Another Baptism Scheduled

Gabriel had his baptismal interview and he will be baptized this coming Saturday.  Elder Herrera, our district leader, thinks he's really funny so he pulled a joke on us with Gabriel after the baptismal interview.  My companion and I were in a meeting with the ward missionaries planning for our upcoming Noche de Hogar [Family Home Evening].  Elder Herrera pulled us out and started on this spiel about how Gabriel shouldn't give up hope and that we were going to keep working with him and blah blah blah.  It sounded like Gabrial hadn't passed the interview and the only thing I could think was, "What did he DO?"  And then Elder Herrera said, "Congratulations.

...Wait...  What?

And then he and Gabriel busted up laughing.

I also had exchanges this week, where the sister training leaders come and train us and help us improve how we teach and stuff.  My companion had a great experience.  My exchange is something I would rather forget.  During the course of 30 minutes, the sister training leader told me every single one of my faults, that I wasn't doing a good job and that Gabriel would be exactly the same as Pablo, one of our recent converts.  By the time she was through with me, I honestly felt like it would have been better if I had never come on the mission and that I might as well just call the president right then and there and tell him to send me home.  It was awful and I don't understand WHY she would do that to me.  She is a sister training leader and is supposed to HELP me, not tear me down and then stomp on me.

Elder Herrera told her that she needs to call me and talk to me.  Apparently she told him that she was "uncomfortable" in our exchange.  When I started bawling right there in front of Elder Herrera and his companion, my own companion did me the favor of explaining that I was a lot more than just uncomfortable.  I don't really know what to think now.

And now I don't know what to do about Gabriel.  Before our exchange, I thought he was ready.  Now I don't know.

Pablo is going to the Iglesia Universal now.  He doesn't really want anything to do with us but doesn't actually come right out and say so.  Instead, he makes appointments and then later calls us and tells us that he can't make it.

And that was my week.  Hope that you all had a really nice week.
Hermana Crotzer

Empty Mail Boxes are Discouraging

The last month (and the four months before that) my mail box has been starving to death.   And so, to conserve its energy, I have decided that I won't write anyone until they send me something.  A letter is all I'm asking folks -- a good heart-felt letter.

There are about 3 to 6 weeks left of my mission for you to mail me a letter or card and have it arrive in time.  If postage is too much, send me e-mails.  This week I had 11 e-mails and 9 were from the mission office.  (Last week I had 15 and 13 were from the mission office.)

I had a great week.  If you want to hear about it, write me.

:) Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  The mission office has asked that we not send any packages.  It is too costly (both in time and money) to retrieve packages from customs.  But cards or letters work great.

"Mini" Hna Carrizo

My new companion is Hna Carrizo and she is 22 years old.  She says she is on the mini mission because she can't decide between being a missionary or serving the "other mission" -- i.e. being a full-time mother.  She loves to talk about how she doesn't know which path to take with whoever asks her about her mini mission.  Not that it's a bad thing that she doesn't know yet what to do.

My brain is still trying to change back to speaking Spanish all the time and I've been having a little bit of trouble.  Sometimes, mostly in the mornings, I have a really hard time understanding what Hna Carrizo is saying.  She also told me that I have a really bad gringo accent.  It's a little true.

It's supposed to be the middle of winter but it's really hot.  Most days we don't even have to take jackets with us because it's just soooo hot.

This Monday we went to a district activity.  We played a bunch of soccer and then the elders (we are the only sister missionaries in the district) changed over to basketball.  I don't do basketball with a bunch of boys so I sat out on the side.  It turns out there are a couple of other elders that don't like basketball either so we played some weird version of soccer were there is one goal and two teams of two.  The person who scores a goal becomes the next goalie until somebody else scores a goal.  It was REALLY fun.

Gabriel is still progressing like crazy.  Please keep him in your prayers.  AND I found out that Diego Quiroga, the son who I was teaching in Madariaga is going to be baptized the 9th!  Whoooo hoooo!

Hope that all of you have a really great week.

Con amor --
Hermana Crotzer

Mini-missionary Companion in Banfield

Not a whole lot has gone on this week.  We had visits on Friday, Sunday and Monday.  I have a new companion.  She's a mini-missionary and she's from here.  (She lives in the stake.)  That means that Hermana Kent got transferred.  She is now in Ezeiza.  We have a lot of appointments this coming week.  We'll see how that turns out.

Gabriel came to church on Sunday with all of his family.  He's progressing soooo well.  Please keep him in your prayers.

Hope you all have a nice week --
Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  A "mini-missionary" is someone who is paired with a regular full-time missionary to help out for a transfer or two.  (A transfer is six weeks.)  It could be that the mission is short of companionships and so a local youth is helping out, or it could be that someone is wanting to experience what it is like to serve a mission before they put in their full-time papers.  We'll ask Catherine for more details for next week.  As a reminder:  a "stake" is just a geographic area containing multiple congregations or "wards" of church members.  So the new mini-missionary lives somewhere not too far from where Catherine is serving, i.e. she is a local young woman.

Still Looking for People to Teach

Not much to report this week.  We walked a lot and we haven't found all that many people to teach.  Hna Kent and I thought it would be a good idea to go and see a bunch of the old investigators we have records for and see if they might be interested this time around.   The majority of them aren't but...

One of the statistics we report is how many people we talk to and try to share the gospel with.  I don't know if contacting old investigators counts towards this statistic so we haven't been counting it.  But if we did, we would have really, really, really high numbers.

We have one new investigator named Gabriel.  His parents are recent converts (of about a year) and we started teaching him recently.  He read all of the pamphlet for lesson one in one day for our next lesson.  We had only asked him to read a page!

Con amor --
Hermana Crotzer (formerly Cortez)

World Cup Finally Over

My brain is complete and total mush right now.  It probably has something to do with the fact that I inhaled a lot of chemicals this morning trying to kill a giant cockroach.  Bleh.

I forgot to tell you all last week about the cockroach family I found under the sink.  Mommy cockroach, Daddy, two kids, and Grandpa cockroach.  They are very dead now.  Raid for flys and mosquitos also kills cockroaches.  Maybe it's because these are the huge flying cockroaches.

This morning, the other grandpa cockroach invaded our apartment.  Probably to get revenge for killing his daughter and grandkids.  (I doubt he cares very much that we killed his son-in-law, but who knows.  Maybe they had a good relationship.)  After a lot of screaming and spraying of chemicals, Hna Kent finally succeeded in killing it with the mop.  The person who lives next door asked us if we were all right.  And we need to buy more Raid.

In other news, we walked around a lot.  A LOT.  And that's all I've got for the week.  I don't think we had any lessons.

Hermanas Crotzer and Kent (and a third companion???)

Germany won the World Cup and I might change my last name to something less German.  I have a feeling there are a lot of anti-German feelings in Argentina right now.  Cortez sounds like a nice new last name.  ;)

Until next week --
Hermana Cortez

Weird Week in Banfield

It's been a really weird week.  That's pretty much all I've got to say.

We had a nice lesson with Hector and Claudia which means that they are progressing.

We had to plan three times on Wednesday because people kept canceling things on us.

Friday was the fourth of July and we had "exchanges" that day.  Both the sister training leaders came to our area.

Saturday I turned 13 months old in the mission.

Sunday was Hna Newman's birthday.  We fibbed to her and her companion and set up a fake appointment in their area with somebody named Sabrina.  Sabrina was really Debora -- a recent convert of about four weeks.  Debora got baptized the Saturday before Hna Newman left.  Debora got a video from Hna Newman's mom and a bunch of other people singing "Happy Birthday" and she also made a cake and the whole nine yards.

Pablo didn't go to church this week because he wanted to watch a tennis match.  I'm worried he's going to go inactive soon.  He knows all the "right" answers but he doesn't know how to apply the Gospel to himself.  That's just a little important.  And of course I ignored that little voice inside my head because everybody else thought things were going great.

Today somebody sent me an envelope.  Just an envelope with my name on it.  There wasn't anything inside.  And only my mom sent me an e-mail this week.  So when I finish typing this I'll probably spend the rest of my hour and a half of time watching Mormon messages without sound.  I might even have time to watch the Joseph Smith movie.

Hope all of you had a nice week --
Hermana Crotzer