Andrew is currently serving in Barranqueras, near Resistencia. I found this photo of a bridge in his city. I imagine he will see it sometime while he is there. The description was obviously translated from Spanish. I didn't bother to correct it. Andrew's October letters follow... Enjoy!
The bridge "General Manuel Belgrano"
is a viaduct on the Argentine part of the Parana river linking the
cities of Barranqueras (in the province of Chaco, near the city of
Resistencia) and Corrientes (in the province of the same name), a few
kilometers before the mouth of the river Paraguay. It was the first
bridge in Argentine circumvent the Parana River and its construction
broke the virtual isolation in which they were the provinces of
Corrientes and Misiones. His inauguration took place on May 10, 1973....
The bridge had a high impact
on the economies of the regions, empowering the city of Resistancia as
communications hub in northeastern Argentina, and linking them
effectively to the Argentine provinces of the Mesopotamia. It is also a
tourist attraction, given its size and engineering. The viaduct also
enabled much more fluid interaction between the Great Resistencia area
and the Great Corrientes area, allowing many groups of workers and
students live in a province and have their daily activities on the other
side. According to some authors that makes Resistencia - Corrientes in
an integrated urban area of about 700,000 inhabitants, forming what
would be the 6th metropolis of Argentina, or the seventh when one
considers identical situation to the tuple Great Santa Fe-Great Parana....
Its
length is 1,700 meters, and rises to about 35 m above the average level
of the highest growing, allowing the navigation of vessels carrying
high. It has a roadway of 8.30 meters wide and two sidewalks side of
1.80 meters each.
October 3, 2011
¡Hola familia!
Thanks for doing the blog mom! I think that will be a really great
way for people to follow on how I´m doing and I´m perfectly fine with
you posting my letters there.
I did get to write Grant and Alonso in the MTC right before I left,
and I´ve written Danny so far. It´s hard to find time to write,
especially since the day I was going to write Andy´s I ended up
responding to a Dear Elder I had received. I´m going to get one off to
Andy eventually...I wasn´t able to finish his the same day as Danny´s,
but Danny´s was written my first P-day here and I didn´t get the chance
to send it until today! (Technically the Zone leaders, but whatever
lol). Until Saturday I didn´t know there was even a place to send mail
in Barranqueras so I gave it to the Zone Leaders to mail and I´m going
to pay them back. Turns out mailing letters is really expensive! Like 52
pesos for two letters and it´s going to take 10 days! But next time
I´ll be mailing them myself, so I´ll see what the difference in time and
money is. I just need to ask my companion what he was told on where it
was, as I didn´t recognize all of the directions!
So this week I had splits with the Zone Leaders. In this mission,
when the Zone Leaders go with the District leaders, it´s 3 days! So I
spent 3 days in the Zone Leaders apartment with Elder Acuña of Buenos
Aires, Tuesday after the District meeting until the day was done
Thursday. It was really interesting to get to work with another
missionary for a few days, though it was a little odd not really knowing
the people and knowing that I´m not going to get see what happens with
them. Those few days were a little rough for a few reasons. It´s
starting to get really hot down here, and the Zone Leaders had just
recently moved to a new pensión, so they hadn´t set up the air
conditioning system yet...roasting, it was. But I survived, and even
though I didn´t sleep very well, I still had strength to work and do
what the Lord needed me to do. The Lord really does bless His servants
with the energy we need to work when we´re trying to do what He wants of
us! It was also a little rough since a lot of appointments fell
through; it seemed like everyone was sleeping off the heat. But that´s
ok, we managed to teach a lot of lessons anyways, meet some new people,
and do the Lord´s work. Hard days, but that´s the work! The fruits don´t
all come at once; some days we just need to contact, plant some seeds,
and from those seeds find the ones that are going to grow into something
special. Sometimes those seeds are meant for other missionaries, so a
day that doesn´t have a lot of lessons taught doesn´t necessarily mean
the day was unfruitful, just not a day of "Yeah! Lots of new, promising,
golden investigators!"
So Friday I was back with my companion, another really hot day, but
we managed to talk to some people, plant some seeds, visit some
potential progressing investigators, and visit some very promising
people! Hard day, but it was all worth it. We wanted to do what we could
despite the heat, especially since Conference was the next day and we
weren´t really able to teach Saturday or Sunday. It´s a good hour and a
half to and from the Stake Center with the bus ride and the walking we
have to do to get to the Stake Center, so in between the sessions we
couldn´t do much but call people, talk to other missionaries, read
Scriptures, etc. Kind of disappointing, but Conference is totally worth
it! The Second Conference in my life that I didn´t sleep at all!!!!
Yeah! And more importantly, the first that I took notes and came with
questions to be answered. And I can promise to everyone that with every
Conference, you can bring questions and in some way, some how, they will
be answered during the Conference! We are promised to prosper if we
follow the words of the Prophet, and the Spirit can teach us in many
ways through their talks. I received a lot of guidance as to things I
can do as a missionary to improve, to better help other people. I really
liked what Elder Ballard said about using the full name of the Church; a
lot of the times missionaries say after our name "or the Mormon Church"
but it´s not really Mormon´s Church is it? Not only that, we should try
harder to say "La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos
Días" en vez de sólo "La Iglesia de Jesucristo", which, while being good
and true, is the minimum, the name Christ has given to Church Himself
is better, and it´s more distinguishing, as some churches use His name
without having His authority or His direction in using it. It´s not
something we should use lightly, the Savior´s name. Also, I liked the
focus on the Book of Mormon and the Scriptures. I decided that I´m going
to try to use my free time in the nights to read the Book of Mormon
straight through. It´s hard to read it straight through when you´re
studying specifically for you investigators, which usually leads me to
topical study. But eventually, after I´ve found a lot more useful
scriptures I can commit to my bank of "use in lessons", I want to read
some personal studies straight through (maybe) and find scriptures for
my investigators that way. There is something on every page of the Book
of Mormon for everyone at every time of their life. The Lord is a master
teacher; His words can guide us different ways every time as we learn
line upon line and precept upon precept. I really liked how one speaker
(sadly, I don´t remember exactly who, I´ll have to check my notes) said
that sometimes the answers to prayers come line upon line, as we are
prepared to receive the answers to the prayer. I´ve definitely been
experiencing that lately; as we become more prepared, have more faith,
learn more, work more, we deserve more knowledge, and sometimes that is
required to receive the answer or guidance wanted and needed. I also
really liked how he (I think it was the same person) said that as we
pray, we align our wills to God´s will. That struck me, as when we pray
with faith, seeking the Lord righteously and diligently, whether we
realize it, over time we will begin to pray for things that the Lord
wants us to pray for. It´s like Enos; he prayed for a promise that was
already given by the Lord (preservation of the Book of Mormon) because he prayed with the Spirit. As we pray more and more, we will learn
how to pray by the Spirit and what we pray for will truly be the will of
God. I have experienced this in the mission as my prayers have become
more and more centered upon the investigators and upon receiving the
Spirit and guidance, and for the improvement of my abilities, but not
for me, but that I may serve my fellow Spiritual Siblings.
There are so many things from Conference that are amazing, yet
sadly, I cannot write them all and I cannot remember all the people who
said them! Like the person who talked about the real teacher being the
Spirit; this is something I tried and have continued to try to focus on
in the CCM and here in the field, so when it was said in the Conference I
was pretty happy! Remember Doctrine and Covenants 42:14, as without
the Spirit we cannot teach, not: we can teach, but less effectively
without the Spirit; we can´t teach AT ALL without it!
Anyways, I urge you all to either relisten to talks once they´re
up, or at least read and study them when the conference issue of the
Ensign comes out. Without a doubt, when I get my copy of the Liahona,
I´m going to restudy them!
Good news in missionary work, we had 5 investigators come to at least
one session of Conference! All of them said they liked it a lot! One
came late to the first session with her member mother and sisters, and
then WAITED the two hours in the Stake Center for the next session! They
waited! There wasn´t really time to go back to Barranqueras and they
waited! And she has a little son too, so that´s pretty impressive! Also,
the sister who´s supposed to be baptized this Saturday came to the
Sunday morning session with with her member husband. He should receive
the Aaronic Priesthood soon; I don´t know if he´s had his interview yet,
so I should ask my companion, and if not, we need to talk to the
bishop! Overall, things are looking up; we have a decent number of very
promising investigators, others who seem promising, though we need more
time to see if they´re going to follow through. I have faith that things
will work out with them if we´re persistant and have faith. Sometimes
we forget that the scriptures say that many miracles of missionary work
done by Nephi and Lehi (sons of Helaman) were done because of THEIR
faith. If we have faith, great works can be done because of our
faith. Entonces, ¡tened fe! ¡Haced grandes obras para el Señor! :D
I should also mention that today I had an interview with President
Heyman. That´s why this is so long; I didn´t have to write a weekly
letter! Things are going great in the Mission, and he told me that he
expects me to be a great missionary! Another blessing of this is that
while I was waiting for my turn to speak with him, I got to talk to a
friend from my district in the CCM, Elder Taylor, since he´s in the La
Zona de Resistencia Sur (even though his area is in Formosa lol). It was
nice to be able to talk to him for awhile, see how he´s doing, and to
be grateful that I got to start here and not in his area! Apparently the
people think they´re American spies trying to steal the women and the
water...even though his companion is from Colombia...ha! Though sometimes
I guess the Antiamerican sentiments can make the work hard for him.
Here the "problem" is the opposite: the people tend to be nice and
friendly, meaning that many people will say yes to commitments just to
be nice, with no intent to keep them! It´s kinda funny, but you can tell
when someone is truly interested with following visits; if they´re
willing and interested, they´ll start keeping them. They just need some
encouragement! And that´s what we´re there for; we try to get to them
frequently so they can feel the Spirit more and feel that encouraging
them (along with us) to do it, and they will. We just have to have faith
and do our part so that they can feel that Spirit and then use their
agency to decide if they´re going to make the time to study and allow us
to visit; it´s kinda hard to encourage someone when they´re never home!
It´s the life of the missionary; finding those ready now, planting
seeds for later missionaries, and just trusting that the person will
make the decisions with the joint encouragement of the Spirit and us.
Well, my time is almost up! I love hearing about the family and how
everything is going! If you have any questions, just let me know! I´m
willing to answer (if I remember the question lol!) and I can include
them in this general letter to family, and the friends who will read it
through the blog!
Be strong and faithful! Work hard, serve the Lord, serve your families, and just be awesome!
¡Os amo!
Elder Andrew McClellan
October 11, 2011
¡Hola familia!
Sorry if anyone freaked out! Yesterday was a holiday, so we worked and then had our P-day today.
Ok, so now with the questions: Yes, I technically have a
mormon.org
profile, though I don´t think it actually got posted. The MTC started
this pilot program for Sundays that my Zone participated in, and one of
the assignments was to make a profile, except to post it you need a
photo...and I have absolutely no idea how any missionary could post a
picture on an MTC computer; they are the most heavily restricted
computers I have ever seen! And I can´t see how any missionary outside
of the MTC has time to chat on
mormon.org;
there are way too many things to do! And no, we hardly cook at all. We
have lunch almost everyday with members, and dinner is nonexistant.
Lunch is the main meal of the day, so dinner tends to be a snack or
something like that when we return at night; we have too much to do to
really stop and eat dinner.
And most importantly, Norma Valiente was baptized and confirmed! It
was really a minor miracle, as she had a lot get in her way this week.
Her mother-in-law is sick and can´t take care of herself, so Norma has
to be with her a lot helping her out and such. We didn´t even get to
talk to her for more than a few minutes until Thursday! We even had the
baptismal interview in the house of her mother-in-law! But we had the
baptism Saturday, confirmation Sunday, and I´ve officially had 5
baptisms in the misión! It´s pretty incredible!
We have some other pretty awesome investigators too! Sami has a ton
of faith; when we taught her on Tuesday, we were talking about prophets
since we wanted to review the Restauración and since she had gone to
Conference, and she asked us about the Word of Wisdom. So Elder Oblad
and I (splits Tuesday and Wednesday with other Elders in the District)
taught her the Word of Wisdom. And she accepted it right then and there
because it´s what the Lord wants her to do! And when we asked her what
we could do for her, she just said baptize me as soon as possible! She is
also the investigator that likes to mark everything that she´s read and
even reads in the guide for the scriptures in the back. We´re really
looking forward to her baptism! Amalia Peralta is also progressing well,
she has lots of faith, though challenges keep on impeding her from
coming to Church...she came to Conference but she couldn´t come to
Church this week because she was stuck in Corrientes this week for some
reason...something to do with the buses and only talking coins. But she
is very committed to being baptized and she lives with her familiy who
are members, so we just need a little time.
We also found a few new investigators that seem promising. One is
Olga, a friend of a recent convert, Jacinta Jara (remember, Spanish J is
an "h" as in "Hara", for all you people who read this and don´t know
Spanish :D ). She was staying with Jacinta at her house for a few days
rather than her house that´s not too far from the pensíon, so when we
visited the Jara family, we taught her. She´s read what we´ve left in the
Book of Mormon and she came to Church with Jacinta! I have high hopes
for her, as she seems sincerely interested and has Jacinta to help and
encourage her. We also talked to a woman named Pamela who seems very
prepared to receive the Gospel. She appears very humble and attentive
when we talked to her, so I hope we are able to talk to her again soon.
The last time we went by her house, she wasn´t home, but being a
holiday, it wasn´t all that surprising for me.
One of my favorite experiences this week was my splits with Elder
Oblad. After District meeting Tuesday, we headed off and worked the rest
of Tuesday and until Wednesday night when we went back to the normal
compañeros. We decided since I didn´t have a lot of experience
contacting that we were going to schedule an hour or so to contact. What
we did was try to feel where the Spirit was telling us to go. It was a
very interesting and good experience; we planted some seeds, talked to
some people, and potentially found a very promising investigator.
However, the best part of this experience came that night, after we had
gone to all the appointments we had planned and/or scheduled. The power
got cut-off in the city and the plan we had fell through. We went to try
and find the back-up plan, but I had only been there once and Elder
Oblad had a very strong feeling that we should go back to the pensíon.
Once there, we felt like we should contact some more until it was time
to go switch back to the normal compañeros. We only had 20 or less
minutes, since the feeling to return came back pretty late in the day
and we were kinda far from the pensíon. We walked down the street and
nothing came to us in the first block; on the second block, the instant
we both looked at a house, we both had the feeling that we had to talk
to them. We went over, clapped, and ended up talking to the father of
the family. He didn´t have much time since his child was sick, but we
talked a little, gave him a pamphlet of The Family: A Proclamation to
the World, and found out when we could come back. We both felt very
strongly about this, so Elder Mantilla and I are going back to find
teach this family and to find follow through with the Spiritual feeling
that told us very clearly "There!"
All in all, it was a pretty good week, but the point of being a
missionary is realizing that there is always, always, always room for
improvement, so we´re going to look forward and work!
And Mom, I hope the best for you and for your surgery! You are in
my prayers, and I hope all goes well without me to take care of you!
Though, in all honesty, you have Natalie and Michelle close by and they
can do a better job than I could; though I daresay that I could do a
much better job now than then! I´m sure you´ll be fine though; you´re
tough and smart, so the recovery should be ok :D
And you better keep on calling Samuel "Wizzer!" That´s his
nickname, and it´s going to stay because it´s true! Almost every email I
hear about his "skill." He sure is an adorable little guy though! And
someone tell Lydia that the school is all worth it in the end!
I don´t have a lot of time left, but I want to let you all know
that I love you! Make sure my little nieces and nephews know that! Tell
them all the time that "Uncle Andrew loves you!"
¡Tened éxito!
¡Os quiero!
Élder Andrew McClellan
October 17, 2011
¡Hola familia! ¿Como anda?
(It means, more or less, How goes it?)
Ok, Spanish lesson for the day complete! And I don´t know why I put
more or less, since that´s exactly what it means, just not literally
lol.
So this week was pretty good, we had some trials but it all worked
out in the end. The trials mostly consisted of Friday and Saturday. We
had a bunch of plans fall through and appointments fail, with people
just not being home when they said they would, stuff like that. But it´s
ok; we still worked hard trying to contact people, talk to
investigators that we haven´t seen, recent converts, etc. Saturday we
managed to contact a bunch of referrals, which resulted in at least one
good investigator and in getting to know a less active member. She was
taught in the era of the "Lessons from a Can," (or so I call it) and was
baptized about 15 years ago. She has a ton of doubts about the Church,
so we going to keep on passing by and help her resolve them. Her husband
is Catholic, and he seems like a really nice guy. The kinda cool thing
is that her name is "Blanca Nieve" or "White Snow". Interesante, ¿no?
Right now we have 4 investigators who are progressing well,
especially Amalia and Sami. Both have strong testimonios of the Gospel
and both are looking forward to their baptisms. Amailia should get
baptized the 29th, as long as she comes to Church this next Sunday. It´s
a week later than we wanted, but one week she wasn´t able to come to
Church because she was stuck in Corrientes. Still, she's going to get
baptized. It´s for certain! Sami too, though we still don´t have a firm
date for her wedding. She needs to get married and come to Church at
least one more time before she´s met the baptismal requierements, but
she has a very stong faith and a very very strong desire to be baptized!
She wants to do what the Lord wants her to do, and she wants to come to
Church, we just need to help her have the ability to do it. So they´re
going to get baptized sí o sí. Olga is a friend of a recent convert,
Jacinta Jara, and she seems very interested to improve the quality of
her life and in the Gospel. We´ve visited with her a few times and she
accepts with faith what we have taught her. She has a baptismal date of
November 12, has come to Church and enjoyed it, and has read what we´ve
asked her to read in the Book of Mormon! The other strong investigator is
Natalia Velasco. We´ve taught her twice and her husband once, and both
seemed interested and willing, especially Natalia. However, their work
schedules are ridiculous! It´s almost impossible to find them both at
home at the same time, and they´re so tired that they don´t wake up in
time for Church on Sunday. We need to work on a way to help them come to
Church, but I feel confident that we´ll find a way and we´ll be able to
help them feel the Spirit.
Another thing I was grateful for this week was an email I received
from Bishop Cranney! It was really nice to hear from him; he helped me a
lot as my Bishop in UP and I am extremely grateful for all the work he
does for the Church in spite of his busy schedule.
I also finally had enough time to write Andy Caldwell! I felt bad
since I wrote Danny in September and finally sent his two weeks ago, but
I never had enough time to write Andy too...but it´s done now! I will
hopefully send it today, if I can find the post office in
Barranqueras...previous missionaries didn´t even know it existed until
they got put in the Office!
And I should say this...so in August in the CCM I heard from Elder
Holland, September I got to hear from Elder Foster, a member of the
Seventy, at a Zone Conference (first full week), October we had General
Conference, and in November...we´re going to have a Mission Conference
with Elder Cristopherson! A member of the Presidency of the Seventy will
also be there, along with Elder Foster and an Area Authority Seventy.
It´ll be the 5th of November, so I´m really exited for this! Not every
missionary gets this kind of blessing, so we´re going to prepare
ourselves for this and utilize the council as much as possible!
And I love hearing about the family! I´m glad mom´s doing well,
even though it´s not as well as she wants. Sometimes mommy just needs to
learn to rest a little ;D Our family likes to GO GO GO!!!! but after
surgery is one of those times to take it easy, mom! I know you´ll be
fine!
Thank you all for your support; it is invaluable to me and the
work. Remember what you need to do to support the work at home! Without
the members, the work is almost impossible and a large number of new
members will be lost to the lack of friends in the Church. So help those
missionaries baptize people and save souls, not numbers!
¡Os quiero!
Élder Andrew McClellan
October 24, 2011
¡Hola familia!
Primero, I want to express my regrets to the Lindstrom family, my
"other" family if you will. I hope that Sister Lindstrom knows about the
blog because I know she would love to know how I´m doing and, more
importantly, because I want her to be able to read these thoughts. I may
not have known Brother Wolvers as well as the family, but I knew him
well enough to know how kind and loving of a person he is! He always came
and supported his grandchildren in their theater and music activities,
even when he wasn´t doing all that great himself. He placed his family
in the forefront of his life, and the Church too! The good he did as a
father and husband, and as a faithful member of this Church, makes me
have no doubt of where he is right now. Alma 40:12 describes this state,
the state of Paraíso in the Spirit World! He´s having a well-deserved
rest now, resting from the sorrows of this world while rejoicing in the
blessings of the righteous. Lindstrom family, you have my love, as
always, but especially now in this time of trial; there´s a song from
choir that I remember from my sophomore year called "In Remembrance"
that is incredibly powerful. I don´t remember all the words or who
wrote it, but I remember this much from the beginning: "Do not stand at
my grave and weep; I am not there, I do not sleep." These words are
fitting reminders of the life to come, dulling the sting of death with
the hope of what´s to come!
Now that sad duty done...on to the work! It´s what he´s doing now, just on the other side!
Amalia Peralta is going to be baptized this Saturday! She came to
Church yesterday, so she has the number of asistencias she needs; all we
have to do is finish teaching all the commandments and have her
interview! It´s going to be my first baptism where I have helped teach
from the very beginning! It´s very, very exciting! Sami is also doing
well and progressing, though physically she´s sick. Hopefully she´ll be
better when we visit her tomorrow. She´s working on getting married so
hopefully I´ll be notifying you all of her baptism in a few weeks! And
yes, we finally contacted the man whom I had talked to based on a
Spiritual impression! We have an appointment for Tuesday, so we´re going
to teach him and his wife (at least I think they´re married...it´s a
little hard here since they often use words like "marido" y "esposa"
when they haven´t actually gotten married...). I think that they´re
going to be open and willing to our message, especially when Christian
(the man) said that he had wondered why we hadn´t passed by earlier
(which we had actually done, but he wasn´t home). I´m also very excited
about a woman named Paula and her 8 year-old daughter, Magalí. She may
not have come to Church (something that seems to be difficult for even
the most interested investigadores), but she told us when we passed by
Saturday night that when she read the Book of Mormon the words entered
into her heart! They made her reflect; and what she said indicates that
she´s fulfilling one of the requirements of conversion and the growth of
faith; we have to let the Holy Ghost ENTER our hearts; it can only
bring the words and power of God to us; we have to let Him enter! So
I´ll be letting you all know how she´s progressing! Another cool thing
is that Carlos and Silvina Rico got to go to the Temple in Paraguay this
Saturday with the Stake trip! It was only 100 pesos per person (more or
less $25 US) to travel there and back! Silvina was baptized in August
and Carlos was a less-active member, but now they´re doing great and are
strong in the Gospel. Carlos was recently called to be the Young Men´s
President, since they didn´t have one at that time.
Oh, and I can´t remember if I remembered this last week, but Happy
Birthday Mom! I meant to include it last week, but sometimes I don´t
remember things when I´m just letting the fingers go! It doesn´t help
that I´m getting accustomed to the differences in the keyboards already
lol. I just want to let you know how much I love you and how much I
appreciate what you do for me! ¡Te quiero, Mami!
In other news, I got my first hand-written letter! I got it the
18th...and it was sent the 16th of September! One month for paper mail
to get here! Really long, and it´s probably going to take another month
for the reply to get back! So Ariel (if you read this! if not, someone
should tell her about the blog Ariel Reiley, that is!) you´re going to
have to wait awhile, sorry!!! Andy Caldwell too, I finally got his
mailed! It´s expensive to send them quickly, so I can´t afford to send
very many faster than the norm of about a month...
Thank you all for your support! Know that I´m doing fine and dandy, and I´m loving what I´m doing!
¡Os quiero!
Élder Andrew McClellan
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