Big Letter!

This week´s letter will be short, though the Elder writing this letter will return home at least a good centimeter and a half taller. The food is great, and I am starting to see potential to grow sideways as well, though I seem to have lost a bit from my waist due to being on my last hole on my belt when I wear my thickest pants... Also, my epic plan to use one razor every month died valiantly this week when the little green strip that turns white when the razor dulls broke in half after ten days. In retrospect, this plan is the equivalent of rubbing the razor across 75 grain sand paper for ten minutes everyday for a whole month. Now to the important stuff. This week we did a million contacts, and taught a tone of lessons, which was fantastic. I never cease to be amazed with the fact, I repeat, fact that every time we feel inclined to go somewhere we at least get an appointment, if not a full lesson, with prayer and baptismal date to boot. There is a scripture that says that the Lord will bless us immediately when we obey his commandments. Some times that comes from feeling warm and fuzzy, sometimes it comes from walking into the perfect family or person, followed by feeling warm and fuzzy. We have a boatload of appointments this week, especially tomorrow, and I am super animated to see how it all goes. READ the scriptures, and then pray again, and read some more. It helps. In a time scrunch, Elder Lindsey

Gooooooolazooooooo!

¡Goooooooolazooooo! I love football. Staying in good shape and having a good time really make up a solid part of a healthy, spiritual life. The good book says "who will ascend to the hill of the Lord?" Only those that wash their hands and eat things that are good for the heart." This analogy really hits home for me, because in truth, too many of the Lord´s kingdom obey the Word of Wisdom in light of the omissive commands, and not the commands concerning eating veggies and delectable hunks of meat. Living well for a short time and then living in horrid health circumstances doesn´t even come close to matching the glory and great accomplishment of forcing down those raw eggs every morning and chomping on that broccoli to end up looking like me, or better yet, me in twenty months when I walk across the airport after having instituted my great health plan that I have yet to discover. But seriously, be good, and eat well. Don´t be lovin´ it all day everyday. In the event of a baptism, try to have some back up investigators to teach afterwards, or to bring along to the baptism and to see how silly it is to be scared of it. A wise man learns from his mistake, a super wise man learns from the mistakes of others, and Arenales I and II just plow on. We did a whole day of contacting, and surprisingly taught more lessons than when we tried to set up appointments. So much goes for retention, but things are improving, it seems. Concerning my daily scripture studies: oh, how I miss the pens from the States! My good BYU pen from the beloved Elder Trevor Pierce, may he preach in peace, has run out of black ink, and my weak, purple pen that aspires to be black will just have to make do. All other colors work just fine. Currently, I am in the war chapters of Alma, and it shocked me how much actually gets underlined in red, meaning that it applies to the mercy of God. Not that it´s a bad thing, but just that amongst all the blood and scalping and military strategem, I didn´t expect so much. It just goes to show that the Lord works during all times of life, including when we are in great danger physically, like when this lady decided to sic her crazy dogs on us even though she gave us her address and said to pass by. No bites, just a sore ego for being rejected and deep sadness for another lost lamb amongst the wolves of evil workers. The Lord is good, but going over time is not. ¡ciao! Elder Lindsey

Clark in Argentina

Baptism weekend for Cindy and Daniel. The two have now officially been confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and truly the light in their eyes has changed their countenances in a very real and detectable manner. This was my first time actually getting wet while dressed in white on my mission (we got pounded with rain a few weeks ago, hence the qualifier). I guess the change in pressure between the water and the air caused Daniel to have a bloody nose, which he impressively sealed and consealed so that nobody noticed as he went back to the changing room, and that none of the three sets of white clothing he had in close proximity magically became eternally stained with red splotches. Props. This week, I finally got fed up with Satan's efforts against the Lord through false doctrine and outside influence on our investigators and members. I guess that I kind of view myself as Captain Moroni in a symbolic but oh so active war on sin. I have expressed this in the past, but it wasn´t until this week that I truly felt the drive to correct this evil. I think that of all doctrines we deal with that negate the true majesty of the Lord´s gospel belongs to the J-Dubs. The notion that God exists, but that Jesus isn´t the Christ can only be derived from the father of lies. Prophecies and the doctrine of Christ saturate the scriptures, and the Spirit carries it home to our hearts, which is not as traceable, but infinitely more potent. However, His way of teaching includes building faith from what people already know, and not tearing down what has been edified in the past, and in general people that are set in other ways don´t listen to us, so we don´t really argue anyhow. Calling home was great, though short, as it should be. The family is doing great, and the phone companies across the world just love Mother´s Day for sure. 55,000+ missionaries calling home means a ton of phone bills. Also, the world would really be much happier if businesses would just make every brand compatible with each other. Elder Gimenez didn´t get to call for quite some time because the landline was of one company and the calling card of another. That´s just messed up. Oh, it all worked out in the end. We are slightly out of investigators. There is a couple who just witnessed the baptism of his mother, and now have started to work out marriage so that they can get baptized soon. Ah, the power of a good family member. Abuelo Lemos. I don´t know if I have mentioned him before, but we all love him to no end. He is hilarious, kind, rather forgetful, and has a heck of a good life under his belt. He played football professionally, worked as a bird scientist and has started a wonderful tree of a gospel oriented posterity through joining the church way back when. He will be deeply missed when we leave this area. Maybe I´ll just stay here my whole mission and just get really in to the loop in Arenales and Malvinas. Apparently, according to the sources of Elder Petersen´s dear mother, it´s one of the poorest areas in Córdoba. Huh. Never thought of it that way, but now it has become pretty obvious. That´s probably why I love it so much. The people give, and are very humble, as well as receptive to the gospel. Godspeed, all. Write me dear elders, por favor! Elder Lindsey

Two baptisms si o si this weekend. We´ve been teaching them for a while, and though they represent the large population of infatuated adolescents in the area, they don´t live together, smoke, drink, drink coffee or tea, nor do they believe that Mormons are 100% evil beings from another world. It´s taken a while for them to develop their spiritual testimony, but logistically it all makes sense, and the family of Cindy (la novia) has seen a great change in the both of them for the better since they've begun taking the lessons and going to church. This is a wonderful thing to see, and I am truly honored to be a part of their conversion story. I get to call home this weekend, so my house is utterly off limits. Don´t make phone calls in, nor visits to check up on the fam, and do not pass go or collect $200. Should you have an extra $200, though, that´d be great. As much as I have enjoyed knowing each and every one of the people outside of my dear family, let´s be honest; the celestial kingdom is organized by families, and my kids are gonna party hardy with my brother and sister while all of us chill at my parents house and tell anecdotes and eat prunes in twenty years. I had prunes once with Brother Walker at Lake Powell, and they were surprisingly delicious, and there is an abuelo in our ward that is the smoothest, most typical Argentine the world has ever known. Put those two images together, and old age doesn´t sound that bad, not even including the fact that I will be that much closer to going home to my Lord and seeing his merciful face with my own two little eyes after a long, well lived life. I traded one of my ties to Elder Gimenez for two ties that either get pulled off really well or eat it depending on the Elder. We´ll see how it goes, but the deal is made, so if I don´t like them I can burn them as tradition goes in the mission. Elder Van Loo did that last night, and I have a picture of him holding a flaming tie that rocks solidly. Ah, these days of being a missionary. Care free from the world, just worrying about the eternal salvation of thousands of people and having the responsibility of carrying it out. Good times. God gives personal revelation, and it´s really incredible how directly He answers our prayers. A lady this week told us that she didn´t believe that God exists anymore because He doesn´t answer her prayers and that He seems to pick favorites. This was really sad, but tragically flawed from a logical standpoint. Yes it´s true that God has favorites (namely those who actually listen and act upon that which they hear), but He makes everyone His favorite the instant we start to obey. She wasn´t obeying, and suffered accordingly, which stinks vehemently, but has to occur due to the irrevocable decree in heaven that all blessings come from obedience to the law upon which they are predicated. Sad day. We also had intercambios, and I went to a different area to work for a day. Elder Harris needs to be a future companion of mine, because the two of us are great together, and this is while we are newbies in a foreign country speaking a second or third language. We didn´t have a ton of lessons, but those that we did have were stellar, with the exception of the excommunicated bishop that didn´t want to admit that he might have been wrong in jumping steps in the churches offering system and paying for peoples temporal needs with tithing funds. The two of us were talking and all of the sudden I turned to him and said in my own beloved tongue that I didn´t feel like we should be there, and he agreed so we closed in prayer and high tailed it out of Dodge. I have only four weeks left with my beloved trainer, and this saddens me greatly. He really demonstrates a lot of patience with me and never gets mad at me for slipping up when I do, which feels like it occurs very often. He has been an example de diez for me, and couldn´t even dream of having a better trainer ever in my life. I hope that the Lord blesses him always and that my dweeb-like antics didn´t ruin him for good. Just maybe a transfer or two. P-day has come to an end. Farewell my long-lost and severely bored friends! Elder Lindsey (Linci according to the secretary of our branch)

Please send recipes!

Sorry for not writing earlier this week. I just didn´t feel like it, and though my companion really wanted to, I made a point to show him who is boss and we are doing it today. Or, maybe it´s just that in Argentina every other day is a holiday and the guy that owns the computer place didn´t open until I´m sure only half an hour after we were allowed to write two days in a row by pure happenstance. Bah Humbug. At least I didn´t have the same thing happen to me as Elder Gimenez. Monday was his mom´s birthday, and he hasn´t been able to write her until right now. ¡Ay no! Some very important things happened this week. Number one (an epithet given only to Boca and Instituto), I finally decided on my soccer teams. Everyone here has two because one has to decide between the big Buenos Aires teams and also among the local Córdoba teams. Boca is from Buenos Aires with bright yellow and just a regular blue as the colors, and Instituto resides in the Gloria and totes red and white. The clincher for picking Instituto was the grocery store in our area (Super Gloria, complete with a giant Instituto flag and a monkey). They feed me. What more can I ask? Number two, I ate a mango this morning, and it was rather delicious. It is really cold right now, so our pension is like a refridgerator, making it so that I had to wait a whole week until it was ready. Our one little heater for a spacious, not air-tight apartment and four people is a blessing, but gratefully another one is on the way. Really, more importantly, we had a rather glorious experience with a lady named Chola. She has been practically thrown out of every church she has attended at some point and time for something out of her control, and that ripped my heart out and brought to mind the scripture in Alma that tells Helaman to teach the people an everlasting hatred for sin and iniquity. Yeah, I officially hate the actions of some of the churches, though the people themselves for the most part really do intend well. Anyway, she came to the chapel with us just to check it out on Saturday, and she didn´t tell us until we went into the last room that ever since the moment that she entered she had felt a burning throughout her entire body. We testified that it was the Spirit of the Lord telling her that this church is true and the right place to be. She doesn´t have a baptismal date yet, but she has been deeply blessed by the gospel already. Speaking of actions that I abhor with all of my inner strength forevermore and refuse to quit fighting against, pardon my use of Spanish here, but I can´t express it well enough in English, and it doesn´t have the same effect. YO ODIO CUANDO LAS PERSONAS ENSEÑAN MENTIRAS Y USAN ESCRITURAS CORTADAS PARA DECIR COSAS QUE JESÚS NO FUE SALVADOR Y QUE JOSÉ SMITH NO FUE PROFETA!!!!! ADEMÁS, NO ME DIGA QUE DIOS NO ESCUCHA, PORQUE SIEMPRE ESTÁ GRITANDONOS PARA QUE NOSOTROS ESCUCHEMOS A SU PALABRA PORQUE ÉL ES TODOPODEROSO Y SABE TODAS COSAS QUE SON PARA NUESTRO BENEFICIO. Allí está. Basically, don´t lie to people when you teach, ever, for that is against the 10 commandments, and pray always with the understanding that God answers in his own due time. I have started to eat way better in two senses. I have struggled since my mystery surgery back in August of 2011 to eat large quantities of food as I was wont to do beforehand, which thing has pained my soul oh so much, but now my appetite has finally returned and I can´t stop eating at times. I haven´t been full for a week and a half. Also, I have started to eat healthier, including veggies and fruits in my diet instead of alfajores all day everyday. The Lord will help me to be healthier, but I need to put in my part to keep this good looking body in mint condition as is for as long as possible. My time comes. Elder Lindsey