January 26th, 2015

Hola!

I´m glad that you had a good birthday on the beach and that you all got to relax a little bit. You also got a new couch!?!? is it bigger than our last one? Is it leather? I guess we needed more sitting space in the living room for me when I get back. ha ha. I am also happy that you are reading Jesus the Christ. I am in the middle right now and it is awesome but also explodes your mind. If you are not doing so, I suggest that you read the New Testament along with the book because it will help you understand what goes on in the bible.

I am also super excited because there are so many people going on missions! Today I got an email from Matt Prater and he said he is going to the Jackson Mississippi mission! Super pumped. The work of the Lord is moving faster than ever and it´s great.

So I haven´t bought a camera yet because I have been looking at prices and they are around the 1500 to 2000 peso range but today I am going to look at other places and find the best price. I also have not got my package yet and I will call the offices this week to see if it´s there.

So, like I told dad, this week was not very exciting but we taught a lot of lessons and found some awesome new people and we have a few that are progressing towards their baptisms in February. The weather is hot and humid and we are expecting rain this next week. I am glad everything is going well on your end and have a great week

The Lord loves us and blesses us!

Elder Giles

Monday, January 12th, 2015

Wow, This year has gone by super duper fast and I can´t believe that I´m starting my down hill slope.... The time in the mission is like riding a bike, the down hill is a lot faster and a lot more fun! I´m super pumped and excited to work here in Marcos Paz 2 because we met some great people this week:

We had many investigators come to church: We had Melody, our only baptismal date come to church and this time she brought her mom too. She is continuing to read and pray but the only thing that she lacks is that she doesn´t feel ready. So to help her with that we focused more on reading the Book of Mormon, repentance, and praying to receive an answer. Her mom is also Catholic but was very accepting of us and in church she asked us some good questions so that was awesome. Another investigator´s name is Maria. She used to be evangelist but left due to problems in her church but is super happy to meet with us. We gave her a Book of Mormon about 2 weeks ago and she is almost done reading it! She also went to church on Sunday but only for the first hour which is the Relief Society because she had to go home and take care of her dad, but when she left she felt super happy and content and said that she will do everything possible to come for all three hours next week. Lastly we met a new part-member family in which the wife, Vanessa, is not a member and the Husband, Claudio, is but they are not married. The good thing is that they really want to get married and go to church and everything but they are a little lazy. What they need is more friends and support from the ward so we are going to focus on getting them to meet members.

That was the good part of the week but the bad part is that it is super hot and humid, so I´m getting a sweet tan but also we are sweating a lot. It doesn´t feel that great but we work anyways. It also didn´t rain that much this week and on Wednesday it rained for like an hour in the morning and then the sun came out so that made it even more humid... The forecast this week is that it will be cloudy most of the week and then a thunderstorm on Sunday... Welp, more chances to use rain boots!

One thing I read in my scriptures this week which was great was John chapter 4 in the Bible. The first part is about the waters of life and it is a good story and another part talks about the work of salvation and that some sow and some reap but we all rejoice in the harvest.

Have a great week!
Love, Elder Giles

January 5th, 2015

Happy New Year!

This week was pretty awesome! On Tuesday we went to the temple as a mission and it was great! It was super cool to see the inside to the temple and to learn more about our Heavenly Father´s plan for us, in Spanish! Then for New Years Eve we had to be back in the apartment at 8:30 so for dinner we cooked milanesas and mashed potatoes. Some members had bought the stuff for us so we are super grateful for them. Also, Elder Smith makes great mashed potatoes. I think it´s because he is from Idaho....

Then for the week end on Saturday we played soccer in the evening and it was great! The ward has not had any activities for a long time and so many are super excited to go. We had a bunch of members, less actives, and investigators come so we had many good games. Elder smith and I even scored a few times. Then on Sunday we had 4 investigators go to church: Carla, Hector, Analia, and Patricia. Patricia was a referral from a less active member and so we taught her on Friday and she told us that she wanted to go to church. So Sunday we went with her and her less active friend! Then Hector and Analia are a family that we have been teaching for a few weeks and they go to the soccer activities and to Church. They have a few problems with the word of wisdom but we are working hard with a member family to help them change. The Miranda Family is the one that let us use their TV for Skype that you guys saw and they are helping us out a bunch.

It also rained this week on Tuesday and Wednesday so it wasn´t as hot after that. But this week the forecast says that it will rain a bunch but that the temperature won´t drop :( this will be fun.

Have a great week!

Elder Giles

 

Elder Smith and Elder Giles at the Buenos Aires, Argentina Temple

Elder Giles with his Zone at the Buenos Aires, Argentina Temple

 

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