March 30th, 2015

Hi!

So this week was a little hard for my comp because he got sick and we had to stay in the apartment Tuesday and Saturday. On Tuesday he had a fever and a huge headache so he rested all day. Then on Wednesday he felt better so we went to our zone conference in Ramos Mejia. That took the whole day and we got back at 5, so we had a great lesson with a part member family on the plan of salvation. They had a lot of questions and comments and I was happy to feel the spirit as we testified to the family of the truthfulness of the gospel and scriptures and that they can know for themselves that the things that we teach are true.

On Thursday we didn´t have that great of a day but we did receive a referral from the mission offices and so we contacted the family and set a return appointment for the next day. Friday we went to this family and we had a great lesson on the Restoration of the Gospel. They had many questions about everything and are super interested so we gave them a Book of Mormon and invited them to read it. We will see what happens this next week and we will invite them to the General Conference this week.

The ward is planning to show the General Conference at our Chapel in Marcos Paz 2 which is awesome because in past years everyone would have to go to the stake building, an hour away in a bus, and watch it there because barely anyone has internet in their homes. This is exciting because we have the chance to get more investigators to go! 

So on Saturday we stayed in the apartment again because my comp had stomach pains and we found out that it was a virus so we bought the antibiotics and now he is feeling a lot better. We went to church on Sunday and also went out that day and today he is feeling even better! So that´s awesome.


The weather changed dramatically this week. At the beginning it was a little cold and we wore our sweaters but then it got progressively hotter during the week and now it is back to normal. -_- I was super excited for the cold....


We are looking forward to a better week this week and also working more with members to get them out to lessons and asking for referrals. We kinda lost our focus on members helping us out and we had been working on our own for a little bit but now our bishop has helped us to move back onto track. The ward is now pushing to get more members active and rescue their brothers and sisters in the faith. This is a great time to be in Marcos Paz and I am happy to be a missionary.


Have a great week! Help the missionaries in anyway you can!


Love, Elder Giles

March 23, 2015

Hey!

This week was a little hard. We had trouble finding new investigators and the only one we found was an evangelist guy who is very active in his church but really friendly and happy to talk to us. It was interesting because he basically knows the bible inside and out and so in the part of the lesson where we mention James 1:5, he said it from memory. It was cool. Then we visited our three investigators families and taught some good lessons. Elder Ortolano and I are practicing the missionary lessons a lot and also inviting people to baptism. I had him invite our investigators to baptism and he was nervous but did a good job. He is learning quickly and has a lot of excitement for helping out. He speaks Spanish pretty well and has a good testimony so he helps out alot. My responsibilities as a trainer are the same as a senior comp plus I have to train my greenie with a 12 week program which is basically one extra hour hour of studies in the morning.


The weather in Argentina changed super quickly. During the week it was between 30-33 degrees Celsius and then Saturday it dropped to 20-24 degrees. It was a weird change and everyone was freaking out a little bit. I am glad that is finally getting colder. I didn´t like the heat that much.


We are having a lot of success with less actives in my ward. We finally got all of the Galeano family to go to church and the father blessed the sacrament for the first time in a LONG time. It was cool to see that he is always applying the doctrine to his life and continues to be an example to his family.


The ward is doing great and I love the mission, exciting things are happening and I am so happy to be a part of the Lord´s work at this time!


Have a great week!

March 16th. 2015

Hello,

This week was pretty good. My new companion is Elder Ortolano from Canada but he was born in Brasil. He speaks English and Portuguese and already speaks a good amount of Spanish. So he understands a lot of what the people say but still doesn´t understand everything. He did pretty good for his first week and is adjusting really well, I think. He is still pretty tired but still  is excited to work. On Friday we did some tracting and we contacted a family from Brasil. We started the contact in Spanish but then we found out they were from Brasil so my comp just took off in Portuguese and set us a time to go another day. It was cool because I could understand most of what they were saying and it was also a chance for my comp to practice contacting.


On Saturday we had David´s baptism! It was great even though there weren´t that many people there and the water was super cold because the hot water heater doesn´t work. At least it will be a day that he will never forget! ha ha ha. We had been teaching him for the past 6 weeks and the best thing was, is that he went to church every week and didn´t have any problems in accepting the gospel or adjusting to being part of the Church because he had the help of a member family the whole time. They brought him to church and helped him every step of the way. In my opinion that is the best way for successful missionary work because David will stay in the church because he has the support he needs. I feel very thankful and privileged to have and the opportunity to teach him.


We also had many members in church this week and also a family of new investigators: Walter and Ilda. We have been teaching them for a few weeks and they went to church yesterday and they loved it. They are Catholics and are not very active in church but love listening to us. Ilda is reading the Book of Mormon but we need to work on helping them pray. One cool thing is that they also invited their friend, who lives across the street, to listen to us too!


Not much else happened this week but we are working hard to find more people to teach and baptize in the coming months. I love you and pray for you and the family all the time. I am glad that you are doing great in seminary and having fun. I hope everything continues to go well


Have a great week!

These are pictures of a bus with one of the big Argentine soccer team´s logo on it. I thought it was cool...

This are pictures of the scenery on the highway going to Marcos Paz

David´s baptism!

March 9, 2015

Hola!

So this week was a little difficult but good. We had a little trouble finding our regular investigators and also finding new people to teach. We got a referral on Tuesday from one of the Elders in our zone for a less active. We went to the house later that day and we found him, or he found us. He is 11 years old and when we passed by his house he came out to greet us and tell us that he is a member and everything. He then invited us inside and began pulling out his books like the Book of Mormon and showing us what he read and stuff like that. It was cool because he was super excited to talk to us and he also had some friends over so we shared the story about when Nephi broke his bow. He goes to church in another ward in our stake with his grandma so that's good. The rest of the week wasn´t that great because we couldn´t find everyone and also last week President set a rule that we can´t play sports during proselyting hours so on Saturday we went to open the church for about 40 people to play soccer but we had to watch. Members still don´t go so it was a little boring.

Thanks for the comment about my English. I am glad I am improving in my Spanish enough so that my English stinks. Another step forward! ha ha ha. Elder Smith and I talk a lot in English and we have realized that we say things that would only make sense to people who know both English and Spanish. We are thinking about making an official language: Spanglish. It will be awesome!

I am glad that things are going well in Camarillo in seminary and with the family. It sounds like Clay will be short and stocky and basically will be able to beat me up when he gets older. Hopefully he will get skinnier, ha ha ha. I am glad that his team is doing well and that he is getting stronger! Hannah told me that she got accepted into BYU! and she also mentioned that Jake got in too :( ha ha ha. Seems like they will get married in a year. ( I hope not) ha ha ha ha.

Matt Prater leaves too! That´s awesome! I am so happy for him! it will be awesome in Mississippi. Also tell Tiffany I say hi too. ha ha ha, you always make those kinds of jokes.

So this week we have transfers and Elder Smith leaves and I will train my first son! It is going to be awesome and I am excited and nervous. Did you train any missionaries in your mission? How did it go? Transfers are Wednesday so next week I will tell you who is my comp.

The work here in Marcos Paz is going well and the ward is improving we had two less active families in church and our investigator who has a baptismal date for this week. Today we will set everything for Saturday and he will get baptized. Good things this week: It was hot and 3 less active families and out investigator, David, came to church. The chapel was a little fuller and it was great. Our David is doing well and is ready to be baptized on Saturday. We have a few more investigators but we are still looking for more. I love this work and I enjoy being a missionary more and more each day. The church is true and Jesus Christ lives.

Have a great week!

Elder Giles

March 2nd, 2015

Hey!

Everything is going great! not much stuff happened this week but the weekend was great. About 2 weeks a go we got a new ward mission leader and so yesterday he wanted to go with us to a few lessons. He is preparing to serve a mission so he wants to see how it is. It was cool though because he took us in his CAR! It was super weird to go around the area in a car. I am so used to walking everywhere that I had forgotten how wonderful cars are! Then Sunday night we ate dinner with a less active family ( ravioli's with ricotta cheese) and then they took us home in their CAR. It was great.

Yesterday was also awesome because our investigator who has a baptismal date for the 14th of March came and also a less active family came for the 4th time is a row. It was cool because the father of the family and his oldest daughter, who is 9 yrs old, gave their testimonies. It is great to see the changes in this family and how much happier they seem. The father is also having more success in his work seeing that his job is walking around the city with his cart looking for trash to sell. Good thing there is a lot of trash on the streets! This week he found a working dvd player and the only reason that the person threw it out is because it was jammed a little,  but he fixed it and now it´s fine! Then he also showed us a working printer that he found too. It was cool!

Not much else happened this week because it was a little hard to find our investigators again but we keep marching on and looking for more people to teach. We found a family of former investigators too and they really want to go to church again so we will see how that goes!

I am glad to see that you are enjoying teaching Seminary! Teaching the gospel is great because you feel the spirit as you teach and you can also make it fun! Also I am happy that Hannah got into BYU! She´ll do great! The next transfer is the 11th of March (Elder Smith´s B-day) so this is the last week of the transfer. Maybe I will leave this transfer.... we will see

Have a great week!

Elder Giles