Marching into Spring

March has been great for missionary work here in Argentina.  We are really starting to see the members catch the vision of their responsibility to share the gospel.  A combination of things are making that happen.  We have seen quite a change since Elder Ballard of the Quorum of Apostles came to dedicate Argentina to the preaching of the gospel, and the prophet, has continually challenged members that NOW is the time to bring souls to Him.  How blessed we feel to be part of this great work at this important time.  The 2nd Temple in Argentina will be dedicated in May. The Temple is in Argentina's 2nd largest city, Cordoba.  What a blessing that is for these people who have to travel so far in this huge country.  We were able to see the Temple when we went to Cordoba,  to train a couple in the Open Chapel program.  It is truly beautiful.

We have had 5 Open Chapel events in March and they have all been very well attended. We began with a presentation in a very poor, rather scary neighborhood.  We arrived early to find gypsies selling old cars out in front of the church, a dead dog on the lawn, which smelled, and a crazy soccer game going on in the field next door.  Just when we were starting to get really nervous, a bus pulled up and out jumped the 8 Elders who were assigned to help us.  It was truly great to see them start across the lawn with their smiles and such a great spirit.  We couldn't help but feel like we had been rescued by the "Army of Helaman".  It turned out to be a great Open Chapel with lots of humble visitors who were very receptive to the message of the gospel.

The next week took us to a place called Rivadavia.  Bishop Montiel was so excited to show us this huge poster he had made to put out in front of the chapel.  It was all about the Book of Mormon and Christ's visit to the Americas.  We were very impressed, it was very well done.  Later, a member shared with us that Bishop Montiel was unable to read and write when he joined the church about 8 years ago.  He had patiently taken lessons from many sets of missionaries until he could read and then he learned to write.  That gave a whole lot of meaning to his Book of Mormon display.

In Garin we met a sister named Evangelista who told us that she loved being a missionary.  She proved it by bringing so many different people from the street to meet Janet and have the Open Chapel tour.  She brought in over a dozen investigators just by herself in the couple of hours that she was there with us.  We were so impressed with her loving, kind spirit, obviously we were not the only ones!

In General Rodriguez I had to take a picture of the beautiful, huge double story building with an elevator.  This building, was all lit up at night and was such a beautiful sight in this cozy little neighborhood.  I could live in this little town just outside of Buenos Aires.

We had the misfortune of being sideswiped by a moving truck.  He took of my mirror, scratched up the fender a bit and completed hooked into our bumper with his rear bumper and yanked it from the frame.  It went flying off of the road.  Of course this happened at night, after one of our Open Chapel events, but the road was well-lit and the fellow who crunched us was good to accept his fault, after some coaxing.  We have been without our van now for two weeks, which has been a real challenge, but we are so fortunate to have been protected from what could have been much worse.

National elections will take place here in October of this year.  The people are very frustrated with their current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.  They demonstrate all of the time.  Where we work just two blocks from the Pink House, we often see demonstrations in the plaza in front of government buildings.  One day the whole street was blocked by marchers carrying a huge Argentine flag.  The flag blocked all 12 lanes of traffic and caused much chaos.  Another day as we headed for the subway to come home, there were buses with people banging on drums lining the streets and the demonstrators were burning tires in the streets sending up clouds of black smoke.  It was scary!  We are seeing more anti-Yankee graffiti because her supporters blame everything that is wrong here on the USA.

The Church Office closed for another national holiday and so we took the train with our dear friends the Fords out to Martinez to see if we could find the mission home that we lived in as missionaries here in 1972.  Elder Ford was also here in the late 1960's, so it was his mission home too.  We found where it had been, General Pacheco 1380, but it has long since been removed.  We did walk a few blocks further down the street to "The Embers", which boasts being the first American Restaurant in Argentina.  That very well could be!  It was just as I had remembered it many years ago!  We had hamburgers, fries and a drink for 90 pesos!  It was all painted up in red, white, and blue and was just as I had remembered it!  That was a lot of fun!

March missionary madness

Missionary work just gets more fun!  We went to an Open Chapel in Parque Avellaneda and there we were helped by two young men who found the Church at our last Open Chapel there.  We went to an Open Chapel in Rivadavia and a sister missionary told us that as a result of the Open Chapel we had in Moron 1^st Ward (pronounced moroan) the husband of a faithful sister there got baptized.  Then as we were presenting the training in Garin an Elder Anderson told us that as a result of the Open Chapel in Parque Patricios a less active sister came with her family and her husband and son were baptized.

Saul y Luis

 

 It is fun to hear about the results of our efforts because we seldom do.  We just love being out with the people both for the trainings on Sunday and the actual Open Chapels on Saturday.

Of course the highlight of the month was mom’s birthday.  She got breakfast made by me, but then things started to pick up.  The other missionaries got her ice cream and treats.  I had one of the sisters surprise her with a really pretty blue (as in the Argentine flag) sweater which she really likes.

We are loving the Pathways class that we teach.  It is a course in the Book of Mormon in English to 24 students who after this semester will be able to enroll in BYU-Idaho as fulltime online students.  We are learning so much.  We made it through 2 Nephi and Isaiah and actually enjoyed the allegory of the olive tree in Jacob. 

One of our latest challenges now that school is back in session and people are back from vacation is getting to the office each morning.  We have to ride the subway.  There is no limit as to the number of passengers on the subway cars.  Just when we think the car is full and we are all standing there crammed together, nose to armpit, and literally “cheek to cheek”, a large middle aged lady decides to board and it gets really intense!  Of course there is no air conditioning inside the subway.  It is so hot and so humid and there are so many bodies that after just a stop or two, we wonder why we bothered to shower and wish that the teenage boy next to us had.  We have to ride for 10 stops which takes about 25 minutes and we are always sweating profusely when we emerge above ground at the plaza in front of the Pink House where we go every day.  What a relief to be above ground and to feel fresh air and to have 7 hours to look forward to repeating the process to get back to the apartment!

But summer is almost over here and the leaves are starting to fall, so the weather will make life in general and especially the subway trip to and from work more pleasant.

We gave away another Book of Mormon to a little man we pass by as we walk to the subway each day.  Hope he takes time to read it.

This month we have 6 Open chapel events scheduled.  We have two back to back on Saturday, March 7th and 8th, then on Sunday evening with a training in between on Sunday morning.  Some of the bishops that have had one in the past asked for another and since our Saturdays are all booked through June, we have had to schedule them on Sunday, Tuesday, or Friday.  The Tuesday or Friday have been holidays here.  They seem to be a good day because no one works.  All in all we really enjoy our weekends.  It has been so fun to get to know so many great members of the church here in Argentina.