Monday, May 20, 2013

Buscar Milagros (Search for miracles)

Hello!
Another greeting from here in Argentina! This week I have some pretty good news! We had a super awesome week with missionary work! We are seeing miracles all over the place and seeing a lot of progress here! I think we got the best numbers that I have ever gotten in my whole mission only without the baptismal number...but we should surely be getting that this weekend!

First off we started off well even on Monday, our P-day, and on Tuesday getting a couple good lessons with our progressing investigators. Then Wednesday came along which was the day of interviews with Presidente Àvila. After we finished with our personal interviews, the assistants came and worked with us for the day as we split up and just went and looked for miracles. We ended up meeting a ton of people and we saw a ton of success. We also learned a couple new effective strategies of finding people in the streets. Ha ha. Never too late to learn new things about missionary work. One lady that Elder Garcìa(Assistant) and I found basically poured out her soul and got emotional to us and told us that her husband passed away a couple weeks ago and she was super interested in our message of the plan of salvation and of eternal families. This actually happens to us often, but I felt more this time because of the faith that I was having that day in my desire to see miracles. I am surprised at all of the lessons that are taught to us as missionaries out here about faith. I thought I knew what it was before the mission and understood it perfectly but I was very wrong. It is one of the coolest principles of the gospel by far!!

Yesterday in church I think we, the missionaries, basically ran the church... ha ha. Bishop called us Saturday at 10:00 pm to tell us that we had to talk...normal for bishops in Argentina to advise us 12 hours before or less of that we have to talk in sacrament. It was good though. I reviewed with the members in my talk a resource that was given to the members in the church during the time of President Hinckley called Feed My Sheep. Which is a guide for showing members really what they are supposed to do in missionary work. Then it was no surprise that our Sunday school teacher didn`t show up to teach our Principles of the Gospel class to new members and investigators...so I taught it. And in priesthood, the member of the high council in the stake designated to our ward did not know how to teach very well as we were learning about temples yesterday so we had to help him explain many things in the temple also because we had a couple investigators and new members that we didn`t want to get confused. It is very hard as a missionary in Argentina to have a peaceful Sunday at church... ha ha. At least it is a lot of good experience for the future callings that I will have.

Milagros, the daughter of our recent convert Leonardo, along with her boyfriend Nicolàs, came to church because we went and had breakfast with them in the morning. They are progressing a ton! Leo, sadly still does not have the Aaronic priesthood because the ward has delayed the interview too long so...the plan is for Milagros hopefully to get baptized on Sunday after church and after Leo can get sustained by the ward and receive the priesthood to baptize his daughter right after! That will be one of the best experiences of the mission to watch, I am sure of it. Leo has been desiring that she gets baptized for a long time now. She has fallen in love with the Book of Mormon and is hooked to the story. We have been telling her that for the past two months but sadly she never opened the book. It has power!

Since I just barely finished Doctrine and Covenants, I have decided to start the Book of Mormon over again and have a focus. After a making a list of topics I could mark, I decided to mark all of the parts that impact me on the topic of being a true disciple of Christ. I have found many already including even a couple parts before in the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith. He by far is one of the best examples of discipleship obviously because he was chosen by God to be the dispensation head prophet of the most important and last dispensation in all of time. In his testimony when he is chatting with Moroni in his room, Moroni tells him that his name will be taken for bad and for good by the people of the world. This phrase made me remember of something that a seminary teacher taught me one time. That if we, as members of the church of Jesus Christ, are not hated by anyone we are failing at being true disciples of Christ. Any faithful member should have this same prophetic announcement upon them also that their name will be talked for good and for bad. If we are always sharing the gospel with others, there is a 100% chance that we will get rejected at some time. We are in the dispensation with the most faithful and obedient children of our Heavenly Father along with the most rebellious and disobedient. We must always remember in those moments of rejection whose name we carry upon our countenance. It is not our message that we are sharing, it is surely His. I love this gospel and I know with all my heart that it is true.

I love you all and wish you a happy, warm month of May while over here I am freezing my face off!
Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch
day with the assistants
huge hamburguesas!