4-25-16

Hello! Here I am in Eberetta Argentina.  I'm currently sitting on top of an air conditioner outside and it's nice and.....oh no I just got bird poop on my pants.  I'm sitting outside and it's nice and cold.  There's a big storm and it's cooled down.  3 days ago I was walking down the main road, preaching the gospel and then I saw this white stuff right in front of my face and then I looked down on my tie and it was bird poop.  Crappy hahaha.  Another good week, I didn't even step foot in my area until Thursday, we had a division.  Some Elders here in Iberetta were having baptisms and I'm district leader so I had to interview them.  That was really fun, we walked a ton.  The 2 people that got baptized were actually Indians.  There's Indian tribes in this part of Argentina and they live 45 minutes from the city.  It would be walking the road from our house past the hospital to Salem, nice and long on a dirt road.  They have a little church there so that was fun. 

Wednesday we received some bad news that G passed away.  He'd been sick for 2-3 weeks and he had an appendicitis and he couldn't recover from it.  He was only 22.  The week he got sick was the same week that he was going to get married which is really sad but I guess that's how it was supposed to be.  N (his girlfriend) disappeared, we heard that she went to a different providence called San Luis.  That was really sad but we know that Jesus Christ overcame death.  

We did some service this week, we went over to a less active member and we painted her daughter's room.  We put the first coat on and we'll put the next coat on this week.  It's cold here 55 degrees.  We were talking with some other Elders from Utah and when it's 55 degrees outside people are outside in shorts and sun tanning but here it feels cold.

We had a really good week.  This week we worked a lot.  We are working hard with Alfredo.  We found some new people name Sand V, they are sweet, they always give us food.  We went to some member and taught them.  Dora and Catalina are doing good,  Dora is going to get baptized in 3 weeks.  She wants to get baptized the same week as her birthday so we can't tell her no.  We're also working with this guy name Arion, he had us over for a BBQ yesterday.  The work is good, I really do love it and I love you guys too.

4-18-16

Just so you guys know I've been trying to record this for 20 minutes and having technical difficulties so you guys are lucky that I love you because this is the fourth time I've recorded and my patience is being tried.  Just kidding anyway here we are again, Monday was my birthday, 20 years old.  The grey hairs are coming in and I'm starting to bald a little bit.  Not really, just kidding! 

For my birthday we wrote home and some members gave us lunch, we had empanadas.  In the afternoon was a short nap.  Elder Carrizales gave me a jersey, I bought myself a corbota and some other members gave me a shirt so it was actually a sweet birthday.  Last year  I had a baptism on my birthday so that's hard to compare.  Tuesday was Eli's birthday so happy birthday Eli I hope you had a great birthday.  I hope you love being 11.  Eli probably has gray hair and balding.  Probably has chest hair, gross!  Just kidding Eli.  Really I hope you had a great birthday.

Tuesday was  my companions birthday so we partied hard and taught the gospel.  Wednesday we had interview with President Franco so we went clear to Formosa capital.  We went in this van that hardly had room for my knees and we left at 5AM.  But that's OK it's all good and it was fun.  Saturday our group leader called us because his wife had to get her gall bladder taken out and he thought she'd be out of the hospital but she is still in the hospital in another town for 2 weeks.    He called because he wasn't going to be home and we couldn't have church at his house.  We had to ask some other members to let us borrow their yard for church.  We had church under a tree in their yard in the shade.  It was actually really fun.  We had to find all the chairs possible and made benches out of some old tires and some wood.  We had 19 people come to church and 3 investigators.  It was actually very successful  even though it was very impromptu it turned out very well.  While I was giving my talk a guy pulled out a chain saw and started cutting down a tree.  What are you going to do?  I just spoke really loud.  Luckily he didn't cut too much.

This week we found a lot of great people, some very prepared people.  We found a girl named E and also found a guy named S and his girlfriend.  I'm really excited  that we get to teach them and hopefully baptize them.  I've been thinking I need to baptize these people before I go home.  I really hope I finish my mission here in Los Lomitas.  I just like it so much, even though it's really hot here, I just love it.

That's it for the work.  This last 3 weeks has been a little rough, random things have happened that are out of our control but my companion and I are just learning to trust in the Lord's timing.  We realize that it's all in his hands.  We work hard every week so these people can get baptized but it's up to them and it's up to the Lord.  I've learned to trust Him a little more because sometimes there's nothing else you can do but wait patiently.

I love you guys tons, I hope you have a great week, bye!

4-11-16 Tanner's 20th Birthday

So yup I'm 20.... I guess...... i don't feel like I'm 20 at all.  I got myself a birthday present.   I asked this guy that works with crocodile leather to make dad  and I  some matching crocodile belts. I figure it should really help with the intimidation factor when dad is interviewing  prospective missionaries ;)  People say that there are lots of crocodiles here but I honestly haven't seen any.. we met another guy that works with snake and crocodile leather and he just gets all his leather from the road kill he finds.

I'm doing good. I'm not going to lie the end is harder than I thought it was going to be. I just don't like being idle... because that's when i start thinking about how... I just like being out in the street working because there is trouble free... But I'm doing good. The investigators are all doing great, although we are not having tons of baptism we have been able to help a lot of people get to know the church and with time they will be baptized...

I'm just happy as can be.  Tomorrow is my companions birthday and we are going to go up to Ibarreta and we might go to a restaurant or have a barbecue or something like that.. But today like 6 people invited us over to eat food for my birthday sooooo we are just going to stuff ourselves with food.

Love you and talk to you next week.

4-4-16

Hello, how is it going?  I hope Puerto Rico is as fun as the pictures look and I hope Utah is fun I hope that spring break is fun for everyone.  I'll be here enjoying the Las Lomitas sun and the investigators.  It's much better that Utah or Puerto Rico!  We had some divisions this week.  I went on divisions with Elder Henderson from Provo Utah.  We did a baptismal interview for Norma.  It went good, she passed the interview.  What happened is we didn't have the baptism because she didn't get married.  We had messed up on the papers.  The civil register told us to come back on Friday to get married but it turned out we had to come back on Friday for an appointment for them to get married.  Hopefully the marriage will be Wednesday or Thursday this week and the baptism this week.  No drama here.

My companion got sick but he's better now.  We stayed in the pension Friday.  An Elder had a book called the Infinite Atonement by Elder Callister.  It's really good so I stayed in the pension all day and read about the atonement of Jesus Christ which is always sweet.  Saturday we were pumped for conference.  About a month ago we had called a member to come and fix our satellite in Las Lomitas so we could watch general conference.  As everyone does, even I am guilty the member procrastinated until Saturday morning at 1AM and he couldn't find the signal.  He left without telling us that he couldn't find the signal.  So we got to the house about 12:45 and I'd bought some candy and had my notebook ready for conference.  We show up and tried setting it up and it didn't work so we called the Hermano to see if there was a secret to get it to work.  And he told us it didn't work.  So we sadly walked back to our pension.  It was really sad to know conference was going on and we couldn't even watch it.  Plus this whole time we have problems with our phone.  For some reason for 2 or 3 days at a time we don't have signal.  So we have no communication at times with anyone.  We used a member phone to call our zone leaders and let them know and they told us to come to Iberetta so we got on a bus to Iberetta and we got there in time for the priesthood session.  We stayed overnight and watched all the sessions Sunday which were really good.  We're just going to download the sessions from Saturday so we can watch and also all the members can watch.

That was the adventure this week.  In Las Lomitas even though they couldn't watch conference they had a normal sacrament meeting and we had 5 investigators show up even though we weren't there.  Alfredo went to church for the first time and is progressing good.  Another lady we don't really know showed up.  She's a family member of a member so we are going to teach her.  The work is going really good.  We found another possibility for a church, we just have to go take some pictures of it.

Today is really hot again, nothing new there.  I cut my hair.  Anyway that it is about it from Iberetta Argentina on this fourth of April.  My birthday is next week and Eli's birthday is next week.  I hope you have a big cake for me.  Love you guys, have a great week in Puerto Rico and Utah.

3-29-16

Easter was fabulous, definitely centered on Jesus Christ.   It was a very special Easter and was soooo easy to testify of Jesus Christ and it was always powerful, definately an Easter to remember.  I'm still in Las Lomitas with Elder Carrizales and we're going to watch conference in the house of a member family in Spanish so that should be a party.

Small world that you got to meet Elder Heaton.

 I'm just chillin here in the secretary office writing home.   Lessons are going good here. N, if everything goes as planned will be baptized this Saturday, pray lots cause everything has to go well with the marriage.

The weather has been pretty nice but it's starting to heat up again.  I have to admit that it is a relief that I won't have to spend another summer here in Argentina.  It was a good experience while it's lasted but soooo hot.  Fall officially started here about 2 weeks ago.  I'm so glad that nothing changed this transfer, I'm hoping to finish her, I really like Las Lomitas.    I'm just going to do my best while I'm here,  I really like this last home stretch because I just feel so excited for the future.

3-21-16

Hello family how is it going?  What's up, another week, it's very rainy here in Iberetta.  Last p-day the Elders called and said President Franco is going to come to church in your area next Sunday.  We don't have very many chairs at church so we decided we'd take 9 chairs from Iberetta to Las Lomitas.  We strapped 3 sets of 3 chairs with tape and we carried them back to the pension.  We walked about a half a mile with chairs on our head, and it was hot!  We spent the night at district meeting and then after the meetings, about 2:30 in the afternoon, we took the chairs up to the terminal.  We are already weird enough being white missionaries in Argentina and now we are walking around with chairs on our heads because that's the only way we had to carry them.  We get to the bus stop and they'd blocked the highway.  What happens when people get mad here and they want the government to take action the people will close down the main highways so no one can get by until they get what they want.  Last week they'd done this so the highway was shut down so we couldn't get back to Las Lomitas.  So we stayed Tuesday and worked here and then Wednesday morning we went back to Las Lomitas and took the chairs with us. 

You probably saw the pictures of the cow.  There was a girl having her Quinceanera party when she turns 15.  Her family had bought a whole cow and they were cutting it up for a BBQ.  

Saturday it rained so President Franco couldn't come to the meetings on Sunday.  So sadly he didn't come but hopefully he'll come next month.

The church building that we found has been rented to someone else.  We told President and he wasn't very happy but we'll start looking for another one and we'll see what happens.

This week we found a new couple named M and A.  M is a member and A is the son of some less active people.  A is gold, the first lesson he accepted a baptismal date and he's solid.  We are still teaching G and N.  They gave us their ID and tomorrow when we go to Formosa, because of my ingrown toenail, we'll take their IDs and get their birth certificates so they can get married, maybe in a couple of weeks.  D and C are doing good, D accepted a baptismal date for the beginning of May, kind of far but that's what she wanted.  C still needs to get married.  After that we are talking to R who also accepted a baptismal date.

That's about it, love you guys.  Have a great week, Ciao.