Elder Keicher in Argentina : New Transfer 11/7/2017

Well we got pictures this week! yay!

And we had transfers! Elder Souza left for Formosa and Elder Oliva came from Formosa to be my new companion. He is from Cordoba Argentina and finishes his mission in 2 transfers(Jan 29). Elder Mayta is an Elder that was in our zone who got sent to Ibarreta!! I got him pretty excited to go there where i spent 8 months before coming here. I gave him some letters to give to members and the cano family. So that was neat.

Me and Elder Oliva

This week we were able to have divisions with Avellanda, Elder Giforos and Elder Ashby. Its a unique situation with them because They are from the same MTC group and after their first 10 weeks here they got put together as companions. They are doing great though and are working hard. In their area, there is a large sunflower field, so we took a 5 minute detour to take pictures. I am just use to potato fields or corn fields or wheat fields... but seeing a sunflower field was interesting.

While I was there I had the privilege to interview their investigator Angelica for her baptism that took place this past Saturday. To introduce Angelica, she is a woman who honestly has had the short end of the stick her entire life and has gone through just awful things. She is 45 years old, lives with her family and recently had her mom pass away. But like I said, it was a privilege to interview her and see the faith she has for a better world despite the things she has gone through(addictions, abusive husband, death of a child,etc). It strengthened my testimony on the atonement of Jesus Christ to know that it does not matter where we have been, what we have done, or who we are... if we leave the world behind us, and follow the commandments of God, we can find true happiness in our lives.

We also were able to have an open house in our church Saturday. It was honestly super fun. A lot of members came and a few non-members. In a church open house, the sister missionaries give tours of the church, starting with a presentation of Jesus the Christ, and then to a presentation of the basic believes of Latter-Day Saints(BoM, Prophets, Apostasy, PoS, etc.) Then they lead the group to the baptismal font, where Elders present Baptism and the gift of the holy ghost, then they pass for the different organizations of the church that are presented by the members. Everything ran smoothly, except for a couple members who gave 20 minute presentations at the primary and seminary stations.

Open House "reference table"

Tour in action

Open House baptism presentation

Setting up the open house

The branch at the open house.

We have an investigators named Luciana that has a baptismal date for the 25th of November,. She was a reference from a member and so we are working hard with them. It was funny, we were talking about how to receive an answer to our prayers and luciana responded, ¨I know that I have received an answer from God when he gives me a property with cows and other animals.¨ haha but she has a lot of desires gain a relationship with her heavenly father so we are working with her on that. We also have been working with the Ponce family who are baptized members. They got baptized together a little over a year ago and now only the dad(julio ponce) and a couple of their kids are active. His wife has gone crazy and denied everything about the church ever since one of their older daughters gave her some anti-mormon materiel and now wants nothing to do with the church. It has been rough on her husband Julio because he is super strong, in fact is going to be called as the elders quorum president in a couple of weeks. We have FHEs with them usually every week to keep them animated and to support Julio.