Dale Formosa!

 

Nativity in Formosa Capital

We've become provincial travelers.  In that past two weeks we have traveled to the city of Formosa, which is about 200km away from Ibarreta.  The first trip was to attend the mission multi-zone conference.  The zones are so far away that the mission does three multi-zone conferences every six weeks.  It's fun to spend time with the missionaries. We are trying to introduce ourselves and get to know them.  We are finding many of these young missionaries have no clue what senior missionaries do and many have no experience with senior missionaries.  

Formosa costanera

Palm trees on the waterfront, looks like home!

While in Formosa for the zone conference we visited the costanera (waterfront) where Formosa has a large year-round nativity scene.  You can see from the pictures that it's a life-size nativity. Kind of cool.  You can see more from the other pictures.  They also have a life-size depiction of the Last Supper.  

On our second trip to Formosa we took the branch president from Estanislao del Campo and his wife.  He does a lot of leather work and has three old sewing machines that needed to be fixed and Formosa is the closest place to get that done.  The sewing machine shop made us think of Martha's mom, it's a place she would have loved!  Coming home from this second trip we ran into a little snag (that seems to happen often on these trips).

Taking the detour through the campo

Within less than 5km from taking them back to Estansilao, we came upon a road closure. We noticed some people dragging some large trees across the highway.  I thought they were just moving them from one side to the other but then all of the sudden they left them in the middle of the road.  It was a protest.  Protests here in Argentina are very common and frequent but mostly happen in large cities.  We were told that these native people were protesting because the government provided a used casket for one of their people who recently died.  The government provides them with everything but understandably no one wants a used casket.  

Because of this protest the ruta was closed and we had to take a detour.  The detour was a dirt road through some tiny pueblos.  In most spots it was only a one-way road so we had to pull over when other cars were coming from the other direction (also taking the detour).  It was an adventure.  

Back home we have started having some success helping the small group in Ensanche Norte.  This is a small native community (colonia) and the people are super friendly and kind.  

Family home evening activity with the missionaries.  We had 50 people show up!

We (Martha) did a Primary activity for the children.  She basically did music time, teaching them two new songs, and showed them how to draw a picture of someone studying the scriptures.  They did really good!

We also attended a birthday party for Ollie, one of the members son. He turned 9.  That candle is really cool, it's like a mini firework on his cake.  His parents are Nestor and Rita.  They have been part of our temple preparation class.

They insisted Martha put up some of their decorations.  You can see in this picture some balloons and blue draping on the porch area of their house. 

Oh yeah and it was my birthday!  We brought a brownie mix back with us when we visited home in November.  We saved it for my birthday.  It was soooooo goooood!!!  We cannot get very good sweets here in Ibarreta so the brownies were a nice treat. 

We took the missionaries to visit and work in Bartolome de las Cases.  This is another colonia of natives.  Here their native tongue is Toba.  Most colonias are either Toba or Pilaga. This picture is our friend Dionicio in front of his cactus tree. He has two, along with some large citrus trees.  Grapefruit, lemons and mangos are very common in this area.  

Sorry this is a little short, it's hard to keep up with everything that goes on around here.  Some days are super slow and we just kind of hang out and other days we keep busy visiting and helping the people here.  It's feast or famine!  We are planning a training for the leaders in the Ibarreta branch.  We've been trying to do that for quite some time but it has not happened.  They don't have presidency meetings or branch council meetings.  It is very frustrating.  So with the new year we decided to tell them our mission president wants us to do a leadership training with each of the organization presidencies.  This isn't entirely true, nor false.  He has asked us to help and support them but we decided to invoke his authority and tell them we have been assigned to do this training.  We'll see how it goes!

We have seen all the fires in SoCal and pray each day for all those impacted.  It is amazing to see the pictures and videos. We cannot imagine what it is like to be living through this tragedy.  It saddens our hearts to see such destruction at home.

We hope you are all doing great and enjoying life.  A quick scripture I read this morning and would like to share.  2 Nephi 4:34-35 (mostly 35):

"O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever."

"Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen."

If we will put our trust in God he will never leave us alone and will bless us abundantly in our lives. Sometimes those blessings are not what we expect but they are always what we need.  

More pictures of the costanera. 

Primary kids in Ensanche Norte learning to sing and draw.

A life size depiction of the last supper in Formosa (near the costanera)

Our new friend Lenny the Lizard.  He lives in our front yard. 

Lenny

Politicians here LOVE to put their name everywhere.  This guy Adam is basically the mayor.  He is the "intendente".  These Christmas posters are all over the central plaza, at least 50 of them, and each one has his name on it.  

Salvador (Savior) water.  The Savior is the living water.  Our mission leaders gave us a small gift bag for Christmas and this can of water was in it.  We thought it was awesome to have Savior water.