Los Ojos de la Fe

Alrighty, it´s been yet another solid week. The time really flies by here. The next thing I know, I´ll be dead! But anywho, fun fact: I bought like 3 kilograms of Oranges for 20 pesos (Basically 1 buck and a half) so i´m psyched :) Hahaha. Anywho, We did divisions/Splits this week, and Elder Bassett came to work with me here in Bella Vista. Usually, when the Zone leaders come, I feel super stressed, but i´m finally to the point where I just work, and there´s not much of a difference. All chill. I was talking with him, and we were saying how it´s interesting that in our homes before the mission, if we finish our work early, we feel accomplished, but if we finish our visits like 10 minutes early here, we feel guilty and feel like we still need to be doing something. Hahaha! I hope I can keep that going throughout the rest of my life!

Another interesting thing that I noted this week is that it´s incredible that people also have confidence in us, and tell us things about their lives that they don´t tell to anyone else.  Just makes me think about the importance of our calling in the lives of other people and whatnot.

Anywho, I´d also like to mention quickly a new investigator that made it to church this Sunday. He came with a member family. His name´s Ezequiel, and he´s basically almost blind. He had a ton of great questions in the third hour of church, and he got helped out a ton by the members. Shoot a prayer or two his direction. So ya, that also made me think a bit in a video, where someone says "I´m just glad that Faith doesn´t require sight" 

Well, i love you all, thanks for everything!

Hurrah For Israel! 

Elder Holtry

Elder Basset and I on splits

Something we cooked up

 FUNGUS

  

Conocimiento y Sabiduría

Howdy! So, I just want to say something crazy that happened in my home ward. Apparently, my old mission President and his wife visited the ward and found my parents! They sent me a picture.  I can´t describe the joy in my heart... but anyways, another week marches by. We´ve worked hard in this area, and this week was no exeption.  We always get back to the apartment tired, which I love.  I know that the Lord blesses us in our efforts as we continue and try different things as well. This is a difficult area, but i love it because it gives us a huge opportunity to break records and improve the area a ton.  We were blessed with a new investigator named Chrisitan this week. We taught him before in a members house, and they brought him to church.  It was a tender mercy, because all the other solid plans of attendence that we had failed.  But ya, it was an eddifying experience for him.

So hey, the time in the computor lab here is about to run out, but i´d just like to throw out a thought that I was meditating on this week, and it has to do with our knowledge.  Knowledge is something so precious, because it´s one of the only things that we carry with us to the next life.  I get frusterated sometimes, because I know the scriptures, but sometimes I forget where certain verses are.  It just shows to me the importance of the Lord and his Holy Spirit, because through them, we can remember and utilize that knowledge, changing it into Wisdom. So ya, we can be wise on our own, But "To be learned is good if [we] hearken unto the councels of God". 

Busquen al Señor! Sé que este es su camino, y es el único camino verdadero!
(translation: Seek the Lord! I know this is his way, and is the only true way!)

Elder Holtry

1- My parents with the Ayre´s

2 and 3- A bit of lunch at a local bbqish place

Vamos adelante

Well, another week becomes the past, carefully placed in the library of memory. It´s been an interesting one. We´ve worked, but there haven´t been a whole lot of changes. One new investigator that has a lot of potential is named Karina Sayago. Please pray for her, so that she can continue receiving this message. It´s been a hard/good transfer, and I feel that if we continue working and switching up things, the Lord will bless us.

Hey, fun story of the week. We went to visit Anibal, and we found him nearby the house of a less-active family in the ward. He and his less-active friend (Flippin Maxi...) Were at a chill local party, so we called him, and he came out and met with us.  Maxi came too, and he had a glass of alcohol. We recently taught the Word of Wisdom to Anibal, and he assured us that he hadn´t been drinking. Maxi tried to tell us it was ok because Jesus drank wine, and Blah blah blah, and Anibal asked him "Hey, can I see that?" (Refering to the glass) Maxi gave it to him, and Anibal tossed the contents on the side of the road. Such a stud. But ya, i´m also a bit bummed out, because he´s leaving this week on a two week trip, soooo... ya. I´ll keep you updated :)

Anywho, I just want to say as always that we need to maintain our contact with God ALWAYS. Because if we keep this contact with our prayers, scripture study, etc., we´ll be guided well. Always ask for the gifts of the spirit (Charity, Faith, hope, etc.... all the good stuff) Because these are things that we bring with us to the next life. Well, I seriously love you guys, and hope that everyone had a fantastic week.

Besos,

Hurrah for Israel,

Elder Holtry

Beautiful video of Josh and his companion and their morning hymn

La Progresión

Happy 4th of July!! It´s really been a week of miracles. But before we get to that, I´m going to throw out a few little fun facts from the week.  It´s been raining alot lately, so in the poorer part of our area where we work alot, there´s a TON of mud... So ya, we´ve walked through miles and miles of mud this week, and one night, Elder Juzga went to flag down a bus, but when he did it, he lost his balance on the slope and fell.  He was covered in mud on all of one side of his body. Hahaha! But ya, just got to continue on, right? 

On a more serious note, we got to meet President Smith on Friday.  He has a powerful vision for the mission, and I can see that he´ll be a great leader here, and that he´ll help so that the conversion and repentance of the people will be stronger and longer-lasting. I´m super stoked to work with him during the second half of my mission. 

So, we´ve been working hard this week (As we have all of our time here in this area) and we were blessed to be able to see a few of the fruits of our labors this week.  We were able to raise our number of contacts, of visits, and of people that attended church this week. Obviously, we´ll never know the true results of our work, but it´s nice to see things happening. The guy I mentioned last week, Anibal, is still going well, and progressing towards a baptismal date in these coming weeks. Please pray that everything continues going well for him, and that he can receive what he needs to progress in this critical time.

One thing that sparked my interest is something about another investigator that came to church this week: Elmer (Please pray a ton for him too, and his wife Maricela, so that they can progress). When we teach him, it´s pretty awesome, because he´s so familiar with the bible.   He pretty much already knows about the priesthood, the prophets, the stories of the old testament... Pretty sweet. But one thing that we noted is that he doesn´t always apply the things he knows to his life.  We´re helping him to do that now, bit by bit, but ya. Sometimes, we know alot, and we have the best intentions, but it´s difficult to really apply the stuff to our lives... Well, as I´ve said before, goals are great. It´s through goals that we can achieve our potential. So, something that I want to do more (Weekly planning) is take a bit of time every week to think about what I know, and what I need to do, and put goals so that I can improve constantly. So ya, let´s shoot for eternal progresion, eh? 

Bueno, sé que esta iglesia es verdadera, y que contiene el camino que el Señor quiere que sigamos.  Vamos con fuerza, para que logremos lo que el Padre quiere que hagamos. 

Les Quiero mucho!!!

-Elder Holtry