Elder Morley Haley Santa Fe Argentina Mission: We are witnessing blessings!

So it turns out, that if you work hard and try to have success, you do! How 'bout that! It’s crazy! But I am very happy to say that we are starting to see the fruits of our labors here in Rafaela! Yay!!

This week was a little crazy and out of the usual system that we have, but it was still really good and I’ve learned quite a bit.

Back on Tuesday, the morning was almost completely taken up by a visit we made to a member lady of the Branch. Her name is Anita Gaudiño y she is one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met. We were just going to drop off her Tupperware from when she gave us lunch, but when we got there, her grand-daughter was sick so we gave her a blessing. Then afterwards, she basically recounted her entire life to us and all the hard things she has gone through with her husband’s death 6 years ago and different illnesses that she has suffered. It was kind of sad to hear, but then to see how well she has dealt with these things is a real eye opener, especially when I think that my trials are hard. But with all of her stories and experiences, we ended up spending nearly the whole morning at her home. For the afternoon, we just went out to visit people and had a lot of good experiences. I was on divisions with Elder Duval because Elder Robinson had to do a baptismal interview. But we meet a lot of really nice people who we might end up teaching. Two people that we talked to were the parents of a kid we are trying to teach. The kids name is Juan and he is really cool, but the problem is that he is in a school that takes him out of town all week so we are only able to talk to him on the weekend. We talked with his parents for a while and they are really awesome! They told us that Juan has been studying the Book of Mormon in the very little free time that he has and that they would be very open and willing for him to take the lessons from us. They are actually antiguos investigadores themselves, so that was really nice to hear. And at the end of the night, we had a really weird and also amazing and cool experience. We had an appointment with our investigator named Gabe. He is the one that was a foreign exchange student in Pennsylvania. But we taught the lessons with the Assistants too! They were in town because they did divisions with the Zone Leaders on Wednesday and didn’t have anything to do on Tuesday night. So we picked them up and taught Gabe half of the Plan of Salvation. He was really interested and had lots of good questions.

Wednesday in the morning we spent a lot of time running around trying to get some rent problems figured out because we are kind of in the process of changing apartments and the money situation is a little mixed up. But we spent a little of time in the 2 de Abril neighborhood before having lunch with HNA Palota. We talked to two kids that were really cool, but other than that, we didn’t have much success. Then in the afternoon, we walked just about all over our area looking for people and trying to make appointments, but for the most part, we didn’t have anything happen for us. Then we ended the night on the bus ride to Santa Fe to do divisions with the Assistants in their area.

Thursday was spent entirely in Santa Fe which I actually loved. I love the city of Santa Fe and all the people and huge buildings. It’s not much different than Rafaela, but it always makes me really feel and realize that I’m ACTUALLY living in Argentina. Crazy. But I was on divisions with Elder Oldham who is a really awesome guy and an amazing missionary. He has been an Assistant to the Mission President for the last year or so, so he has a lot of advice to give and knows how to get work done. We visited a lot of people and had one lesson with a lady named Luna and another with a guy named Jonas. They are both really great people and love the gospel, so it was cool to teach them. Then, in the night, because Elder Robinson and the other assistant, Elder Christiansen, accidentally went over on time in a lesson, we missed our bus back to Rafaela. So I went on another division with an Elder named Elder Moreada. He is a really great guy and super funny. He is from Brazil but was born in Israel so he knows Portuguese, Israeli, and Spanish and can also understand just about all of English. We were in his area and his area is the Villa of Santa Fe, so pretty sketchy, but still really cool.

Friday morning, we took the earliest bus from Santa Fe to Rafaela at 7 in the morning. For work in the morning, we went to 2 de Abril again and talked to one guy. But then we were invited to the wedding of the investigatores of the Zone Leaders. It was a cool experience to be at an Argentine Wedding and to throw some rice at the Bride and Groom. Afterwards, we had big lunch for them and ate cake, pizza, hamburgers, churipan, and a lot of soda. I left feeling very stuffed. For the night, we went around looking for people again, but ended up having one lesson with Gabe and taught him the second half of the Plan of Salvation. It went really well! He always has great questions and is actually interested.

In the morning on Saturday, basically all we did was play basketball with the Zone Leaders and Gabe. The Zone Leaders meant to have a bunch of investigatores there and we were going to play basketball and afterwards have a kind of lesson/discussion thing, but only Gabe, our investigator ended up coming. But it was really fun! In the afternoon, we went to the Baptism of the Zone Leaders, the same people that were married the night before. It was really good and really fast, but they had a good experience and it was great to share the day with them. Afterwards, we made the trek out to Gonzalo's house. He is the nephew of our District President and we are trying to get him baptized. He is a really good guy and only wants to feel completely sure about his decision to be baptized. We talked about repentance, the atonement, the Holy Ghost, and persevering to the end. We had a really good experience and answered a lot of his questions. He promised to come to church the following day and is really making progress!

Sunday morning we had Gabe and Gonzalo at church, and they both had great experiences! We had really good talks by the two young women in our branch and both Gabe and Gonzalo appreciated the spirit that was present. We were really happy to see how much they learned in sacrament meeting and in our classes together. The only thing that would have made it better is if President Nelson was there himself. ha But it was a good time at church. Then, during the afternoon, we visited a bunch of members that weren’t at church including Soledad, Ariel, and Alma. Soledad wasn’t there because of the weather and because she is just old. Ariel and Alma couldn’t make it because they were sick. So we gave Soledad the sacrament and then did blessings for Ariel and Alma to help them feel better. Other than that, we didn’t really have any lessons.

Adrian has been really sick and still doesn’t have a job, but we finally made contact with him! Yay!

We have really seen some blessings this week in terms of lessons and progression of investigatores. We are trying to work better with members and get some more references from them.

My English fast has been going pretty bad actually. Being around Gabe so much has been really hard because he loves English. But I will be better this week.

Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts. Like always, I love hearing from you guys and can’t wait for what this week brings. Love you all!

Ciao.

Elder Haley