One week down in Pergamino

"la familia Alarcon" Such cute kids!

The new apartment. Or as Elder Nate calls it, "da pinch"

Look outside! The sun is shining! There are leaves on the trees!! I would like to go there. :)

A picture of the campo, ...I believe "campo" means the country.

Elder Nate's favorite food: Asado. 

"So one week down in the new area. I'm really enjoying myself here. The town isn't really that much different than parana, but it is a little cleaner and a bit smaller. My area, however, is less than half the size of my last area. It's really  nice. I can't remember how much I told you last week, but I'll just say that the ward is building right now. Our primary objective (approved by the mission president in interviews last week) is help the members get animated about the work. I think I mentioned that we are both new to the area, and it wasn't for obedience reasons that the old elders were pulled out. We think we are here to change the mentality of the ward. I had a revelation the other day after talking to the oldest member in Pergamino. He told us that when there is gossip or other problems in the ward, the baptisms stopped. So basically, if the ward isn't ready: 1. People won't have a spiritual experience. 2. The Lord won't put people into our path to bring into a dysfunctional ward. the missionaries can work their guts out, but if the ward isn't ready, the baptisms won't happen. Obviously, people have been baptized into dysfunctional wards, but I think as a general rule, the ward NEEDS to be solid to help the converts progress. So that's the goal here. There are a lot of really solid people, we just need some excitement. We are planning activities and are otherwise visiting members, teaching them and asking them to pray about a friend that they could invite to listen to us, attend and activity and so forth...

As I mentioned earlier, we had interviews this week. Interviews include some talleres (workshops) from the assistants and zone leaders, so it was an awesome day. Lots of new ideas to apply and great counsel from Presidente Villalba. He gave me a very nice comment about my Spanish, which I suspect was not fully deserved, but he was sincere. He is such a cool guy. A perfect example of a great leader in that he takes care of the whole mission, but every one of us know that he really cares about how we are doing...."