Cooper's Homecoming!

                                                    Woohoo!  Cooper is home!!!
Surrounded by loving family and friends, banners, signs, custom t-shirts, helium baloons, smiles and tears, Elder Cooper Boice returned home to us after serving for 2 years in Argentina.  He heard chants of "Coop!  Coop!  Coop!" as he floated down the escalator and saw the big crowd excitedly waiting for him.

Cooper has now earned membership in the prestigious "Beautiful Feet Club", members of the family who have served full-time missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based on the scripture in Romans 10:15 "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things."

Cooper grew an inch, earned a nice Argentine tan and is more handsome than ever! 

Cooper said that coming home from serving a mission is like going to Disneyland the day your dog dies....  We're thrilled to have him home again, but we know it was hard for him to leave the people and Lord's work that he had come to love for 2 years.

A surprised Cooper saw a new blue car in the driveway with a big yellow ribbon (colors of the flag of Argentina, of course) as a special gift from his proud parents!

We're so proud of Cooper and feel honored to have experienced his mission through his sweet letters and photos over the 24 months.  Thank you for sharing this "Scoop de Coop" with us!  We hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have!

It's appropriate that Cooper comes home at Easter time as we celebrate the resurrection of our Savior who Cooper represented as His servant.  What a thrill it has been to send a boy out on a mission and watch a man return who has sacrificed 2 years of his life and taught others about Jesus Christ, all the while becoming more like Him.  
                                                     Welcome Home Elder Boice!

Coop's last letter from Argentina!

(Editor's note:  This picture cracks me up because Cooper did a lot of these Jedi photos when he was in the MTC and it looks like he still thinks they're cool.  For any of you who would like to welcome Coop home, he'll be arriving at the Las Vegas airport at 9:00 am on March 31st.  YAY!!!)

Hi family,

It´s been a good week. We´ve had some great lessons. A family the other day gave us a bag of grapefruit after we taught them the Restoration. And since it´s difficult to enter people´s houses here we´ve been trying to give as many Books of Mormon away as possible, me especially since I don´t have much time left.

Well, the moment has finally arrived. This is the last time I´ll write to you guys on the mission. I now officially have less than a week left and my time to serve the Lord 24 hours a day will be coming to an end. And I guess I feel the same things every missionary probably feels. "If only I had more time...there´s so much to do"

The mission is the best thing that ever happened to me and I´ve loved it. Even if I had spent 2 years as a missionary and no one had ever accepted the restored gospel it would have been a wonderful experience to follow the Lord´s footsteps and be rejected. But I´ve been blessed with seeing people change their lives and entering the waters of baptism, making a covenant with the Lord and taking great steps of faith!

Yesterday I gave my last district meeting and we talked about faith. Trying to teach faith isn´t easy. In fact I´m pretty sure the only way you can learn what faith is is on your feet and not in a classroom. There´s things that I was able to learn by serving a mission that I don´t think I could ever have learned otherwise. Who knows, maybe years down the road, but I got to learn it now at the beginning of my life instead of at the end. I´m super grateful for the blessing of serving a mission.

I guess I´ll have plenty of time to think about it and to tell you guys about it in less than a week. Someone told me a couple weeks ago that as missionaries we don´t realize the change in us until after the mission, becuase its gradual and day by day, and it won´t be until we go home that we realize how we´ve changed. I hope that´s true, I guess I´ll find out in a little while.

I´ll probably be leaving a lot of my clothes for a kid in my ward here who leaves on his mission in about a month. He needs white shirts and stuff to serve his mission in Venezuela.  And no I won´t be sending any boxes home. 

Oh, and as for a welcome home dinner. You know what sounds really good? Remember when the missionaries would come over to our house for dinner and you would make those chicken wrap-up things? I can´t remember if that´s what their called, but you know it has chicken inside and it´s wrapped in some kind of dough and then you pour gravy on it. Well my missionary stomach thinks that that would be really good.

Thanks for being such a great and supportive family. There are missionaries out here who´s families aren´t even members of the church.

Ok well I´ll talk to you guys in a week, see you in the airport!

Love,

Elder Boice

March 17, 2010

Hi family,


Last night we got back from a special 2-day zone conference in the mission home, which was a lot of fun. I´ll start with last Thursday and tell about the week.

We had a good lesson with the Ortiz family. They´re an older couple and the wife doesn´t understand too much when she reads and the husband doesn´t know how to read so we´ve been teaching them at a lot slower rate. They´re really nice though and there´s a member family that helps us out with them. We had a priesthood activity that we planned with the ward mission leader on Thursday. It was going to include going out and visiting families, dedicating Books of Mormon to give to friends, and of course food. But no one showed up, not even the ward mission leader that planned and announced it. I think if I started the mission over again I would do less activities, they don´t work too well in Argentina.

On Sunday I had one of those moments where you get called to give a talk in sacrament meeting and the time you have to plan it is the time it takes you to walk to the podium. Haha it wasn´t too bad though.

Then on Monday we got up early and our zone travelled to Rosario to the mission home for a special Zone Conference. The day was filled with workshops, classes, and tons of games and activities outside. I also had my last interview with the mission president. We talked about what I learned in the mission, and what I´m planning on doing afterwards. He gave me good advice and counsel for after the mission more than anything. And I finally got my temple recommend renewed, yay. It´s in spanish which is cool.

On Tuesday morning we woke up early and we all played capture the flag around the mission home, then we ate and had more workshops, scripture knowledge games, and listened to the President and his wife. As a tradition, the missionaries that are finishing always share their testimony in their last zone conference. It´s known as your "deathtimony", and I gave mine yesterday.

We got back to our areas last night, and so now I´ve just got about a week and a half to work my butt off. Something funny the mission president told me. He said "Elder Boice you´re looking skinny, good job you´ve got to leave everything you´ve got in the mission." Haha well anyway, I better go and try to leave everything I´ve got.

I love you all, have a great week. And I can´t remember if I wished Bo a happy birthday last week. So if not, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BO!!!!!!!



Love,

Elder Boice

March 20, 2010

(Editor's note:  Since Cooper didn't send any new pictures this week I thought I'd share with you a design Cooper's cousin is working on for the t-shirts we're all going to wear at the airport when Coop comes home to surprise him.  When Cooper was really young he drew a cute picture of a bird wearing a sombrero.  We thought he'd get a kick out of that on the Argentina flag where normally their yellow sun design would go.  Only 21 days until Coop comes home!  Woohoo!)


Hi family,


I don´t have too much time to write. But we´ve found some good people this week. We went with a member (from our second area) this week and we taught a family with him that he gave us as a referral. It´s an older couple, and they were really receptive. Who knows if all goes well there´s still enough time that I could see their baptism before I leave. We found another family as well which seems to be really good. The dad wants us to help him stop drinking alcohol, and the 8-year-old daughter says she wants to go to church because she wants to know everything about God. :)

There´s been some rough moments in the week, but that´s good I guess because when things are tougher you learn faster right?

I´ve been thinking the last couple days about what I´ve learned in the mission so far. I´m really grateful for the 2 years I´ve had to serve a mission. There´s things that would have taken me years and years to learn and things that I may never have learned without the mission.

This next week on Monday and Tuesday we´re going to have a special zone conference in the mission home and we´re going to stay there for like a day and a half. I´m looking forward to it. We did the same thing last year and I hear it´s really good from the Elders whose zones have already gone. It´s gonna be my last interview with the president I think, which means he´s gonna probably talk to me about after the mission stuff. Weird. Ok well until next week. I love you family! Cuídensen (take care).

Love,

Elder Boice
 

March 2, 2010

(Cooper's shoe....Poor baby)

Hi family,


We´ve had a good week. In summary, we basically started from scratch in our area looking for all new investigators. Our area is pretty central city, lots of intercom doorbells (we call them "quien es" boxes) so it´s not quite as easy to get in houses and teach here. We´re pretty much knocking doors most of our days and trying to work out some more creative things like giving a presentation in a school etc... We´ve been giving out more Books of Mormon than I think I ever have before in my mission just because I´m trying to concentrate more on that.  My companion is really good at talking to people, which is good cuz I´m just pretty straightforward a lot of the time, haha. So yeah I hope we can be a force for good. I feel like I´m doing everything I can, and I´m determined to make March the best month of my mission. Which means there will probably be plenty of barriers...

I´ll tell a couple of stories from the week. On Thursday we went by a guy named Miguel. We had contacted him 2 days before and at first he didn´t want anything but then we started talking and he´s been having a lot of problems (hasn´t been able to find a job in a long time, etc.). We gave him a Book of Mormon and promised him that if he read and prayed and put God first that God would give him more help. And when we went by on Thursday he told us that he just got back from work. We said "you´re working now?" and he said that he read the Book of Mormon the morning after we gave it to him and that night someone called him to give him a job.

Another cool thing that happened this week is that we actually got into an apartment by talking to someone through the intercom! That´s the first time it worked! haha. We´re not teaching that many lessons a week right now but we did have a couple good days and got into a couple houses. On Sunday a bunch of missionaries in the zone came and worked in our area in the afternoon, and we just divided up and knocked doors and contacted people. We found a few good people who listened. One guy is Jewish and I´m excited to teach him.

Another cool experience was that we decided in our planning to have a family home evening with a family in our ward. We couldn´t get ahold of them the night before, but the day of we ran into the mom in the street and told her we wanted to do it that night. She said that that was perfect because the night before she told her whole family that they needed to start doing Family Home Evening the next day. And the next day we found her and told her we wanted to help. They brought their neighbor who isn´t a member and it went well.

Funny experiences of the week: Some kids tried to scare us by setting off a big firecracker behind us in the street. And last night it rained a ton and we lost power in our house right when we walked inside, and the other Elders in my district got flooded in their house. Which is impressive because their house is like 3 feet above street level and has a 1 foot wall in front of their door to prevent flooding.  Let me tell you it´s not easy to cook in the dark! I tried to make a sandwich last night haha and it took me about 10 minutes to do.

About the recent Chilean earthquake...No I didn´t feel anything, but our bishop told us that at like 2 or 3 in the morning you could see the street lights here rocking back and forth. There are a lot of missionaries in our mission from Chile however and the majority are from Santiago. My hijo, Elder Chamorro is from Concepción, Chile, and I heard it hit there even harder. I haven´t talked to him however but apparently our mission president got in contact with all the Chilean Elders families and I think some Elders called home to see if everyone was ok.

I have a new email account now. It´s cooper.boice@myldsmail.net  Yeah I know I won´t be using it for very long but hey it´s a google email address, cool right? It´s supposed to be better. Well so after today when you want to email me just send the email to my new address: cooper.boice@myldsmail.net

Well that´s pretty much everything. On a side note I feel like I´m finally becoming an effective missionary. I feel like just in the last couple weeks I´ve come to understand a lot better what faith means. 

I love you all! Have an awesome week!  Ok well I´m gonna write a more spiritual letter now to my mission president, and then my comp and I are gonna get out of here and go stick it to Satan and kick missionary butt.

Love,

Elder Boice

Earthquakes in Argentina and Chile

Hi family,
We have had several people ask us if we've heard from Cooper since the earthquakes in Argentina and Chile yesterday, but we haven't received a phone call or email yet.  I'm sure he's fine and he'll have some interesting stories to tell in his next letter. 

I've been receiving hourly reports from other moms who have missionaries serving in the earthquake zones who have been sharing great faith-promoting stories of how the Lord has been carefully watching over the missionaries and the members of the Church down there. 

Please keep Cooper in your prayers, as well as all of those who have been touched by the devastating tremors.  Cooper comes home in exactly 31 days!  Woohoo!

Trina

February 25, 2010

Hey fam,


How´s everyone doing? So it turns out my companion is not from Puerto Rico after all. He´s from Nicaragua. Pretty cool, I don´t think I had ever met anyone from Nicaragua before him.  The other day a Chilean Elder told me I speak with a chilean accent but but with the Argentine "sh" (sho me shamo). Oh and by the way my new companion isn´t from Puerto Rico. Turns out he´s from Nicaragua, cool huh.

Ok well I´ll retell the story of my week, trying to include spiritual and funny moments. Last Wednesday was transfer day, so I waited in the bus terminal a good chunk of the day, probably like 7 or 8 hours. In the wait I talked to a family that had listened to the missionaries and been to church before. The husband had a big bandage wrapped around his foot and I asked him why and he said he got shot there. My new comp and I put his stuff in our house and then we went out to a few appointments we had and we ended up finding and teaching a guy who had a big bandage wrapped around his waist because he got shot in the back. And yes this is a different guy than the guy we´re teaching that got shot 9 times in the stomach. Haha so I don´t know maybe getting shot is an incentive for people to turn to God and that´s why we keep finding people like that.

There´s a store in our area that sells furniture and the name of the store is Moroni, so we went and tried to give a Book of Mormon to the owner. But he said missionaries already gave him one like 15 years ago and he "doesn´t talk about God". Oh well, haha it was worth a try.

Oh another thing that happened this week was the gas to our house got cut off so we went about 5 days eating sandwiches and cereal, haha. On Sunday we were sick of sandwiches so we grabbed some sticks and stuff that we found on the side of the road and we cooked over a fire in our backyard.

(Editor's note: Ok, that looks like a major pain in the neck and quite unsanitary.  EESH!)

Yesterday our bishop took us on a drive through the city in our area. He doesn´t want us to work in the poor part of our area so he showed us around in his car all of the wealthier parts and the schools and stuff telling us that we need to work there. So I guess we probably will. Members don´t ever come teach with us, sometimes because they think it´s too dangerous where our investigators live. So maybe if we can find some richer investigators our members will help us more. We´ll see. We´ve been trying to find people in the nicer areas, but no one has let us in their house yet, and we haven´t received any references form the members. That´s ok though, I like a challenge, especially for my last area.

Oh yeah also yesterday morning we helped a member build his house a little bit, which was pretty fun. Construction in south america is WAY different than in the States.

Well I love you family, I´ll talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Boice
 
Countdown:  Cooper comes home in only 34 DAYS!  Woohoo!

February 16, 2010 LAST transfer day!

Hi family,


It´s a sad but exciting day. Tomorrow is the start of a new transfer, which is also my last transfer. That means I´ve got only 6 more weeks to leave a mark on my area and try to get our investigators into the water.

My companion, Elder Carrillo is leaving and I´m staying here. (Editor's note:  The picture below is of Cooper with Elder Carrillo.)  My new companion will be Elder Soza, my 16th companion! From what I hear, he´s from Puerto Rico and he has a year and 2 months in the mission. Supposedly he´s still junior companion because of some problem he has. I guess I´ll figure it out eventually. It´s probably a good thing I have a new companion because my last companion and I got along TOO well. It was hard for us to plan and stuff sometimes because we´d go off talking about other stuff and then realize we hadn´t finished planning.

Well so anyway it´s been a good week. We basically just have 2 families that are progressing toward baptism, and then there´s a couple other people as well but they´re not progressing too fast. On Friday I did divisions with an Elder from Chile that I´ve done transfers with before. He´s really funny, because he´s a great Elder but for some reason the majority of his investigators are young women. We found and taught a new family when I went with him on Friday. And, of course, it was a single mom with all daughters. I laughed afterwards cuz he said it´s his curse that he can never find guys to teach. It actually was a really good lesson though. When we told Joseph Smith´s first vision you could look them in the eyes and tell that they felt the Spirit during it.

The bad news for the week was that both of our good families that we´re teaching didn´t show up to church on Sunday, and we have no idea why!! Commitment can be so hard for people.

Well I love you family. I´ll talk to you next Wednesday!!

Love,

Elder Boice
 

February 10, 2010

Hi family!,


Dad sent me some pictures of a 1950´s sock hop?, and it looks like Brad´s turned into a real lady´s man. I hope everyone had a great week. I´m gonna try to send a few pictures today with my email.

We had a good week here. Friday we had another zone conference , and it was a pretty good one. Lots of focus on obedience and planning. On Saturday it rained pretty good. Good enough that the streets got flooded a little bit, but only up to a little above our ankles. I love the rain here because when it´s really hot and it rains it just feels really nice and it´s fun.

We taught a family again that we had taught once and it went pretty well. The mother of the family had read the Book of Mormon and prayed and that night she dreamt about “God and the gospel” in her words. She wasn´t sure if that was the answer to her prayer so we told her if she wasn´t sure to pray again.

Sunday was fun because the mission president was in our sacrament meeting with his 1st counselor. They didn´t really tell us why, I think it´s just to try and help our ward a little bit. But it was fast and testimony meeting, and president started looking at me so that I would get up and share my testimony, so I did and then he shared his as well. The testimony he shared was just purely about the message of the Restoration and how he knew it was true, and it was really powerful. It was a really quiet and spiritual meeting and our investigators felt great.

Later that day we went to work in another area with all the missionaries in the zone. I went with a member, and we visited less-active families and it went pretty well. We also ended up talking with a Jehova´s Witness family cuz a drunk guy invited us over. So contentious but so funny to talk to.

Monday was my comp´s birthday, so I made him some birthday pancakes cuz I didn´t know what else to do. Tuesday I did 2 baptismal interviews. That was fun, they were an 8 year old boy and an 11 year old girl. The parents have some problems but the kids are nice.

And that brings me to today. We played soccer with a couple other zones and our zone was pretty much undefeated. But man does it get hot outside this time of year!   A normal day it gets to like 42-44 degrees celsius, with LOTS of humidity. You´ll have to figure out what that would be in fahfenheit.  (Editor's note:  I looked it up and it's about 111 degrees!  EEK!)

Ok well I love you all family. Have a great week. I´ll do my best to answer your prayers and finish the mission strong!

Love,

Elder Boice

February 3, 2010

Hey family,


It´s been a pretty good week. The good news for this week would be that our investigador Claudio finally got baptized! He was supposed to get baptized for the last 2 weeks but didn´t come for various reasons. We finally figured out what was wrong. He seemed to think that he could never receive forgiveness because he thought he had denied the Holy Ghost. So we talked to him about that for a while and what it means and that seemed to reassure him. He has had to make some really big changes in his life in order to be baptized but he was kind of over-exaggerating when he thought he had commited the unforgivable sin.

So on Saturday he was baptized. We work in 2 areas and he belongs to the ward that we don´t work in as much. The baptismo went well and some of Claudio´s family came. We´ll see if we can start teaching some of his Brothers and sisters.

On Sunday my companion and I did divisions with the members to go to both wards that we have, and I went to the meeting where Claudio was confirmed a member, and they asked me to perform the ordinance. That´s the second time I´ve been able to confirm someone and give them the gift of the Holy Ghost, and of course it was a good experience.

The only other cool experience I can think of was yesterday. My companion and I prayed in order to pick streets to knock, something that we should probably do more often. We prayed and seperately picked 5 streets in our area to knock at a certain hour, and when we compared what streets we had written down, we saw that we had 4 in common. That was cool. So we went and knocked and didn´t find anyone, and when our time was up we were about to head back to the apartment when we ran into the former bishop who´s inactive now. We set up an appointment and I assume that must be why we were supposed to be at that place at that time.

Another cool thing that happened was we went and visited a part-member family in the ward to meet them, and the dad said that he had been praying the last few days that we would come, and there we were. This guy has an interesting story. He´s in a wheelchair because he was shot like 9 times in the stomach. He wants to be baptized but he´ll have to get married first. We´ll see what we can do.

Ok well that pretty much wraps up my week. The war with the cockroaches rages on as always. Today´s P-day so my companion and I are gonna look for some bigger weapons to battle the cockroaches.

Oh and we´re not allowed to email anyone other than direct family, but Brother Figgat sent me a really nice email. Tell him thanks for me. He was my favorite teacher in church, and that shows that he´s a great teacher by trying to keep in touch with his students. The new Priest Quorum Teacher is gonna have a tough act to follow. I´ll have to write him a big email once I get home.

Thanks for the update on the family. Sounds like things are going well. Seems like Brad is getting to be pretty studly. Is every Saturday night a dinner and a movie night or was it just something special for that night? That´s good to hear that Brad enjoys spending time with the family over airsoft with friends. I regret the time I missed before the mission that I could have spent with the family.  I seemed to think that having a girlfriend was much more important than it really was. Honestly if I could do if over again I wouldn´t have had a girlfriend before the mission.

Sounds like the Pinewood Derby was fun, celebrities and everything :).  Yeah actually this last week I decided that the time had finally come to set my New Year´s Resolutions. Which was weird because most of this year I won´t be spending in the mission. I´m planning on going back to school in the fall. Which means during the time in between I´ll be able to work and do some other things. I´d like to spend lots of time with the family, those things you mentioned all sound like fun. And I want to get in good enough shape again so that I can compete on the Ranger Challenge Team again when I get back to school. Maybe I could even practice some martial arts with you and Brad.

Oh so since you mentioned work when I get back, I´d love to do something that I could use spanish with (speaking of which how´s your spanish?). I really have no idea what I´d be able to do besides that. I guess if you and Mom kept an eye open that could be useful for when I get back.

Ok well thanks for everything family. I love you all.
Un abrazo,   (a hug)

Elder Boice the 2nd

January 26, 2010

hey family,


I don´t have time to write. But we had a good week, we´re having fun working in the heat.

Good experience from the week: our family that has to quit smoking cried in our last lesson and told us that they had a talk together as a family about doing things right and keeping their commitments.

Bad experience from the week: I opened a bag of bread that I had bought, pulled a couple slices out, and realized that there was a cockroach sitting on my slice of bread. (it burrowed into the bag and through the loaf).

Ok gotta go but here are some pictures from our P-day today at the zoo.

Love you all!,

Elder Boice

(Editor's note: Cooper took a GREAT picture of this tiger!  EEK...he was close!)

January 20, 2010

Hi family,


I hope everyone´s had a good week up there. It´s gettin to be pretty hot down here. The weather in Santa Fe is pretty crazy. Super hot and humid then lots of rain. Then hot and humid again then more rain. They don´t have good drainage in Santa Fe so when it rains a lot it floods.

Well so lets see. We had a zone conference this last week. That was fun. I got to see my hijo (My greenie that I trained). He seems like he´s doing well and it was really fun talking to him. He taught me more Chilean sayings haha.

On Saturday we were going to have a baptism but it fell through because our investigator´s family moved that day so he couldn´t come. He´s gonna get baptized this Saturday (let´s hope).

On Sunday all the missionaries in our city came to our area to help us work. We call it a "choque de fuerza" and we all went out and taught some new people and contacted people in a park with a big stand of the plan of salvation that we found.

On monday it rained pretty hard. That was a lot of fun. I left my umbrella in my last area on accident so my comp and I got soaked. Argentines have a deep fear of the rain so it´s kind of fun to be the only people in the city out in the street.

All in all things have been going well. Our family that´s trying to quit smoking is doing well. They still haven´t quit but they´re progressing. We have a pack of their cigarrettes that we soaked in milk and we´re thinking about giving it back to them so that if they smoke they´ll never want to smoke again.   (Editor's note:  the signs Cooper made to help the family stop smoking say from left to right: "Just one causes harm", "Enough!", "Stop smoking already!")

We´re also teaching a couple that needs to get married so that the husband can get baptized. The concubine, I mean the wife, doesn´t want to get married yet because she has a disability and the government will stop giving her money if she gets married...

There´s also a lot of inactive or apostate members that we talked with this week.

Today was fun, we played soccer and some games together with the zone. I need to go write some letters now. I haven´t written Matt or Bryce or Max or Michael Montgomery for a while so I´m gonna try to write at least someone today.

Alright well I love you family. Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Boice

January 13, 2010

Hey fam!,


Thanks, Dad, for sending the pics of the cabin and ice-skating. That was fun to see. I keep forgetting to bring my camera on P-day to make cds of the pictures and send some to you.  We´re only allowed to bring cameras around on P-days so the majority of the pictures are Pday pictures or activities/baptisms. The thing is that the pictures that I most want to take are of the villas (the more ghetto areas), but that´s the worst place to take a camera.  I´ll have to go to some dangerous villa on a P-day so that I can pull out my expensive camera and start taking pictures of everything. ;P just kidding, but seriously.


I´ll try and think of something good for a picture. Haha in my last area one of the Elder´s sisters was getting married so they wanted a picture of just him to make into a lifesized poster for the wedding picture. So he took a picture of himself without a shirt, just wearing a pink tie, so you could see his missionary tan and his nice big mission gut that he stuck out for the picture. It was pretty funny.  But don´t worry I wont do that I promise ;)

Ok well I don´t have much time to write. But it´s been a fun week. My new area is basically part poor and part rich. Well actually we´re working in 2 areas so we have 2 wards and lots to work with. The ward we´re really asigned to has about 20 people on Sunday. And yes it´s a ward.

Yeah I was in Santa Fe before! But in a different area. The fun thing is that we share the stake center with the branch I was in before so I got to see everyone from my old branch on sunday, and they said "you came back!" haha. What made me most happy was that I saw my first convert from the mission. His name is Gonzalo, and he and his wife are preparing to go to the temple. He´s doing great :)


We spend a good couple days knocking in the wealthier part of the area (cuz that´s what the bishop wants) but nobody let us in, even one day when it was pouring rain and cold. So anyway I think we´re just gonna knock in the poor area where people´s hearts aren´t so hardened and we´ll only work with references in the wealthy area. I also liked Mom´s ideas of speaking at events or doing an interview with the newspaper etc.

Well we have a couple people that are pretty close to baptism. One is gonna get baptized this Saturday. He´s a pretty young guy, and he has to move the day of his baptism so we won´t get to keep him. Oh well haha. Another guy could totally get baptized but he´s doesn´t want to get married in order to do so so we´ll see about him. And there´s another family that´s doing really well. Only one of them came to church this last Sunday, but the rest should be coming this Sunday. We found out they need to quit smoking, so this morning we taught them how to quit smoking and we took all their cigarretes with us haha. The church has a really good plan to quit smoking and so we started them this morning :) It was fun.

Ok well I need to head out. Our apartment is a wreck so since today is Pday we´re gonna do some more cleaning on it.

Love you family! The church is true and I love the mission, talk to you next week.


Love,

Elder Boice

Happy New Year 2010!

(Editor's note: Is that rolled up bologna on the pizza?  Disgusting!)

Hi family,


It´s been a good week and we got new transfers and it looks like I´m leaving again. I´ll update you on how my week went first.

Last Tuesday we taught a way good family and another dog ripped my pants, so I used a stapler to repair my pants for the moment (it was the only thing I could find). My comp and I did an activity for the ward and eeryone had a lot of fun and laughed a lot.

On Wednesday we had mission council. It was fun like always and there were some good ideas there. Something funny was that that morning we had to wake up at 3:00am in order to travel to Rosario, but when we got up there was no power in the house so we had to shower and get ready in the dark with flashlights.

For new years eve we just went to bed like always, so I didn´t see any fireworks. And on New Years Day it was P-day so we travelled with all the zone to the church in my area and we played volleyball and had a lot of fun.

Saturday was a great day. We had a lesson with Romina, we watched a church video and then talked about baptism and it was definitely one of the most spiritual lessons on my mission. Romina was balling, and we talked about the Spirit, because she always says that she doesn´t feel anything. So we pretty much called her bluff when she was crying her eyes out. I asked her to be baptized about 7 times because she was crying and would think and not respond, or she would say stuff like "well what if it´s not the right choice?" Anyway we answered all her doubts and she didn´t have any excuse not to get bapized, but then she told us that she was leaving on vacation and wouldn´t be back until the 17th, so I think she´s gonna get baptized the Saturday after she gets back.

We had another really good lesson yesterday with a family that we started teaching. The family accepted last week to get baptized on the 23rd of January, and yesterday we were teaching the mom and some of her kids in a member´s house and she started crying in the lesson too, and said she wants to be baptized.

Well so it was a great week, lots of crying, and lots of people that are gonna get baptized in January. And so last night, of course I found out that I´m leaving the area. That´s just the way things seem to go a lot of the time haha. I was only here for one transfer though!

So now I´m getting transferred to the city of Santa Fe again. And I´m not gonna be zone leader anymore, it looks like I´m getting transferred to my last area to die. My new comp and I are gonna be doing a whitewash (replacing both of the Elders that were there before), so it should be a lot of fun. I´m looking forward to it. And I´m gonna miss being a zone leader cuz it´s a lot of fun, but I feel good because both the zones I was in are doing really good now. This last transfer our zone baptized second best in the mission. There was only one other zone that baptized one more person, and it was the zone I was in right before.

Ok well I´m pretty sure that´s all I´ve got for now. Love You family!

Love,

Elder Boice