June 27, 2016

It was a pretty great week here in Parque San Martin. 

We focused a lot this week on meeting new people to work with and it went super well! We found a great new family that is from Bolivia we are going to start teaching and also several families that are members of the church that are inactive. My companion and I are both super excited to start working with all of them. 

Currently we are helping two people stop smoking. So thats been actually super fun as well! Our investigator Silvia is doing great too! She is still sick so we were only able to visit her once this week. 

Oh and shout out to Korey Smith. This week even some of the members down  here were watching the youtube video about the parody to the song Hello by Adele about the life of a missionary.

I dont have much time to write so this is it for the week. 

Elder Townsend

June 20, 2016

Luis got baptized this week! It was so awesome! Just super cold haha. I was actually the one who got to baptize him so that was great too. For the baptism I made brownies. Lets just say its pathetic how much argentines love american desserts haha.

This week was pretty crazy because we had a lot of stuff going on, but we still got a lot of work done. The only down part of our week was we couldnt visit our awesome investigator silvia this week because she is super sick:(

Oh and we are starting a new tansfer today! I am staying in lovely Parque San Martin with my brasilian companion Elder Vicente! We are super excited to be able to stay together but not so exicted for the cold weather and fewer hours of daylight that awaits us this transfer but it is what it is haha. 

Oh and we are in a trio right now too. One of the elders we live with finished his mission so his companion is hanging with us until he gets his new companion tomorrow. Its been pretty fun. All three of us gave talks in church yesterday haha. 

Well I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Townsend

June 13, 2016

It was a great week full of a ton of missionary work. We had several great lessons with a lot of our investigators and were even able to find several new investigators this week.

On Tuesday we did divisions. It was a great day. I stayed and worked in our area with another elder that came to the mission with me. We had several great lessons during the day but the highlight of the day were these three new investigators we found at night: So it was late and we had just finished a lesson with one of our invesitgators. We started headed back to our apartment becaue we had about a 40 minute walk and it was super cold outside. And while we were walking I recognized this house we passed by and I felt we should go clap it. So we head back to the house and they end up letting us in and we teach an awesome lesson about the restoration to these three brothers! It was so great! These brothers were so excited to learn and hear our message it kinda freaked me out haha. When we started talking about Joseph Smith they were literally on the edge of their seats exploding with excitement and anticapation, like they were watching a soccer game or something haha. It was a super great way to end the day!

On Wednesday we also found an awesome new famiy. They were a reference from there cousin that lives in Oregon that is a member and married to a returned missionary. They are super great and we are excited to start teaching them as well.

Our progressing investigators Luis and Silvia are doing great as well. Luis is on track to be baptized the 17th of June. He has quitted smoking and is really prepared. Our only concern for him is his neighbor Carlos who is a really bad influence. We stopped by Luis´s house the other day at night and Carlos was in there all drunk and smoking right in front of his face! Carlos really wanted to talk to us so he sits us down and we end up having a "grown up" talk with him. So hopefully we resolved that problem... Silivia came to church for the second time this Sunday! She is so awesome! We are so excited for her to keep learning and are really hoping we can set a goal as a baptismal date this week. 

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Townsend

June 6, 2016

This week went went. Nothing too crazy happened but we got a lot of good work done here in Parque San Martin.

We have two investigators that are progressing very well currently. Our first one is named Luis. He is so awesome. He has a baptismal date for the 18th of June and we think he will make it. We have been helping him quit smoking and he come so far. He hasn't smoked since Saturday and he is still doing so well.

Our other investigator is named Silvia. She is the best. She came to church for the first time this Sunday. She is reading so much in the Book of Mormon and really has a true desire to learn the truth. 

The week was pretty normal. We had several great lessons and found a handful of new investigators. The weather here this week was so aweful though. Super cold and rainy. Before being a missionary I never paid to much attention to the weather but it really has an impact on everything now haha. I dont know a better way to say this so will just throw it out there; a really large part of our area is just so ghetto and unpleasing to look at haha... And when it is dark and rainy its almost so bad its funny haha. I wish I could describe it better but thats all I got haha. But my Brasilian companion and I are hanging in there!

I hope everything is going well back home. Take care and have a great week!

Elder Townsend

making empanadas at a members house

May 30, 2016

Pretty great week. 

On Tuesday we did divisions again. I stayed in my area and worked with another elder. It was such an interesting day haha. I know our area decently well for only being here for two weeks but not too well haha. And our area is almost impossible to learn because the house numbers are all messed up. So needless to say we did a good amount of walking haha. I don't think the elder I was with was that accustomed to walking and moving around so much haha. The poor guy was dead at the end of the day.

On Wednesday was 25 de Mayo! It was a great day. For lunch my companion and the other companionship we live with bought empanadas to celebrate. There is this really nice buisness chain down here called empanadas de 10 and we ordered an empanada of every single one of their flavors haha (they have 25 flavors). We then cut every single one in 4 pieces and we all ate each one at a time and then took notes and gave them ratings. We are now proud to say we have tasted every flavor and we can in detail describe each one. For you future costumers out there I highly recommend you stay away from the bacon and plum flavor....

The rest of the week was pretty normal. Our investigators are doing great. Last sunday was stake conference which was awesome. Oh and during one of our lessons yesterday afternoon this drunk teenage girl riding a moped fell into the sewage stream thing on the side of the dirt road. Oh how I love this country.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Townsend

May 23, 2016

It was another pretty great week.

On Tuesday this week I got to go back to my first area Merlo 2 to do divisions! Aww it was just so weird I cant even explain it. I was actually kinda reluctant at first but it was a great day. I got to see some of the people I met and catch up with them. It was awesome. I spent the day with an elder from Peru. He taught me that in Argentina if there are shoes hanging from telephone lines that means someone sells drugrs near by. And that was completely new information to me! I dont know if thats what it means in the states, I always just joked that it meant it was the ´´hood´´ but here it actually means something! haha the funny part is I checked the telephone lines when I came back to my area and I realized that almost every block in our area has shoes hanging down from the lines...so thats awesome...

On Thursday us and the other elders we live with learned how to make empanadas!! It was so awesome! A family in the ward had us over and taught us. Argentine food isnt anthing too special but empanadas are heavenly. So it was super awesome we all learned how to make them.

On Saturday the other elders we live with had a baptism planned. So my companion and I arrived at the chapel about thirty minutes before the baptisms to practice a song we were going to sing and the lady who was going to get baptized still hadn't come! So the elders went out to go look for her. They eventually found her and apparently her boyfriend almost died the night before and is in the hospital. She was emotionally recked and she just couldn't get baptized so we ended up having a small activity in the church with all the members that had come for the baptisms. Haha the whole day was just such a rollercoaster but it all turned out pretty well! I learned that day as a missionary you always have to be prepared haha.

The missionary work in our area is going well. We have several great investigators that are making such great progress. We are really excited for them. 

I hope everyone has a great week

Elder Townsend