"Seems like a mission would be the best years of my life..."

Would you believe that´s what a contact on the street said to me? Not even kidding. Talk about a miracle. We were walking to a menos activos house and there was this group of boys playing soccer in the street. The ball comes rolling towards us, so we ever so suavely kick it back (aka, we didn´t make a fool out of ourselves, and it only went mildly off to the side instead of wildly off to the side), and started talking with them. This kid is 17 years old, and while he initially may have just been flirting with the blonde american, Heavenly Father quickly took hold of the situation and we ended up having a good first lesson of the importance of the gospel in our lives and the necessity of change. And Fernando was talking to me and explained a bit about his family situation and how he really wants to change his life. So, I took the opportunity to promise him that if he was willing to put forth the effort, he could change his life for the better in 3 weeks. April 7th, he´s planning on getting baptized. This kid is great. And while we were talking a little about what we do as missionaries that he said that he would like to serve a mission. The next day we went over to his house and he had read all of the Restauration phamplet (my jaw nearly dropped, that hardly ever happens where they read the whole thing) and then Thursday when we went over to talk to him, his sister told us that he had been reading in the Book of Mormon that we had given him all morning, and was talking to her and the family about it. It was crazy. AND THEN! Friday when we called him (love daily contact) he and his 4 other friends (whom we are also now teaching) were sitting there reading in the Book of Mormon together, and they asked us what "the senda" was (2 Nefi 31). To which we explained it was following the example of Jesus Christ, being baptized, reading, praying and going to church. To name a few. Basically, it has been a bunch of miracles with this contact, and his friends. Through him, we are teaching 4 of his friends and his sister. They didn´t go to church this week because it was one of their birthdays and they were going out to celebrate. And we hadn´t taught the Word of Wisdom yet, so that was saddening. But they commited to go this weekend, which is great! Because it´s General Conference. Love it. Point is, it was a great miracle. And he´s still reading, and loving it. And I can´t wait for him to be baptized. We already love all of them so much. Future leaders of the church! We found them. Which is good because we´ve been praying for them. Alright, to answer some of your questions. Chacra is a small branch, we have about 87 people at church every week (average), a good chunk of them trickle in after the sacrament (having taken it outside in the foyer area). Marcela and Gustavo are also doing well, they didn´t make it to church. Pucha, they said they would go and then we weren´t able to wake them up. We always have to wake them up for the first time, and they didn´t answer. We knocked on doors, on windows. Nothing. Very saddening, but Angel did come to church. He´s the son of members, he is slowly but surely progressing as well. He still has some concerns - in regards to some of his Godchildren. But we are slowly working with him as well. The point is that God is giving us miracles and we are going to work as hard as we cann to be worthy of the gifts God is giving us. For instance, last night we received a phone call from one of the chicos at 5 o´clock in the morning (I did not answer, are you kidding me? I´m a missionary. I´m tired). Recently called them back, they were just calling to see when we were going to come over. We have a cita with them at 7 today. Love my life. Other miracles - so we received a referral for the sister of an investigator of the Elders. The investigator really wants his sister to go to church because he knows that she needs it in her life right now. So, we go over, she´s not home, but her mom is. And we start talking to her. And sometimes references can be kind of awkward - or knocking doors really. Because they don´t know you, you´re interrupting their lives. You just need to find the right words to let them have time to feel your intentions. Because that is what I´ve heard the most, is that when we are there - they feel something different (Holy Ghost) and they want to know more about what it is. So we go over, and the mom was a little affronted at first - strangers knocking on her door, looking for her daughter - from America. But we got to talking with her and it was amazing to see the change in her posture and face over the course of 5 minutes. She went from being defensive - to actually wanting us to come back. It´s a small story, but it happens a lot, and is a testimony to me that God really is guiding us in this work. And the people need it. They don´t even realize that they need what we have to offer, but we do have an inner peace and happiness that can only be explained by God. And it is just amazing that we have the chance to share it with others. Oh, that and then we were talking with some of our other investigators, and they said that one of their friends said that Mormons are the CIA. And I laughed - because all I could think about was Sydney from Alias. I wish I could be as cool as her. But our missions are very different from her kinds of missions. Also I was laughing because it took us like 2 minutes to realize what he was referring to. Because here in Argentina they don´t say C - I - A. They say "see-ah" so we were all "what´s a seeah? weird" But we get it. Well, we do walk around in 2´s in black coats all day. I had a district leader once who pretended to be from the FBI contacting a referral. I´m pretty sure the guy ended up getting baptized. The Elder told us that story to help us relax, we need to find ways to enjoy the work that we are doing too, because if we are too uptight, we can´t follow the spirit (but don´t go to lax either, we still need to work). Anyways, it was a fun week. I´m super excited for General Conference. Oh, and this week we are doing divisions with the Hermanas from Ushuaia. Hermana Gutierrez went down to Ushuaia and Hermana Gonzales is with me for a couple days. We´ll rock the world this week. Love you all! Have you prepared for the prophet? He´s going to speak to you! Prepare yourselves. Hermana Reed

I live!!

Well, I never actually died. But do you know how much it blows to be sick on the mission? Big time. The biggest blessing I received from this "down time" is that because I couldn´t eat for a week, I am now back to my pre-mission weight. Love it. I´ll gain it all back, it´s winter here and they always hand out pasta. But who cares! Bring on the pasta, at least I can eat it. For those who want to know, I had strep and a virus (still unidentified, I go to the hospital today to pick up the Blood analysis), which included 4 days of fever, and 8 days of pain when swallowing and/or talking. The good news is the swelling in my tongue and gums has gone down, I don´t have a fever, and the doctor said I can leave to preach the gospel. And we still had 2 investigators in church on Sunday! What´s up? Well, that was mostly due to the hard work of my awesome companion Hermana Gutierrez who was very patient all week. Also, I learned that Argentinians love American goodies, they were able to eat brownies, oatmeal cookies, cake cookies and I made arroz con leche (not rice pudding, it´s different...really just by name, and culture!) I had to do something with my hands! So even though I couldn´t eat the delectables, I have forever won the hearts of the members of the Chacra branch. I´m so awesome. Okay, but, worry thee not! Just because my week was quiet doesn´tmean I can´t tell you all the stuff I was going to tell you last week! Okay. well, I was going to brag to all of you that I am incredibly influential here in Chacra, because I play the piano in sacrament meeting every week. So, I was going to be all prideful and tell you that even if we showed up late with investigators they would still be able to take the sacrament, because they would wait. Then I got sick and I realized that they would just start the meeting without a piano. Probably better. However, there were a lot of happy faces this week when I was able to go to play for Sacrament Meeting ( I didn´t go last week because I was "contagious". I shouldn´t quote that. I was. But it was also weird being part of a 3 person sacrament meeting later in the day when Pte Gomez and Hno Ontivero came over to bless and pass the sacrament. Very kind of them, I felt very taken care of. But it was also weird.) OH! And, everyone here knows my name. Not my first name. But my last name. It´s the first branch/ward that has taken the effort to get to know my name. It just shows how different the pace is here in Rio Grande. There were always individuals in Buenos Aires that knew my last name. But it was hard for many of the members to distinguish between the Hermanas. Because, when in doubt just call the missionaries and ask for the "Hermanas". But they know my name here! I love branches. They´re such a tight knit group. And it´s been really awesome because we´ve been going around to all the leaders to see how we can help them, and one hard problem here is that there just aren´t the members to call to fill assignments. So, they´re asking us to specifically talk and reactivate a family because they want them as a counselor (it´s also a great way to get references. "who of your friends would you like to help you in your calling?" gets an answer every time). And then some miracles of the weeks. We went back to see Marcela and Gustavo. It´s crazy. So, a couple of weeks ago Marcela called us Sunday afternoon and told us that we had left a message with her, and that it had touched her heart and that she and her husband wanted to change their lives. So please, come over, and we´ll talk. Well shoot if we just didn´t cancel our appointments for the evening and head over there in the moment! It´s a great family. The parents and 2 little girls (ages 14 and 12) and a friend who lives with them. And as we were talking to them the Spirit was so strong and they told us how they knew that something was wrong with their lives and they needed to change. The friend even said that God had spoken to him a couple of times and he knew that it wasn´t a coincedence that we were talking to him at this moment. And it came to pass that they all accepted baptismal dates. And then I got sick and we weren´t able to take them to church. Lame. Then we went back, and they still want to take the discussions, they still want to change, and they are super happy to see us again. We had an awesome lesson yesterday. We were teaching about the Restoration to explain how we have the Book of Mormon (they´ve been reading/received a BoM last time) and they had a friend who was there - get this. He´s an old investigator?? How do you say antiguo investigador in English? My companion and I don´t know. Anyways, the point is he´d received the discussions a long time ago. He wants to get baptized but he can´t because he´s living with his girlfriend who doesn´t want to marry him (he´s willing to get married). So the whole time we´re teaching, he jumps in and starts explaining about Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ, and the necessity of baptism. And it was incredible! He helped explain somethings or clarify somethings that we didn´t have the vocab for. And it was perfect! God really blessed us in that moment. And he said (the antiguo) that he would come to church again this sunday. So, maybe God will soften the heart of his girlfriend and he can get baptized. And then, we have this other investigator, Angel, who is the son of a family who moved to Chacra about 2 years ago. They met the missionaries here and have since converted. Now, their son came down from oujuy to work for a bit, and he´s taking the discussions. And it´s been rough, because at first he didn´t want anything to do with the church, and then it took him forever to begin to read. But this Sunday we were talking with him a bit after the Gospel Doctrines class (justo we had talked about why we have 4 books of scriptures with a bunch of testimonies and personal experiences of gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon) and we asked him if he had asked God specifically if he needed to get baptized. and he said no. So, right then and there, we knelt down with him (something that is really hard to do in his house, a bunch of families live there together and it´s hard to find a quiet moment, and then he gets all nervous because his family is watching him) and had him pray and ask specifically if he should get baptized into the church. And God lives, and loves us, and answers prayers! In the moment, Angel received an answer. When I asked him what God had said he replied "He said yes." Super simple. Do I need to get baptized? Yes. The question was specific, the prayer was simple. And God answered and Angel recognized it because he was listening. I know God answers prayers every time! It´s just up to us whether or not we´re going to hear the answer. Bueno, one last thing and then I´ll let you all go on with your Babilonial lives (said with love). I actually read this a while ago but I wanted to share it with all of you. I was reading in Acts 10:39, 42-44. And the apostle Paul is explaining how they have been called as apostles, how they have literally been called and set apart to act inbehalf of Jesus Christ. As his servants. And it explains that essentially the words they say are like what Christ would say (akin to DYC 1:37) and then in 42-44 it explains that we can know that it is true because the Holy Ghost will confirm the words that we say to those that listen. The same promise that is given to feel the spirit and the truthfulness of the scriptures when we read them. Mostly, at the time I read this I was thinking about why we end our testimonies and our prayers with "In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen" and it´s because as members of the church we have been given the power to receive revelation from God and to say the words that He would say. As we strive to live our lives more in harmony with what God wants, we start praying for and promising blessings that God wants to give. We are just the physically mouthpiece. We aren´t saying anything that Jesus wouldn´t say, or promising something that Jesus Christ wouldn´t promise, because we can feel the confirmation of the Holy Ghost through our prayers, through our testimony. It made the phrase "in the name of Jesus Christ" even more poignant for me. It´s not just a closing remark. We end our prayers and our testimonies with a witness and knowledge that all that we have shared, Christ would have shared if He was physically here. But he´s not. He´s in heaven getting things ready for the 2nd coming. So, he´s called us, in our homes, in our wards, in our callings, to stand on his behalf, to lift and encourage his brothers and sisters to do what he already knows they can. And in 2 weeks, we´re going to be able to hear the words of living day prophets who will testify and explain and stand as representatives of Jesus Christ to tell us what God and what Jesus Christ want us to know. I know that this is true. And I´m so excited to listen to our prophet. God loves each and every one of you. He is sending angels to prepare the way for you and to protect you. Don´t ever feel like He is not listening to your prayers. Make sure you are listening for the response. I love you, Hermana Reed

Let the good times roll

As winter turns to more winter, I find myself continually happy to find that God loves me and blesses me at every turn. I would like to start out with introducing one crucial member of my new district that I failed to introduce before. There´s an Elder in my district named Elder Reid. That´s right. Not even joking And then this week we were blessed to find a new family. They called us on the phone. Told us that they had received our number from one of the Elders, and the Hermana that called us begged us to come over because her husband needed help, and she had felt something strong when she had talked to the missionaries. So we went over right away. Turns out her husband drinks to much, and it´s killing him. All the doctors keep telling him that if he doesn´t change he will probably die soon. So we started talking to them about the opportunity that they have and what we are there to teach, and they accepted everything. They said that they could feel the spirit burning within them, well, they didn´t understand it was the spirit, but they said they felt something, and they new it was all true. And they accepted the fecha for the 31st of March. The whole family. All 5 of them. I´m not telling this story very well, but it was a great experience, and I´m grateful to God that I could be a part of it. And then I found this scripture in 2 Nefi 5:27 - it´s like the "and he dwelt in a tent scripture" it´s short, but powerful. All it says is "and they lived after the manner of happiness" That´s what the Gospel brings us, that´s what we can do. Sorry this e-mail is lame. I´m not feeling very well. I´ll have a better e-mail next week. Sorry. But I love you all. Hermana Reed