June 24, 2009

Hey Mom, Dad, Calvin, Brad, and Bo,

I hope you had a good father´s day and a good week. I spent a little under an hour to send some pictures so I don´t really have any time left to write.

This week we had some good lessons and I got to know better the branch president and some members as well. 2 sundays ago there was a satelite transmission from two of the apostles to Argentina. We couldn´t see it cuz we don´t have a satelite here in our town. But someone recorded it in a city 2 hours away and was going to bring it to us to watch this last sunday but never made it, so my companion and I and the branch president just spoke on Sunday haha. So who knows when we´ll get to see what the apostles said to Argentina but I really want to know.

We did divisions the last couple days with the other Elders in our district. It was fun, I went to their area for a day and a night and was with a Peruvian Elder. He really reminds me of a lamanite haha. But he´s pretty funny and tried to speak english the whole time so hopefully it was a good experience for him.

There´s some really cool investigators in their area too. But anyway, it´s been a good week. It´s been cold and muddy the last few days, but it warms up a little in the afternoon if it´s sunny. No more news for now.

I love you all! Have a great busy week in all your different places!

Love,
Élder Boice

(Editor's note: Cooper said he was really excited to finally have a fireplace in his apartment, especially now that the winter has started in Argentina. He used to just light a fire in a dish on the floor! This is what he wrote in spanish about it, for those of you who speak spanish: Mi compañero sacó una foto conmigo sentado en frente de la chimanea. No sé por qué. Quería madarles una foto de algo y nunca tenía una chimanea antes así me parecía jolla/fierita/copado/cool mandar una foto de eso. ¡Disfrútensenlon! Did I ever tell you that that´s how they talk here?)

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Happy Father's Day from Argentina

Dear Family,
Sorry I forgot to tell you last week that P-day has been changed to Wednesdays. So don´t worry I´m all fine. Completely void of swine flu haha. And P-day should be Wednesday from now on to the end of my mission.

But I have had a pretty fun week in my new area. I´m in the Province of Entre Rios, in a little city called Federal. Once again, my companion and I are the only missionaries in this city. It´s a really small city, or town, not sure what it would be. It´s about 2 hours to the closest “big city”. So it´s pretty fun.

We live in a little apartment complex, and most of the city is pretty rural. My comp tells me there´s 3 paved roads in the city.We´ve had some pretty fun lessons too because one of the families we´re teaching lives on a little farm kind of outside of town. So when we go over there we get to hang out with sheep and horses and cows, and of course chickens and a ton of dogs.

We went a couple days without electricity in our apartment this week, but then later I found out that this family doesn´t even have electricity to begin with. I think it would have been fun to serve a mission here in Argentina about 20 or 30 years ago because everything probably would have been more like that.

It´s really fun to teach them because they´re like authentic Argentine farmers, and it´s a really good family. Totally need to be members of the church. We´re trying to get them married right now so they can be baptized.

Well I can´t remember everything that happened this last week, I forgot to bring my agenda that I take notes in. We did a lot of travelling yesterday because we have to go to a city 2 hours away to have a district meeting once a week.Our apartment is pretty ghetto so we´re gonna be moving into a different place in a couple of weeks. We have to boil water to shower in the mornings and we lose electricity sometimes. And it gets cold in there! The winter is definitely coming in. We do have a fireplace in the apartment so that is pretty sweet.

There's both good and hard and unpleasant parts about a mission. LOL. Not everything makes it into the emails. I can't wait to share those stories after. ha ha

Thanks for the pictures you sent some of one of Bo´s soccer games, Bo at school, memorial day, and 1 from the gun range. I enjoyed seeing them all, I´m not sure if those were what you meant to send, but Bo and Brad sure are growing.

Dad, I want to wish you a happy Father´s Day!! You really are a great Dad and I´ve even talked about you in lessons that we´ve taught down here. Maybe some of your influence will even spread down here into South America :) So thank you for all your hard work and the great example that you´ve always provided. I´m sure I´ll appreciate it more some day when I´m a dad too. Love you dad.

P.S. have a great Father´s Day!
Love,

Elder Boice

Gary's funeral

(Editor's note: Cooper's wonderful uncle, Gary Duncan, passed away last week. He valiantly fought cancer until Heavenly Father called him home. This picture is of the pall bearers in the family, consisting of Cooper's brothers, dad, cousins, grandpa, and uncles. We will miss Gary, but we know he must have an important mission to accomplish on the other side of the veil.)

Hey family,

I´m really sorry to hear the news that Gary passed away, I have to admit I teared up reading about how everything played out and seeing pictures of the funeral. Mostly just because it seems like everything went perfectly, and I can´t help but think about what the reception on the other side was like for Gary when he arrived. Funerals in the church seem kind of funny, because when it´s a really great person that passes away there´s really nothing to be sad about, just that you have to part for a little while. The fact that we don´t have to guess where Gary is is a wonderful blessing.

This last week I did divisions with one of the Elders in my district and we taught a woman who had lost one of her sons recently and gone through lots of hardships. Teaching the plan of salvation to someone who REALLY wants to know the answers can be very powerful, and that woman we taught shed a few tears as we talked about where her son is and when they will be able to see each other again.

In other news from this week, one of the families in our ward taught us how the Argentine kids do drugs and how the drugdealers work, which was interesting. They were telling us about how some drug dealers moved into the house across the street from them. The police and judges in Argentina are all corrupt and involved with drugs as well, so what happened was eventually a bunch of people in the neighborhood just got together and threw rocks and tore down the house. I thought that was kind of cool. They said that in Buenos Aires there are neighborhoods that have started to do the same thing. The neighborhood all pitches in money, they rent a back-hoe or some big machine and just knock the walls down of the drugdealer´s house when they get tired of it.

Another good experience this week was a girl that came up to us and gave us a Book of Mormon. She said her family found it and had had it for 2 years and when they saw us they figured they could return it to us. We talked to her about what it was (she had never read it) and we gave it back to her and invited her to read and she accepted. So that was kind of cool.

Also my companion this week basically told me his whole life story, everything that happened before the mission, and that he wasn´t sure if he had a testimony. He said he didn´t have one before the mission, but that now he does from the experiences we´ve had over the last 6 weeks. So that made me happy, cuz that was one of my goals for the transfer with him.

Well I need to go, but I´ll tell you the transfers real quick. I´m going back to the province of Entre Rios to a city called Federal. My new comp´s name is Elder Harold, so it looks like I´ll be with an American again. I thinks it´s been like 6 months since I´ve had a comp from the states.

Alright well I love you family. I´m sure the week was emotional. It seems to me like there´s a lot of good that could have come from Gary´s funeral. It´s good to take some time to reflect and think every once in a while.

Hey I just had the thought, Gary and I are probably serving a mission at the same time. :)

Have a great week everyone.
Love,

Elder Boice

June 1, 2009

Hey family,

I hope you´re all doing great. This keyboard I´m using is really bad so it might take me a wihle to write this letter. I have to pound to get each letter out.

Well I had a good week. I learned a little about being a little more open when we teach, not holding back who I am, why I´m here, what I want, and what I can offer.

Hey mom this week I heard a lot of jokes about Gallegos (spaniards). i thought that was funny cuz I guess it´s true about spain and Argentina making fun of each other. (Editor's note: I lived in Galicia during my mission in Spain for about 5 months. It's the northernmost region where the people speak Gallego. I didn't realize I was picking up the dialect until I was transferred back down to Madrid and everyone made fun of my accent! It was really beautiful country up there with some wonderful people.)

We did an activity with the ward on Friday. My companion taught us how to make Chilean food. We made "completos". It´s basically just a hot dog but with little pieces of tomatoe and avocado. It was really good though.

Yesterday we did divisions with the bishop and a kid in our ward who´s preparing to go on a mission. It was fun cuz I went with the bishop and spoke to him in english the whole time. He speaks really well.

Sorry but I have to cut this email right here. I´ve been kinda sick and we need to go back to the apartment. Have a great week! And be sure to snap a picture when the government officials tackle Akmed, the prince of doom. Haha (Editor's note: Calvin, Tom and I signed up for some shooting gun safety classes next weekend and Calvin signed his paperwork as having the nickname "Akmed, Prince of Doom.")

I love you all! Thanks for your emails!!
Love,

Elder Boice