Semana 38 - Yuto

Hola todos!
The transfer has already ended--way way too fast! It didn't quite end as we'd like, but it still ended well. We had another person in the hospital, so we got to make a few more trips there. I already described the lack of security there, but it actually gets better: this time, there were a couple of stray dogs wandering the hallways as well as a guy smoking in the middle of the hospital as well! Be grateful if you're near a good hospital where all the doctors don't leave and come back every day as well ;)

We had the big May 25th celebration this past week--Argentine's 200th birthday. The celebration was nice, but absolutely killed the missionary work for the week--nobody was home!

As I said, we've switched to next transfer now--I'm still here in Yuto for at least another 6 weeks with Elder Sangroni, so we'll have a good 4.5 months together. We can already read each other's minds on occasion! I also heard of a lot of the other transfers in the mission: my dad and stepdad (1st and 2nd companions, respectively) died today (flying home because they completed the 2 years), so I'm a little sad about that, but I've got 2 brothers (missionaries trained by the same "dad") to have fun with!

I made a huge plate of french toast for the seminary kids this week to let them try out the maple syrup I made. I received good remarks for the french toast, and about half-good remarks for the syrup--they still prefer dulce de leche.

Sunday was the big day for this week. I had to improvise a full-length primary lesson, but it turned out to be a great lesson on how to have a happy family. I then headed to the chapel where Elder Sangroni informed me that I would be conducting the meeting...as the meeting was about to start! So I rushed to get everything organized and ready, but we had a good meeting as well. I'm sorry to surprise everyone again, but we then had 2 more baptisms after church!!! I'll describe the situation of both baptisms real quick:
About a year ago, the missionaries in Yuto found the Herrera family and started to teach them. They found that the daughter had a lot of interest in the church and just about baptized her, but the parents weren't super-supportive--they eventually stopped passing by the house. Fast-forward to my time in Yuto--we were teaching in another member's house, close-by, when this same daughter came to the house, unexpected and uninvited (but certainly welcome), to listen to the lesson we were going to share. We found her teaching record in our area book, found the house, and started up teaching the family again. The whole family is actually pretty great, but unlike what you're thinking, we actually baptized one of her younger brothers, Gabriel, who has been coming to church on his own for the past few weeks now, even though he's 9 years old! We're looking to baptize more members of the family this transfer. The other boy is Gabriel Vidal. The Vidal family was a reference from our new young woman's president. We started teaching the 3 kids and set their baptismal date for yesterday. Because of a few last-minute complications, we didn't baptize the 2 older daughters, but the son was ready! So yeah, we ended our Sunday nicely!

Hope all is ending well in school! I love you all!
Love,
Elder Powell

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Semana 37 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

Lots of stuff to mention in this week's letter! The circus came to town on Tuesday! Pictures of that and more at picasaweb.google.com/cpu3140

We had divisions on Wednesday to help us get some missionary work as well as branch presidency work done for this week. It was super helpful and we finished off the week with fantastic numbers! We hope to have a few baptisms this upcoming Sunday!

 

Tomorrow is a very important day for Argentina. May 25, 2010 marks 200 years since the first governor of Argentina--the whole town put on a big celebration on Friday because all the school kids had presentations, costumes, and such for the festival. It was really cool to see all the decorations and to share this special holiday with everyone here. I will admit, it was a little awkward when they sang the enormously-long Argentine national anthem...I just kinda stood there, lips shut, listening to their rather quiet voices singing the song--the people of northern Argentina don't really like to sing at any moment it seems. Lots of photos of everything at that website too.

 

We had district conference (equivalent to stake conference) on Sunday, which means we had to organize a whole 'nother 2-hour trip just like General Conference to head out there. The only difference was that we left at 8:00 am...super early for these late-risers! We brought 53 to the conference, which was still a good number, especially because 8 weren't members either! When we walked in, I caught President Northcutt and his wife on the stand, but Elder Diaz of the 70 definitely wasn't there. Turns out his daughter-in-law had an epileptic attack and passed away the day before, so he couldn't make it out here! The conference was still nice though and we heard some nice talks. Our choir was assigned the closing hymn slot. As we walked up there, I noticed that every single person in the choir got stage fright...quick! I didn't realize I had made a mistake in having them memorize the song so that they could follow the director (wasn't me, I was playing the piano). We sang 'Joseph Smith's First Prayer', but I wrote a quick arrangement where it sings normally the first two verses, but then I take a moment in the middle to transition to the music of 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing'. We then finish off the last 2 verses there. The switch was a little rough because I was switching from a 4/4 to a 3/4, from the key of A to the key of C--for musicians, that's a little rough because the switch sounds a little minorish--but I got it to work in the end. The singers all did well even with their stage fright, but as we picked up to sing the 3rd verse, they all skipped the 3rd verse on accident and sang the 4th verse! Luckily they all made the same mistake and just went with it, so I cued the director to just cut off the song there, and no one caught the mistake! We got lots of great comments from everyone, which was definitely relieving. Now I just hope I haven't scarred the choir members for life :P I think they'll be alright.

 

Things are starting to pick up for World Cup season--it starts in a few more weeks! Elder Sangroni has asked a few people this week if they watch World Cup. We were discussing the question though and we realized that the question here actually implies something totally different than expected: he's not asking whether or not they watch World Cup, his implied question is whether they watch every match possible, or just the ones where Argentina is playing! It's super interesting to see how these humble residents of Yuto still have this concept of World Cup embedded in their heads that is distinct from how we view sports in the US. It's kinda close to how lots go crazy about the NCAA tournament in the US, predicting the charts and everything. We've got the charts for World Cup all over down here too. Speaking of different concepts of soccer, another weird question is this one: just like 'What's your name?', 'How old are you?', and "Where are you from?' are basic get-to-know-you questions, another valid and normal question is "¿De qué equipo sos?" (more or less 'What team are you from')! It's as if you're born into a team because you can ask the kids too and they'll name off their team!!! Here in northern Argentina, you normally get one of 2 teams: Boca or River. It's a country-wide rivalry. It's hard to comprehend the rivalry if you're not here, but trust me, it's big.

 

Well that's about all I have to ramble about for now. Have a good week!

-Elder Powell- 

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Semana 36 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

Sounds like you've all had a great week! Hope things turn out alright for the elder in Spokane...I guess I get to count my blessings for being in a super-laid-back pueblito! I have a few more English songs to add to my running list (I have to find something fun to do here ;) ) : "Wake me up when September ends" - Green Day; "Mambo #5"; and "Walkin' on Sunshine".

 

The big event of the week was zone conference--time is just flying!!! We got up early to catch the only bus that headed to our destination at 6:05......wanna guess when the bus finally got to Yuto? Try 8:50, almost 3 hours late!!! So we walked into conference late and had to miss about the first hour--we got there just in time for the first hourly break :P The day before conference, the zone leaders called one of my buddies in the district to organize a musical number for the conference--you really should avoid assigning a musical number the day before! Well, he called me right afterward and we decided to just sing a hymn a capella real quick. We were going to practice before conference to get it down, but...yeah I couldn't get there. So what we had to do was find another room during our 40ish-minute lunch break, practice the hymn and figure out what we were going to sing, and then we sang after one more talk! It turned out great though and we got plenty of thank-yous from President Northcutt. We then had our personal interviews with President Northcutt. He spoiled Elder Sangroni and I with tons of compliments about the work that's being done in Yuto. Apparently the progress we're seeing now in Yuto is the most that has ever been seen there! It turns out President was also considering something totally wild for my comp. He's headed to his house after 2 more transfers (in August), but he already has 4 transfers in Yuto (6 months). As branch president in a small-town place, that's plenty of time to wipe out a missionary. President Northcutt wants him to stay a little bit more, but he considers it suicide to transfer a missionary for his last transfer (it's true). He's been praying a lot to know what should be done, but nothing has come. So instead, he gave the choice to my comp--to go now, or stay till the end!!! For those that are unfamiliar, that just doesn't happen--you don't really ever get the chance to choose where you go. My comp decided to stay in Yuto--he loves it here and was already talking about how great things would be if he could stay. So it's been decided--he'll be here for 3 more months. That means a lot of things for me: I could leave now to open up time for another counselor to be trained by my comp, I could stay longer than my comp still and inevitably become the branch president, or a couple other combination of things! It's pretty crazy! We left zone conference super-excited about things. We took a bus to the exit to Yuto and had to wait an hour until someone drove us in. I finished off the night making maple syrup--thanks fam!!! :D

 

Caimancito is still seeing a lot of progress. We have had 100% entrance in every door we've approached so far! Granted they're all friends of a member that has been coming with us there, but still, they're all curious and want to hear more! We have a few showing genuine interest in coming to church too, but it still hasn't happened yet. We've seen super-interest from this 20-year-old girl, Daiana, and her 19-year-old sister, Graciela. It's a little rough for them because they're living alone essentially and they each have a kid--one of them was born 3 months early, but seems to be doing alright right now at 2 years old. They keep telling us they'll for sure be coming to church, but they still haven't made it yet. We'll keep working with them for sure.

 

I had a rather interesting discovery the other day: 3 Nephi 17:11-12 (Book of Mormon), the people are situated in a circle around their children, with Christ in the middle of them all. It's a symbol: As we find ourselves situated in the outer circle, we need to focus our attention on our children and how they act (I think of Mosiah 3:19 (again, Book of Mormon)), but also on the ultimate and perfect example--Jesus Christ himself.

 

I had a talk in church yesterday on sacrifice and it turned out super-great :) I'm starting to gather a good collection of research for various topics--I'm loving it!

Well, that's all I have for this week. Hope everyone is finishing up school well!

Love,

Elder Powell

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Semana 35 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

We discovered a possible reasoning why 'sister-in-law' (all of this also works for brother-in-law too) means 'cuñada' in Spanish: the word 'cuña' means 'wedge' in English, so 'cuñada' is saying that the sister-in-law is trying to wedge her way into the family! I thought it was pretty funny.

 

Just like I had San Lorenzo as a little extra part of my area in La Loma, there's also a place called Caimancito that is also a part of my area, even though it's a 30-minute bus ride in between. We headed to Caimancito this past week with a member who used to live there and we actually had a ton of success. We had 6 new investigators turn up there! So it seems like we'll be received well there, the trick is finding those prepared to travel to Yuto every Sunday to go to church...there's usually always something tricky about the situation. We also found a less-active family there too, so it seems we'll be working through them as well.

Speaking of traveling far, our investigator, Alicia, who needed to get married or separate has already made the decision to separate...and she's already left to a city called Palpalá! We were surprised by her quick departure, but it will be good for the kids to experience the city.

 

This weeks service project was digging a 2-meter deep and 2-yard wide hole for a bathroom! I'm telling you, there's no place like Yuto!!! I'll be getting a photo of it this week. In the meantime, I have plenty of other photos at picasaweb.google.com/cpu3140.

 

We recently received our church's computer back from Buenos Aires from a month of repair time. We found out even more recently that the modem is now disfunctional so we can't send or receive anything to Buenos Aires now! We're supposed to buy a new modem using our branch's budget, but the credit card has been blocked because we didn't send any financial info to the church during the month that we didn't have our computer--talk about complicated!!! We've sent a backup of our financial info to Buenos Aires and we should be getting the problem fixed somewhat soon, but holy cow this is frustrating a lot of work that we need to do!

 

We had an awesome mutual activity this past weekend. For the past week and a half, Elder Sangroni and I have been planning and taking pictures of Yuto for a photo scavenger hunt. We had 7 locations picked out, all close by a member's house because the two teams had to find where the photo was taken first, and then they'd go to the member's house, tell them where it was, (in one of the houses, they had to share a scripture too), and then they would receive their next photo clue. We were pretty brutal though--they were walking in circles all around Yuto instead of in a nice straight line! They took about 2 hours to find them all, so while they were out searching, Elder Sangroni and I actually left the church as well and did some teaching to pass the time--talk about working both our callings at the same time!!! The kids cheated a little, and a few got lazy and left in the middle of everything, but I'd still say the activity turned out to be a success!

 

Well, that's about all for this past week. Hope things are going well in everyone's lives! I'll have zone conference (and a new cellphone!) for this next week!

Love,

Elder Powell 

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Semana 34 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

Well, yesterday was my 8th birthmonth in the mission, which means I'm a third of the way through...wow, that was fast! We celebrated Elder Sangroni's birthday last week: we ate way too much cake. There's been a ton of English songs this past week: "I'm Yours" - Jason Mraz, "Bailamos" - Enrique Iglesias, the theme song from "Mama Mia", "Real Lady Marmalade" (spell?), "I'm just dying in your arms tonight", and tons of other 70's rock songs.

 

We had a fantastic lesson the other day with a couple of less-active sisters. The secret really wasn't anything we did, I just asked an interesting question and then the others struck up a good gospel discussion, coupled with good scriptures every once in awhile. So if you're looking to have a spiritual lesson, I'd suggest finding out a way to do less talking yourself and getting the rest of the group talking and teaching themselves the lesson through your guided questions (bonus points if they start asking each other good questions during the discussion). It's been awhile since I've had a good discussion like that. I'd say the last was in the MTC, with studying at BYU coming in 2nd place!

 

I got to call home yesterday as well, since Mom won't be home for Mother's Day! It was nice to hear everyone's voices--I didn't notice any changes in voices though. Now I get to work another 8 months to earn my next phone call!

 

I had our branch choir sing yesterday during church as well. We sang "Divina Luz" (Lead Kindly Light) and it turned out alright, even with their very-untrained voices. We're working on "La oración del profeta" (Joseph Smith's First Prayer), but with the music changed to "Come thou Fount of Every Blessing", for a performance during district conference on May 23rd. I found out the other day that Elder Diaz of the Seventy will be presiding...and I'll be the pianist! Oh the fun things I get to do down here!

 

We held a special fireside for the young men of the branch last night where we set apart their president and 2 of the quorum presidents, I taught the history of the Aaronic Priesthood, we listened to David Beck's talk in General Conference, and then we talked about their responsibilities in the church, including initiating the first ever home teaching program in Yuto! I hope that things work out well with them because they are vital to the survival of the church here.

 

Hope all is going well in everyone's busy lives! Drop me a note if you ever get bored ;) (jeffrey.powell@myldsmail.net)

Love

Elder Powell

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