Ibarreta´s Birthday 7/17/2017

Well what a week! Both for me and even more for the fam bam back at home. I thoroughly enjoyed the pictures of the wedding and I feel very happy knowing that everything went well according to the plans. It seemed like it is a day to remember for the rest of our lives. For me, wedding day was just a normal day of proselyting... and actually I was on divisions with and Elder who is from Paraguay. I did wear the grooms men tie and had mackenzie and the entire fam in my thoughts. It was probably one of my more trunkier days in the mission but that is alright. I am just glad everyone is happy and kenz and spenc are married.

Me wearing the wedding tie

This week was interesting. I didnt mention last week that last Sunday night, I got a call from the assistants, asking me if there was anyone in our zone who knew how to play the piano for the multi-zone conference that wednesday. I reviewed who was in our zone and quickly realized that I was the only person who could find middle C on the piano. So I reluctantly told them that I was the only one and then they asked me to play the opening hymn. Luckly I have been trying to learn hymns since I have arrived in Ibarreta and at that point, only had ¨God be with you til we meet again¨ and ¨Nearer my god to thee¨ mastered. I was in the process of learning ¨count your many blessing¨ so I gave them those three options to choose from. Elder Tuttle(assistant) gladly choose ¨count your many blessing¨ and so last pday I spent a lot of it practicing that song. Wednesday came and we traveled to Formosa for the conference. Luckly the piano was electric and had a volumn bar, so i put that volumn just low enough to where peoples voices drowned out the piano playing. Which turned out good cause I messed up two times, but no one noticed because they were singing loud enough. I was actually pretty nervous though cause I havent performed any type of piano since Mrs. clover´s piano recital days in elementary/middle school days. Apart from this, I indulged myself after the conference at the main grocery store in Formosa where they sell a few american imported items. So what did I buy? $600 pesos of tostidos chips and salsa!! SO GOOD!! You just cant find that stuff anywhere. except at like 3 major grocery stores in the mission. 

Cool sunset on our way back to Ibarreta from multi-zone conference

Last tuesday was the Ibarreta´s Birthday. Ibarreta turned 97 years old.... and it actually was a lot of fun. Tuesday morning the governor of formosa came to watch a parade and to basically preside over it. And literally all of ibarreta was participating in this parade and show. 

Main stage for the parade

A donkey and a llama

So Elder Freeman and I decided to set up a table in the plaza right next to the stage and give out book of mormons and talk to people who wanted to talk to us. We ended up getting like 4 references and gave out 10 books of mormons. It was a fun day and after wards we made tacos with the youth at the church. 

Where we were set up in the plaza

Our table set up

 We have been seeing a lot of progress in the colony here and are planning on 3 baptisms there on the 29th. So we will see how that goes. Thats all from me this week. I hope you all have a great and safe week! 

Corbin Keicher

New President 7/10/2017

Well we have arrived to the biggest week of the year... And I got mackenzies groomsmen tie so I will be rocking the crap out of that tie on thursday and  I will be sure to take pictures with it on as well!! But this week was fun. The biggest event was our leadership council we had in Resistencia Thursday. It was my first time meeting President Patanía who is from Mar de Plata, Buenos Aires. He is suprizingly tall and has a pretty different personality than pres. Franco. He is a lot more buisness like and teaches in a different way. But I like him. We will have our interviews with him Wednesday at our multi-zone conference. On our way back from Resistencia, we got stranded in the capital of Formosa but cause the buses were all full. So we spent the night with some other zone leaders and then left really early the next morning(Friday) to go back to Ibarreta. While in resistencia though, I asked the office about the birth certificate of Celedonio(our investigator) and it STILL hasnt arrived. So if it is not there by wednesday, I will have the office order it again. 

This weekend it rained for the first time in like 4 weeks. And Sunday was the 9th of july which is Argentine independence day. So we had 11 people in church. But the sun came out and by the time we went to the colony to do church in the afternoon, it was really clear and warm. And we had 31 people at church in the colony. That was awesome for us because usually there are 13 at church in the colony. 

A member giving a talk in his muddy boats from the pulpit 

Pic with a toddler from the colony outside of the church building in the colony 

But honestly that was my week. Nothing really happened to note. Sorry for the short email, I think this is my shortest email since I began.  I can't wait to spend next 4th of July with you guys. My 4th was actually pretty fun. We had a "Meet the Mormons" movie night in the church and made salty and sweet popcorn with soda and cookies. It was actually pretty fun!

I hope the wedding turns out like Mackenzie wants it.  enjoy! Love you all and hope Thursday is incredible! 

Corbin Keicher 

40 mile MUD push 7/3/2017

Hey Fam, 

This week was filled with a lot of fun and will definitely be ingrained in my memory for the rest of my life. We had an experience like non other on our trip to El Potrillo this week. We left to go there Tuesday and spent the night in Juarez. Then Wednesday we woke up and started heading to El Potrillo. We were surprised though because Usually this guy named Fama takes us and it isnt really ideal because two missionaries have to sit in plastic chairs in the bed of his truck for the normally a 2 hour trip. But we walked out of the Hotel Wednesday morning and a nice, new modeled VW Truck pulled up with Brother Fiestas inside. Brother Fiestas is a faithful member that lives in Los Chireguanos and offered to Elder Moreira to take us to El Potrillo. So he took him up on the offer and we all got to sit inside this nice truck and listen to Spanish hymns all the way to Potrillo. I then had an interesting experience while there. I went with Elder White to visit the people and investigators while Elder Moreira and Freeman stayed to do temple recommend interviews. The first house we went to was of a lady that contacted us the very first time we went there and told us she wanted us to come and teach her. When we got there, the lady told us that there has been a dark spirit visiting there property every night and keeping the kids awake. I was kinda freaked out when I heard her say that… just thinking of the kind of influence dark/evil spirits can have on such an isolated Indian settlement is startling. So we sat down with her and did a dedicatory prayer for their property and the mom starting shouting like a classic Argentine evangelical. It was interesting.

Anyway, as we were finishing our work there, it began to drizzle. This was troubling for us because the road to and from Potrillo is about 60 miles of dirt road that, if wet/muddy, is impossible to pass. So we started heading out while the drizzle kept coming down and by mile 5 we were sliding all over the place with no way to go forward. It didnt help that it was a rear wheeled truck that didnt have 4 wheel drive. Brother Fiestas would get out, scrape off the mud caked factory tires and then try to go again, only to slide 10 yards forward and be stuck in the same situation. Finally the inevitable happened, us missionaries hopped out in our shirts and ties and started pushing the truck. 

Before we got muddy

 Long story short, we ended up having to push this truck 40 miles in the mud. It was quite the experience, I completely slip and fell one time. The mud we were dealing with was straight clay that was incredibly thick. It took 5 hours to make the 60 trip back.

After pushing the truck for 40 miles

 It was incredible and we ended up passing some time with the Fiestas family at their house. They are such an incredible family that is from Peru. They talk very cleanly and make incredible food. Brother Fiestas served a mission in Peru and they have a 21 year old daughter that is attending SLC community college right now. They have one other daughter that is 10 years old and is super smart. The mom of the family washed all out cloths upon arrival to their house and then cooked us up an enchilada type dish with a spicy sauce that synched my tongue.. but I LOVED it. I took pictures of this entire day and will attach them. We then took a shuttle back to Ibarreta and got back by 2am in the morning. It was a day I will never forget. 

The whole Fiestas family

The dish Sister Fiestas made us (super spicy!)

So President Franco is now back in the mother land and President Patania is moving in to his office right now.. We will be having Leadership conference this Thursday so I will be able to meet him there. We did divisions with the area Estanislao del Campo, which is Elder Moreira and Elder White, on Friday and Saturday. I went to Est. del Campo with Elder Moreira who is the Branch President there. We went to an activity they had on Saturday which was an activity to start a fast together and to teach the members about the fast. It was a good experience and I actually played some football after wards with the little kids… I enjoyed that. Lucky I was playing with 12 year olds so it wasnt TOO embarrassing. 

Then Sunday we had a great fast and testimony meeting. The Cano Family and another investigator named Jenoveva came. Then in the Colony we had a lot of people come to church… a whopping 23 haha be that is up from the average 13. We are making a lot of plans to work a lot more in the colony to strengthen it and reactivate the members. 

This week I finished reading the book of mormon again and really enjoyed a couple verses. We all know that promise of the book of mormon found in Moroni 10:3-5 that promises us that we can ask God if the book is true and He will give us an answer because He tells us that ´´If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all man liberally and upbraideth not, and it will be given unto him¨. But I really enjoyed the scripture in Moroni 7:5-6 which says,

6 ¨...by their works ye shall know them, for if there works be good, then they are good also..

7  For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good, for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent, it profiteth him not. 

I really liked that statement a lot. ¨...except he shall do it with real intent, it profiteth him not¨. It really hit home to be that we MUST do what we do with real intent. Especially with out prayers. If we dont have real intent in our prayers, we are just wasting our time and it doesnt benefit us anything. 

Also side note, I loved Moroni 7:12 that says, ¨For the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin and to do that which is evil continually.¨ 

In spanish the words translate directly to ¨continually¨ and ¨without ceasing¨ which struck a chord with me. I have had some wrong thinking that as long as I do that which is right and keep the commandments, then devil will just get tired and give up trying to tempt me. But I learned that the devil fights against God without ceasing, no matter what! He doesnt care who you are, if you are a covenant saint or one of his followers, he will tempt, entice, and invite EVERYONE to sin and do that which is evil... without ceasing. 

But that was my week. I hope you all have another fantastic week. Also if you are receiving these emails feel free to respond, I´d love to hear from everyone. 

Elder Corbin Keicher 

A nice burger and fry meal one night this week

Cumplí feliz 6/26/2017

Well this week was great. We did not make a trip to Potrillo this week because Tuesday we had Multi-Zone conference in Formosa. From Ibarreta we are about three and a half hours away and so we have to contract a ´´combi´´ or private van company to take us to and from Formosa. So they start in Las Lomitas, which like four and a half hours away from Formosa, and then they make their way down to pick all of us up. We told the van guy to pick up the Elders in Las Lomitas at 4-4:15am but at 2:45am the van guy called me to inform me that there were Indians cutting the route in between Las Lomitas and a town called Campo and that he wouldnt be able to get to Las Lomitas. Long story short I was making calls between the van guy and Las Lomitas trying to resolve the problem until finally at 4:30am, the elders in Las Lomitas found a taxi to take them to where the indians were cutting the route and then they crossed it on foot and the van picked them up on the other side. We all got to Formosa safely and had an awesome multi-Zone conference. President Franco talked for like 20 minutes and then had all 40 missionaries there answer the question, ´´What wouldnt you know or what wouldn’t have happened if the book of mormon didnt exsist?´´. Then we sat there for 2 hours while every single missionary bore basically their testimony of the book of mormon, it turned out to be a very powerful experience and built my testimony of it. That also gave me a lot more desires to really ¨search¨ and ¨study¨ the book of mormon and to be continually growing my testimony of what it teaches.

Afterwards, I had president and sister franco sign my flag and watched a video that their kids sent to us. It was overall a great day. I am now super excited to get to know President and sister Patania who will be getting here July 2^nd.  The rest of the week was pretty normal.. nothing too notable to mention. Our Enlgish class is becoming pretty successful. Oriana, a 16 year old girl, has been bringing her friend, camilia, and yesterday she came to church. So that is super awesome! Also we did divisions with Fontana and I was with Elder Rodrigues who is from the south part of Brazil. And he is super strong!! I forgot to take a picture with him so you’ll just have e to take my word. But he is super cool, he has 7 months in the mission and has a pretty Brazilian accent but talked pretty well. 

My birthday turned out to be nice. I am glad it was on a Sunday cause it was a lot more calm and we weren’t out walking all day. But They ended church 15 minutes early and we ate birthday cake that the youth made for me at mutual on Saturday. Super nice of them. 

Then at the lunch appointment , the sister that made lunch made me a cake as well so I had a lot of cake on my birthday yesterday! I mean the cake here doesnt even compare to cake in the states but I accept their kindness and thoughtfulness toward me.  

To tell you all the truth I  hit kind of a rough patch this week. I think it has been a combination of not seeing success in our efforts to the fact that this is my 5th transfer in Ibarreta. I think I am falling victim to ´´the routine´´. For example, the cano family we have been working with since March is starting to get..... disanimated?...or discouraged I think would be the correct word. They havent been to church in 2 weeks and we havent been able to pass by. I have noticed a bit of laziness come into my daily routine. My prayers have fallen into a bit into a routine as well and just feel like Satan has been working to throw me off. It has been really interesting honestly. The closer the cano family has gotten to baptism, the stronger I have felt the temptations and influence of the devil on me and on them. It brought the famous Mosiah 3:19 scripture to mind which reads,

 For the anatural bman is an cenemy to God, and has been from the dfall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he eyields to the enticings of the fHoly Spirit, and gputteth off the hnatural man and becometh a isaint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a jchild, ksubmissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

I must yield to the holy spirit in order to overcome. I enjoy the mission for these experiences and for these reasons. I dont think I would be able to learn some of these things without it. I hope you all have a great week. Congrats to Logan for becoming old!! I knew you could do it

Corbin Keicher 

Week 52! Birthday week! 6/19/17

Well this week was great. We had the baptism of Malvina from the colony on Friday. She is 10 years old and is part of a less active family in the colony. Friday was a day full of stress because there was a ton of things to do for the baptism and just us two missionaries to do it. My biggest concern was the water. Since it is winter here it gets pretty cold and makes the water pretty equally as cold. I had known about this and was relying on church properties to come up this week to fix the hot water, cause I had called them a week and a half ago and they said they were going to fix it. Well we got to the church Friday morning and the hot water was definitely not working and when I called properties, they said they were coming tomorrow(saturday) to fix it. Sooooo, we started filling up the baptism font anyway and I started boiling water. And every 5 minutes for 2 hours I made a trip from the kitchen to the baptism font with hot water to pour in. At noonwe got a call from president Falcon telling us that his truck(only truck/vehicle in the branch) was in the shop and that he wouldn’t be able to pick up Malvina and her family from the colony for the baptism. So he talked to his neighbor who also has a truck and paid him 600 pesos to go and pick up the people and take them back. Then, we coordinating with a member to bring baptism clothes for Malvina and by the time it was 5pm we were all in the church waiting for the people from the colony to get there. Once everyone arrived, we noticed that Brother Casili(group leader in the colony) was there and in fact wasnt able to make it. We had asked him and he was suppose to be the one to baptize malvina! So.... I had to quickly get dressed into my bap clothes and we finally got settled into the room ready for the baptism. Then right as we were getting ready to start I looked around the room and noticed that the 30 people that were there for the baptism consisted of 30 girls and 0 priesthood. So now we couldn’t do the baptism because you need 2 priesthood witnesses. So then we had to make some more calls and finally Pres Falcon showed up covered in saw dust from his wood shop and we were able to do the baptism.

But it turned out to be a great baptism for Malvina and even though the water was a little chilly, she was a trooper and everything turned out great! 

Also this week we made another trip to El Potrillo from Wednesday to  Friday. It was a great trip and we got a lot done. We stayed in a different hotel because ´Él Parador´ was a little expensive. We ate at our favorite place called El Aleph which was another pleasant experience! On Thursday we went up to Potrillo and luckily I sat inside the truck this time. I was with Elder Moreira(Branch Pres of Potrillo) and he just did interviews for the temple because they are planning a temple trip for them. The Asuncion,Paraguay temple is closing in November for 2 years to do some major repairs and construction on it and so all the areas here are trying to get to the temple before it closes. But anyway on our way back from Potrillo, a Peruvian member family invited us to eat dinner at their house. They are part of the Las Lomitas group and live like an hour north from Las Lomitas so they make over a 2 hour round trip every Sunday to go to church. But they made us peruvian food that was SOO good. It was mainly good because it wasnt one of the 4 things Argentines cook(empanadas, Gisos, milanesa, pizza). It was a potateo/lettuce dish with a REALLY good sauce. I attached a photo of that to look at. 

This week will be a fun week. Tomorrow we have Multi-Zona in Formosa. It will be the last time I see Pres Franco. Thursday and Friday we will do division with Las Lomitas. We have been having a lot of success with our english class we hold every Saturday. The people that go are usually Ordian and lidia ayala, ariana Falcon, and a couple others. But The past 2 weeks, Ordiana and Lidia have both brought a friend to the class. And one asked for a BoM! So we are excited about that. 

That is about all i have for this week.