So something that was different this week - I ate Trix almost every morning. It was delicious. Argentina is a little behind in its development in some areas, but their Trix are really good. The classic kind with the shapes. Yum!
I went to Salta... again. And I'm going back this next week... again. I can't imagine being the missionary in charge of paperwork for this mission. We went and stood in line for an hour and a half while they reviewed our paperwork and visa, then they gave us something that had to be paid in the bank, and told us to come back tomorrow. The problem is that we had to go back to our respective areas, so I´ll be heading back Tuesday or Friday to stand there while they do more paperwork.
Nora went to church! Nora is a lady who works kinda like a maid in the house of the brach president. We've been teaching her for who knows how long, but she's never gone to church. We tried a lot of different things, but nothing worked. We tried just dropping her, but the branch president told us that we couldn't. So this week we called her Sunday in the morning and told her to go. And she went. I love missionary work in the 21st century! And having a phone.
I heard the first good excuse for not going to church. We met a lady that a former branch president told us used to be super active. We went by, and found out that she stopped going to church because a motorcycle ran her over and left her with mild amnesia and brain damage. She was never home because she was in the hospital, and when she finally got out, she was living with her very Catholic parents who were taking care of her. Because of that, the members couldn't visit her (they didn't know where her parents lived), and her parents started taking her to the Catholic church again in her wheelchair. It was interesting to visit her. Elder Burr's dad is a neural sergeon, so he knows something about brain damage. It's like she has her testimony in there, but she doesn't like thinking about it because there are so many parts missing. Even so, lots of time has passed now, and it'll be interesting to see what happens as we continue going by.
I learned something cool this week. It's always bugged me that Paul talks about how it's better not to be married in his opinion. That goes against gospel principles. Then someone told me that he was married. According to the Bible, he was part of the Sanhedrin, and a requirement to be on that is to be married. So when he talked about how it's better to be single, he was talking to the widows and widowers about his personal feelings of his own condition. Always cool to see how whatever doubt you have about the gospel will be resolved with enough patience, scripture study, and conversation with smart people.
Our star investigator that went to church last week has an evil step mother. His evil step brothers tried breaking into his house on Saturday, claiming that they were the rightful owners and stuff like that, and it resulted in a fight, in which his stepmother beat him with a stick. He doesn't look very beat-up - I think he got the better of them - but it left him a little preocupied and he didn't make it to church. Even so, he's really committed to his baptismal date, and I'm really thinking that he'll make it, despite the fact that Satan always turns up the heat when you get close.
I got a Christmas card from the bishop! He's really cool. I was thinking the other day of all the great bishops that I've had in my life. There are so many people here who leave the church because they don't know how to get along, the leadership is still learning, and lots of little things happen to the point where they start letting it affect their relationship with God and His church. It just makes me happy that my leadership has always strengthened my testimony instead of making me quesiton it.
Last little miracle for the week! We went to go visit a less active because his active daughter was here visiting him, and we figured we'd take advantage of the opportunity. On our way, we saw his daughter talking to a friend. Turns out that the friend is a less active lady that went to church about 6 weeks ago with her boyfriend, who she wanted to introduce to the church. We tried to find that house so many times, but we could never find it due to falty directions and the fact that everyone knows the streets by nicknames. And now we found it a month and a half later! When God wants you to hear the gospel, you can't get away from it!
Anyway, I hope you guys have a great week!
Landon
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