Finally!

HOLA EVERYONE,

I finally get my time to write! So this letter will be for the last two weeks so I will try to get in everything that happened.

 

So two weeks ago there were two deaths in the branch of older women that were both really sick, so we saw it coming but it was still sad. Also, I´m staying here in Sáenz peña until the end of January, at least. But, we had new elders come in so the area boundaries were changed a little and it has been a good change working in a little bit of new area!! Elder Burnham is also staying with me and we are working in part of our area and some new. But, with the change we lost all of our investigators to the new elders because they are all in our old zone so we have been doing a lot of finding new people to teach. Our last lesson with Ivan before we lost him to the new elders was the word of wisdom and it was awesome because he told us that he has drank and smoked since he was a kid but he quit everything when we first met him before we even explained it was bad to him and he hasn´t desired it since because he wants to change his life!!! So it will be interesting to see where he goes with the new elders! 

 

We had a missionary activity in our church where we hid things and the members did like a search for them and that was fun to watch and it went well. Also, we had to clean the church because the president was gone on vacation for Christmas and I also got to choose the hymns for sacrament for the first time because he wasnt there! Then, after church a family here taught us how to make awesome pizza and it was incredible and now we make pizza in our apartment all the time haha. Then, we had the giant missionary activity in Resistencia with all 250 missionaries on monday!! It was awesome because I got to see all of my old district from the MTC, there were tons of missionaries everywhere, they had fun shows with singing and Christmas stuff, a white elephant for eveyone, music for christmas, and it was just a good day. But, the bus to take us back was full so we had to take the later one and didnt get back til after midnight but still had to get up at the normal time. 

 

I worked with one of the new elders a week ago and it was fun and it was a good change from the normal, but he doesnt know a word of spanish so I had to communicate with everyone on that day. We were supposed to have dinner with la familia Mercado on christmas eve but we still have to be in the apartment early until the 2nd of January so we just had a snack with them that night and made pizza in the apartment. I hit my 3 month mark in the mission on Christmas!!! We had some presents to open, mostly food from the states and matching shirts that Elder Burnham´s family sent us, made brownies, and I got to skype my family for 45 minutes and that was awesome!!!! We went caroling the day after christmas because no one could do it before, and then we had a great rest of the week with how many lessons we had and how many new people we found!! I guess people were just in the spirit from Christmas! One day we had 8 lessons and found 9 new investigators with a baptismal date!!!!! (we really found 12 new investigators but 3 of them actually live in the area of the new elders) 

 

Also, We got to baptize Catolina Gomez and her daughter andrea!!! That was awesome. I got to baptize andrea and I also baptized her friend who got baptized the same day and Elder Burnham baptized Catolina! Overall, I've had an extremely busy, but awesome 2 weeks. Sorry, this place isnt letting my camera work so there will be a million pictures next week haha Thank you everyone for your support and I always love to hear from you. Also, if you send me a handwritten letter, it takes about a month to get to me, I will write one back, and that will be about another month. Thanks again to everyone and I will talk to you all again next monday!!!

 

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

 

P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! 2014

Important

December 30, 2013

¡¡Hola otra vez!!

I had to give up another Pday today to do a full day training in Resistencia!!! But, I will have a full session of time tomorrow to write to everyone!!! So if you wanted to send me something or had a question, I will be writing tomorrow in the morning and be responding to the last two weeks of emails and sending my letter and pictures for the last two weeks!! I´m crazy busy, but I love hearing from everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas, and will talk to everyone tomorrow when I have my full time to write!!!

 

 Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

Notice

December 24, 2013

We had a giant activity in Resistencia yesterday so I wasnt able to write but I have a little time today to explain that. I will write my weekly letter next week and it will include last week and this week. I will also respond to everyones emails next week, we just dont have time today. Also, I would LOVE to hear what everyone got for christmas (and maybe even pictures). Im sorry I dont have more time to write today or send pictures but I will do so more thoroughly next week. Thank you everyone for your support, especially through Christmas, I hope to hear from you soon and I hope everyone has an incredible, Merry Christmas!!!

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

Splitting the area!!

This week was definitely different! After I wrote the letter last week, we got a call that the police were on strike and not working until they got more money like they do in sports haha, So we weren't allowed to leave our apartment more on Monday, any of Tuesday, and then had to be in every night by 6:30 at the latest. So that kind of got resolved Wednesday and now we can stay out until 8 starting today, but we heard that they were going to do it again for even more money this Friday, so we don't know how much time we´ll be out later this week. 

But, one day we found two new investigators, Ivan and Daniel, and Ivan started going on about how he hasn't found the truth in any other church but could feel it when we were talking and then Daniel told us that when he saw us walking down the road towards his house that he saw an angel walking with us. I´m not saying it´s true for sure but it´s pretty cool to think about if we have this presence with us. Then, all of wednesday and part of thursday we weren´t doing normal missionary stuff, because we found out that we are going to get two more elders in our area this week so we had to find them an apartment and buy all the stuff for it! So that was fun and now we will have 4 elders and 2 sister missionaries in our area which is awesome!!

Nothing much happened other than this because of how much we were stuck in our apartment this week, but I had one last thought. This is a gratefulness challenge. To find and think of 100 things that we are thankful for:

10 physical abilities we have

10 material possessions

10 living people

10 deceased people

10 things in nature

10 things about today

10 places on earth

10 modern inventions

10 foods

10 memories

And after you have thought of or written down all of these things, get the Christmas spirit a little more and be thankful for all the things you have and be a little more charitable and willing to give. I hopw we can all do this, especially around Christmas but even during the rest of the year. Thank you to everyone for the constant support and I hope to hear from you soon!!!

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

 Ice cream from GRIDO which is like the american equivalent of dairy queen.

 Our glamorous bathroom.

 The outside of our apartment.

Our kitchen/living room where we study.

Last week of the Transfer!

This last week just flew by super fast!! First off, with Catolina Gonzalez there is a story. She is still progressing and she started inviting all of her kids to listen to the lessons too so we have like 8 investigators out of her family alone and now most all of them have gone to church twice so they only need one more to be baptized which is awesome, but we found out 2 days ago that all of them are moving into a house together....that is 3 streets outside of our area. So they are still taking the discussions and still want to be baptized but now other missionaries are going to finish the last two lessons with them and baptize them which is exciting it`s just sad/frustrating because we did all of the teaching and now other missionaries get the baptism so we look bad, but it`s all good as long as their family gets baptized!! It`s kind of sad too because they were one of the only two strong families we had because this week we had to stop teaching a lot of people because they didn`t want to talk with us anymore or they weren`t progressing. 

But, on a happier note, we had a Christmas activity in the ward this week with a nativity by the kids, Christmas music, and all the empanadas we could eat, so it was an awesome night!! Also, we are in the choir for the church so we can sing songs that aren`t in the hymnbook which is a nice change! haha 

The only last thought that I wanted to share that I liked was to acknowledge the gift that Christ gave to all of us, especially in this time of the year. He gave us a great gift, so what gift can we give him in December. An idea that I like is to, with your family, write on a piece of paper a present that you can give Christ, fold it up, and put everyone`s paper into a box. Wrap the present in gold and place it underneath the Christmas tree at the front so that every time you look at the tree you will think of the gift you are trying to work on or give Christ. Then, on Christmas, open that present first and read everyone`s present together to see and talk about the things we can give Christ. I just think this is a fun idea and helps us remember why we celebrate Christmas. I love everyone and hope to hear from all very soon! Thank you for the continued support.

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

 

 The small flowers that Andrea, the daughter of Catolina Gonsalez, gave me.

 When we made cow stomach empanadas with Poly last week.

The nativity that was set up at the branch activity.

 The spider we found in the church this week.

 Some giant worm that was in the street one night, the tile behind it is like a 

normal one foot tile, it was seriously like the size of a small snake.

Week 5 in Sáenz Peña

Hola everyone.

This week was a good one. We had our ups but we also had some downs. We had to stop teaching Jessica and Patricia, Melina, and Claudia because all of them can´t progress right now for different reasons, but we are still praying that Poly can get married. We also found some really prepared people this week. A lady named Catalina Fernandez saw us and said ¨Mormones, pasen¨ And said that she has been waiting for her church to send someone because her husband and son both dies in the last year but when she saw us she knew that God sent us because her church wasn't true and she needed our church. This experience was awesome and she is on a trip to Rosario right now but we should baptize her at the end of the month. Also, we met a lady named Catolina Gonzalez who is super prepared and following through with all of her commitments, along with her daughter Andrea, and they both love church so we should baptize them on the same day as the other Catolina or sooner. Also, she isn´t with her boyfriend anymore which means that we don't have to worry about marriage which is good because NOBODY gets married here and the office to get married closes in two weeks and wont open again until mid February which is really upsetting for us because we cant resolve that issue in this time. 

But, with some good news, I had my first incredible Argentine meat this last week and it was absolutely amazing and just so natural tasting. It was awesome! Also, we found out that we will be getting more money every month to buy food which is nice because we can actually buy stuff that isn't the absolute cheapest thing. Also, the schedule is changed now so that we work in the morning and study in the afternoon during the siesta instead of in the morning because in the summer it is too hot too walk in the middle of the day and everybody just goes to bed anyways. 

A couple of weird things this week, I found out that the people just throw away their toilet paper instead of flushing it which I think is weird and I will just continue to flush it haha Also, one girl this week was talking to us from inside her house and when she came outside and saw that we were Mormons she refused to talk to us and would only communicate with us by shaking her head and we found out through our questions that it was because her pastor said that anyone that talks to Mormons will go to hell. I just thought it was weird. We´re just normal people, we don't send people to hell... And, one night I ate mondongo for the first time. Mondongo is cow stomach, so I made cow stomach empanadas, they weren´t all that bad. Also, Andrea, the daughter of Catolina Gonzalez gave me a little present this week of fake flowers in a pot which was cute. 

All in all everything here is good. The only other thing I wanted to share was a quote that says, ¨And supposiing you have tried and failed again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing called ¨failure¨ is not the falling down, but the staying down.¨ I like that this points out that we choose to pick ourselves back up but at the same time, we are also the ones that choose if we stay down and are defeating. I just think it´s good to think about that in our own lives and how we are choosing to stay down. Thanks for all the support and I will talk to everyone next week!

I couldnt get pictures to work this week, this stupid computer is broken. But that just means that there will be more for next week with this week and next. Sorry again and I hope to hear from all soon.

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine