January 26, 2015 - Hola mi mama mio

Hey crew!

So today we went to Córdoba for transfers. Turns out I'm opening the area Almafuerte with Elder Curtis. He is my new comp from Springfield, UT. Ha I think that's where anyways. But yeah Almafuerte is like 30 min west of Rio Tercero.  So ill be there for the next 6 weeks at least. Well serving there ha we are still living in Rio Tercero for now.  We will take a bus to Almafuerte everyday for a little while. I don't have any pictures of the comp but I'll be sure to get some, he has 18 months into the mission. (fun fact).

It was pretty crazy to see O´Hanley go. He was super trunky and stuff but hey I'll prolly be the same way.  Tight now it's way above my head to even think what it would be like to even have a year into the mission. Still just a little baby.  But hey hopefully I'll grow up. This last week with Elder O'Hanley we had some pretty cool stuff. We had another lesson with Julio and said I was going to be leaving and stuff.  He was about to break down in tears. It will be hard to leave Rio Tercero for sure. We passed by a bunch of our investigators and let them know what was happening.  It's really crazy how much you get to love the people. Like with Julio, seeing him smiling is the funnest thing ever and then seeing him being humbled by God.  That's one of the greatest things you can ask for as a missionary.  To watch God working on people. Gunna miss it here but wow the experiences that are waiting no? Ja makes me excited.

Thursday when we were heading to play soccer with the young mens, the ballers from the gym called us over when we passed and asked for a quick pick up game.  We went to 11 by ones and twos. Me and Elder O'Hanley won 13 to 10 and I had all 13 of the points ha ese fue maca-nudo (groovy) but yeah felt good to hit the gym again. Love it here even if it is a tough area. Lots of friends that I will be looking forward to chatting with later. 

Hope everything is going good at home.  I bought mom and dad's birthday presents from the mission. I might just only be bringing back one birthday for everyone idk. Hey I got your picture thing too mom. Oh and your idea about the temple thing, yeah that's pretty cool. Seeing pictures of the insides of other temples and stuff makes me want to too. But hey quipas one day you can come to the Cordoba one.  Now that would be cool. 

Bueno. Hey love you all and hope everyone is doing good. Hope to hear from you guys again next week.

Con Mucho Amor

Elder Lindsay 10 

January 19, 2015

Hey Motha,

So looks like Calan's socks belong in my collection.  No idk if I'll be a big sock addict when I get back.  I mean a nice pair of socks would be nice, ha but I won't be playing ball all the time or running track or throwing a pig skin.  Maybe if I try to play college ball, but idk I'd have to get better to do that.  I wasn't that good. 

Ha sounds like you are gunna be the babysitter of the town. You will need to make them some bacon wraps if they ever think that they don't feel your love.  That always helped me know you loved me ha. You would be like their new grandma. Good for you though thats cool. Just remember my kids will be your favorite of all time. 

Speaking of bacon wraps, sounds like Dakoda is pretty caught up in school. Sounds like he could use a couple. 

So this last week we had a super big storm that hit us. We had so much rain that it washed out all the roads in the one neighborhood. The road in one spot was down like 8 feet cause it washed all the dirt away... Then at our penchion we had water enter ha that was exciting. But the next day we had our exchanges with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Alanzo.  He is from Mexico and he was super fun to go out and work with.  I learned a ton. Ha idk but just blows my mind how the gospel changes lives and makes people realize what's actually going on. One thing that we are doing in this mission is called plan pilot. It's to help us work with members more and have stronger wards and better conversions. But we retain more, baptize more and reactivate more. Thats like the moto... But in Spanish.  We found a member named Paulo the other day and I was all talking to him, (cause my comp was too busy watching the TV that was on) but he is freaking awesome and I asked why he doesn't go to church.  He was saying he felt like he didn't belong in the Lord's house until he felt a little cleaner. I started to bajar la caña, Drop the cane, and helped him understand that the church is where you do that and feel better and so he came to church.  It ended up being super strong for him. He cried like the whole sacrament and after was like, wow the power of the word of God is undeniable. So just made me think of what that little nudge to help people start on there straight and narrow path. Lots of times I thought that people needed a great missionary to make a change in their live, turns out anyone can give that small invite, or that little suggestion to stop doing something. Some people here don't understand that smoking is bad and when you give an invite to stop. That might be the biggest impact they can receive. That's one thing I'll prolly change when I get back, just giving those little invites. To church or whatever it is.

This is the last week of this transfer and Saturday we will get the call. I've heard that there will be some big changes here in Rio Tercero.  They will open up Alma Fuerte to have full-time missionaries and all that but idk what else.  I'll let you know next Monday maybe but I might be going. Love you all and hope everyone is doing good.

Love 

Elder Lindsay

January 12, 2015

Dearest Mama ,

It was good to hear you got to talk with that family. They are the family I tried to get to talk to you when I first got here. Her son Fran (Fransisco) called me and was like "Hey John Cina.  We are talking to your mom right now!" Ha he is a pretty funny little dude. The family you talked to are pretty cool.  They have some problems with their marriage and some other stuff that I'll let you know about when I get home ha but they are cool. The empanada thing was the night of New Years.  Fran says his name is Rey Mastirio, and he calls me John Cina.  Those are wwe names.  Just ask Dev about them.  I'm sure he will know all about that.  

Babysitting! Ha what you think you are doing practicing being a grandma? No I wasn't implying anything about Dakoda and MaKayla haha.  Hey how are those two? Tell him to message me or something. Are they going to get married ?  That might be up in the air but tell him the "The Eagle Has Landed" Yeah idk what that means either. 

Ha tell my sister Ave she can just put off the wedding till I get back if she is frustrated about it being the same night as prom that will be good.  Actually make people put there priorities straight and go to my sister's wedding. Where and all that is she getting married?

When you say you are sending the valentine box it makes me realize how fast the mission is actually going.  Here in a month I'll hit 6 months and yeah. You feel like you're in a time machine, except not really ha maybe one that goes back in time hearing the gas prices are at $2. They could just do what they do here  and have cars that run off propane.... Yeah they do ha never heard of that before here, They say it's alot cheaper but it wears down the motor faster cause it burns dry and stuff but the cars that have it have a switch that they can switch from gas to propane so it gets a little moisture in there.

Julio.... We stopped by his house the other day like Saturday to see how he was doing and turns out the night we had football he went back to his house and drank a ton of wine and he was still smoking like 20 a day.  Not a ton to be smoking but he wasn't drinking anything before.  Then he didn't go to church. He has a very hard time paying attention so idk if he soaks anything in we say.

Tell Allen he needs to get a big dog if he wants them to live longer.  They are little dogs so they have little lives.  He needs like an english mastif, those things prolly live forever.

Let Rob know he's got my prayers.  Tell dad to stay off the ladders.  He prolly is a little more fragile in his shriveled state of shaq. 

Love everyone and love you bye.

Elder Lindsay 10

An Angel on Facebook

Today I had a Facebook friend request.  I assumed that this person knew Elder Lindsay since she was too friends with the mission president.  I asked if she knew Elder Lindsay and these pictures were her reply.

I'm not sure what starts these darn tears. They are not sadness. They are pure love and thankfulness to a sister 6000 miles away that I will probably never meet that has taken my son in.  Every time I feed the missionaries here I pray that same kindness is showed to mine.  This is proof that prayers are answered.

January 5, 2015

Okay so response first to all of your questions.

Today for pday we went to the church and played ping pong.  I'm getting pretty good at that.  Tired of winning ha. We just try to find whatever to do.  We clean stuff like the pench, but that's usually just me cleaning haha. But hey bugs, our penchion has cockroaches, spiders, and mosquitoes.  That's about it.  But lots. To dry our clothes we just take them out of the washer and hang them on the rack to dry. Then they go all hard and stuff and you shake them and stretch them to make them a little softer haha. It's not terrible but makes me sad not having comfy socks.  And yes until transfers in about 3 weeks I'll be with Elder O´Hanley. 

So story of this week. Or should I say MILAGRO!! So that kid that I said did lots of drugs and when we went to pick him up last Sunday and he said he couldn't cause he slept with a lady that night? Yeah well anyways, we passed by his house Saturday to ask him to go to church. Well turns out that one of his drugy buddies that morning had been going around the town and stealing stuff and bringing it to hide in his house.  Like a freaking moped!  But anyways he brought some clothes and tried burning all these clothes and stuff just cause he is a punk.  Anyways he got caught and got sent to prison.  He was 18! But that's just the friend of our investigator. When we got to his house we were talking to him and he told us that his buddy did that and was in prison.  

When we were getting ready to leave he called over his neighbor to come talk to us about what had happened and she flipped out on him and said he is a terrible guy and wont change.  She asked what was he doing when all that happened and he said sleeping.  She left and then came back with like 4 little kids that said his friend stole stuff from them.  She was like do you have the stuff of these kids in your house?  He said he didn't know.  So she just walked into the house and she found a backpack and some clothes of the kids and then they walked out back and found like a bunch of clothes that he had tried to burn but didn't burn all the way.  I guess it was there Christmas clothes and stuff.  This is all what his friend did ha ANYWAYS! that was just back ground.  After all of this commotion of people cussing him out and stuff I was like, hey Julio, bro this ain't you.  We know you're a good guy and can change.  You just got to change your friends and stuff right?  We said we would go and pick him up from church at 8:45 for church the next day and he said okay. (we were fasting to have people in the church btw) 

So we were heading to go pick him up and we get a call saying we have an investigator in church.  So we turned around and went to the church and lo and behold Julio was in church!! He came like 20 minutes early too. So That was freaking awesome! He plays soccer with us too on Thursdsays and is the first person we have had in church since I got here.  So that was awesome! We have lots of work with him still. He is 29 but I thought he was like 25 and his brain works like a 10 year old's.  He is fried but I feel bad cause both his parents died and he lives alone.  So yeah, pretty cool kid. 

Hey how bout that story? Hey love you all and hope the Basin doesn't freeze out.  Ha it's cooking here. 

Love you and cho

Elder Lindsay