Wk 88 - Easter Weekend...

Elder Smoot & Elder De Los Santos (from Argentina)

verdão here in teresinathey play mostly
soccer there, but i saw
basketball hoops and
they have karate and
capoeira and other
fight competitions

also we drank some of that mate stuff that austin brought home from
argentina... except there is another one that is better. its called
tereré and you drink it with lime juice stuff and cold and it gives it
a mint flavor... way better than the hay water haha but yeah we will
get some mate this week i think.. im looking for one of those cups to
buy. this cup is of another elder here

under a bridge with some graffiti

Area: Buenos Aires
Companion: Elder De Los Santos

You guys are on vacation right now? Man i miss spring break and other
holidays... good stuff. And thats way cool that taylor is comin home
this week! Crazy isnt it? and jade man you gotta quit growin on me...
im not sure how i can go out in public with you... ill look like a
midget. Mom, loved the pics of the baseball and all and dad you too. I
got my package this week with the family calendar in it... i loved the
pics and i dont believe how much everyone has changed. Crazy what
happens in a year and 8 months. And i was glad to hear that you met
crittenden haha he is a way good guy.

This week was pretty lame because of semana santa or saint week.
Everyone travels during the week because it is vaction day. SOOO, the
down was pretty deserted... But we still went on as normal. DIstrict
meeting on tuesday, i gave a little doctrine training thing about
praying to know the truth through the holy ghost... there is a part
that says, ´noone can know of spiritual truths without praying´ or
something like that.... Anyway, its very important in our work. We had
lunch at Nilza´s house who is a cool member up in the other elders
area. She owns a pizza restaurant, but only opens at night. We visited
some recent converts, edinalva and her mom (domingos´s family) And we
visited Lásaro, who elder crittenden baptized. He is having some
difficulties, but goes to church every sunday and is a decent guy. We
ended the night talking to josé, kelly and ana karine´s dad, about
conference. He really liked it and said he wants to get baptized, just
that he is waiting for his wife too...

Wednesday we had lunch at Jean´s house. His family aren´t members but
are really cool people. His mom made lunch for us and all. Jean is a
good guy. We had a good day later because domingos and another member
flavio that already served a mission came with us to do visits. We
even split up and i went with domingos so flavio could help my comp,
and i went to visit a family, edinaldo and elizabete. They are a great
family and we had an incredible lesson about the restoration, but she
keeps saying that she doesnt want to change religion.... i know that
God prepares the elects, but the people that most accept us dont have
a desire to change! They just like to listen to our message and thats
it.

Thursday we had lunch at home and i made some rice and beans... that
was actually the first time i made beans from scratch, but it turned
out really good. I gotta say, lunch without rice and beans is pretty
wierd now! im gonna have to go to costa vida every day haha.... you
gonna go with me mom? Well the rest of the day was pretty slow, but we
did get to talk to fátima, who is the mom of kelly and ana karine. We
had a really in depth discussion about the restoration and it was
good. She believes it all... she just doesnt believe that its the ONLY
way.... Im telling you that the mission really tests your patience! We
read 1 nefi 15:11 that talks about if you DILIGENTLY KEEP THE
COMMANDMENTS, the answer will be given to you.... but what can i do! i
even told her to try and stop with coffee and see if the answer comes,
and she said she didnt need to.... aiaiai i really want to help... but
i cant go any further than her will and pleasure. great family and she
will get baptized one day.

Friday was a desert here... noone home, we walked until about 7 30
lookin for places to go... and finally we found Levy who we also
taught the restoration to and he said the first night we came that he
had a dream... something about a ´pillar of light over his head´....
people recieve answers all the time! but its faulting them following
their answer. We also talked to Edinaldo and elizabete again and again
she said she wants to stay in her religion but really likes us and
even had a dream with us in it... and yeah she has many good
questions, but doesnt want to do anything.... gotta have patience!

Saturday we went to lunch... and they werent there. They had traveled
with everyone else, so we went home to make lunch, then got another
call from the secretaries saying that we could eat with them... So we
walked out there. We had a coulple of visits with george who is a
recent convert... he started telling us that he wants to leave the
church and doesnt want to go anymore. What do you say to that? I told
him on sunday we will go to church and i will introduce him to the
bishop.. there were actually 3 young men that i left in the bishops
office to talk to him... so that was good i hope. We then taught
antonio and martha who we met last week.. they accept us very well,
but are very stuck on their church which is the universal church. I
dont know how they could be but martha is antonio daughter and is part
of a youth group in the church.. anyway, again they accept us well,
but dont want to go to the church.

Sunday we started walking in the street and my comp had forgotten his
name tag, so we went back home. I had called to the other missionaries
to grab it for us. We got upstairs and the others were ready to go
down with his tag, so we all got in the elevator, there was 8 of us.
We started going down and someone accidently turned off the light,
then all of the sudden the elevator hit something and went two more
floors down then stopped... we were stuck. One elder started getting
mad and upset and one elder started saying a prayer out loud and ah
man i started laughing sooooo harrdd. My comp was laughing about it
all day. THe elder that prayed said stuff like, ´lord we still have
stuff to do in our lives and we have to go to church right now!´ haha
we were only stuck for about 5 minutes and the worker of our
apartement building came up and opened the door because we were in the
middle of the floors, but it was easy to get out. So that was the
start to our sunday. We had a good church meeting, but hardly anyone
was there, and after we had lunch and it rained a little in the
afternoon, but we didnt have much to do cause a lot of people were
gone... we did go get a movie from elder lima and took it to ana
karine and kelly´s house to have a little family night with them and
it was a good end to the week. their dad took us home and that was the
week.

We may go bowling today... not sure. i just gotta figure out how to
take advantage of p day cause the weeks are tough. But my comp is a
good guy and likes to laught and have a good time so its good.

Hope you all have a good week once again and give taylor austin a big
hug for me.

Love ya,

Elder SMoot