Building Cement Houses. January 26, 2010

Valle Grande
Beautiful destination for Preperation Day!












Ben with a borrowed bike that he used to get out to Antiono's house.
Ben says: "I really thought it was going to break. I think I am a bit too heavy for it. The baby seat in the back is a really good addition. PERFECT for my scriptures! :)






Ben with Elder Ramirez. They are in front of their "Spritual Revolution Poster". The Spiritual Revolution is to help the members set some goals to help them increase their spirituality.

Hi Family!

Sorry I didn`t e-mail everyone until today. We had Zone Conference yesterday, so we have today as our Preparation Day. To answer Dad`s questions. We use empanada shells, you could call them for taco shells. Their soft and small, but it`s what we have here. They are pretty good! The crackers were still good, I think I would have eaten them even if they were a couple months older than they already were. Don`t worry, I still have some...but only some... Anyway, with the tacos we don`t use any goat meat, just regular ground beef. Goat meat sadly is only for special occasions like Christmas or New Years...it kind of takes the same place as duck at Christmas time.

Speaking of irregular foods...do you all want to know what I ate this week? It is kind of sick, but I had to do it just to say I did it. You ready? I ate the following parts of a cow for lunch on Saturday afternoon; kidney, small intestine, and large intestine. I hope NOT to eat any of them again. :)

As for the families this week:
Maria and Sebastian moved to her grandma`s house while their house here in Pacifico is getting completed. We haven`t seen them this week, but we hope to see them soon. Reuben we hear is still at the house, but is working a ton so it will be difficult to find him.

I am realizing here even more the value of education in our lives. When we have more education, we have more opportunties for progression in our lives. There are people here who work all day but are still poor. Work can only get us so far, it`s education that really gives us an upper edge. It makes me realize how much I really want to take advantage of every opportunity I can to learn something.

Speaking of learning something...does anyone want to know how to build part of a house in Argentina? On Saturday we helped a man who was hit pretty hard by all the storms we`ve been having here. We went to his big farm and cemented the walls. It was pretty fun. The members of the church that were they helping threw the cement on the walls and one of the things I was doing was helping spread it out and make it look smoothe. They generally build houses out of Cement here. Wood houses are almost unheard of.

Ok, wow, disorganized thoughts, coming back to the families this week. We had some incredible lessons with Antonio and his family this week. Thank you so much for all your prayers. He is still iffy on his baptism, but his wife and two of his kids are gung-ho for it! They will get baptized soon. They would have had a date for the 30th of January, but they didn`t come to church this week because they had visitors staying at their house over the weekend. They will come this week!

Zone Conference was absolutley incredible! I love how President Lindahl teaches us. It`s so interactive and the Spirit does the teaching. I was to apply how he teaches into how we teach people. Let them teach the lesson. Help them to want to know and ask questions. If they don`t want to learn and know, it doesn`t do any good to force feed them information. They have to WANT to learn and it`s our role as teachers of the gospel to help them realize they want it. The Spirit does the conversion.
This week for Preparation Day we went to this beautiful place called Valle Grande. I`ll send some pictures next week.

I love you all and hope you are all doing well! Argentina is so beatiful right now. Right out in front of our pench grapes are growing. We can go out whenever we want and pick fresh grapes right off the vine. The landscape is beautiful here, the weather is wonderful, the people are awesome and I am having so much fun! Don`t worry, I do miss every single one of you. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers. Keep them coming! :)

Love,
Elder Hoglund