I Know That this Church is the True One

9/23/09
Hola Familia!
How are you all doing? I'm doing great! We had a great week. The last 7 days have been pretty crazy busy. Such is the life of a missionary and its the best. No matter what we do to plan a day, something major always happens and we have to improvise. But yeah, I'm still healthy and growing spiritually and physically, unfortunately not any taller...which means the last 6 months of my mission will be critical for working out. That's been something Ive thought about recently. The last 6 months. I was thinking about all the things I was gonna do and the attitudes I was gonna make myself have and I got really excited for it. Then yesterday, we had interviews... My interview was rather short, but presidents counsel was do what we have to do today... then it all made sense. I was gonna procrastinate making all of the changes I wanted to make for another three months...but now I think I'm just gonna start a little earlier...maybe tomorrow...haha, I mean....yesterday.
Speaking of yesterday, after zone conference, the entire zone stayed in our pinch for p-day, which is today, but we did a big choque de fuerza in the three areas. I had three companionship's in my area, which means we pretty much got the standards yesterday... Lets just say, I didn't get out worked in my area. I went with a stud named Elder States. He was comps last transfer with my mtc comp. I'm pretty sure we are gonna be comps next transfer though...Ive already received the revelation. But yeah, today was pretty sweet. It consisted of educational scripture games and other things that didn't have much to do with the scriptures or anything but it was fun. We have a platform in our garage that is about 8 feet up, so we did trust falls...where everyone has to catch someone that falls backwards off the thing. It was fun...
We just moved into spring here and its rainy and cold one day and quite hot another. Summer is on its way and I hope I'm out of Santa Fe. It gets up to like 45 Celsius, plus humidity. No thanks....
Well, the rama is still open for now. It could get closed any time though. I asked president about it and he said that if it belongs to recreo, those elders have to work it, which means the few investigators we have will probably fall off the charts because they won't get very much attention. I tried to explain that we can basically walk to them and recreo has to ride in a bus for about 15 minutes to get there, but I guess he knows best, and we will be able to focus on yapey a little bit better.
We continue to teach families. We should have a big baptism on the 10. The last Saturday of the transfer and almost for sure in yapey. We have 10 for that day right now. I see 3 making it almost for sure, due to current progress. We have one kid that is a really good goalie, so good that he is playing in a junior league for a pro team, which is hard to do because all of the kids want to do it. They actually recruited him, the problem is him making it to our church. He can go earlier to a sacrament meeting, but that would be it. The thing is he is soooo prepared! His answers to our questions frequently leave me speechless. The only thing I can say is...that's exactly right! His two brothers came to church last week and the abuela promised to come this week, which means I think we will be getting the standards this week. We have been so close every week so far, but the big problem is bringing to church. The theme for district meeting next week is bringing people to church...that will be nice.
Not sure if you have heard, but the new bible came out. That is, the SUD edition of the Reina Valera version of the Bible. It's the most correct bible in Spanish! I still don't have one, but I'm trying to order a 9 peso hard cover. I'm gonna wait for a bit to get the nice one... maybe they will come out with a quad in Spanish! That would be way cool. This is big stuff for the Spanish speaking members. They will now be able to understand the plain and precious truths lost with out having to turn back and forth from the triple to the bible. Its pretty exciting.
The longer I am in the mission, the more convinced I am of how close the second coming is. So with that in mind, I love you all a ton and want you to keep doing the stuff we need to do to stay together forever...k? Ok, love you all so much, and I know that this church is the true one.
Elder Rau

Everyone Talks About the Weather...

9/1/09
Hola Familia!
How are you all doing? I totally forgot to tell you all last week that this week is transfers and that I will be writing on Tuesday...which is today...sorry! Needless to say, I didn’t get anything from anyone... it’s a sad day in Argentina...just kiddin, every day is a happy day here, especially with a relief from the heat. It has been close to 37 c and humid here for the last week. What a welcome for my new comp... Yesterday it rained and hailed a little and has cooled off for now. Another random thing about Argentina, you can start a conversation with literally anyone just by talking about the weather. Everyone always talks about the weather... crazy huh.
Anyway, my comp is here and we are working now. I think the transition was a little rough for him. He already has blisters and his feet go way off the bed (because he is 8 inches taller than me) but he’s doing great. He speaks way better than I did and has no fear to talk. What a blessing. I am starting to lose a little bit of my edge speaking Spanish because I am constantly trying to say things so that he will understand or translating. The good news is at the beginning of last month, we started a mission wide English fast, so we have to speak in English in the morning and while we are working, but can speak English at night and on p-day. We are doing great.
We had a baptism last Saturday! We were gonna have two but one called and cancelled on us right before the baptism, so we are going to keep working with Catriel, but Matas Meza was baptized by his friend Alexis. I got to confirm him. It was cool. I also gave like 6 baptismal interviews this week! 3 got baptized on Saturday, 2 today and we will have another baptism this weekend, so that should be great.
We had a really funny lesson yesterday. We sat down on the sidewalk with a bunch of kids and taught them how to pray. It kind of started as a joke, but turned into a lesson. It was great. We’ll see what happens.
I hope to hear from you all next week.
Love ya lots and don’t forget...the church is true...
Elder Rau