Another Rat in My Room!!

Hello everyone!  Good week this week, the work is progressing along.  We´re actually finding new investigators every day and some of them have good hopes of progressing, so we´re excited for that.  We´ve been working our missionary tails off this week, so we are definitely grateful for P-day today hah.  We´ve found a new place for the church building, so we should be moving there in 2 or 3 weeks.  Kinda nervous for that and how the transition will go - we´ll try to make it as smooth as possible.  I want to turn it into a big public event with announcements and everything, make it an open-house sort of deal.  "Come see the new site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" kind of thing with pamphlets and information and stuff like that.  Maybe have every quorum and organization give a brief presentation about what they do and then Elder Faas and I can handle the rest.  We´ll run it by the branch president tomorrow in branch council.  He isn´t one for executing plans, so we´ll have to push it pretty strong and do a lot of following up, but if we plan it well and execute, it will turn out as a great event for the branch here in Guarambaré.  I´ll keep you posted.

Passing of Juani - I Dedicated the Gravesite

Well, it was an interesting week last week.  There is this less active lady in our branch named Juani.  She 3 of her kids are members too, but they´re all inactive.  She had lung cancer and was battling it for 2 months.  We had started teaching her daughter Leti who came from Spain to take care of her, and also her sister Mirta who lives close and was taking care of her as well.  She had been taking chimotherapy every 2 weeks, and it wasn´t a strong treatment and she wasn´t losing her hair, but it was strong enough to affect her mobility and keep her in her bed most days.  We started visiting them about a month ago, maybe less.  Last Sunday, we visited them all like normal and shared something and Juani was still tired but was sitting up and talking and eating normally.  Tuesday we didn´t visit her, but the family said she stayed in bed all day, though able to eat and function somewhat normally.  Wednesday we went over there, and she just looked awful.  One side of her face couldn´t move, she was bed-ridden, and when she spoke it was all mumbled and we couldn´t understand her.  We taught her kids and family, and at the end we gave her a blessing.  A strange thing happened in that blessing.  Usually in blessing the sick I tell them that they will be healed according to the faith because that´s what I feel.  That blessing, I felt specifically not to bless her to be healed, but instead to bless her with spiritual strength and comfort to get through her trials and to know that Heavenly Father is very aware of her and has

Slowing Down Your Life

Wow I love the temple.  We got to go today, we just got back into Guarambaré.  It was just a really good session for me, I don´t know why.  I felt really good.  Maybe because it has been 7 months since I went last.  I was dying from the wait.  We got up at 4:30 this morning and headed out just before 5:30.  We got there and had some time to relax and ready ourselves before we went in.  It´s always neat when the missionaries get to go to the temple.  I´m sorry for those who aren´t members yet, you won´t understand all of the terms here, but bear with me.

When we get there, we change into all white and gather up in a room where the temple president talks to us before we go in.  After he talks to us, we can do as many things as possible before we start a session.  We have the choices of baptisms, confirmations, sealings, and initiatories.  This time I felt inspired to choose sealings first, and I´m glad I did.  I got some interesting revelation that was needed.  Missionaries can´t participate in sealings as a spouse, but they can act for the child being sealed to parents, so I got to do a few of those.  It was really great.  I felt a really good Spirit there.  Then I went over to do initiatories - its my second favorite.  I forgot how much I love doing those.  It just makes more and more sense every time I do it.  I think my favorite calling I could ever have would be a temple worker.  A sealer, specifically, but really just to be able to be in the Lord´s house a few days a week and enjoy of the Spirit that is always so strong there would be such a blessing for me and my future family.  After initiatories, we went in for the session.  I wish I could carry a little notebook in

New Companion

Before I forget, next week we go to the temple on Tuesday.  First of all, YESSS!!!  And second of all, it will be my P-day, so I´ll write on Tuesday, not Monday.

So we had changes this week.  Elder Largosta, my local, went back to his house, and I´m training again!  I´m with an Elder Faas from San Diego.  He´s awesome, he´s just a really good guy.  We´ll get along well and he works really hard.  Speaks pretty good Spanish already as well, so thank goodness I don´t have to train him in that!!  Next changes are the 2nd or 3rd week of November, so I´ll be here until then unless I get special changed.  Which I don´t anticipate happening.  I´m way excited to see how this change is going to go.

Ok, out of time, on to Article of Faith number 12.
"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."

This one is rather interesting to me.  One might think that religion and government are two seperate things, and that a religious body would not have any specific beliefs about governments because it´s all about God.  Well we believe that governments are instituted of God.  One of the General Authorities gave a talk this weekend in General Conference about religious principles in public society and it explains really well about why religion has everything to do with social and civil life.