Everyone Has Their Agency // May 7, 2018

Hey Fam! 

¨Everyone has their agency¨. As a missionary it is difficult to not get frusterated becuase others(investigadors) dont use their agency as ¨I¨ would like. For those who arnt aware of the religous meaning of agency, it is the ability and privilege God gives us to choose and to act for ourselves. This week we had a lot of success in our lesson and commiting a lot of people to baptism and going to church. Elder Moore and I were running all around Goya on foot and by taxi in order to get to everyone we are teaching right now. We had some great lesson with some really promising people,and to help all these people keep the commitment to go to church, we had set up 9 teaching appointments for Saturday. We had to leave a little earlier but ended up getting to 7 of the 9 and commiting all of them to go to church. The majority have accepted a baptismal date to be baptized and are reading and interested. We then sent out text reminders saturday night and sunday morning and even went and picked up some people to get to church. In all we had 4 out of the 9 we were wanting attend church. I was super happy but at the same time kinda disappointed that the other 5 didnt come. But all in all one of the 4 that did come will be getting baptised this Saturday! So that will be exciting! Her name is Marta and I will write more about her and her story next week. 

This week with Elder moore, we had a cool lesson with an investigador named Claudio who is 32 years old. He has a strong testiimony of the gospel and will for sure get baptized one day.... but he needs to get married with his ¨wife¨. So that will be a process. But in mid lesson, he went and grabbed his accordion and started playing us some classic ¨Correntino¨ Chamamé. Which is the argentine version of mexican Ranchera. It was super funny and I snagged a pic of him with his accordion. 

It rained a lot this week so we were walking a lot in the mud. At one point we had just arrived to a ladys buiness we had contacted the other day and right when we entered and started the lesson, it starting dropping buckets and the lightning was literally stricking teleaphone poles across the street from us. It didnt flood luckly but just lots of wet dirt and soaked missionaries. 

There is a lot of drama in the branch here that has been going on since I have gotten here. Basically in Goya there are 2 branches, The centro branch and the Belgrano Branch. and they both hate each other. The members act as if it were a sport team riverally. This week in paticular was bad. Two weeks ago president patania had to move the belgranos branch church to the afternoon so that the two branches dont see each other on Sunday. So we are facing with that right now. Doesnt really help the missionary work either. 

But that was my week! I hope you all have a great week! Talk to yáll on skype next week! 

Tranquilidad in Goya // Apr. 30, 2018

Well week one of the transfer went by super fast. It always does, plus we had a lot of things. It was such a busy week that we could only work Friday. Last wednesday we finished the move, then on thursday we had our leadership conference in Resistencia, and then Saturday we had a church open house in Bella Vista. It is kinda rediculous how big our area is right now. We have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of people to visit. Unfortunally since we only had one day to work this week, we werent able to visit everyone. We will sure be busy this week. There is a lot of potential... hopefully we will be able to see some results. 

In the leadership conference for the ZL´s, we listened to President talk about how to respond to the common excuses people give to not keep commitments. Basically asking us to be more bold with our invitations and to teach with more power and authority. But it was all good. It was weird leaving though because the next time I go to Resi will be to go to the airport there... it honestly feels weird cause it doesnt seem real. People keep making jokes because I´m leaving but it honestly doesnt feel like that. President also talked about some issues that are going on in the mission thatI wont get into detail, but it just shocks me that kind of stuff that happen to missionaires. And us as normal missionaries dont know of half the things that really happen in the mission. Even as a ZL we have to help out all the missionaries in our zone and make sure everyone is okay, and I couldnt imagin being a mission president and having to watch out for the Spiritual/physical well-being of 140+ 19-21 year olds . It would get over whelming for sure. I bet my buddy Pat could relate to some of this stuff. 

This past weekend Goya hosted ¨La Fiesta Nacional de Surubi¨ which is a massive fish convention/competition. It basically looked like Parker days but just all focused on catching fish. They had over 1,100 boats registered in the competition. They had a ton of venders around goya so I bought some souvenirs and got a foot long ¨pancho¨or hot dog. It was super good and I´ll attatch a photo of it. 

Yesterday, we had a really good lesson with a mom(Luciana) and her 16 year old daughter (Ayalen). It was a great lesson and they were super intrigued on our lesson on The Book of Mormon. They are more on the wealthy side, Ayalen actually went to Disney World a little over a year ago, so we were able to talk about that a bit. I´ll keep you updated on them. Also had a funny experience with an investigator that is progressing this week. He was the sisters investigator and is now ours since the sisters left. His name is Claudio. We went and formally met him and his house last friday, and invited him to church. He is like 30ish years old, and after the 2nd hour,. he showed up to church just to tell us that he wasnt able to attend church. haha then he left. He for sure should be getting baptised... just depends on if his wife wants to get married. 

But that was my week. I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Keicher

[They gave Zone Leader motos... sike... i wish]

[Our crew traveling from the Resistencia]

[The Open house set up in one of the rooms]

[Elder Moore and I with a HUGE sloth]

[A gnarly Saber tooth tiger (don't think they really exsisit)]

The Beginning of the End // Apr. 24, 2018

Happy Tuesday, 

Tranfers took place yesterday and there were some crazy changes. We had our zone cut down a little, President closed two areas in our zone which basically doubled the size of our area. Elder Teves left to Chaco(different province) and I recieved my last comp. It is the great Elder Moore from Arizona. He is a super cool, chill guy who is fanatico de fishing and hunting, like he has gone tuna fishing, spear fishing in the open ocean, and he often goes deer hunting with bows and arrows. We got to know each other last tranfer when we stayed in there appartment and now we are comps. I couldnt have asked for a better companion to ¨kill me¨since my mission life is coming to an end. it is weird to be in the last transfer of my mission, this past weekend has basically been the beginning of the end. Even though I am aware of the little time I have left, I dont really feel any different. The only weird thing is that from now on it will be ¨my last....¨. Starting with this Thursday, with my last leadership council in Resistencia. I know that the next 6 weeks will fly by, so I will be making sure to enjoy it and finish strong. 

We also had to change appartments. As I mentioned in my other letter, we had been looking for a new appartment to move into, but with the closing of the sisters area, we just moved into their appartment. We made that move yesterday and still have a couple things to move over. It is nice moving into a previous sisters appartment becuase, sisters always get nice things, and included in these nice things are washers and driers! 

We also had a church open house in goya and gave tours of the church Saturday. There were 8 investigators that came and turned out to be a success! Next week we will have another church open house in Bella Vista which is 80 Km up the road. Before our open house. I had to go to Esquina with Elder Rubisch and conduct a baptism for an investigator there. Rigfht after the interview she got baptized in the river. It was pretty cool to experience that.. but apperently the water was super cold. 

I will keep you all updated on all our investigatores because we just inherited all the investigators that the sisters had. I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Keicher

[FHE in the Calarco house]

[A pizza I made this week]

[The baptism in Esquina]

[Waffles with Elder Moore this morning]

I Found A Chick // Apr. 16, 2018

How´s everyone doing. Dont be alarmed by the subject of this email... i didnt know what to put, So i copied and pasted one of the captions of one of my photos. 

I have decided to write in the mornings now... so sorry if that is inconvenient for anyone. But this week was great. We had divisions, searched for a new place to live, aaaand Joaquin got baptized. 

Joaquin is a kid we found by using some member lists that we got printed off. He is part of a less active family and hadnt been baptized yet. He is 10, so we taught him and his dad over the past 2/3 weeks and his dad was able to baptize his son. It all turned out great, a lot of the family showed up with plenty of members. And yesterday he got confirmed a member. I was in divisions with Elder Hannah, that was super fun because we were in the same district in the MTC, it is kinda cool because we started together and we will now end together in the same zone. Transfers is next week and we will most likely stay in the same zone. But there is going to be a lot of change in the zone... so it will be excited to see where everyone goes and who comes. 

We have been searching for a new apartment for a couple weeks now because we have to be out of our current apartment by the end of this month. So we have been looking a many apartments but we havent had much luck because the majority are super far from our area and/or they are super crappy and run down. But this past friday we found a place that is super nice and close to our area. SO we will most likely be moving. 

ALso on Friday night, the other branch here in goya had a movie night,and I happened to be in divisions so I was able to watch Coco for the 2nd time. And Elder Rubisch made some homemade donuts to share. Then last night, the other branch threw a going away party for Elder Fernandez who is in his last week in the mission. There were a bunch of people. 

This is kind of a boring email... but I just remembered a really funny experience my comp and I had this week while looking for new apartments. As usual, we have to find real estate agencies to go to and ask what places they have to rent. But this particular night, this older man let us in and we started talking. From the beginning I could tell this guy didnt have much interest in talking about places to live. I would say something along the lines of, we are looking for some in centro with 2 bedrooms. he would respond with something like, ¨Oh yeah we have plenty of places in centro, but look, my son studied medicine in the states...¨ and would go on about his son. I mean, props to him, I mean, if I lived here I would be proud of my son if he studied medicine in the states. But the conversation turned for the better when he started asking us about, well us.. mormones. And he was really intrigued. The dude is super intelligent, he is 75 years old, a retired pharmacist and is studying to get a law degree. He told us that he doesnt want his mind to get old and slow, so he decided to keep his mind up to speed, he would study law. After talking about the book of mormon, he told us that, despite his busy study schedule, he would dedicate himself to read 10 pages a day from the BOM. haha  Usually we try to get people here to read a couple verses over the space of a couple days, but considering the type of person we were talking too(pharmacist, owns a real estate agency, and studying law) he has a different work ethic than 90% of the people we come into contact with. But, unfortunately, they didnt have any apartments that we could rent. But we will be sure to pass by and teach him some more. 

But that was the week. I hope you all enjoy your monday and the rest of the week! 

I will be writing on tuesday of next week! 

Elder Keicher

Coconut Rings // Apr. 9, 2018

Good morning family and friends. 

I hope everyone is up and excited to take on the day! I will tell you all how my week was! It was super fun! First off, i met the richest person I´ve met in my mission on exchanges in Bella Vista. I went with Elder Fernandez, who goes home in 2 weeks, and we visited an investigator named Jessica! Jessica is 40ish years old and has known the missionaries for 20 years. She is your classic ¨enternagator¨ or an eternal investigator. But has a beautiful home with a beautiful BMW. It felt weird not teaching on a 5 gallon plastic bucket... Instead we were seated comfortably on couches with air conditioning. Normally, it can be hard to have spiritual lessons with people when you teach them in the street because there are always trucks and motorcycles passing by with the constant hum of  the neighbor´s dogs barking. But no, the only disturbance we encountered in this lesson was the pool maintenance guys working on cleaning the water filters in Jessica´s jacuzzi in her backyard. But rest assured, because we were able maintain focus in the lesson as we taught. after the lesson I took a picture with her old ford classic that her husband is restoring. 

Saturday we had 4 baptisms in the zone... all coming from the elders in Esquina. They came up to Goya and we had the baptism here. It was great... but a little stressful because the baptism was kinda last minute. And we didnt have a key to the baptismal font. The stubborn branch president took the keys from us and gave them to the branch mission leader, which is fine because according to the manual, the branch mission leader should be the one who prepares the church for the baptisms. But these four girls that got baptized, got approval from their mom Friday night. So Saturday morning, we spent the whole day looking for the mission leader, but couldnt be found. Plus, he doesnt have a phone, so there was no way we could contact him. So we went to the church at 2pm and jumped into the font from the viewing room and started filling the font.... but we had no way of opening the doors from the bathroom. The baptism was supposed to start at 4... but ending up starting at 4: 45 because finally the branch president found the mission leader. I had the privilege the interview two of these 4 four girls and it was awesome to see the testimonies they had. They had been waiting for their moms approval for 6 months the get baptized, and I could feel the excitement they had to get baptized into the church. 

Last night, Elder Rubisch taught me how to make rings made out of coconut... So I attached a photo of that. Pretty neat! I hope you are all doing well and have a great week! 

Elder Keicher 

[me ¨mostrándote mi luz¨] 

[A birthday cake for a member in the other branch]

Traditions of Our Fathers // Apr. 2, 2018

Hey fam! 

Well this week was filled with so many exciting events and I will make a sad attempt to relate what all happened. So to start things off...

[Gringo listening to the conference in their native tongue]

We had multi-zone conference in corrientes on wednesday. It was a typical and was pretty fun. But an hour into the training, Elder Cortés(from our zone) got sick... well he had been uneasy for a couple days and he got anxiety in the 3 hour shuttle ride and by the time the conference started, he wasnt looking very good. He spent an hour in the bathroom and finally president sent him and his comp to a medical clinic to get checked out. Turned out that he had an ¨Ataque de hígado¨ and they gave him some medication. Sister Patanía(presidents wife) didnt want him to travel with the rest of the zone. So I stayed with him in corrientes capital for the night and we traveled thursday at noon. There was an exciting change to mission rules. Now, there is a list of 55 approved movies that we are allowed to watch. Ranging from toy story, Emperor's new groove, to coco and moana.... So I will be making   trips to the local ¨Video Club¨ here in Goya and buy as many pirated  disney movies as I can.       [^^ Group of us at the multi-zona]

General conference was historical and amazing. We had a great time watching the conference from the family history room in our church as gringos. There was an endless supply of donuts made by Elder Rubisch, A sad excuse for peach cobbler from Elder Keicher, and some amazing zuccini and apple bread from the hermanas. Needless to say conference was uplifting physically and spiritually. I had so many favorite talks and loved and the new progams and reorganizing of organizations. To me, it is a way to break tradition and focus on the center of the gospel. In the book of mormon, I have been taking to notice how much it warns us about the ¨traditions of our fathers¨ and how such traditions can cause us to fall and miss the point of the gospel. I feel that our Heavenly Father wanted to break such traditions in our church so that we, his servants, can hasten the work more effectively. Without a living prophet, such revelation couldnt be recieved. 

Well I am drawing a blank on what else to relate. The work is moving along. We had an investigator come to the sunday morning session who hadnt gone to church in over 2 years. It is an investigator that we dropped because she wasnt progession at all and was flat out lying to us . But we decided to go back this past week and invite her to conference. andshe went! So we will be doing some following up with her. Joaquin wont be baptized this saturday abecause we need him and his dad to come to church first. So I´ll keep you updated on that! 

I hope you all have a great week and will follow the prophets adivce to really study these conference talks as they come out!  have a great week! 

Elder Keicher

[FHE with the Rodrigues family]

[Me with one of my favorite comps in the mission]

[This was my friday lunch!!]

[The zone (most of it)]

Goya Vision // March 27, 2018

Happy Monday! 

Another week down and things are starting to roll again in our area. I made my second TV/Radio apperence on Argentine AIR. This time it was a TV interview on your local ¨GOYA VISION¨ tv channel. This past week, the branch president and his counselor gave a church tour to two ladies. Well turns out that they were incharge of a parade against abortion that took place yesterday. But they asked our church to provide a representative to appear with them on a TV interview talking about the issue on abortion. Well, the branch president got cold feet and told us to do it! So we went and did our best. It was nerve racking though because we were talking about a sensitive subject on TV representing the church.... I wasnt too excited but everything turned out fine!  

[GOYA VISION studio]

We suffered a bit of a dry spell the past 2-3 weeks but this past week was very productive and we will be seeing some results here in a couple of weeks. If you rememeber last email I talked about the leadership conference in Resistencia. Well part of this conference the mission president gave us a new initiative to put into action in our zones. To explain, we were tolded to print off 2 lists, ¨New converts from the past two years, and ¨children older than 9 that havent been baptised¨. We then use the branch directory to find these people and their families and try to reactivate and/or teach their unbaptized kids. Well, it worked!! We picked 3 families to visit, One we found and had a lesson. We have to go back and follow up. Another family we found and turns out that all are baptized but they gave yus a reference to their nephew that is 10 and has yet to be baptized. So we went over to that house the next day and initiated teaching with them. And the father wants to baptize his son. Turns out that the 10 year old(whose name is Joaquin) is the only child in their family who isnt baptized. So we put a baptismal date for the 7th of april and will be working along side with the family to get everything arranged and ready for that date. We have a FHE tomorrow night with them! 

[Us with the Rodigues family]

This week we have Multi-Zona in corrientes capital on Wednesday. I also love recieveing there trainings from president. They always drag on but its nice to see other missionaries and travel with the zone. and of course we will be watching conference this weekend and are super excited for that. It is actually perfect because in corrientes captial there is a wal-mart, so we can buy somethings to prepare for conference Saturday! 

We also came across another less active this week that got baptized 5-6 years ago and then went completely inactive a year after getting baptized! She basically ran us down in the street and wanted us to go visit her. When we arrived to her home, she brought out all the pictures of her baptize and while showing them to us, began to cry. It was a very tender moment as she looked up at Elder Teves and I and said, ¨I want to go back¨. The spiritual hunger and emotional pain inside this inactive sister was so real. It really hit me when she then went on to tell us about the death of her son that happened 6 months prior. I couldnt find the words to comfort her as she continued to relate how since then has fallen into a smoking and drug consumption habit. As my companion and I sat with her all we could do was thank her for her running us down and opening her mouth. We promised her that she would recieve the help she would need. We read with her Alma 7: 11-13

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictionsand temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. 12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.

That was the week. Enjoy conference and we´ll meet back here next monday! 

Elder Keicher

[The hermana Rodgriques  taught me how to make a classic argentine ¨Guiso arroz¨]

[Found my first GOAT since Ibarreta]