My Bold Companion

My new companion is great. He really just wants to baptize and is always talking about baptism with people. Sometimes in the contacts he has fun when people reject us or say that they aren't interested and just directly asks them if they would like to be baptized. Or if they would like to be baptized again. I´m not usually that direct with the people, but nobody has gotten angry at us yet. Besides being super stoked to baptize Elder Pereira is a great teacher and has a gift of creating a good relationship with the people in a short time. In just this week I've learned a lot from him. Like a few magic tricks to grab the attention of the people.
Elder McCleve´s knee was better at the end of the week. I hope he´s alright in his new area. But I think it was riding on the bike here that was bothering him so he should be fine now. The work is going well. We´re still working with Kevin. Like I said before he´s great, but his mom still isn't ready to let him be baptized. And this week we've found several other investigators that I think will progress this transfer. We've also found other less actives that have children that haven´t been baptized. We call those families PFs. There are a ton here in Alta Gracia and Elder Pereira and I are working a lot with them. I like working with PFs because no one wants to be alone in the gospel. Everyone wants to have their family with them. and if we can help more of the family of a less active member be converted, everyone is strengthened and everyone wins. I´m confident that we are going to have success this transfer.  

New Transfer

Today is the first day of a new transfer. Elder McCleve left for a new area this morning. I'm going to miss that guy. But the farewell of Elder McCleve means that I have a new companion! My companion´s name is Elder Periera. he´s from Brazil. He´s the first Brazilian companion I've had. Maybe if I´m lucky I´ll be able to learn a little bit of Portuguese. At least I´ll be able to perfect my Brazilian accent. Elder Pereira seems like a pretty great missionary, I´m super excited to work with him. 

This week we were not able to work that much because Elder McCleve´s knee was super swollen. The highlight of the week for me was seeing the baptism of three of the investigators of Elder Aniel and Elder Teban, the two other Elders that live with us. The investigators, Juana, Celeste, and Antonella progressed very quickly. I remember two weeks ago when I went with Elder Aniel to a visit with them and we invited them to be baptized. The whole district went to the baptism and sang a special musical number. The whole baptism was even more special because the grandma and the two girls were the first baptisms of the branch Anisacate since it´s beginning 9 months ago.

With Elder McCleve we started singing in the visits that we did with our regular investigators. I really could tell how it invited the spirit. We´ll see now if Elder Pereira likes to sing, or if I can teach him;).  

And happy summer to all of you too. Winter is starting down here. But it´s a nice winter. At least it hasn't rained for a few weeks.

Until next week. Un abrazo de Argentina

Elder Lulich      

The Power of Prayer

Yesterday the whole mission got together to say goodbye to Presidente Alliuad and Hermana Alliaud. It was a super special conference. 

 Presidente teaching the doctrine of a good mate

Among other things President gave us a motivational speech for what he and the Lord expect from us, we were able to hear the crazy story about how Presidente and his wife met one another, Presidente taught us how to prepare a good mate, and I think that most touching part was when Presidente said a prayer for all of the missionaries. When he finished the prayer the story in the Book of Mormon when Jesus prays for the Nephites came to my mind. After their experience the Nephites testified, "no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father." I can really echo those words now. With the prayer of Presidente I could really feel the great love that he has for all of us missionaries, how much he thinks about us and is concerned about our futures. 

In the work, Elder McCleve and I are teaching Kevin the son of a less-active member. He is super fun and really loves learning about the gospel. Last week we were not having the success we want with finding new investigators, we were coming along badly in the week with no new people to teach. Then Saturday evening after panicking a little and feeling bad, thinking that we were going to finish the week without a single new investigator, we kept contacting and the Lord blessed us to find several families that were interested in hearing the gospel. We finished the week well. 

Have a great week!

Elder Lulich  

Elder Fantham (my son)

 Presidente y la Hermana Alliaud

 Elder Mendoza (my second comp)

The Stress of Moving

I don't have time to write but just want to let you all know that I am doing well. This week, after a lot of stress, we were finally able to move to a new apartment. I never had to deal with paying rent or bills or deal with a landlord or look for a new place to live so the whole process was pretty stressful and new for me. I kept on thinking," I'm a missionary I should just be worrying about people slamming the door in my face I shouldn't have to think about these things now." But it was a good experience because I´ll probably have to deal with those things after my mission. And it also helped me combat my uncomfortableness with talking to people over the phone. 

Have a great week and don't get mad at your landlords! or anyone else for that matter.

Gimme a High 6!

Hola Familia. Estoy espectacular! 

Right now we've been working with the son of a less active sister named Kevin. He´s super cool. He's ten years old and is always cracking jokes and laughing. Just as an example of how cool he is, in one of our first visits to his house he put his hands flat on the table and asked us, "How many fingers are there? Now you´re not going to say ten now" (Kevin has a little extra finger on each hand). Now when we go visit him he has us give him high 6's. He´s so fun and also has the desire to be baptized. His mom wants him to be completely prepared for baptism and get to know well all of the gospel before being baptized, so we still were not able to set a baptismal date. Not being able to know when Kevin baptism will be was quite a test in patience for me, but I know that he will be baptized. 

Espero que estén muy bien. Los amo a todos! Besos! 

Tyler 

Here´s a picture of the elders in my pension in Carlos Paz. We went there today to climb a hill to a cross. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful day to do it too. It had been cloudy all week but today we had clear skies.

        

Zapatos Rotos

So my comp and I became famous this week. Wednesday was the 25th of May, when Argentinos commemorate the day that the founders nation declared Independence from Spain. And every year on may 25th church members get together and celebrate eating locro, a traditional soup. a few weeks ago my comp and I had decided that we needed to do something special. So with the help of some members we took an old song called "zapatos rotos" and changed the lyrics so that it would talk about missionaries. It was quite a success in the activity. When we started to sing, a lot of the members laughed and joined in with us. After our song other members also started playing the guitar and singing popular songs of "folklore", a music style here. Some members also danced. The best part was that none of it was planned, but it turned out being a very special moment. 

Oh yeah, we turned famous afterward. A member filmed the song and put it on Facebook. It got shared around with the other members of the stake and the last time we heard, the video had about 4500 views. What?! That was a surprise. 

The other great thing that happened this week was the baptism of Lucas and Mateo Polanco. Lucas is 8 years old and Mateo is 11. They are the two youngest of a family of 11 kids, all members of the church now. We are working with the family now to help them all come back to church. I baptized Lucas and Elder Mccleve baptized Mateo. Lucas has so much energy. It´s been a new challenge to learn how to teach kids and think of how to keep their attention with games and pictures, but I love it.  

I hope you are are doing well. Have a great week

Elder Lulich       

Milagrasos

Elder Teban, Me, Elder Aniel, and Elder Chapple.

I'd have to say that this week has been one of the best of my mission. On Tuesday I got to do an exchange with one of the zone leaders Elder Chapple and we were able to visit several of the people that we are working with right now. I learned so much about how to help the investigators progress and how to show my love for them. On Thursday we had a multi-zone conference and I learned a bunch there too. Leaving the conference I felt a little sad. It was one of the last conferences with Presidente Alliaud, he's going to be leaving in June. Presidente Alliaud is the best mission president he is really a friend of the missionaries and has a great love for us and trust in us. He always says," I trust in you because the Lord has trusted in you already." It was also sad because at the end of the conference we all listened to the last testimonies of the missionaries that will be finishing their missions this transfer. Among them were Elder Chapple and also Elder Hansen, my district leader in Parque Liceo. 
The biggest highlight of this week was going to the temple on Saturday to see the sealing of Ronan and Rocio. It was a surreal experience being there in the temple with them after having taught Rocio about a year ago. I was amazed by how far the two of them had come. Conversion really is a miracle. Ronan told me jokingly, as he had before, that it was all my fault and he´s going to show up in the U.S. one day to drop off his kids with me. 

I really love the mission and the chance it gives me to see the work of God more fully. 

I really hope you all have a fantastic week. 

Elder Lulich