April 6th letter

"What a week! I can't even begin to tell you...but I guess I have to if I'm going to get this letter sent. I guess I'll start with a scripture. 2 Nefi 2:11...look it up and you will understand my week. Literally an opposition in all things this week....Of course, through opposition we are refined and finished, but it is through the struggling (and more importantly how we react to opposition) that we achieve it. As the verse indicates, we learn to better appreciate the blessings that we receive. I'm experiencing this right now, luckily I'm starting to see the blessings, but must admit that it is very hard to laugh sometimes. General conference really helped. It was absolutely amazing. I've been looking forward to it for about 6 months now, and I wasn't disappointed. I'm soo thankful to have a prophet and apostles. I felt that a constant theme was hope and being calm in the face of adversity, and as I have already mentioned, I need it right now....

Right now we are teaching some really cool people. We found a couple called Noemi and Jacinto. They are a little older and have a twenty ear old daughter with cancer, a ten year old daughter that is virtually blind, and he was recently in a car crash and can barely use one half of his body. They came to conference, Saturday afternoon and loved it. They keep telling us that they feel something special and that they never accept people to come into their house, they say that we are the first preachers they have let in. So they are sincere and intent and are waiting for an answer. We set a baptismal date with them for the 25th, and I know they can make it.

Another family consists of 7 kids and a single mom. The oldest son does not live with them, and we have only taught the mom and 15 year old kid. they both work in the harvest. (if I haven't told you yet, Concordia is a big time citrus town.)...So 1 of every 7 people work in the harvest. Jonathan (15)  has since the age of 12. He and his brother Sergio came to Saturday morning conference. They accepted a baptismal date in the first lesson. The are awesome, but have their fair share of trials to deal with as well. I know the gospel is a gospel of transformation and can change their lives, as long as they let it happen. "

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."