Damian's bautismo!

Ahhh, only 2 weeks left! Thanks for your letters and pictures! I'm happy that Liv had fun at EFY, that Chloe had fun in Cali, and that Rustin had fun in Washington. Thanks for checking out my apartment even though you couldn't go inside, it looks awesome. Your trip to Utah sounds like it was great too, that's funny about the gravestone mess-up. I'm glad dad enjoyed his birthday too and is going to be able to relax a little more for now after being released!

Well, surprise: my week was........ insane. But really, probably the most stressful I've had in quite a while. Damian got baptized!! But we had some crazy things go down.. So on Tuesday we had our interviews with Pres. Goates & his wife too and mine were awesome- they both are incredible and have a lot of energy and ideas about how to work more creatively and get better results from members/investigators and converts. This mission is in great hands. Then our lesson we had set up with Damian fell through.. but we had a good lesson with that Catholic family who told us they were going to come to Damian's baptism on Saturday. On Wednesday we taught Damian and my comp asked him as we started how he was doing with the Word of Wisdom, and he informed us that an hour after he had come to the baptism with us he drank a glass of beer because some people in a store were celebrating friends day and offered him one.. Yeah so since investigators have to keep the WoW for a whole week before baptism we got worried and basically tried to get him to understand the importance and seriousness of both baptism and the commandments. He kind of got mad that we were probably going to change the date but were legitimately worried. He also told us about all the trials that he's had this week like losing his house and job. Stress. 

The next day we went and he was a lot different- happier. We talked about the verse in D&C 122:7-8 I think and he calmed down a lot and was back to normal, and excited to get baptized on the 25th. We had a really good lesson and afterwards weren't sure about whether to change the date or not. We prayed about it and both felt like it'd be best to do it sooner rather than later. Luckily a miracle happened and the next day (Friday) was a holiday (it's not really a huge miracle I guess because just about every other day is a holiday here..) but we then had the time to teach him the things that we had to so that he was prepared, and we got to watch the hour movie about Joseph Smith and all the trials he went through too, which helped a lot. That same day he had his interview and it all went well. Then on Saturday at 7pm, the coldest day we've had here this winter, we had his baptism at 7pm. Hardly anyone that we had invited showed up, but a few recent convert kids with their non-member mom did so that was good- Damian had invited them after fixing their car. We watched the Come see the light video from Reflections of Christ after he was baptized, and we ate alfajores and soda afterwards. Everything went as planned... until later as we were sitting in the pench my comp noticed that on his baptismal record Damian had a middle name, but the guy that baptized him didn't say it during the ordinance. We weren't sure how big of a deal it was to not say the middle name, so we asked our district leader who asked the zone leaders who asked the assistants who asked the President. Apparently during that game of telephone there was a miscommunication and Pres. thought Damian was upset that they didn't say his middle name and so he told them to tell us that he should be baptized again using the middle name. So we got told that he had to get baptized again or it wasn't valid. First we called bishop and decided to do the 2nd baptism sunday morning right before church so he could get confirmed, but then when we called Damian to tell him..... he got mad and said he refused to do it because his middle name was the name of a relative who I guess did something to offend his family and he had been trying to get the name legally removed for a while. He said he wouldn't do it again and that for him the baptism he had was good enough.. but that he would still come to church the next day. The next morning we informed the Elders of what had happened when we called and then right before church and half an hour before sacrament meeting the assistants called and told us about the miscommunication and that he didn't have to get baptized over again after all.. We got to church and right before it started Damian still wasn't there so I called him and he said I had woken him up but that he'd be over in 5 minutes. Luckily he kept his word and showed up right on time and was confirmed a member of La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias. Then my comp and I got put in charge of the Gospel Principles class last minute and it happened to be about Exhaltation and we had to give it to 3 recent converts with less than 6 months as members and one member with only 6 years in the church. It was fun, there was almost a fight... almost. Hahaha so yeah sorry about the length of the story but that was basically my week! It was insane but I think everyone learned a lot from it and it helped my stay distracted from getting trunky too (;

We have to travel 3 hours to Mendoza today for my last mission leadership counsel meeting tomorrow, and then on Thursday night we're traveling to Malargue (another 3 hour bus ride) to do exchanges with Hna Sanford and Bentley. So basically the week's gonna fly by because we'll only be in our area 2 and a half days.. then we'll start my LAST WEEK! Ahh. I'm excited! I hope it's a little less stressful of a week, and I hope your guys' week isn't too stressful either! Love you, & see you soon.

<3,

Hna Crawford

Hno Julian's sister missionary shrine.. no comment.

Julian' desserts!

Hermano Julian 

@ Hermano Julian's

Our favorite bakery

my favorite member's house & kid (Raquel, the lady that's friends with Damian)

inside Raquel's house she's decorated her wall with missionary pamphlets

Volleyball on p-day with the Elders

our area

these are everywhere..

Argentina's answer to the Twix bar

uhh, yeah

More of our area

eating dinner (for once) with a recent convert, Teresa- haha she didn't understand the concept of the 10 second timer on the camera and wasn't quite prepared

Baptism!!

Damian and David

My comp, Damian and I

Damian, David, Raquel, my comp & I

Damian's baptism