June 8th - 14th

Hey friends, family!

I hope that everyone is doing awesome. We had a week for the books. Super solid. Elder Williams and I finished well. First of all, Omar got baptized this saturday! WOOO! He passed his baptismal interview on thursday and was able to get baptized on saturday and confirmed sunday. His baptism was really special, we had to organize everything and invite everyone really last minute, but the members really came through for us and we had a great attendance to his baptism. A member named Ulises baptized him, he is an awesome guy. The branch president made a lot of refreshments and it was a great activity where all the members came together. I felt the spirit so strongly in his baptism, I really felt God´s love for me. I am glad that I was able to an instrument in the Lord´s in bringing a soul unto him, it makes me want to work harder and do everything I can to help more people come unto Christ. Omar is such a good kid, I know that we will be good friends forever. It makes me so happy to see him take a positive path in his life, there are so many bad influences that surround him and I am glad that he has choosen to follow Jesus Christ in his life. So that was a really happy day. 

Next big news. Are you all ready? As you know, transfers were on monday, and Elder Williams left. We had a great two weeks together and we had a lot of success, but the Lord has called him to a different area. Starting tomorrow, I will be a training!! Woohoo!! But, its not your normal training. President Franco called me and told me that I am going to be training 1 of the 4 new missionaries that are coming from Paraguay. These special 4 missionaries are indians, from the tribe nebucle. (Pronounced in english, NAY-BOO-CLAY). They dont speak spanish, and they dont speak the normal language in Paraguay (guarani) either. The speak nebucle. Its like an ancient extinct language from Paraguay. These 4 missionaries have never been in civilazation before, the MTC in Buenos Aires was their first taste of real city life. They had never seen running water before. We are going to stay in my area, Armenia 1. So that makes me feel better because I already know really well my area. I know that this will be really hard.. I have no idea how well they have learned to speak spanish in the MTC and I know that it will probably be a real culture shock for him, but I know that the Lord has called me to do this work. If the mission has taught me anything, it has taught me that the Lord qualifies who he calls. I know that the Lord would never give me a challenge I wouldnt be able to do, so I know that the Lord will be with me in ever step of this training. I am stoked to be a trainer, I have wanted to train for a long time now and I know that I am going to learn so much by training. Training a nebucle will be an experience that I think I will remember for the rest of my life, so I am super ready to get out there and start working hard with him. I am going to try hard to learn his language. How cool would that be?.. Anyway, I could really use all of your prayers this week to help me be able to give this new missionary a great training experience, I sure hope that I can help him enjoy the mission. 

Other news, my best friend, my zone leader Elder Morrin, went home on monday! He has put in his 2 years and now he is heading home. It was sad to see him leave, I am super grateful for all that he has taught me. Now we have a new zone leader with us, Elder Stout, he has 7 months in the mission and he is from Whoyming. I have been staying with them since Monday and I will leave to Resistencia tomorrow to pick up my new missionary, and then we will head back here to Armenia. ALSO, I complete 11 months in the mission today!! WOOO!! We are coming up on the year mark here. The mission has gone crazy fast and slow as molasses all at the same time. 

We didnt find any new investigators this week and we dont have any potential baptisms, so my new companion and I will be starting from scratch. AKA, a ton of door knocking. So I am super excited to get out there and start sharing the beauty of the message of the Restoration with people that are searching for the truth.

I would like to bare my testimony that I truly know that Jesus Christ loves and loves everyone of us. Words cant express the gratitude that I have for the Restoration of the gospel, it has changed me life and has given me a greater purpose. I promise that true happiness comes by following Jesus Christ by living his gospel. Thank you for all your emails and support, I am not sure how emailing is going to go with my new companion but I am sure that I will be able to write you guys like normal. I am excited to give you guys the updates next week of the beggingings of this great new adventure. I hope you all have a great week!!

P.S., I have a lot of photos from the baptism of Omar but the computer that I am using wont let me upload photos, so I will for sure send them next week when I am in a better cyber!

Elder T. Miles

Photos

Here is proof that I am eating and learning how to cook. The first is empenadas (argentine food, kind of like a sealed taco), the second is what I eat for breakfast everyday, its oatmeal with liquid yogurt with bananas and coconut and honey. Super good. And the last is homemade mac and cheese that Elder Herrera taught me how to make. 

Pictures

More photos!.. The first picture is Elder Herrera and I the day before he left in our Boca jerseys (one of the popular soccer teams here) and sombreros, the second one is us celebrating elder Herrera´s birthday witht the Navarro family, and third picture I took on the 20th of May. It is implied that you need to understand a little spanish. 

Week of June 1st-7th

Hola todos!

I hope that everyone is doing well, this week was AWESOME for us. Alright, well, none of our investigators came to church, no surprises there, but we did find a lot of new promising investigators that we are teaching. Elder Williams is a great companion, I am loving being with him. We think a lot alike and we both like to include and try the ideas of one another. We are contacting A TON and really being exactly obedient, we are super good friends and we have a lot of unity, and that is all that I could really ask for. So I am super happy, things are going really well. It is just too bad that transfers are next week and its likely that we wont be together. Speaking of wish, P day next week will be on tuesday because of transfers, so I will be writing on tuesday next week. But anyway, I am going to really try to take advantage of the time that I have with Elder Williams in Armenia because we are doing good things here.

Omar´s baptism was going to be this past saturday, but he didnt pass a few questions on his baptismal interview, he has some problems with the Word of Wisdom that he didnt tell his about. That was a little disappointing but we helped him make some good goals and plans and he should be able to pass the interview this week and he will be baptized this saturday! We are really hoping that it goes through this time, to see him be bapitzed would make me so happy.

This week we found Aldo and Juliana. They are a young couple that recently had a baby. They both stronly believe in God and Jesus Christ but dont belong to any church. They accepted to listen to us and they really liked the message of the restoration. They had a lot of questions and were very willing to read the Book of Mormon. So we are really excited for them. We also found a new investigator named Claudia, she also recently had a baby and she really likes to listen to us. We are going to see this week if they are going to progress, I sure hope they do!

I cant believe we are already in June. Are you kidding me?! All my friends that were seniors this year graduated this week. It literally feels like yesterday that I was graduating. Thats weird!

There isnt too much else to say for this week. I am excited for transfers next week, I know that whatever happens will be the will of the Lord and I am willing to accept changes. This week I have been thinking a lot about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I testify as a reprensentative of him that the atonement was the most important event in each one of our lives, even though it happened 2000 years ago. If we come unto Christ, he can make our hardest moments times of peace. It is truly the source of happiness in this life and a peace to our conscience. 

The picture that I attached is Elder Williams and I eating some awesome empenadas that we made with salad. MMMMMMM.

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

Elder Miles

Week ending June 1st

Hola hola!

This was a pretty interesting week. The highlight is that Omar came to church and we will now have his baptism this saturday! Yayy! I will for sure take some photos for you guys. In other news, we had an emergency transfer, and I am no longer with Elder Herrera. I am now with Elder Williams, from Maryland, U.S.A. Woohoo! My first american companion. But I am still in the same area, Armenia 1. Elder Williams has been in the office for 10 months, he was the finance secretary. His first area that he served in was Armenia 1, so he basically knows the area and all of the members already! haha. He has 18 months in the mission. Transfers are in 2 weeks, so we will see if this is a permanent change. But I am stoked to start to get to work, Elder Williams is a cool elder. I will send some pictures next P day. Today I traveled to Resistencia to the mission office with Elder Herrera, we said our goodbyes, and then I left with Elder Williams. We are currently writing in the library in Resistencia and then we are going to travel back to Corrientes. 

Cool spiritual experience: Today before leaving the apartment to travel to Resistencia, we were about to get in the taxi to leave and I had an impression to go back into the apartment to grab my missionary handbook, which has a photocopy of my passport tucked in the pages. Well, while in the taxi driving to resistencia, we got stopped by like a police barricade that checks cars and makes sure that the passengers have identification, especially foreigners. So they stopped us, and they asked me for identification. And luckily, miraculously, I had it. But if I hadnt have had that with me, they would had sent us back to corrientes, which would have been horrible. So, the spirit brought that thought to my mind to grab my missionary handbook right before we left! How lucky. 

But not too much new, for sure I will have a lot to write about next week! Changes are always hard especially so quick, but changes have happened so much that I have become used to changes. The more things change, the more things stay the same. I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and for the Restoration, I know that I am so blessed in my life to have the knowledge of these things and I am so blessed to have the family that I do. I am super happy to be here preaching the gospel and helping other people change their life for better. The gospel brings peace to the mind, brings purpose. I hope you all have a great week, thank you for your emails!

Love,
Elder T. Miles

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