Elder David Maynard: FELIZ DÍA DEL PADRE

HOLA!
Happy father´s day tomorrow dad! I´ll be home for the next one haha My first Sunday in Argentina was father´s day. I can´t believe that a year has already flown by. I celebrated my one year mark in Argentina by eating a Coca Cola Float. It is really good, but I am going to be yearning for a Root beer float when I get home haha I love Argentina. This country has taught me a lot in this past year. I love how the Argentine people are so open, friendly, and willing to give. They share everything here. People during the summer always offered us water and all the time during the year people are offering mate. We can´t drink it but that´s alright, I don´t want to drink weed water anyway.

Also my international driver´s license arrived! Thanks for putting that together mom! This week I got to drive President Perez to the hospital to visit some sick missionaries. It´s been almost 14 months since I have driven and I was pretty nervous haha especially since the Argentine streets are pretty crazy. But we drove smooth and it turned out well. As natural as riding a bike haha

So Costanera is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Santa Fe. Which means there are a lot of older folks that live here. Well everyone goes to bed early here, and the missionaries still have to be in the streets working. Obviously when we have no appointments, we are contacting. A few weeks ago, an older couple called the police on us. They said that two tall, big, dark people were trying to rob them. haha At this particular house we just rang the doorbell, and when no one answered, we left. Well the police caught up to us and laughed. ´´Los mormones!´´ They shouted to each other haha Well this week, it happened again haha A woman called the police saying that two well dressed ´´engineers´´ were trying to rob her. When the police caught up to us this time, we just gave them a card referring them to visit the Church´s website. Maybe if we can get the police called on us enough, we can baptize one of them.

This week we visited a small village called Feliciano. it is about 6 hours away from Santa Fe. It is in the middle of nowhere haha But found in this village are 6 missionaries and a nice little branch. We did splits out there this week and it was nice to be walking on some dirt roads again. It is softer on the feet and it means that the people are more humble. While there, we also attended their district meeting. We talked about our attitude in the mission. I love a part in Preach My Gospel that says our attitude about missionary work shows our love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and it also shows our respect that we have for the priesthood. This is powerful. We all can be missionaries, and show our love for God and our respect for His priesthood, by sharing the gospel with other people! I have hope that I can always be a missionary, for my whole life. It is not going to end in 11 months. And I will be able to continually show my love for God by sharing His divine message of the Gospel. It was a great visit out there in Feliciano. The missionaries seemed more excited and uplifted after our splits there. It makes it all worth it.

Last night, we were going to teach our investigator, Alberto, with the Bishop. Well the Bishop calls last minute and says that he can´t come. Great. We go to visit Alberto, and he is not home. Great. Back to knocking doors again. In our search, we found a man sitting outside his house. We befriended him, and he let us inside to meet his family. He lives with his girlfriend and their 6 year old daughter. They were just all smiles as we talked to them for a short time and briefly explained the Restoration of The Gospel. They were very excited and we have an appointment to return to teach them today. At the end of the night I just thought, God is so good. He prepared the way so that we could meet this nice little family. I was just astonished. God has a perfect plan and He is always on our side. This night was just like life, we may have plans that we think are really good, but God leads us down other paths which are better and Greater. He is so good to us.

Well I love you all tons. Happy Father´s day to my Dad, and my awesome Grandpas. The Best Role Models in my life. I love you guys! Also thank you to my grandmas, I keep on receiving your letters and they always bring me smiles! And big shout out to my cousins Lindsey and Josh who are going to have a baby. Congratulations!!! If you want to name the baby David after your favorite cousin it is alright with me :) Everyone have a great week! HAPPY FATHER´S DAY!!

Un Gran Abrazo,

Elder Maynard