We are starting to use the new Church initiative, "Ha nacido un Salvador" (not sure exactly what that is in english... A savior is born?) And I am truly in love with the whole Christmas season and the spirit that you can feel when you talk about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The new videos on the church page are very powerful and really help the people to realize the hope and joy that Jesus
This week was a little slower for us but overall it was a good week. We had exchanges and I was with hna Diaz!!!! Woohoo! I love that little chillin! We also had a cool miracle during exchanges. It was the last hour of the day and our plan fell through so we went to the house of our backup plan who was Yamila, a reference from her mother who we talked with in the street, who we had tried many times to find. Well, this time she was sitting outside of her house with her sister and a friend and they let us come inside the house! We started talking and they are really cool girls. Yamilia is 22 years old and has cancer and her sister Ariana is 16 and is a cancer survivor. We talked with them for a little while and the conversation very naturally flowed into a gospel lesson. Both of the girls expressed their doubts about life and about other churches. Ariana every said that she has always wondered why there are so many churches when there is only 1 God? We were able to teach them about the atonement and that the way that we show our gratitud for Jesus is to keep his commandments and to follow the path that He leads. We then gave them a folleto about the restauracion and they themselves asked if they could go to the church!! Well they were unable to go this Sunday but they are great girls with great potential who are looking for the truth.
We are starting to use the new Church initiative, "Ha nacido un Salvador" (not sure exactly what that is in english... A savior is born?) And I am truly in love with the whole Christmas season and the spirit that you can feel when you talk about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The new videos on the church page are very powerful and really help the people to realize the hope and joy that Jesus
0 Comments
This week was a week of miracles.
This week we found 8 new investigators!! And the best part is that they are all families. I have never found so many new investigators in 1 week! There are also great people with lots of potential. We have been praying a lot to be able to find prepared people and I think that we may have found them. Now we are praying so that these new investigators will progress and accept baptism dates in the next lessons. We are working hard and are very excited. Hna Matamoros and I are getting along very well. We are both crazy and we laugh all the time. We are working hard but also having fun! This week was very eventful!!
On Monday I traveled to Mendoza and we practice singing for a few hours. It went super well!! We sang a version of be still my soul and Savior redeemer of my soul in Spanish with the piano and violin. It was super pretty! It was also fun singing and hanging out with everyone. Then on Tuesday we had the conference with elder Texera and elder Soares, both from Brazil with the whole mission. It was a good conference and a good reminder of what we need to focus on as missionaries. After the conference we had transfers. It was crazy. Everyone was saying bye to their old comps and finding their new ones. It was sad to leave Hna Avalos because we have truly learned a lot from each other and we have grown together. I am now with Hna Matamoros from Honduras! She is super cute, fun and crazy. I think this is going to be a great transfer! We have changed her name to matamalstrom because if we stay together for 1 more transfer (which is very possible) she will kill me haha I was born with a hodureña and I will die with one!! (I hope) Anyway, after the conference and the craziness of transfers we got on the bus and we went back to San Juan. Hna Matamoros and I have already seen various milagros in our short time together. I am excited about where things are going with our relation with the ward and with our work on finding new investigators that are truly prepared by the Lord. I am excited to work hard and really make every moment count. Hey y'all!!
So I don’t have all that much time to write today because I have to catch a bus for Mendoza in a little while. Tomorrow we are going to have a conference as a whole mission with a 70 and I have to go early because I am going to sing in the musical number yikes! There are 8 of us who are going to sing (2 on every part) and we are going to try and put everything together tonight. Wish us luck haha Transfers will take place tomorrow after the conference. I will be staying here in San Juan but hna Avalos will be going to San Rafael and my new comp will be hna Matamoros from Honduras! I was born with una hondureña and I think one is going to kill me (missionary terms for starting and ending the mission)! This week was a little hard but we saw a few great miracles!! First is Giesel. An hermano on Sunday told us that we should teach the girlfriend of his son. His son is less active and he lives with his girlfriend who is pregnant. So we went and the son and his girlfriend Giesel received us very well. She is super awesome and very prepared! I am excited to start working with her. References from the members work!!!! Another miracle happened yesterday. Normally Sundays are hard days to work because everyone sleeps till 7 and then have family gatherings or watch futbol. But we decided to go to a barrio that we don’t work in very much on Sunday to knock doors and see if we could find new people to teach. Well at about the fourth door that we knocked a younger girl came out and said that she wanted to listen to our message! Her name is Luciana and is 18 years old. Well we taught her all of lesson 1 at the door and she listened with interest. She said that we could come back in the week! We it came time to say the closing prayer and I asked her if there was any need that she wanted to ask for in the prayer. She said that she wanted more peace and love in her family. I am excited to teach her and her family more about the gospel because the gospel blesses the family and there is nothing better to strengthen the family and bring love than following and living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that our message will truly bless her life in a great way. We had a good lesson with Andrea and Diego but then when we passed by again a few days later they said that they didn’t have time to receive us...We will have to try a few more times to see if they really have interested. Victoria was in the hospital and Victor started his chemotherapy this week so they are still struggling and we have not been able to teach them again =( But my spirits are high and we are going to have a baptism here soon! I just know it!! This week was a little difficult for us here is San Juan Centro. We walked a lot and with the start of summer weather we also burned a lot!
We had one lesson with Victoria this week that went really well and she said that she wants to get baptized! She still has a long way to go and a lot to learn and change before she can be baptized but the desire is there. She was going to go the Elder´s baptism on Saturday but she started having pregnancy pains and ended up going to the hospital. She said that she is doing better now but that she is still worried about her baby. We have not been able to make contact with her for several days. If you could include Victor and Victoria in your prayers that would be greatly appreciated (for their spiritual and physical wellbeing)!! Andrea and Diego are doing ok. We visited them this week and they did not read the Book of Mormon nor did they pray about it. We focused our lesson on the restauracion and why it is important for us in our lives. We again extended the invitation to read and pray as a family. They said yes. Then on Saturday we went to visit them and they were unable to meet with us =( We will try and visit them again today and see if there is any progress. They are such a united and beautiful family I can just see so clearly how the gospel can bless their lives so much and it makes me sad that maybe they are choosing to let other things less important get in their way of accepting and growing in the gospel. But there is still hope and we will just have to let the spirit guide our next lesson and help us discern if it is their time or not. On Tuesday it rained!! That not might sound all that interesting but here it is a big deal!! It actually rained super hard for 20 minutes and it also hailed. Afterwards the streets were flooded and were like rivers! Luckily we were in the stake center and so only our feet got wet while walking home. Not much else interesting has happened this week. But next week is going to be a great week!! I just know it!! I also included pictures of the hike last week it was super pretty! This was a good week!
We have been working hard this week and we were able to see some results and miracles. One miracle is that we are now teaching a new family! Their names are Andrea and Diego. Before we were able to teach Andrea 2 times but the other day we taught them both. Diego seemed very interested and had lots of good questions. At the end of the lesson we invited Diego to say the closing pray and at first he didn’t want to but then Andrea taught him how (she remembered from the other lesson we gave her about 2 weeks before) and he agreed and gave a very nice prayer. It is not very common that an investigator teaches another investigator! haha They are a beautiful family with a 4 year old daughter, Uma. I am very excited to work with them. Also, with the change of bishop, all of a sudden the members are much more willing and excited to work with us! I firmly believe that the members are the key to missionary work and we have had a great week starting to work even more with the members. I hope that this missionary excitement continues! On Saturday we had a service project with all of the members and missionaries from the 2 stakes. We planted trees in Zonda! It was super fun! It was a good change of pace and I think the people who work there were really impacted by the number of people who showed up and wanted to help. This Sunday was fast and testimony Sunday and we had 2 baby blessings in the ward. There were tons of people there! We also had a new family move into the ward from San Rafael and I actually knew the husband. They are awesome, they are both returned missionaries and they want to work and help out. Today we are going to go to hike!! I am super excited to go (my comp not so much because she doesn’t like to hike) but we are going to enjoy ourselves and learn patience together haha
This week was good. A little slow because we had to stay in the pench Monday because my comp was sick and then again yesterday for the elections but besides that it was good! We also had exchanges with the sisters from Rivadavia and I went with Hna Keil who is super fun and crazy.=) We had interviews with the president. It was awesome. How the interviews work is that we have a capacitación with Hna Goates and the assistants and during this President Goates pulls out people one at a time to talk with them. It was a good capacitación and they showed us a youtube video- song about drinking 8 cups of water everyday and we have been singing it all week! "ocho vasos al día!!" It is stuck in my head!! haha But then in my interview President Goates really talked about just what I needed to hear. He is a very kind man and is truly here to help us and to listen to us. I have learned a lot from him. He has really helped me a lot! This Saturday we did a lot of service! In the morning we helped a new convert, Amalia clean her patio. She is older and is suffering with rodillas hinchadas. It felt good helping someone with something that they truly cannot do for themselves. Then in the afternoon we had a relief society activity to celebrate mothers day. We went a little early to help set up and we found the president alone with her husband trying to do everything. We were able to help a lot with the setup, during the activity and with the clean up. Hna Tejada was truly grateful for our help and said that we came at just the right moment. The activity was very nice. It was a good way to get to know the sisters of the ward a little better. I love service!! On Sunday we had a few changes in the leadership of the ward. We now have a new bishop (Obispo Tejada) and 1 new consejero. The 2 bishops and their wives and the consejeros and their wives, and the stake president all gave testimonies. It was a very spiritual sacrament meeting. It really showed to me how God calls good men to run His church and He prepares the men He chooses. The stake president talked about how in the world (and even in other religions) there is a big fight and a mess to change one leader for another but how in the church it is something peaceful and beautiful. I love the perfect system of the church. I am very excited to work more with Obispo Tejada. He is a very humble man and he is very excited about focusing more on the obra misional in the ward! Is it already monday?! Wow the days are just flying by!!
This week was a normal week up until Sunday. We were able to find 2 new investigators this week. Mercedes, and her son David. Mercedes lost one of her sons and her husband all within the same year. She truly needs the gospel in her life to give her peace and to give her the opportunity to have the eternal family that she wants so much. David is a little cold about God after the death of his brother and father and he says that God is a distant mystery, but he is open to listen and is very respectful. We are very excited to be able to work with them and to help them discover the peace and hope that they need. We had a rather crazy day yesterday. Hna Avalos woke me up at about 5:30 in the morning saying that she had a super strong pain in her stomach. She was rolling over with the pan. So I called a family in our ward, the husband is a doctor, and the came to help. Well we ended up going to the hospital where Hno Duran works to give her an injection to make the pain go away. Finally the pain went away and we were able to return to the pench. She spent the rest of the day resting. They think that it was some sort of problem in her intestines for some food that she might have eaten. This morning we went to a clinic to do blood tests and we will get the results back today in the afternoon. She looks and feels much better today so I feel like whatever she had has already passed. But it was a little bit of a scare. There is also no better place to learn patience than in an Argentine hospital. (Lets just say that they don’t have the best system of attending people quickly) I am just grateful that Dr Duran was with us and was able to get us attention immediately! So with all the craziness of yesterday we were unable to go to church. However, later on in the day a brother and his wife stopped by the pench to give us the santa cena and to give hna Avalos a blessing. It was a nice spiritual experience and it was a relief to be able to take the santa cena because I thought that we had missed if for the week. About 5 different members (including the stake president) called us to see how we were doing and to offer their help if we needed it. I am so grateful for the good members that are so willing to help in times of need. I am so grateful for the church. I know that this church is true, that Jesus Christ is my Savior and that God has a plan for each and every one of us and that Jesus Christ made it possible that we can realize that plan and return to live with our Father in heaven and our families forever. This week was actually an interesting week yay jaja
On pday all of the sisters cooked Peruvian food in the stake center and the oven exploded so we almost died...but we didn’t...everyone survived without harm (just 2 mildly burned skirts) and the food turned out yummy so all’s well that ends well. We visited again with Silvia and she still has lots of questions and she still does not understand why she needs to get baptized again but we have a great lesson plan that we will be teaching her today that will help her understand better the authority of the church, and the importance of baptism with this authority. I am excited, I feel like when she grasps the importance of it all she will accept fecha! Amador told us this week that he needs to decide between the Catholic Church and our church. He told us that it is a hard decision because he feels peace in the both churches. We told him that he has to pray and ask God which is the right church and that God will never lead him astray. Well Amador came to the last session of conference and although he was a little confused he said that he liked it and that some of the talks were just for him! He said that he wants to continue learning more and attending our church! It is a slower process with him but he is progressing! We also found 2 new investigators this week who are Victor and Maria Victoria. They are a young couple and the husband had listened to the elders when he was a kid but never got baptized. Victor suffers from muscle cancer and is going through lots of tests and stuff so that he won’t have to lose his leg. They are very kind people with lots of faith and confidence in God. I am excited to start teaching them the restored gospel so that they can find more strength and truth in their lives. We have been struggling for this whole past transfer with getting people to accept fecha but we finally got one this week!! Her name is Monica and she is awesome! This week we will also get the change to meet her husband and so then we will be teaching a complete family Woohoo! The hard work pays off. The general conference was a perfect close to this great week. I was very touched by all of the talks and I felt like the majority was given just for me. It was great for me to do a self-evaluation and to think about what I lack as a missionary and as a child of God and what I need to do to improve myself. It was the most spiritual general conferences that I can remember and I am willing and excited to apply what I have learned to my life. We also got transfer calls last night and Hna Avalos and I will be staying together 1 more transfer! I am very happy! It took us a while to get used to each other but now I we are getting to be good friends. Well this week was a little more normal with less earthquakes and all haha.
It started off on Monday with a giant zone foam fight, which was pretty fun! On Monday we taught our investigator Silvia. Silvia lives alone with her mother who is old and a little sick. Silvia is very intelligent and has lots of questions and wants to learn. She has some strange ideas that we are working to help clear up but she has a lot of potential! She calls us her angles because we always show up just when she needs up. We are also working a lot with our investigator Amador. He is older and so it is hard for him to understand some things and it his hard for him to remember what we have taught him. So we are taking things very slow (like one principle at a time) and focusing on how the true gospel of Jesus Christ can bring him the peace and joy that he is searching for. It is a slow and long process with Amador but he truly needs the gospel now in his life. We are working a lot to find new investigators. I feel like we are walking a lot with little results. But as our wise district leader told us last night that the sacrifices of this week will bring blessings and results next week. So this week should be pretty milagroso for our efforts this past week! ;) On Saturday we had a pretty cool experience. The Ortiz family is a less active family that lives right above us. The sisters before me worked a lot to reactivate them and we have visited them several times. Well on Saturday the dad baptized and confirmed the son Cesar. It was a sweet experience and it gave me a stronger testimony of the importance of reactivating! Well that about sums up the week. Sorry that it wasn’t too exciting but I am learning a lot about patience and perseverance, which is just what I need. (I just want to learn patience now!! |
Archives
February 2016
Learn More About the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:
https://www.lds.org/?lang=eng http://www.mormon.org |