Saturday, February 25, 2012

Family Status

So this week has been more or less awesome. In the beginning of the week we were working on getting a bunch of reports and statistics ready for President. We put together a chart of baptisms by month for 2008-2011 and what we have so far in 2012, a chart of the mission's numbers by week for last year and so far in 2012 and also statistics of converts by age and gender. Soooo basically it's been a lot of information but we've come up with some pretty sick graphs in google docs. I kinda wish we had started doing this earlier because I would love to come up with correlations between the mission's numbers and baptisms etc but it looks like that will be in the next Historiador's hands.

We had a fantastic day on Thursday. In the morning we showed President all the work that we'd done and he loved it so that was cool. Then we went to his house to rearrange the board he has in his house with all the missionaries and where they are and who they're with etc. This part isn't as fun because we have to color in a box on every single one of their cards that correlates with what zone they're in. It helps President see where everyone has been and also how much time they have. We also have to write the date of the transfer, their area, position and companion on the back of every card so when you have over 200 missionaries it becomes quite the job. The super cool part was that we got to eat with Sister Avila and her family at the family table. haha. It's super cool to be able to talk to them about how it was leaving Buenos Aires and school and friends and just seeing how life is from their side of the missionary work. After that we were walking to the bus stop and some of the main roads in downtown were all blocked off because there was a bicycle race going on. It seemed pretty intense. There were dudes in yellow uniforms making sure no one crossed the street when a bicyclist was getting close and pretty much every bicyclist had a policeman accompanying them on a motorcycle. We have no idea what was going on but it seemed like it was a pretty big deal. And maybe a big tourist occasion because we passed two groups of people speaking English. That's always weird.

But the day didn't quite end there. After that we were going to go by Eduardo (I don't know if you remember him from like two months ago but we finally found him again) and on the way ended up stopping by an inactive we've been working with (finding her home was a miracle) who committed to going to church this Saturday and then Carmen who practically volunteered to go by the inactive's house and help her come so we're pretty stoked about that. I seriously feel like she's family. I know her kids, I was there when she got baptized, when her motorcycle got robbed, when she got robbed, when her mom got sick and we still always find a way to laugh and joke around and I just love it. Anyways, basically neither her nor the inactive lady were on the plans we had made but we felt like we needed to stop and it seems like we did because not only were they home but we had great lessons with them as well. I love just getting a feeling to do something and doing it even though you don't know if the feeling just came from you or from the spirit and then later being able to realize it probably wasn't from you. Sometimes you just gotta go with it even though you're not positive why you need to. Anyways, when we finally got to see Eduardo we had a great lesson with him about the word of wisdom and he's committed to stop smoking which is pretty much the only thing keeping him from baptism. I love walking out of lessons and being super stoked because of how awesome some people are here.

So yeah, I think that's just about it. Life has been pretty great. Rusbel started working though, which means we can only teach him Saturdays and Sundays, so that kinda put a damper on things but we have two baptisms today of people that we've been working with with the assistants and he's planning on coming because he wants to know what it's like, so that's pretty chill! Hopefully we can get Romina there as well.

Welp! That's about it for now folks. Tell Kyle Harris I say hi. haha

With all the love of a dinner table,

Elder Lounsbury

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Yipee!!

Hey y'all! Thanks for the birthday wishes! I loved the package with all the Hersheys kisses. They were delectable. Yesterday was great, I got to eat a bunch of cookies and chocolate and junk food and it was all super fantastic. It was cool being here in the offices for it because President bought pizza and an ice cream cake for everyone. Plus the senior couple here made these things that were kinda like pigs in a blanket so we were all super stuffed after lunch. I don't really feel a ton different but I guess that's how it usually goes.

This week has been great teaching wise. We've been able to teach this guy named Rusbel who came from Peru about a month ago to live her for a while. He lived with one of his friends who actually just left on a mission about two weeks ago. So he's talked with him before and his friend got him interested in coming to church etc. We've played soccer with him a couple times and this week we started teaching him really consistently, almost every day. Usually he doesn't have a ton to do because he's not working or going to school so it's been pretty easy haha. Anyways, he's been to church once, and is committed on going this Sunday and has a tentative baptismal date for next Saturday.

We've also been able to teach Romina more, although she's been pretty hard to get ahold of because her phone works off and on. But we've kinda figured out more doubts that she has and we're trying to work through those with her. She says she feels great while she's in church or while she reads the Book of Mormon but she says she doesn't feel ready to give up some small stuff because she doesn't feel the desires to yet. It's kinda odd because it's like she's saying she has a testimony of church and the Book of Mormon but doesn't have a testimony in some of the things that are inherently tied to the truthfulness of those two things. We just need to get ahold of her enough to be able to teach her a more often.

In the offices this week we've been trying to get numbers and percentages for President on a couple different things he wants from now on but it's required going back and looking in records all the way back to the beginning of 2010...so that's been super fun. I wrote up a small something something to count most of the stuff for us because the reports we were looking at were in excel but we still have some other things to look at next week that weren't as easy.

Another kinda small thing that happened this week is one day while we were studying we felt a super small earthquake. It was super strange because it only was one shake, it wasn't followed by anything else but it was still kinda cool.

Welp, until next week.

With all the love of a birthday pizza,

Elder Lounsbury

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Another Missionary Letterq

HELLO FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welp, that´s about as exciting as this email is going to get because this week was pretty dang normal.

One of the few exciting thing I have to report is....man I thought I had at least one thing but now I can´t think of it.. Yesterday we talked to a lady in English who has daughters living in Australia for about about half an hour in the street. She was super nice, usually when we´re close to downtown everyone is doing there own stuff and they never have time to talk to us but she flat out stopped and talked for what seemed like forever haha. She doesn´t live in our area but we gave her a pamphlet and are going to pass her address and phone number to the missionaries who live there.

We´ve also been by Carmen a couple times this week because she´s been going through a lot lately. Since she´s been baptised she´s gotten her motorcycle stolen, gotten jumped and now she found out her mom is getting pretty sick. We went by on Sunday and she wasn´t doing very well. She said she didn´t have any desires to do anything and that all she wanted to do was sleep. We shared the scripture about Joseph in Carthridge jail and tried to do our best to talk about trials when really we haven´t gone through anything super similar. Then we gave her a blessing and she said that helped a lot. By the end we were making jokes and laughing which was great because she said she hadn´t laughed in a long time. It´s moments like that that make you realize why you´re here. So...cool beans.

We´ve also been by Romina once and we´ve found out a lot of her doubts which is great because now we can start focusing on what´s holding her back. She just has small doubts about things like why we don´t drink coffee and a couple other small things so at least we know what they are now. It´s been a little hard teaching her consistently so that´s something we want to improve on next week especially since school starts back up here soon and it´ll be a lot harder then.

Man, seriously other than that not a ton has happened. Just registros and retention and a mission history and random other projects I gotta finish before I finally get out of the offices haha. But, those things aren´t too exciting nor new. I do believe the next time I´ll be emailing you i´ll be 21 so I guess that´s kinda exciting.

With all the love of a typicality,

Elder Lounsbury

Saturday, February 4, 2012

I have a step-son

Well family, the big and great news for this week is I'm now training in the offices. He obviously already has a dad in the mission, so I guess that kinda makes me his step-dad and I'm alright with that. It's been kinda weird just adjusting everything and trying to bestow the little knowledge I have on him but I think he's going to do great. His name is Elder Wheeler and apart from being with me in the offices he's also replaced Elder Ostler in our trio companionship. I was kinda hoping to get out of a trio and to go back to being normal again but since I'm already used to it I'm not too upset that didn't change. I think this transfer is going to be a good experience for me because I'm the one with the most time in the companionship so it means a lot more leadership and decision making.

Our area has double the amount of missionaries than any other area in the mission. There's now three assistants who work in our area, the three of us from the offices, and two sister missionaries that are just starting. It's going to be interesting because two of our main investigators are women and we've told the sister missionaries about them so they're going to start going by a lot. I have mixed feelings because it's so fun and rewarding to teach people like those two investigators who are open and progressing and learning etc. but they also might be more open talking to sister missionaries. So..we're going to have to see what happens with that.

Last night we passed by a less active member who is on our ward's 5-5-5. When we started talking she asked us who invited or told us to go by. We explained that were just in the area and thought about knocking. She was like, "Oh, because the bishop is going to come by in a little bit." I thought we were going to have a super cool lesson with her to get her active again so I was pretty excited. But, when the bishop finally came, he came with this guy from Buenos Aires who had what looked to me like a very expensive camera. I was super confused. They explained that they were filming a training video for all of the ward secretaries in South America on how to do a ward family night activity thing and explained that we were to be apart of it. We were more bewildered than wildebeests. This guy had like legit lights that he set up in the house and everything. He took video of people coming in and greeting each other and the bishop introducing what we were going to do even though we didn't actually have a family night and it was all fake. Then they got me raising my hand and saying "I want to share a scripture" as I tried not to smile haha. I felt super strange. It probably didn't help that I had on this some-what-flamboyant pink tie that I just got from Lindsay haha. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that every ward secretary in South America is going to know me as or make jokes about the weird gringo with the flamboyant tie who magically opened right to the scripture he was looking for. We had to release waivers to let them use us so it was the real deal. I wouldn't be surprised if you see my face on some summer blockbuster commercials in the coming months.

Welp, I think that's about all I got for now. Hope you all have a great one!

With all the love of Mel Gibson,

Elder Lounsbury