Week 26: Posadas, Argentina

Hello everyone!!! Sorry if i have been slacking on the blog entries. But hopefully you are enjoying the stuff i have been able to write. I am enjoying my time here in Argentina and learning a lot from my companion who has a lot of time here in the mission is getting ready to go home in June, so i have learned a lot from him. But it's really been a cool experience so far, and i still have a lot to go. But it's been a lot of fun teaching and getting to know people, from super humble people that live in little huts to drunk people that roam the streets all day and all night too witches haha its beeen quite an experience, and something i'll never forget. But as i have been thinking and going about doing the work here i've realized a lot of things. Stuff that i might have always known but never really applied to my life. But one thing i have learned is that there are lots of different points of view. Lots of people that have grown up for years believing something, or thinking something and they really won't change very easily, especially if you try to teach them or argue with them about solid facts. Because i could tell you that Jesus got baptized by immersion and was sumerged in the water and that the Bible says it, but that probably is not going to make someone that was baptized in a different way believe me. And it's really easy to get into arguments and argue about cold hard facts of the bible or really anything. But what helps the people is if they feel something. If you can show them that you care about them and that you are trying to do what is best for them and present them an idea in a way that they are going to feel like you are helping them, rather than fighting or proving them wrong, they will feel it. And that is what makes people change. Experiences and feelings will make people change more than reading and discussing facts. And it's really cool because i have seen it happen. I have seen people that are super super hard headed and don't want to change their beleifs for anyone or anything and want to just argue about what they read online or in a book or in the bible. They change because what we did wasn't argue back or discuss back, it was just simply share what we knew to be true and have them decide for themselves. Not prove them wrong but prove why we thought we were right. But that's just a tip of the ice berg and i wish i had more time to write, but i'll leave it that for today. Have a fantastic week and hope everyone is doing well!!!!!!!!!

love, ben 

Week 24

Woah munch and mingle sounds pretty fun haha. But whatttt Fransisco got his mission call!!!!!!! that's awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can you get his email address for me?? and ahh I forgot the olympics were on. biscuits. And are you learning about the old testament in sunday school?? the people here in Argentina and Paraguay use the teachings of the profets books and they are in joseph f smith. And how many days off of school have you had? seems like a lot. 

Would you be mad if i gave all my suits shirts and pants away before i leave? The shopping is pretty good. Theres a place really similar to Cuidad del Este downtown, but its really small with a bunch of knock off stuff and its really cheap, but a bought a tie. And we got to the supermarket every pday to buy stuff because here we don't have lunch every single day so we have to make our own sometimes. And yeah i can communicate really well and understand like 95 percent of what people say. So yeah its all good, and we walk a lot, but we also take buses sometimes. We try to focus in one little area one day so we don't have to walk alot and so we can teach a lot of people without losing time walking. And yeah we sweat a lot, and there are a some houses that have air conditioning but not all of them, definitely a lot more than in Paraguay. And we kinda have two places that we work in so one day we go to one and teach the people we have taught before and find some new people and then the next day we go to the other place, but it depends. And nope the members here do our laundry- thank goodness cause we don't have time at all. But thanks for the updates. Transfers are Wednesday, but me and my companion are staying here!! so thats good, but we have to go to the bus terminal and make sure everything goes well and stuff like that. But all is well. We ate a bunch of pizza today and yeah everything is going well. Did splits with the president which was really cool, and really spiritual, so that was a really good experience. Hope everything is going well. l love and miss you! seeya!

ben

Posadas Zone February 2014

Week 23: Posadas, Argentina

(From a letter to his parents)

Yeah the internet here is a little faster so it's easier to send pictures. But noo, we had a bunch of stuff to do and didn't have time to wash our clothes so I had to pull out all the long sleeves. But it's really not that bad because it's really the sun that just burns but with long sleeves, the sun doesnt burn the school so it's not as hot. But you sweat more. So I'm not really sure what's better. And the heat is pretty bad, I'm really glad we have a nice air conditioning thing to sleep with because without that I would probably be dead. Not really, but it would be bad. But yeah during the day it's pretty hot. 

And oo the super bowl sounds pretty exciting. not really. but yeah I'm not really sad I missed it; I'll be sad during march madness and probably depressed during the world cup. But I might get to watch Argentina play their games with members or investigatores. I've heard there are presidents that have done it in the past with other missions because everyone is watching the game and there's really nothing you can do. But we will see. I'll be crossing my fingers. and ahh it would be nice if it snowed here. 

And today, we had another consejo, I forgot the word in english i think its like advice, but it's like a meeting with the president and all the zone leaders and sister training leaders in the mission so we had that for like 7 hours and ate lunch and I got to see some firends that are in other parts of the mission and now we have pday for like 3 hours until the end of the day, but it was reallly really good.  The president is so cool and so wise haha. and some of the people that are leaving shared their testimonies and it was a pretty nice meeting.  And I think we are going to eat chinese food next week because it will be that last day of the change or we might make pizza in the church building. But we didn't have a baptism yesterday, some other elders did in our zone. But it went really well. Our zone had a lot of success in January and was the highest baptizing zone, but I think of a lot of is because of the location and the member support so it's really not a lot to brag about at all haha but it was nice, and there's not too much new I don't think.  We met a lady who claimed that we were people from the US government and she claimed she was the daughter of George Bush and that she needed our help to find her real idenity and that Barack Obama came and broke the law of chastity with her and now has the daughter of Barack Obama............. so that was probably the most interesting lesson I've had in the mission so far. 

Love and miss everybody!! have a good week!!

Elder Ben Roberts