Visit to Rodeo del Medio

Hey!

Sounds like everyone is keeping pretty busy this week! I hope you're all doing well and just as awesome as ever! And shout-out to Hailey for the letter, that was awesome!

This week was pretty good, pretty busy. We had to send home 2 elders on Tuesday, so that was sort of sad. It was a pretty weird situation. Plus, the president basically has the mentality of "if you don't want to be here, I don't want you here". Which honestly, is pretty awesome. But now that people are starting to figure that out... it seems like every week 1 or 2 missionaries comes up with a new "medical problem" that no one can solve. Anyway, on monday, my comp and I had gone out to our area to work, but, as always, the office has a way of not letting you go. We got a call from the APs asking us to drive out to San Martin to pick up the suitcases of one of the missionaries that was going home, so we ended up doing that. But the good news is that the drive to San Martin goes right by Rodeo del Medio...and the Gutierrez family literally lives on the freeway...so we got to stop there for like 10 minutes on the way back!! It was way awesome getting to see them again! The mom started crying when she saw me through the window, and none of really new what to say, so it was just a sort of awkward, happy silence sitting around there table for a couple minutes. I found out that Patricia now has 3 callings! And that Carolina and Jorge are now regularly attending church and area still thinking about baptism! Haha it was so great getting to talk to them for a second.

We also got to go find the houses of 2 of the teenagers that we've been teaching in the plaza. Neither of them were at home when we went to their houses, but we met a couple other people at their house and they all seemed really nice. We've got an appointment for monday with Valentin´s family, so hopefully that goes through. They technically live in the sister's area, so we're going to all go over there and have a lesson/pass them off to the sisters. Hopefully everything works out.

So, verse of the week. 3 Nephi 13:19-24. Its kind of a confusing explanation, but basically, when I thought about those verses, the "formula" came into my head of master-->goals-->thoughts-->actions. I came up with like 5 versions of that formula, but they're all pretty much the same. Basically, the scriptures said that your options are either to serve God or to serve the natural man. Who you want to serve will change your goals, which will direct your thoughts, which will lead to your actions. But the more I thought about it, I realized that the formula isn't so much cause-and-effect, because it works in reverse as well. Really, changing any of them changes the rest of them, over time. I guess its not so much a formula, as it is just a bunch of inter-related thingys (thats a mathematical term...duh). If you want to change your "master", you can start by changing your actions. By changing your actions enough, your thoughts and goals begin to change with them. And before you know it, you're dedicated to serving someone else. I guess that might be way He wants us to be "anxiously engaged" in good causes of our own free will (D&C 58:27). Of course, none of it is possible by ourselves, so Christ's atonement serves almost as a catalyst. (haha I miss school). You could also include things like "surroundings", "peers", and a lot of other things into the formula. Like I said...its kind of hard to explain how I got that out of those verses but...yeah.

Anyway, I hope you're all doing great! I hope the lesson that you have planned with the missionaries and the investigator goes super well! Have a fun week!

Elder Webster

Dad asked for pictures. I don't really haven any pics from this week, but I just looked through my flash drive for some random pics, because I know I haven't sent you all of them. I'm not really sure if I've sent these before on not though, I can't remember.

"Esto es CDGCAT Barrio"-- the Tomba soccer team stadium is in our area/at the edge. Its kind of known for being a ghetto team...so we don't really go over there much. But like last year Tomba made it into League A, which means I think they are officially on the new FIFA videogames, along with River and Boca. Fun fact

Other pic of the area near the stadium

Mate cups. We aren't allowed to drink mate as missionaries, just because its a social thing that people will do for hours and its kind of a waste of time...but I'll probably try to bring some back...because its way good (with lots of sugar) (Presidente Ávila made some for us on our last pday with him)

The last pic is from back in Rodeo del Medio, in the spring time here. I kind of hate that picture...which is why I figure I probably didn't send it to you.