Holy Week

How do you do, everyone?

This week the internet is particularly bad, so I am not sure if I will be able to get out any letters beside my one big one.

Uh, so yeah, this was holy week in Argentina, so all the (pagans, catholics, use interchangeably) came to their groves and high places to worship strange idols such as "the virgin", a strange little woman portrayed holding eggs, "san expedito", a dude in a skirt waving a small cross at things, and "el gaucho Jesus", a cowboy named Jesus who was crucified by the army for pillaging and murder but somehow became an object of worship.... Haha. but yeah, the Catholics worship weird stuff. They where also out in force all week long, since semana santa is one of the few times they all go to mass. there where big parties and in all the plazas they had long sermons about things, I'm not sure what the sermons where about because all I heard of them where snippets like "today I had a little virgin so that we could pass it around better" and "When you open your stores, you need to put a prayer to san expedito in the door. The same in your house, in your car. this way san expedito will bless you with much things" So. yeah.

This week was otherwise rather action-less. we didn't have an astonishing number of things happen, it was just kind of.. normal missionary things. I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned this before, but empanadas need to be a thing in Canada. they are little pastry pockets of ground beef or other filling, and are delicious.

We did have a large number of church assistances, which was good- one of our "eternal investigator" families came out to church and had an interview with the branch president about getting their marriage finished so they can get baptised. So that was exciting.

anything else worthy of mention? we are, as always, eating well. Even if we have a week with few lessons, an asado-style lunch-dinner always lifts the spirits. (asado is long coal-smoked meat. straight up.)

On the scripture study side of things, I have been reading mostly out of my preach my gospel, studying the Christlike attributes one at a time, along with the accompanying entries in the "true to the faith" reference guide. one chapter in the scriptures that stuck out to me particularly was 1 nephi 22, as nephi is expounding important parts of Isaiah's revelations to his brothers. the last verse of that chapter was also of great note to me, when nephi says "and ye need not suppose that my father and i are the only ones who have testified of these things" and goes on to offer his testimony of the veracity of the holy scriptures and the divine nature of prophets.I put in a note in the margin, substituting "my father and I" for "my companion and I".

have a good week all,

I second Paul's condemnation of idol worship,

Elder Backstrom