15 months!!!

¡Hola Todos!

Another week come and gone. Hope everyones enjoying their fall weather! This week for me was pretty satisfying, we´re pretty happy about it. After weeks of no shows, late sleepers, giving excuses, lies, rainy sunday mornings, and laziness we finally had 2 investigators in church! Wahoo! An investigator named Marcos that weve been teaching for a few weeks came to church and also brought a friend! Marcos is a pretty devoted Cristian guy, active in his church, but he wanted to come to see what our church was like. So he did, and also brought a friend that goes to his church as well. They thought it was good, a lot different and calmer than they that, since their used to singing crazily and shouting Haleluja, Amen, and also speaking in tongues. But hopefully they were able to feel the Spirit and recognize they attended the true church! Right now he is reading in the Book of Mormon, so who knows maybe he´ll have a change of heart! 

We also had quite the scary experience this week! So my companion on Tuesday was complaining to me how he got bit by a mosquito on his and it itched really bad. I told him just try not to itch it and it would go away faster. Then it just started to get worse and started to swell and hurt. So we went back to the pench. The next day it was about the same, really swollen and hurting bad. But he wanted to go out still so we did. Then that night it got really bad so we had to call Presidents Wife to see what was up. She said it probably wasnt that bad and that it would go away in a few days, but then Elder Allen said he couldnt move his ankle or toes, so she was like, oh ya thats bad. She said shed call us right back. Then she called back and said we had to go straight to the hospital and that we might had to spend the night there for observation. Usually she wouldnt trust the hospitals here but it was an emergency and already night time. So we got our stuff and took a taxi there! Turns out it wasnt really that bad and he just had an alergic reaction from some sort of bug bite. He just got a shot and some pills and then we were able to return back to the apartment by midnight about. Fun night though haha. The next day we were pretty tired but were able to have one of our best days of the week, so all is well!

Til next week!

Elder Trent

Yeah! I finally learned to make empanadas on the mission!

We have family home evening with the bishops family every monday night. The sister missionaries were in charge with the activity....

Elder Chef Trent: Argentine Cook 

Napolean Milanesas: Cheese, tomato sauce, ham, and tomato on top

Movie with a smoothie in Mercedes

> ¡Hola Todos!
>
> Everythings all good down here in Mercedes. Elder Allen and I are doing great together. Elder Allen is progressing well and always happy and pumped to work. Im sure his SEVENTY TWO emails he gets about every week sure motivates him haha. So also, news came out that missionaries can use sunglasses in some missions for the summer and we can in this mission. So if you see or see pictures of two guys dressed in shirt, tie and sunglasses, it STILL REALLY isnt the CIA. Just two missionaries preaching the Gospel in the hot heat of summer.
> Anyways, the work here continues slowly but surely. We had a pretty solid week this week, finding a lot of new investigators and getting a good amount of lessons in. We´re just trying to help all of our investigators progress as all missionaries work for. I really enjoy our area, we´re contacting a lot and getting good results. Most of our new investigators are just people from other churches or that just believe in God that are just willing to listen to us about a message of Jesus Christ. So usually those types we havent seen much progress But thats how we can find the prepared people or help them get prepared at least. People here like to talk about God a lot and about all their problems as well. We can sometimes just say hi to people and we´ll be there talking to them for like 20 minutes about their whole life story with all their problems. Sometimes its kind of interesting or funny other times a little boring haha. Just this week, we contacted a lady, Ana Maria, that said we could share a message with her and for the first 15 minutes she talked about 20 different subjects before we could say our names haha. She ended getting confused how she finished her spill by talking how she really needed to take her dog to the vet. But at the end, she said she wanted to go to church so that was good. I´ve been really noticing lately though, that my desires are increasing every day to share this Gospel with everyone! Everyone needs the restored Gospel in their lives! I know this Gospel is true and I love it with all my heart. I really am spreading joy to the world and its amazing to think what a blessing and opportunity it is to do it.
> Oh to end of the week, we have started something fun here with the four elders that are in our apartment. Movie with a smoothie! Ya! Last night we watched The Legacy and had a strawberry and banana smoothie. Good times.
>
> Love you all, til next week!
>
> --
> Elder Trent

¡Hola Todos!

What a spiritual filled weekend we were able to have thanks to conference! Its really something else listening to conference on the mission for me! I hope you all were able to enjoy it as well! So this week Elder Allen and I were able to continue strong in our faith and determination. As the week went on we had a little hiccup with some health problems, both me and my companion. But other than that we had a good successful week! Remember Alicia that we found last week? We were able to go back to her and have another spiritual lesson. We taught the Restoration and invited her to be baptized. While she didnt specifically say yes, she was very interested in knowing more about the church and wanted to visit before making a decision. Unfortanetely, she wasn´t able to make it to conference, but we have really high hopes for her! I´ll keep updating you on her progress. Other than that, this week was a little uneventful, but still good! Til next week!

-- 

Elder Trent

District Meeting

Some of the members in the ward that went to the chapel to watch conference.

9 investigators, building a house and strawberry shortcake! What?!

¡Hola todos!

Hows everyone doing? I couldnt be better here! This week was a good one! Elder Allen is doing awesome here in his training. He really radiates a lot of contagious excitement for the work which makes my time with him pretty enjoyable. I dont know how he does it, but he is already a great missionary, just lacks the Spanish right now which will come. This week we had a big focus on finding new investigators. With our combined determination, efforts, and faith we were able to find 9 new investigators by the end of the week! And a few of them that really have good potencial. It just shows how important diligence and faith is on the mission. And with it, the Lord blesses us! This past week we found a single women who lives only with her five year old daugther that has hearing problems. We found her only because we decide to knock on her door to ask if she knew one of her neighbors we were looking for. So like we normaly do, after asking we began to contact her. She says she would love to listen but in that moment had to go, but told us to pass by the next day. So, the next day we were able to go by and teach her. During the whole thing she showed so much interest and was very sincere. She expressed how in that moment she was going through a lot of hard times with her daughter and other family issues and when we passed by the day before it was a big sign of hope and a light to her. A similar experience happened the next day right before our lunch appointment. It was about 20 minutes before we had to be there so like good little missionaries would do, we took advantage of the time and starting contacting by our lunch appointment. the first door we knocked on, let us in! Her name is Alicia Galvan and since we didnt have much time we started sharing with her about the BOM. We were sharing about how it would bless her life and then she all of the sudden burst into tears and explained all the problems she was going through and how her husband had passed away about a year ago and how she had to raise her 8 kids alone. We were able to help her feel peace and the Spirit and she was very grateful for our visit. The Lord puts prepared people in our path!

So this week went well and we were able to finish it off on Saturday helping build a house a little which was cool! Anyways love you all and have a great week!

-- 

Elder Trent

mission bucket list number 9, Help build a house. Check

We helped an inactive member build his house by making the cement floor. it was fun and then we ended it by eating pizza with his family. and then a surprising treat, strawberry short cake! what? i didnt even know it existed here. it was soo good.

¡Hola Todos!

This week was quite the experience, for several reasons! One, transfers came and I am now training a new Elder, Elder Allen, straight from the MTC. He is from Bountiful, Utah. This first week went by pretty smoothly with him. He came out with a lof of excitement and motivation to do mission work so things have been going pretty well with him in the first week. He knows very little Spanish right now, so thats mainly what were focusing with him right now, helping him to learn Spanish and obviously everything we do as missionary too. Im pretty excited to continue working with and helping him improve. Im just trying to help him participate during the day as much as he can so he can learn quickly. We were able to see a few great small miracles doing this, having him inviting people to be baptized and helping share the message of the restauration. There was also another change with the other Elders that were in our apartment as well. Elder Lundell is also training a new Elder from Spain! He is super cool and a stud already at missionary work. 

Second, this week also we had planned the baptism for Belen, sadly things didnt go as planned. On friday, she was baptized, all good, everything went well, until Saturday. We found out Sunday morning when we called her to come to church that everything went bad on Saturday. Apparently she didnt feel as good as she thought she would or didnt have a great experience like she expected. And then her parents started to fill her head(they always supported her in getting baptized but didnt agree with the church) and so long story short, she doesnt want to continue with the church and didnt get confirmed on Sunday. it was pretty sad, but didnt affect on enough to get depresed or anything. We will continue to work with her to see if there is any hope and continue working diligently in our area. Things like this can happen so Im obviously a little sad from it, but just more determined to work hard.

But all is well here and Elder Allen and I are excited to continue working hard!

To end on a more happy note, because Elder Allen is learning to speak, he has said some funny things while talking to people, haha. We did a contact the other day and i asked him if he´d like to start it of. he was all for it and excited, but instead of say, "Hi, we´re missionaries" He said, "Hi, We´re millionaires". Now everyone is gonna think were rich haha, no im pretty sure the people got what he meant. But thats part of the experience of learning a language, you have to make mistakes.

Love you all!

- 

Elder Trent

mi nuevo compañero(now that you know spanish I can do that haha;) )

I am training him straight from the MTC. He name is Elder Allen from Bountiful, utah.

We did some service Saturday morning! The dark elder is also a new elder in the mission and is from Spain! Hes got an interesting accent but I understand him anyways. Hes super cool! So Elder Lundell and I are both training new people in the same pench, which is pretty cool!

14 months down!

¡Hola Todos!

So this week finished the transfer and heading into the next which will mean 14 months on the mission! This transfer was one of the best transfers Ive had on the mission. I was thinking a lot these past few days why that might be. Ya, we´ve had a lot of success, I got along well with my Elder Lopez, and I enjoy Mercedes, but as I thought about it more I realized it was because of something much better. As I now have over a year on the mission, I have been able to have a lot of experiences for the good or for bad. So I made an effort this transfer especially to always be animated no matter what happened. To always be content and satisfied at the end of the day with the work that we did no matter the results. It made a huge different in the work, making sure I was always happy and helping my companion be happy always as well. Not just being happy all the time, because there have been very few times in my mission where Ive been sad, but more being excited and with a lot of faith to go out and do the work good everyday. So I think we have been able to see good results with that mentality always. Another thing that I have been doing and continue working on, is forgetting about myself and serving others more, my companion, my district, the people in general. I was able to strengthen my testimony in that true happiness comes from serving the Lord and others. So I am doing really great right now and feel very grateful for what the mision is helping me to become and what I am able to do to help others while Im on my mission. 

So for this next transfer I received the news that i will be training a newbie again here in Mercedes! I wasnt expecting it at all, but Im pretty excited! The first time I did it I barely had 6 months on the mission, but now I know I can do a lot better job, learning from the first time doing it and from my experience on the mission. 

Right now, we´re preparing to have the baptism of Belén this next Friday! Wahoo! She is awesome and all ready to go! This past week in general was pretty normal, we just went to General Rodriguez last Friday to have divisions with the Zone Leaders which went great. Their area over there is huuge! So we did a lot of pedaling all day long. And because its so big they have to bike super fast all day long to get around. In Mercedes, we just stroll around nice and calmly in no hurry haha, but General Rodriguez was another story. But I made sure to keep up with him. Its amazing how fast these run down bikes they give us can go! The next day I was pretty sore but all good haha. Anyways, we continue finding a good amount of new investigators every week in our area, but no one that is looking to progress very well. So we´re on the search more than anything now. 

I´ll let you all know about my new comp next week and how the first week went! Til next week!

-- 

Elder Trent

¡Hola Todos!

This past week flew by! It was another good one. We are still working with Belen who came to church again this past Sunday. She is loving everything and has good friendships already in young womens. Ruben as well is doing good. He was able to come to church again yesterday. The only thing that impides him from getting baptized is his health as he is going to get surgery on his back sometime soon. The medical system is a little different here so he has do go out of town to Buenos Aires and see if he can snatch an empty bed so he can recieve an analisis! so his future is unknown for now. But hes awesome, he said to us last friday, Sunday im going to church and then Im going to have a nice big asado(barbaque) with my girlfriend and then travel to the hospital. Because his week always goes better when he goes to church and he feels a lot more peaceful. Hes got a great testimony already. Our recent converts as well are doing good. They all expressed how good they felt after their baptisms and confirmations and that is was an awesome experience! So Elder Lopez and I are pretty content right now. 

Love you all! have a good week!

-- 

Elder Trent