It was only the 10 North Americans for the entire week so it was a lot more peaceful, quite, clean... etc and they feed us better food as well! For example just last night we got this really really good ice cream from some famous Argentinian ice cream place. Delicious!
Anyway the good stuff.... Proselitismo.
We started out going to an appointment we had with a lady named Nora, we didn't talk to her much last week but we did find out her family is really important and basically just bore our testimonies and asked to teach her again. We came to her house in the morning and she wasn't there. :( So we went to our next appointment, Ramón, He wasn't home. :( So we went around proselyting and tracting trying to find new people before we went over to Mauro's house at 11. Nothing. We went over to Mauro's and saw his little son playing outside and his wife. We asked if he was home. Nope. Typical. Obviously we were devastated but we decided to try back a couple times throughout the day. That's when our luck kinda turned around.
Right next door to Mauro is Ramón. We were able to catch him (Ramon) and talk to him, he didn't go to church like he said he would because he said he thought we were going to go with him, even though we did our best to make it clear that we wouldn't be there. Anyway we talked to him for a while and ended up going in to his house. We found out a lot more about him. His wife is a JW and has been have some problems with her, but they both want to get back together. We talked to him a little about what makes our church different and recommitted him to go to church. He even asked if we wanted to come play soccer on his team after church. Another explanation that we are only around on Saturdays and a little message and we went back to tracting.
Went by Mauro's house again. Nothing. Kept tracting and it wasn't going very well. I felt like we just weren't finding anyone to listen to us. We caught Nora later but she just pulled a classic excuse. Next week. Anyway we ended up finding three or four more people that actually paid attention to us and set up a few more appointments for next week. It was about 3:30 when we decided to go to Mauro's again. It was pretty much our last chance to be able to teach him a lesson because we needed to leave our area around 430 ish. Anyway we were walking on his street almost to his house and we both said a little silent prayer in our heads, in just a few more steps we could see him standing outside his house! We started talking to him and asked if we could share another message. We expected him to welcome us with open arms and lead us upstairs immediately but he was a little hesitant but we ended up going up stairs anyway. This time it was just him. His wife and three (or four, im not sure) kids were nowhere to be seen.
We started out by asking how his week was. Mal. he said. Bad? What? He went on to tell us that in this last week he had some problems with his wife and they were most likely getting separated. And he might be getting fired from his job pretty soon because business is slow and they don't really need him right now. Great. We did our best to understand everything he told us and to be led by the spirit. I bore my testimony about Alma 7 : 11-12 how through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Christ took upon him our afflictions and infirmities as well as our sins. I told him that I don't fully understand everything he is going through. I don't know where to find him a new job, and I don't know what to do about his wife. But Jesus Christ does. It was really amazing to see the spirit testify and to feel the spirit helping my Spanish. He also told us that right now is really hard as well because he still feels the guilt really strongly for some things he did back in the day, and it gives him bad thoughts. My companion did an excellent job of testifying of the cleansing power of the Atonement.
The spirit was there even more strongly than last week. We taught him a little more and basically just asked a few questions to see if there was anything we could do. We talked about Repentance and through Baptism you can be completely cleansed of your sins. We commited him to read chapter 7 in Alma and pray about it and we got his phone number so we can call him during the week and check up on him and remind him to read and stuff.
It topped all my other CCM experiences so far. And we still have another week to teach him, which is awesome. We called him on Tuesday and he said he hadn't read yet but he was going to Wednesday because the entire country has work off because its a census day. Hopefully he was touched by the spirit and will actually read. He said he had been praying every night too! Which is great!
Anyway. More exciting news....
On Sunday, One of the 12 is coming to visit. At first they told us it was going to be Elder Christopherson, but I think they were wrong and it's going to be Elder Anderson! It's so exciting. They have been cleaning this place like mad, trying to get everything ready for him. We have been doing a lot of service to help out as well. I will have more about his visit next week!
Presidente has been out of town since Sunday. It's weird. We never really realized it but we don't really have adult supervision most of the time. Like in the mornings and nights some days there has been absolutely no adults there. It's weird. But the CCM manager Bishop Gomez Paz has been pretty much in charge while presidente has been gone. He is the one that got us ice cream last night. Honestly it feels like Mom and Dad are out of town and our neighbor is staying over and babysitting us. haha its interesting. But I think presidente gets back tonight. He was at some meeting for all the mission presidents of South America or something, that's why the apostles are going to be in the neighborhood!
In other news. one of the elders in my district went crazy... not really but one day while we were practicing in our district all of a sudden he started acting kinda weird and he said he couldn't remember, couldn't remember. I thought he was talking about the sentence structure we where talking about. But he meant that he literally couldn't remember. He got like mini amnesia. It was crazy he really couldn't even form sentences. He forgot most of his words but he understood us and everything. He even forgot all our names. It was pretty scary but he is all but better now. He went to the doctor but they didn't really know what was up. They are going to go back later to find out more.
Thats all for now... Except Mom you sent me those address, thanks. but i have one question. Riley B.'s address says Netherlands and he is actually serving in Norway. if you could fix that I would greatly appreciate it!
Love
Elder Carlson IV
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