February 20, 2012

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! That made me smile and laugh SO HARD when you told me about Maggie eating the dead fawn!!! Haha! That`s normal here... Dogs eat whatever they can find. People eat a ton of grilled meats and chicken, so when they`re done with the bones, they throw them out to the dogs. Not to mention all the dead animals that they find, and begin to chow down on. The other day we were at an investigators house, and there was a dead cat outside that her puppies were eating. They had ripped the spine clean off the cats body and were having a blast while doing it! Haha. But yeah, it is nasty. I hope Maggie wasn`t licking Jared or Simon lately... Ha. 

Right after I`m done writing you, we`ll be going to the terminal to see if any packages got here. I really hope the birthday one gets here today... It`s been an awfully long time. The camera, I`m sure will be here next week. It`s only been two weeks since you sent it. Hopefully, I`ve been praying that it gets to me. Heavenly Father answers prayers, so I know that it will come. Thank you so much for helpìng me out, Mom. I`ve missed out on the pictures of three baptisms because my camera broke, and we`re going to have a lot more coming up here. :) 

E. Agazzani and I had a HUGE fight on Thursday morning. That morning is dedicated to the 3 hour weekly planning... And we spent all 3 hours... Fighting. It was Bad. Bad, Bad, BAD. I couldn`t believe it when I finally looked at the clock and it said 1:00pm. We had been fighting since 10:00. BAD. It was a huge fight about lack of communication and imperfections in the both of us. One of would throw out a criticism, then the other would throw one right back. It was BAD. The majority of the argument was about... Well, I can`t really tell you. It was about everything under the sun. In the end, we were able to cool down and come back and talk it out and come to an agreement. We said, "At least in 4 days I`ll be leaving San Martìn,"... We made up and continued working. We`re fine, now. Oh yeah, I guess that means that with Transfers... I`m not leaving!!! Ha. I will probably be here for another 3 months. I`ll complete a year in the mission in a little bit, and when May comes, it will be exactly a year in the Andes mountains... Something other missionaries only DREAM of having the opportunity to do. I`ve been lucky. :) We`re excited, we`ve got a lot of potential for these 6 weeks in the Work of the Lord. We`re going to baptize many. 

So, Fabiana.... SHE DID IT!!!!! WOOT!!! Miracles, Miracles, Miracles! The last Sunday she had come to church like I said, she liked it, and everything was good. Then, halfway through this week, her work schedule changed... And she had to work every day in the afternoon... This meant she couldn`t have her baptism at 6 on Saturday like we had planned... NO! We were frustrated, thinking of every back up plan we could do. Not only that, she was a little shaky on her testimony of Joseph Smith, she had many doubts about him being a prophet of God. We taught her, and testified with all our hearts, and int he end... Asked her to pray to her Heavenly Father and ask Him. Trying to figure everything out for the baptism, she finally came up with the thought that she could trade her hours for Saturday with someone else and work a different day when she had the day off. This was Friday when she came up with the idea. This was a day before the stinking baptism. We were biting our finger nails, Afùl!!! That morning, Saturday, we called her, waked her up from sleeping because she had left work at 2 in the morning and she said... "Yes, she changed with me, I can get baptized today." We then asked her... "Alright, who would you like to baptize you?" She said "Both of you". We laughed, told her we couldn`t do that. Then she said "E. Cuthbert". I felt very humbled. We had been trying to get her to want a member to baptize her, but in the end she wanted one of us. We got to the church when she was already in her interview with E. Campos who would tell her if she could be baptized or not. This would tell us if she had prayed to HF about Joseph Smith. She came out of the interview smiling, having cried a lot in the interview,E.Campos said" She`s good! " WWOOOT!!! She had told him ... I Believe. I believe. " That`s faith. So we had the baptism! The entire time before the baptism, she was on the balls of her feet, bouncing around because of the nerves. She kept (jokingly) acting like she wanted to escape through the windows of the church. But in the end, it was a solid, clean dunk in the font and she was baptized. Wonderful experience. We were so happy. 

Sunday was the real miracle, though. We got to church and waited for Sacrament meeting, when it came... She wasn`t there to be confirmed. Oh no!!! She`s not a member until she`s confirmed! The meeting started and I was flipping out. What`s happened, what`s happened?? The other Elders had three baptisms along with our one and we began confirming their baptisms. During the second confirmation, I said a prayer to HF and asked him... "HF, when I open up my eyes and look at the back of the audience, I beg you... Let Fabiana be there." We finished the confirmation and I opened my eyes. My comp whispered in my ear., "FABIANA!" I whipped around and a HUGE grin was plastered on my face. She had just walked in as Branch President got to the pulpit and announced that it was her turn to be confirmed. When she saw my grin, she spilled out in a smile, too. She got up and said, "I made it!" We were SO happy. And I will never forget that little prayer I made to my Father in Heaven. She was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A religion. She told us that religion was false and of the devil when we found her. And I, Elder Cuthbert, Believe in Miracles. 

I love you all. I`ve got a good 3 months in San Martìn to go. We`re going to baptize a lot, help many people and work HARD. I love you all. Thank you for the prayers,. Thanks to you, I have had the success that I`ve had. Pray for Lautaro, the son of Fabiana. He`s 10 yrs. old and he`s next on the list for a baptism. 

E. Cuthbert 

Melyn, I hope everything is going well! What happened to that promise about writing me? ;) 

February 6, 2012

We went to a place today called Via Christi. It`s a Sculpture Park on the mountain in Junìn de los Andes of the entire life of Jesus Christ.. Through sculptures. It was incredible. And I had no camera to take pictures of it! I hope I stay here one more transfer, it would be awesome to go back with my camera... 

So the baptisms.. WERE AWESOME!!! Those two, SWEET GIRLS!! Their mom is less active, hasn`t been inside the church since she was fifteen. But she wanted her two children to know what baptism was, and if they had the desire to be baptized, that they would be baptized as well. Their father is a non member. He also has desires, but was never home when we taught them, which made it more difficult to teach him. But he has interest as well. On Friday we had the baptismal interviews, Zahida (11 years old) She gets very, VERY nervous in front of people she doesn`t know, and during the interview, E. Campos asked her what a prophet was. She began to tremble because she couldn`t remember, she THREW her face into her hands and started yelling, I don`t know, I don`t know!!!! Hahaha, E. Campos calmed her down, and helped her out. Turns out she DID know, she just didn`t remember. But they both passed the intervews. On Saturday morning, we went by their house in the morning to give them the baptismal clothing. We asked them who they wanted to baptize them. They both shouted: "Vos!!" Or "You!" I felt very humbled. That night in the baptism, everything went perfectly. The baptisms went through well, Daniza (9 years old) bent her knees too much and hit the bottom of the font with her butt, haha!!! But it was awesome, I loved it. I love baptisms. With those two girls, they almost didn`t need to be baptized.. . So pure. Children are SO pure. It makes me think of 3 Nephi 9:22 that says we should become as little children. 

Fabiana is a miracle. I couldn`t tell you guys of the miracle that happened last week with her. We gave her a chapter to read in the BoM, she read it, but then the idea came into her head... What else does this book say? She began filing through some pages and stopped on a page and read two verses. We came by later that day to talk to her. She then had the question "Why the Book of Mormon?" What`s its purpose? I leafed through some pages of the book of Mormon, stopped ona page... And had her read two verses. She stopped halfway through, and said: "I`ve already read this." Turns out that it was the exact scripture that she had read earlier when we weren`t there. Don`t ask me how I knew I had to go to that scripture, but the Spirit works in mysterious ways, and she took that as an answer to her prayers, amongst other things that have happened. Fabiana in the beginning told us that Religion is BAD. It is meant to DESTROY. Churches do nothing but rip apart families. But she has realized over the past 3 weeks that that is not so. She had the plan to come to church last week, but in the end didn`t come because her little 1 and a half year old daughter didn`t have diapers. But she came this week!!! She liked it, too! We have her baptismal date for the 12th, on Sunday after Sacrament meeting. If everything goes well, you should see the pictures on Monday. If not the 12th, the 18th for sure!!! Miracles, Miracles, Miracles!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THE MISSION!!! Well, I have to go. The time is short! 

I love you guys. 

E. Cuthbert 

January 2, 2012

And........... THEY DID IT!!!!!!!! This WONDERFUL family did it!!!! I am so happy and proud of them... Really... This last week has flown by, and a MILLION things have happened... I am so happy. 

Alright, I just want you guys to be aware that we have another baptism coming up for this next Saturday! Their names are Jennifer and Karen, the two daughters of a really awesome family. We found them in the same week that we found Mirta and Ramon. Miriam, the mom of the two, she too, wants to get baptized. We were in a lesson with them about a week ago, Monday, actually. They had come to church the day before and she said: I was already baptized in another church a while back but... I want to be baptized again, I´ve decided. WE WERE SO HAPPY WHEN SHE SAID THAT. But, one problem... She´s not married. Her man doesn´t really want to talk to us. We´ve tried a lot to talk to him, but he´s either really shy or doesn´t want to talk because we can´t get him to say one word! Anyway, he doesn´t want to listen in this moment, so we´re going to baptize Jennifer and Karen so they always have contact with the church and the missionaries. Blessings... :) 

Now I´m going to tell you right now. The Lord knows how to direct His work. On Tuesday morning we went with Mirta and Ramon to do all of the wedding arrangements. They needed to get their blood examined, buy seals at the bank, get the birth certificate and a bunch of other stuff. Now, mind you... To get your blood examined, we were talking to a member that had recently gotten married, and she said that the results usually come back in about a week!!! A WEEK??! We needed to schedule the wedding that same day!! Long story short, Mirta and Ramon got up really early to do all this stuff. We were praying and fasting for WEEKS for all of this stuff to happen. And by 9:00 in the morning... Everything was done. Just like that. Easy. I was shocked. I didn´t understand it. But then I realized... It was the prayers, it was the fasting, it was the diligence... It was an answer. Heavenly Father blessed us, blessed this family... And things that usually take weeks to do, they did it in 2 hours. A Miracle. The miracle of a New Years Eve!!! It was awesome! 

On Thursday, they got married. It was awesome, but it didn´t quite give me the satisfaction I thought it would. The marriage was just another step towards the ultimate goal, the baptism.  The baptism was AWESOME. The members LOVE this family, and they helped with everything. A really wonderful couple named Alberto and Evelina Di Stefano did all the decorations for the wedding reception that we had right after the baptism, and the cake, dances that they danced to and everything was... Wonderful. It was very emotional to finally watch this incredible family make it through the door... Baptism. :) I want you guys to know that the Lord loves his Children. That He KNOWS their desires, and that he answers prayers. I was so worried that Tuesday morning for the papers and everything that was going on, but I shouldn´t have... It all went more fluidly than I could even imagine. I love my Savior. 

It´s been extremely hot this week. In the 90´s and 100´s. I have realized that I really don´t like the heat in a shirt and tie... Not even going to talk about the pants... Oh! By the way, I went on divisions with another Elder, and I decided to take us on a "shortcut" to a neighborhood. We had to climb a fence, and I... Ripped the butt seam of my favorite slacks. a HUGE hole. It was terrible. I had to work for the rest of the day with a very big breeze going through my pants. Haha! Anyways, for New Years Eve, we spent it with the Flia. De la Torre, a really good member family that has been having some very hard trials lately. But we spent it with them, had a ton of Asado and deliciousness... Then went to bed at 11:30 and slept through the New Year. Yes, mom, I have lots of goals. :) I want this new year to be incredible. And it WILL be incredible. I´m just getting warmed up as a missionary. There´s still the curve and the straight-away to run. :) I want you all to know that I love you. I want you to know that the house is GORGEOUS!!! BIEN HECHO!! Props there, Mom and Dad! I miss you guys so much. Seeing those wonderful pictures and reading about the Christmas stuff you did... Aw man. I love you guys. Have a wonderful week, I´ll be back next week with pictures of the next baptism!! 

Love, 

E. Cuthbert