Elder Morley Haley Santa Fe Argentina Mission: El ayuno es real!!

Bueno, primero cosa que quiero decir es que esta semana pasada, yo comencé un ayuno. Pero, no un ayuno normal, un ayuno de Inglés. Entonces, por esta carta, todo va a ser en Español. Capas que no, pero vamos a haber.

Entonces, este martes pasado fue mi seis meses! WooHoo!! Vamos la misión! Pero si, porque fue mi seis meses, quería hacer algo bien para ayudarme y especialmente, mi Español. Entonces, yo tenia que pensar en que quería hacer. Yo pensé en el CCM (MTC en Inglés) y que allá, hariamos ayunos de Inglés. Y tambien, mi presidente de rama nos dijo que durante su mision, el hizo un ayuno de Ingles con su compañero y ellos pudian ver todos de los bendiciones. Entonces, ahora, estoy haciendo un ayuno de Igles por 40 dias y espero que este va a ayudarme mucho.

Actually, I’m wrong, I’m not going to do that for email. Technically, I’m not speaking English, so this is fine. But I just don’t really have the time to write it all in Spanish.

For Tuesday, we went out in the morning and had a really good lesson with a guy named Gabriel. He is the dad of the kid we were actually looking for, but his son wasn’t home, so we taught him instead. He is a really quiet guy, but asked some good questions and understood a lot. We ended up committing him, so he has a baptismal date for the 23 of June. Then for the afternoon, we had a bunch of plans that kind of fell through, but we ended up finding a few people to teach and it was all really good in the end.

Wednesday for the morning we taught HNO Mario again. What a stud. Love the guy. Then we talked and got to know one of the granddaughters of HNA Palota. Her name is Jessica and we are trying to help her get reactivated, especially because she just had a baby girl and is really wanting a blessing for the baby during church as soon as possible. So we are talking to her because since HNA Palota loves the missionaries, she wants one of us to do the blessing. We don’t know who she wants to do it yet, but it will all end up working out. For the afternoon, we just went out and tried to talk to a few antiguos, but for the most part, no one was home. So we ended up visiting a few members and had some good experiences. All the members here are super cool people and they are all funny. So it is fun to go and share some stories or talk and then end with a scripture and spiritual note. We are also trying to work with the members to help them, help us. We have been learning a lot about Alma and Amulek in the Book of Mormon and how as missionaries, we are Alma and the members are Amulek. So, when we don’t have success, we need to "enter the town by a different way" and work with the members to find new people to teach.

In the morning on Thursday, we contacted a bunch of people and meet a lot of super nice people. Most of them are all super catholic and don’t want anything to do with us, but it is always fun to share a little message with them and bare our testimonies. And for some reason, when ever we contact a house, they almost always answer the door in English. So it kind of throws us off. They usually just say something small like "Hello! How are you!" But still, I guess its still super obvious that we are white Yankees from the USA. In the afternoon, we actually had a LOT of citas to go to and had to speed walk everywhere. So we were pretty well tired by the end of the day. We talked to one guy named Gonzalo who is the nephew of the distict president here. He is a super awesome guy and crazy funny. He is just about the only nonmember in his family so we are trying really hard to get him to really feel the desire to be baptized. He tells us that he knows the church is real and everything, but he doesn’t want to be baptized yet because he feels a little scared that he is going to end up messing up really bad and do all the wrong things and sin a lot. We are trying to help him understand that if he does the right things now, it will be easier for him to do them after and he will even have a companion to help him a long the way, The Holy Ghost. At the end of the day, we talked to and taught a guy named Gabriel. He is super awesome and even knows English (Like I said, we only find people who speak English, and with my new ayuno, it’s hard). He is 18 but looks like 25 because hes been able to grow a beard since he was 15. He was a foreign exchange student in Pennsylvenia last year. It’s funny because he looks almost American and everyone thinks he is from the USA. We taught him the resteration and he is super interested!

Friday in the morning, we looked for a few people to teach and vistied some members. They were all good and nice, but the best part was one lady named Olga. She is super nice and we couldn’t talk for too long, but we basiclly taugt the first lesson about the restoration right outside her home. She committed to read and pray and we think she has a lot of potential. Then in the afternoon, we had a lesson with Patricia. She is super awesome and I can’t remember if I told you guys last week, but she told us that she has actually been looking for us for a long time. And she was super excited to see us on the street one night and that we talked to her. Talk about prepared!! We taught the Plan of Salvation with HNA Palota there too and it was all really good. We used a lot of the Book of Mormon and she loved it all. Later that night, we had an activity for the church and Gabriel the 18 year old was able to go. He is so awesome and literally everyone loves him. Then afterwards, we could teach him a little bit and answer a few of his questions.

In the morning on Saturday, we went to 2 de Abril, the toughest and roughest and most dangerous neighborhood in our area. Its not too dangerous in the mornings, so we only go then. We taught one lady named Laura. She is a really nice lady and was very gracious to let us in. We had met with her one time before, and had given her a pamphlet of the Plan of Salvation so this time, we taught lesson 2. It was a little crazy and all over the place, but we know she felt the spirit and learned a lot, especially about the Atonement, because she has had a lot of super crazy and super hard things happen in her life. It was good. Then in the afternoon, we were basically all over the place looking for old investigadores and contacts, but ended up not having a lesson. We did go by Gabi again at the end of the night and invited him to church and told him that we were going to come by and walk with him to church.

Sunday was all good too. When we got to Gabi´s house, there was a note on the door that said: “hey guys, sorry but I didn’t get to bed in time last night so it’s going to be hard for me to wake up. But I’ll be there later. Sorry if you guys had to walk here. Cya.’ Oh, and it was all in english too because he is a boss. So we went to church and it was all good except none of our investigadores showed up, until Gabi did half way through our second hour class. But he ended up loving it a lot and learned more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Priesthood. The members loved him and were really good helpers too. Later that night, we had a lesson/blessing for a mom of a member. She is pretty old and just lost her son(not the member) so she is feeling really sad and lonely. So we gave her a blessing of comfort and counsel and then taught her and her friend the Plan of Salvation. They both loved it a lot and were very interested, especially in what will happen to us after this life.

We haven’t heard much from Lucas in a while, but we are going to try going by his house this week. Adrian kind of dropped off the face of the earth. The last time we heard from him, he sent us a text that said "even though we aren’t believers, we would love it if you guys would pray for us. Tough times here for us". We have tried going by several times, but he hasn’t been home. We will keep trying.

So yeah. We witnessed many blessings. Especially since, if you didn’t remember or notice, we hadn’t had investigators or lessons for a few weeks. But now, after our fast and many prayers, we have found a lot of really good people and have lessons everyday.

Also, it I is really freaking cold here! I never thought that it would be cold here in Argentina, but it’s bad. Especially since the cold here is humid. So we actually have to leave with sweaters, coats, and sometimes scarfs and gloves. Super bad.

My birthday package arrived this week. It is SO awesome! Thank you for everything! I can’t wait to wear my patriotic ties. The spices are awesome and I LOVE all of the pictures. Everyone we teach asks us about our families back home now I can show them pictures of my family and America.

But we are doing good now and happy with all of our experiences, good and bad. We are learning a lot and witnessing miracles everyday.

Love you all!

Ciao

Elder Haley