Thanks for your prayers of safety :)

Well, what an awesome letter!!!

I love you all so so much :)

So to first explain the pics, so the first one is the sunset from the top of our house :) there are some great sunrises and sunsets here, mostly because of all the pollution down here and there arent any mountains for kilometers around so the whole sky is in view, oh how i miss the mountains and the more fresher air of Utah haha, but im surviving down here :)

So when we went to the temple a couple of weeks ago the MTC or CCM in spanish of Buenos Aires was right next store, tiny little buildings but still it was fun to see and remember the good times in the MTC, as i was in the MTC I was itching to leave but now that im out here, I miss the food and the gym time, but oh well I'm loving life down here :)

Alright, so hows the Pittard family in Lehi doing?? :) wow sounds like last week was a blast and that everyone had a great time :) first of all, does Tanner ever wear a different outfit? haha its just funny to me, oh to be in High School again, i really miss it, well i dont know College but last night me and E Carlson were reminiscing about good ole times in HS. So for Tanner and now Alex, as well, enjoy the new year of HS and dont give up any oppurtunities to do something with your friends at school or to enjoy the environment, just be yourselves, dont worry about what others think of you, because when you grab the certificate of graduation and walk off the stage, nothing that happened back in soph year will even matter :) Wow the priest trip sounded like a blast and now i want to go hike the narrows and Angels landing haha, we should go when i get home :) oh and i miss paintballing, that is super fun and then the swimming, haha you dont know how many times i thought about wanting to take a quick swim in a pool during the summer :) haha but i dont think that there are that many pools down here, well maybe in the more expensive parts but i havent been in that many houses with a legit back yard, they are just so squished down here. Especially in the villa, its just crazy to think that this is the life of some people, work all week, then on Sat just drink and drink and drink until they are wasted then just sleep all day sunday and then go back to work on mon, theres no purpose to that and that is sad to me to see that weekly and monthly. So loved the pics, looks like everyone was having a great time. The park and that really was a huge flower!! Rachel and Camryn are looking so big right now and always seem to have a smile on :) Good job Jason on the swimming, thats awesome that you are doing really well in that sport haha keep with it :) Then wow what a fun trip to go to San Diego (Saint Diego) haha have fun on the beach and alex put on lots of sun screen, poor guy, haha oh and i really do hope that Braden and Jason keep their room clean, i want a report on that in 3 weeks alright? :)

Be sure to keep me updated on all the Romney stuff, there are actually a lot of people that ask about him down here, well just mainly the members but still :) Haha I laughed to hear about Harry lying on the carpet, I do miss carpet!! I never thought that I would haha but I miss just being able to lie down on the floor without it being cold and dusty. haha oh I actually got to walk on carpet in the Temple Pres housing at the temple, oh that reminds me!!!! so I'm so lucky to be down here for the rededication for the temple of BsAs!!! so we just found out today in the pres letter that Eyering, Ballard and Christofferson are coming down for the rededication and on Sept 8th we as all the missionaries in BsAs will have a special meeting with all 3 of them! wow how exciting and forntunate!! And we also learned that we can go to the open house with an investigator at least once in the next 3 weeks so it's so exciting to be a member and missionary down here right now :)
So now to my week :) what a busy week it was, like always haha

So last Monday after I wrote you all, picked up a sandwich from an Hermana from the ward and then we ate it in our house. We then had a couple of hours to ourselves and so we decided to play a quick game of Monopolio haha, I found that game in the last Lugano pension and so I took it and so we set it up and sence it was only us two we decided to make some other players. So we each found random objects that we have collected or found and we ended up each controling 3 other players besides us. :) so we had a short 2 hr game where we made lots of black deal trades between our own players and earned lots of money, that was fun to see you all playing monopoly and that i had just barely played. The game was fake and had grammatical errors and misspellings but still im sure it was super cheap, we looked for a legit one and risk in the games stores down here and they are up to 200 pesos for the real games and I think that one can only buy the trucho ones on the street from the street vendors. So in short we had fun but I lost, I lost to E Carlson and his wooden pet rhino named Horny, he found him on the street. We are having a ton of fun together and are working great together. Then we visited this investigator named Sandra, idk if I've told you about her but she is from Bolivia and she is living together with this man named Jorge, hes not the nicest guy and doesnt really want her or the kids listening to us, hes a little abusive, not physically but emotionally and spiritually, it's a sad situation. But she's the bright spot in the family, she loves listening to us and is always presenting friends to us, everytime we pass by a friend shows up and we give them the first lesson and she is always testifying that this is the true church and that they should be baptized haha, siempre dice, bautizáte ché, está iglesia es muy linda, no puedo bautizarme, pero vos podés, (translation: hey get baptized dude (ché can be used for both men and women and doesnt depend on the age, it could be two young boys or two older women but I dont really know the exact translation), the church is really nice, I can't get baptized but you can) haha she's the nicest lady and always gives us fruit to carry back home. So we keep going over there because her daughter Maria José can be baptized and is slowly warming up to us.

So Tuesday, tough day haha, so first we had distirct meeting and then we had a vianda and then we had a picnic with the other elders from lugano in our pension. So we had the one fecha for Fabiola for the 29th and Carolina for the possibility. So we passed by Fabiola and her mom Magdalena. Its another sad sitch for them. Their son who is leaving on the mission in aug presented them to us and we taught them almost everything before he returned to paraguay. We had the fecha for the 29th with his younger sis Fabiola who is 11 yrs old. So we get to the house and the mom tells us that the girl can't be baptized in arg basically. So the story for her is that she had the two kids, Cristian and Fabiola with another guy, living together again, and then she separated from her old ``husband´´ and moved to BsAs and this other guy with his son was separated from his old ``wife´´ and so they both had kids to take care of and so they decided to live together, they had one son, Emmanuel and still arent married. So hes a tough guy to talk with, he doesnt want anything to do with us and is never there to talk with us. He doesnt want them to have anything with the church, but the mom loves the church and feels really great there so shes always getting in arguments with the husband about the church. So when they talked about the baptism of Fabiola the husband flipped out and told them that he would throw them out of the house if she gets baptized. I was basically crying hearing this from this sweet sister and just seeing her fighting back to tears. So shes in a tough sitch right now, so she decided that since they arent married that shes going to move out with Fabiola and Emmanuel back to Paraguay to be with her loving family at the end of the year. It's sad that the devil has such great hold on the hearts of so many men hear, he is preventing many families to be brought to the church, in both working super hard on the husbands and then promoting just living together, there are so many unbaptized people just because of them not being married, then having the hard hearted men that makes the sisters not want to get married to them. So they are moving to Paraguay so that they can be baptized and start their new life basically :) but more on them later...

So we started the passing the temple flyers out to the surrounding homes and businesses near our house, we bought a cheap stapler and staples and we are stapling the direction to the chapel to each of the flyers and then we are throwing them underneath the doors or personally handing them to people in the street, we have to devote an hour or two everyday to passing out the flyers. haha weve seen a couple thrown out in the street or in random places, we are basically flooding the area with the news of the temple :) So we met some cool kids from a ref from the family that we ate with, the members are super willing to share the gospel down here, up in utah its different but we should all try and be better in sharing the good news :) Then we passed by a lot of people and when we passed by Normas door, she answered the door with LdM´s in hand and she looked awful but basically told us to never pass by again and that they werent interested, drinking is taking their lives, sad.

Then another super long day for Thursday, we do conference calls with the whole mission, where everyone is listening to pres at the same time, but that wasnt working so we ended up waiting like an hour for it to work and it delayed the weekly planning. Then the lunch got canceled and we didn't feel like making anything so we ordered a pizza, I miss american pizza with pepperonis, it's still good but it's not the same as an american pizza with root beer, thats another thing that I miss haha they don't have root beer down here. Then afterwords, no body was home and we passed by a good amount of people. We were able to teach Dario, he fell back a little into smoking and so thats not helping him right now, but we have a good ward support for him and so he should be fine and he will go on the mission. Then we were finally able to find these recent converts that are never there and we talked with them and they actually came back to church so that was good.

Friday was a suprise, there are always those now of days haha, so we received a call from the ZL´s telling us that we would be going to Technópolis, a huge outdoor park with a bunch of stuff to do and free, to pass out temple flyers. So we get there and the assistants are there and they each hand us a stack of 2000 flyers and tell us to have fun, so there was a bunch of people there and we went around to all of the cars and put them in the windshield wipers and talked with a lot of people. We then entered the park and frankly got told by the managament that we werent alowed in the park, we got stopped by a police looking guy and we were asked if we had permission, we didnt know haha we had just received the call that morning, so we got escorted to the director of the park and asked permission, he told us no, so after giving him a flyer and invitations to everyone in the office we got escorted out of the park and then we just stood there for 2 hours underneath this bridge handing them out to everybody for like 2 more hours, i still had a little bit left over but us and 10 others passed out like 11 thousand flyers that day, then we took the bus back home and continued the day. We were going for 5 hrs without being fed, so we were pretty hungry and so luckily Ignacia Ruiz Diaz gave us some meat from her grill to eat. Long day

Then Saturday, we were passing out the flyers under the doors again when we received a call that we had to go back to Technópolis, but we had an important cita with Fabiola, then we passed by and we got a great experience with them, so we enter and the first thing that they ask us if its still alright for Fabiola to be baptized, we were like yeah!! she was thinking that she decided to be baptized and that she wants Fabiola to be baptized asap, so we are going to baptize next sunday without the knowledge of the father, well technically he's not the dad so we dont need to have his permission. So we are going to have the baptism next Sunday for now so pray for us!!!

Umm good sunday, Sandra came and then 3 of Dylan's friends came all by themselves, they caused some trouble and we had to send them home early from the sacrament meeting, then i started getting a headache, i always get them after sunday meetings, i think its all the stress that we have at church haha. So we took a nap at lunch and that helped a bit, we did divsiones with a ym preparing for the mission, oh and we almost got in a car wreck, they cant drive down here, haha so we met up at the church to meet the people, then we split up and got into the cars to head back to our area to work, we were being driven by Eber Fuentes and he has had his license for 2 weeks and he´s 24 yrs old, so he almost turned into oncoming traffic but luckily everyone stopped in time and were able to drive around him, but thanks for your prayers of safety :)

so have a great week and enjoy the hot sun in San Diego

Love you all so so much,

Love,
Elder Ryan Pittard

ps: the byu schedule? haha or is it on its way?

transfers are next Monday, I'll let you all know :) love you!!!

One has to keep the faith in these types of situations

Well, I've been waiting 7 days to write to you and to hear from you and at last it has come. :)

So how's it going? haha loved reading about what everyone did and how it was just a chill week up there in Leh.i :)

So to describe the pictures, the first one is last Sunday, bueno two Sundays ago, we ate at the family Blanco's house and we had some really good meat and we took the picture :) They are RC's within 1 yr and a half, they live on the other side of Lugano, not my side and they are Ward Missionaries. We had french fries and beef and choripan :) sausage basically. They were there with the hermanos bro and his son, so we are eating really good and they are treating me well down here :)

The next picture was when i was with Elder García for a day and we had a ton of fun and while the timer was going he quickly ran back into the bedroom and grabbed his flag and got in there just in time for the picture :) haha so we are showing our American pride down here, ok well North American, United States pride down here in South America :) They make a big deal that we are all Americans down here, but for me there still is only one America :)

Well, thanks for the little notes everybody, loved hearing from you all. Thanks Camryn for your letter, I definitely need to tell the truth haha and thanks for making me smile while reading the letter, thumbs up to you :)

Then umm... oh yeah, the flip flops did break, back in April, but only the right foot and so I've been scooting around in the pension, but I'm fine for now, I keep forgetting to look for flip flops every Monday, to me it's not a huge priority :) oh the office sent us an email saying that they received a package from the US and it doesn't have a name on it, then they listed all the stuff that was in it like twizzlers, gel shoe pads, lots of candy and hot chocolate packs, haha we were laughing because that could be anyone of the 100-120 US missionaries down here haha, could that be us? I could recognize it by your handwriting, oh well just funny :) umm E DeFriez, honestly I have no idea where he's at, I know he stayed in his first area for 6 months in Congresso, down town area on the other side of town and the last I saw him was the beginning of June :) so I'm sure he's doing fine. 

Oh and that reminds me that I can't wait to receive the news about the other missionaries. I love reading about their experiences and seeing how they are doing, I can't believe that it has been 8 and a half months already!! :) oh and Tanner if you get a chance to say hi one more time to Trevor, say hi from me :) umm... on to me now haha

So, well my week was less successful then the last couple of weeks, but one has to keep the faith in these types of situations, I'm just glad that I'm in Lugano and have the opportunity to be serving here in such a great ward and stake, the Stake Liniers, our Zone, is one of the most successful in the mission and is a treat to be a part of this Zone. So last Monday, emailed you guys, waited 30 min in line to pay a bill before it was due, we did the shopping and bought pizza stuff for lunch, we found some bacon in our chino so we made cheese and bacon pizza and that was good and then E Carlson bought an excessive amount of bacon for the week so he ate lots of bacon for breakfast haha, it's funny to think of the stuff that you think that you wouldn't miss but once It's gone and then you find it, how eager you are to obtain it and eat it, or use it whatever it may be haha :) So then after eating we both took a nap and just had a chill Pday :) o sea P Hours haha it passes by way too fast for me :) Dario has now fallen back into smoking, so we had a lesson on the need to talk to the bishop, we really want him to receive the priesthood and go on a mission, but he's in that right now so we will see. Then that's when we learned that Carolina, one of the fechas that we had, wasn't so sure that she was going to obtain permission from her mom to be baptized this last Sunday. So that was the story for our week, little things following through and the struggles of the mission.

So Tuesday, we had our weekly District Meeting, there we received 4000 flyers to hand out to our area for the next month. Flyers for the open house of the Rededication of the temple. So now apart from missionary work, we are now flyer passer outers :) The Zone Leaders told us that with our numbers we might be leading the mission in lessons and fechas and everything, this last week we still had 25 lessons with member (it's easy in this ward because all of our members in the Villa are RC's and they are always willing to accompany us and help us out in the work :) so that was a surprise to hear and yet still a challenge to be better and to succeed. We have a lot of pressure here to baptize, and its true because there are so many people that are ready we just haven't found them yet, so Pres is trying to have the mission baptize weekly, and he's telling us that we can if we just do the things that the Lord has asked us. Argentina is getting ready to boom with members and we are on the way up. I've heard lots of stories like this mission a couple of years ago was on the brink of being shut down, the obedience wasn't there and there wasn't success, then the last mission pres focused a ton on obedience and the mission is super good now and now Pres Gulbrandsen is now not having to focus on the obedience and can now focus us a ton on the baptism. So now this mission is the second highest baptizing mission in all of South America South, containing, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, so now the mission is on the top and having a ton of success, it's cool to see the blessings of obedience :) So then nothing really happened that day, we only found some so so investigators and our current investigators weren't really progressing.

Wed, that morning we were finally able to teach the flia Carballa, David and Marcos some English, so we sat down and asked them what they wanted to learn, they wanted to learn conjugation and so we taught them how to conjugate in English which is relatively easy, we have I, You, He, She, It, We, and They, but teaching them we only stuck to the 3 basics of i, you and we, the deal with Spanish is the grammar and conjugation, once one has that down, its super easy to learn and to talk. So that was a good service experience for me. Then we went and helped this one hermana cut the tips off of a Paraguayan root called Mandioca, one has to scrape off a little bit of the skin and then chop the two ends off and then it's ready to sell, so it was my turn to do that, then Sandra treated us with lunch, i almost choked on some Milenesa haha but I'm good now ;) thanks for your prayers, I swallowed it all down luckily but it just wasn't going down right haha. So we again had the same kind of day, we were having lessons but they weren't turning into news for us, so that's our goal for this next week :)

Thurs, So then our other fecha for last Sunday was Fabiola, she was doubting that she would be ready for baptism on the 22nd and her mom didnt feel it either, then we found out that they weren't even going to be there on Sunday so we set the fecha for the 29th and now she's progressing for that date nicely and we made her a baptism calendar where she has to read a little bit everyday from a selected reading from the LdM and so we are confident that she'll get there for the 29th, then we had a super surprise happen, we went to talk with Liduvina and her friend, an old investigator, Concepción was there, now she has been coming faithfully to church for the last month or so, we found out that she was going to 3 different churches at the same time, we dropped her back with Rickert just because she is super crazy, and has crazy ideas about religion, but we passed by and she was there and she started to talk with us about baptism and she surprised us in saying that she wanted to be baptized haha we then set the date for the Sunday, we were super stoked because it looked like we were going to baptize and baptize weekly!! so we set up the interview, well we did the practice interview and she passed, so then we set up with the ZL´s to come and do the interview on Sat night!

Friday, we got stuck with no one to visit, we passed by everybody that we could think of and no one was home or they couldn't. We still taught lessons but once again not super productive ones, so moving on...

Sat, so the day started off great, we helped Elias again, this time we helped mix the concrete and mortar and then lifted it up to the roof to lay the bricks, we laid another row of bricks again and that was fun :) Then we had a great lunch with the Ward Mission Leader. We then had a lesson with Magdalena and Cristian, her daughter is Fabiola, our fecha for this Sunday. I'm telling you about this lesson because of what we found out. Her son Cristian is going to Chile for his mission, he's a convert from Paraguay and is a stud, he came down to Buenos Aires to share the gospel with his mom, sis and step dad and half brother. He really helped us a lot and was there to explain the doctrinal points in the lessons. Magdalena is a wonderful woman. She had two kids with her first husband and then moved here, she wasn't married up in Paraguay, then she met this one guy down here that had separated from his wife, again not married and so they got together and started living together, he already had a son that is a year younger then Fabiola. Then they had a son together and he's 5 yrs old. This is a sad situation because she really wants to be baptized but she can't because she is not married, the man doesn't want to neither talk with us, giving us the cold shoulder. She can't separate that easily because they have a son together and the half son doesn't respect her or us. So she told us that she's going to keep firm in the faith and she trusts that God will guide her to know what to do. So the son left and we are going to baptize the daughter but the mom will have to wait for now. It's just super sad because no one is married down here, it's just a lot the Latin culture but also that the world is in a sad state right now and the devil has it that it's alright to live together forever without being married, so we could be baptizing a bunch more if there were a lot more people married, so we just have to work around that.

Oh and then the crazy night, so the ZL's come and we go on divisions to take advantage of the time. So E Diamond went with E Carlson to do the interview and i went with E Fernandez, we tried to find Carolina to talk with her mom and then we talked with one of his old Converts, yeah he was here over a year ago haha then we go over to find the other elders and we find them there still talking with Concepción. She passed the interview and then in her craziness she changed her mind and said that she didn't want to be baptized until she was divorced from her late husband of 20 years ago, they have been separated for that long, but i think that she got a small doubt and then the devil worked that up until she went into her crazy religious ways again. So we tried for another 30 min to try and basically convince her that she didn't need to get divorced before being baptized, it's hard to describe the feelings that we were having, we had just lost our baptism and then we found Carolina and talked with her mom for like 40 min trying also to convince her to give us permission to baptize her daughter but she wouldn't budge saying that the family is Catholic and she wants the family to be together in one church, the stupid thing about that is that Carolina has a testimony, strong and wants to be baptized, but her mom doesn't even want to come to church to get to know it, her husband is even worse and so we are stuck with them, so we decided to fast Sat night and through church for her parents, so we will see this week, we have hope for this Sunday. So that was a super depressing night haha, oh well we move on, Lizet and her family all went to provincia and so didn't go to church, we had three in the church, including Concepción but the bright spot was Dylan finally got confirmed.

I say that because all week he was telling us that he wasn't going to church, that he had something else to do, but by sat night we finally convinced him that he had to come to church and be confirmed, so Sun morn we go looking for him and take the time to wait for him to get dressed, then we brought 2 friends again to church, it wasn't the same two, one was the same but then as we were walking out of the villa they see another friend just walking the street and they invited him, they really thought that they had to leave at 11 when sacrament started, they were going to do something with their families so they had to leave, we convinced them to stay for at least the sacrament and the confirmation, we finally get to the time to get them confirmed and Dylan gets stage fright haha he didn't want to go but thanks to the blessings of the Lord, i was able to convince him to go and sit in the chair in front of everyone, so we finally got him confirmed and then they left, crazy Sunday and the most stressful baptism and confirmation on the mission so far haha, but it was worth it in the end. Then we had a slow Sunday afternoon, again nobody new but again with our week goal in finding :)

So that was our week and the weather was relatively warm and not too cold :) The language is going great and I'm learning a ton from the scriptures, I found an awesome passage this morning, its Mosiah 4:6-12, that was an awesome one to read. I'm finding that reading the LdM in Spanish is interesting, there are things that I'm learning a new just because of the way it was translated into Spanish, it's the same message but just in simple words and sometimes I understand things differently and better from reading the Spanish, but nothing will ever replace the English scriptures, I'm glad that English is my native tongue and that now I also know Spanish and can communicate with that many more people in the world. :)

So thanks for your time in reading this, I love sharing everything that I can every single week just so you all can have a peek into my life down here, it'll be weird when I can tell you everything in person. :)

Have a great week and I'm waiting still for the packages and letters, I'll let you all know when I receive them :)

LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH :)
Elder Ryan Pittard

A week full of adventure and surprises...plus getting wet!

Wow what a week :) now to try and put it into words. ;) First of all, how ya'll doing? :)
First to tell you that I love each one of you so so much! :)

The pictures, well I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the temple and do some service for the church. So the backstory. So Monday afternoon we received a call from Hermana Gulbrandsen saying that we had been selected to be part of 3 companionships to go down to the temple and serve in preparation for the open house in August. So it was us, the other Lugano missionaries and a companionship that was close to the offices that got selected to go. I think it is just because we are 10 minutes down the freeway from the temple. So an office elder drove the mission van and picked up the elders close to the offices and then drove and picked us up. We all squeezed in there and were off and got there around 8:30ish in the morning. There we met Tyler, a professional designer, from Utah, that was helping the church design the inside of the church and the houses for temple presidencies and the MTC presidencies that surround the temple. So we get there and change into our service clothes, 7 elders in total, we were so lucky to be chosen out of the 200 missionaries in all of the mission. They told us that some elders from the Buenos Aires West mission had helped the day before. So we were the second group of people to ever walk through the newly refinished temple, minus the workers, and it's so nice inside. We got our own personal little tour. What they have done is added two entire buildings as big as the first one and they put it into the star trek ship-looking formation. I don't know if you all have seen pictures but it's really nice. It used to be so so tiny and now it's going to accommodate so many more people. It's super crunched inside with all the hallways weaving around everything else but it's so beautiful, they said that this temple had special door handles made just for this temple. Then we got to the celestial room and it's super tiny, haha, but it works. Then we actually worked in the surrounding apartments that the church built and refurbished and that's where the senior couple missionaries are going to stay and the temple and MTC presidencies. So we unwrapped all of the furniture in all of the rooms and then with the help of Tyler, put them in place like the plan. Then we helped put all of the church art and huge paintings where they were supposed to be. Then we had a quick chance to take pictures around the temple before they closed the outer gate for the lunch break and so we weren't able to take pictures with our suits on but still it was nice to walk around the temple.

It's nothing like the Salt Lake or Timpanogos Temple but it's still super beautiful and especially since it's in the middle of a dump of a place. There is a freeway that heads to the airport where it is stationed, so there is a bunch of flat land and lots of trash around, but the temple grounds just brighten up the whole place. :)  We were done by lunch time and Tyler and his friend took us out to lunch, a close McDonalds, haha, and they paid for everything so that was a fun treat, first of all to travel outside of the mission, see the temple, walk through the temple and then get some McD's. Then we got back just in time to get to work. haha :) So that was one surprise that I had this last week. Oh, and you can see the two new buildings right behind me in the picture. Lots of Americans work with the temple so I thought that was interesting as well.

Then the next picture, something even better, haha, yes, we baptized Dylan and that was another blessing in itself.

So to start the week he didn't want to be baptized, I don't know why but then we had a lesson with him on Monday night and then he finally decided to be baptized again, Dario (recent convert) was helpful in that too. Then we got permission from his dad, the man in the picture, but then on Thursday we received news from him that his mom wasn't going to give him permission to be baptized. So again we went to the Lord in fervent prayer and again he pulled it out for us. I was actually on divisions Friday but we received the permission from the mom and had the DL there for the interview. Then we found him Saturday night playing in the trash pile lighting things on fire with his two friends Rodrigo (12) and Daniel (11). We invited them to watch a movie with us and so we went to Nemecia's house, (Bolivian lady, super sweet, has a mini kiosk where she sells random little things, made me the beanie, and has a super awesome family that helps us a lot with our lessons in the villa) We then placed the fechas with Rodrigo and Daniel for the 29th of July, and invited them to come to church and see the baptism of Dylan. So Sunday morning we went looking for them to bring them to church. (Just so you all know, this was the craziest Sunday and most stressful that I've ever had!! but it all turned out alright anyways J) So we find Dylan and then we go looking for his two little friends, we find them after a long search and then we are walking to head towards the bus to go to church, it was fine up to this point, they were good in the bus ride and we finally get to church, we were like an hour late, but that was fine because sacrament meeting is the last hour, so we get them all upstairs for the little kids classes, we decided to put them all in Dylan's class because this was the first time that they had ever been to church. That was a mistake. haha So we just drop them off and then go to the Gospel Principles class and everything is fine for us. Then we get out of class and go look for them, they are running around the upstairs and we just barely gathered them into the back of the chapel for sacrament meeting. First life lesson I learned, raise your kids well and in the church, because if they are allowed to run the streets all day without the supervision of adults, especially in the unhealthy environment of the Villa, that is a formula for crazy kids!! haha So luckily we got them sitting down coloring in the back for the start of the meeting and through the sacrament itself. Then I had to get up and give a talk.

(Yes, I also received a call last Monday as well telling me that I was going to speak in Sacrament meeting about missionary work. So that was another thing to worry about this last week, but I prepared well and it went really well.  I was able to speak about keeping new converts in the church and some things that the members could do to help us retain them better. I used the Gordon B Hinckley points as my basis and then I also talked about what the members could do to share the gospel better and present them to the missionaries. I talked for about 10-12 minutes and the only thing that wasn't working was the mic, haha, it was having problems and so I don't think that very many people heard it but I'm sure it touched somebody. I was talking as loud as I could and in Spanish none the less. J)

So in the middle of my talk, I wasn't paying too much attention to the back of the chapel, but I do remember seeing a couple paper airplanes flying around and then a kid running out the doors and Elder Carlson and Elder Quintana getting up and running after him. haha I learned after words that the kids had somehow gotten into a fight in the back of the church and started throwing punches, the elders broke it up and Dylan got up and left the room running and actually left the building running for two blocks. Elder Carlson told me that he went running after him and caught up to him and dragged him back to church. Luckily they quieted down and everything was alright, and that was about the time that I had finished my talk and sat back down in my seat. Here they don't sit on the stand when they give talks, but the leaders and presidents of the quorums sit up there during the meeting, interesting. So then we finally sang the final hymn and the closing prayer. Then we went into the bathroom and got changed for the baptism. Dylan chose me to baptize him and so I was going to get wet. :) Then we were walking around all of the craziness of the huge swarms of people in the tiny hallways in the white clothes to try and take pictures before the baptism. Dylan is so amazing, he has learned so fast and is continuing to learn more and more as he is surrounded by good influences for the first time in his life. His dad presented his older brother to us, he had seen the change in the Flia Ruiz Diaz and wanted that for his children. Dylan's older brother wasn't interested but we found Dylan through him and he has been excited to learn and come to church, he actually came to church once all by himself. He doesn't have too much support from his family, his dad doesn't want anything with us, says he has his way of thinking, but fortunately he at least came to the service, but then left right after that, so hopefully the example of Dylan will strengthen the interest of his family.

So then we finally get the service going underway, the other elders had a baptism as well, and so then we get into the water and everything goes well the first time, everything stays underneath and he clogged his nose alright. Then as we are walking up the stairs afterwards he stops and turns around and dives into the font, crazy kid, he just wanted to swim, but I quickly pulled him out and gave him his towel. Oh just so you know, I had forgotten extra underwear so I went around with wet underwear for a little bit. haha Then he gets changed and I finally get changed and everything's alright, then we end the service and we are cleaning up the chapel and putting away everything and draining the font, the problem that we will never do again is that we put under our charge the kids that we brought from the villa. So no one in the church was really looking out for them, so when we were all done with the cleanup we found them playing all over in the chapel. We quickly stopped them and dragged them outside and said that they can't do that, then we had to walk them home and that took about 30 minutes, because they didn't want us to walk them home, they said that they could get home all by themselves. We were like, oh no you're not!! We can't just leave 3 little crazies on the other side of town and tell their parents in the villa that we had done that, so we dragged them home against their will. They only wanted to go dumpster diving for all of the toys that were thrown away. It's a sad state that they are in down here and the environment that they are raised in. So we finally make it to the entrance of the villa and by that time we were an hour late to lunch and so we left them there and took a remis again across town and everything else turned out just fine.

So I learned some stuff from that, it's funny how the mission teaches you all of these things from the mistakes that one makes on his own. :) Never take villa kids on the adventure of their lives (like going to church) they probably don't get out of town much. Another thing was that we need their parents or some adult to look after them and help them get to and from church. We also learned that they can't be in the same class at the same time, they just don't know how to behave and especially together they can get crazy. So now I know how it feels to have three young boys that just won't behave. haha

So that describes the pictures, haha, lots to tell today.

First in response to you all, sounds like you all had a great week :) camping in the basement and going on a train ride, playing bball and dominating and dancing it up in EFY with all of the ladies. haha I loved reading Camryn's note. Yes, my hair is slowing growing back and I probably won't cut it that short again. :) Oh, and I received all of the pictures that you sent, loved that!!! :) The whole family looks great and the cousin picture was fun to see. Tanner looks a lot older. Oh, and when I show everybody down here the one family picture that I have, everyone thinks Tanner is older in that picture, must be my anchor man haircut (or least that's what they called it in the MTC haha) Oh, and the girls are so cute, growing up so big and I can't wait to hear your voices in December. haha ;)  Haha, the Pittard boys always climbing on trains and whatever thing they can find. haha Thanks for the packages and I can't wait to get them, haha. Elder Carlson just received a package for Christmas, we don't know when it was sent, but it's super erratic down here. Also I received a bunch of letters too. I received the articles from Gpa Hilbig and the letter from GGma Wayment. :) Thanks for all of those. I loved them so so much. Also I received the letter from Bishop, that was nice of him and from Gma Pittard. Also received the sports news and other news from Brother Carlson, thanks again so much, that is nice to sit back and hear about some news once in awhile. It's a good, quick break from the work. I'm glad that the primary loved the letter. I felt bad for not writing back for a while so I decided to add as much as I could. :) Yes, it was 11 pesos to send it which is about 2 dollars, or around there, so It's not super cheap but if one wants to receive letters one has to put forth the effort and sacrifice in writing back. :)

So lots happened and it will take too long to write it all, so let's just say that it was a great week. I was able to go on divisions with Elder Garcia, MTC roommate, and I spent the day in the area Tonelero. That was fun to be with somebody from my MTC group and was fun to see us both understanding and speaking Spanish, haha. We pulled a prank on this one recent convert. We told her and her boyfriend that I was fresh brand new from the states and that I couldn't understand a thing or talk hardly. Also that Elder Garcia was my trainer, so I went for about an hour, but then we couldn't keep in the laughter. haha So we finally told them, we just had a fun time together. Love that Elder. Also we were able to set up our two fechas that we have for this Sunday, Carolina and Fabiola so that's who we are focusing on for this week. We have some good weeks ahead of us and so I can't wait to let you all know what has happened.

Have a great week and keep sending more pictures when you can, I love everyone of you so so much and thanks for all of your support. Don't worry, I'm sleeping just fine and yes, you spell 2 like dos. :)

Umm and yeah let me know BYU football schedule for this upcoming year so that I can write them down on my calendar. :)

Love,

Elder Ryan Pittard

With a little prayer, everything is possible with the Lord

What a great week!!! :)  First of all I just want to say I love you all so so much! :)  So to explain the pics... We had the baptism of Dario!!! That's a story in itself.

So this last week we had set the date for Saturday and we had a lesson with him on Tuesday night and we were all good for the baptism. But then he didn't come home from work Wednesday night and Thursday night we couldn't find him either. So we were super disappointed, he's done this before to us, and we were thinking that we had lost the baptism again. So we got down on our knees and we started praying those two days, specifically that we could be able to find him (because he doesn't have a cell phone) and that he would be at the church on Friday night for his interview and that he would arrive at his baptism at 7 pm on Saturday night. We were praying fervently, but honestly, the likelihood that he would actually be there was overwhelming on the faith. We tried everything that we could to find him to talk with him. We passed by and left notes, we called a friend that he works with, we talked with the members that live right as you enter the villa to talk with him if he ever passed by. So we get to Friday and we still haven't talked to him, but he did come home the night before, super late and then left again for work in the morning, so we weren't able to talk with him but the members helped us out a lot!! They told him to be at the church at 7:30 Friday night for his interview, and so we were actually at the church for another appointment and we received a call that Dario was on his way for the interview!! We were like, what?!! That's awesome. The only thing was that he had to interview with President and we had called President telling him that Dario probably wasn't going to be there, and so he didn't have to cancel his other cita that he had. But then when we received the call from that hermana we quickly called President and he told us to call the ZL's, so we coordinated with them to be there at the church and they got there at around 9 pm, he got in the interview and was able to talk with President over the phone and he passed. :) So we were super excited and we always were giving thanks to God for his blessings (like the examples that we learn from in the BofM J) and then on Saturday, we passed by and Dario was preparing to be there and everything worked out great, he was just beaming when he came out of the water, his friend Dani, also a recent convert was able to baptize him and that was a great experience because Dani introduced him to the elders almost 6 months ago!! Then Sunday we searched for him in the morning and brought him to church with Dani. So we were thinking that we weren't going to have it but then we did, that's an awesome feeling in the mission!!!! 

So to describe the other picture, haha, we are having fun together as a companionship. We celebrated the 4th of July on Wednesday and so we were belting out the national anthem in our red, white and blue. :)  So we decided to take a picture and I laugh at it every time I look at it. haha :)

So now for your letters and pictures. Wow, that's a crazy looking fire and I'm glad that it's not too dangerous. I'm also glad that Dustin is alright, haha, crazy Washington missionaries. ;) Yeah he does look great and I can't wait to hear from him soon. ;)

Then wow, you all had a great week as well. Wow, Cowabunga Bay, I've been there before. I remember throwing the football around the wade pool with all of the other seniors and getting smashed by the huge bucket of water, haha. I remember that it was cold that day and that only the true men got out of the water for the bucket. Wow, great times. :) Then fun times at the family reunion as well, taking over the hotel, haha. Was there a pool at the hotel? ;) I always remember asking that question when we were staying at the hotels. Then the water park, and the fun park, haha. I laughed thinking of Alex and Tanner winning the jack pot every other turn and I remember the experiences that I had being the manager and asking the arcade mechanic to make the bouncy ball game harder and I was always putting more tickets into that game. I'm glad that Tanner is having fun at work, but don't let it stop you from spending time with the family, that goes for everybody that's working, the family is so important and I'm sorry that I didn't realize that when I had the chance to be with you all and that it took being away from you all to realize it, but I do love you all. :) Midnight movies!!!!???? haha I didn't think that was allowed, haha. ;) I did see that they were coming out with a new Spiderman. Wow, all those beads!!! millions and millions of different colors and sizes!! How fun and I'm glad that you were really reverent in church Camryn. :) I love you, Rachel and Camryn, with all of my heart. Yes, I will see you in 16 months, yes, today is the 8th month mark already!!! It's flying. :) Thanks Braden and Jason for your thoughtful insights, I loved hearing that you're still alive. ;) haha I do hope that you're enjoying your summer and the heat. haha, Honestly, I don't miss the heat that much. :) I guess I don't miss the sweating and always being tired in the humid heat. :) Wow, you're going to Washington for a tourney, at a small college or what? That's super cool. Dunk it in a game for me this year, will ya? ;) Oh, and I hope, Alex, that you enjoy EFY. I realize that by the time that you get this letter he won't be at home, neither will Tanner, so send them a carrier pigeon for me. :) That's how we communicate down here in Argentina, did you all know that? ;) haha Thanks for the insights, Mom and Dad, haha. I miss my trainer too, but I'm happy with the companion that I have right now. :) Oh, and that's exciting that Brandon got his call to Bolivia!!! Wow, that's super exciting. Buenos Aires is the melting pot of the South Americas, there are so many different types of people and nationalities that I have gotten to know lots of great Bolivians! They are super humble and he's going to enjoy it down there, well up there for me. ;) Chocobomba is an area surrounded by lots of huge mountains and has a temple there and everyone says that it's super beautiful and it just lights up the dark valley at night. I thought that they don't send gringos (white North Americans) to Bolivia anymore but I guess that they do. :) Say hi to him and tell him that he will do great, haha. I was told from an older hermana that sometimes they only eat bananas and bread, so watch out. ;)

So now for the weekly report :)…

So last Monday, after I sent you the second email, we went to the court out back and were dunking the ball on the hoops in our "street clothes" ;)  (normal missionary clothes) I am so unathletic right now, it's nothing that I can help, I'm doing the exercises every morning but nothing like playing basketball every day and running around, the only times that we run here are when we are trying to catch the bus or if we are late getting home, but since we are so close to the villa we don't have problems with that anymore. ;) Then we made empanadas de los cielos (From heaven) ;) We bought the pre-maid bread for empanadas and bought the chicken from a meat store and then we mixed the cooked meat with bbq sauce and onions and deep fried them on the stove and I ate like 12, first I was super hungry and they were really good. :) haha Then we taught Dylan's older siblings about the restoration. Dylan is the 8 yr old that is now our little kid. haha He's in a sad situation with not a really supportive family. After that lesson they haven't wanted us to enter the house but his dad wants us to keep helping his son. It's sad because the dad really isn't stepping up to his duty to teach his son the basic principles of life and of God, like prayer and Jesus Christ, so we are taking on that role, and also the flia Ruiz Diaz, in helping him slowly learn the gospel. I think that he has some sort of ADD so he's super difficult to teach but it's slow progress. He came to church again with us and is progressing nicely. We could baptize him soon and place him and guide him on the right path to follow and to stop walking the streets of the villa. 

So Elder Reber from the other Lugano area came and stayed with us for most of the day because Elder Quintana had to go to San Fernando for training since he's a DL. So that morning was super fun. We found two news (new investigators) without doing anything, we just taught friends that were in the houses of people that we just showed up to. haha We were joking with Elder Reber, he has 6 months in the mission and is from New Mexico and a great, nice guy, that he should go with us more because we just seem to find new people to teach when he's with us. We were joking that his super manliness was the reason we were finding all of these ladies to teach. ;) So the first lady was a little crazy, I think she was evangelical, she had all of these questions about us missionaries, and thought that it was super strange that we didn't do some things. We finally watched The Restoration with her and we invited her to read the Book of Mormon. As soon as we gave her the challenge, she was like, umm I have to go, I have things to do and then gave us all a quick hand shake and left the room. The investigator, Sandra (she's an awesome Bolivian lady that loves the church but isn't married so that's why we haven't baptized her yet) she went running after her and dragged her back and kind of forced her to accept, haha It was funny to see that and how much we need to baptize Sandra. Then we were with another investigator, someone that they had dropped a long time ago, and her friend just walked in and we ended up putting the fecha, the only thing about putting the fecha down here is that they don't care if they lie or not, so putting the fecha isn't a sure thing, which figured with this lady. We passed by her house after that and she was home and her friends would rudely tell us that she wasn't home and then act like we weren't there. It's so frustrating. We have the restored gospel and true happiness and they are treating us like we are the JW's. They have had some bad press down here and there are lots of people that mistake us for them. I guess something happened where some guy died because he wasn't able to receive a blood transfusion, so everybody is scared of them and any missionaries that they see they treat like they don't exist.

So the 4th of July, we celebrated that great country of ours and dressed up in the red, white and blue. That day we also had interviews with President Gulbrandsen in the mission home. We also received a bbq in celebration of our Zone confirming the most ever in one month in the history of the mission. So I thought that was awesome that I wasn't missing out of the fourth of July bbq. ;) Then the interview was super awesome, the best one that Iv'e had, it just felt so personal and like he cared for me as my own missionary. Sometimes we get the feeling that President just knows us as a name and where we are at, but I loved getting to talk with him and talk about how I can become a better missionary. I don't know if Grandpa Hilbig can relate to that and Grandma Hilbig also, but I'm glad for the interviews. So for lunch we had 3 hamburgers and Doritos!!! I haven't had those in a while. haha And then a brownie with ice cream, so that was awesome. That night we also finally taught Dylan that José Smith is not Jesús. haha He really is a great kid, he just hasn't had the luck that I've had growing up with parents that love me and do everything for me out of love and their want for me to succeed. :)

Thursday, I took some great pictures of the sunrise on the top of our building, but it was super freezing. Oh, and after lunch we went to the church to look for Elder Carlson's lost SUBE card with 50 pesos on it and luckily we found it sitting there on the back concrete. Luckily it didn't rain and they have mutual on Friday nights. Then we put the fecha with a drunk guy in the villa. When he asked us what that was we told him that he had to throw himself in the water, haha so that was sufficient enough for him, but he didn't go to church so we are going to have to push back the fecha a week. ;) Oh, and I also received a wonderful gift from Nemecia, a beanie hat with flaps for the ears. haha That was a great gift from her, free too. :)

Friday we taught a friend of Dani. Carol, his supposed girlfriend, haha, we tease him for that. She's like 14, but he presented her to us and she actually came to church with him and she has a fecha for the 22nd of July. The members here are just receiving the vision to baptize and it's easy in the villa to find new investigators because everyone knows everyone and there are always referrals to talk to. Now the only challenge is that it's a party for 20 hours of the day and there is lots of drinking and other stuff going on, especially Saturday nights going into Sunday. And then there's always the cold weather that drives people away, so it's hard to get some to church from the villa that don't really have the desire to go. But we are searching for the ones that are prepared and are willing to sacrifice getting up and going to bed on time amidst the noise and parties to wake up on time. Then we received a call from a young women telling us that she wanted us to meet her friend and to be at the church that night, he was kind of tough, he had his beliefs and just wanted to know more about ours. We gave him the Book of Mormon and we will see what that does, and that's when we got word that Dario was on his way and then we made it home a little late because we were out late doing the interview, but we got it done and were super excited to be having another baptism.

Saturday was also Elder Carlson's 20th birthday and so the word got out somehow that it was his birthday and so two different hermanas in the villa had prepared cake and food for us so we were so full by the end of the day, but I was more full of the spirit as we baptized Dario. It was fun to see him progress. I, with Elder Rickert, had tried so many times to set the fecha but he just wasn't ready and then the first cita, after a week and a half without passing by, with Elder Carlson we set the fecha and it pulled through. It was a huge miracle and blessing from the Lord.

Best Sunday in the mission, yet. :)  We first got word the night before that there was a recent convert a young man from Paraguay that was leaving on a mission to Chile in a month, that was in town visiting his mom and step dad in the villa and that the flia Ruiz Diaz would help them all get to church. So then we first go and get Dario and go with Dani to church and then we left and took the bus back to go and get more. That's when we were looking for Dylan and just down the passageway from where he lives was the family of this missionary named Cristian. He called us over when he recognized us and then we with Dylan called a remis and there wasn't enough room, so luckily the remis guy knew where the church was and so we stayed behind and I paid for the remis ride over to the church, anything to get them to church and take the sacrament and to feel the special spirit of church. Then we get to church and Sonia, a recent convert, brought a relative to church and so we got to meet her, Lizet, and set up an cita with her later that evening. Then we went to lunch and the hermana asked us if there was anything that she could do for us. Now she's a returned missionary of about 10 years and so we asked her to come with us to that cita with Lizet. She was the right member for this family that we met. She had noticed Lizet in her classes earlier, she's a YW leader and so she was excited to meet her and she did great teaching the lesson. haha She liked to talk but she really helped us out. We were able to meet the family of Lizet, her mom, older brother and younger brother, their dad and other sister weren't there, but we had an awesome lesson and put the fecha for the 29th of July. Then we went and met with Cristian's mom and sister and set fechas for the 22nd so we were having so much success we couldn't believe it!! haha So we ended up the week with 1 baptism, 1 confirmation, 7 fechas, with 6 people in church, 23 lessons with a member, 8 progressing and 16 new investigators throughout the week. We are being blessed from the Lord in Lugano right now and the ward is realizing the vision to baptize and introduce all of their friends to the missionaries. In this way there is no way that we couldn't baptize. We are going to stay humble and rely on the Lord for our success and we should have success within the coming weeks. :)

Alright, so today is July 9th and Independence Day down here for Argentina, so we have been invited over for a bbq and to play volleyball in the villa with the flia Ruiz Diaz and the other elders, so that's where we are off to right now. :)  I love you all so so much and I hope that you love reading this week's edition of the Pittard Report. :)  Couple of last questions, did the primary receive my letters and did the young women receive my letters yet? I hope that you all have an awesome week and I love you all so so much. :)

Love,

Elder Ryan Pittard

Well, awesome week for both and we keep on trekking, well, at least here in Lugano :)

Hey there!! :)  How's it going?

The computer wouldn't let me send pictures, so bad luck this week. :) But thanks again for the letter, I loved reading everything that went down. :) Oh, and thanks Grandpa for the note too. :)

Wow, Trek!! sounds like everything went great!! Haha and yes mom, a little short, but it'll grow back, :) and yes, it's 40 pesos every time (to get a haircut) and so I'm going to save a lot by cutting my own hair.

Yeah I left some unanswered questions of yours last week haha. So the white foam spray is like any white foamy spray, it's called snow and it's just to mess around with. So we were with the Vallejos, and Giannini being the clown that he is, haha, quickly sprayed me and the little kids so we eventually got him back and so we had a "snow fight" and it just dried off and no damage. Oh, and my toe is healing just fine, no problems and I'm putting neosporin on it every day. Yeah, the living space was so so cramped, and so I'm super grateful for all of the room that I have here in Lugano and clean too, there were a billion cockroaches in the Juncal pension. They like the electronics. Elder Stocking showed me a video where they took apart the CD player that they have and 50 went running out and they had the "blow torch" going, (the bug spray and a lighter) and they were killing as many as they could. haha Luckily when we moved out of Juncal to our new pension we killed all of the ones that traveled along with us and they didn't transfer over. There aren't any cockroaches in this new pension and so that's a blessing. Yeah, the mattress idea was actually the other elders idea, they had done it the night before and so we got home first the next night and did the same, just as a joke, they were laughing at that. Oh the fun times that missionaries have.

Wow, it's amazing to think of the pictures of Elder Johnson getting home and weird to think that I was just with him the day before, and then that's exciting for Danielle to get home, that passed by super fast. Oh, and that is crazy how everyone that I know will be getting engaged soon and moving on with their lives. Thanks for the update, it's fun to hear that kind of stuff.  Wow, and the family reunion this week, say hi to everybody. Carry around a cardboard cutout of me the whole time, haha. ;) Let me know how the rest of the family is doing.

Sounds like trek was fun!! The bus ride sounded boring but I've done it before. I remember running all over Independence Rock. And I had forgotten about the violins but I'm sure that was an awesome experience. Then all the food, and haha the bugle was a good idea. You guys were living the missionary sleeping rules, haha, 6:30 am wakeup, 7am breakfast, 10:30 pm prayer time. :) I'm finally used to the schedule everyday and this is my life for now and I'm used to it, so I'm doing great. I remember giving my testimony and reading the letters from the same ancestors. ;) My ma and pa was Brother and Sister Larsen, and my color was orange like Tanner. I'm glad the weather wasn't horrible and that everyone had a great time. I can't wait to see more photos, and thanks for the 2 that you sent! You all look so great and happy to be out there in Wyoming. ;) I remember stopping along the way and throwing rocks across the river. I can remember that it was stormy one night, so you had better weather and I think we moved camp sites once or twice, so you had it all so much easier. ;) It sounds like everyone else had fun at home and what a treat to spend the week with the Hilbigs and go to Lagoon and see the ducks. :)

Thanks Rachel for the letter. :) Sounds like you had fun feeding the ducks and eating at Wendy's and enjoying your summer time!! Say hi to Camryn. :)

Well now about my week. :)

So as we left off last week Elder Rickert left and I was left waiting for Elder Carlson to arrive from the south. So the reason for why I was waiting is because he wasn't told that he was coming up north, basically haha. So he knew that he was supposed to leave it's just that they told him the flight plans because they had already bought the tickets and everything, so it turned out that they changed his flight and bought new tickets but he didn't get the word. So they, the office elders, were sitting at the airport and they called him at like 3 in the morning, "Where are you? You're supposed to be in Buenos Aires right now." haha So they made new flight plans and he made it Wednesday morning. So I was with Parque Brown one extra day, so that was fun. That Monday night we didn't get into a house so we were walking around their villa for 3 hrs, and that night I was super hungry and had some money, so I ordered a pizza. It was fun to think back and realize I was able to order a pizza over the phone in Spanish. :) It's a fun thought and feeling after one has been struggling for 7 months to get the language down pat. :) Tuesday, they had weekly planning so I sat there with nobody to plan with and nothing to plan so I ate cookies and read from their Liahona. It was fun reading them and I found an article that Elder Wickman had written, and then there was an article about youth programs and Elder Hilbig wrote a story about the youth program from his youth so I cut it out and it's in Spanish so I'll show it to you when I get home. :)  That day they didn't have lunch so I had a sandwich and some apple juice and we went to work at 2PM. We got some good lessons in that day and one that was on top of this 4th story roof in the villa just as the sun was setting, so it was a great view, especially of the huge tower that's in Soldatil, the area that is just north east of us. There is a huge abandoned theme park with a huge tower standing in the middle of it and no one goes up the tower anymore but that was cool to see.

Wednesday morning, so I burned myself like 3 times trying to cook eggs for breakfast, haha. To turn on the gas we have to turn a "key" so I thought that I had turned it on, but it wasn't on and so I was sitting there with the lighter trying to light the burner and so the flame burned the tip of my thumb and then I turned the key on and this time burned some hairs on my finger when the flame caught fire, haha. And then the pan was all iron and they didn't have a pad and so I quickly grabbed the pan to put it into the sink, I didn't think that it was that hot but it stung afterward, but all in all (so that you can stop worrying haha) I didn't receive any burn marks or blisters, just a story about cooking in a dirty kitchen in Argentina. :) Elder Carlson landed the night before at around midnight and then didn't get home until 2ish in the morning and so he had little sleep and he was at the door of the pension at 9 am sharp, so we went home and unpacked a little, I had brought the small suitcase for my visit. ;) Then we went to district meeting. So a little about Elder Carlson, no known relation to Brother Carlson, haha. He is from Holladay, UT and he played football for Olympus High and is a cool cat. He has 10 months in the mission and he was coming from Calafate, which he told me was super lonely. They are the only elders for 4 hrs around and everything is so much more expensive. But they have the glacier they can go visit. So we had a lesson that day with Dani and Dylan, I had to buy 2 pesos of candy to help the kids want to participate in the lesson, but Dylan is progressing really well, he just has had no formal church instruction in all of his life. He knows who Jesus is but only really the name. Then we visited Liduvina, and there was her friend Concepcion, and she's a crazy evangelical lady, and was disrupting the lesson with crazy comments that was just driving away the spirit. So we weren't able to share too much with Liduvina, so that was frustrating.

Thursday we had weekly planning and we made lots of plans for tons of people to go to church. We are good friends and he was with Elder Secretan right after Elder Secreten left from Palermo, so we have had fun telling stories from the times with Elder Secreten. It's still fun to see him around the mission, he is a DL right now and has had lots of success. I miss being with him but Elder Carlson is a stud and I love being with him, Elder Rickert was sometimes super serious, I still loved being with Elder Rickert, but I'm having a ton of fun with Elder Carlson already. :) It was raining that night and so we were walking around in the rain and so we didn't have too much success. But thanks to the raincoat that I have I was nice and dry, and it wasn't too cold.

Friday, so we passed by a lady that never was confirmed and she answered the timbre saying that she wasn't there... so I think she's crazy... haha  We had a ton of lessons that day and we ended up having a lesson with Dario and he had missed us passing by and so we put the fecha for this Saturday the 7th. So we have him and Dylan that could be baptized this weekend, so we will see. Dario has to quit smoking and Dylan just has to learn more.

Saturday we did service again. The hermano told us that the only time that anything gets done with his house is when we are there, we just help take bricks up and organize them up on top of the building and get them ready to be placed next week. The hermano finally gave us a referral and when we are back in the area we are going to contact him. So we did a lot of service. We passed by Sandra and we helped her "skin and clean" Paraguayan potatoes called mandioca and then we helped skin onions and placed them ready to be sold. Then she brought out a plate of chicken and potatoes. We were so stuffed!!

Sunday was an awesome day.  Dario went to church and Dylan went by himself!! capo!! Then the other elders from Lugano had a baptism, a small girl, and her mom was waiting for the next week, but President Gulbrandsen showed up, on request, and interviewed her right there and went and got changed and baptized the lady right there on the spot, so that was a surprise. Then we ate fish from the flia Ruiz Diaz, they just cut the fish up down the middle and put it on the huge grill. It was really good--too bad my head was starting to hurt, but I took the meds and I felt better and was able to finish the lunch. I think that I was dehydrated and with the fast my head was hurting, so I started feeling better with liquids in my body. Then we entered in the White Elephant, the huge abandoned hospital that's right next to our villa. It was twilight, but we had a referral to contact and a family to find, so we entered with the member and fought our fears and entered. No elders have been in it since like December because elders have been robbed around it and so Elder Rickert didn't want anything to do with it, but we were able to find a family of 9, the husband wasn't there and a couple of the kids, but they were receptive and all went well. It's just an unfinished building inside and it was super silent, but I wasn't scared, and we will come back to set the fechas. They were hesitant at first but I think that they will accept. So we had a really awesome week!! We had 17 lessons with members and only in 4 days or so, and so we will have success this week, and this transfer.

Oh, a couple of things, first of all, I really want some cake mix cookies, oh and a BYU hoodie. That's my Christmas wish list. ;) haha  Oh, and also I was realizing that I never really asked Dad about his mission experience and I have always loved reading the little things you tell me now and then. Dad, do you think that you could send me some experiences from your mission, that would be super cool to read and to know what you were going through? Oh and also about our last name, do we have anybody from Spain in our ancestry, because bishop Pitarch is saying that we have the same last name just the spelling was changed over time. That's an interesting thought.

Well, I hope you enjoy the letter this week, haha. I love writing to you and trying to put in a lot of details so that you can understand a little of what it's like to be down here in Argentina right now.

Another quick thought, we have received comments a couple of times in the last two weeks that people just look at us as angels. I don't feel like an angel, but it's just neat to see the impact that I can have on somebody's life. Just that makes me strive to live the mission rules and be as prepared to serve every day. I'm doing great with that and it's paying off with lots of experiences that I don't have enough time to type them all out, but I'm having a blast down here and I'm loving talking with and meeting lots of new people. This is an awesome experience and I love hearing yours as well. I can't wait to see pictures and to hear from you all again next week.

I would also love a picture album in a small photo book to carry around, like pictures from before the mission and family members and then some early mission pictures, haha. That's another Christmas wish. ;)

Thanks for everything. I love you!!!!

Love,
Elder Ryan Pittard

(a second quick email...) 

So to celebrate the independence week, we are singing the national anthem every morning and saying the pledge of allegiance, good ole America. I miss it. :) Have fun this week!!!
 
So our last district meeting last transfer, me and Elder Garcia were in the same district and that was fun to see him again, he's a great guy.

 
Then the other picture is me and Elder Carlson, he's really a great guy and we are having fun right now. So the printer in the internet place wasn't working and so we came to the church and are using the computer there. So I decided to send you all some pictures.
 
Oh and all of the pensions have dvd players that can play CD's of music, so could you please also send me some more music? I'm loving the ipod and everything, it's just nice to have some more music. I already have tons of Motab and all that's on the itunes, but like efy songs, conference talks, some calm piano music, just whatever, if you want. Well I've asked enough for now, :) but just know that I'm doing great. :)
 
Love you!!!!!
 
Love,
Elder Ryan Pittard

It's amazing all that goes on in one week on the mission :) so let's begin...

(I did not edit this letter, but just wanted to get it posted)

Haha where to begin, just the pics tell alot, so i´ll start with those.

So we did have the baptism :) that was a struggle and we dedicated the week to her baptism, which was awesome in itself but we were also part of mission history!! So here´s the story, so we would have baptized her last week but she was in Santa Fe, the provincia just above BsAs, and then she didnt get home until Wed. The ZL´s called us during district meeting saying that we were only 8 confirmations away, as a Zone, from breaking the mission zone record of 33 conf in one month. And that we had 4 planned up and 4 possibilities so we just had enough to break it, and it being the last week of the transfer we were really pushing for the bapt and conf, but i want everyone to realize that we werent just baptizing for the record we are baptizing that fast because we are hear to baptize and when we have the chance we are going to take it and especially the added push of the record, that just helps. So we go Thurs night to talk with her and she is in charge of a mini store and she´s always super busy, and also we found out that they were having family problems also. So we were standing there for like 30-45 min to try and talk with her, i think she was trying to ignore us and so i was thinking, oh man she doesnt want to be baptized, and so we just stuck with the faith and waited until we could talk. Turns out that over her trip somebody stole her personal cash savings that she had been keeping somewhere in her house in the back of the store. So her husband wasnt too happy because it was a lot of his hard work and sacrifice for that money, they had left the 20 yr old son to tend the store and so the dad was mad at him for letting the money get stolen so it was a huge family prob and so Liduvina was mad at God for letting this pass. So we just had pacience and waited until we could talk with her. So we were finally able to talk with her and hear her story, then we shared that God was still loving and that everything was going to be alright and then we asked her if she wanted to be baptized this weekend and she surprised me and said yes!! she had a change of heart, an answer to my silent prayers. So we originally set up to have her baptism on Sat, so she told us that she couldnt Sat night, so we were still wanting to do it on sat we set it up for 8AM on Sat, haha we were willing to do that. Then we started talking to the Ward Mission leader and then when the bishop heard, he said no to a sat morning bapt, so we thought about it and then we were like, well why not tomorrow, so we called her up and set up for the bapt on Fri, so it turned out even better. So Fri morning we had the interview set up and everything with the ZL´s to come, so the ZL´s come to our place and then we go with them to her place, and we get there and they had left, people are like that down here, we set up a time and then they arent there when they said last night that they were going to be there, then we heard that they were only over on the other side of the villa doing documents, so E Rickert and E Fernandez went to look for them and me and E McElwee (Mack-el-wee) stayed, so again i was worried that she didnt want to once again but we werent going to move, until we had had the interview. So they found them and rode back in their truck/car to there house and E Fernandez was able to do the interview and she passed!! so then we got everything ready in the church and we were there at 7 pm liked we had planned and nobody was there haha but thats normal here, when we say 7 we actually mean 7:30 so we werent worried, its just the latin culture. So finally some families showed up, Liduvina showed up and we were only missing the baptizer, Dani Ruiz Diaz. haha he finally showed up and the bishopbric member told us that he had to do some other things so we were left to direct the meeting by ourselves, but thats nothing, so i was able to play the piano, give a talk on the Holy Ghost and then be a witness for the baptism. It was funny, there was a little girl that was harrasing me while i was playing the first song, so it was coming off bad and its just the latin culture that the moms dont worry too much about the behavior of their kids, they do, but to an extent, its hard to explain, but anyways the first song, i played bad haha but the baptism was great and we were able to celebrate that night with a hawaiian pizza!! Then sunday morning we went and looked for her and waited for her and then took a car-to-hire and made it to church and she was confirmed so that was a succesful week :) so then we heard and saw other miracles happen in our zone and we arrived and all of the possibilities came to pass and we broke the mission record, i dont know if that means anything, probably just a pat on the back and a well keeping on doing what youve been called to do haha but i was glad because shes such a sweet old lady and has such a big heart.

Well you can also see that my hair is relatively much shorter, i bought a hair cutting thing from an elder that was going home for 50 pesos, which a brand new one around here is like 300-400 pesos and its in good condition and as you can see it works ;) haha so i have really short hair right now which is fine for me because now i dont have to worry about it too much :) though i did mess up cutting around the ears, its a mess back there, but i dont really care haha.

Then the other pic, yes i was able to go to the farewell and i was able to hear E Johnson bear testimony and have a few words with him, it was weird to see him because i really didnt know what to say, i mean the only time i get to talk to him in person is at his farewell the last night in the mission. But it was at least fun to see him and he´s a respected missionary down here and he gave a super awesome testimony too, so good luck to him and he was a great missionary, every oppurtunity that i let people knew that he was my deacons quormn pres in TN haha, i was weird sitting there in the crowd, seeing some people from Palermo and saying hi to them and seeing other missionaries, it was weird sitting there thinking, wow thats going to be me one day and then it hit me that i had already been out here for 8 months, and to see how fast its passing and how many people that im meeting and helping. So it will come soon enough, but for now im in the service of the Lord.

Alright, so now to response to your letter, wow what another great week, thanks for sending me such great letters!! it makes me want to share lots of stuff with you when i can read about everything thats passing up there. Where to start, hmm... Heat, well, the next bulls i think, we will see. Also the LA Kings that was a random team this year, thanks for reminding Alex :) sorry about the sunburns, you always get those, but it sounds like work is going good and you too Tanner. Im glad that you were able to have a good week too. sorry Braden that you were sick, but you'll be back up on your feet soon enough! Camryn oh sweetie how´s it going!!!? Mom told me that you gave her a flower and that youre playing with your friends this last week, you are such a sweetie!! yesterday we ate a soup yesterday with a whole hard boiled egg floating in the middle, so thats what we ate for lunch :) I love you Rachel, youre sooooo smart, but stay humble now hey ;) haha Jason, cricket...cricket...frog...cricket... ;) love you too

Mom and Dad!! thanks for all of your hard work!! wow thanks for the spiritual experience that was fun to hear. Wow its already trek!? wow i can remember that really well!! i remember the long drive up and all of the bill boards saying stop in this one place 125 miles that way, then the next one the same thing just a different mileage number and then we stopped there for a break haha, then we got a trekking and we were going really fast and we were racing the carts, then setting up the tents and then going and learning how to square dance, then having the girl pull, that was difficult to watch and then the snack trailer full of food, we ate good :) Then the long drive home, we were the last to arrive. haha good times, oh and i wasnt old enough to carry anyone across the river, and the priests didnt sing that well, i remember that, but just some random thoughts, cant wait to hear all about it in the week to come.

So now to the transfers. I´m staying and E Rickert went south to take E Johnson´s spot as ZL, and then my comp E Carlson is coming up from the south and so im in divisions tonight with Parque Brown, a neighboring area, until tommorrow when he comes so that was interesting not having a comp for such a long time, so im sleeping on the floor on a mattress tonight haha, oh well. nobody knows him and so ill let you all know next week :) he´s from america and so that should mean a cool cat haha ;) So i also found out that E Giannini is coming to Tonelero to be my DL so as fate would have it... Well its already late in the day, 5:30 PM arg time and its almost time to go to work, speaking of work, i worked out in a gym this morning with Elder Larson, he´s from AZ and has one less transfer then me so that was cool haha. He´s struggling with his comp right now so i was able to give him some advice haha, then i sent some letters today, i waited in line for like 45 min just to send the letters but i wrote the primary, and answered as many questions as i could haha, so it should get there soon :)

Well I love you all and thanks for all of your support and letters!!!

Love,
Elder Ryan Pittard