Trio!

Hello Fam!

This week was great! we are back here in Neuquen now and still super busy! So..... we are now in trio!!! Elder Newman got here at the end of this last week, he is going to be with us for these next few weeks so that we can train him so he and Elder Ortiz will be together when i go. It is going to be great being with him, he is a great missionary! All is well here, we have a lot of work going on, trying to find the way to bring more people unto Christ. I will never tire of being able to put on my plac and testify of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. it is the best thing in the world! Thanks for everything! i love you all!

Elder Stuart

He Is Risen!

Hello Fam!! :)

This week was incredible!!! We had President Nelson come to our mission this weekend to talk to us! it was an experience that i will never forget, he had such a spirit and power when he talked. It is so true that they are called of God to be His Special Witnesses here on earth :) Something that he and his wife talked a lot about this weekend, being easter weekend, was the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I love the words in Mattew 28 that say "He is not here: for he is risen." I share the feelings that our Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, said about these words, that there is nothing more comforting than those words that the Angel spoke to Mary. Because just from our knowledge of the Ressurection, we know that we too will be ressurected, that one day we will have the chance to live eternaly with our families if we follow diligently the Doctrine of Christ. I have a firm testimony that He has Risen and because of that we too will rise in that great day. Something that Sister Nelson taught about those words is that we can apply it to our daily lives. As we repent and apply the cleansing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, we too can be risen every day to a higher level spiritually. She goes on to explain that as we repent , people will say for example "where is timmy that used to lie all the time?" and we can say "he is not here, for he has risen." As we learn this princple we can know that we can always rise above our trials and defects and because more like our Savior. I know that this has happened with me, through the great power of the Atonment i have been able to rise up to be a better son of my Heavenly Father and that the old me is not here, but i have risen. I have seen it in a lot of the people i have had the chance to see, i am seeing it in Pablo who just got baptized that he is rising, the old him is no longer there, and he is rising up. He even is helping us teach Claudia and prepare her for her baptism this weekend! I hope we can all apply this into our lives, especially during this great time of year that we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I love you all! have a great week, sorry for the long email, haha!

Love, Elder Stuart 

From Elder Stuart's Mom:

I thought I would forward a bit of my email from Ryan so you get a little more information about this past week!

Hey Mom :)

Happy Easter! I had a wonderful sunday! how was yours?? Thank you! i am super happy for Pablo and Claudia!!! also it is the first time the APs have baptized in like 4 years, so that was pretty cool to do.

It was an amazing conference Mom. Yeah the whole mission came up Friday so that was a nightmare for us to organize everthing and get them to their hotels safely. then Saturday morning from 9-12 we had a conference with him, and there was a small chior that sang. and it was amazing :) Some of the things he told us blew my mind. then he was in our stake conference this sunday too and spoke so that was cool! 

General Conference & Investigators

Hola Familia!!

whats up?! THis week was amazing!! Our investigators are progressing very well. Pablo and Claudia are doing super well, we went with them this week and we took out a date for them to get married the 5th and they will be getting baptized the 8th :) Im super stoked for them!! Please pray for them so that they can complete with this covenant they are about to make! Hermano Rigoberto Castillo is doing really well as well, we went saturday morning and we watched the first session of conference with him in his house! he loved it!! but he says that he still isnt prpared to be baptized, so we will keep trying to help him and see what it is that he needs to make it!

Conference was absolutely amazing! I hope you all were able to take something out of it to apply in our lives and recieve answers to our prayers and the questions of our hearts. For me the best part was to hear the many testimonies of the Godhead. It was amazing how many testified of God our Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, our Savior and Mediator with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the testater of the two and the comforter for us in this life. I know and have learned that the more we learn about them and their natures we will have more desires to follow them :) What a great conference with such great messages!

Well this week was great! i hope you all have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Light the World

Buen día familia! 

This week went super well! we are super excited with this focus that we have here in the mission with the Christmas season of Light the World! This week we had a lot of time to be in our own area and get to work. We found many people that we were able to teach. we were also able to do a lot of service, big or small, for the people in our area and we feel super good about what is happening right now! We had a super cool experience with that same family that brought their grandkid and friends to church, we were able to go visit them and we met a lady named Vicky who is the daughter of the Grandma. She has heard the missionaries for a long time, and we left her when i got here. But she came in and sat down and started asking a lot of questions, especially about her dad who had passed away. We were able to testify to her about the plan of salvation and how she could be with him forever and return to him if she follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is amazing to see how the plan that God has given to us can bring light to whatever situation we are going through. We are still working with her, but she said that she will start listening again. The Lord is blessing us every day :) I love this work.

love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Buen dia familia!

This week was a great week! We had a really cool experience this week while we were in Roca doing exchanges with the zone leaders. We were walking down the street and we saw two ladies sitting outside, and we went up to talk with them. One of them was a member, but inactive for a long time, and the other is her sister who is not a member. The member told us that she didnt want anything because she was mad at God because her husband had died about a month ago. We were able to testify to her of the love of God and how everyone of us will be able to be with our loved ones again if we follow the gospel of Christ. It was such a great experience to be able to help someone find the peace and joy that comes from this gospel. The spirit that you can feel as you testify of these divine truths is amazing, and i am so grateful for the opportunities that my Heavenly Father gives me everyday to testify of my Savior Jesus Christ and how through his atoning sacrifice we can be saved :) 

Great week! :) Thank you all for all your support! have a wonderful week everyone!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Buen Dia Familia!

Buen dia familia!

This week was great! It was full of conferences and a new missionary got here so that was cool!  

In the conferences this week it was really cool to see old comps! The thing that stook out to me this conference was the reality of the life we had with our father in heaven before this one. In doctrina y convenios 138 we learn that when we were there we learned all that we needed to be able to help others receive salvation through Jesus Christ. It is so important that we apply the atonement in our lives daily so that we can be humble enough to receive those same lessons through our diligent study and personal revelation :)

Also this week we had a really cool experience while working in our area. We were contacting this lady and she told us that her sister in law is a member and she has actually been interested in what it is that we share with the people. So we were able to teach her about the Restoration and the book of mormon, really fast becasue she was working... hahah! but she was super excited to read the book of mormon and it was such a testimony that the Lord really has people prepared for us to teach, we just got to look for them!

This week was great! I love this work :) Todo bien aca en Argentina! Love you all! Have a great week :)

Love,

Elder Stuart 

Stand as a Witness!

Buen Dia Familia!

This week was crazy just like the last one! we went down to the south again to do zone conferences this week! We first went to Bariloche and then to Esquel. In the conferences we have been focused on our responsibility as misionaries to raise the faith of all of those around us, and i would say that that is our responsibility as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At baptism everyone of us has made a covenant or a two way promise that we will take upon us the name of Christ and be witnesses of him in every moment, every, word, and every action. That means that every week as we participate of the sacraments we make the promise to our Heavenly Parents that we will try to become more like our older brother Jesus Christ in the way that we act.Those daily actions that we make every week in the service of others is how we can help raise the faith of those around us! Also that means that in every moment we should be ready to testify and bear witness of Christ. In other words, as we partake of the sacrament we make the promise to be missionaries!!!! My invitation this week is to look for at least one oportunity to stand as a witness in Christ in something you do and say for someone in your life. :)

I love this work and this gospel with all my heart. I am learning so much about the importance of always having the Lord on our mind as we go through our daily life. Also this week i have had the chance to work with many misionaries and i am amazed at the testimonies that have been born of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. :)

Christ lives and loves each and everyone of us. :)

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Neuquen!

Hola Familia!

This past week was great! Now we had transfers... and here comes more changes! I now got transfered to Neuquen with Elder Clemens! Im so excited for this next chapter of my mission to see all the miracles and experiences that I will have while i am here in Neuquen! My time in Cipolletti was a great part of my mission, the people there are so nice and work hard in this Work of the Lord! This week I really learned a lot about the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, something that i have been studying a lot lately is how important it is to learn from the times we fall, and pick ourselves back up through the atonement of Christ and become more like Him :) Great week! Im excited! And i 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

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

Hola!

Hola mi familia y amigos!!

This week has been a pretty great week so far! Nothing really changes because we have the same schedule every week so I will just share some of my favorite moments of this week!! First off we had a lesson with our TRC investigator, Mercedes, and it went amazing!!! Half way through teaching the plan of salvation me and Elder Lloyd decided to sing "I am a child of God" to her. The spirit was so strong and she started to tear up. (even though i can't sing... good thing Elder Lloyd can and he carried us!) But i learned how much music and simple doctrine can really help someone. Just those simple words were able to bring our investigator so much joy knowing she had a loving Heavenly Father who wanted her back with Him. She wants to be baptized but still wants to know more so that is really cool!!! The language is coming along pretty good and I can usually understand what someone is saying, and I am getting better at being able to convey my feelings! The only way this is possible is through the Power of the Holy Ghost. Without Him. I am nothing. He is the teacher, and I am merely the instrument that He can work through. I love teaching people and helping them feel of their Heavenly Fathers love for them.

My second point is about the Tuesday night devotional, Elder Oaks of the 12 came and spoke to us!!! I felt like a celebrity was among us!! It was so exciting and so good and I just wanted to pull as much out of it as I could. The things that stood out to me the most was A the importance of the Sacrament. The sacrament is how we renew our covenants with God and become new again. Next time you take the sacrament really focus on the blessings that are in there if we strive to be more like Christ. Elder Oaks said that every member should know the sacrament prayer by heart. Becasue this is the way to become clean again and renew covenants so we can return to our Father in Heaven. The second thing I learned is that we must always teach with power and be worthy to teach of that power. No matter how good of a teacher and speaker i may be, i will never be successful without Divine help. This makes me think of one of my favorite scriptures, Alma 26:12, i encourage you all to read that and live it. I am trying to do the same. Those are just a few points of his talk that i loved.

Finally I am almost finished with the Book of Mormon!!! I can defintiely see the blessings in my life that have come from this. I started when I got here, and anytime that I have a question about anything i go into my studies thinking about that question and it is ALWAYS answered. The book of Mormon contains all the answers to life. If you need help with anything go to the Book of Mormon. Strive to read it daily. I can promise that you will see blessings in your life because of it. 

I am having so much fun here and I feel so much joy because I am surrounded by the spirit and my Savior Jesus Christ. Knowing that and that I have his name on my chest over my heart brings so much comfort. I know that He lives and wants to help us always. He is there always. All we have to do is pray and ask. He literally is just a prayer away. When life gets too hard to stand... Fall to your knees. The power of guidance and the atonement are there for us to take if we only ask in faith. I love you all and thank you all for your letters and emails, i will try and write you all back as much as i can. Hopefully some of my words will touch your hearts and answer your questions, because i know yours do that for me. 

Hasta Pronto. Con amor,

Elder Stuart