ME VOY!!!

Welll... Im outta here! Headed from Godoy to Chos Malal! I am so excited for this new oportunity that i have to serve the Lord in Chos Malal (it is in the north part of our mission, the very tip. I leave here at 1 in the afternoon and should get there about 11 at night! ) I am so excited!!! I am going to miss the people that i ahve met and grown to love here, but i am excited for the oportunity now to go help others come untio christ and grow myself. 

 

Also Matias got Baptized!!!!! I am so happy that i was here to be apart of this change that he has made in his life! He went from a not so great kid to one of the best converts i have ever met. When he came out of the water he couldnt stop smiling and when we got out of the font he asked if he could go back in because he felt so good, so clean, and so free. It was AMAZING!!!! He also bore his testimony the next day in sacrament meeting! and it was such a powerful testimony! I am going to miss him.

 

Not much time today, but all is well. I love the mission. and i love my Savior. I love you all and hope you all have a great week!!!

 

Love,

Elder Stuart

Service

Hola! This week i have learned a lot of things! First. If you are going to give lunch to the missionaries for them to cook... give them something easy.... not just a full raw chicken. hahaha this week that happened to us! A family couldnt have lunch with us so the night before they just gave us this chicken to cook. We dont have an oven so we couldnt cook it like that... so Elder Elwood just looked at me and said ´well i guess we arent eating tomorrow!!¨hahaha it was so funny, but we ended up making something and it was actually delecious... kinda.. haha! But that was a skill that we learned this week! THis week i have also learned a lot about service. We have been in kind of a slow patch here in Godoy trying to find new people to teach and help them along. We decided to change up our methods, because if something isnt working you need to change it until it does. So we decided to look for more ways to do service this week. And it worked so well!! Matias is now progressing so much better because we went and helped him with some things he was building and cleaning up in his yard and we just created a bond and he opened up even more with us. We were just trying to do service where ever we could and we found a lot of people through that! When they see that we are normal people and that we are here to help and not just talk about Christ, they are more willing to open up and let us talk about Christ becuase they feel more comfortable. Makes me think of what we learn in Mosiah 2 how when we are in the service of our fellow beigns we are only in the service of our God. It is so true!! Go out and do some service this week! It is great!

Also this week i feel like all the other churches had a ¨bash the Mormons about Joseph Smith´week. Because we had more people than ever talking bad about him and yelling at us and stuff like that. I just want to testify to you all that I KNOW that he was and is a Prophet of God. Just like it says in Doctirne and Convenants. He did more for mankind than any other person save Jesus Christ himself. I am so greatful for Joseph Smith and all that he did for us and all we have today becuase he was brave and humble enough to fall on his knees and ask God. Now we have the book of Mormon and i can learn more about my Savior and how i can be more like Him. I am so greatful for that. I will defend him, and my Savior forever. (rant of the week over. haha) 

I love this gospel. I love my Savior. I know this is the truth and it can change lifes. Have a great week everyone. I love you all!!!!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Get Your Feet Wet!

Hola familia y amigos!

 

Well yesterday was Carnaval, a big festival here in Argentina and so none of the shops were open to use computers, so we get to write today!

This week was a little rough. Me and my comp have been working so hard with some great investigators, but they still dont come to church.... that makes me so sad because they cant recieve the blessings that the Lord has prepared for them. I was getting pretty down on myself for not having success with this for some weeks now, things seem to be slowing and investigators are dropping, and nobody is opening the door. We even were contacting one day, and two hours of nobody even opening the door!! The just didnt come, or opened the blinds and shook their finger. It was rough. BUT then i was reading the Story of the brother of Jared again, and how he emphanzises (did i spell that right hahaha) how success and miracles always come AFTER the test of our faith, also in Joshua were it talks about the israelites that are carrying the ark of the covenant and have to cross a river, they decided to just start walking and right as they get their feet wet the water splits and they are able to cross on dry ground. Moral of these stories is sometimes we have to get our feet wet before the miracles come. I know the Lord will bless each and everyone of us if we pressforward with faith. We saw this literally becuase after that really rough day, the next day was raining and Godoy is all dirt roads so it was all mud. I thought, well nobody is going to answer, lets just do some studies until the storm passes or something. THen i remembered. "Get your feet wet" this time it was literal. hahah we went out and the first door we knocked let us in and now we have three new investigators we are teaching. It was such a miracle.  The Lord knows us better than we do, he has his timing, just keep going, get your feet wet and see miracles.

I love this work. I have seen the Lord change peoples lives. I love you all and hope you have a great week, and go get your feet wet! .)

Love,

Elder Stuart

Transfer

Well another transfer... and another change! I am staying here in Godoy and Elder Barrios is headed off to Bariloche. I am so grateful for the time that I got to be his companion. I learned so much and really learned that the Lord knows who and what we need in our life to help us grow into the people that he needs us to be. Now I am with Elder Elwood from Idaho. Another Gringo! haha gringos have their ups and downs. But i am way excited to work with elder Elwood and see what I can learn from him and what we can do together here in Godoy!

 

We had kind of a rough week. Juan and Antonia who came to church with us and were doing so good, their pastor came by their house and talked with them, and now they dont want to be baptized and are going back to their old church. That made me so sad. Because they were so close to opening the gate to a million blessings and because of a pastor they now cant recieve those blessings yet. We are going to try and see what we can do with them to help them see that this is the truth. On the bright side, we were teaching this lady this week and her daughter was there and didnt want to listen, but half way through the lesson she came and sat down and was really intereseted and so that was awesome! We are going to keep working our hardest to help her and our other investigators come to the waters of baptism!

Not much to write this week. But I know that this church is true. I know that it is only in the church of Jesus Christ that one day we will live with our families forever, and that makes me so happy! I am so happy to be a missionary in this day and see the Lord Hastening his work and seeing all the miracles that he does to help people recieve the gift of eternal life. I know that it is only through the grace and the atonement that we can be saved, and I am so grateful for the oportunity to preach his gospel. I love you all and hope you all have a great week and remember our Savior always!!!!!!

 

Love,

Elder Stuart

Photos!

The streets in Godoy were all rivers after the day it rained, so that was interesting!

My zone! Elder Batres, Castillo, Gallegos, Barrios, Novelo, Bursach, Hermana Braithwait, Eppley Elder Silva, me, Hermana Himle, Olvando. 

Christmas Miracles!

Hola familia y amigos!

This week was such a good week!!! First off it was Christmas and that was way fun, we were able to meet up as a zone in the chapel and we made tacos and played sports for a long time! It was a lot of fun. Also got to talk with the fam so that was pretty great! So Christmas was a pretty great time :) Also I loved it because it was a time that we could really focus on our Savior and really have Him more in our lives. It is a wonderful time of year.

Also... Samantha came to church!!!!! We woke up really early sunday morning and went out to Godoy to look for her to bring her to church and she came!!! She said she loved every second of it and really felt something different there. She especially loved the sacrament. It is amazing what this gospel can do to the lives of every person. Especially the importance of the sacrament. It is something that we can do every week to become clean again and start over. It is a promise we can make to always remember our Savior, and if we do so, we can ALWAYS have the spirit with us to lead us, to guide us, and to help us along the way. WHAT A PROMISE!! And I know that when God makes a promise He always comes through with it, we just have to put in our part. We really have seen that here in Godoy the past couple of weeks. All of our work, fasting, and prayers have finally payed off and Samantha told us she wants to be baptized this saturday so ¨start filling the faunt!¨hahah that is what she told us! It was amazing :)

I know that the time we spend on our knees asking our father in heaven for help is never wasted. He is always there listening. And when the timing is right, he will bless us with all that we need. ¨when life gets too hard to stand, kneel. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas full of the love and spirit of our Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all and hope you all know how much you all impact my life. Have a great week and always remember to keep praying!!

Love Elder Stuart

Transfers...again!

Hola familia y amigos!!!

This week was a really good week! We are finding some really good investigators, and I really am growing to love the people here :) We still are having a problem with our investigators coming to church... so we are trying to find out how to help them come to church. We also had transfers this week. Elder Rose left, and now I am with Elder Barrios from Panama! It was hard to leave another comp but I am excited to be with my sixth comp... hahah! But me and Elder Barrios already get along great and i can tell that we are going to work really hard and have a lot of success. I am excited to also be with a Latino again because it will help my spanish a lot!

So it was kinda hard this week because Brian and Guadalupe had to go to Roca on short notice and they werent able to be baptized this week... so hopefully this next coming week! It was hard because I just want them to receive those blessings but it keeps getting pushed back, but we are going to baptize them this week! We also are working on a couple others, who just need to assist to be baptized.

Things are great here and I am loving the work here. South America is amazing and I love the people here in Argentina and in Godoy. They are so loving and humble and i am so lucky to be a missionary here in this time. There are always rough patches but at the end of the day we can all look back and see the many blessings that we have recieved. Thanks for all your love and support! I love and miss you all! Until next week :) 

Elder Stuart

We also had a really funny experience! I had to go to Neuquen thursday to do paper work to be legal... haha! And we had Subway there!!! It was so good :) Then we got back to Godoy at 5:40 and had a appointment in the chapel at 7 and the chaple is 20 minutes away. We had three families to visit in that time. So we straight up ran from house to house and taught everyone in time. It was crazy!! We were able to get to everyone though... and wasn´t the first time we ran house to house! haha it was fun!

Godoy

Hola famila y amigos!!!

Everything is great here in Argentina! I love it down here, I hope that you all are doing well. This week we had a really cool experience. Me and Elder Rose were out contacting, and we weren´t really finding anyone that was interested, so we said a little prayer, and then after we looked down the street and there was absolutely no one in sight. So we decided the next person we saw we were going to set a baptism date. hahaha the next second a couple turned the corner, and we were like... really a couple, this is going to be fun! haha so we went up and started talking to them. They are so amazing!!!! They are 19 and 18, and she had been taking the lessons a couple months ago (her name is Guadalupe) and he came to church a couple times a few years ago (Brian). And they both said that this is what they have been looking for and they have been praying for! We set a baptism date with them, and they are preparing to be baptized in the next couple of weeks! He just has to work on somethings with work so he doesn´t have to work on sundays, and then they are going to be baptized! It was so amazing! The Lord really blesses us when at the last moment when we are about to give up, if we push forward with faith, He will bless us. Never give up. Right as we think we are beat and cant push anymore, that is when we will start seeing blessings, if we push through it. It was such an amazing experience! 

I am learning so much here in Argentina and i love it down here. Things are going good and we are working with a lot of great investigators. Just dificult for them to come to church because it is so far away, but we are slowly progressing, and trying to do all we can to help them. We have this one investigator, Samantha, she is so amazing. We have been meeting with her for about a month, she is already half way through the book of mormon, and loves this gospel so much. She wants to be baptized so bad, we just have problems getting her to church. So once we start getting them to come, this area is going to boom!! I love it here. The mission is an amazing place. Thank you for all your love and support. I love you all!!! Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Mom Note:  When I asked Ryan about his Thanksgiving Dinner a week before Thanksgiving, this was his reply:

"Oh yeah, and we have no idea when holidays are anymore, so i am just counting that as my thanksgiving dinner!! hahah yup. then end. haha. love you!"

Photos!

1-2 Baptisms of Aron and Hugo

3-4 Elder Stuart cooking his favorite lunch - Milenesa.  Looks like he is eating a lot!! 

5 Tie Trading with Elder Rose

6 Elder Stuart & Elder Rose in area of Godoy, Argentina

7-8 Elder Stuart's home in Godoy, Argentina

 

Baptisms and Godoy!

Hey family and friends!

This week was such a good week! We had the baptisms of two of the kids that I was teaching over in Villa Regina this week!! It was such a cool experience, i felt the spirit so strongly and I was so proud of the decision that Aron and Hugo made to be baptized and come closer to their savior Jesus Christ. It was so amazing and I am so glad that I was able to be there to watch their change and them making that special covenant with our Heavenly Father.

My new area is Godoy, it is a small town just outside of Villa Regina. We live on the edge of Villa Regina, and take a bus out to Godoy, and also have a little town that we work at as well, that is about a 20 minute walk away. I love my area! It is such a good area and the people are all so loving and friendly! The members are the best, and we have some really good investigators that we are working with. They just need to come to church and they will be able to be baptized! We have a lot of dates set up for December, but they have to come to church if they want to fulfill those dates!

My new comp Elder Rose is the best! We get along really well and he is teaching me a lot and helping me become the missionary that the Lord needs me to be. He is really helping me with my spanish. It is coming slowly, but it is coming. And it is nice being able to ask him questions about the language. He is doing a great job in helping me be the best that i can be. 

This week, our ¨thanksgiving¨ Dinner, was mashed potatoes and cut up hotdogs.... hahaha very American! I loved it! It was with an amazing member family, the Blanco Family. We didn´t even remember it was thanksgiving until that night... but it was fun!

Something I have been studying a lot is Charity and how important it really is in our lives. I love 1 Corinthians 13. That chapter is amazing. Without charity we are nothing. We should all strive to have the same love that our Lord has, we never will but he will bless us for trying.

All is great and thank you for all your love and support! I love you all so much and I am so greatful for your examples. Have a great week!!

Elder Stuart