"...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

Road Trip

Hey Fam

So this week was pretty cool. Now that I am away from “big” cities and am out in boondocks, we have to travel to get to meetings. So this past Tuesday we had a Multi-Zone conference in Formosa Capital which is about 3 hours by car. So Tuesday morning we woke up at around 5:00 am and left in a convey or van type car that carried us (pretty much the whole zone) to Formosa capital. We got there by 9 am and then the meeting started at 10am. Multi-Zone conferences are just fun because you get to just sit, take in a lecture from President Franco and then eat lunch. And you also get to see other missionaries that you dont usually see. I got to catch up with a few people. I saw a sister from my MTC zone, Sister Ramos, who I haven't seen since we got here last August so it was cool to catch up with her. I also got to meet up with my first zone leader from Resistencia, Elder Regan, who now is ZL in Formosa Capital. Overall it was a fun experience and I learned a lot from the counsel of President and his wife. They both are just great people and spiritual power houses. I bet they are getting excited to near their end and return to their home in South Jordan in July. I had my typical interview also with president which was just basic and routine. After we had the multi-zone conference we went to a bank and took out some money and then went to a pretty big grocery store chain here in south america called “Carrefour” which is basically wal-mart. It is nice and they had Mac n' Cheese and also A1 sauce. We then made our way back to Ibarreta after we finished some shopping and got back to our little house at 10pm. So it was a full day and six and a half hours of driving. It felt kinda cool to be on a “road trip”. The driver…. Who wasn't lds, played some “Shake it off” by taylor swift and some other songs for a little bit on our way back… it felt weird but I took it as a tender mercy to enjoy cause you dont get a lot of those in this part of the world. Later on in the week was pretty basic. Wednesday and Thursday were just basic days and actually our Zone Leaders who we live with left to got even further north to visit a “Laminite Colony” that lives about 6 hours away.

The story from them is actaully really cool. This specific colony was discovered by the church about two and a half years ago. And I dont have all of the details but basically with this colony, missionaries went in to see if there was potential there. And so missionaries went in and started talking to the people and started to present the story of The Book of Mormon. The missionaries explained the appearance of Christ coming to the americas and the sequence of events that happen in BoM. And after the missionaries presented this, the people just looked at the missionaries weirdly and basically said, “yeah we already know this”. Considering that this was the churchs first contact with this colony ever, the missionaries were really confused or dumbfounded. “How?” they asked. How can you already know about this? The members of this colony began to explain that basically their ancestors always keep records of their lifes. And in their records, they had written from ancient ancestors of a man appearning to them dressed in White and a white beard. So with this knowledge already the missionaries keep teaching and basically they baptized like all the people of this colony. And today, Missionaries make Bi-weekly visits up there and we are the closest missionaries to their colony. But there are a bunch of little colonies spread out up here that missionaries visit. 

But anyway this past weekend was a annual event here in Formosa called “Carneval” which is a day celebration. It is pretty much like Parker Days but its more of a 3 day parade. And is actually kinda dangerous so Friday-Sunday we had to be in the house by 7:30pm. So we took advantage of that time and played Monopoly. I won games out of the 2 games we played… which I dont know how because I have never seriously played monopoly before. But it was a pretty relaxing weekend. 

As for the missionary work here... it's going... the things we are missing is the most important part... progressing Investigators. We have found plenty of people and taught lessons but we are struggling on getting back for As for the missionary work here... it's going... the things we are missing is the most important part... progressing Investigators. We have found plenty of people and taught lessons but we are struggling on getting back for follow up lessons and seeing if they read or are keeping commitments. I am concerned that my small language is making it difficult to connect to the people. It is something that is probably in my head but it is a concern I have. I have been studying in Ch. 5 of PMG this week due to a challenge Pres. Franco gave us. And it has been really awesome. One chapter I enjoyed a lot was 2 Nephi 26 that talks about the establishment of false churchs. It is super good. I think I liked it a lot because we had a really funny lesson with a guy name “Lusio” who is really a nice guy. But he had some pretty messed up views. He told us that due to working 30 years in the Police it has diminished his belief in God and established religion. He keeps on telling us the all churchs are is a business and everything is corrupt. He then went on, bashing Catholics and basically all forms of Christianity. He kept telling us that once he dies and goes to heaven he will figure it out and do what God says. But anyway it wasn't a too crazy experience but just one that we had this week. 

Anyway, that was the week. I cant believe how crazy the Super Bowl was. Tom Brady is just soooo good. But I honestly didnt even realize that it was Super Bowl Sunday until 7:30pm. hahaha Crazy!! Anyway i love you all. Have a great week. 

Love,

Elder Corbin Keicher

Just Another P-Day

Well hola fam,

I am emailing a little bit earlier this week due to having 4 missionaries having to share the same computer. Anyway, this week was actually a lot of fun. To explain, the city of Ibarreta is one branch but there are 2 sets of missionaries in it. To be honest I actually kind of like it. My area is so small compared to my last area. In my last area I had to spend $500+ pesos a month just on bus transportation. and here I can walk from end to end in 20 minutes. It is actually nice. And also the members are super cool. The biggest difference between the last branch in Fontana compared to here is that here there are actually youth. Having youth in your branch is actually really nice for missionary work cause the youth just like talking to you and youth have a lot of friends. So we get to work with them which is fun. Earlier in the week last week we did a family home evening with one family in the ward. It was super fun. We shared a message about recognizing and learning the language of the spirit. We started out by writting just some words in english and asking them if they knew what they meant. Obviously they didn't and then we translated it for them. Then we talked about how learning a new language is the same when learning the language of the holy ghost. Just like how you have to study and put in effort to learn a new language. You have to DO things in order to learn to understand what the spirit is telling you. You have to do more than talk about it. Then after we shared that message we played uno.... and that was the first time I have played UNO with native spanish speakers. So that was a cool experience. Except I realized that I havent developed the vocabulary for card games haha. That is another thing that is different here. We have a family home evening every week with members which is very fun to do and participate in. It switches things up and is a great way to get references and for members to invite friends to get to know the missionaries. 

One thing that I forgot to mention in last weeks email was something really cool. Here in northern Argentina there are Aborigenes indian tribes that have little church groups established. And there is a tribe right next to Ibarreta that the missionaries have to visit and take care of. I have pictures of the little meeting house on dropbox. In this tribe the speak their own language called "Pilaga". But they also know spanish. But we have to take a day every week and go visit all the members there and then on sunday we have to go over there and administer the sacrament and conduct a small little sacrament meeting. It is pretty cool.  

Also this week the other Elders in Ibarreta had a Baptism on Friday. So we got to go to that. I have a picture of that on Dropbox as well. It was of a 12 year old kid of a part member family. But as far as the missionary work in Ibarreta, it is a little more exciting than in my last area. We ran into a guy in Saturday and had a lesson with him. We had a super good lesson with him and turns out he is from Buenos Aires but recently moved here like 3 weeks ago. He is like 25 years old but was involved in drugs and just a bad life style in Buenos Aires so he moved here to get a fresh start. Then we arrived. We had a great lesson and explained the restoration to him. He was super excited to got to church Sunday but we arrived at his house Sunday morning to pick him up and a neighbor pretty much told us that he was up all night drinking. It was a little disappointing but.... we are going to be working with him cause he is super ready and prepared to make a change in his life. 

But anyway, I am doing great here. I have felt comfort this week and the spirit in this work. It is exciting to know that you are all just excelling in your lives, jobs, schooling, and callings. Keep pressing forth. Love you all!! Peace!

Love,

Elder Corbin Keicher 

The Oven of Argentina

Hey Fam,

Well i am in the middle on literally nowhere!! haha but it is kinda cool. haha a lot of things for me are very different. I will go and explain somethings that happened this past week. Firstly, on Wednesday I picked up my new comp Elder Taylor from the office. He landed in Resistencia last Tuesday and he is from the Bay area in California. But crazy thing happened while we were at the office. So usually what happens when missionaries arrive in the mission field is that on Wednesday morning, they get assigned their trainers. After that we have a lunch all together and watch a mission video. But while we were eating lunch, one of the new latinos started having a seizure. It was kinda scary and weird and president Franco and Sister Franco ran in and we all left the cultural hall. But after 15 minutes he was okay and we all returned to the cultural hall to finish eating our lunch. Probably just a stress thing. But anyway, from there Elder Taylor and I left to the bus terminal to take a 6 hour bus to IBARRETA, Formosa. It was actually split up into two bus rides. a 2 and a half hour bus to Formosa Capital. then a 3 and a half hour bus to Ibarreta. So I am out here... and there isn't much. There are actually indian colonies out here that have members in them. But yes it is HOT. Usually sits around 40-43 degrees celsius. But these first 3 days, the Air Conditioning was having problems with the uneven electrical circut and for these days we couldn't use the AC at night.... and I remember I think Friday night I went to bed at 10:30pm and inside our little house it was 95 degrees. Luckly I had the little fan that mom sent me and I just set that on my chest and I had air blowing in my face all night. But we got that fixed and now we have good constant AC in the house. But Ibarreta is pretty small and a lot of dirt roads. It is a lot different but one thing that is really nice is that there is a really nice church here. It totally sticks out like a sore thumb but it is nice. I am writting from that church right now. One thing that was also kinda fun was that on the bus rides here they played movies. When we got on they were playing the end of a film with Tina Fey when she goes to like India or something as a reporter. But that was in Spanish. Then they played a movie in english but it was soo cheesy.

I got to spend sometime with Elder Potts new trainer and his name is Elder Howe. I found out that his older brother was in my ward up at Utah State last year. I thought that was cool. This week we have a world wide broadcast with Elders Bednar, Oaks, and Andersen who are going to be talking to all of the missionaries. It will happen on the 25th. So that will be fun to attend and listen too. 

It is definitely different getting thrown into a brand new area and having to train at the same time. It is difficult to have to do everything and get to know an area you have never been in. Right now I feel like my language isn't as good as it should or could be. I felt really good after being companions with Elder Gallegos cause he was a kid from Buenos Aires but now I have gone 2 months with new american missionaries and I feel like my ability to understand and communicate has diminished. But I am just pressing forward. I know that if I just do what I am supposed to do and work hard everything will be okay. 

Anyway that is basically my email for this week from FORMOSA, ARG. You all sound great. Keep pressing forward and keep true to the things that matter. 

Sincerely,

Elder Corbin Keicher

(Photos of the little house and inside the bus)

Change is a Good Thing

Hey Fam,

Big changes AGAIN this transfer this week. I AM LEAVING wooaaahhh.... and I am training again. haha so I will be picking up my next trainee tomorrow and then heading up to.... Ibarreta, Formosa. This province of Argentina is comparable to West Virgina of the states. The language is dirty and the conditions are super poor. And everytime I meet a missionary and tell them that I am going there, they just look at me and say, "Im sorry man". haha SO It will be interesting and a growing experience. Especially since I am going to a new area that neither I or my comp (obviously) knows. But anyway I am super excited to train again and I definitly learned a lot of things this past transfer. I will be traveling 8 hours in a bus tomorrow after I get my comp from the office. It will be my first real bus ride here. They play movies on the buses over the speakers so hopefully I get a good one. haha

This past week was fun. I had a feeling that I was going to leave so I made sure I got to say goodbye to the people that I was close too. On Sunday I got a call from the branch president at 8:12am asking me to give a talk that day. So I quickly reviewed somethings I studied this past week in personal study and then we went to church. At 9:41 the branch president gave me the rest of the time in the church.... soooo I got up and I actually gave the best talk I have ever given. I truely felt the gift of tounges guiding my words or I guess the spirit but it was really cool and I actually didnt have any nerves. I talked until 10:02 and it ended up being really cool. And I can credit all of it to the time I dedicate to Personal study. Thats something that I thoroughly enjoyed and have been trying to take full advantage of that hour I have each day. 

But anyway I took some photos this week. They are all on dropbox but I will attach some on this email. I took some photos with members that I loved. The one with the old guy is the guy that gave me the name "Elder Ketchup". I took a photo of the keys here cause they look like Hogwart keys and look ancient. We also had interviews this past week which was a lot of fun. The actual interview is pretty short like 10 minutes. Just a "how are things going?" "Hows your health?" "DO you have any concerns?" Then it is done. But here in July we will be getting a new president so it will be interesting to see what changes will be made. We will also be watching a world wide broadcast from salt lake on the 25 that is going to be broadcasted to all the missions in the world. They are going to be doing a little schedule changes to the missionary daily schedule and a few other things. SO that will be fun. But anyway.... I am excited to this new change. I will be writing you guys from a different place next week. I love you all and hope you have a great week. Love ya'll

Elder Corbin Keicher