The big bag

Hello there, hope everyone is well. I¡m currently en El Bolsón (means the big bag), a city about 2 hours south of Bariloche, doing exchanges with the Elders here, and it's great! We went up a huge mountain this morning and it was really fun.

I don't have a lot of time, but we had a baptism this week! We had heard that a little girl Priscilla from the ward was going to get baptized on Saturday, but she is 8 year old and thought it was a ward baptism. On Friday night we went to the church for correlation with our ward mission leader, and one of the counselors from the bishopric asked us for a permission form so that she could get baptized. That was when we found out that her grandma is a member, but neither of her parents! So it counted as a convert baptism! We were super excited and felt so blessed for this tender mercy from the Lord. Obviously it's not the same feeling because we didn't teach her much, but it helped with our goals and really feel like it was a result of the hard work we've been putting in.

Everything else is great! Claudia came to church yesterday! Things are going well!

love you all!!!

Elder Grondel

Pics

1-2. Last week's p-day at Cerro Campanario

3. Bautismo del Priscilla

go to church

Hello there fambam. Everything's great here.

This week went by super quick like always. On Tuesday we had a consejo de líderes here in Bariloche, and it was really good! There was a lot of good stuff, and I got to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in a while, which is always fun.

Afterwards we had our zone training the day siguiente. It went surprisingly well for two dudes that don't have any idea what they're doing. We really do have a very good zone that is super excited to work and I'm sure we'll see a lot of things this transfer. We presented a plan to be exactly obedient for the next month to try the Lord and see the blessings that we receive, and they were all super excited about it! So things are looking up here. We also went to this super good steakhouse type restaurant before the training, and it was literally the best meat I've ever eaten in Argentina, maybe in my entire life. It was amazing. I died.

Our investigators didn't come to church again which is always frustrating, and imakes it harder because everything just gets pushed back one week back. But I'm sure they'll get baptized this transfer. They're awesome.

My comp and I are doing well, just having a grand old time being two guanacos together. I didn't write much today, but I explained more in a recording my comp and I just did together. I'm loving life and having a good time. Crazy to believe in a year I'll be done with this crazy adventure, but there's still much to do

Love you all!!

Elder Grondel

pics

1. Elder McNeil (my trainer)

2. Boliche de Alberto's

3. View from our pension

4. The beautiful stairs from San Francisco up to the rest of our area

#humillado

Hello there ev erybody.

This week, to be honest, was pretty hard. In the mission you always have weeks that are amazing, and others that are hard, this week was one of the hard ones.

My new comp and I are getting along great, having a fun time. This week, we had a bunch of appointments set up, we kept up with the great planning, but every time, almost every single one of our citas fell. We're not quite sure what we did wrong, but we're trying our best to improve and look up for this week.

I don't really have to much to write because the week was just a lot of walking, but Paola and her daughter Lucia and progressing well. They were going to come to church yesterday, the member that's fellowshipping her was going to pick her up and everything, but then the member's son got sick, and she couldn't come to church. So that was a bummer. But in due time, everything will come through. I always learn the lesson of relying on the Lord and not myself, I guess this week I learned that again. Yesterday I was stressed out thinking about how nothing went well this week, how we had to organize 16 missionaries more that are coming for a Leadership counsel here and where we have to put them, and get all the numbers from the missionaries from the week, and trying to think of how I could have done things better, and once again I realized it's not about me. When I focus on myself, my efforts, how the other people see me as I try to fulfill my calling and assignment, things never go my way. But when I have forgotten myself, and focused on the other people completely, not even thinking a tiny bit about myself, that's when things started to go well. So I guess that's what I need to do.

But yeah. Also, a member from the ward that was serving in Colombia just got back from his mission on Thursday, which is great! The family is really awesome, and he's going to start helping us a ton. Things are looking up, we knew everything's going to be great!

Love you all!

Elder Grondel

1. "Kid Gambita" a lessactive in our ward that was a national boxing champion of Argentina. Now he's a little crazy because of so many hits to the head, but a good guy.

2. First time eating mcnuggets in 9 months. A beautiful moment that cost waaaaaay too much.

3. Comp