¡Hola!
This
week flew by and before I knew it, we were already back at church. We started
the week by celebrating one of the best holidays, the Fourth of July. In our
District Meeting on Tuesday (July 4th) we sang, “My Country Tis of Thee”
and “America the Beautiful” while eating some M&Ms. So, we were pretty
patriotic. We didn’t have any fireworks, or a poolside barbecue, but we were
able to celebrate a little bit down here in the Arg.
The
highlight of the week was a quick trip to San Rafael to meet the new boss of
the Argentina Mendoza Mission, President Panzaechi! In order to get to know him,
we had a little meeting with President & Sister Panzaechi and their daughter.
We chated about the mission for a little bit and it was nice to feel the energy
he has for this beautiful work that we do. More than anything, I could just
feel the excitement he has to be here in the mission. His Uruguayan accent is a
little funny but he is a total stud and I'm excited to see the changes that he will
make in the mission.
On
the way to San Rafael, my poor companion got a little sick and ended up
spending the entire bus ride in the bathroom. So, in hopes that he could feel
better and get back on his feet, we spent the remainder of the day in our
pench. There isn’t anything worse than being sick in the mission, so I was
feeling in for my little dude. It gave me a good chance to read a lot of
scriptures and wash my clothes. So, it was all good.
A
few weeks ago, we helped a member move houses and during the move I started
talking with one of his friends who came to help. This friend and I created a
bond quite quickly because one of the first things I did was attempt to yank the
cigarette he was smoking it out of his mouth. LOL! I started talking to his son,
as well, and as we talked about God and the Bible and all that typical stuff. We
had a great chat and then they said we could pass by their house whenever we
wanted. Therefore, during the week we
put their invitation to the test and we paid them a visit. They opened right up to us and basically told
us to, “Feel at home.” We started chatting about what we do as missionaries and
their religion and all that good stuff and the first thing his son said was, “I
will never believe in Joseph Smith.” He said this before we had mentioned
anything about Joseph Smith. In retrospect, it was actually pretty funny and it’s
given me some motivation to teach my new homies more about the truths we preach. Mauricio and Alberto have turned into my new
homies here in the ARG and they are anxious to learn more. I'm really pumped
for them!
Over
the last few weeks we have been meeting a lot with Walter who is a 47-year-old
dad. He is very religious and he knows a
ton about the Bible. Legit! Every time we bring up a new principal, he knows
where he can find it in the Bible. This is good and bad because he loves to
contend with us, especially about the book of Mormon. But, he likes to read the
Book of Mormon and he told us to that if he really receives an answer about the
truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, he will for sure get baptized. So, now we
are just praying that it's time for him to receive his answer about the truthfulness
of the things we are teaching.
One
thing I really focused on this week was really listening to the people we
teach. Sometimes it is easy to just respond very quickly with an answer that
will prove our point, but this week I really tried to focus on each person’s
needs and how we can really help them come unto Christ. This worked really well
because the Spirit was so present and because of this, we were able to address
the needs of the people we teach!
Sunday
in church we were assigned to talk in Sacrament Meeting for an entire 15
minutes, which was a little stressful because the only time I have talked that
long was at my farewell, about a year ago. Ha ha! I talked about missionary
work and it ended up going very well. I focused on the role of the member in
this great work and I shared some thoughts from David Bednar’s talk in the last
conference. He spoke about how it doesn’t matter where we are called to serve. Rather, what is important is that we are called to serve. I used the great
example of my boy, Parkin, and told his story about receiving three different mission
calls and then almost getting deported from Russia. All of the members loved
that story and some didn't even believe it was true! A big shout out to my Life
Partner for being the best example to us of not worrying about where he’s
serving but just wanting to serve!
Have a good
week!!
Elder
Roderick
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