Semana 46 - Villa Alem

¡Hola Todos!

Well, base jumping went well this week, that is until I got my comp this week! His name is Elder Bjorklund from Holiday, Utah. He was the old financial office elder, but he was in a trio with the new financiero and his other comp in the offices waiting for his kid to come from the states (kid = new elder in the mission). Turns out President Northcutt decided to just send him down here with me so that we wouldn't have multiple trios in the mission. We're not sure if he'll be heading out of here as soon as the new missionaries come down here, or if we'll just stay as comps anyways, but either way, we got right to work in the area. From Wednesday afternoon to Sunday night, the main thing we did was just knock doors all day. We wanted to do it especially because all the kids gets off of their 2-week winter break today, so yeah. We were blessed with a little bit of success, which I'm grateful for because it's been awhile since I've had to do straight-up door knocking--definitely need to practice again. We also recently got to doing a hard-core cleaning of the pension-hace falta (it needs it).

I actually don't really have anything else to write--can't really remember anything special that happened this week. If someone starts showing big progress, I'll have to mention something about them.

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 45 - Villa Alem

¡Hola Todos!

Phew, it seems I've got a lot that happened this week that I need to inform you of! It turns out Elder Perkins has OCD, anxiety, occasional panic attacks, and a recent run of depression, making his mission a rather interesting and difficult one! I spent a few hours Tuesday morning studying the scriptures a bit extra because he couldn't get to sleep until 5:00 and stayed in bed until 9:00 (we're supposed to leave at 8:30 and do studies starting at 3:00). He then had to go to the cyber to write his psychiatrist, which took more than an hour too. Well, Tuesday midday, he got a call from President Northcutt, telling him that he was going home on medical release! I know he mentioned that he was taking the maximum amount of anti-depressants that you can on the mission and apparently it wasn't helping too much, but I'm not sure of the other factors that went into the decision. Either way, he then had to talk to his psychiatrist again, as well as phone his mom to inform her of the emergency transfer home, which ate up our day. He was carted off to the offices Wednesday afternoon, which put me in a trio with the district leader, Elder Mayhoffer, and his comp, Elder Smith. We thought I'd have a comp in a couple days, so we just worked in their area for the next couple of days. They work in an area called Diza, which is the ward that shares the church building with my ward. When we hit our weekly planning session, we figured it would actually be much more time before I got a new companion, so we've now planned to jump between the two areas every once in a while to spread out the work between the two areas. We're even utilizing our two apartments as little home bases for us--it's kinda fun actually! We'll see how everything goes this upcoming week.

 

It got WAY cold this past week--0 to 1 degrees celsius with 93% humidity and occasional rain!!!!!! I couldn't believe that I actually had to put on my underarmor, a long-sleeve button-up shirt, a vest, and my gigantic winter coat with gloves, and I was still cold! I'm used to the dry cold of Spokane, but that humidity is just penetrating!!! This week seems like it'll warm up a little because the sun finally came out, but man that was intense! It even snowed in lots of areas in the mission! My area just had a wet slushing going on, but still!

 

As far as the church building and the ward goes, it's all huge--at least from what I'm used too! My ward had about 70 in church, which was so great! It's nice seeing the organization of everything actually working as well. I went to ask a few things from the bishop (who was called 2 weeks ago!) and he basically directed all my questions and concerns to other people in the ward who could answer them for me! I also ended up playing piano for the Diza ward in their sacrament meeting. We spent Sunday afternoon starting up work in Villa Alem, basically getting to know the members a little better and trying to find the leftover investigators from the last companionship. Again, we'll see what progress we can make this upcoming week. I love my new area though!

 

That's about all for this past week--more details next week!

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 44 - Villa Alem

¡Hola Todos!

That's right, I got transferred! I'm now in the capital city of the province Tucumán. My area of the city is called Villa Alem, and it's definitely colder here! I'll start with this past friday. We were getting a little antsy because we hadn't received the call yet which would tell me if I was leaving or not. We spent all friday preparing a big activity for the branch where we celebrated all the birthdays of the branch. We prepped a slideshow of a bunch of random photos that we took of the members, we had a ton of food, and a few games to play, but unfortunately we had about half the people we were expecting there...perhaps planning the activity on Argentine's independence might have been a bad idea. Oh well, it was a fun night anyways. We finally got the call on Saturday, telling me that I was going and Elder Sangroni was staying in Yuto, making his stay there 9 months--he ends his mission there as well! It was a wonderful and unforgettable experience in Yuto and I'm definitely glad that I was there--for now, my favorite area! It was a little rough trying to pack everything and make my final visits with all the members, but I managed to get it all done. All the families were extremely generous in their farewell gifts, letters, and wishes--I was almost overwhelmed by the love. I even finished off the night with a little surprise party--complete with lomito (a type of meat, like a thin steak) sandwich and a cake! and yes, they popped a balloon full of flour over my head too :P I was very happy with the farewell though.

Just so you guys know, I left my used pair of shoes, a suit coat, the matching pants, the old belt, and one of my 3 underarmor-type shirts there as a donation to the branch, especially Nahuel that is preparing for a mission in about a year. I won't need replacements either--I'm doing fine for now.

The trip down to Tucumán lasted about 9 hours in total. I did fine and landed safely and found the other missionaries, including my new companion, Elder Perkins, waiting. Elder Perkins is a big and tall lad, weighing in at 260 pounds (yes, he told me). He has OCD, so I'll be sure to be nice and cautious in the stressful moments. He's a big teddy bear though--big heart, lots of good desire, and he hugs a lot! We'll have to work together on loosening his Spanish tongue a little as well as finding our way around here because he only has 1 transfer in Villa Alem, but I'm getting excited. It was wonderful to land in the terminal and go to the equivalent of a good-sized grocery store instead of dealing with the smallness of Yuto! Supposedly, Tucumán capital is the largest city in the mission! So we'll see how everything goes.

I've gotta run, but I love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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Semana 43 - Yuto

¡Hola Todos!

Well, a couple of relatively big things happened this week. I'll start with the little stuff though to give a good emphasis to the bigger things.

We found a dog randomly sleeping in our bathroom yesterday! We named him Amulek, taking the name from the Book of Mormon, for lack of a better name.

 

I hit my 10-month mark this past week...time still flies by fast--double-digits!!!

 

I had a quiet celebration yesterday, the 4th of July. I had a little flag drawn in my planner that I saw all day, and then I sang all the patriotic hymns in the English hymn book at night. Just getting warmed up for Argentina's independence day, the 9th of July. May 25th apparently was a different thing, sortof related to the independance of the country, but July 9th is their independance day.

We also had a less-active sister actually come to church towards the end of the meeting yesterday! We were talking with her a little bit and she actually offered us lunch yesterday--we happily took advantage of the offer and the opportunity to talk with her more! It seems that she's doing alright. I was particularly interested how she was applying gospel principles to her somewhat-political career! She just needs to come to church now and she'll be perfectly well off--the secret to just about any stress problems these people might have!

 

The first day of this transfer, May 31st, I made a somewhat accurate guess that I would be going to the mission offices next transfer to take the place of the secretary. There are lots of reasons and random coincidences that made me make the guess: it's time for a new secretary, my trainer was the secretary before, the two 1st counselors that came to Yuto before me are in the offices now, one of them went straight from Yuto over there, both of them were companions of my current companion, (quick definition: a group of missionaries is the group that all came to the mission at the same time) the 2 groups ahead of my group and the group behind my group each have an elder in the offices--mine doesn't--many of the missionaries from my group recently changed and became senior companions and a couple are district leaders--I'm still in Yuto and I could leave soon--and, to top it all off, I'm pretty well destined to an office-job in the future! Don't worry, it gets better :P Elder Sangroni called his buddy in the offices this week to see if they knew anything about the new secretary. This is the conversation that followed:

 

(office elder) "We were actually just discussing that. It turns out President Northcutt forgot that we needed to change the secretary. So he asked us to prepare a list of potentials."

(Elder Sangroni) "Wow, well, you should put my companion's name in that list" (I thought, "oh great...")

"Oh, don't worry, that name is already in the list."

"hehe, well, you should vote for his name then."

"Oh, don't worry, I think it's gonna be him."

 

The current secretary was saying it was definitely me, and then a couple days later, the same office elder dreamed that I was the new secretary!!! It was all driving me crazy to be honest! We found out in the end though that it's gonna be another elder from my group, whose name happens to be the name that comes right before mine alphabetically :P So now that that dust has settled, I'm now starting to get anxious to hear transfers this week, especially because we all believe that I'm leaving this transfer. I'll definitely let you all know!

Love you all!

-Elder Powell-

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