Sunday, May 20, 2012
Happy Mother's Day a week late
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
¡Bauticemos un hombre en la cárcel! (Let's baptize a man in the jail!)
Hey there, well I don´t have a long time to write this time. I thought I would just enchant you all with my pictures. I hope you are all enjoying them.
The investigators are doing really good. We have had a lot of success showing the movie of the restoration in the homes this week. We had two at church: Ofelia and Gisel. Erica supposedly goes to her boyfriends house every weekend in Rivadavia(like 45 minutes away) so we are going to get her to come to church this sunday. To be baptized, it is normal that investigators have at least 2 attendances at church so maybe we can baptize Ofelia this Saturday, Erica on Sunday, and Gisel on the next Saturday. Hopefully we don´t have to work with some chastity problems with Erica and her BF. We found out that Ofelia has a small smoking problem so we are now helping her out with that so she can get baptized ASAP. Gisel is a new investigator that we found with the Martinez family(who is the family that EstefanÍa Sosa belongs to. Estefanía married Hermana Martinez´s son who is in jail. His name is Victor. Victor is super ready for baptism according to our bishop who has been visiting him occasionally in jail. We are trying to get permission to baptize him in the jail somehow without attendances at church. Apparently he is in jail because he killed someone accidentally while defending himself(according to his mom). Yep...fun stuff. We´ll see how that goes this week.
For P day today we were going to go to another Bodega that is actually functioning but that plan fell and we ended up going to a big store like Walmart called Jumbo that had a bunch of NorthAmerican stuff there. I got some stuff including tobasco sauce...
One thing that would be sweet if you could send me in the next package(if you are just casually making a list) would be one or a few flash drives so that I can store backup pictures and songs and documents and stuff. They are kind of expensive here. Thanks love ya.
I have like 9 letters in total to mail off today. Hopefully I´ll get around to it.
It was fun talkin to dad pretty casually on Friday. Lookin forward to this sunday. Call me in the afternoon that day to get in contact so we can work somethin out mmk?
Love you all.
Con Cariño,
Elder Deven Larisch
¡La Iglesia es verdadera!
The investigators are doing really good. We have had a lot of success showing the movie of the restoration in the homes this week. We had two at church: Ofelia and Gisel. Erica supposedly goes to her boyfriends house every weekend in Rivadavia(like 45 minutes away) so we are going to get her to come to church this sunday. To be baptized, it is normal that investigators have at least 2 attendances at church so maybe we can baptize Ofelia this Saturday, Erica on Sunday, and Gisel on the next Saturday. Hopefully we don´t have to work with some chastity problems with Erica and her BF. We found out that Ofelia has a small smoking problem so we are now helping her out with that so she can get baptized ASAP. Gisel is a new investigator that we found with the Martinez family(who is the family that EstefanÍa Sosa belongs to. Estefanía married Hermana Martinez´s son who is in jail. His name is Victor. Victor is super ready for baptism according to our bishop who has been visiting him occasionally in jail. We are trying to get permission to baptize him in the jail somehow without attendances at church. Apparently he is in jail because he killed someone accidentally while defending himself(according to his mom). Yep...fun stuff. We´ll see how that goes this week.
For P day today we were going to go to another Bodega that is actually functioning but that plan fell and we ended up going to a big store like Walmart called Jumbo that had a bunch of NorthAmerican stuff there. I got some stuff including tobasco sauce...
One thing that would be sweet if you could send me in the next package(if you are just casually making a list) would be one or a few flash drives so that I can store backup pictures and songs and documents and stuff. They are kind of expensive here. Thanks love ya.
I have like 9 letters in total to mail off today. Hopefully I´ll get around to it.
It was fun talkin to dad pretty casually on Friday. Lookin forward to this sunday. Call me in the afternoon that day to get in contact so we can work somethin out mmk?
Love you all.
Con Cariño,
Elder Deven Larisch
¡La Iglesia es verdadera!
Monday, May 7, 2012
¿Ocho meses?.....¿ya? (8 months)
Wow, thanks for making me notice that I am already to the 1/3 mark in the mission. That is pretty crazy and it makes me just want to make the best of the small time that I have left. There is still soooo much to do here!
We had a pretty fun week. We are setting new goals that we have never even thought of as we are now reaching new heights. I hope everyone had a good Cinco de Mayo. We tried to enjoy it the best we could just like all of the other holidays ya know? Growin moustaches and cooking taco soup. Mothers day is coming up. Getting ready to Skype the fam next week. I can´t believe it´s already time again. Are you sure you want to hear my voice again? Maybe you will get to talk to my bishop because we will probably do the Skype at his house. He speaks english.
During our weekly planning on Thursday, we made a list of 18 people that we thought could come to church on sunday. We did all we could on our part and ended up getting one there. Ofelia will hopefully be getting baptized this Sunday after she attends church one more time. Erica De La Fuente is also another that may get baptized then also. She has been attending seminary every day this past week. We just haven´t been able to get in touch with her. She is from a part-member family with a few recent converts. As I usually say, we are working with a lot of people right now, but it is just the commitment part that is the hardest for them.
I have a couple interesting stories...but time does not grow on trees so you will have to come to me when I get back from home and have me open my journal. Ha. Ask me about the crazy in search for a father for her children Hiru Krishna God worshipper. Good stuff.
Oh yeah, and one awesome thing that is just great is that Chiquita, one of our convert baptisms here saw that my shoes were in not very good shape. The ones that grandpa gave me were falling apart on the bottom because they are flat and I have been walking on too many rocks. She surprised us one day with a way nice pair of leather shoes for both of us! She is one of the best people I have ever met and deserves a lot of gratitude. She is also going to fix the soles of my other nice shoes and pay for half of it. I can´t turn her down or else she will feel bad because she just likes to give all she has to the church.
In a few studies this week I have used my study time to study gratitude. Especially so that I can find ways to show my gratitude for selfless people that dedicate their lives to the Lord and know that their worldly possesions aren´t anything compared to what God has in store for us if we obey his commandments and keep our sacred covenants as all the members of the church have made.
I definitely know that I owe tons of gratitude to my family for all that they have done to help me get here. I know that there is no other way in the world to obtain a lot of the knowledge and go through some of the experiences that I have passed by so far here except by accepting being called to be a servant of the Lord. It is amazing to see what things He has in store for those who have desires and are called to the work. But about the gratitude thing, I wish there was like a button here on email that would make this email more meaningful or make my words more poetic or something. Maybe I´ll write a poem next time...ha. But for now, thanks for all that you have done for me fam!
Remember to have a heart filled with Gratitude(D&C 78:19)
Con un amor indescriptible,
Elder Larisch
La Iglesia es verdadera
We had a pretty fun week. We are setting new goals that we have never even thought of as we are now reaching new heights. I hope everyone had a good Cinco de Mayo. We tried to enjoy it the best we could just like all of the other holidays ya know? Growin moustaches and cooking taco soup. Mothers day is coming up. Getting ready to Skype the fam next week. I can´t believe it´s already time again. Are you sure you want to hear my voice again? Maybe you will get to talk to my bishop because we will probably do the Skype at his house. He speaks english.
During our weekly planning on Thursday, we made a list of 18 people that we thought could come to church on sunday. We did all we could on our part and ended up getting one there. Ofelia will hopefully be getting baptized this Sunday after she attends church one more time. Erica De La Fuente is also another that may get baptized then also. She has been attending seminary every day this past week. We just haven´t been able to get in touch with her. She is from a part-member family with a few recent converts. As I usually say, we are working with a lot of people right now, but it is just the commitment part that is the hardest for them.
I have a couple interesting stories...but time does not grow on trees so you will have to come to me when I get back from home and have me open my journal. Ha. Ask me about the crazy in search for a father for her children Hiru Krishna God worshipper. Good stuff.
Oh yeah, and one awesome thing that is just great is that Chiquita, one of our convert baptisms here saw that my shoes were in not very good shape. The ones that grandpa gave me were falling apart on the bottom because they are flat and I have been walking on too many rocks. She surprised us one day with a way nice pair of leather shoes for both of us! She is one of the best people I have ever met and deserves a lot of gratitude. She is also going to fix the soles of my other nice shoes and pay for half of it. I can´t turn her down or else she will feel bad because she just likes to give all she has to the church.
In a few studies this week I have used my study time to study gratitude. Especially so that I can find ways to show my gratitude for selfless people that dedicate their lives to the Lord and know that their worldly possesions aren´t anything compared to what God has in store for us if we obey his commandments and keep our sacred covenants as all the members of the church have made.
I definitely know that I owe tons of gratitude to my family for all that they have done to help me get here. I know that there is no other way in the world to obtain a lot of the knowledge and go through some of the experiences that I have passed by so far here except by accepting being called to be a servant of the Lord. It is amazing to see what things He has in store for those who have desires and are called to the work. But about the gratitude thing, I wish there was like a button here on email that would make this email more meaningful or make my words more poetic or something. Maybe I´ll write a poem next time...ha. But for now, thanks for all that you have done for me fam!
Remember to have a heart filled with Gratitude(D&C 78:19)
Con un amor indescriptible,
Elder Larisch
fun argentine wall art...one of my faves
Horizon
Jalepeño
My Bishop
Hermano Sanchez with a picture of his dad that looks just like him(but in the picture he is 19! Crazy!)
Cinco de Mayo Taco Soup(not an Argentine Holiday)
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Tercer Traslado Juntos (Third Transfer Together)
How is everything going?
This was a fun week that passed by. I have actually had a few sick problems which I will explain more down lower. I am actually very excited for another transfer in this area. I think you are definitely right mom, that I am getting this opportunity for a reason. I think that God knows something that we don´t know...once again. Ha.
We have had some cool experiences with investigators this week. On Tuesday I felt like we needed to go stop by one of our older investigator´s houses who we haven´t really worked with a bunch named Mafalda. We got there and I remembered some good council from our leaders saying that we should invite all in the home to hear our message...and good thing I did. By the end of the lesson, the only person that wasn´t interested was the actual investigator. We had a really good lesson with her two old lady sisters that live there with her. Fani, who has had some really crazy experiences including dying and seeing a lot of amazing things and having interesting dreams that she wants us to interpret. Ofelia, has a couple sons that live in Utah and Spain that are members of the church and is very interested. How lucky is that? We also had a pretty good activity de la obra misional this week. We didn´t have too good of a show, but we did get a couple new investigators out of it from part member families. Erika De La Fuente should be pretty good. She has been taught in the past but she felt the spirit pretty strong that night. We played ping pong and watched The Other Side of Heaven(with permission from Presidente Ävila), then we gave a little missionary work thought at the end and had a couple people bear their testimonies. Good stuff!
As I noted earlier, yes I have been sick this week. Earlier, like Wednesday night, I was up vomiting and having diarreah all night! I was super dehydrated and thought I was going to pass out and wake up the next morning on the bathroom floor. But the story doesn´t go that way, don´t worry mom, I finally gained the strength to ask my comp for a blessing. After that I was able to go lay in bed more tranquilly. The mission nurse put me on a special diet and I couldn´t go out and proselyte the next day...It was one of the longest days of my life... Well, that wore off recently and now I have picked up a pretty bad cold. I just love waking up to snot all over my face...ha ha.
Even though I am a bit sick, I didn´t want to hold anyone back so I didn´t say no to going out and enjoying ourselves this pday. We went to a Persa this morning(like a huge fleamarket/discounts everywhere place, that are pretty illegal in the states) and bought a few winter necesities like a hat, and I got a cool long sleeve River shirt(one of the main fútbol teams of Argentina) and a couple other goods. Enjoyed a good Godzilla burger at Kingo, then we went to Cerro de la Gloría, which is one of the biggest tourist sites in Mendoza. It is translated to be The Hill of Glory for all those in need of the translation...ha. It was a short, steep hike to a bunch of little statues and a big statue(that is found on the $5 peso bill). It was a great time! Memories to last a lifetime.
All of the sudden, this week it has just started getting SUPER cold! We tried having a campfire in our little courtyard area in the back of our pench to roast some chicken parts that some other Elder got from a member. The fire didn´t work out so well so we will have to find other means of cooking them. Probably would be good in a soup. I bet it is just a beautiful spring over yonder in the states. The birds here got caught by surprise, some of them froze, and some of them got a good start migrating back up north. It is weird to say that backwards. What if they still do go south? Wouldn´t they hit warm weather after passing Antartica?
I am not sure what time I will be calling you the week after mothers day yet. Actually this time I am going to be able to Skype home. So prepare for that! Its gonna be weird seeing and talking to everyone. I will let you next week on this topic.
That always makes me happy to hear that Mallory prays for me a lot and speaks of me well to her friends at school. Ha ha. She is so cute.
Tell everyone hi for me back at home. Love you all.
Hold the Spiritual thought for next week, it will be twice as good...ha.
Con todo el amor que puedo dar,
Elder Deven Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera
This was a fun week that passed by. I have actually had a few sick problems which I will explain more down lower. I am actually very excited for another transfer in this area. I think you are definitely right mom, that I am getting this opportunity for a reason. I think that God knows something that we don´t know...once again. Ha.
We have had some cool experiences with investigators this week. On Tuesday I felt like we needed to go stop by one of our older investigator´s houses who we haven´t really worked with a bunch named Mafalda. We got there and I remembered some good council from our leaders saying that we should invite all in the home to hear our message...and good thing I did. By the end of the lesson, the only person that wasn´t interested was the actual investigator. We had a really good lesson with her two old lady sisters that live there with her. Fani, who has had some really crazy experiences including dying and seeing a lot of amazing things and having interesting dreams that she wants us to interpret. Ofelia, has a couple sons that live in Utah and Spain that are members of the church and is very interested. How lucky is that? We also had a pretty good activity de la obra misional this week. We didn´t have too good of a show, but we did get a couple new investigators out of it from part member families. Erika De La Fuente should be pretty good. She has been taught in the past but she felt the spirit pretty strong that night. We played ping pong and watched The Other Side of Heaven(with permission from Presidente Ävila), then we gave a little missionary work thought at the end and had a couple people bear their testimonies. Good stuff!
As I noted earlier, yes I have been sick this week. Earlier, like Wednesday night, I was up vomiting and having diarreah all night! I was super dehydrated and thought I was going to pass out and wake up the next morning on the bathroom floor. But the story doesn´t go that way, don´t worry mom, I finally gained the strength to ask my comp for a blessing. After that I was able to go lay in bed more tranquilly. The mission nurse put me on a special diet and I couldn´t go out and proselyte the next day...It was one of the longest days of my life... Well, that wore off recently and now I have picked up a pretty bad cold. I just love waking up to snot all over my face...ha ha.
Even though I am a bit sick, I didn´t want to hold anyone back so I didn´t say no to going out and enjoying ourselves this pday. We went to a Persa this morning(like a huge fleamarket/discounts everywhere place, that are pretty illegal in the states) and bought a few winter necesities like a hat, and I got a cool long sleeve River shirt(one of the main fútbol teams of Argentina) and a couple other goods. Enjoyed a good Godzilla burger at Kingo, then we went to Cerro de la Gloría, which is one of the biggest tourist sites in Mendoza. It is translated to be The Hill of Glory for all those in need of the translation...ha. It was a short, steep hike to a bunch of little statues and a big statue(that is found on the $5 peso bill). It was a great time! Memories to last a lifetime.
All of the sudden, this week it has just started getting SUPER cold! We tried having a campfire in our little courtyard area in the back of our pench to roast some chicken parts that some other Elder got from a member. The fire didn´t work out so well so we will have to find other means of cooking them. Probably would be good in a soup. I bet it is just a beautiful spring over yonder in the states. The birds here got caught by surprise, some of them froze, and some of them got a good start migrating back up north. It is weird to say that backwards. What if they still do go south? Wouldn´t they hit warm weather after passing Antartica?
I am not sure what time I will be calling you the week after mothers day yet. Actually this time I am going to be able to Skype home. So prepare for that! Its gonna be weird seeing and talking to everyone. I will let you next week on this topic.
That always makes me happy to hear that Mallory prays for me a lot and speaks of me well to her friends at school. Ha ha. She is so cute.
Tell everyone hi for me back at home. Love you all.
Hold the Spiritual thought for next week, it will be twice as good...ha.
Con todo el amor que puedo dar,
Elder Deven Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera
District Hermanas
Leotardo w/suetér....our dogs
Sammy w/suetér
Monday, April 23, 2012
More Pictures...
 |
| German hotdog that i found in the supermarket |
I found the silver bullet...
workin to hard
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some p-day fun...thanks mom
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¡Me quedo! Mi Padre Celestial me ha escuchado mis oraciones (I'm staying! My heavenly father had listened to my prayers)
Prayers have been answered...
Have some pretty good news this day for all of you tuned in. We found out about our transfers this morning. I have been praying and hoping to at least stay for another transfer. We have been having tons of success in the past couple weeks and have a few more baptisms set up for the next few weeks. I really did not want to miss out on the fruits of our labors here in this gold mine of San Ignacio. ¡Nos quedamos acá! I guess that God has prepared the both of us as the miners for this area if he wants us to be here 3 transfers together. It is pretty rare that comps stay together for more than two transfers. In this case with E´ Wixom, I am actually pretty stoked for another transfer working with these people because we both know them way good.
The other tender mercy of the Lord to us this past week was a surprise miracle baptism! Yeah, we found a person just waiting to get baptized that lived right next to one of our less-active families that we visit. Estefanía Sosa. 19 yrs old. 2 children. Lives in a shack. Her story is that she investigated the church about a year ago with the elders, but the only thing that was stopping her was getting married. The elders basically taught her everything and just left her as a present to future elders ready to go. Turns out that she got hitched a few months ago to her husband that is in jail...ha. They did the marriage ceremony in the jail and the first counselor in our bishopric even provided the food for it. Ha ha. I´m not quite sure what he is in jail for, but his wife even gave him a Book of Mormon to read a while ago and it sounds like he loves it. I am just curious now if they can do marrying over there, why wouldn´t they be able to do a baptismal service?... We had her baptismal service yesterday at 18:00 after church and it was one of the best baptismal services we have done or seen in the mission yet. Even though we have known her for less than a week, we wanted to go all out on the baptism. We organized a musical number, had way good talks by a few members, prepared banana bread and browies, and made sweet invitations. We couldn´t quite get her family to come to the service, even though they include a few recent converts, but it was still really good!
We are even preparing more baptismal services for the next few weeks. I really want to work my butt off to make them happen because I know that if I do my part and just tire myself out effectively working at the top of my potencial, the Lord is going to bless me with baptisms. Just have to lose myself in that! We have Teresa(mom) and Martín(19) as a reference from another ward. Martín basically lives the life of a mormon but just doesn´t quite belong to a church. He doesn´t smoke, drink, go out a party in the boliches(popular argentine dance clubs...usually not the best place to feel the spirit), or go out and just cause havoc with all of his drug-addict friends and rob every house they walk by at night. His mom told the misioneras in the other ward that she is worried for him and she doesn´t think it is normal. We passed by their house and explained to him that we have what he is already living. They will get baptized one of the first weeks in May. Irma Fiorentino, our English-speaking, Canadian friend and her husband will be moving back to Toronto this Thursday. She surprised us and came to sacrament meeting yesterday. After the meeting she told me that she is super happy because she had gone to some bible study class of some other church and they convinced her that all churches are going to lead us in the same exact direction because we all worship the same god. Basically the belief of all catholics, but now she thinks she has a stronger testimony that it is true. She is really good so we are going to communicate with missionaries in Toronto to keep workin with her. Another new investigator came to church yesterday named Lucas that comes from the same family that gave us Estefanía. Lucas just needs to get married and he can get baptized. Haroldo is also another old guy that we found in the street that is super interested in the Book of Mormon and what it has to offer. He read half the Book of Mormon in one week. He commited to go to church but he unfortunately didn´t keep his commitment.
Since we are working a lot more with less active families to obtain good references, we are doing a lot of Noche de Hogars(FHEs) to gain the trust of the members. We had one with a stake presidency member the other night and a less active family. He got permission from President Ávila for us to be out late because they could only start it at like 21:00. We ended up staying till like midnight. Good times.
I donated blood for the first time on Saturday. It was some emergency blood drive that they had in the Mendoza Zone Stake :Center for all of the missionaries. It was for some test or something. It was a pretty fun morning. My blood type is AB+ just in case anyone wants to know. Good times.
I think that I have been having some minor/major digestive problems again in the past few days. I made some onion rings the other day. They were really good, but I think they gave me some sort of curse.
I would like to take up this precious part part of my weekly letter to tell the mother how awesome she is. I was uncontrollably happy when I saw the package waiting for me in the offices on Wednesday. The ties, candy, broken head-scratcher that I found out is on like every street corner here so I hope you didn´t spend too much time looking for it(Love ya ma). I am starting to get more into tie trading lately. Earlier in the mission I wasn´t too much for it, but now that I have a bigger quantity, I am willing to see what more is out there.
Pensamiento Espiritual: Since my mind has been focused on baptism a lot lately, that is what the thought will be about.
Why do we get baptized?
To receive a remission of sins
To become members of the Church of Jesus Christ
To be able to receive the Holy Ghost
To show our obedience
To enter into the kingdom of God
If we look at this list and see how important baptism is. Here are only 5 important points of baptism. If the bible says that there is only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, how then shall we know the correct manner of baptism to fulfill each of these points? It is very important to have the one correct baptism. I testify that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is that only church on earth today that can fill us and give us all of our needs.
Much love from Mendoza, Argentina. Signing out is...
Elder Deven Larisch
¡La Iglesia es Verdadera!
.JPG)
Have some pretty good news this day for all of you tuned in. We found out about our transfers this morning. I have been praying and hoping to at least stay for another transfer. We have been having tons of success in the past couple weeks and have a few more baptisms set up for the next few weeks. I really did not want to miss out on the fruits of our labors here in this gold mine of San Ignacio. ¡Nos quedamos acá! I guess that God has prepared the both of us as the miners for this area if he wants us to be here 3 transfers together. It is pretty rare that comps stay together for more than two transfers. In this case with E´ Wixom, I am actually pretty stoked for another transfer working with these people because we both know them way good.
The other tender mercy of the Lord to us this past week was a surprise miracle baptism! Yeah, we found a person just waiting to get baptized that lived right next to one of our less-active families that we visit. Estefanía Sosa. 19 yrs old. 2 children. Lives in a shack. Her story is that she investigated the church about a year ago with the elders, but the only thing that was stopping her was getting married. The elders basically taught her everything and just left her as a present to future elders ready to go. Turns out that she got hitched a few months ago to her husband that is in jail...ha. They did the marriage ceremony in the jail and the first counselor in our bishopric even provided the food for it. Ha ha. I´m not quite sure what he is in jail for, but his wife even gave him a Book of Mormon to read a while ago and it sounds like he loves it. I am just curious now if they can do marrying over there, why wouldn´t they be able to do a baptismal service?... We had her baptismal service yesterday at 18:00 after church and it was one of the best baptismal services we have done or seen in the mission yet. Even though we have known her for less than a week, we wanted to go all out on the baptism. We organized a musical number, had way good talks by a few members, prepared banana bread and browies, and made sweet invitations. We couldn´t quite get her family to come to the service, even though they include a few recent converts, but it was still really good!
We are even preparing more baptismal services for the next few weeks. I really want to work my butt off to make them happen because I know that if I do my part and just tire myself out effectively working at the top of my potencial, the Lord is going to bless me with baptisms. Just have to lose myself in that! We have Teresa(mom) and Martín(19) as a reference from another ward. Martín basically lives the life of a mormon but just doesn´t quite belong to a church. He doesn´t smoke, drink, go out a party in the boliches(popular argentine dance clubs...usually not the best place to feel the spirit), or go out and just cause havoc with all of his drug-addict friends and rob every house they walk by at night. His mom told the misioneras in the other ward that she is worried for him and she doesn´t think it is normal. We passed by their house and explained to him that we have what he is already living. They will get baptized one of the first weeks in May. Irma Fiorentino, our English-speaking, Canadian friend and her husband will be moving back to Toronto this Thursday. She surprised us and came to sacrament meeting yesterday. After the meeting she told me that she is super happy because she had gone to some bible study class of some other church and they convinced her that all churches are going to lead us in the same exact direction because we all worship the same god. Basically the belief of all catholics, but now she thinks she has a stronger testimony that it is true. She is really good so we are going to communicate with missionaries in Toronto to keep workin with her. Another new investigator came to church yesterday named Lucas that comes from the same family that gave us Estefanía. Lucas just needs to get married and he can get baptized. Haroldo is also another old guy that we found in the street that is super interested in the Book of Mormon and what it has to offer. He read half the Book of Mormon in one week. He commited to go to church but he unfortunately didn´t keep his commitment.
Since we are working a lot more with less active families to obtain good references, we are doing a lot of Noche de Hogars(FHEs) to gain the trust of the members. We had one with a stake presidency member the other night and a less active family. He got permission from President Ávila for us to be out late because they could only start it at like 21:00. We ended up staying till like midnight. Good times.
I donated blood for the first time on Saturday. It was some emergency blood drive that they had in the Mendoza Zone Stake :Center for all of the missionaries. It was for some test or something. It was a pretty fun morning. My blood type is AB+ just in case anyone wants to know. Good times.
I think that I have been having some minor/major digestive problems again in the past few days. I made some onion rings the other day. They were really good, but I think they gave me some sort of curse.
I would like to take up this precious part part of my weekly letter to tell the mother how awesome she is. I was uncontrollably happy when I saw the package waiting for me in the offices on Wednesday. The ties, candy, broken head-scratcher that I found out is on like every street corner here so I hope you didn´t spend too much time looking for it(Love ya ma). I am starting to get more into tie trading lately. Earlier in the mission I wasn´t too much for it, but now that I have a bigger quantity, I am willing to see what more is out there.
Pensamiento Espiritual: Since my mind has been focused on baptism a lot lately, that is what the thought will be about.
Why do we get baptized?
To receive a remission of sins
To become members of the Church of Jesus Christ
To be able to receive the Holy Ghost
To show our obedience
To enter into the kingdom of God
If we look at this list and see how important baptism is. Here are only 5 important points of baptism. If the bible says that there is only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, how then shall we know the correct manner of baptism to fulfill each of these points? It is very important to have the one correct baptism. I testify that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is that only church on earth today that can fill us and give us all of our needs.
Much love from Mendoza, Argentina. Signing out is...
Elder Deven Larisch
¡La Iglesia es Verdadera!
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Monday, April 16, 2012
Un nuevo comienzo (A new beginning)
Hey,
Whats new? How is everyone doing? I am at a terrible computer and the dang space key keeps getting stuck and is making me very frustrated... The computer is also very slow. I think I am definitely being tried of my patience.
We had an okay week. We have been continuing learning a ton from our stud bishop who is 29. We have a lot prepared for the future and have been working with a bunch of future baptisms. It has actually been kind of a problem that so many people are progressing for us. We find that we end up wasting lots of valuable time with so-so investigators when we actually should just be spending the majority of the time with our very elect investigators. No baptisms this week for us, but the hermanas in our district had a really good baptism of a really good person. We went to her baptismal service and felt the spirit very strong. I love seeing people that are so prepared making the next big step in their life with baptism. Unfortunately, we were not able to get any of our investigators to church. It is definitely one of the hardest, most uncontrollable things of missionary work. But the good thing is that when they actually do come to church, the chance of them getting baptized shoots way up.
Yesterdays reunions in church were some of the best I have been in. At least in testimony meeting, we felt the spirit very strong through some of our newer and less active members. We didn't exactly have investigators, but we had at least 7 of our less active families in sacrament meeting that we are working with a lot. Now we just need to get them to bring all of their non-member friends that were the reason they were inactive to church. But anyways, testimony meeting was so awesome because we knew the stories and background situations of many of those people and have seen the amazing change that the Evangelio de Jesucristo has wrought in their lives. Good times.
We just bought our bus tickets to go to Potrerillo today for P-day. I have seen some pictures of it and it just looks like a good fun time. It is just a place up in the mountains with some great scenery and lakes and stuff. I'll be sure to fill you in visually the following week. We slept over at our Zone Leaders pension for the night so we could save some time this morning. It's gonna be a good day.
FYI, I have been using my left thumb for the spacebar this whole email. Try it, it's not that easy to do continually.
Well, this transfer has gone by super fast!!! I can't believe that we only have one week left till next transfer. Elder Wixom thinks that I am going to stay here in godoy cruz and train a new and incoming missionary. I am hoping for the same! Ha.
Tell Lexi to stay away from the boys till I get home, and Brooke(Ike), and Mallory(Tashj).
Spiritual Thought
"Brethren, the world is in need of our help. Are we doing all we should? Do we remember the words of President John Taylor: ‘If you do not magnify your callings, God will hold you responsible for those whom you might have saved had you done your duty.’ There are feet to steady, hands to grasp, minds to encourage, hearts to inspire, and souls to save. The blessings of eternity await you. Yours is the privilege to be not spectators but participants on the stage of priesthood service."
I definitely second the words of our living prophet though. Do what he says!...if and only if you want more blessings.
Stay sweet. Love y'all
Directamente del centro(coraz'on),
Elder Dev L'areesh
La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los 'Ultimos Dias es la 'unica verdadera en el mundo
Whats new? How is everyone doing? I am at a terrible computer and the dang space key keeps getting stuck and is making me very frustrated... The computer is also very slow. I think I am definitely being tried of my patience.
We had an okay week. We have been continuing learning a ton from our stud bishop who is 29. We have a lot prepared for the future and have been working with a bunch of future baptisms. It has actually been kind of a problem that so many people are progressing for us. We find that we end up wasting lots of valuable time with so-so investigators when we actually should just be spending the majority of the time with our very elect investigators. No baptisms this week for us, but the hermanas in our district had a really good baptism of a really good person. We went to her baptismal service and felt the spirit very strong. I love seeing people that are so prepared making the next big step in their life with baptism. Unfortunately, we were not able to get any of our investigators to church. It is definitely one of the hardest, most uncontrollable things of missionary work. But the good thing is that when they actually do come to church, the chance of them getting baptized shoots way up.
Yesterdays reunions in church were some of the best I have been in. At least in testimony meeting, we felt the spirit very strong through some of our newer and less active members. We didn't exactly have investigators, but we had at least 7 of our less active families in sacrament meeting that we are working with a lot. Now we just need to get them to bring all of their non-member friends that were the reason they were inactive to church. But anyways, testimony meeting was so awesome because we knew the stories and background situations of many of those people and have seen the amazing change that the Evangelio de Jesucristo has wrought in their lives. Good times.
We just bought our bus tickets to go to Potrerillo today for P-day. I have seen some pictures of it and it just looks like a good fun time. It is just a place up in the mountains with some great scenery and lakes and stuff. I'll be sure to fill you in visually the following week. We slept over at our Zone Leaders pension for the night so we could save some time this morning. It's gonna be a good day.
FYI, I have been using my left thumb for the spacebar this whole email. Try it, it's not that easy to do continually.
Well, this transfer has gone by super fast!!! I can't believe that we only have one week left till next transfer. Elder Wixom thinks that I am going to stay here in godoy cruz and train a new and incoming missionary. I am hoping for the same! Ha.
Tell Lexi to stay away from the boys till I get home, and Brooke(Ike), and Mallory(Tashj).
Spiritual Thought
"Brethren, the world is in need of our help. Are we doing all we should? Do we remember the words of President John Taylor: ‘If you do not magnify your callings, God will hold you responsible for those whom you might have saved had you done your duty.’ There are feet to steady, hands to grasp, minds to encourage, hearts to inspire, and souls to save. The blessings of eternity await you. Yours is the privilege to be not spectators but participants on the stage of priesthood service."
I definitely second the words of our living prophet though. Do what he says!...if and only if you want more blessings.
Stay sweet. Love y'all
Directamente del centro(coraz'on),
Elder Dev L'areesh
La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los 'Ultimos Dias es la 'unica verdadera en el mundo
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