McDonalds was closed!

Querido familia,                              19 Nov, 2012

This week I had to go to Corrientes in Chaco in order to finish some things up with my visa. Elder Clark didn't need anything for his visa, so I went with Elder Mojica to get our passports and visas taken care of while Elder Clark stayed in Reconquista with Elder Mojica's companion, Elder King. 

We had to be there at eight in the morning, so Elder Mojica and Elder King came to our apartment the night before to make things a little easier to make our companionship exchange (they live an hour outside of Reconquista). The next morning, Elder Mojica and I awoke at two in the morning so we could have time to get a taxi from the apartment to the bus terminal. Luckily, the bus was going straight from Reconquista to Corrientes so we wouldn't have to change buses at any point, but nevertheless it was still a five hour bus ride. I was planning on going straight to sleep as soon as we sat down on the bus, but Elder Mojica wanted to show me all six hundred pictures on his camera first.

We arrived at Corrientes a little early, but we still needed to take a taxi over to the Immigration Office where some Elders from the Mission Office were waiting for us. We had to wait in for about twenty minutes before we could get up to the desk (there were some nuns ahead of us in line), but it wasn't bad because there was a small group of eight Elders, so we all just traded stories while we waited. Once we got up front, all we had to do was get our picture taken, confirm our identity, and scan our fingerprints.

We had everything finished by a little after nine and we didn't have to leave Corrientes until eleven, so that left us with a little bit of time to do something in the city. Elder Mojica and I grouped up with two other Elders so we could take a taxi over to the shopping mall where they had a Wal-Mart and a McDonald's (the only one in the mission).

The mall was closed when we got there at ten, so we went over to the Wal-Mart to look around and see if there were some good things that we could get from the States. Most of the things they had were the same things that all the other grocery stores carry, just at that unbeatable Wal-Mart price. They did have some things that were different like M&M's and Twix, but most Elders want to find things like Peanut Butter (which is a little harder to find outside of Wal-Mart). While we were there, we called the Elders back in Reconquista to see if there was anything they wanted while we were there that we could bring back to them. We got requests for things like refried beans, aji picante, Reese's and Nutella, but we could only find the picante peppers.

After that, we went over to the mall to grab some lunch from the McDonald's, but unfortunately it wasn't open for lunch yet.

The drivers are all really bad in Argentina and even worse in the bigger cities, but bad driving isn't the only thing that happens in the streets. While we were riding in the taxi to get to Resistencia from Corrientes, a man walked into the street at a red light and started juggling and then when he was done he went from car to car asking for money.

We've been teaching a lot of people lately, picking up a lot of new investigators (some more promising than others). The way things are going right now, we're planning on having six baptisms in December. We had to push Mirian's back to December instead of November because there were delays in geting her documents ready for marriage.

We've been teaching David as much as can, every other day if possible, and he is just golden. He understands everything and hasn't had a single problem, that is until Saturday. We went to find him and ended up discovering him drunk. We haven't taught him the Word of Wisdom yet, but he already knows that drinking isn't good for him. physically or spiritually. So we sat down with him and started talking about how he could improve and resist the temptation to drink in the future. He cried a couple times during our discussion and kept repeating, "I fell, I fell, but I don't want to fall again." At one point he said, "I know I can do better. because I am a child of God and He has sent me here." (Yes, he was singing that last part). His grandma and brother are both members, so he said he has a hymn book and I Am a Child of God is one of his favorites; that, and Praise to the Man (Praise to the Prophet in Spanish, just a little different, but doens't ever mention Joseph's name).

There's a lot more to be written, just not enough time to do it.

os amo,

Elder Burt