Monday, May 12, 2014

Arrival in San Juan

Okay! now that I have that sorted...
No pictures this week, and probably not for a while because I forgot my camera at the mission office -_-

The weekly update.
or not so weekly, since I missed a p-day.

anyways, I am now here in mendoza, or rather san juan, a small province to the north of mendoza. It´s pretty dry, but has a weird amount of green in it because of a super extensive canal and river system feeding it with water from the mountains. So far, the weather has been nice, but apparently it gets REAL hot sometimes.

In other news, the peso is imploding. We'll see if that manifests itself as a coup d'eta or what.

Ah! finally, I´m out in the field. My trainer, Elder Spice, is from southern California but was born in Toronto so holds dual citizenship (which is cool) and can use Celsius (which is even cooler). We're working in an area called progreso, which is on the edge of san juan. most of our area is very rural and highly agrico. most people don't work or only harvest their grapes/olives, and so are very poor- but even the poorest have food, because it is all literally produced here and so is dirt cheap. So that's good.

Right now we don't have many investigators (We think, at least) (Okay to explain that I came in the middle of a transfer, elder spice just arrived in this area last transfer, and until he had me, he had a "minni missionary" [local young man looking to serve who is eligible but not gone yet who helps us fill companionship holes] so we have basicaly no anterior knowledge of the area) BUT we are getting a TON or references from our like, 20 active members who are super excited and engaged and awesome. Almost all of the references we have contacted have been great investigators, and we also have two part member families we are working with. Teaching actual lessons is one of the coolest things I have ever done, what with the huge amount of spiritual presence that you feel.

We had a really powerful lesson with a young fellow who had some amazing questions about god's plan for us, and we ended up talking for a super long time about the book of Mormon, the pan of salvation, the atonement... I left him with a challenge to read Alma 32:26-37 and let a seed of faith enter his heart. What a powerful passage of scripture, one that I had, I am certain by no coincidence, studied that morning. 

I've also been happily surprised, more or less, with the amount of Spanish I can understand in conversations. I have to concentrate really intently though, and after a long conversation I kind of turn off Spanish for a while because my brain hurts.

My favorite scripture of the week is third nephi chapter 12:20
 20 Therefore come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
(emphasis added on the two actions that Christ requires of us to enter into his kingdom)

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