Baptism of Debora, The Power of One

BUENOS DÍAS,
Okay so the baptism last Thursday went through without any problems. The Debora is the birthday/baptism girl in the photos. She turned 9 on Thursday and decided to get baptized. Her mom was baptized into the church about 6-7 months ago and is active. She is our librarian and puts all the books out for the classes. Before she was called as the librarian she would get to church about 30 minutes late every Sunday. Since having her calling she is there in church every Sunday 30 minutes early. When President Hinckley said that every new convert and member needed a friend, a calling, and to be nourished by the good word of God, he was right. He was probably right because God told him so. We are hoping that her other two children will follow the example of their younger sister and be baptized.




After the Baptism we had a little party for her. She is a shy little girl so she wanted to have only a few people at her baptism. She invited a total of 3 sisters from the branch and her family. When she invited one sister she said that only she could go and not her kids. The cake was delicious and the mate cocido was tempting. The rule in the mission for mate is, NONE! The missionaries used to be able to drink mate cocido in their apartments just not with anyone. Mate cocido is made like normal tea. Sometimes they put milk in it as if it were coffee. Debora's little brother really enjoyed the cake and cocido. You can tell from the mess on his face. He is a really cute kid. The younger sister of Debora says that in 2 years when she is 8 she will get baptized and that she wants a bigger cake for her baptism.




Yesterday Elder King and I made a 2.5 hour trip to Curuzú Cuatía. We had to take part in their district meeting. Elder King talked about faith vs. fear which is what Pres. Del Castillo talked about in our zone leaders meeting (consejo). I talked to the elders about statistics in the mission and what would happen if the elders did ONE more thing. The power of one was a presentation that president did in “consejo”. He showed the statistics in the mission from Sept. 08 to Jun. 09 on a power point. After talking about those statistics he showed us what the statistics would be if every elder did ONE more thing. For example, one more lesson with member, one more new investigator, one more in church, one more with a baptismal date, one more lesson, one more baptism. We would complete all of our goals if this happened. It was a really good presentation. The elders in the district meeting are definitely going to do better this week. After the meeting we went to Gridos to eat some ice cream and then we headed back to Libres. I took some pictures of stuff in Curuzú.






In the coming weeks we will be seeing miracles. We have a baptism set for the 8th of August. We will be setting dates with seven investigators this week. We are planning on having a baptism every week of August. President Del Castillo has us working on "White August". He calls it that because the mission is going to duplicate baptisms from last August by having 96 baptisms this August. Elder King and I are hoping to help out in that by having seven in August. President asked for two baptisms from each companionship. I think heaven will be happy with the efforts of the mission.


Things are going great here in Libres. I hope to hear from everyone next week. I enjoy the news updates that everyone sends me. I’ll be praying for Lalani and the baby. Love you all. Adios.
Elder Hunsaker

Hello family,

Last week was interesting with my comp in bed for most of it. He had some sort of illness and he's almost better. I just love being sick in Argentina and without my mommy. It is almost impossible not getting sick here. We'll see if I make it home alive and with how many worms. Haha.

Tomorrow we have the baptism of a recent convert's daughter that just decided to get baptized. She will make a wonderful addition to the primary. We are hoping that through her example her old brother and sister will be baptized also. Her older sister is not getting baptized because her next door neighbor told her that if is gets baptized she won’t be able to have a boyfriend, ever! People just love to give wonderfully false information about our church. I'll make sure to write a book of all the stuff I've heard.

I took some pictures of the pension so that you can all see my beautiful government dream home. We have 3 rooms, 1 bath, kitchen, dining/living/family room. Our back yard is nice and spacious. Elder King and Elder Rapp made it their “canchita de sueños” (field of dreams). They played soccer every morning during the summer. I have a nice weight set made of concrete. I'll be RIPPED by the time I leave this place (or not). We'll see how things go.







I don't know if I told everyone that I am living right next to Uruguaiana. In Uruguaiana there are two stakes and 24 missionaries. I think it is interesting in comparison to our 1 district and 4 missionaries. I'll take some photos from the coast and you can see what it looks like over there. I think I will be eating some pizza hut from Uruguaiana in the future. Members tend to go there frequently. I ate a hot dog from Brazil the other day. It was tasty. It reminded me of the state's hot dogs. Maybe I’ll get a member to bring me some grape soda from over there. Maybe I’ll continue to fantasize in my letter to my family . . . OK, I'm back. So yeah, Brazil is cool. Dave and I will definitely take a motorcycle tour of South America when I get back or get done day dreaming.


The Rojas family is really cool. The two of them are only 21 years old and so they are almost like normal friends. They are really cool and we are excited to continue helping them get to know the church and the restored gospel. It will be difficult to get them to church because of the newborn but I figure they'll get there in a little while. We believe that they will be receiving an answer shortly and that their baptism is a short way off. We watched the restoration video with them in our last visit. As we were leaving he asked us if we were going to leave something else to read in the Book of Mormon. He also scheduled our next visit with them. I really like this family and our members our awesome so I know they'll take good care of them before and after their baptism.

Ahora (now), question answering. I decided to donate my washing machine to the mission and my boy, Pruess. It has its official residence in Clorinda. Sadly the sister never made it to the temple nor did she make it to church very much either. When I took the combi away the branch kinda died out. I just felt like the combi was just taking away an opportunity for them to show Heavenly Father that they love him enough to make it to church by sacrifice. In the end no one was really using the combi to its full capacity so it had to end. I don't meet with the whole zone very much because two elders live an hour and a half away in Curuzú and two other elders live 2 hours away in Mercedes. Mercedes is where Gauchito Gil was born and raised. The people here are just like they were in Goya. My area takes in all of downtown. It is really nice to walk on more paved roads than dirt ones. We are talking to more people in the streets than any other method of proselyting. That is how we found the Rojas family. We have found a lot of nice people that way. There are a lot of nice big house in my area. There are more good men here than there were in my last area.

I hope that this letter will suffice. I love you all and we'll talk next week if you write me. Hasta luego.
Elder Hunsaker

Mucho Fotos'

Hola Fam,
Yesterday we had zone conference in Corrientes Capital. We left here at about 3am and we got back from zone conference at about 8:30pm. We watched the best two years in the combi on the way. The combi was a lot nicer than the one that we took in Clorinda. However, we do pay a ridiculous price for the combi here. In conference President spoke about prayer and it was really good. I learned a lot more about it. In consejo he talked about obedience and he said, "If you’re not obeying God, you’re obeying Satan". I thought that was an interesting statement. It’s true.
The other day we contacted a couple in the street and they are really nice. We stopped by on Saturday last week and we only found the husband. He told us that his wife was in the hospital because she had her baby that morning. We have lots of good feelings with this family and I’m happy that our members willing to help us. The couple lives right next to a member and her husband works with the man. We’re hoping for the best. Please pray that Elder King and I have success here in Libres.
I don't really have much else to say so I will now put on the pictures that you’ve been waiting for. I love you all and hope to keep hearing from you. Chau.
Elder Hunsaker

E’ Pruess and I eating alligator milanesa with the Britez family.
Alligator milanesa.
Aaron Britez.
Baby Britez I think here name was Mayra. I’ll have to look in my journal.
Sunset in Mercedes coming back from zone conf.
Sunset 2.
Alcaria Tour my favourite combi.

Me, E’ Cranford, E’ Tucker, and E’ Sulz (MTC group)
E’ Cranford, E’ Tucker, Me, and E’ Salmond (MTC)
Zone leaders at council.
Bowling
Bowling2
Mmmmm, good!
McDonald’s 2
McDonalds!
Indoor soccer with almost the zone leaders a some
Indoor soccer with Me, E’ Tucker, and E’ Cranford
Indoor soccer
La Cruz (The cross in Formosa Capital)
Good bye Clorinda.

No Time to Write

I really don't have anytime today. My comp and I left Paso de los Libres at 1:30am this morning heading for Corrientes capital to spend p-day and then go to our meeting with president del Castillo and the other zone leaders. I finally made it to McDonalds here in Corrientes. The food was amazing. After that we went to play soccer with like 40 missionaries, and we went bowling in the new shopping mall right next to Walmart. McDonald's is definitely tasty after a long time of not seeing nor eating it right from the shop. Bowling was super fun. Tomorrow we have the meeting with Pres. I'll be sure to send a larger email next p-day. I love you all and hope for the best for everyone. Chau.

Elder Hunsaker

TRANSFERRED!!

Okay, So, Yeah, I got TRANSFERRED! I had to leave Clorinda behind. It was really sad to leave everyone there. I really enjoyed my time in Clorinda. I am now in Paso de Los Libres, Corrientes. My new comp is Elder King. He and I are the zone leaders here in Paso. He is from Provo, UT. I don't know that much more about him yet. I left Clorinda at 4:30pm and got here at 6:00am so we haven't been awake very long to get to know one another. Apparently the branch we are in is awesome. I am really excited to work the members here. I've only heard good things from Elder King. He is really liking the area so that will be great. Elder Pruess and I had bought our tops finally. We were getting good at throwing them. He is a funny kid and will be missed. I guess I'll see him in December 2010. haha. I am kind of in shock so I can't remember anything that has gone on in the last week. I hope everyone is healthy and staying away from the swine flu. That is if that really exists.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Hunsaker