Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Somos prisioneros de la pensión [We are prisoners in our apartment]

Dear family and friends,

Pretty rough week this week! Things started out GREAT Monday y Tuesday. We worked really hard and had some great success working in an area I hadn´t ever worked in before with Elder Castro. We were able to talk with several old investigators as well as doing several contacts, almost ALL of which seemed very promising, and 2 of them even let us into their house on the spot! We basically had met most of our goals for the day by lunch time... so that afternoon was just the icing on the cake. :) Things were going really well y we both felt it was going to be a very successful transfer. That afternoon my comp mentioned to me that we needed to call the mission doctor because he had been having some bad knee pain lately and he was needing to go have it looked at, so we set an appointment for the next morning. Worked that evening and went to bed no thinking much about it. Early Wednesday morning we made the trip to the Church Offices in Palermo, Capital Federal (1 hr 20 min bus ride y 2 subways). We arrived much earlier than expected, about an hour and a half early for the appointment, so we took advantage of the time to do some studying since we had lost a good chunk of our study time traveling. Finally we were able to meet with the doctor Elder Hollingsworth y his wife from Alberta, Canada. Great people! and neither of them speak Spanish! so I had fun getting some practice translating throughout the visit. (Luckily they at least know the medical terms) He came to the conclusion that he has a Torn Medial Miniscus which I guess is one of the 2 pieces of cartilidge that lie beneath the knee cap, which was appartenly caused by a previous soccer injury y re-agravated here in the mission. He told us he would need to have an Arthroscopy surgery to fix it... which will take about 2 weeks to recover from, and in the mean time he said we should avoid walking as much as possible to keep it from getting worse. We have spent the rest of the week taking it easy, and luckily were able to get out to get a few thing done. We have also been in close contact with Pres. Stapley y several hospitals trying to set a time to get him in to meet with a knee specialist y schedule the surgery.

Thursday evening we had a Noche de Hogar scheduled with the Familia Palavecino... but when we arrived at the house the husband came out and pretty much told us that they will not be coming back to the Church and that they have decided to continue with the church they are already going to. Pretty big smack in the face although I am pretty sure the wife y kids still have desires to come back. Tuesday we had a great lesson with the Wife and one of her friends, we read 2 Nefi 2 and talked a lot about Agency answering several questions that they had. The Spirit was very strong and at the end of the lesson when we asked if there was anything we could do for her she asked us if we would pray for her because she was passing through some really hard times and needed God´s help. We took advantage of the opportunity to talk a little bit about priesthood blessings and gave her a blessing of comfort before leaving. I am sure we will continue to pass by a couple more times at least to see if any progress can be made with the husband. We had planned to talk about Temples y Eternal Families that evening for the Noche de Hogar... and my comp and I still feel that that will be something that could definitely soften his heart.

Friday night we had a Ward activity that has been 2 months in the making. Wasn´t very well organized... and there were lots of people who didn´t complete with their responsabilities. The poor old Elders Quorum President hardly had any support from anyone except for the Ward Mission Leader y luckily we were able to help quite a bit as well. Overall I think it ended up being a great success! We had an inactive family as well as 2 of the sons of the Familia Silva who haven´t been to church in a while show up. In the time we were there we played several games y they had sandwiches, drinks, y panchos (hot dogs) for everyone. I think after we left they had a mini talent show y dance.

Saturday we had a late lunch appointment with Gabriel who had also invited Elder Maxfield (the Elder who baptized him 10 months ago who just finished his mission this last week, also a mission buddy of mine I got to know in the Coast!) y his parents as well. They are from Salt Lake City, y one of their sons also served in Uruguay, who they also flew down to pick up, so they had had some experience in South America before although neither of them speak any spanish. (More translating practice!) Enjoyed visiting with them and they also had Scype set up at Gabriels house y were video chatting with his brothers y sisters at home. Elder Maxfield y Gabriel both shared their testimonies with his brother y sister in law who both speak spanish y it was an awesome experience! His parents gave my comp and I some starbursts and snickers. MMmmmm. :) Bro. Maxfield is a Civil - Structural Engineer for the Church Temple department, so part of their trip will also include a visit to the Buenos Aires temple to see how the construction is coming along. The most recent estimate I have heard is that it will be opening in June of 2012... Very long time without a temple!

My companions first Sunday in the ward so he got to present himself in Sacrament meeting. Nice seeing Darío for the first time in 2 weeks and being able to catch up a bit with him. Apparently he has had 2 pretty tough weeks in his Police Training. SOMEHOW I ended up giving the Gospel Principles class on "The Lords Covenant People" which luckily I had at least read the chapter before hand. It ended up going pretty well, and I made special emphasis to help Oscar, the one investigator we had in the class, understand that covenants are made between US and GOD. He has also had a couple difficult weeks with some health y family problems, but we continue to work with him y see his progress, slow but sure! In Priesthood we talked about Tithing y we all had the opportunity to share our testimony of tithing. Elder Maxfield y his parents even showed up after attending a sacrament meeting in another ward and his father even shared his testimony in English which Elder Maxfield translated. After church, another shared lunch with Elder Maxfield y his family in the house of our Ward Mission Leader, very tasty!

Anyways, that is all for this week! I am doing Well just trying to enjoy this extra time in the pension to do some extra studying, pondering, letter writing, organizing, etc.! Thank you for your prayers and support. Please pray all will go well with my comps doctor visit this Wednesday!

les amo!
Elder Ian Wheelhouse

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