RE CAMPO

Hey familia,

First week here in Garín was super sweet. It is basically the opposite of my last area, whereas my last area was pretty rich and tall buildings and basically downtown Manhattan now I´m in super poor area of the province of Buenos Aires. The assistants called last night to get the numbers of our zone and one of them said a little different from Caballito no? 

It rained a few days and we got super muddy because many of the streets are dirt and so everything turns into mud when it rains, which I love, nope, that is a lie. I realized after one of our lessons with less actives that all the members here are cool, so I´m pretty stoked to be here.

We had a baptism here yesterday of the mom of a convert that got baptized back in March. She´s 51 and was already ready to be baptized when I got here so it was pretty smooth sailing for me for her to get baptized. She was super happy to get baptized and then we went to her daughter´s house yesterday for lunch and I learned how to make empanadas and they were super delicious, we made a ton. 

Alright well that is about it, just happy to be here in Garin and hope you guys are doing awesome. Love you!

Elder Wardle

TRASLADOS!!

Welp family, I got kicked out of the city finally haha.

We had a really good week, super busy. I sang in a group for the farewell of the Elders that go home this week on Sunday and then we went to a meeting for trainers yesterday, so obviously I thought I was going to be training but surprises come haha. 

President called me yesterday about 7 in the evening and called me as a zone leader and my companion will be training this transfer. I will now be serving in Garin, which is the country basically and I´m out of the city with a ton of huge buildings to lots of trees and pretty humble surroundings. 

My new companion, Elder Walker, finishes his mission this transfer so I will be ¨killing¨ him as we say in the mission haha. Elder Anglade was and is very nervous to receive his newbie this evening but I know he is going to do great. Always a little sad to leave an area but I feel good about the service I gave there and I´m excited to work where I am at now. 

Everyone was telling me how cool Elder Walker is so I´m super stoked to be with him, and I´m back to being a junior comp, which is always more fun haha. 

Alright, well, I´m just so happy to be on the mission, wherever I am serving. I love you guys so much, and know, with all my heart that this Gospel is true and we´ve got to be prepared NOW. 

Love,

Elder Wardle

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Alright fam, let´s see what happened this week.

We are having a bunch of first lessons with people and then they don´t want to commit to anything so we´re a little frustrated with that but it happens. 

One of our investigators that was progressing told us that he didn´t want anything more because the day before we had taught the Word of Wisdom and he didn´t want to stop drinking so he just decided not to listen more. 

Hmm nothing really out of the ordinary went on this week. Just good old missionary work! Loving it haha. 

We´re learning a lot about loving others, especially my companion because he hasn´t really progressed much with the language and he is kind of socially awkward and it has frustrated me because I feel partly responsible and I just wonder what I could do and could have done to help him more. I realized basically that he isn´t me and can´t expect more of him than God does. 

I asked God to help me see my companion through His eyes and I love the guy a lot more. 

Alright well I guess that is enough for this week. Happy Halloween!

Love,

Elder Wardle

FINDING

HOLLA! That is holla as Ellen uses it and not hola like the spanish greeting, para que sepan. 

Anyways, we had an awesome week filled with finding because we didn´t really have any progressing investigators. The week before that we had to drop a bunch of people because they didn´t progress so we started from scratch this week, and the Lord blessed us.

We found three really promising investigators and one of them came to church! His name is Emanuel and is 25 and spends a ton of time playing League of Legends on the computer so we need to break him of that habit but oh well. Something funny here in Buenos Aires is that when it rains, people think that it is an excuse to not fulfill their responsibilities. They don´t go to school, work, whatever. We called some people in the morning on Sunday and invited them to church and they responded, ¨But it is raining!¨ and so I said ¨And? We´re still going to have church!¨ Crazy how people´s minds work. 

Discovered that I love talking to people all the time. Something that used to annoy me all the time when Dad did it and now I´m exactly the same. I think I annoy some people with it too but most people are pretty friendly and excited to talk to someone from the United States. Everybody thinks I´m from Germany, not sure why. 

Well, I guess that is it. You guys are in my prayers. Felt really strongly in church yesterday that we, the members, need to strengthen our testimony in the Restoration and the Book of Mormon so that we have the ganas, forgot the word in english, I think it is like motivation or something like that, to share it with others. Think of it like your beach bod. If you are out of shape you don´t want summer to come cause you're gonna be the guy in the t shirt haha. But if you work out and do what you can to strengthen yourself you are ready for the summer. Just came to me haha. 

Alright love you guys. 

Love,

Elder Wardle

Jimmy!

AWESOME WEEK!

Hey everybody!

We had a pretty great week. We broke a record in the mission so we had a p-day with the whole mission and we went to the zoo, and you aren´t going to believe me but I forgot my camera. how terrible is that haha.

Alright, well, we were a teaching team this week and taught a whole bunch and it was really exciting. Jimmy got confirmed yesterday, so that was awesome. He wants to go on a mission and now he is going to start accompanying us to other lessons to bear his testimony. I´m so grateful for this work.

The pictures of the teepee are awesome and I´m super jealous but hey, I´m in Argentina on a mission haha. That is the most beautiful backyard that I´ve seen in a long time haha, quite a bit of vegetation.

Sorry not much to report this week, we´re just enjoying ourselves being representatives of Jesus Christ.

Love,

Elder Wardle

WOO-HOO!

What up everybody?! 

Was conference freaking amazing or what?? We are super stoked to have prophets on the earth and we testifying all week so people would come. Jimmy, the kid we found a week and a half ago got baptized and we are so happy. Super prepared. He´s 18 and he´s thinking about serving a missionary. Jimmy Tom Jones, what a name for a Peruano haha. 

Alright so I loved so many of the talks from this conference. Elder Oaks was incredible, I loved how much they talked about the sanctity of marriage and women. Elder Christofferson´s talk about women was amazing too. How the women are ostracized and denegrated (not sure if that is a word in english) here in Argentina. And marriage is a joke here too. I´m so grateful that we have prophets, seers, and revelators here on the earth, aren´t you? We haven´t seen the priesthood session yet but I heard that it was awesome. The missionaries can´t watch it because it is shown here at 9 at night. 

Funny story, we invited one of our investigators to conference and he came! His name is Richmond, is from Africa, and is from the Seventh-day Adventist church and he brought 2 boxes of books from his church to share with everybody. It was super funny, a little awkward, especially when some of the members wanted to argue with him. Who is the father of contention again? Oh...that´s right. Last night we talked to him about authority and he accepted a baptismal date in two weeks! Woohoo we are excited. 

We are working so much more effectively. We started focusing a lot more on having members in each and every one of our lessons and we did it this week! 30 lessons with members and 0 other lessons taught! We are really happy and should be accomplishing our goals of baptizing weekly. 

We are so grateful for the blessings that God is giving us. We feel like the clouds have broken and we are literally drenched in miracles. 

Oh and did you guys notice, I´m sure you did, the girl in the family choir who was just giving it her all haha. We were laughing about that for a while. Us missionaries found a room upstairs in the chapel and watched it in english and it was so much better to hear their voices instead of a translator. Alright, this letter is bastante long already. I love you all! Study the talks like Elder Hales said! Chau chau!

Love,

Elder Wardle