Pizza on P-day

At the Velez Sarfield soccer stadium

 

 

 

Elder Hales and Elder Leon hit the streets

Pizza with the district

Hey,

 Well, this week was pretty cool, but also super wet.  It rained for like 4 days straight.  For the normal person living their life, its not that bad.  But for a missionary its super....fun!  Haha nah, it wasn`t that bad, but I`m glad today is sunny and warm.  Spring is in full swing here and I`m loving it for now.  But I have a feeling it will be a super hot summer.  Anyway, this week we saw some really cool things.  The whole Pascual family came to church!  Eduardo, the dad, works a lot and hardly ever has work off on sundays (we`ll get that arranged, don`t worry) so it was a miracle he could come with us.  Eduardo and Marianela aren`t married, but we taught them the law of chastity this week and they commited to take out a turn to be married this week (cross your fingers).  We are going to have the baptisms of the two kids in two weeks (Cristian and Juliana), which will really motivate Eduardo to get baptized.  He`s kind of hesitant, but has really been openening up this past week and too see his kids be baptized will I`m sure inspire him to do the same.  Marianela was baptized when she was younger, but went inactive.  I love that family so much!  We`ve focused a lot on uniting their family and we already see the results.  They have a proclamation to the world: The family hanging up in their home.  They are reading the scriptures as a family every day.  They all came to church and loved it (for some reason, all the testimonies were geared toward eternal families....hmmm...who`s responsible for that? haha) and they are now going to get married/baptized.  I LOVE IT!!!

Also, we are teaching Spin, the young chinese man who works in a supermarket.  He`s making a ton of progress for not ever have heard about Jesus Christ before.  He came to all three hours of church this week and we arranged for another chinese convert from another stake to come testify to him.  It was great!  He had a lot of questions during all 3 hours and I don`t know what all of them were.  All I heard was "ching chow hi min mu tu ti" but I`m pretty sure he`s stoked!  He even prayed again at the end of a class!  In chinese!  The convert who translated for us told us he is making leaps and bounds, but it will still require a lot of work and patience for Spin to be able to be baptized.  He also has to learn spanish.  Anyway, he`s the man.  This week I think we`ll stop by his supermarket to buy some alfahores or something.

Also, another cool thing happened this week.  I found a teaching record for old investigators that were first taught by Jake Lockhart!  Haha when he served in this area, Versalles and Floresta (the ward nextdoor) were one proselyting area.  Now there are three!  We passed by the investigators house, but they still weren`t interested.  But still, it was kinda funny seeing his name there.

So today for Prep day we went to a famous pizza place here called Fortin and then went to a pro soccer stadium in our area, Velez Sarfield.  It was pretty fun.

Also, last night we had a dinner with a younger couple in our ward.  We ate tacos (even though Argentines don`t usually eat mexican food) and it was great.  At the end we shared a scripture, and, like we always do, we tried to apply it directly with the member`s lives.  I felt like I should share 2 Nephi 4, which I had just studied that morning.  It talks about the attitude we should have to overcome depression and hard moments in life.  After we shared it, the sister who we were eating with started to cry and told us that her parents were having a tough time right now and that she felt exactly like Nephi.  She had been praying for a way to overcome it and she told us that the scripture was exactly what she needed.  She told us we were sent from God and gave us a reference right there on the spot!  Man, I was like shoot I need to do that all day every day!  Anyway, it was a great experience.

Well, we`re super excited to increase the number of investigators that we have here in Versalles and see the work explode.  The members, especially the bishop, all love us here and are super willing to help us out.  I`m positive that the way we are going to see success here is through the members.

I love you guys, I hope you are great.  I KNOW THIS IS GOD`S WORK AND THAT HE LIVES!!  THIS IS HIS TRUE CHURCH!  READ THE BOOK OF MORMON, AND YOU WILL KNOW WITHOUT A DOUBT!!  IT CHANGES FAMILIES NORMALES INTO ETERNAL FAMILIES!

Con amor,

Elder Hales