Pájaro...

Well, this has certainly been one of the most difficult weeks of my life! As i siad last week, Elder Cedeño left, so it´s pretty much been me leading the work in our area for the last few days.  The stress is going to kill me, I swear! I feel a bit like a baby bird that´s been pushed out of the nest... I´m still not flying, but i hope that I´m getting there.  One other thing is that my companion doesn´t know any English... hahaha! I asked him how much he knows, and he said below basic, so... *sigh* anyways, the work has been going on, just a little more intense. The only part that was a bit different this week was that there were elections here in Argentina, so Sunday, we had to stay in the apartment all day.  It was alright, because i got a ton of extra time to study the scriptures!!! But ya, Así es... 

Well, despite the difficulties of this week, we´ve had a few miracles.  One was after one of our investigators failed to show up to their appointment.  We weren´t exactly sure what to do, because we´d already exhausted our backup plans, but then, surely enough, two members of our ward came walking around the corner.  they had some extra time on their hands, so we did splits with them, and got in some extra lessons with members! So ya, that was a pretty cool experience! Wish you could´ve been there! :) 

Honestly, right now, the only thing keeping me going forward is my faith.  This is nowhere close to easy right now.  It really is overwhelming at times, but, I try to remind myself that through these adversities, the Lord is working with us, and that this (no matter how hard) is where i´m supposed to be.  I´ve learned a ton about prayer.  We can always use prayer and fast with a sincere heart to draw nearer to the Lord, and apply the Atonement more fully in our lives daily.  Con una semana más en frente de mí, espero que yo vaya a mantener mi diligencia y visión, y que pueda recordar mi Salvador, y utilizar su expiación constantemente. Sin Él, no podemos hacer esto, pero con Él, podemos hacer esto, y cualquier cosa que desee Dios. 

-Elder Holtry

a beautiful morning...

Elder Davidson!

bowling!!!!

I´m ridiculously fast, huh?

Almost... (Scores)

El Día de la Madre

Happy mother´s day! Oh, just us? Great, i keep forgetting... Ya, we had mothers day this past weeked rather than in may, so... there you go.  Wow, so weird! We had the primary presentation this weeked, kids are crazy, but I love em! Oh, by the way, Elder Cedeño left me to die here in Munro... But ya, we had transfers today, i´m going to stay here, and Elder Cedeño´s going to Islas something or other.  Seriously, it´s a bit sad... :´( But, what´cha gonna do?  On the bright side, before he left, we had an "Asado" in the home of our members.  That´s pretty much and Argentinian BBQ.  A TON of meat... I love it! Anywho, Now, my companion is Elder Córdova.  He´s from Chile, and I haven´t yet confirmed the amount of English that he can speak, but i´ll get around to asking.  He´s a pretty good guy, relaxed and whatnot.  I´ve only known him for a few hours, so I still don´t know much about him but... I´m a bit worried for this week, because I´ll pretty much be completely responsible for planning out our days and whatnot, since i know the area.  Also, if he doesn´t speak English... this will be a bit of a challenge... Hahaha! Voy a morir!! Well, luckliy (no es suerte, todas cosas son del Señor) I´ve learned a bit about pactience recently.  I realized that I just need to be myself and roll with the mission, doing my best, and accept what the Lord will give me.  In what I´ve learned, I can excersize pacience and diligence like this- Work with diligence, (with everything I have) and then, accept the will of the Lord.  Like many good things, it´s simple, but dificult... With this, It´s easier in the mission to use better diligence as we understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ better.  Seriously, there´s such a peace that comes to my heart when I study the Atonement.  Thanks to the Lord, we can be redeemed, and receive eternal life.  As we understand this better, we want to share it more with others.  So, as an invitation for you... Study the Atonement of Jesus Christ, prayerfully and diligently! It´s Miraculous!  Pues, Estoy agradecido por la doctrina de Cristo en mi vida, y la verdad y autoridad de Esta Iglesia.  Otra vez, sé que esta es la obra del Señor. Este es el sendero que el Señor quiere que sigamos.  Yo amo este mensaje, lo cual puedo proclamar diariamente, y, por supuesto, amo nuestro Salvador, Jesucristo.  Mediante Él, podemos hacer todas cosas.

Translation: Well, I'm grateful for the doctrine of Christ in my life, and the truth and authority of this Church. Again, I know this is the Lord's work. This is the path that the Lord wants us to follow. I love this message, which I can proclaim daily, and, of course, I love our Savior, Jesus Christ. Through Him, we can do all things

-Elder Holtry

(Editors note: I can tell his Spanish is getting much better because when I use google translate now it makes a lot more sense. Sometimes before it was a little hard to understand! Go Elder Holtry!)

 Package we sent

 A few Halloween decorations....although it kind of looks like it fits! 

So Happy!

Star Wars themed Car Wash

Zone T-shirts

Mate Cups 

"In my scriptures, i´m marking references to the Lord, since the book of Mormon is "Another testament of Jesus Christ". Pretty cool!"

Gonzolo, one of our Investigators

MTC Reunion - Elders Steele and Hardcastle

 He got the card we sent!

 Out in Munro

 The family Gomez Sallan

La fuente de gozo

Well, this week has certainly been interesting! One fun thing that happen was that I got yelled at a bit by a paraguayo... hahaha! I contacted this lady with her child in the street, and all was going pretty well, we were talking about the gospel and such, ad out of nowhere this guy comes up, and starts saying "Don´t you have anything better to do than..." blah blah blah and the suchlike. And the do you want to throw pineapples? (Pretty much means throw fists in Spanish) But ya... oh well, in contrast to that, one nice thing that happened was with another contact.  We were walking down the street, and we passed a man who seemed to be working to fix the bottom part of his gate outside, fumbling around with his keys and whatnot.  I asked him if he needed help, and he said no, but asked us where we were from (In respect to church) we answered him, and started a conversation.  He said it was interesting that we offered to help him, because in these days, usually people will just pass on by without even saying hello.  We taught a bit about the gospel, and seriously, the spirit was super strong there.  Well, wish you could have been there;) 

Also, i just want to throw in another note from conference. Meditizar! or, Ponderize i think it is in English. Choose a scripture every week, memorize it, but ponder it as well.  Mine from this week was Matthew 1: 39, which in English is something like, "He that seeks to save his life, will lose it, and he that loses his life, for my cause, will find it. " Just something quick that I was thinking was that as we focus on helping others, we lift ourselves also. I´ve been pondering joy with this as well, how sometimes we´re unhappy about others successes.  One quote from a talk that "Just because God is smiling on someone else, it doesn´t mean that he´s frowning on you".  If we can delight in the success of others, we essentially have an endless source of joy.  temporal things like eating, sleeping, and (To get more intense) alcohol, drugs, and things like that only provide a temporal happiness, in the moment.  It´s through charity and love of others, delighting in the goodness of others also, that we can find a lasting joy.  And obviously, this joy is complete when the knowledge and support of the gospel of Jesus Christ is added to the mix.  

Well, as always, i hope that all makes sense, i write these more or less a little fast... Anyways, 

¡Les quiero! 

-Elder Holtry

FOTOS: Nothing fancy this week, just something Elder House made for me. Still, pretty cool, right?

¡LA CONFERENCIA GENERAL!

Howdy! Well, as some of you may know, we just had general conference! SO awesome!!!!! As usual, the talks were super powerful, and this time, i got to listen to them in Castellano/Spanish! I was able to understand it, and one fun fact is that those who speak Spanish (Like Elder Christofferson) prerecord their talks in Spanish and then play that.  One thing that I liked was in the talk of President Eyring.  He said something along the lines of that we need to remember that the pains and challenges that we face in this life are so that we can be tested.  It´s crucial to remember that these problems have a purpose, so that we can endure them and, as it says in D&C, endure them well, so that God will exalt us on high.  Another point that I´d like to mention is from the talk of Elder Cook.  He talked a bit about the importance of exercising self-control. There´s a reason that the scriptures tell us to pray and fast often, and to not set our hearts on the riches of the world.  Self-control is like a muscle, and as we exercise it, through fasts, charity, and earnest prayer (cosas así) we can become more like the Savior, and gradually have more and more power to change our lives.  Of course, there´s a ton of other great topics in there, but those are the ones that I´m focusing on for now.  

Now, a fun experience that I had this week was with an investigator named Ignacio.  First off, the manner in which we found him was interesting. Usually, we contact people in the street, asking if we can give a card from the church to them, and starting a conversation.  Well, we were in a store near our apartment, and as we were looking through the products, a woman asked us, "Excuse me, can I have one of your cards?" We were like "What???" Usually, people don´t want to talk to us first! Hahaha, well, she was the grandma of Ignacio, and Ignacio´s pretty awesome, his dream is to work for United States Airlines, and he pretty much loves everything about the U.S. So, he´s been learning English, and he asked us to teach the first lesson in English.  It was actually super weird talking in English and even weirder TEACHING in English. but, we did it! hahaha! So ya, i kind of realized after that point that I can more or less understand (If not completely speak) two languages.  Because also earlier that day I had a full conversation with a guy named clyde in a bus. Of course, that was pretty hard, but I did it i suppose... hahaha! 

The mission´s really a roller coaster ride.  We had plans for a few people to attend with us to general conference, but they all fell through.  For example, there was one woman named Palmyra.  She wasn´t able to due to some complications with her computer in the house.  We tried to help her see that she needed to exercise her faith in the Lord with attendance.  She said she believes these things, but she wasn´t willing to attend.  Now, I always think of this question, but what is Faith without action?  The scriptures tell us that Faith without works is dead.  Also in the talk of President Eyring, he said (I don´t know exactly in English, but...) If you know something´s good, and you should do it... do it... Simple, but not simple, right?  Sometimes, it seems like we´re not strong enough and that... is sometimes right.  But that´s why we have the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  To lift us up, and through the BELIEVING part of our faith (Prayers), Receive the strength that we need from him, in order to perform the ACTIONS.  This is a process, but, as we exercising our faith, through things like prayer and fasting, we can gradually perfect the process. 

Como siempre, estoy agradecido por este Evangelio- La verdad que contiene el poder para ayudarnos a mejorar nuestras vidas.  Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y redentor.  Por medio de la fe, podemos ejercer la Expiación AHORA en nuestras vidas.  ¿Comprendemos la importancia de esto?  Probablemente no, pero, podemos todavía confiar en Él, en sus enseñanzas, y en su iglesia.  Sé que esta es la iglesia de Jesucristo, otra vez restaurada a la tierra a través de José Smith, un profeta de Dios. ¡¡¡Para siempre Dios este con Ustedes!!! 

¡Les quiero! 

(Jen’s note: I translated the last bit for you: I am as always, grateful for the Gospel Truth that has the power to help us improve our lives. Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. Through faith, we can exercise the atonement now in our lives. Do we understand the importance of this? Probably not, but we can still trust him, in his teachings, and in his church. I know that this is the church of Jesus Christ, again restored to the earth through Joseph Smith, a prophet of God. God be with you !!!

I love you all!

I also thought I would include something from his personal e-mail to Brent and I. It was funny:

Here´s some quick things and fun facts for you guys!

Remind me to not play videogames when I get home.  We have a returned missionary in the ward, whenever we visit, he´s always playing WOW... en serio.  So ya, there´s that.  Also, (don´t worry, it´s not a problem) the girls in Argentina are seriously beautiful.  Again, don´t worry, i´m focused, but seriously, sometimes it´s like... dangit, why do you have to be so beautiful right now?? hahaha! So ya, also, I don´t know if it´s possible to send music through the computer, if so, could you send music from THE LORD OF THE RINGS soundtrack? If not, don´t worry about! So ya, just a few things that came to mind this week, that I thought would be fun to ask/share! Well, I sure love you folks! 
-Elder Holtry

On the bus

 Chinatown!

 All you can eat restaurant!

 Preparing for the P-day feast!

 Selfie??