July 21, 2014

Last month we were looking for new people to teach by contacting people in the street and knocking doors. We contacted one woman who was coming our way, we talked for a few minutes, and then my companion suggested that we go to her house to teach her and her family. She accepted and we taught her and her kids. The next week we meet the father of the family and had a powerful lesson about how the gospel blesses families and we set a baptismal date for everyone in the family! We taught the family for four more weeks and she and her kids came to church every week and they are going to be baptized next week! This family moved here in my area about 3 months ago and me and my companion have been working here for about a month and a half. There have been missionaries here for many years and they could have moved here anytime and other missionaries could have taught them but I have realized that our Heavenly Father trusted us enough to guide us to this family, all we needed to do was be diligent in His work. I know that if we do all we can to keep His commandments and be diligent in the work of salvation, He will guide us to people who need our help. Heavenly Father has a specific plan for all of us and all we need to do is trust Him and follow Him.

Les Amos,

Elder Giles

July 14th, 2014

The World Cup finally ended this week so now we can go back to our regular lives! Ha ha, just kidding, but now we, as missionaries can focus entirely on the work of salvation and not have to worry about the scheduling of the games. Argentina lost so everyone is bummed but not too bad, at least they got 2nd place so its not too bad. Argentina was super bummed,  but people were still lighting off fireworks and honking their horns and everything after the game. I guess they were bored. We had to stay in the apartment for the game and afterwards. But Wednesday, when Argentina won the semi-final, everyone went crazy! The new mission president let us watch the Wednesday game in a member´s house so that they could drive us directly to our apartment after the game. 

This week was great, but also hard with respect to the missionary work because we didn´t have as much time as we usually do in a week. We finished everything we needed to but we had to work harder than normal.

Wednesday we also met the new mission president: President Robertson!
He is pretty awesome. He and his family have spent many years in Latin American and he came here straight from Perú so he, his wife, and son and daughter can speak Spanish pretty well. We had a meeting with him and another zone and we got to know a little bit about his family. Then we had lunch of empanadas and pizza then short interviews with him. There are going to be a lot of changes in the mission in the next few months and I am excited to see what will happen.

Yesterday we had a bunch of investigators go to church like last week. One of them was a partially deaf and mute guy. He came halfway through the second block and met the bishop first (who had a hard time communicating with him, I heard) and then he handed the investigator off to us in the middle of class. The last hour we had the sacrament meeting where we sat with the mute guy in the back row and "talked" with him. He had some questions about the Sacrament and other things and we had him read some chapters in the Book of Mormon especially 3 Nephi 11 (Which is Jesus teaching about baptism) and then inviting him to be baptized, which he accepted! Ha ha! The only thing is that he lives within the boundaries of another ward so we handed him off to the Sister Missionaries. It was the most interesting Sacrament Meeting yet.

This week was a little warmer than usual and it rained pretty good on Saturday and we didn´t have our umbrellas so we got soaked. My zone leader told me once that this is the only time to enjoy the rain as a missionary. I enjoyed, but I don´t think my companion did!
Have a great week!

Les Amo!
Elder Giles!

In front of the Cathedral Lourdes

Empanadas for dinner while watching the World Cup

dinner with a family to watch the world cup

World Cup Shirt

Hamburger lunch with Sis Missionaries in honor of the World Cup

inside the Cathedral Lourdes

statue inside Cathedral Lourdes

June 30th, 2014

Hola!

It is the end of June and we are in the middle of winter. This winter has been basically nothing but sun and humidity, an improvement from the last winter I am told. It has been pretty cold still but we are still working hard to find new people and progress more towards baptism. This week we found a very good family! We found them early on this week and have taught them multiple times already! They have yet to attend church, but I have high hopes for their baptism at the end of July and I have faith in the Lord to help us accomplish his work.

I have experienced many blessings throughout my time here in the mission and especially the blessing of knowledge about Heavenly Father and his plan for us. I have learned so much from my companion and from teaching our investigators and especially how we can apply it to our lives. I love this gospel and this church!

Have a great week!
Les Amo!
Elder Giles

June 23rd

It is the last week of June and the World Cup is in full swing. We are not allowed to watch the World Cup at all and we should try not to talk about it when we can, but that´s a little hard to do when every single person in the country is talking about and watching the World Cup. When Argentina plays, we have to return to our apartments during and a little after the game. On Saturday, we were in the apartment and at one point near the end of the game, every single person in the streets and houses around us shouted "Goal!" all at the same time. My companion and I thought it was funny.

On Wednesday we said goodbye to the Mission President. All the missionaries in the mission were there, all 236 of us! We had a short transfer meeting in the cultural hall in which we watched the video for Los Pastores, or the missionaries that left to their houses, some funny videos about the mission, and the new assignments. Then we had a lunch of Subway! After we went into the chapel for the spiritual part of the meeting where we heard the testimonies of Pte. and Sister Carter and some other videos. At the end, We sang the mission hymn, during which almost everyone was crying and I felt a great sense of love for our dear president. Then all the missionaries said bye to the President and his Wife.

On Saturday we had the baptism of Lucas! He is truly a miracle. He has known the missionaries for about 2 years and had not been able to be baptized this whole time because he smoked, a lot. But about 4 weeks ago he decided that it was enough and completely stopped smoking! He is awesome and is truly and inspiration to our other investigators!

Everything is going great here in Argentina. The weather is a little cold and rainy, but it is basically the norm here. I have been told that it is supposed to get colder in July!

I hope everything is going well with you all

Les Amo!
Elder Giles


Everything is going great here in Argentina and my companion and I are getting along just fine. The new mission president will be President Robertson. He becomes the new mission president this Saturday. There is also a little bio about him and all the new mission presidents in the Liahona in June or July.

Everything is doing fine for me. My jackets, sweaters, shoes, bags and everything work great. If I need anything there is a super market here where I can buy almost everything I need, especially saline solution. All you can do is pray for me and not worry too much! I like the spiritual thoughts from John Bytheway and others, keep sending those!

Also, Try to write me on Sunday because my companion wants to converse with his family through email in the mornings here.

Thanks for everything!

Te Amo!
Elder Giles

Farewell to Presidente and Hermana Carter

President and Hermana Carter, leaving as Mission President after 3 years of faithful service in Argentina:

Hermana Carter wrote on their mission blog: Wednesday, June 18th

When we pulled in the church parking lot this morning and I caught the first glimpse of this sign, I just burst into tears and that is how the day started.

We had a great transfer meeting, which was fairly normal, right until the moment that my husband decided to surprise me with a huge spray of flowers. It was totally unexpected, but what made it even more special were the lovely words that he said. The missionaries know that I have worked for our entire mission to learn and improve my Spanish. It is not as easy as you might imagine to learn Spanish. Much of the work that we do at the offices is done in English and there are always people around to translate. I have felt incredibly blessed for the help from the missionaries and from our Heavenly Father most of all. We have a goal that every missionary leaves the mission with two languages. “Lucia” Carter took the Spanish test, and today the missionaries gave me a standing ovation! It was a first. I no sooner sat down than the assistants asked us to come back and they asked Brianna to join us and they thanked our family for our service here in Argentina and gave us an engraved silver tray and another spray of flowers. Each of the missionaries wrote us a personal message.The letters have all been combined and bound in a book. We will treasure it forever.

After that, we had a break for lunch. Oh, I forgot to mention that when the missionaries arrived this morning they each got to choose a number and I had brought all the leftover items from the pantry at our house and numbered them. It was a fun little thing and kind of amusing to see the missionaries walking around with random items like a spice jar of cinnamon or a can of green beans!

After lunch, we moved to the chapel and the pastores shared their testimonies. Three of the zones had prepared special musical numbers which were amazing! The third however, was God Be With You till We Meet Again. You can only imagine what it was like for me trying to speak after that. Presidente then spoke and then we showed our own Pastores video, which I will share on the blog another day.

We sang our mission hymn which is a song called “I’ll Find You My Friend.” The missionaries all stood and sung an additional verse about us and I am pretty sure that everyone was crying by then. One of the assistants left immediately after the closing prayer to get boxes of tissues.

Then the missionaries came one by one to say goodbye to us and give us a hug or shake our hand. It took about an hour and I have to say that it was one of the most spiritual experiences that I have ever had in my life. Even now, I still feel wrapped in the glow of their love which was demonstrated to us in such a beautiful way.

Words are truly inadequate to express our emotions and gratitude.

Below are some pictures from the morning. I hope to always have the mental images from this afternoon engraved upon my heart.

Letter from June 9th and 16th with some pictures

June 16th - Elder Giles wrote:

Yesterday I compeleted 5 months in the Mission! This past week we did divisions with our zone leaders Elders Garay and Aramabarú and they are awesome! The weather is getting a little colder, we have transfers on Wednesday and we have a baptism this Saturday!

Sorry this is a little short...

Les Amo!
Elder Giles


June 9th - Elder Giles wrote:

Hola!
This week was pretty good. Since Elder Cañari and I are new to our area (I have one week here and he has 2), We spent most of the time getting to know the members and former investigators in order to get a feel of the missionary work that has been done here. We have one investigator that is getting ready to be baptized on the 21st of this month and he, and we, are super excited for it. He has gone at least 3 weeks without out smoking and other things and it is a real miracle that he has changed so much. He has known and been taught by missionaries for almost 2 years and it is amazing that he is going to be baptized now after all this time.

The weather is starting to get colder and it is expected to get close to 5 degrees Celsius in the coming months.

Everything is going fine here in Argentina. My area right now is a little more peaceful and a little more well-off economically so it is a nice area. In the middle, more or less, is the huge Catholic Cathedral Lourdes. It looks amazing and Elder Cañari and I are going to visit it later today!

I hope everything is going well with you all and I will right more next week!

Les Amo!
Elder Giles

The Catholic Cathedral Lourdes

Que loco esta semana pasada‏!

Hola!

This past week was... different. Elder Flores and I were having a good week in the work of the Lord and had many plans to progress a handful of investigators, but Friday night we got a call from our Zone Leaders that we both were getting transferred out of our area in a sort of "flash" transfer and would be in a different area on Saturday. It was a huge surprise because flash transfers are very rare and even more when both missionaries are transferred out. In this case, our area is now closed, which is a bummer because the members are the best and Elder Flores and I wanted to work as hard as we could in order to baptize many people. So now I am in Santos Lugares with a different companion: Elder Cañari who is from Perù. One good thing is that I am in the same zone so I can say "hi" to members in Loma Hermosa every once in a while.

Sunday and Saturday was Stake Conference! It was really awesome! There was a stake choir and all the missionaries were invited to sing in it too! We sang "El Christ Es,""O Mi Padre (words from the Hymn book but set to the tune of `Come thou Fount of Every Blessing´)," and "El Amor del Salvador." We weren`t the Mormon Tabernacle Chior, but we sang well and felt the Spirit very strongly. Presidente Carter (President of the Mission), The Stake Presidente and the President of the Temple of Beunos Aires all spoke. I like a piece of what the President of the Temple said that the repetition of the ordinances of the Temple help us receive revelation and through this we learn more about Heavenly Father and His plan of salvation.

Everything is going well in my new area. We havn´t done much yet because of Stake Conference but I am looking forward to this next week with faith and the hope to learn a lot more about how to be a better missionary and servant of the Lord.

Les Amo!
Elder Giles

June 1st, Caseros Stake Conference

The Mission President, President Carter writes: "The missionaries sang in a choir with the Young Single Adults called JAS here. It was really beautiful. I love walking in the door of the chapel and seeing the corridors lined with missionaries. They have expectant smiles as they wait hopefully for their investigators to join them on this beautiful Sunday morning.I also like it when the buses arrive and dozens of members and missionaries and investigators pour into the chapel for Sunday Service."