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Week 17 - Intestines........

11/29/2016

Siempre con vos a la anonima

Bueno muchachos y muchachas, allí está su mensaje semanal

Esta semana, fuimos a perito moreno, un pueblo chiquito que está muy lejos de truncado en el campo. This week we had some good days of work, somewhat of a vacation, and ended with a fun pday with the zone yesterday. Also I ate lamb intestine which tasted good but looked horrible like the worst thing you´ve ever seen.

Had a really good lesson with our number one investigators, really hoping to get them to church this next Sunday. Talked about a lot of stuff. It is nice when someone is interested and feels the spirit because we really don´t have to prepare anything! They just ask question after question and the spirit (and the gift of tongues) does all the teaching! Lessons with them get me super pumped and strengthen my testimony a lot. We had lamb with them and that was when I got some good pieces of intestine. Imagine like a mushroom but inside its like shrimp or tuna and it tastes like bloody beef. Not bad but looks a lot worse I don´t think I wanna describe that.

We went to a little town called Perito Moreno for two days. Had some good times because we bought some cool stuff and met some really neat members. The Elders in our district are working on getting things ready to open it as an area, and so we had to go and do some of the first baptism interviews because my companion is the district leader. Really neat to see the gospel being spread to every little city in the world. It was much closer to the mountains and we could see the Andes, my first time. A lot cooler and a lot more trees!

Yesterday we had a fun day in Caleta just chilling with the zone. Ate some burgers and I made a fire behind the church. Played some soccer and all that. Then we went down to the beach and saw like these seal things. Super awesome. Definitely got sunburned but that´s ok!

Basically it for this week. I am so grateful for this opportunity to represent my Savior. I know without a doubt this is His church. The blessings of living the gospel never cease to amaze me and I have seen the power of the Atonement change people´s lives. I love the gospel and I love being a missionary.

with love
Elder Hollingsworth

Cake I made with cake mix from home. This was before my mom knew cake is better here! HaHa

Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno, mountains!!!

P-day fun! First real day we have done anything fun. My fire.

The beach in Caleta. Look in the water.

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Week 16 - Hope for things to come

11/22/2016

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hola buen dia todos

This week was a lot of things. From fun and exciting, to depressing and really tiresome. Through it all, my testimony and my hope for things to come help me a lot. There is always something good tomorrow, next week, next month, and at the end of the mission that I have to look forward too, and I am super grateful for all the little blessings I receive everyday that remind me why I am here and what I am fighting for.

One thing that was really awesome this week was that we got to help with a baptism. The kid is 14 and he is super funny. Really a great example to everyone because he spent a year going to different churches and he finally made the choice to become a member of the ONLY true one! Nobody in his family is a member and he walks like 3 miles every Sunday to church. We got to help with the baptism, I gave a talk and my companion baptized and confirmed this kid. Super fun day and we got to mess around with filling up the baptism font which was fun.

Another thing that was cool was that I went to Caleta Olivia on Wednesday because my companion had to go to Comodoro for a meeting. So I spent the day with Elder Caceres from Chaco. He is a neat person and has a lot of love for the people. He is super poor and he really cares a lot about the people. We taught a few lessons, one of which was in a house made out of aluminum that was about half the size of my bedroom. I spent the lesson sitting on the dirt floor as we taught the Restoration to this older guy. We also helped this lady paint her ceiling, luckily I didn´t get any paint on my tie because it was one of my way sick ones haha. But we had a good day.

Yesterday we had a super good Sunday because the second counselor of the mission came and gave some really cool talks and chilled with us for a bit. He is a super nice guy. Then we knocked doors all afternoon and found a few new people to teach.

Our Savior lives and knows each of us perfectly and loves us immensely. I hope we can all live in a way that shows Him how grateful we are for what he did for us.

Elder Hollingsworth

Our investigators Noelia and Milton

Some food I made, yes I grilled that chicken and made that asparagus.

Random Dog photo for Ruby Jane

Looking good!

The freaking patagonia

Nasty trash desert. Always windy.

Random dog for Ruby Jane

Trying to eat better!

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Week 15 - Cake, cake,cake...

11/16/2016

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Had a good week this week for my birthday. Thanks so much for all the cards and letters.

We had a lesson with this girl who has been an investigator for like 3 years and she and her sister made me a cake on Thursday. Then we spent like 3 hours with our buddies Gimena and Julio on Friday cuz they wanted to make me a cake too, then we went to Corallan´s house to help get stuff ready for the activity, he is the branch mission leader, and his wife made me a cake too, and then sister Rodriguez who is a returned missionary that always makes us food, she made me another cake and we ate that one at the activity haha. So I ate a lot of cake, which is good because I think the only thing I like better here than in America, really out of every little thing you could possibly think of the only thing that is better is the cake. They stack a bunch of different ones and they put like fruit and dulce de leche and all this stuff in them. So that was good.

As far as the work goes this week was slow again. We are working our butts off and it feels like not a lot is happening. We have some good people though, and we are fasting again today, just waiting on miracles.

I am so grateful for this opportunity in so many ways. Not only have I come to know my Savior so much better, but I have learned so much about who God really is, and what we really are doing here. I have learned how blessed I truly am, and how easily we take for granted all that we have been given. Literally everything we have is from our Heavenly Father. Every second we are here on earth is because He is allowing it and we need to live so gratefully. That means not only expressing our gratitude to Him constantly with our words, but also with our actions. To live according to the knowledge that we are sons and daughters of God, that our Savior suffered and died for us, and that we have a living prophet on the earth today. To live in this way means more than just happiness in this life, it means living with our families forever.
Thank you for all the support.

Love
Elder Hollingsworth

Note: There was a 6.2 earthquake in the northern part of Argentina. He heard about it but felt nothing. It is not hot at all but the wind is still super crazy everyday.

Chillin

Can't have a bad day when your omelette has a ketchup smile!

A halloween activity that we had, we played like fruit basket and random stuff, and then they sang happy birthday to me and made me put my face in a cake haha I had frosting in my nose.

19th Birthday for Mom

The party and the cake that Gimena made me. It was awesome.

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Week 14 - Its my Birthday...

11/7/2016

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Well right when I have to write I can´t remember what happened so I will just say the stuff I remember.

This week we lost some people. We had two people who were so cool and who we taught like three lessons each to, reject us completely. So that hurt a little. Actually a lot.

This week the wind was insane. No I meant INSANE. Like if I was home that probably would have picked up our house. On Wednesday or Thursday I think it was, we could not even leave the apartment because it was too dangerous. When the wind picks up here the power lines on the streets fall down and electrocute people and kill them so we stayed inside! But the wind was 180 kilometers per hour, I don´t know what that is in miles but I think it is a lot. The day after we could leave there was so much dust and crap that we put scarves on our heads and wore sunglasses to protect us, no joke the wind with the dirt like exfoliates the heck out of your face.

This week we had zone conference so I got a ton of stuff! Bunch of letters from Makayla 👌 and my backpack with all my birthday stuff. 🙌 Which you´ll be proud to know I haven´t opened anything and will not until Thursday haha. So that was good.

Also the new assistants to the president made this plan for this month cuz the mission is having a rough time. Only 12 baptisms down here in the whole mission last month. Patagonia is tough we need your prayers!

The way awesome family that we are teaching is doing really good! Noelia and Milton and their daughter Frida. They are mid-thirties and the girl is like 11 I think. We had a killer lesson with them last Tuesday or Monday I think. Milton asked me about when I have received answers from God about things in my life, because he is waiting on an answer about the church he says. I was so stoked when he asked me this. I started just talking about everything haha. From prayers and huge blessings to people to little things in the Gospel. I talked about how my Grandpa passed away in July and how I was able to stay really strong because of my testimony of the plan of salvation. I talked about how he was baptized and I related it to Noelia (cuz her mom was baptized but wasn´t an active member, and she died last year and it like wrecked Noelia way hard and she is going to counseling and stuff to deal with it) and so I started just hammering them with my testimony of the temple and eternal families and how they can have that if they want. Everyone was crying their eyes out it was the sickest thing the spirit was just filling my mouth with Spanish like freaking Niagara Falls or something.

So we showed them the church on Saturday night and we really really thought they would come Sunday, but they didn´t. We have an appointment with them in like a half hour so lets hope it goes good!

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the Church of our living Savior. To everyone that reads this, I hope you feel the love that I am trying to convey when I say that. I know that the gospel will change your life if you let it. All we have to do is reach out for our Savior, He is waiting and desperately hoping we will only ask him in Faith.

With love
Elder Hollingsworth