Week 18: Christmas Day!

It was wonderful being able to Skype with Ben on Christmas day.  He is doing great!  Here is a family picture we took.  We won't hear from him again until January 4th.

Week 17: Found My Favorite Person Ever and Surrounded By Drunk Men

Merry Christmas Everyone!

This week we had some amazing experiences, I'm super excited to write this letter.  

First off, we taught Sergio y Ines the ¨Tithing and Fast Offerings¨ Lesson.  The lesson went well, and at the end, we asked if they had questions.....they just asked, ¨so can we start this week?¨ I almost died hahaha.....Ines came to church this week, and paid her tithing, and they aren't even members yet!  We told her that she didnt need to pay it until they are baptized, but she stopped us and said that she wants to pay tithing so Sergio can receive the blessings, like I think Sergio y Ines literally just fell from heaven.  Such a blessing to be in their home, and to feel of their spirit.

Second, in my last letter, I talked about how we found a man who invited us into his house after we had a feeling to talk to him, and he ended up telling us he had a dream of the spirit world. 

Lots of things happened with him this week, so I'm going to expand a little bit.  

This man is named Barbosa, he is 80 years old, lives alone, and his wife died 12 years ago.  Right before his wife died, he had a near-death experience where he died for 7 minutes, during which he saw a glorious city, but a man told him he couldn't enter because he still had a work to do on the earth.  WOW.  

This man, Barbosa, told us that there is something different about us, and he can feel the love that we have for him, and before we even really taught anything, he told us he knows that the Church is true.....WHAT.  

He told us how alone he has felt for years, and that he has been searching for the true church for many years, and he BEGS us to come back to his house.  The spirit is always in his house, and we´re always crying

Also, Barbosa has a lot of pain moving around, standing up, has a hard time walking, etc.  We gave him a blessing, and the next day, he was free from pain, could walk fine, and was shouting ¨Look at me walk!¨ It was almost too much for me.  He already accepted a baptismal date, and eveytime I am in his house, I remember exactly why I am on a mission.....To Find People Like Him...people who are searching.  It is such a blessing to be part of this work!  The Lord truly guides us!

Funny Section:

1)  So there is this one street in our area, which we can use for a short cut, but the down side is that there is ALWAYS drunk men on this street.  One day, we decided to walk down it on the way to an appointment, cause drunk people are always way fun.  Sure enough, one guy stopped us, and started talking to us, and talking nonsense.  He decided that he liked us, so he led us to his house, on the way there, another drunk man found us, and grabbed our hands, wouldnt let go, and just kept yelling ÖREN POR ME!¨ or, ¨PRAY FOR ME!¨ we assured him we would, and got away before any other drunk guys got us.  As we were hastily escaping, he just started screaming ¨HALLELUJIAH!¨¨  so naturally li turned around and yelled back....elder Ribeiro thought i was weird.

2)  We were knocking doors, and i handed the ¨Ha nacido un Salvador¨ Or, a Savior is born, card.  I asked the man if he believed that sentence, and he responded, ¨No, We´re Catholic¨ hahahahahaha

3) Got stopped by another drunk guy yesterday who kept waving his cigarette in my face and trying to look in my bag.  He wanted to talk to me for a while, and i asked him if he had a religion.  He said no, ¨Soy libre como un nube¨ ¨ im free like a cloud.¨ He then got emotional, and started crying......AND.....no joke, i was watching him, and a BUG crawled out from the side of his eye.....it was so freaky

Well, thats about it for this week, SUPER amazing, and awesome week!  

The Lord is in his Work!

Elder Conover

Barbosa!!!

Sergio and Ines, and I promise I'm not fat...the 

picture just makes me look like I am.  Haha

My Mission

This is the ugly dog that we see from time to time....I have named him ¨Piranha¨

We were trying to imitate his face.

 

Me and the Familia Vera

​You're a missionary when.....you have a sick watch tan!

My Mission

Week 16: Birthday And Dog InThe Chapel

Hello Everyone!

This week was super successful, and plus, I had my birthday which was really awesome haha.

First, on Monday, we went to the zoo.  Fun experience....definitely South America.  Got some funny pictures of the animals sticking their heads through the fences cause they weren't that well made haha.  Gotta love it!  Plus, the insane monkeys fighting each other when you hand fed them popcorn were really cool too.

Then...my Birthday!! Literally one of the best days of my life.  I got everyone´s letters on my birthday (miracle)  and they were literally the best present of my life.  I spent like 1/2 hr reading them just filled with joy as I read each of them.  Literally each one of them were an exact answer to prayer.  

After that, we went to lunch.  We have lunch with the same family every Tuesday, and the mom can cook really well.  We had empanadas, and then when we finished, they pulled out the next miracle....an ice cream cake!  Literally exactly what I wanted for my birthday!  I was super happy and super grateful, the Quiroga Family is so awesome.

Then, we got to work.  Really slow for a couple of hours, but then we got called over by a member family on the street, to give a man a blessing, who has kidney stones and crazy bad pain.  In their house we literally witnessed a priesthood miracle, and afterwards I just stopped on the sidewalk and cried.  It was such a blessing.  And then afterwards we had a really powerful lesson with one of our investigators.  It was amazing.  The Lord truly blessed me with a miracle of a day and it was such a blessing for me.  

So this week, we had 3 people come to church, and that was amazing.  The spirit was strong and we were super stoked.  But then, it all came undone.....more to follow in the funny section.....

One more spiritual story....so the whole week, we were looking forward to an appt on sunday.  Family of five, Dad was super nice, excited to listen, everything.  Like golden.  We showed up to their house and they didn't answer and then we called and the wife got super defensive, kinda mad, and told us they didn't want anything.  So that kinda stunk.  So, we had 30 mins to find two new investigators to meet the goal. 

 We were walking down the street and I saw a man sitting outside his house.  I felt like we should talk to him so we walked over there, and talked to him.  He just opened up.  He let us in his house, and told us that he had a near death experience, in which he saw a glorious city, but he wasnt allowed in and was told that he needed to stay on the Earth to fulfull his mission.  His wife also died 12 years ago, and he told us how alone he feels, and how he doesnt understand why he is still here on the Earth.  Literally perfect.  It was amazing and the spirit was strong and he started bawling.  He stopped us after the prayer, and told us that there is something different with us from the other religions, and that he can feel our sincerity and how much we really care.  Such an amazing experience. 

Funny:

Knocked on a door the other day and a young girl answered the door.  She told us that her parents werent home, but then the younger sister opened the curtain, revealing the mom laying on the floor literally like 3 ft from us, the look on the moms face was priceless.

So we live in the backyard of a catholic woman´s house, and she had a little get-together with friends the other day, and invited us for a few minutes.  I made the mistake of sitting next to the 93 yr old woman who is nearly deaf but likes to talk.  My lack of language and her lack of hearing made for quite the show hahahaha

In Sacrament meeting, it was pretty quiet, and we heard something at the door.  Like whimpering.  Then scratching, and then a huge BANG!.  Someone went over and opened the door, and a big Lab ran into the room hahahaha.  Pretty funny watching the owner of the dog trying to catch it while the bishop tried to keep talking.  hahahahaha Good ol´ South America

Love ya guys, have a good week!

Elder Conover

My Birthday Letters!

My Birthday Ice Cream Cake

South American Zoo...when you have enough

sheep buy 300 more!

South American Zoo

The lemon pie a member made for me.

This is Juan Bornadel, the guy we found on mothers day.​In this moment Juan 

said ¨Whiskey¨ and he thought it was pretty funny.

A card a girl made for me.

My Mission

Week 15: The Week of the Spirit, Fallen Citas....and First Time Someone Tried to Hurt Me

Hey Everyone!

Yes, im still alive down here, even though it feels like the entire world has stopped other than down here in Argentina haha.  

It was a good week, and the Lord definitely blessed my feelings a ton, with many challenges, but many moments of glorious rejoicing.  

First, this week we had 24 appointments, and all but 7 fell.  That was pretty hard, but we worked really hard and still had some good success!

We had a lesson with an investigator who is having second guesses on baptism.  We watched the restoration video, which really invited the spirit, and then we talked about it, and then about baptism.  We read a few scriptures, and then the big guns came out.  We had brought a guy from the ward who recently returned from his mission, and he just dropped the Spirit bomb on her, and she just started bawling.  Then, we all testified, and the spirit was super strong.  I asked her to kneel down and offer a prayer with us right there on our knees about the baptism.  We did it, and the spirit was so strong, she was bawling, and you could almost like see the spirit it was crazy, it was such a blessing from the Lord and im so glad that he allowed me to be a part of that.

On saturday, we had 7 appointments, and we were super stoked.  Every one fell.  hahahahaha some days just kick ya in the teeth.  Literally, after six appts. fell, some kid kicked a soccerball square in my face.  It was frustrating at the moment, but man, I wish I couldve seen it from another point of view, had to be quite hilarious.  We just kept pushing and trying to teach.

Finally, one of our investigators (who is older) is starting to have problems with his health.  We were talking to his wife, and she seemed kinda bothered.  I asked her what was bothering her, and she completely opened up.  We gave a mini lesson on the Priesthood, and had the opportunity to give the husband a blessing in his bed.  It was really powerful.  

Funny Stuff: (A Lot This Week)

There was a fire in my area this week, and smoke filled the sky, we decided to go over to the fire to see if someone needed help.  Got over there and it was just people burning a TON of trash in the middle of this dirt field.  Classic.

Elder Ribeiro wanted to grab something off of a tree, so he jumped for it...lost his footing, and tumbled into the Asaiquia (giant gutter) I literally almost died of laughter seeing him sprawled out in the Asaiquia haha

Something that is really lame of starting to understand the language is that you notice all the comments that the girls make.  Also, ive really noticed how much people like to scream ¨HOW ARE YOU¨ in English.  It was funny in the beginning, not so much anymore haha. 

I was cooking steak yesterday, with oil, and it erupted into this huge flame in front of my face....literally almost gave me a heart attack hahahaha.  But I put it out pretty fast haha

AAAANNNNDDDD as for the title.......we were walking near a more sketchy area yesterday, and a car passed us and they told us to be careful.  We looked over and saw a bunch of Pibes (teenage gangster kids) makin a rukus.  We turned away, but they saw us and we heard something hit the pavement near us.  They chucked a big ol´ rock at us, but missed, and didnt bother us afterwards haha

Thats about it for this week, many miracles, blessings, and Awesome stories haha.  

This is the Lord´s work and he truly guides it!

Love you All,

Elder Conover

What do you do on Friday night?  We Plan!

It was hot and we were sweating, so of course Elder Ribeiro took

the opportunity to stick a ruler to his forehead!

This picture literally describes my mission perfectly.

The next door neighbor's dog.  Literally the scariest thing ever.

I don't think it has any teeth but his bark literally pierces your soul

This is your average asaiquia