Blessed in the Work!

Buen Dia!!!

Well... here we go for my sixth transfer here as AP! [He has 3 more transfers left!] I'm staying, and i am super excited because we are getting ready for the visit of President Nelson! I am so greatful for the opportunity that the Lord is giving me to help in this great work. This week was great, it is amazing to see the way that the Lord helps us when we work with diligence and obedience. This week we saw the miracle that this week, we had three diferent members come up to us and tell us we had to go to their house to teach some of their friends! We have been trying to find more people to teach and it was amaizng how the Lord blessed us with the hellp of the members to find some great people to teach. 

Pablo and Claudia are doing great! they came to church again this week! and Nestor who is a member and the brother in law of pablo brought them and it was amazing because he hasnt come in a long time and since ive been here he has been trying to get the faith to pay his tithing, and during church he looked at us and pulled out a tithing slip and payed his tithing!! so it was great to see how he is now reactivating, and pablo and claudia just need to get married and then baptized!

Things are going well! I hope you are all well! Love you all!

Elder Stuart 

Look for the Miracles of Every Day

Hello Fam!

This week was super great! We finished up the conferences in the south and made our way back to Neuquén! Things are going super well, we finally got back with the Familia Melo, and they are doing good. You can tell that their honeymoon took out a little of the excitement to get baptized... but they said they would pray to see if they need to be baptized this coming week. Please pray for them to recieve their answer! They are so great! We also had a miracle happen on Saturday, we were walking along and i took a Book of Mormon out of my bag to show Elder Ortiz something and then we saw a man working in his car and we asked if he needed help and he just said ¨no, but is that the book of mormon you are carrying?" we were so surprised and he told us he found one one time and started reading and really liked it, but had never talked to missionaries. His name is carlos and we have a cita with him this week!! We hope he keeps progressing!! Things are going well and we are seeing many miracles in our mission right now! i love it! All is well and i hope you are all doing well and know i pray for you all every day! Have a wonderful week and look for the miracles of every day!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Elder Teixeira & Miracles

Hola Familia!!!

This week was amazing. This truly is thework of the Lord. this week we went down to Bariloche to prepare for Elder Teixeira (our area President) who came Friday to have a conference with us. While we were there we went to work with the missionaries with the investigators that they had that had gone to church and were progressing but just werent getting to baptism. They had one person that was going to get baptized that weekend. But then the Miracles happened. We taught this family and a very long story short they called the missionaries the next day and wanted to get baptized, it was amazing to see how the work of those missionaries helped this family out so much and we were able to give them the last push they needed and now they are baptized members of the church of Jesus Christ :) It was amazing. at the end of the week Bariloche had 5 baptisms. It was such a Miracle. The Lords hand really was here with us. Then we had wamazing conference with the Elder Teixeira and all the Zone Leaders and Hermana Leaders. It was an amazing conference and i learned so much. I am so proud to be a missionary at this time of this great work! Things are advancing and we are seeing a lot of miracles in the mission, seeing things happen that have never been done. The Lord is blessing us. This is His work and His glory. i know that without a doubt :) Love you all! thanks for all your support! have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Open House Miracles

Hola Famila!!

This week was super good! We are finidng a lot of people to teach in these past few weeks! This week we had an open house in the church in our ward and it went really well! We didnt have too many people show up, but the people that did come were really a miracle. First off we had a man named Walter, he is working here for a few months to be able to provide for his family that lives in Buenos Aires. He said he is looking for something better and felt like this is what he has been missing in his life and what he needs to be able to provide for his family. We put a baptismal date for him and we are super excited to teach him!!! Then some recent converts brought one of their friends, Carmen, and she told us she had a lot of questions, we explained to her the restoration. and she said it made a lot of sense to her, we were also able to put a fecha with her and we are super excited aout that! The Lord really is blessing us a lot in our work here. It is amazing to see His hand in our lives every day and know that this is His work,, and he is here to bless us and help us if we trust in him. It has been a great week! I love you all!! 

Elder Stuart

Baptism Miracles

Buen Día familia!!

This week was a super great week!!!!! haha last pday when i said it was raining pretty bad. Well it rained really bad. Almost all of Neuquén got flooded and all the streets basically were rivers. Not even kidding. In the streets it was up to our knees and our waist in some parts. we had to go help an hermana get all of her stuff out of her house and it was super crazy. Then we just had to go to the pension because it was too dangerous to be outside. I have never seen so much water in my life!

Also more importantly, Joaquin and his mom Natalia got baptized! Joaquin is 12 years old and he started to come to church and also play soocer with us on p-days, i got to know him pretty well. The hermanas started to teach him and the week before his baptism his mom came to church with him to see what he was getting himself into. She loved it and said she wanted to be baptized as well! I had the blessing of being able to baptize both of them! So we were able to see how the Lord really does work miracles in the lives of people if we just keep trying. It was amazing to see this family grow and get to the waters of baptism and recieve the eternal blessings that God has prepared for us!

Things are going great here! I love the work more than ever and we are going to keep going forward with faith! Sorry its short this week, i hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Buen Dia Familia!

Buen dia familia!

this week was really great! We were able to send home some great missionaries and get some new ones that are super ready to work! We are excited for this new transfer! This week was really full of miracles. Me and my comp were walking the other day when we passed two ladies outside doing some yardwork, we had passed them like three times in these weeks and they are always working on something and we always ask if we can help but they said no. But this week we werent going to let the opportunity go bye. So we just walked over and basically just grabbed a shovel and asked if we could help! They finally let us help them and we began to dig a hole so that we could put a fence up. It was a lot of fun and we got a few days of work done for them in an hour. Then when we finished we had a lesson with them and it went really well and was super spiritual. It was amazing to see how the Lord puts people in our path if we are just willing to take the initiative and go after it! 

Love you all! Thanks for all the support in this time of my life. Have a wonderful week! 

Love, Elder Stuart

Miracles

This was a great week! The only thing that was kind of sad was that Elder McCook finished his mission! Its so cool and im so proud but im gonna miss him! This week we saw a lot of miracles, Juan Flores and Angel Reyes got baptized! The story of Juan is really cool, two pdays ago he walked into the church and i went to talk with him, and he started speaking to me in English! That was weird! He told me he had been in the states for about ten years and came back now to be with his family, and his last year in Orlando he was living with a mormon family and went to church for that year. Why he never heard the missionaries or got baptized, i have no idea, but he didnt. SO we started to teach him,well the hermanas did because he is in their area but we got to teach him a couple of times when they couldnt, he came to church two weeks in a row and got baptized this week!! It was such a miracle :) Miracles are real! God knows when we need blessings! I promise! 

Angel is the grandson of a member and he is awesome :) We also had a pretty cool primary activity this week! the missionaries were incharge and it was based on superheros! lets just say i had the home court advantage! It turned out really well and the kids loved it and we met some of their friends!

Great week! Love you all! have a wonderful week! 

Love,

Elder Stuart 

Miracles

This week we saw a lot of miracles happen. We have had quite a bit of problems in the zone this last transfer and we had to fight through it, but we saw that it was really a trial of our faith and at the end of the transfer we got to see that almost every companionship in our zone had at least one baptism! It was awesome to see the miracles that come when we keep going strong! Bruma and Eluney got baptized in our area, the two girls of the part member family and it was really cool to see because their family started to come and are more active now! It was amazing :)

We had transfers yesterday! and i will be staying here in Cipo!!!! Elder McCook is going to stay with me for the last two weeks of his mission, because he extended, and we are going to be in a trio with Elder Nochreiner from California! We are excited to see these new changes and see what we will be able to do this transfer! 

(Note from Mom: Now they have 5 Elders living in their little pension! They hope to be back to just the trio by the end of the week. Ryan will be training his new companion to be a zone leader with him!)

Todo bien here in Cipo! I love the mission, this ward, the people, everything! i am so happy and things are going great :) I know the Lord is always on our side and is there to help us right after we learn the lesson that we need. Keep going strong in what ever challenge you face in life because the Lord will help you if you let him! Love you all! have a great week!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Cipo!!!

This week was great! working with the members is so much better! This week we found a part member family and we are now teaching three of the kids in that family and the girlfriend/almost wife of one of the sons! It is awesome to see because the whole family came to church on Sunday and now we are just working on some things with them and we will be seeing another eternal family soon! Church was incredible! haha i felt like i was back in utah there where so many people! we had about 130 asistence and when i got up to give my testimony i was speechless. It is so much different than chos malal! I love them both, the both have there ups and downs, but that was so cool to see so many members in one place! 

Miracle of the week: the hermanas in our ward called us and told us that they had a lesson planned with a man but their member that was going to go with them bailed, and they cant go alone, because he lives alone, so we got to go and teach him instead :) he has been coming to church for about a month and a half he loves everything but for some reason didnt want to be baptized yet. Mi and my comp didnt have anything planned, but we just followed the spirit and we asked questions and we were able to find out what was missing and help him, and we are now planning his baptism for this saturday :) it was such amiracle. it is amazing what happens when we follow the spirit, because at the same time the hermanas got to go to another investigator that really needed them in that moment. It is amazing to see that when we follow the spirit everything works out and the Lord knows what we need to do. Trust in him and he will direct thy paths :)

Great week! Love you all, and have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Stuart!

Baptism!

Hola everyone!!

 This week was so good! SO many miracles this week! Idont have much time so it will be short. But Claudia got baptized this week!! It was so amazing to see the change that she made and to see the joy that she had when she could finally be baptized! also, funny story... so the night before the baptism we filled up the plastic pool thingy that we use to baptize, and we didnt turn off the wtaer all the way... so we got to the church and it was flooded with water! hahah we got it all cleaned up and luckyily nothing got damaged, and still made it in time for the baptism! It was awesome :) Also norma got married!!! So she will be getting baptized this upcoming week as well! The Lord really does give us miracles after the trial of our faith! Things are great! I hope all is well! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Faith and Miracles

Well.. i talked with you guys yesterday so not much to say! I loved seeing you guys and knowing that all is well :)

This week i learned a lot about the trial of our faith just like it is taught to us in Ether 12. We all know that miracles dont come until after the trial of our faith. simple rihgt? but not that simple when you are in the middle of the trial. Here in CHos Malal i have felt like i have tried even harder to be the best that i can be. And we havent really seen to much success, BUT here is the trial of our faith. Me and my comp tried to stay positive like always and work harder and give even more, and we recieved an even greater testimony of this principle that the miracles do come, once we have become what the Lord needs us to be in that moment. This week we were working with the mother in law of our group leader who is a leader in another church and for eight months missionaries have been trying to talk with her, but she just fights and tells us we are wrong. But this week it all changed we were able to ask her for just thirty seconds to talk, after that short time the spirit touched her heart and she just started to cry and told us she knew the church is true and she is just tscared to leave her church after being a leader for twenty years. She is going to be baptized this saturday :) It truly is an amazing concept that after the trial of faith comes the miracle. ¨THE MIRACLES WILL COME ONCE WE HAVE BECOME WHAT THE LORD NEEDS US TO BE IN THAT MOMENT. Always remember that and keep moving forward :)

I love you all and cant thank you enough for your support to me while i am in the service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know He lives and is here to bless us with miracles as long as we have faith in his name. Faith is an amazing concept that we should all study more! Ether 12 :) Love you all!

love,

Elder Stuart

Photos are taking a long time to send so I will try to send them later.

Mission Conference

This week was so good!!! We had a conference this week in the mission with President Walter Gonzalez, the area president, and it was so cool! Hahah my favorite part was he was talking about the apostoles like they were his homies. It was so cool! he is so lucky! He really helped us see the importance of the work we are doing and how important it is that we trust in the Lord and give everything we have to bring souls unto Christ. It was amazing :)

Miracle of the week: Working with members changes everything. This week was going by pretty well, but our investigators havent really been progressing towards baptism. Then we fasted this week for church and just asked the Lord to help us find someone that is ready. We went to Dantes house (our group leader) after church to drop something off and his sister in law was there, he invited us in and we just started to talk.Her name is Antonela, she has come to church a couple times, like when Dante and his wife got baptised, when he got the priesthood, etc. And we have asked if she wants to talk many times and she always said no. BUT yesterday everything changed! We started talking about the book of mormon and church and how it can help her know that this is true. And i just kept having a feeling to invite her to be baptized, but it was weird because she always denied us before, so i put it off, but the spirit kept prompting. So we did. And she said Yes!!!!!! It was such a miracle from the Lord, that he really answers our prayers :)

Everything great here, thanks for everything. I love you all! Have a great week!! 

love,

Elder Stuart  

ps. my new neice is better than yours ;) 

(hashtag(no hay on this keyboard....jaja)MIRACLES

This week was amazing!! First off we had zone conference on tuesday in a place called Rincon, it is about four hours away. Our leader of the group took us in his van.... it was four hours.. almost all dirt roads.. super bumpy, and no fourwheel drive... basically it was like a four hour ride on the ¨white rollercoaster¨.... hahah and then four hours coming back! So that was definitely an adventure! It was also early in the morning so say goodbye to trying to sleep on the way there or the way back!! jaja but it was so worth it because the conference was so good! We really focused on the importance of members and how we NEED to use them! We also talked about ¨getting our faces wet!¨Like my one letter about getting your feet wet, but going all out... lets just say pictures are coming of that... :) haha!

Miracle time, this week on monday night and was super late we had like 45 left until we returned and we were pretty far away, but we decided to go visit one last investigator that lived even further away. DOnt ask why, we are just crazy :) haha but really. We were being guided by the spirit. We went to Norma and we got there and they were getting ready to go to Neuquen. SHe is an investigator that was been with the missionaries for a while, but cant progress because has cancer and cant leave the house or get married because of it. They were going to nequeun to see the results of the last test, we decided to give her a blessing. The spirit was so strong and it was an amazing experience. Then we had to run home! haha but miracle isnt over... two days later we got a text and she said all the results came back super well and the cancer is basically gone!!!!!Such a miracle! She came to church this week with her daughter in law and they are now preparing to get married and get baptized. It was such a miracle!!! Fa i love this work!!!!! The Lord really is hastening his work :)

 

it was an amazing week. I love you all. I love this work so much. I hope you all had a good week and have an amazing week this week. Keep your eyes out for the Lords hand in your life, because it is ALWAYS there!! Love you all!!

 

Elder Stuart

 

ps. obama is coming to bariloche so that should be interesting!

Chos malal!!!!!

Bueno. This week on my way to chos malal i thought that my comp was already there, but he ended up getting on the bus (which was 12 hours....) about half way through and he thought i was there. Turns out we were thrown into a white wash and nobody told us! We got to our area about two in the morning and only had a few notes from the Hermanas (yes we kicked out some hermanas and stole their pension ;)haha) We then looked through some of the area book real fast, and went to sleep with those names in our head. 4 hours later... haha we got to get up and get going! The zone leaders called us and gave us a challenge to have 21 lessons this week.... that is very difficult, even when you have investigators to teach. And we didnt! They told us to just try and teach people on their door step or get in for a short lesson. So we took the challenge to the Lord and asked for help. We started going, and holy cow the lord really answers prayers. The people here are so happy and nice, that we were able to start teaching people in their doorstep a quick little lesson. We got to Sunday night and it was 8:30, we had 20 lessons and thrity minutes. We had spent the last two hours looking for someone to teach but everyone was just rejecting us. We decided to say a quick prayer. We started walking down the street, and we saw this lady we had contacted the first day here, she was sitting outside alone, and called us over. we sat down, and she started to tell us that two people she knows had died this week (was that right english? haha) and so we were able to have an amazing quick lesson with her about the plan of salvation. She was so happy and said it really helped her. I can testify that the Lord answers our prayers and after we have done all we can do, we pray and ask for help and guidance, he will lead and guide us to were we need to go and what we need to do. Through the grace of our Savior we can see miracles. 2 Nephi 25:23, we know that it is through Christ that we can be saved and see miracles after we have done all that we can do. I love this work and I love my Savior so much.

Some interesting facts now!

We are in a group here in Chos, we have about 20 members... max.. and meet in a little rented place they have. Our leader de group has been a member for 6 months! haha he is such a Capo! He was able to recieve the Melchezidek preiesthood yesterday as well so that was really cool! This area is amazing, and i love it, and there are actually mountains!!!

Love you all. thanks for your support, and have a great week!!!

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

Miracles

So this week was another amazing week! Also it felt like Christmas again because all of the christmas cards came this week! hahah it was funny, and it was awesome to recieve those from family and friends. Thank you all so much for taking the time to send me something in the mail, it means a lot. I will try to find time to write you all back!

This week was great! We didn´t have many investigators that we had solid to go and teach, and so we decided to do a lot of contacting this week. One day we were out contacting in the rain all day, we were soaked, it was getting late, we were tired, and we weren´t having succes. So we decided to say a pray and keep pressing forward. We knew that this was a trial of our faith and decided that we were going to work even harder because we knew that that was the only way to keep going. Still no success. It was the end of the day and we were walking back to the bus, when we walked past a house and decided to try one more. They ended up opening the door and we taught them real quick and ran for the bus. The next day they were waiting for us to come back, and we had a great lesson with them! It is the Saavedra family, and I feel like they are going to be great! It really is amazing how the Lord works. When we feel like we can´t do anymore, but press on, that is when the blessings come the most. I really felt my faith grow, and I know that when things get hard, if we just trust in the Lord we can see miracles.

I love this work and the many miracles that I get to see everyday. If we look we can find, and once we start to recognize they are there, we see even bigger miracles. I know my Savior lives and guides this church, because without Him I would not be able to do this work. But through His strength we can do all things so long as we keep the faith. 

I love you all and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

love,

Elder Stuart

New Years.... BAPTISM!!!

This week was so good!!! I can´t believe that it is 2016! I am so excited for this year, because it will be a whole year dedicated to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I hope you all have an amazing new year! Remember our Savior and it will be an amazing year!

This week we were able to see many miracles! First off... SAMANTHA GOT BAPTIZED!!!! It was so amazing to be able to be apart of this process and see the change that this gospel brought to her life, We were able to see the joy that she got from our Savior and His gospel. The spirit was so strong at the baptism and I couldn´t stop smiling because another one of the daughters of God has opened the door to recieve all the blessings that He has prepared for her! Also her mom and sister were able to come to the Baptism! Before they didn´t want anything to do with the church and didn´t really support samantha. Now they are fully supporting her, and they were both in tears after the baptism and want to start taking the lessons. It is amazing what the Lord is doing here in Argentina. He really is hastening His work and it is amazing to be apart of it and see so many miracles. 

We also saw another miracle (it was last week but oh well hahah) we were walking down the road contacting and walked past a man that was smoking and just walked past because he was smoking and didn´t want anything to do with the church right? WRONG! we both got the impression to turn around and talk to him, we did and when we walked up he just said thank you and threw his cigarrete on the ground and told us that this was the time he needs to start making a change. We have been teaching him, and he hasnt smoked since and has a date to be baptized later down the road. His name is Vallejo and he is amazing! It really showed me that every single one of God´s children is special and deserves to hear this gospel, it doesn´t matter what they were like, they can always change!

So many Miracles :) I love this work. Thank you all for all your support, I love you all. Have a great week!!

Elder Stuart

First Week in The Field!!

Hola familia y amigos!

Hi mom:)

Well it is my p-day today, time goes so fast out here!! I got to Houston safe and it has been an amazing experience so far! I can't wait for all the adventures that are to come! My mission president here is President Mortensen and he is amazing!! He grew up in Bountiful so that is pretty crazy! He really is an amazing president, and this mission is going so well because of Him and his leadership. I met my trainer on Thursday, Elder Jorquera!! He is an amazing trainer and I know that he is definitely one of the reasons that I was sent here to Houston. I have already learned so much from Him. He is so smart and knows a lot about the gospel, and teaching and I really am going to learn a lot. He is originally from Chile but now is from Colorado Springs. So it is awesome because I have a native companion and I feel like my Spanish is going to grow a lot because of it!!

After i got my trainer we got our area's, mine is Katy, Texas!! However, our apartment wasn't ready yet so we had to go room with two other elders. We spent two days there waiting for our apartment, staying in their little apartment and sleeping on the floor. hahah! I was a little upset because I wanted to get to my area. But it turned out to be a miracle! So many great experience happened while we were staying with those Elders. One was, the first day me and Elder Jorquera didn't have much to do because it wasn't our area, so we just went knocking. And the first door I knocked on in Spanish, they let us in and we taught them and set up an appointment for two days from then to teach them more! Elder Jorquera said that never happens to Greenies!!! I was so pumped and we continued to have success that day and so many miracles happened. We had to turn over our little Cuban family to the Elders in the area when we left, so that kinda sucked. But it was still awesome!

On Saturday afternoon we finally got to move into our apartment. It is so nice! However, we have no furniture so we are still studying, eating, and sleeping on the floor! Preparing me for Argentina!! haha so lets just say i haven't slept in a bed for about a week. But the floor is way comfy! I feel like patcha... :) We got all settled in and planned the rest of the day. Then we had church the next day, and it was my first day all in spanish! It was so cool, even though i didn't understand it all i still felt the spirit like crazy. I love the ward here. They are all so nice and ready to help the missionaries. As members that is our job, to help the missionaries, whether it is going out teaching with them or feeding them, that is how we do our missionary work, and they are really good at it!

It has been an amazing week, and I can't wait to learn more about this work and this area. Keep up the good work back home, and find ways to help the missionaries and be a missionary! There is nothing like the joy you get from it! Love you all!!

-Elder Ryan Stuart

Oh!! Dad is going to love this so add it to the email!

We went and ate with members, the Rocha family, on Sunday and they made us fish! and I actually really liked it... So we will see if I like fish now! haha! 

I love and miss you all so much. Got to go now. Talk to you next week :)