"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