Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Feb 9th - 15th

Hola familia!

How is everyone? I had another great week here! I really like this area and I really like my companion. This transfer is going to be awesome. This week I got to know more of the area, I met all of the members that live in our area and I met all the investigators we have. Even though Corrientes is one of the hardest places in the mission, we are doing pretty good! We have 3 investigators progressing towards baptism right now. Although, only one came to church this week. My companion, Elder Morales, is one of the funniest humans I have met and we have a riot together. We are always laughing and makes the days pass faster and we are always super happy. This week we had a lot of lessons with our investigators that we have and we spent some time with the members so that I could met everyone. And of course, we knocked a lot of doors. P days are the best here.. All of the missionaries that in Corrientes met up in the mall center and we talk and eat subway for like 3 hours, it is awesome. For 3 hours of the week, I feel like I am in the USA. haha. 

On tuesday I had quite a bit of a scare. I have had a little bit of a cold recently, but on tuesday night when we layed down to go to bed, I got a super bad fever of 103 degrees and my body was like shaking as if I was super cold. The zone leaders came down to our apartment and we called the mission president, and we put bags of ice all over my body until the fever went down. The zone leaders stayed in our apartment the whole night watching me and changing the ice. I felt super bad because none of us slept at all and the zone leaders had to work the next day. But all is well now, I am completely healthy and its over and gone! 

The church here is super great, we have awesome members and we have really good teaches for all the classes. I love being in the same building as our zone leaders, the four of us are all really good friends. Elder Morrin is from Utah, and Elder Pacheco is from Chile, and then Elder Morales and I. We wake up a half an hour early every morning and go running. Every night in the half of hour of from time we have we go up to their apartment and we talk with them, it is really fun. 

I found my new favorite scripture this week.. Mark 8:34-37. It explains to us the way to follow Christ.. The way we follow Christ is we forget ourselves, we forget what we want for ourselves and we completely focus our time in others. When your mind changes from the needs of youself to the needs of others, that is when we most find ourselves. That is when our life has most meaning we receive the most, while at the same time we are giving to others. I like how the scripture says ¨take up your cross¨ and follow Christ. To me that means to do your daily grind without complaining, and work your heart out in a good cause. I truly believe that if our life is focused in a higher purpose, following Christ, we will be happier people. And the way we follow Christ is devoting our lives to helping others and building up the church of God here in the earth. Its all about where your mind and your purpose is focused. Good scripture!

Well I am loving being a missionary. I hope you all have a great week!

Elder Miles

Week ending Feb 8th

HEY!

I hope you are all doing good! I had a stellar week! I GOT TRANSFERED YESTERDAY. Wooooooooooooooooooo!! I am now in a place called Armenia. It is in the providence of Corrientes, which is the hardest providence of the mission to baptize. I am now with Elder Morales, he is from Ecuador. So I am still yet to have an american companion, but I actually really like it like that because my spanish will always keep improving with latinos! He is a pretty cool elder! In my area, Armenia, we have WALMART and MCDONALDS and SUBWAY. WHAT?!?!?! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! It is the only area in my entire mission that has walmart and mcdonalds, it is awesome. So this area that I am is a bit nicer, its still not as rich as like America but its a step up from my old area! But that just means that the people will be more prideful and it will be harder to find investigators. But I am stoked to be here, I am super happy for the change of areas and I am excited to learn all that I can from Elder Morales. He has about a year and a half in the mission. The apartment is a lot nicer too, I am in heaven with the apartment. It doesnt have a single cockroach and its very nice. Its a two floor, apartment, Elder Morales and I are on the ground floor, and the zone leaders live on the top floor. Its going to be really fun, I think I am really going to like it here. We have 2 investigators that Elder Morales and his companion before have been working with that should be getting baptized soon, so that is excited. I have only been here one day so I dont really know anything about my area yet, but im excited to get started here and work with Elder Morales!

So this past week in Barranqueras with Elder Mudrovich before I got transfered was really good! The whole week Elder Mudrovich and I knew that I was going to be getting transfered, so we really cherished the last week we had together and we had a blast. We didnt have anyone come to church, but we placed two bautismal dates on Veronica and Alicia. I gave my first priesthood blessing in spanish to Alicia, the grandma with a lot of health problems. It was very cool, the spirit guided my words just like how it did in english. We had a super good lesson with Veronica, we talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and commited her to baptism, I think it was the best lesson I have ever been apart of. Unfortunately now that I am gone I wont see her get baptized. We had a great zone meeting this last week, in which we recieved a ton of new rules for the mission! The biggest change is that we now have TWO HOURS of internet time! WOOOO! So now I wont be so stressed out all the time about writing everybody! 

Yesterday we had a few really good lessons and I met a few of our investigators here in Armenia. I am excited to get started here and to work with Elder Morales! I will attach some pictures! I am really starting to love the life of a missionary. I hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Miles

P.S. The first picture is my with Elder Morales. The second picture is my new apartment. The last picture is Elder Mudrovich and I with the owners of our apartment, the invited us over to their apartment for dinner and it was awesome, they are the coolest. 


Feb 2, 2015

Hey, family! friends!

Hope everyone is doing great. We had a pretty normal week here! It was actually a pretty tough, long, week. Now that we have baptized our investigators, we had to look for new investigators everyday this week, so we knocked doors all day. But in the end, the hardwork all payed off on sunday. We had four investigators come to church! Woooo! We had David and Veronica come, they are a couple that are both about 30ish years old. David plays for a soccer team called Chaco Forever. Its actually really cool because that is like the providences biggest soccer team. Its kind of comparable to the salt lake bees or the Utah Blaze. So its AWESOME that he is one of our investigators and he is coming to church! He said he is going to give me one of his old jerseys! We also had a grandma come to church named Alicia. She is a really funny old lady that has lots of health problems but she is super happy to be baptized! So we are going to keep working with her and hopefully things work out. And also a family in our area brought one of their nephews to church with them, and she lives in our area, so hopefully we can find her and teach her. So sunday was a really good, very well needed day. Also all our recent converts we are able to come on sunday, and Enrique and Lidia both bore their testimonies in sacrament meeting. Lidia called us peregrinos in her testimony in front of everybody, which basically means wanderers. haha. We cant get her stop calling us that instead of missionares, or elders. But its alright! Her testimony was awesome. And Enrique recieved the priesthood and passed the sacrament. It was a very accomplishing feeling for me to see him be able to pass the sacrament. 

Other than that, nothing much happened this week. I had a very spiritual experience reading Ether 12 this week. I love how Ether describes faith as things we cant see, but we still believe they are real. Isnt that the trial of this life? To believe in Christ and God, even though we cant see them? And the spirit speaks so softly that its barely just enough to help us believe. But we believe to give us peace in this life, hope for a better tomorrow and better life after this one, and for the motives to be a good person and to walk tall, help and serve others. When I think of the benefits of believing in Christ and following him, it makes sense to live the gospel. I love being a missionary, when all 24 hours of my days have a higher purpose, and inspired purpose. 

Well I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Miles