Thursday, October 1, 2015



Me and my companion Elder Taylor

Hello everyone!

This week has been an amazing experience for me. Last Saturday, all of the missionaries in my district hopped on a bus and drove about an hour away from the MTC. We drove through a main part of Buenos Aires. It is a very beautiful place, but....it is definitely interesting. To describe the culture shock, I will give you a few experiences. There were horses standing between the barriers of the freeway, and there were kids playing soccer under the freeway overpass. The speed limit on the freeway is pretty much however fast anyone wants to drive, and nobody uses their blinkers. The motorcyclists fly between cars and get close enough to touch them...When we arrived to our area, the bus doors opened, and we were greeted by a large playground, where kids were running around laughing, and there was a small carnival going on. It looked like tons of fun and we were excited...but after the girl in our district got off the bus, they closed the doors and started driving to where the elders were getting dropped off.......haha.


Elder Taylor and I were in a very interesting area...Remember how I said we were directly next to the danger zone? How true that was... Haha. The streets were lined with abandoned houses and stray dogs. I even saw a dog standing on top of a destroyed house. Regardless of our circumstances, we got to work. We were able to contact quite a few people, get some contact information from a few people, and even pass out both of our Books of Mormon. Keep in mind, that this is after two weeks of Spanish. It was an exhausting day, but it was well worth it, because I felt good about what I was doing.


The day was also full of people turning us down, which I just laugh off. When I would ask people walking by how they were doing, they would say ´´no´´. Haha. I got so used to being turned down, that one time, I was caught off guard by someone accepting it. I said, “we are missionaries for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, would you like to hear our message?”After a few moments...she responded that she would. I was totally caught off guard...and I didn’t even have a message in mind to share with her..so I just said quickly...Jesus loves you. We believe in the Book of Mormon....which led to another door getting closed in our faces....hahaha. At least I tried.
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and we miss it, but that we aim too low and reach it!¨ -Michelangelo

That’s all I got! Love you all!
-Elder Vanderlinden

Ps. Feel free to write me a letter! I will be here at the CCM (MTC) for 3 more weeks and then I will receive mail at the mission home:) Here are both of those addresses.

MTC mailing address:
Elder Benjamin Vanderlinden
Uruguay Montevideo Mission
Argentina Missionary Training Center
Autopista Ricchieri y Puente 13
1778 Ciudad Evita. Partido De La Matanza
Buenos Aires
Argentina

The mission:
Elder Benjamin Vanderlinden
Uruguay Montevideo Mission
Dalmiro Costa 4635 Bis
Malvin
11400, Montevideo
Uruguay


No comments:

Post a Comment