18th - 24th of May

Hey!

This was a great week for us, I hope that everyone is doing well! Yesterday was a holiday here (argentine independence) so thats why we didnt have our p-day yesterday! This past week we had a multizone conference, Presidente Franco and Sister Franco and the asistentes gave talks and it was really good, I learned a lot. This week we have been working with Omar and Sebastian.. But unfortunately Omar didnt attend church AGAIN so his baptism will be pushed back another week more. We are going to have daily contact with him and get him really excited to attend church this week in order that he for sure comes and then his baptism can be the following week. Sebastian didnt come to church either this sunday, so it was all a little disappointing. Aside from that we are always knocking doors and looking for new progressing investigators, but we arent having a ton of success yet! 

This week we are just going to keep working hard and being obedient and we know that the Lord will bless us! This last week I finished the second half of the new testament, and like 5 weeks ago I finished Jesus the Christ, so all in all I have finally finished reading all of the scriptures and all of the missionary library. Now I am going to focus myself in becoming a master at Preach My Gospel. The weather has been pretty good lately, its been cool and cloudy and all the leaves are changing colors, its actually pretty beautiful. 

Nothing too new or exciting to report this week, but I hope that you are all doing great and that you have a good week! Thank you for your emails and support!

Elder Miles

May 11th - 17th

Hola hola!

This was a pretty great week, we are happy to say that we found some new very promising investigators that are progressing really well! We found a new investigator called Sebastián, he is a really spiritually guy that really likes the way we teach the gospel. Missionaries had been visiting him about 6 months ago but he stopped progressing, but when we showed up at his door this week he accepted us really well and he told us that he had been praying for more light in his life and he took us as an answer to his prayers. We gave him a blessing to help him be able to quit smoking and he loved it, he says he feels something very different, powerful when he is with us. He is 22 years old and he is a punk rocker and fights MMA. Pretty cool right? He also found his old Book of Mormon in his house and he gave it to one of us friends that is going through rough times.. and his friend is reading it and is already on page 37 in the Book of Mormon, and they are both going to attend church this coming sunday. He is awesome, I sure hope that he can keep progressing and come to church! That was definitely one of the ways that we say the hand of the Lord in our week. 

Apart from him, we still have Omar that is progressing great and is excited for his baptism the 30th of May. He only needs one more church attendance, this sunday, and he is all ready. We are truly great friends and I am super grateful that we could be instruments in the Lords hands to find him and teach him the gospel. 

This week we didnt have church in our chapel like we usually do because we all went to the district center to watch the broadcast of the dedication of the new Córdoba temple in Argentina. I had never seen a temple dedication before and it was really beautiful. Now we have two temples in Argentina.. One in Buenos Aires and now one in Cordoba! Elder Uchtdorf spoke at the dedication and there were a few things that he said that I really liked. He asked a few reflexive questions.

1. Do I love God? And how is that manifested in my life?

2. Do I love my fellowman? And how is that manifested in my life?

They are really good questions to go over personally everday. What I am doing do demostrate my life towards God? And what am I doing to love my friends and family? The dedication was amazing, I loved it a lot.

So this coming week we are going to keep working with Omar, Sebastián, and a few other new investigators that we have, and we are going to keep looking for more! We are working really good right now, we have a lot of unity and we are really are great friends. I also am super grateful for my zone leaders that live above us, we have so much fun.

I have been thinking a lot about the lyrics to the song "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul" this week. This song was in 17 Miracles, its really pretty. A few of my favorite lines are:

Savior, Redeemer, of my soul

whose might hand hath made me whole

Chasten my soul, till I shall be

In perfect harmony with thee

Make me more worthy of the love

and fit me for the life above

I think that outlines the true purpose of this life.. To try a little better everyday to serve Jesus Christ and become more like him, and by doing so, we repent every day of our lives and we become more worthy of the redeeming love of Jesus Christ. He suffered and payed the price for us, and if we stand up for him all of our lives trying our best, he will stand up for us and plead to the father for our us in the judgement, he is our mediator with God. Only he can save us. I think the thing that I have learned more than anything in the mission is the love that I have for my savior, for my desire that I have to serve him with all my heart. We cant ever repay him, but we can devote our whole life toward him. I testify that  a life devoted to the savior is an inspired life, a truly happy and peaceful life.

I hope that you all have a great week, thank you for all the support and all the emails!

Love, Elder Miles

May 4th - 10th

Hello hello!

This was a great week, it was awesome to get to talk to you guys via skype, it really made me happy and it was very calming for me. It was pretty fun talking to Austin in spanish!! haha. He looks like he is doing great. I hope you had a great mothers day mom and nat. Matt, thanks for showing me the a thing or two on the new ace, it sounds great and The Nat Parks sure did fill the empty spot in my heart for the next year. haha. Syds looks great with her rebel hair. I liked Chip`s rebel hair too. I forget to tell him that "quiero taco bell" though, I know that he would have understood. But that was truly a very happy hour, I am glad that everything went great, I miss and love you guys!

This week was good, nothing very new to report! We are just looking for new investigators, we found a few potencial investigators that we are going to visit this week but other than that we are working with Omar that will get baptized in 3 weeks! This past week was my companion´s birthday, so we bought a cake and eat it with our favorite family, Navarro family. They are awesome. I have picutres but I forgot to bring my camera! We also ate another cake us four in the apartment as well. It was a very good day, I think he was really happy. 

This coming week we are probably just going to keep working hard looking for new investigators! I would like to bear my testimony this week on the importance of always remembering every day the blessings the Lord has given us. It is really quite the miracle the family that I have, the opportunites that I have had in my life to go to school, to have a good home and live in such a beautiful place, and most of all the gospel that God has given me. If we remember our blessings everyday, we remember our duty to God to willingly serve him with all our heart, and when we are happily willingly serving God, that is when we live the most happy and enjoy all that God gives us. 

I hope that you all have a great week this week, thank you for your emails and for all your support!!

Elder Miles

May 5th

Hola hola!!

This was a good week! Transfers were yesteryday so thats why I didnt write, even though nothing changed for us! I am still here in Armenia with Elder Herrera. So thats great, I am super excited to keep working here. The best part will be the baptism of Omar the 16th of may! Wooo! We are still working with him and he is progressing great. He went to church this past week and he even went to a young single adults dance/party with all the youth in this branch. How cool is that?! He already has a lot of friends and family in the church and he is excited to become a member himself. Also on the 16th of May we are going to watch via broadcast the dedication of the Cordoba Argentina temple, which is the mission nextdoor to us! Its fall here now in Argentina.. Its been getting a lot bit chilly here this past week! They say it will get pretty cold. I am LOVING the cold weather. Tomorrow is the birthday of my companion, so we are going to buy cake and ice cream and stuff so that will for sure be pretty fun. 

FAMILYYY!!! This sunday we will be skyping for mothers day!!! WOOOO! So, I will be calling you guys on Skype at 4:00 p.m ARGENTINA TIME, which is 12:00 UTAH TIME. This skype will be 1 hour long. I know that if Matt and Syd are in town they will probably go to church that morning so you might have to leave church early to be there at 12 if you want to talk to me! Converse amongst yourselves about where you will all meet and make sure the skype is working good! I am stoked to talk to you guys!! 

Well thats really about all for this week, I hope that you all have great week.

Love, Elder Miles

April 27th

The first picture is Roberto, Elder Herrera and I outside of the church in front of the sign. Then Roberto right after he got bapitzed. And the last picture is Elder Pacheco and I. I just put that one on there because we are truly best friends and I am going to go visit him in Chile someday. 

April 20th - 26th

Hola hola!!

I hope that everyone is doing awesome. This was a truly great week for us! I will remember it for sure for the rest of my life. First of all, Dallin H. Oaks came to Resistencia and talked to all of the missionaries on friday. An area seventy also came, named Elder Gonzalez. President Franco and his wife both gave talks, the area seventy and his wife, and Elder Oaks and his wife gave talks. We all got to shake the hand of Elder Oaks, it was pretty cool. It was also a great day because all the missionaries from all over the entire mission came together for this meeting. So that means that I got to meet up with all the missionaries in my MTC group that are in my mission, which was fun because I havent seen some of them since the MTC and it was great to see and talk to them again. (Photos attached). It was good to see how far we have all come, all that we have learned and how much we have all grown up. The sisters from my MTC group are already half way done with their missions, how crazy. I also got to see a lot of the missionaries from my old area, which truly are some of my very best friends. (Elder Nava, Peña, Bott (Pictured attached)). It was a stellar day, super spiritually uplifting.

What I learned from Elder Oaks:

Elder Oaks spoke a lot about different topics and it was all very very helpful. What I think that I liked the most was the enfasis (is that a word?) on teaching our investigators what a blessing the sabbath day holy can be in their life. Keeping the sabbath day holy, meaning going to church and eliminating distractions that day, can give us so much spiritual power to be able to have a good week all the rest of the days of the week. He also took a lot of time to talk about how to recieve revelation and inspiration. What is it? Do you see it? Feel it?.. He talked about how to discern if the Spirit really is the spirit telling us to do something or if it is just our thoughts. Something that I really liked that he said was "When I recieve a spiritual prompting to do something that I WANT to do, I am suspicious. It may just be my thought. But if I recieve a spiritual prompting to do something I DONT WANT to do, I do it immediately". And that is something really true! We have to overcome the natural resentment to do hard/uncomfortable things that we dont want to do when we feel like the spirit is trying to tell us do something. I learned a lot from Elder Oaks, it was a great meeting. 

ALSO, this week was the baptism of ROBERTOOO!! Woooo!!! It all went great. Well, almost. The water for the baptismal font didnt work again so we had to fill up the baptismal font with buckets of water, but I am used to that by now. A lot of members came to support Roberto and it all went really smoothly. A member (Antonio) baptized Roberto. Elder Pacheco, Morrin, Herrera and I all sang a "I heard him come" for the closing song, it was very spiritual. Roberto was really happy and it was great to see someone enter the waters of baptism. It was the first baptism that Armenia 1 has had in over a year (thank you zone leaders for the baptism! ;) haha. His confirmation the next day went great. We have seen Roberto make a ton of changes in his life to be where he is at. It is great to see results from the work we have put in here!

I forget to mention to you guys that 2 weeks ago a new mission rule passed in our mission that we are no longer to eat lunch with members anymore. So we have to make and cook all our food for ourselves. So.. We are all getting pretty thin!! haha. No, luckily all my companions are great cooks and I am learning how to prepare a lot of great food. 

Unfortunately Omar didnt come to church this week.. dang. So that means we will have to postpone his baptism. We still dont know why he missed church but we are going to go talk to him today! But he is progressing really well, I am stoked for his baptism in a few weeks.  Ruben and Antonella didnt come to church either, so we are going to have to stop passing for them. 

I LOVE my zone leaders and all the fun that we have. I really am enjoying the mission a lot right now and time is going by really fast. I bear my testimony that Christ lives and loves every single one of us individually, life really is easier when we allow him into it. I hope that you all have a great week! THank you for your emails! I am going to send another email with more pictures attached!

Love, Elder Miles

April 13th to 19th

HEY!!!

I hope that all is well for everyone! We had an AWESOME week. Let me tell ya about it. We worked really well with members this week, we had a few really good lessons with Roberto (Our new investigator that use to be the investigator of the zone leaders but he moved into our areas boundaries). We have a member here named Antonio, which is a stud member that loves to help the missionaries. So we had a lot of lecciones with him together with Roberto this week. Roberto came to church this week! He is struggling with a lot of difficult problems right now. One of them is that he wants to be a perfect person and keep all of the commandments 100% before he gets baptized, which is great, but he has a lot of doubts about being baptized. But we saw a ton of progress this week and he has made the decision to follow through with his baptism this saturday!!! Wooooo!!! The first baptism in Armenia 1 in over a year!! We are super happy. We are going to make his baptism this saturday really really special, we are going to work really hard to invite all the members that we can to make him feel really good. He is a super special person to me, he tries so hard to be a good person and is going to be a great member of the church. So that is exciting. ALSO, Omar came to church this week! We were able to work really well with him and members this week. A lot of his uncles and his grandma are members of the church, so we have been inviting them to come and particpate in the lessons with Omar. Omar is 19 years old, and he lives with his grandma. This sunday when he came to church, the members really helped us a ton by making him feel really welcome, he made a lot of friends with the youth. He is now really committed and excited for his baptism on May 18th. I sure hope that I stay another transfer her to be able to be here for it! We also worked really with Ruben this week, Antonio accompanied us to many lessons with him this week too, but unfortunately, he didnt come to church this week again. We are starting to think that we will have to stop teaching him if he doesnt start coming to church, which is really hard and devastating as a missionary because we have come so close to him. This week has been a really rewarding week for me, its been really great to see the results of a lot of hard work. This week has also given me a lot of self confidence as a missionary and as the leader of an area. 

This sunday was also extremely special because we had an area seventy come to our sacrament, Elder Remeu. He is from Buenos Aires. He spoke about the importance of keeping the sabbath day holy. It was a great talk, and I got to shake his hand at the end. We had a record breaking church attendance of 108 this sunday. That is AWESOME for Armenia. ANDDDD!! This week, on friday, Elder Dallin H. Oaks is coming to speak to all the missionaries in our mission!! I am so excited!! He is one of my very favorite apostles, I have read like 3 of his books. So I am just stoked about that. This coming week is for sure going to be a week to remember. 

 Being a missionary is very hard, its sometimes super hard and frustrating to see the difference that all that we do makes. Its a rollercoaster of good days and bad days. Happy days with your companion in unity, struggling days with your companion in unity. But its all worth it, a missionary gains so much more than he could ever lose. Something that I have noticed this week is that the mission isnt just changing my habits, its changing my nature. Which is really different. If I just follow rules because I want to follow rules, that is changing my habits. If I follow a rule out of the love that i have for my savior and Heavenly Father, that is a change in nature. Another example, at the start of my mission, I really didnt like to serve my companion that much. I would hate to wash his dishes. But I am now changing my nature, I love to serve my companion, I look forward to washing his dishes because it makes me feel super good. The mission is a great opportunity to serve God, to whom we are eternally indebited, but we also get a TON out of it for ourselves, we get the great chance to change our nature. A mission is like 10 years of experience condensed into 2. I really am starting to love the mission. I have learned a ton about attitude, about controling my own happiness. I dont mean to brag, I have just noticed great changes in myself and I recommend a mission to everyone that can! 

Well, thats about all. We had a great week. I hope that you all have a great week too. Thank you for all your help and support, thank you for the emails! I bear my testimony as a representative of Jesus Christ that He lives, that He loves us, and that there is a divine purpose for us in this life. The greatest peace and happiness lies for us in his church, which has been restored to earth today. I hope you all have a great week, thank you!

Love, 

Elder T. Miles