Fall is in the air

Fall in the patagonia

 Such a weird time of year for me.  April and May were always spring for my entire life.  But in Argentina the leaves are turning colors and falling off the trees.  Autumn is here.  It is beautiful and has really cooled down.  

We said goodbye to some great los fieles this transfer and received a great group of los refuerzos.  Our mission continues to grow and every transfer we continue to add more areas!   We now have 42 Hermanas in our mission!  It is an exciting time to be in our mission!!

Welcome Elder Alfonso, Elder Lescano, Elder Cappo, Hermana Molina, Hermana Gomez, Hermana Febres, Hermana Palma, Hermana Villalba, Hermana Brady, Hermana Douglass, Hermana Porras and Hermana Salvatierra

We will miss these missionaries!  Thank you for your service Hermana Barraza, Hermana Garay, Hermana Vera, Hermana Sanchez, Hermana

Fernando

 We met Fernando last week.  He was baptized today and he has an incredible story.

His life was a mess for most of his youth and through his young adult years.   He was on drugs and was living a life that was not happy.   He always believed that there was a God but didn't know how to find him.   He had finally decided to clean up his life and see if that made him feel happier.  As soon as he made that decision he was arrested for a phone he had stolen.   His punishment was to hand out cookies and juice to homeless people in front of the Catholic Church.   That started his journey on trying to find God.  He worked for the Catholic Church as a janitor for a while and started going to seminaries and reading every version of the Bible, he attended many churches and never found one that he felt he should join.  In this search he found an add for a free Book of Mormon.  He put in his information and never received one.  About 6 months later he moved to city in our mission called Cipoletti.  One day he saw these two young men knocking on every door in his neighborhood.  He was so excited when they finally knocked on his door.  They began teaching him and he began reading the Book of Mormon.  He could feel such a strong feeling of truth as the missionaries taught him about Joseph Smith and the restoration.  He accepted the invitation to attend church.  After his first church meeting, he could not believe the spirit he felt.  He knew after all these years he had finally found the Church he should join.  He had studied other religions for years, taught by pasters with lots of experience and never joined any of them.  He has been taught by our 19yr old missionaries for 3 weeks and was baptized.  

It never ceases to amaze me how the Holy Ghost will testify of truth and you can not deny it.  This is his gospel.  Everyday our young missionaries teach with the power of the Holy Ghost and it is amazing what the results are!  

Family Miracles

I went to help my daughter for a week in Alabama.  Our granddaughter Scarlett had her 2nd surgery on her Follicular tumor.   There were so many moving parts for this surgery to happen and everything fell into place perfectly.  It was a miracle from beginning to end.  After the surgery the surgeon even commented on how well everything went and that it was "a little creepy".  My daughter asked him if he new about the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and that her parents were Mission leaders and we had about 150 missionaries praying for her.   Thank you for all those who prayed and fasted with our family, the lord was in the details!  Our grand daughter is doing great and I am back in Argentina.  

 The day after I arrived we traveled to Zapala for interviews and caught the last few minutes of Zone council.  Wow!  I love our missionaries.   Our zone leaders and Hermana Leader were bearing their testimonies of this gospel and it was powerful.  I missed that!  It was a tender mercy for me because I thought I would be pretty homesick.  I am homesick, I miss my babies so much, but it is worth the sacrifice to witness such amazing growth in our missionaries and serve with such amazing young people!