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