December 29th, 2015

Feliz Navidad y año nuevo!!

I hope that everyone had a very merry Christmas! For me over here in Argentina we had a great time. It was great skyping you family. It has been awhile since we have been able to write and have a normal P day, so I will let you know of all thats happened for the last little while!

On the 22nd the sister missionaries in my zone made me a birthday  cake, so that was awesome. The sisters in my zone are awesome. They also all wrote me a nice card. On the 23rd a family called the Garnier family from Colonia Benitez (the little village like 30 minutes away from Resistencia) invited us over for dinner for my birthday and we ate a ton of empanadas and it was way fun. The 24th was just a regular day other than we just had to go into the apartment early, so Elder Miles and I took advantage of the extra time and we built an ultimate fort. Yep. A fort. Like the kind you make as a kid, with chairs and blankets and everything. And then we slept in it that night! Haha. It was so much fun. We built the fort so that the christmas tree hanging on the wall was incorporated into the fort. So all night we had the christmas tree lights on and Elder Miles and I watched the christmas videos (a Savior is Born, He is the Gift, etc.) and we talked and what not, and then we woke up on the 25th and we opened the packages that our families gave us! Thanks family! As well Elder Miles and I we bought each other gifts, I bought him a cool shirt he wanted and a mate cup that says "Los 2 Miles", and he bought me a cool book in spanish to read for after the mission. And then we had our Christmas zone activity, we all went to the church and we played volleyball, with all the elders and the sisters together. Even President Franco and Hermana Franco came out to play with us! It was way fun. Our zone is awesome. And then we had a zone lunch, Hna Allred and Hna Gull made Cafe Rio pork burritos and Hna Puente and Hna Greenwood made a ton of cookies and mexican sweets. IT WAS SO YUMMY. And then I skyped the family! It was great. And then we went back to our apartment and the elders from La Leonesa stayed with us and we watched 17 miracles and then went to bed. (Thanks so much Nat and Dad for the movie!!) It was a sweet Christmas. 

I think what I liked more than anything about this Christmas is that this year I truly could focus on the true meaning of Christmas. I love the christmas videos that the church made, they helped me understand the importance of a savior. As well during the month of December I read all 4 gospels that talk about the saviors life. I loved testifying to everyone I saw about the reality that a Savior came to this earth, and thanks to him we can be happy and have peace and comfort in this life. 

Yesterday we had interviews with President Franco! It was great. I am so grateful for an example like President Franco in my life. He is the most holy man that I know. 

I am going to take more time this week to write people individually! So I hope that you all have a happy new year, thank you to everyone that sent me birthday or christmas wishes, I really appreciate everyone of you and all your love and support. 

Love, Elder Miles

My friend

The fort. It was cooler than it looks. It had a tunnel system.

December 14th, 2015

Hola a todos!!

I hope that everyone had a good week. This week was great for us! We have an investigator named Magalí that we have been teaching for like 2 weeks and this past sunday she came to church!! Woo!! And she liked it! Woohoo!! All the members did a really good job at being her friend and she said that she wants to go next week. She has a baptismal date for 3 weeks in the future! I sure hope that she makes it. She is super special, she really understands everything that we say to her and she wants to see if its true for herself. She is a single mom of 2 kids. As well this sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting! It went really well. I talked about how the Book of Mormon increases our faith and how we can have a true testimony of Jesus Christ if we read it. I talked about all the things that I learned and felt while I was reading it in the month of November. There is nothing better if we want to know if God and Jesus Christ exist and love us than read the Book of Mormon.. Throughout the book it makes more than 4200 references to God and Jesus Christ.. I counted :) An average of 7 times per page it says "God" or "Jesus Christ" or "the Lord" etc. So I talked about all that, I feel like my talk went well. 

This week we went and explored a new part of our area called Colonia Benitez. It is like a little town 30 minutes outside of Resistencia. IT IS AWESOME. The houses there are actually really nice! Its a nice change for us to go there sometimes. There are a few members that live there.. We want and visited the Garnier family and they asked us to give there house a blessing. So I gave my first blessing to a house, it was pretty neat. As well while we were in Colonia Benitez we visited Brother Fernandez. He was a mission president twice and he served as temple president of the Uruguay temple and the Buenos Aires temple. So he is kind of a big deal. HE KNOWS SO MUCH. Elder Miles and I went there and we just asked him deep doctrine questions and we just had our notebooks out and we wrote down everything that he said. He is a holy man. It was so cool to talk to him. As well in Colonia Benitez I saw monkeys in the trees. Its kind of jungle, its cool. 

Everything is going great here, we are super happy right now! Elder Miles and I started what is called, "The purification challenge". Its a 40 day fast. haha. Its where you pick 10 behaviors that you would like to stop doing (for example, sleeping in 5 minutes late, expressing frustration towards your companion, being scared to talk to everyone, etc.) and for 40 days, you "fast" from those behaviors. And throughout the 40 days, you try your very best not to do any of those things that you put on your list. And after the forty days, we will have the spirit more and we will be able to teach better. So we are really trying to consecrate ourselves right now! I am so happy here with Elder Miles, he is great. 

FAMILY: I know that I made you guys come up with a skype time for me and I appreciate that you did that very much, but this week Elder Miles and I realized that we think it would be best if we could do the skype call at like 1:00 p.m. Argentine time, which would be like 9:00 am Utah time. How would that work for you guys? Because we are going to have a zone activity on Christmas day and we have to be back in the apartment at 7:00 pm and its going to be kind of stressful for us and we would like to kind of get the skype call done with more earlier in the day. What do you guys think about that? Let me know if thats okay with you guys! Its fine if you are at grandpa gary´s house, I just want dont want all the beesleys being too loud and I want to mainly talk to Mom, Matt, Syd, Carrie, Dad and Nat! So let me know if thats okay with you guys!

Well, thats about it. I hope that you all have a great week, thank you for your love and support!

Elder Miles

December 7th

Hola!

I hope that everyone is doing good. This was a pretty good week for us, a little stressful. We had consejo on wednesday (the meeting of zone leaders where President Franco gives a training presentation, and then the next day we give the same training presentation to our zones). It was super super good, I loved it. We talked about the two new videos that the church came out with about Christmas. EVERYONE, if you havent seen the the videos "A Savior is Born" and "Why we need a Savior" stop what you´re doing and watch it right now! You can find them on youtube. They are both only 2 minutes long but they bring a powerful message. The are both super cool, I like the second video better actually. It truly brings Christmas spirit and helps us to remember why we celebrate Christmas. As well, if you would like to see the Christmas video from last year you can watch "He is the Gift". I hope that you can all take time this Christmas to truly think about the meaning of Christmas!.. All december we are going to be showing everyone that we talk to these 2 videos. So they are really important to me right now. We have already shown them to probably at least 20 people. I love Christmas! Its so much fun. Its a great time as a missionary because Christmas opens the door to share great messages with people. So then on saturday we had a zone meeting, it went okay. We had so many difficulties. We had to get a TV out of a room so that we could show our zone these new videos, but we got the key jammed in the lock and we couldnt open the door and we trying to get it open and praying for like an hour. In the end we just hired someone to come open the dang door. And then the videos wouldnt work on the TV! It was all very stressful but it all worked out in the end. As well, this week we went to take our clothes over to the member that washes our clothes, but he wasnt there, so we left them with his neighbor so that she could give to him our clothes when she saw him. Well, we went back a week later and the clothes were still with her neighbor. The member had moved houses and we didnt know about it, so our clothes were still with that lady all week. So we took our dirty clothes back to our apartment to wash them ourselves by hand, and we open up our bags, AND... Our clothes had a bunch of maggot looking moth worms in them. So gross. We had to kill them all and soak all our clothes in bleach before they reproduced. haha. 

FAMILY! IMPORTANT: What time would you like to do skype on Christmas day? Us as zone leaders we have to plan out when every companionship is going to go to the church to skype with their families. We cant skype at members houses anymore. So we have to decide on a time! Here, argentina time, I will be able to skype anywhere from 1-6 pm, so that would be basically 9:00 am - 2:00 pm Utah time. So converse amongst youselves and come up with a time, or if it doesnt matter to you guys a specific time then I will just pìck a time and tell it to you guys next week. This year we can only talk for 45 minutes. 

Well thats about it! I hope that you all are doing great and that you have a great week. THanks for your support!

​Our zone!! Woo! President and Sister Franco gave us these little "12 days of Christmas" red packet things, where everyday it has like a challenge for us. Like one day we have to give someone a bottle of water and teach them how Christ is "living water", or another day we have to sing a christmas carol to 5 people, stuff like that, its fun. 

Our apartment owner/neighbor and us

December 1st, 2015

Friends, Family!-

This was a sweet week for us! Not too much happened in our area, we didnt really find anyone knew and all the investigators that we had (Romina, Eduardo, Fernando) have all stopped progressing and now this new transfer we will just be starting from ground zero, we really dont have any investigators. Which reminds me to tell you guys, ELDER MILES AND I ARE STAYING IN RIO NEGRO TOGETHER!! Woo!! We are so happy and stoked for one more transfer, thats what I wanted more than anything. We will be together for Christmas, its going to be so much fun. Our apartment owner, her name´s Griselda, the one that decorated our apartment door with Halloween decorations, she brough us a Christmas tree to hang on our wall! Its just like a little tinsel christmas tree, but its better than nothing!! She is so nice, we love her. She is like our mom away from home. So thats super exciting, Elder Miles and I we are going to be each other a few little gifts and stuff. So there were a few little changes in our zone, now La Leonesa and Las Palmas got united to be one big area (because the amount of missionaries that we have in our mission is getting smaller,so some areas are getting put together we other areas so we can cover more ground in the mission). So Elder Johnson and Elder Christensen left. As well one of our sister missionaries left and another one came. But other than that, our zone is all the same. 

I finished the Book of Mormon challenge yesterday that our mission did! We read the whole B.O.M. in the month of November. I loved it, I learned so much. It was cool because I got to see all the concepts that are all throughout the book in such a short amount of time. My testimony in Jesus Christ and the Restoration have definitely both increased a ton. I think my favorite thing that I learned is that if I always have a grateful heart for the all the blessings and mercies that the Lord has given me, I will always obey the commandments and live happily. I love the Book of Mormon. 

Yesterday we were in the bus station all day helping missionaries get on their buses. It went better this time, everyone got where they needed to! Its a stressful day but I love seeing all the missionaries and helping them. 

On thanksgiving we ate lunch with Ammon and Laura, that recently young married couple in our ward that help us out a lot. It wasnt like a thanksgiving lunch, we didnt eat turkey or anything like that, but we actually HAD lunch with a member for the first time in the whole transfer. So that was a thanksgiving miracle to us. They are so awesome. 

Well thats about it, I am so excited for this transfer!! I hopè you are all doing great, thanks for your love and support!

Elder Miles

​I love this guy

​Ammon and Laura

​Our apartment owner Griselda with the Christmas tree she gave us.

November 23rd, 2015

Amigos, Familia-

Tuvimos una semana de diez. All is well here for us in Resi, we had a super good week. I love being with my companion Elder Miles and I love being here in Resistencia. Next week is transfers! We are praying that we both stay here together. Next week being transfers means that I will have P day on tuesday, so I will write on tuesday. I have been SO blessed to be here with such a good companion and in an area that I like, I hope that things can stay the same! This week we worked with Romina, she is progressing well but unfortunately she didnt come to church this week, she went out of town. We worked a little with Juan and Ana that came to church last week but unfortunately they told us that they dont want to keep going with the church and stuff, they decided that they are catholics and they do not want to change. Very sad, but its alright. We are finding A LOT more people with a lot of potential though! The Lord seems to just be pouring out blessings in this area. For example, we found Fernando. Actually, Fernando found us. We were in a store one day buying meat, and we were walking out of the store and this boy comes running up to us and asks us if we can give him english lessons. He knows how to speak really really good english but he just wants someone to practice with. So we decided to meet at the church one morning and he came! As well as practicing english with him, we are teaching him the Restoration and the Book Of Mormon. He is really receptive and he likes the church a lot. He is 18 years old, one day he wants to move to the united states. He understood the message of the Restoration probably better than any other person I have ever taught it too on my mission. He has a lot of potential! He invited us to an asado (a barbeque) at his house sometime this next week! Super cool guy. And along with that we found a lot of other people that have potential. So thats why Elder Miles and I want to stay here so bad, I really think we will so the harverst of all our hardwork here. 

This thursday and friday I did divisions with Elder Vargas, he is working in an area called La Leonesa in our zone. He is from Columbia. He is super cool, I really got to know him better and he is a good friend of mine. 

Now I at the begginging of 3 Nephi in the Book of Mormon. Remember 2 weeks ago when we were just starting our Book of Mormon challenge at the start of November? We are already almost done! We will be finishing this week. Its been really cool to read it so fast.. I see so many key concepts and lessons that the Book of Mormon shows us. I just love how many times the Lord is so merciful to those who truly come unto him and are humble before him. Thats what I want my life to be like. 

Everything is going great! Thank you for all your emails and support. I hope that you have a great week and a great thanksgiving! (No, they dont celebrate thanksgiving here). 

​Elder Vargas (Columbia) and I

Love, Elder Miles

November 16th, 2015

Friends & Family!

This was a great week. I hope that you are all doing great. Good news! Romina came to church this week. Glory hallejah! Miracles exist. She brought her two kids with her as well. There is a young married couple in our ward named Ammon and Laura, and we brought them to some lessons with Romina and they become really good friends with her and they have been helping her out a lot. Romina a single mom and she really struggles. So its been such a blessing that Ammon and Laura have been helping us out so much. On sunday morning Elder Miles and I went out to the bus stop to get the bus that takes us to church, and we look down the street and there we see Romina and her two kids bopping along walking towards the bus stop with Ammon and Laura. It was such beautiful sight. Ammon and Laura just went to her house before church and helped her get ready and motivated to go to church. It was a miracle, we were so happy. I will be so so happy if Romina gets baptized. Just needs it in her life. She really liked church, Laura really helped her out with her two little girls, controlling them in sacrament meeting and everything went really smoothly. We are on track to have her baptism in 2 weeks!.. Also, this week we found an elderly couple named Juan and Ana. They are catholic but they are super nice and really love it when we come and visit them. We committed them to going to church and they said they would go, and we were so surprised and happy to see that right after Romina went into church and got situated, we saw Juan and Ana walking down the street towards the church. That was the 2nd miracle! They are more hesitant to baptism but they said that they are going to think about it. They really liked church as well. So those were the highlights from this week! We had 3 investigators attend church after a really long time of not having investigators at church. It was a pretty good week for us, we had a lot of lessons and I love being with Elder Miles, we are truly brothers. Its been raining a ton this week, we are in what they call "el corriente de El Niño", which is a huge storm front that hits northern argentina like every 5 years or so, so like all the month of November its just been raining like crazy. It rained so hard last night that I couldnt even sleep through the sound of the rain pounding the roof! We just were rain boots every day and we trek through mud. Its pretty fun. Its probably the happiest I have ever been in the mission, thanks to Elder Miles and all the good things that are happening right now. I really know that Jesus Christ lives and that He leads this great work that I am in. I see his merciful hand everyday and I am becoming so close to him. Life is beautiful when we live the gospel. I hope that you are all doing great and that you have a great week! Thank you for your love and support. 

Elder Miles

​This is the countryside part of my area, all farming land. Kind of pretty. 

​This is me just enjoying some peaceful Rio Negro. This is the backyard of recent convert here, right on the bank of the river. Legend has it that there are crocidiles here. 

Pictures

The first picture is Elder Miles and I at the church in Barranqueras (my first area! Elder Miles was there too when I was there, we started there together. Not in the same area, but the same zone and church building) because we had to go there to do some baptismal interviews for the zone leaders in the zone next to ours. I interviewed a lady that they were teaching and Elder Miles interviewed another person. The both got baptized the next day. So we got to go back to our very first church and it was weird because we both havent been there for a year. We walked the streets of my first area and it was cool to be back there. So we talk a picture of us outside the church building after the interviews.

 

The next picture is at consejo (the zone leader meeting) and we talk a picture of our MTC district because almost every single one of us that was in that MTC district is now zone leader or sister training leaders (the equivalent of a zone leader but for sisters). So its just cool that we all grew up to be leaders. It was so much fun to see all of them again, we are all so close.

 

The last picture is of our apartment door. On halloween, our next door neighbor, which is the apartment owner, (super nice lady, she just adores us and gives us food and we think shes great), decorated our day with halloween decorations. The dont celebrate halloween here but she wanted to make us feel at home, so she went out and found a few halloween toys/decorations and put them on our door. She gave us like a toy bone that you put around your leg and it looks like you have a broken leg and she gave us vampire teeth, but the best part was the she went all the way to walmart and bought us donuts (SOO GOOD, I havent had a donut in forever!!) So that was awesome of her, she is so cool.

 

Let me know if you guys cant download these pictures!

Nov. 9, 2015

Friends, Family-

 

How are you guys doing?! Everything is good over here, we had another good week. I am still loving being here with Elder Miles in this area. On tuesday I went to my first consejo (means "counsil", its where all the zone leaders have a meeting with the mission president and the assitants and they give messages about what we need to do as a mission to get better). And then on Thursday we had our zone meeting. At the zone meeting we just say to the missionaries in our zone almost exactly what President Franco said to us in consejo. So I did my first zone meeting and it went really well, Elder Miles and I just talked for like 3 hours in front of 15 missionaries. It was very spiritual and everything went great, the missionaries really liked it and I think we did a good job saying what we needed to. The sister training leaders in our zone gave the part that Sister Franco said in consejo. So that was all very exciting! The rest of the week was good, just the same old. Romina and Antonela didnt come to church again, so that was a little disappointing. This week we are just going to start from scratch and find new investigators to teach.

 

Something that I am really liking about the Book Of Mormon this time I am reading it is how often the prophets say, "Remember, Remember".. I think it is fascinating that Laman and Lemuel were so quick to be disobedient even after the had seen an angel and known of the surety of the existence of God. As well I think it is fascinating that in the story of Moses and the Children of Israel, the children of Isreal were so forgetful in remembering the miracles that Moses had done and were quick to sin. One of the prophets of our latter days (I dont remember who) said that the word Remember is the most important word in the english language (and in any language). Ive noticed as I have been reading that as long as the characters REMEMBER the tender mercies of the Lord that they have seen in their lives, they avoid sin and remain faithful to the Lord. But as soon as they would start to forget the Lord, then God would withdraw his blessings and they become unhappy. So it is the same with us. Its not easy to read the scriptures and pray everyday and go to church, but if we can just remember the spiritual experiences that we have had and all the blessings our God has given us, we will realize the responsability and the need we have to do those things. And we see that as we keep the commandments, we are blessed and we live happy. Its like a cycle. When we start to not keep the commandments, thats when things start going bad for us, until we remember God again and the promised blessings if we keep his commandments and do the little things (read, pray, church). And then we are blessed and we live happily. So, I invite you all to remember. Remember big things as well as everyday miracles. For example, just remembering the wonderful family that God has blessed me with and the amazing youth that I had (growing up in Riverton, Utah, having all the friends I did with good standards, having the blessing of going to church growing up, my parents that taught me so many good things, being born into a family that always had what we needed, etc.), I realize how truly blessed I am. I realize that I am a very very choosen son of God, and with great power and knowledge comes great responsability. So that motivates me to always go to church and live the gospel. As well we need to remember the everyday tender mercies of the Lord. For example, the other day I was really worried about talking in front of the whole zone because I am not the best at public speaking and my voice always shakes, so I said a prayer and asked God to help me, and as soon as I got up there and started talking, all my fear went away and I was able to talk clearly and I could think staight. I knew that God answered my prayer and helped me in that moment. So, I wrote that all down in my journal. And for all that day, I just remembered that tender mercy from the Lord, and that motivated me to be obedient and work hard that day. As humans, we are so quick to forget. But I promise you all that if you remember God and look for the ways that he blesses us, we will always be happy.

 

This week I will be doing divisions with Elder Cordero (Mexico), he is an office Elder. We will probably just be working in my area. So that will be fun. We also have a multi zone conference tomorrow. So this week should be pretty good!

 

I hope that you are all doing great, thank you for your emails and support. Have a good week!

 

Elder Miles

 

P.S. I will be sending some photos in another email.

Nov. 2, 2015

Buen día!!

How are you guys? I hope that all is well. This was a good week here for Elder Miles and I! Antonela and Romina are still progressing pretty good, so we are praying for a baptism or two by the end of November hopefully!.. One day this week we were eating asado (argentine barbeque) with a member family, the Genes family, after church and they had prepared this lunch super nice, and we were eating, and my companion went to grab a bottle of soda and he knocked it over all on to me. He bathed me in soda. From the top of the collar of my shirt down to my pants, all over my suit, just drenched me. Haha. I looked up at him, and he just starred back at me, and he said that he thought that I was going to just going to freak out at him, but we just both burst out laughing and then the whole family laughed too. Super funny. haha.

This week I did divisions in Las Palmas with Elder Christensen. Las Palmas is an hour and a half away from Resistencia, you have to buy special bus passes to get there, its kind of like jungle but not really, its just a small town out in the middle of no where. It was way fun to go out there, they say that sometimes in the mornings they hear monkeys screaming outside their house in some near by trees. I didnt see any monkeys because it was just raining and raining the whole time that I was there and monkeys dont like rain. Elder Christensen is a really cool elder from Nephi. He has like 3 months in the mission, it was fun to be with him because it made me remember when I had that much time and how hard it was to learn spanish and everything. Divisions went really well, while I was there I did a baptismal interview with a lady named Sister Riveros. It went really well! We didnt have any problems. It went well for my first interview. She got baptized this past saturday. 

On saturday night and sunday morning we had stake conference here in Resistencia. It was an AMAZING stake conference, probably the best one that I have ever seen. Presidente Franco and Hermana Franco both gave really touching talks and the temple president of Asuncion, Paraguay came out to talk to us as well. But I think the best part was when 2 recent converts, one of them being a woman that the other Elder Miles found and taught a year ago in Barranqueras, gave talks and bore their testimony and their gratitude that the missionaries came to their house and taught them the restored gospel, the talked about how it has changed their lifes. It was just cool because it really encouraged me to keep working and struggling to find those people that God is preparing. I know that if we are obedient and work hard, God will help us find people like that to teach. 

As a mission we are reading the entire Book of Mormon in the month of Noviembre. So we are all reading 22 pages everyday to be able to finish it in a month. I am loving it, I love the Book Of Mormon so much, there are so many things that we can learn on every page and I truly testify that it brings us closer to Christ. It is the rock of my life, all of my life I want to understand better the Book of Mormon and live its principles. It shows us the tender mercies of the Lord and how we can see his hand in our lives more. I invite you all to read it as well and I promise you that you will feel the spirit and youll feel closer to God. 

Well, thats about it! This week is going to be great, I am super excited to be here. Everything is going well. I hope that you alll have a great week, thank you for your love and support!

Elder T. Miles

Oct. 25 2015

Friends and Fam-

This was a good week for us here in Rio Negro! I am still loving being with Elder Miles and things are all going swell. Our same investigators are still progressing, slowly but surely, nothing too new. It was exciting for me to hear about Austin and Matt´s wedding, I am glad that everything went so well, I am so happy for you guys. 

Next week I will be going to Las Palmas to do divsiones with Elder Johnson, and I will do my first baptismal interview with an investigator that they have thats going to get baptized. So thats exciting! 

Something that I am doing right now is I am marking in my scriptures every time it names or makes a reference to God or Jesus Christ. I am also writing summaries of every chapter and writing down and making chart of all the principles the Book of Mormon teaches. Basically, I am just devouring and memorizing the Book or Mormon in any way that I can. I truly see that so much motivation and spirit comes from reading and living the BOM. It makes me so happy and I feel so good when I read it. 

Uuuuummmm. Yep! I hope that you all have a great week! Thank you for all your emails and support, I hope that you have a good week. 

Elder Miles

October 20th 2015

Hola hola!

This was a good week. I am writing today and not yesterday because we had transfers yesteryday. Elder Miles and I are staying here as ZLs still! The zone changed a lot, there was a change in every area. We now have here Hermana Gull and Hermana Allred, which are the sisters that were with me in my MTC group! We are super good friends so I am excited to be with them her. Also, Elder Gonzalez, my last companion from Mexico, is now in my zone too. He is in the Leonesa, its his last transfer. 

This week nobody came to church, but we did have a lesson with Romina together with a really cool recently married couple in our area named Ammon and Laura. It was probably one of the bests lessons we have ever had on my mission. It was super key to have Ammon and Laura there. She committed to baptism for the beggining of November. I think that this one will probably really follow through. So that is exciting. Romina is 23 years old and she is a single mom of 2 little girls. I want her to find and understand the gospel for herself more than I can tell you. It would bless her life so much. So please, lots of prayers in order that she can came to church and enter the waters of baptism!

Yesterday, as ZLs, we were in the bus terminal from 6 in the morning to 7 in the evening. With transfers, the missionaries came to the bus terminal in chaco and then they go out to the different providences, Formosa, Santa Fe, Corrientes, etc. So as zone leaders in Resistencia we just stay there all day and we have to help everyone buy their tickets and make sure they get on the right buses. Probably 50 missionares pass through the terminal. It is the most stressful thing I have ever done.. some missionaries miss their buses and we have to call the other zone leaders and get things organized and we have to make sure that everyone travels with another person so they arent alone. Its fun!!

Thats about it for me this week! Sounds like a lot of great things are happening on the home front with Austin getting married and Matt getting married this friday, baseball in Arizona and all that fun stuff. Thanks for writing me and for all your support! have a great week!

Elder Miles

October 12th 2015

Buen día!!

Hows everyone? Thank you for your emails and support. This week was pretty good for us, a lot of stress and a lot of work but I am learning a lot of new things. I am still LOVING being here in Resistencia and being with my main man Elder Miles. This week, on monday, I did divisions with Elder Webster in La Leonesa. Elder Webster has 10 weeks in the mission but he is a great elder, he speaks spanish like a boss and he can already direct his own area. His companion, Elder Ware, goes home in a week. La Leonesa is a tiny little tiny on the outskirts of Resistencia. So that was fun. Also, while I was in Corrientes I made really good friends with an ex missionary named Gabby. He served in Brazil and hes been back for 2 years now. I was talking with him one day and he told me that he baptized EVERY WEEK of his mission. Its given that it is Brazil and they baptize insanely.. but that is still really impressive. He told me that the secret is just talking to every human that you see, because God puts the prepared people in our way. So I was thinking about all of that this week and we decided to call him to see if he could come and work with us for a day so that we can learn from him. We called him and he was super excited to come help us, he came all the way out from Corrientes to be with us for one day. Well, we learned A TON from him. The lessons that we had were amazing. So that was definitely the highlight of the week, he taught us a lot about how to talk to people and how to teach to the necessites of the investigator. So that was on wednesday, and then after that all week we were in a trio, one of the missionaries here got really sick so his companion had to stay with us for 3 days. So its been a busy hectic week, we havent had a single day like to ourselves. But ive learned a lot, its been great. AND, GOOD NEWS, Sebastian and Antonela came to church on sunday. Woot!! Sebastian is 20 years old, Antonela is 15 years old. Sebastians uncle is a member that lives next door to him, so we got the reference from him and we have been teaching them for 2 weeks, and they finally came to church. I think Antonela really liked it, she made a lot of good friends and she looked really happy. They are golden, its just that they live together, so they cant get baptized. Theyll probably have to stop living together if they want to get baptized. Thats argentina for ya. 

We had a cool experience this week. On tuesday night we were planning for the next day and we didnt have anyone to visit. So we decided that we were just going to put the name of a street down and we were going to talk to every person we see until we find the person that God is preparing for us. So we put down the street Mendoza and we prayed to God to help us find the person. We went there, we knocked the first door, and out comes a man from the family grocery store next door, and calls us over. So we go over, and he says that thats his house, and this grocery store next door is his family business. And then a guy comes out that was his uncle, who is a member from the zone below us whose daughter served a mission and is a super faithful member. So we started talking, and this guy that we found is awesome. Super prepared. And then we had a lesson with him on saturday night and it was amazing. His name is Eduardo. He didnt come to church but he has a lot of potential. So that was just a cool little miracle for us, a true evidence that God is watching over us and will prepare the way for us if we just talk with everyone. 

This coming week should be really good, I will be doing divisions with Elder Johnson from Las Palmas, another small town an hour away from Resistencia. Things are going great. I hope that you are doing well, thank you for your emails and support!

Elder Miles

Old friends

Enrique

Oct 5th, 2015

Friends and Fam!

I hope you are all doing well. This week was pretty great for us. I am loving being in Resistencia and I love being with Elder Miles, its probably the happiest that I have ever been on my mission, we have a lot of fun together and we work hard. This week I did my first divisions as a ZL with Elder Grover, we stayed in my area. It went really well, Elder Grover is a great missionary. To explain a little bit more the zone that I am in, we are the biggest zone in the mission, but thats because technically all the secretaries and the asistants to President Franco are all in my zone, even though they almost never leave the office because they are always working nor do they come to zone meetings. So my zone consists of us, (Rio Negro 1), Hermana Phister and Hermana Neville (Rio Negro 3), Hermana Valdarrama and Hermana Smith (Barrio 2 north), Elder Ware and Elder Webster (La Leonesa), Elder Johnson and Elder Porter (Las palmas) and Elder Da Silva and Elder Grover (Barrio 1). We are all from the United States except Hermana Valdarrama (Peru) and Elder Da Silva (Brazil) and Elder Webster (Canada). La Leonesa and Las palmas are little tiny towns outside of Resistencia, and Barrio 1 and Barrio 2 are the center downtown of Resistencia. The rest of us are like on the outskirts of Resistencia. And then we have 6 missionaries from the office that are technically in our zone. It is a great zone, I am so happy to be here. All the missions here work super hard. This week on Friday we had a Meet The Mormons activity here in Rio Negro, its was like the same exact thing we did in Armenia but here in Rio Negro. We didnt have almost anybody come that wasnt a member, so that wasnt very successful again. On thursday and wednesday we went to the big Resistencia plazas to give out invitations to Meet The Mormons, that was super fun to contact in the plazas, it was definitely a fun change of rutine. But alas, nobody came to the activity. Then we had general conference this weekend (Wooooo!! Christmas for missionaries). I cant believe ive already been here for three general conferences, that means that I only have one left. It was way fun, in our chapel the secretaries made a "gringo room" where they played the general conference in english for us gringos. In between the second session and priesthood session on saturday we all went to subway in Resistencia, it reminded me of how we always go out to eat after priesthood session in the USA. I had a lot of spiritual experiences with conference, I learned a ton, and it was a great 2 day break for the shoes. I will talk about my favorite conferences talks later on in the email. All of the members from Barranqueras came to my church to watch conference, so I got to see and talk with all of my old friends from a year ago. That was way fun. The very best part was seeing Enrique!! Do you guys remember Enrique?? My first baptism in Barranqueras? Hes the one that didnt want to quit Marijuana. Well, I see him at conference, and I was pleased to find out that he is the new ward secretary for Barranqueras. Called it! He is awesome. I could really see that the church has greatly changed his life.. He is more calm, he understands more his purpose, he has better unity with his wife. It was great for me to see him. Today for P day we had our zone activity, all of the male missionaries in our zone we got together at the church and we played basketball and football together. It was pretty fun, and after we all went to subway. Every month every zone has a zone activity, girls and boys seperated. Later today after P day I will be traveling to Las Palmas with Elder Webster for divisions today and tomorrow. Las Palmas is a really poor place like 40 minutes away, it should be great. Elder Webster has like 8 weeks in the mission. This week in our area, Elder Miles and I had a lot of success in finding prepared people. We are still working with Sebastian and Antonela from last week, they are GOLDEN, but we just cant seem to get them to go to church. I know if they would just come to church they would know that it is the true church, but every week they fail us. We are going to keep working with them. We also found this week a 23 year old single mom named Romina. She is super prepared as well, just said that she knows that God sent us to help her in her life. She is really sincere with us and she wants to know if this is the true church. She is reading the Book of Mormon and praying. She unfortunately didnt come to church either this week, but she has a lot of potential. Aside from that, Elder Miles and I are contacting a lot and we are just trying to give it everything we got. I am super happy here, I love it. 

So I had a lot of favorite talks this conference. I loved the very first two talk by Uchdorf and Ballard, how they were both centered in living the gospel of Jesus Christ and becoming more like him, or in other words, discipleship. I love with all my heart the plainness of the gospel, it makes life beautiful. Life is more beaufiful with a divine purpose like the gospel. I also know that the fulness of this gospel was restored by Joseph Smith, like how Elder Ballard said. I loved Elder Hollands talk about mothers, and I really am truly grateful that my dear mom bore me and carried me and gave me life, just like my savior Jesus Christ did when he bore my sins and suffered for me. They both are the two most important people in my life. I loved how a lot of the talks were about standing strong in the faith, and always striving to achieve more faith through obedience to the gospel. If there is something that I want to learn more in my mission, its to have sound standing faith. I want to have complete confidence in God. I like how Elder Uchtdorf said something along the lines of "With great power comes great responsbility", thus making Spiderman now doctrine. I loved Elder Eyrings talk in priesthood session when he talked about how the Lord adds his power to your faith. Thats something I want to apply more because I want to talk with EVERYONE, and I know that if I can just get up the courage to talk with them and strike a conversation, the Lord will add his power to my efforts. I loved what he said when he said "Our authority IS OUR COURAGE". I want to have more courage knowing that I am a representative of Jesus Christ, my calling is above that of all the earth. I want to be bold. I want to do everything I can to bring people unto Christ. Above all, I think I liked very most James Martinos talk about the importance of REMEMBERING. Because I think that is the most important aspect of the gospel.. remembering the tender merices of the lord and all the blessings that he has given us. If we always remember, we will always obey. Thats the difference between Nephi and Laman. Thats the difference between being a good missionary and a great missionary, is that the great missionary remembers WHY he is here and what is the motivating factor.. Christ. I want to be more humble and diligent. I hope you all could watch a little conference and enjoy some of the truths as I did!

Well that was my week, I am doing super great here. I hope that you all have a great week! Thank you for your emails and support. 

Elder Miles

Elder Miles and Elder Miles

Sept. 28th 2015

Family and Friends!

Big news!! I got emergency transferred. Its not that I did anything bad or anything, someone went home and I was transferred to fill their gap. BUT, I am now in downtown Resistencia, my area is called Rio Negro, and I am the new zone leader of the zone Resistencia 1. BUT, the very coolest part is that my companion is: Elder Miles!!!!!! Wooooo!!!! Do you guys remember how I told you about the other Elder Miles that is in this mission and we were in the MTC and in Barranqueras together? Yep. We are companions. My first american companion in the mission. I am so happy!! We are truly brothers, I have never had such a good friend in the mission. His name is Garren Miles. So every contact that we do everybody asks.. "Why do you guys have the same exact name? Elder Miles? Are you brothers?" haha. But its awesome, we have a ton of unity and we are super good friends. God has blessed me.. I feel so humbled to be a zone leader. So I got transferred last thursday. On wednesday we had interviews with President Franco in Corrientes and he told me in the interview that I was going to get transferred and be a zone leader, and that my companion was going to be Elder Miles. Haha. It was so funny. It was sad for me to finally leave Corrientes after being there for 7 months but I LOVE Resistencia, its such a neat cool city and I love being so close to the biggest parks and the most downtown that there is in this mission. Our church building is the mission office, or in other words, where all the missionaries go every time we have a mission conference with all the missionaries and it is the biggest church that there is in my mission. In my ward, Rio Negro, there actually arent that many members, we had an attendance of 70 people this last sunday. But I already love this place, coming back to Resistencia has been great for me. The ward here is super cool, the bishop is great and I love being so close to President Franco. We dont have very many members in our area, in fact we dont have a single lunch with members, so we cook all our food ourselves. BUT, I am just so happy to be with Elder Miles here in Resistencia. This week we basically started from zero with investigators, Elder Miles and his companion had to spend a lot of time last week in the office talking to president because his companion went to his house, so they havent been working in their area very much. So Elder Miles and I are just contacting a lot and we actually found a lot of people with huge potental this week. The most promising investigators that found are Sebastian and Antonela, they were a reference from a guy in our ward. They are a young couple, he is catholic and she is evangelist, and they cant seem to agree on religion, but when they heard the restoration they liked it because they could kind of find stable ground and they said that they are looking for a religion that they can both agree on. So we are going to work with them a lot this week. The area is super pretty, half of it is like farm/country land with the pretty river "rio negro" and the other half is like city. Its a hard area but I am liking it. This week I have been learning all the responsablilites of zone leader. Elder Miles is a good teacher. We are super good friends, we are talking all the time and I know that we are going to be good friends for life. I really want to be the best zone leader that I can be to show God that I am grateful for the blessings that he has given to me. So this was a great week for me, truly an answer to my prayers. All is well! I hope that you guys are all doing good! Thank you for your emails and support. I will be sending pictures next week! 

-Elder Miles (Trevor) haha.

Paso de La Patria photos

​1. The sign on the zoo gate. It says Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays. Dang Williams.

2. Me catching a huge fish.

3. The beach at Paso de La Patria

 

21st of September- Zoo failure

Friends & Family-

How are ya? This week was pretty good for us. Another week down. We saw a ton of blessings. We are working a lot in a neighborhood in our area called Doctor Montaña, which means, Doctor Mountain. The son of Doctor Pepper. haha. We found two boys named David and Adrian, they have a lot of potential. They both have had really hard lifes with family members passing away and they have a lot problems with drugs, but they want to change their lifes and they are really sincere. We are still working with Daniel and Alejandra but they didnt come to church this week. Last but not least we have Mariana, she goes to church with her aunt and uncle, Gonzalez Family, but her family is very catholic and we are still working on getting permission from her mom so that she can be baptized.. They all live in Doctor Montaña, so we are basically there almost all day now and we are contacting a lot there and we are finding a lot of people with potential. We had never gone to this neighborhood before because its really far away. We are seeing a lot of blessings there! 

Today for P day we went to a place called Paso de la Patria because there is a zoo there and we wanted to do something different this week so we decided to go. Ever since I came to Corrientes I have wanted to go to this zoo because I LOVE zoos and P day here is getting super boring. Its like a 45 minute drive. We went with Elder Williams and Elder Diaz. Elder Williams talked to a lot of people about when its open and everything and we talked to a lot of members and they all said that we would be good to go. So we went in a traveling van called a convey, a hot stuffy little van with like 20 other people in it. So we finally get there, right, we get to the big zoo gate, and its closed. They are only opened Saturday and Sunday and holidays. Boooo. There was a police man guy in the gate and we almost convinced him to let us in because we are from other countries but he didnt let us in. So we went to the beach in Paso de La Patria. Its a cool little town. On the other side of the river is Paraguay, so I got to see Paraguay. And then we went back. So we just got back like 15 minutes ago, we blew our whole P day. Haha. But we had fun.

This week should be a great week, I am super excited to keep working here. We are seeing a lot of success in the future and I am enjoying being with my companion. The mission is dificult but so rewarding. I am learning so much. I hope that you are all doing well, thank you for all the support. 

I will be sending pictures in a seperate emial.

Elder Miles

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Pictures

​The first picture is Sister Guillermina, her kids, my companion and I (she gives us lunch sundays), the second picture is the Gonzalez family and I (the husband is a recent convert), the third picture is a zone activity that we had, we played ping pong and volleyball and ate choripan, and the last picture is my pet lizard. Chomper 2.

Pictures

The first picture is all of my MTC friends, we are celebrating our year mark at a multi zone conference. The second picture I draw to motivate a less active member and we shared it with her along with the scripture. The third picture is Elder Diaz and I, he is from Cordoba. We did divisions last week, he is awesome.

Sept 7th - 13th

to Austin, Bailey, Granny, Jana, jeremebwhite, me, Mcrae, Michelle, Randall, Nat, Roger, Sierra, Stephenie, Sydney, Weston

Family & Friends-

This was a good week, a lot of difficulties but a lot of blessings. We tried our best to be super obedient. We learned that almost all problems in the companionship come from a lack of communication. So this week we made more of an effort to try to understand one another and explain ourselves clearly and its true, we have a lot more unity and things are going a lot better. Sunday at church we had 9 investigators at church. Woo! This week while contacting we found a woman named Alejandra. Her husband, Daniel, is a member from La Costanera, but for the last 20 years he has been inactive. Alejandra and her 2 kids came to church this week. Hopefully next sunday Daniel will be able to come as well. Then we had the Perez Family. Vanessa, the mom, is a less active member. Her husband and 3 kids came to church. We had Mariana, the niece of the Gonzalez Family (recent converts) that always assists but her mom has problems with her being baptized, and least but not least, Sister Guillermina, who has been going to church for a year now but needs her divorce to go through before she can be baptized. So sunday was a super happy day for us. On saturday we participated in the worldwide service project for the church, here in Corrientes we planted 30 trees in the Costanera. The Costanera is the biggest, prettiest city in Corrientes and there is a nice beach on the Parana River. We planted trees in a strip of grass in between the beach and the main road. All of the missionaries partipated and some of the members came too. So that was super fun to be with all the missionaries in Corrientes and I got to see all my friends from Armenia. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and I didnt take any pictures.

Things are going a lot better, I am liking this area and I am liking my companion more. I am learning a lot here. I testify of the gospel of Jesus Christ and his atonement.. that true peace and joy in this life are achieved through the reconciliation of the gospel. I love the words of Nephi when he always said that he "loves plainess".. I have learned that I love a plain way of living, a clean way of living. Obviously Im not perfect but I know that through grace and mercy of Jesus Christ I can feel the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost and I know that I can be at one with my redentor through living the beautiful principles of the gospel. 

I believe its true that through obedience to the laws of the gospel that we can come to know the truth of ALL THINGS, all the mysteries of God.. but only through obedience and after the trial of our faith do we learn the divinity of them. This week and throughout all of my mission I have become my own first convert.

All things are well! I hope that you all have a great week, thank you for your emails and support. 

Elder Miles

Aug 24th - 30th

Hello family!

This was pretty good! Actually it was probably one of the hardest weeks of the mission yet but I learned a lot. All of the investigators that we had fell through, but we found some other new good investigators but they didnt come to church this sunday. The first week of being here was super good but this week it got a little harder, things are a little rougher with my companion but I am learning a lot of patience and charity. But we are being very obedient and we are seeing a lot of blessings from that. I like being with Elder Gonzalez because we work hard and we have at least 3 lessons everyday, which is really good for us. For some reason the water in our apartment stopped working.. and all week we were living without water, which is a lot more difficult than you think! haha. Bucket showers, buying all the water for drinking, we couldnt wash dishes, etc. That was trial. But luckily we got it fixed today and the drought has ended. Yay! This week we had a multi-zone conference and I got to see all my friends from the MTC for the first time since we have completed the year mark, we took photos. Next week is transfers, so my P day will be tuesday. 

FAMILY! Thank you for the small package and letters, I loved it. I am giving a ton of stickers away to the all the kids we talk to and they love me, so thanks Nat! 

I dont really have anything else to say, I hope that you are all doing great, thank you for the emails and support!

Elder Miles