Año Nuevo (Casi)

Again, Merry Christmas and almost Happy New year! Well, it´s been pretty good this last week.  I feel that Elder Danneman and I have done some pretty good work here.  We´ve been working hard, and finding some new people.  Honestly, this month hasn´t felt a whole lot like Christmas, being away from home, not really celebrating much, and walking around under the hot sun every day.  Some of these days have been pretty satisfying, but not like Christmas exactly. It wasn't until Thursday that I really completely felt the spirit of Christmas. The whole mission met together in a school that was big enough to hold all of us. The activity started off with the choir singing a bunch of incredible Christmas hymns, and we had some spiritual talks and videos about Christmas. I was thinking earlier that we´re always spreading the Gospel of Christ, so we always have that spirit with us, so it really takes something powerful to boost us to the point where we can feel it completely. (I hope that makes sense... It does to me, so... Eso) 

After that In the morning, we had lunch (about 2 or 3 hamburgers for every person) and then returned to the theater area for the more "fun" part. We started it off with some great mission songs, and President Ayre talking to us a little bit.  We also had a little gift exchange and watched the videos that every zone in the mission made for Christmas.  So ya, it was great to be together with the whole mission.  Later, we returned to our areas and continued working.  We also had dinner with the Armas Rocha family in our ward that night.

On Christmas day, we had our P-day (we worked monday also this week) and the Elders in my apartment had a little Present opening. We received a few things from the family, and also from some of the ward members.  Later on in the day, we went to the house of a member to skype our familys (For those of you who don´t know, we can only call two days of the year- Christmas and mothers day) It was great to see and talk with my family.  Love ´em so much!!! (Obviously) So ya, that was a highlight. 😁

Sunday, we had a few people attend church with us.  An investigator who´s come three times now named Ivanna, and a family of less actives who´s children haven´t been baptized.  Ivanna has told us that she feels good when she attends church, and feels good about the message of the Gospel also.  Well, this should be a pretty good week (knock on wood) :) 

Les amo! Discúlpenme que no he enviado cartas a nadie todavía! ;) Es casi imposible... pero bueno.  Sé que esta época de navidad ha sido un gran tiempo para recordar Jesucristo, y que debemos seguir recordando a Él.  Estoy agradecido por su Iglesia, la cual Él estableció por medio de José Smith de nuevo en la tierra.  Esta es su verdad.  (google translation says: I love them! Excuse me I did not send letters to anyone yet! ;) It's almost impossible ... but good. I know this Christmas season has been a great time to remember Jesus Christ and that we should keep reminding him. I am grateful for his Church which He established through Joseph Smith again on earth. This is true.)

-Elder Holtry

These are some of the slang things people say in Argentina via Josh's Skype call

This is him speaking part of the first vision in Spanish. (His companion was right next to him speaking to his family so it's sort of hard to hear)

¡FELIZ NAVIDAD!

¡¡¡¡Feliz Navidad a todos!!!! That´s right, Christmas this week, and this Friday i´ll get to call my family via skype, so i´m pretty stoked for that!  Along with that, i´ve completed 6 months in the mission, so I (along with Elder Hardcastle) Burned a tie traditionally to celebrate it. Well, the truth is that this week hasn´t been as insanely hot, so that was a nice Christmas present from Argentina!

Well, we´ve had some interesting stuuf happen this week.  One day, we were walking down the street, and we greeted a man cleaning his car on the side of the road.  We said "Hola", and then, within his house, we heard an "HOLA".  We looked, only to see a bird sitting there. Well, turns out it was the type of bird that can talk (Is it called a parakeet?) and we ended up talking with his owner for a little bit (Hector).  So that was pretty fun, along with the other Spanish phrases that the bird could say! :D

Also, this last week, my toe was hurting a bit, and it was a bit inflamed and infected-looking, so I decided to take it to a lady in our ward who specializes in fixing toes. Turns out that I had two in-grown toenails in the big toe of my right foot. Surprise! They were pretty big as well. Elder Danneman has had them before, so he told me that they usually just do and injection and then take it out. Nice and simple right? Nope. She didn´t have such a thing, so she just ended up cutting open that part of my toe and cutting it out.  She said something like "Just read your scriptures" because I was trying not to look at it, and I said "No, probably just a prayer will do for now" But ya, that was fun. 

Anyways, we´ve been finding a bunch of people this week, we´re going to need to work with them a bit to help them along, but we ended up teaching some great lessons this week.  In one, the spirit was so strong the whole time.  There were moments when I was about to explain a gospel principle, and then before I began they asked about that same principle. Seriously a testimony builder about the spirit.

Still, despite all of these new investigators, none of them are progressing towards baptism.  I´ve thought alot this week about what it means to be a successful missionary, and along with that, to be a successful person in life.  This is probably obvious for some of you, but I´ve come to understand in on a new level: The only thing important at the end of the day, is that we´ve done what god desires of us.  Truly, no thing is more important.  We can live a life of pleasure, completely satisfying all of our senses. But at the end of it, what do you think would be more important? That we´ve been happy and satisfied all the time, or that we´ve done hard things, learned, grown, and ultimately followed the path and teachings of the Lord?

The mission isn´t easy, and it´s not the most fun either, but as I´ve said before, it´s where I KNOW that I should be.  I know that I´ve found individuals that will one day be able to make covenants with God through baptism.  Maybe not now, but some day.

Lo que es lo mas importante es que hagamos la voluntad del Señor, nada más.  Prenguntenles cada día, "¿Estoy haciendo lo que el Señor quiere que yo haga?" Sé que esta iglesia da el verdadero sendero que Dios quiere que caminemos. A pesar de las dificultades, vale la pena. de estas cosas testifico, en el nombre de Jesucristo, Amén.

(translation: What is most important is to do the will of God, nothing else. Prenguntenles every day, "Am I doing what the Lord wants me to do?" I know this church gives the true path that God wants us to walk. Despite the difficulties, it is worth. these things testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.)

-Elder Holtry

Ha Nacido Un Salvador

I´ve got two words for you: Hace Calor. What I mean by that is that it´s freaking hot here! This is definitely the hottest Christmas I´ve ever experienced, since we´re already sweating from 9 in the morning (in the apartment) onward.  The other day, it was cloudy, and rained a little bit, and yet, it was still hot outside... Pero Mal... A few people have lights outside and whatnot, and a few have little Christmas trees (like, the tallest that i´ve seen is about 3/4 of my height). Well,  we only have to endure a few months more of it i suppose.

Well, our apartment has a problem with cockroaches (The problem was there before I arrived, ok?) But luckily, Elder Danneman has a talent for killing the little things.  He´s always ready to stomp them and spray a little bit of bug spray.  In one area of the kitchen, it was really bad when he found it, so he took the bug spray and a lighter and pretty much torched the area.  It was beautiful. So ya, that´s been bugging me a bit...

Outside of the apartment, we´ve been working a ton. we´ve walked to all of the borders of our area this week, doing visits, and contacting in the street.  We´ve been focusing a bit more in Christmas invitations recently.  We have our "Ha Nacido un Salvador" Cards, which are awesome.  There´s a video that we invite the people to watch.  In English, it´d be under the web page Christmas.mormon.org.  If you still haven´t seen it, well, I invite you to watch it!

We had a pretty cool experience earlier this week.  We were out walking and doing visits, when Elder Danneman said he had the thought to go and visit some members in the area.  We went, and found them all together in the house.  When we arrived, we talked with them for a little bit, and then they said that they had recently been talking about how they wanted to give their child a blessing, because it was a bit sick, but the father was still waiting to receive the priesthood.  So, we had the opportunity to give a blessing to the child, and share our message of Christmas with the family also. 

Well, i´m just grateful that I had the opportunity to have that experience.  Also, to be apart of this grand work. Pues, como siempe. seguimos adelante. Por medio del calor, dificultades, y oposiciones que enfrentemos cada día. Estoy agradecido por esta obra, por esta iglesia, y por mi Salvador, Jesucristo, quien me ha ayudado diariamente. Esta es su obra. (Well, as always. We move on. By heat, difficulties and opposition we face every day. I am grateful for this work, for this church, and my Savior, Jesus Christ, who has helped me daily. This is his work.)

 A few of the dead cockroaches after Elder Danneman blow torched the place.

Invitar y Ayudar

Well, it´s been a descent week here in San Miguel. There´s going to be some pretty scattered thoughts in here, so get ready! I don´t remember if i mentioned this last week, but i went to a reunion in San Fernando the other week.  I sat down, and turned, and who did I see? Elder Cedeño! He greeted me with a hearty "Hello my boy!" (In the mission, our trainers from our first areas are our "papás") So it was awesome to see and talk with him for a bit, he´s awesome! Also, another funny moment from the last week was when I was talking with Elder Cordova on our way to an appointment.  A guy riding on a cart pulled by a horse passed us by (As they do every so often) and I asked him if they had many horses like that in Chile.  He responded yes, and proceeded to explain (a bit exageratedly and sarcasticly) about how there are horses everywhere in Chile hahahaha.  After a bit of this, I asked him "There aren´t many horses in Chile, are there?" To the which he replied "No Elder, Chile is normal" I don´t know, it was pretty funny for me :) 

Well, one thing that I´m going to miss from Munro is Buddy´s Pizza. It´s like 40 pesos, and close to the apartment.  It´s garbage, but still, it´s alright :) Well, here´s a little fact for all of you folks back home.  Elder Danneman and I were walking down the street the other day, and I remembered that I know a Josh Danneman from BYU (he was in my Ward).  I asked him if he had a relative with that name.  As it turns out, it´s his brother! (Who is now serving in Brasil) That´s crazy, because we know someone in common there, and also, with Elder Cedeño, we had a mutual friend named Maryn! Crazy stuff, huh? 

Now, to talk about some of the things that happened this week.  We´ve been visiting ward members this week, 1- so that i can get to know them, and 2- so that we can share a Christmas message and ask for references.  Also, I saw two ex-missionaries this week, who returned to visit Argentina with their families.  It was super cool getting words of advice from those guys.  Also, with one of them, his Dad knew Spanish, but his mom, no.  It reminded me of my first week here! :)

Well, also this week, we´ve visited alot of less-active members, to help them out in whatever way that we can.  Yesterday, we came accross a member named Enzo.  He hasn´t attended for a couple of years now.  We talked to him, and he has alot of doubts about the church, and Especially the members, because he quarelled with some at one point.  Well, after we answered his questions, and talked with him for a bit, he recounted to us how that morning, he had found his white shirt and tie, and was thinking about the missionaries. He muttered several times how weird it was that we´d come that same day, within the two hours that he was in his house, and right before he was about to move to a new house.  Well, this experience has strengthened my testimony in a few things. Such as that the Lord guides us in this work. Also, it reminded me of our purpose. To INVITE people to come unto Christ and to HELP them do it.  That was what we did with Enzo, we offered an opportunity, and helped to resolve his doubts.  He can choose to soften his heart, or continue on in blindness.

Well, what can I say more? I´ve declared the truth of these things, and i´ll do it again.  This is Christ´s church.  Newly established in the earth.  It has his name. It has his priesthood. It has his organization and revelation.  This is my testimony, and I share it in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

-Élder Holtry

New view from my apartment.

 Elder Cordova and I

 Elder Danneman and I

 me trying to look epic

 Me and Elder Flemming (and Hermana Morales) 

 The Zone

 With Bro and Sis Snow. They are the mission presidents wife's parents and are in Fair Oaks 4th ward

Christmas Cards we give out

 My new agenda

One last look at the old apartment in Munro

¡¡ME FUI!!

Well, we had transfers today, and I´ve now left Munro.  It´s a bit strange being in a new area again, but It feels good to have a change of scenery. Now, i´m in San Martin, with my companion Elder Danemann.  The apartment that I have now is way different than the one before.  It´s what we´d call "Cheto" here in Argentina (Rich/expensive). It has air conditioning, sinks functioning correctly, and it seems pretty comfy.  Also, there´s 4 elders in this apartment, so Elder Hardcastle (From the MTC) and his comp are there as well!  Just a little more background info, my Companion is from Georgia, and has about 1 year and a half in the mission.  But anyways, this week has been pretty good.  Back in Munro, our investigator Dayana has plans for baptism, and we were also working with Graciela again... but oh well.  Elder Córdova can finish those off I suppose.

> Well, I left my camera in the apartment, so I won´t be able to send pictures until next week... :/ but anyways, one thing that was pretty great from this week was that we had a Christmas Devotional.  We went to San Fernando, where there was a choir of missionaries, who sang about 18 songs.  Also, we had the farewells of the missionaries completeling their missions here in the Gran misión Buenos Aires Norte. It was all super powerful and spiritual!

> Anyways, I´m super ready to get working in this new area, find the people that are waiting, and baptize them.  This is our purpose, to teach, find the people that are ready to make covenants with God, and to help them with it through commitments and baptism.  Well, the work continues on.  I love you folks, and wish you all the best! Chow

Élder Holtry