Elder Benjamin Michael Conover Mission Blog : 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