August 29, 2011

Dear queridos míos,

Thank you all for your lengthy letters! I really appreciated it! But I'll apologize now if this letter is relatively short. The truth is, you guys all think I'm out here seeing crazy things every day and having tons of insane experiences all the time. And the truth is that that is probably the truth. But it's hard for me to even remember what I did yesterday!!

This week was good, though! We taught a good amount of lessons and found 7 people. Also, Wednesday, we travelled to Mar del Plata for a Zone Conference that was AWESOME. We all got together (probably about 20 missionaries) and got to see graphs and stats of the mission as a whole and of our zone as a whole over the past 3 months or so. It was interesting to see our progress and talk over what we're doing, why the data looks that way, what characteristics there are in the numbers, and with all that in mind, what we need to improve on. Then we learned a lot about how to improve our work with the members, how to work with our investigators better so they can better recognize us as servants of the Lord, and how to work with each other to have better relationships and more constructively critical relationships to help one another get better. Last, President gave his part about becoming more like the prophet Nephi from the Book of Mormon and how to allow the Spirit to guide us and help us OPEN OUR MOUTHS and just TALK to people. It was awesome, we all left feeling super pumped to work harder and be better missionaries!

We had some good lessons with Eduardo the crazy man that was going to get baptized but he told us he feels nothing and would rather be punished by God even if he is making the wrong decision. But explained he'd still be going to church. He didn't; which is sad because the man is quite intelligent and probably the funniest person I have met in this country.

But another lady we're teaching named Karina Lamberto finally came! She has three children that are a little directionless and I know this will help them. Hopefully we can help them to keep progressing and help the kids to actually come to church with their mom! They are Matias, Tomás, and Milagros.

Today was good but none of us had money....At the end of every month, we get our 700 pesos. But it hadn't come yet! So we spent P-Day broke and playing ping pong in the church building, watching Mormon movies, haha.

Anyway, that's about it! I love being here but I am starting to feel like this is my last week in little Balcarce, Argentina. It's either that or I'm in for the long haul until the end of November so I can help the missionary that comes, after Elder Davidson goes home, get to know Balcarce. Thank you for the letters! And addresses! I'll write you all next week!

-Elder Ryan Garrison