Posts
It´s good that you like the rain and snow, for now, because you´re going to get a lot of it! I like it when it rains too because it cools down the day, but only if I have my jacket on. There have been a couple of times when we were walking and it started to rain and we were just wearing white shirts. Yeah, como se dice ¿completely soaked? So you´ve been able to experience college for real now, how interesting. You´ll have to tell me more about it because I never had that experience xP. At West Point I loved midterms and finals week because we got absolutely no homework and only had to take tests. Como se dice ¿Movies every night?
I am learning a ton here in my mission. I just changed areas, so I´ve finally left my first area, que triste. Now I am in an area called El Talar. My new companion´s name is Elder Blanch. If you read my blog you´ll see everything that I am experiencing too. But I actually haven´t baptized anyone yet. Yesterday in my old area we prepared two people for baptism and they are going to be baptized this weekend, but I´m not going to be there! I knew that would happen, but I also know that I will always appreciate my mission even if I never baptize anyone. I´m not going to lie, prepare yourself starting now(!) because the mission has been the hardest thing I have done in my whole life (yes, including West Point). Hope you are reading your scriptures everyday, going to church, and saying your prayers. Those three things will help you so much spiritually. Of the less active and inactive members we go to see, their spiritual decline always starts when they stop doing one of those three things. Read my blog, go on dates, don´t get a girlfriend, dance it up, and enjoy your time.
Love ya - Elder Arrowchis
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
November 8, 2010 6-Month Mark
I have been thinking about hitting my 6 month mark this week and yes, it is hard to believe. Even though every other missionary tells me that 6 months is nothing, I can´t believe that a quater of my mission is already spent. Leaves me feeling kind of empty like "oh no, what have I done with my time?" Anyway, today we are going to go play fútbol, again, with our district and eat hamburgers from a restauant. They are only about 2 dollars each but are the size of a 10 dollar hamburger from a restaurant and taste delicious. Last week we went to a place called Pizza Libre where you pay 18 pesos and the waitresses come around and serve you different types of pizza, like Agora, but pizza. I ate anchovies, boiled eggs, suasage, blue cheese, ham, and napolitana (ham with slices of tomates). I probably ate other types, but I can´t remember. One more thing I forgot to mention, I¨m in the Argentinian Census 2010! They came to our house last Wednesday and asked some questions about where I was born and the condition of our apartment. So yeah, for the next ten years I´m recorded in Argentina.
Last Friday we were walking at night without coats or sweaters because it was warm during the day and it started to rain. I don´t mean rain like California, or even like in the shower. I mean it felt like somebody was pouring a bucket on top of us for 20, 30 minutes straight. It was definitely humbling, and brought back feelings and memories from West Point. This Sunday 3 of our investigators showed up at church and 2 stayed for all three hours. One of them has been having family home evening with us and a member family for the past 2 weeks and is really excited about the church and wants to get baptized and agrees with everything so far. The other one we met a couple of weeks ago because we contacted her son in the street. Her husband left her and her daughter and son about 6 months ago and she has been suffering ever since. Before Sunday this week we had a lesson with her and she told us that the night before she read the Book of Mormon and then prayed and felt a peace that she hasn´t felt since her husband left. She said that she also slept the whole night and woke up feeling rested.
We have also been working on entering people´s houses as we contact them and not just saying we will stop by later. It has been working a bit and we entered one apartment type lot with several houses inside and talked with two men yesterday. They seemed excited about us coming back the next Sunday and are going to read the pamphlet of the gospel of Jesus Christ we gave them. I don´t think I mentioned it before, but we are also currently teaching a magician! He is really interested in what we talk about and is very open and honest, and says that he is reading and wants to read all of the Book of Mormon, but he still doesn´t have desires to come to church. One thing that I realized is that I really look forward to Sundays now. I pay attention in the classes and when I take the Sacrament I really do feel a relief. Yesterday we also started talking to an 18 year old kid in the street. He told us that as of 2 months ago he has been attending a pentacostal church but before that he was robbing, and doing drugs and drinking, and possibly he said killing people too. Now we´ve found him and he seemed pretty interested in hearing our message especially when we talked about the Atonement of Christ. It´s amazing how much some people have lived through compared to my leisurely life I´ve had.
I´m starting to understand more and more the people when I´m talking with them, but it´s still hard to do. I am also practicing with my companion how to talk like a native. It´s really hard to do because I never before realized how much I talk with my throat because Latinos talk more with their mouth and lips. How weird. That´s all I have for today, and Jesus the Christ is a really great book and I highly recomend it. I am currently reading where Christ is starting his last journey to Jerusalem to be crucified. Love you all and hope my prayers are being answered for you.
Con Amor,
Elder Arrowchis
Last Friday we were walking at night without coats or sweaters because it was warm during the day and it started to rain. I don´t mean rain like California, or even like in the shower. I mean it felt like somebody was pouring a bucket on top of us for 20, 30 minutes straight. It was definitely humbling, and brought back feelings and memories from West Point. This Sunday 3 of our investigators showed up at church and 2 stayed for all three hours. One of them has been having family home evening with us and a member family for the past 2 weeks and is really excited about the church and wants to get baptized and agrees with everything so far. The other one we met a couple of weeks ago because we contacted her son in the street. Her husband left her and her daughter and son about 6 months ago and she has been suffering ever since. Before Sunday this week we had a lesson with her and she told us that the night before she read the Book of Mormon and then prayed and felt a peace that she hasn´t felt since her husband left. She said that she also slept the whole night and woke up feeling rested.
We have also been working on entering people´s houses as we contact them and not just saying we will stop by later. It has been working a bit and we entered one apartment type lot with several houses inside and talked with two men yesterday. They seemed excited about us coming back the next Sunday and are going to read the pamphlet of the gospel of Jesus Christ we gave them. I don´t think I mentioned it before, but we are also currently teaching a magician! He is really interested in what we talk about and is very open and honest, and says that he is reading and wants to read all of the Book of Mormon, but he still doesn´t have desires to come to church. One thing that I realized is that I really look forward to Sundays now. I pay attention in the classes and when I take the Sacrament I really do feel a relief. Yesterday we also started talking to an 18 year old kid in the street. He told us that as of 2 months ago he has been attending a pentacostal church but before that he was robbing, and doing drugs and drinking, and possibly he said killing people too. Now we´ve found him and he seemed pretty interested in hearing our message especially when we talked about the Atonement of Christ. It´s amazing how much some people have lived through compared to my leisurely life I´ve had.
I´m starting to understand more and more the people when I´m talking with them, but it´s still hard to do. I am also practicing with my companion how to talk like a native. It´s really hard to do because I never before realized how much I talk with my throat because Latinos talk more with their mouth and lips. How weird. That´s all I have for today, and Jesus the Christ is a really great book and I highly recomend it. I am currently reading where Christ is starting his last journey to Jerusalem to be crucified. Love you all and hope my prayers are being answered for you.
Con Amor,
Elder Arrowchis
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Planting a Seed
Happy Belated Birthday! So what did you eat at the restaurant? Did you write down the names of the meats, or at least the dishes? We eat quite a lot of mashed potatoes here, but it´s not exactly the same as in the United States. What else did you do for your birthday? Hmm, Christmas... I could use one or two more of those insoles (Pro Foot brand). I´m wearing through mine pretty fast. Other than that, maybe some sushi, enchiladas, and a cinnamon roll :p. Those are probably the foods I miss the most, and peanut butter, vanilla ice cream from Coldstone. Speaking of food, did Matt tell you that I requested how to cook fried rice? I tried once and it turned out terrible, edible, but terrible. I think I have to cook the rice first, and then throw it in a pan of oil...so if you could moogle it that would be nice :D!
Okay, since I didn´t write last week, here are the spiritual experiences for last week. I thought of an interesting way to look at gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. To commit someone to be baptized we are now using the first paragraph and the last two paragraphs of the introduction of the Book of Mormon. The three things that it teaches us to do to gain a testimony is to read, meditate in our hearts, and then ask God if it is true. That can be compared to planting a seed. First, in order for a seed to grow you need to plant it, but you also need to plant it in soil that is fertile and ready to help a seed grow. Then, what does a seed need to grow? Sunlight, plenty of consistent time with the sun shining on it. Those two aspects are controlled by mother nature and don´t require much effort on our part. But the third aspect a seed needs in order to grow is water, and if we want a specific seed that we plant to grow, we need to put in the effort to water it. That is where our faith comes in, by believing that if we water that seed it will grow and bear good fruit.
We also have been teaching one investigator for several weeks now and he has gone to church two times. Last week we had the opportunity to teach his girlfriend too. We invited her to listen and we started teaching the first lesson again. The amazing part came when we started reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon. We read the part about asking God if it is true and then René asked if he could say something. Then he read Moroni 10:4 and related that to what we need to do and how we are going to receive our answer. I was amazed to realize that in that moment he receive revelation from the Spirit and that is how he knew what scripture to share. It´s amazing to see how the spirit can change people over time as they keep the commitments we give them.
Another day we went to an investigator´s house whose husband up and left her and her daughter without a reason. We went with a member from our church who used to be an Ancient in the Jehovah´s Witness church and it was amazing to first, see how well he knew the scriptures and also how well he could talk with the people. That lesson was amazing and I have grown in a testimony that if we use the members more we will have more success in finding people and in helping investigators progress towards baptism.
Last experience, we found a man who is living with his girlfriend and has a baby. We taught him once and the second time we went back he invited us in and offered us empanadas and was overjoyed to to listen to us more. He doesn´t understand much, actually he says he doesn´t understand anything, but he told us that he wants to improve himself and wants his child to grow up and do what we are doing and be like us. He is reading the pamphlet we gave him and now is going to start reading the Book of Mormon, even though he doesn´t understand anything. I can really feel the Lord´s love for him everytime we go over.
My time is just about up and thanks for all the letters I have received from you. Love you and think about you, occasionally :)
Con amor,
Elder Arrowchis
Okay, since I didn´t write last week, here are the spiritual experiences for last week. I thought of an interesting way to look at gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. To commit someone to be baptized we are now using the first paragraph and the last two paragraphs of the introduction of the Book of Mormon. The three things that it teaches us to do to gain a testimony is to read, meditate in our hearts, and then ask God if it is true. That can be compared to planting a seed. First, in order for a seed to grow you need to plant it, but you also need to plant it in soil that is fertile and ready to help a seed grow. Then, what does a seed need to grow? Sunlight, plenty of consistent time with the sun shining on it. Those two aspects are controlled by mother nature and don´t require much effort on our part. But the third aspect a seed needs in order to grow is water, and if we want a specific seed that we plant to grow, we need to put in the effort to water it. That is where our faith comes in, by believing that if we water that seed it will grow and bear good fruit.
We also have been teaching one investigator for several weeks now and he has gone to church two times. Last week we had the opportunity to teach his girlfriend too. We invited her to listen and we started teaching the first lesson again. The amazing part came when we started reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon. We read the part about asking God if it is true and then René asked if he could say something. Then he read Moroni 10:4 and related that to what we need to do and how we are going to receive our answer. I was amazed to realize that in that moment he receive revelation from the Spirit and that is how he knew what scripture to share. It´s amazing to see how the spirit can change people over time as they keep the commitments we give them.
Another day we went to an investigator´s house whose husband up and left her and her daughter without a reason. We went with a member from our church who used to be an Ancient in the Jehovah´s Witness church and it was amazing to first, see how well he knew the scriptures and also how well he could talk with the people. That lesson was amazing and I have grown in a testimony that if we use the members more we will have more success in finding people and in helping investigators progress towards baptism.
Last experience, we found a man who is living with his girlfriend and has a baby. We taught him once and the second time we went back he invited us in and offered us empanadas and was overjoyed to to listen to us more. He doesn´t understand much, actually he says he doesn´t understand anything, but he told us that he wants to improve himself and wants his child to grow up and do what we are doing and be like us. He is reading the pamphlet we gave him and now is going to start reading the Book of Mormon, even though he doesn´t understand anything. I can really feel the Lord´s love for him everytime we go over.
My time is just about up and thanks for all the letters I have received from you. Love you and think about you, occasionally :)
Con amor,
Elder Arrowchis
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
October 18, 2010 Short and Sweet
Sorry, but responding will have to wait until next week. Right now I have to go do splits with a member from the ward and then we are going to do more during the week, so hopefully this will help with the missionary effort in Grand Bourg! Also, today we went and played soccer with our district and cooked sausages in the chapel. It was fun, and I bought a photo album to keep track of all the alfajor wrapers I eat!!!
Monday, October 18, 2010
October 12, 2010 Elder Torres
This week was pretty interesting. Like I said, I got a new companion Elder Torres and he is from Salta Argentina. He was baptized 3 years ago and is 25, so he just barely made the age cut to go on a mission. He has an older sister who is working as a nurse in Capital here in Buenos Aires, and two younger brothers. Before going on a mission he was working in a theatre as a dancer. He did ballet and got paid to do it. So that´s pretty cool. Right now I am helping him learn English because we were told to help our latin companions learn English on their missions. He speaks pretty well and even has pretty good pronunciation. I never realized how hard English is to learn, only because of the pronunciation.
I don´t know if you remember the talk by president Arnold during general conference (“you stupid cow”), but he´s our area president and so we had a zone conference with him yesterday. It was interesting and he even used the cow story a couple of times. It´s really amazing to see these leaders in the missionary world work. He told us a lot of things we need to change.
Later on that night we had a pretty cool spiritual experience too. We were walking and we passed by one man standing in his doorway, and even though my companion didn´t see him I saw that he was staring at us so I decided to go and contact him. At first he wasn´t receptive but finally Elder Torres asked if we could go in and he said yes. Then we were teaching him and during the lesson we asked him how he felt and he said uncomfortable. That´s not the usual response so I started to panic at what we were going to say next. Then Elder Torres realized and confirmed that he just felt uncomfortable because he grew up Catholic and so this information about Joseph Smith and a restoration were new. So then at the end we invited him to pray and we got down on our knees. He prayed and afterwards said again that he felt uncomfortable. But when we went to leave you could see that the lesson had an effect on him because there was just happiness and peace in his face. That was a pretty cool experience about how the gospel can change lives even if you don´t understand it right away. We are going to go again on Sunday, because he works the rest of the days so it was really a miracle too that we encountered him.
Well, I´m still feeling kind of light headed (from being sick) so I´m going to finish now. Chao.
I don´t know if you remember the talk by president Arnold during general conference (“you stupid cow”), but he´s our area president and so we had a zone conference with him yesterday. It was interesting and he even used the cow story a couple of times. It´s really amazing to see these leaders in the missionary world work. He told us a lot of things we need to change.
Later on that night we had a pretty cool spiritual experience too. We were walking and we passed by one man standing in his doorway, and even though my companion didn´t see him I saw that he was staring at us so I decided to go and contact him. At first he wasn´t receptive but finally Elder Torres asked if we could go in and he said yes. Then we were teaching him and during the lesson we asked him how he felt and he said uncomfortable. That´s not the usual response so I started to panic at what we were going to say next. Then Elder Torres realized and confirmed that he just felt uncomfortable because he grew up Catholic and so this information about Joseph Smith and a restoration were new. So then at the end we invited him to pray and we got down on our knees. He prayed and afterwards said again that he felt uncomfortable. But when we went to leave you could see that the lesson had an effect on him because there was just happiness and peace in his face. That was a pretty cool experience about how the gospel can change lives even if you don´t understand it right away. We are going to go again on Sunday, because he works the rest of the days so it was really a miracle too that we encountered him.
Well, I´m still feeling kind of light headed (from being sick) so I´m going to finish now. Chao.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
October 3, 2010 General Conference
Alright, well I have 20 or so minutes to write, so cool. Yes, we went to a stake center to watch all of general conference, except for priesthood because that started at 9 pm our time and of course we had to be back in our apartment by then. I definitely liked how he was talking about the fundamentals when he lost his voice and said that was something fundamental, he needed to speak! And did you know, they don´t assign talks to the speakers in general conference. They just send them a letter saying "your have been asked to talk at this time for this long, and you will follow so-and-so." I didn´t know if you knew that, but I learned it from a talk Elder Bednar gave to missionaries about following the spirit. So really they are all inspired. I can definitely agree with what was said about video games, and even TV because I think of all the time spent on those and where has it gotten me? I´m not better at making friends and "hanging out" for it, and I could have spent that time practicing piano or fútbol or something that would last me longer. Yeah video games are fun, but in the end they take away from using this time on Earth for other things.
New news. I am still in Grand Bourg, but I have a new companion! My trainer went to Capital and I am here with Elder Torres. He already seems awesome, he talked with the cab driver for 40 minutes about the gospel while we went back to our area and now we are going to pass his name onto the missionaries who live in his area. Also, he is from Salta, Argentina. So I am going to help him learn English and he is going to vastly improve my Castellano. I´ll write more next week when I find out more!
Spiritual Experience for the week: I have learned that attitude changes everything! These past few weeks have been pretty harsh and hard to get through, only because we haven´t been finding many people or entering many houses to teach. Also, we´ve had no investigators in the church for awhile. But yesterday I just woke up and during studies decided that I was fed up with our low numbers so when we left that morning I just started doing contacts in the street. I talked to about 3 or 4 people just from 11 to 12 and we already started receiving references and contacting references, and we entered a house that Elder Nelson has been trying to enter for a long time and we had an excellent lesson and the investigator is interested in listening to us right now. He´s a mago and already understands faith from reading a book called El Secreto. In otherwords, we completed our daily goals, which honestly hasn´t happened a lot with us, and i believe a lot of it had to do with how my attitude changed and I was determined to do the things I should be doing, si o si. So now I will perservar hasta el fin and continue in this attitude. I just need to hang on to this desire to achieve our goals and I believe we will be blessed with more success.
I have to go now, but thanks for all the letters and notifications when somebody writes me.
Con Amor,
Elder Arrowchis
New news. I am still in Grand Bourg, but I have a new companion! My trainer went to Capital and I am here with Elder Torres. He already seems awesome, he talked with the cab driver for 40 minutes about the gospel while we went back to our area and now we are going to pass his name onto the missionaries who live in his area. Also, he is from Salta, Argentina. So I am going to help him learn English and he is going to vastly improve my Castellano. I´ll write more next week when I find out more!
Spiritual Experience for the week: I have learned that attitude changes everything! These past few weeks have been pretty harsh and hard to get through, only because we haven´t been finding many people or entering many houses to teach. Also, we´ve had no investigators in the church for awhile. But yesterday I just woke up and during studies decided that I was fed up with our low numbers so when we left that morning I just started doing contacts in the street. I talked to about 3 or 4 people just from 11 to 12 and we already started receiving references and contacting references, and we entered a house that Elder Nelson has been trying to enter for a long time and we had an excellent lesson and the investigator is interested in listening to us right now. He´s a mago and already understands faith from reading a book called El Secreto. In otherwords, we completed our daily goals, which honestly hasn´t happened a lot with us, and i believe a lot of it had to do with how my attitude changed and I was determined to do the things I should be doing, si o si. So now I will perservar hasta el fin and continue in this attitude. I just need to hang on to this desire to achieve our goals and I believe we will be blessed with more success.
I have to go now, but thanks for all the letters and notifications when somebody writes me.
Con Amor,
Elder Arrowchis
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
