second to last email!!

¡Hola Todos!

Well it was the first week we worked with the new division splits of Villa Tesei and it went really well! (Before our area was split in the shape of Chile, but now they gave us a part of the other Elders and us to them to make things more effective) The other Elders didnt pass us over many investigators, from the part of their area they gave us, so we spent the week getting to know the members on the ward list(Active and Inactive), and contacting plenty of course. The new area is amazing! It looks small on a map, but its huge! There´s a lot of hidden places and houses very compacted together, people always moving in and out of the town. So thats good theres a lot of motion, always new people to find. There are neighborhoods, which are called "Villas" here in the area, or "slums" i think youd say it in English. Which are very poor neighborhoods, with all the houses on top of eachother, in the back, on the side, everywhere in all directions. Real promising!

This week we found a few great families we´ve started to work with, one of them is Marcela and her son, Leandro, another is Luis and Viviana. You can tell they are very prepared to accept the restored Gospel. It seems that way for many of the contacts we do, many people are very receptive and Elder Meyers and I feel very blessed. 

One thing Ive learned while being in Villa Tesei for so long is patience. Ive been here for six months and things never really got going, with the ward, with investigators, or the area in general. Its been a process, but really we are starting to see the blessings flow in now. Even though I may not be here to participate in most of them, Im grateful for the opportunities the Lord has given me to a part of His work here. 
A little bit of investigators updats: Veronica dropped us. She was so great! and still is, it was her daughters that wouldnt let her continue talking with us. Even though she has her agency and wants to talk to us, go to church, get baptized, everything, veronica is depent on her kids for paying for her medicine and werent going to do it if she was "became a mormon". So its really sad, but there wasnt much we could do about it.

But on the very bright side, we saw two great miracles here specifically this week. We couldnt get in contact with one of our investigators, Andres, the whole week. But Sunday morning he shows up at 9 ready for church! it gave us a scare for awhile there but in the end it was nothing, and he continues progressing rapidly. He is the one that has his date to get married the 15 of June. Another huge miracle we saw was with Lucas and Rocio that I have been working with on and off my whole time here. We had a lesson with them on Friday and a member friend of theirs came on Sunday to pick them up to take them to church and they were all ready to go! Lucas came in a white shirt and tie, after not sleeping the whole night because he works the night shifts in a bar. He got home at 7 in the morning sunday, got ready, and went to church! Rocio is 8 months pregnant and came as well. it was the second time they both came to church while Ive been here, the last being general conference. It was really incredible to see the sacrifice they made to come. They also will get married this week!

I feel super blessed and happy with the way things are going as I finish out my mission. I look forward to these next two weeks, working with diligence and urgency!

Love you all!

-- 

Elder Trent

¡Hola Todos!

Today we were all able to finish the Book of Mormon together as a mission, with many families at home participating as well. It was somethin! The Spirit was flowing here. Our mission president had us share a one minute testimony of the Book of Mormon at the beginning of every companionship study. I can honestly say my testimony has grown so much from the experience. The Spirit is strong, personal revelation is real, and the Book of Mormon is true!

This past Sunday we had stake conference here. It was a cool set up. They had banners all over in the entry way of Christ and other banners they use here for activities that are called Chapel Open Houses for tours of the chapel. Andres couldnt come to it for some lame excuse and we think Veronica was out of town, so thats a bummer. But we did our part. At least me and my companion were able to enjoy it!

So tomorrow is transfers here. I didnt expect to get changed having little time left...and I wasnt but looks like they are going to change the boundaries/divisions of the two areas here in Villa Tesei. Now the two areas are shaped like Chile and theyre going to change it into two squares to make the word a little more efficient with travel and time. So i´ll have have of my old area and half of it will be new. We´ll see what it brings.

Love you all, Have a great week!

-- 

Elder Trent

this is our investigator andres house

some houses of the neighborhood. 

the one of us infront of the house is veronicas house

¡Hola Todos!

Great week! Full of baptisms for the zone which is great of course! So Elder Meyers and I are enjoying the success thats our zones having. This week for our area was pretty good too. We found this lady contacting, Veronica that was super enthusiastic, she felt a huge wave of the Spirit as we taught her, she couldnt handle it! During the lesson she asked us where the church was a committed to go with her granddaughters before we even talked about it! At the end she also accepted a baptismal date for the 10th of June! She was loving it, super prepared to hear Gods special message to everyone! In the end, she didnt go to church, we dont know why yet, but we have faith she will next week! Andres is doing really great! He´s praying, reading, and coming to church every week. Just yesterday he came at 9 to come to the classes before Sacrament meeting for the first time! He loved it as well! He´s really started to gain a testimony. So right now he´s just working on getting married which is turning in to quite the process, but before no time, he´s in the water!

This week we also had interviews with President Robertson, it was my second to last interview with him until he and I go home as we are finishing our missions together. So solid week, love you all, have a great week!

-- 

Elder Trent

this is another church. it literally says "this is getting good" underneath the name of the church hahaha.

This is what I was talking about, what we ate last saturday.

Baked Chicken, squash and rice

And these are the empanadas I made.

l

ast pday we ate asado and potatoes. we went to another elders area to visit.

this is the university of moron. "UM" haha get it get it?

Mosquito Plague

¡Hola Todos!

This week was pretty normal other than the fact that there is now a mosquito plague here in Buenos Aires. There´s been floodings in other provinces of the country and all the mosquitoes from there decided to come closer to the coast I guess. So now there are mosquitoes everywhere and theyre huge! Ive already made it through my first bottle of Off Spray haha. But anyways Andres came to church again this week and is progressing well. He already started finding out how to start the marriage process(Its a little complicated here). Hopefully he can get married before I leave in June so he can get baptized! Ah I want to baptize! We also started doing visits with the Bishop here in the ward every Thursday which is a HUGE step to getting more member missionary help here. This last Thursday we went to our investigator Juan with the Bishop, who we found the other week. He lives right off the edge of this small river in humble house. He´s about 50 yrs old and has a lot of trials and problems in his life. Hes got great desires and said we changed his life after visiting him the first time! He accepted baptism and coming to church in the first visit. So far hes not fufilling with any of these commitments, but after a visit with the Bishop it was a boost. We went to go look for him to go to church and was asleep. Here its aparently terrible if someone is sleeply and you wake him up, so his family wouldnt wake him up for us, but next Sunday we´ll get him there for sure!

Til next week amigos! Have a great Mothers Day next Sunday!

Elder Trent

bad picture of me, but its the only one I got for this week. yes im bald, my companions cut my hair to short.

everythings good. Im not really nervous about coming home or focusing on it. I already know whats waiting for me and what Im going to do. So im more stressed now about baptizing before I go home, since Ive only baptized once in the past six months of my mission and we dont have any solid options for the upcoming weeks. And also of trying to make the most of my time here to progress as an individual. not just changing my behavior but my nature and who I am and who I want to be.

But im being patient and understand that its Gods will not me. So we see how these next few weeks play out.

¡Hola Todos!

Wah what a crazy week! To make a loong story short, on Tuesday we get a call from the office elder in charge of the apartments saying our contract is going to expire by the end of the month so we had to find a new one in our area. By the end of the week we still hadnt found one! So we were going to have to live an hour an a half away from our area until we could find a new one. Last minute a member says hes got a half finished apartment we could stay in so thats where we ended up going. Its has an unfinished kitchen and no hot water, but its got a roof! Haha so now we have all our stuff in the backyard of a members and spent all night packing and unpacking. We werent able to get much work done this week, but all good. 

Oh and we also found a hippy comunity that invited us in. Quite the interesting set up they got there, homemade instrument workshop, hanging herbs and spices in the kitchen, marihuana everywhere, and about 14 residents. Really nice people, although one girl got pretty mad we didnt give her a hug. We´ll see if we can help anyone of them out with the Gospel.

But ya quite the eventful week!

Andres came to church again this Sunday so we just need to get him married and into the water. We keep working with Katherine and Hernan, but their progress is slow, we´ll see why they didnt come to church later today. We continue finding some new investigators, so far no one is progressing but we are working hard and having fun while doing it!

Love you all, shout out to my sister Tori, Its her Birthday wahoo!

--

Elder Trent

Soccer last monday. man im so small compared to them haha

As zone leaders we go to the distrct meetings in the zone to "supervise"

Divisions in sketchy neighborhoods, good thing im not there!

Last minute packing up, movin out!

Member lunch in the church. Milanesa and mashed potatoes, classic

Visits with members, the best!

unfinished new pench. Ill tell this story in the mass email.

random picture

we had a breakfast with the zone sunday morning done by the stke pres. got there a little early, had to wake up at 5 to get there!

Fall