Tobias al agua

So, sometimes with these letters I feel like I write the same thing over and over, but I´m just enjoying the mission and doing the same things makes me happy :)

So yesterday, Alan baptized his little brother Tobias and we´re working on more of that family now. Tobias was pretty excited to get baptized and after he came up out of the water he gave his brother a big bear hug, well as much of a bear hug that an 11 year old can give his 18 year old big brother.

We had interviews with President this week also and he told me not to run a marathon and slow down on mile 25, but rather sprint to the finish line, fall on my face and throw up, be that guy haha, so that´s some nice imagery for those of you back at home.

So yeah, Elder Arce leaves next week, and he´s feeling good I think, he´s a pretty quiet guy, but we´re just focused on helping out the zone, they´re doing good. Hope you guys keep doing great, have a great week!

Love,

Elder Wardle

FORGET YOURSELF!

Hey everybody!

Alan got confirmed, he´s a stud, just a real great example for me and we are teaching more of his family now too, his little brother Tobias gets baptized this weekend. 

We don´t have a ton of time so I´ll make it short :) I´m finding some real peace by focusing on the needs of others instead my own personal needs. My companion and I are trying to constantly talk either about our investigators or members in our area, or about the missionaries in our zone and what they need and then what we are going to do to help them. As I forget myself, Heavenly Father blesses me with joy. So forget yourself, now! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Wardle

Alan = Awesome

ALAN = AWESOME!

Well everybody, pretty great week.

So we had leadership council, and President´s friend, Dan Clark, who is a motivational speaker, spoke to us for an hour over Skype, so that was pretty cool. The next day we had zone meeting and it was incredible because we invited Hermana Luisa, who is a convert of 5 months, and her grandson, Alan, who all of you know a little bit from my emails, who got baptized yesterday. 

We did practices with them and with all the missionaries and it was inspiring to hear their stories from their point of view and know that they were just waiting to be baptized. 

Yesterday we had Alan´s baptism and it came out wonderfully, his uncle, Mariano, baptized him and he was super stoked. In the baptismal service, the bishop gave him Preach My Gospel and gave him the challenge to go on a mission, even before he is an actual member!! 

We´re incredibly blessed to be a part of this work. I think if I had the chance to create a perfect investigator'convert it would be Alan, he always reads and prays and goes to church, and wants to share the gospel with others. 

So yeah :) happy down here in Argentina :) Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Wardle

BEST SUNDAY EVER!

Hey everybody,

Had one of my favorite Sabbath Days yesterday that I´ve had in the mission, but first let me tell you about the week.We had to drop a few investigators because they weren´t progressing and so yeah, working on finding new people. Alan continues to progress like a champ and has already finished 1 Nephi, he gets baptized this Sunday. Blanca, a short little grandma, came to church yesterday and loved it. We´re also working with a girl named Flor who has had a ton of problems, she´s 22 and has three kids already but they don´t live with her, but she told us she felt at home yesterday at church!!

So really cool Sunday yesterday because Alan came and acompanied us the whole day, from about 4-9 at night and it was so cool, he bore his testimony and he really wants to go on a mission. We met a family who is the latin version, I swear, of the Crum family. The husband is Andrés, he´s really well mannered and very calm, educated, really cool guy not a member, and his wife who is a member for about 20 years but inactive now who is kinda loud, and has a really strong testimony of the church, and their kids are little intelligent angels of course. Their personalities reminded me a ton of Torey and Morgan, kind of freaked me out. Well, they're working on going to church, we´ll see what happens.

Oh, and the Bishop here is such an example, wants to baptize a ton, he´s 27 I think and has the goal of in the next year wants Virreyes to get divided into two wards!! (Virreyes barely became a ward last month, it was a branch) so we´re working to find men who can hold the priesthood. He also ordained a member who was confirmed yesterday to the office of Priest with all the other priests in the circle with him, it was very powerful.

I told my companion this morning that I don´t think I´ve ever had so much energy and excitement in the work than now. We were thinking about it the other day and we think we are the oldest companionship in the mission with 44 months in mission field, so that´s pretty cool. The zone is progressing and everything is going great. The only thing is that it is freezing outside, but that´s alright, Colorado prepared me for this haha. Holy cow, this letter is super long. Keep being awesome everybody, baptize your friends!

Love

Elder Wardle

Zona Tigre

Hey everybody!

What an incredible week we had here in Virreyes. I am now a zone leader in the Tigre zone, which is pretty cool because we have the office elders, the assistants, and a bunch of sister missionaries in the zone. We had zone conference in the ward´s new chapel here and it is the most beautiful chapel I´ve ever seen in Argentina. 

I met some of the recent converts here and they are incredible. Mariano is 18 and got baptized about a month and a half ago and is progressing a ton. This week he talked with his cousin, Alan, who is 18 also about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and then we went the next day and Alan said, ¨Yeah I read the introduction and all the testimonies and I already prayed and I know that it is all true.¨ Wow!!! Then yesterday when he introduced himself in Elders Quorom he said, ¨Hi I´m Alan, I came here to change my life, to gain more knowledge so I can apply it in my life and then share it with others.¨ So yeah, he´ll be getting baptized soon. 

My companion is Elder Arce, is 25 and a really funny chubby guy haha. We get along well and we live next door to the other Elders, Elder DaSilva and Elder Gomez, who are Mexican and Chilean, respectively :). Everyone in the zone is really excited, at least from what we´ve seen, so we should be seeing some growth here. The area is definitely not the city but the members are pretty cool. Plus coming from being companions with Elder Ochoa doesn´t hurt since everyone knows him here. 

Well, this is quite a long letter so I´ll be closing out here. Everybody pray and read your scriptures! Because I´ll be coming home soon to raise hell if not haha just kidding. Love you guys.

Elder Wardle

Transfer to Virreyes

Hello everyone!

This last week was awesome, we had permission to watch the Argentina´s semifinal against Holanda, and it was awesome haha. We went to a member´s home and with a big family we watched it together and it was pretty crazy. My companion cried :) I can´t really think of an American equivalent for what the World Cup is for them, it's insane haha. Too bad they couldn´t close it off in the end against Germany.

Anyways, with regards to the work, we had Rocio´s baptism on Saturday and then she got confirmed on Sunday. She was at a friend´s house on Saturday before the baptism and it had rained all day and she said she wasn´t going to be able to make it because the streets were flooded. We told her to pray and she would find a way, and she did! She came with her mom and it was awesome.

Yesterday about 5 in the afternoon we got a call from President telling me that I was leaving to Virreyes to be with yet another Elder that is finishing his mission, so yes, for those of you who are counting, this will be my fourth killing in the mission. But I´m blessed, he is Elder Arce, from Mar del Plata, which is part of the province of Buenos Aires and we know each for more than a year already. Another funny note, I´m now in the ward where my last companion, Elder Ochoa, the mini missionary, is from, so I´ll be here for his homecoming hahahaha. He was super excited for me to come here and was telling me all about Virreyes last night. I´ve been extremely blessed with companions, areas, everything. Virreyes is provincia, so it isn´t the city, but I´ve heard how awesome it is my entire mission so I´m super grateful to be here. Hope everything is going great back home.

Love you,

Elder Wardle