THIS GOSPEL IS SO TRUE!!

Well this week was a good one. We had a lot of lessons with the investigators that we already have.  We didn't find as many people like last week. But that`s ok.  We have a lot of progress made with the investigators that we have and sadly we are going to drop a couple this next week because they aren't progressing and aren't keeping their commitments. That is just the most frustrating and most difficult thing to do as a missionary, have your investigators not keep their commitments. Because we can literally bring the spirit into their lives if we are all doing what we are supposed to.  If they aren't ready to accept it right now maybe they will be another time.  We need to work with prepared people. There are so many prepared people, we just have to focus a lot harder in trying to find them!!

We also had a service activity this week, It made me feel like I was in the movie ¨Holes¨ And when you see the pictures you will know why, haha. We are digging a hole for a family that needs to be 17 feet (5 meters) deep. And we aren`t even close, haha we are going to go over there a little bit every week until it is done.  Right now we are almost at 2 meters. 

Today for P-Day we were going to go to the temple and play frisbee in the feild over there and have a picnic with the zone, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. it rained, haha so we are going to do that next week.

Also this week we had a special training by the area presidency.  The South America South includes Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.   The presidency talked about goals that they want the members of this area to focus on. These three things are 1. Keep the Sabbath Day Holy 2. Be Self-Sufficient 3. Go to the temple often. 

These three goals have really  helped me a lot! Obviously I can`t focus on being self sufficient with a job and going to the temple as a missionary, but I can keep the Sabbath day and be self sufficient in a spiritual sense. So I challenge you guys that you can make a goal for yourself that has to do with one of those 3 things! They will really help you draw closed to your Savior!

This week we invited about 15 people to come to church and only 2 came. Well what ya gonna do. We as missionaries just have to teach (with the spirit), invite (with the spirit), rinse and repeat, and if nothing happens... Well we gotta say goodbye, haha well yeah so this is what I learned this week! But luckily for everyone (including me especially), we have the atonement of Jesus Christ to be able to help us leave our old lives of sin behind and live a better one! This Gospel is so true! Have a good week!!

Elder Bednar is coming to our mission on the 24th of February... WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Elder Ward

I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!

So wow this week was awesome, we found 15 new people to teach... Yeah that was a stinkin miracle, and the grand majority of them were references from members!!! It was just super super awesome to see people this week sharing the gospel and their testimonies with their friends. And lemme just tell ya that the testimony of the member friend is a lot more powerful and meaningful to the investigator then ours. We had some good testimonies too, but it just doesn`t compare to that of the member friend. It just PENETRATES the soul of that person! So if you give a reference to the missionaries, go with them, to contact them, to teach them, just everything!!!

Elder Funk and I are getting along very well!! We are getting better and improving together, setting goals, and just having a really good time, we just hope that this next month of February we will have a baptism! It has been TOO long since the last one. WAY TOO LONG. And we found a TON of people this last week so we are hoping that all of these new people that we are finding that some of them are ready to be baptized!! BOOO YAH!!!!

Unfortunately we had a very said experience this week.  We were going to an appointment and when we got to the house the parents of the family were screaming at each other and throwing stuff and hitting... It wasn`t good.  We don`t know really know what happened but we assume from what they said that it was caused by Pornography. I have such a strong testimony now, how pornography can completely and utterly tear apart a family. We said a prayer all together, we kneeled on the ground to try and calm down the situation and then we left and told the 1st counselor about it... Sadly we couldn't do much but we taught a principle, invited them to change and left. I will soon not forget that.

There was a baptism this last weekend from the sisters in our ward and the lady was living with a member so they got married on Friday, baptized on Saturday, and confirmed Sunday! It was for sure a really awesome weekend for them and we were happy to be there and have some investigators go to the baptism to see how it is!! I made a carrot cake for the baptism.  I have made one for almost every baptism that I have attended here in Argentina.  It is my little tradition.

We did a service project on Saturday morning.  We took out a wall and put some brick on the 2nd floor of a house.  Woo!

Well that is all for this week. My only invitation would be that we help the missionaries by giving them our cherished and loved friends and family members and then we help them to help the friend get converted!! WOO!!  I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK!!!

Love you all!

Elder Ward

MORE MIRACLES TO COME

Well Elder Funk and I are staying together for another 6 weeks!! WOO! So we hope that the couple people that we have found and are working with get baptized!!

We had a ton of miracles this week!  We were walking in the street and some girl ran up to us and said she had a question, I was expecting her to ask the usual ¨do you have a girlfriend¨ or something like that but she was genuinely interested in the message that we had, and her sister too!!  So we went by the other day and it was just a really good lesson, and they both have read and prayed and keep praying and say that they will keep praying till they know this is true! That was a miracle and just totally out of no where! And their mom too!! AND

Also a family that hasn't been to church in like 5 years came yesterday!  It was amazing and then they were talking with the rest of their family and pretty much thanks to them it sparked the rest of the family and now this next week we will have like 20 people at church that usually don`t come. AND

There was a family that came yesterday that was new and had just moved to Ezeiza and they want to hear the lessons and get baptized!  No one had even contacted them but they found the church and just came! AWESOME!!!

We had a huge storm that happened on Thursday night.  It was like a micro burst, and it was just CRAZY!!  Right next to our house a lightning bolt hit a transformer or something and the whole neighborhood`s lights went out.  We just barely got electricity back this morning, so it has been kinda terrible not having fans at night because it is so just hot and super humid.  Not much sleep has been had, haha I actually started sleeping on the floor because it is a lot cooler then being on the bed. I will chalk that up as another miracle since luckily no one was hurt.  It threw trees and roofs too!! We saw a handful of houses the day after that were completely missing a roof!!

We had the COOLEST THING EVER THIS LAST WEEK. This hasn`t happened for ten years but there was a broadcast from the church that was a training for missionaries WORLDWIDE! We had it on Wednesday and the training was titled ¨Teach Repentance and Baptize Converts¨.  It was so great!  We had a handful of really awesome talks, live training with missionaries in Ogden Utah, and just wow. It was an incredible experience.  It really helped me understand the importance of the spirit in this work. He is the teacher, and we are just vessels I guess so that the spirit can help the investigator, they said that the investigators probably won`t remember what we said, but they will remember what they FELT. 

That pretty much sums up my week. It was awesome and even more miracles to come this next week, I am sure of it!! Everyone pray for the ward of Ezeiza, that it can get better and grow and divide this year! Have a good week everyone!!

Elder Ward

ASK THE MISSIONARIES

Family!

Well Elder Funk and I  are just getting better and better slowly but surely. Especially in our numbers, obviously numbers are not important but the things that are important are the names behind them and more numbers means more names!!!

This week we have some investigators that we had found this last week that also have a fecha bautismal!! It is so exiting! It is going to be in February so I hope that I am going to be there if  I don`t get transferred next week, but we will see!!!

We also just contacted a neighbor of a member that he felt like we should go talk to him and he is totally awesome! We are going back to have a lesson with him, his wife and kid on Wednesday!  He is super excited for the rest of his family to hear the message!!! And the member did not even know the neighbor! CRAZY!!!

I have a funny story that... Well I did not want to share it but Elder funk made me promise that I would tell the fam.  We were walking down the street just having a good time talking about the lesson we just had with some investigators and I said "Hi" to someone, with a lot of enthusiasm... Elder Funk looked around and didn't see anybody.  The only thing that he could see in sight was a dog, lying down on the sidewalk., and then came the question... ¨Elder Ward... Did you just day hi to a dog?¨   I guess I had literally just said hi to a dog. 

I was as confused as my comp was and I was just speechless.  I had no explanation whatsoever... I mean Dogs have feelings too... Right?

 We have recently been helping a family start to do family nights and read the Book or Mormon daily and they have just opened their hearts to us!! They have given us 3 references just this last week! ALONE! So while we have been working more with the members we have been more blessed, so invite the missionaries over to church! I know it`s a little harder over there in Utah... I am not sure how it really is supposed to work but yeah! Just give them your friends! We listened to a talk by Russel M. Nelson that is titled ¨Ask the missionaries, they can help!¨ And well yeah... We can, haha with a sacred calling like this, I KNOW we can help. :)))

Well I think that`s all from me, hope you all keep livin' it up in the sun in Hawaii for another week and that you have the missionaries over for lunch! I mean dinner, haha or whatever. 

Elder Ward

SERVE SOMEONE

Family!

Well this week was pretty... Normal. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, we had some lessons, we had some ups we had some downs.  At the end of the week me and Elder Funk were watching some videos about working better with the members that we had to watch as a part of Elder Funk`s training. We noticed that we needed to reevaluate and change somethings that haven`t been really getting better or really progressing, one of them was baptizing. We want to change that, also the way we work with the members and having like random service things where we help people. And then after that we started to have a REALLY GOOD WEEK!!!

You know I have never been in the water! And I hope that I will never be! Because I think that if a convert chooses a member over me then I did my job in finding them a friend in the ward. Because if they have a friend in the ward, they are more likely to stay active in the church.

So we had a miracle this week. We were walking on a really busy street and we saw that there was a man that was out pushing his car so we went to help him and we asked him where we were pushing it, he said oh just 7 blocks from here no big deal.... And that day it was SOOOOOOO HOT. It was three o clock and here that`s the hottest time of the day. So we start pushing this car and out of no where some kid that was out running yelled and asked if we wanted some help, we said yes obviously and he helped us push it over to the gas station. We were in our white shirts and ties and we were just drenched. Completely! When we got to gas station we asked the both of them if we could stop by their houses and teach their families! They both said yes and we were so excited. We taught both of them later that week and they are all excited to read the Book or Mormon! We called the family during the week to follow up and pretty much ALL of them have read and are super excited for our next visit!!

What a blessing, and I just keep thinking, wow. What would have happened if we didn`t go push that car? Who knows! Maybe they will all get baptized! We are going to have a lesson with the family of 6 (the kid running that came to help us) tomorrow and wow. MIRACLES PEOPLE! MIRACLES!!!

Well today we have a zone activity so that should be fun! And this morning we helped a member fix the roof of his porch! He is so awesome and very humble.  Its still super hot here, supposedly it is going to be this hot until April or May.  They took our girl bikes away from us like 3 weeks ago, and we have been walking ever since! Last week we were supposed to get new ones, they took them because some other sister`s needed to use them so yeah. Neat-o

So go do a random act of kindness!! That reminds me of 4th grade I think? We had to do a random act of kindness every week for Mrs. Jensens class... You would remember better mom, haha.

Serve someone this week! You won`t regret it!

I love you all and hope that you have a good week!!!

Elder Ward

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hello Family!

Happy New Year!!  This New Years we stayed at home, made some churros that were actually super disgusting because we put way too much salt in them and they kind of just looked... Well... Less then appealing if ya ask me, haha but don't worry we bought some pastries from some professionals in case they didn't turn out!  I'd give us an A for effort.

Elder Funk and I are doing so great!  I will be done training him not this transfer but the next one so we will be together for a little bit longer, and least a month or 2 more!! WOO!!  This week we had a lunch with an awesome family! They just love the missionaries, even though the mom is a little inactive she just LOVES US!! So we went over there and we were talking over lunch and her 8 year old son was watching a little you tube video in English and she didn't know what he was watching. She asked Elder Funk to translate it and he said ¨Mira la cola¨which literally means look at that tail. But it Spanish tail is another way to say butt, and the mom freaked out!! WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING! And I just started cracking up and so did everyone else and wow. It was just super funny, and the little kid was just watching someone play an animal video game which is why he said look at that tail. OH man. I thought that was super funny, haha

 Yesterday Hectors Mexican food popped into my head... Yeah. That is some good stuff.  But I can live without Hectors because I LOVE Argentina and the people here. It just amazes me that how the people will let someone they have NEVER met in their entire life into their house. It just makes me realize the reality of the calling that I have... We truly are representatives of Jesus Christ! And I am not too excited for when that is taken away from me, haha well at least I can still be his disiple!

We actually received some really awesome references this week and we are just really being loved! We hope that we can return the love by working super hard and helping them to progress!

We had such an amazing miracle this week! Bueno nosotros encontramos 6 nuevos investigadores! Fue super genial, y esperamos un bautismo este semana que viene o la otra pero mas probably el 16, pero si tuvimos algo que fue milagroso!! Ayer nos acompañó un miembro el dia entero! Hablamos con muchas personas! Un dragón (una mujer mayor que le gustan los misioneros), un Jose Smith Hoy dia (tenia los mismos preguntas y cosas así), y con una familia que tienen muchas ganas de escuchar a nosotros, tuvimos la primera leccion y le gustaron mucho. Y El Obispo nos invitó a comer en su casa! Eso no ha pasado por meses! Asi que ayer fue un dia milagroso! **

So this Sunday was just awesome and sorry it is in Spanish but yeah I didn't realize I was typing in Spanish until I was halfway through and I was too lazy to write it again!

I just finished my full year in the mission. I feel like I am almost on the last stretch and I need to end a whole lot better then I started! Lately I am focusing a lot on reading the Book of Mormon. I am trying to finish it in English and in Spanish before this April (there was an area challenge to finish it before the next general conference). And I feel like I am just learning so many things! One of the things that has really caught my attention were the testimonies in the front. Really this book is true. There is a quote by the grandfather of Jeffery R. Holland that says ¨NO wicked man could write such a book, and no good man would write it, unless it were true, and he was called of God.¨

I testify that the Book of Mormon is true, and I testify that it was divinely translated and brought about to our knowledge! 

Well I gotta go - we have a big P-Day planned - haha.  Uh... Cutting our hair.. WOOOOOO

Well have a good week everyone! Chau!!

Elder Ward

**Translation from Google Translate

Well we found 6 new investigators!!  It was really great, and we expect a baptism this coming week or two but more likely on the 16th.  But we had something that was miraculous!!  Yesterday we walked with a Member the whole day!  We talked to so many people!  There was an older woman who likes the missionaries.  She had questions about Joseph Smith and the like.  Her and her family are eager to listen to us.  We had the first lesson and they liked it a lot.  The Bishop invited us to eat at his home!  That has not happened for months!  So Sunday was a miraculous day!!

SERVE SOMEONE

 Ok so obviously one of the highlights of the week was the oportunity to be able to talk to the fam! It was awesome to see all of you!  So glad we could find a time when dad wasn't working.  It's crazy that so much snow has fallen over there in SLC. 

Also I got the package you sent from that Argentina Missionary Package Place.  I guess they had accidentally sent it to the North mission so that is why I didn't get it before Christmas.  The guy called a member that he knew in Ezeiza and they gave him our number and then he rang us up!  We met at the church. So it was awesome!! Thank You!!

So here for Christmas is a little different, I have realized that it is actually more similar to the 4th of July in the States.  There are a bunch of fireworks, and people just get together to eat an asado. The fireworks that go off are not the pretty colored ones that we are used to, they just make noise.  And they go off for hours, so we were up until about 1:00am just listening to fireworks.  I just thought wow...I have to wake up in 5hours. Haha 

Asado!

Things are so great with Elder Funk. He is the best!!  I don't think we will be together for very long though.  President gave me a hint that I wasn`t going to be here in Ezeiza for a long time.  I assume that I will leave and Elder Funk will receive a new missionary. 

Well we are pretty much in the hottest week of the year here in Argentina.  The humidity just makes it even worse, we are just drenched like the whole day and there is nothing that you can really do about it, just suck it up and keep going, haha  

  

This week we didn`t really have a lot of the time teaching because a lot of the time we had to be closed in the pench.  We had to stay in for the whole day.  But something that was really nice was something that I learned from the scriptures this week that actually Grandma and Grandpa Shields sent to me in an email! There is a Scripture in Matthew 25:40 that says ¨Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my bretheren, ye have done it unto me.¨ which ALSO goes along with the sripture in Mosiah 2:17 that says ¨When ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God.¨ So where I am going with this is that it is super important that we serve others! So I invite you to serve someone this week! If it's someone you know or that you don`t know, just do it! You will feel awesome!! But yeah that`s all I got for this week, haha not too much but I vented my mind of stuff when I talked with the fam, haha.

Have a good week!!!

Elder Ward