Miracles are good.

Today was a good day and I even went bowling, so beat that=)

In retrospect, this week was a lot better than I had originally planned. We had quite a few miracles and for that I am grateful. We had a lesson with our investigator of 16 years and we put a baptismal date down and everything, and we were going to schedule a day to get the signature of her mom but her mom said that she needed to stay in her church for right now. It was a little sad, but the lesson was great, and we called basically every single active male in our branch to try to help us have this lesson (she told us she only lived with her mom) so we could pass by (haha because we had the lesson at the gate=)), and I really felt like it was a blessing to have a member and his son accompany us after trying so hard to find someone. Then Tuesday I had exchanges with Elder Edmonds and he gave me some good ideas for how to really utilize our time. 

Then Wednesday we had another miracle. We were walking down the street and this lady stopped us and asked if we could come and stop by her house sometime, because her niece was visiting from Utah and is a member of the Church and they wanted to have a chat with us. OF COURSE WE AGREED! This happens approximately never here=) She gave us her phone number and we called her that night and set things up for the next day. We also got to talk to her niece, Camila, who is a return missionary from the Washington DC South Mission. She was born in Argentina but moved to the USA when she was young. Anyways everything was perfect and we were ready to ''do some damage'' as Camila told me=) We went to the house and met with Camila's extended family to teach them about the grand lesson of the Restoration. It was great. One of Camila's friends from the mission, named Kylie, was also visiting, so it was like having four missionaries teach. Oh it was so great, they were really feeling what we were teaching. I lead the conversation into baptism and then Elder Molina asked if they would be baptized. AND... they said no, that they had conformed to Catholicism and didn't want to change. Kind of a build up to nothing, but I know that if nothing more they have a seed planted and maybe in the future things will change. They were super nice and kind, I really can see them being members one day. 

On Saturday we had another miracle. We arranged for a male member to help us with a meeting with a less active so that we could enter and get to know her. We hadn't been able to contact her all week but we decided to try anyways and... she didn't answer. After trying to go around and visit other less actives, this member decided to take us around to visit some acquaintances and introduce them to the missionaries. After not a lot of success we finally found someone that could be really great. We are going to check up with her this week and maybe we can finally have one progressing investigator!!! I sure hope so. 

I was reflecting on the events of this last week and what we lack from doing better, and I realized that if we try just a little bit more every day, those little efforts would make quite a difference by the end of the week. I will try to do a little bit more every day in order to see results by the end of the week. 

It's good to see some little changes here in Los Polvorines. I have some ideas about how to change this area, and by doing those things it will help me in return become a more well-rounded and successful missionary. I hope to see some good things here in the future!

Love you and you all are doing well. I wish you all a great new year and will see you soon enough (in the next year)!

Chau for now

Élder Hardcastle

I WAS going to send some more pictures from Christmas and other stuff, but when I put my SD card in the computer I think something happened and now it doesn't work. So Sorry=(

Note from Mom:  Kylie texted a picture to me of the power teaching appointment!  Yay!