Elder Benjamin Hill: Bicicletas, Futuros Investigadores, y Duodecuple ALB (Aguante Messi)

Guys,

This week was okay.

We had interviews with Presidente Panzacchi, the mission president, and he helped Elder Cardozo and me to fix things in our companionship better. Now we are finally doing better. But hey, at least Presidente knows how prideful the missionaries are from Buenos Aires, so I'm not alone. And really, if he says something is so, it is so, so I'm glad I'm right in one tiny, itty-bitty way. Congratulations, Pride of Elder Hill, you have now gained the first victory in your wretched life. Disfrutate: it will probably never happen again.

But on Saturday we received a gift from Presidente and Hermana Panzacchi: ¡¡¡¡bicicletas!!!! We can FINALLY reach the north, south, and west borders of our area, which I legitimately have never visited before, even after so much time spent here. It is so great riding down all the numerous sloped streets, and it is completely worth it despite our having to go back up again afterwards. We can now get to the chapel in eight minutes, or so, which is SO much better than a half hour by foot. We can even get to Mendoza Centro in a half hour, which is twenty minutes faster than by bus because we go directly and don't have to wait for anything. Ba-da-baa-baa-baaaaa. I'm loving it.

Then, last night, we had an interesting experience. We were wandering in the streets to talk with people, and we discovered that the part that we usually visit, for the constantly huge number of people in the streets, had a blackout, so we didn't want to talk with people over there because we didn't want to scare them with our dark clothing in the smothering darkness. So we just kept wandering, aimlessly seeking people to talk with. I started wondering why we were doing basically nothing, but then I felt a light peace calm me subconsciously (which I only saw in retrospect for the lightness of the effect), and we continued wandering. We ended up right back where we started, in the barrio next to the one without light, and then we got to talking with a man in the street who randomly appeared. We presented ourselves, gave a sales pitch (if you've been a missionary, you know that's basically what it is), and he actually seemed interested. He told us to share a bit right there in the street, so I began explaining an abbreviated version of the Apostasy and the Restoration of the Gospel, and he grew more interested, even asking questions! That was the first time I have ever found a legitimately interested person just by talking with him in the calle. After nearly seven months of my mission (whoa, that's a lot), I still had never experienced that before. He accepted an appointment, and we'll meet with him again tomorrow. I have very high hopes for him. Also, after we parted ways, I realized that literally every second of wandering we were Guided specifically to him. That is awesome, in a very literal way.

After that experience, I was feeling really good for us finally having found someone who we might be able to teach, and then I saw a family group of twenty, more or less, walking on the other side of the street. I told Elder Cardozo to talk with them, but he said I was crazy. He also didn't think I would do it, either; and, frankly, neither did I. But I did. I stopped them all and talked with them. In short, they didn't want anything from us, but we counted it as talking with twelve people (not all of them counted for ALB - Abrir La Boca, the number of people we talk with in the street - because some were too young to really choose for themselves, so they can't accept or reject our offer because they'll do what the older people do). But hey, it was notable because it was my first time doing a duodecuple ALB. Elder Cardozo finally conceded that I have the record in the companionship, now. I'm really proud of that.

This week was good.

Con amor de Argentina,

Élder Hill

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