Busy Bumble Bee

Dear family, This week was absolutely fantastic. I don´t think I´ve ever seen so much success on my mission. There have been some days where we have literally had to run from teaching appointment to teaching appointment because we have so many people to teach. It has been great. We´re teaching a ton of people that we´ve found through the members. I don´t you if you all remember that 5-5-5 plan that I told you about a awhile ago but we´ve found like six people through getting references from those families. We´ve actually only been working closely with two of the families and we´ve found that many people to teach regularly in the week so I can´t even imagine how it would be if we worked that way with all of the families. We´re teaching two old ladies that are friends of one of the families and they both came to church this week so we´re super excited. They both have a baptismal date for the 7th of July so they just need to come to church next week and they´re set. They´re great though. We´re also teaching two other people from another family that lives way out in the boonies. They live super far so we´ve been trying to get out there as much as possible by asking the members to take us but sometimes I feel like we´re asking a lot. We´re seeing a lot of success though so we have to do it. One of those people we´re teaching also came to church this week and also has a baptismal date for the 7th so hopefully if everything works out smooth we´ll have 3 baptisms that day. That family knows another family (of 5) that we´re working with who lives even more way out in the boonies. The other day we didn´t have any one to take us from the family that lives kind of out in the boonies to the family that lives way out in the boonies so we basically ran/jogged/walked three miles to get there as soon as possible because we were already late. It was pitch dark because we were way out in the country and the wind was blowing like we were in some kinda scary movie and it just felt like a boss. It was great. Basically, we´re having a blast and teaching lots of people. Hmmm, other than that there´s not a ton of new stuff going on... Welp, with all the love of a honey bee, Elder Lounsbury

Path Paver

Hey y´all! This week was pretty great. News #1 is that Agustín got baptized! It was super great seeing him finally taking that decision. I think missionaries have been working with him since he was 8 and like 6 years later he´s finally made the decision to get baptized. I honestly think his little sister helped him out a lot. She kinda took a braver inicitive and didn´t have a problem going to church and accepting a baptismal date before him etc, which I think made it easier for him. She kinda paved the path and made it easier for him to follow. I think we all rely on path pavers in our life but also at certain points when the crowds follow the world´s path we gotta make our own, and maybe we´ll make it easier for someone else to follows us heading in the right direction. Do you pave the right paths for others to follow? This week we´ve had a lot of sucess working with the members. We´re really seeing this 5-5-5 plan finally working. I think we had 10 lessons with member both this week and last week which is pretty high with what we´re used to. We have a decent amount of investigadors that are progressing and all of them have close friends or family who are members so we have really high hopes that they´re going to progress well. By the end of this transfer in like 4 weeks we could possibly have 3 or 4 more baptisms, so we´re really working hard to help all of the people we have progress even more. In the last two weeks we´ve had some pretty cool experiences with the spirit. It´s almost as if we have our own super tiny pride cycle. We start having a lot of success and then we might start praying a little less fervently or become a little more slack and then we realize our teaching has gone down the drain. This past week we´ve gotten a lot better and haven´t really seen that as much but it´s just so interesting how small things can make such a big difference in the amount of the spirit we have. And it´s so vital to have the spirit when we teach, if we don´t then we´re left to our own abilities and basically nothing good comes from that haha. It´s the first time in my mission I´ve really seen differing levels of the spirit and I think it´s something good to notice in our own lifes. Even the most basic tiny things we do will either help us feel the spirit a little bit more in our lives or they´ll make us lose just a little bit. Maybe in the moment we won´t feel a difference (although with some decisions we can) but over the long run it´ll make a difference in where we end up. In which direction are you going? The journey of a 1000 miles starts with one step, so watch your step. (I think I stole that from Elder Holland but it´s pretty good haha) Also, this week I had the opportunity to read the new for the strengh of the youth pamplet and I am absolute in love with it. It is SO golden. It´s like a Preach My Gospel but for life. If you do everything in that pamphlet you are going to be such a solid person. I think one of my favorite parts was under service. It said something like "pray daily to be guided to someone you can give a helping hand." Can you imagine if we all lived that way? That manual is so inspired. It is like the key to unlock un ending happiness is right in front of our noses. Well family, I believe that´s all I got for now. I hope you all have a spectacular week. With all the love of a freshly paved path, Elder Lounsbury

Baptism!

So the great news this week is that Valentina got baptized! Her whole family came to chruch (her inactive dad and non-member mom) so that was also pretty great. Also, her brother is getting baptized this Saturday so we're super excited. We're hoping this week we can start working a lot more with the family. They looked so great in church. We just gotta get them going like a family like that every week. Saturday was actually pretty hectic. There was a Primary activity in the morning that we tried bringing a couple of investigators too but we got there late to meet with the ward secretary who had the keys to look at the baptismal clothes and start filling up the font. It wouldn't have been too bad if that was the only thing but we found out there were no clothes for little girls and that the water didn't work in the church. So basically we were just missing the two most important things besides the actual person getting baptized. haha. We ended up getting ahold of a guy who came to fix the water and had to take a taxi over to a member's house from another ward who had some clothes we borrowed from her. Anyways, after all the chaos it turned out pretty well. There's weren't a lot of other members there (only the bishop, the primary president and her family) and I have a suspicion that it was because Brasil and Argentina were playing... haha. (Of course Argentina won, I'll have to talk a bit of trash to Elder Plant haha) The only slightly bad news is that one of our investigators didn't come to church so unless we stretch the two-church-attendance standard we won't be able to baptize next week. But we're still working with a couple people so hopefully we can have at least one more before the transfer is over and I bounce out of this area. So far things in my district are going alright. Neither one of the companionships had a very good week but they both had like half weeks because of transfers so it's understandable. I'm probably going to have to do exchanges next week so that'll be interesting. Mostly I'm thinking I just gotta get them excited and get them a couple of solid investigators because since they're washing an area they're pretty much starting from zero. We played soccer today and so I got to know them a little bit which was good. It's going to be interesting balancing getting everything done in our area so that everything goes smoothly with Agustin's baptism and at the same time work a little bit in another area to help them get started. I love seeing English translations here. Today we went to a restaurant and there was some pretty ridiculous stuff on there. I feel like they just typed it in google translate. For different sized drinks in spanish they had Chico, Mediano, Grande meaning Small Medium and Large. But the translation for "chico" was "boy" because in a different context that's also what it means...haha. So basically they had "boy" listed on their menu. Tasty. Another kinda funny one was this alcoholic drink called "Black Jack" and the translation for it (you think they'd know that was already in English) was "Jack Black" haha. Wonder if he knows he's up for sale in Argentina. Pretty cheap too. Welp family, that's about all I got for now. With all the love of Jack Black, Elder Lounsbury

French toast! BBQ sauce!

Well family, how are you all doing? Things over here and going just splendidly. We had to go to Mendoza on Tuesday and didn´t get back til Wednesday night so this week wasn´t spectacular but we did what we needed to because Agustin and Valentina came to church! We finally got Agustin to come to mutual with us, and I think it helped him feel a lot more comfortable with going to church because he already knew people there. We´ve got Valentina´s baptism lined up for this Saturday but Agustin has only been to church one time so we´re going to have his baptism next Saturday. We just gotta make sure he comes to church this Sunday and we´ll be set. He already has all of the lessons and a testimony so that´s pretty cool. We´re going to have a Family Home Evening with their family (their dad is less active and their mom isn´t a member) so we´re hoping to use the baptisms of the kids as a way to help the dad come back and also to get the mom more interested. The spirit is always super strong at baptisms so it´ll be super important that we get them there for that. We´re also making some progress with the husband of a long time member. He´s gone from like 20 to just 6 cigarettes and he´s reading the book of mormon seriously for the first time in his life. We still gotta help him stop smoking completely, go to church, and recognize he´s gotten an answer but his wife got up in testimony meeting and said that we were making progress with him with things he´s never done before in his life so that´s helped us a lot. Even though he still has some big changes to make he´s slowly been making small ones. Slow progression is better than no progression. He´s got a baptismal date for the 30th of this month so we´ve really gotta start getting him to make those changes fast. Especially with church so he can go twice before his baptismal date. Other than that this week has been pretty normal. It´s was a transfer week, so there´s been a few changes in the zone but we knew I was staying with my comp because the training program is two transfers long. The only changes that really affect us are that we´ll be getting someone new in our apartment and that my district is now going to have two more missionaries. It´s going to be a little interesting because one of the new missionaries is a little notorious for....I don´t know if I would say causing problems, but maybe something like "hard to handle". So...I guess that´s going to be a growing opportunity for me...haha. Welp, the last somewhat exciting thing I can think of is that on Sunday for lunch we made french toast and ate it with peanut butter and syrup and my taste buds about exploded. It was like uniting with a friend you haven´t seen in a long time and having it be better than what you expected because at first you wondered if it would be awkward. Kinda like that but super better. And we put the Bullseye BBQ sauce to work again with some steak we cooked this afternoon. It was a pretty similar experience to that long lost friend thing. So good. I think that´s about it for now folks, With all the love of BBQ sauce, Elder Lounsbury