Transfers, news and more...

Hello everyone!

First off, we had transfers today. Elder Pepito left and my new
companion is Elder Atwood, from Idaho. (See pictures) He is very nice.
I am looking forward to this transfer! It's a little weird to have
Elder Pepito gone, because I have known him the whole time I have been
in Argentina. And now I'm the one who knows our area, instead of being
the new trainee!

We are going to have another baptism this Saturday, with a lady named
Maria Luisa Ilardo. (That's ILARDO in case the letters look the same.)
She is 78 years old, and the mother of a family in our ward. Her
husband is being stubborn. He too is 78 and believes in God, and has
faith in Christ, but thinks he is "all set" with religion. He is a
wonderful person, and does good in his life. All he lacks is the
fulness of the Gospel. Please pray for him. His name is Hector. The
baptismal service is this Saturday at 6:30 PM our time. I'm not sure
what that will be there, with daylight savings and all. We didn't
change.

Here are a few answers to some questions I have been asked.

There are only 2 of us in our
pension/departmento/apartment/no-one-knows-what-it-is-really-called.
About a year and a half ago this area shared a pension with the
neighboring area, but not any more.

We have Zone Conference once every other transfer. And in the
transfers in between, we have personal interviews with the President.
Elder Pepito explained the reason a while ago, but I have forgotten
it.

As far as my self evaluation of the language, it would be this. I can
talk/communicate with everyone. I sometimes have to ask them to repeat
something once or twice to fully understand, but I eventually get it.
At times I feel like I should be able to do better with the time I
have. And at other times I find myself wondering how I just had a
conversation with someone in a foreign language. Right now if someone
asked me if I speak Spanish/Castellano, I would say "I'm learning."
or "Estoy aprendiendo." I am definitely not where I want to and can
be. I am learning new things every day. Sometimes I get a little lazy,
and my accent turns horrible. I struggle to remember how to conjugate
a word, and end up pronouncing it like a yankee. (Speaking of that,
here they don't call us gringos, but yankees, or in Castellano, Yanqui
(pronounced shaun-kee)) So instead of speaking Spanglish we speak
Castellanqui. So all in all, it is coming, and I can communicate. When
I read, the members say I sound like a native. But that's easy because
the words are already there. I can read the scripures (to myself) and
understand almost everything. It's mostly vocabulary that I lack.

I try to serve the people every way I and We can. We carry bags for
old ladies, help push-start cars, help clean the ditches that they
have in place of gutters, and we have organized servie projects with
our zone, and here in our area with just us. We have cleaned the
Church, painted a patio of a member, gotten rid of crab-grass from a
Sister's yard, painted two schools, and helped a few people move.
Other than that, I do my best to serve them as a missionary, which is
more valuable than all other temporal service I could render. I would
say that I have grown to love the people here, Members or not. That was
something I always remember learning, that you must love the people.
It actually isn't that hard, because they are an amazing people. I
love their culture and their personalities. Every time I meet someone
new, I am amazed that SO MANY PEOPLE can be SO COOL! And they make
awesome food, especially the homemade pizzas, which are nothing like
American pizzas.

We have been seeing a little bit of success here in Pl'anos. We have
several new investigators from the past few weeks. It seems like we
have many, but none of them progress very fast. But I guess thats ok.
Manuel and Olga both took about 2 months before they were baptized.
And Maria Luisa has been investigating for about a month and a half.
Mom, I will prepare a list of names for you for next time.

A couple more quick tidbits. Dad - do you remember those twins that
are the sons of one of the Tue-Thurs basketball guys? I don't remember
his name. The twins that served in Argentina? Anyway, one was Elder
Pepito's Zone Leader for a while. If you could pass a Hello from Elder
Pepito, to me, to you, to him, to his son, that would be great.

Could someone send instructions on how to fix a hole in my dress
shirt. It is about the size of nickel. It got caught on a fence the
other day. I have a needle and thread on hand.

Dad and Mom, can that white tie you gave me get wet? I think so, but
I'm not sure. It's from the Distribution Center and has temples on it.

Any quick updates on Sports would be appreciated. Also, is there a new
Back to the Future coming out? I thought I heard something about that.

I love everyone! Congratulations Summer and Will!

Until next week...


Pictures:

001 - My new companion, Elder Atwood. He's from Idaho, and has about
as much time left in his mission as I have completed in mine.
002 - Some sandwhiches I made, played with, and then ate. And not
specifically in that order.
003 - One of the young Elders in my ward had one of those big
"tagging" pens at a service project, and I asked him to write my
name on my shirt. This is how it turned out! Pretty cool.
004 - This is how one of my socks came back from the Sister in our
ward that does our laundry. At least it was one of the lesser quality
ones.
005 - Let's see if you can spot the difference. Gross.

--
Elder Scot Daniel Stobbe Jr
Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

10/11/2010

Hello, everyone.

This will be a little short today. Sorry.

First off, Summer, I am sorry I couldn´t wait to write, so I could find out what you´re having. We have a Zone Activity today, and I if I didn´t write right now, I wasn´t going to be able write. I guess I can wait a week to find out :(

Second, have there been bad storms or anything in Utah? A lady in our ward told us that, but it seems a little unlikely, especially since she said there were tornados! But I thought I´d ask just in case.

Next week, I won´t be writing until Wednesday (the 20th). Transfers got moved up, and our P-day got moved back. So don´t expect anything until then!

I will share one quick experience from this week.

Yesterday, we were teaching our investigators that have a baptismal date for the 23rd of this month. We were talking about the restoration of the Gospel, and about the Book of Mormon. They are both in their 70´s and the wife, Maria Luisa, is pretty much ready to be baptized. The husband, Hector, is having a harder time. He told us that he beleives in God, and he thinks that is sufficient. We were talking to him, and he was kind of arguing with us, and we weren´t getting anywhere. We all kind of stopped, and I could tell he wasn´t even going to try and find out if this Church is true. Right then, I had the strongest impression to bear my testimony to him. He is a little hard of hearing, so I turned directly toward him, and speaking loudly, bore my testimony of the restored gospel, and the only way to know if it is true, which is to pray to God, and receive your answer through the Holy Ghost. I could feel the Spirit so strongly, and when I finished, I challenged him to pray specifically about this Church and for this answer, and he said he would! We are always told to testify often, but I have never had a prompting that strong.

I love this work, and I am so happy to be here. The people of Argentina are amazing! ·Every time we meet a new family, we can´t believe that every new person we find is just as great as the last!

I want you all to know that I know that this is the true Church, that the Book of Mormon is true, and the God speaks with his children in the present day. I know that through the Holy Ghost, and no one can make me think differently.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

--
Elder Scot Daniel Stobbe Jr
Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Endure to the end, we must!

Hey everyone!

Answers first.

Dad, I´m not sure exactly how much of the vitamin supply I have left, but I´ll put it this way. I have enough to last, but it wouldn´t be a bad idea to send more. I have been taking them semi-regularly, more like twice a day than 3. I am trying to do better.

Tom and Julie- thank you so much for all your help!

I have not actually bought anything with my birthday money, I got it out of the ATM so that I have it when I have time to go get something! I´ll let you know what I get!

Mom, we have lunch with members 5 days out of the week, and the rest of the meals, we are on our own. We eat pasta mostly, and cereal. They have amazing frosted corn flakes here, and not much else by the way of cereal. I also have toast made in the frying pan occasionally.

I was able to see most of Conference, and what I saw was in real time (by satellite). We were late to the first session because we took the wrong bus to the stake center, and ended up in a completely wrong area. We got there right as President Uchtdorf was starting. And we didn´t get to watch the Priesthood session because it started at 9:00 PM for us, and seeing as we have to be home by 9:30 at the latest, we couldn´t watch it. (There are no exceptions to this rule, not even for conference. Sad.) But what I saw, I loved. I can´t wait for the Ensign, which yes, Mom, we will get.

Speaking of conference, I want to share some of my favorite quotes:

´´Trees slow down their growth when conditions are less than ideal. Now you are probably saying: That´s all nice and good, but... what does it have to do with airplanes?´´ -Dieter F. Uchtdorf (the best part being that it actually could be connected to airplanes)

´´There comes a time when milestones can become millstones.´´ -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

´´Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.´´ -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

´´Satan is voting against me, the Lord is voting for me. It´s my vote that counts.´´ -Boyd K. Packer

´´Every person bound in prison by sin has the key to get out. It is labeled: ´Repentance´ ´´ -Boyd K. Packer

´´Joseph Smith could not translate when he was angry or upset. He could do nothing save he was humble and faithful.´´ -Dallin H. Oaks

´´Before the Savior fed the 4,000 with 7 loaves and a few fishes, He gave thanks for having those 7 fishes.´´ -Thomas S. Monson (See Matthew 15:36)

´´We never know how soon it will be too late.´´ -Thomas S. Monson

´´Beware of things that can destroy from the inside out.´´ -Per G. Malm

´´You stupid cow!´´ -Mervyn B. Arnold (from his wife)

´´Fly-fisherman are like Lucifer!´´ -M. Russell Ballard

´´Endure to the end, we must.´´ -Thomas S. Monson (though I think he stole that from Yoda!)

That line from President Monson´s closing address is good council. It seems like all the other counsel we received this conference and in every conference is focused on how to do just that. Endure to the End. The 3rd missionary lesson has 6 steps. We can be clean through Christ and His atonement. Faith in Him. Repentance. Baptism. Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Endure to the End. Generally the first 5 are learned and put in to practice by an investigator in a matter of weeks. They can be completely converted in a single lesson, even by one single witness from the Holy Ghost. Their baptism and confirmation happen soon after. That process is soon complete, and they are left with one main objective that they will work at, struggle with, and continue to learn how to do for the rest of their lives. Almost every thing we do in the Church is to help us endure to the end. There are two key things that will in truth, help us the most out of any other thing. What are they? Think, what two things we have been COMMANDED to do every single day.... Read the Scriptures, and Pray. Everything else will become a joy, rather than a drudgery if we but do these two things every day. Problems will be faced with knowledge, tasks with confidence, decisions with inspiration. As Elder Bednar said, I challenge each and every person who reads this to start reading from the Scriptures (including conference talks), and praying every day, if they are not already doing that. I promise that if you do, you will receive more of the Spirit in your life, and have more desire and ability conquer your problems and enjoy your blessings. How well timed, and well said is the counsel from our wonderful prophet. Let us all hearken to his voice, for indeed, at this time, ´´Endure to the end, we must!´´

I almost forgot! This was the first conference I can remember without waffles! It was sad. The saddest part though, is that Elder Pepito and I had to leave inbetween Sunday sessions to go to an appointment, and THE OTHER MISSIONARIES MADE WAFFLES WHILE WE WERE GONE! Can you beleive that! haha. I guess I will survive, and enjoy them all the more when I come home.

As always, I am out of time again. I love you all so much! Thank you for every thing each of you do for me!

--
Elder Scot Daniel Stobbe Jr
Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission