Mission: Don Torcuato, Barrio Dos and Pacheco Branch

Elder Findley and I were transferred to Don Torcuato, and took over half the area of a different companionship.  The zone leaders took our residence as they were moving into the area.  In Don Torcuato we had to find a residence.  We looked at rentals, and they were all out of our budget.  We asked many people if they had a room to rent, including knocking on the door of the brother of an ex president of Argentina, President Urumburu.  He had been assassinated and his brother was still very bitter.  He didn't rent us a room, but did invite us over for dinner, and served ceso, cow brains.
We found a room to rent with Hermano Cassani.  We told him we would stay until we could find a place to stay.  We never did find a place to stay.  I lived there eleven months.  We did not pay rent, but paid some money to his housekeeper for laundry etc.  He was not a member, but his wife had been.  She had been the relief society president, but had passed away.  His children were grown, and he rented us a room
I don't remember when, but during this time, we were divided as the Pacheco Branch.  Pacheco was a city next to Don Torcuato.  We continued to meet in San Fernando, until after I was transferred.   We continued to have success in this area.  Elder Findley and I purchased bikes.  We kept busy contacting and teaching. The oldest of the Apata children, had previously been baptized.  We continued to teach the rest of the family, and baptized more of the daughters.  However we were never able to teach their parents.

We were blamed for the puppies by leaving the back gate open

Don Torcuato Train Station

Elder Findley was transferred, and Elder Freeman took his place.  We continued to work hard.  We had a period of limited success.  However, a taxi driver contacted us one night, and asked him to teach his family.  The Diaz family was baptized.  This lead to meeting another family in their complex, the Ledesma family.  We also taught and baptized the Toledo family in this complex. 
My greatest frustration was that we did not have our own branch in Don Torcuato.  I use to pray for this, and count the members.  We had about 60 members in Don Torcuato at the time. 

However we did lack priesthood, hat was for sure.

Branch President Andres Walker

Apata family

MariaInes' Baptism

Elder Freeman

Toledo Family

Our district, Elder Jacobs district leader

Club Hindu

Monica Franco and her mother.  Monica taught English

Don Torcuato from a taller building

With my next companion in Don Torcuato things were not easy.  Elder Roldan was a native, and taught me about local customs.  I just had great difficulty getting him to work.  He would stay in his pajamas all day.  It got so bad I couldn't even talk to him.  We both had birthdays in August and we made amends by buying each other presents.  We also went to movies and ate out a lot.  Those were the things that made him happy.  This was also the time of the World Cup, when it was difficult to work as everyone was watching soccer.  Our best goal during this time was to watch it with an investigator if possible.  We also watched once with Sister Franco, who was so excited that the keeper, Fillol had stopped a penalty kick. 

During this time the Church was trying to find a suitable arrangement for our branch in Pacheco.  We were meeting in San Fernando, and this was far enough away to be a financial burden for some of the members.  The above letter talks about the search for a meeting house.

Ledesma Family

Elder Roldan

Hermano Cassani and Irene, where we lived