.  We got to their house at 8:30 and found out that it had been cancelled.  They had sent us messages but we did not see them.  They still fed us this delicious cheese and ham with bread and they enjoyed out deviled eggs.  We went over the I Nephi 3-4 story with them.  Dave showed off some magic tricks with cards and we had a good time.  This family is working towards going to the temple to be sealed but do have some commandment issues that need to be addressed.

The district takes a group to the Buenos Aires temple every other month.  This weekend was a temple trip.  They charter a bus and leave on Friday night late, travel through the night and get to the temple bright and early Saturday morning.  They do temple work all morning and typically leave mid-afternoon to return Saturday night.  We do hope to go with them, hopefully on the next one at the end of June.  It would be great if we had a family we had worked with going by then.  We’ll see.

Buenos Aires temple.  

Saturday evening, April 28^th,  we had a family night scheduled with the Murphy branch.  So we spent the morning shopping for refreshments.  The plan was to do Meet the Rhoades with them.  Last Saturday afternoon we were contacted saying there was a festival going on in Murphy and it would be hard to get very many members to attend, plus about 20 members had gone on the temple trip.  I thought we were going to have to cancel.  But the elders had investigators committed to coming so they didn’t want to have it cancelled.  We went out anyway. We did have a very small group, so we punted and presented our “Boundin” video instead of our Meet the Rhoades presentation.  We were able to meet a few members and hopefully support the missionaries’ investigators.  We will reschedule our Meet the Rhoades presentation for another time.

The good thing that came out of going to Murphy was we visited the nut/dried fruit store we had been told about.  We stocked up on nuts and raisins and figs at a very discounted price.  A kilo of peanuts, shelled and salted was $5.  Remember, a kilo is 2.2 pounds.

Figs on the left and Raisins on the right

The last Sunday in April we visited Branch 3 for the first time on Sunday.  We had gone out during the day on Saturday and looked up some of the names on our inactive list.  We invited everyone we met to come to church to hear us speak.  Dave had worked all week on his 7-minute talk about a fireman experience he had with a young child, a water drain, a ball and popsicles.  My part was to apply it to the gospel.  It was the same lesson we had given earlier to Lucarelli family but developed a bit more.  I added in the example of Abraham and how he came from a culture that taught and practiced idol worship and sacrifice and yet Abraham choose to follow the gospel and make covenants with God, gain the priesthood and become one of the most famous prophets in the Bible. 

We were happy to see 5 of the 7 people we had invited to church come.  It was good to have friends there.  I obviously need to get better at taking photos of the people we are working with to make our posts more interesting.  Since I don't have a lot of photos this go round, I think I will post some interesting photos from around town.

Not sure if you can tell from this photo but these trees have spikes all over their trunk!  I don't think kids will be climbing on these trees ever.

 This beautiful relief mural is on the building across from our preferred bread store.  It is pretty impressive.  They were just putting on the finishing touches.

And here is the local neighborhood KFC joint.  They do a booming business and we are regular customers. 

 The chicken is better as it is rotisserie cooked, but it is finger licking good.

I am learning to make some great recipes using this pre-cooked chicken.

And our last entry, here is a street we pass every day going to the church.  Any guesses on how it is pronounced?  If it sounds like you are talking about your bathroom activity, you are pronouncing it correctly.  How would you like to have to give that name out as your address?

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Moroni 7:33

"And Christ hath said;  If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."