Listo Para Bautizar

If the subject didn´t indicate it, we´re baptizing this week. That´s right. Submerging in water and everything. What missionary work is all about (and all that other kind of important stuff.)

But seriously, Karen is about as listo to get baptized as I’ve ever seen anyone. Seeing as how we´ve only had one baptism prior I don´t have much ground to talk. The point is she´s really ready to get baptized. She informed us yesterday of her desire to serve a mission. I´m so happy for her and the way her life changed. When I arrived, Elder Ponce had had two appointments with her. She was very pessimistic and reclusive. She couldn´t even believe in God. Now she is full of light. She´s always smiling. I love seeing what the Gospel has done to someone.

This week has been fantastic. Probably the best numbers we put up to date.

I don´t know if I told you, but we don´t have any Book of Mormons because the offices didn´t get a new shipment. How hard is doing missionary work without the BOM? The answer is impossible. This week we had three left, and focused on finding families. We managed to still find nine people with three BOMS. Nine people! Que capo eh?

Yesterday Elder Bushman and I took the second round at the roast. This time instead of returning to a smoke filled pension we walked into the sweet smell of slow cooked Argentine Beef. Words in this email fail me to describe how good that roast was. Not to brag or anything, after all, I learned from the best.

We have some new guests in the Pension. No, not other missionaries. Cockroaches. Big, brown, nasty, cockroaches. I love summer. I really do. But these things are ruining my Argentine paradise. I´ll get up in the morning, take out a box of cereal and jump back about five feet as the blasted creature scurries around. Anyone with creative ways to kill these things should email me ASAP. I don´t think I have the stomach to do it again with my foot.

ugh

Anyways.

This week Elder Bednar is coming to the Buenos Aires Missions. We´re all traveling to the capital to hear him speak. It´s very exciting.

So the other day was our zone activity for P-day. We went to our favorite pizza place, Pizza Libre. It features such exotic hits as, hot dog and mustard, french fries, and eggs. Mind you pizza toppings. I love pizza libre, and was intent on getting the most out of my experience. I wanted to eat more pizza libre pizza than I ever had before. I probably ended up eating about 1 and a half pizza libre pizzas, and I felt the consequences. I could barely move. "I´ll never eat pizza again" I promised myself. It was about that time when I realized we had a dinner appointment in four hours with the familia Ochea, who was cooking pizza, and had specifically instructed us to come "very very hungry."

I let out a silent groan of horror as my poor stomach gurgled in protest.

So we went.

And the pizza had anchovies... and eggs. Anchovy and egg pizza. It wasn´t as bad as you would think, but still pretty bad. And with roughly sixteen pounds of pizza libre pizza smoldering in my stomach, I was in no mood to eat ANY MORE PIZZA. But with Hmno Ochea shouting "COMA elder por favor! Usted no ha comido nada!" I ended up eating yet another pizza. I don´t know how I did it, but mind you I did do it.

And I felt like a champion.

Anyways...

All of our investigators are doing well. Marta still isn´t progressing. After another frustrating cita with her, we were ready to drop her to antiguos. We essentially gave her the do or die lesson. We used Alma five and everything. Marta apparently sensed the dire nature of the situation, gave us each a peach as recompense, and showed up to church bright and early on Sunday. With her, we´re not sure if we can drop her. She´s been receiving the discussions for a year now, and just isn´t progressing. Elder Bushman and I settled on just passing by once a week until she can make progress giving up smoking.

With Liliana, the poor investigator who was progressing great, we ran into a wall. She is moving to a different side of Ensenada, and we´re afraid we´re going to lose touch with her.

We had a good finding story the other day. It was in the afternoon, and we had made contacts for the better portion of two hours. Both of us were sick of touching houses. We started talking to a lady who was moderately interested in what we have to say when her husband ran out of the house and started yelling "¡TOMATELA!" over and over again. Essentially translated it means, beat it. His wife really was interested. The next house we went to, it was the same thing, rejection over again in the form of getting yelled at. Finally we saw a man walking into his house down the street. We both felt compelled to talk to him. As we walked closer to his house, I felt my foot sink into something wet and cold. I immediately jumped back and to my horror, realized I had stepped foot in a Sangah, or outdoor sewer. In most places here the sewer just runs to the sides of the street in ditches. This one was fairly concealed. I let out a small yelp, which drew the attention of the man. Upon seeing my situation, he offered to let us come inside. He got a rag out and some water and helped me clean off my shoe. Hearing that we were missionaries, he intuitively listened to a brief recounting of the apostasy and restoration. Long story short we set an appointment and left a Book of Mormon.

Moral of the story

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Sometimes even stepping in a Sangah.