Week 56 (April 27, 2014 Parque Chacabuco, Argentina)

Since Hermana Syphus can't receive packages because of postal restrictions right now in Argentina, we decided that we'd let many of her friends and family know that her bday is on May 1 and for them to hopefully send her a simple birthday wish.  We were so pleased at the response.  She had over 50 emails from family and friends and was in awe at the kind wishes. 


MOM!!!!!!!!!!! Holy cow I was not expecting to open my email and see this!!!!!!!!!!!! We are emailing late today and I won´t even have time to reply to all of them let alone read all of them!!!! :( Our zone leaders birthday is today and so we had a get together at the church with our zone and that is why I am emailing late. LOVE YOU SO MUCH AND THANK YOU!!!! IF I DON¨T GET TO EMAIL EVERYONE BACK GIVE EVERYONE A HUGE THANK YOU FOR ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You really have no idea how happy I feel right now!!!!!!!!!! I was expecting maybe 10 emails but not 50!! Man I really am so blessed.

Should I try to reply to all of them? haha :) And how did all these random people know it was birthday?

Love you too mom!! And HOLY COW!!! I have read some of the emails and these people did so much!! The chamberlains drew me pictures!!! Ok That email that I sent thanking people was not enough. I will do something better next week even though you have already sent it. Man I am just so thankful. Please tell everyone again that I love them and that they are the best. Best birthday surprise ever :) 

Dearest Family and Friends,

How are all of you doing? I hope you had a great week and have felt the Spirit in your hearts and homes. It is such a great blessing that we have to have the gospel in our lives. I just love entering the homes of members because the spirit is already there and I love feeling the spirit with families, it makes it that much better :) I read something very interesting and powerful this week in the spanish book of mormon. There is a mini dictionary in the back of the book of mormon and one day I was reading the difference between the heart and the mind because I was studying the Holy Ghost and was lead to that. It says in the libro de mormon that through the heart, we receive feelings, and through the mind, we receive thoughts. Most of the things I learn are really obvious haha but i really thought about what it said and love it so much. This is why in we learn that we should listen and learn with our minds AND hearts because when we feel something, it is much more powerful than when we think something. Feelings can stay with us forever and thoughts can go away after a few days. At least that is how it is for me ha. I know that when we listen with our hearts, the Spirit can help us learn and remember much more and that we will be able to have a greater understanding and a more eternal perspective. I love what the Spirit can teach us!!

This has been a great week and I feel very blessed to be in this area with my companion. She is wonderful and is teaching me so much! She is helping me have more confidence in myself which is what I have been trying to learn my entire mission! I am truly thankful for each companion that I have had and I know that the Lord is blessing me with eternal friends and sisters. We do not have many investigators as of right now and that has been the difficult thing, but the ones we have are great and are truly ready to receive and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives!

Bueno, Roberto Antonio Soliz Rocha was baptized on Sunday and Yoselin was confirmed :) :) :) Now there are three members of the church in this great family and I am so so happy. Now they can all support each other in enduring to the end! It was a huge blessing and miracle that Roberto was baptized because just a few weeks ago he did not feel ready. But with the help of a great recent convert and the spirit, he has felt the need to be baptized and now has made this sacred covenant with God! Each time we went to his house to teach him, Yoselin, and Alejandra, we would ask him how he was doing and he said each time that he was getting more and more excited and really felt ready. He wants to serve a mission like his sister Yoselin and we are just feel so blessed. Sometimes I feel unworthy of the great blessings we are receiving from God, but I sure am grateful for them and am trying to do my best so that I can be worthy of each one. Heavenly Father is a God of mercy and I know that He is the one blessing this area. The Rocha family is one of the greatest families I have known on my mission and I love them so much. Mon and Dad we have to come back to argentina and visit this family!! I want to be here so badly when they go through the temple!! :) Yoselin and Alejandra are both doing great as well :) OH!! I have great news!! So Yoselin used to work on Sundays and had Mondays off. We were really worried about that because she wants to prepare for a mission and really needs to keep this commandment to help her testimony grow. Well one day we got to their house to teach and she just had a huge smile on her face and told us that she had switched her day off to Sunday and that she would be working on Mondays!!! SHE is the one that though of it and did it all on her own! We didn´t even suggest it! Man that just made me so happy. It is simple things like this that happen that help me know when a person is truly converted to Christ. I love that so much, it brings me the greatest happiness ever :) So now she can come every Sunday! And this past Sunday Rob and Yoselin and Alejandra brought THREE of their cousins to church with them!! Two of them don´t live here but are here during the week going to school and we have permission to teach them and baptize them here! So we are working on that! And then they have another cousin that lives with his girlfriend and has two kids. He is so awesome but isn´t married! But really like church on Sunday and wants to come back! So we are going to start teaching him this week and see what happens! :) I love having the opportunity of knowing and teaching this family and I know that it has been through the help of God that it has been possible. The mom really likes it all but she is not married and her husband is super nice but doesn´t want to go to church or listen. Yoselin really wants her mom to be baptized and so do we of course. We will see what we can do with that. :)

The other day we were a bit sad because we thought about how after the baptism of Roberto, we wouldn´t really have anyone to work with because we were trying to find investigators. So we left the house that morning with the faith that we were not going to return home until someone accepted a date to be baptized. We usually have a member with us but this day for a few hours we were not able to have one. We were trying to contact a reference but we were not sure exactly where they lived. We were walking down the street that we thought lived this person, and while we were walking we passed the door of a young man that Hermana Lobo and I talked to once. This young man accepted a date the first time we talked to him but when we went on sunday to take him to church, he wasn´t there and we could never get a hold of him so we had to drop him. But this day with my new comp, we had actually had him as a plan b to visit if we had time. So when we passed his door, we thought why not. His family was just returning home from a vacation when we got to the door and they were unpacking the car. Brian (the young mans name) came up to us and we started talking to him. In the end, he again accepted a date to be baptized and told us that he wanted to come to church on sunday! It was really amazing how everything worked out so perfectly and how Heavenly Father put him in our path at the exact time we needed it! I feel like Heavenly Father has been preparing Brian and that he will be baptized. He came to church on Sunday and love it!! :) We will be seeing him tomorrow!! Even better is that he is 18 and doesn´t need permission from his parents to be baptized! Haha but we are hoping that his whole family will have the desire to learn! I know that when we are in need of something and that when we seek it diligently and faithfully and prayerfully, Heavenly Father answers this prayer and helps us to see and feel His love.

I know that this life really is the time for us to prepare to meet God and tha He has given us everything that we need to do it. I am so thankful for my family and friends and for the people that I am knowing and loving here on my mission. I know that God lives and that His Son is our hope and happiness. Thank you all so much for everything. I love you all and hope that you will always find happiness through the Gospel! LOVE YOU!!

Con Amor, Hermana Syphus :)

 Roberto's Baptism April 26, 2014 and Hermana Matamoros

Rocha Family