Pictures from Orientation

 

Orientation Week

Hola! Hope you all had AMAZING weeks!

 

So this week was great!! I had my orientation this week in Neuquen. Even though I've been here for 3 weeks, I arrived in the middle of a transfer and so they ccouldn't do the training until the beginning of a transfer so I had to wait a couple weeks. But it was super great! We stayed at the mission home and the food was really good! We had Lasagna, brownies, lemon pie, and so many other good foods. It was so great! But we had a lot of training on how the mission works and such. In all honesty, I was pretty bored the whole time because I basically knew it all because I have been here for 3 weeks already. But still good!

PDay was interesting because everyone was moving to their new areas and such, so we just played Monopoly in la Capilla. Nothing exciting haha But it was super fun. We tend to get super heated over monopoly. Its a staple here in Centenario. We play at least once or twice a month. It's great!

Friday was SUPER fun! So it was Dia de Bandera (Flag Day) so the ward had a huge party! There was lots of home-made food which was delicious as always and even some traditional Argentine dancing. It was super fun to see that ward gathered for a party like that. Our ward isn't that big and there are just like 6 or 7 main families that comprise most of the ward of like 70. But it was fun to see everyone get together and have a good time! I love this ward! Its so great!

The only two real investigators we have are progressing, but slowly. We can only get to them once a week so that makes it hard. We are still trying to just contact all of the Antiguos we have so that we have a big pool of contacts for July. But I can feel big things coming!! Pray for Centenario!!

I love you all and I promise you I really do feel the support!! I feel the blessings of all of your prayers and thoughts for me!! I cant thank you enough for that!!! Keep up the good work!! Keep doing amazing things!!

With SO much love, 

Elder Clifford

!!MUNDAIL!!

Hola Everyone!!

So the Fifa World Soccer Cup began this week. Its insane!! Super Bowl has NOTHING on the World Cup!! So just to give you some insight on how crazy it actually is, Argentina played their first game last night. They won. Literally, cars were driving around with people hanging out the windows with flags, honking their horns meanwhile other people would just start firing shots into the air. Like insane. May I remind you that this is the FIRST game they played. If they keep winning, its going to be CHAOS! We had to take a taxi home last night because we were afraid to walk the streets because we are White. Its a problem. It also makes it really hard to work because everyone is watching the game. But we are surviving. I'm just hoping the US loses soon. If they win its really going to be dangerous for us. But we should be ok because its the US, and Soccer, and those don't mix. Its how the world works. 

 

But other than that, this week was good! 

We taught one of our investigators, A. She is super great! She's got a baptismal date for the middle of July. So that's great! Unfortunately though, we weren't able to meet with that family that we found last week. =( They can only meet on Sundays because they have a super busy schedule and since Argentina played last night, they couldn't meet with us because they had to watch the game. The Mundial is definitely going to interrupt the work. 

Another fun thing happened this week. So Coca-Cola just went down our street and handed out free Coke. Super cool! Except we cant drink Coke in this mission, but we can exchange them for Sprite and Fanta. We were pretty happy, needless to say. 

Church meetings here are super great. Yesterday especially was great. So if I haven't already mentioned, the church schedule here is backwards. They have Priesthood/Relief Society first, then Sunday School, then Sacrament Meeting. But this Sunday, we got up and went to one of our areas, Costa de Reyes, to try and get some less actives to church. It was more or less unsuccessful because unless they are planning on attending church, no one is up at 8am. Oh well. The effort is still worth it. But we went to church and arrived in time for Sunday School. We had a great lesson on the Gifts of the Holy Ghost. It was great. I would suggest studying those. It helps you realize how much you really are blessed and you don't notice. It was great. Its also amazing to me that my Spanish tends to go in and out, but whenever I'm in a gospel situation, I can understand so much better. Its a real blessing. It completely fortifies my testimony of this work. Its amazing.

Sacrament meeting was also great. This week was transfers and we are losing and Elder and a Hermana. They bore their testimonies in Sacrament meeting. It was super powerful. Its amazing to see the love that builds up for people over the course so such a short time. They were both in tears because they didn't want to leave this great ward. I am beginning to feel that myself. The ward I am in is GREAT! Even without a Bishop, they are all still so devoted and its amazing to see their faith. I love it here!

One last blurb. I'm reading Our Search For Happiness by Elder Ballard. I would suggest reading that if you haven't already. Its super great!!

Anyway, I love you all! You're all doing amazing things! Keep up the good work! I've really learned that through Christ we can come out conqueror. Its an amazing feeling knowing that. Keep that in mind this week. Whatever you've got going on, you CAN beat it. That's why we have challenges. To build our faith in Christ and his power to help us overcome.

Elder Clifford

 

So excited for his Argentina cake!

 

 

My Centenario District

My Centenario District - Me, Elder Shearer, Hna, Allen, Hna Kidd, Hna Davis, Hna Espinoza, Elder Hanzon (my comp), Hna Albright. In front starting by me, Elder Slavens, Elder Moya, Elder Gomez, Hna Ruiz, Hna Pacori (in pink) and Hna Alverado. 

In front of the Buenos Aires Temple

 We stopped there for lunch and pictures before flying to Neuquén.  (5/20/14)

My MTC District

My MTC district. (May 7 – 19, 2014)    Me, Elder Moita above me, Elder Reyes my companion next to him. Elder Miranda next to me, Then Elder Martinez, Hna Young, Hna Castrillon, Elder Lopez, Elder Gale, Elder Garofalo

GREAT WEEK!

Hey Everyone! I hope your excited for another riveting entry!!

So this week was great! For PDay last week my went ice skating! I'm not a fan of ice skating but it was fun anyway!

This week I had to travel to Neuquen to do Traits. So basically, we had to travel to Neuquen, Wait around at the mission home a bit, then go and get a picture taken, and wait around at the Police station for a couple hours. It was something to do with my Visa, so its a good thing I guess. It was funny though because one of the office workers went with us. He obviously does these a lot. So in order to speed things up, he went into the back to check on things because he knows all the people. When I go back, He is walking around taking Mate to everyone and filling it up in order to speed up the process! It was so funny. But the Police officers just asked us a few questions, we did fingerprints and then left. Fairly pointless. But its paperwork that has to be done for us to be legal.

We also had Zone Capacitation this week. Its basically just a zone conference but President isn't there. But it was really good. We got lots of training and the Zone Leaders (Elders Slavens and Gomez) taught us a lot of great things. It was really good but I forgot to bring something to take notes with so I don't remember a whole lot. But I learned to bring note taking materials to all events. So that's a good lesson right?

I'm really feeling the blessing pour in on me. Its incredible! Ill have days where I'm just really down and feel like nothing is going right and I don't understand why I'm here. But I love that in our times of struggle, we can go to the Lord in prayer and pour out our hearts and fears and desires to Him. Every time I have one of these bad days, I just pray even harder, and the next several days are always so much better and we have miracles. I have a strong testimony that Heavenly Father hears our prayers and gives us what we need as long as we have sincere intentions. Its great.

So we had a MIRACLE yesterday!! So cool!! So one of the Stake Leaders was visiting our ward yesterday and after Sacrament Meeting he found us and gave us a referral. It was a family they had invites to their daughters baptism and they felt really good about it after. Perfect right?!?! The only catch was that he didn't have an address. Great. He told us that they lived near a plaza, a cemetery, and they own a grey Ford Ranger. We had little hope, but both felt really goo about finding this family so we set out. We are clapping all these doors and no one has any idea who these people are. So we decide to go a little further out from where we thought they lived. We stumbled upon these two women cleaning their store front. We ask them if they know these people and they're like "Ya! Go down a couple blocks and then left a couple. They live around there." We both look at each other and couldn't believe what had just happened! Incredible. So we follow these directions and end up on a street that looks promising. So we clap some doors and still no one know who this family is. It was a bit ridiculous. So we meander down the road a little more and turn a corner and I kid you not. A grey Ford Ranger right in front of us. MIRACLE. I told my companion that I wanted to take a picture in front of this car because it was such a miracle! I think our testimonies doubled right in that instant. So we clap the door and this lady answers. She sees we are missionaries and says "We are busy!" and the door slams. Then another man comes out and  the same happens. We were crushed.

So we try clapping nearby doors to verify that this is the family we were looking for. No one answers. So we decide to clap one more house. This elderly woman comes out and we ask if she knows this family. She says yes and we are in the wrong place. So she directs us to go a block down and then a block and a half left. We turn the final corner in these directions and the street is lined with cars. We see a truck in the distance and I literally run towards it to see what it is. God is Great!! It was a grey Ford Ranger. I cant tell you how we managed to find this family other than by inspiration. Incredible. They are so great and they are married (which is a miracle in itself) and we are going to start teaching them. The wife already had questions that we were able to answer ad everything. So Great!!! It was amazing!!

This week was so great and so much better than the last. I can feel the blessing pouring in. Its amazing. This truly is the Lords work. I have no doubt about it.

Pictures!

Pictures pulled from his Mission's blog
Cinco Saltos Zone Conference.

 

All Is Well In Argentina...

¡Hola todos!

So this week was much better than last! I’m starting to understand more and more of Spanish and so I can communicate much more effectively!! What a blessing!!

So I’ve got a request to talk about the food here! So it’s delicious, always! Some of the popular meals are: Milanesa, which is like bread-crusted fried meats basically, ñoquis, which are like a potato pasta thing, Pizza, it’s really good pizza, the stuff they use is really good quality. They love putting hard-boiled eggs on everything! Pizza, in rice, in potatoes, everything! But I’m ok with that! They also have Asado which is like BBQ, but that’s more of a summer thing so I will have that later. The only bad thing about all this delicious food is that they use a lot of oil and they get offended if you don’t eat a lot. So it will be a miracle if I don’t get fat. It’s a problem. Who knew that would be a problem.

The weather! So normally the weather here is really dry, but as I said, it was really wet when I got here. It has dried out and we haven’t had rain this week. So instead of being muddy I’m just dusty. Better, but I still don’t like it. Right now its winter down here so it’s pretty chilly almost all day. No snow or anything, just brisk all the time. Jackets are needed. I was talking with some of the people in my district (which is the best, by the way!) but I guess during the summer, it’s like always in the 90s-100s. I am actually going to perish here. It’ll be a struggle. And no one has AC. Just fans. Not excited.

So Centenario is where I’m serving now. It is a pretty large city, but not super big. I would compare it to Redmond or Kirkland, but not as nice. We also do a lot of walking, but my feet are more or less holding up. All the roads are asphalt, but covered with dirt, so that’s fun. The people here are more or less friendly. My ward is great! The people are wonderful and very accommodating to my language inabilities. It’s great! It’s also super tiny relative to K1. It’s like 50-70 probably. Also, we don’t have a Bishop. We haven’t had one for MONTHS! It’s insane. From what I’ve been told, it’s made a lot of things really hard on the ward, as you can imagine. But rumor has it we should be getting one soon! Here’s hoping!!

We still aren’t having much luck with finding investigators in our area. But we are trying our best and I know the Lord will provide in His time. It’s still hard for me to comprehend because I just assumed I would get here and have so many people to teach and we would be baptizing and this and that. But that is the opposite of what is happening right now. But it’s ok. Pray for Centenario!! We need all the help we can get!!

I love you all!! I feel your support!! I’m grateful for everything you all have done for me!!

Sister Elison: I love you so much! Thank you for all the support! You and Sister Rowley are just the best!! I miss you guys so much!! Tell the seminary kids I send my love!