Elder Morley Haley Santa Fe Argentina Mission: Less English and More Talking...

Hola!

I wish I could remember everything from this week, but it is hard. From what I remember, this week was pretty good over all. For the first half of the week, we were really just looking for a bunch of people to teach. We are still going through all of the Antiguos investigadores but we aren't finding too many people. But we also are starting to talk to a lot more people, mostly just out on the streets too. So before, it would be a lot harder to talk to people because there is always just the thought and fact that they might not want to have anything to do with us. But this week we are working a lot harder to just talk to everyone and give everyone the opportunity to hear our message. The thing that really helped us this week was divisions/exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I was with Elder Peña from Mexico who is a really good and a super consecrated missionary. I learned a lot from him and he shared a lot of tips and ideas with me. One of the things that he shared was the talk by Jefferey R. Holland called Missionary Work and the Atonement. https://www.lds.org/ensign/2001/03/missionary-work-and-the-atonement?lang=eng He only shared a really small part of it with me because he didn’t have the whole thing but basically what he said was that missionary work wasn’t easy for Christ, so why should we think it would be easy for us. So that has really helped me a lot this week to not be so darn hard and down on myself when we don’t have a good day or things don’t work out with certain people or we don’t have the success that we think we should. Another thing that I learned, or was at least reminded of, was that as a companionship, Elder Robinson and I need to start speaking a lot more Spanish to each other. So we have the kind of game or challenge that the person to speak English last, has to buy an alfahor (caramel cookie) for the other. So that has been helping us a lot, mostly because we both love alfahores. Also, it’s been really interesting to see how much more success, or at least more opportunities and blessing we have when we try our hardest to do the small things. Like speaking to everyone and not speaking English as much.

A few other things. We rescued Soledad, the sweet old grandma that stopped taking the lessons because her family didn’t want to her be baptized. We just kept coming by and sharing a short message and emphasizing that we love her and want what is best for her. Just the other day she told us, “I’ve decided that I want to be baptized and it doesn’t really matter what my family says and wants.” Well, we were very happy to hear that, but also want to help her family understand that what she is doing is what makes her happy.

Also, we have a really awesome friend named Adrian who is a complete baller. I love the guy so much. We are trying to teach him, but he is a halfway athiest guy that doesn’t really share our same beliefs of God. But we did give him a Book of Mormon and told him that the book is like a cake and that if he just tries the cake, or reads the book, he will understand how delicious it is. Then, a few days later when we met with him again, he gave us some alfahores and told us, this is my cake and you guys need to taste it! Geez, what a great guy.

Alma, the girl who was baptized when I first arrived, is good. Ariel and Alma’s mom split up after his baptism, so he hasn’t been coming to church, but we are working with him. And Emiliano is a freaking capo. Meaning dude or awesome guy. He loves the lessons, always comes with really good and deep/profound questions, and is really excited about working with us to go to lessons and to also receive the priesthood soon. I love the guy so much.

So yeah.

Sorry for not sharing too much, it is tough with only an hour or so, but I love you guys and hope you all have good week. I sent a lot of pictures!

Hasta proxima ves.

Elder Haley