It’s also the last day of the vacation time
in Argentina. They take off a bunch
during the summer – January and February – the kids are out of school and
sometimes it is hard to get a lot done with people being out 1, 2, or 3 weeks.
We have a Easter campaign in the Open
Chapel program. They created a new
banner involving Family Search and are inviting people to come learn about
their ancestors and how Christ can help them to be a forever family, honor and
revere their ancestors, find out about them, and learn some stories.
They are doing some advertising with
pictures of people holding pictures of their ancestors which is something that
everybody is interested in, world wide.
It’s certainly something that catches people’s attention as there is a
lot of respect for parents in that Latin community. We have some coordinators in the Buenos Aires
West mission that have started putting on workshops on Sunday night to fill out
their 4 generation worksheet and then help them sit down to a computer and find
out what Family Search has for them. For
anybody that has sat down to a Family Search computer, it is mind boggling what
has been input into the system.
We are both healthy and doing
well. We are loving having the electric
pressure cooker. We have done the Asian
wrap, oatmeal, mashed potatoes, chicken, etc.
It is so much faster and better having that around.
Even our Spanish is doing better. I still have times when I think that I am
doing well and then somebody will talk to me and I look at them like they had
lobsters crawling out of their ears and wonder what language they are
talking. Helen is steadily getting
better, and despite it not coming as fast as she would like, learning more words
and understanding far more than she did just a few months ago.
The chapel open houses keep coming along. We have over 250 scheduled for the year so far
and that is only a few missions and only a couple of months into the year.
There are always a few missions that don’t seem to
want to try it out, or have tried it out and didn’t think it worked very well
so they have given up on it. We try to
think of different ways to help out and sometimes run into a brick wall.
I read that when Alma first tried to preach to the people of Ammonihah,
it worked miserably. He gave up
initially and left. Angel told him to
try again, and he apparently turned around "speedily" and went back
"another way". The same thing
happened to Nephi and his brothers when they went to get the plates of
Laban. It failed horribly and the brothers
wanted to leave. Nephi kept in mind that
they had been commanded to do it, and tried every way that they could think of,
i.e., studying it out in their mind, and trying the a different. That worked about as well as Laman’s first
try. Then Nephi tried again, trusting
completely in the Lord to lead him on the way.
Perhaps this is something that we need to consider when we are trying to
do something. It may not work out, it
may be a dismal failure and we want to toss in the towel. We have to keep in mind that we have been
commanded to do it, and, if we have given up, need to return
"speedily" and try "a different way." In Almas instance it worked out the second
time, but have to remember that like in Nephi's instance sometimes we may try
and fail a few times, but keep on hitting it, and sometimes when all our
studying it out in our mind doesn't work, and so many times have failed spectacularly, we
have to try once again and perhaps give it all up to the Lord and trust in Him to
carry it through. We’re here in
Argentina, or Salt Lake, or Provo, or Logan, or California, or Pennsylvania or
South Jordan or St. George or Georgia or on earth or whatever. We all got sent here, wherever here is, for a reason.
We all hurt when anybody hurts and smile when they smile. We can do it!
We are moving into fall and all of you
are moving into spring time. We are glad
that Utah has had some snowfall and water as we want everybody to have water to
drink this summer.
We love the work here, we love the
Lord and are grateful that we have a chance to serve. Hope all is well with everybody.
Abrazos,
