Dat Boi in Argentina: What's good?

Ayyy family! Miss you like crazy. I had some dreams recently that messed with my head a little. About you guys.

Anyways this week was mostly good but had a little rough point on Tuesday. I'll include the letter I wrote to president:

Hola Presidente Salerno!

Before I start, I want to say that I'm feeling great and doing fine!

This week started off a little rough. I was trying to contact a little more than I'm used to doing and I was doing a terrible job. My spanish was not coming along and I'd forget what I was going to say and I was just getting frustrated at myself. I was feeling down. I've been praying and fasting for the gift of tongues and praying for more confidence to talk with people and I felt like I wasn't being answered. But I had a good thought after an especially bad contact that maybe I'm supposed to struggle at contacting. I mean I'm still brand new in the mission. It's a completely new language. I remembered Eter 12:27 and I've been feeling really good after that.

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them theirweakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humblethemselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weakthings become strong unto them."

I think I need to realize that I'm going to be at the bottom and that it can only get better from here. It will only get better. I'm humbling myself with the language and with prayer, I can make this weak thing become strong. I have more patience now and I'm practicing and Elder Kidd is helping me. I'm really doing fine now. I even bore my testimony yesterday to practice my spanish.

This week ended great with 2 baptisms! Joel and Matias are two converts who enjoy the church. I know that they know the gospel is true. They both bore their testimonies yesterday and the ward is very welcoming. They have friends in the church now. Being able to baptize Matias was something really special for me. I'm grateful I was able to do it.

Thanks for everything,

Elder Ross

Alright so that's the letter I wrote to him. It was a little rough at first but I've accepted it and I'm chillin. En serio.

But ya there you have it! 2 baptisms this week!!!! I'm gonna explain it a little more...

Matias: Ok Matias is like a golden investigator. He was a reference from Hermana Adams who found him during a tsunami. (idk if you guys know but a tsunami is when all the missionaries in the zone come into one area and contact for like an hour or two and the area gets like a ton of referencias for us to teach. It's way cool and we usually switch companions so it's cool to see different methods of contacting and practice my spanish with more native speakers.) Anyways he lives like 2 doors down and when we met him he already KNEW the Book of Mormon was true so the rest was real easy. If you guys remember in the District, Elders Moreno and Christiansen taught German. Matias IS German. minus the smoking problem. after they taught German about the law of chasitty he thought he couldn't date girls, remember? Well when we taught Matias about the Word of Wisdom he started having doubts about his baptism and we were like OH NO, but he thought that the Word of Wisdom meant we couldn't dance or go to asadas. lolol That was a cinch. Anyways I really didn't do much with teaching him. Here's the order of things that helped him join the church: the spirit, Elder Kidd, the chair, me. But what's cool about Matias is that he brought his neighbor to his baptism and she came to church yesterday and likes the church and she brought her daughter so we'll see where that goes. The only reason why I got to baptize him is because he didn't know who he wanted to baptize him and Elder Kidd asked him if I could do it so he said yes. I did it in one try but I faltered and stuttered the ordinance or whatever it's called and I felt like I was trying to drown him. It was a little awkward and probably very strange to watch. Oh well it's my first and hopefully not my last.

Joel: Joel is more interesting. He lives in the sisters' areas but he was only meeting with the Hermanas to see Hna Osorio. He came to church for them though... anyways Elders Teixeira, Crawford, Kidd, and I went and taught him together. Well we kept teaching him and he came to church and we were like "Oh maybe he's not a snake after all and is just lonely." Well we had a very interesting lesson with him because he had been texting the sisters like love messages and so we told him not to do that and to go to church for himself and for God. He had been going to the Evangelica church and didn't know which one to go to and so in that lesson Joel said a 15 minute prayer and we were on our knees and dying but it was good. The next day he called us and said he received an answer and said he knew this was God's church. He's both a snake and lonely but he's making new friends in church. He lives in the sisters' area but because we all teach him in the capilla, which is in our area, he counts as our baptism. He himself asked Elder Kidd to baptize him.

Elder Kidd and I worked hard this week so we could get the nivel of excelencia or whatever. And we did it. We have 6 fechas, we taught 21 other lessons and 4 with member present, we contacted 140 something people and had 3 assist church.

Oh @Rachel I don't know if you remember but we had a discussion about how sometimes people are baptized and not confirmed a member and I was like "How!'? That doesn't even make sense!" but it happened to me with Matias. He showed up late to church and wasn't confirmed!! And it's super unusual of him so it's weird but it happened.... now I know what you mean.

So other than those things, the weather this week was pretty great again. It would've been perfect but it was windy and the wind just cuts into your soul a little and it gets cold. But when it wasn't windy I was actually a little hot. Yesterday was the most perfect day I've seen here. Like I swear all of Rio Gallegos was outside in the parks and walking around with family. I didn't even know so many people lived here.

I'm in the part of the Book of Mormon when Jesus came, so it's straight fire. Maybe it's because I don't have a lot of other stuff to do but I feel like I'm addicted to reading the Book of Mormon. Anytime we aren't doing much I'm like "I could be reading right now" in my head.

Ok so today we rented out an indoor soccer field as a zone and it was way fun. ¿Como se dice "bangers fer dayz"? But for real I scored like 20 yard screamers and had a crazy chip shot. I'm not the best but I can hold my own against the better guys. Then we had a picnic outside and ordered a ton of pizza. Way good time.

Speaking of bangers, we took a taxi last night and I heard "Lean On" and I almost cried. It was just so beautiful. I miss my family and I miss EDM. Like here in the cyber they played "Bang My Head" and "How Deep is your Love" but a remix and it made me happy but also sad a little. Anyways that was cool. Another thing is that the other week in the store I heard "Cake by the Ocean" and I don't think I realized that it said the F word because the songs here are NOT edited. It's bad. I thought I was gonna go 2 years without hearing that but no. Also idk if it's the same in Paraguay @Holly but the missionaries here say "fuhhh" as a way of saying "wow" and every time I think it's the f word and I'm concerned. It's kinda funny though too.

I think that's it for this week. I hope I'm not forgetting anything.

It's all good here.

Elder Ross (the boss)

P.S. Hno Rivadeneira calls me "Elder Ross, dress for less" every time. He's so funny! Every time we see him at church or in the street he's like "I hate the mormons!" in english and it's so funny. He's the one that's learning english.

**PPS Letter sent to my mom with more info**

Ok here's your letter to answer some of the questions.

We try and contact an hour to an hour and a half every day. We usually try for 15 contacts a day meaning that we introduced ourselves as missionaries and our purpose for talking with them to 15 different people. If one of our lessons falls through and we have no back up plan, we contact.

On Thursday we went on divisions with the zone leaders and we each had 40 contacts!! So much! That's like 3 days of contacting in one. And that's a lot of walking.

We try for like 3 lessons a day. We stay busy. Always we have lunch with a member and the food is sooo good. Like seriously. And the lunches take a while because it's a ton of food. Like you think it's going to be one course and then you finish like 2 huge bowls of soup and then they bring out like 5 milanesas and your stomach just kinda hurts a little by looking at all the food. But I enjoy it. We have milanesas a ton but I like them. Almost everyday it seems like. We've had empanadas a couple times too. They are good but after like 4 you're kinda done with them but the members make like 100 so I usually eat like 10 or so. I don't really count but it feels like that. And that's a ton btw. And EVERY meal has soda. Like I'm kinda done with soda already. I've had my two years worth in 1 month. It's good but I feel so fat drinking it all the time too. The jugo [juice] is delicious though. I live for it. It's probably terrible for you too but I like it "sin gas" as they call it here. The jugo de pera is my favorite.

I've been talking to Elder Morales, our zone leader from Salta and he's wayyy cool. I'm more comfortable practicing my Spanish with him and he's really trying to learn English so we just practice with each other. Honestly English is soooo hard. We taught this RM [returned missionary] Jose Leguizamon who returned like a month ago from Chile. He's trying to learn English and I'M confused. Like who knew that the verb "go" is irregular. I go. I went. pretty crazy huh. Language is just really weird but I'm glad I don't have to learn English because I couldn't do it. Too hard. Spanish is just hard enough for me. But actually I can see improvement. It's slow. It's by degrees but I can find myself saying things in other tenses without having to think as much. Like I'll say "yo tomé clases de espanol" and it just comes. It's kinda cool. But I'm gonna practice until I can't. I figure if I have to be here for 2 years I'm gonna learn this language inside and out. I'm not just gonna get functional. Honestly Mom I don't know how you did it. Your Spanish is reaLLY good for having been on a mission SOOOO long ago. haha jk but still it's really good. But I'm angry at you. Why didn't you force me to speak with you? I know I was hard hearted but you should've made me.

I've decided now that I've baptized someone, my new mission goal is to have a successful phone call with someone. Not like a "hola como esta hermano" phone call. Like a "hola hermano, I was wondering if we could set up a time with you to come teach a lesson with one of our investigators this week. Could you start studying the plan of salvation?" and stuff like that. I want to be able to talk to and understand everybody and with every subject.

I bore my testimony again yesterday. 3/24 strong. I didn't even write it down beforehand. I'm growing up! But I think it was pretty bad. I don't actually know to be honest. I just kinda did it though. It's short but good.

I think that should be it.... hope that's enough and kinda answered your questions and let you know more.

Lots of love

ya boi Elder Ross