Book of Mormon beats the cockroach

Querida familia,                     14 de Octubre 2013

We actually started this week off by traveling because on Tuesday we had interviews, as well as meetings with other missionaries, with President Heyman in a city that is about an hour and a half away from us called Saenz Peña.  On Monday night, we took a bus that left at eight-thirty and we got to Saenz Peña around ten. It should have only taken us ten or fifteen mintues to get to the apartment of the other Elders, but we thought we knew where we were going, but we actually didn't. So we spent the first fifteen minutes walking in the wrong direction, but we got to where we needed to be once we asked for directions from the first person we saw in the street.

So we spent the night on Monday with two of my previous companions, Elder Sacalxot and Elder Humphries. So we all had a good time sharing stories and talking about what has happened and what we had previously done together.

I had a good interview with President Heyman the next day on Tuesday. He told me that he had actually been putting me in hard areas and that he was proud of the work that I had done in them. Since then, those areas have seen quite a bit of growth and many more missionaries have been sent to my previous areas. In Reconquista, my first area in Argentina for example, there are now four companionship's and when I was there, there were only two. It was kind of funny because he had said, "I don't want to make it sound like you're at the end of your mission, but you've been a great missionary and have done great work." 

Later that day when we had gotten back to Campo Largo, we were walking along and there were four or five girls who were grouped up in front of a store whom were looking at us as we got closer to passing them when all of the sudden they started to say things to me like, "hey, my love," "my life." they must not have known that my mom said that I can't bring any Argentine girls home with me. The next day one of those girls was sitting on the back seat of a moped that passed us and she made a kissing sound and again called out, "my life!"

I feel like we got a lot of things done on Tuesday, because not only did we have trainings and interviews, but I also gave three people haircuts. My clippers are wireless, so I brought them with us to go meet with Hugo and Omar because I had offered them haircuts and they were more than ready to accept. They had their doubts, but I assured them by saying, "I cut mine own hair." Hugo wanted a guarantee that all the women would fall in love with him. I don't know how he knew that all the girls are crazy for me because we never said anything about the aforementioned incident to him.

what was interesting about the hair cuts was that for the first time we saw that Hugo had a cross tattooed onto his forehead. We still haven't decided how it got there or why he got it.

You can't really tell in the pictures, but I did a great job with all the hair cuts. Nahuel, who is only three years old, didn't even budge while I cut his hair. the haircut that I gave Nahuel was actually requested and is called "the dragon." It is done by cutting the sides and a part of the back short and the top and middle-back long.

As far as progress goes for baptisms, Omar and Marta came to church for the second time now and they are enjoying it. We're still waiting for the papers for Hugo and Belki's marriage license, but Belki already had her baptismal interview and all ready to go. We couldn't check on the progress of the papers because it's a holiday here and the government buildings are closed, but tomorrow Hugo is going to get his interview. We had planned to do it at the same time that Belki had her's, but on his way home from work, Hugo's moped broke down and he had to walk and didn't get home until midnight; and frankly, we just can't wait that long. 

So we've had three days of rain here this week, which means that the bugs are seeking refuge. In two days, we found three cockroaches in our apartment, but we've never had them before. So we supposed that they had to be coming in from somewhere else, because they havn't been a problem before. Well, that was exactly what the problem was; there is a drain in the foyer area and they had been coming in from there. So we read in Alma chapter thirty one, verse five that, 

"the word... had more powerful effect upon the... than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God."

 So that's what I did; I put a box full of the book of Mormon on top of the drain to block the whole and we haven't had a single cockroach since.

os amo,

Elder Burt