April 28th, 2014

Wow, April flew by so fast!‏

This week was pretty interesting. On Wednesday we had a special training for our zone in that we practiced teaching 3 principles to our zone leaders, AP´s, and other helpers which lasted for 3 hours. We practiced teaching the Word of Wisdom, Baptism, and how to invite some one to baptism. It was really helpful for us and we learned a lot about how to teach better and how to apply our teachings to our investigators better.

On Saturday we did splits with 2 members in our ward. I was with one Hermano visiting some of our investigators and Elder Rivera went with another Hermano in another part of our area. This was a really good experience because for a few hours I had to lead the area, greet people and start lessons. The Hermano and I gave 2 lessons and also a blessing to one of our investigators who is sick. I was really nervous, but I did it and it really helped me boost my confidence (which was why Elder Rivera wanted to do it).

We are not having much success but we are continuing to work hard and pray for Heavenly Father to help us.

I hope you all are doing well!

Les Amo,   Elder Giles

April 21st

What a Beautiful Week!

The weather this week was amazing! There were about 3 or 4 days in a row where there were clear skies and lots of sun. It is nice to have a break from the dreary, rainy days.

This week was also very good for us as missionaries as well. We found some awesome new investigators and had some very good lessons with members. One of our new investigators is an older man who is not a member and his wife who is a member. On Thursday we went to visit them with another member in the ward. The lesson was awesome because the member that went with us basically talked the whole time and bore a strong testimony of how the gospel and the church blesses his life tremendously and how it can bless the life of the investigator. The investigator did not accept the invitation to be baptized, but he will think on it. Elder River and I are continuing to work with him.

On Monday evening last week we taught a powerful lesson on the Atonement of Jesus Christ to two of our investigators: a mother and her daughter. What makes the Atonement so amazing is because it is key to our salvation. Through Christ´s selfless sacrifice, we can be forgiven of our sins, be clean spiritually and mentally, and have joy in knowing that we will return to live with Heavenly Father again. The Atonement is so amazing to teach and I know that our investigators felt something special, especially the mother. She has a desire to change, but at the same time she doesn´t want to change, which makes Elder Rivera and I sad because the Gospel can really help her in her life.

On Friday we had divisions with Elder Eraso and Elder Bell, who is from Bakersfield, California! I was with Elder Eraso in Loma Hermosa and Elder Bell was with Elder Rivera in our area. It is nice to have a break from the "usual" day to day stuff and experience how other missionaries do things. Nothing much really happened except that Elder Eraso helped me speak more in lessons and do more contacts which helps me a lot.

My Español is doing very well! I can understand people about 85% of the time and I am helping a lot in lessons and talking with the members and generally just trying to speak as much as I can.

Easter Sunday was really good! We had an investigator attend church, we ate Asado with a family of investigators for lunch after church, and gave 2 blessings. The Asado was Amazing!

Hope you all had a wonderful week and Happy Easter!

Les Amo,  Elder Giles

Our baptism on the 12 of April! Belen was baptized by her father and then confirmed by Elder Rivera on Sunday!

There were 3 baptisms on the 12th. Melody is the baptism of Elder Eraso and Elder Bell (Elder Paskett was transfered the Wednesday before) and the other is from the ward!

April 14th

Saturday we had our baptism! It was such a wonderful experience for us and our investigator. She is pretty awesome! Elder Rivera and his last companion started teaching her in February I think and she was basically a golden investigator. She accepted everything that we taught her and it also helped that her father is a recent convert so she has an anchor in the church and he was very helpful in teaching her especially outside of lessons. Another special thing about her baptism is that her father did the baptizing! Elder Rivera and I are so happy for them! I am not able to send pictures because the USB on this computer is broken :(

Not much else happened this week. I am improving a lot in my ablilty to speak and understand Español and I am helping Elder Rivera in lessons, doing contacts, and other stuff like that. Yesturday (Sunday) we did mini divisions with Elder Araburú and Elder Hawkey. They came over to our area for a couple of hours to help us find new people to teach. Elder Araburú is one of our Zone leaders and he went with Elder Rivera and Elder Hawkey, who actually extended his mission a little bit to help train in other zones, came with me. Elder Hawkey was pretty awesome and set a really good example of how to do missionary work.

It is starting to get cold here, especially at night and in the early mornings. Now I get to use my sweaters!

I hope everything is going well for you all!

Les Amo,  Elder Giles

Dang! General Conference was so good! I only got to watch the Priesthood and Sunday Morning sessions and they had some really good talks! My favorite was Elder Uchtdorf´s talk on having an attitude of Gratitude because he said that having an attitude of Gratitude is the gateway to having all the Christ-like attributes and that forgiveness is the only way to heal the soul. I like this because I have experienced both of these points on my mission. Another great thing about conference is that we had a family of 5 investigators attend the Sunday Morning session! They liked it so much that when they went back to their house, they watched the second Sunday session on the internet! They are awesome!

We watched General Conference at the chapel in Caseros. Conference was streamed in the chapel in Español and also in a smaller room in Ingles so all the American missionaries in our zone could watch it in English! So I watched the Priesthood and Sunday morning sessions in English but I couldn´t watch the Sunday Afternoon session because the power went out at the chapel. That was pretty lame....

Elder Rivera and I are much happier after this past week because we seemed to be more blessed by the Lord. We found a bunch of new, amazing investigators and progressed a lot with others. One thing I have forgotten to mention before is that Elder Rivera and I seem to have an affinity for finding Jehovah´s Witnesses. One of our investigators is a Jehovah´s Witness and from what I understand about their doctrine is that it is very confusing. He also is trying to convert me and Elder Rivera... It´s not going well for him.

We are going to have a baptism this Saturday! We are so excited! She is going to be baptized by her father who is also a recent convert and I know that this will make her experience that much better!

I hope you are all doing well! I am getting more accustomed to the missionary life and Argentina and I understand and speak a lot more Español now!

Les Amo!
Elder Giles

Empanadas!

Elder Eraso, Elder Pasket, Elder Rivera, and I in Loma Hermosa!

We had a Zone Meeting on Tuesday! Our zone is called Caseros

5 weeks in Argentina!

This week was much better than the last! We found a bunch of new investigators, had many lessons with members and I spoke a lot more to people on the street and in lessons!

The problem with last week is that we couldn´t complete our key indicators and the places we struggled most were in finding new people and having lessons with a member present. We found out this past week on Friday that we, or I, lacked the faith and determination to find new investigators and finish our key indicators each week. On Friday we had divisions with other missionaries in Loma Hermosa A: Elder Eraso (our Dirstrict leader) and Elder Pasket (who is from Utah) . So I spent the day with Elder Pasket in their area and Elder Eraso was with Elder Rivera in our area. It was a pretty good experience. Elder Pasket only has 3 months in the mission so he can understand and speak enough castellana to teach and talk to people but he doesn´t know his area very well so we got lost... once. But he did teach and help me understand many things I should be looking out for during each day and it was nice to spend the day with someone who could speak English fluently. Elder Eraso and Elder Rivera found a bunch of new investigators in our area and had many lessons with members which helped us get back on track. The main thing that we learned that day was that we simply need to show our faith in Heavenly Father and open our mouths and talk to everyone we can.

My castellana is coming along very well and I can see improvement every day! Now that I can understand people a lot better I am trying to speak a lot more and I am also contributing in lessons more too! For Example, Saturday I explained about the Apostasy and about Joseph Smith.

Other than that, not much happened this week. We had a big bag of empanadas for lunch on Tuesday, some guy tried to steal from us, we walk alot everyday, it rained pretty hard yesterday and we have a baptismal date set for one of our investigators for the 12th of April!

I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a missionary. It is hard, but it is well worth it!

Love,  Elder Giles

(Castellana is the dialect of Spanish that the Argentines speak with the "sh" sound)

Monday, March 24th

This week was hard. We didn't do as much teaching as we needed to and we couldn't find any new people to teach. It´s hard to keep going during the day when all we do is walk from door to door, referral to referral and we can´t find any one. We also had a good amount of plans with members but it seemed that this week was the week of last minute changes and failing plans. We were a little discouraged this week. However, I found that it was my attitude, my attitude towards being exactly obedient. So this week we are going to be more faithful, more diligent, and more obedient.

This week we were going to have a baptism on the 29th, but we found out last Saturday when we taught the Word of Wisdom that she drinks coffee. So we are going to change her date to April because there has to be a 3 week period for an investigator to break a habit before they can be baptized. Elder Rivera and I are very sad because we were super excited about her baptism this week, but we have her and another investigator set for April so we are going to do our best to prepare these people for their dates.

The weather has been very good to us. It cooled off during the middle of the week and is starting to warm up again. We haven´t had much rain, so that´s good.

We are still looking for a new apartment. We have talked to a few inmobiliarias and have found a few candidates in our area that are closer to our capilla.

Elder Rivera and I were able to exercise our priesthood this week and gave 3 blessings of health to two of our investigators and one to a member in our area!

This week I had an amazing experience. One morning Elder Rivera and I were doing our usual practicing during companionship study about our pre-earth life. Elder Rivera asked me a very simple, but profound question. He asked me what I believed what our purpose was on this earth. After thinking it through and bouncing around ideas about what I actually believed in, I came to the conclusion that our purpose on this earth is to receive joy through having an eternal family.Heavenly Father´s greatest joy comes through us, his children, and that´s what he wants for us, to have joy through our posterity. When the answer came to me, the Holy Ghost was right there to tell me that it was true and I felt the most wonderful and amazing sensation come over me. I felt joy! I was so happy that I cried like a little baby. I felt the love of Heavenly Father and I know that he is the father of our spirits and that loves us so much that he is willing to put us through trials on this earth in order to obtain the same amount of love and joy that he has through an eternal family.

A good scripture to explain the plan of salvation is 2 Nephi 2:14-30

I am so happy to be a missionary and to serve the people of Argentina!

I love you all!
Elder Giles

Cake from the Familia Valle! they are members who live next to us

March 17, 2014
Each week just gets a little better than the last! This week was my first Zone Conference and we had a lot of good lessons.

So last week there was a change in our area. Our area is now called Loma Hermosa B, we got a chunk of the Hermana`s area which was Billinghurst A, and we are now in a different district. This is also a big change for the members and investigators in our area because we have to go to a different chapel in Loma Hermosa. We also have to find another apartment closer to the Chapel in Loma Hermosa because the one we have now, which is about 20 mins walking distance from the chapel in San Martin, is about 40 mins by bus and walking. So we need to find an apartment closer. This also makes it a little tougher to get our investigators to church, but I know that if we put our trust in the Lord and also do our part as missionaries, we can see miracles happen.

The Zone Conference was pretty good. We met at the Mission Offices in Ramos Mejia from 9 in the Morning until 2:00 in the Afternoon. It was basically training on how we can teach our investigators better and be better missionaries in general. Presidente and Hermana Carter and the AP`s spoke to us about various aspects of missionary work. One I remeber most was Hermana Carter`s lesson where she showed us various video clips of Basketball fails and had us apply what happened in the video to how a lesson with an investigator was going. The conference overall was very helpful and I learned a lot (from what I could pick out because everything was in Spanish) and we also had empanadas and pizza at the end for lunch!

My Spanish is improving each day! This week I could understand a lot more of what Elder Rivera and the people were saying and so I spoke a lot more too! I contributed in all of our lessons this last week and because of this we could feel the influnce and guidance of the Holy Ghost. I`m not saying that I`m super spiritual or anything it`s just that it fulfills what it says in the scriptures: "by the mouth of two or three witnesses shall my word be established"

We had about 20 lessons this week which, I think, is pretty good. We have one investigator who has a baptisimal date set for the 29 of this month. We talked with her this week and she is very excited to be baptized and we are super excited that she is excited to be baptized!

I am learning more and more about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon everyday! I love teaching and testifying because I know this Church is a true church and that the Book of Mormon is a true book. Some of my favorite scripture are:

Helaman 5:12
Ether 12:6,27
3 Nephi 27:13-22

Love you all!
Have a Great week!
Love,
Elder Giles

Elder Giles with his District at their first Zone Conference