August 29, 2011   Salta   Argentina

It’s amazing how when the gospel is first in our lives that the other things will just fall into place and how useful the spirit can be in helping with those decisions and just successfully moving forward in life. One can really feel Heavenly Father’s love for his children when receiving guidance in all parts of life and receiving answers to prayers. I have had a few things happen lately as direct answers to my prayers. It’s been a great experience here and I know it will only get better (continue learning more). I was praying with my companion and alone for help with the ward. We have about 50 people coming to church and it’s been difficult getting enough help for them. We started really focusing on this a couple weeks ago and this last week a general authority came here to Salta and had a meeting with the missionaries and all the bishoprics in both stakes. He gave a really good short talk then we split into stakes (2 from Salta and one from a bordering state) and had a workshop with the presidency and our bishops. I think it will help alot. It was all about how we need to work together more and how to have good ward council.  It was a big answer to our prayers. We had no idea what it was going to be about until we got there. Then Sunday we had 6 investigators in church! I have found that sometimes the people you need to talk to are people we have contacted and just not had time to get back to yet. Makes me focus a little more on newly contacted people to try to meet with them at least a few times so that we can really tell if they are interested. Alot of the time we aren’t in the areas they live in or nearby during the times they are in their homes so it makes it difficult sometimes but we are getting better at it. This guy who smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day is wanting to quit. He read the stuff we gave him and understood it well so we are meeting with him again. He came to church 10 minutes early in a suit! It was great! He had to leave a little early for something but we passed him on the street later that day and he said he loved church and figures he will just go till he dies! Haha. We were shocked and really excited at the same time. Things are going great and when they aren’t I am usually learning something good! Haha. Like you said Isaac, the mission is tough but you would never give up the experience for anything.

Love Alex