Muy Buenos Días :)

This week was a good one! We have 7 investigators right now and they're all progressing pretty well! Slowly... but steadily and I love each one! #goldentransfer I will just give updates on each real fast.

Jacob: His mom is still being a bit stubborn on letting him go to church and stuff. He didn't go last Sunday, but hopefully we can get him and Santiago there this week. We taught them a lesson and played some soccer yesterday. They continue to be really into the lessons and literally remember EVERYTHING haha. Also a couple of their friends come to play soccer with us (a kid named Esteban and his sister Guadalupe) and we've been teaching them too. 

Carmen and Marcial: These guys are a couple that own a poultry store. We saw Marcial outside with his little puppy "Felipe" one day and went to talk with him. He then showed us around their little store and we met his wife Carmen. The NICEST people ever. They gave us some milanesas (breaded chicken) and some chicken patty things when we left. They have a really complicated schedule, being newlyweds (about 35 years old each) so it's hard to teach them, but we were able to chat about the Plan of Salvation in the store one time and have a mini lesson which went well, and they invited us to come have dinner with them, not this Sunday, but the next and we will be able to sit down with them for a bit. In between now and then we will just stop by the store to say hi. This last Sunday was Carmen's birthday and we brought them some homemade banana bread with lemon icing. brownie points :) or should I say... banana bread points? ;) heh heh..

Maria and her two sons, Leo and Carlos: Maria is probably our strongest investigator right now. She is the one who had her husband pass away and we talked about the plan of salvation with her. Things are going well and she has been praying. Next lesson (tonight or tomorrow depending on how busy she is) we will invite her to be baptized, as well as her sons. I'm excited #goldentransfer

 Meet our investigator's (Maria) son, Leo, or as I like to call him, "Mista Steal Yo Gurrrl." Stud! haha He's the funniest little kid ever (I died when I saw his shirt because he has no idea what the words mean.. just like all the other people in Argentina when they wear shirts with English phrases on them). We had a really good appointment with Maria about the Plan of Salvation last Saturday after dropping off the cake, then after Leo wanted to go to his friend's house, but his mom is kind of overprotective of him and was super worried cause it was starting to get a bit late... so we told her we would walk him there. On the way he was showing us how he could go off the curb on his bike and make huge skid marks. I was laughing so hard.. ya gotta love him :)

Celeste: A woman we have been teaching who has a boyfriend and a daughter. Kind of a complicated situation and she has a hard life. She gets emotional and the spirit is really strong every lesson we have with her, but she has a hard time keeping commitments, we are working on that.

This past Tuesday we had a really good Zone meeting. The first one in a few weeks due to complications the past little bit. It was awesome to have everyone together again. It was also Elder Tew's birthday, so at his request I made tacos for the zone and he brought a Hershey's chocolate cake to share. Very good. We had a really great meeting and it was really satisfying to feel like a good example due to the fruits we are having in our area right now. Not in a "rub it in everyone's face" kind of way, but it was nice to be able to demonstrate and testify of the happiness and success we are receiving from hard work.

Two funny things:

1. When we teach Jacob, we always sit on this huge tire all together in a group during the lesson. It's a bit short so usually my leg like falls asleep after a little bit of time. Anyway so this last appointment, we finished the lesson and the prayer and got up to go play one last game of soccer. I stood up super fast and apparently my legs weren't ready for that so I fell backwards flat on my back... all the kids laughed at me Mom... it was humiliating. ;) haha It's a good thing God keeps me humble.

2. There is this house we always pass on our way to Maria's house, and this crazy old lady lives there (also named Maria). She's like 179 years old, has no teeth, her lips are like sucked into her mouth, she NEVER blinks (I've watched... trust me), and is always smiling. Also she has a crazy son with a beard and he looks like Rambo. Anyways, so every time we pass they like freak out and call us over. So we go over sometimes and the son just says crazy stuff like "I'm a god... but I'm not the god of the... you're not god. god is.... come inside my house!" Then he goes inside and insists that we come in and we just say "uhh no thanks." Then he brings out a plate of stale crackers and insists that we eat some saying "soy amable! soy amable!"(I'm friendly, I'm friendly). Then he asks us for a paper and a pen and continues to write gibberish all over our agendas... meanwhile his mom just sits on a chair staring at me with a crazy look in her eye saying "soy religiosa...soy religiosa" (I'm religious, I'm religious) then she goes on and on about how she prays and goes to the Catholic church and sleeps with god... haha!

This place is like a giant looney bin sometimes... but it keeps you entertained :)

Les amo a todos.

Elder Jolley

 This last week Emma turned 1 years old :) Nadia threw a super cute Minnie Mouse party for her at Nico's mom's house. We made a little vanilla cake with strawberry icing for the party and passed by that night to drop it off. I was super proud of our cake, then we showed up and Nadia's sister had made all these dope cupcakes and a Minnie Mouse cake.... hmm. haha! Anyway, we stayed to sing Happy Birthday (we did it like 2 or 3 times cause Sarah wouldn't stop blowing out the candle), took some pictures and took off. I love them. Such a solid family and I'm still so grateful I was able to be a part in helping Nadia come into the church.

 This last Sunday we had Elder Tew and Elder Bennet over for Sunday dinner and I made your chicken enchiladas. They turned out a lot better than I thought they would. We made homemade tortillas and even some homemade sour cream. Yum! I love cooking your recipe's Mom, it's a fun way to bring a little piece of home out here with me :)

"Pass the Cake" - So Nadia and Nicolas live on the same street as us, but about 10-15 blocks away... but the thing is that there is a rail yard in the middle of us so we have always had to walk like an extra 10-15 blocks to go up, cross the tracks, and come back down to their house. So this last week we got sick of that and decided to find a way somehow through the rail yard to make a shortcut. The rail yard is bordered with a barbed wire fence... but this is Argentina... so of course we found a little opening that we can squeeze through (takes some flexibility) to get in. THEN we had to climb over, under, and through like 5 different trains to get to the other side. So we did that the day we brought the cake because we didn't have much time to drop off the cake before an appointment we had that night with Maria. It was super funny though cause we had to play "pass the cake" the whole time and we looked so random just walking through this rail yard with a little pink cake. haha! So of course we got a pic.