An Extra Dose of Rejection.

Well this week has kinda been a little more difficult, not for any reason really just because we had a lot of bad luck with the teaching, most of our appointments were falling through and we had to knock a lot of doors, and we were rejected a ton more than usual. Not fun, but it happens we aren't worried about it. 

Its also my comps birthday today! His parents/grandparents sent him some money so we came to cordoba to see if that could be spent. 

Well, on thursday we had a district meeting, me and my companion each got assigned to teach a part of the class. Its all in spanish obviously even though lots of missionaries speak english, and it was my comps first time doing it but it turned out nice. That night we had a lesson with our investigator Kenti before we did english class, she goes by ken. We were planning on inviting her to get baptized that night, but there was a less active member there named marco. We thought it would be a really good thing to have him there, but he and her got really off talking about spirits and ghosts and weird dreams and stuff so that kinda killed the lesson. English class was fun like always, I don't know if I've told you guys about it a lot but its every thursday we teach english class to any young men or young women. Lots of them that come are investigators or less active members so its a really good thing and we always have a lot of fun! 

On friday we had a lesson with candela, when we got there, one of her friends named miguel was over, we thought he was going to be a distraction, but it was really good that he was there! He had gone with candela and some of their other friends on a catholic mission trip to paraguay.  He has a lot of faith, yet is really open to hearing what we have to say. We gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to church, he said he had seen our church and that he had always wanted to go but never did. He said he would go with us on sunday, and also that he would read the book. He even prayed at the end of the lesson, which is really hard to get people to do right away but his prayer was really good.  I think he is really prepared to hear us! 

Saturday was the most We´ve ever been rejected in one day in this area I think, we were knocking doors for almost the whole day just because none of the people we usually teach are home. Usually after a bunch of rejections if you just keep working good things will happen, but it was not so that day. 

On sunday it was raining, so we were a little nervous that our investigators wouldn't come to church. People always use that as the perfect excuse, but out of the 5 or 6 people we were expecting, 2 came. It was candela and Miguel. They couldn't even stay the whole time, but im glad they could come for a little while at least! That night we were visiting a member, some soccer game was on, and when the team from cordoba scored everyone cheered super loud and a little kid started crying because he got scared, it was really funny/sad I felt bad for him. 

Yesterday we had a fun time, an investigator invited us to her birthday lunch (candela) it was really nice, her mom made a delicious cake! it was kind of a double party because my comps was the next day (today). 

15 And upon these I write the things of my soul, and many of the scriptures which are engraven upon the plates of brass. For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and the profit of my children.

16 Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard.

I love this scripture because it sets a good example for us..Im about out of time but Im super excited for the conference this weekend and for the opportunity that we will have to hear and ponder lots of new guidance from the lord! 

Love you all! -Elder Christensen

 

#65 - Ice Bucket Challenge & Bank Fraud Drama.....

Sorry no email this week......hopefully the email of my companion will suffice. Please just explain about the bank fraud and use that as the #65 of my emails...sorry, love ya ill write next Tuesday,  bye!!

(Ethan's bank card was somehow stolen.....luckily we found out today and were able to get him the correct numbers and so forth to get in touch with the bank to stop the damage.  It should all work out just fine.....just took up all his time to write :( 
....................From Elder Mooneyham.............
So it has been over a solid month since we haven´t had hot water in the pension. Does anybody remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? Yeah? Well we do that every single day when we shower hahaha Luckily we just got some money to buy a new gas tank...updates on that coming soon.

So Cosquin has been pretty good to me, I had my first official carne asado with a kid named Mauricio and his family! It´s basically an American barbecue but with a lot more meats and every time someone sees your plate empty, they slap on another pound of food onto it. I also I had my first baptism on Sunday! I baptized a kid named Benjamin! He is super cool...I had to baptize him 3 times in a row because the first 2 times 1 toe kept coming out of the water! 1 TOE! It got to the point where it was honestly hilarious, so the third time I did it, I made sure he was wayyy under the water hahaha It was an amazing experience all around, we had a lot of people show up for it (even investigators) we ate cake and hung out for like 2 hours after the baptism. It was a good time! My b-day is in exactly a week and I´ve been invited to members´ houses, another asado and a few other places but I think I´m going to Córdoba with Elder Christensen instead shhh don´t tell anyone. 

We climbed up Mount Pan de Azucar again today and it was super peaceful because hardly anyone was hiking today! It´s been a great week! 

P.S. look up the president of Argentina and tell me that he isn´t Joe Montana!

Te amo

-Elder Mooneyham

Families Can Be Eternal

This has been a good week, we had a lot of lessons and a lot of new investigators...

On wednesday we had another lesson with Diamela, she's the one that doesn't want to get baptized cause her daughter goes to a catholic school. It was another really good lesson, but it is so sad with her because she is soooo close but just can't take the last step :( A good thing that happened that day is that we did a practice baptismal interview for our investigator benjamin, he knows everything now. He has his interview tomorrow, and he will be getting baptized this sunday the 19th! Later that night we had dinner with family Palomeque, I was trying to take a plastic bag from one of their dogs, and it bit me on the finger and it was bleeding a bit. Hope that dog didn't have rabies! 

On thursday we went to go tracting on a street called "pringles". We mostly went because it had a funny name, but it must have been some kind of inspiration because we met a girl named luna who seems really interested! We had an adventure trying to find the old guy Tito that we met last week, we went to the address he gave us and he wasn't there so we called him, and he said he lived in a city 400 km away...I was super confused and still am actually. I think the guy was a bit off his rocker. We taught english class that night, its really fun and funny! The youth are hilarious here. 

On friday we had a zone meeting in Cruz del eje, it is really far, we had about 4 hours of travel overall and it was expensive. Its a real shame because the mission hasn't given us any additional travel money yet (last month we got 1400 pesos, about 100 bucks) and we are basically out of money for the month because of travels. I hope they give us some soon, because I really don't want to use my personal money for traveling again. I feel like im back in arroyito. 

On saturday I had some definite inspiration to go to americos house..he is an investigator that we have had for a while now, but he never comes to church. I felt that we really  needed to talk to his wife, so we went and she was there and we were able to talk to her and it was a really great and spirit guided lesson. Im glad we followed the spirit's prompting to go there, because we had basically dropped americo and weren´t planning to go back! That night we saw a car driving the wrong way over a busy one way bridge..could have been a disaster, but they figured out that they were going the wrong way and backed up. 

On sunday we only had 2 investigators go to church, we were hoping for a few more but they were mauricio and fátima, the wife of a member. We just met them, but we set an appointment with her for the next day. I also got assigned a talk for the next sunday. 

Yesterday started out a bit disappointing, because we had a lot of appointments fall through. But in the evening we had two great lessons, one with a girl hockey player named Candela, we taught her on the river bank while drinking mate it was pretty fun actually. And then after we had one of the most spiritual lessons of my mission...It was with our ward mission leaders son Jorge, who has been inactive for a while and his girlfriend of 9 years. (that was fátima) And we talked about temples, and how families can be eternal. They have a son together. Jorge started crying a ton and sharing his testimony, about how even though he has been inactive he has always known its true, and that an eternal family is what he wants more than anything. and everyone else in his family started crying too and his girlfriend said thats all she wants too. This is why I came on my mission, for moments like this. Of course right in the middle of that moment a guy named pablo and his gf and 3 other people come barging in really loudly and sit down, and our phone rang twice in a row. Satan always tries to send distractions at the key moment, literally every single time..But thats just another testimony that its true. 

This is Matthew 9:

36 ¶But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

This scripture had a huge impact on me this week. It was mostly personal, but it has helped me have more and more love and desire to help the people here. 

I love you all! Im out of time! Talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Christensen

Downtown Cordoba

The Desire of Your Hearts

Hello! Its been a nice week here in Cosquín. 2 of the biggest things that happened this week were our baptism on Saturday, and that I also have completely filled my first journal that I started back on november 15th 2015 when I was set apart. 204 pages...

Well last wednesday was the first day of just having only 2 of us in the apartment...it was a little lonely at first but we got used to it. We are good friends, and I've spent most of my mission in 2 person apartments anyways so I am kind of used to it. We visited some of the members for the first time today, and got to know them a little bit better. We had a dinner with family Palomeque, we really like them and I promised them a banana bread weeks ago but kept forgetting to do it, so this week I finally came through. We put some cinnamon in it, it made it so much better! 

On thursday we had our first district meeting with the new district, I love the people in it. It is me and my hijo, elder manzanete ( a brazilian who was the former assistant to the president and a great missionary), elder ramirez (colombia, one of my ex comps and a good friend of mine), and then elder seely and elder monaghan, both from canada! I think we are going to baptize a ton this transfer. That afternoon after traveling back to our area, we had a good lesson with Diamela...she is my favorite person to teach here, she is really intelligent. We read moroni 8, (talks about not to baptize infants) and then read in mosiah 18 where it says "  

10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

 11 And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts." 

And she said that it is the desire of her heart, and if it was only her she would get baptized. But she went on to say that her daughter goes to a catholic school, and that every year they ask to see the parents catholic baptismal certificate. She says if she gets baptized into our church her daughter will get kicked out of school. I read her 1 nephi 3:7, (i will go and do) and left her to read 2 nephi 2 (opposition in all things) but if anyone has any suggestions that could help me I would love to hear it because diamela is super important to us and I want to help her.

On friday we had a little surprise, we went up the mountain super far to get to the president of the branch's house, it is very far, and for that reason it was my first time there. But when we got there, we encountered his grand daughter who is 9 and hasn't been baptized. We taught her a bit, we did a practice baptismal interview ( the other elders had already been teaching her) and taught her everything she didn't know. Then afterwards, she and president said that she wanted to get baptized the next day. So we went about preparing all that, we had manzanete come to the interview Saturday morning, and she passed of course. I was calling members all day long trying to get as many people to commit to the baptism as possible, and in the end 35 people showed up it was a really nice baptism and the first with me and my hijo. 

Im way out of time. I have left a couple things out ( we met a buddhist lady, some other stuff) 

They are about to cut my internet, I need to go! They just made me buy 15 more minutes of internet because I didn't finish in time.....

Love you all! Talk to you next week!

Elder Christensen​