A baptism, Mother's Day here in Argentina and my friend Coleton's homecoming...

October 22, 2018

All the water dried out and things now are hot and humid. E. was baptized! It went really well, the baptism was great! Thanks for praying for her. Saturday, she was able to get baptized and her sisters are also interested in getting baptized too! They gave us dinner that night after the baptism. They are really nice and so things are really looking up! I was soooo happy for her! She said to us that she is really happy now! She came to an activity we had here in the branch for Mother`s Day, which was celebrated Friday here in Argentina. We ate good food and she had fun and liked it a lot. She is probably the best baptism I have had in the mission. We took some funny pictures at her baptism. The water was super cold because the water heater had broken in the church house, so she was like no I can`t do it and I was like don’t worry, you can do it! Everything went well! Elder smith doing great and is working hard, he is a good missionary.

So, my mom asked me what my favorite and most unusual things that I’ve eaten on my mission so far were. My favorite thing was some empanadas from a place called “Box” and the weirdest thing is probably, cow utter, and  the worst tasting thing was pig face, Haha. The lady with the fiat is doing well. It will be slower progress with her. She is learning why she needs God in her life.

This week was good, we worked hard and the baptism was good. To be honest, nothing else exciting happened, just a typical week. I am doing my best to just keep working hard. I can count the weeks I have left on my mission on my hands now! 10 weeks left! Can’t wait to see all of you but I will miss Argentina. I’m glad that you got to go to Coleton’s homecoming and see all of my friends and their parents, I am glad that you are also friends with them also. I bet that was fun driving Rylan’s Jeep!

 Anyway, I love you and miss you all.

Chau!  

Elder Nate Pendleton

 E.'s baptism... some silly pictures...

    

Teaching by the Spirit, cars, more rain, and alligator meat empanadas!

October 15, 2018

Yeah, so things are really good this week! The guy with the church sign on his house said that people asked him all the time if there was church being held in his house Haha. This transfer we are going to get a lot done. E. came out to church and she is going to get baptized this weekend, so we are excited for that! We fasted that she would come to church and it is interesting how the Lord tested and tried my faith, because when we went to church on Sunday she wasn't there and I was just sitting there all glum, just not knowing what to do, and then 10 or 15 minutes later in walked E. I literally was like, man I was just like Peter. My faith had stopped as soon as church had started, and God was like; “Hey, why do you doubt? Here she is!”

So, the rain kept on coming this week, but it is better than the heat! A car passed by us and hit a mud puddle and launched mud all over us, Haha, Poor Elder Smith got the most of it, it was pretty funny, though. With all of the mud around here I feel like I am in a war zone, Haha! It is fun to walk around in all the mud though!  

We found some new investigators this week, one of the coolest people that we found was this lady that I had asked for directions and I also decided to see if she would listen to the gospel message at the same time so I started to speak to her about the gospel and she was a little bit hesitant, but she decided to listen to us anyway. I noticed that in her garage there was a Fiat 128 Berlina, and I asked if it was hers and she said; “Yeah in fact, I was the one who restored it!” She is this lady that restored a car, and just loves cars. That is something I really love to talk about, so there was some common ground for us to start on. I started to talk to her about rally racing and about my car and she let me see the inside of the fiat and it was super cool because after that, she opened right up and let us teach her more about the gospel! She could be a really good investigator.  

 I have had a great mission. I enjoy having learned so much from being here in Argentina!

So E. and her sisters this week gave us some empanadas made from Alligator meat! It tastes like chicken! I can finally say I ate some alligator while serving here! They were really good!

Anyway, this week one of the things I learned was that I have to use less doctrine and more of the Spirit in my teaching, because the Spirit is truly what changes people. My teaching started to be really doctrinal and the people don’t care if it is written in the bible or not, they want to know how the gospel applies to them. After applying this way of teaching, it helped a lot. This Catholic lady started to rail into us the other day, and I was so tempted to bible bash with her, but instead I didn’t  and I treated her with kindness, and by the end, she accepted a Folleto and she was able to see that we are good people not looking for contention. I am improving my teaching little by little. I like the pictures of Max you sent. He is so awesome. Anyway, I am good. Still hangin’ in there, just 11 weeks left before I come home. Haha!

Love you and miss you all,

Chau,

Elder Nate Pendleton

More rain, Haha!

Fiat...

Cool, interesting building...

...and still more rain!

The Savior and I...

Alligator Empanadas...

A Sign that the church is true, and General Conference Weekend was great!

So, this week I worked with Elder Kersey and Elder Tafur in Italia Sur, until Thursday. It was fun to serve in the Italia Sur area of Formosa. That area is pretty easy to work in. I had a great time there.

So, a few funny things that happened this week: A Pentacostal church lady told us about her religion and she gave us these booklets that show all of the rules you have to follow to be a member. It is crazy how strict it was!  I also, contacted a house that had the church’s sign  “La Inglesia De JesuChristo De Los Santos De Los Ultimos Dias” (or in English, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), hung on it Haha! They are now investigators!

If they only knew when they put that sign up what they were getting into! Haha! The guy who lives there says he had found it in the trash! Haha!

So yeah, Elder Smith’s paperwork is finally done. I feel bad for him because he hasn`t had much time to work in our area because of needing to get it all done. I am doing my best as his trainer, but it is hard since we haven’t had much time to work together.  

So, my mom asked me in her letter, which area of the mission was the favorite choice of the other missionaries serving in my mission and I told her that Clorinda is one of the best places to get sent to, in the mission, but that the Ibarreta zone is the one everyone likes the best.

This week, it wasn`t too hot here, but it rained on Sunday like crazy! Haha! We took some pictures and a couple of videos of it!

General Conference this weekend was so good. Pretty crazy, that there is going to be two-hour church in January, and that there is another temple that is going to be built here in Mendoza! I think the change to two hours will be good we can focus more on learning about Christ in our own homes. It is cool that Argentina will now have 4 temples. I liked the talk given by Dallin H. Oaks, because he said it like it was! He stated so clearly our beliefs. All the talks were really good. The talk given by Elder Rasband “Be Ye Not Troubled” was good also.

I think that E. will be getting baptized on the 20^th, so that is good!  She is doing well and is getting ready for her baptism. Elder Smith is doing well also in his training. This week we didn`t have much luck with the investigators because of time, maybe next week will be better. So as far as transfers go I will be staying here in Clorinda for 6 more weeks.

Also there was one day this week that I didn`t know whether I should go to C.’s or to E.’s house first. So I said a prayer, and I felt that we needed to go to see E. first, when we got there, she only had like 5 minutes because she was getting ready to leave. I ‘m glad that I felt the spirit to go there, it was the only chance that we had to invite her out to General Conference.  

I love and miss you all!

Chau,

Elder Nate Pendleton

Serving in Italia Sur...

Government housing...

Flooded Streets from the storm on Sunday...

Video of the storm...

General Conference,worn out shoes and crazy buses here in Argentina...

      Yeah, so things here are good, it is still way hot here! E. didn’t come to church this week. She is still interested, but things were complicated this weekend with church. I was told this week that they had cancelled the paperwork for Elder Smith, from last week, so yesterday morning I had to leave and go to Formosa, and Elder Smith had to go to Tucuman again to do his paperwork. We had to miss church to take a bus to get there, but that was the only way for them to be able to get the paperwork done. Our investigators are all doing well, and we are still working hard to prepare them for baptism. It was so weird to miss church on Sunday. Haha! I am serving here in Formosa, in the area, Italia Sur, until Thursday.  

         The multizona was good. We were asked to work a lot more with the members. I talked with my friend Elder Potts who is serving here in Argentina and he said that he goes home from the mission this week. His cousin, and one of my very good friends, Coleton Jaffa also gets home from his mission this week, too!

         So, this transfer, ends on Monday, right after General Conference. I am not sure if I will be moved from Clorinda, or not. We will see, there is a chance that I could.  

  

         This week I finished reading the New Testament. It was really good and I learned a lot from it! I am ready to go back to reading the Book of Mormon now, though. I am really excited for General Conference! I can`t wait for it!

            So just a few more things, I have been serving with Elder Kersey this week. He is from Santa Rosa, California. So I thought that was cool since that was an area that you guys lived close to before I was born.

         I also had a funny thing happen on the bus on the way down here. So first off, peeing on the bus is hard! The bathroom door wouldn`t stay shut very well, so during all of the accelerating and braking of the bus and me flying from wall to wall trying to pee, the door swung wide open and fortunately, I wasn`t exposed or anything, but all of the people were all just sitting there staring at me. It was pretty funny, Haha.  

         I am that glad you are all doing well. The beautiful fall trees look great in your pictures!  I am glad that you got to go out and see them. I have had a realy good week, we will see what the mission has in store for me this transfer.

         Oh yeah, on the way to the Multizona, it was raining really hard and every time the bus we were riding in, hit a puddle we would hydroplane! Haha. I said a quick prayer in my heart that we’d get there safe, but it was also kinda fun to drive in the rain like that. I talked with Elder Brown about cars the whole way there!

         So we found this cool place here that sells these hand made things made by the Indian tribes here in Formosa. I bought something cool from here. Also, the other day my shoe broke completely and I had to walk around like Shaggy, from Scooby Doo, to keep it from getting caught on everything Haha. It was pretty funny. Good old mission, just destroying all articles of clothing, like always! Haha.

 I love you and miss you all!

 Chau

Elder Nate Pendleton

Some empanadas that I made...

  

My broken shoes…

Me and Elder Smith, my great companion…

It's still really hot here, a cool but weird mural I found on P-day!!!

Formosa...