Hello, Framly!
It`s been fun being comps with Elder Lee! The other day we got to talking about Christmas and family traditions, and I happened to mention that Mah jongg features fairly heavily in ours. He got excited and told me how his dad (who is from China) used to play all the time with his uncles and aunts. He doesn`t anymore, because it`s a gambling game... but maybe he would make an exception to play with us. I hope so, because I´ve invited him and his family to come and play with us next Christmas. :-) Pung! We´ll see whether Nathan can keep up his mighty reign playing with someone who´s known Mah jongg from the cradle.
Well, we had a pretty good week this week. A little disappointing at the end with a lack of church attendance, but it´s okay. We´ve got some good progressing investigators, and things are looking better for church this week.
We went to a Stake Conference yesterday that was broadcasted from the US - we heard from Elder Shane Bowen (who Elder Bower tells me spoke in North Stake a while back) and Elder Whitney Clayton. Elder Clayton gave a great talk about how if we obey the basic principles of the Gospel - pay tithing and fast offerings, magnify our callings, do home and visit teaching, study the scriptures daily, have weekly family home evening and have daily family prayer, we will live firm, safe lives and be protected. We`ll be able to solve our own problems. Just what Javier needed to hear! But good for us, too.
And, after church yesterday we had the Elders from Jardines B over for lunch and we made Mexican food - tacos! We only had black beans and some kind of chewy meat, but we cooked it up, put it in homemade tortillas, and slathered it with barbecue sauce and ketchup, and it worked okay.
Elder Sampson and Elder Decker had a baptism yesterday, which we went to. It was really good! I love being at baptisms. We 4 Elders did a musical number - I played the piano and they sung How Great Thou Art. It went pretty well!
And, other good news: a family we've been working with was sealed on Saturday! Hurrah! It`s good to see a family progressing together in the Gospel.
So, that`s all I`ve got today - kind of a slow week. But we´ll see what this next transfer has in store for us. I´m thankful as always to read your letters, and I love you very much! Have an awesome week!
love,
Elder Stockton
April 1, 2013
Hello, family! Happy Easter! And... Happy April Fools! I hope you had a great week and a great Easter Weekend!
We celebrated Easter in a great way here: with the baptism of A__, who is the little sister of the young man we baptized recently! She´s a fantastic little 8-year-old girl. Although neither of her parents are members, her grandma is, and she´s been going with her to primary for several months now. She recently turned 8, and her mom said that if she wanted to she could get baptized. She´s the sweetest little girl! She loves the church, and she loves learning about God. Last week we finished teaching her everything she needed to know before being baptized, and on Easter Sunday we had the baptismal service. It was a very good baptism - one of the best I´ve been to. After A__ was baptized, she asked if she could bear her testimony, and she got up in front of everyone and told them why she had decided to be baptized. Then her grandma got up and shared her testimony, and her happiness at seeing all of her family together at church. She had her husband (who is Catholic, and was previously not very responsive to the Gospel) and her son-in-law (A__´s dad, equally unresponsive) in tears - and a few other people as well. In the words of my companion, I love uniting families! It was so great to see them all together during such a happy time. After A__´s testimony, her grandpa grabbed her and hugged her, with a huge grin on his face. There was a very sweet spirit during the baptism. I hope that this could lead to more of the family becoming interested in and joining the church.
I accidentally left my camera card at home, so I´ll have to send pictures next week.
Dad, thanks for the great Conference talk! How did you know I had just decided to focus on studying and applying the Christlike attribute of Hope? I studied the talk all week long and the Spirit taught me several things, and my personal hope for the future has increased. So, thanks very much! I can´t wait for this General Conference. Of course, the big news (the temple in Tucson) has already been announced... but I´ll still be glad to hear what our prophets & apostles have got to say. :-)
And, here´s some fun news:
President Carter announced at the transfer meeting that there has been a change in Church policy: Missionaries are now allowed to email friends in addition to family members. We were told that´s because it takes less time to write email than to write a letter, so missionaries will be able to accomplish more on Preparation Day and therefore be more ready to work during the week. Well, cool! I´m not complaining! I haven´t found a place to mail my letters home in Jardines anyway, so... now I´ll be able to resume my communication with friends.
I finished reading the Book of Mormon this past week! It was a great experience. I testify again that the Book of Mormon is a true book. I´ve come to realize on the mission how important it is to have a personal testimony. It keeps us strong in our faith even when the world tells us we´re wrong. Thank God for personal revelation and testimony.
And, well-- I think that´s about it for this week. Thanks for your letters, I´m printing them out so as to read them later and spend more time on them.
Love you so much! I hope your week is fantastic.
Love,
Elder Stockton
April 8, 2013
Hello, family! Thanks for your letters. It´s been a packed week here, filled with good things!
What a General Conference! Every session had a few really great talks. I loved Elder Holland´s talk about faith (even though I had to watch it in Spanish, which isn´t as powerful). In Priesthood session I loved Elder Callister´s talk about how ´The Priesthood in the boy is just as powerful as the Priesthood in the man.´ I loved the various talks about ministering to others. A very good talk... and, a good Conference in general! I can´t wait to get the Liahona with the talks so I can keep on reading and studying them. It was fun to watch conference upstairs with the 6 other English-speaking Elders in our stake. As the Conference went on, we made note of who had spoken already and who still needed to speak, and got really excited for the last session´s ´lineup´ - Elder Holland, Elder Oaks, and Elder Christofferson. What a combination!
Any talks that you thought were particularly powerful?
Last week, President Carter told us in our weekly letter that we should constantly be teaching and helping progress 5 to 7 families. Definitely not what we have right now. I believe it´s possible! But to get that, I decided we needed to make that our focus. We changed our contacting style to focus on how the Gospel blesses families, and started talking to every mother-father couple that we met in the street. And I don´t know whether more families started appearing in our path, or if I just started noticing them more, but since the time we began contacting families we´ve just been finding a ton! This last week we found 6-7 (good) families and made return appointments to visit them.
One of those families we found last week consists of a young mother, her husband, and their 4-year-old daughter. They don´t have very much religious background at all, but they are willing to learn. They want to strengthen their marriage and family. They came to the last session of General Conference with us, and liked it a lot! Good stuff!
One of the other couples we contacted has an interesting story. They lived in Chaco a few months back, and before leaving for Buenos Aires they had met the missionaries. They had a lot of questions for the missionaries and liked what the missionaries were teaching. The missionaries wrote down their contact information and said that they would send it along, but, as often happens, the referral got lost somewhere between there and here. The missionaries never showed up. As we walked down the street towards where they were standing at the bus stop, the man said to his wife, ´Maybe God sent them to talk to us.´ ´I guess we´ll see,´ said the wife. And, then we talked to them, because we were talking to all of the couples we saw. They gave us their address, and we have an appointment to go back and teach them this week. Maybe we as humans sometimes fail where we should have done something (like sent a referral), but God knows what He´s doing!
I received my birthday package today, and, in accordance with Mom´s suggestion, I have not looked at the label containing the package contents. It will be a surprise!
I told you last week about A__´s baptism, right? And how it had had a good effect on her dad and grandfather. Well, this week we talked to A__´s mom and she told us that the husband had really liked the baptism, and that they wanted us to come and talk to them sometime. That´s phenomenal news, considering that the only other time we met the dad, he refused to talk to us and instead went inside. (At his son´s birthday!) After talking to the mom, we were leaving the area and ran into the dad! Rather than avoid us or simply say hello and keep going, he came to us and started conversing. He apologized for the incident at his son´s birthday and told us he had really liked the baptism. Then we just chatted a bit, and he invited us to come by the house later. How hearts change! I have hope for that family, that the parents will also start coming to church with the A and her grandma.
We had an incredible rainstorm this week! We all got drenched, but just drenched is a lot better than the flooding that happened in the more central part of Buenos Aires.
At the request of the youth in the ward, we have begun piano class again, except now it´s piano/guitar/english class. We had a pretty good attendance this last week and the class went well. Hopefully this will give us a chance to get to know Carlos, the youth who has been attending for the last several weeks, a little better. He declined to have us visit him in his home, but he seems like he wants to know more.
The other day I studied an old Conference talk by Elder Richard G. Scott, Using the Supernal Gift of Prayer. What a talk! The Spirit spoke to me in several instances, telling me how I can improve my personal prayers and receive more of the personal revelation that God wants to send me. Here are two things that I learned about prayer, from the talk and from the Spirit:
1. Answers to prayers come in packets - here a piece and there a piece. This suggests to me that prayer is not a one-time event - ask once, and receive the whole answer. Instead, we should ask, think, receive a prompting, write it down, think about it, act on it, ask again, etc., until the question is answered or the matter resolved. And that leads to the second thing:
2. Write down spiritual impressions you receive. I remember Elder Scott talking about how if you write down and organize the inspiration you receive, you will be more likely to receive more. I am definitely learning that that is true. I´ve been using the little notebook Krista gave for Christmas when I was in the MTC to record impressions that I get throughout the day. I´m amazed at the clarity and significance of the promptings and answers I have been receiving after I started writing them down. Answers to questions like, ´How can we help investigators to have a better experience in church?´ and ´How can we increase the member missionary work in the ward?´
Pretty cool! I think the answers to all of our questions of how to improve are out there, given sometime in the past by some apostle. It´s just a matter of finding it, then studying and applying it.
Well... I think that´s it for today. Actually, I´ve written quite a lot! Galations 6:11! (Or, was it 8:11?)
Anyway! I love you all very much. Thanks for your letters, your support, your prayers, your love.
See you in 8 months!
Elder Stockton
