Penultimate email from Elder Backstrom

Another week means another weekly email update, at least for one week more.

Well that was heavy. I guess it really is just one week more. This is my penultimate weekly email in the whole mission ever.

But Baptism photos! Elder Rogers sent me this photo of the baptism of the Chagua family, which I told you about last week; there you can see; front, left to right; Julian Chagua, Gaston Chagua, Julia Chagua, Silvina Chagua, Abisag Chagua; Behind, left to right; Elder Puyol, Elder Rogers, Ruben Sosa, Elder Backstrom, Franco Chagua, and Rafael Genem. They are a few people, no?

Anyways in other stories for this week, We went to Mendoza today and I purchased a high-quality replica "Boca" jersey for my Dad, it's pretty nice but unfortunately they didn't have quite the model I wanted,

so I got one that looks like this

but with the lighter blue from above.

(Looks like a Swedish flag? you bet it does.)

so, spoilers on what I got for you, dad. Pretty great though, I found you the Argentine football team with the colours of Sweden. Grandpa Backstrom would be proud.

Hm, another fun story is that today on the bus back from Mendoza ( now you understand why I told the other story, it was just an instrument to get to this story) we were four elders and we sat in the back of the bus which has five seats, and so my companion took the window seat, and I sat in the middle, and the other two beside me, leaving a one seat gap between my companion and I. And so really quickly, before we can talk about shuffling over, a lady sits down in the open seat and I make a commentary to her about how my companion is racist (evidently a joke) because he doesn't want to sit next to the Canadian. anyways my companion and I started chatting with her, and, since the bus ride is about an hour, ended up having a fairly large conversation. Her name is Emilce, and she told us that she was headed out to the Jehovah's Witness church in San Martin to do some service cleaning. we had a polite conversation about the things that she believes, and she asked us if we believe in the bible, and so we showed her our bibles and told her that we do indeed believe in the bible, and a little bit about what we do as missionaries. When we got nearer to San Martin, she left us her email and phone number so we could get together to talk about the scriptures one day, and after that, I also gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon, with a challenge to read and pray about it, which she accepted.

So I comment that story why? Because it's great to share beliefs in a respectful way. We had a very pleasant conversation in which we were able to share and testify of some of the things we believe without being pushy or rude about the beliefs of another person. it just goes to show how nice it can be to talk about faith with someone who is willing to converse about such things.

Anyways, have a good week everybody,

Elder Backstrom