October 7 - 14

October 7, 2013

Well, wow! Another super fast week, but a really good one, with lots of miracles.

Wasn`t General Conference great? One of the best I can remember. I absolutely loved the 3 Saturday sessions. Priesthood session was fantastic. I am really looking forward to listening to/reading those talks again. I`m afraid I didn`t get as much out of Sunday session. Priesthood Session in Argentina finishes at 11:00 at night... and so we got home at about midnight. But, we still woke up the next day at 6:20, like normal. And so, I was a little sleepy for the Sunday sessions. I was awake, but my mind wasn`t alert enough to really get much out of the talks. (I basically thought, `yes, that`s a good thought` about everything, but couldn`t really connect it all together.) Still... great Conference! I noticed a lot of repeated themes... and a big emphasis on sharing the Gospel! But sharing the Gospel naturally and confidently, rather than uncomfortably.

As missionaries, we were only `entitled` to watch the Priesthood session and the Saturday morning session. If we wanted to watch any other session, we had to either have an investigator with us for the session, or to have completed our weekly goals. (In other words, 7 days` work in 5 days.)

Of course, we planned hard and worked hard all week long to be able to finish by Conference time. And, we saw many miracles. We found great people to teach. Members came and accompanied us to our lessons. We saw great progress in the investigators. Saturday morning came and we still had some left to do, but we were miraculously able to accomplish everything that we needed to do and travel to Castelar for the conference, in time for the 3rd talk. 

The English Conference-watchers

English Conference-watchers, front view!

We had arranged that a member friend of M would go and pick her up for the conference. In the middle of that first session, M called us. She said, `the hermana never came for me! How do I get to Castelar?` And, demonstrating a go-getter attitude that few investigators have, she made her way, alone, to the Conference, going by train... which is a horrible way for an elderly lady to travel! She loved the conference! 

And in-between sessions, her member friend, Hermana Moreno, read to her from the Book of Mormon. (M can`t read.) That was probably one of the best things I`ve ever seen! M is progressing like crazy... she loves feeling the Spirit. 

Last Monday, when we taught her, we asked her if she had any questions about the church. She said, `Yes... do members of the church have to pay tithing?` So, although we hadn`t planned to, we taught the Law of Tithing. And she said that after she is baptized, she also will give her tithing and fast offerings. What a great lady! She says she is determined to be baptized.

So, that`s how things are going. We were disappointed this week by several investigators who were planning on going to Conference but somehow never arrived. But the sadness we feel for all of the investigators that aren`t progressing, is lost in how happy we are for M. That`s the work! `The bad experiences may outnumber the good, but the good experiences will far and FOREVER outweigh the bad.`

I love you all so much. Have a great week!
Elder Stockton

Tracting in the rich area...

October 14, 2013

Hello, dear family!

It`s been one of those super fantastic weeks.
Well, actually, it was just a good week until Sunday, when it turned into a super fantastic week.

And the reason for that was that each of our 5 best investigators came to church - 3 of them for the first time.
Getting investigators to church is one of the hardest things in missionary work, and it`s one of the most disappointing feelings ever when they end up not coming. 

This Sunday morning, as is our custom, we set out to pick up a few investigators who had committed to come. The first one fell through - she either wasn`t home or wasn`t interested in coming. Bummer! We walked to the home of the second investigator - K, and knocked the door. There was silence for a few minutes, then the door opened and she said, `Elder, I hope you won`t be mad at me, but...` and we thought, Noooooo! But then she said, `... we`re still getting ready.` What!? (You`re getting ready!?) Hurray!
While we were waiting for K and her kids, we called JM and G, who had committed to come for the past few weeks but hadn`t come. JM answered (first good sign) and then said that they were getting ready to head to church. I was so happy I felt like crying. 

We walked K and her 2 super-rambunctious kids to church, got the kids situated in Primary, and took K to Relief Society, where the sisters took charge of her. JM and G arrived (1st time) towards the end of Elders` Quorum, delighting my soul. And of course, M came, 3rd time in church... and J and G. 

Our Gospel Principles class was full to the brim, and fantastic! 

I loved seeing our investigators in church. Because, attending church is such an important step in spiritual progression. Preach My Gospel (first page) says something like, `More happiness awaits you than you have yet experienced as you labor among the Lord`s children.` This is when I feel the happiness - when I see the progress of the investigators.

Other news:

I went on divisions with Elder Lee (ha, ha, this one is a redhead) in Ituzaingo I - an area that is not too far away, but is very different from Ituzaingo 2. We are lunch with a sister who cooked a soup with a meat called osobuco. (Not sure what part of the cow that is.) I liked it, so I made the same thing on Thursday... a stew with meat, potatoes, onion, and osobuco. I`m expanding my repertoire!

Tasty osobuco soup. I`m being adventurous and cooking with meat!

We did some service for a family on Saturday and dug a big pit... almost a meter deep! It was fun. Digging was different here than at home - at home the dirt is pretty dry, and here it`s super wet! The muddy soil kept on sticking to the shovel... and my pants, and shoes. It was a fun project.

Working pants.

In my last interview with President Carter, he challenged me to be bolder with the investigators. We are starting to see the results of our boldness. 2 of the investigators that came to church (JM and G) were investigators that we `pushed` to either commit whole-heartedly or we would drop them. And, they raised their faith and their commitment and came by themselves to church, when the last few weeks they didn`t. And they loved it!

We are also gaining a strong testimony of involving members in the teaching. Everyone is progressing so much more now that we are bringing the members (and LOTS of different members) to the appointments. And the members are becoming eager to accompany us and are more aware of the investigators on Sunday. A fire for the work is starting in the ward. May it turn out to be like the fire that President Monson started as a boy, and like the fire mentioned in this past General Conference!

Let me tell you, M is progressing a ful! She is thoroughly decided that she`s getting baptized. This week we taught her the 10 commandments. We prepared well for the lesson because we knew she might have a problem with commandments 1 and 2. (She used to be a `Missionary of the Virgin Mary` for the Catholic church. Catholic people here have a deep love for the Virgin Mary, considering her to be their mother and the source of many of their blessings.) So, we studied and prayed that M would be receptive to our teaching her that she shouldn`t pray to the Virgin Mary. She was. Although it probably wasn`t easy for her to take, the Spirit was present in the lesson and she accepted what we taught her.

I already mentioned JM and G... they had been kind-of progressing for the last few weeks. They weren`t sure whether they wanted to get married, and they didn`t show up for General Conference as they had promised to. The change in their attitude came as we taught them the 10 Commandments - including the importance of observing the Sabbath day. As we taught, JM`s face changed... he looked somewhat awestruck. We asked him what was up, and he said... `But... it`s not just that you guys want me to go to church... it`s there in the Bible!` He repeated the same thing once or twice more during the lesson. He realized that what we were asking them to do wasn`t simply what we wanted. And that the commandments aren`t `extra` rules, to keep if they`re convenient. He realized that they were commandments from God. We could almost see him raising his faith... and they came to church!

This week we met an old investigator named K. We found her during a cloudy, drizzly day, and she let us have a lesson with her. She investigated the church a year ago and really wanted to get baptized, but didn`t want to stop smoking. She went to church many times and loved it... but when her life got busy with other activities, she put church attendance to one side. Now, she recognized that she needs that spiritual strength in her life, and she committed to start again. She feels like `this is her time`. And, from the beginning, she`s been keeping her commitments. She read the passages we left her in the scriptures, started praying, and, as I already mentioned, came to church on Sunday with her 2 young kids. I love it!

That`s all I`ve got for today. I love you all so much. I love reading your letters. Have a great week! We are all so blessed.
Elder Stockton

The district!

Here`s one with me in it, for Mom!

September highlights - 2013

September 2, 2013 - Week 6 in Ituzaingo

Wow. Hello! It was great to read all of your emails today. Sounds like you`re all up to some pretty fun things, and enjoying life. We sure are blessed.

I`m afraid I`ve cut myself a little short on writing time today, because we had a district activity which ended up starting a lot later than planned, and finishing a little late as well. I`ll try to be concise. :-)

If you had asked me about my week on Saturday, I would have told you it was a really hard week. After Sunday, I would still tell you that it was a really hard week, but also a very rewarding one. It seems like often after `wading through much affliction` the blessings come and make it all worth it. So, here are some of the points of interest from this week!

I got sick on Wednesday. Not sure how, exactly, but a few hours after lunch I got an upset stomach... we kept working, and a few hours later I wasn`t feeling well so we went to the chapel to drink some water and lie down a bit. Then we went to work again and- I started womitin`. (...Womitin`? Yes, womitin` bad, sor.`) So we went back to the pench - the day was almost over anyway. I had a bad night that night & couldn`t sleep, but fortunately the next day was weekly planning in the pench. I slept through that and then we went out to work... still exhausted because I hadn`t been able to keep water down even. And so, that was Wednesday and Thursday. Friday I felt better again, and we went back to work like normal. Others in our zone also got sick... it could be because of the weird shift to hot weather that we suddenly had.

We had some sad lessons. Two investigators who have been going to church steadily for more than a year, told us they felt like church had become routine and that they weren`t as interested now as they were when they started investigating, and that they weren`t going to investigate anymore. Sad. I hate the feeling of loving someone, wanting so much to help them and knowing that the Gospel is what they need, and watching them choose not to give it a chance. You feel helpless. (Why can`t you see!?... this is what you need!) I guess maybe Heavenly Father feels that way about us sometimes, when we choose to live below our possibilities.

C didn`t get baptized... The change of ward was hard for her, and she wants to go back to Padua where she met the missionaries. We`re awaiting word from President Carter to know whether she`ll get baptized here in Ituzaingo II or in Padua

We went to J and G's house for an appointment on Friday. G came out and told us that 2 days ago (the very night we had had an excellent, spiritually powerful lesson with them) she and J fought and that J, angry, had left the house and hadn`t come back. 

We were worried - very worried for them. We prayed a lot. 

What a relief and joy for us when both of them appeared in the doorway of the Gospel Principles class on Sunday! J came back, they made up, and they woke up on Sunday and came to church on their own accord. How great. They are progressing a lot. G has made a lot of progress in breaking her smoking addiction.

On Sunday we were guided to find someone who really needs the Gospel.
We went to visit an unknown name on the church lists - it turned out she was an old lady who had gone to the church one time, been baptized, and never went again - basically a non-member. She was about to start a big job of reorganizing a stack of chairs and boxes and junk, and we didn`t want her to have to do that alone so we offered to help her. Together we did the job in 10 minutes - then we asked if we could share a message with her. We also invited her neighbor, and her 2 grandchildren (grown) to accompany us, which they did. 

We started to share a message, and the granddaughter interrupted us, asking us why, if God is just and loving and loves little children, he lets innocent children suffer and die? Well, we changed the theme of our message and answered her question - explaining to her about God`s plan and how it involves more than just this life. You could see what we were sharing really meant something to her. She asked how we knew what we taught was true. And we testified to her, and invited her to ask God for herself. She accepted a Book of Mormon and to have the missionaries visit her in the place where she lives.

And, there were a lot more experiences that happened this week, but the main gist is this:
God has blessed us immensely, and I love His work. The Gospel changes lives.

I love you all so much, and I hope you have a very good week.
Elder Stockton

September 9, 2013 - Week 12 in Ituzaingo 

(don't know how we jumped from week 6 to 12?)

Wow, we`ve come to the end of another transfer here. Pretty crazy! I saw the pictures in the Sol (the mission`s weekly message/announcement magazine) of all of the missionaries going home. Included in the mix is my friend and old companion Elder Lee! Wow, pretty crazy! I`ve got 3 months left.

This week was a good week. No sicknesses, at least! Actually, physically I feel great. My companion bought a jump rope and so I`ve been mixing that in with my morning exercises.

One morning we got a phone call from an unknown number. A sister from the BuenosAires South mission called us to ask us if we could go by her very sick friend and give her a blessing. Just that day we were scheduled to have a meeting with our ward mission leader, so after the meeting all 3 of us went over to meet S and give the blessing. She was sick, and depressed and worried about the future, and the message we shared and the blessing helped cheer her up some.

In church on Sunday, the ward mission leader mentioned the experience and talked about the blessing it was to be able to help. Really, the mission is full of those moments, and I guess sometimes I take them for granted... but it`s nice to be able to help people who really need help.

J and G are a ful! (That`s Argentine slang for... well, a lot of things. I guess in this case it means, `moving forward at full speed`!) (Just so you know I`m not saying they`re awful.) 

Last week after church, they went home and opened up the fridge only to have smoke pour out of it - and then it quit working. We visited them that same day and they were bummed, because they didn`t have the money to fix their refrigerator. They`re working their way out of some debts and trying to stay afloat with J`s job as a carpenter, but things were tight. We happened to remember that our ward mission leader works as a refrigerator repairman... so we called him up and he talked to J for a bit. The next day Hno Abiuso (the mission leader) came and fixed their fridge, charging them only for the replacement part... and their load was lightened. They made friends (Hno Abiuso makes friends with everybody) also had a good chat about the Gospel. 

They`re doing really well. I love to see their progress. They made the decision to keep the Sabbath Day Holy this Sunday and delay a job they were going to do, even though it didn`t seem like the most convenient thing for them. They`re showing their faith by keeping the commandments, and marvelous changes are happening in them. Everyone sees the difference in them, and comments on it - their family, the ward members, and they themselves see it. They`re happier and they`re more at peace in their lives.

And, that`s the main news.

Other news is that we had a huge storm that lasted all of one night and then almost the whole day. The morning after it started raining, I woke up and did my exercises as usual. Then, as I was heading to shower, I noticed that there was water on the floor. I looked better and saw that the water was coming in through the bottom of the door... The drain outside had clogged, and the patio was flooded, and just when I was walking by it started to overflow and enter the pench. 

So I ran out, unclogged the drain (the rain was cold!) and the water level dropped again. Nothing in the pench was damaged, thank goodness, except a few pamphlets. But, it gave us a fun way to start the morning.

That`s all for this week! Love you so much. Hope your week is great!
Elder Stockton

Sept 15,2013

An excerpt from Ken's letter to Elder Stockton ...

Dear Andrew,

We went to a missionary home-coming talk this afternoon, and quite enjoyed it. In fact, we were so impressed we even posed with the speaker for pictures afterward.His mission seemed to have been very similar to parts of yours—even down to the names of investigators! Perhaps it’s some kind of parallel universe? In the attached photo, the bearded lad was, for once, flat-footed, so I expect the rest of us must be shrinking. Or, perish the thought, he may still be growing.

Elder Lee was Andrew's companion for a couple of transfers (I think). He is also from Tucson, and graciously called us and invited us to his homecoming talk. He spoke of experiences and people we felt we knew! Seeing him was almost as good as seeing Andrew! It was wonderful!

September 16, 2013

Well hello! Wow... so Elder Lee`s back home. I remember being with him one P-day and him saying, `I only have 3 months left! That`s nothing!` And, now he`s home. And now, I... well. I only have 3 months left.
How cool that you got to go to his homecoming! I loved serving with Elder Lee. He`s a really smart guy. Somehow, I forgot to get his contact information. Wait, no, maybe I do have it. Anyway, we`ll all find each other on Facebook after the mission, I`m sure.

It`s been a really, really good week this week. Maybe one of the best weeks of my mission. Not because of any one specific thing that happened, but because things are going well. We`re working hard, and enjoying the work, and being blessed.

As you saw from the transfer video, Elder Monterroso and I are good for another 6 weeks! (And it`s very possible that I`ll finish the mission here in Ituzaingo 2! I wouldn`t complain!)

We had some really good experiences this week.

Recently, we`ve been studying/practicing teaching the Commandments in order to teach more powerfully. It`s helping us. One day, we thoroughly studied and practiced the commandment to `Study the Scriptures`. That same morning, we went to a second lesson with an investigator (E) and found out she had not read the assigned section in the Book of Mormon. We looked at each other and began teaching ´Study the Scriptures´, the same as we had done in the practice. Then we read the assignment together to show her how scripture study should go. It was fantastic! We felt the spirit. She understood the importance of studying the scriptures, and more important, she gained a DESIRE to study the scriptures on her own. (And, she did!)

The next time we visited her, she told us that she had attempted to pray, and that when she prayed she felt something `different, but agreeable`. She hadn`t read in the Book of Mormon, but we had that lesson and she promised to start.

The next day was Sunday. It wasn`t very likely that she would go to church, since it was Stake Conference (in a place she didn`t know) and her mom had another commitment and wouldn`t be going. But we called her on Saturday night anyway to invite her. The call cut before we could finish talking, and the call wouldn`t go through, so we thought, `Well, there`s nothing else we can do!` But then a few minutes later, we got text from her that said something like, `Don`t worry hermano, I already asked my mom and she told me how to get to church.` Sounded promising, but many an investigator with good intentions has ended up not going in the end, for whatever reason.

The next day we went to pick up J for the conference (G couldn`t come). A few stops after we got onto the bus, we were pleasantly surprised to see E get on the bus and request the stop that would take her to Stake Conference. We all went to the conference together, and she liked it!

But she impressed us with her willingness to act. Like I said, the grand majority of investigators have good intentions, but don`t have the will to follow through. But she was willing to get up and go (by herself) to a church she had never been to, in the rain, in order to find out whether it was true. Fantastic!

We had an interesting experience on Sunday. We contacted a couple of guys on a street corner who were just about to start hanging out & drinking wine... (a fairly typical weekend activity, esp. in rainy weather) they let us go to their house and teach them about the Gospel. We invited them to change their lives and seek the riches of eternity, and while I won`t say they have the `E` level of commitment, they listened attentively and at least considered what we were teaching them. After the lesson, one of our new friends asked us if we like avocados. (Fairly expensive here.) He went inside, came back and handed each of us 2 giant avocados from his tree. That`s very typical of the Argentines. They always give you food or do you a service, even if they`re not interested in what you have to say. So, we`re going to wait until the avocados mature a little and then have a district guacamole party!

I broke down and bought a camera this morning, for a little more than I had wanted to - $1400. (Pesos.) (Should be a little less than $300 USD.) But at least now I have something to take pictures with! And it`s not a bad camera, I think.

It`s been raining/drizzling since Thursday. Wet weather. It`s nice, I love the rain. But I don`t like being damp all the time... we`ll hope it clears up soon.

Really, that`s all I`ve got for this week. It`s been a good one, and I trust that this transfer will see many of God`s children progress and (hopefully) be baptized. I love you all so much, and I always love to read your letters. Take care.
Elder Stockton

September 23, 2013

Well, hi! Yet another week has come and gone.

We had another really good week this week. But I`ll be somewhat brief today.

The best event this week was a ward Family Home Evening activity in the church. It had been a long time since the ward had had an activity, and we thought it would be a way to increase unity in the ward, and a good opportunity for our investigators to get to know the church and the members in an informal setting. Our ward mission leader organized it, and it turned out to be a great success. 4 investigator families came and lots of families from the church! The members did a great job fellowshipping the investigators. All of the investigators loved it and expressed desires to go to church on Sunday. 

We started with a spiritual thought given by one of the members. Then the youth presented a play they had prepared for a previous stake event, where they represented a Portuguese legend. Just before the activity started, they informed my companion and I that there were short a few actors, and asked us if if we could please fill in. My part wasn`t very difficult - all I had to do was look at some street vendors` merchandise until an assassin came and killed me. After that we were free to watch the rest of the play. It was good! They worked a lot on it and it turned out well. 

Then we had a game... with the missionaries in charge! We played a species of musical chairs, in which the losers, upon being left without a chair, could choose between either telling a joke or dancing `la gallinita` (the Guatemalan version of the Chicken Dance, demonstrate by Elder Monterroso). It was a big hit! (And everyone liked watching the Bishop do La Gallinita!)

And after that, we had a potluck and everyone shared the food they brought, and that`s when the real fellowshipping happened. I love the ward here. There are some really great hermanos. And I love big events like this! There was a good feeling of real friendship and fun there.

J and G are good - we taught them the law of tithing this week and they faithfully committed to pay their tithes and offerings. They`re great! But after the Family Home Evening activity, they both got really sick and couldn`t come to church on Sunday. We gave G a blessing, and hopefully they`re feeling a little better today. It`s no fun to be sick!

We have been praying to really find the people who need the Gospel. On Sunday our focus was looking for them, and so we knocked doors all day and went to the houses where people had already expressed some interest in our passing by... but we didn`t find anyone! Until the very end of the day, when we only had an hour left. We knocked a door and met a man named J, who a few years back had left his evangelical church and now was perishing spiritually. He was busy working on his car, but we told him that if he gave us 15 minutes of his time, our message could change his life. He gave us 15 minutes, and we invited him to come unto Christ again. He is humble, and recognizes his need for God`s help, and (we hope) is willing to act. All important qualities for a good investigator. We were glad to find him. 

That`s all for today... I love you all so much! Have a great week.
Elder Stockton

J & G & familia

Us with our ward mission leader Hermano Abiuzo

the Family Home Evening play

Potluck

September 30, 2013

Hello, family! Have I told you that there`s a zone in the mission called Catàn? So, when I hear you`re playing Settlers of Catan (which they say is a very fun game - I`ll have to give it a try) I think of Catàn the zone - known for being poor, fairly dangerous, and high in baptisms. We can play Missionaries of Catan here.

We had a great week this week! Though how it passed so quickly, I don`t have any idea. One minute we were finishing our P-day, the next we were doing our Thursday weekly planning, and suddenly it was Sunday again. Cripes!

Well, let`s see... what happened this week? Lots of good stuff! I`ll start with the best!

We have a great (new, still) investigator named M. She´s a nice little old Catholic lady. She was a Catholic missionary, but eventually she stopped going to the Catholic church. We found her as we were knocking doors one rainy day after an appointment had fallen through. She expressed interest in our coming to teach her, so we set up an appointment and taught her. 

She liked the message we shared, but felt hesitant to set a goal of baptism. But, she said she would like to go to church. 

For the next appointment, we brought a member couple with us - really great folks. And it turned out they made all the difference in the lesson. The first thing M said to us when we asked her how she had been since the last appointment, was, `I`ve been thinking a lot about it... I don`t want to change churches.` If we had been by ourselves, it`s unlikely we could have convinced her to keep investigating. But our friends, who had been Catholic before being members of the Church, could tell her about how they had come to know the truth and how they made the decision to join the Church. Their experience, and their assurances that she could know the truth by asking God, assuaged her fears and doubts better than we would have been able to.
After that lesson, M was a lot happier about investigating the church, and was really hungry to experience more of the Church. Sunday morning, she woke up at 5:00 in the morning, excited that she would be going to church that day, and when the member family called to tell her they were coming to pick her up, she was already ready to go. 

She loved church! She said to the member couple when she entered, `There`s such a peace here!` Sometimes we missionaries worry about the classes that are taught in church - whether the investigators will be interested in the topic and whether they`ll get what they need from it. But if they are there with the right spirit, they always like it. And she did. We talked to her after the meetings and she told us she had loved all of it. She said that she feels like God is telling her this is the correct place to be. So, we`re happy for M. She`s cool.

JM and G are loving the lessons, as well. I`m not sure whether I already told you about them. This week, we had a great lesson with them, similar to a lesson with M and K (investigators from when Andrew was companions with Elder Lee). It was about eternal families, and they started to get a glimpse of what it means to have your family forever. They really want that. 

In the same lesson, JM commented to us that ours was the only religious preaching that had ever `reached` him. He told us how recently he had started feeling an emptiness in his life, and that he didn`t know what it was or how to fill it, but that the first time we talked he felt like we had what he needed. They`re reading in the Book of Mormon, and praying, and loving it. We were disappointed that they didn`t show up to church this week. Probably the torrential rain was what discouraged them.

We were only able to have one lesson with J and G this week... they`re still sick! G is better, but now J had taken a turn for the worse. We`ll hope they get better soon.

Sadly, (the guy who was working on his car, who we met last Sunday night) called us the day of our appointment and told us that he wasn`t going to be there, and that we didn`t need to pass by anymore, but that he would come to church one day to return our pamphlet. Sad, but sometimes it`s like that.

It rained super hard on Saturday, and I got a bit of the flu. Had the runny nose all Sunday - not so fun. But despite that, we had a lot of success on Sunday. Guided by the Spirit, we were able to find new people to teach who need the Gospel, and we were able to complete with many of our goals. That was nice. We are blessed.

It`s an exciting time in the mission right now. This month we had 153 baptisms - finally meeting the goal of 150 baptisms that the mission set almost 2 years ago. I`m sure there will probably be a mention of it on the mission blog. But, that in itself isn`t the reason it`s a great time in the mission. The real reason is that so much of the mission is doing so well - progressing, and helping investigators progress. We`re a giant team. It`s awesome.

I love you all so much! Have a great week this week. Thanks for your letters and your love!
Elder Stockton

Finishing up August 2013

August 26, 2013

It´s Monday again. Wow. I cannot, cannot believe it! This week was the fastest week of my mission. And, it was a very good week. In fact, it was one of the best I can remember!

Sounds like things are going well at home as well! ...

Well, I´ll tell you a little about my week.

It was different from a normal week because my companion led the area. We thought it would be a good idea, given the need in the mission for leaders, for my companion to practice taking the lead now when there´s someone to fall back on and ask questions to if needed. So, Elder Monterroso took the lead in planning, guiding us around the city, and some of the teaching. And, he did a stellar job. He´s going to be a force for good in the mission.

We had two very good lessons with J and G, who keep on progressing. They´re keeping commitments (reading, praying, going to church) and seeing big changes in their lives. They´re more unified, they´re not as stressed and tense during the week, and they handle the problems that arise in a better way than before. This week we taught them the Law of Chastity and the message of the Restoration. Both were powerful lessons where the Spirit was present (which makes all the difference). They committed to search for a testimony of the Book of Mormon... and they´re going to get married! G is waiting for some ID papers to arrive (they should come this week), and then they can to choose a date to get married.

The interesting thing about J and G is that they had been taught by the Elders before. The last update on their status, written a few years ago, read something like ´Waiting for ID, aren´t keeping commitments, not much progress.´ And now, they have a true desire to repent and follow Christ. G wants to be baptized and J wants to return to activity so he can baptize her. I guess it´s true: everyone has their time, when they´re ready for the Gospel. Before, they weren´t ready - but now they are! And that gives me hope that some of the good investigators who I have taught in the past who weren´t ready yet... will be ready when the Elders come knocking sometime in the future.

I wish I could know what will happen in the future with each of the people that I talk to and teach... But it seems like most of the time, we only get to know a small part of the stories of the people whose lives we affect.

And on a similar note, we got a surprising phone call from the assistants this week informing us that we had a new investigator who was scheduled to be baptized next Saturday in our area. Some sister missionaries in the next zone had mistakenly been teaching an investigator who lives a block into our area. This investigator, named C, progressed rapidly and was all set to be baptized - but the sisters realized that she did not live within their area. She would have to be baptized and attend church in Ituzaingo 2.

So we got the phone call, and a few days later we went with our ward mission leader to an appointment to meet C - the sisters introduced us to her, we all talked for a little bit, and then the sisters left. We got to know C and told her how to get to church the next day (fortunately there´s a bus close by which will drop her off right in front of the church), and shared a message.

She´s really well prepared. The sisters found her in the very moment when she needed help in her life, and she´s found the spiritual help she needs in the Gospel. Now her great desire is to be baptized and have a new beginning. She will be baptized this Saturday.

But she scared us! The next day, we waited and waited for her to come to church, and she didn´t come! If she didn´t arrive to church, we would have to postpone the baptism, and we didn´t want to do that because 1) the sister missionaries would kill us and 2) we didn´t want to make C wait another week when she wanted so badly to be baptized. (The 5 minutes before Sacrament meeting starts are the worst 5 minutes of the entire week. It´s awful waiting for investigators who promised they would come to arrive, trying to have faith that they will come but wondering if, once again, you´ll be disappointed.) But in the end, she arrived right before the opening prayer, and all was well.

Relating this to my earlier point... Sometimes as missionaries we plant, sometimes we nourish, sometimes we harvest, sometimes we help retain and strengthen in the Gospel. I´m learning that it´s all the same; none of those things is better than the others. We just enjoy the privilege of being a part of someone´s conversion, whichever part it may be.

I do feel a little bad for the sisters, knowing how it feels to send a good investigator into the care of other missionaries. But they´ll be coming to the baptism, so it´s okay.

Other good experiences this week:

On Sunday we decided to go knocking doors on the very, very edge of our area, somewhere we had never gone before. We found lots of people who weren´t interested... and one who is. We gave a Book of Mormon to a girl named A who has investigated several different churches and hasn´t found what she´s looking for. Hopefully we´ll be able to pass by during the week and help her satisfy her spiritual thirst!

We´re progressing toward meeting our goals! Better this week than last week, better last week than the week before. And coming up: we´re going to have the best week yet.

That´s all I´ve got for today. Love you all so very much, and I´m happy to hear from you. My love to all.
Elder Stockton

August 12-19, 2013

August 12, 2013
One More Week!

Hello, family! Happy to hear about your weeks! Incredible that Charlie already is going on a mission... You guys all will be shipping off younger now. We`re receiving some stud 18-year-old missionaries here. (Including one from Canada, which is fun.)

I`m not sure what happened - I must have had a Harry Potter confundus curse put on me, because for the last few weeks I`ve been happily telling people that I have 17 months in the mission. Then, this week, I got to thinking about it and realized I had made a mistake. I have20 months! Wow. Suddenly I`m the oldest one in my district... and maybe even my zone! Time does fly on wings of lightning.

We had another really good week this week! No migraines, and lots of miracles. We`re working really hard and finding some great people.

This week I learned to better recognize and follow the promptings of the Spirit while contacting. We had numerous experiences where we felt a prompting to knock a door, went to do it, and found a person who was ready to receive us. I`ll tell about the first.

We were knocking doors earlier in the week - we hadn`t found anyone new to teach yet, and our investigator pool was pretty low. We had been knocking doors for about an hour and had gotten some harsh rejections, and I guess our spirits might have been a little down - but not to the point of discouragement. As we walked to see if a backup plan was home, we passed an open door - I looked inside and made eye contact with someone inside, and I had an impression to stop and knock the door. But here`s the thing I`m learning: Spiritual impressions are very easy to ignore. Usually the Spirit doesn`t shout at us, and if we choose to ignore it, we can. I did, in this case - I thought `Well, I don`t think that was probably an impression... and if it was, we already passed the house... we`ll just keep walking.` And then I thought about how we had asked that morning for God to lead us to the elect who needed the message. And I thought about how I had felt an impression to knock. And I thought about how, if God had indeed guided us there to meet that person, then to keep walking didn`t even make sense - where would we be walking to? By the time I thought those things, we had already walked 3 blocks... but I decided we would go back and knock the house. Good thing we did.

We knocked the house, and a nice lady came out and smiled warmly at us - a far different reception from what we had gotten so far that morning! We talked to her, and found out that the missionaries had met her a year ago and made an appointment to go back and visit her, but that she wasn`t there for the appointment and they never had come back. But she seemed very open and invited us to come back and teach her.
From that experience, I learned a few things:

1) It always pays to follow the promptings of the Spirit - God knows better than us how to find success.
2) Spiritual impressions come when we ask for them.
3) It`s better to be alert and prepared to act on the impressions right when they come... and not have to walk 3 blocks back.

And, really quick, the other news:

Elder Moterroso and I each bought a pound of ice cream!

Love you all so, so much. Have a good week!
Elder Stockton


August 19, 2013
Wow...

This was most probably the fastest week of my mission. Days passed in the blink of an eye. Which I guess is because we were busy! We had a very good week this week, even better than last week! Some investigators progressed, others fell off the map, and we found some new ones.

We had some experiences with faith this week. During our district meeting on Tuesday, we discussed some missionary success stories that President had shared with us. I noticed a common theme in all of these stories: In each one, the missionaries refused to give up and accept failure when things didn`t go the way they wanted. They kept working until they weren`t allowed to work any more - and there, during that `extra mile` they found success - after demonstrating their faith by continuing to work hard to reach their goals, even after it seemed impossible. 

Well, this week we put high goals for ourselves, and worked hard, hard hard all week to try to achieve them. We saw many miracles during the week and made a lot of progress. 

On Sunday, we needed 4 more lessons to meet our goal. We had one lesson after church, but then... nothing! From 3:00 in the afternoon to 6:30 in the afternoon, we walked from plan to backup plan, knocking houses and looking for people to teach. After a few hours, we were tempted to let our faith wane and decide not to worry about the goal - next week. But, we didn`t. We knew we had been working very hard all week to meet our goals, and we trusted that God would help us complete our goals. 

Well, then we had 2 more lessons - we knocked a door and found a new investigator teach (great lesson), and then taught a pre-set lesson with our investigators who had come to church that day. 

We needed one more lesson to meet our goal, and we only had about 20 minutes left before time to head back to the apartment. We had no idea who else we could visit, but we prayed that we would find someone to teach. I pulled out the phone and started scrolling through names, and I found J and A, who we hadn`t been able to see during the week. I called them, and they said we could come by. We ended up teaching a great lesson with them as well, and met with our goal, feeling grateful and happy.

Maybe it could seem like we were more worried about numbers than about teaching people, but it`s not so. At first I felt a little like that too, but then I realized that the numbers are there to give us a goal of what to aim for. They aren`t the end in and of themselves, but they help us exert greater efforts to be more effective in the work. Anyway, it was a good experience for us that strengthened our faith.

The members are so good here. Well, really, all the Argentine people. They always give us food. Sometimes we have more food than we can even eat, because in about half the houses we go by they give us food to either eat there or take home. Good people.

We had interviews with President Carter on Tuesday. It was an excellent interview, as always. He told me that he wants me to see these last 4 months as the best time of my mission. And, really, these last 3 weeks have been. We`ve been working really hard and seeing lots of results, and it`s satisfying.

This week we found an investigator named M. We were walking down the street during the early evening, and I wasn`t thinking about contacting people at the moment - my mind was concentrated on something else - but I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and looked over to see a cute young pup jump up and put his paws on a fence, looking at us. As I looked over, I looked past the dog and saw a man building a chair in the yard. As we walked, the words, `Talk to that man` came to my mind, and almost felt a mental push to go do it. We immediately turned back and talked to the man, and after talking to him for a minute he let us in to teach him. He`s a great guy, who years ago felt he was let down by the churches he had attended and reverted to worshiping God in his own house. As we got to know him more, we found out that his greatest desire is to live in a place like Zion, where the people care about each other and watch out for each other and work together for the good of everyone. We told him about the church, and he became eager to investigate and find out for himself whether it is like that. 

He`s a good guy. I believe that God used Sancho (the dog) to get my attention so that we could contact M.

It`s an exciting and tense time in the mission - the new missionaries are finally arriving. We have more missionaries than ever before, and the younger missionaries are being called upon to prepare themselves faster and better than ever before so that they can lead the areas as the more experienced missionaries are going home. My companion`s going to be one of those who receives extra responsibilities, I know. He`s a stud!

We made barbecue wings today... and now we`re going to go play soccer with some kids in the ward. I`ll probably watch. But who knows, I may play a little. I like basketball better. A good P-day.

It`s been a good week. And of course, it`s fantastic to read your letters and know how you all are doing... I`m happy for you! Hope it`s a great week this week. 

Thanks for your prayers and your love. We have the best family in the world.
Elder Stockton

Ituzaingo Week 7

August 5, 2013

Well, hello! It sounds like a pretty good week all around! (Well, for most. Hope you get better soon, Krista!) As you saw, I`m still in Ituzaingo 2, with a new companion: Elder Monterroso, from Guatemala. It`s shaping up to be a good transfer. Elder Leatham went to... wait for it... Bragado. What!? And my current Zone leader also just came from... Bragado. I have a lot of connections to that area.

I`m really quite pleased and happy as I`m writing today, for a number of reasons. I`ll start at the least important, and work my way up to the good stuff.

I inexplicably woke up this morning with `Minnie the Moocher` playing in my head. (Tee dee hee dee hee, Sir?) (Jeeves and Wooster, for those poor souls not yet P.G. Wodehouse fans.)

Dad, you would be proud of Elder Monterroso and me - we just made some burritos that tasted almost like what you make. The secret was that we used `comino` - I`m not sure what spice that is or how to say it in English, but I smelled it and it smelled like the tacos you make, so I put it in. And oh, what a sumptuous feast! It truly was a fiesta o` flavor. Tacos are the taste of home.

I had a new experience this last week - while my companion and I were having companionship study, a neon spot appeared in my vision, like the afterimage that is left after you look at the sun. It stayed for a little while and then went a way, and a short time later I was hit by a serious headache and nausea. After resting a little bit, I called Dr. Brunt, the mission doctor, and he told me I was having a... migraine! Woo hoo! He told me that it`s nothing very serious, and that there`s some medicine you can take to stop them when you feel them coming. He also told me that most people who get migraines start getting them around mission-age. Lucky me! And apparently migraines are hereditary. Does anyone else in our family get migraines? So... that was fun. It passed after I took some Ibuprofen, and we were able to go out to work.

So, now to the good stuff -

On Wednesday we went to transfer meeting. It was one of the best meetings I`ve ever been to. The testimonies of the missionaries going home, and the video testimonies of the missionaries who`ve already gone, touched me, and I re-committed to put my best into the work. It was a nice meeting also because I was able to briefly reconnect with some old mission friends - Elder Correa, Elder Wing, Elder Hougaard, and others. Good friends. It`s great to see them progressing.

And, I received a new companion: Elder Monterroso! Like I mentioned, he`s from Guatemala. And he`s a stud! He was baptized a little more than 2 years ago. He came on the mission because he loves the Lord, and it shows in everything he does. He`s a very good teacher for the 3 months he has in the field (3 weeks in Argentina), and he teaches with sincerity and love for the people. He`s a good example to me of humility and reliance upon the Lord for blessings. And he works super hard. I always wanted to have a companion like him.

And this change is giving me the chance to find an even better me, to forget about old things that may have been holding me back and to be someone better. And that`s what I`ve been doing. I`ve been working hard, having faith in the Lord and doing the very best I know how. And we saw a lot of miracles this last week.

On the way back to our area just after the transfer meeting, we began talking to driver of the taxi we were in. After a little while the conversation turned to religious things. She told us that she had long ago lost her faith in God because of the bad things that had happened to her. But, she told us, she wished she could find that faith again. In fact, just yesterday she had said a prayer and asked God for some way to believe and to be happy again. We had a very good conversation with her and invited her to know more about the church - she gave us her number and we sent it to the Elders who live in her area. Who knows? Maybe she`ll be the next convert.

We had some very good lessons this last week. One was with L, in which we talked to him and his mom and helped them set goals for their future. She really wants for him to grow up strong in the Gospel, and knows that she must do her part to establish a Gospel-centered home. 

We had another, similar lesson with M and her semi-active mom. Her mom began sharing a beautiful testimony with us about how her faith in the Lord had blessed her. As she was talking a question came into my mind, and I asked it: `Sister, you have a beautiful testimony. What of that testimony would you like to transmit to your daughters?` (Not sure if that makes sense in English - it`s ok in Spanish.) She thought about it, and then she spoke to us with conviction about how she wanted to help her daughters have faith in Christ. We were able to help them set a goal to return to church and be an active, gospel-centered family, and for M to be baptized, whereas in other times she hadn`t been as receptive. After the lesson, Elder Monterroso told me that that question had opened her up and changed the tone of the lesson. I knew it had come from the Spirit. God will give us what to say in moments when it`s really important, if we are worthy and looking for His help.

And, some of the best news for last:
During transfer meeting I talked to Elder Merino, who just came from Bragado. He gave me the joyous news that a few weeks ago, M and K (a family whom Andrew was able to teach the gospel, but moved away before they could be baptized) were married and baptized, and are now faithful members of the Bragado branch. I was overjoyed. I`m so happy for them!! It`s great to know that they`ve made it this far, and that they`re on the road to their goal: being sealed in the temple. It`s true - sometimes on the mission, one Elder plants, another Elder cultivates, and a different Elder harvests. I`m okay just as long as they get harvested, no matter who does the harvesting. Elder Merino showed me some beautiful pictures of the wedding and the baptism, which I must later get him to pass to me.

So, I`m good. My joy is pretty full. And it`s great to have such a fantastic family to tell all of this to. I`m looking forward to the time when we can be all together again, at home. Have a fantastic week! Love you all so much.

Elder Stockton

July 2013

July 15 already!

Hello, family!

A pleasure to read your emails, as always. Tall Ships (Jacob's Scouting adventure) sounds like fun, Oregon (Krista's adventures) sounds like fun too! The figs sound delicious, and the most recent painting (Ken's adventure) is beautiful.

There`s actually not much to tell this week - it rained from Tuesday to Friday, making the missionary work a little tough. Elder Leatham and I had almost cleared out our pool of investigators last week, and we didn`t find any new ones this week. Hopefully with clear skies, we should have more success this week.

I bought a bunch of bananas to eat this week! Pretty tasty!

We had a surprising experience a few days back. We had received a referral from the offices to visit a part-member family who was wanting to come back to church, with a son named F who needed to be baptized. However, when we visited the family, we found that the Sisters who work in the area next to ours had been visiting the family for several months, and that the family had already been activated (and F baptized) into another ward. We weren`t sure what to think about that at first, but later we found out that the sisters had gotten permission to teach the family - their records were already in the Padua ward. Why we got the reference 2 months later, I could not say. But at least that mystery was cleared up!

S is having trouble coming to church - he finishes his job driving taxis and arrives at home at 8:00 Sunday morning. The spirit is willing, but 2 weeks in a row he`s fallen asleep before making it to church. We would appreciate your prayers for him.

That`s all the news I have this week. But next week`s will be longer. ;-) I love you all so much! Enjoy your activities this week.
Elder Stockton

Week 5 Ituzaingo

Well, hello! I hope the weather`s good up there! We`ve had some really weird weather here, with 2 very hot days and then the coldest day in my whole mission. And now, it seems as if the cold`s here to stay. I`m bundled up with everything I`ve got. Scarves are a blessing. My feet have gone to sleep in the cyber where we`re writing.

Some good things happened this week. We found some very good `future investigators` to go back and visit this week. One man, when we knocked his door, asked us what had led us to knock his door. He had always seen the missionaries pass by since the time when he was a kid and had wondered what we teach, but none of them ever knocked his house. We met another man named M who loves... Elvis. His first son is named Elvis... his daughter is Pricilla, for Elvis`s wife... and his dog is Aaron, for Elvis`s brother. He seems like he really has interest, too, and it will be good to go back and teach him this week.

S gave us a scare this week. We arrived for our appointment, talked for a bit like normal, and then he got really serious and said told us that he had made up his mind that he would be continuing in the Catholic church with his son. (Some backstory: for the last few weeks S has been praying and praying to know whether the Book of Mormon is true, and whether he should be baptized.) It`s devastating whenever an investigator tells you he doesn`t want to investigate anymore, and more so when it`s someone like S who has experienced such a big change in his life since knowing the Church. So naturally we tried to find out what it was that had made him reach his decision. We found out that he felt bad because he was going to both the Catholic church and our church at the same time, and thought he needed to choose one or the other. But we explained to him that there is nothing wrong with going to multiple churches at the same time as he is investigating, if he is being honest with both parties - which he is. We talked about the Alma 32 seed of faith analogy and about the testimony he already has. (Because, he already has a pretty big testimony.) And we encouraged him to keep investigating until he was sure, one way or another, what God was telling him. 

S took it very well, actually looking rather relieved as he told us that he would keep investigating. His worries were eased, and he told us that he didn`t felt like he had been convinced, rather that he had been given another opportunity. I think that he was looking for an excuse to keep investigating. Afterward we talked again about the process of receiving an answer, and I shared my experience of coming to know that the Book of Mormon was true. At multiple times in my life I have studied and prayed wanting to know whether the BOM is true, but at first the only answer that I got from God was that the book was good... it was only later in my life, after continued studying and earnest seeking and living according to my faith that I received the answer that the book is true. That helped S. I really see that the experiences that I have had in my life have prepared me to teach people here. 

And, S came to church this week! He came back from work at 8:00am, came and picked us up, and went to church. He loved the first 2 meetings, it was like they were just for him... and then he fell asleep during a long talk in Sacrament meeting, so we woke him up and told him he could go home if he wanted. He`s a great guy. I have no doubt that he`ll get his answer and be a firm, converted member of the church. I love him!

And, I love you all. Hope you have a very good week this week, and that you feel God`s love and my love!
Elder Stockton

Week 6 Ituzaingo
Hello! Sounds like a packed week, and a good one! It`s been a good week here, too. I don`t have much time to write, but here are the highlights!

We found 3 new investigators this week. In one instance we had left a pamphlet with a lady to read. When we passed by later on, she hadn`t read it - but her sister had, and was interested in learning more. So we taught both of them, and left the sister with a Book of Mormon, which she began reading.

This week was Ward Conference, and we had some pretty good meetings. There was also a nice musical number, and... surprisingly, to me, a big lunch afterward! Apparently this ward has a tradition of always doing a ward lunch after every 5th Sunday.

And, on the same food theme, several families prepared us really good meals this week - including an asado (big Argentine barbecue) . Pretty special! There are some very nice members in this ward.

Elder Leatham and I went to a special individualized training on Tuesday, along with some others in our district. It was a good training. We had to teach a full lesson to two missionaries (both had been my zone leaders in the past) assuming the identity of two investigators, while President Carter watched in the background. After the practice, they gave us some really good tips, we re-practiced, and they sent us on our merry way. I love things like that, that help us identify ways to improve. Sometimes they`re a little nerve-wracking, but always very helpful.

Well, that`s about all the news I have this week! This week is transfers - we`ll see what happens.


I love you all very much! Thanks for your great letters. :)
Elder Stockton

Week 3 in Ituzaingo 2

Hello, family!

We had a great week this week. Some ups, some downs. All of the people we found last week stopped investigating, one way or another, which is very disappointing. But the good news is that we found a lot more people, and hopefully among them we`ll find some `keepers` who really want to change their lives.

I told you about S in my first email - the taxi driver who is trying to quit smoking. Well, after that first appointment we never had able to find him again, because he got a new job and was busy all the time. Yesterday he was finally home and we stopped by to visit with him. He was doing a lot worse than the first time I had seen him - he was tired, and stressed. But still with a desire to do things right and change his life. We taught him about the commandment of Sabbath Day observance and how that renews us so that we can handle the stresses and problems of life. He committed to start observing the Sabbath. The chat helped him - when we left he was better than when we arrived. He`s a really great guy.

We celebrated the 4th of July over here, singing patriotic songs and saying the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag. It was fun! And we celebrated with some of the other North American missionaries in our zone on the 2nd, after district meeting, sharing our pie and flag with them. (It was really tasty pie.) 

(Kind of a fun and silly musical (???!) video clip Andrew's companion sent to us ... )

On Saturday, Elder Leatham and I contacted a man who has known the missionaries since 1992. He told us right up front that he enjoys talking with the missionaries but it always comes down to one point, which is whether or not he`ll be baptized, and that he`s never decided to be baptized. So we talked about baptism - what it is, why it`s essential, and why he should get baptized. He told us that he needed to think about it, and pray... as we were leaving, he asked us about the time of church and whether we would be there... indicating that he wanted to go. He didn`t show up at church, but later that day we ran into him in the street and he told us he was going to go, but woke up too late. We really felt the power of our calling in that lesson, though, and we really felt that we were acting as representatives of Jesus Christ.

Elder Leatham and I made pizza this week when a lunch fell through. It was pretty good!

I`ve managed to save some of the photos off of my virus-infected camera card and put them onto a CD. I`m going to save the other ones on the card and not try to use it in a computer until I get home and can open it up in Linux to disinfect it. Hope I don`t lose them!

Love you all so much! Thanks for your letters. I hope you have a fantastic summer week!
Elder Stockton

Oh my goodness!

Okay, I must admit I'm struggling to keep my excitement in check! Here is a portion of a letter we received this week from Andrew's Mission President ...

LA IGLESIA DE JESUCRISTO DE LOS SANTOS DE LOS ÚLTIMOS DÍAS

MISIÓN ARGENTINA BUENOS AIRES OESTE Ballesteros No 1076 1704 Ramos Mejía Buenos Aires – Argentina Tel. 4656-9445

July 5, 2013

Dear Brother and Sister Stockton,

I am grateful for the service that your son has dedicated to the work of our Father in Heaven. I would like to inform you that the estimated termination date of his mission will be December 3, 2013. Nonetheless we encourage you to not do anything of a permanent nature due to the fact that this date is subject to change.

...

Thank you for your support and love for Elder Andrew Greenwood Stockton, he and those around him will be greatly blessed for his service.

It has been, and will continue to be, a blessing to us to have Andrew serving a mission! We have witnessed his growth and been touched by his love and devotion to God and the people of Argentina.

But we do miss him, and look forward with great anticipation to being together again!

June 3 - July 1, 2013

June 3, 2013

Hello, beloved fam´ly! Sounds like it´s been a great week there as well as here! I loved seeing all the pictures. Seeing Jacob´s juggling is making me wonder if I want to pick that up when I get home! (Although if I start learning to juggle I´m sure I´ll be doing quite a bit of ´picking up´, at least at first.) Looks like a great time. I hope you said hello to Grandma for me, and gave her my love.

I´m afraid I only have 20 minutes to write, so today´s letter will be a combination of journal entries that I can type of fast, and an extract from my letter to President this week.

I feel a great sense of accomplishment for this week. This was the first week that I really did everything I could, every day, to meet our goals. Like you told me to in our interview, I put pressure on myself, and that pressure motivated me to plan better and be more diligent during the day. This week I did not slack off once, and that´s why I take pride in it. I feel satisfied for having pushed myself beyond my previous level of diligence and effectiveness. It was a sacred week.

Elder Steffen (a zone leader, previously the secretary to President Carter) and I went on divisions this week, and that was awesome. He taught that I should pray every day for the opportunity to challenge someone to be baptized. I´ve been putting it into practice, with good results.

I am studying about ´the enabling power of the Atonement´, the help that Christ affords us to change our natures and BECOME better people. I saw that in action many times this past week - I prayed for desire to get up and talk to people instead of just sitting on the bus, and that desire and strength was given to me! And that is changing me. This week I experienced the grace of Christ, which came after all I could do - because despite our best efforts, on Sunday evening we were looking at barely missing our goals by a new investigator and a lesson with member. But I prayed for help, and because we had worked hard all week, the help came and we completed our goals, and had very good lessons.

June 1, 2013
I´m so tired!
...
Particularly rewarding today was a visit to M & K. (The last visit - M is already down in Bragado, and K heads down with [their daughter] on Wednesday.) We shared Alma 32 again, like at the beginning of our visits, but from a different perspective now. They told us how they have grown because of the Gospel. And the most gratifying was M´s testimony: he said that the biggest change that has happened in him is that now he has a purpose. A goal, a direction. HE knows what he´s working for. And, as he also said, he is becoming more capable at leading his family in the right way. So, that was awesome! (K said that the biggest change for her is the unity and the dialog they now enjoy, that beforehand they didn´t have.)

We passed by JH again today, first time in many weeks. He´s really good. We had an excellent lesson about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. He´s a great man, very dedicated... he´s looking for the truth, but he just hasn´t given our church a good enough try yet! I love him.

June 2, 2013
Today we had an excellent lesson with A´s father. He wants to be a better father. He wants to change his personality and replace hate and impatience with positive attributes, love and long-suffering. We shared a message about how Jesus Christ can change us as we have faith in Him an repent. We spoke of baptism, how it is a new beginning given to us by God. We invited him to prepare to be baptized on the 29 of June and he accepted. It was a very good lesson.

He also told me something that I had said last week, about fathers needing to work to provide for their children, had stayed with him and motivated him all week to get up and go to work even when he didn´t feel like it.

Today in church I was down because our investigators hadn´t come - I decided to change my attitude and asked for God´s help, and I felt better - I felt happy again and saw things in the larger perspective. I love my mission.

May 28, 2013
On the bus ride home, I did a contact; then I was our of contact cards so I sat down. Then I thought, ´instead of just sitting here I´ll do one contact more´, and I did. After that, feeling good for putting forth a little extra effort, I looked at our goals and realized we lacked one return appointment to meet our goal. We were almost home, and I knew everyone would be getting off the bus soon, but I thought, ´Just do it´, and I contact the last guy on the bus. He was really good and invited us to come back. So we made a return appointment and met our goal.

Oh, yeah! Elder Cook came and spoke to us, and shook each of our hands individually. It was a really good experience.

Well, that was this week. Lots of other good things happened, but no time to write them all.
I love you all so much and I hope you have a fantastic week! Enjoy the spring!

love,
Elder Stockton

June 10, 2013

Hello, family! You have my mouth watering with the descriptions of those peaches... and peach salsa. Mmmm! So many good things to be looked forward to. How are the many figs doing? Will they be producing when I get home? How many figs will we be getting?

This is the last full week of the transfer... probably my last one in Jardines. I´ll start writing thank-you notes for people just in case, to be delivered if I leave.

We had a good week. It went really super fast, and it feels like I don´t have as many experiences to tell about this one. But at least the ones I do have to tell are good ones!

Well, the M & K chapter of my mission has officially ended. We woke up early on Tuesday to help K and her dad move all of their possessions into an old moving van, and the next day K [her daughter] followed their stuff ´home´ to Bragado. (And, finally, M came back in the early hours of Saturday to pick up Martin, their dog, thus completing the family. We´ll miss them, but they´re in good hands. We talked to Elder Blackburn, who is serving in Bragado, and he has everything taken care of. Seems like a pretty solid missionary. And Bragado had a baptism yesterday! So, good stuff! We´ll hope that before too long, we´ll be able to add an epilogue to their story - in which they get married, then baptized, sealed, and live happily ever after.

This week we taught M and J the word of wisdom; they accepted it and began making plans to leave behind some unhealthy habits. Their 3-year-old, is cute. He began our lesson by demanding that he get to say the opening prayer, and to our amazement, proceeded to do so in a very complete form. I think his parents liked it too. J is really seeing the difference happening in their family since they started living parts of the Gospel. M receives everything a little more hesitantly, but he´s still good. Yesterday we taught them about the law of chastity and invited them to be married. We had taught them about it before, but nothing came of it. We´ll see if this time they decide to go through with it! I sure hope so.

On the way back from a district meeting on Tuesday morning, I was sitting on the bus and really did not feel like doing anything. I was tired. But I decided to just do a few contacts... and the first lady I talked to on the bus happily informed us that her husband used to go to the Mormon church in Paraguay and he would love to talk to us! So, we went by, and they seem like a really good family! The dad went to church all the time in Paraguay when he was younger, and loved it, but he was never baptized. The mom is religious but doesn´t go to any church because she doesn´t know which one is correct. The daughter is young but has some very deep and hard questions of the soul that she wants answered. The son plays professional soccer. But they are very receptive, and look like they could progress.

We hadn´t been able to sit down and teach Y for about 2 weeks. She wasn´t answering her phone, she wouldn´t be there for appointments, and we were worried about her. Then this week we finally were able to find her and teach her again. She´s experiencing opposition from her husband and family for going to church. But she´s been reading the Book of Mormon every day with her son L and they´ve been praying together, and she told us she´s seen many blessings. She loves everything about the church and wants for her children to go there... but she also wants them to make their own decision. She also wants the support of her family, especially her husband. But they woke up Sunday morning and came to church in the rain, which is something that discourages many people from coming.

After church, we showed Y and L the baptismal font, and Y explained to her son what baptism means. We asked L, who is 11, whether he would like to be baptized (Y pointedly looked the other way so as not to influence his decision), and he said yes, he would. Mom gave her consent. We have to ask the dad. We had invited Y to prepare for baptism as well and she said she would love to. But, she has to get married first.

So, that´s the news this week! I hope you all have a really good week, with good weather, good food, peace and tranquility. And fun!

I love you all so much! Take care.
Elder Stockton

June 17, 2013

T-minus 2 days ´til transfers

Sounds like a pretty fun week at the Stockton house. I´d love to see Dad´s new website [kenstockton.com], but it´ll have to wait until I get home. I would, however, love to continue seeing pictures of the new paintings as they are finished!

Transfers happen this Wednesday... and we´re all pretty confident that I´m heading out. It will be nice to have a new start - a new area, ward and companion to help facilitate change and cement good habits into my character.

As you saw, we had a ´Mission Tour´ with Elder Viñas, who is a counselor in the Area Presidency. It was a really good experience. He talked about working hard to help overcome discouragement, and about helping our investigators to repent and apply the Atonement to their lives. It was a nice meeting. And, of course, fun to be in Luján again. That seems to be the standard meeting place for our zone of Moreno when we´re getting together with other zones.

And, yep! That was our choir singing at the Mission Tour. I was asked a few weeks back if I could play an accompaniment for a choir number: ´O Mi Padre´ (Oh, My Father). So during one P-day. and when we had an extra moment at the church, I got to create and practice a simple arrangement to accompany the song. The problem was that the choir was going to be created from the 3 different zones. We were able to practice with our the zone, but never got a chance to practice with everyone. So when we performed the number at the meeting, 2/3 of the zone had still never heard the arrangement of the song! But, thanks to our good director and some help from above, everything went really well and the Spirit was felt. It is nice to be able to help out in that way. Those piano lessons were worth it!

The stitching in my shoes finally gave way completely, and I had a pair re-stitched. Now they´re practically new again, and since the shoe was stitched from the start, they don´t even look ´repaired´. But when I see how other missionaries´ shoes have worn out after 10 months, I´m more and more convinced that we made a good buy!

My companion and I each gave a talk in church on Sunday (again...). I was wondering what to speak about and several ideas came to mind - service, charity, fulfilling duty, becoming converted. I wondered, Which of these topics am I supposed to talk about!? Then I found a General Conference talk that combined all of those themes, and knew it was the right message for my talk. The talk was Elder Ballard´s ´Becoming Anxiously Engaged´, from the October 2012 Conference, and I absolutely love it! I had never heard or read the talk in English before, but it´s quite a good one. Each of us individually has potential to change lives... and collectively, as a church body, we can bless and lift the world. I loved his challenge at the end. And I loved the part about letting our testimony go past our mind and sink deep into our hearts.

I read another really good Conference talk about fulfilling duty: President Eyring´s talk Act in All Diligence from the May 2010 General Conference. I´ve been thinking lately about what advice I would give to young men preparing to go on a mission. My counsel to any young man preparing to serve the Lord as a missionary would be to learn now how to serve the Lord as a Deacon, Teacher, or Priest. Learn the duties of your calling and learn to magnify it. If you learn to really magnify your Priesthood responsibilities now, you will magnify your mission and it will be a success.

I´m still struggling to master that principle. It´s no easy task and this week I´ve been very aware of my weakness and shortcomings. But that is why I´m so grateful for the experience of serving a mission, is because it shows you where you´re weak so that you can learn to rely on the Lord and become stronger. And I believe that the grace of Christ is sufficient to help us change when we humble ourselves and have faith in Him. I´ll look for that power this week.

I love you all so much and I´m happy to hear your news! May you have a fantastic week this week. Watch the mission blog to see the changes! Love you all.

Elder Stockton

June 24, 2013

Meeting Ituzaingo 2

Hello, dear fam!

Yep! As you`ve seen already, I have been transferred. We were surprised when we got the phone call and found out that both Elder Lee and I would be leaving - in mission language, that`s called a whitewash: when they put in two new missionaries who don`t know the area. But then we found out at transfer meeting that they weren`t putting new missionaries in - Jardines A was merged with Jardines B! So we`re leaving the area (Jardines A and B) in the capable hands of Elder De Leon and his new trainee. Jardines was a long and a good chapter, my favorite area and time so far, but now it`s time to move on and look at what`s to come.

I`m in a fairly large city called Ituzaingo. It is different in a lot of ways from Jardines. Ituzaingo is very rich - the people here are quite well off. The ward is small and seems to be closely knit, with good leadership and some really good families. We will never be lunchless here.

My companion is Elder Leatham, from Ridgecrest, CA. He`s cool! We get along well. He`s been in the mission for 16 months.

We don`t have very many investigators... in fact, we just have one. His name is S, and he`s a super stud! He`s a 45-ish-year-old taxi driver who was recently separated from his wife and is looking for meaning in his life. One day the missionaries had stayed late to eat dinner at a members` house, and the members called for a taxi so that the missionaries would get home on time. S was the driver who came to pick them up, and on the way home he told them his story and they made an appointment to go teach him. This was about a month ago - now, he`s been to church a few times and loves it, he`s reading in the Book of Mormon and he`s praying, and he`s trying to break his smoking addiction.

The other day we had a lesson at his house, and he told us he really wants to stop smoking. He made the goal to only smoke 3 more cigarettes, and not buy any more. As the lesson went on, he decided he didn`t even need three and crushed two of them and gave them to us to take away. A minute later, there was a knock on the door - his neighbor had come over to ask for a cigarette. So S surrendered his last cigarette and said it must be a sign. Funny guy.

It looks as if the big challenge here in Ituzaingo is going to be finding investigators to teach - in Jardines is isn`t that difficult, but we`ve spent 3 whole days doing almost nothing but knocking doors so far and haven`t come up with anything. (We found a lot of atheists in our door contacting, which I never found in Barrio Jardines.) So, it`s time to change our methods!

On Thursday we went to a ward baptism of a boy named K. It was a good baptism, and afterward we went to a party at the family`s house. They made a pretty elaborate `Angry Birds` cake, which I`ll send a picture of when I can.

So, that`s the new area! Thanks for your letters, it´s great to think of what`s going on at home. Hope you all have a quite fantastic week!

Love,
Elder Stockton

July 1, 2013

Week 2 in Ituzaingo 2

Hello, family! Still here in the Ituzaingo 2nd ward. I enjoyed reading your emails. Helped by your descriptions, I remember pretty well how the summer monsoon season is. Sounds nice! And sounds like you`re having some fun - fun games, fun projects!

Well, we had a really good week here. By working hard and with help from above, we broke the lack-of-new-investigators streak the area had been experiencing and found several new families/individuals to teach.

On Monday we found a man named D, who invited us in and asked what it was that we shared with people - we shared the Restoration and invited him to investigate and be baptized, and he accepted. After the lesson he knelt and said the closing prayer. I think it must have been the first time he prayed out loud. He prayed very sincerely and there were tears in his eyes as he finished.

We passed by a woman named R who investigated the church about a year ago, and was on the point of being baptized when she relapsed and was overcome by her smoking addiction. After her next few attempts to give up smoking failed, she became discouraged and stopped working towards baptism. When we arrived, she said it was funny that we should arrive just at that moment because just a week ago she had decided to give up smoking for good, and that she was trying to do that now. In fact, that very morning she had found her Gospel Principles book and read the chapter about the Word of Wisdom. We told her we will help her stop smoking and invited her to be baptized, and she accepted.

And we met and started teaching the C family, a family that has recently passed through some very hard times with an abusive husband. The family has been living in spiritual darkness, and we told them how Jesus Christ can bring light to their lives again. They were going to come to church on Sunday, but unfortunately the littlest child got sick Saturday night and they couldn`t make it.

We taught a lesson in English to a 21-year-old named E. He`s learning English so that he can come work in the US. (His friend lives in San Bernardino!) It was really hard for my companion to teach in English, which was funny. Spanish words and sentence patterns kept sneaking in. I`m sure I`m just as bad. It doesn`t seem like he`s that interested in our message itself, which is too bad, but maybe we`ll be able to find someone who is interested through him.

We met an elderly lady named M in a member`s house, and taught her about the Restoration. She is Catholic, but says she always has arguments with the Priests about certain doctrines that she doesn`t think make sense. She seems very promising. She wanted to come to church on Sunday, but unfortunately she had a fall on Friday when the bus she was boarding accelerated too early, and she was too sore to be able to come.

So, we have some new, promising people! We`ll hope that many of these people are prepared for their baptism dates at the end of July.

This week I was forced to learn how to navigate the area quickly because (surprise) we went on 2-day divisions with the Zone Leaders, and I had to guide the area. With my map, we made our way around. Reminds me of years ago when Dad taught me how to use a map, as we were doing our home teaching visits. So many things that I didn`t think were useful then that turned out to be! ;-)

While we were on divisions, we tracted a house and the bishop`s wife came out. And thus we found the bishop`s house. How`s that for a successful contact? She even came to church on Sunday!

Last week began a new rule in our mission - from Tuesday to Sunday we can only listen to Mormon Tabernacle Choir music. I actually kind of like it... fortunately I have a pretty good selection of music, or we`d be listening to my companion`s 2 songs over and over again!

For a P-day activity today, and in preparation for Thursday, Elder Leatham and I bought a big piece of poster board and painted into a giant American flag. And Elder Leatham made real American apple pie. Mmm mmmm! Fun being with a North American for the 4th of July. How I love the USA.

Elder Leatham and I both gave talks this week - I reused my `Anxiously Engaged` talk from Jardines, but modified to this ward. I wanted each of the members to really feel that they can make a difference in someone`s life. I shared as an example Brother Schoenheim, who had a big effect on me - not for any great thing he did, but because he always made me feel like I was important and valued. I wanted the members to realize that the little things we do to help lift others can make a big difference.

Elder Leatham and I discovered the other day that the supermarket close to our house sells chicken wings cheap - 2 lbs for a little bit less than $0.50 USD. So, we bought 4 lbs of chicken wings and made spicy oven-cooked chicken wings! Mmmm!

And, wow. A lot happened this week! It was a good week... and a very long week! Let`s hope this one is just as good.

I love you all very much. Thank you for your prayers for me and for being mindful of me here. I have the best family ever!
Elder Stockton