This week for all you readers I have three mental images:
Mental Image #1:
Elder Wilcox speeding along, fast as he can, on his bike in good ol´ G. Rod. on a dirt road. Bikes are fun! Even if they are old and break real easy. I´ve never been on bike before now in my mission. Haha they are nice for the days when you have tons of appointments that live really far apart. We leave from one, and go quick to the next. Elder Cortes and I get a laugh at ourselves, when we get onto a paved road and go fast, we start singing the William Tell Overture at the top of our lungs. Sounds lame on paper, but I think it´s hilarious.
Mental Image #2:
We met a cool old guy named Hector last monday. He was nice, told us about his life, he used to be a teacher (Argentines LOVE to talk. Talk talk talk. Sometimes it makes challenges during lessons). BUT he´s really old and his sister had taken his keys from him so he can´t escape the house. He, like most people, has a front gate and fence. But we were like, ¨That´s ok, we can climb your fence and teach you if you want!¨ ¨Seriously? You won´t die?¨ ¨No way!¨ So we climbed his fence and taught him haha. Turned out to be a great great lesson! We even came to get him and take him to church on sunday morning with a member and their car! But he couldn´t because his sister still had the keys :( It was awesome though. I happened to have my camera with me, and a moment like that just needs a picture.
Mental Image #3:
Elder Cortes (yes it was him) happened to lose our keys early this week. Wonderful luck. We do live with two other Elders, but they need their keys too, so we can´t borrow them! Luckily we live on the second floor of a small apartment building. So what we do is go back behind the building (1 fence hopped) where we keep our bikes. One of us then climbs up the bars of the ground floor window as far as we can and reaches up to our window. Then you have to open our window (no screen) and scramble up to it, go down the stairs and let your companion in. Pretty cool, I know. Thus far, I have pulled three of those reverse-Jason Bourne type stunts. But I think we are replacing the keys soon so it´s cool.
Oh I almost forgot! THE Elder BEDNAR is coming to visit us this week! Whuuuuut. I am so beyond stoked. Wednesday of this week. It´s gonna be awesome. I imagine also that he´ll speak to us in English, that´ll be sweet.
This area is INCREDIBLE as far as the people go. It´s huge so there´s just so so much to do. We have a young family. Named Exequil and Milagros. Milagros means ¨miracles¨ in spanish and she really fits her name. They were already progressing when I got here. But we taught them the word of wisdom, and they committed. They are sooo prepared for this. It´s incredible to watch.
ALSO one more INCREDIBLE thing, sorry this email is so long. But in Argentina during the summer, all the teenagers and chorros just sit on street corners and smoke and stuff. That´s alllllll that they do. Well we chatted with one group for a while, and then asked them for a reference (Do you know anyone close by here who could benefit from our message or needs help? Something like that) and told us one guy, Lorenzo, just had his wife get killed. So we passed by his house and talked to him, and got his number. I called him the next night, trying to set up an appointment. He TOTALLY opened up to me and said he wants to improve his life and quit smoking and he needs to care for his kids more than ever and on and on and on. We talked for like 20 minutes. It was AWESOME. I explained some of what we do, and he seemed interested. He couldn´t meet with us the next day, because he was gonna be on the news about his wife and all that. I called him that next night, and we chatted for another 15 minutes. We still haven´t met with him, but I feel like we are best friends. It is absolutely incredible to experience Christ-like love for people like I feel for Lorenzo. I feel like he´s already ready to change EVERYTHING in his life.
Anyway. Have a great everybody. Life´s pretty awesome if you step back and let go of the problems. ¡Ciao!
Elder Wilcox
Pic: Mental Image #2
Pic: Sorry dark picture, but they actually have some nature here! That they do NOT have in Castillo
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