In the photo, from left to right:

-me

-Hermana Steward

-Carlos, who now tells us, “¡Soy un pescador de hombres ahora!” (I´m a fisher of men now!), because even before his baptism he was sharing the gospel with his friends and family and anyone who would listen

-Nildo Ledesma, who carries a machete with him wherever he drives, “just in case,” and who has been sharing the gospel with Carlos for the duration of their ten-year friendship, and who is overjoyed that Carlos finally got baptized.

-Little Anita Ledesma, who is the Argentine version of Cindy Lou Who

-Her mom Silvina Ledesma, who puts up with her husband Nildo´s insane driving and constant jokes about how he can´t wait for the Lord to “bring back the poligamia, O Señor!”

-Her son Pino

-Lucila Ledesma

-Camila Ledesma

These people are my family in Argentina!

Another sweet and funny moment this week happened with César and Natalia, who we´ve been working with for months. Natalia was baptized a year ago; César is the father of her three-year-old son, Lorenzo. He needs to get baptized and they need to get married, but they´re working through a lot of relationship problems. Anyway, at our last charla with both of them, we talked to César about the importance of the priesthood: how it was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith, how he could be baptized by that authority, and how he could receive that power to bless his own family.

But the charla wasn´t going anywhere. César kept arguing with us, complaining about the hypocrisy of the members and the insincere manner in which they bore their testimonies, etc. Our efforts to commit him to be baptized were going nowhere.

Then little Lorenzo started to cry, and Natalia stood up and went into the other room to tend to him. When she did, César whispered to us with a twinkle in his eye, “Hermanas, don´t tell Natalia, but I´m going to get baptized in a month! I need about a month to work on some bad habits of mine, but then I´ll get baptized!”

We were so tickled. I´m pretty sure he wants it to be kept secret from Natalia ten percent to give her a pleasant surprise and ninety percent just to make things difficult.