Another week in Rosario!

Hi family!

So last P-day was really great! We visited a monument that's here in Rosario. I guess the flag was made here, or something like that, so they made a big monument here, and it's in my zone so we went to visit it! It's beautiful there! I took a bunch of pictures of the monument and the river, stuff like that. I haven't been able to send pictures lately from the internet cafe computers, I don't know why :P I'll hopefully get them sent out soon.

Thanks so much for the packages! I love peanut butter! I've been sharing it with the other elders and their reactions are so funny! One elder from Uruguay has never tried it before! And that just can't be, haha I think he likes it. Another Elder from Florida just loves it, and he flipped out when he got some. That was really funny haha. We did divisions on Tuesday, and I had them with elder Maciel, the elder from Uruguay. Uruguay is basically Argentina (from what Ive heard) but they're 'independent' :) So he says he feels like he's right at home. We got a lot done in his area, they're having a baptism coming up, we also taught a new investigator and she's awesome! An elderly lady who hasn't really known much about God in her life, but is interested because her brother listened to missionaries right before he died. She's a funny lady, haha, but really humble and nice.

The rest of the week went pretty normal, just regular lessons with people, and contacts. I wasn't feeling super patient this week with contacts. I guess there are just some days where people are just a lot ruder than usual. I'll just scream a little in my head or something like that haha. If only I could explain a little better maybe they would understand a little better this special message.

On Friday we had a baptismal interview set up with President Giuliani. He's awesome! He just had to answer some of the serious questions, and so President Giuliani came to work with him. So we met at the church, and there was a wedding! In other countries, I'm not positive where else, but people need to get married before going to the temple. So they had their wedding and then went to the temple the next day :) but during the wedding celebration, we were all waiting for the baptismal interview to show up. We called him and it turned out his moto broke down in another city just outside of Rosario. So he took a collectivo and then some taxis to get to the church here. We waited for over 2 hours! But it was great to see his diligence to come to his interview. He really wants to be baptized :) and he really understands the importance of it. And he passed the interview! The really cool part about waiting, was being able to chat with president! We just sat around and talked about random stuff, and it was really relaxing and interesting to be able to talk to him normally. He is an incredible person and I love him. Just really full of love and really spiritual. So that was a great opportunity :)

They dropped us off at our pench and on the way, president was driving, and his wife was backseat driving a little bit and he was getting defensive about how he drives. Idk why but that made me laugh so hard! I guess everyone has those conversations :)

I've been learning a lot lately and it's been interesting to see how much I have learned whether it's Spanish or doctrine or teaching or testimony. I know that Joseph Smith saw our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and I know my Heavenly Father loves me. I love you guys so much. I hope and pray you are all doing well. Thank you for your love and support. It is a huge blessing to me.

Los amo,

Elder Alek Clubb

Buenos Aires Temple Re-dedication

Hola familia!!

Last week for P-day was great! We played soccer, and made tacos (spicy tacos!! Argentine's hate spicy food so that was awesome!). That night we had a noche de Hogar with a family, and they had the news on. The story was about mosquitoes and how Rosario has been infested with mosquitoes and they just arrived overnight. So yeah, this last week has been crazy! I've never been surrounded by so many mosquitoes before in my life! We'll be walking and there will just be swarms of them all over the place, they're so annoying! So I'm pretty covered in itchy bites, haha. When there are mosquitoes in our pench, my comp just goes crazy and pulls out his ties and tries to smack them, haha it's pretty funny.

We taught a Jehovah's Witness this week, in fact one of their leaders. And those lessons are just impossible, it will just turn into a huge argument and the Spirit just kicks itself out :P However I have learned a lot about other religions. I really enjoy learning about other religions and the cultures and all that stuff. It helps me understand other people better. Hopefully that will also help people to understand me better, at least understand our church and my purpose. There are some investigators that we're teaching that are partly eternal... haha. But they're great! A brother and sister, I think they're 18 or 19 or something. But they sang some songs for us and wow! They have incredible voices! That was pretty neat. The brother told me I'm like his long lost brother or something. We both have Asian eyes, and big noses! That was pretty funny :) But we had a pretty good lesson with them afterward, where we felt the Spirit strongly.

Not much really happened after that.... We've been sick this week. I've been progressively getting worse, and my comp had a sore throat and headache for a few days. Probably a result from working in the rain. I've been feeling really sick and weird in my body and head. I talked to the area doctor about it which was good.

It's been a pretty special weekend :) like all week I've been freaking out about Dallyn's birthday! I just can't believe she's 18 haha! I love you Dallyn! I hope you had a great day :) You deserve it! You're growing up kiddo ;)

On Dallyn's birthday was the culture activity dance thing in the church. Before the re-dedication of the Buenos Aires Temple they had a cultural thing in Buenos Aires, and President Eyring came, with Elder Ballard and Elder Christofferson. It was really neat to see everyone there dancing! It was interesting because they danced certain dances from other countries, like Germany and other South American countries. I didn't see any youth from my old area :/ But I did see Elder Dodge! Twice! There were a lot of missionaries there participating (not dancing) but they were singing, and I saw him! That was a neat little surprise! Unless he wasn't there, then I'm just going crazy :P but I'm pretty sure I saw him haha. It was really neat to see the culture dance.

And yesterday was the re-dedication! Wow that was a really cool experience, the Spirit was strong, and it made me miss the temple. Elder Ballard talked about how his grandpa dedicated the land of South America to missionary work in Buenos Aires which was really interesting. President Arnold, the area 70 who lives in Buenos Aires, talked and was really emotional the whole time. He has a really deep love for the people here. I think the coolest thing though, was President Eyring talking. During his talk, he paused and turned to the translator and said, I need to add something. Then he turns back and starts talking about an experience he had in the temple, wow that was so powerful. He was so emotional the whole time and the spirit was so strong. Then he continued with his talk he prepared. It was a great experience and opportunity I had to see the re-dedication of the temple in Buenos Aires :) I loved it.

Good news, I got the package finally! With Aunt Kayoko's package as well! Thank you both so much! :D

I love you guys :) No matter what trials or challenges I experience, I feel a burning in my chest, and I know with all my heart that this church is true. It is such a blessing to be members and I love this church. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that they are scriptures that can help and bless our lives. I love you all so much, you are all a tremendous blessing to me. Thank you!

Los amo,

Elder Alek Clubb

First week in Rosario!

Hola familia!

Ok, so as I mentioned we had transfers and I moved! Right now I'm in the ward 'Las Heras' in Rosario. I'm in the stake center, a huge church building! The biggest I've seen since I've been here! We are in the city, which is a huge difference to me! I've always been in little cities or places with dirt roads and now that I'm in the city I feel so lost! There are TONS of people everywhere! It's great though, I really love it. The first thing everyone told me when I found out I was coming here, was that our pench is like 8 blocks outside of our area. So yeah, we walk so much! We have a pretty big area anyway, but walking those 8 extra blocks back and forth is pretty exhausting! We've actually been taking the collectivo a lot, which is really nice. Because our area is so far away, we leave early in the morning and get back late, we don't come back unless we have weekly planning or something long.

My new comp is Elder Argueta, and he's awesome! I love this guy! He speaks perfect English, haha. We only speak English at night after we get back to the pench, which really helps me out a lot. I can ask him questions on grammer or vocabulary and he tells me! The rest of the time, talking to him only in Spanish is great! It made me realize how low my Spanish is and how much I lack in that, haha. I've actually had some really embarrassing experiences... where I just blew it in Spanish. That's ok, I'm learning a lot faster now. Elder Argueta is from Honduras and was born there, but he grew up in Guatemala. He's super funny haha, probably the funniest Latin I've met, and he's a really hard worker. Which is really great! My first day, right when I got here, I left my bags and we went out and taught 3 lessons with a member haha. I was so exhausted!

The weather has been really good this week. Almost like it is when it's summer! Not that hot, but it's been getting pretty close.

Something I noticed as I look through my journal, is that I wrote 'great lunch' every day this week! We have lunches with members every day and they all cook great! I haven't eaten this well since I left Venado Tuerto! We have awesome members in the ward! There are members who will come to us for lessons, they all want to feed us, and they're all really nice and excited to talk to us. My favorite family is the family Menacho! They're from Peru! That isn't why I love them though, haha, they're all just really nice and really funny. They really care about us. They remind me of Mrs Marlene and Grandma Aranda! They have a daughter and a son. The son comes with us a lot to lessons, his name is Yarro. He served a mission for like 10 months in Buenos Aires and Venezuela, but he got sick and had to come home. He's so great! He helps us out a ton and is super nice.

Happy birthday Luke! Was it on Wednesday?! Haha he probably doesn't even remember me. Happy birthday Aunt Melanie! I'm a couple weeks late on that :P I'm sorry! And wow, Dallyn's birthday is coming up! That's freaking me out... haha she's going to be 18. That's so crazy! I love you Dallyn!

So some weird stuff has been happening, that doesn't normally happen. We have this investigator who is awesome and has a baptism date and is progressing really well. The first time I met him, he was completely wasted, haha. Just acting really crazy and out of it, and was expressing a lot of random doubts. I guess that's never happened . Yesterday in church, something bizarre happened. There's this lady who has been less active, but she's been going to church regularly lately with her kids. Her boyfriend is an investigator but he doesn't go very regularly. Well, after church, her kids were out and playing while she was talking to some people in the ward. Her daughter started screaming and freaking out (she's 6) and was walking over to her mom. There was blood dropping on the floor as she was walking over and then everyone started going crazy. The girls thumb got smashed in the door and cut it really deep, like almost cut it off. And the mom freaked out and grabbed her daughter and just layed on the floor screaming 'why God, why did this happen, if I didn't come to church this wouldn't have happened', stuff like that. They called this emergency number and the doctors came and put a cast on her and she's fine now. you don't get that every day :P It was pretty crazy, I'm just worried about the mom, more than the girl to be honest.

Our bishop is awesome by the way. Really humble and he really loves and cares about everyone. The ward has grown a lot with his help. And he's only been a member for like 6 years!

This has been my week, a lot has happened! I love the area and the members, and I love my comp. I feel like I've been growing in the spirit and in knowledge of the gospel, the language, and effective working.So I've improved a lot in this past week :)

I love you guys! I hope and pray you're all doing well. It sounds like school is going well, and that everyone is doing awesome!

Los amo,

Elder Alek Clubb

Transfers

Hola family!

Ok, so we got called to go and do tramites on Tuesday. So on Monday we basically spent like 2 hours on the local collectivo to get to the bus station place, because it's a lot cheaper! Tuesday we got up really early to get on the main collectivo to Rosario, and we just spent most of the day there. I went to McDonalds! That was fun haha, it is so weird ordering in Spanish! After that we got back and had a lesson with Lucia again with Hno Jorge. It was a great lesson! Like I've said, she's just pretty old and it's hard for her to understand certain things, or even want to accept to do certain things, haha. But I feel like she's progressing really well! I saw the weirdest thing while walking in the street. This little dog was running along a wall then it hopped onto it's front legs and did a handstand and started to pee. I flipped haha! It was so random! I guess that's one way to do it, but it wasn't very effective, since most of it ended up on it.

We did a few service projects this past week! I love doing service :) We cleaned the church one day, and there weren't very people there, so there was a lot of work to do! I also learned something about my bishop! He was interviewed by a radio guy while we were cleaning for a long time, and after he came to us and showed us some newspapers and he was in like 3 major newspapers, and on some on the front page. I guess last year he got hardcore attacked by this crazy lady for no reason (apparently) and he was hospitalized for a long time. It was huge news I guess through all of Argentina and the lady got sentenced to 4 years in jail. I didn't know that! But the cool thing is, he was being interviewed on the radio about our church and it's difference from other religions. Which is pretty neat! Some people got to listen to a regular Argentine person talk about our church and it's influence in his life and he was able to share his testimony :) I'm sure that there were some people who were touched and will be willing to learn more about the restored gospel!

We did this other service thing and we were moving huge metal poles that weighed a lot! We had a forklift to help us stick them in a truck. One time though we were putting them in and I was under one, and the forklift got out from under it and I just collapsed under the pole. Everyone saw me disappear and they freaked out haha! But nothing happened, it just made me laugh :)

Alright! So we have transfers tomorrow! We got a call yesterday saying that my companion and I are both going to Rosario, but to different zones. I'm pretty excited! I haven't been in Rosario yet! I don't know where my area is yet, so Idk if it's in the actual city or not. My new companion is going to be a Latin! That should help with my Spanish!

So yesterday we just went to all of our favorite people to say goodbye. It was so sad! It is the hardest thing saying goodbye to these people that I've grown to love so much! A lot of people were crying and were so kind towards us and seemed sincerely sad that we were leaving. It was hard saying bye to the Chaparro family. They moved here when I first got to the area, and we played a big part in helping them get in the ward and make friends and get active. They were sincerely grateful toward us and I don't think I will ever be able to see or hear from them again. They don't have an address or computers or anything! But I'm so grateful for all of the experiences I've had in this area :) I'm going to miss so many people! I feel like there is a special connection drawn between people when the Spirit is felt together. It softens hearts and we grow in love together.

Ruego a Dios que les bendiga, tanto espiritualment como temporalmente. Sé que Dios les ama!

Los amo,

Elder Alek Clubb