Banfield Baptism and Hailstorm

Well, we had a baptism this Saturday.  It has to have been the worse planned baptism I have ever been to.  And we planned it...

It's not that we did a bad job planning it, it's just that ALL -- and I mean AAALLLL -- of our plans fell through and didn't work.  Both of the talks didn't show up and neither did the prayers, so the missionaries ended up giving them.  Only one family came, even though about half the ward promised to come.  And to top it all off, the stupid video thingie didn't work.  Hna Kent and I went home after the baptism was finished even though we had another hour left to keep working.  We were just toooo stressed and our heads hurt.  But Debora, another recent convert, said that the baptism was nice and that she couldn't tell that NOTHING went according to plan.  That's my one little bright ray of sunshine.  And it seemed like Pablo, the guy who got baptized, liked it.

Last P-day, I mopped the floor.  This picture of a yellow tub and black water is what came up off the floor.  And that's just from the living room.  I dumped out the icky water and got fresh water to mop every room.  It was disgusting.  And I still haven't finished.  I doubt I'll get around to finishing it today but I did at least sweep up the fluff balls of lint and dust.  (I honestly have NO IDEA where all of the dirt comes from.)

We had interviews with the President this week.  He told me in his e-mail to me this week that I'm the new poster girl for his wife's cleaning campaign.  ;)

Oh, and it hailed  A LOT while I was mopping.  I was scared it was going to break the windows and the roof.  The people here tell me that it wasn't normal.  They say that the hail stones are normally much much much larger but that not nearly as many fall.  For them, it was a little like snow.

There was a youth activity Sunday night and they asked all the missionaries in the stake to come and teach the youth how to give a Book of Mormon to their friends.  It was really quite good.

And that was my week...   Hope all of you have had a great week --
Hermana Crotzer

Mundial [World Cup] and the Pony

As a very short summary for this week:  it was really long and really exhausting.  We have no investigators and as a result we spend hours upon hours walking around in the streets.  And that it's the mundial [World Cup] really doesn't help.  People keep asking us, "Why aren't you inside with everybody else watching fútbol [soccer]?"

We started off the week with several more investigators but they dropped us (the nerve).  Turns out they were just listening to the missionaries because they really liked Hna Newman.

There was a game Saturday between Argentina and Iran.  We were out in the streets when the first and only goal was scored.  Let's just say that my experience was a lot like the one Thomas had.  Everything was completely quiet and there wasn't anybody outside and then the next thing we know, there are a million people screaming all across Argentina.  People started running outside and shooting off fireworks and pistols and the whole works.  Hermana Kent and I thought we were going to die for a minute.

Sunday, we were considering going home early because there were so many drunks outside and because so many of them were following us and saying all sorts of drunken awfulness and absurdities.  We ended up going to a member's house, staying there for a couple of hours.  I hate to think what will happen this coming Saturday if Argentina loses the match.

Hopefully next week I'll have something to share about people we have found and are teaching but for now the only things I've got are funny things that happened to us while we were walking around in the streets looking for people.  For example, on Friday we got attacked by a pony.  Actually, it was just playing.  It would run at us and other people until it was just about to trample us and then it would turn and go find a new target all the while prancing happily in its new-found untied freedom.  It ran at us about three times and an old lady whacked it with her cane.  That was funny.

I finished reading the Book of Mormon again and I'm thinking of reading Doctrine and Covenants.  We'll see what happens.

Until next week --
Hermana Crotzer

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