Week 21 - Ghost Town

Hello family and friends!

I hope you are all enjoying summer because it is freezing here in Argentina! People here are all talking about the American Cup, which is soon going to take place. They laugh at us because the U.S. didn´t make it into   it, but Argentina did. Also River Plate went down a division. They are now playing in the B division and people are mad because now they won´t play against Boca. It is like BYU not playing UTAH but times it by 1000!

Here we have been working with a youth who is getting prepared to serve a mission. It is really cool to see him prepare to serve. He wasn´t used to all of our walking at all. He got tired because here in Argentina everyone sleeps the siesta from about 1 in the afternoon to about 5. That makes it hard to work so we schedule time during it to have appointments already preset. We have been teaching a Young man named Lolo who is really sweet. He has come from a rough upbringing. He is reading the Book of Mormon and he says he wants to finish it before he decides to be baptized.

Another investigator that we have is Mariela who is awesome. She loves reading all that we tell her to and can´t wait to be baptized. The only thing is that she is not married and that is what we are trying to work on. She was immediately open to the gospel when we taught her and that doesn´t happen all that much. So it is a huge blessing to see her desire to know the truth.

Kids in the street all know us and they always come up and talk to us. It is really cool because before they did not really know what missionaries did and that we don´t get payed and stuff. Also, there are some dangerous people in the street that we try to avoid. There is a guy who is in the company of bad people when we talk to him and at times it is scary because I don´t know the slang words that they say. The guy we are teaching really wants to turn his life around and we are doing all we can to help.

In church yesterday we had 4 people show up because it is cold outside :/ It is sad that people are that afraid of the cold weather here. There is not even snow on the ground and there is not a soul in the streets at all. Ghost town...

People with the gospel here remind me of little kids. How they are scared to try new foods, so they are not opened to doing so. It is refreshing when we find someone who actually has questions to ask, it shows that god is truly preparing people to receive the gospel.

Thanx for all the love and support.

Love, Elder Smart