Another Week Gone By...

Well hello everyone, how are things? It´s hard to believe that another week has gone by. It´s really kind of creepy how quickly time passes, and I´m told that times goes by even faster after the mission so that´s not too reassuring. Well this week was interesting. To be completely honest not a whole lot happened this week. We walked a ton and had a hard time finding people at home. This last few weeks have been a little tough cause we haven´t been able to get anyone in church. That´s always annoying cause if people don´t come to church, they can´t get baptized, and they can´t save themselves or apply the Atonement in their lives. But hey they also have their agency so there´s not always a ton we can do about that. We´ve been working really hard and are hoping to see the fruits of our labors pretty soon. This week we found a few people that we hadn´t found in a while named Aureliano and Ana. Remember them? Well they had moved and so we´d kinda lost contact with them, but the other day we were able to find them again and start teaching them. They had read a bit from what we left them which was pretty cool! I was really excited. So we started teaching them again and we´re hoping that they start to progress. They have a little baby named Mateo who has about the same amount of time as Kyler so that was a weird coincidence. So we taught them one day and everything was going well. Then we called them on sunday to see what happend and why they didn´t go to church and Aureliano said that they had seperated. Super random. We were way shocked and today we have to go by to see what happened. When we went by they seemed like they were fine and now apparently they´re not together anymore. It was something that really shocked me and definitely wasn´t expecting to hear. Something that´s really hit me more than ever being here in Tandil is the importance of living the commandments. I´ve always known it was really important and I feel like I´ve had a testimony of it for a while now, but it´s like here it´s a lot more obvious why it´s important. It´s like it´s hitting me in a more direct way than it did before and the consequences are a lot more obvious and visible. Conclusion: Keeping the commandments=happiness and a lot less problems in life. It´s pretty cool how the gospel is so simple. Well that´s all that really happened this week. Sorry it wasn´t too exciting. We´ll see if we can make something happen this week. Hopefully I´ll have some stories for next week. Thanks for all your emails, love and support. That´s also super cool that Lindsay got married!!! Tell her congrats for me! Love you all, thanks for everything!!!!! 
-Elder Nicholas Gaughan

A Week of Little Miracles

Hey everyone how´s everything going? Well another week has come to an end and this week wasn´t quite as exciting as these last few have been. To start off the week I was in divisions with Elder Marambio who´s working out in Necochea which is another city that belongs to our zone. My companion, Elder Murillo went out to Necochea to see how they were doing and to try to help them out a little bit. Divisions were interesting to say the least. Not a whole lot happened until wednesday which was the last day I was with Elder Marambio. We were a little frustrated cause we hadn´t taught very much and we hadn´t found any new investigators which is always a bummer. It was about 730 and Elder Marambio had a bus that left at around 815. Cause we had a little bit of time left we decided to go by one more house. We go to see Claudio (not the one who got baptized a little while ago) to see if we could get in to teach him. Claudio was a reference of some other Elders and we had talked to him in the door but hadn´t gotten into his house yet. We go by start talking to him in the door and he was kind of acting like he didn´t want to let us in. In addition to that it was freezing cold outside. So there I am thinking "snap, it´s super cold, we haven´t had much success and now Claudio doesn´t want to let us in". And as we were talking to him all of the sudden he says "hey it´s really cold, come on inside". What a miracle! It was super cool! He let us in and we were able to teach him and his family! 6 people in total were there. We could only teach a short lesson about the Book of Mormon and how it´s important but it was really good and it was an awesome experience. Then after all of that Elder Marambio missed his bus and didn´t end up leaving until the next morning at 4 AM. It´s ok though, it was totally worth it. We also had another interesting experience with a guy named Carlos Collado. He´s listened to the missionaries on and off for about 10 years. He has a bunch of friends who are members of the church, but he´s still yet to get baptized. A member once told us that Carlos said that something really bad would have to happen to him so that he gets baptized. Well here´s a lesson in carefull what you wish for. We went by this week and he told us that his oldest daughter who´s 19 ran away to live with her boyfriend. Bad enough? Yes. He was really perplexed and didn´t really know how to handle the situation. He was asking us all kind of questions and we were able to teach him and his wife about the restoration. The importance of having prophets and the guidence that we have as members of the church and the importante and huge roll that the restored gospel plays in our lives. We were able to apply it really well to them and we had a really powerful lesson which was awesome. Just goes to show you, be carefull what you wish for cause a lot of times God grants us those things that we say so that we change and repent. It was cool cause at the end of the lesson we all kneeled down to say a prayer and Carlos said a really good prayer at the end. When we went by later in the week they told us that the daughter had come over with the boyfriend and that things were getting better. She still hasn´t gone back to the house but Carlos and Andrea know that she´s ok and they helped them a lot. They didn´t make it to church last week so this week we gotta make a big effort to get them to church this week so that they can start progressing. Besides that not a ton happened. We had a bit of a tough week but this one is going to be better. We´ve taken a couple tough hits and now we gotta get back on top like how we were before. We also had interviews with President Detlefsen this week which was legit. Having and interview with him is always a great experience. I think he´s one of the smartest people I´ve ever met. He´s helped me a ton in my mission and has made it truely great. I love that man. He has amazing faith and vision and being around him always elevates me and helps me to be a better person. We have a goal this month that every single companionship in the zone baptizes. There are 10 companionships so it´ll be interesting to see how it comes out. Pray for us so that we can do it. We gotta make progress on getting stakes out here so that we can have a temple in our mission!! All your prayers and efforts will be felt and grately appreciated!! Thanks for all your love and support. 
-Elder Nicholas Gaughan

A "Legit" Baptism Experience

Well hello family of mine. How is everyone? Sounds like you all had a great week and guess what? I did too!!!! This week we had 3 baptisms of kids of part member families that we were/are helping the families get active once again. It was a really awesome experience. Julieta Alia, Nicolas Grondona and Lucio Lescano all got baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday! It was pretty legit. We had another crazy day of baptism experience. Elder Murillo and I were sitting in the church just having finished setting everything up for the baptism, waiting for people to get there. Julieta and her family, the Branch President and one of his counselors get there and then we get a message from Lucio's aunt, our convert Liliana, asking if Lucio could get baptized a different day cause it was a little complicated for them and a storm had just come in and it was raining pretty hard and they don't have a car. So what do we do? Take off running for their house about 7 blocks away (needless to say I got tired after about 2 blocks). So it's raining cats and dogs and we're sprinting in our suits towards the house to see what had happened. We get there and it was a little complicated cause Liliana's house isn't all that well built and when it rains the roof leaks. We get there and they were worried about that and they didn't have a way to get there through the pouring rain. We tried calling a taxi but cause it was raining so hard they were all busy so we called the Branch President to see if he could come pick us up. Luckily the Branch President is a champ and he came, but the problem was his car was tiny and we weren't all gonna fit, and it was already almost 7 and that's when the baptism had to start. So what do we do? Yep take off running again back towards the church. When we get back a bunch of people had arrived and we were soaking wet, then all the members that are moms scolded us for taking off that like and getting all soaked but hey we had to do something and there wasn't a lot of time. So we go and change cause we had to baptize. We do that, take pictures and get to the orandance which is of course the best part. The awesome part about the baptism is that we had been planning with the members for about a week and we didn't have to worry a ton about a lot of the little details. And we had given out invitations to all the kids who then handed them out to friends and relatives and a ton of people who weren't members came which is awesome. I baptized Julieta and Elder Murillo baptized Nicolas and Lucio. Then when everything was over we had refreshments and all that jazz and had the opportunity to talk to a lot of the people who weren't members who had gone. They all really liked it and a few of them asked us "what do you have to do to get baptized?" Pretty good response I'd say. One kid came who is the boyfriend of Pamela (Julieta's sister) and he wants to get baptized!!! His name is Leo and he's a pretty legit kid. We were talking to him a little bit, he came to church yesterday and he's gonna get baptized in 2 weeks!!! The baptism was a little crazy as always but it all turned out really well!
Apart from all that we had a pretty cool week. We were able to find a lot of new people and have some pretty legit investigators we're working with and hoping that they get baptized in these next couple weeks. We found this guy named Juan Carlos who's trying to quit drinking. He was really acoholic, had stopped for a year, then started again. He's started to drop the habit again and we're hoping its for good this time! We're also gonna help another investigator put a roof on her house which should be an interesting experience. I'm excited anyway to see how it turns out.
We also have a conference this week with the area president, Elder Arnold of the 70. Pretty much the whole mission is freaking out a little bit and also really excited to see what he is gonna teach us. We've been getting a ton better as a mission and we're excited to see the counsil that he'll give us to help us to keep getting better and baptizing more of Heavenly Father's children. We have to travel so that'll be an interesting experience in and of itself. It's gonna be legit though and all of us are anxiously waiting to see what will happen. Well that's all I can really think of that has happened this week. Pretty abnormal as usual. I'm glad to see that Kyler is doing so well and that he's growing good and strong. I'll try to send pictures of the baptisms next week! Love you all thanks for everything!!!!
-Elder Nicholas Gaughan

Miracles

Yes as you can all see this week was a miraculous week. It all started out on monday when all of our plans fell through so we went out to knock doors. We knocked, and knocked and knocked and didn´t find anyone. Then we knocked a house where people were eating so we had about zero chance of getting in, but we talked to the lady who answered the door and she called her son in law who lives behind them. He came out and let us in and we had an interesting lesson with them. Him, his wife and their friend make up the band of an evangelical church. Let´s just say it was interesting. Then the rest of the week we were getting ready for Claudio´s baptism and zone conference all in the same week which was a little out of hand but we managed to handle it somehow. Oh tueday was a pretty random day as well. We went by Claudio to go over the questions to the baptismal interview and as we were doing that we ran into a friend of his named Adrian. Adrian practices something called Reike which I don´t know if you all have heard of it or not. From what he explained and I understood Reike is kind of a mixture of Christianity and Buddism, kind of. It´s complicated let´s just say that. Anyway we talked to him and had a really cool lesson. We gave him a Book of Mormon and hopefully we can teach him again cause he had some really interesting ideas to say the least. Ok now we´re gonna skip ahead to thursday cause that´s when things really started to get interesting. Thursday we had the baptismal interview with Claudio. We live with our District Leader, Elder Decilia, who´s a really cool guy from Salta. Elder Decilia and my comp, Elder Murillo go to do the interview with Claudio and I go with Decilia´s companion, Elder Wartena to do some service and work in their area. Some really random, weird stuff happened with the interview and it got rescheduled like 3 times in the same day. Elder Wartena and I went to go to service for their branch mission leader. Their branch mission leader is about to have an operation to recieve a kidney from his son cause he doesn´t have any. He´s been on dialisys for 8 years and he´s finally gonna have this operation. And in order to have this operation the house needed to be in conditions for his and his son´s recuperation. So they called us to paint. We had a good time and when we get back they still hadn´t done the interview with Claudio so we take off to go work in Decilia and Wartena´s area. We´re working out there and I was pretty sure that they had to be done with the interview by that time. Me being the impatient person that I am called my comp to see what had happened with the interview. When I call Decilia answers me and tells me that he´ll tell me about it in the house. That right there made me nervous cause if he had passed he would have told me right then. So there I am biting my fingernails the rest of the night worried about this interview. We get back to the house and apparently Claudio had stolen before, was caught by the police, but they didn´t throw him in jail. They put him on some form of probation and said that if they saw him doing anything in the next 18 months they´d toss him in jail then. So we called President to see what he had to say, if he had to come interview Claudio or what the deal was exactly. Decilia explained him the situation and President said that it was ok, Claudio could get baptized!! We were super happy at this point. Shortly after that 8 Elderes arrived at our house to spend the night for zone conference the next day (friday). On thursday night I went to sleep fine and friday morning woke up pretty miserably sick, and the fun part was that I had to direct zone conference the next day. I survived the day and was able to learn some pretty awesome stuff at the same time. Then saturday we had the baptism of Claudio. We had service in the morning with the District President which went pretty well then in the afternoon we went to the church to start filling up the font. We start the font and shortly thereafter recieve a text messsage from Claudio saying that he wasn´t compeltely sure about getting baptized and he didn´t think he was gonna get baptized that day. This struck us as super weird cause he was doing great the other day. We ran home, changed and took off for the house of Claudio. We get there but he couldn´t talk to us at that time. We started freaking out a little more at this point. We told his brother that we were gonna come back in about half an hour to talk to Claudio. We head back to the church to see how the font was doing. We check the font and after that I go into the sacrament meeting room, fall to my knees and start praying like crazy. After praying for a while I get up and see Elder Murillo behind me also praying. He finishes and we head out for Claudio´s house yet again. We find him, talk to him a bit and he was already calmer and got baptized a few hours later!!!!! It was in every sense of the word a miracle! Truely an amazing experience for me and that night we fell to our knees thanking the Lord for everything he had done. So that was my week. Fairly normal.....well somewhat. Hey am I an uncle yet? I love you all, thanks for everything!!!!

-Elder Nicholas Gaughan
Pictures
1. Zone Conference
2. Elder Murillo and Claudio
3. Elder Murillo, Mariana (Claudio´s girlfriend), Claudio and Me
PS I don´t know why Argentines don´t smile in pictures, they just don´t

Normal Week

Well hello everyone how are things? I never thought our family would go international but hey, weirder things have happened. Well this week wasn´t too out of the ordinary than any other week. It´s kind of weird how in the mission everything just kind of flows together after a while and you don´t realize what day or week it is. It gets interesting sometimes. This week was a lot better than the last however which was really cool. In the mission we´ve been focusing on finding more new investigators and last week we had a tough time. This week we got a lot better and found some really cool people so that´s always a plus. One couple we found, Aureliano and Ana, are 2 awesome people. Aureliano´s parents are members but went inactive when he was like 7 or so. He never got baptized and now he´s 27ish. Ana is his girlfriend and she´s awesome. A lot of the time we teach with pamphlets and in the back there are questions and scriptures to look up. A lot of the time people read them, but that´s it. They read them, highlighted them, and filled out all the questions there which was crazy! She wants a big change in her life and is willing to do things so that her life gets better. She´s also 8 months pregnant so sometimes it makes things a little difficult, but they´re really cool people and they´re progressing really well. We´re also gonna have 2 baptisms this weekend! We´re teaching two kids who are boyfriend and girlfriend. They´re names are Claudio and Mariana and they´re super cool kids. They went to church yesterday by themselves and they´re getting baptized on saturday! They´re kind of quiet but they´re really cool, sincere kids. I´m really excited for them. We´ve been teaching them since I´ve got here and it´s been cool to see their progress and how they keep getting better and better as they learn more about the gospel. Oh we´re also working with a guy that reminds me a lot of Dad. His name is Daniel Ortellado. He´s not a member but the rest of his family is. His wife served a mission and she´s the district primary president. He pays tithing! The guy isn´t a member but he pays tithing! I was pretty shocked when I heard about it. We had a first lesson with him and he wasn´t really willing to read or pray which confused the heck out of me. He´s super nice but he just didn´t feel like he had the neccesity or something. In that lesson I told him about how dad got baptized and from what some of the members told me that had a pretty big affect on him so thanks dad! We had a second lesson with him but I wasn´t there. I was in Necochea which is another city that belongs to our zone that´s about 3 hours away from Tandil. Apparently the lesson went well though and Daniel is gonna read the Book of Mormon with his wife which is super cool.  We also found this lady named Teresa this week who seems to be pretty cool. I also don´t know her cause me companion taught her when we were in divisions. She´s a reference from some members of another branch here in Tandil. She´s had a lot of problems and is looking for some help and peace. She even made it to church on sunday! She seems really sincere and we´re hoping that she keeps progressing cause the gospel is the perfect thing for her at this moment in her life.
And as I mentioned I went on divisions this week which was pretty fun. I went to Necochea which is like a little version of Mar Del Plata. I was with Elder Rain, also from Chile, and it was a blast. We had a really good time and we´re able to find some new investigators and help them get going out there in Necochea. We have 2 districts in the zone, the entire city of Tandil and the entire city of Necochea. They´re both districts that are trying to be stakes so we´re trying to help them meet that goal. I got to meet the rest of the zone too which was nice cause now I know everyone we have and how we can help each one. Necochea was a cool experience and I had an interesting experience when I got back home to Tandil. First of all I traveled by myself on the bus and it left at 1145 at night or something so what do I do when I get on the bus? I pass out asleep. Then we get to Tandil and luckily I heard the driver yell "We´re at Tandil!". I almost didn´t hear him and hopped off as other people we´re getting on to keep going, then I get in a taxi to go home. By this time it´s about 230 in the morning. I get home, ring the doorbell and no one answers. Keep ringing the doorbell and still no one answers. I didn´t have a phone or anything cause we have one phone for every companionship so I kept ringing the doorbell and after about 10 or 15 min one of the other Elders that we live with comes out and lets me in. He only let me in cause he got up to go to the bathroom and he heard the doorbell. Luckily huh? I thought so. Well that was my week. I hope everyone is doing well wherever they may be. We´ll be seeing you
-Elder Nicholas Gaughan

"I Love My Mission"

Hey everyone what´s going on? It sounds like Mom and Dad are having a great time on their trip! And I can´t believe Tara is so close to the due date! That´s gotta be really exciting. Hopefully Mike is doing good in Germany as well. I´m sure he is. Well this week felt really short. We left about an hour after I hung up with you all on sunday and nearly missed the bus. My comp, Elder Murillo, had lost his ticket so he had to buy a new one and we barely got there in time. Then we were on the bus and what does he find? The first ticked he had bought a few days before. We just laughed and we´re grateful that the bus didn´t leave without us. We got to Bahía monday morning and went to the appartment of some of the zone leaders in Bahía. Remember Elder Egbert who was my comp in Mar Del Plata? Well we stayed the night in his house. He´s zone leader out there in Bahía and it was really cool to see him and catch up. On monday we had council meeting with President, the Hermana and the Asistants. It went really well and I learned a lot of stuff and there are a lot of things that we need to change and there are things that we can better. One of the things we talked a lot about was having vision. A vision for our area and for our zone. We have the vision for our zone is to have a stake out in Necochea (which is a district right now) and a stake here in Tandil (which is also a district). To do that we have to aument the number of people in church and get it up around 100 or so. Right now we´re at about 50 so we have a bit of work to do but it´s totally possible. On monday night I did divisions with Elder Egbert and it was great cause it was like being back in Mar Del but we have more time and we´ve both grown a lot. Then on tuesday we had another capacitation but this time with all the district leaders and trainers in the entire mission. We talked about the same stuff but it was still a good experience cause you never catch everything the first time and it´s something that helped me understand better the concepts and principles we´re trying to apply in the mission. The rest of the week flew by cause we we´re in Bahía those first few days. We had a little bit of a tough time but we pulled through it. We´re working with 2 youth, Claudio and Mariana and they were gonna get baptized this coming saturday the 21st but they didn´t make it to church so we gotta see what happened and we have to change the date to next weekend. They´re really cool kids and once we can get them to church they´ll get baptized! I´m still getting to know the area and the investigators so I don´t have a ton to tell. We´re working really hard and we have high hopes for this month and next month. Tandil is a really cool place and we´re hoping to make a lot of changes for the better and get things moving good! Oh I almost forgot. Our baptism from last sunday, Lilana, got confirmed yesterday which was awesome! She´s a great lady and it´s always a really spiritual experience when someone gets baptized or confirmed. I love this work and I almost don´t want to come home haha. Seeing people change, repent of the mistakes they´ve made and come closer to Christ is probably one of the greatest events to witness in the world. It is by far the purest, most sincere joy that I´ve ever felt. It´s funny to see that in the mission all the clichés that everyone says about the mission are true. The thing is there isn´t a better, more adequate way to describe it. They literally are the best 2 years ever. I love the mission and my Savior. Thanks for all your love and support!
-Elder Nicholas Gaughan

Little Miracles

Hey everyone what´s up?  This week was super weird but we had a pretty awesome miracle at the end so it all worked out. So we started out on monday all hunky dory everything going good. Tuesday was pretty cool too. We finally got into the house of Gustavo and Karina. Gustavo is that massive guy I told you about with arms bigger than my head! He´s super nice though and they totally want to get baptized. Then wednesday we were doing alright as well....until lunch time. Lunch for me was just fine then when we got out my comp said he wasn´t feeling that good. We headed back to the house and he just got worse and worse. The poor kid was then sick thursday and friday. It was super random and unexpected. We don´t even really know what it was that happened to him, but he´s ok now. So we finally get going again on saturday but that was kind of a tough day. We had a bunch of stuff fall through and we didn´t teach a whole lot of lessons. Then sunday rolls around and all the sudden we had 8 people in church! Last week we didn´t have anyone and this week we had 8!!! I was absolutely shocked and super grateful that we were able to have such a miracle! It was super weird too cause this week was probably the week we worked the least cause my comp was so sick then all the sudden in church we have a miracle. It was probably one of the coolest things I´ve seen so far here in Santa Monica. I still don´t know what time we´re gonna be calling on the 8th cause it´s something we honestly haven´t even talked about. We have transfers on sunday so we kinda have to wait and see what happens with that first. I don´t think I´m getting transfered but it´s possible. I let you now next week for sure.
That´s cool about Sam´s memorial service. If it was anything like his grandma´s I think I kind of remember what it was like. Super random that Jason Mraz was there but that´s cool. I feel kinda weird that I couldn´t be there but I´m glad it went well at least. Has anybody given them a Book of Mormon or talked to them about the church. Scott is a member right? Or was baptized at least a long time ago? Maybe I´m remembering wrong. Well my week was really uneventful cause we had a random speed bump right in the middle. I´m glad that everyone seems to be doing well though. I hope everything´s good. Can someone tell Hartzell to write me? That´s cool that they´re gonna have another kid though. Legit. When´s Tara due again? Well we´ll be seein ya. Con amor,
-Elder Nicholas Gaughan