Fifty Six Weeks

Hello Everyone!

This has been yet another interesting week in the mission haha.

So in our ward there are 4 missionaries, Elder Dosdall and I in our area, and Elder Pinheiro and Elder Jacobson in the other area. Well, Elder Jacobson somehow got Pneumonia in the middle of summer, and so he was pretty bad off with a super high fever and pretty serious sickness and so on Wednesday they took him to our Mission President's house where he could be better looked after for the first little bit of the sickness, which tends to be the worst and so Elder Pinheiro stayed with us in a trio until today when we picked Elder Jacobson up and brought him back to his area where he can continue recovering in the apartment there. And so, once again we had some fun adventures together in Trio.

Being in trio, we had to work in both areas and so one of the people that we visited was a recent convert of the other Elders named Yesica (pronounced almost like Jessica in English because the Argentine Y is pronounced "sh"). She is super awesome though and on Sunday we had dinner with her too, which was super tasty.

On our side, one of the most fun lessons that we had was with Kevin; Kevin is doing great. We are going over the same lessons that we had to teach him before baptism and he remembers everything and then some. As we teach, he goes sharing stuff that he learned from poking about in the scriptures too, when at the beginning one of our biggest challenges was being able to read with him. For one of the lessons then we were able to make popcorn and watch a movie about the Restoration, which was a super fun time. On Saturday too then, exactly one week after his baptism he was able to enter the temple and do baptisms for the dead, which was super awesome. (Baptisms for the dead being going to the temple and performing the ordinance of baptism in favor of those that have already died without the opportunity to be baptized or who were baptized by someone who didn't really have priesthood authority to baptize, thus making that baptism invalid).

One of the coolest things this week though was that there was a Special Stake Conference called where one of the 12 apostles came to visit and speak with us. (In the church there is a Prophet and a Quorum of 12 Apostles, just as in Christ's day and it is not very common that you get the opportunity to hear one of them in person). It was a really cool experience though because Gary E. Stevenson (the apostle that visited us) gave a really awesome talk about some of the most basic gospel principles, such as that God is our heavenly father and that we are all sons and daughters of him, and as such we really need to help one another, both inside and outside of the church. What was even more cool though is that Kevin and his mom were able to make it there to hear him in person, as well as two other investigators that we are teaching. At the end then, we were all able to pass by and shake his hand and so it was a nice cherry to top it all off. 

Other fun tidbits:

Here in Argentina you can buy 3 kilos of oranges (6.6lbs) for 20 pesos ($1.25 USD) and so last Monday me and my companion bought 3 kilos each and made our own orange juice. It took about an hour to squeeze them all and made only about 1.5 liters but it was super tasty and I might do it again. We also then put vanilla cake batter in the orange shells and cooked them in the oven like cupcakes and some super tasty orange cakes were the result. I definetely enjoyed them. :)

I now have a membership card (free) to Dia, one of the most common supermarkets here in Argentina and so now I get discounts on a lot more stuff. I got a picture of it with my Vea card (another less common supermarket). Now I am really only missing Carrefour, but I'm not sure if they have a card...

I hope you all have a good week though and love and miss you all!

Love,
Elder McCollum