New Area - Compo!

¡Hola familia y amigos!

How are you all? I´ve loved reading your letters this week. I´m glad to hear you´re all doing so well.

I was so excited to hear about Cam´s and Bryan´s graduations. You two are super capos (studs), and great examples to everybody. I hope you had/will have wonderful celebrations and good starts to your next steps in life. Tell me how it goes. God really does know, love, and bless us. I hope that we can all realize a little more His hand in our lives.

That´s something that I thought as I left Aldo Bonzi. After going through so much and having so many experiences there, I felt somewhat like Nephi when he said to the angel, "I know not the meaning of all things, but I know that God loveth his children." That´s true! Never forget it, even when you feel down or lost.

I am now in a smaller city in the middle of campo se llama Junín. It´s about 4 hours west of Buenos Aires. It´s so beautiful here, and a totally different feel than Buenos Aires and it´s millions of suburbs. Todo tranquilo. My companion is Elder Ryan Kelley from Mesa, Arizona, and he´s a stud! He´s always laughing and telling funny stories - in the apartment, in church, in the streets and on our bikes. Yep, we´re on bikes. I feel more connected to Dad now, since he rode everywhere in Holland. It´s great because we can cover much more ground.

We´re share a little rama (branch) of about 50 active members with two sets of sister missionaries. The members are very nice, especially the Branch President, President Cortéz. We have a lot of work to do, though. We need to find new and good investigators a fúll and help them progress to baptism. We´ve also got plenty of reactivating to do. As a mission we´re trying to focus on priesthood holders and families. If we put in our part, it will come to pass.

Love you all. Keep being awesome. Thanks for your constant love and prayers.

Con amor,

Elder Blake

Hugo Breggi, our recent convert in Aldo Bonzi (He still prays like an evangelicist. It´s so funny :)

Campo near Junín

Me and Elder Kelley in the cyber.

Last Week in Aldo Bonzi // April 20

¡Hola familia y amigos!

How are you all? What are you up to? This week has been pretty good. We´ve been blessed to find a new family of three, Manuel, Pati, and Cristopher. They´re from Perú. It was amazing how they understood the message of the Restoration. At the end of that lesson Manuel asked if the Pope had authority and Pati was the one to answer him, reminding him how God´s priesthood authority had been lost totally in the Apostasy! haha.

Also, Hugo was interviewed by the bishop to receive the aaronic priesthood. He got emotional when he told us. He´s very humbled and excited to have that responsability. He´s a stud, and will do great.

This week my companion and I were given the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting. We both talked about the law of the fast, and it went well.

Lastly, we recieved the transfer announcements this morning. Elder Blake is being transfered! Wednesday will be the changes and in a week from today you´ll all hear where I end up.

Thank you all again for your love, your prayers, thoughts, and everything. I know God lives and loves us, and that we are His hands. YOU are His hands reaching out to me. If I haven´t responded a personal email that you sent me, know that I read it and am grateful you sent it. I love you all, and more importantly, so does He!

Con amor,

Elder Blake

Aldo Bonzi con tres Conversos // April 13

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Aldo Bonzi had a great week. There were 3 baptized! One of whom, Hugo, was taught by us, and the other two by the sister missionaries who share the ward. The baptismal service was great. Hugo slipped when I put him under, but he got all the way under and that´s what matters :) I forgot my camera, so pictures will have to come next week.

My time is running out. sorry for the short letter. I hope you all have a great week! God bless you all.

Con amor,

Elder Blake

Hola de Aldo // March 23

¡Hola familia y amigos!

This week has been one of much thinking and learning (let´s hope). I´ve been learning about the Atonement of Christ and I think this time it´s more through experience than straight book-learning. I start to realize how much I need Him. I often forget Him, often don´t work the way He deserves, but I know He loves me. I like the quote from the Scriptures when he calls Peter and Andrew to leave the life they were used to behind and follow Him. But he didn't stop at "come and follow me", He added the promise, "and I will make you fishers of men". It´s only through Christ that we really become better people, better missionaries. Christ and Christ alone can reach in the deepest recesses of our human, imperfect hearts and make changes. It reminds me also of Moroni 10:32-33, which says "Come and perfect yourselves in Christ", or something to that effect in inglés.

Edson, our Peruvian investigator, came to church for the third time. He accepted as well the Word of Wisdom, though we forgot to follow up to see if he´s living it. We´ll make better plans to help him avoid temptation this week, and if he does well and reads the LDM, I think he´ll be baptized in April.

We also are teaching an evangelico investigator in the city proper of Aldo Bonzi, se llama Hugo. He´s reading well but we´re unsure of his actual testimony. However he has great desires to bautizarse so, if we help him, he´ll make it as well.

Thank you alls for the birthday loves and wishes. They were wonderful and very meaningful to me. Will you please send me the email of the Foutz so that I can thank them for bringing me the package?

Con amor,

Elder Blake

Bautismos // March 16

¡Hola familia y amigos!

I don´t have much time to write this week, so I´m sending a few photos (worth 1000 words a piece, right?). Thanks for everything you do. I had a good week. I love you all.

Transfers - Me quedo en Bonzi // March 9

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Well, we received the transfer announcements last night and... I´m staying in Aldo Bonzi with Elder Smith! It will be great to stay here with him and in this zone of missionaries. I learn a lot and we´re starting to have some good success in finding families to teach. Last week we found a family from Paraguay. The mom had visited with and loved the missionaries 20 years ago, but never got baptized. We were looking for a referral that the famila Cruz (from whom we rent our apartment) gave us when we found her and her family. She remembered lots about José Smith and the "black book" that the missionaries had given her. We taught them the Restoration and they understood it not too bad; planned on coming to church too! Unfortunately they couldn´t make it because of other pesky schedule commitments.

Also, the two older sons of our recent convert, Roxana, are getting baptized this weekend! We´re really excited for them to be a family together in the church. The boys are named Damian and Bruno, and are capos (studs). Damian agreed to give up coffee and tea yesterday, and we really hope he sticks to it because he can´t get baptized if he drinks this week. We bought him some WordofWisdom-approved substitutes that we´re going to give him later today.

God´s grace is real.

Con amor,

Elder Blake

Another Week in Also Bonzi // Feb 23

¡Hola familia y amigos!

Así pasa otra semana en Aldo Bonzi. This transfer has flown by. There are only 2 weeks left! I wonder if I´ll stay longer here or get moved out. Probably the former, but we´ll see.

This week Roxana keeps going strong. She bore her testimony in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday and continues to love everything about the Church. We had a family home evening with her family and another member family this week about the Sabbath Day, which went really well. We had planned this noche de hogar to be big, having invited all of the members/menos-activos that live in our little neighborhood behind the Mercado Central, but only Roxana and her family showed up :/ Oh well. That happens in the mission. Her boys continue attending church and mutual as well., and they love it. We had had baptismal dates for them this weekend, but now they are having second thoughts :( We´re going to visit them a lot and do all we can to help them.

We have started teaching another man in our neighborhood named Edson. He´s from Perú, and we met him in a little peruvian restaurant owned by an investigadora of ours. Later we met him at his apartment, which he rents and where he works as a siemster (person who sews) all day long. We taught him how to pray in the first visit, and he did a good job. We came back and taught The Restauration, which he also seemed to understand pretty well. After that we´ve missed him for a few days, but we hope to see him again tonight and see how he´s doing.

That´s all for now! I hope you all have a great week. Keep being the wonderful people you all are.

Con amor,

Elder Blake

Baptism! //Feb 16, 2015

¡Hola familia y amigos!

I have hardly any time to write this week. We went to the cyber late. HOWEVER, there is one piece of fabulous news: Roxana Luna se bautizó! She is a great mother of 3 who was blessed a lot to learn the gospel. Her baptismal service was great and she felt the Spirit strongly. She´s already involved in the Relief Society and will be a great asset to the ward. 

Con amor!

Elder Blake