Week 14: Literally the Weirdest Things Happened This Week

Buen Día Todos!

Elder Conover down here in Argentina!

We had a lot happen this week and some really amazing, and also some super strange experiences.

First, two of our investigators sent us a message, (they are sisters) saying that they don´t want to talk to us anymore and they dont want us to come by, because of the word of wisdom....that really stunk, but we knew that something was up for a while.

This week, we really focused on Church attendence a ton.  We reached our other goals, and we really wanted to focus on getting people to the chapel.  So we walked into the church on Sunday, and Juan Echigaray was there!  We totally didnt expect it, but he was there!  Then, while we were sitting there, I said a prayer that someone else would come to church as well.  A few minutes later, Hermano Barco (member who came with us to teach Juan) with Juan in tow!!  (Different Juan)  Before church, Hmo Barco went to his house, and brought him to church.  It was so amazing, and Juan said that he liked it!  Definitely a blessing of the Lord.  

Another amazing miracle that happened this week was that we contacted a golden family.  We stopped at a kiosco (a store just on the corner of a street, they are everywhere) to buy an alfajor.  We were eating, and walking down the street, and we saw this family.....mom, dad, two boys, and a baby in a stroller.  Perfect.  So we just shoved our stuff in our pockets and went over to talk to them.  They are so prepared.  The dad said that he used to live in Miami, and he felt super alone while he was there, and the members of the church helped him and supported him....what.  And their son plays soccer with the Elders sometimes....literally this family fell from heaven.  So we are passing by their house today hopefully.  

And now, for the funny/crazy stuff:

We had a lesson set with a new investigator, and we were excited to talk with him.  We knocked on his door and we heard some mumbling.  A few minutes later he came with a few buckets to sit on, and we started the lesson.  He was SO drunk.  Like wow. It was so hard to teach, cause nothing sunk in.  He just started crying in the middle of the lesson, and im not sure why.  Anyways, we went back the next morning when he was sober and had a good lesson.  

I saw a really crazy dog fight this week.  It was 4 on 1, and it was nuts.....the one got away, but it was getting ugly.

Elder Ribeiro got hugged 3 times this week.....one of which was the woman who loves to talk to us like a baby....and she told us that she found our house and was trying to find us there....weird....then she shook and kissed our hands....it was quite awkward

We found a SNAKE this week....no, not the animal....the girl...we have an appt with her mom today, and she is definitely after the American dude.....im quite scared. 

Finally, yesterday i looked down the street, and a guy was taking off his pants.....he was drunk and had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the sidewalk....when he saw me look over he started yelling to us to come over....needless to say we did not go over.  

Anyways, this week was good.  We got work done, found new people, and got to teach another family last night, which was such a blessing.  

The Lord is in his work!

Elder Conover

Thanksgiving dinner :)

Found out we can eat these blackberry-type things....they are everywhere, and we found a plum tree.

when you're way taller than everyone else and you can take their shelf to the eye

Week 13: Week of Miracles!

Wow.  What a Week.  Like always, there were some hard moments, but the Lord really showed his hand in the work this week.

This week we had a TON of missionary meetings.....usually we have 41 hrs a week to work and teach and everything, and this week we only had 26 hrs.  Super small amount of time.  

Anyways, Monday, we went to the Mendoza Stake Center and had an insane Asado BBQ....suuuuuper good haha.  

Tuesday, Elder Ulisses Soares came to the mission to speak to all of the missionaries, and he dropped the cane on us haha.  He told us a lot of things that we can improve in the mission, and especially that we need to focus hard on accomplishing all of our goals in faith.  That was definitely something that we needed.

So anyways, one day, we were on the bus, and I was thinking about our investigators, who arent married, and have lived together for 40 years, and didnt understand the importance of the Law of Chastity.  All of a sudden, I just got the thought to talk about how in reality, we aren´t just here to baptize them,  We are here to prepare them to enter the temple as a family to be sealed for all time and eternity.  So, we gave that lesson, and it was SO powerful.  The Spirit guided us, and they committed to take the necessary steps to get married.  The Lord definitely knows best.  

Miracle #2:  We didnt have very much time to work this week, but we worked hard.  We had a weekly goal of 5 lessons with a member present, which we have never acheived yet.  We found one member, and his son, and we gave 3 lessons with member in ONE day, and we ended up with 7 in the week.  Least amount of time, and most lessons ever.  We also had 6 other lessons with investigators, so 13 lessons this week!  

One investigator, Juan, committed to baptism, and its amazing to see his progress.  When we first met him, he was very angry and told us that he was athiest.  Now, he laughs with us, makes jokes, listens intently, and told us that he feels peace during the lessons.  It´s truly amazing the change of heart that the Savior´s atonement can bring upon people.`

Then, the biggest miracle of all,

So in the 7 weeks that I´ve been here, the biggest number of New Investigators that we have found in a WEEK is 4.  So our weekly goal for the week was 5.  Becuase of all the meetings, by Saturday, we hadnt found a single one.  So, we only had one day to find 5 new people, since we had to stay in the pension all day Sunday because of the elections.  Taking into account Elder Soares´ counsel to pray in faith and work to acheive all our goals, we prayed super hard to find 5 people and got to work.  

Saturday morning, all of our people we had planned werent there.  It was super rough, but we kept pushing.  We heard that someone had a reference for us, so we went by there house, and she took us to her brother´s house.  When we got there, there were 3 PEOPLE sitting there, and we gave a lesson about the love Christ has for us, since their son, (one of the 3) just got out of prison a few days ago and is on house arrest....... and they are all new investigators!  It was amazing.  Such a blessing.

Then, in the afternoon, we had to find 2 more people to get our goal.  We were on one side of our area and decided to travel to the other side, and while we were walking, we passed an older man sitting near the street.  I felt that we should talk to him, so we turned around and talked to him, and he was super nice, receptive, and we gave the lesson on the plan of salvation.  NEW INVESTIGATOR!  Then, we needed one more.  We passed by a house, and two people were there, and we gave a little lesson, and got 2 MORE!  We ended the day with 6 new investigators......the Lord blessed us SO much.  It was by far our shortest, but MOST successful week of my mission thusfar.  It was so amazing, and I know that through faith and hard work the Lord works MIRACLES through us.  

Funny:

People keep telling me that Spanish is the hardest language in the world, and that English is super easy, haha kinda funny

This week we saw a guy riding his bike, and like 5 dogs took off trying to kill him, and he swung his leg over, and was standing on one pedal, kicking the dogs while he was riding.  It was quite impressive and hilarous.

While we were teaching our investigators this week, there was a knock at the door, and we were sitting by the door.  The woman opened the door, and the Testigos de Jehovah (Jehovah´s Witnesses) were there.  I leaned over to see who is was, and we made eye contact.  It was such an awesome moment.  They just had a mixture of hatred and shock on their faces seeing ¨Los Mormones¨ in the house, and I just smiled knowing that we had the upper hand and were already sitting in the house hahaahahaha

This week was so tiring, and SO satisfying.  The Lord truly guides this work and He is the head of it!

I love you guys!

Elder Conover 

This dog is obsessed with me.

Notice the paw print on my sleeve.

​Mendoza Centro Plaza Independencia....its super beautiful and there are usually big fountains

a little girl we know gave this too me this week....so cool

Week 12: End of My First Transfer In The Field!

Hello All!

Week six down here in Argentina is over, and with that my first complete transfer in the field!

This week was pretty eventful, with many ups and many trials as well.

On Monday, for P-day, we went to the mall in Guaymallen, which was actually super nice, and we had McDonalds.  I never loved McDonald´s in the states, but man that 20 pc. Chicken McNugget with medium fries really hit the spot haha.  Then, we went bowling, which was super fun, and I started learning how to do the Rubix Cube...all and all a good P-Day!

On Tuesday, we did exchanges with the zone leaders, and I went to the actual center of the city of Mendoza.  Things went well and we went to a man´s house, and it was difficult to breathe since there was so much smoke. Ewww.....but we got him to pray and I got a good story out of it that I will put in the ¨Funny¨section of the letter.

The past couple of weeks there have been quite a few earthquakes, all at night, and I´ve slept through all of them, but everyone else has been saying they´ve been pretty strong.  Fun stuff

On Friday I woke up at like 2:00 in the morning to a super loud explosion outside. (we keep our window open since its super hot here) Not sure what it was, probably fireworks but I´d like to think it was something cooler haha.

Saturday, we had exchanges again, and when I got back to the area, Elder Ribeiro dropped the bomb on me.  Our golden investigators are not baptized.  And, the other people we have scheduled for baptism just werent at their house when we came.  It was super hard, and I got super stressed out and lost it.  Elder Ribeiro told me that I needed to rest, so I took a shower, ate, and took a little nap.  I´ve been so resistant to it, but I realized finally that the Lord would rather have me take a little nap and work effectively, than have me work for an hour longer without the spirit and border line insane.  Afterwards, the Lord blessed us and we went to work, it ended up being a better day!

Sunday was GOLDEN...the Lord truly brought us a day of miracles after a week of trials and just plain old hard work.  We taught the first discussion to a man, which is always super powerful, and this week he invited us to an asado sometime in the future....we are stoked.  Then, we took a bus to a really far area to teach an AWESOME family, who have super strong testimonies.  Finally, the greatest miracle of all...  So Anderson, who is a friend of Abril y Milagros, the girls who are getting baptized, gave us his address, so we went to his house.  Him, his mom, and his dad were all there, and they are from the Dominican Republic.  We gave the first Lesson, and it was super powerful....the spirit was really strong, and they were really receptive and would like complete our thoughts before we even said them, and kept saying ¨Claaaaro.¨ (of course!) So stinking amazing, and they asked us to offer a prayer on their sick dad.  It was really powerful.  When we left the house and got out of sight I started running, yelling, jumping, and doing heel clicks.....The Lord blessed us SO much.

Funny Stuff:

When we were teaching the man with all the smoke in his house, he was in bed, and wouldnt get out, cause he didnt have any clothes on i guess hahaha.  He had cigarettes in his bed, wine everywhere, coffee mugs, and tons of ash piles on his floor.  It was quite impressive how much stuff he had.  While we were talking, his phone rang, so he took the call, and while he was talking on the phone, Elder Baesler (from washington) turned to me and told me in English, ¨hes drunk¨ i asked him how he knew, and he responded, ¨cause he has no clothes on, hes smoking and swearing into the phone, and we are speaking in another language, and it´s not awkward¨ hahahaha he had a good point.

            Yesterday, during sacrament meeting, a man walked into the chapel, who clearly wasnt a member, in the middle
            of the meeting.  I smiled at him, and as soon as he saw me, he said something that i didnt catch, and stormed 
            out.    I was  super confused, and afterwards, the missionaries from the other ward told me that this guy thinks 
            that all gringos are his enemies and he hates them....so i was offensive to him hahahaha too funny.

When we were knocking doors this week, someone say us through the window and yelled ¨no hay nadie!¨ or ¨there isnt anyone here!¨  I thought it was pretty funny.

Overall, this week was hard, awesome, amazing, rewarding, and challenging, but the Lord is constantly supporting us and helping us to grow and learn from all of our experiences through his guiding Spirit.

Love ya Guys,

          Elder Conover

I don't know why but this was heaven! 

Elder Baesler and I

Finally got some Argentine peanut butter!

I don't usually like McDonalds but this tasted so good!

The Pension in the background

These wafers are so good!!

Week 11: 3 Baptismal Dates This Week!

Hello everyone!

Its me down here in Argentina again haha....

This week was very interesting, and a lot happened haha.

First, on Monday, we had a lesson with Abril y Milagros, who have a baptismal date, and their friend Anderson, who is so awesome.  When we arrived, they told us that they had another friend there, and we were super stoked since we love getting new investigators.  We walked in and he told us how important the scriptures were to him.  We gave the first lesson, and the spirit was super strong.  We bore testimony, and it was super good.  We invited the friend to read the Libro de Mormón, and then the gloves came off......he pulled out his Bible and railed us.  Really destroyed everything.  It stunk, and we arent here to fight so we just bore testimony, but everything was swamped.  Super Awkward.  

Fast forward 3 days.....We return to teach the same girls.....and he´s there again....and I have to admit that when I came around the corner and saw him, I let out a little groan.  Then, Elder Ribeiro was talking to Abril y Milagros, and I was left one on one with Esteban.  Rah-Roh....the kid speaks a million miles per hour.  We were talking about just random stuff and the conversation turned to the mission, and the scriptures, and to the Book of Mormon.  I shared a personal experience about the Book of Mormon, and felt that I should invite him to read 3 Nephi 11, when Christ visits the Americas.  AND HE ACCEPTED!!!  It was so cool and the spirit was super strong.  The gift of tongues is so real, especially in the moments when the Lord knows that someone needs it. 

We did exchanges again this week, and it was me and another new gringo, Elder Healy.  We did some serious work.  It was raining hard, and we talked to like 20-25 people on the street on knocking doors.....it felt really good, and we even got a new investigator and gave the first lesson....so cool!

While we were doing exchanges, Elder Healy and I were walking, and passed a woman who was at someone´s house.  We crossed the street and were walking when we heard, ¨Chicos!¨  We turned around and she motioned for us.  We walked over and she asked us if we were the ¨Mormones¨ and then started to pour her soul out to us and tell us about how she has had depression for 8 years and someone killed her husband and how she has suicidal thoughts...and plead for our help.  She gave us her phone number and we bore testimony of the love and the plan that God has for her, it was so cool!  The Lord truly guides us and puts us in the path of the people that we need to talk to.

Anyways, Sergio y Ines, our GOLDEN investigators have a baptismal date!  It was a powerful lesson and they said they want to be baptized without hesitation, they are scheduled for December 5th.  They also came to Stake Conference this week, which is like an hour from their house...they are comitted!

Funny:

It was raining hard for a few days this week so it was cold and there were a ton of puddles, so Elder Ribeiro and I were trying to push eachother into the big puddles, I got him when he wasnt paying attention and it was a huge puddle hahahaha

In stake conference one man gave a talk, and then sat down....a few minutes later his phone went off....and it was a chipmunk ringtone....he took off out of the room and it was super funny and everyone was laughing...poor guy haha

This morning we got on the bus and I missed the step, and everyone was watching and I just looked dumb...pretty funny, but lame

To answer your questions:

1) The buses are insane, dont get in front because they probably wont stop haha....a lot of times there are so many people in them that you cant really move...super fun though....most of the cars are super run down from like the 60´s and a ton of smog and half the time something is dragging under the car....the occasional horse-drawn wagon is quite common as well.

2) My comp is from Manaus Brazil, and he is a good missionary! He talk super fast, so i think i understand like 40% of what he says, but its getting better.  

3) No they dont have good american food like pizza, cookies, hamburgers, etc.  They have all those foods, but they arent anywhere near the same....kinda disappointing hahaha

Overall the week was good, challenging, meaningful, uplifting, and basically every other adjective you can think of.  The mission is so hard, but so powerful and rewarding.  This is the Lord´s work and we are his servants.  Im so blessed to be able to serve him for two years!

Con amor,

Elder Conover

Week 10: Great Week, Three New Investigators!

Hello Everyone! 

Going into my fourth week down here in Argentina, and things are going well!

This week the Lord blessed me with an abundance of good feelings, and it was such a strength for me.  Still had some hard moments, but I felt really excited and honored to be part of this work for the week.

We taught a lot of less active members this week.  We ended up having 8 lessons with less active members/families, which is always powerful and fulfilling.  

On Tuesday we met a man who is less active, and we gave him a lesson, and we have been asked to focus more on teaching the importance of the sabbath day.  So we gave a lesson on the Sabbath Day, and when we finished, he stopped and told us that the whole lesson was exactly what he needed to hear and that he knows that his family needs the church and that they are going to come.  Makes you feel super good when you know that you are doing your job and helping people by following the Spirit of the Lord.

We also finished Lesson 1 about the Restoration with our ¨golden investigators¨ Sergio y Ignes this week, who are so receptive and eager to come to church.  I had the honor of saying the First Vision, and while I was saying it I could just feel the power of it in my body.  It was amazing, and I KNOW that it is the truth.  

We were also blessed to teach a lesson to a woman who is inactive, and is suffering from severe depression.  The spirit was so strong during the lesson and she told us the peace that she felt while we were there.  Super awesome, and it really was a testament of the power and peace that the Spirit can bring into our lives.  

AND THEN THE BEST PART OF THE WEEK!  

So in my last letter I talked about the really hard lunch where everyone just made fun of me the entire time.  Well, we had lunch with them again, and just to make it a little more terrifying......we were doing exchanges, and I was with Elder Anderson, who only has one transfer more than me, so neither of us can speak very well hahaha.....I was terrified.  I just decided to try to be as outgoing and cheerful and talkative person I could be, and it went SO WELL.  They told me how good my spanish is, and how much of a change they saw in me.  They helped me with my spanish and everything was awesome!! Such a blessing.

Anyways, we got two new investigators yesterday, one of which was a street contact from about two weeks ago, and we found out that when we contacted him, his wife had died about 3 days before...so sad, so we gave a lesson about the plan of salvation and he said that we can return!! So powerful!

Funny Stuff:

This week during a lesson with a less active family, the woman there would not stop calling me here ¨chicitito amor, corazon, hijito, bebé¨ in a really loud loving voice.  She was about 75 so needless to say it was super uncomfortable trying to bear my testimony while that was going on hahaha.

Also, last P-day, Elder Ribeiro wanted to take a shower, so I unscrewed the shower head and put beef stew seasoning in it...too funny...I couldnt stop laughing when he found out.

The Lord is definitely in this work, and im so glad to be apart of it.  The missionary life can be difficult, but the successful moments make it all worth it. 

Con amor, 

Elder Conover