HOLA!

We had an awesome week again here in Argentina, and I know we are being blessed by the Lord. We had a great lesson with a girl named Analia whose mom is less active and she was going to get baptized when she was 12 but then the missionary that was teaching her got transferred and so she didn´t want to. 

She is 19 now and we asked her if she believed that the Book of Mormon was true she just said, "Yeah, I think I´ve always known it was true, I´ve never really had doubts about it" and then she said the closing prayer and asked that Heavenly Father bless us, the missionaries, that we can go and teach people about the true church. She has some problems with smoking, so we took her cigarettes away from her. It was funny because they didn´t believe that it was our first time ever holding a pack of cigarettes.

We had stake conference this weekend and it was really difficult to focus for me because I couldn´t understand what they were saying. When they are bearing their testimonies and teaching gospel principles I can understand, but as soon as they start telling stories, forget about it. 

The session on Sunday was a broadcast to the whole country and Elder Bowen of the Seventy, Elder Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy, and Elder Russell M. Nelson all spoke to us in Spanish. I think Elder Bowen and Elder Clayton both served as mission presidents in spanish countries, but we´re pretty positive that Elder Nelson was just reading his talk from Spanish. I could mostly understand what they were saying. 

We also had the baptisms of Kevin and Uriel yesterday, and that was so awesome. We were going to baptize their adopted uncle, but he didn´t have permission from his mom yet. Elder Pastrana baptized Uriel, who is the cutest little 10 year old kid and I baptized Kevin, his 12 year old brother. They are the sons of Alejandra, the woman we baptized last week. Uriel is so cool, he was so excited for his baptism and Kevin kept making jokes that he wasn´t going to get baptized. 

We´re planning on focusing on finding this week, so we´ll be asking referrals from everyone, so pray for us! Loved hearing that Nana is out of the hospital, woohoo! 

I love you and I just know how true the Gospel is, because there is no way we are convincing people that the Book of Mormon is true or that Joseph Smith was a prophet. All we do is try to set up some kind of atmosphere where the Spirit can testify the truth of these things. We as missionaries just get the privilege of being here when miracles happen. 

Con amor,

Elder Wardle

Fun facts: Everything is made out of concrete here. EVERYTHING. All the buildings, they don´t have any steel or anything. As soon as the Second Coming comes and there are earthquakes in diverse places, Buenos Aires is going to collapse.

Oh and milk here is sold in bags. I have no idea why. I´ll take a picture and send it. 

FIRST BAPTISMS IN MY MISSION!

¿Como andan? ¿Todo bien? Everyone says that here to say hi, it´s super funny. We had such an incredible week here in the Parque Chacabuco ward that I don´t know if I can describe it. 

So where we do most of the work in our area is called the barrio and it´s mostly where poorer people live, but they are usually willing to talk and everybody always gives us Coke to drink, so no complaints here. There are wild dogs everywhere, though I think some belong to people, I have no idea how they tell. 

Everyone has metal bars on their windows and doors and many people have little snack stands, called kioskos, in their homes where they sell things through the front window of their house. 

We clap outside houses, and I look ridiculously out of place here, I don´t think I´ve seen one other white person while I´ve been here. Four missionaries live in our apartment, one is from Chile, and the other two are from the States but are half hispanic, so they kind of fit in. And then there´s me, white blonde boy in the middle of the ghetto of Buenos Aires, haha

So....the baptisms. Alejandra, the mom of this family, has been positive about her baptism for a while, but her kids are a little different story. Priscila, the youngest, was baptized with her mom on Saturday and she is a fireball. The oldest daughter who is thirteen did not want anyone to get baptized and so we are at the church, getting ready for the baptism, and Oriana (The sister) starts talking to Priscila about how all of her friends are in the Catholic Church and how she shouldn´t get baptized and putting all these doubts when Priscila very much knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. 

We prayed and talked with her and she said ok, so her mom signed the paper and we started the baptisms at 8 instead of the scheduled time of 7. So crazy. 

We also had the interview with Pablo, Alejandra´s adopted brother, who is 12 and he was in the interview with our Zone leader and the zone leader asked if he´d committed a serious crime and he nodded, and so the elder asked what happened and Pablo said, "One time, I told my teacher that I had done all of my homework, and I hadn´t done it." These kids are just good kids. 

Pablo, Kevin, and Uriel should get baptized this weekend, so we´re stoked! 

Ok I think that is basically it for this week. We were just preparing them for baptism the whole week and fasting and praying a ton because it was kind of up in the air, but it was an awesome baptism, even if the water was cold. Alright I love all of you. I heard the weather has been nice, it cooled off here because winter is about to start and everyone has been saying how cold it is and I´ve just been enjoying it. 

Love,

Elder Wardle

P.S. Everyone got excited about the Pope being Argentine hahahaha

Estoy aca en Argentina!

Hola!

I finally made it here in Argentina and it is just insane being here and preaching the Gospel. Just extremely different. We have already seen some success and if all goes as planned we will be having three baptisms on Saturday. 

Apparently this ward, Parque Chacabuco, is famous in the mission for being super awesome because the ward is super strong. Seriously, look up the ward, they have 18 missionaries out right now and will have 25 in the next few months. The bishop just works, and the ward is super small too. Maybe 100 members, it's so awesome. 

There are four missionaries serving here and the other missionaries work in the Villa, which is just a super poor area where there are drug dealers, so they have to be careful.  So hopefully I go in there sometime soon haha. 

We´re teaching a family, a woman, Alejandra, her adopted brother, Pablo, and then her four kids, Oriana, Kevin, Uriel, y Priscila, and they are so cool. They basically all know it is true. Elder Pastrana, my companion, was writing in Priscila´s Book of Mormon last night, writing ¨Is the book of Mormon true?¨ so she could pray and she looks at him like he is crazy and says ¡Si, es verdadero! or Of course it is true!. It was so cool haha. 

My companion is awesome, super bold with everyone and just awesome. He is from Kaysville, Utah, but his dad is Mexican so he looks pretty native to here. Everyone is super surprised when he speaks to me in English, like he is a genius for knowing English haha. 

Alright well, I think that is it for the week, I don´t have much time left but I love all of you and keep writing me. ¡Ciao!

Elder Wardle

Fun Facts about Argentina

We don´t have hot water in the apartment, so we shower out of a bucket of boiled water and then we add cold water.

I sweat all the time. I´ll sit inside someone´s house drinking juice, and I´ll be sweating.

They love mayonnaise here, I have no idea why.

ELDER WARDLE WITH MISSION PRESIDENT AND HIS WIFE

He's ARRIVED!

Dear Wardle Family,

  We are so thankful to have Elder Wardle with us. He arrived safely this morning and is doing wonderful. We are so excited for this great opportunity we have together to serve the Lord. We all ate lunch together here in the mission home and this afternoon he will be meeting his trainer and arriving in his area to work.  Your son will be communicating with you on his preparation day.

We love you,

President and Sister Gulbrandsen

I'M LEAVING ON A JET PLANE!!!

So.... I got a call yesterday morning from my mission president and he said he had some good news and some bad news. The bad news was that the Colorado Denver South Mission was losing Elder Wardle, but that the good news for Elder Wardle is that I'm going to Argentina on Monday! 

So I get to email today and I'm ridiculously excited. 

This week has showed me how much Spanish I don't know but also surprised me by how much I do know, especially when talking about Church topics.  It's also been nice to be in a car, probably won't be in a car down there either haha. 

Elder Havig has been my companion and he's a red head from Arizona, showing me a lot of the ropes to do with Spanish wards. One thing that is definitely different is that they trust the Elders a lot and will open up to you (speaking about less actives in particular) and they are pretty excited to feed us when we're there. 

So there's the update for the week because I probably won't email since I'll be traveling on Monday but I love all of you. The next time I'll email will be from Argentina!

Elder Wardle