Eighty Five Weeks

Hello Everyone!

So this was a very crazy week indeed. There was lots of stuff going on. There are a lot of fun quick little anecdotes that I want to share, so hopefully I can get them all in.

First of all, there is a recent convert in my new ward that is super awesome. He is 22 years old and got baptized just before I got here, but speaks perfect English and went from being atheist to now being a member of the church. He spent more than a year investigating but is now a stud. He went visiting to Rosario this last weekend and came back on Sunday (taking a train starting at 2am to get back) and once he arrived, the first thing that he did was go to church without even stopping by his house first. It was pretty awesome.

On the other hand too then, we have another recent convert that hasn't been going to church all that much that confessed to us when we visited him this week that he now doesn't believe in god (but that he wants to). He first asked us what we would say if he told us he didn't believe in God though, in the form of a rhetorical question, and so we were just sitting there thinking for a split second, and then he said "because I don't". It caught us totally off guard, but that ought to be a fun issue to address here in the future.

One more really ...interesting... teaching experience from this week too then was while contacting a house. We clapped outside and there was a young woman that came out that told us that she had a friend that was a member that was actually currently sharing the gospel with her, and they had just been talking about the Book of Mormon. We asked her then if she had one, and she said no and so we dedicated one and gave it to her. We didn't teach her in the moment because her parents weren't home, but in church the next day her friend was pretty excited and we got her excited to keep sharing with her and hopefully we'll be able to do some follow up this week with how things are going. The really interesting part though is that in the house that we contacted, there was a dog on the roof (not uncommon in Argentina, roofs are normally flat here and so they often have stairs going up onto them to use as a workspace/storage space, etc. and often dogs will be up there too). This dog though was sick and super super skinny, but still muscularly defined on it's legs and chests. It was barking at us a little bit, but as we were talking to the girl it wasn't so bad. As we were talking though, we just heard a fleshy splat on the ground next to us, and the dog was laying on the hard dirt just next to the sidewalk; it had fallen off the roof. My comp and I were in shock - we had no clue what to say (thinking the dog had died in the fall), but after a second it stood up and started walking around, eating grass and using the bathroom. The girl dismissed it - explaining to us that it was sick as if nothing had happened, but that she'd have to wait for her dad to get it back in since it was still super strong - but it took us a couple more seconds to process what had happened and just keep talking with her too. As we were walking away though after we finished talking to her, my comp and I just about died laughing from the astonishment.

This week we were also able to perform some service for a less active family that we visit quite a bit. They had a dirt walkway between all their houses (about 5 houses with all the family living there) that often got washed out and muddy every time that it rained, and so they got a day off together and poured a new concrete sidewalk there. We showed up as they were partway done, but we were able to help them out mixing some more concrete and putting on some of the finishing touches, which was awesome. Afterwards, we sat around a small campfire they had built for the wheelchair-bound grandpa as he came down from his house to watch and just talked a little bit (they had some crazy stories to tell - including some ridiculous fights they had been in when younger - one of which was 20 versus 20 and involved a couple people with machetes and another that was swinging a doorframe), and then finished singing a the hymn "How Great Thou Art", which was really awesome and set the spiritual mood perfectly there with the campfire (it had already gotten dark when we left). It was a really awesome moment.

This week too then, we had a meeting where we got all the mission together to have a meeting with a member of the 70, Mark A. Bragg, which was a really cool experience. There was a lot to be learned, but it was also really cool being able to see all my old comps and friends from the mission that are still here. Even that meeting though had an interesting happening - there was an Hermana that sang a special musical number while an Elder played his violin (and it turned out super pretty) - but at the end as she was walking away from the microphone, she fainted. (In front of everyone the poor thing). She recovered quickly though and was just fine.

Other than that, since leaving the offices 3 of 4 wheels were robbed off of the car while it was parked outside, and the truck has been in two crashes, losing both side mirrors and doing a little damage to one of the fenders. It made me feel side, but I am loving being out in an area again and so it is all good.

Really not too much new besides though. We gave some treats to Relief Society for always giving us lunch and they were super happy to recieve them, and then yesterday there was a family that made us Tacos for lunch (that were super tasty - tacos don't exist in Argentina and so I have only had them once since being here and I made them myself). I hope you all have a really good week too though, and hope you are all doing well!

Love,
Elder McCollum

1978 - Train tracks that run through our area - more or less sets the mood off how it is to be here - super easy-going.

1981 - A picture of part of our area so you can get an idea what it's like.

1988 - Me, Elder Jarrin (He was my district leader before in the mission), and Elder Bragg with his wife

1989 - A hilarious ad we saw for "chinese karate classes" that was very poorly edited and had the very not chinese stonehenge in the background... 

0083 - The walkway we were helping to put in

0086 - Another part of the walkway we put in, as well as the grandpa with his campfire

0090 - Argentine sunset (taken from the same place where we were putting in the walkway)

9904 - All of the mission together in one photo