A Fast, A Miracle, and a Family to Teach

!Buen Día!

Hows it going?  Man, I´m really loving my mission right now.  Even though there are some tough days, we´re still going strong and I´m learning so much.  I think I say that every week, but its true.  Hey so this week is pretty crazy in Argentina.  May 25th is Independence Day in Argentina.  And, it just happens that this year is the 200th anniversary of the country!  Haha so now everybody has a flag in their window.  They were even giving out pins at church with white and blue stripes.  And, since the world cup starts in like a month, everybody´s loco about winning on the anniversary.  Even the graffiti is patriotic (Aguantá Argentina!).  Anyway, it´ll be kinda cool to be here during the next month, but I´m guessing a lot of people are gonna wanna be glued to the tv and not to the Book of Mormon.  

Hey so this is kind of random, but we contacted a lady who works in the pink house.  She gets up at 2 am and travles 2 hours everyday and cleans the president´s office.  I´m thinking we should just baptize her and then we have a direct...well kind of direct...link to the president!  Haha.

Hey so Elder Peterson and I saw a miracle this week....

After fasting repeatedly to find families to teach we had a great experience.  Sunday we had about 30 minutes before our dinner appointment, so we decided to leave the chapel and contact as many people as we could before eating.  As we did so, we felt prompted by the Spirit to commit to not eat until we found a new investigator.  After stopping by several houses without talking to anyone, truthfully, my hunger began to win out over my faith.  But my companion suggested that we stop by one of the families on our list of church members en route to our appointment.

When we arrived, we found a large family.  The way they received us gave us the impression that they were waiting for us.  The family consists of a mom, a dad, and seven children.  Five of the children were baptized 15 years ago.  But all the children are grown now and six of them have spouses and children that were never baptized.  In addition, the dad had never been baptized.  One cousin told us that he has 10 uncles/aunts/brothers that live within our area.  It’s a great source of baptisms.  The Lord is so merciful to us, even when we are so imperfect.  And even though we arrived late at our dinner appointment, the members forgave us when we told them the good news.

So yeah, it was great.  The family´s name is Balbuena.  I´m realizing that miracles don´t have to be huge and world changing.  There is no way that that was a coincidence.  We asked with sincere hearts, worked hard to achieve it, and God was kind enough to give it to us.  It was small, but it really happened and so it was a miracle!  I also realized that small miracles like that are happening to us every day of our lives.  When we recognize them, they become real, tangible, and our faith increases.  So, look for some miracles that happen every day in your life.  Remember, they don´t have to be big, they just have to be real.

Speaking of miracles, we need one with Lidia!  She still hasn´t agreed to be baptized!  She´s almost read all the conference talks from October, she finished For the Strength of Youth, is in Mosiah in her reading of the book of mormon, and asked to have a hymnal for her home!  AAH!  She´s so awesome, but she just needs to take that step of baptism.  We´re praying hard for her and we´re going to do a special lesson with her tonght.  I´m hoping I´ll be telling you guys next week some good news.

Roberto, Agustín, and Eli are doing Ok, but have some pressure from their familiares.  We´re going to use the members a ton to battle the family´s pressure. 


Hey so the scripture of the week is Alma 7:15 - for Lidia!  Haha

I love you guys!  Have a great week!  Maybe go to the beach for me or something.

Love,

Elder Hales
KTF