See You Next Week!

Hey everybody!

We had a great week of incredible miracles, the Lord blesses us immensely.

On Wednesday we went to see a family that we had set baptismal dates with and their dad came out, he`s from this freaky African religion where they kill animals and baptize themselves in blood and things like that, and he tells us he never wants us to come near his house again and never ever talk with his family again. So that was a bummer and frustrated my companion and I quite a bit.

We just kept doing our thing during the week and we kept finding people. Yesterday 5 people came to church that can be baptized this Sunday with a lot of work on our part and theirs as well. I know the Lord blesses us as we show Him that we are willing to do all that is necessary and that we will rely on Him in every moment. We are so blessed, let us not forget that.

Yesterday evening was also my Argentine farewell with the other missionaries that leave this transfer. I sang in a trio with Elder Puzey and Elder Jones and we sang, Nearer My God to Thee, that turned out pretty well. Seeing all the people I could help during two years was wonderful too. Families baptized or reactivated that have callings and are preparing to serve missions and/or enter the temple in the next few months. Pretty incredible. If we humble ourselves, the Lord can use us to do supreme good in this world.

So yeah, last night I cried, laughed, and exchanged goodbyes with people I won`t see for some time. It still hasn`t really hit me that it is already time to go, that it is already done. I want to see all of you but I don`t want to leave this work either. Can`t you guys just move down here? Or better yet build more on your houses and we`ll move all of my family from down here up there haha. Thank you all for all of your support. This is the best decision I`ve ever made and I know that it will continue to bless my life.

Love you guys! See you next week!

Elder Wardle

FAMILIES!!!!

Well, can´t really believe that I´ve only got two weeks left in the mission. We are being blessed intensely from our Heavenly Father during these last weeks, this past week we found 3 families that the parents were married. Too bad two of the familes didn´t go to church yesterday but one did! Juan and his son Ezequiel went to church for their first time yesterday and loved it. Juan is about 55 years old and during the sacrament he turns to me and asks if it is only for those that are baptized, I said yes but that he could take it but it wouldn´t mean anything until he was baptized, then he said, alright, I´ll just wait until the 5 (October) then. He has to stop smoking, so pray for that. 

We went back to one of the families and the dad answers, who we hadn´t met before, and says that they don´t want anything because he and his wife are preachers and can run circles around us with the Bible, which we didn´t really understand because his wife the day before had accepted a baptismal date so that was weird. 

Elder Zapata and I continue to have a great time together, I´m going to have to convince him to come to the States at some point haha. Hope everyone is doing great! Get ready for conference, they´re probably announce my name since it will be my last weekend in the field right? 

Love

Elder Wardle

Finding like Crazy!

Hola a todos!!

We had a pretty great week, we worked A TON but only one guy, Sergio, showed up at church, so that bummed us out. We found an entire family this week! We met Marita, the mom, on Monday and then throughout the week started meeting her husband (they arent married) and we met 8 of her 11 kids. The mom has felt the Spirit like crazy and wants to get baptized, so we talked to her about getting married and they want to so we will probably be doing the paperwork for that this week. 4 of their kids should be getting baptized my last Sunday, so pray for them! 

I know I say this about a lot of my companions, but Elder Zapata is probably one of my favorites, we work really well together and we both are pretty bold with everybody, so we are seeing a lot of results from that. We also get along super well, all the time joking and finding new ways to work better with investigators, members, and the other missionaries. And I am just really happy :) just goes to show that you can never stop learning, we have to keep learning until the end!! Thanks for all the support, love you guys!!

Elder Wardle

Crazy things happen with Elder Zapata

Miracles continue to occur here in Virreyes, Buenos Aires, so buckle up everybody because you´re about to hear some cool stories. 

Primero, our bishop told us to go visit three less active families and reactivate them, so we went and two of the families really don´t want much more with the Church, well they´re fine with letting the missionaries in their house and listening but not really willing to act. We went to the third house and one of the son in laws of the family was planning to get baptized but when my buddy Elder Young left, something went wrong and Sergio didn´t get baptized. So we went to see him, told him he could get baptized, he came to church yesterday and will be getting baptized this Sunday.

That same family came to church with the grandma, who had come to church before and also talked to the missionaries many times. We went to their house in the afternoon and taught her for the first time, she will also be getting baptized next Sunday.

We also had two baptisms yesterday, Tomy and Kevin, who are grandchildren of Luisa, a super convert who wants to baptize her whole family if only they´d let her. The kids are studs and we are still working with more of their family, it was a really great baptismal service. Tomy´s little brother who is 5 said a really really bad word to his cousin in front of everyone so his mom took him out and they had a little chat which Elder Zapata and I were privileged to hear since we were drying out the floor with squeegee (ni idea how to spell that) so that was fun too. 

Not sure if I told you guys last week but we got to church last week about 10 minutes early and there was a very drunk man on the first floor and he was grabbing everybody´s hand and kissing it as if he were from the 1600s, so yeah I kind of knew what to expect when I shook his hand but instead of kissing my hand he stuck out his tongue as far as he possibly could and licked my hand! Super gross, so as I was escaping to the bathroom to wash it my companion follows me laughing his head off. They later escorted the man out. 

So yeah, we´re doing awesome. Hope everyone is doing great at home! Love you guys!

Elder Wardle

Really, really, really!

Hello everybody!!

We had a great week and we are finding a ton of new people. We have two set baptisms for this weekend, Tomás and Kevin, who are two grandchildren of a recent convert and they are pretty stoked to get baptized this weekend, they are Alan and Tobias´ cousins. 

Elder Zapata is hilarious, and a baptizer. We had a really great zone meeting and we have another one this week so it should turn out well. We get along really well, stayed awake in our beds last night until 2 am talking about who knows what, really random stuff about the mission.

So grateful that I didn´t get a lazy missionary as my last companion, so we´re just going to work a ton to build up the zone. We didn´t have such a hot month but we´ll do better this September. 

So yeah :) just regular missionary work, doing lots of splits with the other Elders to help them out, really really, really busy, and really, really, really happy. Love you guys a ton! Hope everything keeps going great. 

Love

Elder Wardle