What a week for me! I am in a little piece of mission heaven
here in Gutiérrez! There must be something in the water here or something
because we are having great success! Hna. Diaz and I both agree that this week
was one filled with miracles. We have 8 investigadors with a baptismal date. 2
of those are a pair of grandparents named Lucy and Manuel, who are in their
70's and still hip, humble, and ready to recieve the gospel. They love coming
to church and reading the Book of Mormon. Manuel asked me something yesterday
in church after Testimony meeting that made me laugh, he said, " I don't
get why everybody is so SURE of themselves! Everyone says, 'I know this, I
testify of that, I dont have any doubt about it' ... It's good that you all are
so sure of yourselves" Haha I told him that we are only sure of what we
testify because of the way we FEEL. Once the Spirit has testified to our hearts
of an eternal truth, it's pretty hard to deny it afterwards. They are so cute
and want to be baptised as soon as they're ready. We're also teaching a young couple and their family named
Maira and Emanuel. They are so wonderful and go to church every sunday, rain or
shine. They want to be baptised but need to get married first. (Just like the
whole rest of Argentina) So they're working on that. This week we taught them a
lot about the family and how our children are blessings in our lives. Their two
little kids were making ruckus the whole lesson, and by the end of the lesson
we came to the conclusion that they were "bendiciones escondidas" or
"hidden blessings".
There is this group of wild Argentinan children who always
chase us in the street when we pass by their house haha. They're barefoot and
crazy haired and love to follow me touching my hair saying, "Rubia rubia
que bonita!" Blondes are rare here. We always try to avoid their house
cause they seriously wait for us like Dingo dogs haha.
Investigador Alfonso: An elderly who we are teaching and
never wants to say a prayer, he makes up an excuse every time to not say one
until we ask him "Alfonso, we really need your help because we are walking
in the street all the time and we would love it if you could pray for our
safety" And then he always says one immediately afterwards haha. He's so
cute and innocent.
Evelyn and Estelita: two teenagers who love learning about
the gospel. They told us they were struggling remembering things, so we told
them to keep a journal and write down notes of what they were studying. The
next time we came they had a whole list of all the reasons why Jesus Christ got
baptised. I was so proud! Haha they were waiting for us at the door.
My new zone is pretty hilarious. We are putting together a
skit for the Zone Conference, acting out the first Christmas but Argentinan
style. So Mary is impatient and always wants dulce de leche, there are people
selling Alfajores everywhere you go, and the wisemen travel on motorcycle and
the shepards drink mate and cook Asado haha. Its pretty funny. I'm finding
myself having a lot of fun with the language lately. Hna Diaz is teaching
me how they talk in Chile so I can be up to date with Caitlin when we get back
haha. Hna Diaz also loves to learn English and she already knows all the Taylor
Swift songs and also Bohemian Raphsody so we have fun with that.
Lately I have been missing the temple very much. It's super
hard to go without it for so long. I'm realizing how much we really do need the
temple in our lives. It gives such a spiritual strength that is not found
anywhere else. I've been thinking a lot about the faithful people in the Book
of Mormon who never had the chance to receive the blessings of the temple. And
then I think of the people in our day, with whom a trip to the temple is a once
in a lifetime experience. I realized how sincerely blessed I have been all my
life to have one so close to me. Immediate peace, a 5 minute car ride away. My
companion made me feel better by telling me that the home is the closest place
to the temple. We can make our home like a mini temple by treating it like one
and filling it with the Spirit and with love. Today we are going to deep clean
our pension, put pictures of the temple on the walls, and do everything we can
this week to make it feel more like the temple. I want to invite you all to
make time for the temple this week. I know that it is the House of God and that
we need it in our lives regularly. God will always provide the time for the
things most important.
This week I am SUPER grateful. And not just FOR everything
that my Heavenly Father has given me, because that is too much to count no
matter how many times the hymn tells me to count my blessings. But this week I
really worked hard to apply Dieter F. Uchdorfs talk from 2 conferences ago, in
where he says in stead of being grateful FOR things, we can strive to be
grateful in any circumstance that we are in, including the hard ones. So this
is pretty funny haha but like 3 days ago my eye started to swell up real bad. I
just tried to wash it and ignore it but Sunday morning I woke up with it
completely swollen shut haha! No one wants to go to church looking like
Quasimodo! But that was when I decided to be grateful in my troll-like
circumstance and be happy that day. Even though I felt like Tommy Boy when
everyone, the whole day, was asking me, "Whoa what happened to your
face!?"
