Week 83

Well this week was a pretty good week. We had 2 baptisms which is great! Juancho was one of them. We thought he wasn’t going to get baptized, but everything turned out great. Then Sunday came and we couldn’t find him, and he didn’t get confirmed. But the first half of his baptism is done, so next week we should be able to finish it.

This is what happened. Saturday morning we woke up and got ready, then went to the church to start cleaning and filling the font. We had planned with Juancho to pass by his house and pick him up at 10:30 to go together to the baptism. We are walking to his house and we get a text message that’s translated said, “Hey Juancho wanted to advise you that he won’t be able to attend his baptism today for x reasons and he will explain why later.” So we ran to his house, and he wasn’t there, and he wasn’t answering his phone. So we went to another investigator’s house and took him to the baptism (Matias). Then after the baptism was over, we are all sad because we didn’t baptize anyone, but we made the decision to do everything possible to have a baptism that day.

So after lunch I call Juancho like five times, and the fifth time he answered. He explained that he was in Plottier because some stuff happened to his family and a whole story, but I told him that there’s still time and everything is all ready and we could do his baptism at 7. He said sure why not, so we just got him baptized and that is that. Hopefully you can all understand that. It made sense in my head, jaja. So we can learn from that to never lose faith. Anything can happen if we try hard enough.

Then for the last pday, we went to the river and the Neuquén letters to take pics. Also Saturday was the birthday of our Mission Presidente, so of course the office got cake, haha. It was great!

Yep, and here in 8 days I will be out of the office and in some other area. I still don’t have any idea of where I’m going, but I know I’m going. Well that basically describes what happened this week,

Love You All,
Elder Newman

 

 

Week 82

Well we didn’t have such a successful week this week, but we did, however, get a lot done. The visit of President Nelson was great. He is a great guy and has a good sense of humor. He may be old, but he is very healthy and always has a good attitude.

One of the things he talked about is how a member here asked him when we were going to get a temple here, and he said no, and that we wouldn’t have one until we had enough members to be able to fill the temple with temple workers and that it all depended on what the members did. If they start working a bit more and then the baptisms will come, and then we would get a temple if the Lord wants it here. I was also able to shake his hand when he had the meeting with all the mission. It was a great experiencia.

Then after the meeting on Saturday, I was given the opportunity to baptize Ivana. She is 9 years old, and the sisters were teaching her, but I did the interview and she asked me if I could do it [the baptism]. It was a good baptism, but there were literally no members, and the water was dirty and super cold. The water in Bear Lake was warmer than the water we had in the baptismal font. The poor girl was gasping for air when she came back up. I almost started gasping for air too when it got up to my hips. The water was super cold.

Also, today we had a good friend of mine go home, Elder Juarez. He is from Buenos Aires. We had his last lunch in the mission with him yesterday, and today he got on the plane.

Well that’s about it. We haven’t been able to find Juancho again; we had a cita [appointment] with him yesterday, but he wasn’t there, so we will pass by again today.

Love,
Elder Newman

Week 81

Well this week we didn’t get a whole lot of teaching in, but we did get some done. We taught Juancho again, and to help him get to church we asked him if he could help us with a practice that we needed to do with the members. He showed all the members how to give an invitación to go to a church open house, and he did it great! It was the best practice that we had seen, and all the members were asking if he was a member but he said not yet. We are going to try and get him baptized the 22 of April.

We also went and taught Graciela and Luciano. My sign language is getting a lot better, but Ariel still has problems understanding because he is half blind.

Also we are teaching la familia Millado. The mom was baptized, but they can’t find her records so she has to do it again. And her daughter wants to get baptized. So we are more than happy to baptize them, Haha. And also, I went to help some missionaries do a church open house. And that’s basically all we did this week.

Love You All
Elder Newman

Elder Machuca, yo, Elder Kelshaw, Elder Dean, Elder Heward, Elder Asencio, Elder Rodriguez...then the hermanas, Hermana Guida and the Hermana Gutierrez

Me, Cynthia, Juan, Abril, Elder Ortega then in front of him Elder Llontop.

Week 80

Well it has been a pretty normal week. We did a lot of running around. We had to go to Villa Regina 2 times and one time in a bus. We also helped an investigador of the asistentes do a cement roof, so that was fun. We cleaned out and painted two apartments and watched one session of conference there in Villa Regina. It rained a lot down here too.

Conference was great. I really liked the talk of Joaquin E. Costa. I’m going to download it and share it with all our investigators. He basically sums up every investigator that we find. Haha. We also have plans to have a few more baptisms here before the transfer ends.

I still have no idea where I’m going. President says he knows, but he won’t tell me where I’m going. I think I’m going to the South because I’ve basically been everywhere else. Haha.

I’m still training Elder Ortega, and we are both helping Elder Llontop with his work. I don’t know what they are going to do when I leave, because I’m the only one with a license to drive. So they will have to do something a bit different when I go.

Graciela also went back to Buenos Aires, so we are going to have a harder time talking to Ariel. But we will get him baptized one way or another, haha.

Well that’s basically it for the week.
-Elder Newman

[Smile, your girl loves me.]

Week 79

Well this week was somewhat slow here too. My comp left on Friday to El Bolson, and now it’s me, Elder Ortega, y Elder LLontop. Training is going pretty good. Elder Ortega is learning pretty quickly. He still has a lot of things to learn, and he needs a lot of practice to be able to start doing everything super-fast. I also gave Elder Ortega a rundown of how we send missionaries home, and we had to send one home for some back problems he was having.

I was able to see Graciela again and practice my sign language a little bit more with her. I am starting to be able to communicate a little better. I’m hoping by the time the transfer ends Ariel will be baptized.

This next week we won’t be doing too much either. We do, however, have to take a trip to Villa Regina and paint 2 apartments so we can close the contracts we have with them.

Well that’s about it.

Love you all -Elder Newman

Week 78 - Happy Transfers!

Happy Transfers...with every transfer comes a surprise. This one was that I’m leaving the office! My replacement will be Elder Ortega. He is a great missionary and will do a great job.

We did pday Monday instead of Saturday. We also had the baptism Saturday. It was great. I’ll send some pictures. Their names are Alicia y Hector. I baptized Alicia and Elder Ramirez baptized Hector.

We also celebrated the Hermana Casariegos birthday with a dinner here in the office.

Yep and that’s about all that happened this week, we are going to be super busy here in the office with all the newbies and trainers this week, and we have to train our new replacements too.

So, I will still be here in the office for a full transfer training my comp.

Love, Elder Newman

Week 77

Well first off, I will explain who the pics are of from the last week...the guy with the tattoos is named Johnny. He is a cool kid. He is my age, has a kid that he never sees in person because the mom doesn’t let him, and he has another kid on the way. He is great. He just needs to get married and then get baptized. He was able to go to church last week, so that was great.

The other guy is named Juancho y has all kinds of problems. We were able to wake him up. We opened the door to his house and clapped our hands, and then we walked inside and just kept insisting that he get up and come with us. Then at church we heard a few talks about how the parents of the youth need to wake up their kids and get them up so that they can go to seminary. He thought it was funny because it was exactly what we did with him that morning. Then we went to lunch at a member’s house with him. It was really good.

This week we had our first corralacion with our mission leader. We finally got one [a mission leader] after 8 months without one.

This next week our ward has like 5 baptisms planned. It will be great! Oh and just a heads up, next Saturday will be our pday because it will be transfers. I need to get a picture with Hector y Alicia to send to you guys. They are both getting baptized this weekend.

This week that’s coming up will be super busy. I have to go to migraciones 3 times, and I need about 2 days to do transfers, make up plan with the bus schedules, and then buy all the tickets. I also have to help my comp. close 2 pensions, and that will take all day Tuesday. And I have to get a guy's papers to go home in two days. So I guess I can say that I have a ton of stuff to do jaja. Well that’s basically all I have for this week.

Love You all -Elder Newman