Monday, January 23, 2017

I SHOOK AN APOSTLE'S HAND

Hello Family and Friends! 
So today was great. Yesterday we had to leave church a little bit early to catch a bus to go to Zárate to meet up with the other leaders in the zone, then later catch a bus  and train to go to San Fernando and stay the night with the asistentes, because today bright and early we needed to be in Buenos Aires city for a special meeting with the four missions in the Buenos Aires province and Elder Stevenson from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. And Elder Stevens gave us time to shake his hand! so that was awesome. And then we had the GREAT training. Oh, it was so good. I have a tooooon of notes. We talked a lot about how obedience is a blessing and how we gain power in promising blessings and testifying. This man is called of God. I felt it. And then afterwards we had a mini conference as leaders in la gran mision Buenos Aires norte which actually ended up being quite long, which is the reason I am writing this after 8PM.  =) But there is going to be some great things coming up in the future of the mission, we can just feel it!

Repentance is fun to teach. This last week we taught a former LDM contact. The first time I saw her, last transfer, she was yelling at one of her kids, haha. But I felt inspired to talk to her,  y ¡hay que hacerle caso al Espíritu! A person wouldn't think that she would be the typè of person that would have interest in learning about the Gospel, she has tattos all around her body, smokes, co-living, etc. Buuut she accepted that Book of Mormon and another visit. Unfortunately, the appointment fell through the first time, but in divisiones with Elder Jensen a little while back, we passed by her house And I felt like we needed to go look for her again so that we could talk again. She was there and we arranged for another visit. This last Friday we went to her house and taught her the commandments and the blessing we get when we follow them. We figured, ''well, if she still has interest in learning more after this, we are going to have to keep on visiting!'' we taught really well and with love, and even though she knows now that she has lots of thing to improve in her life, she wants to make the changes so that she  can find more peace! It was perfect! She will need of lot of miracles in order to make the changes, but I feel like she can do it. Repentance will qualify us for the divine grace, which will be our strength to carry on with the change. If she can experience the blessings of obedience, she will continue perfecting herself in Christ.

God is so good to us, and looks for every opportunity to bless us. SO KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OKAY. okay=)

That's about it for this week! I love you guys, and I'll see you all soon enough!

Elder Hardcastle =)





Tuesday, January 3, 2017

San Barapedro, the land of the outcasts

Greetings everyone! 

It's a big bright beautiful world here in Baradero! A hot world. Holy cats I seriously about died on Friday. And then again on Saturday. It was hot. But I drank a lot of water so don't get too scared Mom! I haven't fainted yet! haha

God is good. He is seriously blessing us so much. Pretty much our efforts don't do anything. But God sees us and is like ''aww these poor elders'' and then throws us UN MONTONAZO of blessings. He sees our efforts! This week like ALL of our plans fell through. Buuuut do you guys remember the miracle family that went to church a few weeks ago with Hno Salas who is a temple worker? yeah well POR FIN we had a lesson with the parents, and they accepted a baptismal date!! Wooot. and we are also working with a man who is inactive and his wife who isn't a member, and they are also progressing and are amazing and just have to get married and go to church, and then she can get baptized as well! 

Also, we had transfers last week. I killed my companion (again) and am training (again)! I am also district leader! We affectionately call ourselves the outcasts because our district is so far away from the rest of the mission, they just stuck us and San Pedro together and called it good. so yeah. But San Barapedro is great and Elder Jensen and I are super great friends from the Zona Chacabuco days and are ready to call our area to repentance with our bellotas.  =)

My companion is Elder Mussin, from el Talar. He is waiting for his visa to come so he can leave to go to California. El Talar is actually a part of our mission, so until the visa comes, he's stuck with us. He already has one transfer here in the mission so I am just finishing up his training, but he pretty much knows how to do everything already, so we just power through everything and try to put up with the heat. 

I hope you are all enjoying the new year and making good goals! But I hope you biggest goal is to be a better follower of Jesus Christ. Because he knows what's best for you! So don't be scared to follow Him and do what He says!

See you all soon enough!

Elder CastilloDuro

Fotos-
Bye Elder Martínez
Hello Elder Mussin

Just your standard parrot having free reign in your sandwich shop.