April 1st letter and pictures, too

"We got back last night around midnight from a special conference in Rosario with the President and the assistants and stuff. It was just our zone, so 8 companionships. It was amazing. I love conferences, and this one was better because it was in more of a one on one environment...The mission home is sooooo nice. It's basically a mansion. We had lots of training and the stress of the conference was on unity and love. I learned a lot. We played a bunch of team building games...it was a blast."...

"Me and my comp are doing quite well. It's always a little different at the beginning of a new transfer with a new comp, but we are working out the little differences and starting to work together a lot better. Something I really like about him is the way he teaches. Up to now I have had comps that like to talk....a lot. And so their teaching style means they talk for a long time. Elder Arro teaches in much shorter segments, which is how I prefer it, and is also the suggestion of the PMG...so I'm enjoying that. I'm also learning a lot of argentine words. It's still hard adjusting to all spanish, but it's getting easier."

Elder Rau on his 20th Birthday! He said it was pretty much like any other day but at least he got a cake! 

Elder Rau's new companion - Elder Arro, with a cotton candy mustache.

More on the new area...

"...I'm here in Concordia. My area is called Rural and my Comp is Elder Arro. He is from Buenos Aires, Quilmes to be exact. he's a great elder, and I will more than likely be the one he finishes his mission with. He has two transfers left. There are probably 4 or 5 paved streets in our area, the rest is a sand/clay mixture. Its pretty cool, I will send pictures eventually. The pinch...lets just say , we are moving this week!!! We live with another companionship. Elder Burton is from St. George and Elder Gallegos is from Peru. Our zone leaders live in a big tall building down town.  We went there today and if you look out the windows, you can see Uruguay!! Crazy huh. The absolute best thing about this area is the branch! We have amazing leaders, all of which are excited about missionary work, and as we all know, when members and missionaries get together, great things happen. I have some very lofty goals that will require exact obedience and lots and lots of hard work and cooperation to accomplish. I am very excited. It is such a nice change from my last area. So with the language, right now is really hard because I am realizing all of the mistakes I was making before, but that being said, I am fixing them and learning a great deal. These next two transfers should be some of the best of my mission so far. Entre Rios is so different from B.A. There are way more palm trees and stuff like that. I love hills too...there are NONE in the entire province of Buenos Aires...pretty much. 

...Right now I just feel really grateful to be serving the Lord. I know that this is His work and it is a privilege to participate in it. "

Castelli

"cool picture of the campo"

"The Kopf family parents"

"The Kopf family"

Elder Rau's Stay in Castelli was a short one. He was transferred this week to a new area called Concordia, Entre Rios. He said it's really pretty and really far away from where he is now and he's excited about getting his first latin companion. More on this to come!  

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...."

Time to move on....

After 6 months in his first area Elder Rau was transfered this week. Here are pictures of some of the people he came to love while serving in Cinco Esqunias. 

Elder Rau with Sebastian, his daughter and companion, Elder .....I can't remember (sorry!)

Elder Rau with the Farias Family

These are some scripture cases he bought with Christmas money from my parents and below are a few pictures he took during a p-day trip to the zoo. 

a carpincho.....very interesting looking animal. Nate says it's the largest rodent he's ever seen. Maybe this is where they got the inspiration for the R.O.U.S on the Princess bride. :) Apparently, Elder Rau's "manliness" status went up by being the only one in the group that would touch it. haha.

Here's a peacock trying to attract the ladies by doing a mating dance - the Elders got a real  kick out of watching this. Maybe it reminded them of their time at BYU before the mission. :)

And here's some of Elder Nate's letter:

"I am going south to the province of Buenos Aires! The city is called Pergamino, my area is called Castelli and my new comp is named elder Kleiner. He was actually born in Germany, but grew up mostly in the states. I might even pick up a little German from him! I'm also going to live in a four man pinch (apartment)!!! With a real shower! The work is slow in the south...but not for long. We are going to blow that place up! haha. 

I have kind of known that this would be my last week in Parana, so I've kind of been preparing myself for the news all week (trying to work hard, but of course, endless possibilities about where I was going to go). This is the only part of Argentina that I know, that being said, this is Argentina for me. I have mixed feelings about leaving and will miss a lot of things and people.....but it's definitely time to move on, and with that, learn new things and confront new challenges and all that good stuff.

....We had another cool charla with a guy in front of his house. It started out with him telling us that at his age, he couldn't learn anything from us. Then he shared some of his beliefs, we said that we agreed with him and shared some more of ours and as we were set ting up a return appointment, the conversation drifted to basketball. He LOVES the NBA, specifically Jordan, Pippin, Malone and Stockton! He said the Jazz were his favorites back in the day. His demeanor changed completely and we kind of bonded I guess. The last thing he said blew me away. Its what I have been wanting to hear all along. So many times people say that all churches are good and that we all go to the same God after this life. He told us that if there was one God, there should be one church. Simultaneously we both said Exactly! Then he said, "so now I'm going to go read your folleto." (or something along those lines) I just hope he prays about it. We felt really good after that one."

After the trial of your faith.....

Here's a story from Elder Rau's letter home on Monday the 26th:

"We found some really cool people this week and are starting to have a lot more success right now (finding a lot of people that invite us in and have already had experience with the church), but the only other story I want to tell this week is about a woman that contacted us last week.We were turning a corner to go down a dirt road and start knocking, when this woman came out of her house and started yelling at us. She told us to get off of her street and take our lies back to where we came from. it was a rather unpleasant experience. My initial reaction would have been to be confrontational and convince her by the level and tone of my voice that we were allowed to be there and that we weren't lying and all that. Luckily, we were able to remain calm and put off the natural man, so to speak. We tried to be respectful, and it eventually came down to us saying, we can't not talk to these people and you aren't going to stop us. So we proceeded to contact a young family and she joined in the contact and brought up polygamy and tithing. I thought to myself, is that all you got? My companion did a very good job of explaining both subjects and she eventually went away, and I think she felt a little defeated. I tell you this story because of what happened afterwards. I am a firm believe that we receive blessings after enduring a trial. On that street, we now have 3 investigators and about 5 or 6 call backs. Most of which are very promising, they just couldn't attend us at the time." 

2 Letters and some pictures, too!

We got to hear from Elder Rau twice this week  - once on New Years day and then again on his normal p-day. Here are parts of the letters he sent to the family and some pictures as well. Enjoy!

Thursday, January 1 

We had a baptism! Juan Pablo Montenegro, the cousin of Sebastian was baptized on Saturday. I can't even tell you how cool it was to see Sebastian exercise the Priesthood that he just recently received and baptize his cousin. It was a very cool experience. Even more cool and a little nerve wracking was on Sunday when he asked me to confirm him. The words didn't quite flow like I would have liked, but it was still a very spiritual experience. One of the highlights of my mission thus far! He is doing really well and is already sharing the gospel with his family! His uncle might be interested!

Last night was crazy! We were allowed to stay up for the new year, but we had to get up at the same time as usual, so we just went to bed and got woken up by the fireworks. They were everywhere! They went on for about 30 min, then it kind of died down, enough to go back to sleep. They really like the loud ones here...haha. It looked and sounded like we were in Iraq or something...

And yes I am jealous of all the snow you all are having. I guess January will be the hottest month of my life, then it will slowly go down hill until about april/may when it gets cool and we put on our jackets again. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of looking forward to that time...haha.

But anyway, I hope you all had an awesome and safe holiday and are doing well. thansks so much for all of your love and support, it really means a lot to me. I just want you all to know that I still know that the church is true and that the Lord wants this work to go forward, and I want to do all I can to hep it. I love it with all my heart and am trying to take the advice of our prophet and find joy in the journey. 

Love you guys!

Elder Rau

Monday, January 5

Things continue to go well here. Nobody wants to come to church, even when we go by their house in the morning with a taxi, so we are going to work on that. We have some really great people that are just a little too catholic still and don't feel the need to go to church every week. The ward is doing really well though. We are about to unveil the new ward mission plan and are going to kick it off with a big activity this Sunday. We as missionaries have been working on it and incorporating the mission goals, and now we are going to the ward council and I guess they are the ones that are really in charge of putting it together and presenting it, but I imagine we will still be involved with the process. I'm really excited, even though I only have a few more weeks here. This place has so much potential, and as always, the key to unlocking cinco esquinas is the members! Some of our goals are to get two baptisms per month, or about 25 for the year. Also, 15 lessons with members present for each week and five references per week. In reality, those two numbers should be way easy to get, it just takes cooperation on both sides.

We had another cool thing happen this week. Sebasitan ordained Juan Pablo to be a priest in the Aaronic priesthood. It was way cool and he gave a great blessing at the end. 

Elder Rau with Elder Jackson on Transfer day

A neat picture of the Baptismal font

The baptism group

Last sunset of 2008