Achieving Goals

Our sunday school class (I thought I wouldn´t fit in the picture beside my comp, so I went behind everyone when I started the timer on my camera)

gluten-free pancakes and homemade syrup

Lately, as a mission we have been trying harder to meet our goals. Last week, Elder Hill and I met our goal for New Investigators and Investigators with a baptismal date. This week, we met our goal for lessons taught with a member present!! I think that is the first time in 14 ish months (I´ve been out for 16) that I´ve met that goal!!! So, are pretty hyped.

We had the primary program yesterday, and the chapel was PACKED. I don´t think I´ve seen that many people in church since Gilbert. I think we had more than 100 people present (I didn´t count, that is just a guess). One of which was Ezequiel Dicecco.

Ezequiel Dicecco is an investigator of ours. He is the pareja (what we call someone who lives with their boyfriend/ girlfriend w/o being married) of Carina Galeano (less active, who also went yesterday). They´re son is Benjamín. He was part of the primary program, and they went to see him sing and say his part. Poor kid started crying when it was his turn to speak. But, I think that helped Ezequiel to feel the spirit. Ezequiel went to he Córdoba temple open house a few years ago (Córdoba is the province right next to the Santa Fe province, where I am), and said that more than anything, he wants to go back to the temple and get sealed with his family. Unfortunately, in his words, he is "kinda stubborn when it comes to going to church" (not sure if that makes sense in English). But, he went yesterday. That´s the first step, and it´s completed :)

Unfortunately, nor Junior nor Victoria went to church. Victoria´s grandma got sick and she had to stay home to take care of her. Junior´s mom (who before last week never tried to do anything with him nor fulfill with her responsabilities as a mother) called out of nowhere and said she needed to be with Junior for the weekend to do something with him (something about some papers). So, he didn´t go. It was an even bigger bummer because he had memorized his part in the primary program and everything. I don´t know if I mentioned this last week, but, the little capo stood up during sacrament meeting (he was the first, he even beat Hna. Allende who always is first) and bore his testimony. He is such a capo.

When we were leaving church yesterday, Tomás and his mom (who is also a convert) stopped Elder Hill and I, and asked us if we had a lunch appt with someone. We told them that we didn´t, and they invited us to eat chicken asado!! It was awesome! He and his mom are still active (he got baptized in September, and she in August). So they are fighting really well! I am really grateful to have been part of their conversion process (not just for the food they give us, hehe). It is always really rewarding to see people make these types of changes and keep going!

Have a great week!

Elder Brown

Alma 34:32-35

 For behold, this ^alife is the time for men to ^bprepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of ^cthis life is the day for men to perform their ^dlabors.And now, as I said unto you before, as ye have had so many ^awitnesses, therefore, I beseech of you that ye do not ^bprocrastinate the day of your ^crepentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the ^dnight of ^edarkness wherein there can be no labor performed.Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful ^acrisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this; for that same spirit which doth ^bpossessyour bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world.For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become ^asubjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth ^bseal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you; and this is the final state of the wicked.