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

Pictures from the Field

Elder Rau with Elder Grassi (his "favorite latin") who is from Argentina.

A group picture of 2 zones that had come together for zone conference. 

A candid shot of President and Sister Villalba.

Our Elder with Elder Redmon - a friend from the MTC. 

Here's part of Elder Rau's letter home on December 1st:

Our Thanksgiving was pretty exciting. We had a long zone conference, and with studies, we didn't really get to go out and work, but zc was a blast! The talks from President and his wife were awesome as usual. I think a major theme was about sacrifice and blessings. The turkey lunch was amazing! I think I told you the hermano that cooks is in my ward so we got to do a little preview on the gravy. It was really good, but instead of pie, we had pan dulce...I would rather have pie. There were a lot of competitions and we watched the Christmas dvd, which is a slide show of pictures from all over the mission. It was really cool. I had almost forgotten that there are other areas in the mission, not just mine. It feels like I have been here forever, but the time is still flying...I know, that probably doesn't make sense, but that's what it's like.

So yesterday, Sebastian asked me to be the voice for his priesthood ordination. Needless to say, I was pretty stinkin nervous. I think I was shaking and grabbing our elders quorum president's shoulder pretty hard. The words came and the spirit was absolutely guiding, but I still think I was a little to nervous to be as in tune as I should have been. I guess that will just come with more faith and time. It was a very cool experience that I hope I never forget.

So Edgardo is back! He is the guy that was progressing really really well, then had to leave for work on a fishing boat. He is back in town, and we talked to his wife and left a note on Saturday, but haven't been able to amke contact with him yet. I am really excited to see how he is doing.

the Lord answers prayers. I told you last week about how hot it is here. Well, we prayed for rain, and it came. It has been raining off and on for the last three days. I'm actually kind of cold right now and it actually feels like fall. The bad news is that Argentines are made out of sugar and if they go out in the rain they melt. We had a terrible turn out for church Sunday morning. Something about separating the wheat from the tares comes to mind...

We also had prayers answered in other ways. We have been doing lots of looking but not so much finding. That changed this week. We found a bunch of people that let us in, among which are two small families, one of which is part member. 

So yeah, the work is going forth boldly, nobly, and independent. Satan is good at his job, but he can't win as long as we have the spirit. I hope you are all having plenty of missionary opportunities, they are pretty cool.

Elder Rau

Sebastian's Baptism and big scary spiders!

"...The baptism (that's right...baptism!) was awesome!!! Everyone we talk to says they have never seen anything like it. There are always stories of miracle investigators, but I didn't think I wold actually get to be part of teaching one! He asked elder brooks to baptize him, so I got to watch and be a witness. It was interesting to see him as he cam out of the water, very emotional, but I could also see his tattoos through his shirt. He didn't go into great detail about his life before he met us, but we pretty much know that he was not involved with the greatest crowd and did some stupid stuff. He has an 18 month old daughter, and my theory is that when she was born, he looked at his life and realized he was a mess. He started studying with various religions, including the testigos (JW). Then his friend, who was baptized last january, introduced him to the church, but specifically to us. After a completely random/divinely arranged meeting in the street, he started learning about the gospel. I think I mentioned I wasn't present for his first lesson due to divisions, but we saw him pretty much every day last week, and will continue to do frequent visits until his confirmation on Sunday (for which he is very excited). He is without a doubt the most prepared person I have ever met. Teaching him isn't really teaching. All we do is tell him about a doctrine, then he just runs with it an instantly understands why things are a certain way. Honestly, he already knows all the answers, we just give him a little push every once in a while. Thus far, his biggest doubt was the use of a certain word, and only because he didn't understand what it meant. I just can't say enough about it! I am very grateful for the opportunity tI had to be part of his conversion process. He bore his testimony at the baptisms, and after expressing gratitude to everyone who came (which was a lot! Including his father and brother) he said, I know that this church is true, and nothing else matters! It was so perfect.  .....I mentioned his tattoos earlier because of a story elder brooks told me about another convert. He literally had satan tattooed on his back and arm, but was baptized. Such is the forgiveness of God, that he will let even a man with satan on his back enter into the waters of baptism and be eligible to receive eternal life!" 

"...I almost had a minor panic attack the other day...we were eating lunch at a members home and I randomly glanced up to the ceiling to see a very large spider. Then I saw another, then another, then another...in all, there were about 8-10 very large spiders hanging out a few feet above our heads... scariest moment of my mission. Then if thats not enough, last night as I was laying in bed after lights out, I thought I saw something moving on the wall next to my head. There was just enough light coming in from the neighbors to see another very large spider cruisin down the wall towards me. I freaked out...Elder brooks made fun of me. I decided that I pretty much don't like anything that crawls, including scorpions." 

This was Elder Rau's caption for the above picture: "How we deal with spiders ... we have not yet resorted to flame, but I'm not too far off..."

A great story from this week....

"We had district meeting on Tuesday. While my comp and another DL were preparing the meeting, I was doing comp study with another elder. While we were studying, (at the church) a member dropped in and introduced his friend, Sebastian, to my comp and the other elder. He showed mild interest. Wednesday morning, as we were walking down a street that has never yielded a successful contact, we saw a guy feeding a hourse...Edler Brooks said he looked like legolas... so as we prepared to contact him, he turned to us and said hola hermanos! It was Sebastian! He walked with us all the way to his friend's house and talked to Elder Brooks (I couldn't hear what was going on) and gave him his whole story. Just a few months ago he was involved in all sorts of junk including drugs, but had a big spiritual experience and cleaned up and decided to search for the true church of Christ!!!!!! We set up an appointment for Thursday afternoon.

We had divisions on Thursday/Friday, so I was in another area and a Zone leader was here and he went with E Brooks to see him. Apparently, it was the most amazing lesson ever and he is now set to be baptized on the 9th after church (because he needs to attend church twice before baptism)!!! He is the most golden person ever! I finally got to sit down with him on Saturday morning. He is reading more than what we assign him and already has a testimony of everything we have asked him to pray about. The lessons are actually really hectic for me because he can't just sit and listen, he has so many questions and is so excited about everything that he justs keeps talking the whole time. To make this long story a little shorter, I'll just say he showed up early to the baptism (an 8 year old baptism the elders took charge of) to tell us he couldn't make it, but met a few members. He came to church (all 3 hours) and made friends with another member who will likely baptize him. He came to our fireside that night where we watched the testaments and he was crying at the end. Also, he is 22 and had the attention of some single sisters i the ward..haha! Honestly, everything is so perfect, I can't even believe it. He has friends and the members are doing such a good job of taking care of him. We hardly spoke to him at the fireside. We will more than likely see him every day this week. He is having some family problems, but they in no way are affecting his choice to be baptized.

He will be baptized about two weeks after our initial contact. He is completely opposite from Daniel. Daniel was talking his time and wanted to know everything before his baptism, but Sebastian is ready now and wants it so bad. All the elders in the city are way jealous and tell us that they have never seen anything like it."