Hello Banfield!

Well...  I'm in my new area:  Banfield-1a and I'm replacing Hna Newman.  (And Hna Newman is going to one of my old areas:  Luis Guillon.)

A taxi came and picked up Hna Pomader and me in Madariaga Sunday at 4:00pm.  We drove four hours to the apartment in Banfield-1a.  The apartment in Banfield-1a is really big!  It has eight beds and it's where people come to stay the night if they have to travel somewhere.  It's also really close to the mission home.  It's like a really big, shiny castle after what we had in Madariaga.

Tonight there are five other people staying the night with us.  (Their companions are all MTC new and don't arrive until tomorrow.)  When we left this morning we didn't have light or water so we weren't sure how we were going to accommodate five other people.  But it got fixed so it's all okay.  :)

Manolo made us cry when he called at 3:00pm, an hour before we left and told us to have a good life -- like we aren't ever going to see him again.  And he might be right...  I might never see him or anybody in Argentina again.

Hna Kent is my new companion.  She has three months in the mission and she will be my first gringa companion.  I guess President Thurgood thinks my Spanish is good enough to teach somebody else.  I'm not so sure but it should be fun.

The picture attached is the Quiroga family.  The father is a less active member and we were teaching his wife and kids in Madariaga.

'Til next week when I have some more stuff to share --
Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  Hermana Newman was Catherine's first and only companion in Baltimore when both Catherine and Hermana Newman were waiting for their visas to Argentina.  They worked together for five months, got their visas at the same time, travelled together to Argentina, and have had different companions and areas ever since.  Hermana Newman's family posts Hermana Newman's messages home on a blog, which you might enjoy reading:

http://hermananewman.blogspot.com/

If you take a look at Hermana Newman's blog post dated June 9, 2014, you will see that Hermana Newman just sent her family some pictures of the apartment that Catherine describes as a castle.  It does look pretty nice!  But if you read further back to the post dated April 28, 2014, you will see that there were some exciting plumbing issues involving shower water flooding the apartment one week.

We hope Catherine doesn't have any of those problems!  :)  

Sad to be Leaving Madariaga

Look at what I found!!!!  We bought it because I wanted a picture.

And then we ate it because we didn't have any other food and it was actually one of the better tasting hamburger patties I have ever eaten...

Here is a picture of (from left) Etelvina, Lutmilda, and Ivañes, one of the families we have been working with.

Etelvina was going to get baptized on the 14th, a few days before we left Madariaga but her date fell through.  Her husband, Ivañes, has been trying to quit smoking, but is struggling to be successful.  The little girl in Etelvina's lap is Lutmilda, their grandaughter.  She lives with Ivañes and Etelvina.

This next picture is of (from left to right) Manolo, the Sanchez family, and us missionaries.

Hermano Sanchez invited us over for one last meal at his house before we leave Madariaga.  We ate rice with clams and shrimp.  (And because he knows that I don't really like squid, he left it out this time.)  It was very very tasty and very fun with Manolo and Hermano Sanchez together.

The next picture is Manolo and the three pots of stew that he cooked for us.

Three pots.  One for each one of us.  It was very tasty, again, until my companion and he started sucking the nasty jello-y stuff out of the centers of the bones.  Manolo is single so he puts his table and chairs outside so that we can eat with him.

(People have been giving us a lot more food than normal this last week.  We've had three meals this week in place of the normal once every other week.)

This last picture is Manolo before he got his hair cut.

We had a service project and went with him to the barber shop.  :)  We've been begging him for the last three months to cut his hair.  He wouldn't even cut his hair for his girlfriend -- but when the missionary sisters are going to leave Madariaga, well, that changes things.  :)  Manolo is like our crazy older brother.  If we ever need anything, we can always ask him.  We just have to keep reminding him to make sure that it gets done.

I think I'm a little sad to be leaving Madariaga.

Hermana Crotzer

Elders are Coming to Madariaga

My biggest news this week is that elders are coming to Madariaga.

We had zone conference in La Costa this Saturday.  President and his wife and the Dance couple came along with the councilors of the mission.  It was very good.  We learned lots of new things like the importance of Preach My Gospel and how to work better with the local church leaders.

I have to say that the best part of all the conference was a talk given about how to work more closely with the local leaders to help the less-active members.   The talk was given by the amazing pair of Hermana Pomader and Hermana Crotzer.  :)  Just kidding.  But we really did give a talk about how to work with the leaders to help the less-active members.  And I suppose we did a good job because everybody told us, "good job" afterwards.

Afterwards, we were waiting for the President to finish up talking with all of the people who wanted to talk with him (he was our ride back to our area) and we kept hearing the name "Madariaga" whispered over and over again.  After talking with the zone leaders, President came over to us and told us that he wants to put elders in Madariaga so we need to make sure the area book is in good condition and we need to be packed and ready to go in two weeks.

He also told us that it wasn't our fault or anything.  That made me feel much better because for a minute I thought it was the e-mail I sent him last week telling him about how much, and why, I dislike the apartment here.  

Speaking of the apartment, we found a rat outside the door of our apartment.

Actually, it was a baby rat and we only found it's guts, tail and paw.  I suppose a cat got it.   But where there is one baby rat, there are probably more.  I was going to tell President in my letter to him that if we got rats in our apartment, we were moving.  But I guess it doesn't really matter anymore.

One of our investigators has decided, maybe, that she doesn't want anything to do with our church.  Not because she says it isn't true, but because we worship different than she is used to.  She is used to singing praises and great miracles -- like people speaking in tongues and convulsing on the floor in the middle of church.  Her husband is still progressing except that he fibs to us about how many cigarettes he is smoking.  I'm not really sure what to think.  If she doesn't what to be part of our church, she doesn't have to be.  But it makes me very sad because I know that she won't find the same happiness or fullness anywhere else.

Our other investigators, on the other hand, told us in our appointment last night that they are going to get married.  (We won't be here so it's a little sad but they said they would send pictures.  And the elders will be able to help their son a lot.)  It's like the miracle we were praying for.  We weren't sure how to move forward with their family because the wife wasn't progressing but the kids were.  Well, now the wife is progressing a lot and it turns out the kids weren't quite as ready for baptism as we thought.  Now the husband and wife will get married, and the kids will wait a bit so that they can learn more and understand better.  And with all of this working together, the father --a less active member -- will be able to baptize his kids.

Our branch mission leader is a little sad that we are leaving and that the elders are going to take over the responsibility of Madariaga, but the branch needs help with priesthood leadership.  I guess the lack of women in his life might be some incentive for him to get married. :)

Con amor,
Hermana Crotzer

My "Hole-y" Week

This week has been full of holes.  Literally.  And I will explain why.

On Tuesday, we didn't spend all that much time outside proselyting.  We had our traditional district meeting in Pinamar, we came back to Madariaga, cooked, ate, and studied English or Spanish.  After all that my companion and I went out for about a half hour and had a little dispute.  I wasn't feeling well, Hna Pomader wasn't feeling well, and we let it show in our words and actions with the other.  So, we went back to the house and worked things out.

Hermana Pomader was mad at me because she thinks I should try harder when it comes to making decisions and I was angry because what difference does it make if I say what I think we should do -- to me it seemed like my opinion didn't matter.  She was also mad at me because she says that I whine like a rich, spoiled American brat about all of things I don't like about our house.  That part probably is true.  And I should change it.

And moving on, my companion got attacked by a dog.  She has this big black rain poncho like the ones the Boy Scouts wear -- big and plastic-y with a hood.  When she wears it and rides the bike she becomes this big black flapping thing that just begs the dogs to bite her.  It wasn't funny while it was happening, but afterwards -- and maybe only to me -- it's really really roll-on-the-ground-laughing funny.  Here's a picture of the hole the dog made when it bit her rain poncho.

For service, we dug a hole in skirts to help one of our less-active members.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture.  :(  And she didn't come to church this Sunday anyway.  But, whatever, there's always next week.

I had to chuck out one of my skirts because, I think, the bike chewed a hole in the hem.  Or a few holes.

I guess my skirt got caught between the tire and the mud guard while I was riding and I didn't find out until we got back the house.  Good thing I was wearing leggings underneath my skirt because it's so cold.  Now I have a cute new headband made of exactly the same fabric as this said skirt.  :)

Etelvina and the Quiroga families came to church on Sunday and also 10 less-active members -- four of whom haven't come to church in the last two months.   And there were 38 people in the sacrament meeting.  Normally we have between 10 and 15.

Today we went to the museum here in Madariaga.  It was pretty interesting.  The owner showed us around personally and he let us touch everything.  Actually, he handed us these who-knows-how-many hundreds of years old bones and fossils saying, "Here, take this."  I would guess that people don't pass by very often.  We also went to see the giant Christ statue and I got attacked by flying spiders.

I managed to take the picture before the spiders started flying at me.

This evening we are going to finish off our p-day by going to the cemetery.  My companion wants to and who knows, it's an oooold cemetery so maybe we'll find something interesting.  And then we are going to make tacos with Etelvina and her family for a family home evening.

I finished reading Alma in the Book of Mormon.

And I've run out of time so I have to go now.

Until next week --
Hermana Crotzer

Zone P-day at Beach (and River Wins!)

Well...  It's been another week.  And, as always, I'm not really sure what to write.  Yet again, I don't have my planner with me, but this time it's because we are in Pinamar for a zone p-day.

(Let me just say that I hate this keyboard I'm using...  Okay, now that that's out of the way...)

I really feel like people need to learn how to plan ahead.  Maybe in school they would receive half credit for trying.  :)  Yesterday, late at night, we were informed that, for our zone p-day, we would be watching a movie, eating lunch and then going to the beach.  (In the mission Buenos Aires Sur, we can watch one Disney movie every transfer -- six weeks -- as a group of missionaries.)  Instead, we went to the beach, and then watched the movie.  It wouldn't be so bad but the activity took up aaaalllll of our p-day.  We don't have any more time to go and buy food and do whatever else we need to.  Whatever.  Next Monday, we can do what we want/need to do.  :)

Yesterday I had to give a talk in church.  And I had less than five minutes to prepare it.  Both of the speakers that the president had asked to give talks didn't show.  So, while the only young man in the branch passed the sacrament, the president was mouthing at me, asking me to give a talk.  Yup.  That's when you pull out your scriptures, find a really long scripture to read and then talk about it for a bit.

My talk was about prayer and I used two (long) scriptures from the book of Alma.  One was about where we can pray (anywhere), and the other was about what we can pray for (anything).

River, one of the futbol clubs here in Argentina won some important match yesterday.  Something about being the best team in all of South America.  All of the River fans were out partying it up in the center of town.  I really wish I had had my camera with me.  But I didn't.  :(  Bummer.  Let's just say all of the River fans who had cars drove, very slowly, down main street so we couldn't pass.  And when we finally did pass, the next street had all of the rest of the River fans who didn't have cars.  There was even a dump truck full of teenagers with more people jumping in whenever the truck stopped.

One of our investigators, Etelvina and Ivañes, fed us dinner the other day.  And a few days before that too.  The first time, we didn't know that they were going to feed us, so we finished the lesson with only 15 min to get back to our house.  We were late.  And the worst part is that President Gonzalez, the owner of our house and our neighbor, got kind of worried when we didn't get back on time.  So he called the president of the district (a mini stake) asking if he had the numbers to our district leaders...  I don't feel bad about being late -- what more could we have done?  But I do feel really really bad about making other people worry.

I'm sending pictures again.  This first picture is of our wall.  The roof leaks when it rains.  

When we know that it's going to rain, we move the beds into the middle of the room so that we can sleep dry.  Pres. Gonzalez said he was going to fix it soon.

This second picture is of my nice and clean study space.  (It's actually not that clean in the picture.)  I have become a clean freak.  

I finally figured out how to take nice, warm showers.  I fill up a bucket half way with the freezing cold water from the kitchen and then the rest of the way with the scaldingly hot water from the shower.  And then I use a cup to dump the water on my head and wash out all of the shampoo and conditioner.  It works pretty well.  I have to say that my hair is cleaner than it has ever been before in Madariaga or Cañuelas because 1) there is sufficient water to rinse my hair and 2) I'm not scared of burning or freezing now.  

This last picture is me with my new helmet.  Yeah!

Somebody told us that they were listening to the radio the other day.  The people on the radio were talking about traffic rules or something like that and they said that the only people who follow traffic rules are the Mormons -- because we have helmets.

As far as news regarding our investigators, it turns out that Ivañes and Etelvina ARE married and so we don't have to worry.

There was a dog following me yesterday.  It happens a lot to me.  It kept following me even when we passed the interstate and I was really worried it was going to get lost.  And so, to try and make it stop following me and keep it from getting lost, I smacked it on the head and pushed it along with my foot telling it to go home.  It kept following us anyway, and I felt awful for hitting the dumb thing even if it wasn't very hard.  So what does my companion do?  She smacks it really hard with her bag.  Yeah.  It stopped following us then.  And I still feel bad for the poor thing.

Aannnnd.  That's all I can remember for now.  And I'm out of time anyway.

Until next week,
Hermana Crotzer

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.