Laguna Blanca 9.4.07

I guess having the parasite isn't too bad,
because I've pretty much felt like this since I
got in the country, so I'm used to it by now.
This is the most common type of parasite, but I
don't know any other missionaries specifically
that have it. Two of the sister missionaries that
came in my group to the mission already went
home, because they got sick from parasites, but
I'm not sure if it was the same one. I don't
think mine will be that bad. This Tuesday I'm
going to start taking pills to kill it.

Well, we've got some investigators that are doing
well, and some that aren't. One of our
investigators that we've been teaching for a few
weeks told us that he would get baptized if God
told him to, but even if God told him he needed
to go to church, he wouldn't. He said he'll
listen to us, and he'll even get baptized, but he
will NEVER go to church. He knows he won't be
able to live with God if he doesn't, and that's
fine with him. He said, ¨well, I don't think
he'll send me to the worst of the 3 places. He'll
just put me in the middle one.¨ That's the first
time I've ever heard anyone say that they'd be
fine getting 2nd best and not living with God.
Crazy. We've got some investigators that want to
get baptized, and say they'll come to church, but
don't, and we have a really good family that
finally told us they'll come to church this
Sunday. We'll see what happens! Almost all of the
investigators we find are from ¨tracting¨. That
day we found 6 was a little different, because we
found one by clapping houses, and we found a
family of 5 that saw us walking by, and they
actually yelled and told us to come in.
Apparently they had listened to the missionaries
about 10 years ago. It would be nice if the
investigators always found us, instead of us
finding them!

Wow, that's crazy that you guys were the only
¨original owners¨ at the block party! Is there
really 3 new families? I'm not going to know
anyone when I get back!

Yeah, I can't believe that Makenzie is 1! I kept
thinking about that the last week or so. It's
crazy how time flies like that.

It seems like you've been traveling a lot lately!
It should be fun getting to see all those plays
with family, but furniture shopping... I'm not
too sure about that one. $700 a month?! That's
nuts!

I can't believe they didn't know that Jared was
coming either. That's crazy! I can't imagine what
it would have been like, ha ha. We got lost in
the LA airport, and in the Buenos Aires airport,
but at least there were a bunch of us, and there
was somebody waiting for us. Getting through
Customs was hard for us too, because some people
got through without needing an address/phone
number, but some of us didn't. I was one of the
ones that didn't. I understood what the woman was
saying to me, but I was so worried that I was
going to get arrested or something, I didn't know
what to say to her. Finally someone gave me the
mission home address, so we put that down. Man,
it must have been scary for Jared to get there
and not find anyone waiting for him. In
Resistencia there was a big group waiting... all
4 of the office elders, the APs, and the mission
pres. and his wife.

Well, this last week we got a phone call on
Saturday at about 2:30 or so. It was the ZLs
telling us about a District Priesthood meeting at
5:00 that day that we should go to because we're
branch counselors. That was the first time we had
heard about it! So we went up to Clorinda, even
though we had 5 appointments that afternoon! We
were able to make it to the last one, though. The
meeting was really good. One of Pres.
Shakespear's counselors spoke. I still think it's
wierd that he has counselors... we've never met
them.

On Sunday we had a record breaking 26 people in
church! There's always more people on fast sunday
than on any other sunday, because people come in
to pay tithing and fast offerings. None of our
investigators came, unfortunately (it would have
been a really good meeting for them to come), but
there were a lot of less actives, which is good.
Hopefully they keep coming.

Elder Kromm's got addicted to making milk shakes
in my blender. He knocked it off the counter
though, so now it's cracked, and the handle's
about to break, but it still works.

I can't think of much else that has happened this
last week. Maybe there'll be more to say next
week! Hope the little mini-vacation goes well!

- Elder Bird