September 30, 2009

!Hola familita! (little family)
How is everyone? Thanks for the updates, that´s interesting about the ward change, I hope everyone likes the changes.

Sounds like mom and dad are pretty busy, Mom you gotta calm down! I don´t know how you do it.

But anyway I guess it´s my turn to tell about my week. Starting from last Wednesday. We´ve taught Camilo, our investigator from the Dominican Republic quite a few times. Last Wednesday we went to his house (he lives upstairs in a women´s shoe store haha), and I fixed his computer for him and then we taught about the plan of salvation.

The next day we had lunch with a member family and they invited him to come too so that was pretty fun. On Sunday Camilo went to church and then came to some meeting for young adults that night and he brought a friend too. That was really cool and helped a lot too. Camilo doesn´t live in our area but he was coming to our ward because he has friends here, but now he´s made friends in the ward where he´s technically supposed to go and the sister missionaries in that area are gonna start teaching him.

One of the sister missionaries actually got really mad at us because we were teaching someone from their area haha. But anyway, yesterday was probably the last time my companion and I will teach him, and it was the first time my companion and I cried in a lesson I think. Talking with Camilo about his story and about the pre-mortal existence we all felt like we knew each other before this life, and I really believe it. The sister missionaries are gonna finish teaching him and he´s gonna be baptized next week.

In other news from the last week, we had a zone conference with 2 zones and it was in our chapel so it was pretty fun because we had to get a lot of things ready for it and we taught a class/workshop to the 2 zones as well. My companion and I made a big remote control out of cardboard and we taught about different teaching techniques and keeping "control" of the lesson. It was pretty fun, we had a practice lesson and used the remote control to "freeze" the people teaching and talk with the class. (Editor's note: the picture above is from Cooper's Zone Conference. He's the tallest person in Argentina, I think!)

Oh also yesterday we helped with a move. An investigator family moved from another area into ours and so the missionaries did the move for them. I like doing moves in Argentina, it´s just so much simpler than in the States haha.

Let´s see, we also organized an activity for the youth. On Saturday we just played a bunch of sports and stuff. We couldn´t play with them but it was still fun because we got investigators and less-actives to come.Ok well I can´t really think of much more to say. So I guess that´s it for now! Love you family!
Love,

Elder Boice

September 23, 2009

Hey Family,

Thanks a lot for the pictures, that´s always fun to see pictures of people I haven´t seen for a long time (the Sheridan family looks way different now!). And it looks like everyone had a lot of fun on your weekend in the desert.

Well I don´t think there´s too much to tell about this past week.We did another service project for a family in the ward. They live on a corner and there´s a bunch of tall grass and trash and stuff in their yard. They´re both return missionaries but they´re kind of less-active now. So anyway we helped them out with that and cut the grass and cleaned up a little. It was pretty funny because we didn´t have a weed-wacker to cut the grass with so we went around the neighborhood asking around if someone could loan us one. (Note: no one uses a real lawnmower to cut the grass, they use weedwackers). But of course no one had one and the people that did lied and said they didn´t, but that was ok cuz this family eventually borrowed one from an uncle or something. So that was a fun service activity. I think we don´t really do a whole lot of service in our mission, so it´s always fun when we can.

I´d say the highlight of this last week was one of our investigators, Camilo. He´s the guy I mentioned last week who´s from the Dominican Republic. On Saturday we taught him for the second time and it was a really good lesson. We taught him in the church with a member. And we asked him if he had prayed about the Book of Mormon. He said yes, and that he felt wierd. We asked why and he said because he didn´t feel anything when he asked but that he felt something now. He said "como si algo bajó y subió en mi pecho", (as if something had moved in his chest). It was one of the few times in my mission where an investigator feels the Spirit and points it out on his own.

So it was a really good lesson, and on Monday we taught him again and watched the movie of the Restoration. He wants to be baptized but wants to time to prepare because he says it´s gonna take time so that he can leave the world.

We have another lesson today with him in like an hour.So I´d say in our area things are going really well. Yesterday we went to help out a different area in the zone because they´re not doing so well. We´re still trying to figure out why.

But anyway, I guess that´s a little summary of my week.

I love you all, take care! or as they say here (¡Cuidensén!)
Love,

Elder Boice

September 16, 2009

Dear Family,
I hope everyone´s doing well. Sounds like Mom´s super busy so I´m sure she´s ok cuz she´s in her environment ;)

That´s exciting that Jaren is going to Argentina! He´s gonna love it. I can´t believe Brady only has 4 months left and his parents already have his flight plans. Hey speaking of Brady, want to know something funny? I´m actually living in the same house with his companion from the MTC (Elder DeForest). I can´t wait to hear Brady´s stories from the mission, I´m sure he´ll have some good ones since he´s serving in Buenos Aires.

Anyway, it was a good week here. On Friday we did divisions and I stayed in my area with an Elder from Chile that´s really funny. He doesn´t know how to say much in english but the stuff he does say he says with a really good accent. He learned english before the mission because he always listened to Destiny´s Child, haha so he talks like a black woman, it´s pretty entertaining.

But anyway, it was a pretty uneventful day except we taught a Jehova´s witness which was pretty fun.On Saturday we did a little service for an old couple in our ward. The husband is paralyzed in half his body and they live in really poor conditions, but they didn´t want us to come and help, so my comp just told them "Ok well we´ll be at your house Saturday morning ready to work so find something for us to do, cuz if not we´ll just have to wash the dogs or something." That was pretty funny, but so anyway we showed up on Saturday and helped them clean and stuff. I thought they just had a dirt floor but I started sweeping in their "kitchen" and realized that there was a cement floor deep down there, so we uncovered that and fixed and cleaned some stuff. The abuelita (grandmother) gave us a jar filled with chile pepper things cuz they wanted to give us something, which was really nice.

A funny note from the week is that my companion borrowed from another elder a "pet trainer" thing. It´s like a remote control that sends out a really high frequency that annoys dogs, so of course since Argentina is filled with dogs we had a lot of fun with that as we walked around during the week.

On Sunday night the sisters in the zone called because they wanted a blessing of comfort. They were just feeling pretty down and felt like they were doing things wrong. My companion said it changed completely the way he thinks of the sister missionaries, because he used to think they were just the young women who couldn´t get married, but now he sees that they have something really special that Elders just don´t have.

There´s a few really good people we´ve been teaching recently. One is a family that´s really nice. We still haven´t met the daughter because she´s a computer addict and she´s always on the computer. Haha, sound familiar? It´s actually the first time I´ve seen this here because hardly anyone has a computer in their house.

Also yesterday we taught a really great guy from the Dominican Republic. I think we´re now officially teaching the only black man in all of Argentina, haha. He was really awesome though, we taught him in the church, and I think he just might be a golden investigator. We´ll see. We gave him a tour of the church afterwards and when we showed him the baptismal font we talked to him about baptism as we looked at a picture on the wall of Christ´s baptism. The Spirit was stronger at that moment than during the whole lesson which was really cool, I had never done that before.

Well that´s about all I have to report from this week. Have a great week everyone! Take care! I love you all!
Love,

Elder Boice

9/9/09

Hi family!!!,
Hey sounds like everyone had a fun Labor day. I´ve only got a few minutes to write so I´ll make it quick. It was a really busy week, it just flew by.

My first couple days we travelled to Rosario for a mission conference with all the zone leaders to plan out the next month. Things are really different now and it´s much more complicated teaching our investigators becuase planning is more complicated . It´s a lot of fun though. I´m getting to know the area and I really like it. The members here feed us like every day.

My companion´s name is Elder Saavedra. He´s from Chile and we have the same time in the mission. It´s pretty funny because he actually reminds me of Bryce Joe sometimes. He´s a Chilean Bryce. :) Haha yeah I think having a latin comp helps a lot with the spanish. When I make phone calls a lot of the time people think I´m my Chilean companion. And the other day when I was meeting the elders in the zone one Peruvian elder asked me if I was mexican haha.

Lets see. On Monday we had a meeting with all our missionaries in the zone and we got the stake president to come and speak to us, and what we´re trying to do is motivate everyone to "fast" from the things they need to change as missionaries. Or in other words we´re trying to purify ourselves (become more obedient) as a zone.

Yeah I´m having fun getting to know the new area and trying to figure out how to be a zone leader. It´s fun having a comp that has as much time as I do in the mission. We actually entered the mission at the same time, I never had seen him before though. We´re actually gonna have our next zone conference the 25th of September. The zone leaders have "mission conference" at the beginning of every month so I´ll be there in the mission home a little more now, it´ll be easier for packages to make it to me.

Haha that´s really cool how Janelle got proposed to, is her fiancé Polynesian? We actually got letters this last week and I got a DearElder.com from her, but she must have sent it before she got proposed to because she didn´t mention getting proposed to.

That sounds like you had a pretty fun labor day in the desert, you´ll have to send me those pictures! And yeah it was actually getting pretty hot in my last area, but it´s cooler down here. Yesterday I actually had to take out my jacket again, but today it´s nice out. Like spring already.

Oh! I almost forgot. The only things I can think of that I would like for my birthday are peanut butter and maybe some grape nuts or something. And if you end up sending me sweets I´m just gonna give them away cuz I´m sadly almost at my "6 months of sexy". Haha I don´t know if they said that back when you were in the mission but that´s the designated term for the last 6 months of the mission when you have to work out harder.

Ok well I´m pretty much out of time for now. I´ll try to give some better details next week. I love you all!! Keep being a great family,

Love,

Elder Boice

September 1, 2009

Dear Family,
Yep, I´m writing on a Tuesday, that´s because it´s transfer week again! Yeah, it always arrives so soon. So once again I´ll tell you all a little about my week and then I´ll tell you what´s gonna happen for transfers. :)

I guess not much has heppened this last week, it´s only been 6 days actually. One funny thing was that on Thursday we made a deal with the Mom of Hna.Verónica (who wrote the letter to Mom). She´s not a member and never listened to the missionaries, but somehow we got her to propose that if my companion made her brownies she would listen. She said it in joke, but we took her word on it and on Saturday we made her the brownies. We couldn´t teach her that day but she´s trapped now haha.

Another cool thing was that on Friday we randomly met up with the dad of the family we baptized at the house of an investigator. He was going around doing visits with another member so we taught a lesson with all of us and it was really cool to hear him bear his testimony.

On Sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting about "loving thy neighbor as thyself". It was from a talk in the Liahona and had a couple really great stories, but I guess I made a member cry because she felt bad because I read a poem about a guy that never makes time to visit his old friend around the street corner, and this member had the exact same case. The neighbor that lives around the street corner showed up towards the end of church crying because her daughter was sick. Anyway, then we taught primary which was fun of course. Our branch is about 80% kids.Then after church we went to the house of the hermana that showed up crying because her daughter is sick. Her daughter has pneumonia and her brother died of the same thing just a couple weeks ago. We went with the branch president and the 18year old 1st counselor and gave her a blessing. She´ll be fine.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. The day before transfers is always wierd. It´s almost like Christmas Eve because of the anxiety haha. Ok so now that brings me to transfers. I´m gonna be leaving Federal and my companion will be staying. I´m going to a city called Pergamino. (Editor's note: The picture above is a photo I found online that shows Pergamino. Looks like a pretty big city compared to some of the small towns Coop has been serving in so far.) That means I´m traveling from the very northern end of the mission the far southern end. That means I have to pack like right now so that we can catch the bus to the city of Concordia tonight, and tomorrow I´ll probably be travelling for a good 12 hours or so. I´m excited though, I´m actually going to the exact same place my trainer finished his mission in. I´ll have to see if anyone remembers him haha. My new companion is latin, Elder Saavedra, but I don´t know where he´s from. I´m guessing Chile?

(Editor's note: I asked Cooper if he has received all of the boxes I sent him) Yeah, I think I´ve gotten everything you´ve sent me. The water filter has been really useful here because the water here is pretty bad and I don´t think you can find big bottles of water here. I got the books as well. Haha I loaned your "Whispers in the Leaves" book to the hermana that wrote you the letter because she asked me if I knew the church website for genealogy. I didn´t know so I lent her the book. She was really excited even though she can´t really read it. I haven´t read your books yet because I keep forgetting to ask permission from the President. We can only read books from the "missionary library" unless we ask permission.

Ok well have a great week everyone!! I´ll talk to you again next Wednesday and I´ll let you know how everything´s going! Love you all. Oh P.S. right now I´m making another DVD of pictures to send home.
Love,

Elder Boice