Merry Christmas!

Twas the noon-time of Christmas
And all through the room
The Stocktons were waiting
Their hopes in full bloom!

You see, they were waiting
For the house phone to ring,
A message from Andrew
They hoped it would bring!

And lo! And behold!
(With a minor delay)
A call from Argentina
Did brighten their day!

His voice, it was merry.
His attitude, catching.
His English was goofy --
(He hasn't been practicing :)  )

He heard news from home,
And expressed thanks and love
For the letters, support,
And the prayers sent above.

He told us of life,
About people he teaches,
His joy serving others
And his hope that he reaches ---

Those who search for the truth,
Who seek something more,
Who are anxious to hear
A new "clap" at their door.

His greatest delight,
His joy and his treasure,
Is sharing the gospel
And blessings unmeasured.

He works very hard,
And makes sacrifice too,
But it's worth it, he says,
And there's much work to do!

He loves all the people
He encounters each day,
And hopes he can touch them
For good on their way.

He sends love to his family,
Each one cherished and dear,
Says "hello" to his friends,
And to be of good cheer!

He reminds us of Jesus
Whose message he shares,
A message of love,
That amidst all our cares --

We too can have peace
If we'll follow His way,
If we'll come unto Him,
If we'll share love each day.

We all felt enriched
By his message and voice.
In his service and love
We can only rejoice!

As we wrapped up the call

(Which came much much too soon)

Tender feelings of love

Filled our hearts, and the room.

Our wishes to all,

 Friends and family so dear ...

"May the blessings of Christmas

Stay with you all year!"

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

With love,

The Stocktons!

December in Jardines

December 17, 2012

Dear Family,

...Oh no! I´ve been naughty and opened up my Christmas package ahead of time! A lump of coal for me! :-o I assumed it was a pre-Christmas package because I thought the Christmas lights were to decorate for December. Ah well! I was told recently that the package from Becca arrived, so... that will be my open-on-Christmas box! (Reminds me of the time Mom caught Jacob and I under the bed in the very act of opening up my Christmas present - a brown Bionicle! Remember that, Mom?)

(It's hard to send any 'surprises,' as we have to declare all the contents of the box on the customs form. Thus the confusion ...)

But I did indeed feel your love as I opened it, and I send you my love and thanks in return. :-) And I love the music! All the music you sent is fantastic - and Elder Wing and I are enjoying it. I am particularly liking the Fernando Ortega CDs. There´s a great feel of honest worship to his songs - it´s not fake or over-the-top. The Hallelujah Chorus (Handel's Messiah) is a big hit here as well. Also a big hit is the fudge and the other snacks, which Elder Wing and I have been treating ourselves to the whole week long. I also finally opened up one of those peanut butter packs yesterday. Mmmmm! I was missing it.

Well, we had an awesome week this week. I´m happier than I´ve ever been on my mission! I feel more capable than ever, and like I´m doing more to help people than ever before. I love to see the change in the lives of the people that we´re teaching. They´re really beginning to get a small taste of what God has in store for them if they continue in the Gospel. And that makes me happy. I used to wish to find people who were all ready to be baptized, and just needed to be taught. But now my desire is to find people whose lives I can help change. The Gospel is a marvelous thing that really makes happy those who follow it.

One of our investigators is doing great. She is developing the habit of reading the Book of Mormon with her kids. She told us that she´s found that when the kids are sad or bored or misbehaving, that she can say ´Let´s go grab the scriptures and read together!´ and all the kids come surround her on the bed and she reads to them out of the Book of Mormon. (The real Book of Mormon, which it turns out they like better than the picture book.) Hurrah! Please, if you would remember her in your prayers, pray that she may withstand the opposition that she´s experiencing and have the courage to do the right thing.

This past week we went to do some service for some investigators -- painting the outside of the building where they work. It turned out that the paint was really thin and hard to apply. I think I ended up painting more of myself than I did the wall. We´re going back to finish painting this Wednesday.

Another investigator is really educated about the Bible! He started telling us about the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods, and about callings that should exist in the church, and other things similar to that. I think the more he finds out that the Restored Church fits with what he reads in the Bible, the more he is convinced that it really is the same true church. (Although he was a little surprised to find out that we were Anciants - or, Elders - in the church.) But we don´t think he´s praying to ask God whether these things are true yet, which is vital. He needs to have that spiritual conviction.

We found some fantastic new investigators this week -- a (married!!) couple from Paraguay. They moved here to Argentina a few months back and are building a house to live in. Their 3 kids are in Paraguay still, and it´s hard for the parents to be here without them. When they finish the house, the kids will move here with them. They grew up in another congregation, but as adults they became disillusioned with it. Now they are going around to various churches, looking for a good church to raise their children in. We told them we can give them even better - the true church of Jesus Christ. They are going to start reading in the Book of Mormon, praying, and attending church to know whether it really is. 

Another investigator is a woman from Perú. Her sister and cousin were baptized in Perú years back. She was introduced to the church, but never got very far along the conversion process because of how much she had to work. Now she is looking for some way to bring more unity and happiness to her family. We told her we can help her with that!

The Gospel is just great. It makes people happy. We are so lucky (blessed) to be members of the church.

I´m learning a few phrases in Guaraní! That´s kind of fun. ´Yah yo toe pahtah´ (say it like it reads) means ´See you later!´ If you want to gain a Paraguayan´s confidence/interest, speak Guaraní to them.

Elder Decker and Elder Sampson baptized a family of 3 on Saturday. That was nice to see!

A Family Home Evening with some investigators went great. We played the guitar and sang ´Noche de Luz´ and we felt the Spirit. And, we had panchos, which are like hot dogs but twice as long.

I will call home probably about 4:40 Argentine time, which would be 12:40 your time. Sorry, that´s right around lunchtime, I know! We´re allowed 40 minutes to talk, so we´ll have enough time for a good chat.

I love you so much! Take care, have a great week... pet the kitty for me. Merry Christmas. :-)

Love,
Elder Andrew Stockton

December 2012

 

Hard to believe, 

but one year has come and gone!

Happy hump day, Elder Stockton!

November 30, 2012

December 3, 2012

Hello, dear family!

This week saw lots of miracles here in Jardines. We´re teaching some people that are just... really cool. I´m so lucky (blessed) to be here and be able to interact with these fantastic souls. They bless my life, and I hope to be able to bless theirs. May I tell you about a few of the awesome people/experiences of Jardines?

One of the investigators we are teaching ... was a referral from the elders in Jardines B, who contacted her on the bus. She´s from Paraguay. When she was a child, her aunt and cousins converted to the Gospel. She spent lots of time with them, and so she grew up going to Primary and Family Home Evenings. She was never able to be baptized because her parents wouldn´t give her permission. When she was 12, she moved here to Argentina and lost contact with the Church. Now we´re teaching her and her 5 kids, all of whom are under the age of 6. 

When we had our first lesson with her, we invited her to prepare to be baptized in the church, and she accepted. Part of that preparation is going to church, which is the commitment that is hardest for investigators to keep. We knew it was going to be especially hard for her, having 5 kids to take care of. But she told us, ´Elders, I am going to do everything in my power to get to church on Sunday.´ That´s something you rarely hear as a missionary. We arranged for a sister in the ward to come and help us get her there to church, and we showed up their house at 8:40 on Sunday morning to pick them up. All of them were dressed nicely and waiting for us. I think that may be the first time that has ever happened to me on the mission! It was quite nice!

Then we hit an obstacle. Our plan was to take the kids and walk the block to the bus stop, then take the bus to church. But when we got there, we were informed that a bus driver had been killed that morning and as a result none of the buses were running! Augh! We tried to call for a remis (taxi), but none of them were running that early in the morning. We tried to call a member of the ward to come pick us up, but no one answered. We were there almost an hour before thankfully, a brother from the ward called us back and came to pick us up. In the meantime, I was able to exercise the talent I´ve developed on the mission of keeping children entertained. I pulled out a ´Friend´ magazine and some colored pencils, and with that was able to keep them from getting bored and noisy while my companion tried to find a way to get us to church.

At last we were able to get there, and we had a great meeting. During Sacrament meeting, I looked over (from where I was at the piano) at our investigator, expecting to see her distracted quieting her children. But what I saw was just her, holding her months-old baby and looking at the speaker! The members had totally taken charge of helping her with her kids, so that she was left free to concentrate and feel the Spirit. That was nice to see. I feel like we´ve got good members here in Jardines.

That´s all I´ve got time for! Love you so much! Talk to you next week.
Elder Stockton

Pictures from Andrew's last days in Bragado:

Adela! We had a great last lunch with her, with the zone leaders there. We didn´t tell Adela I was leaving, because she has this habit of getting up during the wee hours of the morning and walking down to the bus station to see Elders off - which she really shouldn´t do.

December 10, 2012

Hi! I´m writing to you from a cyber near the offices today, because today is ´Renew-your-documents´ day for my mission age-group. How are things? I can feel some of the special Christmas spirit when I think about home - the tree and the lights and the heater vent... and cookies and Christmas music. And, sitting on the couch with a blanket and a sleeping kitty on your lap, while eating peanut butter crackers and reading a book. (Don´t worry, I only think about these things on P-day! ;-) But, let´s see - it looks like we might be able to give the pench a little more of a Christmasy look with the contents of this package that I picked up from the offices...! This is to open now, right? It´s not a to-wait-for-Christmas box? (If it is, I´ll only find out next week, by which date it will be too late!) Thanks much! I´m getting spoiled with all these packages!

Well, we had a good week this week. Some of our investigators are progressing really well! In fact, the woman I told you about is progressing better and faster than I´ve ever seen! She came to church again on Sunday. It was a little harder with the kids this time, but she still enjoyed it. She seems so happy recently. The other day we asked her what kind of change she´s seen in herself since she began investigating. She she told us how the Gospel has given her a hope for her life, a reason to live and to fight every day. This week she asked us about the temple and about eternal families, without us even bringing it up. She obviously has her sights set beyond just baptism - she sees the real reason for following the Gospel! He children are happy, too. They loved Primary and were anxious to return. This week we gave her a Book of Mormon Picture Book to read with her kids, so that they (and she) can get to know the Book of Mormon stories and people.

This week we made burritos, with refried beans that my companion somehow obtained here in Argentina, and tortillas made with empanada tortillas. Not quite like what we eat at home, but... at least enough to make me say, Mmmm, good!

I got a HUGE sunburn the other day after being in the sun only an hour! The problem was, I was in a normal T-shirt (we were doing service), and the skin on my back and neck that is usually hidden under my collar was exposed to the sun. It didn´t take long for me to be burned, burned, burned... I´m a little better now, but it was making me pretty uncomfortable for a few days with my collared shirts!

It looks l like Christmas is going to be good here! On P-day the 24th, our whole mission is going to the temple (for the first time, woohoo!), then back to the offices for a mission-wide lunch and devotional. Should be good!

And the day of, a phone call home! We need to arrange the time to call next week, because we won´t be emailing home the 24th. How many hours ahead of AZ time is Argentina? I´m looking forward to it!

Well, that´s all I´ve got today! I love you all. Keep that Christmas Spirit in your hearts! Thanks for your prayers!

Love,
Elder Andrew Stockton

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