Monday, April 25, 2016

Fishing

This week was super crazy, a lot of stuff happened and I don't remember all of it to be honest.

I'm adjusting well to my new area, companion, and assignment, everything's tranquilo. It's mostly just being a normal missionary, with a bunch of other junk to do. This week we had to help the hermanas move, look for a new pensh, welcome another companionship in the middle of the week as they headed of to Villa La Angostura to open it again, and just lots of things. But everything worked out well.

My comp is Elder Clemens. He's from Kansas, and has about 16 months in the mission. He's super funny and we got along really well. He's also an awesome missionary, and I'm learning a lot from him right now.

Our area is Alto I, we have an entire ward, which is actually really great. More than anything, the area is HUGE. We walk and walk and walk and walk and walk all day. Up and down hills, it's pretty crazy. But the members are awesome, the missionaries here have been training them to do their own missionary work pretty well, so things are looking up.

We have a few really sweet investigators. The Henriquez family is a part-member family, their son Luis got baptized last Saturday, and their daughter Daniela accepted a date for the 7th of May, so we're excited about that! They're a really great family with a lot of love, it's great. The dad Jorge doesn't really have any religious background at all, so we're working with that, but he supports everyone and comes to church.

We're also teaching a man named Enrique. The missionaries have been teaching him for a while, but he has a little bit of skitzophrenia, so we're also workign with that. But he has good intentions.

I don't really remember much else, but everything's great! We're going to try and go fishing today, so that should be fun. Still haven't gotten my camera, I should this week, so pictures will come soon.

Love you all!

Elder Grondel

Monday, April 18, 2016

Bariloooooooooche

Hola a todos, ¿cómo andan?

Everything is perfect. A lot of awesome things happened this week, and I don't really know how to explain it all, but basically we had transfers and I got sent here to Bariloche to be comps with Elder Clemens! We're super excited to be together, and I'm really excited for this opportunity! I'm in the same zone, just now as zone leader! It's crazy and I'm already learning a ton, but I'm sure it's going to be great.

The week was pretty normal, it was hard to say goodbye to my beloved San Martin, but I know I'll be back there soon hopefully, so I'll see them again soon. I really can't remember what happened because we had to stay at the bus terminal all day yesterday waiting for the other missionaries in our zone to arrive and then had an appointment (hence why I'm writing today) and am kind of tired and it's all just been a blur. But I'm doing great and loving life! Last night our lock broke on our door and we couldn't get into the pensh, and so we had to bust the door open, which was just so much fun.

love you all, thank you for the Happy Birthday wishes!!!

Elder Grondel

Here's a Brazilian dude that's traveling Argentina selling trinkets we met in the terminal yesterday

Monday, April 11, 2016

I can never think of anything good to put here

HOoooooooooooolllla a todos! ¿Cómo andan? ¿Todo piola, che?

This week started out normal, but got pretty crazy as it went along. Ahora les explico.

On Monday night, the zone leaders form Bariloche got here to San Martín and my comp and I had to go pick them up so they didn't get lost or have to pay a very expensive taxi. We had a pretty good day with them in Tuesday, the only stayed until the afternoon, but we had a really good discussion in the morning about things to change, how to improve, and more than anything, that we are literally children of our Father in Heaven. Then we had a really sweet District Meeting about all of that. It's all simple stuff that I've heard all my life, but for some reason I'm really starting to get a better understanding of what it implies, and really just gaining a huge personal testimony of it. It's great.

During all of this, Elder Jensen from the office called and asked if my comp wanted to do tramites for immigration stuff in Neuquen the next day. Sooooo, he left that Tuesday at four alone to Neuquén, while I stayed here and bounced around between companionships. it was a good time. It included doing service in my church shoes, eating really good beans with noodles, and putting baptismal dates with some of our main investigators right now, which was great!

One of these people is Keila. We made sure she felt good about the 16th, and she was all ready! On Sunday we passed by her house in the morning, and things got complicated and she said she was still going to try to come to at least Sacrament Meeting (it's last here). She didn't, and went we went by later, she told us that her grandma that lives in Zapala (three hours from here) is sick and has to go see her this weekend, sooooooo yeah we're going to have to move that till the 23rd. It's really a bummer because we've got transfers this weekend, and one of us is probably going to leave, but sometimes things just work out like that.

Darci and Leo are progressing well también. Marcelo is actually excommunicated, so him and Darci have to talk about some things and he has to clear things up with the leaders and everything, but they accepted a baptismal date for the 30th! They have to get married still, so we're praying that will happen quick. It was so cool because Marcelo has done a lot of things in the church, even been a Bishop, but has been excommunicated for something. But even still, he looked at us and said "we need to talk this over because I know that this gospel is for families, and if it's gonna happen, we're doing it together." Wow. That was awesome.

After that Elder Nevins got back, and the week went on pretty tranquilo, nothing crazy happened. Had some good lunches I guess hahha. Love you alll!

Elder Grondel

Pics









Monday, April 4, 2016

Conferencia General

Hello there my friends and family, how are yooooooouuuuuu?

Everything is perfectly amazing here in San Martín. We didn't have a ton of time this week to work in our area, but it was an awesome week anyways. The week started with our zone conference with President in Bariloche, which was fantastic. I learned a lot of things from it about being more focused and showing faith in all of our actions. It was great. My comp and I even got to do a referral-taking practice with President, and he just answered his phone in the middle of it and started FaceTiming his son in uruguay. Hahahahahaah he does the randomest stuff, it's the best. I also got a present for my birthday which was the best gift I could have asked for: food. A box of apple-flavored granola bars never tasted so good. We had a good time with the other missionaries over there, including one of the assistants that goes home in two weeks. It's so weird because I swear I just met him and he told me he had 18 months. Now I realize that was 6 months ago.

The other highlight of the week is that we were able to talk to our investigator Keila again and have a super spiritual lesson with her and a member. Long story short, she accepted a baptismal date for the 16th! So we're extremely excited for that, working as hard as we can to make sure she's ready and goes through with it. She couldn't come to conference unfortunately because she didn't have money for the cole, but she tried, which is the important part.

General Conference was extremely amazing, I loved every second of it. Fortunately, we were able to watch it in English which always makes it better. I learned a lot of things about stuff I've been thinking about recently which was great. We even had a couple investigators come that are starting to really progress!!

We were also able to pass by the flia avila again, the part-member family we started teaching. Unfortunately he was about to leave for a meeting so we could only talk for a few minutes, but they are still doing great! She started reading the Book of Mormon, says she feels good, but wants a little more time, but we're so excited for them too! It finally feels like everything is paying off here in our area. I don't want to leave.

I can't believe I hit 9 months this week either. The time goes by way too fast, I just want it to slow down. I don't want to leave Argentina eeeevveerr.

I love yiou guys so much!!!!

Elder Grondel

Pics

1-2 Crazy mist in the mornings



3. Extremely happy with the best food ever cooked by La Hermana Aguero acá en San Martín



4. Our English sesh