Monday, March 31, 2014

¡Hola! (March 30)

Hello all!

Well here we are again with another week down in the good old mission. First of all we were able to have a baptism this past week! His name is Nahuel and he is the cousin of Maria who we baptized a few weeks ago. He is 17 years old and such a cool kid. He was baptized on Saturday and then I confirmed him on Sunday. He accepted everything we taught so fast and although it took 2 weeks to get him to wake up in time we finally got him to go to church the past few weeks haha. He is awesome and we were so happy to be able to have his baptism. He even had a competitive soccer tournament on Saturday that he skipped to come be baptized. 
 
One funny note is that there are two soccer clubs that are huge here in Buenos Aires. One is called the Boca Juniors and the other is called River Plate, and they are both HUGE rivals. His entire family are fans of Boca and he is the only one who is a fan of River, who is my favorite team as well. Last night we went to his house to fill out the baptismal registry and River and Boca were playing each other. River ended up winning on a last second goal and he was running around the house screaming while his entire family was basically crying. He ran over to me and we did the River chant and it was hilarious! Anyway it was all fun and games and his mom even made some popcorn for us while we filled out the registry. His mom also came to his baptism Saturday and afterwards she told us that she is 100% going to be baptized this next Sunday in between sessions of General Conference in the stake center! She also wants to get baptized with her other son who is Nahuel´s brother but he would have to come on Saturday to General Conference as well so he could be baptized on Sunday. We will see how that goes! We are also working with the rest of the family and are looking foward to more baptisms in the coming weeks! We are being very richly blessed with success and loving every minute of it!
 
Well besides the baptism this week was just good in general! Nothing crazy really happened but we are still just working along and having a good time. This week we are halfway through this transfer and it is really hard to believe. This transfer is flying by! Unfortunately our Zone missed beating the zone monthly baptismal record by 2 baptisms... we were pretty sad about that. But this next week our zone is looking forward to 7 baptisms so it looks like we might be able to give it another run this month! Besides that if Elder Molina and I end up baptizing the rest of Maria and Nahuel´s family that will be like 5 more at least so we have a pretty good chance! Usually when you break the record the whole zone goes to the temple together but there are transfers right at the end of April and I may end up leaving the area. I really don´t want to leave I love my area right now but I will go where the Lord needs me. I do feel really blessed to have been able to come here though!
 
The weather has continued to cool off this past week. Thursday night there was a downpour and we got soaked completely through again. It also rained Sunday morning which always makes it much harder to try and get your investigators to come to church but it was ok because I just gave them my umbrella and let them stay dry while I got wet. It was fun actually and I didn´t even mind! It is cool to see how much joy you can get from serving others! Besides even though it is cooling down here it is still perfect for me and the rain is warm so it ends up being fun more that anything. The time I spent at West Point during summer training helped me a lot not to even care about getting wet as well. Nothing in the mission can be as bad or as wet as some of the stuff that happened there haha.
 
Anyway I am glad to hear that everyone back home is still doing well and that the weather is heading right into spring. I always loved this time of the year as the weather gets much better and summer starts coming into view. I guess everything here is backwards as far as the seasons go which is still so weird to me haha. I don´t know if I will ever get used to it or I am sure that if I do it will be right as I am about to head home and then I will have to adjust all over again! That seems to be how life works a lot, right when you get comfortable with a change it all changes over again!
 
Anyways as always I just want to end with my testimony of how important this work is and that the church is true. It is the best thing ever to see the changes that come in the lives of people as they accept Christ and His Gospel. I love serving my brothers and sisters here in Buenos Aires and would not give it up for the world. Just like life, the mission is difficult but well worth it. I am so glad to have such great fam and friends back home praying for and supporting me! Thank you for all that you all do and as always just keep on keeping on! Keep the faith and fight the good fight! And remember, when we are doing all we can to keep the commandments and follow Christ, nothing is impossible! I love you all and look forward to hearing from you next week! Have a good one!

Love,
Elder Zollinger

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