Racing in River Streets

Well hello fam,

This week was filled with fun. We had divisions with the zone leaders Friday. That was a lot of fun. I went with Elder Higuera from Louisiana. He goes home in 2 weeks. He used to be the financial secretary. Super cool guy. We went to the colony just out of Ibarreta in the morning that day and visited a recent convert and visited another family. Then we spent the afternoon that day working on the other side of Ibarreta. I had never been over there because it is not our area. But I enjoyed that a lot and learned a lot from Elder Higuera. He went to John Hopkins for 3 years before he left and he knows Latin/French. Kind of a genius. But we heard some bad news on Wednesday. We had planned this last week to go by Isabel everyday to prepare her for her baptism. But she has been sick for some time and so she went to the hospital here in Ibarreta to get some Cough medicine and the hospital didn't have any to give to her. So Thursday they left for the capital of Formosa and got medicine over there. Lucky she got back Friday (the day of divisions) and so Elder Urquidi did her baptism interview and all was well. But she was still pretty sick so they gave her a blessing. Then afterwards she told them to come by the next day (Saturday) in the morning to see how everything was. So we went by and told us that she got absolutely zero sleep and said she didn't feel well enough to get baptized. Just a weak sick old lady but it was a downer. I just hope she gets better and stays motivated. So we reset her baptism for this Friday. 

Saturday is rained 190 millimeters (7.48 inches). Which is a lot. It started Saturday night and dumped all night into the morning. When it rains here the streets are either literally rivers or super muddy. So we went to church and it ended up being us 4 missionaries and the branch president at church yesterday. So we did the hymns, the sacrament, then each person shared a little something and then we went out and helped members and investigators who where flooded. It was kind of a weird Sunday and one I will always remember. 

The work in our area is great. We have a lady who we met 2 weeks ago who was a friend of a family we have been passing by called the Cano Family. This lady is called Rosaura and she is a friend of this family. We gave her a book of mormon 2 weeks ago. Then during divisions Elder Taylor and Urquidi went by the family and this lady rosaura had read 28 chapters in the BoM in those 2 week. Super cool. But the problem is that she lives out in "campo" or in the country about 30 minutes away and only comes to Ibarreta ever other weekend. So we are going to try and get permission from president to go visit her out there. 

But everything sounds super good on your end. I cant wait to her all the details for the wedding. Congrats to Chalet!! That is exciting.  I hope you are all excited for GEN CON this weekend. I know I am excited. We will be making a bunch of Brigadero, a brazialian dish, for it cause it is so good. Elder Urquidi makes it. He told me that Logan would definitely know it. but see ya. Have a great week.!! 

Elder Keicher

And Then There Was One

Wow!! This weeks email might be a little shorter one cause I have just been reading everyones emails. I am so happy for Mackenzie!! We got to the church today to write and just being funny I turned to the other missionaries with me and said, "I am not even going to check my email, I am just going to go to dropbox and see if there are engagment pictures there." and what did I see?? A lit up gazebo with "MARRY ME" and some "tipazo" named Spencer purposing to my sister. It is weird how the spirit of revelation works inside of that of a missionary. hahahaha no but I am super excited for both of them. There isn't anything more I would want to hear than that... And now there is one Keicher kid left. 😎  

As for the missionary work here in Ibarreta, Argentina- we have had some great progress with some of our investigators. Right now we are preparing an older lady named Isabel to be baptized this Saturday. So hopefully we will be able to get that done. And we have a great pool of investigators including a super awesome family that we have taught twice. I hope they can start to progress. So I will keep you updated on that. 

This past week we were all prepared to go to Resistencia. But right as I finished writing last week I received a call from the office saying that some papers didn't come for my comp so we didn't end up going to resistencia.... kind of a bummer but we still got to travel 4 hours to the Capital of Formosa and had a multi-zone conference with President Franco on Wednesday. We also will be moving houses this week or the next here in Ibarreta, cause the one here is just too small for 4 missionaries and the contract is up for the current one we have. 

I am super content right now as I complete 9 months on Wednesday. I have really lost track of time and I am just trying to take fully advantage of my short time here. I am learning so much and am gaining a completely different perspective of the gospel and all the specific aspects and principles. But really thats all I have for this week. 

Elder Corbin Keicher

ps: I don't have new pictures yet because this computer is having issues. But I will try to send another one later. 

Dirty Empanadas

Hola Fam!!!

Well this week was pretty fun. We actually did a lot of things this week. Right after P-day we had a family home evening with the Coria Family here and it was pretty fun. We shared a message from the Liahona that I read and really liked about families. Then we ate popcorn and talked. It was enjoyable. It is super nice to have family home evenings on Mondays as a missionary cause you go straight from p-day to spending time with a member family. The next two days on Tuesday and Wednesday we were alone here in Ibarreta because the zone leaders and another companionship went to Potrillo which is like 6 hours north where they had 8 baptisms in a large group/colony. So Elder Taylor and I stayed here and worked as usual. On Tuesday we were able to have a lesson with an inactive lady named Lidia (28yrs) and her relatives. It turned out to be a really cool lesson. We read 1 Nephi 8 (Lehi's Vision) and Elder Taylor drew a picture of it while we read it. Then we had a simple conversation about it afterwards, about what all the parts in the vision meant. We then invited them to our English class on Thursday, her and her niece (17yrs). And they actually showed up to the class on Thursday then Sunday they came to church all 3 hours of church. It was super cool. 

Wednesday was a normal day but ended up pretty disappointing. We went through the day normal and had a couple lessons with investigators. But the whole day I was looking forward some empanadas we were planning on eating that night. So 8:30pm comes and we arrive at the house of this girl in the ward named Celeste. She is in a young women and she sells empanadas every week to help pay for epilepsy pills. SO we buy every week form her. So this Wednesday we bought 2 dozen. We get there and she hands us a nice warm greasy bag of empanadas.... my mouth was watering. I had even prepared and bought ketchup. Elder Taylor was holding the bag of emapanadas when I just hear paper tearing and then the sound of 24 empanadas hitting the Ibarreta dirt streets....... all 24 beautiful empanadas laying in the streets. I was truly devastated. But you may think the most logical thing would have been to throw them away..... but I just couldn't do that. We picked them back up carried them to the pension, brushed off the dirt and boom... they were still good. And ketchup helped cover the taste of dirt. 

Anyway, Thursday we had a great day painting at the house of an inactive lady's house names Clotilde. We painted in the morning and then she made us lunch. That afternoon we had our english class which went smoothly. Friday we had a zone meeting which wasn't too special. But the Saturday we had a fun day. We had a baptism of a girl named Blanca. She is a girl of 9 years old from the colony here right next to Ibarreta. Technically it is not our baptism because we didn't teach her. The other Elders here did. But they were in Portillo, so we did it. All went very smoothly. Her brother who is 19 years old, baptized her but I had him use my baptism clothes. After the baptism, Elder Taylor and I stayed in the church to watch a transmission of the South America south area presidency present "El Plan de Area" so we watched that for an hour and  a half. 

So yeah, that was basically my week. This week is going to be fun because we have to travel to Resistencia this afternoon and stay there until Wednesday night to do paper work for Elder Taylor's Argentina ID card. So I will be on  a bus to Resistencia for 6 hours from 11am-5pm your time MST. But I will fill you in on the this next week. 

I love you all. I just started reading the new testament this week and I absolutely loved the part in Mateo (Matthew) 4 when Christ calls out to Peter to "Make them fishers of men". My favorite part is in verse 20 which says, 

" 20 Ellos entonces, dejando al instante las redes, le siguieron." 

(20 And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.) 

Christ always teaches in analogies and here the part the really stuck out to me was "Dejando al instante las redes" or leaving their nets instantly.

For me the nets is the analogy and for every one of us we have different nets we have to leave behind in order to follow Christ. For some of us, our nets are our pride, selfishness and overall natural man. The nets for Peter had to be abandoned in order to follow Christ. So what ever impedes us from following Christ is our nets, we must leave. 

Anyway love you all. hope you have a great week. 

Elder Corbin Keicher

Who wants Hígado?

Hello fam!

How is it going? So I'll start off with a fun lunch we had last Thursday. It was with a family we dont usually eat with because they are in the area of the Zone Leaders but they were gone on a trip. So we got to their house at like 12 to eat. They served us mashed potatoes and meat. But as I started eating it I noticed it tasted slightly different. The meat tasted really good but had a different consistency. After my first plate the wife asked us, "Have you ever ate hígado before?" And I didnt recognized that she said hígado so I asked what it was. She told us that it was just part of the cow. So I just assumed that it was just a weird name of a certain cut of meat. But then like 5 minutes later I realized what she said. And so that you understand, I have been studying the names of all the body parts inside and out lately so thats why it took me a couple of minutes to recognize the word."hígado" means Liver. So I ate cow liver last Thursday and I can honestly say it did not taste like Chicken. But I did enjoy it. I would eat it again. Just a different consistency but it had the same flavor as meat. 

As far as our missionary work, we received bad news ... Our golden investigator went to Buenos Aires. Rodrigo was progressing very well but we passed by after P-Day last Tuesday and he warned us that he was going to Buenos Aires for 6 weeks. So we noted his address there and passed it on in Referral Manager for the Elders in Buenos Aires. The rest of our investigators are great and there is still stuff to do. one of them is Isabel. She is 65 +/- years old and has been chatting with the missionaries for 9 months. She has a date for March 25th. Right now we have Isabel as like our main investigator and like a hand full of others that are kindo of keeping commitments. That is the hardest part I would say is getting people to read and go to church. But we do see progress and success. I am really enjoying Ibarreta so far. I like the small town and the people are more interesting and the church building here is actually nice. I have really am getting accustomed to enjoying the little luxuries in life. Hot showers, the beauty of electricity and air conditioning, sidewalks, padded chairs, pre-cut ice. I think that I am just so accustomed to how life is here that I don’t really understand or better said, comprehend the luxuries of a fully developed society and economy. It is crazy how many people here live off of the government.And even that is scary because the government doesn't give people much. 

We have a recent convert named Pamela. I think I have mentioned her before. She is probably my favorite member here in Argentina. She has 3 girls and just 4 days ago gave birth to her 1st boy. She named him, James. But seriously the coolest, most genuine family I have ever met. And it is so humbling to see just how happy they are despite their living standards. The dad is José and his job is to go out and chop wood literally all day and receives practically nothing to support his family. But they press on and it is amazing to me. Their 4 day old James is super cute. 

Recently we have been having a English class every Thursday night. We usually do it with the youth but it is a great opportunity to meet their friends. They are just going back to school from their summer break so we should be getting some more people. We also had to prepare for a baptism of a girl from the colony right by Ibarreta. Her name is Blanca and is 9 years old. Her brother is Miguel and he is preparing to serve a mission. He is 19 years old. This is the colony that speaks Pilaga which is practically a dead language. But we got to the church Saturday to fill the font and we opened the font and it was like 1/4 full of dirty mud water. So we had to spend like an hour cleaning it. But we ended up getting it cleaned and then filled but then didnt end up having the baptism that night because there was miscommunication between the branch here and the members in the colony and the members in the colony didnt have a mode of transportation to make it to the church. So it got suspended for next Saturday. 

But that was basically all for this week. I love you all. 

Elder Corbin Keicher

I Found Franklin

¿Como andan?

Hello fam! To start off this week I will begin with what happened right after we got back to our place last P-day. To explain, here in Ibarretta there are always missionaries from different parts of the zone that come here to use internet and the church here. So last week we get back to our place and find a sign posted on the bathroom door. That says, “Cuidado… Peligroso”. We were quite skeptical of what could be waiting for us inside because some Elders had just left Ibarretta to go back to their area. So we slowly opened the door to find nothing in the toilet… for some reason that was the first place we assumed the “Danger” would be awaiting us. But it was still filled with blue cleaning liquid. But there was oddly enough leafs found in the bathroom. As we surveyed some more we found, sitting in the corner of the bathroom, a live turtle about twice the size of Franklin. It was a weird and odd surprise.

But anyway, we did have a great week with our investigators. We were able to really see some progression with Rodrigo. He came to church Sunday and had a great time. He stayed for all 3 hours and listen intently the whole time. We have had like 4-5 lessons with him just this past week. And after church Sunday, he ended up coming back to the church where we watched some videos from the 12 step program on the mormon channel. We made some plans with him yesterday to quit smoking. As of right now he averages 5 cigarettes a day and drinks socially. He made a lot of improvement in the rehab facility in Buenos Aires. Before this he was in a lot of drugs and alcohol. But he is making a really huge change in his life and I am glad we are able to help him with it. We made some goals with him to be off the cigarettes by march 19, a week before his baptismal date. We also were able to have an old lady named Isabel at church with her 9 year old niece. She is super awesome and has baptism date for the 25^th as well. So a lot of things are in the works but we just have to keep working hard with them.

On Sunday, we had transfer calls. I went with Elder Stock to the colony Sunday evening so we were on our way back to Ibarreta when the call came. The only change was Elder Stock, he is in Resistencia for his last transfer and the old financial secretary, Elder Higuiera, came here to Ibarreta for his last transfer in his mission. So in our little house it is still Elder Taylor, Elder Urquidi, and I. I am excited for this transfer because we have some solid baptisms lined up and General Conference is at the end of it. 

Things here in Ibarreta are just fine. To update you on old drunk man, we saw him yesterday in the market and didnt even recognize us. I saw him enter the store as we were checking out. He made eye contact with us as he walked by to shop but didnt say anything or react in anyway. Haha He didnt have a clue we had helped him out last week. But I dont have too much to say. I hope you are all doing well. Mission life is just moving a long. I love hearing from you guys though. Keep being awesome. See ya next week. 

Sincerely,

Elder Corbin Keicher

"...a person laying down in the grass motionless"

Hola Familia.

This week was just another week in Ibarreta, Formosa. Nothing too crazy to report like cut legs or anything like that so sorry if your disappointed. But I'll will start with the missionary work here and our investigators. To start we went by one of our investigators wednesday names Rodrigo. He is the guy with the drug addictions from Buenos Aires. We actually saw some good progression this week. We were able to have 3 lessons with him cause he told us he wanted us to come by everyday at the same time. SO we have been doing that. In our lessons we always read something in the B o M and then teach a gospel principle and then to finish we work in a book called The 12 Step Program. It is a booklet the church made to help people with addictions. But unfortunately he was unable to attend church this week. His biggest 2 obstacles is his addiction and waking up on Sunday to go to church. He doesn't have a phone either so he cant set alarms. So this week we are going to lend him an alarm clock on Saturday night haha. hopefully that will help out. We are hoping to get him a friend in the branch to that can get to know him and be his friend. This week we found some new people to teach which is awesome so hopefully they will turn into investigators this week. 

This last Friday was fun because Elder Taylor and I ran mutual for the youth in the branch. For mutual they always meet at 6pm and the missionaries do like a 5-10 minute spiritual thought and then after they just do whatever they want (play soccer, take selfies, play piano, etc.)  But friday for the spiritual lesson I just did the simple orange object lesson about putting on the armor of God. Eph 6.  And it was a lot of fun and I think I explained it well enough. Then just last night I had a fun unique experience while Elder Taylor and I were walking back to the house. It was like 8:30ish and it was pretty dark. As we were walking I noticed something just off the corner of my eye just off the sidewalk we were walking on. I did a double take and what I could partially make out in the dark tall grass, a human shape object laying down in the grass. I stopped in my tracks and studied the object to figure out what it was exactly. After a solid 10 seconds of staring I called out to the object and started approaching it. As I got closer I determined that it was a person laying down in the grass motionless. Now to fill you in, it had been raining all day until 6pm that night so everything was muddy... especially on the side of the sidewalks. As I called out again, the person, who turned out ot be an old man moved his head and looked up at me with his muddy face (because indeed his was face down in the mud). I asked him what he was doing and if he was alright. Right as I did that, a wall of alcohol aroma hit me and knew for certainty he was a classic drunk. As he rose his head he cry out in his raspy, slurry old man drunk voice, ¨DEJEME...DEJEME SOLO¨ or ¨Leave me alone¨! I then crouched down next to him so that I could talk to him better. I got this man who I would guess was around 70 years old to his feet and tried to inquire where the heck he lived. He told me by the bus terminal. So I grabbed him by the arm and we started walking. And even with all 155 pounds that I am, he was quite difficult to direct cause he could not walk or support himself very well. We continued walking for 5-6 minutes and along the way he asked me how much it would cost him for our services. I just laughed and told him that we were missionaries and we do this stuff free of charge hahahaha. We got him close to his house but started getting aggressive with us cause I assume he didnt want his family members to see mormons missionaries carrying him back to his house. So we let him free to make the rest of the trip but not before I could sneak a little article of faiths card into his shirt pocket. It was quite the experience and gave us a story to tell. 

Also this week I was pretty sick....🤒  To the point where I woke up Saturday morning with a dry mouth, completely plugged nose and headache and sore throat. I dont know why but I get sick EVERY feburary/march and it doesn't even matter if its winter because its freaking dead of summer here. So that was unfortunate but wasn't too awful. I still have a small headache but most of the other stuff is gone. Luckly mom packed DyQuil and NyQuil so I have been using those. But I hope you are all doing great. Thats my email for this week. I just realized Sunday in sacrament meeting that I am 1/3 though the mission... seems really weird. I feel like I need to put some more urgency in both my missionary work, language study, and gospel study so I dont just go through the mission. I love you all and hope you have a great week!! 

Sincerely,

Elder Corbin Keicher

Here Comes the FLOOD

¿Que Tal Fam?

This week was full of a lot of excitement and unfortunate events. To start off I experience second hand the state of the medicine here in Argentina. My companion Elder Taylor had to receive stitches after misusing a machete. On Thursday we went to a less active ladies house to cut her grass in front of her house. The use of lawn mowers just doesn't exsist here and the usual go to in cutting grass is a weed whacker. But those are usually used by the people who are a little more well-off. So as the poor missionaries we are, we borrowed some machetes from the branch president and went and attempted to cut this sister's grass. We arrived at around 10:45am and started hacking away at the grass. As time went on and blisters started to develop, we began to realize that cutting grass with machetes is not very effective. It might sound all cool and fun…. But only if they are sharp. These were semi-dull. To gett low enough on the grass we had to swing the machete while on our knees. To be safe you always swing away from your body and legs. But after 40 minutes and after the blisters appeared . The task of cutting the grass grew more challenging. This is when I heard Elder Taylor cry out, “Uhhh, Elder Keicher, I cut my leg”. For some reason, I was subconsciously expecting a injury to happen and went over to where he was and could immediately tell that he would need to get stitched up. And considering the rusty machete and the fact that there were faeces found in the grass we were cutting, I thought the chance for infection might be high. SO we went back to our place and I cleaned his wound with alcohol and neosporin and then called the mission president where he gave us a clinic we could go to get medical attention. We arrived at a medical clinic right by the church and a doctor there put 2 stitches in his legs-And no they didnt numb anything. But I will admit he did do a good job and today Elder Taylor's leg is healing great. I have some videos of the procedure on dropbox. Hopefully it will upload. But that was a fun experience. And it turned out that the doctor was mormon. Endowed in the temple and everything… but is completely inactive.

Next during the week was we received record rain over the weekend. Starting thursday night until Saturday afternoon it was a down pour. To the point that on Friday we could not leave because the streets were literally rivers. It was horrible. A ton of house were flooded. It was sooo much rain. We worked on Saturday and in places the water was up to my knees. It was crazy. There is a recent convert in the branch that washes out clothes and due to all the rain, she and her family have been flooded and trapped in their house. This morning we took them drinkable water. The mom of the family is Pamela. They are super awesome and so nice. I have never seen a family more humble and happy in my life. She is super pregnant too with her 4 child, 1 boy and should be having the baby here in a couple weeks. I am super excited for them. I will try to get a picture with them.

We were also able to commit 2 people to baptism this week for the 25th of March. It was an elderly lady named Isabel and her 16 year old grandson Nahuel. We need to really focus on them and get them prepared by getting them to church and reading the scriptures. We had another contact with Rodrigo, who is the 25 year old from Buenos Aires who is “Trying” to turn his life around. We had a lesson with him and talked about the Word of Wisdom and how it could bless his life. He has a lot of desire to follow God but just doesnt see the real need to quit completely drinking and smoking. We told him to pray about it to see if the Word of Wisdom is really a commandment from God. We will keep passing by to see if he will progress. Outside of these 2 we dont have to many people we are visiting regularly. We are waiting on some members to coordinate Family home evenings with there friends.

Yesterday we had a good day of church and it was Elder Taylor and I's Sunday to go to the colony and administer the sacrament and conduct a sacrament meeting there. There were a total of 7 members there with like 6 kids. We do their church at 6pm and it is only one hour. The missionaries do it all, direct the meeting, administer the sacrament, sing the hymns, and give the 2 talks. The only thing the members in the colony do is offer the prayers. But that was my Sunday.

I have been studying in Alma chapters 30-33. Here it talks about a lot of stuff. But one thing I took from it was the attitude Alma had while he was suffering through his afflictions with the Zoramites. I loved the example of patience and long-suffering as well as humbling yourself. I cant site my references here but in these chapters it talks about how “Humbling yourself” is like preparing yourself to receive the word of God and preparing yourself for growth in and outside of the Gospel. As a person and as an eternal being. Its the whole purpose of why we are here on the earth, to PREPARE ourselves through our afflictions and trails. That was just something I liked in my studies this week.

That’s basically all I got for this week. I hope you all have a great week and great Valentines Day!

Con Amor,

Elder Corbin Keicher