Monday, December 22nd and 29th, 2014

Monday, December 29, 2014
Hola!

It was so awesome to see you guys this week! I am super happy to see that most of you were happy to see me and miss me. Ha ha, the week ended pretty good with about only one hour of rain and a lot of sun and humidity. We are drinking a whole mess of water.

This week we had 3 investigators in church and one of them has a baptismal date. We also found a new investigator yesterday who is super awesome! We taught the first lesson and then gave her a Book of Mormon to read and she said that she will read it because she loves to read. Then I told her that If she wanted to, she could read it in one day, she said that she wouldn´t, but maybe in 2 days! Ha ha, she´s awesome and super interested in our church. We also had a few less active families come to church so we were super pumped about that. Then on Saturday we started to play soccer in the evening with members and investigators. So we had to leave early to travel to the apartment and so we left Elder Smith´s ball so the others could keep playing. Then the next day in church they told us that some punks stole his ball... It was sad because it was the first time we played with it. Oh well, asi es la misión.

So tomorrow we get to go to the Temple in Buenos Aires as a mission so I am super excited about that. It will also be super hot that day so I´m hoping that we will be in the temple most of the day. Then Wednesday there is supposed to be a crazy thunderstorm so that will be fun!

Well, Have a Happy New Year!

Elder Giles

Monday, December 22, 2014

 So my comp has a recorder device, so I recorded my weekly letter there. So we decided to skype at 5 our time which is 12 o´clock your time, so I hope everyone is there. everything is going good and I am still in Marcos Paz and I got a new comp. It is starting to get super hot but it still rains every week, more specifically on Saturdays and Sundays, so not many people go to church but it cools everything down which is nice. I also called the mission offices and they said that my package wasn´t there yet so that´s a bummer. Hopefully I can get it soon!

Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Giles

December 15th, 2014

Hi!
We had an ok week. We are working hard but not having too much luck finding new people to teach but we are trying. There is one member in our ward who helps us a bunch in bringing her friends to family home evenings so that´s going awesome because her friends love it! This week we will start some of them on the lessons so that they can learn more about what we believe and they are super interested. We hope everything goes well and we will continue working a lot with them.

Anyways, it is getting super hot down here but we are lucky to have a lot of rainstorms to cool things off every now and then, but the humidity is not helping at all once the sun comes out again. I sweat so much everyday and my shirts get nasty pretty quick, but we keep trucking along anyways.

So the 17th (this Wednesday) is Transfer day and also P-day Navideño or Christmas P-day so we will spend most of the day there with all of the mission and have lunch and hang out and stuff like that. I also heard that they give us our Christmas packages that day so we will see then! Then on the 30th of December we will go to the Temple as a mission so I am super pumped for that too! So we will skype on Christmas day but I don´t know what time yet because I don´t know what will happen at transfers. I will see what our member says but I will shoot for late morning-early afternoon in California which would be in the evening here so we will see.

Have a great week!

Love,
Elder Giles

December 8th, 2014

This week was super duper hot and it is expected to get even hotter! On Saturday it hit 36 degrees Celsius and the peak during the summer is supposed to be 40-45 degrees so I am not looking forward to that. Also I heard that the rain storms in summer are some of the strongest and worst and it didn´t rain that much in winter so we are expecting a lot of rain storms.

I found out some cool stuff this week. There is a member family that we visit and the father, who died about 13 years ago, served a mission in Cordoba I think, and so the daughter was showing us photos and I saw a picture of Bishop Bramwell! I wasn´t sure it was him because I couldn´t read his plaque but it looked exactly like him! Could you ask what mission he served in and if he knows an Elder Sanchez. His family would like to get in contact!

Then I was talking to one of the new missionaries in the zone and he said that he visa waited in the Camarillo stake but in Oxnard. His name is Elder Ward and he said that he worked with Brother Sawyer while he was there. Small world, huh? Ha ha, and then something funny: the streets here are mainly dirt and on either side there is a small ditch for the gutter and one day we were walking by some kids with home made fishing rods and they were looking at these ditches that were full of water. And one of them pulled out a foot-long eel! It was weird.


This week is the last week of the transfers and the 17th is Christmas p-day so we are super pumped to finish the transfer right!

Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Giles

Marcos Paz is in the middle of nowhere

This is a photo of the baptism we had this past week end! Her name is Candelaria, the rest is her less active family that we are working with to activate.

December 1. 2014

Hello,

 So we had one cool experience this week. Friday morning we decided to go and find new investigators, so before we started knocking we said a prayer. Then the whole time I felt guided by the Spirit talking to a bunch of people until we found one guy and we had a lesson about the Restoration with him. It was awesome and good to practice following the spirit.

So Flash transfers happen because something happened in an area and there needs to be a quick change and this can happen for many circumstances. My first flash many months ago was because they closed my area because there weren´t enough missionaries in the mission. My second flash like 2 months ago was because my comp had to go back to the offices to train the next secretary, so I needed to be moved because there weren´t enough missionaries to fill in. And now this past flash was because of things that happened in the area that I am in now and nothing to do with me. Don´t worry, I have not done anything wrong or been disobedient in order to be moved. President has had his eye on me to see how I´m doing and when he could move me up to Senior comp because I have been junior comp all my mission until now. He told me in his letter to me today that the Lord put me here for a reason so that I can bless the lives of the people here. I have been thinking about why I have had so many changes and I think that the Lord and President trust me enough to put me in these situations because I am SUPER patient and I just do what I need to do. So don´t worry, I havn´t done anything bad. In this past Flash, Elder Ritchie stayed in Rivadavia and I switched places with the Elder that was here. I am with Elder Steck who is from Ephraim, Utah and has 7 months in his mission.

Thanks for the package and I hope that it gets here!

Have a great week!
Elder Giles

letters from November 17 and 24

Letter from November 24th:

So some crazy stuff has happened this week. On Wednesday we had a zone conference with President where he told us about the awesome new program the the church is doing for Christmas to help people remember the real reason we celebrate Christmas. It launches 28th of November and it will be a huge part of missionary work for December! Then on Thursday we had a flash transfer! I got moved to Marcos Paz 2 and I am working with Elder Steck who is from Ephraim, Utah. I was super sad when that happened because this week was going to be super awesome in Rivadavia, but now I will miss it. At least I can go back to our baptism on Saturday so that`s good. Marcos Paz is basically out in the middle of nowhere because it is surrounded by fields and fields and we have to take the bus everyday to our area from the apartment. The area is basically the opposite of my last area in many ways but it will be good to work here. Last week the elders baptized a family of four after not having a baptism in the ward for 8 months. We also have two more people that will be baptized in December so we are super pumped and ready to work to find more.

I know that the Church is true and that Jesus Christ lives and continues to lead and guide his church through his leaders and the prophet. I love the work, even though it is hard. I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Giles


Letter from November 17th:

I don´t have much time so I will talk quickly about what I learned from our meeting with Elder Christofferson on Saturday. He shared a scripture in D&C 6:9 where it says that the Lord commanded us to only preach repentance. It was a little confusing at first but then he explained that repentance is only possible because Jesus Christ Atoned for us. So really when we preach repentance, we preach about our Savior and how we can find happiness in our lives through him. Another thing that he talked about that I liked was in 2 Nephi 25:23 about that if we do all of our part, the Lord will will make up the rest through his grace and mercy and we will be able to be saved and reach the Celestial kingdom.

I know the Church is true and that only through the grace and mercy of God that we can be saved, but we also have to do all we can to keep his commandments and help other do the same.
Have a great week!
Elder Giles

Elder Ritchie and I. Our last day together as comps

These are pictures of a few weeks ago when it rained a LOT! We called our area "Lake Rivadavia"

November 10th, 2014

Hi,

This week was pretty good but the heat started again so that´s a bummer. It also means more allergies... Whoo! Ha ha.

This week was pretty normal. We did a lot of visiting less active members and trying to find new people to teach. Our investigator, Miriam, is progressing very well for her baptism at the end of November and this week we had a super good lesson with a member that came with us. Miriam was super happy to meet more members. She has also come to church for the past 2 weeks and she loves it a lot! There were also transfers this week and Elder Ritchie and I will be working together until December. Also some exciting news: On Saturday Elder Christofferson will be coming to speak here in Argentina so all the Buenos Aries Missions will be going to the BA North mission to listen to him. Also on Monday the 24th we are planning to do a Thanksgiving dinner with the ward. Elder Ritchie and I are going to do a presentation before the dinner and then we will eat a bunch of food. They don´t have turkey here and if they can find it, it is really expensive so we are going to do chicken instead. So could you send me some information about the roots of Thanksgiving, like where/when it started and stuff like that and that would be great! Argentina doesn´t celebrate Thanksgiving so we want to show them a little bit of what we do in the USA.


Have a great Week!


Elder Giles


P.S.
So Elder Ritchie and I are asking/looking for members to help us out on Christmas day but on the 17th of December is another transfer meeting and we are hoping that none of us will get transferred that day so we can enjoy Christmas here with the members that we already know, but we´ll see. Hopefully none of us gets transferred.

That is super cool that you all got to do the Ragnar! It sounds like so much fun! We will definitely have to do it when I get back! Did everyone have to run a leg by themselves and how long was each part they had to run?

Thanks for putting the package together! I´m pretty sure that when a package gets dropped off at the mission home that they take it to the mission offices so there I can pick it up. I think I am good on stuff right now, Thanks!

November 3, 2014

Hola!

The week was pretty cool and filled with rain but it was really good. We are teaching a Mother who has a baptismal date for the end of November. We are working with the daughter, who is a member, to activate her and at the same time teaching her mom and helping her progress towards her baptism. They also came to church on Sunday and they liked it a lot and we are super excited for them! Also we played Soccer on Saturday in which we had some new boys come and play and the cool thing about it is that we invited all of them to come to church the next day and one of them came! He also lives a few houses down from the church so its easy for him to go and we plan on teaching him and his family on Thursday. We also had a bunch of less actives come to church again so our work is starting to pay off a little bit.

There is another cool thing that I forgot to mention earlier that in this area there are more fields and open spaces and at night there are fireflies everywhere and it is the coolest thing to see them.

Also thanks for sharing the song with me! It is a really good one!

Thanks for all your help and we will see each other again next week!

I know the Savior lives and that he loves each and everyone of us and that we are all special to him.


Chao!
Elder Giles