It's a BONFIRE

What a week.

Probably the fastest week of my mission. I will start from the beginning. So Tuesday night after our Pday we went and visited the Cano Family. They are my favorite family I have met here in ARG. We have been teaching them for almost a month now. We watch the #PrinceOfPeace Easter video with them and taught about what we celebrate on Easter. It was awesome. The mom (Fabiana) started crying during the video. She is awesome. She has a coworker in the hospital who is a recent convert and she told us that they have been listening to General Conference talks together. Then she downloaded general conference onto her phone. It was a great lesson over all we had with them. They have 3 kids (Damion13, Iara 10, Mía 7). Then Wednesday we got onto a bus to Resistencia. But when we were buying the bus ticket, the guy at the ticket office told us that there were only enough seats until San Martin in Chaco which is like 2 hours from Resi. So we got onto the bus anyway at like 2pm. At 6 we arrived in San Martin and the Choffer came up (because it is a double-decker bus) and told us we had to get off..... so that was disappointing. And the next bus that left for Resi left at 8. So Elder Urquidi and I went to the center of San Martin and ate ´´Facturas´´ or just a type of pastry croissant. But they were really good. The place we ate them at was really good too... called Pan-Crem. Then we got to Resi and stayed the night in Barrancares in Resi with another companionship of ZL´s. Then Wednesday we had Leadership conference which was fun. Wasn't anything too different than Multi-Zone conferences. And I got to see my trainer Elder Butler. Then on our trip back to Ibarreta we got stuck in the capital of Formosa because of weird bus schedules. So we spent a night with some ZL´s there. We ended up having to take a bus from Formosa at 5am back to Ibarreta Friday morning. 

That night on Friday we left in the District President´s car for El Potrillo. What they usually do is stay in a hotel in a town called Juarez then travel the rest of the way to El Portillo in the morning. But as we were arriving in Juarez, there was a ´´Corte de ruta´´ which means people were blocking the highway. This happens quite often here because of protests from the aborigine/Indian people who do it to protest against the government. But there was a lot of contention between the indians and the city of Juarez. They had blocked the road with huge trees and had lit them on fire. It was a BONFIRE and was quite childish of the indians to block the whole highway. We got to the blocked part of the highway at 8:30pm and the police said that they were going to start letting people through at 11:30. So we just sat there for a little bit. Then we started hearing that the city of juarez was pretty dangerous and someone had died from the conflict of the Indians and people of juarez... so we made the decision to just go back to Ibarreta and got to El Portillo when the City of Juarez is passable and not pretty much at war with the Indians. Sooo we didn't make it to Portillo this week. We will see in the next couple weeks what happens. 

Easter Sunday was good. Nothing to special happened. But one thing I really loved was during 2nd hour we watched all the videos on Mormon.org on the ´´principles of peace´´. They are different videos in spanish than the english ones but they were SUPER good. I invite you guys to go what the videos that are in english if you haven't yet. They teach these principles through the experiences of other people. I enjoy them a lot. I was reflecting a lot of the meaning of Easter a lot. For me I have never really thought much about Easter... just a time to paint eggs and eat chocolate. Many people just use the holiday as an excuse to drink and party. But when you really think about the significance of it all it should illuminate your understanding. Alma 7:10-12 talks a lot about the significance of Easter and same with the 2 min video the church came out with here 

I really hope you all had a great Easter and hope you all have a great week. I am glad you are all doing so well and are making the wise decisions that will bless you and your families in the years to come. There is a HopeWorks video of a cool black dude that I think you all should check out here 

Anyway love you all!! Chau

Elder Corbin Keicher

¨Ten Veces Mas Fuerte¨

Hey Fam! 

Well... things just got different. I'll just start off with what happened with transfers. Elder Taylor and I both had 2 transfers in Ibarreta II so anything could have happened. But Saturday during our afternoon studies President Franco called me... and extended a calling to me to be a Zone Leader!! I was completely shocked. He told me that I would be serving as a Zone Leader in one of the 13 zones in the mission. SO boom... I started packing my bags. But Sunday night the "Tablero" or Transfer document came out and I replaced Elder Higuera as the Zone Leader in the Ibarreta Zone! Elder  Higuera as you may or may not know is traveling home as I speak cause he finished his mission. And my new companion is Elder Flavio Urquidi from São Paulo, Brasil. And President Franco combined Ibarreta into one area. Elder Taylor got transferred to Las Palmas in the provence of Chaco. I didn't get transferred... I am still here in Ibarreta but am now  zone leader with Elder Urquidi. There are 4 areas in total in our zone. I will attach the ´´Tablero´´ to this email. But the Ibarreta zone is basically the northern half of Formosa. We will be making trips to ´´El Potrillo´´ weekly which is about 6 hours north of us. We will be making a trip up there this friday staying in a Hotel and working there Saturday and then returning. So it will be interesting. I also was made the district leader of one of the 2 districts in the zone. SOOO I will be serving a whole different mission this transfer haha

This Wednesday evening Elder Urquidi and I will be traveling for ´´consejo´´ or a cousel conference with all the ZL´s in the mission. They do ´´consejo´´ at the beginning of every transfer to meet with President, get money for trips, and to pick up anything for our zone (water filters, letters, packeges, etc.). We will then head back to Ibarreta Thursday evening. 

I was sad to see Elder Taylor go... he is a super good missionary and will be doing great things in his mission. I definitely learned a lot from him. 

As far as the work goes here in Ibarreta, we have a family that  Elder Taylor and I started teaching a couple weeks ago that are so awesome. They are so interested in the lessons and enjoy what we teach. The dad is named Celedoño and his spouse Fabiana. Then their three kids Damian(13), Mía(7), and their youngest girl of like 6 years old which I honestly always forget her name. But they are awesome. I am very excited to continue working with them this transfer. We also have some investigators in the other part of Ibarreta that the Zone Leaders work in. But I don't know them yet. The investigator Isabel is still doing good. She is the older lady that is like 68 years old. She got interviewed for her baptism 2 weeks ago but got pneumonia and wasn't able to get baptized. And just this past week we past by her and she told us ¨Elders, I have bad news..." then went on to say that the night previous her adult kids where telling her that she can't get baptized into the Mormon church because she is too old and can't think straight and that she ¨can't play with religion¨.  Which doesn't make any sense because she is a super intelligent old lady. She is so ready but just doesn't have the support of her kids. We told her to pray and to continue going to church to be able to get the confidence and the reassurance to get baptized. 

Funny story.. we were in a trio yesterday because Elder Freeman from Las Lomitas was waiting all day for his companion to travel all the way to Ibarreta. We were in a lesson with a guy and we were teaching Lesson 1: The restoration. I was talking about how we can receive answers to our prayers and know what God wants to say to us. I look at this guy and told him, ¨Realmente va a sentir El Espíritu ten veces mas fuerte en la iglesia¨ hahahaha I totally threw the english TEN instead of diez.

And the funny part is I didn't even notice until after the lesson when Elder Urquidi and Elder Freeman told me I said that. I felt so dumb. I don't know if the guy even caught it. There was a loud weed-whacker going off right next to his house and we were halfway yelling out lesson one. It wasn't the most effective lesson. 

I love you all and hope you all have a great week. 

Conference JAM

Hey Fam,

WOW what a great conference weekend. I absolutely loved all of it. It was great to see and listen to all the apostles talk and hear and receive revelation. My two favorite talks were Elder C. Scott Grow on coming to know God,

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/and-this-is-life-eternal?lang=eng

 and then the second was Elder Runland's on The good shepherds Love.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2017/04/our-good-shepherd?lang=eng

Those two were really powerful for me and felt like they were talking directly to me. All in all, Conference was a success. And all of us were super surprised and excited when we saw and heard mission Presidents wife, Sister Franco, get called as 2nd counselor in the Primary general presidency. We heard that she got the call from Henry B. Eyring last Tuesday that she would be receiving that calling. President said she is super nervous but is totally going to do an awesome job. But I ended up watching it in English in the family history room in the church for most of it. Some other Elders came to Ibarreta in the zone so that they could watch it in English as well. 

But this past week was good. Some disappointment with Isabel. She went again to Formosa to go to the Hospital where she got diagnosed with Pneumonia. She got back friday night and so we went by Saturday morning and she was really good. She was so much better. So we are rescheduling her baptism for next weekend. We will see if she really has the desire to be baptized. We have had some really neat contacts and people we are visiting right now. One named Cristian who used to work for Radio here. He is probably 35-40 year old man and SUPER nice. He has one kid and a wife and live a pretty humble life. But we taught him one time 2 weeks ago and then the next visit we had with him he told us about a dream he had. He said that he was being shown a city in heaven by an angel and in this city this angel was showing him these mansions. The angel told him that these mansions were being reserved for those that live a good life according to the commandments of God. So we shared a scripture in Ether that talks about how God is preparing mansions for us and to obtain these we must follow his commandments. But unfortunately we didn't have any investigators that went to the conference. With all the inviting and committing people to conference.... not one person showed up. Which is just so frustrating as a missionary, because we know that they will be blessed and will receive revelation that they don't even know they are searching for.

I don't have much to say.... i am kind of blanking this week on what to say. OH, funny experience I had walking home Saturday night. Priesthood session ended and Elder Urquidi and I were walking back together. It was like 11 pm and night. and I was wearing my suit shoes which don't have any traction on them cause they aren't made for walking. Anyway, we were walking on this dirt path and it was literally pitch dark, and the pathway changed and sloped all of the sudden and I completely fell. I just sat there for a little and Elder Urquidi took a picture of me on the ground. Hope you enjoy that pic 

So that was basically the week. I am super excited to finish this transfer of

f strong. So you know, this is the last week of the transfer so I will be writing on Tuesday next week. I want to stay in Ibarreta cause I like it but we will see what happens. You all sound great. I wish you all luck and especially Mackenzie on her surgery tomorrow. Love you all... and I hope you go back and listen to the talks again!

Love,

Elder Corbin Keicher

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