On Thursday morning, Elder Buckles and I were walking back to our apartment when the ZLs called us. Elder Beach said he had a question about something that happened. He said that him and Elder Sotelo had put hydrogen peroxide in their ears to clean them out and now they were hurting really badly. He said that Elder Sotelo was laying on his bed and couldn't walk because of the pain haha. We thought this was weird because normally, you can clean out your ears with hydrogen peroxide and everything will be just fine. We had to go to their apartment to get our list of members in our area, so we started heading over. When we got there, Elder Beach told us it looked like they were doing drugs or something in their room haha. So we walked in and Elder Sotelo was sprawled out over his bed, there was a stack of burnt paper cones on the floor, barbeque sauce in the corner, meat spread and butter on the floor, and ibuprofen and "hydrogen peroxide." They had to go get something from a store, so they left for a minute. As we inspected all of the above listed items, we realized why their ears hurt so badly. Their "hydrogen peroxide" was actually crema oxidante. Side note - I bought some hydrogen peroxide last week because I was rockin' dual canker sores on the bottom lip. Big huge akimbo cankers. I think that's why Elder Sotelo wanted some. Anyway, so we call them and harrass them a bit for not reading what the bottle said. But, we still didn't know what this "crema oxidante" was. The ZLs were too embarrassed to call Hermana Heyman or the area doctor and explain the situation, so I did it for them. I tried to find out if either Hermana Heyman or the doctor knew what this stuff was, but neither of them knew. So we took to the street. We went to buy them some Q-Tips (because Elder Sotelo couldn't walk) to clean out their ears. We ended up in the same pharmacy that they had visited. After buying some cotton swabs, we went back and asked the guys working there if they knew what crema oxidante was. They asked about the other missionaries and then told us that it's used to BLEACH HAIR. I had Elder Beach on the phone in my pocket and he started yelling when he heard that hahaha. Apparently, Elder Sotelo had asked for hydrogen peroxide and they guy kept insisting that crema oxidante is what he needed, so he just took it without even reading the bottle. Which is weird because Elder Sotelo always says that he's "Sherlock Holmes" and "Scooby-Doo"...anyway. The worker gave us some other liquid to clean out their ears. So, we got back and told them what happened. Elder Sotelo was pretty mad at the guy, but really it was his own dang fault haha. He was the only one that knew Spanish perfectly. Beach just blindly trusted him. So, Papa Alec had to help them out by holding their ears open and turning the sink on full blast to try to rinse out the hair bleach. Don't really know why washing their ears out was the last thing we tried, but oh well haha. Anyway, all is well now and their ears and squeaky clean. Thank goodness.
What else...we clapped one house and started talking to this 19-old-girl. She brought us some seats and when she returned, she said her boyfriend was kinda mad. After a little more small talk, she went back inside for a minute. We could hear her fighting with her boyfriend and then eventually the door closed. The window was open so we could still hear, but it gradually just faded. So we sat there like a couple of clowns for 10 minutes, just waiting in silence haha. It was so weird. Just hoping that maybe she would come back out. I don't know, I guess you're just a dreamer when you're in the mission. We decided to write our number and the church direction on a pamphlet, leave it on the chair and peace out. The whole number thing may not have been a good idea, seeing as her boyfriend was already mad that she was talking to two handsome representatives of Jesus Christ.
Had a rain and lightning storm. There's a leak in our roof, so I woke up with a cool puddle in my bed. Closest I'll get to swimming in two years. But seriously, craziest lightning storms EVER here. And the streets just flood like crazy. So boss.
As Americans, people are always trying to confirm rumors with us about the States. The latest one was when we were teaching our investigator Jorge. He watches a lot of TV and is always talking about all of the stereotypical American things. Anyway, we were talking and he said, "Hey, is it true that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln actually hated each other?" We just busted up laughing and explained to him why that was so funny. CLASSIC.
This week, we literally helped an old lady cross the muddy street to get to the church. It was wonderful. :)
Saturday night, we taught a mom and her two sons at like 8:30. It's a tough time to find people to teach because it's dark and no one is outside anymore. Anyway, we told her we only wanted to take five minutes to talk and bless her house and she reluctantly let us sit down with her. We knew it wouldn't only be five minutes. Haha so we taught her the whole restoration and and invited them to church. The mom was really interested in the message and the kids wanted to go to church really badly. The next day when we were passing by all of our investigators before church, I just felt like we should pass by their house. At first we were kind of thinking that we shouldn't because we didn't want to annoy them, but I just kept feeling like we should pass by. When we did, at 8:15 am, the two boys came out and said they wanted to go to church! The mom let us walk with them and then she came for sacrament. It was awesome and the kids loved the church. They were so happy and I was really impressed that the mom let her two kids leave with two weird, white strangers from the "United States" haha. Anyway, that was righteous.
On a spiritual note, we had a really cool experience this week. On Thursday night, we had received a reference from an inactive member. We had made plans to contact this reference the next day in the morning. We had all of our plans, back-up plans, back-up back-up plans, and we were ready to go. So, Friday morning, we prayed and asked for the opportunity that if we couldn't find this reference to find someone who is ready to receive the Gospel. We ended up finding the hosue of the reference, but the woman wasn't there. As we sat down for a minute to empty the water out of our boots (my boots are knee high and I still got water in them), this 10-year-old boy named Johnny came up and started talking to us. After a little while, he told us that him and his brother had been baptized about a year ago. We asked him about his family and then asked if we could go visit his parents. He was really excited and took us to his house. When we got there, we talked with his mom and his sister. They said that the Elders had stopped visiting their house and they didn't know why. We asked them about what they remembered from what the Elders had taught them and ended up teaching the Restoration. They accepted the baptismal invitation, but they said they want to know more first, as it should be. They are excited to keep progressing and to be talking with the missionaries again! This really strengthened my testimony about planning and that if we do all that we can to make plans, work efficiently, and strive for the guidance of the Holy Ghost, the Lord will bless us with the ability to be in the right place at the right time.
Anyway, super fun week and TRANSFERS are coming up next Tuesday! This transfer fleeeeeeeeewwwwwww by. Hit my five month mark, too! So crazy. We had some good church attendance on Sunday and are looking forward to Sergio Sosa's baptism in two weeks. Had to move it back because we have had General Conference and stake conference in the mix here. Difficult month. Anyway, things are wonderful here in Clorinda. Oh yeah, gave my first blessing in Spanish! That was scary. But it went well and the Spirit was there. What else...bought a new pillow...ate the best pizza I've had so far in Argentina...think that's about it! I love you all so much and I'm thankful for every last one of you. Godspeed. Don't worry about me, I'm fine. Tell the kids I love 'em. PAZ!
Love,
Elder Sipple
gross spider
Buckles administering to the sick and afflicted ZLs
me washing out Sotelo's ears haha
The "road" in front of our house after the rain
a flooded street
So these are some of the gross sewer things that I have talked about. They are called "zanjas." Anyway, they had cleaning day the other day. A big tractor just scoops out all of the junk in there. This one is about 7 feet wide haha. SO GROSS.
#GrammarFun
Bad picture, but one of the big dirt roads that has a big zanja under it collapsed because of the floods haha.
Buckles and Sipple with Pabla and family
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