Joy

Hey Family and Friends!

What a great week it has been! Time really flies by so much here in Argentina. It feels like every other day I am writing an email for ya. But I love it; I love the work, I love the people, and I just love the mission.

I went on divisions in my area this week with Elder Jones for two days. He has about four months in the mission and I only have one so it was really interesting to be two rather inexperienced missionaries. But it was really fun. since it was my area i was in charge of the schedule and everything so that was pretty fun too. We had a rough first day. We did a lot of tracting and went and found ex investigators all with no luck but we still ended up teaching 1 lesson with an investigator and member present. On Wednesday we did awesome! we had 4 lessons (which is the most i have had yet in a day) and we found 2 new investigators! It was a really exciting day.

Then I got back with Elder Milne on Thursday and we had to plan for our Easter activity for the next day. its near the end of the transfer so we barely have any money left so we had to get creative with what we were going to do. The activity was really fun though. about 20 people showed up (which is a lot for our barrio) and we started out hiding candy outside in the church grounds and gave everyone a bag and we did kind of an Easter egg hunt. It was so funny because everybody got way into it. The adults here act just like kids... its great. We then strapped balloons to our legs and played stomp each others balloons to be the winner. we also played pin the tail on the bunny (I destroyed.... I got it perfectly... and i didn't even cheat like i normally would've) and then we did egg in a spoon races. After all the games Elder Milne and I shared a spiritual message and opened it up for testimonies. It was such a great experience. Something that couldn't really happen in the states. Everybody brought cakes and we made brownies so we were well fed. It was a successful activity.

Then on Saturday Elder Milne got food poisoning from an egg he ate Friday morning i think so I had yet another lazy day because he was in a ton of pain. I ended up reading almost all of 2 nefi in castellano... it was awesome!

For Easter itself it was a great day. It was kind of weird because none of the talks were about Easter or Christ so that was kind of sad... we didn't even sing an Easter song until the very end of priesthood meeting. but we got chocolate eggs and bunnies. I thought this was going to be a crazy party week for the Argentines but whenever there is a holiday they just sleep... Argentina is a very lazy country.

Tomorrow is Elder Milne´s birthday so we threw him a surprise party today. We went out and got my first haircut in Argentina today and when we got back the other elders had bought all the stuff we needed for an asado. so we just had a delicious feast. Then after that we colored eggs and did egg fights with them and just had a fun p day.

And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

en 2 Nefi 23-25 23And they would have had no ^achildren; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no ^bjoy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no ^csin.

24But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who ^aknoweth all things.

25^aAdam ^bfell that men might be; and men ^care, that they might have ^djoy.

I really like this scripture. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. Our lives are supposed to be filled with joy. We can go day by day and always think about the negatives and be sad because there are a lot of sad things in the world... OR we can go around day to day and look for the joy in our lives. This is what I am going to be focusing on this week and I encourage all of you to do the same. We are on earth to have joy and to make the most out of life.... so just do it as Nike would say.