Week #44 ~Sustaining The Prophet.

Hola familia!

I am doing great! We had another not so eventful week but, still a week in a foreign country! One of the great things is that I am in an area that actually has food to eat, meat to eat, and grocery stores to shop at.  It is very nice being in a town. 

Monday

We had a cold p-day! It is starting to get really cold here; we can see our breath in the morning and night.  Luckily the afternoon still brings a little heat!  We were in Centro all day and we talked to other elders serving who are friends or old companions in the cyber!  We all happen to stop by the cyber to email at the same time.  We aren’t supposed to be emailing together so it was an amazing coincidence!  It was great to hear of their experiences and how the investigators we taught previously are doing.  

Tuesday 

We passed for an old investigator.  The first few times we passed she was not very receptive.  But she permitted us to come in and we talked with her and we had a great lesson.  We also visited some less-active families.   We taught them about temples and about how you can go there one day to be sealed for time and all eternity to your family. The lesson went amazing well.

Wednesday

We had a great day, we taught a super family!  It was like the classic lesson with a mom and a dad and a son and a daughter and it was a fantastic experience and I loved it!  We will go back soon and give them another lesson, I can't wait!

Thursday

We had zone meeting with the President and it was super great!  I learned so much!  While listening to the Mission President speak, I felt like I learned just as much if not more from the Holy Spirt.  It was so exciting!  I couldn’t keep up taking notes from what the President was saying and what I kept feeling impressions from the Spirit!  It was like two different teachers teaching at the same time.  I was trying to keep up with both!  It was so AWESOME!

Friday

We had interviews with the President.  It was basically an all-day experience.   He interviewed two zones this day and with a last name that begins with V I was very last.  It was reminiscent of being last for lunch line in elementary school.   And…just like elementary school, they ran out of pizza…ahhhh!  But I got to be the last elder interviewed.  So, I finally got to leave to go back home at 8pm.  I did have a great amount of fun today, because I received a package from home!!  I received a Nerf American Football and we played with it all day while waiting for interviews in the church.  I truly had a blast today and was thankful for having the last name "VANCE".

Saturday

We talked to some references and had some good talks.  We passed for some less actives and helped them with some little services projects that they needed help with. 

Sunday

We had a good Sunday, nothing special happened, but it was great because we got to sustain the Prophet.  I absolutely love doing that.  It makes me full of happiness and fills my soul because I am telling him that I know he is called of God.  Even if he doesn't actually see me raise my hand, I know he feels the support from each one of us.  In sustaining our Prophet, we are promising to listen to him, serve others, and do our part in fulfilling our church callings.  It is awesome how the church is set up and how organized it is.  A true testament that God's house is a house of order and He has a plan for us. 

I love this Gospel and I am grateful to be able to share it with the people of Argentina.

Love you all,

Elder Vance

Week #43 ~Fixing Heaters & Smashing Bricks

Hola familia!

How are you! I am doing great!  My companion is pretty much the same which means he is basically my shadow.  He doesn’t speak, doesn’t get involved in lessons or answer questions, and doesn’t want to be a missionary.  At least he is willing to follow me around like a shadow so I can do all I can to further the work.  He finally told me why he chose to serve a mission; it was for economic improvement.  He said, “It is a pay raise from where he was living and working; and he just wants to take it easy and make some friends.”  We had a super great Easter week!  They don’t really celebrate Easter here, so it was basically a normal week.  I had a fun Sunday celebrating Easter on my own.  That’s okay, I can have a party for one!  Attitude is everything, right? ha-ha

Monday 

We had a great p-day because we had divisions with elders from another area.   It was the day before everyone leaves for transfers so we helped them pack and helped them go to the terminal to catch their busses.  It was nice to talk to them and help them out.   In the evening, we passed for an investigator and watched one of the Church’s 12-step addiction recovery videos. It was very good, and the investigators told us that they really wanted to quit because they felt it was negatively affecting their family life.  That was a huge step for them!  Because the first step to come closer to Christ is deciding you want to!

Tuesday 

We had a great day.  We contacted all day to try to get more investigators and obviously invite more to come unto Christ.  We talked to two new families.   One family’s kids wanted to read the whole pamphlet during our lesson; they would pause at all the question marks and wait for us to respond to the question.  It was super great because it seemed as if they were interviewing us.  I just waited until they asked me the questions then chimed in.  It was great!  We hope to teach both families again next week!  In the evening, we played football (soccer) with the young men!  They all brought their friends who were not members and the leaders said if they want to play they must let us missionaries pass to their houses.  So now we have a lot of citas for the coming week!  Awesome!

Wednesday 

We taught the old man who told us last week that he wanted to be baptized.  He has some things to overcome before he will be ready to enter the baptismal water.  He is progressing and is about 80 years old.  After our lesson, he asked if we know any single woman that are looking for “a husband that has it all”. Ha-ha way too funny! We had to tell him we can help everyone seeking eternal truths yet we wouldn’t be able to help with any dating contacts.  Not even for an investigator that, ”has it all”.  Impressive ambition.  Later that day, we had a noche de hogar with a family of investigators and the older brother who is a member.  We watched the Testaments Church movie and it was super great!  Such a great film if you have not watched it in a while you should!

Thursday 

We did service for a member and her son is not a member.  We worked on their backyard. They had a lot of rocks and bricks and she handed us two hammers and said she needs them small to make a cement pad.  So, we smashed rocks with sledge hammers for 3 hours.  I felt like an old prisoner smashing rocks to pass the time.  These Argentines and their cement pads.  I have worked on sooooo many.  They just keep braking them up and pouring new ones?  Not sure why?  Never the less, it was super great to work hard.

Friday

It rained all day and it was getting cold!  Cold enough we could see our breath!  I am thinking it’s a great thing we aren’t sweating all day however, as we tried to start our heaters, they don’t work!  It got cold really-fast with the rain such that we needed our heaters to work so I call a member and he tell me that heaters need to be taken all apart to be cleaned every year.   He said without that maintenance, the heaters won’t work.  He told me what to do over the phone because he was too busy to stop by to help.  So being cold, I was motivated and took apart our calafacoters and cleaned them as best I could then put them back together and we were able to start them and they worked!  Thank goodness for my vast experience taking everything apart back home.  See mom, thank goodness I practiced on so many of your appliances!   It would have been a very cold week without the heaters!

Saturday

We got some references so we passed for them and actually taught some great lessons and it was super!   I have a lot of faith in our new references.  

Sunday

We had church like normal and sadly no investors made it out to the meeting.  It was very cold and rainy so there weren’t many members either.  After church, we visited members and shared some scriptures.  It was a nice visit.   

Until next week, keep reading your scriptures and sending your prayers.

Love,

Elder Vance

Week #42 ~Small & Simple Promptings

Hello Family, this has been another week in Terrada.

I am doing good, just a solo act.  My companion does not speak Spanish or English or Portuguese.    So, I really am just am serving here on my own with a companion who follows behind me.  I am trying hard to serve and be kind.  Here is my week…

Monday

We had a good day we had a lot of elders in our house for the zone meeting. It is so great to talk and have fun with other elders!  For our district leader meetings, we had 6 elders stay at our flat. Sadly, we only had two mattresses so some guys had to sleep on the floor!  We cooked empanadas and all went to the park for some fun.  They had a very little museum that we found and went to check it out. It was about 3 rooms and about 10 feet by 10 feet.  It was full of homemade things for show and tell and it was great! It was super funny cause it looked like a bunch of paper Mache stuff like flowers and Christmas lights and it was super fun. They were so proud of it. They kept telling us that it was such a great & creative museum! We enjoyed the time there. 

Tuesday

We had zone meeting and it was super fun it was our last zone meeting before transfers so we all hung out and wrote in our journals and it was a great time!  We were there most of the day and when we went home we got invited by one of our investigators to play soccer with him! So not only did we get to play soccer we got to teach a lesson after!

Wednesday

We had a good day but, not a lot of success.   It was a holiday here and so you would think that we would be able to talk to a lot of families.   Well I would too, but it’s considered rude to knock doors and talk to people during the work free day. So, we kept trying  and hoping not everyone would have the same attitude.  Saddly, it was pretty universal.  We did get to know a lot more of our area by walking around so much! So… that’s at least a plus for Wednesday. 

Thursday 

A day of service we passed for members that requested our service. We have been having a week-long rain storm and it rains every day. It cools off at night so it was not suited to our work schedule but we trudged through rain and helped some people. At night, we tried to pass for members cause its dedicated night for us to serve active members.  It was good we had some that let us talk to them and it was great! I love talking to active members it’s like a break from work because they are trying to do everything that they are supposed to already.   It makes you so proud of them!

Friday

It rained all day again!!! It literally flooded the streets. We were soaked and cold that it was super miserable.  The water came above our shoes on the sidewalks and it was a long wet day! We tried to pass for investigators and menos activos but did not have much luck, except getting wet.

Saturday 

We taught a new investigator English or I did anyway. It was a son of a recent convert and it was so exciting & great because we talked about bible stories. We gradually talked about his questions & about the purpose of life.   We were also able to talk about where we go after this life.   So, I taught English and the first lesson all wrapped up in one lesson, it was great!  At first he didn’t want anything to do with the Mormons, but he wants to work in America one day.  He found out I spoke English and he started taking time off from work to talk to me. I am really excited because he has a lot of faith in his church but is not to happy with his  churches doctrine.   It is like the perfect opportunity really, the best thing ever for us.  We have got it all in our church!

Sunday 

We were in church sitting with one of our investigators and a man entered in the church in normal cloths so we knew he must be a new comer. We started talking to him and he is on vacation here in Argentina.  He was walking home after shopping for some stuff and he saw our chapel.  He thought wow, a church that beautiful must be doing something right so he strolled in.   I wish everyone here would be brave enough to do that. 

So, I asked him if he had any questions about where he comes from our why he is here and he said he has been looking for those answers his whole life.  He looked at me and said, “a young kid couldn’t know more than me.”   I said,” I may not know more but I may know a little bit about a plan God has for you! The plan of happiness.” So, we started talking about the plan of salvation and he got teary eyed and said I have been searching for answers for so long! It was truly amazing because he asked for a Book of Mormon.  I happen to put a copy of the book of Mormon in my book bag instead of my nice ones that I always bring with me.  I had just written my testimony on the inside.  It was truly amazing because the day before I thought I might need a giveaway copy soon with my testimony. I got a book and wrote in it.  Then that morning I thought I should bring it to church.  It is definite inspiration because that’s something I normally don’t bring to church. It was a sweet experience to feel prompting and to help in a great man’s searching for answers.  Lesson learned…Follow even the simplest promptings. 

Look for those little promptings this week and follow them.  Let me know what you find!

Love you all,

Elder Vance