28 March 2011

Hey thanks for the new pictures? I haven´t seen you guys for one year and McKenna is getting so much older?

Well we had a great week here in 9 de Julio. The best news would be that we had two baptisms. Roman and Yoanna! The two have great stories. Roman has been an investigator for a while that was found through an inactive family. The last couple of weeks we have been working with him and he wanted to be baptized two weeks ago. The last couple of times it didn´t work out because he was sick or went out of town.. we found out why because he was scared of the water ha. So we explained everything perfectly to him and he was baptized this weekend along with Joanna. Joanna was going to be baptized over 2 years ago but something happened but ahora she is baptized and a member of the church. I have found lately how you really have to rely on the Spirit to know the people better and to help them. The only way you can really help people is through the Holy Ghost because the feelings are from our Heavenly Father.

This friday we had a dance for the branch. It was great! As a missionary you can´t do anything so I was supervising how everything was going and from what I saw, everyone enjoyed it! I´ll send some pictures over too! We had a meeting yesterday and I found out that the kids here never have had Mutual. So we are planning to have mutual every two weeks now for the Rama. The kids are stoked and I´m looking forward to start it out for them. I´m glad I had great liders and fun times in mutual so I´ll def be looking back on my personal experiences to have great mutuales here in 9 de Julio. It´s crazy to think I am in charge of the jovenes here. I always say to myself. wow you are only 20.. you´re still a kid hah.

We are excited for this week to come. We have been blessed with a lot of people to teach lately. We usually find people through people and now it´s time to keep moving forward and giving them the oportunity to experience the gospel!

Love you guys!


I have some requests too!
I need mas SD cards
I really like those litle clogne smaples, so collect as much as you can and send it in every package hah
I actually would like a CTR ring.

21 March 2011

1. Did you get your hump day package? I´ll be getting it on Wednesday
2. Did you those michael jordan b-ball shorts? Yep
3. What is the address of your apartment? (I want to google it) I don´t remember but next week I´ll let you know
4. How many elders are in your apartment? Just us 2
4. Do you have laundry facilities? I wash by hand hah
6. Where do you shop for food? At a grocery store
7. What are you doing for p-day today.. I want to sleep!
8. How is it going being a branch leader? It´s good. I directed sacrament meeting yesterday and gave a talk. It´s going smooth!

Well another week down here in Argentina. The weather is starting to warm up so I´m happy hah. I think I have adjusted to the weather here because when it droped down to 22ยบ I was freezing! I think this winter will be a really cold winter for me here in Argetina. I don´t want the heat to go away haha. Sounds like everything is normal back home. Here in the mission the time is flying by really fast. After hitting a year time really does start to pass by. In the branch right now, being the YM leader, I´m looking forward to planning some activies. The youth told me they don´t do anything so I want to change that hah. Actually this Friday we have a Capilla Abierta and we are having a branch dance. We will see how it goes hah. But yeah here in 9 de Julio, everything is going good. The work is picking up and we have a good pool of investigators to teach. We found a woman from Paraguay who asked us right when we talked to her.. ¨ Do I need to be baptized si o si in your church when I go¨ hah hah a little upfront but we told her the process of finding out for yourself. She has some relation with the church because her uncle was baptized over in Paraguay. We have about 4 baptisms planned for the rest of the tranfer. Our goal is one baptism every week here in 9 de Julio so far we are hitting the mark besides this weekend but we had it rescheduled for the following saturday due to a kid named Roman being sick. So the work is going a ful out here. Our zone is at the top in the mission right now which is a surprise because everyone says Campo is a hard area to work in. We are working hard out here and for the 3 week straight our zone has been at the top! It´s crazy.. the zone out here has never been like this before since I have been here but we seriously have some studs out here in the zone.

The best way to work out here is through the members. It´s hard doing contacts on a bicycle because it would be a sketchy for 2 guys in a white shirt and tie to approach you from a distance and stop right in front of you haha. But we have found a different way to work out here and it is working! we are having success. It´s awesome working in the branch. I get to see the back side of the church and all the doctrine and business of how to run and do tithing etc etc. Hold meetings and interviews etc. It´s a great learning experience. I´m pretty stoked too because I gave a talk for 20 minutes without any notes. Shows how much the Lord blesses you on the mission with the gift of toungues!

BYU is in the sweet 16??!?! what thats crazy hah. Never would I have thought that.. Hope they make a good run in the NCAA.

Thanks for all the support and love back home. I love you guys. Out here in Campo we don´t get mail every week so I´m hoping for some good mail this wednesday when we have interviews as a zone! hah.

Love you guys,
Les Amo

14 March 2011

Hello everyone

So we had a great week here in 9 de Julio and ended it off with a baptism! Leandro was baptized this Sunday and confirmed a member of the church! It´s a crazy story because we woke up at 3 am to fill up the font for him and we held the baptism at 8:30 then church started and after that we had meetings until 8 in the night and then we visited a investigator who has her own radio station. It was a really busy sunday! I am super tired too! I heard about the earthquake in Japan.. its all over the news here because it changed the climate from blazzing hot to a super freezing rainy windy day here in 9 de Julio. It affected Argetina badly too with the weather. Floods etc in Capital but not as bad as it sounds. I´m glad that Riley is safe in Japan. Must of been crazy. I dont have much time to email today we have something to do at the church right now so I want to let you guys know everything is great here in 9 de Julio. My thing to send photos broke so I have to buy a new one this weekend. Hopeully I´ll be able to send some thursday or no.. next week!

I need new photos! Can you guys send photos of the family, me in newport or stuff like that to show my members here and investigators. You can attach the file here in the email and send them to the email. It would be easier because I can just download them and print them off here!

Thanks

Love you guys

09 March 2011

I´m able to email now!

So yeah I am now here in 9 de Julio in the Campo of the mission field. First off bad news because this keyboard is horrible so I dont have much patience in writing right now hah. But yeah it´s beautiful here and I have already visited here for a weekend so I pretty much know everyone here. It´s crazy to think 3 months have passed by so fast! Now I am one day away from hitting one year!! Last year at this time I was driving up to Utah to head off to the MTC. It passes by so fast and I´m scared to know how fast it will pass by in the future. I have no time!!

The members here are really cool and we are in a Branch so there are about 60 active members with 45 in assistance for average. I´m the first conselor and supposivly I am in charge of the young men here haha. We only have two young men soo we´ll see how it goes hah. It is weird to work on the church side instead of being a missionary 24/7. We are still working hard as missionaries though and we had a baptism this weekend! Gonzalo and his father were baptized and we have about 4 - 6 baptisms coming up within two months here in the area. Everyone says that the areas in campo are hard but when you dont think that way and work hard you really do see miracles. We have an investigator named Javier that is 15 years old and smokes so he wants to quit to get baptized.. so we use this technique where we make tea out of ciggaretes. Usually the person feels horrible after drinking it and the body rejects the ciggaretes if the person wants to smoke. So we will see how this goes! He told us he feels horrible hah so It´s working.. so there are a lot of people here in the area that are ready to be baptized. I can´t wait to work hard here and see the fruits. When you put your trust in Heavly Father things just work out. I dont know how they do but everything works out when we have our priorities straight and do the things the right way.

Love you guys and thanks for all the half way mark congrats!! I´ll send pictures next week because the compu USB drives aren´t working hah. But next time!!!

Elder Shepherd!

07 March 2011

I can´t email a letter today because all the Internet cafes are closed because today and tomorrow are holidays! Crazy right. We are in the capilla right now but I´ll be able to email longer on wednesday!

Take care everyone