Miracle week!

¡Hola Todos!

Great week! This week was the first of the new transfer and a great one. Our mission president has set a new standard so we can higher our expecations and have a new vision. And its all about baptize, baptize, baptize! So we started out the week by somehow almost dobbling our total lessons in the week, baptism commitments, and investigators in church. It really was quite the miracle week! This last sunday came three siblings to church, the Familia Pajon, and another named Luis. Luis is a good story. We were looking through our plans one night at about 7:30 not sure what to do, but I had put the familia cuello who were future investigators in our plans and so we decided to go there. Before saying three words, the mom, who answered the door asked if we wanted to come in! Then the parents gathered everyone around and told them that they needed to listen to the word of God. There was about 6 of them. But the one who really got interested was Luis who is 20 years old. The next time we past by and only Luis was interested enough to sit down and continue listening. But he had already read the part we left them in the Book of Mormon and prayed, which almost never happens after only the first visit. He said he also recieved and answer! So he was definitely prepared to hear the Gospel. It took him a few weeks, but he also made it to church this last Sunday and loved it! He would get baptized soon if he could but is living with his family and his girlfriend too, so well see how we can help him with that. But super awesome guy. But I just want you to all know that Faith in Jesus Christ is really powerful and having hope and motivation no matter what challenges we go through, is the key to passing through life happy, Just remember God loves us, SO he gave us the Gospel.

Love you all!

oh and happy Halloween!

-- 

Elder Trent

¡Hola Todos!

This week ended another transfer but Elder Allen and I will be staying together so i´ll be able to finish out his training. So on tuesday, we had a training meeting and our interviews with President. Those are always great to help bring back the fire and go out working even harder. Then on Friday we went to General Rodriguez, the area of the zone leaders, to do divisions with them so we lost two days in our area this week, but we were able to take advantage of the other days and have some good success. We are teaching a family the Zunino´s who are progressing well now. Last week, we talked with the oldest daughters and taught them outside their house. Their dad had reciently been put in jail and they dont know why or what happened. So they wanted to listen to us and see if we could help them. We said we could help spiritually so we taught them and it went pretty well. By our next visit, they had all read and prayed, and also talked to their mom about us and she wanted to listen as well. We could really tell that they were very sincere and in want of help even though they didnt have much of a religious background and dont understand much about God. The second lesson went well, we decided to review lesson 1 with them since the mom hadnt heard it. We invited everyone to be baptized and come to church as well. This sunday the mom and the oldest daugther, who`s 19, came to church! They may have not understood a lot but are starting to feel the difference in their lives, because they just want peace and comfort. Sadly, they had to go after the first two hours so they weren´t able to stay for sacrament meeting.(the schedule is switched here) but they are progressing well now. 

Even though the progress and success here in our area right now is a little slow, Im grateful for experience like with the Zunino family that gives us a boost of hope! I have learned that you always, especially in the mission, have to recognize the good, and that gives us hope. (Ether 12:4)

Other than that this week, was just the same old, same old! But Im doing great and love you all!

-- 

Elder Trent

15 months!!!

¡Hola Todos!

Another week come and gone. Hope everyones enjoying their fall weather! This week for me was pretty satisfying, we´re pretty happy about it. After weeks of no shows, late sleepers, giving excuses, lies, rainy sunday mornings, and laziness we finally had 2 investigators in church! Wahoo! An investigator named Marcos that weve been teaching for a few weeks came to church and also brought a friend! Marcos is a pretty devoted Cristian guy, active in his church, but he wanted to come to see what our church was like. So he did, and also brought a friend that goes to his church as well. They thought it was good, a lot different and calmer than they that, since their used to singing crazily and shouting Haleluja, Amen, and also speaking in tongues. But hopefully they were able to feel the Spirit and recognize they attended the true church! Right now he is reading in the Book of Mormon, so who knows maybe he´ll have a change of heart! 

We also had quite the scary experience this week! So my companion on Tuesday was complaining to me how he got bit by a mosquito on his and it itched really bad. I told him just try not to itch it and it would go away faster. Then it just started to get worse and started to swell and hurt. So we went back to the pench. The next day it was about the same, really swollen and hurting bad. But he wanted to go out still so we did. Then that night it got really bad so we had to call Presidents Wife to see what was up. She said it probably wasnt that bad and that it would go away in a few days, but then Elder Allen said he couldnt move his ankle or toes, so she was like, oh ya thats bad. She said shed call us right back. Then she called back and said we had to go straight to the hospital and that we might had to spend the night there for observation. Usually she wouldnt trust the hospitals here but it was an emergency and already night time. So we got our stuff and took a taxi there! Turns out it wasnt really that bad and he just had an alergic reaction from some sort of bug bite. He just got a shot and some pills and then we were able to return back to the apartment by midnight about. Fun night though haha. The next day we were pretty tired but were able to have one of our best days of the week, so all is well!

Til next week!

Elder Trent

Yeah! I finally learned to make empanadas on the mission!

We have family home evening with the bishops family every monday night. The sister missionaries were in charge with the activity....

Elder Chef Trent: Argentine Cook 

Napolean Milanesas: Cheese, tomato sauce, ham, and tomato on top

Movie with a smoothie in Mercedes

> ¡Hola Todos!
>
> Everythings all good down here in Mercedes. Elder Allen and I are doing great together. Elder Allen is progressing well and always happy and pumped to work. Im sure his SEVENTY TWO emails he gets about every week sure motivates him haha. So also, news came out that missionaries can use sunglasses in some missions for the summer and we can in this mission. So if you see or see pictures of two guys dressed in shirt, tie and sunglasses, it STILL REALLY isnt the CIA. Just two missionaries preaching the Gospel in the hot heat of summer.
> Anyways, the work here continues slowly but surely. We had a pretty solid week this week, finding a lot of new investigators and getting a good amount of lessons in. We´re just trying to help all of our investigators progress as all missionaries work for. I really enjoy our area, we´re contacting a lot and getting good results. Most of our new investigators are just people from other churches or that just believe in God that are just willing to listen to us about a message of Jesus Christ. So usually those types we havent seen much progress But thats how we can find the prepared people or help them get prepared at least. People here like to talk about God a lot and about all their problems as well. We can sometimes just say hi to people and we´ll be there talking to them for like 20 minutes about their whole life story with all their problems. Sometimes its kind of interesting or funny other times a little boring haha. Just this week, we contacted a lady, Ana Maria, that said we could share a message with her and for the first 15 minutes she talked about 20 different subjects before we could say our names haha. She ended getting confused how she finished her spill by talking how she really needed to take her dog to the vet. But at the end, she said she wanted to go to church so that was good. I´ve been really noticing lately though, that my desires are increasing every day to share this Gospel with everyone! Everyone needs the restored Gospel in their lives! I know this Gospel is true and I love it with all my heart. I really am spreading joy to the world and its amazing to think what a blessing and opportunity it is to do it.
> Oh to end of the week, we have started something fun here with the four elders that are in our apartment. Movie with a smoothie! Ya! Last night we watched The Legacy and had a strawberry and banana smoothie. Good times.
>
> Love you all, til next week!
>
> --
> Elder Trent

¡Hola Todos!

What a spiritual filled weekend we were able to have thanks to conference! Its really something else listening to conference on the mission for me! I hope you all were able to enjoy it as well! So this week Elder Allen and I were able to continue strong in our faith and determination. As the week went on we had a little hiccup with some health problems, both me and my companion. But other than that we had a good successful week! Remember Alicia that we found last week? We were able to go back to her and have another spiritual lesson. We taught the Restoration and invited her to be baptized. While she didnt specifically say yes, she was very interested in knowing more about the church and wanted to visit before making a decision. Unfortanetely, she wasn´t able to make it to conference, but we have really high hopes for her! I´ll keep updating you on her progress. Other than that, this week was a little uneventful, but still good! Til next week!

-- 

Elder Trent

District Meeting

Some of the members in the ward that went to the chapel to watch conference.