Elder Stobbes letter from November 22nd

Hey!

I don´t have much time today, sorry. We are actually in our Bishop´s

almacen (a little shop that they have here) and he has one computer.

So my companion and I have to take turns. We can´t go to a normal

cyber to use the computers because today is a holiday here.

This last week was interesting. We had very few lessons, but the one´s

we had were awesome! We watched a whole grip of movies this week. On

monday, for a noche de hogar (family night), we watched finding faith

in Christ. Then we watched the Restoration movie twice with different

investigators. Then we had an activity on Saturday night where we

watched the Testaments. Every time we finish a movie, at least one

person is all teared up, and we always have little testimony meetings

right after. With one of the times we watched the Restoration, we had

to do it in the Church because they don´t have a DVD player. So we

gave them a tour first, and when we showed them the Baptismal Font,

Ezequiel (9 yrs old) says, it would be very nice to get baptized here

(his mom is an inactive member, so he knows about baptism. It was

awesome! We don´t want to put a date yet for his baptism because he

learns really slow, so we have to take our time with him.

Can someone tell Matthew that I never said I was born in Lanai. I

always said Lihue. Is it true that he is serving in Lihue right now?

What are the chances that one of my best friends would serve his

mission in my birthplace!

I want everyone to know that I have a testimony of this Gospel.

Especially Stacia and Shered. I am not perfect, and none of us are,

but this Gospel is. It is true, and the only way we can really have

true joy in this life and in the world to come. What I am doing right

now is difficult. Some days, when no one wants to listen, and our

appointments aren´t there, and we get home at night only having taught

one person, it is hard to keep your passion for this work. That is,

until I remember why I chose to come over 5,000 miles and give 2 years

of my life to try and share this message. Because it is TRUE. Christ

restored his church on the earth, and is the Living Head of that

church at this very moment. Through his atonement and teachings, we

can have eternal life with those we love most, our family. I know that

with all of my mind and heart.

I love you all so much! I love to hear from you all.

One more quick question. I was thinking the other day and I am not

sure where everyone is living, specifically Sheyene and Shered. Maybe

someone could answer that!

I am out of time now, like all the missionaries always say. But I

really do have to go.

Que tengan fe en Cristo siempre es mi deseo mas grande. Les amo muchísimo.

Elder Scot Daniel Stobbe Jr

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Elder Stobbes letter from November 15th

You can use Google Translate to read this. Even though I don´t know how good of a job it does.

¡Hola a todas!

Voy a hacer algo diferente hoy, y voy a escriber todo en Castellano. Para que todas sepan, pueden usar ´´Google Translate´´ para leer este, o pueden tratar a entender sin traducción. Quiero preguntar que este se muestra sin traducciòn en el blog también, para tener mas diversión.

Esta semana pasada fue una otra como los demás. Estamos trabajando acá en Plátanos, pero no estamos encontrando a muchas personas nuevos. Los que ya tenemos son buenísimos, y vamos a seguir con ellos, obvio.

Papá - No, no he hecho mis zapatos todavía. Estoy esperando hasta que puedo ir a Quilmes para hacerlo.

Creo que si me manda esa folleto a cerca de la Fe, estaría bien. Debe hacerlo por PDF, en un e-mail.

Yo leí todo el libro de Jesús el Cristo, y no està equivocado, me ayuda mucha cuando leo en el Nuevo Testamento ahora. Es como las historias tienen mas significado ahora. Ya he leído todos los Libros de la Biblioteca Misional. Me falta solo las Escrituras. Yo he leido todo el Libro de Mormón, y hasta Sección 95 en La Doctrina y Convenios. También he leído Matías, Marcos, Lucas, y Juan.

Recibé unas cartas de Sierra y Mamá tambièn. Aparentemente estan jugando en Las Vegas, o algo asì. Parece muy divertido. Recuerdo los días cuando fuimos a Las Vegas como una familia. Estoy contento que pueden hacer eso otra vez. Saquen fotos, y duespues pueden mandarme un email con los fotos.

Y, hablando de divertido, ¿por que nadie me dijo que casi todos tienen iPhones ahora? Jaja. Estoy contento por eso igual. Yo empezè una tendencia en la familia. Cuando llego a casa a fin de me misión, espero que hay un iPhone esperandome.

¿Como está Shered? ¿Como está vivir con los padres otra vez? jaja Estoy feliz que está con ellos. Es mejor estar con familia.

Gracias a todos por sus cartas y oraciones. Siempre estoy feliz cuando recibo algo de un pariente o amigo. Yo he recibido dos cartas de la Hermana Montes, uno de Alex Ramsay, y también de Marylin, Lane y Vay, y otros.

No mucho nuevo ha pasado acá. Hoy mi compañero sufrío un esguince en su torbillo cuando estuvimos jugando fútbol. Entonces, él no puede caminar muy bien. Ojalá que vamos a poder trabajar esté noche, y mañana.

No sé si ustedes escucharon a lo que pasó a Mark, pero tuvo un accidente con so moto. Quizás alguien puede visitarlo, o algo.

Yo los amo a todos de ustedes. Yo espero que todo esté bien, y que siempre recuerden la Iglesia es sus vidas.

Hasta la próxima vez...

November 8th 2010

Hey Everyone!

I have loved hearing from everyone. Thanks for always sending your
hellos and prayers my way.

I am so glad to hear you guys found a house! It looks pretty nice,
with all sorts of cool add-ons like trampolines and playrooms! I am
not exactly sure where Fox Hollow is, but Highland is Highland.

I don´t have very much time today, it is already passed P-day time,
but we got stuck waiting for a train after playing soccer with our
Zone Leaders. So this won´t be very long. I am just going to share a
little lesson from my study this week.

On Saturday morning, I was looking for something new to study, having
only been reading in Doctrine and Covenants the last few days. So I
did the old ´´open-up-the-Book-of-Mormon-and-read-whatever-it-says´´
trick. I ended up opening to Alma 31. This is where Alma hears about
some sketchy things that are going on with the Zoramites, like
´´worshiping dumb idols´´. He was sad, or as it says, ´´sickened´´ by
the thought that a part of his people had separated from the Nephites
and were ´´perverting the ways of the Lord´´. So he takes some of his
friends, the sons of Mosiah, a few brethren from the Church, and two
of his sons, and they all head down to Antionum to try and help the
Zoramites with the good word of God.

´´And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead
the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful
effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else,
which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient
that they should try the virtue of the word of God.´´
-verse 5

That was the first scripture that jumped out at me. I love the thought
that the preaching of the word of God has a more powerful effect upon
the minds of the people than the sword. Imagine if instead of police,
and armies, we just sent missionaries to resolve world conflicts.
´´This country is stealing your oil and you want to send your tanks
and guns to stop them? Great, let´s go teach them how the Gospel has
been restored and we can live together forever with our familes if we
don´t break commandments by stealing!´´ or something like that. The
Doctrine of Christ has the power to change even the hardest heart, and
redeem even the vilest sinner. And when threats with the sword could
possibly just make things worse, every single person can benefit from
the word of God.

I just realized that I am almost out of time. I can´t finish, so I
invite each of you to read this chapter when you have some time.
Especially look for the difference between the prayers of the
Zoramites from the Rameumtom, and the prayer Alma offers from the
pained depths of his heart. And then look for what Alma does to try
and fix the situation! I love the Book of Mormon. Every word of it is
true, and can help us in our life. I know without a doubt that this
Church is the only true Church of Jesus Christ on the earth. I know
that what I am doing as a missionary is the Lord´s work, and hopefully
I can help many more people receive the blessings of the Restored
Gospel.

I love everyone and I send my love and hello to everyone who is
reading this, and even some who aren´t!

¡Hasta la próxima semana!

Hola from Argentina!

Hey everyone! Happy Halloween! To answer your question, Mom, they kind of celebrate Halloween here. There were a few kids on Saturday and Sunday out with costumes. I dressed up as a missionary for halloween! My costume was so good that I fooled everyone in our ward! It sounds like you guys had a blast with all your activites ´´Hay rides, Haunted Cruises, lots of ghosts, bats, witches, graveyards and spiders to eat! 3 trunk-or-treats, 3 chili cook-offs and Shalet was in a wax museum´´ What exactly does that mean that Shalet was ´´in´´ a wax museum. It sounds fun, whatever it is.

I haven´t fixed my shoe yet because some members told me that the place we have in our area doesn´t do a very good job, and it will probably just break in a few weeks. Especially with our walking. So I am looking for a better one. They told me there are some in Quilmes, which is the ´´big city´´ close to us, so I´ll have to look there the next time we go.

Thanks for the shirt ´´fix´´, too.

That party with the Knapps sounded fun. Tell them hi for me.

As far as what is happening with Manuel, our recent convert... heartbreak and struggle. He hasn´t been to church since he got confirmed. His member friend that had us teach him in her house moved out of the ward about the same time as his baptism, so he lost that connection. Then he started getting more work, which is difficult to turn down. All in all, Satan is working against him. We have an appointment with him tomorrow. Hopefully we can see what´s going on and how we can help him. Prayers on his behalf would be greatly appreciated.

Alejandro, the brother of my favorite family in our ward (los Arocha), no se encuentra nunca. That is to say, he is never around. He is busy with his work, (police) and just got married too. We are trying to teach him again, though.

Here is a list of names for you. Some of them you already have, I think. Ana Maria di Rosa, Hector Ilardo, Marta Alvarez, Emanuel and Elizabeth, Eliana and Ezequiel, Carlos and Margarita, Juan Juarez, Leo and Celina, José Retamoso, Mario, Vanessa Lopez, Mario, Eduardo la Sarte, Ricardo Coki, Maria del Lourdes Nassiff, Maria Lujan, Eduardo Serventi, Clotilde, Beto, Lucia and Victor, and Jessica Pros.

They all have struggles. Some we haven´t taught in a while. But these are all the people we are currently working with.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. Next time I´ll do better. This is our ´´pension´´. Ours is the one with the door open.

That´s too bad about the Lehr´s house. I imagine that the house you eventually find will be where you are supposed to be. God works in mysterious ways.

DEREK- Welcome Home. Or however you say that when I am all the way down here. I heard you are already back and with a job and everything. Good for you. Thanks for the example you set for me as a missionary. I love you, and I´ll see you when I get back, and we can swap missionary stories.

We have been a little lacking in the lessons area. We only taught a few this last week. It seems like Heavenly Father blessed us with 3 baptisms, and now it´s time to be tested. We are staying positive, and we know that things will get better, so for right now, we are just going to keep working, regardless of how many times we show up to lessons and nobody is there. We find ways to keep happy during the day. I refuse to show that I´m tired at door contacts, and even though no one wants to listen, the people are fun to talk to. The men always say, Hola Muchachos, que hacen? For some reason, I like that. Almost no one is mean, so it´s easier to keep our spirits up.

I have been learning a lot from the scriptures. I read the story of Joseph of Egypt, and of Moses (up until the 40 years in the wilderness). It is cool to re-read these bible stories, and like Mom does, look for the application in missionary work.

Hopefully we will be getting the Conference Ensign this week. I am excited to get to hear those talks again.

Today, we are going to La Plata. We are going to eat at SubWay. As far as I know, there are only two in Buenos Aires. One in Capital, where we can´t go, and one in La Plata. So we are going there, and then to the Salvation Army so my companion can buy some socks or something. After, I think we might go play some Volleyball, también.

Well, that´s all for now. I have to get off now, but I will talk to you all next time.

Also, I would love some pictures of the kids at Halloween!

Love, Elder Scot Daniel Stobbe Jr a.k.a. Scoty (haha Rob)

From last Monday...

Hello Everyone!

Happy Birthday Stacia! Sorry I kind of forgot last week! I hope you had a wonderful time. That rootbeer cauldron looked awesome! We hadn´t done that for a long time!

Dad, what did you mean ´´That seems ideal to have your first transfer be your companion´´? That seemed a little confusing.

We had a fun experience this Saturday with the baptism of Maria Luisa. Like we should, we went to the church early to fill the font. Everything was going well until there was about a foot of water in the font. At this point, the water quit working! We tried all sorts of things, but we couldn´t fix it. Bishop Pintos came and tried to help us, but his key didn´t work in the maintenence door. So, finally he had to go buy a hose, and hook it up to a spigot out by the street so we could fill it. And we heated up a huge pan (about 10 gallons) of water on the stove, so that it wouldn´t be too cold. The baptism was supposed to start at 6:30, but ended up being at 7:30. But we had it, and everything went good after that. Maria was confirmed in Sacrament Meeting yesterday, and is now a Member! We went to her house after and had homemade pizzas, which were delicious. Except for the one with anchovies. That was gross.

Elder Atwood is very different from Elder Pepito. He is more laid back and relaxed. You´ll notice in the picture he looks unhappy, or tired, or something, but that´s just what he looks like.

---Ok, while I have been writing this the power has gone out 3 times, and the internet quit working for about 15 minutes. So I keep losing track of what I want to write. Anyway...

I am glad to hear everyone is doing well.

I will write more and include pictures of the area next time.

I love you all!
--
Elder Scot Daniel Stobbe Jr
Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

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