Una semana de enfermedades y milagros

This past week started off with a miracle. About 5 years ago the missionaries found the Robles family, parents Javier and Carmen, children Jonny (now age 18), Alexi (16), Liz(6), and Maylen(5). Jonny and Alexi were baptized (Jonny now on a mission in Brasil), but Javier and Carmen were not. Carmen has wanted to be baptized ever since she came in contact with the church, but her husband Javier, hasn't had that same desire, thus keeping her from getting baptized. Turns out they secretly got married on July 18. We met with Carmen and she will be baptized this Saturday. We're working on Javier.  I know that families can be together forever.

Tuesday after lunch my companion, Elder Guerra, got pretty sick with the flu. The mission doctor told us to stay in the pension so that he could rest. Tuesday was a really boring day. We slept... watched some church movies... and wrote in our journals. It wasn't too eventful. Wednesday he was still sick, so we made a lot of calls and finally found two members to go on splits with us. Brother Juan Carlos stayed in the pension with my companion for 7 hours... he is about 70 years old. My companion told me that it was a pretty boring day. I went on splits with Alexi Robles for about 3 hours, and then he had to go home, so Elder Coyoy and Elder Hansen (from Pacheco 2) came and picked me up to take me with them. That was the first time going on splits with a member for me and it was probably the weirdest feeling ever to not have someone in a shirt and tie and name tag next to me. It was also a little interesting because I still don't exactly know which buses take us to our area... so we ended up taking the wrong bus and had to walk a little bit. Fortunately, Elder Guerra was better on Thursday.

On Friday, Mabel and Juan had their baptismal interviews and passed them. They were so excited for their baptism on Sunday. The only problem was that then they all got the flu. On Sunday when we passed by their house to bring them to church we found out that they had been at the hospital until 3 the night before because Mabel's grandson was quite a bit sicker than the rest. Even though they were up until 3 the night before, they were still up and getting ready to go to church when we arrived. That is... everyone but Juan. Juan didn't want to get out of bed. He said he was tired and his whole body hurt. I told him, "Juan, you need to go to church to be baptized today!" He then got up, changed, and we went to church. In the end we went to church with Mabel and her children: Juan, Roberto (who is mentally handicapped), and Maria with her two sons (one of which was still ill). It was incredible to see the faith that they had to go to church even though they weren't feeling well and it would appear that they had every reason to stay home. 

Baptism. Santiago (child of Maria), Roberto,
Elder Coyoy, Mabel, Elder Garrett, Juan 

They are a very humble family. It was honestly heart-warming to see how genuine their love is for the Savior and their desire to follow him. It was so cool to see Roberto going around and greeting every single member with a kiss on the cheek (I'm not sure if I've mentioned that, but that is how people greet each other here in Argentina. Not just guys and girls, girls and girls, guys and guys, everyone greets like that. It was pretty weird when I got here, but now it's kind of normal. I know it isn't normal in the US though. As missionaries, obviously, we greet women with a handshake.) Anyway, it was heartwarming. Then Juan and Mabel were baptized. Juan asked Elder Coyoy to baptize him because he came with me on exchanges to visit them, and Mabel asked me to baptize her. It was a really great experience. Later on that day we visited them and the whole atmosphere of their home had changed.  Juan bore his testimony and expressed his love for God and his desire to keep learning and be a missionary like us, and the Spirit was really strong in that moment. It was a great week.

Exploring Tigre

Today we went to Tigre to check it out and see what there is to see. We went with Elder Coyoy and Elder Hansen. It wasn't that cool because we didn't really know where the siteseeing spots are and it was cold and windy... but we took a few pictures anyway. We then went to a "Pizza Libre" (all-you-can-eat Pizza), so that was fun. We paid 40 pesos a person, but you are forced to buy a soda (1.25 liters) for every 2 people, and the sodas were 40 pesos each, which is a ton of money. You can buy a 2.25 liter soda for about 10 pesos, just to put it into perspective. Because they charged us so much for the soda, we made up for it by eating more pizza. I think I ate more than ever in my life. 

Pizza Libre

I hope all is well wherever you may be. I love you.  "Que la fuerza les acompañe."

Love,

Elder John William Garrett