October 9, 2017

Hola everybody! I hope you all had a great week and are enjoying your fall weather and all the changing leaves because it is heating up south of the equator. I have no idea how hot it actually is because everything here is in the metric unit, but it's really humid too. My companion tells me I haven't seen anything yet too, so come December when you're all in the snow, I'll be a puddle in the calle. 

I think the best day this week was probably Tuesday. We started the day with a district meeting which went really good! Then our Zone leaders dropped by for the day to go on divisions with me and Elder Bareiro. I went out with Elder Xavier. He's a Brazilian and is absolutely insane. He's super funny and energetic but can be super serious and spiritual when he needs to be. He's a stud and it was way fun to spend the day with him especially cuz he bought me a giant ice cream cone :) Anyways, during divisions we walked past a man and women drinking mate and smoking outside their house as is the custom here. As we walked past, we both felt like we should turn around and talk to them. At first, they kinda made fun of us and were really suspicious. Elder Xavier handled it so well though and they really opened up. When the conversation turned to how young we are, I took the opportunity to jump in. I told them about how the reason I'm in Argentina at only 18 years old is because I love God and know He has revealed his truth to the earth again and that we can find answers in the Book of Mormon. The spirit was really strong and the next thing I knew they let us in and we started teaching them. The first thing Rosana (the woman) did was tell us why she wanted to talk more. She told us about how her dad died and all she believed in know was death and suffering. You could tell she was pretty bitter to God and even had a Grim Reaper necklace on. Well, she wanted to know why her dad had to suffer so much. We started teaching the Plan of Salvation like clockwork and used so many scriptures in the Book of Mormon. We left them with the book and are going to return tomorrow to talk more. It was an awesome mission experience though. We didn't plan to teach the Plan of Salvation that day, but we each had so many scriptures and the right words to say come to mind when we needed them. It was awesome!

We had a baptism in Carcarana this week! Her name is Candela and she's one of the investigators of the other Elders in our district. So it wasn't my first baptism but it was still super powerful and the spirit was really strong. President Allred even came which surprised all of us. The service was super good and it reminded me why I'm here. It all went so perfectly minus the cake I tried to bake for it.....I won't tell you what happened to that.

The other noteworthy thing this week was our trip to Rosario for interviews. It went really good and I love President Allred so much. He was behind schedule, yet still made me feel like he had all the time in the world to help me. After interviews we went to McDonalds. It's nothing like it is in America. It's kinda the same taste but way better. Also they have like 25 employees behind the counter making the food and they just blast their music and have a grand old time. It's kind of the social hub of Rosario actually. Definitely not like the dumps in the states! So yeah that was fun to get a Big Mac in Argentina :)

Sorry this email is so long but we did a lot this week and it was definitely a good one! To close, I'd like to request all your prayers that Argentina qualifies for the World Cup cuz they might not and if the one time in my life I live in a culture that loves soccer, they don't play in the world cup, I might cry.

Con amor

Elder Nixon

The first picture is all 6 Elders in our pension having a lunch we cooked. The second is what happens anytime an Elder falls asleep on the bus-it must be documented. The last one is a pic from the baptism this week!!!