Christmas in Summer

The last half of December started off with transfers.

 This is one of my favorites group photos.  What a great group of missionaries!  Three of these we lost (Beird, Villatoro, Castilla) L-R: E. Fennegan, E. Beaird, E. Casteneda, E. Rhoades, E. Villatoro, E. Castia, E. Vergara

We continued December putting emphasis on Christmas and what it really means - the birth of our Savior.  We did this in a number of ways.
1- We continued to show the church movie - The Christ Child as often as we could.  We had our movie nights in the chapel.  We didn't get the swarms of people we had hoped for but the few that came, enjoyed the movie.  Showing it on the big screen in the chapel in the dark, really made it seem like a true movie experience.  Ok, so it probably wasn't as exciting as the new Star Wars movie, but it certainly touches the heart and soul that is open to the gospel message.
2- We had a special Christmas zone conference on Dec. 18th.  All the messages were centered around Jesus Christ.  President Allred had memorized the entire "The Living Christ" document - in Spanish, which is no easy feat.  The rest of the missionaries had memorized the entire thing, but as a district each missionary memorizing certain sections.

Pergamino district cites the Living Christ - they were "flojo" and hadn't memorized it.  Former V.T. missionaries were E. Packer (2nd on left) and E. Raven (last one on right)

We also had quite a few musical numbers.  I had worked with our zone to learn the Sally DeFord song, Born is the Light of the World.  We sang the Spanish version of the song.  Sister Allred's message to the missionaries was all about Christ being the light of the world so we dedicated our song to her.  Teaching missionaries to sing a musical number is not as easy as you would think.  First of all your practice time is limited and second of all many of the Latin missionaries are not gifted singers.  On top of that we had transfers two days before this zone conference and we got 5 new missionaries into the zone, but two of the missionaries we lost were our better singers!  So it wasn't spectacular, but you could feel the spirit as they sang, which is the goal.

Pergamino zone singing their musical number "Called to Serve" with words appropriate to the Rosario Argentina mission.  It was pretty cool.

Besides spiritual times, this zone conference we also took time to play together.  There was 9 square, soccer, ping-pong and a really fun game that involves chairs in a circle, a "couch", two teams, mixing up names, and a good memory.

 9 square is popular with the missionaries.  Even Pdte. Allred took some time to play.

 Soccer is always popular.

 An indoor lawn game of tic-tac-toe.

Elder Rhoades had his turn to be recognized for a birthday, along with two other sisters serving in Pergamino, E. Orquiz and Hna. Callapa from our zone.

 The lunch tables were decorated with a bit of Christmas cheer.

And Christmas packages were handed out to each and every missionary.  Some got packages from home, but everyone got a gift bag from Pres and Sister Allred, including us!

E. Cardenas with his package from his family in Mexico.  E. Vergara, his companion, is happy for him as well.  Probably knows he will share.

Hna. Callapa receives a Christmas greeting from Pres. Allred and Hna. Allred hands out the Christmas treat bag.

And of course we had the final testimonies of those that will finish up the mission this transfer, which actually won't happen until the end of January.  The first elder on the left is from the other zone so we don't know who he is, but then it is E. Delgado (who is anything but Delgado) and E. Orquiz on the other side of Pres. Allred.

The zone conference fell on our halfway mark as well.  In some ways it is hard to believe we are already halfway through the mission.  In other ways, it seems like we've been gone from home for a long time.

Venado Tuerto zone at our halfway mark.  Front row L-R:  Hna. Bueno, Hna. Ellsworth, Hna. Silva, Hna. Callapa, los Allreds, los Rhoades  Back row L-R:  E. Johns, E. Rowley, E. Lewis, E. Jensen, E. Christiansen, E. Casteneda, E. Grahme, E. Vergara, E. ?, E. Allen (who isn't really in our zone right now, he was photo bombing), E. Fennegan, E. Tiquillahuanca, E. Campos, E. Landvetter, E. Navarro, E. Bitter, E. Williams, E. Delgado, E. Ogilive, E. Faras, E. Orquiz

Dec 19th we finished up the first semester of Pathway with our group.  It turned out to be a crazy end of the semester, but we are really proud of how hard our students worked.  Most of our students passed the semester with high grades.  A few didn't but they were the ones that had life circumstances wreck havoc on their best laid plans.  They now get a two week break and on to semester 2.  We believe most of them plan to continue.  We think our drop out rate is much lower than the average between the 1st and 2nd semester.  We'll find out.

Here is what the lead student for the Pathway gathering prepared to wish E. Rhoades a Happy Birthday.

3-The church members here held a musical Christmas celebration on Dec 20th.  This was a BIG deal!  They headed it all up and organized everything.  We supported them and helped them but it was their show.  In true Argentine style, they started way later than the announced start time, and the program went long, and the attendance was sparse for a district activity, but those who participated and came enjoyed the event.

 Here is what the stage ended up looking like.  It was quite impressive.  The backdrop was a cloth painting done by one of the members, Ruben Bolano.

The program started off with a community choir in which one of the members participates.  They sang an entire concert on their own.  I'm not sure if the activity committee realized they would do so many numbers or not, but the choir was tickled to be there.

 They had to move up the missionary choir with the late start and the extended performance of the community choir, the missionaries curfew was looming, so they put us 4th in the program. Dave lead them and I played the piano.

There were a number of dance numbers by the YW.

 And there were singing groups.  Above is the YW choir and below is a male quartet, lead by Hna. Roldan

 One of my favorite parts was when the Roldan family performed.  Their oldest son played the piano and the rest of them sang.  Their daughter was nervous but thrilled to be part of the show.

They ended the show with a reenactment of the nativity story.

Narrators

Angel appearing to Mary

Joseph and Mary

the baby Jesus

Angel appearing to shepherds

The 3 wise men visit the young child Jesus

Here is how we decorated up our apartment for Christmas.  It's pretty lame, but it was better than nothing.

We did have a string of lights up as well that worked with a battery pack.  We just didn't remember to turn it on very often.  Christmas is not celebrated here much, not in the way we do it back home.  It really is more of a family get together day than anything else.  If you ever wanted to know what Christmas would be like in the middle of summer, we now know.  They celebrate by doing BBQ's or asados as they like to call them.

This is at the familia Sanchez home on Christmas Eve.  You can't get more Argentine than this.

Christmas Eve is the big event.  With special family dinners, staying up until midnight to put the baby Jesus in the creche to represent his birth and then opening presents up in the middle of the night.  The party continues for some time, with some staying up all night and then going to bed at 4 or 5 am.  

The stores all had a lot of summer type of items for sale like pools and bikes.  The next few days after Christmas we saw a lot of new bikes being ridden around town.  And we've been hearing a lot more splashing and kids shouting as they enjoy their pools.

We spent the early evening delivering watermelons to families we know and visit and wishing them a Feliz Navidad.  

Toby Alvarez with his family's "baby Jesus" watermelon

At one place we found them preparing their Christmas Eve dinner, lechon.

Cesar Monsalvo oversees the preparations of two of the three lechones they were preparing to eat that evening.  Lechon is the typical food item for Christmas.  Either cooked as an asado or in the oven like the Monsalvos are doing.  Head, hooves and all.  Buen Provecho!

In the evening we spent it between two members homes, the Taverna family, (but we left their home before the food even got served) and then Louisa and Bruno's home.  They had gone to a lot of trouble fixing a number of fancy food items for us to eat.

Bruno brought out many of his chef specialties for the meal apparently.

Bruno had prepared creme broulee, something I had never eaten before, so that was a new experience.

 Above he torches the brown sugar on top of the dessert.

Christmas Eve 2019 - Venado Tuerto, Argentina

The Argentine's toast at midnight and wish each other Feliz Navidad.  We ended up getting home at 1:30 am!  Good thing the mission rules are not the same for couples as they are for the younger missionaries.  Or maybe it would have been better if they were.  We still had things to prepare for the next day so we went to bed at 2:30 am!  Yikes! 

The full-time missionaries are not allowed to go out and proselyte on Christmas Day so most of the time they are relegated to their apartments with nothing to do.  We said that just won't do so we hosted a zone Christmas activity.  We all came together at 9:30 am.  The whole mission was supposed to have read the Book of Mormon by Christmas morning and at 9:00 am all kneel down at the same time and pray and follow Moroni's invitation in Moroni 10:3-5.

Christmas Day turned out to be a cooler day, in the low 70's and we had some rain so not a lot of outdoor soccer was played, but we had the ping-pong table up 

and we brought our fooseball table to the church for the missionaries to play 

and we had brought Yahtzee and Phase 10 cards.  

We also had a sub for Santa project.  Each companionship filled a box with pre-bought items after decorating the box with wrapping paper and then were asked to deliver it to a needy family in their area under the guidance of the spirit.  As we visit, we certainly learn of some pretty humble circumstances and for a minimal amount of money (about $18 US) we were able to fill a good size box with lots of basics (flour, pasta, sugar, crackers, eggs, tomato sauce, drink mixes, dulce de leche etc.) and a few holiday items (candies, nuts, Sprite)

One of the gift boxes filled and ready to be delivered.

We served them a lunch of taco salad and watermelon with arroz con leche for dessert.

 Buffet Table

E. Johns enjoying his meal

L around the table:  E. Fennegan, E. Williams, E. Bitter, E. Rowley

They used the family history center computers to visit with family throughout the afternoon and then we finished up with a white elephant gift exchange game which turned out really fun

 and a spiritual slide show of the Provo MTC murals.  All the missionaries serving here in Argentina go to the Brazil or before to the Buenos Aires MTC (B.A. has now been closed down).  So they never had the chance to see this amazing murals that are in the new Provo MTC building.  We took photos of all of them while we were there, knowing they would make an amazing presentation and this was the first chance we had to use them.  Here are a few examples of murals.

 Sons of Mosiah going to preach to the Lamanites

The Red Sea parting to allow the Israelites to cross

Martha 

It ended up being an all day affair.  We thought we would be done by 2 pm but it was 7 pm or so by the time we finished up.  The missionaries really enjoyed themselves and were grateful they hadn't had to sit at home all day with nothing to do.  We were exhausted the next couple of days.  It had been a lot of work to prepare and do everything.  Plus our bodies don't handle this staying up late stuff we had to do on Christmas Eve anymore.  

We did teach a member (Nadalini family) who has a fast food/take out business how to make sloppy joes thinking they might want to use that as one of the items they rotate into their menu from time to time.

The last Sunday of the year, the husband/father of a member family passed away after struggling with cancer for some time.  He was not a member but the rest of the family are.  He was the same age as E. Rhoades.  Here they do not wait long before burying someone.  They hold a "velorio" which is where the body lies in a casket and family and friends come and pay their respects, offer condolences to the family and offer prayers on behalf of the deceased.  This is usually held the same day or the next day once a person passes, and then they are buried, usually within 48 hours of dying.  We have not seen a "funeral" as we know it here.  We were notified of his passing at church so we took time to go to the velorio on our way home from church.

2019 went out with a bang here in Argentina!  I'm not talking about fireworks as they are outlawed in Venado Tuerto.  I'm talking about a downpour of rain and flooding like we've never seen and a day to remember.

The missionaries were trying to get together for their district training meeting when the downpour hit.  The water came down so fast that the streets were flooded in a lot of areas.  The sisters that had come in from Murphy were stranded at the bus station as the taxis were refusing to go out.  They called us and E. Rhoades, mistakenly, agreed to go get them.  We had no idea how bad the roads were.  We learned first hand why the taxis were refusing to go out.  The streets had turned into rivers and lakes.

 Estruguman, one of the streets on the way to the bus terminal

 Above shows how high the water was, up to the running board of the cars

The photo above is our street, Junin at the corner of Chacabuco (about 5 blocks from our house)

Many streets were cordoned off to avoid cars getting stranded like this one below.

After taking this photo of the man pushing his car out of the water filled street, we were in the exact same boat.  Our car started to float as the water was too deep for the car to gain traction and our motor got flooded and stopped working.  Hna. Callapa and Hna. Rhoades had high rubber boots on so they got out of the car and pushed while E. Rhoades steered the car to higher ground.  The water was so high that it flooded into the boots and the rain was coming down so hard that within minutes the sisters were drenched.  Thank goodness it was a warm rain.  We even had about 4 inches of water inside of the car.  The floorboards were puddles, both in front and in back.

Once we got the car to higher ground, and were able to sit for awhile to let the motor dry out, we were able to start the car up again and get ourselves back to the chapel.  We were able to participate in the district meeting, which the topic was Hope and How to Combat Discouragement.  Seemed a bit appropriate for what was going on that morning.

Many people's homes were flooded and some even had to be evacuated.  What an experience!  We are sure we are not going to forget this day whenever we look back on our mission experience here.

We drove into Rosario to spend New Year's Eve with our friends the Garretts.  The ride in was lovely as none of the big trucks were on the road and we were able to make good time.  We learned, however, that everything closes down on New Year's Eve and Day.  We had hoped to go out to dinner and then go see the new Star Wars movie, but absolutely nothing was open.  It is definitely a time for family and friends to get together.  Luckily the Garrets had plenty of food at home and they have a swimming pool at their apartment complex.  The sisters took a dip that was extremely refreshing!

We played a bit of Uno, and did a lot of visiting.  We made it to midnight and listened to the fireworks going off.  Bring on 2020!

Spiritual Thought:  Matthew 5:48  "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."  A lofty goal, but one that is easy to feel impossible to reach.  However, as we finished reading the Book of Mormon right before Christmas, Moroni 10:32 took on a new meaning, it provides the key to how to reach the goal to be perfect.  "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ..."  Deny yourselves of all ungodliness is to repent and keep the commandments.  Love God with all your might, mind and strength is to serve him and keep his commandments.  Doing those two things allows the atonement of Jesus Christ (grace) to be sufficient and His atoning power comes into play in our lives and will make us "perfect".  Hallelujah!!