Snow and Investigators!

Como le va??

So this week has been wonderful even though it has been freezing. Christmas was really cool and it was so fun seeing all of you guys, it felt like I was just there again. I felt a little sad after, but the members we live with were so sweet and let us intrude on their family for the day. We went over to their son's house for dinner and he had all these reptiles and snakes and stuff that he showed us, so I got to hold a couple of snakes, a bearded dragon, a tarantula, and some hissing cockroaches, among other things.

One good thing about it being cold is that people let us in more often and we had a bunch of lessons this week. We actually got seven new investigators and we are teaching a family now!! They have a baptismal date and have committed to prepare so hopefully that works out. 

The dad's name is Carlos and he works as a Spanish translator at the hospital so I bore my testimony to them in Spanish at the end of one of our lessons. He is super spiritual and is really willing to accept everything we say, so we made sure he understood to ask for himself. He and his wife are from Ecuador and then they have two teenage daughters. 

Carlos is hilarious and we just like being over there and having those spiritual experiences with them. We were over there too long last time, about an hour and a half, because we just want to keep teaching them stuff because they eat it up.

Oh, I fell on my bike this week, too! Don't worry, it was very graceful.  My bike slipped on the ice and I slowly fell on my side. Riding in the snow is actually kind of fun because we slip around. 

I think that is basically it for the week. Oh! I had my first lady who wanted to argue with us, and she told us that if we don't join the Roman Catholic church we are going to burn and that right now we are in a cult and Joseph Smith had an agenda and all that. My companion wanted to argue with her, but I just said thanks and walked away haha. 

Alright, love you all! The Church is true and I feel privileged to be in this work, and see the change in their eyes when we testify of truth.

Love,
Elder Wardle

Merry Christmas from Colorado!

Feliz Navidad!


Well, my week has been pretty eventful and that's sweet. Wednesday morning it snowed and so I had the experience of shoveling snow for the first time, and it was actually pretty fun! But it was snowing pretty hard while we were doing so when we were done it didn't look like we'd done much. We walked that day, and a lot of people let us in cause they probably felt bad for us.

There's this inactive guy named Bob that we met with this week who is pretty interesting. He lives alone but he has a caretaker that lives with him, his daughter is a member and so a while ago he got baptized so that he could go to her wedding in the temple eventually, so he doesn't believe really anything, he just went through the motions.

So we had a pretty deep conversation about the Gospel and the possibility of other churches being true and that whole kind of thing, but we were able to get our point across, and we didn't argue at all, the Spirit was just super strong when we bore testimony about this Gospel.

The work continues and I'm getting used to the cold for sure. Other than that I think that is basically it.

Thanks everybody for writing, and I'm stoked to talk to some of you tomorrow! Adios!

Love,

Elder Wardle

Last days at MTC

Denver is Pretty Darn Cold!

Well, I've been in Denver for about a week now and it's been pretty good. Last Monday President Maynes and his assistants picked us up from the airport and then we had some orientation stuff and a little devotional at his house that evening. Then on Tuesday we had our transfer meeting in the morning and I've been assigned to the town of Lakewood in the Dartmouth ward, which is a suburb of Denver. I'm on a bike! So that is pretty fun, though we get cold with the wind and all. 

Elder Nielsen is my companion...again, my last companion's name was Elder Nielson. My current companion is from Pocatello, so we know a few people, including Missy which is kinda cool. We also are living with members, and they are an awesome older couple who have served a few missions in Denmark and Sweden. 

We don't have many investigators but we have been meeting with a lot of less actives who we are trying to reactivate, so that's good but it's just kind of hard to wake them up so to speak and get them doing the things they should be doing. I'm also speaking English here, so hopefully I don't lose all my Spanish before I get to Argentina. 

We were able to meet with the consulate about a week and a half ago and we just had to sign some things in front of her. It was pretty awesome to hear her speak Spanish because of her accent. She said that the visas should be done within the next few weeks, but we will probably be in Denver for at least six weeks so we arrive with other missionaries at the same time. 

I did get to speak Spanish once when we were knocking doors and the guy didn't speak English, but I really don't know what he understood haha. We are having a good time and it is pretty awesome being able to bear my testimony all day. We have also been working a lot with members, which has been awesome because it feels a little like home as the members seem to be pretty similar here. 

Alright, well I guess that is it, the work goes and it has been wonderful preaching the Gospel during the Christmas season. We should be focused on Him, and the sacrifice He did for us, and I invite all of you to be focused on Him throughout the whole year, and let a spirit of Christmas be in your hearts always, because in all reality we can't do anything of real worth without Him.

Love,
Elder Wardle