It has been a crazy month here in Argentina. Life has been completely dominated by the
Soccer World Cup. Every 4 years teams
from all countries play each other to earn a position as one of 32 teams
invited to the finals. The finals this
year were hosted in Brazil and lots of people there were furious at how much
money the government spent on stadiums (8) for this huge event. We had not really followed the tournament
before coming here, but in Argentina you really don’t have a choice. You have to get involved! The Area presidency brought huge TVs into the
office so that all of the games involving teams from around here could be
viewed, and they were. Argentina did
very well advancing through all of the rounds which meant that we saw lots of
soccer games! They have a great goalie,
Romero, and the best player in the world right now, Messi, who carried the team
to the final game against Germany, which Germany won 1-0. Our favorite game was the semi-final game
against Holland which Argentina won on penalty kicks.
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| Our floor during the World Cup |
This has been a month to get better acquainted with Jorge
Zeballos, a member of the 1st Quorum of Seventy, who is directly
responsible for our program. He spoke at
a special Devotional, came to our FHE, with his wife to tell us about his
conversion to the Gospel and his life as a General Authority, and then had a 30
minute PPI with us where we discussed our personal experience, the Open Chapel
program, and our work as District Leaders.
He is a man of great love for the Lord which just radiates from
him. We felt very understood, supported
and loved as we worked with him.
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| Elder Zeballos in the middle with red tie |
This month we worked with a Stake President of Chinese
descent named President Wu and transferred all senior missionary couples, who
work in the Area Office, into wards in his stake. There they will be teaching the Gospel
Principles class and working through technology to help retain the new converts
in that ward. They might even be asked
to go out and do some visits on the weekend.
When we made the switch we treated it as a “transfer” and most of the
missionaries seemed excited. There were
some that seemed a bit disgruntled, but are coming around. Before this change most of them just went to
church and sat in a corner and did very little, but this will force them into
the missionary work.
The highlight of the month came as we learned of the birth
of Maxwell Darin Knapp! He joined the family on June 30, a healthy,
big boy born to Darin and Ashlee out in Manhattan, Kansas, where Darin is
studying to earn his PHD in Marriage and Family Therapy. Pictures from Kansas show Max as being chubby,
with lots of dark hair, a small, button nose, and beautiful, big, blue eyes. We skyped and met him in person and he is adorable! It was hard to keep Grandma from running down
and buying a ticket to Kansas! I would
have loved to be born into that family, what a blessing for Max!
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| Ashlee, Darin, Maxwell |
July 9 is the Independence Day for Argentina so they closed
the office and we had the day off. We
decided to go and visit the Alto Palermo Mall, which is huge and filled with
modern shops and stores. We felt like we
were in a building described in Lehi’s dream.
Later we went to “the Ateneo” which is an old theater that has been
converted into a bookstore. It was
incredible! The box seating has been
replaced by shelves of books, but the décor has remained and all is as it was
when it was a theater. A concert pianist
plays full-time and they have a section where you can sit, eat, and read. We loved it!
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| Inside the theatre bookstore El Ateneo |
We had a unique experience with an Open Chapel in a ward
called Hurlingham. Several people who
work in our office live in this ward so it was really fun for us to get to
present the program there. Lots of good
people came. In our training on Sunday
mornings we always tell our story of our being missionaries here more than 40
years ago and always having the dream to come back some day. Dad always tells about me wanting to send in
mission papers for my birthday. The
bishop was really impressed with that and said it touched him and he would
always remember that when it was his time to serve a mission.
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| Bishop Lastarria and wife with us at Hurlingham |
Bishop Lastarria and his family brought several
investigators, his daughter 2 friends from school, his son a friend, and the
family the bishop invited himself. He
was so excited. The Monday following the
Open Chapel we received a call from the stake president thanking us for our
efforts there. He was very excited
because several of the investigators had come to church the next day after the
event and sacrament attendance was the best it had ever been. We were pleased to learn this because we don’t
often get much feedback as to what happens in a ward after our presentation.
We have been pleasantly surprised with the winter here. It has been in the 50's and 60's. Most of the Argentines have their coats and scarves and always talk about being cold. We wear jackets and are loving it. We could get used to this kind of winter!
