Week 58: Posadas, Argentina

Well, the time here in the office definitely goes by a lot faster than it does in the field. I guess cause there is always a lot to do and there is a never ending list of tasks and projects to finish. For example, Elder Parks who is leaving the office soon, found a problem from before that was on the credit card of President LaPierre that is super big, so we have been putting a lot of time into that trying to fix it and coming in and staying up late to try to get everything done.  But it's pretty fun, when there's stuff to do constantly the time just kinda flies by. But we also had some good experiences this week.

I dont think the ward had had a ward council for a while, but we decided to have one and presented our ward with the mission plan that we made in between the 6 of us missionaries that are here in the ward. We got there and it went super well. All the members got pretty excited about doing it, but also started to talk about some of the problems they were having and it was a pretty productive meeting.  But then the bishop gave a talk as well in sacrament meeting about putting into practice the ward mission plan. So that was pretty cool.   

I'm excited for General Conference this weekend to see what the leaders tell us about what we should be doing.

Conference will be good, I feel like the whole church is kinda pushing a lot for the work of salvation and it's pretty cool to see it all unfolding.

It was always really interesting because it seemed like the missionaries were always called to give blessing to the sick because the members always knew the missioanries were like 24 hours available.  Sometimes the members weren't as available and they were scared to call each other and interrupt their day and ask them for a blessing. But one of the men in the quorum kinda brought it up and now we are having the members give blessings.  Now we always call members and if there are no members to do it we do it.  There are a lot of men that have the Priesthood here, they just don't really know how to use it, or haven't used it in a long time, so that was interesting.

We are always trying to help the members do a little bit a service. Whenever we ask the members, or anyone, if we can do anything to help them, they always say no.  But then we started explaining that by them giving us service to do, we can invite other members to come help from the quorum.  That way they can come and participate and feel good and get more involved.  We did a project the other day-we painted a house of a less active family and had 4 members show up to help as well, one being less active as well.  They all loved it and had a great time and then in the quorum meeting at church the next day the people that went shared a little bit of their experience.  Also, the less active that's coming back got up and gave a super cool testimony of his experience-that was pretty sweet.  And even better, the whole family came to church.  Since that day they have stopped smoking and committed to start getting ready to go to the temple.  While we did the service, the first counselor of the ward, who is super cool, started talking to them about their family and how they could improve their relationship as family.  The counselor found there were a lot of problems, so he sent some goals with them and they've been doing super well. 

We also went and did divisiones with the Bishop and another kid that is 19; he doesn't really want to go on a  mission, but we went and did visits with him and have had a few lessons with him.  He was like, yeah well, the missionaries never really invited me before.  So he went with us and really liked it, and also gave his testimony the next day about working in the church and how good he felt after he went with us, so that was pretty awesome. 

We are also teaching this guy, Jorge, that is a brother of a member.  He wants to get baptized next week and is receiving all the lessons really well and is a really cool gu
y. He said he worked in construction and he was always with his buddies from construction.  They were always doing drugs and drinking and doing stuff like that.   He said he stopped working there and really felt bad about all the stuff he did and saw.  He wants to change, so we started teaching him and he really likes the church so far.  We shall this week what happens with him. 

Things at the office are going pretty well, next week there is a conference with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders.  We are actually invited as well, but we have to set up and buy all the stuff for it and it gets pretty crazy. 

Then next week there is an activity for the youth where all the youth are going to leave with the missionaries to go teach for a day.  All of them in the stake are invited and we are trying to get set up and organized for that as well.   One of the assisstants and I are in charge of training the missionaries here in Posadas as to what exactly they are going to have to do and what they should do with the youth when they do the activity. So that should be pretty fun. 

My assignment here in the office is going pretty well, I'll have a Peruvian companion next week when Elder Parks leaves. But yeah, I basically just have to make sure everyone has money. But I think the toughest part is that I actually have to make some deciones sometimes on how to spend money. Like there aren't really set payments sometimes and I have to tell missionaries, "Well I think there is a better option," or "that's really not something that I can reimburse…," or stuff like that. So I'm pretty much the most loved missionary for giving people their money, but also the most hated when sometimes the money isn't always there.... haha, but it's not too bad. 

Our ward is about 100 people, we have a goal to get the attendance up to 110 and keep it there solid and then keep growing. But there are some really cool members, I like it a lot. 

It was a pretty good week all in all. We found an apartment, but President LaPierre thought it was too big… haha, but I think we are going to get it and have all the leaders and people that come for conferences sleep on cots in our house just to make things easier and not have to pay for hotels.  

Thanks for everything and have a great weeek!!!!!!

Love, Elder Roberts