Special Experiences!

Buen dia familia!

This week was great!! we headed down to the south to help a matrimony (senior couple) move from Junin to Villa la Angostura! so that was fun, and while we were down there we took advantage of doing exchanges with the elders that are there in Junin and we had an amazing experience!! We went to go visit one of their investigators, Veronica, who is the wife of a less active member. She had assited the church the past few weeks and was thinking about getting  baptized but she still wasnt sure so we went in and we had a wonderful lesson with her! in the middle of the lesson we decided to have her pray right there to ask God if she needed to be baptized this saturday, she said she was scared to do it, so we had her husband pray first and right after she said she would do it. In the middle of her prayer she just went silent and you could hear her crying a little, she finished her prayer and said that she had never felt something like that, she explained that it was like someone there hugging her. We explained that that was the spirit, and she recieved her answer and was eventually baptized this past saturday by her husband Sergio who is reactivating :) It was such a special experience that we are so lucky that we were a part of! Things are going great! I love you all, have a great week!

Elder Stuart!

ps. my next pday will be saturday because of transfers!

Following the Spirit

Buen dia familia!

So this next week is transfers so monday we will be sending off misionaries and getting new ones so our P-day is today! haha its kinda weird having it on a friday, but its still good!

We had a pretty cool experience this week, President has a new focus that we just need to talk with everyone, as long as the spirit guides us to them. And me and Elder Clemens decided to do just that. We went out and started heading to an appointment that we had, and on the way we just talked to those that we felt impressed to talk with. We ended up finding 4 new families/investigators that we are going to start teaching! So that was pretty cool to see that following the guidance of our President we were able to find new people! I hope we can go find them again and help them learn more about the gospel! 

That is all for this week! Love you all! Have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Stuart

Rely on the Spirit

[Ryan is hoping to send pictures later when they can get to the chapel. He says it is safer there, that maybe he won't get another virus!]

This week went really well! This week i learned a lot about relying on the spirit and how important it is for us. We had a lot of experiences with that this week, but the one that i liked the most happened last night. We were walking to the house of a family and we got a thought to go and visit another family instead. we didnt know why but we followed the spirit. We got there and the hermana answered the door and was so relieved to see us, she said that her husband and been really sick all day and was in a lot of pain and she didnt know what to do, so she said a prayer and we showed up. We were able to give him a blessing and he started to feel a lot better. It was such a good experience and taught me the importance of following the spirit :) Some times we need to remove the distractions in our lives to be able to hear the still small voice, i hope we all can try and apply that so that we can be in the right place at the right time when others are in need. Sorry this is short, i love you all! have a great week!

Love,

Elder Stuart

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 ;) 

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

MTC Life

Hello everyone! I love P-days because i get to start my day off by going to the temple and there is nothing like the spirit you are able to feel there, if you go in with a question I can testify that you will get more out of the experience and be able to focus and pay attention better! Pay attention to every word because every word is said for a reason and it is amazing to see what you get out of all of it!

So something crazy happened! We knew our investigators are usually members, but Jared, was actually our teacher! we walked into class on friday and he was just sitting there with his little teacher badge, and started teaching us. It was so weird trying to get somebody to gain a testimony about the gospel, and then having them teach you and he has such a strong testimony so that is amazing! He also was taught by us so he knows what we need to do to improve so that has really helped! We still teach him though and he committed to Baptism!! even though he isn't a real investigator it was such a cool feeling!!

We also did this thing called Member TRC this week, where we went into this room with a member and we just taught them more about the gospel. Our guy was amazing this week! He had such a strong testimony and I learned so much from him. We taught him more about Faith and what we can do to show our faith and increase our faith. He committed to try and attend the temple more often so that was really cool!!!

So yesterday was Christmasversary!!! (or the 25th of the month) Because we don't get to celebrate many holidays while in the mtc we made this one up and a bunch of guys from our zone brought random white elephant gifts from things we found around the mtc, put it under this tree and sang Christmas songs. It was so much fun!! Our zone is always so much fun to be around and we have a great time together. 

This week i have learned a lot about the atonement, and what it can do for us, not only take away the burden of sin, but it can comfort us whenever we are in need of his comfort. I know that where ever we are in life we need to just keep making corrections and make our way back to the Savior through faith and love. It has been such a good week and i love hearing from all of you, sorry if i don't get to writing you, we dont have much time to write. Love you all so much!!

Con Amor

Elder Stuart

ps. the scripture section this week is Alma 26, we should all strive to have faith like Ammon does and a knowledge of God.

MTC

Hola Familia!! It is the second day here in the MTC and they have given us ten minutes to hurry and write home to let you know how we are doing. Things here are GREAT!!! I love the spirit that I feel when I am here, and the biggest thing that I have learned in these two days is that prayer is key to having the spirit with you. I have never prayed so much in my entire life, and I have already noticed the difference that it has made in my life. I challenge all of you to increase your amount of daily prayers, and family prayers. If you pray once a day, up it to two times. If you pray five times a day, up it to six. I promise you that as you do this you will have the spirit stronger in your life, and that it will bless you in more ways that you know, so that is my challenge for this week. 

My companion is Elder Lloyd and I really like him! We get along great and I can tell that he has a great spirit about him. We also are rooming with Elder Fielding and Elder Buzan, and we get along great with them as well! The first day was crazy with so many emotions, but as soon as the tears and homesickness went away I was able to feel the spirit so strongly that it really helped comfort me. We got all my stuff, dropped it by my room, and then headed straight to class... where they did not speak one word of english!!! It was intense but i feel like i actually understood quite a bit! We then went to a devotional and we opened by singing called to serve. And the spirit that you can feel when we sing that song is incredible and unlike anything else. We then were able to role play with three different investigators as the "Orange Dots", or new kids, and that was a really cool learning experience! Then we went back and unpacked and got ready for bed. It was an incredible day and I love the spirit I am feeling here. 

I have seen so many familiar faces here that it has really helped to know that my friends are out serving the Lord just like I am! I was able to see Sister Alapa and catch up and get a few tips on the MTC before I had to rush to class so that was really cool! All the familiar faces have really helped.

I miss you guys so much but i know that this is were my Savior needs me at this time and i Can't wait to be able to get to Argentina and be able to serve the people there and bring this light unto them. I love you all so much and thank you for all of your examples that you set for me! Remember that Christ lives and that He loves us, and that through Him and His Atonement anything is possible. Keep praying, and know that all of you are in my prayers. I love you all.

Love,  (Finally)Elder Stuart :)