Elder Andrew Stockton: Bragado

Two weeks ago ...

Hello hello! Hope you all had a marvelous week! I haven´t read your emails yet, because we left the pench a little late to do Internet. So I´ll print out your letters and read them tonight, and use the time right now to write and let you know what´s going in... Bragado.

Things are good, in Bragado.
Maybe I mentioned last week a family that we´re working with? The 3 kids are progressing marvelously - some of the best investigators I´ve taught so far. Joana (11) reads everything she can get from us and prays amazing prayers from the heart. Antonella (13) is earnestly seeking for good things and finding that the Gospel makes her happy. Germán (14) is changing the whole direction of his life - just at the point where he was about to drop out of school and be a punk, he´s seeing that instead he can become a man of God. His mom is so happy with the changes she´s seeing in her son. This Sunday it rained all morning - and investigators almost NEVER come in the rain. But these kids walked themselves alone through the rain and cold to come to church. How awesome.

Last week ...

I am finally writing with a decent amount of time, hurrah! I enjoyed reading all your letters. It´s great to hear about what´s going on at home. Also nice to be able to see a little bit of what the yard looks like! Summer at home is my very favorite time/place. It sounds like everyone´s enjoying their summer.

Where to start? We had a zone conference the other day. (Up at 3:00 in the morning to catch a bus to Chivilcoy, all day at the meeting. We got back just in time to do a few street contacts and plan for the next day.) It was pretty fantastic! I am here in Bragado in an important time in ´campo´ history. It is President Carter´s plan to change the way that missionaries work in campo, with a greater focus on working with the few branch members that we have.

Something I didn´t know is that campo is supposed to be super hard to work in. There haven´t been real convert baptisms in Bragado for over 2 years! But I don´t know, it seems pretty normal to me. The only difference that really affects the work is that we have to work at different times of the day, when the people are in the streets.

Anyway, we´re about to start with this new way of working, and in a few weeks we should be seeing results! Part of working in this new way is that we´re going to teach classes in Church on Sunday about how to do member missionary work. Should be good!

Elder Correa is teaching me to cook some things! After he made some delicious food for the first couple weeks, I decided I needed to learn and help out a bit. And, in spite of one instance of nearly killing my companion with some highly peppered rice, I have gotten pretty okay at cooking! I can make rice with tasty sauce and chinese soup. Mmmm! Even better than plain, unseasoned rice!

My companion and I have recently adopted a new practice called Oreo Night. Every Thursday night after weekly planning, we conference call the district and enjoy oreos (1-2 packages each) and milk (3%). It´s a very good tradition - a fun way to relax after a long day of planning. Under the last mission president, Thursday Oreo Night was actually a mission rule. Seems like a good one to me!

Because our areas are so far away, we have our district meetings via telephone. Singing the opening hymn is a trick!

Adela (the mostly-deaf old Sister who gives us lunch) had a birthday this week, and invited us over for delicious chocolate milk and really tasty chocolates. And Dulce de Membrillo. We took one of our investigators and headed over, and had a fun time. As a present for Adela, I gave her a picture that I drew for her on P-day last week! She´s a cool lady. She knitted me a pair of blue socks to keep my feet warm at night. Then, thinking that the socks were too small, she knitted me another pair. Heh heh. And they do keep my feet warm! They´re nice to have. She´s cool.