Monday, March 5, 2012

Las frutas del bautismo

Hey There!
How is everyone? I don´t have the same keyboard as last time that seemed to be a bit troublesome, but this one also has some defects...

We had a super good week this week! I am not sure if I told you this week or if we were super sure that it was going to happen, but we had a baptism this past Saturday! Chiquita(Urbelina Cataldo) a friend of a member, we were able to progress a bit faster than we thought with her and she accepted to move her baptismal date up a bit. She was so ready and she had an experience that she will never be able to forget even if she tried. We had the husband of the member that befriended her and brought her the gospel to baptize her. Another cold water baptism, because the dang callafone things never work or there isn´t gas to heat up the water. At least I didn´t have to get in it this time...jaja. We have finally come to a conclusion with what is going to happen with Agustín and his padrastro(step father) Geronimo. We have been working with him a ton and trying to get the gospel into that man´s life. He has multiple bunches of problems in his life that all develop from his depression and nervousness, and with revelation that we have received from praying and fasting, we were able to ask him what he really wanted. From a bunch of other details, we concluded that we will be baptizing Agustín this next Saturday and work with Geronimo throughout the next few weeks. All of you prayerful people should probably at least say one prayer for Geronimo so that he can get baptized and receive the holy ghost in his life, because I know that there is nothing he needs more. One thing that I think is really cool is that most of our other investigators right now are men and future holders of the priesthood. Argentine men are no easy thing to teach, they are a lot harder to get to their spiritual side(that is why, as you can see, we have been stickin a bit to the older señoras and young kids), but when you can baptize an Argentine man...kudos to those missionaries. In the future, these men that we are working with will get in those waters and make those covenants!

We had a fun noche de talentos(talent night) activity this past Friday(yeah, I know we had a ton of stuff going on this past weekend). I´ll see if I can attach some pics or even better a few vids. We had Irma show up, who is an investigator who always has to spend time and care for her super old mother who is going to kick the bucket any minute now. The whole Villegas family(Agustín and Geronimo) came including the older brothers who have been super inactive for years now and disincluding Geronimo...ugh. The bishop gave us a little time to squeeze in for the last 20 minutes of the activity to share a bit of a spiritual thought related to the missionary work. It all went good.

Got a few goods to tell all yall. Especially you, mom. I believe you requested a pair of toms and basically gave it to me as a goal of my mission to find some for you. I have some good news...I don´t know if you are familiar with shoes brand called Alpargatas, nope you´re not because they are Argentine and Argentine only. I don´t think there is a single person here in Mendoza who doesn´t have at least one pair of Alpargatas. I´m pretty sure they are just like the Toms. They are super cheap and Chiquita, the lady we baptized said that she would make us a few pairs. Like 6 or 12...jaja. Why not¿ There is an Alpargata factory somewhere in Centro and she said they have like every type of material that they can make them out of, even courdoroy and denim and anything else...So family, if this would please you I could probably get a pair for ya. You would have to convert your norteamericano shoe size to an argentino shoe size(see if you can do it through the internet or something) and give me a material request and I´ll see if they have it. No promises with anything though. At this moment of time, I am also getting made cool leather scripture cases with a guy in our stake. There is another man/company in Córdoba who does them super good(with whatever picture on them and stuff), but is going on a mission and will only be accepting orders till the last day of March(this month). I was hoping I could wait till later in my mission, because I wanted one for my English scripture quad also but it doesn´t look like I can wait. It may be possible that I could get a few more for your quads also if you want. It costs like 200 pesos(little less than 50 bucks) for each quad case. It is 150 pesos for this guy that is doing mine right now, but it is a little less quality. I don´t know if any of this interests you at all, but if you are interested send me the pictures that you would want on the front and back and any other writing that you would want on it in the next email. I should have pictures to send you when I get mine this week. It´s gonna be sweet!

We had a couple little terremotos(earthquakes) this week. I still don´t believe it because I didn´t feel anything, but everyone says that they happened. We have developed a new hobby of pretending to skateboard as we are balancing in the middle of the collectivos(buses) while not holding on to anything. It´s pretty fun I guess.

We have plans today to go to a Bodega(Wine Factory). Should be pretty fun. Last week we walked and walked and walked to a museum that was closed in the parque San Martin. Other things we still have to do here are go to a really good restaurante called Tinacas, go to the Aquarium, and to the Alpargata factory.

Oh yeah, and for the first time in Argentina I saw a Schnauzer like Maggie. I was happy to see it so I ran up to it and tried to pet it behind a fence. It almost bit my hand off( it wasn´t a mini schauzer) so I don´t like it anymore.

Thanks for all of the sweet pics from YC. It looks like it went fantastic and Dad was able to make Germany proud with the use of his outfit again. That is awesome that most of the family got to be involved with this YC. I bet the spirit was just as strong as it was a couple years ago with the old group of priests.

Keep studying the Gospel, especially as a family(scripture study and FHE). It is amazing what a difference it can make with family unity. I´ve seen plenty of examples here in the mision and I have been able to testify to them of it because we did well with it at home. Keep it up.

Thanks for the email. I love reading them every week and looking at the pictures.
Spiritual Thought.

For the activity that we did last Friday, we were able to teach the ward a program called Apaciente mis ovejas which explains what the role of the missionaries is in missionary work, and what is the role of members in missionary work. It outlines it simply:
1. Members: FIND
2. Missionaries: TEACH
3. Members: BEFRIEND
4. Missionaries: BAPTIZE
It is basically telling the members that they should not be teaching the lessons to the investigators, but they should just be super good friends with them(Christlike charity) and share the strongest tool that they have, their testimony.

Signing out as,

Elder Deven Larisch
¡Love you all and keep prayin for those missionaries!

La Iglesia es verdadera

Happy 6 Months to me this week! I can´t believe time has come and by so fast. Good thing I still have a bunch of time left!

Deven thought these dirt tennis courts were cool!

A package of PEANUT BUTTER!!

The baptism of Urbelina Cataldo. I think Deven has grown a foot or three...

THIRSTY!!