Eric Hanson: Getting investigators prepared for baptism

With David (blue shirt) who will be baptised on May 7

The Rios family holding their baptismal invitation cards. They are scheduled to be baptised on May 14.

Having "spaghetti" lunch with members in their home

Hey family, how is everyone!!!! I hope everyone's good.

This past week has been really good. We were pretty successful and managed to get 6 investigators in church, without even having to leave and search for them on Sunday morning. We actually got 7 if you count Jorge, who was in San Nicolas visiting a friend in the hospital, but he let me know that he went to church there.

We had the baptism interview of David on Saturday, and he passed good and is super excited to be baptized this Saturday. Jorge, like I said, was out of town so we'll have his baptism interview tomorrow, but I expect no problems with him.

The Rios family is doing great. The mom went to church and liked it a lot. The three kids are super excited to be baptized on the 14th, even though they could theoretically be baptized today. The mom isn't quite ready yet but she is trying to stop smoking, and is making great progress. The dad is an inactive member, but we are trying to reactivate him. We told our branch president to pass by his house tonight and to ask him if he'd like to have an interview, and the branch president said he'd love to. I love our branch, and the leaders, because no other area I've been in has leaders so willing to help.

This week we've been working a lot with these investigators, teaching them and also working with the ward, and are happy to see the results. One day we took a few minutes to do a little bit of hunting with the Rios' and their pellet rifle. So we went into the field right by their house, and both Elder Page and I each got a bird first shot. We just shot them right out of the trees, so I'll send you guys a photo of the bird I shot, which the kids say is valuable and they can sell it for a lot here.

After that we had a Family Home Evening activity at the church for everyone, and the Rios family and our other investigators all went to that and enjoyed it. We played a little soccer at the end, and it was pretty cool. We had no lights so it was hard to see the ball, but luckily it was a very small field. Everyone enjoyed it a lot.

I love this area a lot, and yes it has lots of dogs. The other day we had a dog follow us in as we headed from the city into the villa, and it caused a huge dog fight with the local dogs. Dogs in this country are very territorial and its like they all belong to a gang.

The weather has been pretty bad lately. It's been rainy and cold, we're definitely moving quickly into winter. Even today, which is sunny, is still a pretty cool fall day here.

I can't believe I'm already almost at my six months to home mark. This Sunday sounds fine for the phone call, so I will call around 3 or 4-ish Argentina time. I think we can use Skype, but I'll just call from the church on the old phones, I don't really want to try and figure out some new skype thing. I know that probably sounds more like something you or Dad would say, but I just don't want to risk anything with the call.

Everything else I can just tell you about in the phone call, but those are basically the highlights this week. I like hearing that Grandma and Grandpa are doing better, although I'd rather hear that they're doing awesome like they were before.

I am sending you pictures right now, but I ran out of time so I will have to cancel the two with Jorge because they aren't downloaded yet. I will send them next time.

Tell all the ward people and everyone that I say hi. Thanks for all you do, I love you all and we'll be talking this Sunday!

Eric