Uspalatta

This week absolutely flew by. On Monday we had zone conference and it was soo legit. Man, zone conferences are they best, they super get you pumped up. We talked a lot about serving with all your might, mind and strength. President Avila is making a ton of changes and really trying to get the mission to go in directions it´s never been before. One of the big changes that he´s made is that we now work during the siesta. After lunch we used to go back to the pench and do our language study and then take the hour for dinner that we don´t get in the evening before going back out to work. It mostly is because the siesta is the most unproductive time of the day, the streets are practically empty and most people are sleeping. But, the idea behind it all is that we´re full time, not part time missionaries. The zone leaders came up with a list of ideas that we could do during that time to be productive and President promised us the mission is going to have a lot more success if we work during that time. In the offices we work that time anyways, but we have nice air conditioning so it´s not quite the same haha. Last Sunday, however, we worked we the siesta and even though we didn´t have much success finding or teaching anyone any we were as wet as walruses, we know the Lord is going to see that we´re giving him our everything.

Also, this week I went to a little town about 2 and a half hours away, called Uspallata. Since Elder Ostler is the zone leader, and that area is our zone, he´s supposed to do divisions with them. And since I´m his companion, I got to tag along for a couple days. Uspallata is this super touristy town that is super up in the mountains. It´s about an hour on bus away from Aconcagua, which is the second tallest mountain in the world. A lot of people stay in Uspallata because of that, but there´s also a ton of people who go there and to the surrounding areas just to take a vacation away up in the mountains and chill. There´s a lot of rental houses and it just has that vacation feel. It made me want to go hiking and camping sooo bad.

We met some really cool people over there. On the first day, about 2 minutes after walking out of the pench, this lady comes up to us and tells us that she´s been a member for most of her life, that she´s lived in Uspallata for two years and that she hasn´t gone to church because her husband didn´t really like it, but that now he wants to listen to the missionaries. It was like a huge miracle just given to us out of the nothing. I got to teach him the next day and he just seems so prepared. We focused a lot on the family and he just loved it. They both committed to going to church on Sunday. Ahh man, it´s just so cool to met and teach people like that. The lord is preparing so many people, and sometimes we just need to put forth a little bit of effort (for us we just had to walk down the sidewalk, but obviously usually we´re going to have to put forth a little more effort) and we´ll find people who are looking for exactly what we have.

About a minute later we ran into an inactive lady who invited us over for lunch right there on the spot. And apparently this area hardly ever has lunch with the members because it´s a super small branch. So, I don´t know if we were just super lucky or what, but I was definitely grateful. Oh, did I say all of this happened on the 17th? Coincidence? I think not...

Yesterday our ward tried to put on a talent show. It started two hours late and in the end it only consisted of two acts. The first was the youth trying to sing "Called to Serve" but they barely made it through the first verse because half of them were laughing and they just gave up on the second verse one and ended the song there. I wouldn´t have cared really but there were at least 2 people who were non-members and I´m positive that´s not exactly what they came for. I talked to one of them for about half an hour trying to take his attention away from the fact that he´d been waiting for an hour and half and he seemed pretty interested. It was cool because at first he seemed a little shy but he just needed someone to ask him questions about his life and he opened up a lot. First impressions are so important, I mostly just try to make the people feel comfortable and get to know them. It was cool because there´s no way I could have been so open and carried on a conversation that long in the beginning of my mission, even if the language wasn´t a barrier. Also, Romina, who I´ve told you about before, was apart of the second talent with a couple other girls in the ward. Even if the talent show itself was a bit of a bummer it was great for her because she´s really getting to know the girls in the ward well. We´re really excited for her.

Welp, that´s all I got.

With all the love of a mountain,

Elder Lounsbury