Monday, November 5, 2012

Chistes o Dulces (trick or treat)

Hello! ¿Chistes o Dulces? (Trick or Treat)
Wow, what a week! It is a love/hate relationship with that exhausted feeling I get towards the end of every week. I feel good because I am giving it all to serve the Lord, it just gets tough sometimes. This week included preparing the baptism for Elizabet Rodriguez this week, workin our butts off to get people to church, halloween, exchanges with Élder Henrie, splits with the youth, service with Hermano Núñez/asado, fast, end fast with another asado, crazy P-day at Zonda, etc. Probably the week that I have taken the most pictures on the mission. You would be proud mom!

Yeah, we worked really, really hard to get people to church this week. By Saturday night, Elder Johnson and I were basically 75% sure we were going to have at least 10 investigators at church. We fasted/prayed, hoped, wanted, and needed these people to come to church. We are working with great families that are developing their testimonies very fast but just lack the priority list. Elizabet Rodriguez is progressing a lot even though she has been super sick for the last two weeks and really haven´t been able to have way good visits, she still keeps her testimony of the Book of Mormon close to her heart. She was able to come to church only for the first hour(she even arrived a bit early) because after that, her fever started picking up a bit so she just walked all the way back home with her little kid. It shows a lot of desire and faith to walk about 45 minutes there and 45 back to only go to one meeting at church. Would my family ever do that? All she needs is a baptismal interview and she should be ready for this Saturday! Woo hoo! Then we can pick it back up with her husband, Omar. Yuliana Acosta(9) needs to come to church with her family this next week and she will be hopping in that water. Another very top prospect for the future for the ward of Líbano will be the familia Sorias(Cristián, Daisy, and a couple kids). Cristián wants the best for his family. They don´t have a church that they attend normally, so...they are looking for one. What better of a choice to increase family unity and happiness than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! Cristián has a strong testimony already of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Because they are such a great family, they are going to have even more opposition on their path towards attending the church and baptism. Élder Marsh(Riverton) told me something today. He said "The mission probably isn´t the best two years of your life, but they are definitely the best two years for your life." The two years are definitely not easy in the physical sense, emotional sense, spiritual sense, and all of those other senses, but they shape and form a missionary for the rest of their life. Very similar to what you sent me mom.

We planned Halloween to go around and play a gospel game that we made with lots of candy. Halloween is a little lot a bit different in Argentina. It is very rare to see it celebrated here because it is such a dark holiday. What happens, is that here in Argentina there are many real witches and all of that very dark stuff so it is hard to even joke about that stuff. Some don´t even understand how it is so celebrated in the United Stated. Everyone thought it was wrong that we, a couple of missionaries, should be supporting such a dark holiday. We just gave them candy and played our game, then they underdstood why we celebrate it. Ha. We fortunately were able to see one group of Argentine trick-or-treaters right before retiring for the night. We snapped a quick pic with them.

I am normally doing exchanges with my Elders at least once a week. It is such a cool experience to extend beyond my own area and help other investigators to the church and especially other missionaries(so that they can bless the lives better of the investigators). If I had time I would just write a long paragraph about all of the other amazing people that I meet on exchanges. It has also kind of become a district tradition to end a good night of work with Grido(Ice cream). Elder Henrie went all out and made an amazing batido(shake) for us. It is probably not good to have just ice cream for dinner consecutively. Ha. Oh well, at least it´s not as bad as Elder Henrie and Elder Garcia with (1 kilo of ice cream) 5 nights in a row now. The heat here doesn´t really help us with this little addiction.

This transfer we have been having a lot more service opportunities than any other time in the mission. It is good sometimes to change into other clothes and get dirty even though it feels super weird. This week Hermano Núñez wanted us to move lots of dirt in his yard and he promised us a delicious asado, and yes, it was delicious. It may or may not have been one of the most enjoyable fasts that I have done. Starting off with asado with Hno. Núñez on Saturday and ending with the flia Camargo asado on Sunday. Yum!

Definitely one of the most enjoyable P-days to this point. We went to the mountains to a place called Zonda. I took at least 150 pics so I don´t think I need to explain it very much. We are running a bit late anyways so I will let the pictures tell the story. I may or may not have to send them next week though...bummer. These computers are super slow at sending pics and stuff...

Sending lots of love out to my family. You are great! Also another shoutout to the Johnson fam. Thanks for raising such a great son. He keeps me in line. And to Riley...Elder Johnson sends a wink.
Un Abrazo,
Élder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera

I am way glad to see and hear that you just had an awesome Halloween. Keep up the good work Brooke and Luberta with the 4.0´s! Hard work pays off in the future! I will keep Kim in my prayers this week. Hope everything goes well! It is awesome to receive the newsletter for the other missionaries in the ward. It is incredible to hear that we are going to have 17 in just our ward out in the world serving the Lord in full-time. I haven´t worn my contacts since my first area and my glasses are holding very well and still in tact. I clean them well every day. Glad to hear you are starting to get ready for Christmas with the lights on the house already. I would say that we are also preparing for Christmas, but we have actually been listening to Christmas music since last Christmas.





Zonda