Week 62 (June 9, 2014 Parque Chacabuco, Argentina)

Hey we are going to leave pretty soon but are going to get back on in a few hours! :) So I will write my email and send photos in a few hours if that is ok. The zone leaders want to go to an all you can eat asado (meat) place and so we are going to do that with the zone. Mom, speaking of my camera, it got fixed and I had to pay 300 pesos for it so it was not bad at all! But i have some very sad news that still is worrying me very much. I lost my memory card to my camera. The tiny tiny one. I didn´t have my camera because it was being fixed and so my card couldn´t be kept in it. An hermano borrowed my card and gave it back to me in a square of toilet paper. I didn´t have my camera and so I put my card somewhere and I don´t remember where! I have a big big fear that I left it on our table and threw it away thinking that it was just a piece of toilet paper because I have looked and looked and can´t find it! It has ALL of my pictures mom! It only I would have been smarter and better with sending pictures and I wouldn´t have to worry about it! But there are almost 1000 pics and I can´t find it :( :( I am so sorry. Sometimes I feel so irresponsible even after this time on my mission. I don´t know what to do. If you could pray so that I can find it maybe that would help...

Hey Mom!!! :) I think I can buy one here so no need to buy one and send one, but I will let you know :) Thanks so much. I just really hope I can find it because it is so small and there are tons of things in our house. It makes me want to throw up or something that I lost it darn it all. Also, I just remembered that I didn´t answer the questions that you had for me last week! So sorry! Man I just forget things too easily and it is not fair to you. Sorry ma :( I have to get off now but next week for sure I will respond to them. Love you so much mom and hope all is well. Thanks for everything. You are my angel! Love you! :) :) :) 

Dearest Family and Friends,

Hiya! :) Last week I wasn´t able to write very long and so there are lots of things that I missed telling you all! I will try to remember everything that has happened in the last two weeks but it may be hard especially because I am not the best writer ha :) Last week I mentioned Carlos and Maria. They are family of the Rochas (recent converts who are the best and love missionary work :) ) and are not married but have two children together and live together. The story with Carlos is kinda fun haha because in the past, missionaries have stopped by to talk with him or so he tells us, and he has been invited to the "Mormon church" but never really was interested. Even when we were teaching the Rocha family he stopped by lots and we invited him and he was always super awesome and friendly but didn´t want to stay and listen. One day we gave him a pamphlet on the Restoration and invited him to church. He said that he would think about it. This was about a month ago i think. He ended up coming to church that Sunday and has come every Sunday since then. He even came to Stake Conference two Sundays ago with his two little kids. He is one amazing person and has a strong desire to follow Christ and become a member of His Church. He reads the Book of Mormon every day and is already in 2 Nephi something. He is a real miracle that´s for sure. Last week he and his wife Maria had a date to get married. It was the 13 of June, this coming Friday. And then he was going to get baptized on the 15th. Maria, his soon to be wife, works over the weekend and goes into work on Friday. In order to get married, they needed to go to the hospital and do some tests and needed to do them the past Friday. We tried and tried everything we could but Maria couldn´t get work off in to make a long story short, everything was postponed including their date to be married and Carlos´baptism. They now have the date the 27 of June and Carlos will be baptized the 29. But there is another problem that arose last week. Maria was doing great with what we were teaching her and loved everything, but last week something changed in her and she came home from work deciding that this religion is not for her. She told us that she loved us and that she wants us to keep coming but that she doesn´t want to keep following it. The bishop came with us one day to their house to meet Maria because she can´t come to church yet and I guess he might have said something that offended Maria. He said that the children that we have are "borrowed" from God and she told us that she did not like that. It was a long story and there are lots of little things that happened but in the end we invited her to pray specifically to know that the church is true and that the Book of Mormon is true and she said she would. So we will see. She is now thinking that she doesn´t want to get married yet so that´s another problem :( I think the adversary knows that Carlos will be an amazing member of the church and he is trying to stop it. The other Saturday we asked Carlos if he was going to come to church on Sunday and he said "of course i am coming to church hermanas, if i didn´t i would be sinning!" haha he really understands and he really has a testimony of the Church and of Jesus Christ. He told us the other day that he doesn´t know what is going on with Maria and if it was up to him, he would be baptized right now. He always refers himself as a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and likes saying it too :) So that is what is going on with those two. We had a really neat experience with them the other day that i will never forget! Well actually we have had lots of experiences with them but this one was really neat!  We arrived to their house to have a lesson and they were all worried and stressed because their son had lost the keys to the car and they had been looking for 4 hours and nothing. We helped them look for a bit and still nothing. Then a thought came to us and we asked them if they had prayed to find the keys. They laughed to themselves and said no they had not and that they didn t know if that would be a silly thing to do. We told them of course not and explained prayer a bit with them and offered a prayer to find the car keys. After the prayer, Maria says to her husband, did you look under those blankets, pointing to a pile of blankets. He said that yes he had but that he would look again. Sure enugh, the keys were there and we offered a prayer of thanks for helping us find the keys. It was a great experience and a great moment to help them understand prayer and that God hears all of our prayers.

We had another miracle with someone who God has been preparing! I can´t remember if I have told you about Marcos. He is the other cousin of the Rochas and is 14 years old and just moved from Bolivia. He was living with his one aunt that didn´t give him permission to be baptized, but a few weeks ago, the mother of the Rocha´s became his guardian! He always comes to church and came to the conference on Sunday with his family. After the conference we went back to the church in Chacabuco and we invited him to be baptized on the 8th and he said yes! We got permission from his aunt and he was baptized yesterday :) :) :) I don´t know how these miracles keep arriving but I sure am grateful for them. We thought about Marcos for a while wondering if he really was prepared to be baptized and if he really was going to become a faithful, active member. We believe he will :) President Gonzalez of the 70 has been with us as missionaries and then came to our stake conference and talked about baptizing, retaining, and reactivating. How these three things need to be our focus and how we need to be doing all of them, all at the same time. The Lord´s work really is hastening and we are really seeing that here in Argentina. I am so grateful to be here on my mission serving at this time. I know that the Lord´s second coming is soon and that He is preparing His people. It is a wonderful feeling when with His help, we find someone that has been prepared and that is ready to make and keep sacred covenants with God. I love being a missionary :) But to tell you the truth, right now we have only one investigator and he is Carlos. We have been praying and fasting to find more and have been searching hard, and last week was pretty rough. But we were able to see two of God´s children be baptized and that was a great miracle for sure! :) So this week will be interesting. We need to find more people to invite! I am excited to work hard this week in order to do it.

Also, Kevin was baptized yesterday as well! Man him and his brother are going to do great things in the church :) Yesterday we had 5 baptisms as a ward and President Ayre and his family came because he was with us when we invited Kevin to be baptized and he wanted to come and support him! And he came! It was so wonderful! And also, the President of our stake lives in our area and we got together with their family to practice a musical number for the baptisms. They have two violins and so for the first time in a long long time, I played the violin with Nahum their son and their mom sang with my comp and another one of their sons. We played I feel my Saviors love. I don´t know how it turned out but I learned that I need to practice the violin when I get home haha. It was a great service and the ward, like always was a huge support and help. I am telling you, this ward is on fire. The converts stay active because the members and the bishop and the leaders understand the work of salvation. The converts receive callings quickly and we have seen a great growth in those that have callings quickly. I wish had time to write more about all that is going on here! But real quick, remember Roberto Rocha? He baptized his cousin Marco yesterday and blessed the sacrament for the first time!!! :) :) Also the leader of the young single adults left on her mission and so YOSELIN was called to be the new leader of the young single adults!! And Alejandra is still going strong as a ward missionary. I thank my Heavenly Father for His hand and for helping me know His children that he is preparing. I don´t like to see people getting baptized that later fall away. I would rather not baptize if that is the case. And with the Rocha family, they are doing great and I know that it is because they were prepared and ready and the Lord really did all the work. The ward members are a huge help and I am just so happy to be here :)

Next week I hope I will have more good news and more investigators to tell you about. That is our focus this week! Thank you all so much for everything and for being my greatest friends! I love you all so much and I know that this is Christ Church and that he lives! I really appreciate what you are doing to help in this great work. Thank you for your prayers and faith and hope!

Con Amor, Hermana Syphus

Alejandra, Rosario with Valentin (Carlos´ son), me, Nahum Catala, Marco, Roberto, Kevin. And kneeling: Lorena, Carlos, Lautaro, Mi companera :)  

Elder Martinez and his investigator Fernando, and the rest 

All that were baptized yesterday!!! 

me, nahum, marco, roberto, kevin, comp :) 

Very Special Day 

CARLOS AND HIS ANGLES!!  

 I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!! 

This was the morning of Stake Conference and I will never forget this sight!! So so cute, too much cuteness for one photo i am telling you. As a ward, we rented 4 buses to go to La Boca where stake conference was. 

Carlos arrived at the church like this :) at 7:50 in the morning with his cure kiddos 

 

Us on the bus on the way to stake conference in La Boca! 

Super fun!