Stormy in Argentina Too!

Hey guys!

Wow, it has been a really stormy week. Tons of rain and booming lightning and thunder. All of the power in Colôn has been shut off twice, including yesterday, right when we started to write in the ciber haha. So the zone leaders gave us permission to write today, on Tuesday. 

It was super stormy last tuesday, but it cleared up that afternoon, so we ended up taking a bus over to San Jose, which is another town we have in our area. We visited a recent convert to start teaching him the retention lessons. He is so awesome. He is already really strong in the church, and despite living far away from our church building, he comes ever week. He gave us a ton of food to, and said he would start thinking of references he could give to us because he knows a lot of people. Super cool guy! 

We are working with a less active. He is 20 years old, and is really awesome. Right now, he is trying to overcome some bad habits. He is looking for a job right now, especially because he needs to support his two younger brothers. He has a ton of friends come over to his house all the time that are a really bad influence on him, so it is a little hard, but we have had a couple really good lessons with him. He wants to get his life cleaned up and even says he hopes to be able to serve a mission! I have a lot of high hopes for him to start making some changes :).

We were contacting one day this week and got talking to some lady at her door. When I introduced myself as Elder Layton, she was really surprised because her son was named Layton (although spelled differently) haha. She said she didn't have time at the moment but said we could try another day, so we may go visit her this week. I thought that was pretty funny.

We had an awesome experince with an investigator this week. We found her and taught her the restoration on my second or third day here, and even gave her a baptismal date for February 11th! She is super awesome. She actually was taught a little bit by the missionaries 20ish years ago when she was a kid. Anyways, we were going to go back this past week, but then she texted us saying not to waste time on her because she prayed about our message and everything and didn't feel like she recieved an answer. I was pretty bummed about that, because she is a really solid investigator. We decided we would go back a few days later anyways, and she let us come in and talk. We had another really great lesson with her, and focused specifically on the Book of Mormon, and also helped her to understand that sometimes answers take time. She told us she was feeling better after that, and wants to keep taking the lessons!

One other funny thing that I have discovered here in Argentina is big toads called zapos. I have heard they are in many other the interior zones of Uruguay, but I never saw them in Montevideo. It is super funny because they make these loud crying sounds like ¨WAAAAAAAAAAAA¨. We have heard them a lot lately since there has been so much rain and water everywhere. 

Love ya guys! The church is true! ´Till next week!

Elder Layton