Febuary 8th, 2016

Hola hola!

How is everyone? This was a great week for us. The best news is that we put a baptismal date with Noelia and she is going to be baptizedthis saturday!! woohoo! Finally we are going to have a baptism in Rio Negro. That same day one of the investigators of the sister missionaries (Raul) will be baptized as well. So its going to be a great day. This coming week we are going to have 4 baptisms in the zone! So its going to be a great week for us. This last week the sister missionaries in Barrio 2 had a baptism, a man named Jose Luis, I did the baptismal interview for him, and he is  a super cool guy, I became good friends with him. He is an accountant and is making a small movie about a particular neighborhood in Resistencia, and he said he will give me a free copy. So we are hoping to have a great upcoming week. 

As well this past week an investigator that we have named Andrés came to church. He is good friends with a less active member that we just reactived named Lucas. Andrés is sincerely praying for an answer to see if this is the truth and he is reading the Book of Mormon.. so we are excited for him and we hope that he feels that he recieves an answer. A lot of the guys in the ward became friends with him and everything is going good. 

On friday we went to the Canciano family again. Remember them? They were the family of Toba indians that are members that we went and hiked out to the middle of nowhere to their house to visit them and all the streets were flooded with water and stuff. Well we went again, and this time it wasnt flooded! They are a super special family. One of the daughters of the family likes to do oragami, and she gave me this really pretty crane decoration thing that she made by herself. They dont have much, so her giving that to me was super special. And right before we left, they made this drink for us called azucar quemado (burnt sugar). What it is is they put a bunch of sugar in like a coffee mug, and then they put hot coals on the sugar and all the sugar burns up and steams as you stir it around with your spoon. Its so cool! And then after a few second of the hot coals in there, they put boiling water in there. And thats all there is to it. But it is SO GOOD!! It has a really good taste. They say that its a traditional drink from their tribe from since a long ago. So that was a way cool experience, I will have to show you guys how to make it when we are camping or something.

Everything is going great! This coming week should be good, we have consejo (zone leader counsel) tomorrow and then we will have our zone meeting as well. I have a super strong testimony that I know that I am serving God in his true church, I love the mission and I love all that I am learning. I know that its the true church because I feel it so strongly every time that I teach the restoration, I know the gospel has been restored and it makes me happy. Thanks for all your love and support, I hope that you have a great weeek!

Elder Miles

 ​This is the entrance to Resi, this sign is in my area

 ​This is the very very long road that goes to Canciano´s house! You have to wear boots for all the mud. (Look how pretty the argentine skies are!)

 ​This is the cool origami crane thing that she gave to me

Probably the only pretty thing about this wretched place. haha. 

Febuary 1st, 2016

Friends & Family!

How is everyone doing? Thank you for your emails and for your support, I really appreciate it. We had a great week over here! The best thing that happened is that our investigator Noelia (she has been an investigator for a reallly long time, even before I got to this area, she just hasnt gotten baptized yet because she needed to get married to her boyfriend Nelson, who is an inactive member in our ward) got married this week! She met Nelson and she moved in with him and then the missionaries started going over to teach her and she been truly converted to the restored gospel and is anxious to be baptized. So on Friday we went to her little wedding at a placed called Registro Civil and we watched them get married. It was fun and they were super glad that we were there. And now this week we have to talk to her and start planning out when she will be baptized! So thats something we are super looking forward to. 

As well this week on wednesday we had 2 elders stay in our apartment with us for a day because they had to come from far away (formosa) to do paper and visa work. One of them was Elder Flores, who is the best friend of Elder Toledo. Do you guys remember Elder Toledo? He was the missionary that I started to train like 7 months again that was a native indian from Paraguay that went home after 2 weeks. Elder Flores is one of the Nibacle that was able to stay here in the mission. So I did divisions with him all day and it was way cool for me to talk to him and see the progress that he has made since when they first got there. As well he told me that Elder Toledo is at home really happy and all is well. It was a  cool experience for me, I love Elder Flores, I respect him so much for being here and for staying in the mission. 

That night, I bought us all facturas to eat (a little yummy pastry thing). And I guess one of the ones that I ate made me SICKER THAN A DOG. And there are some pretty sick nasty dogs here in argentina. haha. I threw up lots and had a high fever. But thanks to my loving companion that took good care of me and feed me cookies as I was laying in bed I am completely healed and feeling great now. So everyone just calm yourselves down. 

It was also Elder Miles´s birthday last week on the 29th of January! I took him to Grido. Its our favorite local ice cream place. It was bucket loads of fun. 

We still are in an investigator drought, but we are trying everything we can and we feel good with our efforts even if they dont always end up in baptisms. Everything is going really good right now, I am loving the mission and I love serving my Lord. I love how the mission changes me and helps me to become a better person. I know that these that I am doing are true and for a good cause. 

Thanks for all your love and support! I hope you have a great week. 

 

 ​Elder Flores and I

 ​Noelia and Nelson at their wedding

​OH. MY. GOSH. Its been awhile. 

January 25th, 2015

Friends & Family!

 

I hope you all had a great week. This week was great for Elder Miles and I! We feel like we worked really hard and did what the Lord wanted us to do. On wednesday we had a worldwide missionary live broadcast conference where some of the apostoles and other general authorities taught us how we should teach investigators and how to follow the spirit and other related ideas. My favorite part is how the talked about how we need to "teach repentance and baptise converts", which is just all about how the most important thing we do is invite people to repent, which is inviting them to come more unto Christ.

 

This week we found some other new investigators but so far we dont have anyone that is really progressing too great yet. We didnt have anybody at church on sunday. But we are seeing a lot of results in the way of less actives that we have been working with! This week, Hno. Garnier blessed the sacrament. He is the man that we have been working with that was less active. His wife and him now have the goal of going to the temple to get sealed as a family together. As well, yesterday Hno. Patricio and his wife (another less active family that we have been working with) thanked us for all that we have done for them, he sayed that a big part of them getting married and now having the goal of going to get sealed as an eternal family is because of efforts in visiting them. So even though havent been baptizing in this area, we are happy that we are instruments in Gods hands in some way in bringing his children closer to him.

 

This week Elder Miles and I have been sharing Ether 12:4 with everyone that we have been meeting. We explain to everyone what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers to them.. My favorite part is that it promises us "the hope for a better world" and makes us always "abound in good works". That summarizes for me exactly why I love the gospel and why I am on the mission. It gives me hope that I really am here on this earth for a purpose, life isnt just eating, working, sleeping, and repite. It makes me excited and happy, and it helps me become the best person that I can be, always striving to do good works.

 

Well, we are almost of January. Glory Hallelujah. I think January is satans month. Its too hot here in Argentina, and its too cold over there in the states! It just depresses everyone. Haha.

 

Happy birthday mom!! I promise I remembered. You can ask my companion, I told him. I cant believe you are already 30. So young!! ;)

 

I hope you all are doing great! Thank you for your emails and support, I really appreciate it!

 

Elder Miles

January 19th, 2016

Hola hola!

 

This was a pretty good week!! Just loving being with Elder Miles still and working hard. The new zone is great!! All the new sister missionaries in the zone are really great and fun. This week Elder Miles and I focused on finding new investigators, and we found quite a few potentially really good investigators! I think the best experience of this week was that we found a really nice lady named Sonia. We contacted her house and it went super great, we talked about eternal families and how she can be happier and she was interested, we felt the spirit super strong. And then yesterday we went by and we had a lesson with her and we shared about the Restoration and she loved it. I love testifying to people that through this message they can come closer to Jesus Christ and have an eternal family.. I love being a missionary. There are a lot of very rewarding experiences.

 

We are slowly melting away here in Chaco! SO HOT!

 

We are helping to react a less active family that I love a lot, they are called the Garnier family. The mom has always been super active and super nice to us but we are starting to help the dad come back to church. He now wants to go to the temple and focus his life on the gospel!! I wont ever forget this family. This computer wont let me upload photos, so I cant upload the picture of them this week!

 

 

Everything is going great, thanks for your emails and support, it means a lot to me!

 

Elder Miles

January 12th, 2016

Friends and Family!

Alright, transfers are in! I am staying another transfer with Elder Miles here! Woohoo! Thats exactly what we wanted. We KNOW that there is a prepared person in this area that we are are going to find and baptize this transfer, without doubt. So I am stoked for another transfer here! Its going to be fun. There were a lot of changes in the zone.. Now we have 6 sister missionaries here! One of them is Hermana Aguiar from Brazil and she is going to be training a mini missionary in Barrio 1, which is the first time Barrio 1 has ever had missionaries! As well the area Las Palmas is opening again and Elder Trotter will be training there, its his last transfer! So a lot of cool things is happening in the zone, its going to be a great transfer and we are excited for it. 

Yesterday was the terminal day, where we at the bus terminal from 9am to 9pm helping all the missionaries get to their new areas. It was great. Something super spiritual happened! When Elder Miles and I got there at 9 am to help the missionaries, we were walking into the terminal, and we met a man that was from Buenos Aires and he was a member but less active, and he was here on a work trip, and he asked us if we could give him a priesthood blessing. He had been going there a lot of rough times with his family and he had some threatening health conditions. He was so sincere and humble and nice. So we took him to our church building and we went into a room and gave him a blessing. He started crying and he hugged us so sincerely, I had never seen someone so genuinely happy and grateful for something I had done for them before. He said that seeing us there at the terminal was "a blessing from the heavens" for him. It was so cool. 

On Friday I also had a super cool experience!! So last sunday we met a less active family called the Canciano famiy that came to church, and we asked if we could come by their house sometime that week. So they said we could come by Friday. They are Toba indians, which is like the most common kind of native indian here in Chaco. The speak their own language called Kom. Anyway, Elder Miles was sick on Friday so I did divisions with Elder Garcia and he came with me to this appointment. They live far away, you have to walk an hour and a half to get to their little house, because thats what the indians like to do here, they like to be really far away from society. So we agreed to met at a certain place and then we walked all together out to their house, because we didnt know where they lived. They told us to bring rain boots but we didnt want to wear them, we just wore our normal black shoes. Turns out that on this little dirt pathway to their house it was completely flooded up to our knees! So we just walked for an hour and half in pure nature in water up to our shins! It was actually so so much fun, the nature was so pretty and it was probably the best adventure that I have had on the mission. The family is way cool and when we finally got their mud house the whole family was waiting for us and we watched "A savior is Born" with them and they all loved it. On the way back we had to use flash lights and the mom and dad guided us all the way back to the town. On the way the mom taught me how to say a few words in Toba. It was a really cool, beautiful experience that I will never forget. 

So thats about all, we are excited for another transfer together! We dont really have any investigators right now, we are starting from scratch. I hope you all have a great week, thank you for your emails and support.

This is the path that we walked on for an hour and a half, there and back!

​The Canciano family

​The sunset on the way back!

January 4th, 2016

Buenas!

How is everyone? How did your new years go? We had a good week over here! On the 31st and on the 1st we had to stay in the apartment all day because of all the danger there is outside on those days. As well my companion has been sick and we couldnt leave the apartment one day. So it was a pretty calm week, nothing too special. Last night President Franco went to a lesson with us! We taught Eduardo. It was awesome to have President there with us because he gains the respect of people really fast and teaches so clearly. A super super strong spirit was felt. Hopefully Eduardo will attend church this coming week! Aside from that this week we found an older man from Cuba named Enrique and we had a lesson with him and gave him a book of mormon. We came back two days later and he had already read HALF of the book of mormon! Wow!! haha. We werent able to have a 2nd lesson with him yet, but if he keeps reading hopefully he will feel the truth of it! He is super into philosophy and doesnt believe that there is a God. Cool guy. 

This coming week we are going to keep contacting and finding! Elder Miles and I are determined to find new investigators this week. We are going to talk with every human that we see and make an effort to be consecrated so that the Lord blesses us! Everything is going great! Next week we will have p day on tuesday because of transfers, so expect my email on tuesday! Thanks for your emails and love and support.

Elder Miles

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.