Semana quince (week fifteen)

hola hermano's y hermana's,

So this week has been pretty crazy!! there was a fight at church yesterday where an adult came in and started swinging at a youth for talking crap about his son on facebook! we had one of our investigators tell us about how her wife died a few years ago and how she use to be a lesbian and how she feels like she needs to be more alligned with the commandments of God and how shes willing to obey the commandments and the law of chastity and it was a super awesome and powerful discussion!! we had one of the families we were teaching separate and so the husband lives alone now and so we are trying to do everything we can for that family but kinda tough at this point but we have been teaching them less and less because of the family problems and all! we had one of our investigators have one of her childern go in to the intensive care unit at the hospital after the kid started to have a seizure and so we have been trying to help that family out as much as we can. but its been the craziest week and we're trying to do our best as far as the work goes but at the same time offering our help in any way we can!! the work has been going well but with all of the crazy stuff that has been going on this week were just wondering where we would be able to help and be the most effective but hopefully we can start to get a baptism coming up but the work has not been easy! there are a lot of questions so I'm gonna go ahead and try to answer as many as i can! but read the questions if you can because I'm able to talk a bit more about how the ward and the missionary work has been going!
ps-sorry if the pictures are kinda messed up this week!

Questions:
What have you been doing?
-teaching discussions/lessons, learning the language, changing lives;)
How's the language coming?
-the language is coming slowly but surely! I have been feeling more and more comfortable in discussions and teaching the lessons and having gospel discussions so as far as my missionary language its been going pretty well but i have been trying to improve my conversational and street language as far as in grocery stores and asking for directions and talking to people about things other then the gospel
How's the food, honestly?
-honestly the food is pretty bad! we eat milanesa and rice alot and we get fed by the members every once in a while but nothing really more then potatoes and salads and some pasta every once in a while! but we have been trying to get better with our cooking skills and with what we have avaliable to by in the grocery stores!
Any investigators moving toward baptism?
-we have a few progressing investigators who have been reading and praying but one of the hardest things is getting investigators to church!! we have had members promise that they would be at church on Saturday nights and not come on Sunday!! pretty frustrating especially when them going to church for only 3 Sundays is the only thing keeping them from being baptized but i guess if they don't have a strong enough testimony to be making it to church they shouldn't be ready for baptized as well but that's what we have been trying our best with is getting investigators to church!!
How many wards are in your area?
-we have me and my companion and another companionship in the same ward (Alots Del Valle) and so we have 4 missionaries that are in the same ward and we split the ward boundries as far as missionary work goes
Do you have to speak a lot in the ward?
-I have spoken about 3 times but 2 of those times have been during testimony meeting because missionaries are always suppose to talk and how i had to introduce myself after being sent to this area as a new missionary and i gave a talk that was just about 5 minutes about the book of mormon and the importance of the book of mormon in the church and my testimony
Do you help with the sacrament?
-we usually dont have to but if it rains on Sundays there aren't very many people attending church because most people ride bikes or drive mopeds to church so even though we walk 30 min in the rain they don't go to church because I guess its to much of a sacrifice to go when it rains for them.
How many people are in your ward?
-there are 400 members in our ward.... 350 of these members are inactive and the 50 who attend church every Sunday are the 50 who hold ward callings and they feel more obligated to be there more then anything! but if it rains on a Sunday you will see a ward with 50 active members drop to a ward with 20 active members so we usually help out with sacrament on rainy Sundays. which sucks because it rains a lot here! its raining right now.....
Any Americans?
-no americans, there are no americans in our district/ward
When are your next transfers?
-our next transfers are in about 2 or 3 weeks I think? i'm not sure, transfers are every 6 weeks and so i'm not sure when the last transfer was but I think in about 3 weeks we have another transfer!


mucho amor,
Elder Tutton

address for mail and packages:
Candido Pujato 3269
3000 Santa Fe
Santa Fe, Argentina

Semana catorce (week fourteen)

hola hermano's y hermana's,

Sorry I dont have alot to say this week!! i got really sick on Monday night and didn't sleep at all that night and then all Tuesday as well but by Wednesday morning I was able to get back out with my comp! Me and my companion had exchanges on Saturday and Sunday and so we were with our zone leaders, and to help with my Spanish I went with our new zone leader who is from Bolivia and we worked. So Saturday and Sunday I got some really good practice in with my Spanish! Pretty awesome guy too! love our zone leaders!! This week from Tuesday to Friday we were just in meetings and discussions all week and we have just been working a lot with specific investigators and trying to help them out the best we can with progressing in the steps to getting to the baptismal font and trying to keep our heads up and not be getting discouraged with a few of our investigators who are struggling. We've been working a ton and at the same time trying to get a few new interested investigators, but were really trying to be efficient and we are progressively been doing really well at not only giving it our best effort but being smart in what we put our efforts in and trying to get the best results with our efforts!

SHOUT OUT TO ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS BAYLEY COOK WHO GOT HIS MISSION CALL TO SERVE IN CHILE!! LOTS OF LOVE AND SO VERY PROUD OF HIM!! GONNA BE AN AWESOME ELDER!!!

Questions:

•  Are you getting eaten by mosquitoes? Your hands kind of looked like a lot of mosquito bites on them in one of your pics.

yea the mospuitoes here suck!!! i hate them here and im pretty sure im allergic because ive had bites ever since ive gotten here and there more just kinda scaring but yea the mosquitoes here suck and there kinda everywhere and the hotter and more humid it gets the more of them come out so its been progressivly getting worse but ive but trying to not think about it!

• Will you have A/C in your apartment when it starts getting hot?

its already started getting really hot and humid! we dont have A/C but i sleep with a fan right next to my bed!

• Have you been bitten by a dog yet? What are you supposed to do if you get bit?

hahaha funny story, yea i've been bit but kinda forgot to tell you but it was in my first 2 weeks and it broke skin and so if it breaks skin you have to go to the hospital so I went to the hospital and it was a pretty good bite but they just gave me a shot and some perscriptions to make sure i dont get an infection but yea that was a fun experience but that was a little while ago but forgot to tell you

• how are the little kids? looks like a fun time with them!

the little kids are freaking awesome! the kids are so wild and friendly and they are so energetic and just want to play soccer with us all day!! haha i love them though, so aweome!

Sorry i don't have a ton of time this week!! thank you for all of the love and support!! send me any letters or cards and i will be able to say all i have to say and take more time to write so please send letters if you can! I love getting letters and taking time to respond!! it takes about a month for cards and letters to get down to me and about the same amount of time for me to get letters back to the states but means a lot receiving letters and thank you so much for all of your love!! Hope you all have a great week!!!

mucho amor,
Elder Tutton

address for mail and packages:
Candido Pujato 3269
3000 Santa Fe
Santa Fe, Argentina

Semana trece (week thirteen)

Aloha de Santa Fe, Argentina!!

Hope you all had an amazing week! umm not a lot has been going on this week other then just a lot of work and a lot of meetings and discussions! nothing really out of the ordinary! we have just been focusing a lot on narrowing down our investigators and really focusing on the needs of the investigators who are serious in progressing and eventually being baptized so we "dropped" about 5 investigators this week who we thought didn't have the greatest intentions with hearing our discussions and weren't progressing. But we really focused on the needs of any of our investigators who have baptism dates and how we can help them the best we can! we noticed that we just need to be putting a lot of focus and energy into a good 5-10 who are serious about progressing rather then 20 when half of our meetings aren't really doing anyone any good so we are really focusing on the 4 investigators who have baptism dates along with 5 that are progressing well in the discussions! its just been a lot of re-focusing our efforts and in trying to be as effective as we can be and praying we can pull a baptism out of this area!

Just to give you a little taste of how the ward is and how differently structured it is out here, i'll give you an example! We go to church last Sunday, we talk a bit with our ward mission leader, he says that he will come with us to a discussion we have on Friday with someone who is really progressing! Really important meeting and we were hoping to ask her to prepare for baptism if the meeting went well! But we get a call on Friday morning telling us that our ward mission leader moved on Thursday to another ward and he never got back to us about going with us to the discussion! with no warning our ward mission leader just moves! He was a pretty difficult guy to work with in the first place, almost begging him to come to a discussion during the week! but yea so now we don't have a ward mission leader and were talking with Bishop right now to try to get another ward mission leader ASAP and we are trying to convince him into calling an awesome member who works with us a lot already and honestly fulfilled more duties of a ward mission leader then our actual ward mission leader fulfilled! But yea were praying hard for a bomb new mission leader which were praying is that same member who helps us out already!

It's been raining/cloudy all week pretty much! pretty great stuff, love it! also, another pretty crazy story that is a bit less spiritual then last week! we were visiting one of our progressing investigators and when we first met her she invited us in but as long as we didn't talk about religion (we ended up talking about religion) but this was about a month ago and this week we invited her to pray to know if the things we have taught her are true! and also to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true and she said shes not going to promise because if she promises she knows she will have to do it but we met with her on Wednesday and she said she will promise to pray in the next week but not by Wednesday so hopefully all goes well with her! Shes a pretty awesome older lady! We call her our Grandma, she always feeds us and always is super interested in all we have to say and she has come a long way in the past month! also during our last meeting she brought out skulls and bones out of a box and told us that they were the bones of her parents!! hahaha crazy stuff!! also her neighbor comes by during almost all of our lessons and shes been more and more interested as well!! hahaha but yea and this last Wednesday we made her and her neighbor french toast which was pretty awesome and then we shared with them a few messages from general conference!! but shes a pretty awesome lady along with her neighbor!!

Thank you all so much for all of the love and support and hopefully i didn't bore you all to much with my e-mail this week! ill try to get some more interesting things going on here to write about in next weeks E-mail! hope you all have an awesome week!!

mucho amor,
Elder Tutton

address for mail and packages:
Candido Pujato 3269
3000 Santa Fe
Santa Fe, Argentina

Semana doce (week twelve)

hola hermano's y hermana's,

how was conference weekend!?!? hope you guys have had a great week! sorry to had forgotten to mention that I would be writing on Tuesday this week! I forgot that with transfers (every 6 weeks) our p-days are moved to Tuesday's so i apologize but just to keep you updated on transfers, me and Elder Orozco are still in the same area and are still companions but we received new district leaders! Pretty crazy week with transfers and with conference weekend but it's been a great week!

Quick shout out to two of my best friends, Bayley Cook and Ashlyn Jensen who both submitted there mission papers this week and who are both preparing to be amazing missionaries so insanely proud of both of them!! Cant wait to hear when and where they will be reporting! love and best wishes to both of them!

Quick experience- I was out on day splits and me and the other missionary were both new missionaries (he came in to the mission the same time as me) and he is from Chile and he is just an awesome guy!! but while we were knocking doors we were getting a bit discouraged! It was getting dark and we had about another 20 min to knock until we had to be back and so we said a prayer and asked for the gift of tongues and interpretation and that me and my comp would be led to a person who;s heart was prepared to hear our message! the last street we knocked there was a woman who answered the door and she said that her husband had died almost exactly a year ago and she has 3 kids and we taught her about the plan of salvation and she was in tears the entire lesson! powerful spirit! I took about half the lesson that I felt comfortable in the language sharing and then at the end of the lesson me and my comp both bore our testimonies of the truthfulness of the message we shared and she then desired to come to general conference the next day with us so we brought her along to hear from the Apostles and then she came Sunday as well and heard from the prophet! such an awesome experience but i remembered after our discussion she was asking a bit about our missions and she asked where we were from and then she talked to me a bit about the language and she said she could tell that i was learning the language but that she understood all I had to say and the power behind what I had to say confirmed to her that the message that we were sharing was true!!

questions-
Has the language "clicked" yet? What's your favorite phrase?
-the language has not clicked (its coming slowly but surely/line upon line and precept upon precept) but i have been continuing to be diligent and in studying and giving my best effort to learning the language of the people i have been called to serve! my favorite phrase- "todo tranquilo" which means "all is good"
What is your favorite food to eat there?
-the food here isn't that great not gonna lie but they have milenasa which is kinda just like breaded chicken and we eat that a lot with rice but Argentina has really good snacks so my favorite snack would have to be, dulce de leche alfajores! its kinda like a triple layer chocolate cookie! pretty great stuff!
Are you sleeping better?
-not really, my companion told me you never really get a great night sleep and it's more of a miracle if you can sleep through the whole night without waking up! its not to much to worry about but we just wake up a few times a night! also in Argentina there is always someone blasting music so its kinda hard to sleep in general with the music going 24/7 but yea sleep is interesting
is it getting hot there yet?
-so were officially in spring so other then the days it rains its pretty warm out! just think that every day it get colder where you are its getting hotter here!
What was the highlight of your week, well, besides conference?
-conference for sure, and we watched 17 miracles in spanish which was pretty cool but we could only watch between Saturday afternoon and priesthood because it was to late to contact in between that session so we got to watch the movie for a bit but other then that session we were out contacting between sessions on Saturday and Sunday! also with the time change here we watched priesthood session from 9pm-11pm and didn't get back to the house till midnight which was interesting but yea conference weekend as a whole was just such an awesome time!

conference quotes-
"may our motive be our love of god and for his children"-Elder Uchtdorf
"using your time and talents and sharing your testimony will help you to grow spiritually"-Elder Hales
"Jesus Christ is the mark"-Elder Cook
"Stumbling blocks may be made into stepping stones"-Elder Cook
"there faith will be made manifest through diligence and work"(talking about missionaries) -Elder Bassett (of the 70)
"take over the priesthood care and keeping"-Elder Holland
"let us seek out, find, and inspire"-Elder Uchtdorf
"united in whole heart service of Christ"-Elder Eyring
"we need to work, search, and pray"-Prophet Thomas S. Monson
"the joy we have has little to do with our circumstances but rather our focus"
-Elder Nelson
"the missionaries are not leave there homes just to increase the numbers of the church but to share and proclaim joy"-Elder Nelson
"think of the times that the spirit has born witness of these truths"-Elder Ballard
"kindness is the key that unlocks the heardened of hearts and the stubborn souls" -Elder Gobbins (of the 70)
"that they may look to know the source for remission of sins"-Elder Nattress
"salvation comes through him (christ) and no other way"-Elder Nattress (of the 70)

these are just some of the highlights i had written down and i wanted to thank you for the chance to share a few of the quotes that stood out to me!

thank you for all of the love and support!! if you feel like I'm not getting back to you or I'm not saying all i can it's because i feel like my computer time is always rushed but i promise you that if you send me a letter i will respond with my full thoughts and feelings and that includes to many questions as well! it takes about a month for letters to get back and forth so keep that in mind as well! hope you all have an awesome week! love you guys and miss you all!!


mucho amor,
Elder Tutton

address for mail and packages:
Candido Pujato 3269
3000 Santa Fe
Santa Fe, Argentina

SHOUT OUT TO ELDER NATTRESS (both of them)
(one of my best friends is now serving in turkey/germany and his dad is in the quorum of the 70 and gave an awesome talk during conference)