January 9, 2012  Tartagal   Argentina

Hola familia!

Well I escaped another transfer!!! I have some unfinished business to finish here before I leave. I am looking forward to continue working with the investigators that we have right now. They are great. All of them have their doubts and issues in progression but we are working with them. Or should I say, the Book of Mormon is ;). This week we were trying to get 21 investigators in church and managed to get 7 of them there! It was a great feeling to have that many investigators there and we didn’t have to go get a single one of them! They pretty much all have family or friends who are members and we let them do the work. The others who didn’t make it we will have to talk to in order to find out what happened but we should be getting a few baptisms soon!

This week we had planned to go teach an investigator the plan of salvation or mainly where we are going after this life in order to motivate him to put in the batteries and go for it (that’s a saying here in Spanish haha). We got to his house and he came to the fence/gate and we were talking to him about coming in or setting up an appointment for later in the evening. His name is Fernando (the brother of Adrian, the person who just married Melina who we just baptized). Adrian and Melina are doing alot to help the work move forward or to share the gospel with others. They have been praying and fasting for their family members right now. Anyways we were talking to Adrian’s 21 year old brother and his sister walked by the room separate from the house where their dad stays cause he drinks alot. They are always trying to get him to quit drinking. This room or shack is directly behind the gate and she looked in and yelled that their dad was on the ground beside his bed. They thought he had gone to Bolivia to go buy stuff they needed but they didn’t know he came back early and went to his room. Anyways he had died and we went in to help them lift him back onto the bed... it was kind of weird. We stayed there to help with some stuff until the family came and the police came. The body was already cold and stiff so it had been there since the morning. It was about 2 in the afternoon when we stopped by. Things are a little more relaxed here when it comes to investigation and stuff cause they all knew it was because he drank so much. The ambulance came to see if he had a pulse. We left after an hour and a half. By then the family had calmed down a bit. It was really sad cause most of them were yelling and screaming at Heavenly Father saying "why now". We came back later and they had cleaned him up and put him in the casket for people to come see. They never took him out of the house until the next morning and Adrian said the body had started to smell... just a little different than in the states. He thinks it was a stroke or something and that he got up from the bed and then fell face first to the ground. Very sad but with the knowledge we have from the restored gospel we know  where he is and that They will be able to see him again. I think we will be able to talk to alot of the family now about it whereas before they weren’t very open. Having the knowledge of the plan of salvation is such a wonderful blessing. I took the time to read that part in the Book of Mormon and really was able to understand it even more. Adrian and Melina already had the goal of going to the temple in a year and so now they have some more work to do. Adrian has already had two siblings pass away but he seems to be content in knowing where they are. 

In a talk on Sunday one of the leaders talked about how so many divorces have been happening these days and how when the apostle D. Todd Christofferson came, he talked about how it all goes back to the little things. Satan tears apart the families by making the small important things seem so insignificant such as family and companion prayers, scripture study and family home evening. Which leaves us vulnerable to bigger and worse sins. It is really sad to see how many temple marriages have been split up here. I had someone ask me here what becomes of them?... I didn’t really know what to say except that if they repent and do all they can to fix things and keep going that the Lord would be the one to decide. It really made me start to wonder a bit about it. 

We are teaching a part member family who is inactive. The husband isn’t around much I don’t think but we are teaching their 9, 10, and 14 year old kids who aren’t members yet. The 20 year old daughter is really excited to come back to church and has come for sacrament the last two Sundays with her little sister (9 year old). Anyways we worked a bit with them and the 14 year old liked it and read all the way to the 4th chapter and was telling us his favorite parts and had marked up the book with colored pencils! It was so cool - he wanted to come to church in a tie and shirt but didn’t have one so we gave him one and he came and was there early with his sisters. It was so cool to see him there and he stayed the whole time and is really excited about coming back.

Franco who is the kid that is 11 and we just baptized in November bore his testimony and it was soo good! Everyone commented on how powerful it was! It was really cool to see him get up there all by himself. No one told him to except for when we invited him to during his baptism. He didn’t want to then but said he would in sacrament meeting. 

We have a new missionary in our house who is Latino so we should speak a little more Spanish! It’s so hard with companions who speak English. I am still with Elder Stevenson. 

  

I love you all! 

Alex