Happy News!

Another couple in our ward finally can get married! Their divorce papers came through. So He can get baptized! He has been coming to church for over a year now, and I am so happy that he will finally be able to receive all of the blessings of baptism that he has been waiting for. He is so happy, you should see him. Oh, the whole family just looks so good. I kind of hope I can still be here for it... Also, I don't know if I told you or not, but I did divisions with another elder in his area one day, and we found a family of five people, and they are awesome. Well, it was sad because I didn't get to teach them more, but I got to go see their baptism, and it was so happy! To get to see things like this makes all of your hard times worth it. Really really. This transfer is winding down, and I don't know if I will still be in Punta Alta anymore as of Dads birthday on the twelfth. I actually want to stay here longer, but I am sure that is how every missionary is, wanting to stay in their area. I love the people here, members, investigators, even the people in the street. I just love it. We found another amazing family this week. Betty and Juan and their two kids. Betty has been going to her Evangelical church for 8 years but hasn't been baptized because she felt like she was missing something. She also had questions of what Jesus Christ did after his time in Jerusalem. After we taught her, she was so happy, she said, ¨Maybe Joseph Smith, and the real authority is what I felt was missing, and maybe the book or Mormon has the answers I have been looking for. Of course I will pray to see if it is true.¨ We are praying for her that she can receive her answer. Thank you all for all your support. I love you all, and you are in my prayers.

So, the first is the Cides Family. We spent some time them, her son has a burning testimony and he is going to get baptized where they just moved to.

We like tacos, and we ended up making and eating tacos just the two of us in our little house. Christmas eve Dinner

The Montaños give us lunch a lot, and the daughter(Florencia) Just received her mission call to Temple Square. She will be leaving in February! Oh...and I am not drinking wine in this picture...haha

This is me playing at the park one day...yeah I am still a little kid at heart

I found Christmas in Argentina! Woohoo!

These are some of my best friends in the mission. They are both from Chile, and they are cousins. Elder Veliz and Elder Veliz. Both have had time in my district, and I have done divisions with them both.

Play boy mansion is three blocks away from my house. And about 2 months ago, we put Chastity Pamphlets under the door. I didn´t think it would do anything, but worth a shot no....hahahaha.

December 8-15, 2008

Hola This week is just the week we are trying to brace for the week of Christmas. We are going to be pounded with different things for the next two weeks. Super P-day, zone conference...etc. Your Christmas present is on the way, and I want you to know that I chose out everything personally. I started getting you things that I thought you would love and could use(some for nursery...hehe), and I got carried away. I kind of new it was coming this month though, so I bought enough food to last until the 30th, when I have my allowance to be used again. This week had some ups, and some definite downs. We lost a few investigators, and found a few more. But we found some very good people this week, and we had some members really express their love for us. They are recent converts and were talking about how we truly are little angels that bring the true happiness in life. It was so freaking sweet I can´t even explain. It was a sweet joy to hear that somebody here does appreciate our existence. It gets kind of tough sometimes, people chasing you away from their house cursing at you and threatening to call the police. I am not complaining though. I love the people here, they are so relaxed, and kind of go with the flow people. I am really in love with the mission already. The people that I helped are now in the Young Women's and Young men's. Its so happy to hear that they are doing so well. Fortunately for me, I get to see it. They are so neat. A girl in my ward here just got her mission call to temple square. I was so stoked for her. She keeps doing these things called mini missions(they don't do them in the states, otherwise I would highly recommend them). You see, sometimes the mission faults a missionary, and they need someone to fill that spot. So instead of closing an area, they ask the different stakes in the area if they have anyone around that age that can fill in for a few weeks. They go and live with the missionaries and do missionary work. It is good for them, and definitely good for the mission. I am doing really well, Elder Simmons is another that lives in my house, and he is one of my best friends in the mission. He is so fun and funny. We are always playing pranks on each other and on the other missionaries. We found little fire crackers and we throw them into peoples rooms to wake them up. Or, we made one of the other elders cut his face shaving because we threw one into the bathroom while he was shaving. Not bad, but it was hilarious. I don't know, I really am enjoying myself, and having some fun. Honestly it really doesn't seem much like Christmas here. Its 100 degrees and everyone puts out their statues of Mary to celebrate. So funny, I got a booklet of prayers to the virgin, because the lady we were talking to thinks we are far lost, and need to find our way back. Catholics don't pray to God, I don't know if you knew this or not, but yeah, they pray to Mary, and curse us for not worshiping her.I have more pictures to send, but I will be sending them next week, or the next. Its crazy busy.Thanks everyone. I love you all.

December 1-8, 2008

Well, this has been a really rough, slow week. Everything seemed to fall through every day. It was kind of lame. This keyboard stinks, you have to push the keys pretty hard, especially for the T´s. So if I miss one, just fill it in. Anyways, we had some funny stuff happen, we were explaining what a prophet was, and the guy was just like, "yeah, he has to be like way good, almost perfect...like Flanders...have you guys seen the Simpsons, do you know who Flanders is?" We were laughing so hard. I thought you might get a kick out of that. Yeah, we have some people we are working with, but retention is terrible here. We have more inactive members, than less active and active members combined. And we don´t wan to baptize people to have them go inactive. Its so hard to see these people fall away. So, with Elder Judd and I, we were feeling like we haven´t been able to accomplish a whole lot, because we haven´t been able to help people make that last step. We have had like 10 people now right there, but they just can´t commit to the whole deal. But, we saw some definate other progress too. When Elder Judd and I started working together, the average assistance to the church was about 48 every week. But, well, the last 3 weeks there have been more than 80. Still a pretty small number for a ward, but it is growing, and the inactive members are starting to go more. We still are short a lot, and we are still pounding out some work with our investigators. Martin, the Kumbi star, is really loving what we have been able to help him with. He told us, that for about the past year he has been seeing different doctors to try to help him with his depression, and his addictions. He has seen pastors of different religions and what not, and he has not been able to improve anything. He had decided to jus give up on looking for help. Then we came, and he decided to give us a chance, though he was really doubting...Now he said that there is jus something very different about us, and he feels that hope, and his desire to drink and do drugs is practically non existent. I don´t really know what will happen with Martin, but he has said that the light we brought to his life, is something that he will never be able to forget.
Chase Andersen

Week of Novemeber 24-30, 2008

This week was pretty good, pretty crazy, but pretty good. Antonio Gomez is now pretty much ready for baptism. It will either be this weekend, or next. We will have to see. But he is good and ready, and understanding whats going on. We got the transfer calls on friday, and I am here for one more(and thats probably it). There was some pretty bad stuff that happened in part of the mission, and like 6 Elders are going to be sent home after Christmas so they don´t ruin their families christmas...Yikes, some people are so dumb. But Elder Hoyt who I have lived with for the last 5 months is going to Necochea. It is really wierd not having him here. He is like a comp really. But yeah, so Elder Judd and I are together for one more transfer. Six more weeks. Whew. We were doing lots of crazy stuff this week, trying to get some things done, basically working on some loose ends. But we found this lady named Nora, and her daughter Norita, and they wanted to come to church. But Sacrament meeting was really crazy this week, and they took off running right after. So, we will have to see if we can go and keep them interested. Also, we found a guy named Daníel Ragozza. I may have mentioned the Ragozza brothers before, but we are probably going to be working with him too. He is a stud. He is like 23 years old, and well, he has a hard time getting up for church is all. So we are going to be working with him too. Crazy NEWS. There is a girl in our ward here, that just got her mission call, and she is going to Temple Square. Two of her sisters have been taken back to the states by missionarires, and now she is going to be a missionary in the states. Crazy. We just traded places. Anyways, yeah. I am excited to have another transfer here. Spend Christmas and new years here. Its going to be a lot of fun this transfer. For a lot of reasons. But its going to be really good. Oh, and also I did divisions with another elder two and a half weeks ago, and we met this way awesome family, and challenged them to baptism in the first lesson with them. I went to their baptism yesterday. It was so awesome to see them. It was so happy. I loved it. Things are going pretty good here, I am enjoying myself, learning more spanish, and making some progress. Whew. You are all in my prayers, and I am grateful to be in yours.

Fun With The Elders!

OKay, so the first one is me making tacos for our recent baptism Eliana and Antonio Marconato.

This is us eating the tacos which they loved!

Fourth is a picture of me with some members in my area that we have lunch with every week. They are the Fiabane family

Us at Paola's baptism, with her Husband Lucas and his father.

Okay, so the next one is a spitting llama. IT spits flem at you from way far away but I wanted a picture with it. I look pretty retarded Ha Ha Ha..

The next one is what we like to call snakes. They read the scriptures, and go to church because they like missionaries. You have to be careful around these. They end up being converted because they do it, but they really really like missionaries.

YIKES!The last one is me in my personalized professional jersey. I am a PRO!

Elder Chase Andersen

November 17, 2008

This week was indeed insane. We did a lot of divies and man, it was so good. We had interviews with the President and basically he told us that he expected more out of us, and that we are some of his best young missionaries(Judd only has 4 months more than me), and that we need to show it. Judd is a very hard worker, but this week was tough for him. We left the interview fired up for the week. We left that night, and found three more people to work with. Martin is a rockstar in Buenos Aires, but he wants us to help him get away from drugs, drinking, smoking, and sex. We found his parents last week, but we only taught them this week. We have a lot of work to do with them. That was just our tuesday evening. Then, we did divies on wednesday morning-with natives. Well, I am quite proud of the fact that I was able to have conversations with Elder Veliz all morning long. It was so good, and I was quite impressed with myself. We found two people, and Elder Judd with Elder Riquelme found two more. We came back for the siesta(which I am still mad that it exists), and Judd was sicker than a dog. He has had heat stroke. He had headache, fever, diarhea, and stomach pains. So we spent the evening taking care of him, and trying to make him better for the next day. Well, I actually went to Bahia on Thursday, with Elder Steadman. Elder Judd stayed in bed all day thursday. With ELder Steadman, we found a family of 6 people(who now are all committed to baptizm on the 30th, but I won´t get to be there because its not my area). It was so awesome. I was just feeling so good about the week. Friday, I was with Elder Simmons, another Elder in my house, and we went on divisions in my area. (Strange, I hadn´t really been working in my area for like a day and a half) Anyways, we went by an investigator, and we challenged him to be baptized on the 29th of this month. His name is Antonio Gomez. He really is ready-we just have to teach him more doctrine, and bam! He is there. Saturday, we went by and talked to everybody we had been by during the week, and reminded them about church. (here is where you might start to understand the difficulty of ARgentine commitment...practically non existent) We had 12 people committed to come to church and were all excited to go. Lo and behold, the next morning, elder judd and i spent 25 bucks to get 3 of them to church. We had to go in a taxi, wake them up, and then go get them. It was a bit of a bummer of a sunday...but we had a much better week, and a mountain of improvement. There are only two weeks left in this transfer..and I will probably have one more in Atlántida. I love the members, and the investigators, and the people are nice, but they just don´t have any commitment. I will be sad when I have to leave. But that probably won´t be until the beginning or middle of January. The weather here is pretty hot. I guess that during january and february it can be as hot as 116 degrees farhenheit PLUS humidity. But we go outside and we work. ITs a little hot in church clothes if you know what I mean.ha ha ha. Right now its in the 80s and 90s some days. This place is definately crazy, and so are argentines, but you cant´help but love these people.So, this week is going to be really good, I am doing well, and getting a little pleasantly plump. What can I say, its missionary poundage...hahahaha. I would think this walking would do something, but it just makes us have skinny legs with a tire around the waist, and a skinny chest. We are indeed and awkward looking bunch. haha.
Chase Andersen