The Party Life

We've been doing a lot of entertaining at our home the first part of August.  They call it Noches de Hogar down here.  It's a way to teach the gospel in a more casual environment and help the members socialize as well.

August 1st we had one with Dario Lopez, an in-active member who helped us out with the Talent Shows by letting us use his sound system.  He has a non-member wife and a couple of kids.  The elders have been visiting him, but felt we might be able to make a connection with his wife.

Here we are during the refreshment part, which is actually a casual meal.  We fixed ham and cheese sliders (the ones we had at our farewell) with chips and fruit of course a cake for dessert.  Starting at the left and going around the table is E. Fuentes (from Chiclayo, Peru), Tamara (the non-member wife), Bernardo Flores (Rama 1 mission leader), E. Galindo (from Huancayo, Peru), Dario, Xeomara their 9 year old daughter and E. Rhoades.  Their 5 year old son, Joaquin, who was very shy is hiding behind E. Fuentes.

The lesson didn't seem to have much spiritual power.  It wasn't until the refreshments that Tamara started to open up and engage with us.  We've tried to do a follow up visit at their home, but haven't been able to find her at home, only Dario.  Dario claims to have a testimony, but isn't living the gospel much in his life.  When Dario was active he was the YM's president.  He says he loves to work with the youth.  Something that E. Rhoades may be able to use to help get him involved again in church.

August 2nd we were pleasantly surprised to learn of a Young Adult game night at the church.  It was being held after our EnglishConnect class.  We had a visit to make but then quickly came back to support this activity and hopefully meet more of the young people.  There was a good attendance and we hung out and visited for about an hour.

JAS pizza & game night 8.2.19

August 3rd was another Noche de Hogar but this one was at the Taverna family's home.  They were one of the first families we met when we first arrived.  They have been members for three years, but have not yet been sealed in the temple.  The goal is to get them there.  They fell through the cracks and we didn't pick up working with them regularly until now.  I think we needed some time to get our Spanish up to speed and figure out how to work with these families before we could fully engage with them.  They have a big family and close extended family.  They have five kids, 4 boys and a girl.  The youngest, 7 year old Santino is very endearing.  This FHE has jumped started us with a regular visiting schedule.

They had gone inactive since our arrival and haven't been to church much since we've been here but after holding the FHE and telling them we want to help them get to the temple (we used Pres. Nelson's conference talk about temple covenants and time running out to hopefully motivate them) they showed up to church the following day!  Yeah!  They do have transportation problems as they only own a motocycle and even though they pile people on the motos there is no way they can get all 7 of them on one motocycle.  Two of them rode bikes to church and 3 came on the moto but that left two at home not attending.

We've had two additional visits with them.  We are working with them as if they are new converts and going through the Book of Mormon with them to help them read the scriptures regularly and build their testimonies.  At the last visit we had a poorly timed visitor.  He arrived just as I was testifying.

That is one BIG spider!

August 4th we did a dinner with our EnglishConnect teacher and his wife.  He is really struggling.  Speaking English does not an english teacher make.  We hope we can gentle guide him to do better.  The attendance for the class has dropped from 40 to only a handful, anywhere from 5-10 people.
 Our instructor, Tomas Allasia, served a mission in Texas, quite unusual for a latino to serve in the states.  So I asked him what food he missed the most from the states.  He said the Pillsbury refrigerated cinnamon rolls.  I can't get those here, but I did make him the best substitute I could manage...

Homemade cinnamon rolls

The yeast here is fresh yeast.  This is the first time in my life I've had to bake using fresh yeast.  It was a learning curve.  This was my third attempt.  I'm sure there will be more homemade cinnamon rolls in my future.

August 5th was another Mega Noche de Hogar as we had four families come to our home.  All from the same branch.  One strong member family, the Aranas, and three recent converts/part member families that we are working with.  We are wanting them to get to know each other and become friends.  We talked about our baptismal covenant to serve one another and showed the church's video One on One that is very touching and has a powerful spirit.  Here is where our 14 year old boy performed his magic trick we had taught him.   He did it perfectly.  It was great to see the other members give him kudos.  One member even taught him another card trick he can do.

At this FHE, I served pulled pork sandwiches and that has now become my go-to menu for these FHE's we are doing.  The Argentine taste buds is pretty much bland in comparison to what we are used to, not a lot of spices or flavoring.  So the idea of BBQ sauce on pork sandwiches has some of them squirming in their seats.  It is fun to watch who will be brave enough to put some BBQ sauce on their sandwiches and who sticks with the tried and true blandness.

We are trying to do as much service as we can.  At the beginning of the month there was a wood chopping excursion by Rama 2.  Many members heat their homes with wood stoves.  So Elder Rhoades went out with Juan, Maria's husband, a potential member to do this service.  They went out to one of the church properties near by and Elder Rhoades said it was a new experience for these members to use a chain-saw.  He had to give some pointers to them.  He said they kept moving the chain saw like they would a regular saw.  They had no idea you just had to hold it steady and let the motor move the blade through the wood.

The Elders assigned to Rama 2 went as well and had to join Elder Rhoades for the photo op below.

Our member family who we are trying to teach to grow a garden is patiently waiting for the seeds to come up.  We planted them indoors and the two boys, Albano 9 and Sergio 11, are the caretakers giving them water and taking them outdoors in the morning and indoors at night.  We have about a 50% germination rate on the seeds at this point.  The weather forecast seems to indicate that the overnight freezing weather is past so we will probably work on planting some seeds outside as well and see how they take and give the indoor seeds a bit longer to grow bigger before transplanting.

We also made a visit out to Murphy.  Dave worked with an in-active young man fixing his guitar and I went out with the sister missionaries.  The sister missionaries have been focusing on visiting the less active as there are a ton of them in Murphy.

These are not less actives but they do live in front of one of the member's home.  The smell was...pungent.

We also had a chance to take some photos of Elder Rhoades with some of his favorite machinary.

  Ahh, nothing like a John Deere and a tractor to boot.

And if you can't drive a real one, you can at least sit on a roadside model in front of a farm store.

August 8th we had another dinner appointment at our home with Enrique and Maria Angeles, the golden couple when we first got here.  They have delayed getting married until November and the worry we had that they would cool off towards the church has become a reality.  We are going to have to put them more on our radar if we want to have any chance of keeping them from becoming seeds that fall to the wayside.

A surrogate grandbaby - Hanna

We also had a new convert, Salome, of about 3 months tell us she no longer wants us to visit her.  She has lost her "ganas" to attend church and continue down the convenant path of discipleship with Christ.  We were really sad to hear that but not too surprised as she has not been able to develop a daily scripture reading habit of the Book of Mormon.  Without that in their lives, they become part of the 83% inactive membership.  Hopefully, she will soon miss having the spirit in her life and want to repent.

At the same time we started working with another new convert, Luciano, and his inactive mom, Marcela, who has come back to activity.  He is a baptism of E. Margaria and E. Topham.

Luciano is 24 years old and loves to read the Book of Mormon and he retains well what he has read.  Not only has he read a lot of the Book of Mormon but the elders left him a copy of Gospel Principles and he has read most of that book.  He will be a great addition to Rama 2 if he can stay active.

August 10th we did a Noche de Hogar with the Camino family in their home in Rama 3.  We learned about Ignacio, their 17 year old son, a potential future missionary so that was fortuitous as we are starting a Mission Prep class this month.

August 12th another Noche de Hogar in our home.  This time we invited a strong member family from Rama 2, the Cancela's and asked them to invite a non-member or less active family to come with them.  They just so happened to invite the family of Salome.  So we felt that was inspiration there.  And just like we hoped they noticed that only the mother attended church the following Sunday and not Salome.  So now, we need to teach them to then reach out to Salome and let her know they missed seeing her at church.  It's funny how ministering just doesn't seem to come natural to many of the members down here, but then again, I think that is a problem world-wide.

August 12th was the last p-day prior to transfers for the younger missionaries.  The sisters serving in Venado Tuerto have moved into an apartment right above us and we've gotten pretty tight with them.  They invited us to go to lunch with them to a small roadside Mexican restaurant (I think they only wanted to use our car more than anything) and we agreed as long as we could take them for a photo op.

 Glop is the name of the restaurant and the food is good!  Look at the size of the burrito Hna. Condie ordered.  She split it with her companion and this is only half of it!  We went with tacos.  Look how much filling they pile on to the taco shell.  You have to eat a bunch before you can even attempt to fold up the taco shell.

 Here is the photo op.... apparently Venado Tuerto's claim to fame is the world's biggest bicycle.  At least that is what the sign claims it to be.  How bizarre is that?  Do you see the bike seat lower down within reach of the pedals?  If you were to ride this sucker, that is where you would sit.

We visited our 72 year old new convert, Rosa, and she was literally in tears.  Her son-in-law had had a heart attack and he is only in his early 50's.  He had to have surgery and had a stent put in.  This took her daughter away to Rosario for some time (a lot of more serious medical treatment is done in Rosario.  The members are always traveling to Rosario for medical purposes).  This daughter is the one that helps her with laundry and shopping and Rosa was overwhelmed and feeling so alone.  The branch had just had a change in Relief Society presidency.  We offered to help her with her laundry and then called the missionaries and asked them to contact the ward leaders and get someone there asap.  We were so very pleased when we took her laundry back to her after a couple of days, she was in much better spirits and had had a visit from the new RS presidency.   It looked like they had done a bishop storehouse order as she was stocked with food.  That is probably the most food she has had at one time in a very long time.

August 13th we had our first Mission Prep class.  We had 8 of our 12 invited youth attend and we were told 2 more want to come but had last minute things come up.  We were thrilled to see such good participation.  We had prepared a lot.  We are asking one set of full-time missionaries to help us teach each week.  We had also brought refreshments, the fall back element every time.  But there was a great spirit there and the students spoke positively about the class when we finished.  If we can have a 50% completion rate we will consider it a success.  There are 15 lessons they have to hang in there for.  We told them all who complete the course will be invited to our home for a graduation dinner.  We are not above using bribery, ever!

Just so you know that not everyone down here lives in metal shacks I took some photos of nicer end homes here in Venado Tuerto when I was out on a walk the other day.

 There are a number of apartment buildings in town.  This is one of the smaller ones.  Some have as many as 10-12 floors.

 These homes are on the same street we live on.  We pass them as we walk to the chapel.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Kim B Clark "Look Unto Jesus Christ"  April 2019 General Conference, Priesthood session.

"Rivet is a great word.  It means to fasten firmly, to attract and hold completely.  We rivet our focus on Jesus Christ and His gospel by living our covenants.  When we live our covenants, they influence everything we say and do."

"These acts of covenant devotion open our hearts and minds to the redeeming power of the Savior and the sanctifying influence of the Holy Ghost.  Line upon line, the Savior changes our very nature.  We become more deeply converted unto Him and our covenants come alive in our hearts.  The promises we make to our Heavenly Father become rock-solid commitments, our deepest desires.  Our covenants cease to be rules we follow and become beloved principles that inspire and guide us and rivet our focus on Jesus Christ."

And the winner is....!

Second half of July starts out with another zone conference.  This time we met in the afternoon and into the evening.  We had the local priesthood leaders come for the last part as we were talking about how to better work with the members.

There were some interesting stats shared about convert retention.  The church conducted a survey of active members after they had been baptized a year.  They asked them to give the number one reason they had continued active in the church.  Here is where the surprise came in....(drum roll)

The number one reason given by these 1 year converts was they felt loved and cared for by the other members of their ward/branch.  This response was given by 52% of those surveyed.  Close behind it at 49% was the bishop/branch president cared about them and was interested in their welfare.  All the other reasons were well below these two.  Interestingly, responses to do with spiritual reasons or testimony were all below 10%.  Wow!  What an eye-opener.  But it did confirm what we have already learned here -- the members are crucial in keeping new converts active and that Venado Tuerto members need to do a much better job of showing love and support to new converts since the activation retention rate is only around 17% here.

If all we do is work with new converts and keep them coming to church while we are here and hopefully helping them develop stronger roots with the members and their testimony, we will have done some good.

Venado Tuerto Zone Conference July 16, 2019 back row L-R:  E. Cantero, E. Vergara, E. Fields, E. Topham, E. Christensen, E. Grahme, E. Pertuso, E. Scott, E. Morales (newbie from Paraguay)  Middle row L-R:  E. Castilla, E. Bryan, E. Galindo, E. Fuentes, E. Raven, E. Packer, E. Morales, E. Barrientos  Front row L-R:  Hna. Alvilez, Hna. Elos, los Rhoades, los Allreds, Hna. Condie, Hna. Martinez

Our district got together and did a service project for the recently baptized Ochoa family.  She wants to have a garden but knows nothing about how to go about doing that.  So we rounded up some shovels and used the muscle power of the elders one morning and tilled up a part of her backyard.  We are still in winter here but the seeds we have are for cooler crops and so we have started the seeds indoor so that by the time they are ready to be outside, the danger of frost will be gone.  We had some rainy days after prepping the soil, and we've been busy with our Talent Show activities so the seeds didn't get planted until a week later.  We left the two boys, Sergio 11 yrs old and Albano 9 years old in charge of watering them and bringing the seeds in for the night and taking them out in the morning.  We'll see how responsible they can be with them.

A lot of our time the rest of July was spent on Talent Show activities.  Rama 2 had their talent show on July 19th.  Here are some photos from their show.

 Rama 2 had the best participation with the exhibits of all the branches.  Look at all that baking!

 The drawing category had some great entrants.  I really liked the painting on the tennis shoes.  I think it would have potential as a side business.

 The young man who drew the horse won the drawing category.  He is only a priest but he has some talent!  Below are drawings that Perla (one of the new converts we've worked with) entered.  We didn't even know she had that talent!

Exhibition winners below:  Margarita Gomez in artesanias, Kayla in artesanias as well, Tomas Fresco in drawing/painting and his sister & Perla in drawing/painting as well.  Sister Nadalini in sewing, and Monica Riquelme, Isabel Pena in the cooking category.

Below are some photos from the performing acts.  Below, 2 sisters singing and that is a ukelele she is playing.

 Below one of the kids acts.  We loved her pink moon boots.  Right out of the Napoleon Dynamite dance style.

Elder Rhoades got roped into being part of an act with the district president.  Pres. Riquelme knows how to play the piano and his favorite song is a Paul McCartney number called, "Maybe I'm Amazed".  He said he needed someone to sing it with him and asked Elder Rhoades if he knew the song.  Being the Beatle fan that he is, he immediately started belting out the words.  There was no way backing out after that.  He was committed.

 She he decided they had to have a bit of costuming.  So we bought grey mop head and he attached them to some baseball caps.

He also made up a fake guitar to "play" while singing.  They didn't get much chance to practice so the presentation didn't go that well, but everyone was talking about the wigs.

It now sits in a place of honor in our home.

 The youth prepared a skit and dance about Peter Pan.  Above you can see Tinker Bell and Capt. Hook.  Below are photos of Wendy

 and Peter

 and they even brought a dog who was dressed as the crocodile.  It was pretty cute.

They of course won the favorite vote.  The youth sure had a fun time doing it.

Branch San Martin had their Talent Show on July 20th.  This branch we were the most nervous about, but they put on a great show.  Out of all the branches, they had the most kid acts.  Here are some photos from their activity.

One of the families in the San Martin branch are way into dancing.  The dad is a dance instructor.  So of course his kids did dances.  Above is a typical gaucho (their version of a cowboy) dance.

The Primay had also put  together a dance and it was done to The Token's song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".

Here is a photo showing the kid winners.  The boy on the left took 3rd with a short beat box talent.  Second place winner was the daughter of Pres. & Sister Roldan with a dance and then the Primary took first with the Lion Sleeps Tonight dance.  No surprise with that one.

 The youth had some great talent too.  Here is Fabricio Tapia and his dance partner Rut doing the tango, the famous Argentinia dance step.  Rut is a non-member.

Mirko Cabrera played his saxophone and he played "Bohemia Rhapsody"  He had a backtrack playing and he played the melody.  He did a great job and he is only 11 years old! 

This photo shows the winners of the youth category.  Third place were the two girls on the left.  They come from in-active families.

There were not many adult acts so this family dancing Hawaiian style was put into the adult category and took first place.  

The guy who won second place had an amazing singing voice.  He just wasn't very prepared with the lyrics.  Third place was a young adult who did card tricks,  right up Elder Rhoades' alley.

There was only one exhibition entrant and that was Sister Monsalvo with her cakes.  So of course she took first place.

Here is a photo of the elders assigned to San Martin giving their missionary message while the judges deliberated.  The one speaking in the photo, Elder Morales, is a newbie missionary and yet his part in the message was probably the most powerful.  He is going to be an awesome missionary!

With all the branch Talent Shows completed we were now ready to move on to the District Level, which was held July 27th.  This one was completely on our shoulders.  We had delegated out responsibilities to the young missionaries to head up their branch shows.  We of course provided guidance and direction and provided follow up and help, but they pretty much took charge.  But the district level show was our responsibility.  So the week leading up to it was pretty focused on preparing for that.  It was amazing how much communication had to be done with leaders, members, show entrants, etc.  Thank goodness most people use a free app called WhatsApp where you can text, voice message and call if needed, but it is mostly used for texting and voice messaging.

All the first place winners from each branch in each category were invited to participate in the district talent show.  The same format was followed but this was to determine who was the best in the district.  Some of our first place winners were not able to participate so second place winners were notified and invited to take their place.

Here is our show program for each category in the order they performed.

H.J and M.J. stand for "hombres jovenes" and "mujeres jovenes" which is the YM/YW of the branch.  It was fun to watch them work together and practice during the week.  A number of the acts had really upped their game and improved on their performance.

Here are photos of what was entered in the Arts & Crafts category.

And the winners showing off their ribbons.  (Bro. Bolano is standing in for his wife who took first place but couldn't be there)

Below are the entrants in the cooking category.  The cake below was designed to show the Buenos Aires temple.  A lot of work went into that.

 The other two entrants are shown below.

Below are the winners receiving their ribbons.  The pink and purple cake took first place, made by the beaming sister on the right in the photo below.  She was thrilled to have won.

Below are some of the drawing entrants.  

And the winners shown below.  Sister Silva on the left is standing in for her 10 year old daughter who was too embarrassed to go up in front of every one.  I was surprised that the young man took first instead of the older gentleman.  I would have gone the other way.

It looks like we missed getting photos of all the winners.  But below are the favorite acts winners.  Branch 1 took first place.

 Below are the winners of the youth category.  I was so happy for Tania to take first.  She had practiced a lot and improved her dance moves from the branch talent show.

While the judges deliberated, the full-time missionaries presented a skit of the Parable of the Talents.  It was fun to work with them and have them do this.  The members got a kick out of watching them and even cheered when the slothful servant was thrown into the "tinieblas" and cried and gnashed teeth. (Elder Bryan played the slothful servant and really got into his role).

The members had a great time.  It turned out to be a very successful activity.  The district president was very pleased with how it all went down so our  stock in the eyes of the members and leaders has gone up.  At the very least they now know the Rhoades really know how to throw a party!  And the moral of the story is, following inspiration and working your darndest guarantees that things always will turn out well.

Our newest inspiration is to start up a Missionary Prep class.  Apparently, they haven't held a mission prep class in the district for at least three years.  Well, no wonder not many youth are going out on a mission from this district!  We have identified a total of 14 young adults from the district we can invite to participate.  We've gotten the green light from the local leaders and have set the date for August 13th to start the course.  We will involve the full-time missionaries on a rotation basis to help us teach the class.  We are excited to get that started.

We are working with a new convert family that has a 14 year old boy who is struggling in his life.  He has taken to us, however, and is participating well in our lessons and is completing the Book of Mormon reading assignments we are giving him.  That is bound to bear fruit if he keeps that up.  We bribed him to read by promising him a reward if he read.  We decided to gift him a pack of cards and have Elder Rhoades teach him a magic trick with the cards.  We figured this would help build his self-esteem.  We'll see how that goes.

We have about half a dozen new converts that we are consistently visiting and teaching.  Each have their own set of challenges.  But we love them all and pray for them and hope that they can develop good roots and build solid testimonies.  Most of these new converts are part member families and we have a number of the non-members sitting in on our visits as well.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.  And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.  And likewise he that had receive two, he also gained other two.  But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money.  After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.  For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.  Matthew 25:14-19, 29