Lavando las Medias

This week started off with exchanges within the zone. I got to go south of my area to a place called Alta Gracia. It was a biking area and so beautiful. It reminded me a little bit of Oregon. 

Saturday was flag day here in Argentina and the ward had a Locro. Locro is one of the traditional dishes of Argentina. Its a squash soup that has a bunch of different stuff inside. On Friday night we went to help prepare the locro. The picture here shows me washing one of the ingredients, tripa gorda. Thats large intestine for the English speakers. MMMMMMMmmmmm....To prepare the tripa gorda for the locro I had to cut it into smaller pieces and then turn those pieces inside out. The nickname for this is "lavando las medias" or "washing the socks." It was pretty fun.

A handful of guts. YUM.

Me and my compi are working hard finding and teaching investigators. I think that the best part of teaching is when, in the middle of a lesson, I get a new idea or a new perspective on an old scripture that helps me apply the principle to the investigator. I know that these little revelations come thanks to the Spirit. This Sunday one of our investigators finally came to church with us. We really wanted her brother to come too, we've been teaching him for a longer time, but he says that he`s  not ready yet. I think that`s one of the hardest parts of the mission, getting people to come to church. After all that we can do, the person has to make the choice. 

I hope you`re all doing well! And Happy Father`s Day!

Elder Lulich

Three goofy kids.

Contacting

This week had some highs and lows. When we arrived at Saturday morning we had only found 2 new investigators during the entire week. I still had hope that we could find investigators, but I wasn't too sure that we would achieve our goal of 7 for the week. Well my companion and I ended up finishing the day with 8 new people to teach. It was odd. The people seemed to be more receptive. 

The best part of the day for me was a contact that we did in the morning. At the beginning of the contact the lady did not want anything. But my companion and I were persistent. I´m not exactly sure what we said to get to the subject, but the lady began to talk about how she couldn't believe in God because he didn't save her mother from dying. My companion and I then challenged her to read the pamphlet of the plan of salvation and ask God if it was true that there is a life after this one. She accepted the challenge! My companion and I walked away from that contact feeling awesome. 

Have a great week!

Stay on the Rock!

This week my companion and I talked with some pretty sad people. People who told us that it was hard to believe in God anymore because of the things that have happened to them. My companion and I did our best to help them, it also made me sad to see that they were scared to grab on to the very thing that would help them pull themselves out of their problems. What they need to know is that god always loves them and that this gospel is here to help us be happy in any situation that we may find ourselves in. That's the purpose of this life. We exist here on this earth so that we can find happiness. That happiness always comes from following the gospel of the savior Jesus Christ.

If you remember the parable of Jesus about the wise man and the foolish man: the wise man listened and followed the teachings of Jesus and thus built his house on a rock. The foolish man rejected or ignored the teachings of Jesus and built his house on the sand. Then the rain and wind came and fell on both the houses. The house built on a foundation of sand fell because of the storm while the house on the rock stood firm. A life in the gospel is not a guarantee that trials will not come. The rain falls on both the wicked and the righteous. The gospel is a guarantee that when the storm comes we will not fall. 

So if we are passing through a storm in our lives it is not the time to complain because the rain is falling on us and abandon the rock that gives us strength. We need to stay there! And if we are not building our lives on the gospel of Christ, we need to get ourselves on the rock, and quick!

All in all this was a good week. We found a new families to teach! I'm starting to feel much more comfortable teaching in Spanish and working together with my companion Elder Mendoza. Sorry I don't share more cool stories and weird traditions of the Argentinos, this week I'll try to do cooler things for you guys. Ha ha. 

I'll tell you a little about the food ... We do eat cookies here in Argentina, but sadly nobody makes cookies in there house so it's not the same. One of the vegetables that we eat here, but not in the states is called zapallo. It's a type of squash and it´s pretty good. I don't eat too many vegetables here. Sometimes I miss having a salad at very meal like at home.

6 WEEKS MORE!!!

Transfers were this Saturday and I got the news that I´d be staying here in Santa Isabel. At the end of this transfer I'll have completed 6 months in this area. These past 6 weeks have flown by. But I can really see the difference they have made. In these past six weeks this area has changed a lot for me. I remember that after my first six weeks here in the area I wanted to get out of here. But now I´m glad to stay. Elder Mendoza and I have a lot to do here. 

I think the highlight of my week was that this sunday a family that we´ve been visiting regularly for 4 months now came to church. This family had stopped going to church about 6 months ago. They are great people, but they've been passing through some tough times lately. The husband lost his job and now they make and sell bread from their house to get by (and the bread is delicious). Every time we would invite them tocome tochurch they would tell us that they didn´t want to go because they were afraid that the other members would judge them. What they had to come to realize was that this gospel is not for perfect people this gospel is here in order to perfect people. Big difference. 

Que tengan una semana exitosa! 

Elder Lulich

The Lord Provides

   My pen leaked in my pocket

This week was tough. The majority of our appointments failed on us so my companion and I spent a lot of time in the street. For example Thursday was all planned out; we knew exactly what we were going to do the whole day. Every hour we had set up an opportunity to teach an investigator or a less active member. But every time we passed by a house the people told us that they were suddenly busy or that something had come up and they couldn't attend to us. 

The whole day was not a waste though. One of our plans at the end of the day actually was fulfilled. The Lord really provided in this opportunity. Not only were we able to  teach a less active member as we had planned, but we were also able to begin to teach her non-member brother, thus finding a new investigator. 

I really do love this area of the mission and the members and investigators that I get to interact with. Although many days are difficult, I know that this is the Lord´s work and that he wants me to succeed.

                          

Cultural Event and Temple Dedication

This week has been pretty great. There have been some high and low points. But it ended with the cultural event and the dedication of the temple. 

Wednesday we had a zone conference and got the chance to listen to President Alliaud speak. Our mission president is an inspired man. He spoke about many things, bu the part I liked the most was when he was talking about the natural man vs. the spiritual man. He said that all of us as human beings have two forces fighting inside of us, carnal and spiritual. Every time we give in to our natural desires to be lazy, or rebel, or get angry, or whatever the temptation may be we become more worldly and our spiritual side is weakened. But when we listen to the spiritual guidance of our heavenly father and choose to do things his way we become more spiritual, more heavenly. President told us that our salvation is determined by whether we can dominate the natural side of our self.

 Here's a picture of our zone conference. See if you can find me. It will be like where´s waldo.

On Thursday my companion and I had a pretty terrible day. We weren't able to enter a single house until 6 in the afternoon. And then when we did enter that house we taught a lesson that was just bad. 

On Saturday I got to give my first blessing in Spanish! It was a little scary, but I got through it well. Later we got to go to the cultural event for the temple. All of the youth ages 12 to 18 from Cordoba performed the many traditional dances of Argentina to celebrate the dedication of the temple. It was pretty much the closest thing to a concert that I´m going to get on my mission so I really enjoyed myself. 

Then on Sunday came the dedication. It has been so neat to see how the temple has affected the members here. And now they have the chance to enter! 

 Well that's mas o menos what happened this week in Cordoba Argentina. Hope you all are doing well wherever you are found on the globe.

Some missionary painted the first vision!

Miracles from the Temple

Well yesterday was mother´s day and we got to talk to our families so that was pretty awesome. I must say that I miss those guys. But don´t worry, I´m not moping around staring at pictures of my family just yet.

This week one of our investigators got baptized. WOOP WOOP! This girl is the girlfriend of a less active member. It´s been really cool seeing that as she has come to know the gospel, her boyfriend has also become active in the church. Now that she is baptized, they just got to get married and keep on helping one another out. I have the faith that they can do it!

Us with Rocio

Elder Mitchell and Elder Gonzalez had an investigator that got baptized too

On Tuesday we did exchanges within the zone and I got to stay in my area. I always get nervous to be in exchanges because I feel like I have to show off my area and I don´t want to let my companion for the day down. This exchange went pretty well. One of the plans for the day was to contact a less active sister in the ward. I had never met this member so I didn´t really know what to expect. We ended up finding the non-member husband outside the house. While we were talking to him he told us that he had gone to the temple open house with his wife. We asked him how he liked it and he told us a pretty cool story. During his temple tour there was a part where the guides invited everyone to be silent and say a personal prayer. He said that he prayed to be able to buy a car that he had been trying to get for a long time. Apparently there were only like 50 of these cars in all of Argentina and his friend had one, but wasn´t going to sell it. But he said his prayer and among other things asked God to help him get this car. And, what do you know, about two days later he was able to buy the car! So when we came by to talk to him he told us that since God had kept up his part of the promise he was going to fulfill his and receive the missionary lessons. We've already been able to go back a second time to his house and taught the first lesson. We´ll see where it goes from here! 

But all in all things are great here. I´m getting along well with my companion (most of the time). And I´m starting to really love the members of this ward. I actually wouldn't mind too much if I had to stay a while longer in this ward.

I hope you all told your mother´s you love them yesterday. And I hope you show just how much you love them today! 

Ciao! 

Elder Lulich

We went to a giant park in the middle of the city today for p-day. it reminded me of the Golden Gate Bridge park in San Francisco