From ´The Gardens´

November 26

Hello, family! Yep, the feelings and dreams were confirmed - I´ve been transferred out of my dear area of Bragado! Sad, but, ah well. On to a new adventure in el barrio ´Los Jardines´ (The Gardens). It certainly is a change! (And, I´m curious... how did you find out about the transfer? Does sister Carter put the transfer video on the blog for people to watch?) [Yes, she does, and yes, we did.]

My initial impression about Jardines A is this: It´s an area rich with potential ... Elder Wing and I have prayed and talked and have set a goal to baptize 5 people this transfer.

My companion is Elder Wing, from Utah. He arrived in Argentina around 4 months back, after serving a temporary assignment in Tennessee. He makes fantastic pancakes, and has already taught me how to make homemade pita bread. (Mmm!) Next up on the list is empanadas.

I have recently become profoundly grateful for the excellent plumbing I experienced in the zone of Chivilcoy. Let me tell you about how our shower works!
First, you have to turn a knob to start the water flow from our well into the bathroom.
Second, you have to turn another knob to start filling the shower tank with water.
Third, you have to flip the switch to start heating the water, wait 25 minutes until the water heats, then flip the switch off so that you don´t burn/melt anything.
Finally, you can take your shower. You have about 10 minutes of water, and as the water level gets lower the water pressure does the same.
And afterward, you have to turn all the knobs off that were on.

There´s a similar but less complicated process for flushing the toilet... and the bathroom sink doesn´t work. So... we´ve got some pretty complicated plumbing here! I think that this pench wasn´t actually totally finished when we started living it. The stove also isn´t connected to gas from outside - we buy big tanks of gas and hook it up. But the size and layout of the pench are nice, and after we do a little bit of spring cleaning I think it will look quite nice! And other pluses - next door live some members from Paraguay, who make us things like Paraguayan Soup (not actually a soup at all) and who wash our clothes for us. Ahh! There´s something to be thankful for. Another nice thing about the area is that the members give us lunch every single day. (And just as I was getting to really like spaghetti...)

More about the area: It´s huge! There were no buses in Bragado, but here there´s no other way to get around. You have to take a bus to get just about anywhere! 

This area is divided in two - Jardines A and B. The split happened about 3 months ago, so this is actually considered to be a fairly new area. Generally I think that when 4 elders share a ward, they also share an apartment, but not in this case. The 2 elders in Jardines B are Elder Decker and Elder Sampson. I know Elder Sampson from the MTC - we weren´t in the same district, but we lived on the same floor so we talked some. And here´s a funny thing: At the transfer meeting, before the actual meeting had started, I was talking to Elder Sampson. I told him that I was leaving Bragado, and he said, ´Oh, great! You should come to Jardines with me!´ I told him I would think about it and get back to him after the meeting. And then, lo and behold... Elder Stockton was transferred to Jardines A.

I´m glad you had a happy Thanksgiving! They don´t celebrate Thanksgiving here, but Elder Wing and I had a lunch that was very similar to a Thanksgiving feast on Friday with some members.

And I got your care package! I opened it up this morning and was thrilled to find my very own fruit slicer. And it´s so fancy! Thanks so much! And the Christmas music will be great! ´Tis the season, indeed. Tell Margaret I say hi... and give her a pat for me.

Well, that´s all I´ve got for today! It´s looking like it´s going to be a great transfer. Thanks for your letters, thanks for the pictures... best wishes from me here. I love you all!

With love,
Elder Andrew Stockton

The Last Week of the Transfer

November 19

Hello, dear family!

I'm writing to you still from Bragado, though how much longer I'll be here I'm not sure. Hermana Spinelli had a dream the other night that I had left Bragado, and woke up quite upset that I hadn't gone to say goodbye before going. Imagine her surprise when that same day, Elder Hougaard walked into her store, not with me but with the zone leader, and jokingly told her that I had been sent home! She thought her dream had been made reality! 

Apart from that, Elder Hougaard dreamed last night that I had left Bragado and that he had stayed to train a new missionary here. And I've just had this ominous feeling recently that this chapter of my mission is finishing. We'll see whether these presentiments (is that a real English word?) really imply a change or whether they`re nothing. Our leaders will call us tonight to tell us whether we are staying or leaving for this next transfer.

Well, we had a pretty good week this week! It was our turn again for the zone leaders to visit, so we spent the week doing splits with Elder Young and Elder Griggs. It's always fun to go find and teach with another Elder. Everyone has different styles of teaching and contacting, and I can almost always pick up something from them. At the end of our week together, we had interviews to discuss what we learned and what we can improve upon. Elder Griggs told me that I've refined my teaching since the first time we went on divisions (this was my 3rd week of divisions with Elder Griggs). That was nice to hear! I'm almost at the year mark now. Wow. Supposedly now is the time when time starts to fly even faster. Everyone says the second year goes by like the blink of an eye.

We've started listening to Christmas music! Kind of weird since it's so hot outside.

My bike tire went flat again... and we realized that because of the thinness of the back tire, it was just going to keep going flat. So we got permission to get a new cover put on the back tire. It goes a lot faster now! (And no punctures yet.) We also got the seat raised and the handlebars tightened on the wicked witch bike. (The new one. It's the wicked witch bike because the seat was so low - we were sitting straight up when we rode it, and it was really uncomfortable to pedal.) So we are in bidness! The next task is to have brakes put on the old bike.

We had some good banana bread experiences this week! Hermano Coradeghini had requested that I find the recipe for banana bread so that we could bake it in a family home evening. So that's what we did on Monday! (It feels like a long time ago, actually.) It turned out really well! Later, I happened to spy a sign that said that bananas were on sale: 2 kilos for 10 pesos. (15ish bananas for 2 dollars.) Of course they were brown bananas (that's why they were so cheap), but brown bananas were exactly what we were looking for! So the zone leaders made 4 more loaves of banana bread while we did weekly planning, and we shared with some investigators who had a birthday. Now we've got a family home evening this night with one of our investigators, so we bought ingredients to make more banana bread. Quite tasty.

Well - that's all I've got time for today! Things are going well here, and it sounds like they are at home too. I hope you have an awesome week! (Ha - I had to think just now to remember what time of year it was there. I was imagining summer, but I guess it's not so!) Love you so much!

Companion study --
do they wear skirts in Argentina?

Visiting some investigators in the hospital
with their new little arrival

love,
Elder Stockton

An entertaining tale (tail?) or two

 Hello family!

November 12

Here's some fantastic news: We got our sinks fixed! Ha ha! No more draining pasta in the bathtub for these elders! Also, my bike broke again - the chain snapped. So we had a new chain put on, and the great thing is it actually fits the bike right! So now I don't have to get off my bike every couple minutes and put the chain back on. And with those two things, our quality of living just shot up. It's super nice. The next thing on the list is to buy a new bed. (Mine collapsed about 3 weeks ago while I was standing on it, cleaning the ceiling. I've been feeling like a hot dog as I've slept for a while, folded into the matress. Gotta fix that.)

I'm a little short on time, so I'm going to borrow Elder Hougaard's description of this event to his family:

So the other day we were going around visiting people with our Elders Quorum president, and as Elder Stockton so gracefully got into the car, he ripped his pants all the way up the back. Thinking it was not a big rip he got out of the car at the next place and started walking, as we were walking the Hermano called me back to the car and pointed out the problem. I looked over at Elder Stockton and there he was, standing at the door waiting with a big old hole in his pants haha! So I walked up to him and informed him that the hole in his pants was a little bit bigger than what he may have thought before haha. Elder Stockton is a stud though and just took it like a champ! :) What a great kid haha. Luckily one of our investigators sews for a living and so we went over there and they fixed his pants right up for him.

Yep, that was a fun one. God works in a mysterious way sometimes. Because before ripping my pants, we didn't have plans to visit Marcelo (whose wife stitched up my pants). But when we went, we found them at just the perfect moment to teach them a lesson. The whole family was there and available to listen - including the wife, who we had never been able to listen to the lesson because she was always working in the other room.

Other experiences:

The other day, we bought a big bag of facturas (donuts and churros) to eat and to share with investigators. We arrived at Alicia's house and shared a couple. Then I asked Alicia to show us her fig trees, so we left our stuff on the outside table where we were and she took us around the house. When we came back, we caught Alicia's dog in the very act of licking the last of the sugar from the sides of the bag. Oh well! At least the figs were cool. She says that she goes and picks kilos and kilos of figs when they start getting ripe. Kind of like what our yard will be like in a few years, no? (For Dad: There are 2 trees - she says they are both the same type: 'breva' figs.)

Just like at home!

Well, that's all for today! It's great to get your letters. I'm impressed with Jacob's beard. He looks a lot like dad in days now past.

Have a fantastic week! Thanks for your love and prayers.

love,
Elder Andrew Stockton

November 2012 - Revisiting Lujan

Happy November, family! Can you believe it?

All right - I´ve much to write about this week. It seems like so much happened, and all in just a week. Wow. I´ll try to get it all in!

First off... we got bikes again! Hurrah!! The long-awaited day arrived, and suddenly we are able to do so much more than normal! We did better this week than we´ve ever done before. In fact, the whole zone of Chivilcoy did better than normal! Each week, we can see the results of all the other zones and areas of our mission. And this week, Chivilcoy came out on top! Quite a change from a year ago, when Chivilcoy was either last or second last every week. We´re seeing the change in campo that President predicted, and that we´ve been working towards since getting here! It´s nice to be a part of that, and I´m happy for the success of the other Elders and Sisters in Chivilcoy. I love my zone! We´re all good friends, despite the fact that we only see each other once every 2 months or so.

On Thursday a General Authority came to our mission - Elder Jorge F. Zeballos. My companion and I were excited to go and learn from him. Unfortunately, we stayed up late on Wednesday night getting ready for it - shining shoes, organizing, etc. I say unfortunately, because we also had to get up at 2:00 in the morning to get there in time. So, although I´m sure that the talk was very good, I honestly didn´t get anything out of it because all of my energy was going into keeping myself awake. Rats. That was a good opportunity I missed. But, lesson learned - next time I´ll choose to follow Mary´s example instead of Martha´s. 

But, here´s a fun thing: The ´Mission Tour´ with Elder Zeballos took place in... Luján! So I got to return to the place of my mission ´birth´. It was fun to walk around and see the city that I spent my first couple months in. And, even better, three of the very members that I had been hoping to see there in Luján happened to come into the chapel during our 5 minute break, and I so I got to talk to them. That was nice! Tender mercies.

Getting home was tricky. Due to a recent rain, parts of Luján are totally flooded - including the Catholic cathedral (see photos) and the bus station. Ack! So there were far fewer buses leaving Luján than there normally were. We waited a few hours for a bus, but one wasn´t coming. So, we took a bus to Mercedes, waited for a while to take a bus to Chivilcoy, then waited a while to take a bus back to Bragado. While we waited in the bus terminal, we formed a missionary choir and sang hymns, which was fun. 

I gave Elder Hougaard a haircut. He bought a pair of electric clippers, and gave me one first. Then, a few days later, he taught me how and I gave it a try. It turned out really good! Maybe you can see it in some of the pictures.

We bought ice cream to celebrate Arnaldo´s baptism and ate it outside. That was fun!




We really are being blessed to be instruments in God´s hands, in finding and teaching people.

And, we met and taught an English teacher. In English!

There are lots more experiences that I would like to share, but I´m afraid there´s just not time! It´ll have to wait until next week. 

Thanks for your love, your support. My favorite part of P-day is reading your letters and imagining how life is for all of you! Have a wonderful, wonderful week!


Love you all so much!
Elder Andrew Stockton

Baptism to finish up the month!

Hello, family! 

Well... lots of things happened this week! But I´ll start with the best:
We had a baptism on Saturday! It was a fantastic event. He was so ready to be baptized and to make this lifelong commitment to follow Christ. Did I already tell you that he read through the Book of Mormon in 3 weeks? (We asked him where he was reading in an appointment one day, and he said he was ´almost finished´. Turned out he had finished the whole Book of Mormon and was almost finished reading the Guía de Estudio para las Escrituras, which is like the Bible Dictionary in the Spanish Book of Mormon.)

The service was very nice. We planned it all pretty well. The only problem was, we got back late from an appointment and were only there 15 minutes before the baptism started! Ack! That´s not quite enough time. Well, it is, but... it´s more stressful. Better to be tranquilo during the baptism and be able to focus more on the significance of it.

We started with a song, then heard some talks. Then Elder Hougaard and I sung Divina Luz (Lead, Kindly Light) as a special musical number. (Surprise! More on that later.)

His son baptized him, which was great. As a result, his family, plus Arnaldo´s wife, came to church the next day for the confirmation. I hope that they will all keep coming! We all felt the Spirit!

After the service, we had refreshments and talked. Then, Elder Hougaard and I took him to the chapel and played/sung the real musical number we had prepared for him. (At the last minute before the baptism started, we realized that we had set up the baptism in the room that didn´t have the piano in it, so... we had to just sing it. But the version we had prepared involved Elder Hougaard singing and me playing the piano, and was quite nice.) He liked it.

He was confirmed yesterday in church, and today we´re going to his house to start teaching him the missionary lessons again! It´s nice to have been able to be a factor in his conversion. I´m realizing that the Lord really could do his work without us. It´s a blessing and a privilege to be able to help in the work of rescuing our brothers and sisters who don´t have the Gospel.

Other fun things that happened this week:

The other day we were talking to the Spinelli family in their business on the way home. They found out that Elder Hougaard´s birthday was a few weeks ago, and that we hadn´t done much celebrating because he didn´t know any members yet. They chastised me for not having brought him over to their house for lunch. Then we left and went home to the pench to plan. About 10 minutes later, we got a phone call from Brother Spinelli - he told us he was outside the pench and asked if we could bring him a few Books of Mormon to give away to friends. So we walked out there and that they had gone to buy us pizzas and caramels to celebrate his birthday. They also gave us some cool ´Argentina´ bandannas. I don´t know when or where I could ever wear them, but they´re nice to have anyway.

We went out to work in a fantastic Argentine storm. We got to the point where we were slogging through mud and water up to our knees. (See pictures!) It´s raining again now, actually. Pretty cool!

A few weeks ago, our kitchen sink broke. We started washing all our dishes in the laundry sink. Well, this week, our laundry sink broke. So we´re washing all our dishes in the bathtub. Time to call a plumber, methinks.

Eggs are cheap! Lots of eggs!

Ice cream?

Time to finish up! Love you all so much. Thanks for your letters, your support, your love. Have a great week!

love from,
Elder Andrew Stockton

More October

October 15, 2012
Hello, family! It´s great to hear what´s happening at home! Weird to think that you are experiencing the opposite weather - it´s getting colder there while everything is green and sunny here. (And, getting sunnier - I foresee some hot months coming up.)

Elder Wells was transferred to a new area

As you saw, we had a transfer meeting last Wednesday. And as you guessed (and I hoped), I´m staying in Bragado for another round. And I am confident that this is the transfer that will finally see the harvest of fruit we´ve been working for, as well as set up for an abundant harvest in the future. 

My new companion is Elder Braden Hougaard, from Utah. He started the mission a month and a half after I did, but he´s only been in Argentina 4 months because his visa took a long time getting through. (It seems that I was lucky! I got mine after just 3 weeks of waiting.) This is his second area. He came from a very busy city area called Caseros, where no one would stop to listen or talk. So he loves campo, where just about everyone is willing to stop and chat. 

Does Elder Stockton look like a "giant among men" to you?

Elder Haugaard and some members

I´m happy because we have a companionship that will work together, improve together, and give the work our all. From Thursday to Sunday, we taught 3 lessons with a member present and 6 other lessons, found 11 new (good) investigators, set 4 new baptismal goals, found more than 40 separate houses to return to and teach, and reworked our map and organization of our data to facilitate more effective planning. 

Our contacts and challenges have been powerful. Our lessons have been powerful because we´re working in unity. We have the Spirit. And in addition to that, Elder Hougaard is just a good guy. So, we´re having a good time, and we are looking forward to this transfer. We have high expectations, and we´re giving everything we´ve got to the work. 

Of course we´re still far from perfect, but we recognize our imperfections and are trying to improve, and that is making a lot of the difference. I foresee a lot of personal progress this transfer, and a lot of progress in the Branch. I hope it doesn´t sound like I´m boasting. I know as to my strength I am nothing, but I will boast of my God! ...And I´m really excited for this transfer.

So, wish us luck! And more than luck, wish us health (My comp is a little under the weather. Must be my cooking?) and success!

No other news, really... just a request: If you happen to be thinking about sending a package my way within the next few months, here are a few things I definitely wouldn´t mind having:
1. a new head to my electric toothbrush (I won´t tell you what happened to the old one.) [Check]
2. a metal fruit cutter that cuts apples into slices. [Check]
3. a washing machine [Hmmmm]

I love you all! I hope you have a great week, each of you. We should thank God for letting us be together as a family. :-)
Take care!
Elder Andrew Stockton

October 22, 2012

Well! It´s been a good week! It seems like lots of stuff has happened.

This week we ran into a problem that I have never had to deal with before - a problem that other missionaries have recently started experiencing in the mission, and that President Carter says he hopes for every missionary to be confronted with: we have too many people to visit, and not enough time! If we visit only our current investigators, 2 or 3 times a week (which is standard), we´ll finish the week with over 40 lessons. Wow! Generally we finish the week with about 15. And in addition to that, we have to go see all of the people we found last week who said we could come back and talk to them, and we have to find time to visit the members and strengthen them. There´s just not enough time! The large size of the area and our lack of bicycles also complicate things. So I´m sure that this transfer is going to help me to learn better how to organize and plan. We´ve also decided to tighten up our metaphorical nets - we can´t afford to spend our time visiting those people who have to be convinced to listen to the message of the Gospel. We´re looking for those who are looking for it. So that means discerning who, among our investigators, is really going to progress. It´s not actually very hard to see - those who keep their commitments progress, and change. 

Does the dog count as an investigator?

Last Saturday was the Bragado Horse Festival, celebrating the founding of Bragado some years back. We took some pictures of the gauchos riding around on their horses. ´Gaucho´ means cowboy - and they´re real Argentine cowboys. Kind of fun! 

Fun things:
Earlier in the week, Elder Hougaard and I went to visit a man who we had made a return appointment with. His house was next to a bar. Our guy wasn´t there, so while my companion fixed an appointment to come back another time, I talked to two guys who were sitting at a table nearby. One of them was a cool guy who really wants to change his life. When I wrote down his address, I found that he is the dad of one of our other new investigators! Hey! Cool! How often does that happen?

Argentine kids are incredibly cute.

On Sunday, we went to pick up an investigator for church. She didn´t come out for a long time. As we were waiting, we saw a gaucho (cowboy), who beckoned us to come and talk to him. (I already knew this one - I had contacted him before.) We did. It turned out his horse had escaped, and he wanted our help to go catch it. So, we helped him get his horse back, and made an appointment to come back later and help teach him the Gospel. 

Domestic Duties

Super cleaning day

This is what is left if you boil water in a pan until it all evaporates. So… that´s what we´re drinking. From what I can tell from what the members have told us, it might be arsenic.

I love you all! Thanks for your letters. I hope you all continue doing well. Talk to you next week!


All my love,
Elder Andrew Stockton

No, Elder ... we walk and ride bikes, remember?

 

Someone taped our ´Jesus´ pass-along card to their door… along with Gauchito Gil and a Catholic saint.

A beautiful day in a beautiful park!