Q&A

Editor's note:  In an effort to learn more about what Thomas does, his family sent him some questions.  He sent answers back in a Q&A format.  Catherine decided to answer the same questions this week in her report.  Enjoy.

Q:  What good have you done?
A:  Well...  I would sure hope that I have been helping the people in Argentina by trying to teach them the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I spend the majority of my day outside in the streets of Madariaga, Argentina looking for people who are ready and prepared to make changes in their lives and live in harmony with the commandments of God.  These people can either be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints already or they can be someone who isn't a member of the Church.

Q:  What successes have you had?
A:  I wouldn't really say that I've had all that many successes.  Now, now, let me finish.  The thing is that I can only talk to and invite people to change their lives.  And if they chose to change their lives, well, that's their own success now, isn't it?  But, to answer the point of the question...  There are several families that are now active in the Church and a few people who have chosen to be baptized.

Q:  What disappointments or setbacks have you experienced?
A:  I'm pretty sure every missionary feels a little, or a lot, disappointed when the people we are teaching decide that there are simply too many changes that they have to make in their lives to be members of the Church and keep God's commandments.

There are two really common setbacks that come from being a missionary in Argentina.  1)  Nobody is married and 2) almost everybody smokes.  And you have to change both in order to be baptized.

There is also a new program for the mission Argentina Buenos Aires South.  We are going to start focusing a lot more on the less active members and at the same time baptize and retain the recent converts.  The point is that now we are only going to report baptisms and confirmations and less active members who attend church and have an assignment.  The assignment part is the problem.  We missionaries can't give the assignment.  The president of the Elders Quorum or the president of the Relief Society needs to give the assignment.  Relief Society:  no problem.  Elders Quorum:  not as easy.  It's a little frustrating to me that one of the numbers we have to report has to do with the actions / willingness / enthusiasm / etc of another person who may or may not be willing / enthusiastic / whatever.

Q:  What can your friends and family ask for in their prayers to help you?
A:  Pray for our investigators!
Etelvina and Ivañes:  Ivañes is trying to stop smoking and drinking and the two of them need to get married.  Etelvina promised the Lord in her last prayer with us that she would get baptized but there are still a lot of changes she needs to make so that she can BE baptized.  And I want her to be baptized with her husband.
The Quiroga Family:  Victoria, the mother, needs to stop smoking.  She also needs to be married with her husband, a less active member named Juan.  The kids are darling and already have a desire to be baptized, so all we have to do is help Victoria quit smoking, get married, and be baptized with her family.

Q:  Have you taught anyone any of the missionary discussions lately?
A:  Yes.  Every day we teach at least one lesson and that lesson always has something to do with the missionary discussions.   Monday, for example, we taught Etelvina and Ivañes Lesson Three "The Gospel of Jesus Christ" from the Preach My Gospel manual.  From there we went and taught Mamirta, a less active member about the importance of attending church.

Q:  Do you do any tracting at all?
A:  Yes.  And I don't like it very much.  It's not that I'm scared of what the people will say, it's just that it's very time consuming and not very efficient.  We have to talk to at LEAST 200 people to find ONE person who, at least at first, is willing to talk to us.  I get tired of people constantly telling me that they are busy at the moment but that we can come back later.  And when we come back, they ignore us.  The people in Argentina are also really, really, really good at lying.  I can't even tell you how many times somebody has given us an address that doesn't exist.

Q:  What have you learned lately from your gospel studies?
A:  Well...  This morning I read in Alma 13 that if we are sincere when we are baptized that, after we receive the Holy Ghost, we won't want to sin.  I think that we will still have temptations but the Holy Ghost will help us resist these temptations.

All the miracles that happen in the world are because we have faith.  If we don't have faith, it either wouldn't happen or we would think up some dumb excuse for the miracle.

Q:  Did you provide any service this past week?
A:  I helped empty the Pinamar baptismal font with a bucket.  Two buckets, actually.  We made a little line.  I filled the bucket, a second hermana passed the filled bucket to a third hermana and this third hermana dumped the bucket out the window and finally, a fourth hermana passed the empty bucket back to me.  And we did all of this continually, with the two buckets, so that I was always filling and the hermana at the window was always dumping.  It took the four of us an hour to finish.  (Two of the hermanas had to empty the font a few weeks before and it took them a little more than five hours.  Somebody really needs to fix the pump...)

Q:  What kinds of things have you accomplished in the office?
A:  Nothing.  I don't work in the office.  This e-mail filled with questions was originally for my dear brother in Chile, and I just decided to respond to the same questions Mom sent Thomas.

Q:  Who is your companion?
A:  Hermana Pomader

Q:  Where is she from?
A:  Guayaquil (I think I spelled that right...)  Ecuador

Q:  How long has she been in the mission field?
A:  A little more than a year.  She and I will be leaving the mission field the same day.

Q:  If you had ward or stake conference lately, what talks impressed you the most or what did you learn?
A:  I heard a story about a bunch of ducks.  Every morning the king duck that lived in a big castle went flying and all of the village ducks were envious of him and how he flew.  So they asked him  to teach them how to fly.  He said "of course" and so one morning they all met up in the big castle and the king duck taught all of the village ducks how to fly.  He taught them how to ride the currents and how to make formations -- how the lead duck would have to work harder so that all of the other ducks following didn't have to work so hard.  He taught them how to glide, how to dive, and how to get up in the air and how to land.  Eventually, after having lots of fun, all of the ducks returned to the castle and the king duck told all of the village ducks that now they could fly because they knew how.  And when all of the village ducks left the castle to return to their houses, they left the castle walking.

How often do we learn something grand and then forget to live it?

Q:  Do you have any investigators or less actives that you are working with?
A:  I already told you about all of our investigators.  We are working with a few less active members right now but I have a feeling that the number will increase.

Juan:  He was the first or second counselor in the branch presidency but he hasn't really been coming to church lately.
Mamirta:  Is a dear lady who we have been working with.  She had an accident and was in the hospital for a little while.  Now she can't come to church because she has to work a bunch to pay off the hospital bills.
The Acosta family:  We found the Acosta family the other day so I still don't know a whole lot about them just yet.

I'm not sure if you all are going to be able to see my pictures.  I think my drive has a virus.  One of the pictures is my clean work space.  Thanks to one of my companions, I can't stand it when things are dirty or messy.  The other is of a frog that found its way into our house.  And the other is what happens when it rains.  The roof leaks.  We have to move all of our stuff into the middle of the rooms so that it doesn't get wet.  The picture is of the study room where we have the desk but our room where we sleep is a whole lot worse.  Maybe someday the mission will fix the roof.  Or maybe we'll get a new house.  I have my hopes.  I really don't like our current bathroom.

And that's all I've got for now.

Con amor,

Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  The pictures Catherine attached were definitely messed up.  We'll try to get new copies from her next week.

Happy Mother's Day!

Editor's note:  Missionaries are allowed to call or skype their families twice each year, once on Mother's Day and once on Christmas Day.  Both Thomas and Catherine skyped home and we enjoyed a 45-minute session with each of them.

Here are a few interesting tidbits from the conversations:

For Catherine's mission, the infamous bicycle has broken once again, and so when Catherine sent her weekly e-mail update to her mission president recently, she notified him of this.  And asked for a horse instead.  Her mission president wrote back that he enjoys reading her weekly updates and that she is very funny.  (I think that means "no horse.")

Catherine thinks she has lost about 30kg (or about 60lbs).  We thought it must be because of all the bicycling and walking that she does, but she says it is more because they only eat one meal a day.  They are on a very very tight budget, apparently.

She does her laundry at a laundromat, but because it is expensive and they must stretch their limited funds, they only do laundry once a month.  Which means wearing their clothes (she has outfits to last about two weeks) twice as long as normal, or doing some handwashing in between.  There are no dryers, and she says nothing dries completely.  (It has been raining a lot and humidity must be high.)  The weather is changing to the fall season and they are essentially on the coast, so temperatures have been cooler.

As far as her apartment, she says their "pension" has hot water, but there is only one temperature available:  scalding hot.  Or in other words, waaay too hot to tolerate for showering.  So they take cold showers.

Catherine is coming up on her one-year mark (in early June).  At that point, she will only have six months left on her mission.  When asked about upcoming transfers, she feels she will be staying put.  She says it cost a lot to get them to their current area and it isn't cost effective to be transferring them around too often.  She believes she might be asked to train a new missionary at some point.

And finally, she indicates that the thing she misses most on her mission is frito pie.

The news from Thomas is that he has gained at least some of the weight that Catherine has lost.  He has managed to accomplish this feat on only one meal a day (usually).  A "mamacita" cooks a large early afternoon meal for some of the missionaries there.  Thomas says it is huge but expected to last them all day.

Although he could, he says he does not eat breakfast often.  Chilean missionaries "rise and shine" at 7am (instead of 6:30am).  He spends time in the morning exercising, in individual scripture study, in companion scripture study and planning for the day, and then heads to the office.  After completing office duties, they head out into the "sector" to do missionary work.  They get home to their apartment at 9:30pm or 10pm at night.  Sometimes he makes "alfredo", which he said was boiled noodles with alfredo powder sprinkled on them, and then parmesan cheese sprinkled on that.

Church members do the missionaries' laundry for them, usually once a week but sometimes every other week.

The weather there has not been rainy lately, but they are heading into the rainy season (it is turning fall there also) and that means it may rain for days at a time.

Thomas' mission president (the Firestone executive) is going home soon.  He and his wife have only a few weeks remaining of their three-year assignment as the Osorno mission president in Chile.  At that point, the new mission president who is from Mexico will arrive to take over.  Because of this change in mission leadership, Thomas feels he will remain assigned to the mission office for one or two more transfers (six-week periods).  Until the new mission president learns the ropes, it will be up to the young missionaries to ensure the mission runs smoothly.  After that, Thomas thinks he will be assigned to a new area, because he is approaching the limit of a normal assignment to any one place.

The thing Thomas misses most on his mission is his violin.  The only violin available in his current area is someone's from church, but it is a three-quarter size violin and therefore smaller than what Thomas is accustomed to playing.  He has not played since the conference at which he was asked to perform a musical number with two other missionaries several months ago.

Lost Agenda and Eggs in Burgers

Well...  we might have a slight problem today.  I can't remember very well what we did for the last week.  And I lost my agenda, so I can't look back at my notes and appointments to reconstruct all our activities.

The record of the last six weeks of my life -- as contained in my agenda -- gone!  Soaking sopping wet, run over by some car, picked up by some stranger, washed into the underground who-knows-where-it-goes street drainage things, no longer in my hands, just GONE.

m(TT^TT)m

That mess of letters and symbols right there is me.  Crying.

Anyway.  Moving on to what I can remember.  It rained.  A lot.  We didn't go out sometimes because it was raining soooo hard.  I finished reading Acts in the Bible and started on Romans.  The funny thing is that my comprehension skills in English have fallen a little (or a lot, I'm not sure) to be reading the Bible in English, but I don't understand the passages very well in Spanish either because my skills just aren't that advanced.  So I now read the same passage twice -- once in English and again in Spanish -- to make sure I catch everything and understand what is written.  I'm not sure if I have a lot of trouble because I can't speak Spanish or English now, or if it's because it's the Bible and they talk funny.  I'm tempted to go with "it's the Bible."  At any rate, it can be slow-going.

On Sunday, the Quiroga family didn't make it to church.  The daughter had a sleepover at some friend's house and didn't come back in time to make it to the 9:00am sacrament meeting.  So they chose not to come.

BUT, one of our other investigators made it to the chapel even though it was all cloudy, wet, and dreary outside.  I have complete and total faith that she will get baptized.  The only thing is that she still doesn't know that she has to get married.  But I can't imagine why that would be a problem.  She has grandkids with the man she's with.  And she already has a testimony of the Book of Mormon.

We ate hamburgers last night with the Gonzales family.  People here put egg in their hamburgers.  And when I told them that we don't do that in the States (at least not in my family), there was an uproar.  They told me that we MUST eat hamburgers with egg because McDonald's sells hamburgers with egg in them.  Yeah.  That's an Argentina thing.

And that's all I can remember of my week.

Oh, just kidding, one more thing!  We found a frog in our apartment this week.  I have pictures but I can't send them from this computer so you will have to wait until later to see them.

Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  A clarification on the egg in the burgers.  Catherine is not referring to adding a raw egg to the raw hamburger and seasonings, then forming patties and cooking.  She is saying that they add chopped up hard boiled egg to the burger mix.  Apparently.

"American" Cookies, Seafood, Popped Tires

Hello again everybody.  It's been yet another week.  Whoooo!

The truth is, I don't remember what I did last week.  But I think I wrote about it last week so...  everything is all right.  I'll use my notes to remember and tell you all about my activities.  :)

Tuesday we had our usual district meeting.  The only thing different was that it was here in Madariaga and not in Pinamar.  Our branch president came along with the Relief Society president.  I thought it went quite well.  And after that we went to visit a very elderly member who lives at the end of the world.  She reminds me a lot of my great grandma.

On Wednesday, we had an appointment with a less active member who isn't on our list of members.  He tells us that his godfather -- the person who baptized him -- is famous in the States.  Casey Elliot?  Never heard of him.  But that might just be me.  This member is a little different.  He knows a lot about the Mormons and what we believe but he gets it all mixed up with lots of other religions.  Maybe it's just that he hasn't come to church for so long that he just doesn't remember that much of the correct doctrine.

Thursday we had a couple lessons and we made cookies with some of the members.  We are doing this activity where we go and teach the members how to make "American cookies" and then they have to go and share the cookies with another family or two.  So far it's worked out pretty well.  The only thing is that everybody thinks I should know how to make brownies from scratch.  Nope.  I like box brownies.  (Mom, if you can, please send me a simple brownie recipe.  Hna Gonzales and half of the other sisters here have told me that I have to teach them how to make brownies.  HELP ME!  I don't know how to make brownies.)

On Friday I ate seafood.  Hno Sanchez is from Peru and he likes to make Peruvian food for us.  We ate -- I don't know what it's called in Peru -- rice with mussels, shrimp, and squid.  And bell peppers and onions.  ...I ate squid...  Ewwwwww.  Actually, it's not that bad.  It's just really...  chewy.  And mussels aren't all that bad either.  They just look like deformed fish hearts.  Supposedly Hno Sanchez sent pictures to Papa over Facebook.

On Saturday we made tacos with Manolo, our branch mission leader.  I think he was bored so he called us to come and hang out with him.  Afterwards, he went with us to help teach in our appointments.  We had a really nice lesson with the now less active ex-second counselor in the branch presidency.  He promised that he would come to church next Sunday!!

The Quiroga family came to church on Sunday!!!!!  And they really liked it!  I'm not quite sure when, but we are gonna see some baptisms in Madariaga!  The teenage son is super excited to go to seminary this Wednesday and the younger girls loved Primary.  We also had three very very very very less active members come to church on Sunday.  To top off all of the miracles, the bike tire popped.  I think it's becoming a trend.  Bike tire pops Sunday during church, we walk home to cook some lunch and then walk to all of our appointments.  On Monday, we do our thing and then take the bike to get fixed.  Ehhh.  Whatever.

Hope everything is going well for all of you.  Talk to you all next week!  :)
Hermana Crotzer

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter!!!  Well, I have a couple fun stories to tell about this past weekend.

Friday night, we had a lesson with the Quiroga's (the family of gold) and this second lesson was just as good and fantastic as the first.  And then we ran (biked, really) as fast as we could to the chapel, which wasn't close by, so that we could have our interviews with President Thurgood.  We got there late by my watch but right on time by his so everything was okay.  Afterwards, we went out to dinner with President and Sister Thurgood and Elder and Sister Dance (a missionary couple who were traveling with them,  Elder Dance is the financial secretary).  They treated us to a pizza and then we went off to see "La Pasion segun San Juan" [The Passion according to St. John].  Let's just say that Friday was a really, really good night.  :)

When I say -- type -- whatever -- "La Pasion" [The Passion], think Mesa Arizona temple Easter Pageant but waaaay Catholic.  It's the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ put to traditional Argentine music with traditional dances.  A gaucho (cowboy, more or less) tells the story from his point of view but using the words of the Bible found in the Gospel according to Saint John.  A member of our church was in charge of inviting all of the religious clergy in Madariaga and she managed to reserve front row seats for us.  It really is like the Mesa pageant and it's all free.  Just the front two or three rows are reserved for people, mainly church people and important city counsel people.  Or something like that.

President Thurgood sat by the Catholic priest and at the end of the performance, the local radio interviewed us to ask us, "what the United States and Ecuador thought of La Pasion in Madariaga."  And the Catholic priest invited President Thurgood to Mass that Sunday and gave all of us a hug and a kiss.  Including Hna. Pomader and me.  In front of President...

President Thurgood also attended church in Madariaga on Sunday so he got to hear my talk.  He had to speak as well.  For half an hour.  There were five speakers on Sunday and four of them were gringos.

On Saturday, the bike broke.  Not just kinda-broke-take-it-to-the-bike-shop-and-have-them-patch-the-tire but take-it-to-the-shop-and-have-to-pay-at-least-$200-so-while-you're-at-it-fix-the-outer-tube-as-well-and-whatever-other-problems-there-might-be.  And so, thank you Mama for sending me money for my birthday.  I'm gonna need it.  We are broke until the mission gives us some more money.  The entire zone is having money problems.  We, in Madariaga, have more than the rest, but we only have about $100.  That doesn't cover the bike.  Or food for the next week.  But we at least have something.  The Hermanas in Pinamar have nothing.  Don't worry, I'm keeping track of what I'm spending so that I can pull it out of the money that the mission gives us.  Elder Dance told me to do that.

On Sunday my companion and I had lunch with one of the less-active members here.  It wasn't the most delicious meal I've ever eaten nor was there really all that much to eat.  But it was all he had and he was soooo happy that we came over.  He also gave us Huevos de Pascua [Easter eggs] and that meant so much more to me than all of the other people who also gave us Easter eggs.  (All of the eggs were really yummy and everything and I am grateful for all I was given.)

And those are the last three days of my week.  Hope you all had a great Easter weekend!
--Hermana Crotzer

A Family of Gold

To explain this first picture:  That's my birthday lunch.

We made tacos.  My companion made the filling and I made the tortillas.  I'm pretty impressed with myself.  Argentina doesn't sell tortilla mix.  They have all sorts of other types of flour but nothing to make tortillas.  So I figured I could probably figure out how to make an imitation of what we call flour tortillas.  Yup.  All you need, as far as I'm aware, is flour and water.  Ohhh...  They were soooo tasty.

That same night, part of the ward -- the Sanchez family and Manolo -- decided to have a party for me and Hna Sanchez.  (Her birthday was yesterday.)  Manolo bought a cake and Hno Sanchez brought the empanadas and soda pops.  I, unfortunately, don't have any pictures but Hno Sanchez tried to send some to Dad through Facebook.

This next picture is a funky heart-shaped potato that we bought at the store.  I love french fries.  They are also pretty easy and quick to cook.

The third picture is me at the beach.  And naturally, in the only picture of me on my camera, I have my eyes closed.  But in the million and one pictures that my companion took of herself (her camera broke so she decided to use mine so that she could still send pictures to her boyfriend), she looks just fine.  Whatever.  I'm sure we will go back to the beach eventually and I can get a good picture.  And if not, Photoshop works miracles.

 

I learned something interesting this week.  I learned that I am really bad at recognizing and following the promptings of the Spirit.  People say that sometimes it's hard to tell if it's the Spirit talking or it's our own brain.  Twice this week I had "a feeling" that I just shrugged off as my own and later found out that it was the Spirit trying to prod me in the right direction.  How much time could I have saved if I had listened?  How much pain could my companion have avoided if we had listened?  I think that sometimes we have  "feelings" that we just shrug off as our own or thoughts that we think are just plain crazy that are really impressions from the Spirit.  And we should follow them.  If this thought or feeling doesn't hurt anyone, why not try it out and see what happens?  Who knows, it could be our imagination or it could be the Spirit whispering to us, trying to guide us.  Preach My Gospel isn't wrong when it says that the Spirit doesn't talk to us by shouting at us or shaking us.  We have to be listening and ready to act on any little whisper that could be the Spirit.  And I think that, more often than not, we will find that the feelings and thoughts that we have are the Spirit guiding us.  And that's my super spiritual thought for the week.

This last picture is of our beach buddy.  I have no idea where he came from, he's probably just another stray, but he met up with us as we were going to the beach and he hung out with us until we left the beach.  Isn't he cute?

We met a family of gold the other day and we had our first lesson with them some two or three days ago.  They are perfect.  The father is a less-active member who isn't on any of our lists.  Every time he passes by the church, he tells his daughters that that was where he went to church as a boy.  When we had our lesson, they turned off the TV without us ever asking them to.  And the 14-year-old boy told his father at the end of the lesson that he liked what he had heard.  If you all could pray for them, I would be ever so grateful.  I don't know if I could ever describe how much I want to see them get baptized.  It's not everyday that we find a family that is so ready to hear and accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  Especially not in La Costa.

And...  That's all for this week.
Hermana Crotzer

General Conference and the Beach!

Well, it's been yet another week.  (I can hardly believe it!)  What did you all think of General Conference?  I'm really really hoping I can get my hands on the General Conference issue of the Ensign magazine.  I watched almost all of General Conference in English but I would still like to be able to read the talks and write what I think and stuff like that in the margins of the magazine.  If any of you didn't get the chance to watch General Conference, I recommend watching it as soon as you have the time.  You can even watch it just one talk at a time on your fancy-smanshy phones.

For P-day today we went to the beach.  I took photos but I forgot my camera in Elder Flores' back pack.  (Don't worry Mom, he's going to give it to me tomorrow when we see each other in Zone meeting.)  Soo...  the pictures of the Argentine beach will have to wait till next week.

Time is a little rushed.  Sorry I don't have more to say.

Until next week --
Hermana Crotzer