Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este April 25, 2016 This week I will have 8 months in the mission and it’s going by way to fast!! I can’t believe how fast it has gone. I want to pause time haha. This week was a really really hard one the truth. On Tuesday I had intercambios with some elders and we had a sweet day and then at the end of the day I got a call from the assistants and was like oh no something happened haha. They called dand said that we are doing an emergency transfer. Elder Harrison left for my old zone and I got a new companion de St. George also. They had some problems in their area and so they did a switch. Super bummer that elder Harrison had to go but oh well. My new companion has 3 weeks in the mission but speaks pretty well. He likes to sing, play the piano, rubix cube, and sit on the toilet for a long time. He doesn’t really talk too much and walks slower than Grandma Gardner on the alpine trail but other than that his great. I don’t think he really wants to be here but pres told me it’s my job to change that. 2 of our inv came to church this week and hopefully they come this week. If we can get them to come we can have a baptism the 7th of mayo. That would be super sick. We also did a ton of service this week. We helped build a house and also we cut down a few trees with machete and axe. My hands hurt pretty bad but oh well. Haha I’ll send a bunch of photos. Elder Harrison took a video of me singing in the shower and its really funny hahahaha I’ll try and send it. Anyways this week was pretty cold but not really. Got bit by a dog. Good week. Love Elder Lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
April 18, 2016 Hello family!! Well this week we finally had a baptism! His name is axel Ismael Silva!! His 11 years old and a straight stud. We’ve been teaching him for a while! Elder h baptized him and he messed up the first time and forgot to say his name! Hahha and the second time he just really messed up bad but the last time he did it perfect. The baptism thing broke and hot water didn’t come out so it was freezing cold and there was no hot water in all of the church so we grabbed a few pans to cook like mashed potatoes in and started to heat up water in the kitchen for like 2 hours so that it wouldn’t be freezing cold!! well one of them was really big and we both needed to grab it and while we were walking with the boiling hot water elder Harrison slipped a little and the water flied on my hand and I let go and elder Harrison tried to hold it with one hand and couldn’t and it dropped and sent boiling hot water everywhere our faces and our arms. It hurt really badly but we laughed really hard after. We were kind of bummed on Saturday because we didn’t have any inv in church and can’t meet our goal for 3 this month because they need to assist church 2 times before they can be baptized. But oh well we just got to work a little bit harder. It was really cold to see joins trainer this week I was on exchanges with the zone leaders in their zone and we went to lunch at the gaticas house and we started to talk about his mission and how he served in salta and I told him that my uncle served there. He looked at my plack and asked what my uncle was named and I said jon and he said it’s his son!!!! Haha so crazy he showed me a bunch of photos and we ate raviolis which were amaziiiiinnnggg. His a cool guy and jon looked so small in all of the photos hahaha. Cool week but nothing much happened other than that stuff. We had one day where we did 30 contacts and found a bunch of people. It rained all day for 2 days and we saw major major flooding. I need a raincoat hahahhah. Love you all and hope you all are having a dandy time. Someone told me about a place where you can ski an hour and a half in plane from where I’m at. They said it’s unreal and that I totally need to go if I like to ski. Dad maybe you can look into it a little because it’s in the Andes mountain range!!!! Would be awesome!!! Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
April 11, 2016 hola como andan? Now that everyone speaks Spanish imp going to write in Spanish... haha jk. This week was really good and also really hard. On Wednesday elder h had to go to quilmes the offices to do some paper work to try and be legal here and I had to go to the offices on Thursday for a leader meeting. It’s pretty far like 2 hours in bus and train so it’s kind of a pain and really ruined the week for us. But it has to happen sometime so whatever. But on Wednesday we were supposed to have a baptism interview and our investigator didn’t show up... and we tried calling him and everything and he just didn’t respond and later that night we found him in the street and he said he couldn’t come because his mom got really sick and he had to help her. So that’s why he didn’t come I don’t know if I believe him but oh well. So we moved the baptism for one week this Sunday but he or the other investigator that was supposed to be baptized on Saturday didn’t come. So they can’t do it this week. It’s so frustrating. We were looking forward to these two weeks for so long and they just took the day off and didn’t come to church!! I don’t understand we fasted and we prayed super super hard and it was just hard. So now we have to wait a while to baptize one of them but we still could potentially baptize one of our invest. This week and then the other two the weeks that are coming. It’s really hard because we were super pumped and then it was like getting hit by a train. But oh well we got to work a little harder and try a little harder. Today we had our district activity and we went to La Plata to go to the zoo or there’s this cool planetarium that’s pretty sick I guess and they just happened to be both closed. I also cooked like 8 pizzas for everyone and we ate at some park and then went to one of the soccer fields and took a little tour. Everything kind of fell through but that’s okay it was still fun. Other than that not much happened this week. We went into the campo or fields and found a bunch of cows and asked if they wanted to get baptized and they said yes so we are going to have about 100 this week. Haha also we were in the bus this week and some moron kid threw a rock at the window right in front of us and it cracked the window and scared the crap out of me. Anyways love you all and miss you. Elder Lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
April 4, 2016 Whoa this week was unreal!! I can’t believe how many blessings we saw this week. First of all it rained the whole week and we were literally biking in a river. Like when I say river we were biking in water up to our waists when we were on our bikes. And most of it was sanja water which means we were biking in poop water. So much fun. Hahah elder Harrison fell and broke his bike and got all dirty. Kind of funny but I felt bad. Later in the week I fell and hurt my knee but that’s okay. Also funny fact for the day is I almost died. I saw my life flash in front of my eyes as a bus almost ran right in too me but I flew and jumped over the sidewalk and was saved. Pretty athletic. Back to the rainy day. We left at lunch and it started to poor on Wednesday. Right after that we were super far away and didn’t have enough time to go home and put on a jacket or something to help with the rain even though nothing would have protected us from that kind of rain. Someone was dumping swimming pools from above. It must be starting winter upstairs because everyone was draining their pools!! Like I said we were biking in rivers and we both got super cold. I told him we needed to pray and ask for help. I offered a prayer and asked for some help with the cold as well as to find 2 new investigators within 30 min. right after the prayer we both felt like a coat was being wrapped around us and looked down the road to find someone to teach. No one was in the street but right then a ball started to float down the river and we picked it up and walked to the house we thought it was from and knocked the door. the lady said it wasn’t hers but knows who it’s from and why in the $%%&#$%%$% are we outside without jackets or let alone outside when it’s raining like this. She said who are you guys anyway and we explained that we work rain or shine and we are here to share with her the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and she said I want to know more. She’s an investigator now. She showed us where the house was that the ball is from and we went there and the lady answered and asked the same question of why we had the audacity of being outside right now and we taught her and she wants to hear everything. New investigator. Throughout the day we prayed 4 times and found 8 people that want to hear our message as well as had lessons with them. It was such a cool day. Conference was great but weird in Spanish... elder h didn’t understand a thing ha-ha but oh well what you do. This Friday we have a baptism and the next week too. I’m pretty pumped for the next few weeks I guess you can say. Anyways I love you all and miss you all, can’t believe you left to Mexico without me. The new sister in my district is from Mexico. Idk where and she’s super weird. She is an albino and has red hair. haha oh well. Love you all Elder lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
March 28, 2016 Hello family!! Wow what a great week we had. Lots of spiritual experiences and also lots of physical work hahha. My hands hurt so bad!! Anyways to start the week off we had exchanges with the zone lideres and I went with elder jauromillo from Arizona that’s a convert for like 3 years. Super dope kid. We had a great day and almost gave a really powerful blessing to some lady who has cancer. she kept saying that’s she’s waiting for a miracle to happen to her to be healed and elder j said in a loud voice... we are the blessing!!!! Halakha we can heal you lady and she didn’t let us just kept saying that she’s waiting for a miracle. I shared the story about Jake Clark and how he got a blessing and was pretty much saved. pretty cool and she still wouldn’t let us but she gave us some good bread and ended up seeing her the next day and we told her that she needs to accept that god is trying to tell her something ha-ha. Oh well. We also talked to some guy that said he was going to go kill a family after our lesson right in the middle of the lesson he said that hahhaha. And we convinced him that it’s a really bad idea and that we probably can’t come back to his house if he kills those people so he said he wouldn’t for now. Pretty funny guy. The whole day I was trying to find this scripture that I had a read a while ago to share with someone during a lesson and I couldn’t remember where it was and finally I was like I need to pray and ask god where it is found. I ended my prayer and grabbed my book of Mormon and opened the book and it was right there. I kind of started to cry because of the power of prayer that I just had never really realized that it had that much power and elder jauromillo asked me what happened and asked if I was home sick Hashanah. I told him know that I was just a little soft now. ; The next day we had a giant service project like you all saw and it was super fun but also really hard. We were digging for like 5 hours luckily it was raining a tad. But we both just had blisters everywhere and I cut my hand on some glass in the ground so we are in bad shape. I had to put a bunch of medicine on it from the doctor guy but I’m fine don’t worry. Super good day and then the next day we had a giant asado or bbq. Stomach, intestines, sausage, all sorts of stuff. We cooked it in a giant mud hardened bbq and over a grill and it was soo good. I was so stuffed after. We are pretty much buddies with all of the members now!! Fhhaha. We are also going to have a baptism next week and hopefully the week after that!! So we are also working pretty hard. I miss all of you guys so much though. I got all those boxes mom and thought of home so much. I haven’t gotten the package from home only the ones from that missionary company. Thank you so much!!! Anyways I love you all so much and hope you had a great week!! Elder lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
March 21, 2016 Wow this week was really good!! The weeks are going way too fast!! I can’t believe that this week that comes ill have 7 months. Crazy. This Monday is transfers so who knows if elder Harrison and I will stay together. Pretty good chance that we are split up because there’s 20 new missionaries coming in on Monday. Pretty nuts. Miss you guys so much and I can’t wait to watch these videos that are coming in! From what I’m hearing I’m missing out on some good skiing! It’s starting to cool down a lot here but the beginning of this week was really hot!!!! We finally got out of the smelly tiny and disgusting villa Progresso pension and got our new one. The first few days it wasn’t much better because there was a ton of bugs and we had to clean like crazy but now I like it. I came in the second day and there was two giant cockroaches on my pillow!!!! Ahh I freaked out but then I found a spider as big as my face and thought that jerry and Craig our cockroaches our I guess our friends so we named them and now we are amigos. Now our pension is clean after a bunch of bleach and ours of cleaning. But guess what. We might be receiving a washing machine!!! Probably today actually. Only one in the mission other than the assistants. Pretty crazy right. the day after we got the new pension we had a 70 come and give the mission a big talk and leader meeting it was pretty cool but I was going to the bathroom and he walked in and asked me to throw him a paper towel and right then I finished going to the bathroom and grabbed on and gave him it and I realized my pants were totally undone and he could see my garments and everything. He didn’t notice but elder h thought it was hilarious. later in the week we had to clean the baptism font and we got the call to clean it and thought it would be nothing and then we got their and realized that the pump to take out water had broken and there was water that had been sitting there for a year literally a year was in there and it was nasty!!!! It took 2 hours to get all the water out and clean enough for a baptism. We filled it up again for the baptism and it was freezing cold water poor little girl was so cold. Good baptism. After we had to try and get the pump working and didn’t work so we tried to syphon the water out and that failed utterly ahahahha and so we called up someone and he fixed it. Yesterday we had a giant bbq and ate intestinos and a lot of other weird stuff. It was actually pretty good. Anyways miss all of you so much and can’t wait to talk more!! Elder Lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
March 14, 2016 Hello dougs of the earth. This week was great. Got sick on Monday night, pooped my pants doing sit ups on Tuesday and pooped my pants in the night on Wednesday. I couldn’t really leave the bathroom because I had such bad diarrhea. Also I stepped in a giant pile of horse dumplings and covered my foot. Also it rained a ton and we were biking and I got covered in mud and water from the tires. Hmm oh yeah a few days ago we went out to the fields that I guess is our area that literally threes houses every 500 or 1000 feet and found a bunch of people that had never listened to our message. Pretty cool. Only problem is we biked 215 blocks which pretty much is like a marathon and a half. Not kidding. My buttocks hurt so bad I couldn’t walk right the next day. Super awesome though. Literally we were out in the middle of nowhere preaching to people that have never seen white humans with giant star wars helmets on let alone missionaries. We had 2 family home evenings this week and made hamburgers for one of them!! They were super good. I also had lots of doctrine questions this week and was cool to find the answers. I remember I asked grandpa the question about the sword of Laban and how it was made of fine steel way back when they had no such thing and how it got passed down and down until Moroni had it and gave it to his son. I found out that the, the Urim and Thumim, and the Liahona as well as the plates AND the sword of laban. So we can see that it was passed down for a long long time and has some kind of significance. I also read mosses 4 verse 31 and think that it could be something that Adam passed down until Mormon put it in the box thing. pretty cool!! Also today we had our district activity and went to Punta lira and totally played football looking at the beach! It was so humid though. pretty cool views of the ocean and waves crashing!! I miss Cali so much ha-ha. Anyway miss you guys so much and hope you guys had a great week! Elder lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
March 7, 2016 Hello beautiful humans from Utah. This week was a really spiritual week so many miracles I can't even believe it. So many times when my mind was blown I just can’t even really explain some of them. First off this week started too cool off so I’m super pumped about that. I can finally start wearing my long sleeve shirts because short sleeves shirts look so bad. Ha-ha On Thursday we went to have a lesson with some guy we found after Elder H said a prayer to find a new investigator and 30 seconds later we found him and he said to come back on Thursday. We passed by his house like 6 other times the first two weeks because the sisters had one lesson with him but he didn’t really want anything so maybe we could have had some success. But on Thursday we passed by his house and clapped 3 times and he didn’t come to the door. I started to leave and elder h told me we should say a prayer. We said one and I clapped one more time and he came to the door 10 seconds later. My mind was blown!!!!! Usually if we clap 2 times that means that they aren’t there so it was super spiritual to be able to teach him. We had such a powerful lesson with him and guess what. All in English!!!! He speaks perfect English!! It was so cool to preach in English. We brought him a book of Mormon in English and he loved it. He pretty much already knew everything so we didn’t have to teach him too much but I told him that he needs to start living the life that he wants and he started to cry and told us that he knows we are sent from God because that’s exactly what he wanted to hear and what has been thinking about a lot lately. He also had a dream that his father is waiting for him to do something and we told him that you can do baptisms for the dead and he loved it and wants to be baptized but has to change a few things in his life in order to be baptized. Super cool!!!! On Saturday we had lunch with the Peruvian that always takes our photos and sends it to you guys and after that we realized that we had 2 pesos left for dinner, on Saturday and on Sunday and breakfast on Monday. I got real nervous. We had no more money literally nothing. And to make things worse on Sunday our lunch canceled and so we had nothing to eat on Sunday. Around 7 in the night we passed by a member’s house and shared a lesson and they asked us what we ate for lunch and we said we hadn’t had anything yet that day and they got super sad and made us chicken and potatoes. We were just going throughout the day praying that someone could have given us some food to eat because we were starving!!!! But we kept working and had faith that someone would give us some food and they did. The amount of blessings we receive is out of this world. On Thursday night I made some calls to all of the people in my district and one of the companion ships proceeded to tell me about how a girl came over to their pension and ate with them and how they had spent the whole day with them. I dropped the cane super hard and they got emergency transfer and I have no idea where they are but we got two new elders in our district that are super dope. I knew one in my old zone. Super stupid missionaries that invited a 16 year old girl over and who knows what they did. But good week, miss you guys so much. Love you all!! Elder lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
February 29, 2016 Wow. Where do I start?? Best week yet!! Tuesday night Hermana Basnight went home. She had stomach issues and was messed up upstairs so she went home and got help and is doing great I'm sure. She got in a little tussle with President and he realized that she is a little loca. Wednesday was great, I forgot to tell you last week but Elder Bednar came and gave Buenos Aires este, oeste, norte, y sur and gave us a talk and we could ask him questions and it was just unreal. I didn't ask him anything cause I was super scared to get up in front of everyone. I saw all my buddies from the MTC and Kade Kofford from alpine as well as Alec Pedroza! small world. Thursday we were doing service pulling and moving sand like always and mixing concrete and all of a sudden a little monkey came out of no where and started to look at us. I grabbed a cookie and it came and grabbed it out of my hand. my mind was blown. Lets say I'm an animal person now. While we were working this giant lab came and started to play with us, we named him duke. I want a dog now. He's awesome he's got two baby dogs and they all were so cute and every time we pass by we talk to him for like 5 min. Elder H. saw his first zombie dog and I thought he was going to cry hahah. He said it looked like walking dead dog. Funny. Friday we had zone conference and Pres came along with the aps. super good lesson and we ate really good chicken. My zone is pretty legit. Now it gets interesting!!! Later that night President had to interview la flia vallejos. My fam! And he said he wanted me to baptize him and that it was super important and so Pres let me go on saturday and baptize him!! His wife got baptized by Elder Benegas. It was such a cool experience!!! It took like 20 bucks to get up there cause its so far but it was so worth it!! We got there and it was amazing to see the ward again and talk about whats going on and all that stuff. It was such a spiritual experience when I started to walk into the water with him. And when I started to say "having been commissioned by Jesus Christ I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen." Super super awesome. He came up and just gave me a giant hug and said thank you so much for sticking with us!! They were so happy!!! Such a great day!! Sunday was super great but in the last song of sacrament meeting we were singing "God be with you until we meet again" and in the middle of the song this old guy just passes out and falls into the walkway! All of a sudden everyone stops singing and someone yelled and I honestly thought he died!!!!! haha Kinda funny but he was fine he just lacked a little sugar. This week was super spiritual. We didn't have much success but we said a few prayers and like 1 min after we found some guy that wanted to hear us and he could speak english perfectly. Elder H was pretty pumped for that!! He cant speak spanish at all hahah but he's learning. We played futbol with some kids in the villa and got wrecked but it was super funny and I told someone that I'm from argentina and they believed me until I started to speak in English to Elder H!!!!! hahahha great week still hotter than cat litter but thats okay. Stepped in dog poop a lot this week and I'm not okay with it. Love ya, Elder Lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
February 22, 2016 Hello from down South. Nothing interesting here other than it's extremely hot and I'm super fat. haha. I'm starting to run again with Elder Harrison so hopefully we will start to lose a little bit of weight. A few days ago we found an apartment but we have to wait 3 weeks in order to move in because they have to send the contract to Utah and have it signed and sent back. Super dumb. Elder Harrison and I have been working super hard and have almost gained the trust of the members. We are starting to do visits with them and they are starting to work with us. haha Wow I have a bunch of funny stories this week. First. I hate grass. Mother and Father I thank you for making me cut grass with a lawnmower and really wish I had one right now. The sisters called us and told us we had service at this old lady's house one day and told us that we were going to cut some grass. Not that much but it might take a little while. So we get to the house after walking about 30 blocks a little tired and find a giant open field and a pair of scissors sitting against the wall and the sisters looking a little worried. I asked what the medium sized scissors were for and they told me to cut the grass. I freaked. So we started to cut about the size of our back lawn but much taller with a pair of dull scissors. 5 hours later and a wicked tricep workout we finished. hahaha It blew my mind that the sisters thought it would be okay if we cut the whole field with a pair of trimmers. What idiots. The next day we had another service project cutting grass but we had a weed wacker so it only took like 30 min but after we ate the best meal I've ever had from this Peruvian lady. Rice with a bunch of veggies and chunks of meat on top. Holy rat feed it was amazing!! The food here is soooo good I eat so much and Elder Harrison eats even more. He's going to be so fat. hahaha. Also something kind of funny but not that funny was I fell really hard on my bike in front of a bunch of girls. I felt so embarrassed especially with my modern warfare 3 bike helmet. Luckily Elder Harrison wanted to have the camo one but still its so ugly. Everywhere we go everyone makes fun of our helmets. We had a photo shoot the other day so there are pictures inbound. So our area is bigger than Texas and long story short we started to bike for like 2 hours knocking houses on this dirt road out in the GOONIES haha and we came across the ocean.... hahah my mind was blown we got hit with like a mountain of humidity and thought we were coming across a lake and all of a sudden it opened up to a giant bay and beach.... we also came across 4 pleasant meth and mary jane smokers who were pretty stunned that we were there. But turns out my area has beach. The sisters had an explosion in church yesterday and one of them layed an egg and freaked out like belle when shes angry. I was pretty scared. other than that everything is pretty chill. Anyway good week and thanks for the emails. I miss the cold. Elder Lee Argentina: Berisso, La Plata Este
February 15, 2016 Woah where do I start. First off lets just start by saying that bed bugs stink. I have like 55 bites now all over my body. It first started on my feet and i had no idea what was wrong quizas like a bug or something like that idk! Then they started to come up all over my body and it itched so bad! But ill give a brief history of this week: Tuesday we got to the offices and were looking at all the new missionaries thinking to myself how much they don't know and how good the food is that they are eating (first day lunch) and at that time they started to finish up and bring their plates to the kitchen and all of a sudden someone I know walks by and I told him to stop and he turned around and what do you know. It's Elder Jaden Harrison. haha What a crazy sight to see. We started to talk and he asked if there was a slight chance that we could be comps and I said I had no idea and elder Fickes our AP walked by and asked us if we knew each other with a weird look on his face and we said yeah and he walked away smiling. So in the reunion they started to read off names of new companionship etc etc and they read my name and I walked up to the front and then they read elder Harrisons name and I freaked out! So pumped!! He's super chill and all of the other kids were super wierd. So after that they told us they were going to give us a remis or taxi to get to our area cause its super far away but ending up we had to go in bus for 2 hours but the connecting bus never came so at like 10 we called a taxi and paid for it out of pocket. The pension is absolutely disgusting and super small. Like super super small!!! The first night we went to bed super late. like 11:30. We had to but our beds on the floor and pretty much sleep on the floor and I thought elder Harrison was going to cry. I almost did too. We were just left to die. In the night I almost died from heat and same with Elder h. The next day we cleaned the bathroom because it was an hasco (gross) but didn't have much time because we had district reunion. I talked about being examples for the world and how we have to always be representatives of Jesus Christ. I talked about a few other things too. In my district is me Elder H. Elder Beril from Canada Elder Loosle from West Jordan Elder Bench Missiouri Elder Erenada from Chile and Hermana Lopez from Brasil and Hermana Basnight from Washington dc. Woah I did not know being a district leader was so hard. There are so many calls you have to make and questions you have to answer and you always have to obey like with exactness for every single thing. but i also like it because it makes it a little more interesting. So I was blessed with Hermana Basnight. 30 years old and just a great person.......... On a side note elder harrison woke up on Saturday with a face that looked like rocky. His face was swolen and he couldnt open his eye so we went to the hospital and sure enought he had an alergic reaction and got a shot on his butt which was super funny cause he doesnt speak much spánish almost nothing. But now he's fine. But they diagnnosed me with bed bugs and after herrmana nunez and the assistants and pensionares came to the pension and we did a deap clean. It was super gross. Like so gross. My new name is the de greaserizer. hahahahah super funny. Mom thanks for teaching me how to clean. Sorry I wrote a ton but now I'm doing a lot better. Hopefully we find a new pension because we live 30 min away from our area and its small and we need to be in our area. The barrio is reallly good they are super nice and the food is good. It's really rich and we work on bicis my butt hurts really bad. We are working hard and are going to have two baptisims here soon I think. But everything is good thanks for everything. Love you all Argentina, Tomas Flores
February 8, 2016 Hello family wow this week was great. Holy rat feed its so hot I'm going to die. I can't do the humidity more!!!!!! Luckily there's more rain now. This week we found out that the flia vallejos are going to be married the 25th and want to be baptized the 26th!!! Super cool. We had a noche de hogar with them and I cooked hamburgers. They were actually really good. After we left around 9 and started to walk with the other two elders and my comp stopped in the most dangerous part and looked at me white in the face and told me he was going to poop his pants. haha I didn't know what to say I told him we had to make it to the pension in order to do it because there aren't any members or anything for this street or close. So we started to walk more and about 2 min later he stopped looked at me and put his hands where his butt is and told me he pooped his pants!!! What!!!! I couldn't believe my mind literally blown. hahah I was dying of laughter and I thought elder benegas and fernandez were going to die of laughter. Luckily I had some toilet paper in my bag and I told him to go into the bushes and wipe himself and then we have to go because its super dangerous. Before he gets to the bushes he poops again and takes his pants off and is about to cry and I yell at him to go behind the bushes because there's people watching so he goes behind the bush and takes off his shoes and his pants and wipes oh my I was laughing so hard. He was laughing too he didn't know what happened it just happened. I found out that I'm going to train, whitewash which means a new area where the two elders have no idea, And I'm going to be district leader. Whatttt are they thinking hahahha. I'm opening a new area up in berisso, la plata este. Should be really interesting!! 4 elders and 2 sisters in my district. One of the sisters is from rio de janero. Honestly I'm really pumped and excited for this week!!! Love you all and Maddy put my skis back where you found them or else I'll call the police- thanks for the videos keep them coming. Love you. Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
January 26, 2016 Wow what a great week. There wasn't a day under 30 degrees which is like 90 degrees at home. So fun hahahhaha. But we worked like mules in the Andes mountains this week. I really tried to push Piaggio to his limits. can go almost forever right now I can walk as far as needed and my feet don't hurt but he is super tired hahhaha. We found a ton of people and walked all day almost everyday except for lunch and dinner. Found 2 new investigators and have a bunch more citas (appointments) with other old investigator. From old Elderes. Also we are going to have a baptism the 15 of February!! Por fin! (Finally) It's really hard to baptize here cause no one is married but they are going to take out turn this week! One of the days this week we literally walked all day in the sun 37 degrees the hottest day of the week which is 101 with humidity out of the wazoo. Around 18 hours we started to walk to a birthday party and found a lady with a wheelbarrow putting sand in it and taking to the back of her house and she was super pregnant. We asked if we could help and 3 hours later we finished with blisters all over my hands and dirty clothes. But I have never been so happy in my life!! Literally I was so tired and my comp too but I said a small prayer too help us help this lady who needed to put 3 meters of sand before the night was done because if she didn't all the neighbors would come and take it all. after my prayer I swear I felt someone helping me put dirt in the wheelbarrow and carry it a ways to the back of her house. It was Such a great experience. I don't know why but the more tired I am because we worked really hard the more happy I am. It's weird. Also we got to go to the temple this week! Oh my its so pretty! It was such a great experience. The baptismal font is soooooo amazing. I cant describe it!! Sooo pretty. When you guys come to pick me you need to go do baptisms there! Honestly this week was so good but I'm sweating like a Christmas ham in the oven. My comp doesn't know how to clean or how to work like yard work but slowly I'm teaching him. Still squeaks like a middle schooler but oh well hahahha. Miss all of you so much!!!! Love you all Love you- Elder lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
January 5, 2016 Hahha dad oh man you let the dogs out didn't you. you have to keep them on the chains just a tad, just enough to pull them back before biting a little human. so sorry to hear that.... not I'm in the same boat! I'm dying here hearing about skiing and the snow. Oh how do I miss the snow. It's been so hot that I've turned to putting my head in the freezer and running and jumping in bed where there is ice and water already laid out as well as i put my pillow in the fridge 30 min before bed time. I'm dying here. On Tuesday it rained harder than any of you can possibly imagine. Almost had to scoop water out of the pension but we made a barrier. So much rain. New years was great we ate more meat and more rice potato mayonnaise pea mixture as well as more pan dulce. I climbed up onto the roof of our pension to watch fireworks go off and it was super fun! I miss you guys so much though! New years wasn't the same with skiing and drinking hot chocolate. Instead I'm drinking straight ice. This week was really great though! My new son is from Buenos Aires Este and is waiting for his visa to come so that he can go to Salt Lake, Utah. He'sit of a doug but that's okay. He doesn't like to show me his garments so he's always wearing a t shirt and shorts and he dies from heat everyday. I don't think he likes looking at me sprawled out like belle in my mesh.... he worked in the temple before the mission and has every blessing and prayer thing memorized and knows a butt load about the gospel but doesn't know how to tie a flipping tie. Also he takes 4 years in the bathroom and if he blows his nose one more time I might hurt him. hahhaa jk hes great really great. This week was pretty dang spiritual. We had a lesson with some investigators the family vallejos. They have been to church twice and want to be married and baptized in the church. In the middle of the lesson he said he needed to say something to me and I thought it would be something bad like he killed someone or he is part of the drug cartel.. both we've gotten btw... but no he shared this experience. He was sleeping and woke up in the middle of the night panicked because literally they had 20 pesos left. He's without work and his car is broken hes a taxi driver so literally he has no options left. He goes to the bathroom and kneels down and prays to God to know what he should do.. I think his first prayer ever... and he feels like he doesn't get an answer so he goes to bed. He said he was dreaming and that he was at the temple gate not sure what he was doing there when he saw god standing with his arms stretched out wide almost beckoning him to the temple but didn't know how to get there. At that moment of alarm he said that he felt two people pushing him in the direction he needed to go towards god. he said he looked to the left and saw me smiling at him pushing him on the shoulder as well as Elder Tippetts on his right. He said he knows this church is true with all of his heart and knows that we are sent from God to preach him what he needs to know so that he can serve a mission with his wife later on in his life. Ahhhh I was bawling! I've never felt the spirit so strong in my entire life!!! It was amazing. and then they gave us lunch the next day and it was something I cant really describe.... they call it guiso its like noodle soup with meat but this meat wasn't meat. They must have taken it off the dead dog on the street or something cause it smelled and had so much fat and broken bones that my comp almost puked hahahhaahha. I ate it all though. I don't know how. Maddy I used your drink technique and have it down! I just say that I love juice and they give me a bunch!!! hahaha. This week really was one to remember! Spanish is coming along great! I have to lead out every lesson and its hard but I think I know more Spanish than I think I do, just need to practice and now I have to because piaggio doesn't speak a lick of English! Love you all thanks for all the emails and cant wait to talk!! Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
December 28, 2015 Wow what a great week!!! It was so good to talk to all of you! It was very needed haha. I miss all of you so much!! I want to go skiing tooo hahahha so bad. So for Christmas we had an activity after we skyped and it was super fun.- We ate hamburgers and played futbol. It was really fun actually. Came back and made some pizza and listened and watched fireworks with the other two elders. The next few days were pretty chill. Saturday the ward asked us to come to a ward activity and after play futbol with the old members and we invited some of our investigators and they all came because no one denies futbol. hahah It was super fun and I was super sore yesterday! Sunday was great all of our investigators came to church and we had a good lunch as well as an activity for Tippetts in the night because he left this morning! Guess what!! I'm training.... holy I'm so nervous! But excited too. Pretty sure its a shunky which is a white boy ahha. So I'm pretty pumped! tomorrow he comes around 5 and also I'm with an elder from australia elder kavea he's huge and plays rugby and is super super dope. Nothing much has happened since skyping but I'm super pumped for this week!! Love you all Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
December 21, 2015 Hahah wow thanks for all the emails about snow everyone.... I'm dying of heat here. I poor ice water on my bed every night and sleep with a gatorade frozen solid with a t shirt wrapped around it like a baby and I'm still hot. It's almost 100 percent humidity right now because its been so hot and now its about to rain really hard today. I miss you all so much!!! and skiing tambien. We worked really hard this week! My feet hurt really bad and my shoes are finally taking a toll. It's a really good thing that I'm bigger than everyone here because a drunk guy tried to rob me yesterday. He wanted my tie and my backpack but I told him not to touch me and gave him the bulldog belle stare and he left me alone. And then I yelled nachhooooo. hahaahah no chiste but he did try to rob me and I did do that stuff menos the nachooo. I had to go to florencia varela for my dni which is like a card that says you live here etc etc and guess what I saw!! a roberts. grandma can finally come here now!! haahah Our investigator finally had her baby and it's so cute and they came to church for the first time yesterday and it was awesome. They are a family of 4 falta marriage but after that they are going to get baptized. We were teaching them the law of Chasity on Friday night and heard screaming outside and looked and there was a guy out there beating his wife. The wife was holding her own though she got a few good bunches in but he was a little bigger. No one did anything but this other girl!!! No guys helped. Unbelievably. He was drunk out of his mind and finally he grabbed a big rock on the ground and was going to kill her and then a woman with a baby stepped in front of him and told him to leave and he did. I was so close to going out there and killing the guy. It was brutal to watch and really sad. Other than that everything is chill here! I cant wait to skype everyone this week!!!!! I really cant wait! Christmas doesn't feel like Christmas here. Everyone gives me pan dulce which is this bread stuff with these little gummnies in it. Everywhere we go. hahha It's pretty good though. I'm getting fat and everyone talks to me about it!!!!! Oh well hahaha miss you all and love you all! Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
December 14, 2015 Hahah wow this week was super great... it's so hot I can't function but everything is great! I miss all of you so so much!! Saturday we went to a party at the church for birthdays and 5 of the dads got bored and went out and started to play football so the 4 of us went out and played against them. They were goofing around and then I got a goal and it went downhill from there. pushing, cleating, and anything else you can think of in order to win is what they did hahahah Hmno Cantero mission lider for our ward is amazing and he got almost every goal. We lost. I'll send a picture of the end results. I got pushed down into the mud because it was raining and got all dirty. Don't worry I washed my pants and shirt when I got home but it was super fun!!! Sunday night we had an activity of the stake and we sang a Christmas song. It was really good!!! I was really surprised. and President came so everyone was looking really good haha its really funny whenever president comes everyone gets looking real nice. Today we had the district activity but we invited everyone. We cooked hamburgers and played soccer and ping pòng!! I was in charge of cooking and got a applause from everyone for how good it was. Thanks mom. Overall it was a great week!! Cant wait to talk to everyone for Christmas!! Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
December 7, 2015 Wow what a great week! I can finally eat everything now!!!! This week we worked really hard! So many things happened but I'll just share a few stories! Friday we were with a member doing visits and went to a investigators house to talk to him. His car broke and elder tippetts I guess used to be a mechanic or something so we helped him. He needed a part so we went to this store like 10 min away. hahaha This guy on a moto got absolutely just I don't even know how to explain it. He was going 90 on a 15 and ran a red light and got thrown off his bike. Guess who was the first to the scene. me. hahahha he had a 4 inch hole in his leg and was screaming every swearword in spanish that i know. I calmed him down but it was super sketchy. Ambulance came and picked him up I hope he's okay. Second story. Friday morning we had service at hmno camperos. he said we need to throw this pile of bricks up to the next level of his house about 10 feet. These bricks are different though they are bigger and weigh more. So I got to work I would throw them up and tippetts would catch them at the top. For 2 hours we did this in the blistering humid sun. At the end we were sitting inside and talking with them and I said that I bet I threw around 200 bricks up there. The hmna said oh no elder there was 400 of those bricks that you just threw and they each weigh 35 pounds. hahah I still cant move my arms. It's so hot too. I'm always sweating. I got my camera though!!! finally!! elder sandberg saved us though because the one package they opened was mine in front of him and I guess they don't want electronics from other countries and the people flipped and ran to get the security but he just grabbed it and ran out of the office!!! hahaaha He says when he gets back to Utah he's going to come over and eat with you guys he's one of my best buds here. He's the pensionary but hes always doing stuff with us. Church is so so true. I was reading in Joseph Smith history this morning and I think its verse 35 but not sure. It talks about how people wanted him to deny the visiona and the Book of Mormon but he talks about how he knows it and God knows he knows it and that he can and never deny it. I can't deny how true the Book of Mormon is. I just finished it in Spanish! My Spanish is coming along really good. everyone thinks I'm going to train next transfer which would be really cool! sounds like everyone is good back home! belle with dances and maddy with her boyfriend!! sounds like a party. colts video was hilarious!!!!!! hahaa i was dying!!! love you all! only a few more weeks until we can chat!! Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
November 30, 2015 Wow what a week hahahhaa another great week. No not really but its fine. Monday was great we played soccer etc etc But Tuesday was brutal. I was throwing up all day and President found out and so he came and got me and took me to his house. Wednesday they took me to the hospital and I got blood taken. They let me go home Thursday. The weekend was great. It's been really really hot. We can't do anything much because Elder Tippetts can't leave the bed. But yesterday we had a huge family home evening with like 4 families. It was really great! Yesterday I gave a talk about faith. It was pretty good I felt good! My Spanish is coming along finally!!!! yipee. Today I'm feeling fine now but last week I couldn't eat. I think it was flu or food poisoning but they want to make sure its not parasites or something else. The only good thing about all this is that I've been with Pres and his wife everyday. I've eaten in capital with president like 4 times hahaha. No one gets to do that ever!!!!! Super dope. All I want to do is get back to work!!!!! I'm so sick of sitting around studying. Also Elder Tippetts dad said that he will send my letter to you guys as well as a gift for dad. Sorry I would have sent him with more if I knew he was going to be taking back a suitcase for us. Shoot. anyways great week.... hahaha can't wait to email. Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
November 16, 2015 Wow what an interesting week haha. After we emailed on monday me and Elder Tippetts and the other moron elders went and played futbol with some ninos at this little concrete court next to Rosalia's house. It was super funny and super fun. We played for like 3 hours straight. I had so many blisters but it was so fun. We started off us 4 elders against 5 ninos but sooner or later it added up to 15 so I was a captain and this other little chavon thats super funny hahhaha. I actually played pretty good. I think I'm gonna join a rec team when I get home. All of a sudden when we were playing the darkest rain cloud I've ever seen started coming inbound fast and all the kids at the same time sensed it and just started to book it home. We are like what the crap. 5 minutes later the gates of hell were opened and the ocean was dumped on top of us. Literally it was raining harder than that one tournament in Idaho a while back with the Taylorsville kids when it rained for 5 minutes a few inches. This lasted for 7 hours. Me and Elder Fernandes decided to brave the buckets of rain dumping down and go get yeast and flower and cheese for pizza to make and I thought I was gonna have to carry him back from the store. I had my boots on which are unbelievably amazing and completely water proof up to the shin and my coat on and I didn't get wet at all other than my pants but i gave him my umbrella and he just got soaked up to his waist. the next day was like flooding pretty much. It was crazy. I put a few photos of the first of the storm after that we couldn't really go outside. This Saturday we had a capilla abierta open church and it was really good. We got tons of references and it was good to see the people from my district and zone one more time before transfers which are today. Me and Elder Tippetts are staying together one of the other Elders from Tommy flowers is leaving and pretty much everyone else from my zone is gone or training here. Crazy. Yesterday I said the closing prayer having no idea I was going to say it. Haha obispo got up at the end and announced I was saying the closing prayer and stunned me pretty bad but he winked at me and sat down. i think it was pretty good idk. Interesting facts about Argentina: First theres this thing called ciesta. It's where everyone literally everyone goes home and has lunch around 12 or 1 and then has a nap from 1 to 5. Literally every day. The streets turn into a ghost town its really dangerous because only the sketchy people that want to rob are out during that time cause no one is out unless they need to buy something really bad, So they have money. It's really hard to preach here because from 1 to 5 no one is outside and no one will answer the door because everyone is asleep or eating. Also everyone has gates here. So if we want to contact someones house you sit outside and clap until they hear you. Also no matter how poor you are everyone has a dish network satellite sitting on top of the house. everyone has TV here. and everyone has a cell phone even if you don't have enough food to eat. It's really messed up. Also this week we were in papa fransisco the super sketchy villa visiting a few members and all of a sudden there was a massive strike in the road. They lit the whole road on fire and were going bezerk with drums and everything. hahhaah It was sooo gnarly. Also I haven't had any money this week which was really humbling to be honest. The mission gives us 20 pesos for food a day mas o menos. Equivalent to 2 dollars. And I had to buy a bunch of stuff for the pension and am waiting for reimbursements so its been really tough. The good thing is that members feed us lunch and then we don't really eat anything else until the next lunch. And bread here is like 10 bucks for a kilo of bread and its super good fresh bread. So I eat a lot of bread. But honestly I love it here. the people are so amazing and I have lots of really good friends here in Tommy. Can't wait to talk to you more! Love Elder Lee Argentina, Tomas Flores
November 9, 2015 Wow this week was really good!! To be honest I've never worked so hard in my entire life. On Monday our p day we moved two moving trucks of crap into a members house for like 5 hours in the blazing sun. Here its like 85 degrees but the killer is the 95 percent humidity. It's getting hotter and hotter. It will be really hot for a few days and then the earth literally starts to sweat and then it pours really really hard and fills up the sanjas into the streets. It's pretty gross but we pray for rain hahha. So we had tons and tons of lessons and service this week but I'll just tell a few stories that are kind of interesting. I had zone leader inter cambios on Tuesday and he showed me how to do a bunch of paper work stuff. His name is Elder Orellana from downtown San Salvador. He's a straight boss. Anyways we were going through old investigator sheets and we both got the prompting to stop and look into it more. Her name is Marta and she's like 70 yrs old. We go and visit her with a member and shes a straight angel sent from heaven. Also she has the fattest dog I've ever seen. Everyone has a dog here. She ends up telling us that shes known the gospel was true for a long long time but she couldn't get baptized cause she is living with her husband. He had a wife before but got divorced but the lady was crazy and wouldn't sign the divorce papers. Here is death till we part or sign the paper so they've been waiting for her to die. hahaha. She died a week ago. So it was super cool. She is ready to get baptized and same with her husband like the day after they get married. and they really want to go through the temple. haha It's crazy shes a capa. We finally got a refrigerator and stuff for the pension so finally I took everything out of my suitcases and it feels really nice to be organized. The pension is super sweet!! My hands are covered in blisters and same with my feet. The bottoms of my toes are just covered but I've never been so happy in my life. We did service for this guy who lives in papa fransisco Saturday for 5 hours in 90 degree weather hitting rocks with a hammer to make them smaller so that he can plant plants. Here when it rains the earth literally soaks up the rocks haha its really funny we did the exact same thing before a rainstorm a few weeks ago and we came back and all the rocks were under the dirt... super weird. This morning I woke up and did some wash, cleaned some shirts etc and made some matte and my peanut butter and went out on the patio in the shade and read Mosiah 27 to Alma 14. Such power in those chapters. I find myself able to sit and study hard for 3 hours at a time with sips of matte every 2 minutes. It's really cool to be able to just dig into the scriptures and stay focused. There is a crazy bird lady that lives next to us with tons of birds and its really relaxing to listen to them. I just sat there after my study and thought of all the blessings I've had in my life. a great family, a country that is fundamentally sound and has good structure with rules and guidelines etc etc. money to eat and do the fun things of life. We are truly blessed. Honestly this was one of the greatest weeks of my life. I cant wait for next week! Sorry if I cant respond to everyone that wrote me. its a little tough to write everyone. Love you all have a great week! Elder Lee Argentina: Tomas Flores
November 2, 2015 Wow this week was unreal!! Best week yet. So Monday we went to a museum for district activity and got pizza so that was super fun I sent mom a picture. We had a bunch of lessons this week, like a ton. Almost a record for this area. It was a little bit of a crazy week tambien (also) because we had to move pensions. It's really hard to do everything cause the missionaries kinda are lazy but we got it done. Our pension is really really sweet now. It's called a duplex there are two pensions right next to each other so they are separate but when you need something its like 5 steps to the other elders pension. There was some problems with the other elders. So elder cortes my columbiano left me. He's awesome its the other elder that's retarded and just about ruined the ward. So we got a new elder his name is fernandes from cordoba. He's also pretty copado (cool/sweet). So there's a inactive family with a 9 year old kid that wants to be baptized, so we are teaching him as well as trying to get the family to get back to church. He is kinda chubby and he talks exactly like the baby elephant from Tarzan. It's really funny I was dying. This family also loves futbol so we always play with them. Volleyball is popular here so its pretty fun. This Sunday we had 8 people that aren't active or investigators come to church!!!! 2 families and a 9 year old. it was amazing. One of the people bore his testimony too. last night we had a family home evening with like 27 people hahhaha 4 families. We played uno and added a few rules so that it was super confusing and funnny. Then taught that the house should be a house of order and a house of God. and that we need to be organized and teach faith and read and pray with the family. D and C 88 119. super super fun and then we took pictures after. Everyone loved my camera hahha. I really need more of those picture things.... (He has a Polaroid camera, and needs film) Funny stories this week... We have a bidet. A toilet looking thing that shoots water up and cleans you. I had never used one before and had no idea what it did so me being me just pooped in it. It's the first time since I've been here its been solid and not diarrhea. well... What I didn't know is that you had to poop in the toilet right next to it and then wash yourself with the bidet. The APs were there helping us and it was really funny. I had to scoop it out and put it in the toilet cause the poo had no where to go hahha. funnny. Almost got hit by a horse too. A big one. For some reason there are GTI everywhere here. hahah. So many VWs. I see my car everyday. So here its 3 days warm and then it rains really hard because the heat warms up all the water and then it rains. And then it gets really really cold. I am so grateful for my sleeping bag. I really need some more white socks, pictures of the family and me like baseball my crazy hair, etc mostly family pictures, and more of those picture things for my camera. Well this week was super super good. Belle, I thought of you on Saturday. No one does anything here for Halloween. Jake your birthday is coming up too. There isn't anywhere in my area to send letters internationally, so sorry. Maybe my next area will. Only 2 months until we can see each other over skype. I love you all so much and can wait to hear how this week went. Love, Elder Lee |
Matt and Elder Brockbank
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