Elder Andrew Sheffield: My new area Buenos Aires

Arrived April 27, 2016

Love the family more than Maiz Caquiou! Sorry for the spelling I have no idea how to spell it, which is typical. Everyone just sounds it out as best they can so every word has like 5 different spellings. Anyways its like hot chocolate or oatmeal but corn. Habichuelas con dulce is chunky bean hot chocolate and Maiz Caquiou is chunky corn hot chocolate. Its perfect for the rainy weather we have been having.

My new area Buenos Aires is nothing like my other two! Here it is the city, a big change and a little intimidating for a country-side missionary. We are in the northern part of the city Santiago. It is nice to be in a ward though, another big change. I have to get used to saying bishop not branch president. Our new zone is actually two zones put together for now and so we have a ton of missionaries. We had a fun time at our first zone meeting when my old roommate Elder Rojas and my stepson Elder Jeppesen walked in. There are currently four of us from the same group in the zone. After the zone meeting we headed to a mall called Jumbo and ate pizza, I feel out of place among technology and modern day conveniences.

View from my roof

I have a great house on the second story that has a great breeze, bueno aire, coming in. I have had to resort back to bucket showers though. The mountains nearby look like the ones in Ogden but greener and smaller, there is even a peak that look like Mt. Ben Lomond!

My companion is Elder Markham from an island in the Caribbean called St Thomas. His dad is in the military so he was born in Idaho they have moved a lot. He has two less transfers than I have, so 7 months, in the mission. He is a funny guy with a big heart.

My companion Elder Markham

Our week was interesting. There are plenty of less actives and members to visit but we need to try to work with investigators. It is humbling to realize that all my experiences in Dajabon and Tamboril, with my companions has helped me to be prepared for here. I also need to step things up a bit, be more proactive.

There is one street where the cows go "to graze". The trash is pretty typical.
There is a Dominican tall tale that Haitians can use their voodoo magic
and turn themselves into cows if you pay them 200 peso's (5 bucks).
Dominican's don't get along with the Haitians.

There are some amazing members here! The bishop is a little younger and a really amazing guy. We joked about super heroes and Star Wars when we met. I think he as trying to torture me as he brought up the new Captain America movie. Don’t worry though, I plugged my ears and I am just putting my excitement on the back burners so I can be even more excited at home. Our ward mission leader is named Eleazar and he got back from a mission to Guatemala about a year ago. He is really great, speaks English and helps a lot. I think a really good thing from this week was leaving with a 19 year-old recent convert to meet some references he has. His name is Alejandro and used to be Jehovah’s Witness. He was telling us he really wants to preach like he used to do as a Testigo (Jehovah’s Witness) I was a little amazed because sometmes it feels there is some competition when missionaries and Los Testigos see each other in the street.

One of my favorite investigators is named Valerio, who has been investigating for a long time while waiting for his papers to get fixed so he can get married, I think I have yet to hear of someone with a birth certificate and papers that don’t have problems. There are also some new investigators named Dariluz, Dalenis and Haydem. It’s two sisters and their little brother. It is like a perfect opportunity since they are young adults who are open and know a lot and live across the street from a group of members.

To answer your question, District leaders mainly just do things over the phone so it isn’t to crazy as of right now.

I can see the mountains of my old area Tamboril from here.

Congrats Jacob with your arrow of light! Its crazy how old you are. Samuel you will do great running for office! I felt a little nervous too, like half way through elections I finally realized what I (Mom and Emily) had gotten me into and got stressed. You can do it buddy its alright to be nervous as long as it makes you want to work harder. Josh I heard you rocked it at dinner theater. Haha Emily driving the blue car “blueberry”! I wish I could see all of that high-speed shananigans of stick shift.

In the Liahona for May I was reading an article about missionary work. I think there are some parts that describe the work perfectly, especially about feeling inadequate. It talks about how we shouldn’t expect to have perfect companions (families), perfect members (neighbors), or a perfect area (work) but think about things how they are. I think I often hope for a superhero kind of comp, or an investigator like Lamoni when I shouldn’t. I think one of Satan’s biggest lies is that we can receive help/rewards/relationships without any effort. It should require sweat and tears. If we never struggle to improve something there is no learning to it or sense of dedication. Life, and missionary work, are supposed to be difficult. Why not hope for a chance to work with something until we can make it perfect. Why not hope for that chunk of rock so we can have the opportunity to create a masterpiece. It is good to feel inadequate, to have weaknesses, so we can recognize there is work to be done. There is someone to rely on. Ether 12:27

We become strong as we rely on Him. Have faith. Repent. Work for it.

Love Elder Sheffield