Tuesday, June 11, 2013

El èxito ya viene (Success is coming)

Hey,
Well, this has been one of those very challenging weeks in the mission seeing lots of things fall and not work the way that you would always hope. The zone is not doing so hot. Our baptisms fell through again and no one came to church. I could go on naming other problems like how our ward doesnt support us or how about a quarter of the zone is going home in a week so they choose not to work their hardest and just chill, but I won`t mentiont them(ha ha, even though I just did vent a bit more). I am trying my hardest to keep a good attitude and be the optimist to show my faith and hope for the future.

In the ward, we are seeing a lot more support and love from the less-actives than the active members(which is odd). They are the only ones that will truly help us with our investigators and understand what missionary work is and the importance of it. The more time I spend in the wards here in Argentina, I get reminded of how blessed we are to live in Utah, the hometown of the church where it is the strongest and where there are not huge leadership problems. In my patriarchal blessing it talks a little about how I will be learning more about church administration. In my mission I have seen a bit of both sides and how it changes the church in that area.

Apparently we will be having a special missionary broadcast by the first presidency and the apostles on the 23rd of June that all of the bishops and stake presidents along with the missionaries and it will be mandatory to attend. I pray that it will help us out a lot here.

My comp and I are working really hard to be able to find, teach, and baptize people here in our area. We are finding and teaching a lot! But I guess we just have to wait to see the fruits of our labors until it becomes God`s will. Kind of a bummer because I will most likely be leaving this area next week(next transfer) so I won`t be able to see a lot of these people get baptized. One of them, Mariano, wants me to baptize him, but he is waiting till his member girlfriend travels here from Chile so she can watch the baptism. She will get here in mid July so I don`t know how that is going to work. They will get married ASAP also which should be cool. He is a super prepared investigator! The reason Vanesa and her siblings didn`t get baptized in these last weeks are for many reasons, with the latest being that she has to stop smoking. Apparently she had been lying to us telling us that it was not an addiction for her. Oh well, we will see if we can get her to commit to stop smoking in the next few days. If she can, we will see three baptisms this next weekend.

A cool experience/highlight of the week was finally being able to meet one of the recent converts this ward has named Juan Morel. He is a short, middle-aged man from Paraguay and is one of the most positive and outgoing people that I have ever met here. He has a super testimony of the church with many stories. He knows a bunch of languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Guadanì, and some English. He can`t come to church because of his work, but he is willing to come with us to do visits often and help us out in the work. He just made my Saturday so much better after having some negative experiences with members just because of his smile and attitude. I remeber how that was a feature that President Hinckley always thought was really important and I am agreeing because of personal testimony. Positive people are fun to be around. SO BE POSITIVE!

The weather is staying the same down here switching between super cold and uncomfortably hot in the afternoon every day. Not much is changing too much here. Love you all!
Un abrazo,
Elder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera