Seis!

We had SIX investigators that went to church yesterday!! It was soooo sweet!!

Sandra Torres: An ex-eternal investigator. She and her less active boyfriend (Hector) started coming to church regularly Elder Argyle's last week in church. She and Hector committed to get married. We shall accompany them to the goverment building to get that process underway the 13th of March when their kids are in school and things settle down a little bit for them. We ate a huge asado with them. It was super good :)

Axel: the ten year old son of a family that is trying to become active once again.

Maxi, Carlitos, Lisandro, and Mario: the little boys of the family that is going to be baptized the 18th of March. Their mom didn't want to go to church yesterday, so, they went alone. Prayers for their mom, Alicia, would be appreciated, so that the whole family can get baptized together.

We started teaching the ex-sister in law of Juan Escobar (recent convert), Lorena, and her son, Ulises (12). They are golden. We taught them the Restoration, and both of them participated a lot in the lesson. They also went to the Church Open House that we did on Saturday, and there they accepted a baptismal date for the 25th of March!! They are capos!!

We ate a bunch of asado this week. It was awesome!!

Elder Brown

Alma 37:37

 37 ^aCounsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for ^bgood; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the ^cmorning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

The Open house of the church

ASADO WITH JUAN (Lorena was there too)!! 

The old man in the middle is the most humble Elder's Quorum president I have ever met, and is gonna move to the province of Mendoza tomorrow

11

Weird title no? I shall explain.

This week, I broke my mission PR (for those not familiar with track or similar sports, it means "Personal Record"). We started this last week with 5 people commited to baptism. During this last week, we commited 6 more to baptism. Hence, we now have 11. #milagrazcuénaga in English #miraculouzcuénaga

Federico Sánchez- amatuer soccer player. We met him, he let us in, and after a 7 minute conversation (he only had 9 minutes), he said he would pray and ask God if he should get baptized. On Sunday (yesterday), he sent us a text saying that he still hadn´t recieved an answer but he would keep praying, reading, and asking. We will swing by tomorrow.

The Vasquez family(6)- continue progressing. They didn´t go to church yesterday because their mom was sick and we, as missionaries, can not escort children.

The Blanco family(3)- continue progressing. We they learned that to be baptized, one has to be married or single, Juan closed off a bit. We will continue to work with and pray for them.

Silvio Barrio- brother of a super active family. He is 45. He told us at the begining of the lesson to not even try to convert him, because not even his family could do it and he was just letting us him because he has a cousin serving in mission in Brazil and it would be tough serving a mission and no one letting you in. Then we asked what he thought of the Book of Mormon. He told us he didn´t like it very much because he didn´t understand the role of Joseph Smith. So, we taught him the message of the Restoration, and why it is so important to have a living prophet, and the story of the first vision. At the end, he said "Wow, that makes so much more sense. Truth is, I always wanted to be baptized, but, I never understood anyting about Joseph Smith, and never had the guts to ask either."

Being a missionary is awesome, I totally 100% recommend it to anyone who is considering it.

Elder Brown

Alma 39:16 (it is super, super awesome to be called to this ministry)

 16 Y este fue, hijo mío, el ministerio al cual fuiste llamado, para declarar estas alegres nuevas a este pueblo, a fin de preparar sus mentes; o más bien, para que la salvación viniera a ellos, a fin de que preparen la mente de sus ^ahijospara oír la palabra en el tiempo de su venida.

The final district meeting with Elder Argyle and Elder Rocha

The Elder Smith from my stake in Gilbert

My new comp, Elder Terrell

Pretty Sweet Week

This last week was pretty sweet. We started teaching two awesome families.

The Vasquez fam. Felix, Alicia, Lisandro, Carlos, and Brisa. Brisa actually is a neighbor that is always in their house. We taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They accepted everything perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, I thought that we were secretly being filmed by the church to make a Latin American version of "The District" (training videos for missionaries that are filmed in the States in wards that work really hard in missionary work and that have lots of baptisms and everything always goes perfectly). It went perfect, they even accepted the idea of modern prophets. They accepted everything, that is, until we whipped out the Book of Mormon. Alicia had a really hard time accepting the idea of any book that isn´t the Bible. So, we shared Mormon 7:8-10, and explained that the Book of Mormon wasn´t written to replace the Bible, but to teach people what the Bible teaches, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. That seemed to help, and the "The District" scene started up and we were able to commit them to be baptized the 11th of March. Later, we realized that the 11th of March we will have stake conference, so, when we pass by again, we will change that date to the 18th of March.

The day after visiting them, we recieved some bad news. We called them to have daily contact, and Brisa answered the phone. She seemed pretty bummed, and we asked what was the matter. She said that her mom got mad when she found out that she had talked with us and that she had given us her phone number. So, Brisa, against her will and ours, fell through. But, when the Lord takes away, the Lord gives something even better.

The Blanco family (blanco, in Spanish, is "white", so Elder Brown is now teaching the White family). We are teaching 3 members of their family: Juan (35ish), Yoana (35ish), and Florencia (11). They have another daughter, Uma (2), and another son (whom I have not yet met). Yoana is the sister of a recent convert, and is pregnant. We have taught them twice. The first time we taught them, we taught the Plan of Salvation, focusing on the Pre-Earth Life, birth, and the life on Earth. That seemed to really interest them, especially since they shortly will be welcoming a new member of the family.

Then we taught the Restoration, and they loved it. They even seemed excited to accept a baptismal date and asked if they could go to church. An investigator asking a missionary if he or she can go to church is like asking a two year old if he or she wants a sucker. We said "Of course!!" They have the date of the 18th of March.

This work is incredible. I love it. I am so grateful that I have the chance to be doing what I am doing, and that the Lord took me out of Gilbert to help me learn all about his mercy and love, and how to learn to be merciful and loving myself.

Elder Brown

"Throughout the remainder of my life, I will seek to learn by what I hear, see, and feel. I will write down the important things I learn, and I will do them." -Elder Richard G. Scott

Ees Okay!

Well, we lost two baptisms. But, that´s fine, it´s better this way. What happened is the following.

Our baptism´s were going to be Santiago and Lucas Godoy, brothers of Leo Godoy, and brothers of a recently reactivated woman in the ward, Angélica. They (Santiago, Lucas, and Leo) live in another part of Rosario with their mom. We taught them in their sister´s house cuz they were always over there. When their mom found out that Leo was gonna get baptized in our ward, she got a little mad (I think it´s mostly because her ex-husband lives in our ward and he doesn´t do anything for the kids), and said she wanted the kids to get baptized in their own ward, Arroyito. Well, Leo already had had his interview, and was gonna get baptized and we had a bunch of plans ready to go and everything. So, he got baptized in our ward, but, their mother started taking Santiago and Lucas to their own ward. It is better this way for a number of reasons:

1. Leo got baptized in our ward and his dad started going to church.

2. Their mom started going to church so that her kids could get baptized and she can live with them forever.

3. Santiago, Lucas, and Leo can get the help and support from their own ward and can go to church much closer to their house, and their dad doesn´t have to spend an hour and a half to go wake them up, get them dressed, and pick them up every Sunday morning to take them to church.

4. We got to make some missionaries day when we called them and told them that they would be having two baptisms shortly. 

So, I honestly am not too dissapointed with the way things turned out.

Speaking of making days... we had another cool experience making someone´s day.

Do you remember Elder Ostler? He was my companion from February to May last year. He is from Richmond, Virginia.

We contacted a man a few weeks back, well, he contacted us. We were walking in the street, and he says to us (in English), "Hey! Where are you guys from?" And we started talking to him, and he told us he lived in the States for a few years. We set up a time to go back, another day, and we left. His name is Daniel. We went back, and found out that it was just the house of his friend, Miguel. Miguel is a super funny guy. He knows a bit of English. His favorite phrase is "It´s okay!" (but he says it "ees okay"). I used their bathroom once, and when I came out, he said "It´s okay!" I think he meant to say "You good?" From their on out, every time we have seen him, he´s said "EES OKAY!!" giving us a thumbs up. But I have digressed.

Anyways, so the second time we spoke with Daniel, we found out where he had lived. I had supposed he would have lived in Miami or New York (everyone here has a cousin living in Miami). Guess where he´s from. Richmond, Virginia. Probably the most random place I can think of for an immigrant to go. Then he told us that he lived on a street called Garzón, which is the streets that divides our area from the area of the other Elders. He told us that he lived on the other side of the street (in other words, in the other Elders area). Guess who the other Elders are? One of them, is Elder Ostler, my ex-comp from Richmond, Virginia. I got super pumped cuz I knew that when I called and told Elder Ostler, he would go nuts and just be super hyped to know that someone that lives in his area had lived in Richmond, and that is just what happened. When we called and gave him the good news, he got super excited. I love giving good news like that.

So, transfers came in. Elder Argyle got here one transfer before me, and I´ve only been here for one. So, naturally, we thought we would be together for one more transfer. Wrong! Elder Argyle left and went to a pueblito (little town) called Arrecifes, close to the city of Pergamino. All transfer long, he had expressed to me his desires to go to Pergamino and to go to a pueblito (he had been in the city of Rosario for his entire mission of one year and 2 months, a real long time to be in one city, even though Rosario is pretty big). I stayed here with Elder Terrell. Elder Terrell has been a real good friend of mine ever since my first week in Empalme of last February. We get along really well. Our senses of humor are pretty similar. We have similar ideas of how to do missionary work, and, we both like to work hard. This transfer is gonna be sick!

Elder Brown

PS - sorry I am not sending pictures.  The computer does not have a port for SD cards, and I don´t have a converter.

I forgot to add something.

Elder Terrell was just barely in my last area in Venado Tuerto. I don´t know how many of you would remember Victoria Sosa, but, she has a brother named Braian. Elder Terrell gave me some good news. Braian got baptized too! He went to Victoria´s baptism, felt the spirit, and wanted to do the same. I love being a missionary!!

 Phillippians 4:13 I can do all things through ^aChrist which ^bstrengtheneth me.