BURNING TESTIMONY

This week was pretty sweet! But first off, keep our investigator in ALL of your prayers please! She is having surgery today and they are removing a tumor that they found in a major vein (vena cava) and she is having that surgery right now! So yeah. You are all awesome! But anyways...

Being with Elder Benitez has really helped my Spanish a lot.  He corrects me when I say something wrong which is nice, some of my old comps wouldn`t correct me and so I learned to speak wrong, but now I am doing good! I feel like it`s skyrocketing! We only speak English in the night when we are at the house to help Elder Benitez learn. 

These are called Pupusas, they are from El Salvador, where Elder Benitez is from

This week we had lots of contacts with athiests for some reason... like 10. Not sure why, but it was kind of depressing.  To see all of those people that don`t believe in God and refuse to believe in Him. Some were nice about telling us... Others were a little more, blunt. But oh well, what ya gonna do.

They all had their excuses as to why God doesn`t exist and blah blah blah, but one time we were talking to an atheist and he said that it doesn`t make sense how God put a baby in Mary without having relations with her, and my comp read a scripture that said God is all powerful and all knowing and He does what He wants, and after the scripture the guy was just like, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... there was an awkward pause for like 10 seconds and then he slammed the door, haha it may have been one of those times that ya had to be there but it was pretty funny. He had NO idea what to say! 

We also had 3 people in sacrament meeting! It was amazing and they loved being in church! We have been teaching them for about 2-3 weeks and they are supposed to get baptized on the 7th on March! So hopefully we are going to get to that goal. 

Something that I learned this week that I would like to share is we really need to share the gospel with everyone!!! and yes, that means EVERYONE!!! Share it with your friend, your friends dog, or your monkey`s uncle! Just everyone! Even people you don`t know! Because yesterday we were walking trying to talk to somebody else right before we had to go back to the pench, and we saw a family siting on a blanket out in a park, me and my comp looked at them for a while... Then looked at each other and said yeah... They need the gospel, turns out that they have 2 kids with special needs and they just don`t know what do do. We taught them about the restoration of the gospel and emphisized that we have the restored power of God on the earth today. It was super cool and very powerful! 

The experiences of sharing the gospel are unique and unforgetable! So get out there and share it!! I love you all and I promise you that you won`t regret sharing the gospel! But you will regret not sharing it! and I leave you with a BURNING testimony that this is the only true church on the earth today! And share that in the name of my Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ, Amen.

Elder Ward

CARNIVAL

Well this week the family we are teaching  just keep being studs. The mom who is not a member yet, invited her mother to church! So we went over Saturday night and watched the Joseph Smith movie and pretty sure she felt the spirit afull afull, and then she didn`t come to church the next day because I think she knew that she would feel the same thing that it was true, so she didn`t come, haha but no worries. We also had another investigator in church. She it super awesome and I just feel so bad for her. Her mother moved back to Bolivia (that`s where she is form) and every time we go over she starts to cry and says that she feels lonely... SO glad that our relief society are studs because they received her so well and she felt so welcome!!! 

Today and tomorrow is carnival here in Argentina. It is a big national holiday.  We are actually doing something special for our community! We are singing 2 hymns at a big park where they are celebrating ,  I am super nervous because it will be in front of like hundreds of people!!! So wish me luck! We are singing Joseph`s smith`s first prayer, and brightly beams our father`s mercy. so hopefully the lord blesses us with impeccable voices!

Another cool story for the week I like to call it...  Beer for a Book.  

So what happened is that we were out it the street and we went and contacted a guy. His only dream in his life is to have a house. He has been homeless his whole life and sells cardboard that he finds in the dump for his money for food. So we had a super powerful lesson with this guy and my comp felt prompted to ask the guy to do an exchange.  A Book of Mormon for the beer he had just recently bought. I thought my comp was crazy! I thought that there is no way that he would exchange! But sure enough he did. After that I bought him some juice so that he could have something to drink and we went on our merry way. So I challenge you people that read this to do the same! Ask to exchange and see what happens, promise the people the blessings that the Book of Mormon will bring to their life and I am sure one person will  make the exchange. 

Love you all and hope that you all have a good week !

Elder Ward

MIRACLES IN THE LIFE OF A MISSIONARY

Elder Benitez and Elder Ward enjoying Argentine Pizza

HOW IS YOUR APARTMENT/PENCH?

It is actually really nice because it used to be a pench for sisters so it is a little nicer then usual. The Faucet has a filter which is super rare and super awesome because we aren`t supposed to drink regular faucet water. Other then a broken toilet button the pench is perfect!  We have filter bottles that the church gave us to use so we don`t get sick. So yeah

I finally got mail!!

WHAT IS A TYPICAL BREAKFAST?

.... Well nothing usually, haha the breakfast doesn't really exist here, if anything I just drink some mate cocido (like an herbal thing they have down here) or malta (it`s like coffee but it isn't, and yes, it is within church standards, haha)

HOW MANY ARE IN YOUR DISTRICT AND ZONE?

6 in the district and I have no idea how many in the zone. Sometimes we will play soccer on p days

TELL US ABOUT YOUR COMPANION.

He is a convert of 2 years, was a member for a year and then went out on a mission and has been on the mission for a year, so he`s just a stud.

ARE YOU STILL IN TRAINING?

I have been done with training for one transfer, but my comp is the senior comp since he has been out longer.

Elder Benitez and I ready to play some soccer!

TELL US ABOUT YOUR WEEK AND YOUR INVESTIGATORS

So this week was pretty sweet. I got to go to Capital Buenos Aires for renewing parts of my visa, and it is soooooo cool. Capital is so awesome and I wanna go back there so bad after my mission. It`s just so big and all of the buildings are super old looking and European and it`s just super cool. Can`t wait to visit it when I come back! But in other  news this week we found some pretty cool people while we were in Capital!  They are pretty much the Spanish speaking High school musical stars! They were super sick. They were getting visas to be in the country and we talked to them the whole time while we were at the immigration office. And we gave both of them a Book of  Mormon!  Hopefully they will read them them, get baptized and I`ll be able to say I converted a famous person! At least someone that`s famous in
South America!

So our main investigators which is a family finally came to church this week! They loved it! They left with all of these books in their hands, gospel principles and the prophet teachings and just huge smiles on their faces! It was so awesome! The mom had a massive headache right before church and when she got there she said it went away! Just another miracle in the life of a missionary right there!

We also found this lady sitting outside drinking her mate (mate is the herbal drink that every Argentine drinks like a million times every single day). We asked if we could share the gospel with her, and I swear this lesson could have been  the perfect missionary teaching video that they show all of the new missionaries. Because it was just perfect. We taught all the principles super well, she asked all of the right questions at the right time, and the spirit was just super strong!!! So yeah, I was pretty proud of myself... Haha, but we found her yesterday, so we will see if she progresses more! Hopefully she does!

Well I love the people in Argentina a LOT! But I love all of you more! Thank you for your prayers and support in my mission and for all the blessings that I receive!

Elder Ward

P.S. oooooooh and guess what!?!?! I just remembered, one day we went to a members house to eat lunch, and when I walked in, I saw that the son had a SKYLINE BASKETBALL SHIRT!?!?!?! I WAS LIKE WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE THE CHANCES THAT HE HAS THAT??? Turns out that he was Ryan Taylors older brothers comp when he served in Chile and he gave him the shirt... but I was just freaking out when I saw that!!!

VILLA MADERO

Transfer Meeting - Showing me and my new companion - Elder Benitez

The City I am in is called Villa Madero, it is a lot different then Lobos.  It is major city.  Villa means super super poor areas, like those places you always see that have the tin roofs and are just packed with people, yeah there is some on that in our area and it`s so cool/sad/just everything. 

My new comp is named Elder Benitez, he is from El Salvador, and I think he is 11 months in the mission. He is super awesome and I was super excited to finally have a Latin comp to finally crank up my Spanish skills!!!!! It`s super great and the good thing is that he really wants to learn English. So we help each other the whole day learning from each other, so that is super super fun. 

So here in Villa Madero we have a ward, and there are like 90 members every week, this week was a little off because a bunch of people have vacations because they have work off and all the kids are out of school too.  About 5 or 6 big families were gone so there were only like 50 people in the sacrament meeting. The Building is super sweet, but the thing I like the most is the fact that it has a basketball/soccer court in the back and we play soccer every week with the Elder`s Quorum!!!!! I was so pumped to finally be able to play some soccer! And I did pretty good if I might say so myself. I scored 2 goals this first game. WASSSSUP!
So I would send more pictures but here in the city the computers are really bad with viruses, so I need to go to a member`s house this week, put my pictures on a pen drive, and then put it into the computer so that if I plug my camera in I don`t lose all of my photos. 

I can`t really remember too many names of people that I met this week because I am just overwhelmed with all of them, haha I feel like that will happen to me every time I get into a new area though. We did divisions (splits) this Thursday, so pretty much I had to lead the area without knowing anything about the area... and it was the worst, haha, I had no idea what I was doing.  We walked the whole day and I got these massive blisters on my feet because this is my first walking area, but they are fine, a good way to kick off the new area right?

I had an amazing going away party in Lobos, it was super awesome!! Tons of people came, and I gave away my favorite hat to one of  my favorite members there :`(  but he gave me something awesome in return! He gave me a garden gnome. Yes a garden gnome. I am so happy with it and it is sitting on my study desk. It was sad to say goodbye to my first couple converts and they were sad too, but I can`t wait to help others to come to the gospel and change their lives too! PEACE!!! LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! 

Elder Ward