Monday, April 29, 2013

Apartment shopping and prosciliting


Querido familia,                           29 de Abril 2013

Last Monday we were looking for a new apartment and we ended up finding a small office where a guy works that owns three and rents them out. We found him because we just happened to stumble across one of his apartments and the neighbor told us where his office was. Well, the apartment that we saw was pretty bad, but it had internet and cable for free, so we'll have to think about that one.

When we found this guy, Julio Schefer, he started telling us about his apartments and what they're like, but didn't really have anything that would work for us. Well then he asked what it is that we teach and so we got started on a discussion about that. We should have known better than to start talking about it with him because it became apparent that he only wanted to argue; even though he was wrong. 

We didn't really get a chance to say much because he would always cut us off or just start talking louder if we keep talking. So what ended up happening was we would share a little bit of doctrine and he would rant for ten minutes about something that he didn't understand. The only thing that he really understood was that faith is necessary. At one point he asked when we honored the Sabbath Day and when we said Sunday he said that Sabbath on Sunday is apostasy created by the Catholic church (he bashed the Catholic church quite a bit during our discussion). When I explained to him that the Sabbath Day was changed from Saturday to Sunday in honor of Christ's ascension into heaven and that, starting in Acts, the Apostles took the Sacrament on Sunday he told me that, "that is blasphemy before the Holy Ghost!" Some of the other things he said that were kind of unbelievable include: "You can't be happy in this life," "God does not desire that we are happy," and "Satan has love for all men." 

We didn't bother Bible bashing with him because that doesn't help at all, it just makes him look dumb and proves us right, but rather we just tried sharing some simple doctrines with him. After a time, we were ready to go and when we left we thanked him for his time and help with the apartment search and he then said, "Don't worry about it; it was all for you. You're young and on the right path. Just don't follow after any man."

On Tuesday, we had a zone meeting with all the Elders from Paso de Los Libres, Curuzú Cuatiá, and Mercedes and after it was over I went on splits with Elder Medrano, from Buenos Aires, and I stayed in Paso de Los Libres with him for a couple days.

There is a lady that we've been teaching, or more accurately, that we've been trying to teach named Nelida. She is always traveling to Corrientes to visit her daughter who has been sick, so it's really hard to get together with her. We're going to give her a Liahona to read during the bus rides because the Liahona always has good messages. So the other day we went to teach her and two of of her daughters, Alejandra and Noemi, that live here in Mercedes were there with her. So we sat down with them, but mostly just with Noemi because Alejandra kept chasing after her baby. SO Noemi started to ask some questions about The United States and then started talking about how she wants to go there, so I started asking her even more questions about what were teaching to try to change her focus. Elder Rivera wanted to try another route however and said, "If you want to go to the Unite States, you would need to marry an American so that you can stay there." Afterwards he said that his purpose was to make her want to have us over more often so that we could teach her and get her baptized.

On Sunday, the Sunday school teacher, Omar, was teaching from the talk President Uchtdorf gave titled, "Of Regrets and Resolutions." During his lesson I was surprised and impressed to see him work a quote from a Batman movie that actually worked well with the lesson. The quote was when Bruce fell in the well in Batman Begins and when he gets pulled out his dad asks him, "Do you know why we fall down? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up."

Last night we found ourselves with these two brothers, Antonio and Agustin.  We started talking to Agustin because he was in the front yard and then his brother came out and told us that he doesn't believe in God because their mom died eight months ago and their dad died three months ago. So we started talking about the Plan of Salvation and they invited us in to talk some more. Neither one of them had much education in the Bible or anything about God really, so we started off by teaching them the basics: God is our loving Father in Heaven and He sent us His Son Jesus Christ and if we follow His Son we can live together with our families forever, even after death. Agustin was very receptive to what we said, but Antonio is still a little hardened, or maybe just a little bitter. Agustin said that he would be baptized on the eighteenth of May, so we left him with the assignment to pray to be prepared for his baptism and to help his brother. Antonio still isn't sure, so we left him with the task of praying just to gain a knowledge of his Creator.

Saturday night was our branch night for the members, but only the youth came out this time; which is good because they were in charge of the activity. It all turned out well though; we talked, played games, and ate store bought cookies. Three of the youth put on a video called Pollito Pio, supposedly a very popular video in Italian, and did a dance to go with it. We filmed it, but I don't think I'll be able to send it; the Internet is just too slow here.

But that was our week, so now I'll be starting the second half of my mission. My only fear is that it is going to feel very cold there when I get back.

os amo,
Elder Burt

-- 
Elder Joshua Burt
Argentina Resistencia Mission
Entre Rios 435
HP3500AKE Resistencia
Resistencia
Chaco
Argentina
[Mission Office]

Monday, April 22, 2013

Shortest calling in history


Querido familia,                             22 de Abril 2013
Elder Lopez, Elder Rivera, Elder Burt and Elder Humphries
Last Tuesday saw me going back to my old area of Curuzú to be companions temporarily with Elder Humphries again. Tuesday morning, Elder Rivera and I caught a bus that dropped us off Curuzú just in time for lunch. So because we were in the area of Elder Humphries and his new companion, Elder Lopez, they had the honors of making lunch for us. That's what the picture I sent earlier was; the lunch we had was some meat cooked on the stove top with noodles. Next time we get together, however, Elder Humphries wants us to all to meet up earlier and have time to make an asado for lunch.
Later that evening, Elder Humphries and I went to visit the Villaba family that had dinner prepared for us, but they didn't know that it was me who was coming, so they were pretty surprised when I walked in the door. For dinner we ate ham and cheese empanadas and Sister Villaba's daughters kept trying to get Elder Humphries to sing.

The next night, Elder Humphries wanted to make torta frita, which is basically a thin scone that they eat here, but they just have it plain without honey or jam. So he started making the dough while I was in another room and then called for help, asking me, "Is it supposed to look like this?" The answer was a "no." He ended up putting far too much water in and didn't have any more flour and was then left with a runny batter. Not wanting to fail, he tried again the next night and, under my supervision, had much more success. 

When Friday morning arrived, our transfer came to an end and we took the bus back to Mercedes to met up with Elder Rivera and Elder Lopez

This Saturday was our first branch activity and in preparation for it, Elder Rivera and I spent all last week giving out invitations to members as well as to everyone that we taught. When Saturday arrived we only had five people show up; seven if you include Elder Rivera and I. Nevertheless, everyone had a really good time anyway. We started off by watching a video from the church about a man whose family was hit by a drunk driver and the wife and one son died in the crash. The driver of the other car couldn't have been more than twenty-one and was already looking at a long time in jail. however, the man who had lost his wife and son actually went and visited with him and got release time to be with him in private and forgave him for what happened. The whole video is just a short documentary about their two experiences. After that, we played the telephone game where you have to pass a word along and see if it ends up being a different word at the end. We then played a game where you have two scarfs and everyone seated in a circle. One scarf has to be tied twice before being passed and the other only once. If you get stuck with both scarves at the same time then you have to do something. I ended up having them both and they made me do a dance called "the horse." One of the youth that came, Lucas, recorded it and it turns out that I can do "the horse" pretty well.

One of the people who came to the activity is named Ivan and he is someone that we're working with to get him baptized. So far, he doesn't any real issues that need correcting and just needs to commit himself to being at church on Sunday more than anything. Right now, he is living in a house made of plastic panels and branches that he built, but he has all the materials to build a brick and concrete house. So we're going to rally as many members as we can and get the tools we need to help him build his house. We even have a box of green safety vests that say "The Hands That Help," which is the world-wide service program of the Church.

What was really funny was yesterday when we went to visit him. He was asking us a bunch of questions about dating in the church and if it's ok for the members to date and so on. Well it was obvious who he was thinking of because it was one of the girls that came to the activity the night before. We thought he was acting a little funny. So now we'


re wondering if it would be a good thing or a bad thing to have this girl come with us to teach him. The goal with this approach would be more of a "flirt to convert" strategy, but he has to get started somehow.

We also found someone to be the local leader of the branch. So yesterday, the district president came to our branch from Paso de Los Libres to give him his final interview before being sustained in sacrament meeting. After church was over, Elder River, President Dos Santos, the district president, and his counselor, and I set him, Roberto Baldovino, apart as the branch president. So my calling as branch president was extremely short, but now we have a local leader, which is always better than having a missionary.

os amo,
Elder Burt  

-- 
Elder Joshua Burt
Argentina Resistencia Mission
Entre Rios 435
HP3500AKE Resistencia
Resistencia
Chaco
Argentina
[Mission Office]

Monday, April 15, 2013

Jsoh is the new Branch President!

Querido familia,          16 de Abril 2013

So this week I did get into a new apartment, but not in the way I expected it to happen. I ended up being transferred to another area, but in the same zone and Elder Humphries stayed in Curuzú to train a new missionary from Mexico. Now I am in a a city called Mercedes, just an hour and twenty minute bus ride from Curuzú. So I will still be with Elder Humphries from time to time when we have exchanges, the first of which will be tomorrow and I'll be going back to that area after less than a week.

I think I mentioned something about one of the sisters in the branch in Curuzú that was always complaining and asking when a latino elder was going to come. Well once Elder Humphrie's companion arrived this particular sister invited them over for lunch. I thought that that was pretty funny and poignant racism.

I my new area I am companions with Elder Rivera. I've mentioned him a little bit before; he was Justin's roommate in the MTC in Peru. We've been working well together and have been sitting down with a lot of people. There is already one person who is close to baptism, but we're going to see what happens with him. His name is Christian and he has been taught for the last three months and almost got baptized, but couldn't because he drank a few days before. He is sixteen by the way. Now the plan to have his baptism this Saturday if he has stopped drinking all together. 

Also in this new area, I am the president of the branch and Elder Rivera is my second counselor. It shouldn't be anything too new; we basically ran the branch by ourselves in Reconquista, especially towards the end of my time there when the branch president stopped coming to church all together. The biggest difference now would be that I am the one who has to give people their interviews and assign callings. The only thing that would troubling or difficult would be arriving at a point at which I would have to determine someone's worthiness. Luckily if anything serious comes up a branch president isn't actually allowed to take disciplinary action without the mission president, so President Heyman will be overseeing things like that. My first counselor is named Felix and he is a really cool guy. He can't speak or hear, but he can read and was baptized not too long ago. He has to do all his communication through his own version of sign language because he doesn't know how to do signs, but even then he still comes to all the meetings on Sunday just to be there and participate as much as he can by reading and also passing the sacrament.

I don't know too many of the members already, even the ones that came to church yesterday an I'm still trying to get to know, but the members seem pretty solid here. One thing I may do here soon is start finding callings for people so that they can receive the blessings that come from serving others. 

Something the branch doesn't have here is activities, so we're going to start to hold weekly activities every Saturday night for the whole family. Hopefully it will bring some members who are less active back into the church and unite the branch a little more. So we made and printed off a bunch of invitations and gave them to the members and told them to invite people and we're also inviting everyone that we teach to come and participate so that they can get to know the members in a relaxed setting and they can see that we're not boring, but actually good company.

Today while we were in the apartment during the siesta, Elder Rivera wrote down a short song about a missionary that got a "Dear John" in the mission and how the girl married the Elder's best friend and she didn't say anything until the week of the wedding. He then titled it, "Mi Querido Cristofer" (My Dear Christopher). So then we called Elder Humphries and sang it for him and he was only mildly amused, but we're pretty sure that he recorded it with his camera. He wants us to refocus our efforts into how he can get a girl to fall for him.

os amo,
Elder Burt

-- 
Elder Joshua Burt
Argentina Resistencia Mission
Entre Rios 435
HP3500AKE Resistencia
Resistencia
Chaco
Argentina
[Mission Office]

Monday, April 8, 2013

Mission Conference photos


Querido familia,                          8 de Abril 2013
This is a photo of the entire mission during the mission conference. I am on the left on the end. 


Last week I related the experience that we had with Elder Taylor and his shenanigans and the troubles and problems that ensued. Well, we went to the city of Mercedes last week for a meeting as a district and it turns out that the same thing happened there as well. Elder Taylor went to meet with their investigators and as a result, lost one of them and almost lost a second. Elder Rivera also told me that they went to go try to contact some previous investigators, because Elder Taylor was out to baptize basically anybody that said yes that day, when they found themselves at the home of this lady who had previously been going to church, but lost interest. Well,the daughter came outside and said that her mom wasn't home even though it was apparent that her mom really was home. That is something that happens all the time here; the parents send their young kids out to lie to whoever is at the door instead of actually talking to them themselves. So, Elder Rivera related that Elder Taylor began to yell loud enough for the mom to hear him from inside the house as he said, "It's not alright to teach your kids to lie. Repent!", and repeated that several times before leaving. So everyone in the zone is pretty upset with him and he will probably be leaving to another area on Wednesday where he won't have a leadership position.
As part of our preparations for the General Conference, Elder Humphries and I borrowed some buzzers from a member to do haircuts. However, we don't have a mirror in the apartment, so we cut each other's hair. I was careful and took my time as I cut his hair in order to make sure that if he didn't like the finished look there would still be length to make adjustments. However, he wanted it much shorter than I left it and when I asked him how much shorter he took the buzzers and ran it flat against his head with a three setting and said, "that short." Well, that was easy enough to do. However, I didn't want a buzz, so I gave Elder Humphries very specific instructions and then sat still and waited. I think handing the clippers to your companion who has no hair cutting training whatsoever is probably one of the biggest signs of trust and largest steps of faith that one can take, but it turned out fine in the end.

Normally we would watch the general conference in the stake center, but from where we are it is a two hour bus ride away and wouldn't be effective to go there to watch it. We couldn't watch it in the chapel either because from there we would have to watch it online and the internet isn't fast enough to run the stream. So, the branch president invited the branch to come to his house to watch it because he had space for everyone and internet that worked well enough. So, we helped him set up his laptop to his tv and get everything set up for the viewing.

Once it actually came time to watch, however, no one came. None of the members nor any of the non-members that we invited. We assumed that maybe some that had internet we able to watch in their house, but there were still plenty more that just didn't make the effort to come. Because of this, our branch president said, "It looks like everyone would rather come to the chapel on Sunday to listen to me, rather than come to listen to the prophet." His calling may be going to his head a little. We had just one member come to one of the first three sessions, but we had three plus two kids that were in the final session. We didn't get to watch the Priesthood session because it started at nine o'clock here and we didn't want to be going to bed at twelve, so we're going to download it and listen to it later.

The last time we had the general conference, Elder Clark and I were able to watch it in English, however that option wasn't available to Elder Humphries and I this time around. I was really quite interesting to hear the talks in Spanish. Although there are a few Apostles and general authorities that can speak Spanish, only Elder Scott recorded his in Spanish. I didn't have trouble understanding anything and I think it actually helped my Spanish a lot to be able to learn some new words and listen to how the speakers would pronounce things.

At the end of the day yesterday we had a stroke of luck. One of the members, Juan, we have here is a recent convert of seventeen years and his younger brother, Vicente, who is eleven. Well, Juan and Vicente both were baptized, but their parents were not. The mom was almost baptized and received some of the lessons, but in the end said that she couldn't because she had to stay true to her catholic parents who have already passed on. When she was listening to the missionaries, she actually quit smoking and hasn't returned back to it since, but now she wants to quit drinking. So she told us that when she decided to quit smoking, the Elders gave her a blessing and from that time she had no trouble kicking the habit. So, we gave her a blessing to quit drinking and we are going to start the teaching process again with her and see if she will be ready for baptism this time around. During our visit with her last night, she talked about how she wants to live long enough to see her youngest son get married and have kids, so we talked a little bit about how living the word of wisdom will help her to accomplish that, but even more than that it will be the first steps to having an eternal family where she can not only see the future generations. but live with them forever in a state of never ending happiness.

This Wednesday is transfers, but I don't think either Elder Humphries nor me will be going anywhere; except maybe a nice, larger apartment next week.

os amo,
Elder Burt

-- 

Elder Joshua Burt
Argentina Resistencia Mission
Entre Rios 435
HP3500AKE Resistencia
Resistencia
Chaco
Argentina
[Mission Office]

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Querido familia,                     Primero de Abril 2013

So last week I talked a bit about this crazy plan devised by our zone leaders. They wanted to squeeze as many baptisms in this month as they could, so they went on a trip to visit all the companionships in their areas and then interviewed all the people they were teaching and basically giving everyone the clear to get baptized so long as they weren't breaking the word of wisdom or the law of chastity. I don't really agree with their approach to getting more baptisms, but I'm not the one responsible for their decisions at least.

So when they came to our area they basically wanted to force two girls, Alicia and Joana Villaba, into the water. They had us invite them and their mom to an activity in chapel, which really was intended to be their baptism. So we invited them to be at the chapel on Tuesday night at seven. Just before seven, Elder Taylor, one of the zone leaders, came with one of the members from his area. In order to avoid putting too much pressure on the girls, Nico, who is the member, and I went and talked with a less active family near the chapel and also got the baptismal clothes that we needed just in case the girls decided to get baptized.

We didn't actually get everything going until around seven thirty just because the family came late as did Elder Taylor's bus. So when Nico and I left the other Elders told us that they would call when it came time to do the baptisms. Elder Humphries thought that it would be better if I did the baptismal ordinance because he thinks that the older of the two girls, Joana, has a bit of a thing for me. So from there I tell him that he should do it if that's the case, but we'll see what happens further down the road. Joana is only fourteen by the way and all the girls have a thing for me, so it's nothing new.

So anyway, once nine o'clock rolled around we still hadn't been called to come back to the chapel, so we went back anyway just to see what was going on. Well it turns out that Elder Taylor had interviewed Joana for forty minutes and Alicia for another forty. And neither one of them are even ready for baptism. In fact, they are even less prepared for baptism now then they were before. The next day after this activity, we went to visit Sister Villaba and she told us that she wasn't happy about what happened that night and that the two girls said that they don't want to go to church anymore because of Elder Taylor. Well it turns out that Elder Taylor more or less interrogated them and didn't handle the situation well at all. Also, Alicia is mad at Elder Humphries even though he didn't even do or say anything, he was just there. So the situation with them isn't too good right now. We had dinner with them on Saturday night, but all the kids left to go to a birthday party.

On Wednesday afternoon, we had an inspector from the Church come to look at our apartment and see if everything checked out and to make sure we had everything that we need. He walked around taking pictures and notes and asking questions. He checked to make sure that our beds were good and that we had blankets for the winters and dishes and cookware that worked well. At the end of his inspection, he said that we are paying three times too much for the apartment that we have and he recommend that we move to a new apartment. He said that we could get something really nice for the price we're paying now and even spend a little bit more if we need to. So later that afternoon, we walked through an apartment building that will be open to rent the second week of April that is really nice. It's a brand new building and the units are pretty big, so we're going to talk with the owner and see what kind of price he can give us.

Friday afternoon we did service for one of the sisters in the branch that was a little interesting. The thing was that she had ordered a bunch of dirt and here in Argentina when you order something like dirt, rocks, or sand, they bring it in a truck and just dump a big pile of it on the sidewalk in front of your house. So we used two small buckets and some worn out shovels to redistribute a large pile of dirt to various locations throughout the yard. We also left about a fourth of it where it was and formed a bank from it to help keep the rain from flooding her sidewalk. I forgot to bring my memory card with me though, so I don't have any pictures of it.

The next day Irma, the sister that we did service for, made lunch for us. She spent a lot of time the day before talking up the meal she was going to make for us; saying that it was going to be a traditional Argentine meal with her own twist. So when we ate with her she served us mashed potatoes with hamburger on top and a whole tomato. The potatoes and hamburger that she made was actually pretty good, but the problem is that she, just like many Argentines, thinks that oil is a topping equal to gravy or salt and so she had liberally added oil to the top of the hamburger and potatoes. Luckily, I was able to get the oil to drain off my food by making a hole in the wall of mashed potatoes, but Elder Humphries wasn't as fortunate and took in a lot of oil with his food; eating three plates in total, while I stopped at two.

This General Conference weekend will be interesting because we're going to be watching all the sessions in the house of our branch president because his internet is much better than that of the chapel. I don't know if we should have favorites, but Elders Bednar, Uchtdorf, Christoferson, and Holland are my favorite speakers. But until then, that's all for now.

os amo,
Elder Burt