Monday, February 22, 2010

Transfers and a Calling!!!

Dear Family, It's always great to hear from everyone! Looks like I have a few questions to answer so lets see where this goes. First this is my new email------. It was not an easy process signing up but I think it is set up correctly. I believe my username and my password are the same, thanks for all your help. A little update on Las Heras. So I am not exactly sure where it is located but I believe we are rather far from Ramos Mejia where the mission office is located. After our transfer meeting Elder Baldomero my new companion and I took a remis/taxi to our apartment in Las Heras. The drive took about an hour and a half from Ramos Mejia to Las Heras. The taxi ride was amazing as we drove through country fields here in Argentina. Las Heras is a small city surrounded by a lot of country. We live right next to the train station. Everything we need is within the block which we live on, which is pretty nice. There are a few paved streets and then as you start to head out to the rural areas you start to find the dirt roads. Las Heras is a small and quiet town and is known to be on the safe side ( that was for Mom ). The Sister missionaries have been working here for many years but last transfer they took them out and put in the Elders. Las Heras is pretty calm, the people are not as busy, and during the middle of the day everything is closed and you can find no one out and about. Everyone goes home during the middle of the day to take the (siesta) or in english you can say nap. Elder Baldomero is great and has been doing all that he can to help me get comfortable with the area. This is Elder Baldomeros second transfer here in Argentina and he seems to be getting comfortable as well. In Las Heras we have a branch. We do not have enough members or active members to build a church so for now we meet in a house. This past Sunday I had the opportunity to give a talk and it went well. Also Elder Baldomero and myself have the opportunity to work with two other small branches. One of the other branches is Navarro which is about a 40 min bus ride from Las Heras. We usually travel there two times during the week to work with the investigators and members there. Also I am very grateful for the opportunity to serve as District Leader. Tomorrow we will hold a district meeting and will meet in an area called Mariano Acosta which is about an hour by train. There is only one other companionship in my district and they live in an area called Lobos, Elder Barraza and Elder Marshall who I will get to meet tomorrow. I would like to share a quick story from this last week. We just happened to run into a Sister from our branch and she told us about a family who needed a blessing, the Garcia Family. We called them that night and arranged a time to pass by the next day. They ended up living farther than we thought. We traveled by train to the next train station called Hornos. When we got off we met Brother Garcia. He then walked us over to this tractor, which just so happened to be his farm tractor and after climbing on board he drove us to his house/farm. We drove about 2km. We where in the middle of nowhere nothing but country. It was an amazing experience and the spirit was present as we were able to give the Garcia family a blessing. I hope everyone has a great week! I appreciate your love and support, I am praying for you. I look forward from hearing from you soon. Con amor, Elder Brooks.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Elder!
    When I travelled to BA, I went to know a church near my apartment in Buenos Aires in Recoleta. It was certainly really beautiful!
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete

Slideshow of Elder Brooks' Mission

Cameron reads his mission call

Flag of Argentina

Flag of Argentina
The national flag of Argentina dates from 1812. The full flag featuring the sun is called the Official Ceremonial Flag (Spanish: Bandera Oficial de Ceremonia). The Official Ceremony Flag is the civil, state and war flag and ensign. The sun, called the Sun of May, is a replica of an engraving on the first Argentine coin, approved in 1813, whose value was eight escudos (one Spanish dollar). It has 16 straight and 16 waved sunbeams. According to tradition, during the Argentine War of Independence General Manuel Belgrano was commanding a battle near Rosario. He noticed that both the Crown's forces and the independence forces were using the same colors (Spain's yellow and red). After realizing this, Belgrano created a new flag using the colors that were used by the Criollos during the May Revolution in 1810. The flag was hoisted for the first time in Buenos Aires atop the Saint Nicholas of Bari Church on August 23, 1812. - Ref: Wikipedia.com