Letters Home: ¡Tengo Gozo en Mi Alma Hoy!

¡Hola Familia!

Okay, this has been my favorite week in Argentina so far! It has been such a wonderful week. First off, I am a little late emailing today because we went on an adventure this morning, a cute sister from our branch drove us down to the riverside, we took tons of pictures (I´ll send em) and enjoyed the tranquility of the giant trees and the slow-moving river. It was so beautiful.

Yesterday was the best sunday ever, because we had a record number of people in the church! (40) This week we really focused on reactivating our less active members and there were many who came this sunday. There was just a different spirit there, a spirit of excitement and activity. And so many more priesthood holders! It was so wonderful. And then our cute little investigator B (who´s going to get baptized this weekend!) went up and bore her testimony. It was the best thing - she talked about how God can´t be here with us but when we pray to him we are able to see Him. And then everyone started getting up after here and talked about how touched they were by the words of a child. It was awesome.

Alright, here´s the best part. So there´s this family we´d been trying to start teaching, we´d met the kids (they have like 8 under the age of 13) but not the parents yet. Wednesday we finally sat down with the mom, G- she is only 27 years old, has all these little kids, but is actually married to her husband! That is no small thing. Anyways, we began to teach her the Restoration. Right as I was in the middle of Joseph Smith´s account of the first vision, she interrupts and goes, "I had an experience just like that once - when I was 11 years old one day I saw a man dressed in brilliant white, more white than anything I had ever seen, in the air, and he held a golden trumpet." She said this same man, an angel, had appeared to her a few times when she was having really hard times and he never said anything, but when he was there she felt overwhelmed with great peace and joy. My companion and I just looked at each other. Hna. Tovar pulled out her agenda, on which she has a picture of the Nauvoo temple, and said that the man she saw was the angel Moroni, who stands atop our temples. We read to her the account of Joseph Smith when Moroni appeared to him and his words matched her description exactly. Wow! She never thought that those experiences had had much meaning beyond bringing her peace when she needed it. But we testified to her that she had been prepared by God to recognize the truth when it came to her. Griselda is amazing and we are so excited to teach this family! She couldn´t make it to church this sunday, but sent her two oldest daughters to go with us and Brisa and they loved it.

Miracles are happening here in Carmen de Patagones! My companion and I were talking about when things really started turning around for us - and it was exactly when we made a commitment to consecrate ourselves more fully to the work and be more exactly obedient to the small things. It is so true that obedience brings blessings, and exact obedience brings miracles!

We are continuing to form great relationships with the members here. I have really loved visiting with the less active members - hna Tovar and I have found the middle ground of giving them love and understanding, but also testifying with boldness of how things are and should be. It has led to some really great lessons and we feel like a great wave of reactivation is coming up. Hooray!!

This is truly the Lord´s work. I have no doubt of it. I am so grateful that I get to spend each day immersed in the gospel of Jesus Christ - because it is the only way to find peace and joy in this crazy world.

Love you all!

Hermana Nelson

p.s. Today marks 2 months in Argentina :)

PERSONAL NOTES

dad- what a wonderful email! I´m gonna print it and study it more later. So I just finished reading Jesus the Christ (best book ever - so sad to finish it) and now decided to read the New Testament starting with Acts. I´ll have you know that I am so grateful for the love you´ve always shown for the NT! Also it makes me think of all the places we visited.

mom- what a crazy mailing situation! Hopefully i´ll get the package soon. I sure do miss some american foods! How is your new work going? Thank you mom as always for your love and prayers, I really do feel them and they are such a wonderful support!

Matt- That´s awesome your first baptism was also a little old lady! They are the best, truly. And I love that story about the rain miracle. There really is great power in fasting and prayer! Enjoy going to the temple as much as you can - I sure miss it here.

Angelica - those videos you sent are killer! She is just too much. And no, I haven´t gotten the package yet, hopefully nothing happened to it and I get it soon! I hear the mailing to here is crazy.

Paige - I just love how scholarly Keke is already - what a smart little boy. And rascally Rykie. I´ve told my companion all about my nephews. So true what you said about companions - and I feel so lucky to have had really great ones. It makes such a huge difference. Even when you get along though sometimes 24/7 is a lot of time together!!

Jake- Lucky! I want a snow day. And lots more time to prepare your talk! That´s nice. I have just been working as usual, preachin the gospel and stuff. I have to talk to strangers all the time and that can be a little scary but the Lord gives me courage. I´m so glad you like Once Upon a Time! What a great show. I´ll watch it with you when I get home.

For our Noche de Hogar (FHE) activity we set up Lehi´s dream in the cultural hall and dressed up like angels to direct the people through it. The elders complained that we are just trying to top their activities (its true)