Week #30 - Both of Y'all Are Staying........

I guess this is one of those weeks where you start from the top.

Elder Dicou and I decide to get the one last grind week in before we split up. That means you just get in there and get stuff done. That means we walk until our knees don't feel good and take a lot of buses. 

On like Thursday we stop by Nueva California. We make the rounds, pass by the regulars, then decide to go into the deep parts of Nueva California. We go there and start knocking doors. There's a magical thing about Nueva California where everyone says "pasen chicos" (come inside boys) whenever we go to anyone's house, which is cool. Eventually we are lost on what we should do, but I get this weird feeling that if I don't talk to this giant group of 7 Argentines, I'm a wimp. So we do it. They let us sit with them and we teach them a few things. There is this super cool lady there. After the lesson she told us that she has never liked missionaries before but she loves us because we really listen to her and care what she has to say and that she is super interested in our religion. That usually doesn't happen in the first lesson so that was super cool.

Then it brings us to transfer night. We buy some empanadas to celebrate the changes. Just a week before president told my comp "you're going to san juan and training" so we get super hyped. We get excited as Elder Skonnard calls us and is ready to spill the beans. He eventually gets to us and says "Elder Murphy se queda, y Elder Dicou también." That means we are both staying. Not gonna lie, it hit pretty hard. He didn't want to stay in 3 Porteñas too much and aspired to much more. I felt bad for him to be honest. It hit him especially hard. I mean, just imagine having to live in a place with 3000 people for 6 months. You go nuts. But you know what that means, we gotta get to work anyways.

One problem in our branch is that it is literally the smallest in the mission. We had 7 people attend this week. 2 missionaries, branch president, his wife and son, and 2 young people. We are getting very close to this branch closing if nothing changes fast. We have worked so hard to get people to attend but it is just not happening and its really frustrating me a lot. This week, we put together a master plan to get all of the less actives back to church. We wrote it all down on a paper, so when someone tells us "why didn't you try anything," we can at least show them that we did. We have some crazy ideas that we're already putting into place.

If you go to a ward with over 35 people, realize how lucky you are. We don't have young mens, young womens, primary, or anything in this branch. We have one 2nd hour class, gospel doctrine. Third hour, elders quorum and relief society. I really realize how strong some of these members here in my branch here are. They may not be many, but they go just because they really want to go, despite it being small and quite boring for the younger kids. If you attend church, you are going to speak every 2 or 3 weeks and will pray at least twice at church. I have no clue what I would have done without my quorums growing up, and these guys just don't have this kind of stuff.

Whelp. Sorry if that sounded negative, it really wasn't meant to be. It's just the sad reality of the church where I am at. I will work hard to make it better, especially for the kids who get super bored during gospel doctrine. We have a plan.

I also had zone conference and took pretty much no pictures there. Sorry.

Have a good week friends,

-Elder Murphy

Pictures:

1) A hilarious picture from PMG. 2 missionaries sitting awkwardly close, then I put a funny sticker on one of the faces.

2 & 3) The delicious peruvian dish, called Tallarines salteados. Its super good. There's also a joke about it: "What's the difference between chinese and peruvian food? The amount of french fries you put on top."

4) a picture of me and Elder Wagner, an elder of the Tres Porteñas Alumni.