Easter here was a very busy weekend! The Thursday before Good Friday was spent with el congregacion Gracia y Libertad, starting with a short worship service and ending with a lock-in style all nighter at the church headquarters. We had dinner, activities, and worship throughout the night. Friday had a vigil service at my church El Redentor, and Saturday I spent the day baking cinnamon rolls for the church breakfast the next morning. Sunday we had breakfast at the congregation house before service, and coffee service afterwards. 

An exciting thing to start up in april was the return of "Ligas" at the church. before the pandemic, Ligas was a once a month activity for primary grades at the school. Hosted by the El Redentor, the day was full of crafts, games, and snack time! It functions as a great way to get the kids from the school more engaged in community outside of just their classes, and also as a way to try and bridge the gap between the school and the church because while technically connected, there isn't always a lot of mutual community between the two. 

The third weekend of April brought us the first Ligas back since before the pandemic! We had over two hundred kids show up to participate.

At the end of April I was lucky to have my parents visit for a week. We spent a few days in Mendoza, a western part of Argentina, where we went up into the Andes Mountains and got to visit a few local wineries and an olive oil producer. It was a region I hadn't gotten to see yet and like I feel every time I've gotten to explore a new place in the country, I was awed and overwhelmed by how many amazing things Argentina and the world hold for us. I could spend every day of my life seeing a new thing each day and still never run out of places to visit and things to learn. Its beautiful and exciting and scary all at the same time.

The rest of my time with them was spent in Buenos Aires and my church was kind enough to have a little coffee hour one of the evenings where my parents got to see where I work and meet my community. I thought it would be weird to have them there, the merging of worlds and it being almost a year since I have seen anyone from home but it was really nice to get to share with them a place that has become so much of me in the past few months. I got to show them some of my favorite places and make them try all my favorite Argentinian foods. They left to spend a few days in Iguazu before heading back home while I stayed in the city for the church assembly, and my church members had nothing but the kindest things to say about the parents and vice versa. 

The last weekend of April was the All Church Assembly where we had members of the IELU from all across Argentina and Uruguay come together to talk about the future of the church and vote on things that are going forward. It's something that sounds like a lot of boring meetings and sessions but I honestly had been looking forward to it for a while. I love the chances I get to see everyone from the IELU gathered and I also have really enjoyed getting to know the inner workings of the church and getting to be apart of these bigger discussions. 

It was interesting to see people in town from Misiones and Patagonia, bringing up concerns that they personally face in their region and also seeing presentations from multiple special projects that are at work within the church. 

We YAGMs got to give a small presentation about the program and what we each do at our respective placements, giving congregations without YAGMs the chance to know us and consider whether they want a volunteer with them in future years.