Branch President again....

Querido familia,                   19 de Agosto 2013

This week held a few surprises for us. While we were looking for a member that we've yet to find or get to know, we ran into a guy who  asked us if we spoke English. We told him that yes, we do speak English and he started to speak with us in English. After talking with him for a few minutes he told us about how he used to live in Kentucky for fifteen years raising horses for the Kentucky derby. It was really fun to talk to him about the United States and his experiences. When we started talking to him about the church he said that he has  lot of friends in the States that are members and that he really likes the temples that he has seen.

On Tuesday we had a meeting in Paso De Los Libres with all the elders in our zone because the next day was going to be transfers. So we all went there and had a meeting and did some trainings and then we all played ping pong while we waited for our bus to come. The Argentine elders tend to be really good at ping pong because all the chapels here have ping pong tables instead of basketball hoops.

So once we had gotten back to our apartment in Mercedes later that night, the zone leaders called everyone on a conference call to let everyone know what changes would be happening. Elder Reynolds was going to stay in Mercedes and I was reassigned to another area called Campo Largo (Long Field) in the province called Chaco. The branch is pretty good here, but there ins't really any Priesthood, so I am serving as the branch president.

My new companion is Elder Sacalxot from Guatemala. His Spanish is pretty good I'd say. We've been working really well together and we're actually planning a baptism for this Saturday.

I'm still trying to remember who is who in all the people that I've been meeting. 

There is one boy that we taught who is nine or ten I think that isn't a member, but his mom or sister is. His name is Damiro. I wanted to get him excited to come to church and to be more comfortable with us, so in our first lesson with him I taught him how to make the the Vulcan symbol with his hand from Star Trek and then we read in first Nephi three, seven. So we talked about how we need to have a good attitude about keeping the commandments, even when it seems hard. We then memorized the phrase, "I will go and I will do," with him. It is now his motto.

Saturday here was Children's Day and there was a big activity for it in the branch. The young women did the majority of the work getting this prepared and decorating the chapel; we just went around and invited everyone, did some cleaning, and purchased all the things that were needed. It all went really well though. There were about forty kids that came. They all played games and the primary president made hot chocolate for everyone.

On our way home that night however, a dog came up to us and it actually bit Elder Sacalxot. I was pretty surprised by that because I've never come close to being bit nor have I every seen anyone else get bit. It wasn't bad though; it mostly just left a bruise and put a hole in his pants. We just need to go back there in a week to see if the dog died from rabies; if not we received permission to take it out ourselves.

os amo,

Elder Burt