Family and friends!!

 

First off, Congrats to Joe Ham and Blake Ellertson for their mission calls. Joe you are going to love it. Denver Colorado south is lucky to have you and you are going to do great work over there. And Blake, we are going to speak the same spanish, castellano, and have all the same hand gestures and stuff. Buenos Aires is so crazy, but so much fun though, you are going to love it.

 

Thank you so much for the birthday package. I got it this morning after breakfast. I love all of the notes everyone wrote me. It totally made my week. I will try to write back everyone but its gonna take some time so hang in there for me. And thank you for all the candy!! My district really appreciated it too.

 

We got a new group of americans this week too. 16 girls and 8 guys. So the girls are really stepping up to the plate when it comes to serving missions. Its so awesome that they are out here and setting a good example for everyone. The only bad thing is that our basketball games have gotten a lot worse.......a lot worse. So that is the only down side.  Our distict of 5 is still going strong. We have been soo blessed to have the district we have. They are amazing.

 

This week has been amazing as always. Saturday was so cool. I love proselyting. Anyways, people were a lot harder to contact, maybe its because its not easter holliday any more so they dont want to hear about Christ as much, but we still went out pumped up and excited. We contacted as many people as we could but it was a lot harder this week. We went by Gustavos house but he wasn't there, so hopefully we will get there next time too. But our best contact came during siesta. when dad told me that the city shuts down during siesta i didnt really believe him, but there is seriously not a soul out. It is so crazy,  you can hear the birds chirping in the city, its nuts. But anyways, we decided to take a lunch break and went to the only open restuarant in the whole city. We sat down and we were the only ones in there. It took us like 10 minutes to order food because all the spanish we know is related to the gospel. Our waitress was named Maria, and i know you are going to bag on me that we went to a sit down place, but it was the only place that was open! So i apologize. But anyways, after the meal we started talking to Maria a little bit about the gospel. We found out that she was catholic (big surprise there) and was looking for more about the truth. She saw the Book of Mormon and asked what it was. It doesnt get easier than that! We started explaining about the Book of Mormon and how it worked with the Bible and went into the whole restoration lesson. We pulled out a folleto to show her and her eyes lit up when we showed them to her. She was so happy. She just kept asking questions and questions about the gospel. It was so awesome, the spirit was there and our spanish was awesome. One, because the only spanish we know is gospel stuff, and two the spirit really helps in those situations. So we talked to her for about 20 minutes and she committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She took like 3 folletos from us and was so excited. I asked her if we could come by and teach her and her family and she said that she wants to read more first and see how she feels. So next week we are going to go by the same place and talk to her more about it. Also, the food was amazing! Steak sandwiches with a fried egg on top and these amazing french fries, probably the best food i have ever had, sooooo good. We feasted spiritually and physically, a really good experience.

 

We had the area president over Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay come and give us a devotional yesterday. Most spiritual devotional I have every been to. I am not going to write about everything in this email because it wont do it justice in the time i have, but it was about the atonement of Christ and how he took all of our sins upon him. He brought up some stories in the Bible and Book of Mormon that I never had thought about in the way he used them. I will write home in a letter explaining it and you can post it. I have never been impacted so much by one talk. I know that this church is true, I know that Christ died for each and everyone of us. He is the only way we can return to our Heavenly Father. We are his children. There is so much comfort and happiness in that sentence. I love this gospel, and I love my calling. I wake up with a smile on my face no matter how early it is because I know I am called to this work and there is no better place to be.

 

I love you all,

Elder Staffieri