El Campo Está Listo Ya Para La Siega

¿Cómo andamos?

Hey everyone!  I have been embarrassed many times this week as I have declared my American nationality because Argentina showed our whole country how to play soccer last week.  But then my pride kicks in and I think that we could take them down in any other sport. haha I am excited to see what happens for the championship tomorrow. Ahora sí, Vamos Argentina!

Well we have some awesome news.  The Spirit gave our main Newspaper man, Alberto, a spiritual beat down this past week.  Alberto committed to come to church tomorrow and he topped it off with accepting a baptism date for July 23.  He is such a good guy.  We often here him selling newspapers in the streets.  We can hear him yelling ´´Diario´´ (Newspaper) from about 7 blocks away haha Then My comp and I yell ´´Diario!´´ and we get all excited.  If this guy gets in the water, basically the whole neighborhood does because everyone knows him and loves him.  After delivering the newspaper for 63 years in your neighborhood you are going to have a lot of friends.  Vamos Alberto!

We have also found more receptive people this week.  We have been able to teach a few families parts of the gospel.  The two families want to take things slowly, but in the small chats that we have had with them, there has been lots of progress.  We are excited to see how this snow ball gets rolling downhill here in a few weeks.  The Lord has blessed us a TON in the past few weeks with people to teach.  We are starting the harvest. 

We had a family night this past week to show a family in the ward our Ward Mission Plan and the Hermana made us tacos.  The tender mercies from the Lord come in many forms.  I know that Argentina is a latin country but they don´t have tacos.  I haven´t had tacos in forever.  I love tacos.  

We had divisions this week with some Zone Leaders too.  I went on splits with an Elder that is from Mendoza.  We found a lady who can speak English perfectly.  She is an English translator.  She was so happy to see me haha I think that she speaks better English than me right now.  I think right now I can speak about 80% fluently English and 80% fluently Spanish.  It is a mess.  Hopefully by the end of my mission I can get them both up to 100%.

It was a great week! I am enjoying it! There is no better privilege than to be a special witness of Jesus Christ.  I know that Christ directs this church.  It has His divine authority and His perfect gospel.  It is the key to happiness in this life.  I love you all! Til next week!

Love,

Elder Maynard

 Costanera... Yessir!

 Sunday morning showdown

Strolling the coast 

 More santa fe action

 we found a giant slug in a flower patch outside our pench

 Ice cream is the secret to a missionary´s temporal happiness

 And pictures of me hoping and praying that US could take down argentina last Tuesday

 Divisions with Zone leaders from Concordia

Pancakes from this Morning

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

 Empanadas empanadas

I am a rugby player 

 Banana Bread and Malta

Hanging out on a ranch before lunch

  Traveling to Feliciano

 Church, Plaza, and Bus station in Feliciano

 Malta y alfahor is the recipe to temporal happiness

 We out here ROLLIN

Argentines carry whatever with them on motocylces, in this case a bike 

 Yeah we drivin

 Coke floats

Green birds that are famous here, called LOROS

Learn To Love

Hey Everyone!

Well another month has flown by in the mission.  I feel like I am always here sitting at the computer telling everyone how fast the time goes by.  I like what my sister Amanda said that ´´Time is precious.´´ Isn´t that the truth.  We can´t change the past time but we can certainly make sure that we don´t lose future time.  It is interesting that Time is something that matters a lot to mortals, but God doesn´t have time.  He has eternities.  Won´t it be nice to have eternities?  The gospel is awesome.  Hoorah for Eternal Families.

My companion taught me a good lesson today.  I have been mocking Catholics a lot lately.  Just talking negatively about them and calling them ignorant behind their backs.  I was getting tired of them slamming the door in my face. haha But Elder Pearson pulled out the example of our Savior, ´´Father, Forgive them for they know not what they do.´´  I think I have repented more during the mission than I ever have in my whole life.  I have to repent and start to love my Argentine Catholic people again.  The Lord is constantly teaching me lessons.  I have to keep on learning to love.

We are continuing to work with our only investigator, Alberto.  Sadly, he can´t come to church this week, he has to work.  But he promised us that next week.  We will see. The miracle that happened with him is that we gave him a priesthood blessing this week.  He told us that that night he slept better than he has ever slept.  A little miracle to help him recognize the priesthood of God.  He still hasn´t accepted a baptism date because he wants to come to church first.  He has been passing newspapers every day for the last 68 years.  Amazing.  But he is willing to stop to come to church so that is a miracle too.  Life is full of miracles.  We just have to look up and see them.  

We contact doors, we ask references, we read scriptures and Preach My Gospel to renovate the Faith, and we keep on working.  The mission is good. I love you all! Have a good week!

Love,

Elder Maynard

 More pics of mission home hahaa

 Hey mama, can you see that I eat good? haha

 Rolling in the car with presidente but we couldn't squeeze him in the picture

 This kis went to AF and he knows PJ and B Harris

 All the New missionaries from last week

 Mom I eat lots of cake

 After a long tired working day you need a coke.

Lunch with all the Zone leaders 

 Missionary have all the solutions, even small tables

 My desk at night

 Getting that alfahor in to celebrate 13 months.

 The only nasty thing in Esperanza is the public bathroom

 The Acosta family came to visit me during our zone meeting in Esperanza. He made me a cake! They are freaking family!  He told me that he also added dad on facebook hahaha

 Eating the cake

 The ward mission leader wasnt home but I got to see his family!

 Te Quiero Esperanza

Eating pizza with zone leaders in Rafaela.