Come Back Every Day!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

In a zone conference a while back, our President told us we need to be like Ammon in that we have his same desires ¨deseo morar entre este pueblo por algún tiempo; sí, y quizás hasta el día que muera¨(Alma 17:23). I was like yeah right! I can´t wait to get back to America! Oh how great is the change we can have in ourselves. The thing is the other day we had just ran into a member, Sister Catalina Noya, and her Husband. I felt so happy and I thought to myself I want to live here. I want to live here for the rest of my life!

It was so cool to feel that love, this charity that I know only comes from Christ. Even though I still don't do all I can to be the best missionary, I am feeling more than ever a love for people in general. I´m sure some of you can be genuinely surprised at this. But it´s true, it is the coolest thing to see the change in yourself. And it really is a miracle. And it really comes from being a servant of Christ, or desiring to be and working to be. I am so grateful to have been called to serve in this great country and learn to love more of God´s children.

My companion and I are doing great. I really love her lots, and her desires to share her testimony. She is doing such a great job- this is her third transfer and she still struggles a bit with the language, as do I, but it is really neat to see that I can explain to her what is going on. It is the coolest thing ever to be able to speak another language!

We have had a big problem this week. To be able to baptize children under the age of 18 I think, it requires signature of the parents. We have been working with some children, Pepe and Nazarena, the friends of Micaela for a baptism. They have been going to church and we were even teaching the mom, but now she has no interest. She won´t even beso us in the street or saludarnos. For those of you who know the beso tradition in Argentina its pretty maleducado. Anyway. She won´t sign their registros. We even asked for the apoyo of the rama and they yes they were ok with the kid´s baptisms and all. It is just really sad. I want these kids to have the blessing of the gift of the holy ghost. We are thinking of different ways that we can show our love for her and help Nazarena and Pepe have this ordenanza of salvation.

Mauro and Celia are progressing nicely. It is so exciting. Especially when we can see them feel the Spirit. They still say they aren´t sure for their baptism the 13 but I know they will get there soon enough. We are really excited for them. And we love them so much.

This week we saw a house that looked hidden in this secret garden with a beautiful like vine gate entrance. Anyway we clapped and we heard ´ya va!´ so we waited and waited. I said sorry we are still here waiting, are you coming? no one came, so we just left. Then two days later we walked by again and saw a woman working outside and she let us in and we shared our message. Then we met her birds, one of which is a parrot. We found out he was the one that said `ya va`. We were talking to a bird the last time. We chuckled when we found out.

Sunday was a pretty rough day. We found family last week that was so beautiful. We programmed them to be baptized. We asked when we could come back again and the mom said, Everyday if you can! (haha another family when we were talking about another appointment said why don´t you just move in here?) Anyway this family we passed by the next day and they weren´t there. Then the next day they were and they said yes we will come to Church, and we made great plans to search them (they already even had a Book of Mormon and everything) We were sorely disappointed when they either weren´t there or didn´t attend us on Sunday morning. Then I taught Relief Society (crazy! I have never done that in my life) Then I had a surprise talk thrown at me for Sacrament Meeting. Plus all the worry of trying to get all of your investigators to Church is basically more stress than one person can handle. I unfortunately left with a migraine that refused to be comforted. But our strongest investigators went and felt the Spirit. Heavenly Father helped me fulfil my role as happy loving servant of His Son. And we were able to fulfill our goals 100%. The gospel truly is amazing. I know this is an important work and that, well important isn´t really a sufficient adjective. This is the only work in our lives- bringing salvation to more of God´s children. I also know that Satan likes to work against us faithful workers. Let´s pray always to overcome temptation and follow the path to Eternal happiness.

Welp. That´s all for now.

Love Sister Dunford.