AUGUST 30, 2010
Yesterday was a big joke. We spent the day in the streets yesterday just laughing about what all went down at church. We finally had a ton of investigators at church and it was the worst Sunday meeting session I have ever had in Argentina. We had members sit by the investigators and the members fell asleep during the talks. The investigators slowly started leaving throughout the meetings and by the last, they were all gone. It’s all right. Next week it has to be better because it can’t get any worse, right? My companion and I just laughed about it! I like my comp. She works really hard.
This week we found a new investigator named Maria. She is 45 with three kids and a few grandkids. In the last few months she has had two heart attacks and now the doctors tell her that her heart has the age of a 95 year old person. She is waiting for a heart transplant. It’s amazing to teach her because she’s so sensitive to life because she feels like she could die at any moment. She’s really receptive to all the things we teach her. She asked us to pray for her and I have been praying for her a lot and I’ve been seeing the answers. The next time we went to teach her, she had been waiting for us. Family, a lot of the time that doesn’t happen—that the people are waiting and anticipating for us to come. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted. We’ve just gotta find a way to get her to church cuz it’s not all the easy with her condition.
Our family of boys all came to church yesterday and they all have baptismal dates, but we have to work harder with them to gain real testimonies.
AUGUST 23, 2010
We have started immigrating working in all the parts of our area—we’ve been working in the rich parts of our area. And I’m not going to lie, there are some rich parts. The biggest house I’ve ever seen in Argentina is the house of this old investigator named Damien that we just found in our area book. We passed by and I was thinking—no way, this has to be the wrong direction. So we rang the doorbell and the little security camera was just pointing at me and I was thinking to myself that there’s no way they’re going to let us in. They’ll just talk to us through the microfone. We sweet talked our way into having the wife come out and she told us all about when the hermanas would come over and all this stuff. I guess they guy read the Book of Mormon in two months and wanted to get married, but the wife said to choose me or the church and he chose her.
It sounds really familiar to our investigator named David. His wife yelled at us this week and told us to not come by anymore and so I asked her if she goes to a church and she said no and that she was actually looking for the true church right now. Then I asked her if she ever asked her husband why he feels this is the true church and she responded saying that she hadn’t and that her husband is just confused. Well, we fasted for them this week and we are going by Tuesday to see what we can do.
Our favorite family is progressing and another one of the boys came to church this week and the youngest started really listening.
AUGUST 16, 2010
Today we are with Hermanas Lewis and Godfrey. We have laughed more today that I have in a long time. I miss being able to fully express things with common interests and forms of communication. I can communicate completely with everyone in Spanish, it’s just not quite the same as English.
I get joy and satisfaction out of the work I am doing. That is one of the fundamentals of my testimony. The longer I am here, the more familiar I am becoming with the Holy Ghost. I don’t think I knew him before the mission.
The week we completed the goal I’ve been hoping for—for a long time. We started teaching the boys in the family we found. Before we just taught the parents and the daughter, but this week we sat down with all the boys twice. They are 16, 18, 19, 20, and 23. Do I think future missionaries every time I think of this family? Yes! They came to church this week and when their mom got the Holy Ghost she started crying. I hope that her kids get baptized.
Jessica, our other investigator that has had a bunch of ups and downs, I think she is one of my favorite investigators. She came to church with her two kids and got there early and she was sportin’—lookin’ really nice in one of the skirts that I gave her.
AUGUST 9, 2010
Dad, you wanted to know my release date and I told you March 3. Lie. It’s March 1. (Actually it’s February 28, but she’ll probably be home March 1.) Like that makes much of a difference, but there you go. Make plans. It would be cool if you guys could make it to the airport that day.
So this week was kinda bad. Nobody came to church. Kill me. We had three baptismal dates, but now we only have one. But it’s okay because we will do all we can to get them back on track. One of our investigator families (ones that aren’t married because the hubby doesn’t want to get married) the grandma died this week. We taught them the plan of salvation and they totally loved it and felt so much better, but still didn’t come to church.
Baking??
Can't miss her with that neon bag!
Does she like it or not?
Everybody loves Jill!
I cut straight across bangs.
AUGUST 2, 2010
I have a new companion. Her name is Hermana Duarte from Paraguay. She speaks Guarane. It’s cool. We will probably be together for two transfers.
So this is what happened this week. We were supposed to have three baptisms, right? Well, didn’t happen. The two little kids are having the police come to their house today and they are moving out tomorrow to fix all the problems with the dad. David, our 51 year old investigator drank two days before he was supposed to get baptized. So none of them happened. BUT…our family that we have been teaching that has all the boys that could go on missions…well, the mom came to church with the daughter this week even after she told us on Friday not to waste our time with her. Anyway, in our gospel principles class she bore her testimony. We were talking to her after and she told us she wanted to get baptized. The daughter isn’t too sure about baptism yet, but she told us that she feels something different.
This week was good. Hermana Perez was trunky, but she finished off well. Saul, one of our investigators came to church by himself in his car all dressed in a suit. It was nice. He loves the church, but mainly for social reasons. We’ll have to work on that.
So today at transfers I felt good cuz I saw the fruits of my labors. In Hurlingham, Norma, they lady that we contacted one rainy night got baptized and Diego, my last convert in Hurlingham baptized his parents and is going to baptize his daughter next week. Also, in Aldo Bonzi a bunch of the people we found and taught got baptized so it felt good!
Liz, the blog looks beautiful.
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