Transfers Coming Up!

¡Hola familia y amigos!

How are you all doing?! It's great to read your letters and learn all that's going on back stateside. Another week in Aldo Bonzi. It has been pretty good. The sad news is that my companion, Elder Morgan, finished his mission and is now on the journey home. He was a great missionary and companion to me, and I'm grateful for him. We exchanged ties and he gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting. He left a great impression in the area and in the people. They all love him a lot, and I'm glad. Until official transfers on Wednesday I'm with another missionary whose comp also went home. We're working in his area, which is close to mine. 

We have met a lot of great people this week. Also we finally set a baptismal date for Roxana, a single mother who lives in the little Bolivian neighborhood where we live. But she didn't come to church yesterday! It was really disappointing because she never fails in her commitments. Our other baptism for February is Mariano. He has a lot to change in his life, and for the moment he doesn't feel the need to change it. But he keeps coming to church because he likes it. Anyone can repent and get baptized, and we all need the gospel. With faith and if we do our part to help him, he'll make it. Please pray for him.

That's all I have time for! I hope you're all doing fantastic. ¡Les quiero un montón! Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. You will be in mine.

¡Chau!

Elder Blake

Another Week

¡Hola familia y amigos!

This week finds me writing from no other place than--WalMart! Yes, there is one. There are actually two in my ward boundaries, and they´re kindof like Walmart plus shopping mall. Jaja, it´s weird.

I can´t believe this transfer is almost over, and also that my compañero goes home in a week. This week we plan to work as much as possible amidst the final meetings, goodbye dinners, and everything else. 

A miracle happened this sunday in church. There were like 12 non-members in church! Many investigators from the other sister missionaries in our ward, and a bunch from us. And what was even better, most of them felt the spirit and they were all well fellowshipped by the ward.  Two of them were Roxana and her son Bruno. She is a very intelligent and sincere single mother who´s had a hard life. She also es habladora (i.e. a talker to the max). We have good hopes for them. They need the gospel, just like all of us.

We´re still visiting Mariano Mendez. He´s a little difficult to teach because of what drugs have done to him, but he´s a good person at heart. Again, we all need the Gospel. "The church" said some apóstol or somebody, "is not a museum of perfect people. It is a hospital for imperfect saints." Algo así.

I hope you´re all doing fantastic. Les quiero muchísimo, y oro para ustedes.

Élder Blake

A part-member family with whom we are working. We brought them to the templelast week eternal families, baptism, and the law of chastity. There is a special spirit in teaching at the temple.

Saludos de Aldo Bonzi A

¡Hola familia y amigos!

¿Cómo están todos? It´s always so great to read your letters and hear all the cool things you´re doing. Thanks for your consistent examples for me. You are all wonderfulísimos.

This week has been one of great blessings and learning. We have met some great people. Giovanna, an Uruguayan woman who lives in our little neighborhood, is starting to read the Libro de Mormón and already prays a lot. This week we need to continue teaching her and invite her to get baptized. Mariano, that guy who showed up at church last week, came again of his own accord and we taught him The Restoration right after. He believes the LDM is true, but doubts that any one church has the full truth. We comitted him to read and pray for answers. We also were blessed to go to the temple grounds with a part-member family that we´ve been working with and teach them about eternal marriage. There was such a special spirit as we taught at the House of the Lord. It´s a wonderful place. Oh! I also ran into my ward from Marcos Paz 1 there! They were on a temple trip. It was so great to see them, including a part-member family that Élder Jetsel and I had visited a lot. They all said that I had "abandoned" them, which is más o menos true :) It was great to see them.

I´m still learning lots from my compañero, Élder Morgan. He is a good gospel teacher, greenie trainer, and friend. Today we went to a touristy little shop to buy some recuerdos (souvoneirs) before he goes home in 2 short weeks. 

That´s all for this week. Les amo y oro por ustedes. Tengan una buena semana.

Con amor,

Élder Blake

Y asi empieza año nuevo

¡Hola familia y amigos!

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! What a great time to look at our lives and appreciate what we have been blessed with. We have so much. God surely loves us, and although it may be hard to see sometimes, He´s always there for us.

Right now I happen to be thinking about those many home projects I had the privilege to do with Dad and the rest of the family in the house and yard. Digging a pool, laying sawd, laying rocks, planting flowers and arbors, fixing sprinklers, whacking and wrapping palm frawns, etc. He always taught me to take a minute after finishing, yet before putting away the tools, to look back and appreciate what you were able to do. I hope we all do that as we start off this new year and smile with gratitude at what we´ve done, and turn with that same smile at what comes next as we continually improve our homes - and our lives.

This week has been long but good. Full of experience and learning. Haha, we were walking in Aldo Bonzi when we contacted one guy named Mariano. Really, he contacted us. "¿Jehova´s Witnesses?" he called out. "No, los mormones," we said back. "Oh," he said, "what´s the difference?" I can´t help remembering that talk by Elder Russell M. Nelson where he says that if you have a gospel question you should "Ask the missionaries!" So we told him who we are, what we do, and said that our church meetings are on Sundays at such time and place and he´s always welcome. We parted ways, expecting not to see him again.

But he came to church :) and on time too! He participated in the classes, seemed to understand everything pretty well, was welcomed nicely by the ward, actually asked us for a Libro de Mormón. I sat next to him in sacrament meeting and he told me that he liked it. I actually have hope for him, and we plan to go see him this week and see how things turn out. I can´t help but laugh at this experience too, because along with everything else he kindof blabbered cualquier cosa (whatever thing) and tried to kiss the American sister missionary that is in our same ward. Her reaction was priceless, and Mariano, although respecting the mission rules once he learned them, was kindof bummed. :) 

haha, so anyway that was my fun experience for the week. I know God lives and loves us. As we learn of Him through prayer, reading His scriptures, and obeying His commandments we are always blessed.

¡Que Dios les bendiga a todos ustedes! Les quiero mucho.

Atentamente,

Élder Blakeññññ

¡Felices Fiestas!

¡Hola familia y amigos!

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas this year. Lots of smiles, lots of love, lots of service - lots of Christ. Thank you for being such great family and friends. I am very blessed to have you. May God bless and be with you.

It was so great to talk to the family over the internet. Everybody looks so good!  Weston is talking a lot, and Sam and Hunter are huge! Stop feeding everybody so well. Now you all have to tell me what YOU did for Christmas. I tried to ask you, but nobody paid attention! You kept asking questions about me! What did you all give for Christmas? What memories did you make? How did you serve others? I hope you all took the chance to do these things. Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo to all of you.

In Argentina (and, i presume, much of South America) la Navidad is celebrated differently. People gather with family and friends to have a big festive lunch and/or dinner on the 24th. Dinner starts cooking at 8 or 9pm, and people eat and celebrate together until the wee hours of Christmas morning. At midnight everybody - everybody - lights off fireworks a fúl. Christmas day, sometime after everone wakes up, they like to have another nice lunch, and that kindof ends the celebration. It´s really fun, and I would love to have the full experience sometime after the mission. We had permission to have dinner in the house of a member until 10:30. They cooked an amazing asado (south-american BBQ), and if I had the luck to use a computer cool enough to have a USB port I´d try to send you pictures :)

Anyway, love you all. Thanks for all you do for me and for each other. Keep being the awesome people you are. Merry Christmas y Happy New Year.

Con amor,

Elder Blake

Feliz Navidad

¡Hola familia y amigos!

This week has been crazy and great. I have been richly blessed by the Lord in the process of changing and learning new things. I just hope I learn it all!

This week were transfers. We got our assignments in district meeting on Tuesday, written on little papers by our district leader. Mine said "Se queda" ("you stay") and that of my compañero, "se va" ("you go"). We spent some time that day saying goodbye to certain people for Elder Jetsel. Then, right before we go to bed we get a call from the assistants with a new assignment - I had to go as well! It was crazy! I didn´t want to go. We had a recent baptism and several special investigators. But the Lord knows what He´s doing, so we both went.

Transfer meeting was awesome. This one was special because all the mission was there to have a huge Navidad celebration. We sung popular American Christmas carols, and then some hymns of worship. There was prepared a fantastic music and spoken word program in the chapel after that, and we even watched that church film, "Ephraim´s Rescue" (so good - go watch it again when you can). And then we had our official transfer meeting.

I was assigned to the area of Haedo A, which is nearer to the capital Buenos Aires, in a trio with an outgoing elder and the other trainee of Elder Jetsel! Elder Lee, from Kaysville, Utah, and Elder Maragaño, from Santiago, Chile. Great elders.

And THEN (yeah, I know. There´s another "and then") Friday morning I get another call. An elder in the city of Aldo Bonzi had to go home and I was going to take his place. So here I am in Aldo Bonzi, with my 8th companion since the MTC, Elder Morgan. He´s a stud, and although I hated to leave Marcos Paz 1 (that area was closed, by the way), I am truly excited to be here in Aldo Bonzi. I think it is where I need to be for myself, my companion, and the people. I know that if I do all that is required of me as a servant of the Lord, this area will receive the blessings that wait for it at this time.

Well, there´s my crazy chronology of this week. I love you all, and I´m stoked to talk with you on Christmas day. God bless each and every one of you. Take some time to sit in a quite place for 15 minutes or so with the scriptural Christmas story and a small piece of paper to write down the impressions you receive about our Brother, the First and Greatest Gift that was given to us. Will you do that? I will.

Until la Navidad!

Con amor,

Elder Blake

A Week of Work

¡Hola familia y amigos!

This week has surely been a week of work, little "fruit", but many blessings. I am blessed with so much every day from which I learn. My compañero, the scriptures, PMG, experiences, practices, meetings, church, and the Holy Ghost. All teach me a ton, and I just hope to soak in as much as I can while I have the chance. There is nothing like the mission, and I´m so grateful for it. But I´m also grateful that even after I´m still going to have all of those teachers, minus only some specific types of experiences and meetings. Let us always do our best to take advantage of them.

We´ve spent a lot of time running around the city with our list of futuros investigadores trying to find new people to teach. We had some trouble with incorrect addresses, which stinks, but oh well. BUT, the Lord always provides. In a lesson with a less-active family my compañero challenged them to give the pamphlet of the lesson we just shared to a friend. We didn´t know it then, but that challenge was truly inspired. The mom gave it that night to a friend who was staying over at their house. The friend read it, liked it, and came in a 45-min bus ride to stake conference to see what it was like. She wants to come to normal church next sunday too. Wooooow! I love those moments. We´re going to go see her and the less-active family today and see how we can help them next to come unto Christ through the gospel.

I´m also learning a lot about teaching the gospel from my compañero, Élder Jetsel. I also realize I have some things to work harder in, such as the grammer of Spanish, improving my teaching skills through regular practice, and always doing my part fully and faithfully to really become one with Christ. Thank you for your prayers. They have helped me so much in every regard.

Before I go, NAVIDAD IS ALMOST HERE! Which means, among strengthening ourselves and others in the message of Jesus Christ, I get to talk to my family! Entonces, here are some VERY IMPORTANT matters:

We´ll get 30-40 minutes in the house of a member to skype with our immediate families. Please send me this week your skype names (Dad, Mom, everyone). We´ll only make the call with one, and connect everybody to that call, but please send me all of them just in case one doesn´t work. Please also send me the time difference between Buenos Aires and you guys. Next week I´ll have more specific plans ready.

I think that´s all. I love you guys so much! Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. But more, thanks for all you do to serve, love, and teach your fellow man. You are all amazing. God be with you.

Con amor,

Elder Blake