Well this past week was great! We had a
great time here in Juncal 3 and are doing very well. If you can not tell
by the subject of the email I am now able to enjoy one of the best
inventions in the history of mankind, air conditioning. My apartment
here is one of like 2 or 3 in the entire mission that has air
conditioning. Haha it is absolutely amazing. It is extremely small and
we have 4 elders in there but seriously the A/C is worth squeezing 4
more in there if we had to. The other night I woke up and was soooo
confused at the weird feeling I had, I couldn´t figure out what it was
as every other time I have woken up here I have been sweating and dying
of heat. After a couple a seconds of pure confusion I realized I was
actually cold.... COLD! Haha I honestly could not believe that I
actually had to put a blanket on! Needless to say I have been sleeping
great lately haha.
Well other than the air conditioning there was also other great
things that happened this week. We had our first zone meeting this week
of the Belgrano zone. They announced that this next Monday,
the 10th, the entire mission will be going to the Buenos Aires temple! I
am so extremely excited! I have literally been dreaming of a chance to
go to the temple since I got here. Our mission is having great success
right now and the President Ayre thought that it would be great to get
everyone together at the temple as a reward and motivation to keep up
the great work. The entire mission is buzzing with excitement now haha. I
am not sure how Pday will work that day as we will be at the temple for
most of the day, but I am sure that I will have some time to write at
some point in that day or the next.
Other than that we had the great
opportunity to have President Ayre and his Dad come out and work with us
for a night a few days ago! We have 4 Elders and 2 sisters in our ward
so the Sisters had them for the first part of the day and then us and
the other Elders that we live with had them for the rest of the day. It
was a great experience and actually really funny. Pres. Ayre´s dad
served two missions in Germany and so what little Spanish he knew was
mixed with English and German, so I had to translate for him as those
are the three languages that I know as well haha. The President also had
an interesting experience haha. While on visits with us he got bit by a
dog and stepped back to kick it and fell into a hole full of black,
slimy water that smelled so bad hahaha. We felt so bad and helped clean
him up so bad but we were all laughing too hard, including him! The
visits went great that night though and I absolutely love working with
the Pres. He is such a great guy. I can tell where he gets his success
from though as his dad was an international lawyer and traveled all over
the world. He was also the personal lawyer for Elder Dallin H. Oaks.
Needless to say he has more than enough money to go around haha.
My first Sunday
with my ward was great as well. Half my area here is really really rich
and the other half is very poor. There are a few members here in the
ward who are from the U.S and working with companies here in Buenos
Aires. One of them is an accountant for one of the "Big 4" companies in
the world. Another guy is from Holland and speaks 5 languages, but his
English is better than his Spanish so we talk in English. His best
language is German though so him and I speak in a mix of English,
German, and Spanish haha. Needless to say it gets confusing talking to
him!
We did not have any baptisms this week but we had 8 investigators
come to church so we are looking foward to a bunch coming up! The area
here is great and so is my comp. We work very well together and we will
be having some great success this transfer I can tell. Myself and the
other Elders in our apartment are also having a great time together. We
have started writing down all the funny stuff we say cause there are
some really good ones! My comp is legit but also a little over direct
with investigators sometimes haha. The funny thing is that he always
says the truth, he just lacks the social tact sometimes haha. Like there
is a grandma of one of our investigators who always always tells us
that her grandson is not there, even if it is obvious he is. The other
night we knocked on the door and her husband, the kids grandpa, answered
and said that he wasnt there. We asked how he knew and he said that his
wife told him that the kid wasn´t there. My comp frankly told him that
his wife is a liar and not to trust her and like 2 minutes later the kid
came out haha. I guess it worked cause we had a great lesson and he
should be getting baptized this weekend!!
Anway I am doing really well. It has been switching between
extremely hot and downpour rain here the last couple of days. It is all
good though and I am loving it here. There really isn´t anything that I
can ask for cause there really isn´t much that I need right now! Oh yeah
we found a burger king the other day in our area and we each had a BK
Stacker Quadruple with fries and drink. Needless to say our bodies were
not adjusted to that kind of grease and meat and nobody slept at all
that night haha. It was totally worth it though and we are already
planning to go back soon haha. We also have like 3 subways in our area
so we go there about every other day for "first lunch". Then we head to
the members house for "second lunch" if we have it haha. We can get a 6
inch sub there for 20 pesos which is like 3 bucks or something like
that. My comp from Chile is in love with subway and his mom sent him
some money this month so that he can buy for both of us haha. Needless
to say we are doing well together!
Anyway there isn´t much else going on around here. Just working our
hardest in the work of the Lord. All I can really ask for is that
everyone keeps up the prayers for our investigators and that we can find
the Elect of the Lord who are ready to accept the Gospel and that we
can help them come through the waters of baptism into the Church. The
work is moving right along here in La Gran Misión Buenos Aires Norte and
the mission is seeing more more success now than ever before. We broke
our mission´s baptismal goal of 120 last month by 28 baptisms! It is
incredible to see the Lord hasten his work just as the scriptures as
well as latter-day prophets and apostles said he would. It is such a
blessing to be a part of this, the greatest generation of missionaries
ever (sorry bros but Elder Holland said so a few months ago haha). I
have learned so much about how personal of a relationship we can have
with our Father in Heaven as well as our Savior Jesus Christ. If we
truly want to know him then we need to serve him. I can testify that
there is nothing more satisfying than the feeling that comes from
helping bring souls, including your own, to Christ. I love this work and
am so excited to go to the temple next week! I love each and every one
of you and if there is anything I can say to you it is just to commit
yourself to serve the Lord and never look back. As we do so we are
promised more blessings than we can imagine! Once again I love you all
and I hope you all have a great week!!!
Love Always,
Elder Zollinger
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