THIS CHURCH IS TRUE!

Well this week we walked a little more than usual but that`s ok! We had another service cleaning at that guys house. We cleaned the floors... AGAIN, and the kitchen, and we are supposed to have an asado with him. So we will see if we can clean that bad boy super well before we use it to cook, haha. 

This last week we had a Zone Meeting. And one of the things that struck me super hard was a ¨practice¨ that the zone leaders did. It was a practice to help us improve on how to do a comp inventory (when you tell your comp what bugs you and stuff).

This is the last P-Day before transfers.  So we need to do a super cleaning of the pench.

Yesterday we had a noche de hogar and we talked about a theme that I really like, and that is the simplicity of the gospel. We read a verse in 2 Nephi 1:20 that in English I don`t know what it says but its something like, If you keep the commandments you will prosper in the earth, and if you don`t keep them, you can`t enter into the presence of God. Literally it is simple. Their are 2 choices, one is good that will help you grow spiritually, and the other is bad that will diminish you spiritually. It`s that`s simple, and we already know the one that we should choose... So why don`t we choose it?

We know we should go to church but sometimes we don`t.

We know we should go to seminary but sometimes we don`t.

We know we should read the scriptures everyday but sometimes we don`t.

And I think the solution is in D&C (I don`t remember the section) where God commands us to not be Idle. 

Well I have a long way to go to not be idle in all things but I think all of us could try to do a little better in that subject.

You asked me what is the hardest thing on the mission and what I love the most.  Here you go..

I think the hardest thing that I have struggled with on the mission is opening my mouth and just talking to everybody, I mean yes I still do it but every time that I do it I always feel butterflies in my stomach!! But luckily I have been feeling it wear off lately being with Elder Avila. I feel like I have gotten to grow a lot this transfer!!

The things I love the most about being a missionary is hearing people say their first prayer, and then watching their prayers progress after that it is literally amazing. Listening to a person`s prayer you can really show you the true feelings and desires of their hearts. Super Awesome.

Your challenge for the week is to Read the Book or Mormon... EVERYDAY!!! For at least 15 minutes!

I know that this church is true! That`s why I  am where I am right now, haha

Have a good week everybody!! Love you all!

Elder Ward

GO EVERY SUNDAY!

We had a good week. We had some service activities, we gave a  noche de hogar and we had A LOT of people come to church this week!!! We had an asado, we ate horse blood, i made desert and we did a chili challenge. So you could say it was a pretty good week.

Our service activity was to clean the house of a recent convert.   And boy was there a lot of clean.  Grandma Shields would not know what to do with this place.  SO we spent 2 hours just picking up garbage and cleaning his floors... 2 HOURS!! We still have his room, his kitchen, and his bathroom. So yeah. OH the things we do for people... 

Since this month that the leaders of the church have been doing a project of Sacrament Attendance September! They want everyone, less actives, investigators, and members, to go EVERY Sunday of this month, then after that look back on the month and realize HOW MUCH we are blessed when we go to church. We have been challenging people a lot in that. And we got results! Almost 100 people came to church this week!! And the week before we only had 70!! SO MANY BLESSINGS!! 

This week we had an asado (BBQ) with the family that the mom just barely got baptized. and it was super good. We had a  bunch of food there, and there is something here that is called Morcilla. And pretty much what it is is cooked Horse blood with onion pepper and some other spices. But it´s actually pretty good! The first time that I ate it no one told me what it was because well yeah... It´s just blood. It´s really good with Bread!

Then when we were there the dad heard that i like spicy so he bought each one of us a chili. And it was super hot. But it was super funny to see my  comp eat it because in Brasil they never eat spicy. Haha oh man, hopefully she  sent you a pic of us eating them mom, haha.

But this week that was just about it! Lots of Blessings. I was literally so happy about how many people were in sacrament meeting. Literally almost cried from joy, haha. The mission does weird things to ya. But yeah that was pretty much all that happened this week!

I feel the love of my family every week.  Especially when I read emails.   I am very blessed!  

Love you all!

Elder Ward

BURNING SHIRT

Hola Everyone!!

Well this week started with my comp cutting  my hair... REALLY SHORT.  Now you can see my scar that I got from cutting my head open when I went surfing with the Shields.

We had a meeting with the mission president on Wednesday from 9 in the morning till 5 in the evening... My mind just wanted to explode.. I learned so much stuff, luckily I was writing stuff down because he literally talked 8 hours. You can definitely tell that he was a religion teacher at BYU Idaho for 36 years. We mainly talked about working with members and applying the atonement to missionary work.

To prepare for the training,  we were assigned to read all of the scriptures in the Scripture guides about the atonement and wrote 5 sentences about the atonement that we learned. I didn't bring those sentences with me but pretty much I learned that the atonement revolves around a law that God brought down. With this law we can obey, or we can disobey. There is also a consequence for obeying or disobeying this law.  Those that complete this law are rewarded and those that disobey are punished. The rewards and the punishments are to fulfill Justice. And to get to the kingdom of God we need that ¨Criminal Record¨to be completely clean. Which is impossible, without some form of mercy. Something that completes the demands of Justice and Mercy completely, and that is the Atonement.

This week we were walking a lot because we have been trying to build up our bank of investigators but we just didn't really have any success... BUT! We had a lot of lessons with members asking them for references, and we have a lot of good possibilities to start teaching! But other then that it was a pretty long week of nothing much happening. But this next week we are going to have a ton of miracles happen! We are gonna go to these references that we have and we are going to baptize all of them!! WOO!

 We are my comp are doing great.  We get along super well! We are super good friends luckily, haha sometimes it´s hard to understand him cause he just throws some random Portuguese words in his sentences, haha but what ya gonna do, he´s still learning the language.

Don't worry I feel safe! I have the protection of angels!! I feel like I am obedient so that makes me feel even safer! And yes, haha, if we are obeying the rules in the missionary handbook (which I am doing) we are being careful and smart, like varying our routes that we walk, walking not too slow, not resisting if someone robs us, so yeah, just little things like that! But they keep us super safe!

Not much happens on P-Days.  Eat, Sleep... and Play soccer if we have district or zone activities, cause there isn´t really much to do over here in Laferrere, it´s just all stores and houses. Nothing too exciting, haha.  I did burn a shirt for my hump day.  It was a dirty shirt that wasn't mine and no one wanted it.  

Well that was pretty much what i learned these past couple weeks while i was preparing for the training. But i hope that we can all apply the atonement a little better, we can always be better and we can always apply the atonement, it will always be there! Love you all and i hope you have a good week!

Elder Ward

EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES

Ok. So the mission president has really stressed on the fact that we need to work with members. And I  think that we have been applying that fairly well here. Especially in the reference sides. We have 5 members that have told us about families that have asked them about their church and that want to listen to the missionaries, and this week we have planned to visit all of them! It is going to be so awesome. Seriously working with the members is the best way to do missionary work. We are also going to go out with a kid that is our age.  Heis preparing for a mission  so we went looking for some YSA´s that are less actives (recently just got called as the ward YSA leader) and we are having meetings with the leaders of the ward and they are giving each organization 5 names so we are just super excited this week. We will have a lot of success and it is going to be so awesome!

I got robbed again, but I wasn't going to tell you but.... I don´t know how you do it. But every single times it happens you just happen to ask the Monday after... Must be your motherly intuition. Haha so yes.  The weather is super weird.  One day it's cold and the other is hot...So I can't ever tell when I need my jacket.  The members do feed us in this area  so yes I am well feed.  Sadly, haha cause I am wanting to lose weight! I only have a year to look some what skinny again!  I love the South mission.  It just feels totally the same, just different faces!!

Yesterday we didn´t have a ton of people some to our ward and it kindof bummed out the leaders and everyone there. Then the Bishop came flying in with so much excitement and it was awesome! We seriously need to be helping other people to be excited to bring not only new people to the church, but also people that have fallen away! Like it says in D&C 18:10 ¨Remember, the worth of soul is great in the sight of God¨. And that is so true, all souls have the same worth is God´s eyes, and we should be thinking like that too!

Yesterday we were walking to a member´s house to have a lesson with some recent converts, and we felt prompted to knock on a door. So we knocked (clapped).  No answer. We clapped a second time. We were about to leave and then we thought, na, one more time wouldn´t hurt. So we did, and after that a lady that is married (hard to find a married family in ALL of Argentina, most families these days just get together).  The have 2 kids and just recently returned to her church. Well we couldn´t teach  that day because she busy, but we gave her a restoration pamphlet and are coming back Satudray!! It just always get´s me. When people accept us I just feel such a joy! I couldn´t stop smiling after. Then my comp asked me...

 ¨Did you write down the direction?¨

 ¨No... You?¨

 ¨Uhhh... No¨

 ¨Uhh aren´t you supposed to show me how to be a good missionary?¨

 ¨... Maybe¨

Haha but anyways, everyone makes mistakes right? Especially me, haha. 

Well that was our week! Hope you all have a good one and I will be talking to ya next week!

Elder Ward

GRANDPA WARD & A NEW COMPANION

Well this week was just a whirlwind of stuff happening that I did not expect to happen! With becoming a trainer, Grandpa Ward passing away and other things that happened here. I am still just feeling at peace. There is a verse in Doctrine and Covenants 4 that says...

For behold, the field is white already to harvest, and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth Salvation to his soul. 

I really like that verse, because it explains to us that if we work hard to bring the salvation of others, we bring our own salvation. And I want to see Grandpa again, and the only way that I can do that is to be obedient to the commandments and bring salvation to the souls that are waiting for it here in Argentina, or in the States or where ever I am. A member in our ward found out that her best friends child died Saturday due to brain tumors too.  I told her that exact same thing. Now we are going to start teaching this family that just lost their daughter.   I just feel grateful that I already have the knowledge of the plan of salvation, because I can`t even imagine the pain that they are feeling right now, thinking that they will never see their daughter again.

Like I said I got a new companion!! His name is Elder Avila, he is brand new, but he served a transfer waiting for his visa like I did but in Brazil cause that`s where he`s from!! He`s super awesome! He`s super jacked and all that good stuff, entered into the UFC and left right before he went on the mission so he likes to fight... I will make sure not to get on his bad side, haha.  We are getting along very well, especially since we both want to be obedient, he told me that the comps that he had in Brazil were not very obedient and he said that he was super happy to receive an obedient companion. WOOHOOO!!

We went to the mission presidents house to pick up the new missionaries on Tuesday.  While I was there President Thurgood pulled me aside and told me about Grandpa, actually right before that an elder told me sorry for the death of my grandpa... and I was like... uh... WHAT!? Haha but yeah, tell everyone not to cry too much!! They will see gramps again!

The funeral sounds awesome.  Mom said the grandkids are singing We'll Bring The World His Truth.  I am singing it really quietly right now in the Ciber so that no one looks at me too weird, haha.  

Being a trainer is good, but my situation is a little different because even if he switches to his native language and starts speaking Portuguese's the people can still understand him. Now if he was American, no one would understand what he was saying, haha so yeah that`s actually pretty nice. There is an American in our pench that just got here and he`s really struggling with not knowing the language especially cause he has a Latin comp so yeah... th-that that don't kill ya will only make ya stronger as our friend Kanye West teaches us.

Our schedule hasn't changed too much, we do have an hour extra of studies in the morning and an hour of language study, so it seems right now like we are in the pench FOREVER!!! But that`s ok, haha.

But anyways! In other news this week it has been raining a LOT.  The ward made a super ghetto canoe that we used to go visit some members that had their streets and some houses completely flooded! It was quite the experience! And it was super humbling too. I will call the bishop today to tell him to send me some pics so I can send them next week!

We also had a meeting this last Friday for the new people and their trainers and I saw Hermana Holt (I think her name is Ellie)  that lives by Stephy!  Yeah that was pretty neat, I haven`t seen a face I knew before the mission in a year!! 

Hermana Holt and Elder Ward

So it was quite the eventful week. Glad to hear that Grandpa is finally going to serve again like he did so many years ago in Scotland!! Love this Gospel so much, and don`t know where I'd be without it!

Elder Ward

Spencer and Grandpa Ward

TRANSFER DAY AND SUPER MIRACLES

Well Elder Cortez got transferred! And I am going to be training!! Por fin! I am so excited to train someone! It is going to be so fun! So yeah I am super excited!!

Transfers in the South mission are way different.  Only a few missionaries go to the transfer meeting. We go to the capilla in Banfield (a city) look for our companion, and then leave. It was super short, and it takes up P-Day, so the longer you stay talking to people the shorter your P-Day is, haha.

It has been raining for the past couple days! And everything is Flooded!!! It is super crazy! I wanted to take a picture last night but you couldn't even see the water line since it was so dark.

This last Sunday our investigator got confirmed!! She was so excited and so happy that she got confirmed! That was one miracle we had - her confirmation.  We also had 3 more super miracles yesterday!

1. We were close to a less actives house and I told my comp we should go stop by, he didn't think we should because there was a bunch of mud and we would get all dirty.  I insisted and he said alright. We went and she was there!! She is never in her house! She is always working and we haven`t been able to find her since the first week I have been here! We had a super good lesson with her and her 2 daughters and they all said they would come to Church this next week for sure!

2. Every single time we entered in a house the past couple days it starts to rain, and every time we go to the streets it stops raining... It was pretty awesome!

3. We were waiting for a taxi (just like a super ghetto car that isn`t legal but it`s the only transportation we have) and 45 minutes had passed by. We have to be in the pench at 9:30 because that`s the rule, and at this point it started raining... HARD. A bus driver stopped by and told us that the taxis weren't stopping by because all the streets were flooded.  He offered to take us to the train station (close to our house) so we accepted. It was already 9:35 when he said he would take us. We talked to him for a bit while he was taking us to the station and gave him a Book of Mormon and everything.  Then he told us, ya know I am feeling good tonight. I`ll just take you to your house! He told us that he was for sure going to read the book and go to the church that was nearest to his house to find the missionaries! Hope he get`s baptized!

So I gotta say that it was a pretty good week. We had a lot of good stuff happen and I definitely felt the love of my God. I am so blessed!!

Love you all so much and hope you have a good week!

Elder Ward

BAPTISM!

This week was so awesome!! we had two awesome things happen!  On Monday we got to watch Despicable Me as a district!! and then we had a baptism this last weekend!!! WOOHOO!!

So on Monday we got to watch the movie Despicable Me! We bought a bunch of soda, popcorn and empanadas, and just chowed dooooooown.  It was good to relax a little bit.  

 

 

 

Then our investigator  had her interview with President Thurgood this last Wednesday and when she got out she was just bawling... I was like oh crap she isn´t getting baptized this week. But then President goes up to her husband and tells him that his wife with be an amazing member!  She was bawling from happiness I guess.   The baptism was on Saturday.  I made two carrot cakes the day before with a cream cheese frosting.   And yes everyone was asking for the recipe.  Everyone loved my cake, haha wassup.  

The day started with us in the capilla waiting for the font to fill up.  It takes about three hours here, luckily not too much time.  In lobos it was about 7 hours.  We waited for people to start to show up and everyone got there about 6:30.  There were so many people there!   Way better outcome then the last baptism we had!   There was at least 30-40 people that came.  We started out with 2 talks and then went to the baptism. Elder Cortez baptized her one and done, no problem.  After the baptism we had everyone go sit in the chapel and the missionaries sang "Nearer My God to Thee", it sounded pretty awesome.  Then her husband got up to bear his testimony, it was such an earth shaking testimony.  He talked about how ever since he was a kid his mom had brought him to church, she was a super faithful member.  She died when he was about 15 so he stopped going to church.  Him and his wife got together about 4 years ago and they were happy but they fought a ton.  But then the elders started coming into their home.  The elders left commitments, and they completed those commitments. he said that the elders saved their marriage and are so happy now.  They can´t even remember the last fight they had.  He was happy because he knew that he was starting on the path again that would lead him to live with his mom for every in the eternities and is excited to be sealed in a year in the temple for all time and eternity. Whoa. Cool stuff right?

 

 

Well that was pretty much my week!  This next Friday we will be finding out the transfers and if we have any! The transfers happen next Monday in the morning and if we have changes then you won't hear from me until Monday evening.  

 

Have a good week and see ya later!!

Elder Ward