I love this area!

Eric and Elder Page with the children of the familia Rios

Eric with the familia Rios, except for the husband/father who is not in the picture

Enjoying a few minutes of foosball with the Rios children

A mouse (or rat) in their apartment! I wonder if it lives under the oven?

The kitchen all cleaned up. I wonder if the mouse/rat is still lurking around!

Eric's desk after cleaning the apartment. I think he should have taken a "before" picture first.

Snoozing buddies in the bus terminal

Hey family!!! How is everyone??? That's great that you all enjoyed your Easter with the family.

This week was quite a full and busy one, but I'll try and get all the details in. Well, I'll start at the beginning of the week.

Tuesday we had capacitaciones, which is the leader training meeting that takes all day, which is for zone leaders, district leaders and trainers. It was in the Pergamino estaca, which was my old church in Pergamino! It was great seeing it again, although I was sad to hear that some of the members have not been attending anymore. :( I was very sad because the elders in Ameghino (Ameghino is the particular area of Pergamino that Eric served in) told me that Jose stopped going to church, maybe because church attendance has dropped so much. Anyway, during lunch break, I grabbed the current elder of Ameghino and we ran out to visit Jose, even though he said Jose had moved and was impossible to find. I was sure Jose would be there if I went by, and sure enough he was there, and he hadn't moved away. We had a good visit, and Jose told me some things. He definitely still has his testimony and said he'd start going back to church. He also wants to serve a mission really bad. His biggest concern is he's nervous to get the (Melchizedek) priesthood, which is a reasonable concern, but he promised he'd go back to church again, so it was cool seeing him. So after that the other elder and I went back to the training meeting.

The rest of our week was a really good week. We had a lot of success, and ended up getting 15 references contacted. (The Standards now require 7.) So we had lots of new investigators, most of them coming from references. We really took advantage of Easter and passed by members' houses and talked to their friends. We found some really cool people, too. We found one kid that's about 18 in a wheelchair who's wanted to be baptised for a long time, but just hasn't talked to the elders. He has a problem in getting to church because he can't get on the bus in his wheelchair, so we are going to help him get to church. He already has a testimony, so we set up his baptism for the 7th and will be passing by often to teach him all the lessons and stuff. Also, that guy I told you about last week, the one whose sister is a member, went to church again and of course liked it. Last week the capacitacion ruined our cita (appointment) with him, but this week we have a cita with him Wednesday, so that'll be good.

We've also been teaching the familia Rios, who we came across last week, and they're awesome. The three kids went to church with us this week, and the parents wanted to, but they didn't want to leave their 20 guests alone, who were visiting them for Easter. But the three kids went and loved it. It was probably one of the funnest experiences I've had taking people to church, just because the kids are so awesome. It's a great family, they're awesome. I just sent you some pictures of the family, and just as a quick note, it's a girl in the white shirt. Many people, myself included, get that mistaken at first, but she's a girl! I had brought my camera to church that day, to take pictures of the church, hence why I was able to take some pictures of the day. We showed the kids around our pench after church, and then took the bus into Pueblo where we started to head back to the house. As we passed the plaza we noticed there were foosball tables set up and a couple of guys were setting up more stuff for some kind of big event. There was some good music, too. So we took advantage of the situation and played a few games of foosball. I'm sure you're not wondering this, but I'll say it anyway, I still play awesome, ha ha. It was all super fun, and I loved doing it mostly because kids here don't often have dads who do fun things like this with them. After that, we went to the house and finally met the dad, who loves us just because his kids do. He's a great guy though, and wanted us to play "Need for Speed" (a video game) with him, but of course we didn't. Then we had to leave because we had a lunch appointment.

So Sunday was really good, and we had an asistence of about 57, which is really great for this branch! We're doing lots of menos activo (less active) work too, which I think the branch really loves us for doing. The branch itself is doing great, though, they're doing more inactive work than we are!! They're working like missionaries!! They're all super excited and working hard, I love it! It's probably one of the best ward/branches ever, leadership-wise.

Our last inactive visit was pretty funny. Saturday evening we passed by an inactive lady's house and her nonmember husband. She told us about her life's problems, which are MANY, and basically her kids were taken away because she's mentally unstable (which is true). She then told us that she wants to go to church, but can't because she got "thrown out last time" by a very mean man. Anyway, it was really funny because later when we showed them our personal family photos, she looked at the photo of my family and pointed to Dad and said, "He's the one that threw me out!!!" Ha ha, Dad, and you have never even been in Argentina. I tried explaining that the man is actually my Dad, but she kept insisting that he was the one that threw her out of the church!

Stella and Rodrigo, my investigators from my last area, kept their promise and they did get baptised as planned!!!! (They are the mother and son in the picture from April 12's email with the pink walls.) Although I called the elders in Las Delicias today, and they told me that Stella and Rodrigo didn't get confirmed today, so the ball was dropped somewhere. Anyway, they got baptised and I'm sure they'll get confirmed this coming Sunday. So I am very happy!

So last Tuesday at the capacitacion, I got my mail. I got dad's letter, and also a letter from Nana and Papa for my birthday, and also a New Year's/ Valentine's card from the ward!!! Please tell everyone thanks cause it was all great!!

I'm out of time, so to answer your question, yes we have a lady that washes our clothes, she washes and IRONS and does an awesome job.

Today we spent all day cleaning, yes ALL DAY, but now the pench is beautiful like the Las Delicias pench.

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!!!

Love,
Eric
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