Tucumán Tucumán

You know, after about 500 emails sent home I´m not exactly sure what I can say. Haha I´m happy. I´m healthy. I´m keeping myself relatively cool in this humid climate. And the people treat me well. If you want to hear something funny, I could tell you about the way people talk here. But I think everyone already knows that here in Tucuman it´s not the purest spanish in the world. Or I could talk about the number of dogs that are just funny looking because animal control doesn´t exist here. Or I could tell about the dog that lives in our apartment building that has a disorder and keeps getting fatter and fatter. Or I could even talk about the flies that are for some reason a little slower here and much easier to catch or squish. Or I could talk about the number of people that can fit on a single moped or motorcycle (you´d be surprised). But I want to talk a little about the love that God has for every single one of His children. ¨For God so loved the world that he gave his only Begotten Son.¨ It doesn´t matter how many strange things there are in Argentina, in fact, the things of this world don´t matter much at all. What really matters is our personal commitment to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, our Savior. As I think of my Savior, I think of all the awesome people that I´ve come to help thanks to a simple decision to follow God and serve a mission. I also think of what I still owe Him and it makes me want to be better every day. For God so loved Elder Philpot, that He allowed him to serve a mission and meet all these wonderful people. For God so loved YOU, that He sent the Gospel into your life. The blessings are uncountable, infinite. Elijah, it´s about time that you leave on a mission. You have no idea what awaits you. I love you guys! We are children of a loving Heavenly Father. So simple, but so immense. I know it, I live it, I love it!

Elder Philpot

I believe in miracles

Well, I honestly have no time at all for a few inconveniences but this week has been awesome. I love my comp, I love my area, and I love the people here in Tucumán. We´re going to have a lot of success. I was also able to attend a special conference with the whole mission and Elder Cook. Suffice it to say that I was left open-mouthed. I also was able to eat lunch with the first baptism that I was able to see here in Argentina, Yolanda. One of the persons that I most care for. I am grateful for the mission. I am grateful for my parents. I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know it and I live it, but most of all, I love it!

Elder Philpot

Baptisms and Buckets

For lack of time I´m gonna have to be short. It was an awesome week! There are so many people prepared to hear the Gospel here in Tucumán! This week a little boy was baptized and it was so awesome! He´s been wanting to be baptized for so long but the missionaries kept saying that he should wait for the rest of his family. He couldn´t take the wait so he was baptized this saturday. It was very special. 

The hard part was trying to drain the baptismal font afterwards! Haha the water sucker thing, I don´t know what it´s called in english, was broken so we had to use buckets and empty the thing by hand. Quite the adventure if you ask me. Haha but I´ve learned this week about the importance of maintaining a constant desire to be better than what we´ve always been. If we always do what we´ve always done, we´ll always be who we´ve always been. Progress is the habit of perfection. I know it, I live it, I love it!

Home sweet home

Sounds like everyone is having fun in their respective places of stay. I am also having fun in my new old place of stay. This week I was asked to pack up my things and take a bus to my city of birth (in the mission), Tucumán. Haha they transferred me to the zone of my first area, Parque Guillermina, and now I´ll be supervising the work in a place that I´m already so familiar with. My area is called Belgrano 2. What makes it even more ironic is that I´m with an old friend that I came to really love here in this very zone. My companion is Elder Smith. No... his name is not Joseph. When I received the call last night I was almost sure that I would go due to the already very long stay in Palermo. When they told me that I´d be ZL in the same zone where I started with a companion that I met while there just made me awe in amazement. Haha whats more, while in a conference together, Elder Smith and I proposed to Pdt Chaparro that he should make us companions. Well look how fickle life can be! Hahaha

Anyways, apart from the irony and a ton of fun memories, I´m super excited to get to work once again in Tucumán. During this week, I´ve also been able to acquire new skills. I´m learning to play piano and I´m not half bad. I´m learning to focus on the most important, because I don´t have much time. But what I most have come to learn is that God is in charge and that´s that.... but! we can plead with Him and He will listen. Prayer has the power, not to change what is around us, but to change our very selves so that what is around us becomes a miracle. This is a great truth. I know it, I live it, I love it!

Elder Philpot

BTW- fam, I extended my mission until May 31st. I´ve prayed and I feel like it is what the Lord desires. And mom, I asked permission from dad. Haha