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