March 30, 2009

Hi familia,

Hey thanks for the great emails this week. Now it´s my turn to tell you about my week, but I don´t have too much time left so I´m gonna wrap it up.

Let´s see, on Tuesday I had my first district meeting in this new area. Saturday was interesting cuz the sister missionaries in my district had a baptism but they couldn´t use their chapel. So we had their baptism in our chapel, kind of last minute. We set everything up for them and then we were gonna go to an appointment, but they needed 2 witnesses for the baptism so we had to stay. Also they didn´t have anyone to direct, so they asked me to do that. That was kinda fun just cuz I´ve never done that before.

The rest of the week we mostly spent finding new people, we´ve been getting a good amount of references which is cool and going well. We got 3 investigators to church yesterday so I was excited about that because last week we had absolutely nothing.

Well I´m out of time now so I´ll write more next week! Have a great week! Do good things! The church is true! Love you all!
Love,

Elder Boice

March 23, 2009

Buenos días family
Hey so I had a good week. I´m now in the zone “Rosario Norte”. I thought that meant I would be in the city of Rosario. But I´m actually about an hour away from the city (in bus) which I like better.





On Wednesday I travelled from Gualeguaychú to Rosario. Which isn´t that long a trip, like 5 hours, but there weren´t many buses to get there so I didn´t arrive until like 8:00 at night. I met my new companion Elder Joglar, and also Elder Facer was there in the bus station. (I lived with Elder Facer in the MTC, we were in the same room, and now we´re staying in the same pench again, so that´s kinda fun.)





Elder Facer played a joke on me. He told me how Elder Joglar my new comp, just taught a lesson one day and all the sudden started speaking perfect Spanish, and that he can´t speak English very well now. His brain just clicked into Spanish mode. I totally believed him because Elder Joglar looks totally like he´s from the states. Haha but anyway later I figured out that he´s really Argentine. So my guess was wrong. I had assumed that Elder Joglar was an American with 12 weeks in the mission, but turns out he´s an Argentine with 6 weeks in the mission. Cool huh?

Here´s a picture I took like an hour ago with my comp. It didn´t turn out too well, kinda dark, but oh well. This is my new comp! Haha the other day someone thought we were brothers. Then they were surprised when we said one was from here and the other from the states.

So Thursday and Friday we were a threesome companionship because Elder Facer´s comp hadn´t arrived yet. And then things got changed around and they sent him a companion so now everything´s good. In our pench we´ve got 2 americans and 2 argentines now. Everythings always a mix of Spanish and English because Elder Facer still is having a really hard time with the language.

But anyway…Things are going good. I met a few of the members and we found some new people to teach, because right now there are no investigators in this area. We need to baptize some people because my comp hasn´t baptized yet! So we´re workin´ on that.





Let´s see, Saturday night we slept on the roof of our little house. That was kind of fun. We threw our mattresses and stuff up on to the roof and then climbed up the fence to get up. (The roofs are flat here in case you´re wondering how we slept on the roof). But yeah, our fan broke so it would have been really hot to sleep inside. The only problem was we had to listen to a party going on across the street, drunk people yelling etc.





On Sunday I met a lot of the members here. The bishop is funny cuz he´s really excited that I´m here because he speaks english and now he can talk with someone. So I always have to talk with him in english, which is ok, because he needs it, it´s not very easy to understand him in english, he lost a lot of the accent.





Oh one more thing that was funny. Yesterday I got mail and packages. So this morning I opened a package that Lauren sent me, and I thought "what in the world?", because there were DVDs and music and stuff. And me and my companion were laughing thinking she forgot I was on a mission, haha. But then I opened up a DearElder letter from Lauren and she explained that she accidentally sent me the wrong package. She had sent a package to Bryant Rosell in Iraq too, and when he got his package he was wondering why there were so many ties in his hahaha . So anyway, that explained things. Hehe it´s the thought that counts .





Well so that wraps up these last few days. Things are going well. I hope everything´s going well out there too! Talk to you next week, love you all!





Oh and enjoy the pics I sent.
Love,


Elder Boice

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

(Editor's note: I just mailed Cooper another care package today, full of American cereal and snacks. He says the only cereal they have in Argentina is Corn Flakes, so he just loves ANYTHING else!)

Dear Family,

Well I just finished writing a big long email but the computer froze right as I clicked send so I don´t think you got it. I can´t write everything again so...I´ll sum it up. I had a great week with lots of good stories, dog bites, people convicted of murder, great lessons, machetes. I guess I´ll have to tell about all that another day. I had some pictures too, I´ll send those too, next week I guess.

I hope you´re all in suspense, haha I hope I made it sound more exciting than it really was. :)But today we found out transfers and I´m leaving Gualeguaychú and going to Rosario. And my new comp´s name is Elder Joglar. He´s really new and I assume from the states.

Ok gotta go. I love you all! Thanks for everything.
love,

Elder Boice

Lauren's birthday 2009

In honor of Cooper's girlfriend's birthday TODAY, here's a picture Coop took of a card she sent him. Aw, he looks so sad. BUT he's still having a great time in Argentina, and I know Lauren is having a great time teaching English in China right now! After today, they're one day closer to being reunited...

Here's Cooper's letter this week:

Hey Family,
Sounds like you had daylight savings this weekend. I hope everyone´s not too tired from the lost hour of sleep.

Hey Brad sent me an email that he already picked his classes for high school, that´s crazy. I guess here in Argentina all the kids just started the school year this last week, but in the states the end is getting close.

Really not a lot happened this last week. This last Tuesday was interesting. I taught my second district meeting. And one of the hermana missionaries in my district has been having problems with one of her knees, it´s been really hurting her. So we gave her a blessing, but the way it came out I´m not gonna be surprised if she has to go home. So that´s kinda sad, we all hope not, but she´s really worried about it. She went to a doctor yesterday to get it x-rayed and everything. But we don´t know yet.

Then later that day we blessed a house and blessed another little kid that was sick. As for teaching this week, it was kind of disappointing, nothing really great or exciting. As of now we don´t really have anyone programmed to be baptized in the next few weeks. So obviously we have to fix that this week :)

Oh but that reminds me. This last Sunday I prepared a talk about the sabbath day. (I wasn´t able to give it), but I wanted to talk a little about your book, Mom. I was wondering if you could send me a copy of "Sabbath Solutions" in the next package you send. I´ll have to ask the mission president for permission to read it I think haha but I think your book would really help, especially to give a talk about that. (Editor's note: Wow! One of my sons finally actually wants to read one of the books I've written! Amazing!)



(Another editor's note: I met a returned missionary from Argentina last week and asked him what he missed about Argentina and he mentioned these cookies called "Alfajor." I asked Cooper if he had ever tasted them and this was his reply):

Hahaha yeah there are definitely some Elders out here who are alfajor addicts. I´ve actually never bought one though. Missionaries here would probably start a mob if I told them that, lol. But yeah I´ve eaten some, every once in a while you just kind of end up with one, from the mission or another missionary or whatever. Hahah if you see that RM again you could ask him if he ever "milked" an alfajor. At least thats what the missionaries call it. It´s when you get a glass of hot chocolate and an alfajor, Then you take the alfajor and take a bite out of both ends, then you use the alfajor like a straw and you try to suck hot chocolate through it. By the time the hot chocolate gets to your mouth the alfajor is all melted and chocolaty inside so you just eat it all in one bite. I have to admit it was so delicious that I wrote about it in my journal. Hahahaha. One missionary at the beginning of my mission showed me that but I haven´t done it since. I almost forgot about that. Yummm



Well it´s time for me to go. Enjoy your week everyone, keep being a great family! Oh and Happy Birthday to Lauren! Thanks for everything family! Talk to you next week.
Hasta luegito,
love,
Elder Boice

Hey Family,

Thanks for the great emails this week for letting me know everything going on out there in Vegas. Sounds like things are going well, building your own little army of Boice boys haha.

Alright so I´ll let you all know about how my week went. Wednesday we had Zone Conference. And since my area is pretty far away it became a 3 day trip. We travelled to a different area on Tuesday night. We stayed with the Elders there, slept on their floor a couple hours, then got up early and we took a little bus full of missionaries to the city where we had the zone conference. My eyes were red and I felt like a zombie cuz we only got like an hour of sleep that night, but I was able to stay awake and fine for the whole conference, and it was really good.

One big change that we´re making as a mission is our work schedule. As a mission we used to do our studies during the siesta because the whole city is sleeping during the middle of the day. But now we´re going to do all our studies in the morning and then work the rest of the day. I think it´s going to work out a lot better this way. We can´t really find people during the siesta but I think we´re gonna spend a lot of siestas looking for less active members, doing service, etc. After the zone conference we travelled back in a little bus and we spent the night in the same place we did when we came up to the conference. Then the morning after we travelled back to our area. So that was the end of that excursion.

One good experience was a lesson we taught to the sister of a member in our branch a few days ago. We started teaching her by teaching the plan of salvation. This lady is the mom of the 2 girls that we had been teaching.So she has another little girl that´s about 2 or 3 years old. We arrived at the house and were getting ready to start the lesson, but the little girl was crying a lot because her teeth were hurting her.

I´m not really sure what was wrong with her, but she has some kind of infection in her gums because of the way her teeth are growing, and it´s all swollen. So the sister thats a member said we could give a blessing to the little girl before starting, so we did. And the pain almost instantly left the little girl. After that she started asking for food, bread and stuff that she couldn´t eat before because it was too painful. And then she ran around and played outside while we gave the lesson. So on that note we taught the plan of salvation, and it went really well. The mom came to church yesterday. Well I think that was the highlight of the week. Giving blessings to little kids is one of my favorite things ever in the mission. Now I know why Christ always did it :)

Well ok that´s all for this week. One more thing is I want to wish a happy birthday to Bo!!! It´s in 3 days right? Oh yeah and also I received my hump day package, so I opened it about a month early haha. And it was great!! So far I´ve just eaten the grapenuts, but everything else looks amazing too. And my comp and I are gonna make steak with mashed potatoes today because that steak seasoning smells so good. So thank you!!

And yes I still have a bunch of deet and now those dryer sheets too. But I have yet to use any of it. I get bit every once in a while but not really. I think I just don´t have sweet blood, I don´t know. Even my latin comps get bit more than me I think. Haha.

Yeah, you asked if that was my watch in the picture I sent....yeah that was my watch but don´t worry I bought another one. But then that one broke too but I have another one. But now it´s kinda broken too but I´ll see how much longer it pulls through and then get another one. This is why I don´t like watches.

Have a great week everyone!
Love,

Elder Boice