March Madness

This month, in honor of college basketball, the mission is having its
own March Madness. All of the Zones in the mission (there´s 12 of
them) compete against each other and whoever wins gets a to take a
trip up to Mendoza and eat with President and his wife. Various points
are given for different aspects of missionary work. Points are awarded for
how people are in church, how many lessons we had with memebers, etc.
We won last week and won again this week so we´re looking really good.
It´s kind of a cool thing because it´s something that the whole zone
can rally behind and give everyone a little more incentive to work
harder.

On Sunday night we met the Zone Leaders in Oeste and went on Divisions
to try to boost our numbers a little bit more. I went with Elder Barra
who is from Buenos Aires and a member from the Barrio in Oeste so it
was 4 hours of nothing but Spanish. I actually understood almost
everything that was being said though so that was a rather pleasant
surprise. I learned a lot from him, he is way legit. In under 4 hours
we got 11 new investigators, which is almost as much as we´d usually
get in a whole week haha. It´s easier when that´s all you focus on but
it was still really cool. There were a couple times when people looked
like they were going to be really stubborn and closed and who didn´t
want to talk to us at all but somehow he got them to listen and open
up and by the end of it we were able to hand them something and
actually teach.

At one point we were at an intersection in the middle of this campo
and he asked, "Alright Elder Lounsbury, which way does the Spirit tell
you we should go?" After I chose the way there weren´t any houses for
a while and it started looking like a dead end. Then when we finally
got to a house no one answered. I was like shooooot, this is so
embarrassing, now my Zone Leader probably thinks I´m a terrible
missionary who doesn´t know how to listen to the Spirit haha. But we
walked a little further and found this guy named Fabiano who seemed
way prepared for the gospel. He listened to us and was open to what we
had to say and then accepted a fecha right there. The cool thing is
that it wasn´t even his house, I don´t actually know why he was there
but he lives way further out in the campo so that might have been the
only time we could have found him. It would wayyyyy legit if he got
baptized.

Oh, and I had a wild pomegranate on the way back. Also, I don´t think
I spelled that right. But it was way yummy in my tummy.

This week in Bowen was still a little slow, we have a lot of people in
our teaching pool but they´re just progressing slowly because it´s
hard to find very many people we can teach consistently still. We do
have this old lady named Teressa who is supposed to get baptized this
Saturday but she´s had a baptismal date like two times before so we´ll
see how that goes. Maybe the third time is the charm. She feels the
Spirit while she´s at church but on Friday or Saturday we found out
that some people from other churches had been basically trying to
scare her out of it so hopefully we can help resolve her concerns.

We are also teaching this guy named Juan Gomon who is wayyy nice. He
always lets us in and buys soda and cookies for us. We´ve been
teaching him for a while and we think he´s starting to understand the
Restoration and baptism better but he´s still not super commited.
Those are the people who are the closest to being baptized right now.

Usually when Elder Robinson and I are walking around we try to nutmeg
each other with rocks and pebbles and whatever else is on the road. So
far he holds the record for 6 in a row, but I´m gonna break it before
he leaves. For the past couple weeks I´ve tried expanding my horizon.
So far I have nutmegged him with random fruit we pass, a plastic
bottle, a cereal box, a broken bike pedal, a shoe, a purse, and this
last week I even got him with a dried up dead toad. I don´t even know
where it came from or why it was so dried up and dead, but I took full
advantage of the opportunity. It was magical to say the least.

Also, our Zone just got done with a little fishing adventure. We
bought 5 peso bamboo fishing poles complete with a hook and line that
was about two feet long, walked like 20 mintues to this ¨river¨ that
was more like a large stream, and caught absolutely nothing. haha. It
was still really fun, we made a fire and skipped rocks which is what I
usually end up doing when I´m fishing so it was just like home. I also
found a skull of a dog head and proceeded to nutmeg Elder Robinson
with it. haha. Que vergüenza.

Oh! I almost forgot, I finally got your birthday package! It was
fantastic, the American chocolate is like gold down here. So good in
my mouth. Thank you all very much. We have yet to make the cake but I
think we will for sure next P-day.

Welp, I guess that´s about it.

Love, Elder Lounsbury