Forty-Two Weeks

Hello everyone!

So this was a really good week. We didn't have as many count-able lessons but we have been passing by a lot for all of the active members in the ward to animate them more to help us out, and so we have had a lot of really cool experiences with that; we have been able to animate them more to visit other families that aren't going since they really can offer them more help and more friendship than we can, and since we passed by all of the 200ish families that are in the ward directory since I have been here, we have been able to help them out with knowing who they can visit, who is receptive, and more or less what each person they plan on visitings situation is so that they can help them out in the best way possible.

Something else that I really enjoyed is that this Saturday we had an activity called MTC for a day (MTC being Missionary training center, like where I was at for 6 weeks learning spanish and how to teach before coming to Argentina), where we taught all the youth how to start sharing the gospel with someone and how to more effectively be able to share their testimony, and then we went out with them for an hour to do contacts (a fairly common missionary activity involving knocking on doors, or approaching someone in the street to start talking with them out of the blue in an attempt to be able to share the gospel with them.) Needless to say though, just approaching people and talking to them out of the blue isn't something that people normally do from day to day and so it was really cool to be able to help them out, and it reminded me of when I first started in the mission as well and still had no clue what I was doing.

The last cool story for this week then is that we finally had an investigator show up in church yesterday, which was the first time in about 3 months now, so we were super excited. One of the youth brought her friend which was someone that was investigating the church before and almost got baptized, but then moved away. She is now back though, but we had no clue who she even was (there is no record of teaching for her) and so she just literally appeared out of nowhere, showed up to church and said that she loves going, and so we are hoping to be able to pass by this week to visit with her and teach her, and so we are pretty excited. One of the other youth then came up to us and said that she has a friend that she has been sharing the gospel with that really enjoys it, and then a second that she gifted a Book of Mormon to and she wants to invite them over to her house so that we can pass by and visit with them/share a little bit as well in a type of easy-going family night, and so now we yet another thing to look forward to.

This coming up week is transfers though, and so now that I have 3-4 months here in Libertad, it's probable that I might go to a new area, but we'll have to see. I'll be sure to let you all know on Monday though. For now though, I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder McCollum

Photos:

I'm not sure what order they are in, but one is a group of us on a public bus (we were the first ones on, so there were actually seats), another is a giant field/public park 8 blocks large in our area. My comp wanted a photo together there. Lastly, one week's serving of Bananas. Yum!