Happy Thanksgiving 2009!

Hi again family,


You probably weren´t expecting me to write a day early, but today is the last P-day of the transfer! Every single transfer is better and goes by faster, and now another one has come to an end.

My companion and I came really early today because we had to send a bunch of information to the mission home and then they sent us the new transfer list.

And guess what? I´m leaving my area, again!, and this might be the last time, who knows. I´m going off to a city that´s called "Venado Tuerto". You can look up what that means in spanish and you´ll probably get a laugh.   (Editor's note:  it means "one-eyed deer".)   It´s another one of those "hard zones" so we´ll have to change that like we changed it in the city I´m in now. I´m excited to go though, it´s always fun to go to a new place and have a new companion. My new companion is another one from the States, his name is Elder Koch, pronounced Elder "Cook".

(Editor's note:  I looked up a picture of Venado Tuerto online and this is one of the pictures of Cooper's new city.  It looks pretty big.)

Yep, so anyway I´ll give you an update of the last week, or the last 6 days I guess:

It was a pretty good week, we were able to teach a lot and we found a TON of new people that we started teaching. A couple people were pretty interesting too. One lady that we taught seems crazy because she´s in her 60´s probably but she seemed like she was flirting with us. Turns out she´s just nice but we did have to tell her that she can´t touch our knees and arms and kiss us on the cheek anymore, haha. She actually came to stake conference this sunday, yay!

Then there was another guy that we taught who´s probably one of the weirdest guys I´ve ever met. He told us that he had seen giants and that they live under the ground and stuff, he was a pretty genuine conspiracy-theorist. So that was interesting. And then there was another lady that we taught who told us that there´s a "curandero" that lives a couple houses down from her. A curandero is basically like a witch-doctor healer guy. I don´t really know what the translation would be in english.  (Editor's note:  it translates to mean witch doctor or quack doctor.)  And I´ve never met one either, but her son thinks that he is bewitched by this curandero, so that was weird as well.

That´s another fun part of serving a mission, is you really get to know what kind of people are out there in the world, and let me tell you there are some WEIRD people in this world. ;)

Well anyway so yesterday one of the missionaries in our zone died (finished his mission and went home). So in the morning we took him to the bus terminal and we spent the day with his companion who´s waiting to get a new companion now. We had a pretty good day. Last night was one of those really frustrating lessons. We taught a great lesson to a guy we have taught before a couple of times. He´s a really nice guy and everything but he´s just one of those people who has NO common sense when it comes to religion. That just really bugs me. I don´t think we could have taught any clearer, the Spirit was obviously there. We probably could have shown him a video tape of the leader of his church admitting that he was wrong and it still wouldn´t have made a difference. I guess when it comes down to it, the scripture is completely true that says "I know my sheep, and my sheep know my voice"

Hey mom, let me know when you get the package I sent home! If it makes it that is. I sent some food (the best alfajores in the mission) and apparently you´re not supposed to do that. So if they don´t send it back to me(or eat it) it´ll be all yours. There´s a bunch of old letters and stuff too that I didn´t want to throw away, and also some Cds with pictures :)

Ok well anyway, that brings me to today and transfers. Tomorrow I´ll be travelling and waiting in a bus terminal all day to meet all the Elders in my new zone probably. I hope you all have a great day tomorrow! Thanks for always being a great family, love you all tons,

Love,

Elder Boice

November 18, 2009

Hey family,


I don´t think I have too much to report this week. All in order for the most part. ;)

Well I guess I probably always say that but then I go flipping through my agenda and see that there´s always at least something interesting.

I´ll start with last Thursday. The mission wanted all the missionaries to go to the biggests plaza in their city and to sing christmas carols on the same day, the 15th of November. So a few days before, my companion and I went to "city hall" to ask for permission to do something like that in our city. It was kind of funny cuz we ended up having to run all over the place and we spent the whole morning running around and waiting for cunfused city officials to figure out what we needed to do. I think they might have been confused because no one really asks permission to do stuff here in Argentina. Maybe now I understand why haha. So anyway then after that we travelled to a different city in the afternoon to do another baptismal interview.

Friday was kind of a bummer because we were only able to work in the morning because my companion was pretty sick. Not really sick, he gets really bad migraines pretty often and he had a really bad one this day, so we just stayed inside and my companion took some medicine and slept and I just studied.

Saturday was a pretty normal day, then on Sunday in the afternoon our whole zone went to the plaza in the middle of the city. My companion learned some Christmas carols on the guitar so it sounded really good when everyone sang and we had the guitar as well.

Monday was good as well, and then yesterday the assitants to the President came and did divisions with us. That was really fun, I spent the day with one of the assistants who is a little Colombian. We taught a big family which was great. And during the day we had a meeting with all the zone, and an Elder that goes home this weekend made us all a peach cobbler which was amazing haha. I didn´t really like it before the mission but yesterday I ate it and it was amazing! haha

Oh yeah that reminds me Mom. A couple weeks ago I got a DearElder from you that you forwarded me from another missionary mom who´s son is in the Mendoza mission. It was an email about how they got people at the airport to cheer for the new missionaries. Well anyway I thought that was super cool that you sent me that because it was from Elder Squires, we were in the same district in the MTC and he´s a really great guy, it was fun to hear from him. :)

Ok well that´s all for this week. This morning we all played soccer as a zone.  We do that pretty much every P-day. I don´t know that I´m getting any better but at least I can run around for a while.

Love you all! Make this week better than the last one! Oh and I don´t know when Thanksgiving is but it´s gotta be soon. Have a good one whenever it is!

Love,

Elder Boice

Happy Veteran's Day 11/11/09

Hey fam,
Sounds like Mom and Dad had a fun adventure in Boston, lots of history.  Speaking of which, apparently yesterday was "Tradition Day" here in Argentina.  No one did anything I don´t think, but a family told us that it was a holiday and they started talking the past of Argentina and all the problems.  What a blessing to live in a country that was founded on freedom and doesn´t have a long history of dissapearings from the government, with revolutions and military take-overs all the time.  Which is funny to think about knowing the people here.

But anyway let me tell you about my last week!  (from what I have in the notes in my agenda)
Last thursday we had a meeting with the stake president and a bishop because they´re having trouble getting along with the missionaries in a ward.  Then we taught a couple lessons with a 12 year-old recent convert in our ward.  He put on a tie and everything and came with us to teach.  (He´s a really cool little kid)  One lesson was funny because we taught a guy from a certain church that likes to kind of overdo everything.  This guy said the closing prayer standing up with his arms out and almost yelling.  And afterwards our new deacon (Mario) said that he was scared when the guy was praying.  I thought that was kind of humorous, just cuz when small children get scared during a prayer, there´s probably something wrong going on.  haha.

Well the day after was Friday, and my comp and I travelled to Rosario for mission council.  We all talked about how our zones are doing and what´s gonna be going on with the mission during the next month.  It´s always lots of fun cuz there´s always good friends there.

Our zone is actually doing really well right now.  The zone I´m in has the reputation of being "the hardest zone in the mission", probably just because it´s more wealthy.  But as of now we´re almost the top in the mission for baptisms during this transfer.  :)   There´s good missionaries here and I think that mindset of being the "hardest zone" is going away now.

On Saturday my comp and I travelled to a city to do some more baptismal interviews.  That was fun and I got to interview a pretty cool guy who´s a paramedic.

Sunday was good.  We´re teaching a family who has a 11 year-old son named Maxi. And he showed up at church before we did!  Then his dad came for the last hour.  That was fun because Maxi had only been to church 1 time before and now he´s really liking it.

On Monday we did divisions with the Elders in our apartment.  And I went with Elder Deforest (he was Brady Tucker´s comp in the MTC).  We had a good day and were able to teach a few lessons and find some new people.

Yesterday was a good day as well, we had a meeting together as a zone, and now I´m at today.
Yep so that was pretty much my week.  Right now after I finish doing email I´m going to try to send a package home.  I´m gonna send a couple cd´s of pictures, a bunch of old mail that I don´t want to throw away cuz mom might get mad at me :P, and some treats.

Ok thats all for now.  I LOVE YOU ALL, you´re a great family, have a great week.

Love,
Elder Boice

November 4, 2009

Hi family,


Well I hope everyone had a fun Halloween. That doesn´t really exist down here, even though there will usually be some kids that try to do something. We saw a little group of kids dressed up on Halloween night trying to have a little costume party in their house, but that was it.

Thanks for sending the pics by the way :) , Brad looks super tall now.

Well this last week has been a little bit weird. Last Wednesday my companion and I talked on the phone with an Elder in our zone who´s been going through a rough time I guess. That was pretty weird cuz I had never talked with an Elder who was negative about the mission before. Then on Thursday he just kind of dissapeared so we had to go look for him and find him. The mission president came down and they talked and now he´s ok (and staying in the mission). Talk about a crazy day!

Well then on Friday we travelled to another city to do another baptismal interview, and we worked there with those Elders for the day. That was a lot of fun. I spent the day with an Elder from southern Argentina (Chubut), and so it was fun getting to know him. The church is pretty darn small where he comes from.

On Saturday I got "the death call". The mission secretary called and asked me a few questions and said that you should be getting an email pretty soon with my tenative flight plans. So be on the look out for that.

We also went to a baptism Saturday afternoon. It was pretty rainy and stormy outside so not many people were daring enough to come. I still don´t really understand the whole rain thing with Argentina. Everyone has some kind of superstitious belief that you would have to be crazy to go outside when it´s raining. Oh well.

A funny story from Sunday: we found a super cute little puppy Sunday night before we went back to our house. We knocked a couple doors looking for the owner but no one claimed it. My companion couldn´t leave it in the street (cuz it looked like a storm was coming) so contrary to mission rules we took it to our house. We decided to ask for permission to keep it for the night so we called the mission home and they told us we could keep it for the night. So Cody (the puppy) slept in the bathroom and in the morning we just put it back where we found it which was kind of sad haha.

Besides that we taught a couple of pretty crazy ladies this last week. (In the sense of their beliefs about the gospel.) It´s always fun teaching people that are out of the ordinary. We´ve seen a lot of hearts melt this last week. People that were way hard-hearted have totally changed their opinions in just a minute or two after talking with them. Thats way fun to see.

Ok well that´s about all the time I have to talk this week. I love you all! Thanks for being so supportive and such a great family. May this next week be your best week ever :D. Take care!

Love,

Elder Boice