tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21113168989683037222024-02-19T04:51:56.436-08:00Elder Josh BurtServing in the Argentina, Resistencia MissionCami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.comBlogger131125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-64277285808456792822014-04-21T18:19:00.002-07:002014-04-21T18:19:56.806-07:00The last email from Argentina....<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 21 De Abril 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This Sunday we took a great step in the progress of the group here in Quitilipi: Marcos and Jonathan both blessed the sacrament dressed in white shirts and ties.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's a great accomplishment that we are very content with and are excited to see where the two of them end up in the next year. Elder Valverde was saying that he would actually be able to see them off to the mission, or at least hear about it, because he will still be here in the mission when Marcos and Jonathan are able to leave for their own.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Marcos already decided that he wants to go to Germany for his mission.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This morning, we went and bought a bunch of meat to cook a barbeque for this afternoon. Marcos and Jonathan are going to come too.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">¡Nos vemos este sábado!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">(English translation: See you on Saturday!)</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-18649435698831600942014-04-14T18:05:00.003-07:002014-04-14T18:07:50.685-07:00PraIse the Lord with singing, music and dancing...<div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 14 De Abril 2014</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we were somewhat unsure of of whether or not we were going to have the baptism that we had planned, but everything went well for us.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHMd1HGakgHLBMJzPBERZMYYNUuCxC_KoWV5GCV60_s69fpZnMUNgv9st8-iAsDlqjdghVB6WSMDLysQCFKniYiAvlGkWWJYc6zHvDvIzQxwidyRDYpcAaUyYfkgtmGmWo7unroU_6PQ/s1600/baptism1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHMd1HGakgHLBMJzPBERZMYYNUuCxC_KoWV5GCV60_s69fpZnMUNgv9st8-iAsDlqjdghVB6WSMDLysQCFKniYiAvlGkWWJYc6zHvDvIzQxwidyRDYpcAaUyYfkgtmGmWo7unroU_6PQ/s1600/baptism1.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Tuesday evening, the assistant to the president came out to our area to work with us, so he and I went to visit Carina and since he was already there I asked if he could give her a baptismal interview. The only concern I had was that she hadn't been taught about tithing yet, so I let him know and he said that it would be fine. So they had the interview and Carina did well and already understood tithing as a principle, just not from the Gospel perspective. So her interview was done and she was ready to go once we taught her about tithing.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Once Carina was ready, we started to switch our focus to her younger sister, Eliana, who had said that she wanted to get baptized, but was now having some doubts. She's been saying that she doesn't want to give up the dances, but has already gone for two weeks without going to one. She perfectly understands the abyss example that we used last week and says that she won't be participating in any of the activities that the rest of the people usually do there. Mostly these doubts have been coming from her mom that is saying that she won't be able to resist temptation, but her mom is kind of right actually; President Kimball said that no matter who you are, eventually a person will break down if given enough time in the right environment.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We tried thinking of scriptures that we could use to teach her and overcome this whole dance issue and found this:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving."</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Doctrine And Covenants 136: 28</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Then here comes the inspired question: "With the music dancing and singing that is going on in those clubs, who is the one who is really getting praised?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">She said that she will be baptized this coming weekend on the nineteenth. We're hoping that she'll follow through, but more than anything we're trying to build her confidence and faith to be able to follow through; making good decisions is only ten percent of the equation, following through is the other ninety percent.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So Eliana didn't get baptized, but Carina did. We had some problems with her because as we got closer to the date, she became more and more worried as she began to confront the wall of her faith. Obviously in the end she made the decision to get baptized, but we were a little bit worried for a time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Thursday when we talked to Carina, she had spoken with some preacher about getting baptized and he tried to fill her with doubt about the Book of Mormon. So when we talked to her she asked, "why don't you teach as much with the Bible as the Book of Mormon?" So we went over the importance that the Book of Mormon has in the restoration of the Gospel and how it is proof that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that God continues to guide and direct His people upon the earth. She was still a little bit wary from her conversation with the pastor, but we answered all her doubts and questions and then helped her to remember her own testimony. When it came down to it, her real doubt was this: if she would be able to continue faithful until the end after her baptism. Well that sounded really familiar; that was the same doubt that Isabell had just a few weeks earlier that caused her to stop progressing in the Gospel. So we knew what to do from such fresh experiences and were able to help Carina get to the waters of baptism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We also had another great achievement this last weekend: Marcos and Jonathan both received the Aaronic Priesthood in church on Sunday.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When we were talking to Marcos during the week about how he would be sustained during sacrament meeting and then ordained afterwards. When we explained how everyone raises their hands to share their agreement he said, "well then no one is going to leave until they sustain me." He is kind of a character.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0H2fpWe1yPLkIH9kxTrNWoME35ziaOjhvpGuOtJ1EfhHqu482uzHHTvQTSWDr44d23NiXbdpBVI-SrhQzkW6i0zMlLYSFqiPokKUetat7zc4rkQ40RBjKhVGsLpK3VE8Za-Xfj3qGEaw/s1600/baptism2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0H2fpWe1yPLkIH9kxTrNWoME35ziaOjhvpGuOtJ1EfhHqu482uzHHTvQTSWDr44d23NiXbdpBVI-SrhQzkW6i0zMlLYSFqiPokKUetat7zc4rkQ40RBjKhVGsLpK3VE8Za-Xfj3qGEaw/s1600/baptism2.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The baptism itself went well on Saturday</span><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">. Carina was still nervous, but excited. She only had to be baptized once and everyone enjoyed the service.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-37658533073035842392014-04-07T12:47:00.004-07:002014-04-07T13:07:53.956-07:00163 baptisms! Ice cream for all!<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 7 De Abril 2014</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjswbJUKlF9N9Hh4zpWvu0glFfrWDo4KmOu9gmOsODi61wD1aY3OHMNBxR0kvzdimDyui5Wo6Bwz-0qv4ewem70xF9yojWlYfMyvyHNF-gKGLlEV7ejCky-QC6SysnAOB3VprspVhyphenhyphenZxCI/s1600/sisters+from+Campo+Largo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjswbJUKlF9N9Hh4zpWvu0glFfrWDo4KmOu9gmOsODi61wD1aY3OHMNBxR0kvzdimDyui5Wo6Bwz-0qv4ewem70xF9yojWlYfMyvyHNF-gKGLlEV7ejCky-QC6SysnAOB3VprspVhyphenhyphenZxCI/s1600/sisters+from+Campo+Largo.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the sisters from Campo Largo</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As a mission, we had one-hundred and sixty three baptisms last month in March, which was the goal of the mission, and the baptisms that we had this last week were the ones that got us to the mission goal. So, as a reward, our zone leader went with us to buy everyone ice cream, While we were there, there was a little boy who, I suppose, had some anti-American feelings because he asked another missionary from El Salvador why he liked Americans. This Elder replied, "because they stole Alaska from Canada just like we stole the Malvinas (Falkland Islands) from Great Britain." I thought that was really funny and the kid also decided that he now liked Americans.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In preparation for the general conference this past weekend, we spent a lot of timing teaching the people, both investigators and recent converts, about the Priesthood and those who hold it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In all of this preparation, Jonathan has decided that he would like to be a missionary too. So we've been teaching him a little bit more about the Priesthood, how he can prepare himself and what are the requirements to serve.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUbS55gozaT4oEWTdZed3G8rj6vtY3eHnM0AKRws3hvwtXZDpUpy_FlNvpt0ZaJ09qipvv6YRmIX4kzG8zSJhOjT6gjA7no_7t2bPiL6XIASiAbkgGa-OYX7W2JTRlP8tiPH8Z_lDYfq4/s1600/Jonathan+going+to+general+conference+with+Josh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUbS55gozaT4oEWTdZed3G8rj6vtY3eHnM0AKRws3hvwtXZDpUpy_FlNvpt0ZaJ09qipvv6YRmIX4kzG8zSJhOjT6gjA7no_7t2bPiL6XIASiAbkgGa-OYX7W2JTRlP8tiPH8Z_lDYfq4/s1600/Jonathan+going+to+general+conference+with+Josh.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I gave Jonathan a white shirt and tie to wear to church and to general conference</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Sunday, between conference sessions, Jonathan and Marcos were both interviewed to receive the Priesthood by the branch president. They both did well in their interview and will be ordained priests this coming Sunday. We're going to see if we can't get them to perform a baptism on my last Saturday here in Argentina; it would certainly be a rewarding experience to see two youth progress so quickly in the Church.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But we've been thinking that we are just finding everything and everyone that we need to be able to set up a full branch that will have the capacity to continue growing into a ward. We've taught a couple times a woman named Justina now. The last time that we talked with her she asked us if it would be alright to invite some of her friends over for the next lessons so that they could also learn from us. So now with Marcos and Jonathan we've already got our priests how are going to serve missions, and Justina and her friends will become the Relief Society presidency.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The general conference was really great though. we went to Saenz Peña to see it in the district center and rented a small travel bus to take everyone there on Sunday. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We were the only ones from Quitilipi who went for the Saturday session, which made things a little bit easier for us. Here Priesthood session starts at nine and then finishes at eleven at night. So we stayed the night with some other missionaries in their apartment. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next morning we had to get up to go back to Quitilipi so that we could shower, change, eat lunch, and then get back to work so that we could gather up everyone who was going to go to the conference.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6EfpBFJwtmoYRv3rMy6PQfr3J9izYpTZSS0d0VKaEQZH4KQEhlDMyMGxlfClnQ9jx76ADyDBv7X6aujGDt-uF6QilyE0ew2CZwD5dZYBAjKbCiYD4z3NXCl-EIflw6raRdjy0VXQOPw/s1600/bus+ride+back+after+conference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6EfpBFJwtmoYRv3rMy6PQfr3J9izYpTZSS0d0VKaEQZH4KQEhlDMyMGxlfClnQ9jx76ADyDBv7X6aujGDt-uF6QilyE0ew2CZwD5dZYBAjKbCiYD4z3NXCl-EIflw6raRdjy0VXQOPw/s1600/bus+ride+back+after+conference.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bus ride back to Quitipili</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Everyone enjoyed the trip and one girl, named Eliana, on the way back said that she was going to be baptized (before she had been undecided and wasn't sure what she wanted to do). She has been making some good changes though, including giving up social engagements to be more active in the Gospel. Here, especially in Quitilipi, all the of the youth go to the dance clubs and there just isn't anything good that happens there. So when she asked if she shouldn't go to the dances I asked her, "If you were walking next to an abyss, would you try to stay as far away as possible or walk as close to the edge as possible and try not to fall in?" She said that she would avoid the edge because it's too risky to walk the border of the abyss. So I asked her, "If everyone at the dance is drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and then going home to someone else's house and eight o'clock the next morning, how close are you to the edge of the abyss by going to the dance?" She got the message and hasn't been to the dances for two weeks now. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I know this letter is short, it's just that we spent the whole week in meetings and getting ready for general conference. Next week I'll be sending some baptism pictures though.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-87203975011199299112014-03-31T19:31:00.002-07:002014-03-31T19:31:13.484-07:00Jonatan's Baptism<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 31 De Marzo 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we had a lot of focus on two young men, Marcos Ledesma and Jonatan Aguirre, as the two of them prepared for their baptism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Monday we had a visit with Marcos about tithing. Also there was his grandma, Angela, who is, in Marcos' words, "very catholic." So we were teaching him about tithing (the blessings we receive, what the money is used for and how to pay it) when out of nowhere his grandma interrupts and says, "I don't agree with the way your church runs its tithing." She told us that it wasn't right that we could force someone to pay ten percent of their income to the Church. Obviously she didn't understand, especially when she said, "they don't exhort you to do anything in my church; if you have an extra coin then you can donate it."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We didn't worry about arguing with her on the matter; she didn't agree with the standards of the Lord and that's all there was to it. But I was thinking more about tithing afterwards and thought of the following:</span></div>
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<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Tithing is a sacrifice.</b> In ancient times the Lord required sacrifices from His people in the form of animals and now he asks us to give up a part of our income. If we only pay a donation whenever there is a little extra to go around then it isn't a sacrifice and we would be exactly the same as the scribes and the Pharisees who only gave what was extra.</span></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The windows of heaven are opened unto us.</b> Where is the closest place to heaven on earth? The temple. And the only way that we can get into the temple is to pay a full and honest tithe. By going to the temple are we not receiving a blessing so great that there shall not be room enough to receive it?</span></li>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I had thought of a few more points, but for now I can't remember them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Later with Marcos, we were able to watch the movie about President Monson's life called "On the Lord's Errand." It was pretty good and Marcos actually liked it more than I thought he would; which is really good because I thought that he was just going to be bored, but President Monson tells some good stories.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Things have been interesting with Carina and Daniel this week. The two of them are currently quitting smoking, and in Daniel's case, quitting drinking as well. But they've been having to make some changes and it hasn't been easy. We haven't really seen too much of Daniel this week and we're trying to help them get ready to be baptized on the twelfth of April. I think that Carina is getting a little discouraged, or maybe just annoyed, because she was supposed to get baptized this last Saturday, but couldn't because she is still smoking and so we had to change her baptismal date to the fifth, but then they said that we couldn't baptize on the fifth because of general conference. So once again we've changed her date to be for the twelfth of April. Regardless of the date changes, she still hasn't conquered smoking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we've been focusing lately on setting goals and achieving them. We've talked a bit more extensively with them about keeping the Sabbath day holy and the importance of their own personal preparation for baptism.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So Saturday was kind of a busy day for us because we had the baptism in Saenz Peña and then immediately afterwards we had a branch counsel meeting (which I go to and then the other Elders rotate around on who accompanies me). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The baptisms went really well. Once again we had a small travel bus to take everyone to the baptism and get to the church. We had a good group that went; about twenty two people just from our investigators and some of the investigators of the other companionship. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij5LAOE9EpOolc4I9HL0CerGA1kVMNDTIeoJi1dccVjjJz0FMaUQy7qlKWaLm0qv9wJqc7bDgB6DEZMFFetW3okquhW3ELC9X8gUP0h8a3r7xLJiDoTJxkYQJTF5lTmM4vIYPIW60kB3o/s1600/Jonatan's+Baptism.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij5LAOE9EpOolc4I9HL0CerGA1kVMNDTIeoJi1dccVjjJz0FMaUQy7qlKWaLm0qv9wJqc7bDgB6DEZMFFetW3okquhW3ELC9X8gUP0h8a3r7xLJiDoTJxkYQJTF5lTmM4vIYPIW60kB3o/s1600/Jonatan's+Baptism.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">First I baptized Jonatan and then Elder Valverde baptized Marcos (who he has been teaching for five months now). It was really funny because one of Marcos' friends, Joel, came with him to the baptism and while we were there, Joel was getting phone numbers from the young women in the branch in Saenz Peña. I guess whatever it takes to get his friend coming to church with him is alright with me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The counsel meeting was pretty disappointing though. The leaders from the branch always commit themselves to coming out to Quitilipi to help us run things and work with the members and then they always put up some sort of excuse not to come. The district president said that he wouldn't be able to make because he needed to stay in Saenz Peña to set apart the new seminary teacher, as if he was going to do it during the church meetings and couldn't just wait until church got out, and then the first counselor to the branch president said that he couldn't make it because he doesn't have his license and therefore can't drive on the highways. I was at the point of sharing this scripture with them, but didn't,</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i style="background-color: #783f04;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">"And we did </span>magnify<span style="line-height: 22px;"> our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the </span>responsibility<span style="line-height: 22px;">, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not </span>teach<span style="line-height: 22px;"> them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their </span>blood<span style="line-height: 22px;"> might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day." Jacob <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_221048988" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">1:19</span></span></span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If in the next meeting they still have the same attitude then I won't let them continue in their slothful thinking; we're trying to get everything put in order here and the people who should care the most are completely oblivious to the situation and don't try to become involved.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">After the meeting, there wasn't a bus back to Quitilipi until ten thirty, so Elder Warth and I didn't get back to our apartments until eleven thirty and finally got to bed at midnight.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Jonatan is doing super well though. We're going to work with him to get the Priesthood so that he can get some baptisms under his belt here pretty soon. He really wants to participate more in the Church and even offered to come and help clean the building whenever we needed help.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So the building that we are using for the church meetings is being rented to us by a man named Sergio and his mom lives on the property next to the building. Her names is Justina. So on Saturday, she said that she wanted to come to see how it was for the first day and she actually came to the meeting, she just got there at the very end right as the closing prayer was being said. So we went to her house later on Sunday night and talked to her about the restoration of the Gospel. She really liked what we had to share with her, but was a little bit hesitant to accept a baptismal date. She felt confident about what we shared though and has agreed to pray about what we shared with her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was really funny when we first sat down with her because she started telling us about her life and said that she lives alone and has nothing to do and sometime feels a little lonely (that wasn't the funny part) and then said that she wants something to fill her time like visiting people, visiting a sick person, doing some service, or getting involved in an activity and I thought, "we need to get her into <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Relief Society!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-80470045731012540242014-03-25T17:40:00.003-07:002014-03-25T17:45:28.478-07:00Feast upon the word and endure to the end...<div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 25 De Marzo 2014</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So this week was the first week that I've ever gotten sick in the mission, but it really wasn't bad at all. I just had a cold and took some pills for it. But this is what happened:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Tuesday, we started to a companion exchange that was to last for four days (so for the majority of the week I wasn't even in Quitilipi) and I went to Saenz Peña with an Elder that I met when I very first arrived in Argentina: Elder Mojica from El Salvador.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That first night together, we had to go to an appointment in the outskirts of the city and we had taken the scenic route in order to avoid all of the mud (because it has been raining quite a bit this last week). We were doing really well keeping our shoes mud-free until we got to a street that was flooded as far as the eye could see. So we decided that there was no way to get around and no time to come up with some other plan, so Elder Mojica asks me, "do we cross with or without shoes?" So it was decided, we were just going to wade the river in order to get to our appointment. So we stepped in and took pictures before continuing on our way. </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicw-hEMD6hoIeUuYvx0jXBN57tAcu-uNzcBIo7hQeB6KuWjCAhF9zUegnyZe24QOeozzeiI6Sgy_ufMZ-kWbNNtW9hcIDTP3yswgT3Hnub8jBD0HZI9Q2M5YKJFJAb6lJIEDI8SAJ-vU4/s1600/river+in+the+street.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicw-hEMD6hoIeUuYvx0jXBN57tAcu-uNzcBIo7hQeB6KuWjCAhF9zUegnyZe24QOeozzeiI6Sgy_ufMZ-kWbNNtW9hcIDTP3yswgT3Hnub8jBD0HZI9Q2M5YKJFJAb6lJIEDI8SAJ-vU4/s1600/river+in+the+street.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We go to the appointment, had our lesson, and by the time we had finished it was already time to get back to the apartment. So we crossed the river once again (because once you're wet, you're wet).</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We both got up the next morning with some minor cold symptoms, but thought nothing of it; there were things that needed to be done. So we went out that Wednesday morning to go and teach some less active members before having lunch with a recently reactivated family.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">With this family that was only recently reactivated, we talked to the kids (who are the ages of eight to fifteen) about obedience at the request of the mother. So we talked about the blessings that we get from being obedient and shared this scripture:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey"</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Alma <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_936373614" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:27</span></span></i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We asked some questions like: "What kind of blessings, or salary, do you get from obeying your mom?" or "What kind of blessings, or salary, do you get from obeying God?" After the lesson, I told all three of them that if they would be perfectly obedient for the next hour while we were gone (we were coming back to this family an hour later to eat lunch) then I would give each of them a CTR ring, but only if their mom said that they earned it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When we got back, the mom approved the two younger boys for their CTR rings, but the fifteen year old girl hadn't quite won hers yet, so I gave it to Elder Mojica and said that he would give it to her at church on Sunday. She wasn't too happy about the idea and said to me, "I consider us to be friends, maybe you could just let me have the ring now." So I told her, "As your friend, I invite you come to church on Sunday." So then she said, "Well, I consider us to be companions (here they say "companion" as a more of slang way yo say friend)." I replied, "Well, as your companion I invite you to come to church." So she said, "Well your just an Elder then." Again I said, "As an Elder, I invite you to come to church." Finally she said, "Well your just a stranger then." I simply said, "I invite you to come to church."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I never actually heard if she went or not though.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Later that afternoon, we went to go get some things done in the city and I worked on my application a little bit, but as the afternoon grew on Elder Mojica started feeling worse. So we went back to the apartment and called Sister Heyman to get some advice. She told him what pills to take and also said that he needed to rest. So we stayed inside for the rest of the day.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next morning, he still wasn't better, so I took the time to get some extra studies in and do some writing. Later that afternoon, I went with a different missionary named Elder Calderon because his companion, Elder Sacalxot (one of my previous companions) was also sick. So those two stayed in the apartment together while I went to work with Elder Calderon.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Once I got back to Quitilipi on Friday, I found that everyone else had also gotten sick (except for Elder Warth who got sick the next day anyway). But there was no time to stay in the apartment and rest.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We worked through Friday and Saturday and then the four of us stayed in to rest and get better on Sunday afternoon after having gone to church and studied.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But really we've been seeing lots of progress and growth here. What we do is rent a small bus that has twenty seats to take everyone to church on Sundays and we've filled it up the last two weeks. The picture I sent gives an idea of what it's like, but not everyone can be seen in the picture.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLvbcrJGLUZocw4uMWdczsF6I7E1qAZLaMVhFfEQBGdQxsimUq-8FH8btc6JXfDDNekspDmTzdTVOsT-bMuorQDcKGT8gFZWiMUvNRYeMhK379GCi2uyWaX6ksAioILpjos0lEAreR-RI/s1600/taking+the+people+to+church.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLvbcrJGLUZocw4uMWdczsF6I7E1qAZLaMVhFfEQBGdQxsimUq-8FH8btc6JXfDDNekspDmTzdTVOsT-bMuorQDcKGT8gFZWiMUvNRYeMhK379GCi2uyWaX6ksAioILpjos0lEAreR-RI/s1600/taking+the+people+to+church.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Also in that picture, there were only a couple of members on the bus and the rest of the people, about fifteen, are not members. So we've just seen some explosive growth here to lay the foundations for a branch to start here. The great thing about it is that the whole group gets along really great together and they are all already friends. This Friday we are actually planning to baptisms for two eighteen year old boys: Jonatan and Marcos.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Marcos makes me laugh at times; we were walking to catch a bus with Marcos and we go past a prom dress store and Marcos says to Elder Warth, "If you behave in church then I'll buy you a dress just like that one in the window."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've had to stop teaching Isabel however. She wasn't really acting as much as she needed to and wasn't firm in her decisions. Really the experience with her gave me a new meaning for the phrase, "the Spirit will not always strive with man." If someone ignores the Spirit for to long, or doesn't act in faith, then the Spirit will just stop giving that burning feeling and motivation to continue and the desires of the individual will turn from "following Christ" to "doing whatever is easiest and most convenient." It was really quite a sad thing to see happen; her life had improved so much, but she didn't have enough faith to take the next step and get baptized.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I guess that the warning signs for this is when a person starts to ask questions like, "What happens if I can't afterwards?" or "What if it's not what I expected?" or "What if in a couple of years I just decide that I don't want to keep going?" These are all questions that she would ask and they all demonstrate a lack of faith and hope. Nephi has counseled us,</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>2 Nephi 31:20</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span><br />
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-10048806928508110712014-03-17T22:24:00.003-07:002014-03-17T22:24:58.274-07:00A very successful future for Quitilipi<div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 17 De Marzo 2014<br /><br />We got our light bill on Monday morning and it was way higher than we expected it to be. So we called the guy that is in charge of managing our apartment to find out what was going on and he said that the price<br />of electricity went up sixty percent in all of the province.<br /><br />Tuesday was transfer day, or better said, the night that they call us to say who is going and who is staying. So Elder Gates and Elder Warth made a chocolate cake that was either going to be a farewell cake or a celebration cake depending on the outcome of transfers. So we got the call and they informed us that the four of us would be staying together for another six weeks; we are all pleased with what happened.<br /><br />It was kind of funny on the Monday before transfers because Elder Valverde was sure that he was getting moved because he has now been here for three months, so we walked around on Monday taking pictures around the city; he even said good-bye to Marcos (one of the youth that we're teaching).<br /><br />Last week we started teaching an eighteen year old named Jonatan and his family, but lately we've only been teaching him and not the rest of the members in his family. But he's been really great; he came to<br />church with us this last Sunday and really enjoyed it.<br /><br />On Tuesday night, we had a lesson with Jonatan and he said that before we showed up at his house that he had been studying the Bible quite a bit and was about to start looking for a church to join, but he just didn't know which one to go to. That's when we arrived. He said that he believes that we were sent from God to him because this is the path that God wants him to be in.<br /><br />As we continued talking with him, we presented to him the Book of Mormon and he really enjoys reading it. We had a lesson about how the Book will act as a guide in his life and read in Alma 37:44-45 with him about how the liahona was a symbol of following the words of Christ. Afterwards he asked us to mark the chapter about the liahona to read later in addition to the chapter we had already marked.<br /><br />On Wednesday we shared a brief lesson with Marcos Ledesma; one of the youth that we had been teaching, but haven't seen for awhile. We watched the twenty minute version of the Restoration video with him<br />and talked about his own testimony of the Church. We didn't have a lot of time to talk with him, but before we could set an appointment to come back he asked us, "can you come back tomorrow?"<br /><br />We went by the next day, but we weren't able to talk to him because he had to go to the dentist, so we didn't get to meet his friend either.<br /><br />We didn't actually have a chapel here in Quitilipi, so there were a couple of weeks that we've met in a member's home and other weeks when we've gone to the branch in Saenz Peña. In order to go to the meeting house in Saenz Peña we either have to rent a mini bus and tell everyone where the pick-up point is or try to organize every one into groups to take the bus there. As difficult as it can be to get there,<br />it's good for the members from Quitilipi to see that they're not the members in the world and they can participate in the classes with lots more people. What's bad about not having the chapel here in Quitilipi is that the members see the buildings as a representation of their faith. So there have been some members that say they don't want to do missionary work until we have the chapel here and they are other<br />members that can't make the trip to Saenz Peña.<br /><br />So we were expecting to have the chapel in Quitilipi ready for use as of yesterday, but we hadn't heard anything from anyone and no one had given use keys to get in and out. So we called President Heyman on<br />Wednesday and asked him what was going on with the building. He said that they're trying to have it ready by the end of the month, but it's still not ready for use. So this complicated things for us because there were still three more Sundays in March and we needed to plan at least two more trips to Saenz Peña, if not three. Then on the first weekend of April we're going to be back in Saenz Peña for general conference.<br /><br />I'm confused by Isabel at times. She's been having doubts, not doubts in the doctrine nor in the church, but rather in herself. But this last Thursday when we talked with her, we invited her to come to a baptismal service for another companionship so that she could see how a baptism is. Well at first she said that she wasn't sure if she wanted to go and then said, "can other people get baptized in the service if they want to? For example, if someone who is sitting in the<br />meeting decides that they want to get baptized too, can they?" So we asked her if she wanted to go and get baptized. She said, "I might do that; that's just how my personality is. Maybe I'll feel something in<br />the meeting that will move me to get baptized in the moment."<br /><br />Saturday, the day of Luis' baptism, Isabel decided that she didn't want to go because she wasn't feeling well, but we did have a lot more people come with us and a lot more than we expected.<br /><br />Basically everyone that we're teaching lives on the same, long street, so we were walking down the road and stopping at everyone's houses to pick them up so that we could walk to the bus stop together to go the<br />baptism. Well we first met up with Jonatan (because he lives the farthest away) and then made our way to Carina and Daniel. What we weren't expecting was all of the other people who were waiting with them. Two younger brothers of Carina decided to come as well as two other kids that we talk with. So our group became huge and suddenly we were a group of ten and later twelve once Marcos and his friend Joel met us at the bus stop.<br /><br />So we took a huge group of investigators to the baptism and they had a really good time and it strengthened their desires to be baptized.<br /><br />The next day on Sunday morning, we took a group of investigators just as big, but with the addition of four members and three more investigators from the other companionship; we were a group of twenty-one people and in Church it seemed that there were just as many<br />from Quitilipi as there were from Sáenz Peña.<br /><br />There was a prophecy given by Marvin Ballard about the growth of the Church in South America and in it he said that the Church would grow like an acorn, slow but constant. Well the Church has been in Quitilipi for about four months now and there have been four baptisms between both of the companionships, or an average of a baptism per month. But as I was thinking about the people that we are teaching and the people that are coming to church, we actually have a very rate pool of investigators.<br /><br />Right now, my companion and I are teaching three young men that are between seventeen and eighteen years old and the other companionship, Elder Warth and Elder Gates, just baptized a man named Luis. The only reason that this is usual is because in the mission, and I think for South America in general, the majority of the people that are baptized are women and children, but we are teaching mostly men and young men who are of mission age. As I thought more about it, it just made me think that we are finding everyone that we need to start the Church here in Quitilipi; we'll have sisters to run the Relief Society, men to be in the bishopric, and young men to serve missions. All in all, we are seeing the beginnings of a very successful future here.<br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,<br />Elder Burt</span>Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-40755224512980461592014-03-11T13:09:00.000-07:002014-03-11T13:12:31.687-07:00Our trials mold us<div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 10 De Marzo 2013</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGSeZrmD-BYZoRJm7dyJnYnIB2BwYiuRFkOb6azREZAqpe0WHrZF28Vw8eSdsqR1E_SuBORdW5oSZN0l-ympXwh5Psx6ivcqhrUezOWZ8cqsno-xfQ08IwU51j4pYlZi5lh-uWL4WOFSI/s1600/bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGSeZrmD-BYZoRJm7dyJnYnIB2BwYiuRFkOb6azREZAqpe0WHrZF28Vw8eSdsqR1E_SuBORdW5oSZN0l-ympXwh5Psx6ivcqhrUezOWZ8cqsno-xfQ08IwU51j4pYlZi5lh-uWL4WOFSI/s1600/bridge.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />So our week actually started out kind of slow, but not because of anything that we did. This last Monday and Tuesday there was the carnival festivals, so all the missionaries had to stay in their apartments for those two days.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We were able to go out during the day, so on Monday morning we went and pruned trees for a sister in the branch and then in the evenings we played Uno and talked to each other. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9_hmpxzq3I9xOMU4HQgmYmhylJT4MKSa3zXsxjeiFZrVM3qW_26wtqTopcI8aTr4GfSK4dbm_QbRu55M1rN8GLIH-ftA4m8u-OZkNr3XRcZw9GspEi4JHOWXa_2KTWT6qolwYvicMbRw/s1600/machete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9_hmpxzq3I9xOMU4HQgmYmhylJT4MKSa3zXsxjeiFZrVM3qW_26wtqTopcI8aTr4GfSK4dbm_QbRu55M1rN8GLIH-ftA4m8u-OZkNr3XRcZw9GspEi4JHOWXa_2KTWT6qolwYvicMbRw/s1600/machete.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But this week we were focused on trying to get things moving with the group (it's not even a branch yet here). So we went to a council meeting this last Saturday and proposed a plan that I had made with Elder Valverde to get things running here. Mostly what we're looking for is that the leaders who are supposed to be running this group can magnify their callings and take more responsibility; that's actually harder than it sounds when we, as President Heyman said, "live in a nation without commitment."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So our plan is simple, short, easurable, and easily executible just a like a good plan should be. We dividided it into three parts:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. Visits To the Members</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">3. A Combined Effort</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What we want to do is get the leaders to come out to our city (which is a twenty minute car ride away from their city) and actual do the home and visiting teaching. We, the missioanries, are going to continue visiting the members and training them so that they can become leaders and be ready to receive callings once we had a branch here.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW33mcyM3-ImA800MH7tS4bP_usczRkRe3wTqTLJGi679yNn7Mj_pamBm2gBuhpYyF546BEWolK-_FeuVrxgcNL0o2LSIvGTCRWF-FnfIibZS3Cwuuk6T0mOU86rb6aFb1y5JJ2rp1o18/s1600/goofy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW33mcyM3-ImA800MH7tS4bP_usczRkRe3wTqTLJGi679yNn7Mj_pamBm2gBuhpYyF546BEWolK-_FeuVrxgcNL0o2LSIvGTCRWF-FnfIibZS3Cwuuk6T0mOU86rb6aFb1y5JJ2rp1o18/s1600/goofy.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">After that, we made plans that at least two leaders could come every Sunday to give talks as well as teach the Gospel Principles class. Then every fast Sunday, we, the members from Quitilipi, will travel to the other city, Saenz Peña, to participate in their meetings and be in the big chapel. This way the members from Quitilipi don't feel like the only Mormons in the</span><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> world and they can meet lots of new friends and see how the Church is suppose to run.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As part of our efforts, we, the missionaries, are going to continue participating in the branch counsel meetings so that we can make more plans and report the progress of the group.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was actually really different going into their counsel meeting and essentially telling everyone else what they were going to do, but we didn't ask them to do anything more that what was already expected of them.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirv0NgLdg6yRaIsTTLWcaiMcJnV21lZbOUFU0unKzNHgALDCwRR0GFcVv-9MaZsyKxKqFxjqInVBhP1QulrXcO4RdXD_J9OJLTVRovILiN964c-aV-b76tdbOGkabz7xCSuFjdH9t6eqs/s1600/jerseys.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirv0NgLdg6yRaIsTTLWcaiMcJnV21lZbOUFU0unKzNHgALDCwRR0GFcVv-9MaZsyKxKqFxjqInVBhP1QulrXcO4RdXD_J9OJLTVRovILiN964c-aV-b76tdbOGkabz7xCSuFjdH9t6eqs/s1600/jerseys.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We also were talking to a member from Saenz Peña that seems to knows everyone in Argentina and who also keeps a record of everyone's addresses and full names. So he gave us a list of references of people to talk to in Quitilipi. So we've been having some really great success with that. On Thursday we met a man named Hector Farías who met the missionaries eleven years ago, but never got baptized. After the missionaries left Quitilipi, he kept writing to the elders and he kept going to church. When we asked him why he never got baptized he said that no one ever asked him if he wanted to be baptized. So we're excited to see what happens with him.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the references that we got didn't go too well because the guy said that if we didn't stop bothering him and his family then he would shoot us. So we told him to have a nice day and we haven't been back since that one and only visit.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Isabel on the other hand had passed for difficult trials I suppose because when we went to talk to her on Thursday she wanted to give us all the books and pamphlets that we had given her back to us. So we talked to her about what was happening and how the trials that we face are what mold us into something better in the same way that fire refines gold and turns iron into steel. After talking for a while, she felt better and was ready to keep going in the church. The biggest problem that she is facing now is that both of her kids, one who is seventeen and the other who is thirty-two, are both into drinking and going to clubs and parties, so she is constantly worried and stressed. We told her that she just needs to keep reading, praying and going to church so that she can receive the revelation that she needs in order to help her kids.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last night, we walked up to a man sitting down in front of his house and asked if we could talk to him. He said 'yes, but then said something interesting, "I'd offer you mate, but you don't drink it right?" Mate is kind of like a tea that everyone drinks here and the missionaries aren't allowed to drink it. So we asked him how he knew that we can't drink mate and he said that he met the missionaries fifteen years ago when he was still in high school, but they never talked to him about the church.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well this man's name is Oscar Castillo and he is basically already a member of the church for his lifestyle; the only thing he lacks is a little bit of water. So we talked to him and he wasn't doing to well spiritually. He said that he wasn't sure if God really existed or not, but that he used to believe in Him. We had a really great conversation with him about who God is, His divine nature as our Father in Heaven, and the plan the He has for us. At the end of our conversation we gave him a Book of Mormon and our phone number to set an appointment with us. The only bad thing with him is that we're only going to be able to meet with him once a week.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-55433990917842172942014-03-03T13:56:00.003-08:002014-03-03T14:04:51.095-08:00The light on the horizon<div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 3 De Marzo 2014</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Monday we had a conference with some of the zones that were close by to ours with President Heyman in which he went over some of the basics of missionary work and taught a few new principles as well. (This was why we didn't write last Monday). After the conference, I was talking to President Heyman and he said to me, "Elder Burt, it seems like you've been in this mission for five years. When are you going home?." I told him that I was going home in April and he said, "well that's coming right up." Then today in his weekly letter to me he writes me a letter that started out by saying, "I want to share something that has nothing to do with missionary principles, but rather principles for after the mission..." His letter then went on to talk about getting married in the temple.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I've been working a lot with my companion, Elder Valverde, on his English this last week and teaching him phrases that he needs to know if he wants to sound like he knows what he's talking about. So this last week I taught him how to say our Pledge of Allegiance in English. I thought that seemed like something that he should know. So now if someone asks him how good his English is, he just says the Pledge of Allegiance in English.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So there has been a man that we've been kind of teaching. More than anything we've been teaching his wife and his daughter, but haven't really been teaching them or passing by so much in the past couple of weeks because they were never going to church and to make things worse, this guy, whose name is Rito Aguirre, is always very drunk and doesn't ever let us teach anything because he always asks us, "why are there so many bad things in the world if God is good?" We answered his question the first three times he asked us, but he always asks us that one question. But here's what happened with him: Elder Warth and Elder Gates, the other missionaries in the city, were walking in their area and saw this guy walking in the street drunker than usual. So they asked him if he needed help and he said yes. so they said that they were going to help him get back to his house, but little did they know that he lived twenty blocks away. So they walked with him for an hour until they got him home and he didn't get hurt or robbed like he probably would have had they not helped him. Well a couple of days later we saw this man in the street watching a soccer game in the park and he asked us to come over and talk to him. He was still drunk, but not just his usual level of drunkeness and he just wanted to say that he was extremely grateful for what our companions did for him.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was also in that conversation with him that he said that he wanted to change his life and be better. So we set an appointment with him to come to his house and start teaching him again. Well he wasn't there for that appointment when we went to see him. So a few days later we saw him again and we sat down with him. Again he said that he wanted to change his life, but was still his usual level of drunkeness. We told him that he had to stop drinking completely and he said that he was willing to do it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well all of that happened a couple of weeks ago and we never found him again until just yesterday. He was completely healthy and sober. He said that he hadn't drunk for a week and that he was never going to drink again. It was amazing. He even looked ten years younger. He said that he realized that he was a completely different person when he was drinking and that he would rather be the person that he is when he is sober because that person is happy and enjoys helping others. So we set an appointment to meet with him and start teaching him and also made a separate appointment with him to do service.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So now we are thinking that he could easily progress and become the future branch president here in Quitilipi.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've been working more with Isabel, but she is still feeling somewhat overwhelmed; she feels like she won't be able to do everything that is expected of her. So we talked about how much progress she has made in the past couple of of weeks and how her life has changed. She said that she feels more peace, she has more energy, she doesn't fight with her kids anymore, and she has more desire to act and to do. I told her that the Spirit fills us with the light of God and that He can work with us in two ways:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. He gives us light and knowledge instantly like flipping on a light switch in a dark room that suddenly fills with light.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2. Little by little, line upon line, and precept upon precept He teaches us and gives us light and knowledge in such a way that we may not notice that we've changed until we look back and see what we've accomplished. This was compared to a rising sun; we can see the light long before the sun comes over the horizon, but we know that the sun is there and then with a little bit more time we have the perfect brightness of noon day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-50776012926642244932014-02-26T20:38:00.003-08:002014-02-26T20:38:35.748-08:00I will work a great and a marvelous work<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 25 De Febrero 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we've seen lots of ups and downs with Isabel in her personal progression. Monday started out with her having little confidence in herself and having a greater need to increase her faith. In her life, she has never really ever participated in a religion, so this is all new to her and she never really had to do anything "hard" as far as spiritual things are concerned; in other words, she has ever really had to show her faith in the way that she is having to show it now. So it's been quite an experience. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A day later when we went to see how she was doing, she said that we were losing time with her because she wouldn't be able to change. I asked her if she felt that way because she didn't want to continue or if she just thought that it was a hard path to follow. She responded that it was hard. We told her that it is hard, but it isn't impossible.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we've still been teaching her and she came to church last Sunday too. Now she is down to one cigarette a day when she used to smoke anywhere from six to fifteen a day. She wants to be baptized, but quiting smoking is proving harder than expected.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Thusday we were walking down the street when we saw a man sitting outside and decided to talk to him. We chatted for a while and started talking more about the Church and eventually he confided in us that his wife had died exactly one month ago that very day. We shared about the plan of salvation and the Book of Mormon. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We set an appointment to see him again to talk about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it helps us in life to understand what God's plans are for us in the earth. I shared this scripture with him to help him understand,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><span style="line-height: 22px;">"For the time cometh, saith the Lamb of God, that I will work a great and a </span>marvelous work<span style="line-height: 22px;"> among the children of men; a </span>work <span style="line-height: 22px;">which shall be everlasting, to the convincing of them unto </span>peace<span style="line-height: 22px;"> and </span>life eternal"</i> (1 Nephi 14:7)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We talked about how the Book of Mormon offers peace and understanding and how he can apply it in his own life.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Friday we had a Priesthood conference for all the Priesthood holders in Chiloe, Paraguay, Argentina, and Urugauy that we lead by some seventies and Elder M. Russell Ballard. It went really well and Elder Ballard gave a really good talk that was actually really spiritual and funny at the same time. It was so unexpected to him that the elder next me turned over and asked, "Why is this so casual?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Ballard was talking about what we are doing with our time and he said, "All of the things that we work so hard to have - the car, the house, the computer - can't go with us when we pass on to the spirit world; I guess that you could put them in the casket with you, but by the time that you resurrect it will already be way outdated anyway. The only thing that we get to take with us is our friends and families if we are sealed to them in the House of the Lord."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">P.S. Sorry this is short, we had a meeting yesterday that didn't leave us time to write, so we're in a bit of a hurry today.</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-12226581554544212592014-02-17T19:12:00.000-08:002014-02-17T19:13:24.948-08:00Seek the kingdom of God<div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 17 De Febrero 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we've been working with a youth named Marcos Ledesma. The missionaries were teaching him before, but he never went to church, so they stopped passing by to teach him. Well we went by this week last Monday and started talking with him. I guess he had been keeping most of his commitments to read and pray, but just never made the effort to go to church on Sunday.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">His problem is the same as any other youth's in this city though (or in Argentina in general for that matter): they all go out to party and go to dance clubs on Saturday night and no one goes home until eight o'clock the next morning.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we talked to Marcos about what he wants to do in life and where he sees himself in five years down the road. At first, a lot of his goals sounded more like a bucket list of things to do and didn't have any real aspiration; I was talking about it later with my companion and I said, "If all of your goals can be accomplished in a week, then you don't have any direction in your life." But then later Marcos said that he wants to be some sort of engineer that works with petroleum. So that was a good goal.<br /><br />We talked with him for two lessons in a row about being obedient and how God will help us to accomplish our goals if we will put Him at the top of our priorities. To go with this point, I like that scripture that reads,</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." (</i><i>3 Nephi 13: 32-33)</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We also talked a lot about how this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God and not merely for fun and games. We talked about the importance of acting in the moment and not procrastinating the day of our repentance. We shared with him,</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"For behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you."</i> (Alma 34: 31)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As well as,</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed."</i>(Alma 34: 33)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We told him that if he would decided to be obedient then, like the scripture said, he would be immediately blessed, but if he choose to wait then eventually his time would run out.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sunday came around and Marcos came to church with us.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've also been teaching another youth named Matía who is nineteen years old and is in the same situation. This Saturday we also met all of his friends (they all play on a soccer team together). They all showed up while we were talking to Matías and they were kind of shy around us, but didn't want to how it. But after a few minutes they all started talking to us, but they didn't want to be serious until one of them, a twenty year old named Darío, asked "Who is God? Or what is God? I heard people talk about Him all the time, but I don't even know what that means."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was interesting that he had asked that question because I was assigned a talk for sacrament meeting on Sunday about prophets. As I thought about his question it made me think more about the importance of prophets in our time and just how important it is that the prophet Joseph could reopen the windows of heaven to bring in a steady downpour of new revelation while at the same time correcting all of the false doctrines of the time. While there are many who are in darkness because they know not where to find the truth, we know that God is not some spirit or great energy, but rather a loving Father in Heaven who desires that we become like He is.<br /><br />As far as the rest of the work is concerned we've been having some troubles working with the long-time members here. They all are very hesitant to trust the Church again because they feel like they were abandoned ten years ago when the branch was closed by the Church and all of it's leaders. So the members don't actually want to help their friends and family get baptized because they don't want them "to feel abandoned if the Church leaves again." So we're working hard with the leaders from the Church in the other city to develop trust and confidence between the members and the leaders.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-57767603133556733972014-02-14T08:40:00.004-08:002014-02-14T08:45:04.358-08:00Struggling to strengthen a branch<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 10 De Febrero 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've been thinking about what it is that we're going to do in order to get this group going so that it can be a branch and eventually a ward and this week we've been working on a couple of things that we want to get started.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This first thing that we needed to start having more success was support from the branch leaders (who live an hour away in another city) as well as the district leaders. So on Tuesday we had a meeting with the branch president to talk about the needs of the members in the group and what the leaders can do to help out. The district president (who was baptized only three years ago) doesn't really know what we need to do because this is a new experience to him and to everyone else involved. So we're trying to just apply principles that are simple and understandable to produce good results in our experimental group that we hope to make a permanent branch.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Something that was helpful and an interesting teaching experience was this Wednesday when two of the young men from Saenz Peña (the city where the branch is) come to work in Quitilipi with us for a day. Their names are Amil and Aldo and they're both preparing to go on a mission, so they asked if they could spend a day with us doing missionary work. So they came in the morning and we spent our study time teaching them how to be missionaries and teaching them about the Priesthood. We also talked about foreordination and premortal callings that we're expected to finish on Earth.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So Aldo, who is the branch president's son, went with us during the day and Amil went with the other companionship of Elders for the day. We had some good lessons and Aldo was a little bit quiet with the people, but if he wasn't talking I would just ask him questions about what the person that we were teaching needed to hear. So we had some good experiences during the day and when we got to the end and had to go back home they said that they wanted to come back every week if it was ok with us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Just a funny story, but we were teaching this girl who had apparently just got back from walking (dressed up in her work out pants and tank top) and says to us, "I'm just so tired from my hour walk." In my mind I thought, "yeah, it must be tough to walk for an hour after the sun goes down; we just walk around all day under the sun."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So there is a woman that we're teaching named Isabel Portillo. She came to church last week, but when we talked to her on Wednesday she said that she knew that the Book of Mormon and the Church were true, but still wsan't sure about Joseph Smith. So we explained a little bit more and invited her to pray about it, but her other obstacle is that she has to quit smoking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So on Friday we went to teach her more about the Word of Wisdom and how she can quit smoking. The next day we went by to see how her progress was and also to make preparations to go to church. She said that in the morning she went to smoke, but when she started smoking it made her body tremble and she couldn't continue. So she just threw her cigarette away and kept going with her morning. A little while later she tried smoking again, but this time it made her sick when she tried to smoke.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yesterday she came to church and she really liked it; the plan now is for her to get baptized this Saturday. She said that she is going to save all the money that she would have used on cigarettes to save up for her trip to go to the chapel in Saenz Peña where we'll have the baptism in a nice font.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-383506307031608662014-02-03T11:56:00.003-08:002014-02-03T12:13:41.113-08:00One last area<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 2 De Febrero 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We did service for a family moving bricks from the street to their back yard so they can start building some stuff. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This last Monday we had another visit with Ana Rivero, the friend of two of the girls from the young women that we've been teaching. She is really doing quite well and will be getting baptized soon; we're really excited for her. What is even better is that the members are starting to so the fruits of their labors, or at least the labor of others, and it's getting them excited to do their own missionary work with their friends and family.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ana's family owns what essentially is a farm, but it isn't really a farm and the people just call it a field, but it has animals and crops that they cultivate and harvest, a cabin, and other things. It's about five kilometers from where we live and so she invited us to go there with her and some of the other youth from the branch. So we set a time to go early Friday morning to go and do service with whateve</span><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">r it is that they needed us to do.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately this plans, as well as many others, come to an abrupt halt this last Tuesday when when got the transfer call. Elder Diaz was told that he would be staying in Campo Largo for a time longer, but that I was going to be moved to a different area that is actually really close by (the city is still within the same district as Campo Largo) called Quitilipi.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Quitilipi is a brand new area that has been closed for years and was recently opened up three months ago. So now I'm here as the group leader until there are enough members, as well as a place to meet (because right now we just have a sacrament meeting in member's house every Sunday), and then I would be the branch president here (unless by that time we already have someone here who can do it).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So for now we have some really great plans to get things going here and leave the foundation for a very successful and active branch that can become a ward. My new companion Elder Valverde (who is also from Peru) is really great and we have a shared vision of what we want to do and how we are going to do it. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I actually had some time to say goodbye to the members in Campo Largo before leaving because the bus didn't leave until 1:30 in the afternoon. So we went to visit some of the members and then some of the youth in the branch came to the bus terminal to say a final goodbye.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVinvWfGbloXvn9VhD7RIrmsLToLsogatz0xasLeBOSCj84PHLCQAjZnEH9J_z6KFJ3jkcPpzwoMAjitlQm1A9aNzMO0cAbmZLNoveVk9Ta-0KHjib_834xnO6Exe2jEZ57FxXR3LtT8/s1600/biding+farewell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; clear: left; float: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVinvWfGbloXvn9VhD7RIrmsLToLsogatz0xasLeBOSCj84PHLCQAjZnEH9J_z6KFJ3jkcPpzwoMAjitlQm1A9aNzMO0cAbmZLNoveVk9Ta-0KHjib_834xnO6Exe2jEZ57FxXR3LtT8/s1600/biding+farewell.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But we have some really great members here in Quitilipi, but the group is desolate of youth; they're all adults because the work has been dead for at least six years and there haven't been any new members.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Also here with us is another companionship that lives right next door to us and shares half the city with us. So we're going to be coordinating our efforts with them to help focus in on the members and making this a strong group that will evolve into an active branch. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt </span></div>
Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-23933895329453579962014-01-27T09:08:00.003-08:002014-01-27T09:41:49.681-08:00Released as Branch President<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 27 De Enero 2014</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihCOZuFrDpWVUZeYb7GY0Iyb7FcHu6yUYR4js3mzqVNmupx9nnjwf38N8GT-z2aTnP9vlDKqHkXeEfk07fzFV6_SYzU4IqfLjZ_rRccOstqGs6YbpCyTNrB4h2LLqGLAnxRHIFGbOl_Sk/s1600/melting+butter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihCOZuFrDpWVUZeYb7GY0Iyb7FcHu6yUYR4js3mzqVNmupx9nnjwf38N8GT-z2aTnP9vlDKqHkXeEfk07fzFV6_SYzU4IqfLjZ_rRccOstqGs6YbpCyTNrB4h2LLqGLAnxRHIFGbOl_Sk/s1600/melting+butter.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">You would not believe how hard it is to melt butter without a microwave, but don't worry because I found a way to do it. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So lately we've been working a lot more with the members of the branch in order to find new people to teach and the way that we've been doing that is deciding with them who of the people that they know is ready to receive the Gospel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Alma we read,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">"For behold, angels</span><span style="line-height: 22px;"> are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory." (Alma <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_544071792" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">13:24</span></span>)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So like it says, there are heavenly messengers all over the Earth that are teaching people, whether they know it or not, about the Gospel and the lessons they need to learn so that in the moment that someone presents the true Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, they will be able to accept it. So what we've been doing with the members is helping them identify the people that they know who have been prepared by angels and are prepared receive the Gospel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've seen a lot of success with this activity and have been meeting some new people this last week. One of them is Ana Rivero, a sixteen years old girl who is a friend of two of the young women in the branch.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">She was kind of shy at first, but as we talked and taught she opened up more and more. We had our first lesson and shared about the restoration of the Church and the Book of Mormon, leaving her with the assignment to read, ponder, and then to pray to know if it was true. We went back for the second visit a couple of days later and asked her how everything went and if she had read and prayed. She said that she hadn't read everything that we marked, but she prayed about it and believes it to be true.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We did the same activity with one of the young men named Maxi. In his list of people that he wrote were the names of some of his family members. So we had an additional prayer so that the Spirit could indicate to him which of them was fully prepared to receive the Gospel. He felt impressed that we needed to work with his two younger siblings Valeria and Agustin who are ten and eight years old.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Both of them have received the missionary lessons and been to church before, but were never baptized. We talked with Maxi about the importance helping his brother and sister to get to the waters of baptism because if the Spirit tells him that they need to be taught in this time then that means that the Lord is counting on him to help them enter His fold.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As we've talked with them and with their older brothers and sisters, who are all active members, we've learned some of the reasons why the didn't get baptized before and it is clear that Maxi is key to the conversion of Valeria and Agustin. As an additional sign of his role in things, Maxi is about to turn sixteen and will be ordained a priest in three weeks, or in other words, he will be able to baptize his younger siblings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We were also talking to one of the recent converts who is a twelve year old girl who had an interesting question of us. She wanted to know if it was alright to dress up and perform in a certain way, but when she asked us, neither I nor my companion knew the word that she was using, so she brought us a picture of her sister how had performed two or three years ago and it was a show girl. So we didn't want to just flat out say, "no, you can't dress like a show girl and dance in the festival," but rather make it an opportunity to learn. So we asked her a pretty simple and straightforward question, "would you feel comfortable walking around all day in your underwear? How would you feel if your friends saw you?" We explained that just because the clothes are shiny doesn't make it any different and she decided that she didn't want to participate anymore (her mom had also previously told her that she wasn't allowed to participate). </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKKBwOhEso1iTL80RguBtNpFVzr6-inDdYqAgmiezVRbIkd7aWIQpu7LFnI3lEivb4KToux2xsA7F1nRUNVSOOQkx6Qwe5y69UqXY2h3Oz2MOOHju1bqtZnam77i0cyLKspR_QM7staU/s1600/burning+down+the+church+weeds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeKKBwOhEso1iTL80RguBtNpFVzr6-inDdYqAgmiezVRbIkd7aWIQpu7LFnI3lEivb4KToux2xsA7F1nRUNVSOOQkx6Qwe5y69UqXY2h3Oz2MOOHju1bqtZnam77i0cyLKspR_QM7staU/s1600/burning+down+the+church+weeds.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We burned some trash and dry weeds that we had collected in the backyard of the church. Unfortun-ately the next day the chapel smelled like smoke when we got there and we had to air it out a bit.Yesterday we had the district president come to our branch accompanied by his first counselor as well as the new branch president, Pablo Portillo. I was released after six months and Pablo was sustained and set apart. We've have some really goods plans for the branch and we're sure that we're going to see lots of growth and development in the coming months and weeks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-63400904843226532582014-01-20T10:14:00.001-08:002014-01-20T10:21:19.181-08:00"I can't have a girlfriend while on my mission?"<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 20 De Enero 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We started off the week with a little bit of confusion and a small issue with our land lady this last Monday. It was time to renew the contract for the apartment, but the secretaries in the mission office said that we should get a contract made by the office and signed by President Heyman and that we shouldn't sign it because it requires us to put our ID number from our DNI and passports in the document and it could be bad if something goes wrong later on in the future. The problem that we had is that the land lady is very stubborn and said that she absolutely would only make the contract here in Campo Largo; even the allure of having the mission take care of all the processes and bills wasn't enough to sway her. So I explained that the mission doesn't want us to sign it because of the aforementioned issues, but she said that if we didn't make the contract in her way then she would kick us out. So we called President Heyman and he said that we could do it in her way and that if any issues came up then the mission and the Church would protect us from any legal issues. So we went and had to make the new contract and listen to all the terms and agreements and then sign it. So now my name is on the contract with my document number for the next two years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As far as the computer and the Church's program is concerned, we're done with it. We even tried setting up a remote control of the computer so that a specialist could control our computer from his office, but it still wasn't resolved. So now someone is supposed to be coming today to do repairs and troubleshooting.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Friday we had interviews with President Heyman in Las Breñas. It all went really well, but he is concerned about what is happening throughout the mission. Apparently there have been a lot of missionaries that become boyfriend and girlfriend with the members and that's just something that you don't do; President Heyman said, "we have all these new missionaries who are eighteen years old and they think that they are still in high school." He said that there was one elder who was transferred to another area and even then he continued to maintain a romantic relationship with the girl and because of that he was sent home.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we had our district, three companionships, together with President Heyman and he started asking questions about how we should react to certain situations and how we can avoid problems. He was kind of funny, but serious at the same time. He asked one of the sisters, "Sister Pipe, what do you do if your companion starts to flirt with a man?" Sister Pipe replied, "Well I would talk to her about it and say, Sister we do do that." President Heyman then asked the followup question, "Alright, and if she keeps doing it, then what do you do?" "Oh, I'd call the zone leaders..." President Heyman cut her off and said, "That's right, you would call me directly! The zone leaders won't be able to help you with that problem, but I'll end it immediately." He then asked the district leader, "Elder Deniston, what do you do if you go to teach a women, and she is there alone with her eight year old daughter?" Elder Deniston said, "Umm..." President Heyman, unsatisfied with his lack of response, said, "You don't go in the house!" He then hanged his question, "What would you do if it was a women, with her eight year old daughter, and her sixteen year old daughter?" Elder Deniston again, "ummmm..." President Heyman said, "Elder, you don't even have to think about that one; you don't go in! That should be instant!" He then asked my companion, "Elder Diaz, what is your greatest source of protection to help you keep the law of chastity?" Elder Diaz replied, "keeping good thoughts, reading the scriptures," President Heyman stopped him mid-sentence and said, "That's exactly right, your companion!"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />We had good interviews though; I think that the next time I have an interview with President Heyman it will be my exit interview.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But I talked to President Heyman about the branch and about what is happening and he gave me some good news. He said that when he saw that we sent five youth to the EFY event he decided that he would never let the branch close even if it stays open just for them and that we should be very happy with our efforts to help the youth progress and for having gotten so many to go on the trip. So that was the first piece of good news, then he said that he had an idea of who could be the branch president and that he would be interviewing him that same day to extend him the calling. The brother that he interviewed is called Brother Portillo and he accepted the calling to be the new branch president. Brother Protillo doesn't live in Campo Largo, but rather in Las Breñas (which is an hour away), but will be coming to our branch every Sunday with his family and will travel during the weeks to be here with us and work with the members. I only met him briefly, but he is a good guy; he is probably twenty-eight years old and he served his mission in California; so he knows English.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So with that, President Heyman said that he is going to keep me here in Campo Largo to train Brother Portillo and to help him get to know the members as well as the city. So by the end of our next transfer cycle, I will have been here for seven months and two weeks and will only have six weeks left in the mission, so I may just finish my last three months here. I'd be fine with that though; we're seeing lots of progress in the last couple of weeks and we expect to see a rapid growth in the coming weeks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Other than that, we had a cool experience in that we were able to attend a special conference for leaders of the Church where the area presidency (Elder González, Elder Viñas, and Elder Zeballos) of the seventy gave talks about how we can help our branches grow through the use of the Book Of Mormon, the individual conversion of ourselves and the members, and how we can work more and help the members to be more united in purpose.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We did a ton of traveling this week because of all the meetings and almost spent more time outside of our area than we did inside of it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-41657817004810367082014-01-14T09:05:00.001-08:002014-01-14T10:04:23.517-08:00I am bound when ye do what I say...<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 14 De Enero 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I'm pretty sure that last week I talked about the problems that we are having with our computer and the programs of the Church. Well we've spent considerable time in continuing the work of our devices, but we haven't seen success in our endeavors; we see small steps of progress, but then we have to take a few steps back every now and again. We discovered that the cause of the problem was the people who brought us the new computer that we have and that they hadn't done the installations correctly and gave us an old, outdated version of the program which made it impossible for our computer to hook up with the systems in Salt Lake. It's really frustrating when other people don't do their job well.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I haven't mentioned them, I don't think, but we've been teaching a family where the mom has been a member for twenty-years, she was baptized when she was eight, and the husband and kids are not members. The mom, Cristina, got married to her husband, Gustavo, who isn't a member and I guess that years ago he decided that they weren't going to participate in the Church. Well now we've been teaching them and Cristina came back to Church this last Sunday accompanied by their two sons Nahuel, who is twelve, and Jonatan, who is going to turn nine on the twenty-second. Gustavo didn't come, but we'll be working with him. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've mostly been focused on teaching them the restored truths of the Gospel like modern prophets, the prophet Joseph, the Book of Mormon, and the fact that the true and living Church of Christ is on the earth. By doing this, we helping Nahuel and Jonatan to learn the truths that build the foundation of the Church while at the same time reminding Cristina about the testimony that she already has. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So things have been going well with them. The only thing that could possibly be a problem is that Cristina isn't sure if her husband will want their kids to be baptized. they were showing us some old pictures and there was one of one of the boys being baptized as a baby and being held by the priest; he was crying quite a bit in the picture. I told Elder Diaz that I would cry too if I had to participate in such apostasy against my will. But their dad is really nice and has never done anything remotely offensive or unfriendly toward us, so we don't really see any problems.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Martha and Omar on the other hand are not progressing and are actually moving backwards. We read in the Book of Mormon that those who know the truth and then retreat from it become more hard hearted and less receptive to the truth than before. So that's worrying for us because we're seeing that happen with them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We talked to Omar and they've decided to get back together, but they went right back to where they were before we started teaching them. They're living together and don't really have plans to get married and they're no longer reading nor are they praying and going to church. We very frankly talked to Omar about the situation and explained how they will always have problems and trials and difficulties if they don't change their ways; we explained how the problems that they experienced in their relationship are a result of their disobedience towards the law of chastity and continued disobedience will only continue the pattern of fight, break up, turn to alcohol, get back together, and continue to be irritated and without work. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's hard to watch their downfall in such a drastic way because they had already worked so hard to abandon all of those things that they carried before. But we can't help them anymore than they are willing to help themselves, and even more they can't receive divine aid in their situation because the Lord has said, "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've also talked with the district president and he said that he wants us to be working even more on finding the new branch president and that when President Heyman sees that we have a local leader then he will send a companionship of sister missionaries to assist us in the work. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've been training the other leaders of the branch as well as the members in general as to how we can help the less active members of the branch to feel welcome and have desires to come back. This last Sunday we talked a lot about the Savior's example in how He talked to the people and helped them to understand what they needed to do. We shared examples of His life from two extremes: the cleansing of the temple, and the women taken in adultery. In both cases, the Savior acted exactly in the necessary way to make the situation better, not worse. He did not tolerate the sins of the people, but he never withheld His love. One of the key scriptures that we shared with this one:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My final comment about working towards finding the new branch president and putting forth a real effort was this, "It's not just the salvation of them whom we seek, but rather it's our own personal salvation as well."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Later that same day, many of the sisters went out to go visit those brothers who had not been participating in the Church and they had some really good experiences.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thursday was also an interesting day for us because we were talking about the branch, the leadership, and the future progress of the members, which caused us to start to think about changing some things around in the leadership. We started by writing down where everyone was in their callings and then we thoughtfully rewrote the list to the way we think that it ought to be. So we prayed about it and ended up changing all organizations in the branch except for the relief society presidency and the teachers in Sunday school for the adults.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So between Thursday and Sunday we went around talking the the members who would be released and set apart. The changes will allow us to see more growth and progress in both the members as individuals as well as in the branch itself. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sunday afternoon, as we continued to call people to their new callings (for those that we couldn't talk to before Sunday) we met with Alejandra Machado, who was to be called as the first counselor in the Primary presidency, and her boyfriend Paulo. Paulo is not a member, but has a knowledge of the scriptures according to the teachings that he has received. I say "according to the teachings that he has received" because he is confused on some things and thinks that any other book besides the Bible is false.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We actually had a really great conversation with him; we never argued with him about anything, but rather testified about the truthfulness of these things and then told him that if he would pray then he too could know the truth for himself. He also had a lot of questions about the Garden of Eden and the plan that God has for his children. So we were able to help him understand a lot of things that he didn't know before. It was kind of funny because all the answers to his questions came from the Book of Mormon, the very book that he initially didn't want to read.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Regarding that, there was a time a while back when someone told us that their pastor didn't his congregation to read the Book of Mormon because anyone who does joins the Mormon church (as if it was some sort of black magic). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-11822909920934185372014-01-06T10:20:00.002-08:002014-01-06T10:20:15.802-08:00Scattergories builds unity<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 6 De Enero 2014</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last week on Monday, Elder Diaz and Elder Bell both had to go to a new missionary training in Resistencia and I had to accompany them. So there in the meeting I was asked to translate to English what was being said and the room was divided into Americans and Latinos. It was kind of funny because the missionary the sat the closest to where I was said, "I don't know why we have a translator; I've been here for three weeks and I already speak Spanish." He then diligently took notes of what I told him in English. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So in that meeting is where we had to leave Elder Bell; as I mentioned he got transferred for medical reasons to be closer to the big hospitals. He was really scared to meet his new companion though because his new companion was also training a new missionary, but that new missionary went home early (I don't know why). So Elder Bell was worried that that missionary went home because of his companion and so, as a joke, Elder Diaz told him, "Yeah, I heard that all of his companions go home early." But I've never heard anything bad about Elder Bell's new companion, so he'll be fine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So in order to help the branch really progress, we've been giving trainings and making tools for the leaders of the branch as well as for the members. We've mostly been working on how to do missionary work and how to do visiting teaching; then we also taught about developing Christ like attributes. As we were thinking in how to present our trainings, I had the idea that the members probably have never been trained or taught on how to do these things that all the members in the States just know how to do. I don't know that anyone has ever taught them how to do visiting teaching or what is expected of them in their visits. So the things that we're sharing should be of great value and should help a lot in the work here in Campo Largo.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Part of our plan is to have activities and lots of them. We want to keep the members involved in the Church as much as possible, especially now that they're in summer vacation, so that they can constantly be working towards greater goals and personal progress as disciples of Jesus Christ. Another reason to have all the activities is so that there is always something for less active members, as well as investigators, to do in the Church in an environment that is a little more relaxed than the Sunday meetings. </span><div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Saturday night we had our first activity to help get the branch going a little better than it was before and it ended up being really fun for everyone who came. We split into teams and played a couple of games. One of the games we played was Scattergories, but we played it one versus one on two separate chalkboards and the players had to race to finish their list before passing to the next person on their team. At the very end we had a game that wasn't so much a game, but we did because we wanted to show to the unity and love that everyone has one for another. So what we did was had everyone sit in a big circle to start and we brought with us a ball of yarn. The game went like this: You grabbed and held onto a length of yarn and you then pass the ball of yarn to another person, but in order to pass the ball you have to share something you admire about that person or share a good memory you have with that person. So we passed the ball around and ended up with a big spiderweb to show how we were all linked together. The idea was to have a visual representation of the unity that we have. We then shared about how we need to extend these links that we made to all the of the members who weren't present so that they too can participate in the blessing of the Church.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">To go with the ball of yarn activity, we shared this scripture:</span></div>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><span style="line-height: 22px;">And he commanded them that there should be no </span><span style="line-height: 10px;">contention</span> <span style="line-height: 22px;">one with another, but that they should look forward with </span><span style="line-height: 10px;">one</span><span style="line-height: 22px;"> eye, having one faith and one baptism, having their hearts </span><span style="line-height: 10px;">knit</span> </i><span style="line-height: 22px;"><i>together in unity and in love one towards another.</i> (Mosiah <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1970352091" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">18:21</span></span>)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Omar came to the activity as well, but only at the very end because he was waiting to take his niece home. So we convinced him to come in and stay a while. So he had some refreshments with the rest of the members, but he obviously wasn't as comfortable with everyone as he was a month ago. Now his hair has grown long and he has an earring that wasn't there before. But at least we've been able to meet with him now, even if it was for just a few minutes, but now it looks like Omar and Martha will be getting back together. So we're going to see what they want to do about their baptism and if we're going to continue with the wedding or if they are going to continue living separate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've been working quite a bit with the computer program from the Church that holds all of the records for everything quite a bit this week because it has been broken for a couple weeks. I've spent hours talking with the people from Salt Lake going through restoration processes and troubleshooting to get all of our records running the way they should be. It's been a tedious and boring process. I'm just hoping it's not some sort of sign as to what is going to happen to the branch in a few weeks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yesterday we sent five of the youth to the EFY event in Formosa. We've been helping them get ready since November and they finally left yesterday for their five day trip. As it is an event from the Church, all the youth are required to have basically missionary haircuts for the event,so we had two young men who needed a trim. One of them was very, very unwilling to cut his hair (his haircut is short on the sides and back and very, very long on the top like a super mohawk). So we trimmed his sides up and cleaned up around his ears and neck, but he wouldn't let us touch the top. So we said that they'll just make him cut it hen he gets there and he said that that would be fine. So we'll see if he comes back with short hair or not. The other young man was fine to let us cut his hair because he already knew, as did the other, that they were getting haircuts. So we gave them both their haircut just two hours before leaving.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-61280791605772437892014-01-03T09:26:00.003-08:002014-01-06T10:22:20.259-08:00Christmas 2013<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, De Enero 2014</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKiBiDYqESs0ihjlach4VR9I4pOKq26REE5zP4PEOfAjm4ZCF90p4GkLNpZ0N4fPloy-hzJ6NQBY4Uq0HJbdJb3gZzI0G_hkphyphenhyphenqUk5DtYOK7yohm4zYgpMDpoaGeLNuMKH6hhbk1L3mM/s1600/goat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; clear: left; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKiBiDYqESs0ihjlach4VR9I4pOKq26REE5zP4PEOfAjm4ZCF90p4GkLNpZ0N4fPloy-hzJ6NQBY4Uq0HJbdJb3gZzI0G_hkphyphenhyphenqUk5DtYOK7yohm4zYgpMDpoaGeLNuMKH6hhbk1L3mM/s640/goat.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>I saw this goat the day before and it was alive then</b></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We're writing really late this week because the computer place has been closed for the holidays, so I'm just going to write as if it were Monday anyway (that way I can have more than half a week to write about come Monday).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So last Monday, the twenty-third, we had a Christmas party with the entire mission in Resistencia. So I was able to see all the missionaries that I've met, but I also realized that I don't know the majority of the missionaries that are in this mission anymore. President Heyman said that of the current two-hundred and fifty-two missionaries that we have, one-hundred and seventy-two have arrived in the last six months. So I guess that I'm old in the mission, but I don't feel like I've been here for that long.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ih2s22yuP0NXO4iYc96_UO_vQz0_oC7Udg-dwjHF1JjAayqcLjyTX4m1nWTzkT6dxF75rzX7f_DIfyvSMCJe8XQv1qMCbalEqOQFN2-_mh0pIL06gJQdeXLrKDBffhGTDjIFRiEAAsQ/s1600/green+field.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Ih2s22yuP0NXO4iYc96_UO_vQz0_oC7Udg-dwjHF1JjAayqcLjyTX4m1nWTzkT6dxF75rzX7f_DIfyvSMCJe8XQv1qMCbalEqOQFN2-_mh0pIL06gJQdeXLrKDBffhGTDjIFRiEAAsQ/s640/green+field.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>A field close to a member's house who lives 20 minutes outside the city</b></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was also on Monday at the Christmas party that I meet my third companion, Elder Bell. Our apartment isn't met for three people and we didn't have a third bed. or even a mattress, so for that first night I just put a big, thick blanket on the table and slept there and let Elder Bell sleep in my bed. The next morning on Tuesday, we bought a closet for Elder Bell to store his clothes and another mattress. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I told him that it was his Christmas gift and his said that it was the best Christmas ever because for the last week he had been living with some other missionaries in an apartment without air conditioning or running water; so he had to use the same set of clothes for five days and couldn't escape from the heat. So the changes and the purchases that we made were a pleasant change for him.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So remember that Christmas Eve is when all the parties happen here in Argentina, but we still had the restriction of having to be in the apartment at eight o'clock and we couldn't go anywhere to eat with members. So one of the young women from the branch brought us a bunch of food to eat (chicken, potatoes, sweet bread, fruit salad, soda, candy, etc...) But when she got to our apartment she was distressed and just simply not doing well. So we asked what was wrong and she said that her family was fighting back at her home instead of celebrating the evening together. So we invited her to stay and eat dinner with us for the night. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">She happily accepted, so we put a table outside and we all ate together, talked, sang hymns, and played board games until midnight when we watched the fireworks. It was a really good experience and it helped her to feel better; she said that it helped her, "to remember the true spirit of Christmas."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWIKJawyR2fslL1NWuXWo-auy2_5StPsgU_LIydNjr5PkXfaxHk4imNRCtdfyNN9CcONSIIWVuUKcby3d3uxowR8LzdTythHFFTSuDgyqDrziQ45VHj8TqrqGeoN-bbLfT9L8LENJHUo/s1600/Christmas+eve+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWIKJawyR2fslL1NWuXWo-auy2_5StPsgU_LIydNjr5PkXfaxHk4imNRCtdfyNN9CcONSIIWVuUKcby3d3uxowR8LzdTythHFFTSuDgyqDrziQ45VHj8TqrqGeoN-bbLfT9L8LENJHUo/s640/Christmas+eve+2013.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Christmas Eve dinner</b></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next day, we got up and went to the chapel to make our phone calls home. While Elder Bell was talking to his family, I had some interviews to do with some members that had requested interviews. Elder Diaz, unfortunately, was only able to talk with his family for seven minutes that day. His card had the same problem that mine had in that it only gave him very little time, but it just didn't work at all for him. So we're now going to have to plan another time for his parents to call from Peru so that they can talk.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFx-2eWhiAKwToACcLZQFy8NKXieArs4xcvE_rABFAOCro6Y5ujOvg_2sFt-yL0beTnd17KeUlZ9LE8ORKe9YpOxncwfgvydGleEsiK8nfXBFCxAYyZ6VPupMHA7O1bm6lgr1VqO4zeKA/s1600/christmas+presents+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFx-2eWhiAKwToACcLZQFy8NKXieArs4xcvE_rABFAOCro6Y5ujOvg_2sFt-yL0beTnd17KeUlZ9LE8ORKe9YpOxncwfgvydGleEsiK8nfXBFCxAYyZ6VPupMHA7O1bm6lgr1VqO4zeKA/s640/christmas+presents+2013.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>presents on Christmas morning</b></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've started to work with Martha again. She still has that fear that her life won't change if she gets baptized. What she has told us and what she sees is what we're seeing with her as well; every time that she tries to do what's right and the really put forth a great effort to keep the commandments there is always a new, bigger trial awaiting her. So we're trying to help her increase in her understanding of the plan of salvation and the Atonement. She came to church this last Sunday after having missed a couple for weeks, so that was really good for her. Now she is preparing to be baptized on the twenty-fifth of this month.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sadly our trio didn't last long; Elder Bell has a condition that affects him in the heat and has to get some doctors appointments to figure out what is wrong, so President Heyman moved him to Resistencia to be closer to the hospitals. So it's good for him that he'</span><span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">ll be taken care of medically, but we were sad to see him go just as much as he wanted to stay with us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-17165067309860672292013-12-29T16:26:00.002-08:002013-12-29T16:30:58.377-08:00Cut your hair super short<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 24 de Diciembre 2013</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So this Monday we went looking from Omar because we had heard that he came back early from working in the fields, but we had some troubles getting a hold of him. We got to his house, but when we walked up to gate, his mom walked in the house at the same time and wouldn't come outside to talk to us. We clapped (even though she knew we were there) and still wouldn't come out. She then started sending little kids out to see if we were still there and she even sent a little girl out to say, "my mom isn't home." I told her that I just saw her mom walk inside and that we just wanted to talk for two minutes. She still wouldn't come out. The ridiculous thing about the situation is that we could see Omar sleeping and we considered just being loud enough to wake him up and get his attention, but it seemed inappropriate. A little bit later, a little boy of three years walked out and we told him, "hey, can you wake Omar up for us?" The boy looked inside the house and then responded to us, "my mom won't me." So we actually didn't get to see Omar this week with everything that has been going on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Tuesday night, however, we got the call telling Elder Miramontes and I that we would no longer be together. Elder Miramontes was sent to another city called Goya and I was told that I would be training two new missionaries; Qui-Gon can't take on two apprentices, but I sure can.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we left at three in the morning that same night to go to Resistencia. While I was there I only got my first of the companions, but he is Elder Diaz from Iquitos, Peru. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was funny because in the mission office, President Heyamn was making everyone cut their hair to be super short and when he told me I had to cut my hair I tried to convince him to let me cut it myself the next day. I told him that I have my way of cutting to conserve my style and he told me, "your style is representative of Jesus Christ." The next day I talked with President Heyman by phone and asked how the hair was because he "was worried that it had messed up my style."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I'm really short on time, but we'll be talking tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-61706165799687138412013-12-17T16:13:00.002-08:002013-12-19T15:09:17.834-08:00Lootings, pillage and plundering<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 16 de diciembre 2013</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I need to explain what has been happening in Resistencia in order for the following to make more sense. In Resistencia, the capital capital city of Chaco (the province where I'm located), the police have been on strike and as a result people have been looting stores and committing all manner of crimes. So, in order for our own protection, President Heyman has changed our schedule so that we our in our apartment well before it gets dark. As of yet, absolute nothing has happened here in Campo Largo where I am, but in the surrounding cities there have been lootings and even deaths (but only in Resistencia).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the sisters in the branch told us that this whole thing had been planned by the police so that the lootings would happen; they didn't just want a pay raise. Now the police that are in the streets are only working and protecting people who pay them a fee to protect their store. And it just so happens that I was reading about the secret combinations among the Jaredites the same day that we heard about this. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So what happened is on Monday morning, our zone leaders called us to tell us what was happening and then said that we had to be back in the apartment before dark (which is about <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1025219219" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">7:30-8:00</span></span> at night).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We waited to see what was going to happen and we didn't hear anything that sounded like riots or chaos. I talked with Elder Humphries in a nearby city, Villa Angela, and he said that there were lootings happening and people were breaking and entering into stores there.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I guess that things had gotten worse the next morning because we were once again called by the zone leaders early in the morning, but this time we were told that we were not allowed to leave the apartment the whole day due to what was happening. I told our zone leader that I wasn't afraid, but he said that I still had to stay inside anyway. So we passed the day writing letters and cleaning the apartment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next day on Wednesday, the leaders once again called us to let us know that until Sunday we would be required to be in the apartment at seven. So we've been passing the days barely getting to meet with the people and having very few lessons this last week. However, we have done a great deal (Last night we were told that this schedule of returning to the apartment at seven every night would continue for the next week as well).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So in our search for the new branch president, we've had some ups and some downs. First of all, Luis, the twenty-three year old Elder, was offended in church last week because one of the sisters in the branch said that the Priesthood holders were cowards for not fulfilling with Priesthood duties, and as a result he didn't come to church yesterday. When we talked with him last Monday, he said that he "can't serve such false people." I understand; he doesn't want to submit himself to the service of people who don't support him. However, he, just as much as that sister, are in the wrong and both need to make changes. We told him that he needs to talk with her about why he is offended and resolve the issue, otherwise there will always be discontentment and anger in his heart. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We did, however, have a good visit with Epifanio Machado. He used to be the branch president years ago, but has since been less active in the church. We shared some scriptures with him about foreordaination and the Priesthood covenant and gave him the invitation to prepare himself. In response he said, "Maybe God is calling me once again... the last calling." Yes, God is calling. And rather loudly at the moment. Epifanio, unfortunately, didn't make it to church yesterday, but we don't know why. His work requires him to work through the night for some thirty-seven hours straight (he makes bricks), so we're guessing that that is what happened.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we also had a couple of activities with the branch. First, we invited everyone to come and listen to the Christmas Devotional from the first presidency and to wrap copies of the Book of Mormon as gifts while they watched and listened. The message was, "Salvation is the greatest of all God's gifts, so the greatest gift that we can give is the Gospel that makes Salvation possible." It was cool because there were three kids who came with their member friends that each took a Book of Mormon home to share with their families. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The next morning on Saturday, we did some serious weeding in the back yard of the church. As you can see in the pictures, it hasn't been done in a while, so we got organized and got all those plants pulled and stacked. After we had finished, we bought chorizo and bread to make sandwiches and everyone got to eat some lunch.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP_rsZ34QvVPBVBngVuYC-2sAC-l7EzJ60ZTYEKEGPh8cANHnVEgkS6QFnSBwPthZbLhEWPL2fqb8umuqqYb881xeEZqW_x19uGXmGIYr5JHsMMjQ_FGvima4YvtPhyphenhyphenaBmBiATondqLWg/s1600/weeding+the+church+yard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP_rsZ34QvVPBVBngVuYC-2sAC-l7EzJ60ZTYEKEGPh8cANHnVEgkS6QFnSBwPthZbLhEWPL2fqb8umuqqYb881xeEZqW_x19uGXmGIYr5JHsMMjQ_FGvima4YvtPhyphenhyphenaBmBiATondqLWg/s640/weeding+the+church+yard.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkOfawAF1TddJu_pWoKHdq49t-7IY_fFrqaRYOJRiKejfzWkZM5ThRvUvcxjy9XHMdHmBxoMb4ucgIhFrQYv1g00fDBWSw4n7y2ZltLbSuwTcvbnPaCMmXPAJYALyaK8PE28UC6v2-u38/s1600/weeding+the+church+yard2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: #783f04; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkOfawAF1TddJu_pWoKHdq49t-7IY_fFrqaRYOJRiKejfzWkZM5ThRvUvcxjy9XHMdHmBxoMb4ucgIhFrQYv1g00fDBWSw4n7y2ZltLbSuwTcvbnPaCMmXPAJYALyaK8PE28UC6v2-u38/s640/weeding+the+church+yard2.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We also have a new family that we're teaching. The mom's name is Sandra and the dad is Diego. They have two kids: a twelve year old daughter name Milagros (Miracles) and a ten year old son named José María (Joseph Mary).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So Sandra is the daughter of a member that we met the other week actually, but we had only one lesson with her. This last week, we've taught her a couple of times and her husband once (we haven't been able to talk to him more because he is only home at night and we've been shut in). But Sandra and Milagros both came to church yesterday and they (at least Sandra) liked it a lot. So now she is going to get her husband to come next week. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The incredible thing that happened with her is the dream that she had. Her dream was divided into two parts: a sad and ugly part, and a happy and joyful part. In the good part of the dream, she saw her mom, family, and friends living in a nice community and everyone was happy and had everything that they needed. After walking around, she walked into a large house and entered into an empty room. From the other side of the room, she said, my companion and I walked in. she said that I then asked her, "Is this the life that you want, or do you want this? She then woke up (in her dream) in a hospital bed. She got up to walk around, but wasn't allowed to leave. Everywhere in the hospital she just saw all the people she cared about sick in bed and in worse condition than she was. Suddenly she was in that room again with us. I again asked her, "which life do you want?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I can only imagine that the interpretation of the dream would have to do with her decision to accept the Gospel and live with her family and friends forever, or to reject it and live a life that isn't in the least bit desirable. So far, she is making good decisions to get the life from the good part of the dream. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span><br />
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-49642003987552472712013-12-11T20:11:00.003-08:002013-12-11T20:13:20.293-08:00Finding a Branch President<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 9 de Diciembre 2013</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So this week President Heyman called to give me news and a somewhat new assignment. On Thursday afternoon he called to told me that we have until the twenty-eighth of January to find a local member who can be the branch president or else they're going to close the branch and take the missionaries out of the city. That doesn't mean that we have to have someone set apart by that date, but it does mean that we have to have someone who is willing and available to accept the calling and is preparing them self to become the branch president. On top of this search, President Heyman said that he would be taking action according to my recommendation.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we've been on the search, looking for all the Priesthood holders in the city, telling them what the situation is, inviting them to come back to church and inviting them to prepare themselves to become the future leaders of the Church here in Campo Largo. It sounds so easy, but it's turning out to be much more difficult than expected; sometimes we just can't find the people when they're home and sometimes other people get in thew way of us talking to the Priesthood holders.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So far we've been able to talk with and invite to Melchizedek Priesthood holders and talk to them about what is happening: Luis Perez and Elias Cardozo. With each of them we had very different experiences.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We first talked with Luis Perez. We eat lunch with him every Thursday and he's twenty-three years old and a really cool guy, but he's been pretty wayward for the last year. However, we've been working with him and he's come to church for two weeks in a row (a new record since who knows how long).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well on Thursday night, after receiving the news, he was the first one that we talked to about being a leader. We shared a couple of scriptures with him and talked to him about his duties as a Priesthood holder. At the end we shared this scripture:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And now my beloved brethren, I have said these things unto you that I might awaken you to a sense of your duty to God, that ye may walk blameless before him, that ye may walk after the holy order of God, after which ye have been received. (Alma <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_127553660" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">7:22</span></span>)</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">He accepted the call to prepare himself; to give up the things that he shouldn't be doing. He said that he always knew that this day would come because it's written in his patriarchal blessing. His motivation to change is definitely the members, because he said that he was going to do it for the branch and not for himself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">When we met with Elias it was a less successful meeting. We went accompanied by Sister Duarte, one of the sisters from the branch who teaches seminary and young women's class. There in the conversation present was also his wife Martha. Elias was previously the branch president, but was released from the calling years before (not for reasons of unworthiness though). However, he is now much older and has trouble hearing and isn't up to traveling around to go to meetings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Really we were just hoping that he could be a counselor to help whoever would end up as branch president because he already has experience, but his wife already said that she didn't want him to be branch president again and that she wouldn't support the idea. So that puts us in a tough situation because he was supposed to be our fail-safe. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As far as the rest of the members are concerned, we've been letting them know what's happening one family at a time; we figured it was better that way than announcing it in sacrament meeting. So not everyone knows yet, but we're gathering everyone who already knows to help in the search. As we tell the members, however, they've all had different reactions. One of the young women cried and walked away, one of the sisters said that we should just shoot all the men who don't want to come back to church, some are more realistic and say, "well that's obviously what's going to happen if no one wants to work.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I'm going to finish this week with a short story:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We went to go visit a less active family (the father could be a potential leader as well) and when we talked with the mom we set an appointment to go back the next day. So we went back the next day at the designated time and knocked on the door. We waited for a bit and then some woman who we don't know stuck her head out the window and told us that the family wasn't home. She then proceeded to leave the house by putting a chair outside, stepping out through the window, and then putting the chair back in the house through the window. Now we knew that there were other people in the house and they were just avoiding us, but I wanted to stop the woman and say to her, "So you're telling me that there is no one home and you're here leaving the house out the window. What are you doing, robbing the place?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span><img class="ajT" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif" style="background-image: url(https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/ellipsis.png); background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; height: 8px; line-height: 6px; opacity: 0.3; width: 20px;" /></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-1920234715193380402013-12-02T17:22:00.004-08:002013-12-02T17:39:39.359-08:00 The release date!!!!<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 2 de Diciembre 2013</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKYlhkyCxdqsN6fF7xQpaOEa3cUbSGE4r-q_Wc3tWMPGSH7xyjVDW55Xbx7zt865enkofSsel20M1Qu8Pe7hDTAI3hIYzEDCrxWbrAKXD9HvhP4sDlM9YI0_Oz79sZ7_hlp_zabPXFJzY/s1600/release+date1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: 5.994318008422852px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKYlhkyCxdqsN6fF7xQpaOEa3cUbSGE4r-q_Wc3tWMPGSH7xyjVDW55Xbx7zt865enkofSsel20M1Qu8Pe7hDTAI3hIYzEDCrxWbrAKXD9HvhP4sDlM9YI0_Oz79sZ7_hlp_zabPXFJzY/s640/release+date1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There is a member named Carmen who has been a member for of the Church for about twenty-five years and is now about sixty years old. She is really active and always wants to help, but her thirty year old daughter, Veronica, has been inactive for a while now. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So this week we've been working with Veronica, having short visits here and there, to help her come back to church. It was funny though because when we sat down to have our main lesson with her that was a little bit longer he mom was whispering to me suggestions of what to share with Veronica. She was saying things like, "Elder, drop the cane on her... something really strong." (the phrase "drop the cane" means something like "tell them how it is without restraint")</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we had a pretty good conversation with them both, but towards the end Veronica started trying to "find the line" or in other words, she wanted to know to what extent a person could do certain things and still be ok. So we talked about how repentance isn't true if a person has intentions to return to their old ways and that we can't just repent and sin and repent and sin. To make the point, I shared Revelations 3:15-16 which in Spanish is worded a little bit differently, but says, "I would that ye were hot or cold, but because thou art luke warm I will vomit thee from my mouth." She actually really liked that scripture and then decided that she would begin her repentance after all the Christmas parties. Well, that just wasn't a good enough goal, so I then shared Alma 34:32-36 which says that we can not procrastinate the day of our repentance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Veronica didn't come to church yesterday, but she is starting to get back into the habit of reading and praying daily. In other words, progress.</span><img height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhrkLq3UyeoNH6um3WbNzJRg4jGB-uhjiV2gyanH4_c4Mmnm01O79AUy1EP3JkBgoAHFiLF45o0IGg-dPVfGpMwNjAkMAm2CUXV0xsjYlfVDqLNc1u9VxcS8WBY7BNORfzzHHFkqpF8nk/s640/release+date2.jpg" width="480" /></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So on Wednesday I received some papers regarding my travel plans that I need to fill out and send to the mission. For now, my scheduled release is planned for the 22 of April, which falls on a Tuesday. I'm pretty sure that date is going to change because I'll be leaving the mission field a week before then because on the Thursday before I have my exit interview with President Heyman and then the temple trip to Buenos Aires and I can't imagine that we will be in Buenos Aires for more than a day. I'm guessing that I will be home on Sunday or Monday, rather than Tuesday.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnFnE3zXe_cCBZgAeyNfxJZVyfl-TEajxv3Fv8HLOzaOpyF4pyov8FCuXDCGb3iA7d5niWlppsMCQIfXvD3SjLLe9a64PAFaK1KLhx8e61K_Q3OyP0uZJUHyozuTxkwKZ1qfKHj4sGP_0/s1600/release+date+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: 5.994318008422852px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnFnE3zXe_cCBZgAeyNfxJZVyfl-TEajxv3Fv8HLOzaOpyF4pyov8FCuXDCGb3iA7d5niWlppsMCQIfXvD3SjLLe9a64PAFaK1KLhx8e61K_Q3OyP0uZJUHyozuTxkwKZ1qfKHj4sGP_0/s640/release+date+3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Monday Omar and Martha were going to go in to do their blood analysis, but it was a federal holiday, so apparently the hospital was closed. So they said that on Tuesday morning they would go in to do it. Well on Wednesday afternoon, we went looking for them to see how things went and they were no where to be found; not in their house nor in the Martha's mom's house. It wasn't until the next day that we found Martha again and she told us what had happened. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It turns out that there had been an argument between them and thy had since separated; Omar going back to live with his mom. The argument was that Martha doesn't like it when they go to visit his mom because all of Omar's brothers smoke and drink and then encourage him to do the same. So Omar took it hard and basically walked away feeling like he was being told that he wasn't allowed to see his mom. Obviously other things occurred and the argument escalated until it had gone way beyond what was ever necessary, but that was how it started.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So later the next day when we finally found Omar, we came across a sad sight as we saw him sitting in a big circle with other people, smoking and drinking. He stepped away from the group to talk with us and of course the rest of the crowd tried to discourage him from talking to us, but we had a pretty serious conversation. We talked about what he is going to not only do about his baptism, but his whole life; if he really was content to just go back to drinking, smoking, and generally not doing anything productive or meaningful. He said that he wasn't sure about getting back together with Martha, but we told them that even if they don't get married that he still has an obligation to be better than the person he was in that moment; I told him, and he also knew it, that he looked physically different from before from just a few days of drinking and smoking. The question to make him think was this: are you really happier now with these "friends" than you were a week ago when you were reading the scriptures, praying, and spending time with your family?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">He said that he might go to work in the mountains for three weeks and while he's there he will think and ponder about what he wants to do. We're just hoping that he will make good decisions; not just for the short term, but rather for the eternities.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Through all of this, Martha has become rather downcast and sad because of the events that transpired; she didn't even come to church yesterday. We've been trying to cheer her up and encouraging her to keep reading and praying, but she still needs more time. Some members are going to be passing by her to offer their friendship and help too.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sunday went well though. We had a good group of less active members come back to church for the first time in a while that we've been visiting, so that was nice to see them there. We also got some pretty good activities planned for the coming weeks to help the members share the Gospel with their non-member friends and family.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-4628946972928287342013-11-30T13:12:00.002-08:002013-11-30T13:20:04.329-08:00Blood money<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 26 de Noviembre 2013</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We had a pretty solid week of finding new people to teach as well as having some great progress with one of the people whom we´ve recently found.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It all started on MOnday night when we had an appointment to visit with a member, Nelly Lezama, who was going to invite her non-member sister to come and visit with us. When we to to the appointment, however, the sister wasn't there and wasn't able to make it. There was present, however, a friend of Nelly's named Monica Garrido. Nelly invited her to come into the room and talk with us and as we got to know each other and answer her questions about the church we ended up having a great conversation. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At first, she was kind of closed, so we asked her about her family, work, and day to day life as well as answer the questions she had about the church. With a little bit more time, she told us that she had actually been searching for the right church for years and has studied with many different religions. As she began to trust more in us, so began to tell us us more until we finally got to the thing that really bothered her: she felt like God just didn't answer her prayers. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we talked about prayer and how it is that our Heavenly Father answers and listens to our prayers. We taught her how to recognize an answer from God how the Spirit talks to us. We shared some scriptures and some experiences and then towards the end of our conversation she said, "I feel like God spoke to me through that verse." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We haven't been able to see her since last Monday because she lives so far away, but we're just waiting for the opportunity to visit with her again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We had a district conference (like a stake conference) this weekend in a nearby city called Saenz Peña. In order to help the members attend the meetings, I sent a letter to the super intendent of the state asking him to provide us with a small bus in order to transport the members from Campo Largo to Saenz Peña. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now this wasn't some crazy idea that I had come up with, it was actually a very plausible and good idea. Here in Argentina, the politicians always do favors for the people so that the people will re-elect them the next election.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I sent the letter in and then two days later I went in to his office to check for the answer that our letter received. We were then told that he would have been given the bus to us, but the problem was that it was broken down in another city that wasn't even close. The super intendent's secretary asked if we wanted it for the next week, but that didn't really help us as much.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So the majority of the members went to the conference in train and some took a travel bus- We had to be to the conference a day early because I had to be in the session for Priesthood leaders with the other branch presidents in the district. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we had that session for leaders in the Priesthood and then a session for adults later that night. The next morning on Sunday we had the general session. It was pretty crazy to see that many people gathered together in a church, but it was before the session while talking to some other American missionaries that we realized we have more people come to our regular Sunday meetings every week in every ward back in the States. We are all just so used to seeing only thirty people at church every Sunday that when two-hundred showed up it was incredible.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The conference was really fun though because we got to stay with a bunch of other missionaries, including one of my previous companions Elder Humphries. On Saturday night, we had ten missionaries sleeping in one apartment and we had borrowed mattresses from nearby members so that everyone could sleep relatively comfortably.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I don't think that I mentioned last week, but we found a girl and her sisters who had previously been taught by the missionaries. Their names are: Deborah, Ivana, and Rocio. We only have taught all three of them once and that was the very first lesson, but since them we've taught Rocio a couple of times. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Initially, they we are very hesitant to accept a baptismal date, but when we had our second lesson with Rocio some things had changed. I asked her if she had prayed about the things hat we shared with her since our first visit, in which we taught about faith, repentance and baptism, and she said that she had prayed the night before. She then described how she felt after praying and she had indeed felt the Spirit. When asked how she feels about baptism she said, I'm getting more desires to baptize me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we proceeded to teach her about the Church and the prophet Joseph. At the end of the lesson we invited her to pray to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if he, in reality, restored the original Church of Jesus Christ. Two days later we went by to see how she was and to teach a little bit more. I asked about her prayer; if she had done it and how she felt. Of her experience she said, "it was as if God gave me a sign." She knows without a doubt that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that he was the chosen servant to restore the Church.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Unbelievably, but somehow not surprisingly, we've hit even more obstacles in the marriage of Omar and Martha. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Monday, Martha went to the court house in the other city, Las Breñas, and was able to get all of the documents and updates that she need. So that was really great, but the next step proved to be a new challenge. They need to get a blood analysis before they can get married, but it would appear that the doctors and hospital are corrupt. A blood analysis is a free service provided by the government, but when Martha and Omar went to submit their papers, they were told that they needed to pay an additional hundred pesos or otherwise there could be "complications." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So I talked to President Heyman about what had happened and he said that we shouldn't pay the money. So we'll just turn in the papers and see what happens. I can't imagine that the staff would just refuse to do their job since we didn't pay their blood money (that pun was intended).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span><br />
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-92138927273479446112013-11-18T18:26:00.000-08:002013-11-18T19:00:00.298-08:00Building a house and clearing the ground<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 18 de Noviembre 2013</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In our efforts to make the marriage of Omar and Marta a reality, we've hit some obstacles. On Monday we tried sending her documents that need to be updated to the city where her records are and the Elders who are there received them. So they took the documents to the court house and while they were there they received some disappointing news: there are no existing records of Marta in the court house. But they noticed that on her birth certificate that she was actually born in another city, so they called to the court house there to ask for information about Marta and they answer that they gave was, "we don't have anything about her." So it was quite the dilemma and we came to the conclusion that there are errors either in their records or in the documents that Marta has (both of which are very possible options).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So in order to remedy the situation, Marta personally went this morning with all of the personal documents that she has in order to see what can be done and if they can maybe find some correlation among her documents that will lead to finding her original records.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Last week on Monday night, we watched the movie, "The Testaments," with Omar, Marta, Rosa (Marta's mom), and Yanina (Marta's eleven year old sister). It's about a family living in Ancient America waiting for the coming of Christ. At the end of the movie, the father, who has been faithfully waiting for Christ's coming his entire life, is blind and can't see Christ when he finally does come, but the Savior heals him during a sad moment. So after the movie I asked if anyone cried and everyone said, "yes."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Later on, I gave Omar and Marta some scripture marking pens to highlight the verses that they like and Omar immediately started turning to the things that he's already read to mark them. They've learned so much and are just waiting to get baptized, but the government of their country just isn't very efficient at getting things done.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We also met Marta's dad on Saturday night. He is rarely ever around because he basically lives in the fields where he works; he goes there for fifteen days and comes back for a weekend and then goes back to work in the fields. The only trouble with him is that he spends all his time drinking and doesn't want to learn anything from us. He started off by asking us how old we were and then told us that he is seventy-two years old and because he is so much older than us, there is nothing that we could possibly teach him or do to help him. He did, however, invite us to the party, but just as friends (there was no party, he was just drunk). He then bid us farewell with a hug and a kiss on the cheek.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We've also been trying to help a bunch of kids get baptized and their parents reactivated. Right now, there are five kids, ages eight to nine, who are all related and wanting to be baptized. So we've set the goal with them that they can all be baptized together on the same day. We're just going to need to find a lot more white clothes for kids than what we curently have.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We're about to get really busy though with things pertaining to the branch. The tithing settlements have started, so now I have to interview every single member that we can find, show them their tithing records that are recorded on the church's records, and decide if they're paying a full tithe. I got started on it yesterday, but there is still a ton to do (there's two hundred members in the branch).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We also have the district conference this weekend, so I wrote a letter to the superintendant of the state asking him to provide a small bus so all the members can travel to the next city where the conference will be held. That way, the members won't have to pay and we won't have to worry about everyone not being able to make it because of a lack of available seats on the commercial buses.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We're also trying to get everyone ready to go to the temple next month; getting interviews for recommends, making travel plans, and setting appointments.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So the pictures I sent are of the service project that we did on Saturday morning. One of the members is building a house, so we helped him with some heavy lifting and preparing the land. I was put to work cutting down the weeds and clearing out the grass of where the floor was to be put in which is actually a lot harder than it looks; it is, however, as inefficient as it looks. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWUoWPQPxMHZ7njBj6Zmzs9Nh6Q9gdUXQDs4c0HFfshuiLEXeMiKqPI5szBoIPKzyFxqCU1QAbz3_JuGe54b98vA8gbDbBC2sVdnRuCJrZZNf8W8uo1mj7i-UpkGCMMk9VjhDgoFRjCE/s1600/building+a+house1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbWUoWPQPxMHZ7njBj6Zmzs9Nh6Q9gdUXQDs4c0HFfshuiLEXeMiKqPI5szBoIPKzyFxqCU1QAbz3_JuGe54b98vA8gbDbBC2sVdnRuCJrZZNf8W8uo1mj7i-UpkGCMMk9VjhDgoFRjCE/s640/building+a+house1.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Afterwards we had some trees to get rid of. There was two of them, so we each cut one down and then dug up the root. I was actually surprised that the machete was able to cut down a tree. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfOnfX5XZOSS95SMXYkO7BrNZM7XCzcxeRXQqgQ5W4ioelh89S9L8jwQXue09iW7Dx9uMhwKGvjY9-xOQ-WMnbeQKWyrIahsAtMcgwjo5X1ODSauFvrUe9dlzIdf8DwTJ7DOCmiRCBIyY/s1600/building+a+house2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfOnfX5XZOSS95SMXYkO7BrNZM7XCzcxeRXQqgQ5W4ioelh89S9L8jwQXue09iW7Dx9uMhwKGvjY9-xOQ-WMnbeQKWyrIahsAtMcgwjo5X1ODSauFvrUe9dlzIdf8DwTJ7DOCmiRCBIyY/s640/building+a+house2.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have a video of my cutting and hacking (which I can't send) in which I finish off the tree with a solid kick. Unfortunately, the tree nearly fell on the neighbor's fence, but luckily it didn't.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEfB1UZuLyKzcOwOMko8OoHG0m-FuzwUbhVJH4aWrHPO_pk8tLlebETuk3k9VB-5il2CGLXkq1EbMbh66mv31oTrV73Vt_nt8FtPu1mHIHBfbhM9GjGmAU5M54MzbR2eUKfWFZsosHCpE/s1600/building+a+house3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEfB1UZuLyKzcOwOMko8OoHG0m-FuzwUbhVJH4aWrHPO_pk8tLlebETuk3k9VB-5il2CGLXkq1EbMbh66mv31oTrV73Vt_nt8FtPu1mHIHBfbhM9GjGmAU5M54MzbR2eUKfWFZsosHCpE/s640/building+a+house3.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdV7Sw_JxpXWG7mfYzQYW70PlF6DWjKaBEcz7mfPI1ZdjDOJobfFT9d5zTEAHIEi0Js2XZbCWFTGCGuw-vydw8Py7qLJVpIm-ksxy7T_t9s0GHtaaS0U6I81HMrDGHHizMpIhYz-Hosc/s1600/building+a+house4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizdV7Sw_JxpXWG7mfYzQYW70PlF6DWjKaBEcz7mfPI1ZdjDOJobfFT9d5zTEAHIEi0Js2XZbCWFTGCGuw-vydw8Py7qLJVpIm-ksxy7T_t9s0GHtaaS0U6I81HMrDGHHizMpIhYz-Hosc/s640/building+a+house4.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<span style="background-color: #783f04;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Afterwards I was left with a missing chunk of skin from the handle of the machete.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSi3H70Jh4VJfgqAg9t7GJc-Iag1lBGKU6tZbEbazX3J5G10fMKP6kCLNjOBcm_d2tC60VSLnVuBERhSEDTD7JBHpAvlYG3PBXHHQehEC71qJaCE1rXb9btOaXQzL46D96_MxfkVaS1So/s1600/building+a+house5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSi3H70Jh4VJfgqAg9t7GJc-Iag1lBGKU6tZbEbazX3J5G10fMKP6kCLNjOBcm_d2tC60VSLnVuBERhSEDTD7JBHpAvlYG3PBXHHQehEC71qJaCE1rXb9btOaXQzL46D96_MxfkVaS1So/s640/building+a+house5.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifP48Q37ytu8vEsyvBUhkLyiu5CYRfGjp_ROBvLbTv29yTxuY4V50o3mdEBnbF4k7bz8evhNLhd6kuRZqF2wHdSw7_O5GFVZAPcgp-GOzloPpB4Gl-1rYChlupetLq8o7zrOrkpTIVXAw/s1600/building+a+house6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifP48Q37ytu8vEsyvBUhkLyiu5CYRfGjp_ROBvLbTv29yTxuY4V50o3mdEBnbF4k7bz8evhNLhd6kuRZqF2wHdSw7_O5GFVZAPcgp-GOzloPpB4Gl-1rYChlupetLq8o7zrOrkpTIVXAw/s640/building+a+house6.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span></div>
Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-59292058772929698802013-11-18T17:59:00.002-08:002013-11-18T18:19:19.843-08:00Looking for a reason in Campo Largo<div>
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Querida familia, 11 de Noviembre 2013</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we had transfers and... we continue without any changes. Tuesday night, Elder Marilaf called us and asked, "so do you know who is going and who stays?" I just told him that neither one of us would be leaving and suprised he said, "who told you?" No one had told us, I just knew. So Elder Miramontes and I are going to be together until the fifteenth of December, if not maybe a little longer.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5xaLh7L440NVYAjiOJ4d4-4EhQ9nHtulMsxVpsqU28gLeXlQusBStEhY4qxMffmKh8_-izMv8UCnGluP01-yzlCIr1SNQVsx4RlYe2KD1fEtVVafIkNN20YZl896sDGDNU0ptA4tcxE/s1600/making+bricks+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh5xaLh7L440NVYAjiOJ4d4-4EhQ9nHtulMsxVpsqU28gLeXlQusBStEhY4qxMffmKh8_-izMv8UCnGluP01-yzlCIr1SNQVsx4RlYe2KD1fEtVVafIkNN20YZl896sDGDNU0ptA4tcxE/s640/making+bricks+1.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So we were in a member's house,waiting for them to get ready to go out to do visits with us, when a man walked out of the house who is a friend of their dad. I greeted him by saying, "hello brother, how are you?" and we shook hands, but he answered me back and said, "I'm not your brother." "Actually to the contrary, we are all children of God." The members just said that we "don't have to talk to him."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week we've been really focused on Omar and Marta; we're hoping to get the marriage done this week and maybe the baptism as well. But once they're baptized we won't be needing to teach them so often, so we have been working with them to help them invite their friends and family to participate in the Gospel and the Church.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On Tuesday evening, we talked with Marta and Rosa, the mom of Marta, about missionary work and sharing the Gospel with everyone else. Marta had the idea that we start teaching Omar's sister and mom. So we talked about how they want to approach them and what things they want to share with them; Marta specifically asked for pamphlets of the Family Proclamation because she and Omar like it so much.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hugo and Belqui have also been in missionary mode, but more so Belquis. But a few weeks ago we gave Belquis some pass along cards that have the Articles of Faith and she gave them out to some friends and family and then asked us for more because there were more people that were asking about the Church. So we might be starting to teach some brothers of Belquis here soon; we have planned to show a movie in their house this Wednesday and they are going to invite some people to come see it and also to meet us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It was actually really funny what happened the other day because apparently the culture here is that if someone says that they liked the movie that you watched with them, then you are supposed to let them borrow it. So Belquis said that Hugo was upset because we watched the Joseph Smith movie and didn't leave it with them to borrow it and watch it again. But even if he didn't get to see it again, at least he liked it and now we know for the next time.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The weddings have been an interesting thing though. We need a more updated birth certificate from Marta so that we can get their papers ready for the marriage, but we have to get it from another city. So this morning we sent the necesarry documents to Las Breñas where two other Elders recieved the papers and took them to the court house for us; tomorrow when we go there, they're going to give us the papers that they received so that we can bring them back with us to Campo largo and make this wedding happen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This last Thursday we got some service hours in a brick making place. There is a member named Epifanio who makes and sells bricks for a living and we helped him with the processes of carrying the bricks and loading them into the oven to burn them (so that they become hard and durable). We didn't do everything that he had ready to go into the oven, but he said that we had loaded up about 2,850 bricks (the oven holds about 14,000).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0HqLMwKLhGO7Gqi21CvExsu79MsMss7uq29CgYVY5UomJP4gbr1CzaBLhKh-tQxJ_YYW6UUKc0cWM8dtksnEMSYcRUjk21QHdFQzrrxMAe27z53-2LXqfhUvjI3GnnnrIuNrr0QQPQmA/s1600/making+bricks+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0HqLMwKLhGO7Gqi21CvExsu79MsMss7uq29CgYVY5UomJP4gbr1CzaBLhKh-tQxJ_YYW6UUKc0cWM8dtksnEMSYcRUjk21QHdFQzrrxMAe27z53-2LXqfhUvjI3GnnnrIuNrr0QQPQmA/s640/making+bricks+2.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This week went by so quickly that everything just kind of blurred together and I can't really remember what we did and when we did it. We've been trying to find lots of new people to teach, but it's been difficult; sometimes we make jokes that every righteous person has already been found or we compare Campo Largo to Sodom and Gomora in the sense that we can't find any more righteous people than are already with us. But I know that there's a reason that we're here, even if it's only to help the branch grow and continue; without us, the branch would most likely close. That would be really sad too because there are some really strong and faithful members; one of the young women said that she was going to be moving to another province called Entre Rios in a city called Chajari and she asked us to ind where the chapel was so that she could attend the meetings. Well we looked it up and the closest chapel is eighty kilometers away (there's one in Argentina and another in Uruguay).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">os amo,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Burt</span><br />
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Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2111316898968303722.post-33027121107132221042013-11-18T13:46:00.004-08:002013-11-18T13:50:36.502-08:00Pictures of district meeting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">4 de Noviembre 2013</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Elder Humphries, Me, Elder Sacalxot, Elder Miramonts (two previous companions and my current companion are all in the same zone now)</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3TChQX2Ks6ZLa1YGpnu4VFtVc0uQgCkPT6kxX3c6G28HQDFkL7FJlj4s7nMohbsT_fUGFewdTQmdSaXy8fWYDiDCoo6YjhrHrBWIUvkstBZAKYF82ifjwuYkCdnbdhj-24DD_Nl01ni0/s1600/Elders+Humpries%252C+Burt%252C+Sacalxot+and+Miramonts.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3TChQX2Ks6ZLa1YGpnu4VFtVc0uQgCkPT6kxX3c6G28HQDFkL7FJlj4s7nMohbsT_fUGFewdTQmdSaXy8fWYDiDCoo6YjhrHrBWIUvkstBZAKYF82ifjwuYkCdnbdhj-24DD_Nl01ni0/s640/Elders+Humpries%252C+Burt%252C+Sacalxot+and+Miramonts.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> <span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white;">We had what might have been our last district meeting together last week, so I said that everyone should bring jerseys to wear for the picture</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRsIz_mVORziN8_Qrta1awtfELI3-qkF6tMA-e_7B9kJzFDATSgc3YMLcElK-futLzl167IGqq8rd_LkxA1d-A7xFHDLw3lFym-JbNBSaDN4qsKTPVakKO2yLvpqLgd1BhOQ7vRYLnGs/s1600/jerseys.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRsIz_mVORziN8_Qrta1awtfELI3-qkF6tMA-e_7B9kJzFDATSgc3YMLcElK-futLzl167IGqq8rd_LkxA1d-A7xFHDLw3lFym-JbNBSaDN4qsKTPVakKO2yLvpqLgd1BhOQ7vRYLnGs/s640/jerseys.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> <span style="background-color: #783f04; color: white;">We both wore our Argentine gear to the activity on Saturday</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_vLlLTJK_3iDaWlV5lJibR07hMK6OvldVO_PuI1qmnf4UNmoFpuRUrnkRf76Z1Y8dj2YVfEWcji69y_bG5tu0QzoY-SEPTE8C4S_6-BOwSHMgCob9eubLme1v2HwnV1BudmqvrW9S7Q/s1600/matching+Argentine+gear+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_vLlLTJK_3iDaWlV5lJibR07hMK6OvldVO_PuI1qmnf4UNmoFpuRUrnkRf76Z1Y8dj2YVfEWcji69y_bG5tu0QzoY-SEPTE8C4S_6-BOwSHMgCob9eubLme1v2HwnV1BudmqvrW9S7Q/s640/matching+Argentine+gear+2.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7XVSO_olTV-pHhzOOGVBwoEZaEs6hwbOF-HAkwp79eAmlrXgTZgk2_oeY_QyrMo999IF7swjgbJPLXupTslKzdlsRtSgTetJ86Q-EBoWcysffzxB0rStUV1EADlBGd2yAvL2i0i8RU_g/s1600/matching+Argentine+gear.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7XVSO_olTV-pHhzOOGVBwoEZaEs6hwbOF-HAkwp79eAmlrXgTZgk2_oeY_QyrMo999IF7swjgbJPLXupTslKzdlsRtSgTetJ86Q-EBoWcysffzxB0rStUV1EADlBGd2yAvL2i0i8RU_g/s640/matching+Argentine+gear.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />Cami Covingtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05059779960058588858noreply@blogger.com0