December 20, 2014

 Familia:

This week was sooo awesome!! We finished up all the training with the last 5 zones and elder huerta and I got to go to a whole day of conference with our zone. It was so special. We all came down and pte Smith taught about the importance of fasting and how we need to perfect this principal in the mission. I don’t think I have ever learned so much about fasting and how important it really is. He connected it with the importance to make "personal covenants" with the Lord. Ill talk about that a little later. After that, we had an awesome lunch and started our fast. Then Elder Huerta and I trained on the importance of finding people to teach in every moment, and then Elder Finnegan y Moffat (our zone leaders) taught us about the importance of planning and setting goals with the Spirit. I learned a ton from them. Elder Finnegan and Moffat are two of the best missionaries that I have ever known!

That night they gave us an hour to reflect on what everything and a chance to think about what personal covenant we were going to make with the Lord. At 9:30, we went up to go to bed.

The next morning we woke up early and went to the temple to do the work for a family name. I did the work from Halvor Lochen, who was born in 1720. We did everything from baptism to endowment. It was such a cool experience because Elder Huerta baptized me for my relative and I got to baptize him for his. Then we both had the chance to confirm one another as well. We spent the whole day basically in the temple. I have never been so grateful for the knowledge of the plan of God, to know that we can have an eternal family and to know that the Priesthood Power of God has been restored to the earth to give us the chance to bring it to pass. I learned so much during my experience in the temple with Elder Huerta.

Tonight, one of our investigators, Maria, got baptized!! She is an ex Jehovahs witness who has been searching for the truth for a long time. She was so excited to learn about the Plan of Salvation and understand her life from an eternal perspective. She has gone through soo much to get to where she is now. She has been taking the lessons for over 8 months, and tonight she finally entered into the waters of baptism!! She was so excited and all of her family came to support her who are all non members. The spirit was so strong. Elder Finnegan and Elder Moffat also had a baptism tonight, Mara se llama. IT WAS AN AWESOME NIGHT!!!

So I want to share with you a cool thing that I learned this week in all of the trainings with pte smith. One day he shared the verse in ether 12:27:

12 "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will i make weak things become strong unto them"

In this verse he called our attention to the word "weakness." Isn’t it interesting that the Lord says weakness and not weaknesses? I always thought that it always meant weaknesses. Like all of my personal weaknesses, like patience, or pride, or disobedience, etc but pte smith explained that it is just one weakness. The weakness is: The Flesh. o sea, el hombre natural. The natural man!! He is our weakness!! And then it hit me. That simple truth finally made sense. Well it always made sense but it never really got to me like it did then. So how do we humble ourselves before the Lord? How do we testify to Him that we will follow Him? Through covenants!!! Starting with baptism! Then those in the temple, partaking of the sacrament every Sunday to renew them. Then we started talking about the importance of personal covenants. o sea, covenants just between us and the Lord that are incredibly personal and intimate. We make little covenants with him to be better or to protect ourselves from the adversary.

Pte smith shared with us the covenant he has to never watch TV alone. He shared an experience that he had over 25 years ago when he was traveling in a hotel and all of the terrible things that they have on the television and how great the temptations of Satan was on him in a given night. Then he told us of the covenant he made before God to never watch TV alone in a hotel ever again. In these past 25 years, he has traveled over 4 million miles and has stayed in over a 1000 hotels in the entire world, and has never watched a single program on TV. The first thing he does when he gets in is puts his jacket over the TV and unplugs it. He explains that this little covenant he has made has protected him for the past 25 years. Its one of the defenses he puts up against the adversary. Then he spoke of the attack he puts on Satan by attending regularly the temple. He testified that if he had not made this personal covenant and had honored this covenant, he would not be in front of us as our president today. I can’t really explain it over email but it was powerful! He then explained that we need to fast a lot of times to make covenants and then fast sometimes even more to keep them. I wish I could write all I learned this past week but I am running short on time. But I testify that if we want to become better, we should covenant with the Lord to do it! Without covenants, we cannot and will not progress.

Alright I have to go! I love you all so much! Have a great week!

Try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!!!

Share your testimony!!!

Con cariño,

Elder Staffieri

December 13, 2014

Familia:

This week has been pretty awesome! It’s been a blast! We have been giving trainings all week long over at the temple. It’s been great and we have learned a ton. Next week we will be doing the same thing. There are 10 zones in the mission and everyone comes down a different day.

This week we got to get out and work in our area more which has been awesome. I am slowly getting to know our area. I don’t think I have ever been in such a place where everyone is so prepared. I thought Argentina was Zion.....pppssshhhh...nada que ver! Cerro is sooo great!! I love it here soo much! This week I found one of the youth that was in one of my old wards that recently moved to Cerro in our area. And with him, we found the entire family that he is living with who are non members but super open!

I am learning tons every day. I feel extremely blessed to be with Elder Huerta. He is such an excellent missionary. He teaches me how I can constantly improve.

We have seen so much success sharing this initiative that the church has this Christmas of "He is the Gift." it is so easy to share yet so powerful. I would invite you all to take a moment and go and ask the missionaries that they come and teach it to you and your family. It will help to bring the Spirit even more into your home and help remind us of the true meaning of Christmas.

Sorry that this was so short. I have to run! I love you all so much! Thank you for all you do!

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!!

UN abrazo grande,

Elder Staffieri

December 06, 2014

Familia:

Sorry it has been so long but its been a busy week and a half. We have been working like crazy and enjoying every minute of it.

My last week in Argentina was soo awesome. Janet got baptized on the 29th. She was so excited and was soo happy. She even came to do service at the church with the branch a few hours before her baptism and worked all the way up till when we changed. And on Sunday, elder Minert, confirmed her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and gave her the gift of the Holy Ghost. There is no better way to leave an area. That area is going to explode. There are more with baptismal dates and the members are really excited!! I am going to miss that place a whole ton. Then on Sunday, there weren’t any buses so I took a taxi into Paysandú (an hour and a half ride in taxi) which cost a pretty penny. Got to Paysandú and then left at 4:30 in the morning on Monday. Got in at 9 and went to work! 

I have come to appreciate how much work the assistants in the past have done. I didn’t really quite understand how much it was until I got here. Ha-ha.  My new companion is Elder Huerta from Santiago, Chile. He is such a stud. We were buddies before I got here and I got to know him pretty well when we were doing the charla fogoneras in salto and Artigas. He is one of the best teachers I know and I am super excited to get the chance to learn with him. We didn’t get that much of a chance to work in our area this past week because we were in the mission home most of the week with the new missionaries and the missionaries that were going home. I don’t think I have ever gone to the airport so much in my entire mission. We went like 5 times in 3 days. But I feel so blessed because I have been learning sooo much from president Smith. From the trainings he gives to the new missionaries, to the counsel he gives to those who are going home, even in simple meetings we have, it is always such an enlightening experience. 

I had one of the coolest and most unique experiences of my mission on Thursday. President Smiths daughter left on her mission on Thursday and she was going to get set apart in their house that evening. Their stake president only speaks spanish so president Smith asked me to translate it and whisper it to her as she was getting set apart. It was so special for Elder Huerta and I to be able to share that moment with the Smith family. The Spirit was felt so strongly and I learned so much from their stake president. I am so grateful to have such great local leaders and to know that they are truly inspired and that they receive revelation for those who live within their stake. It made me reflect back on when President Ham set me apart and I was overcome with gratitude that there are men worthy to set young men and women apart as representatives of Jesus Christ to share His Restored Gospel.

Well, yesterday was the first real day when we got to work in our area and it was so awesome!! The people we are teaching are so prepared!! Cerro is Zion!! We are teaching a woman named Maria. Maria is 55 years old and has been searching for the true church for years. She has been with about every church that I have heard of but she told us that what she feels when she reads the Book of Mormon has been so different and she feels like what we teach is true. She is so smart and knows soo much. She is going to be a fantastic member of the church. Also we taught a man named Hector. Hector actually contacted the missionaries a few months back because he wanted to practice his english. He is about 65 and knows a ton of english. The lesson we had with him was kind of interesting. He brought brochures that he had in english and an envelope that he had with guitar strings and asked me to translate them into spanish so that he could learn. Ha-ha. Then after we talked a little bit about that we began to read the Book of Mormon in English. He didn’t really seem to interested because he believes that the Bible has all of the truth and that it is all we need to be saved. We began to testify, in both english and spanish, of the truthfulness and importance of the Book of Mormon. We explained what happened in the apostasy and how simple truths were removed and/or changed from the bible but that the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the Gospel. We taught of the ministry of Jesus Christ in the Americas and of the prophets that He called to testify of His coming. It was awesome!! Hector totally opened up!  He began to ask questions and to become really interested. It was kind of a long lesson, but it was worth it! 

Today we had a great pday. We woke up early to go and have personal study in this cool forest preserve that they have in Montevideo. Then went and explored Montevideo a little bit and bought a ton of fruit in the street market for super cheap. Took some awesome pictures. And tonight jerry (president’s son) is going to come out and work with us. So we have to get going right now. 

I love you all so much. Thank you for all you do and for all of your prayers in my behalf. They are felt in a huge way. 

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!

Have a great week and share your testimony with all those you can!!

Un abrazo grande,

Elder Staffieri

November 24, 2014

Familia: 

This past week has been so awesome! We have had so many great experiences that are so powerful and personal that it’s so hard to write about. But it’s all in my journal so that’s a good thing. pte smith gave me some feedback this past week when I talked to him on the phone about keeping a good journal. I repented. And am now keeping an awesome journal. hahaha. 

I just want to share one experience we had this past week about a woman named Paula. We had just finished a lesson way far out in our area and we started walking over to another lesson we had set up. We were about 15 min away and the lesson was going to start in 5 minutes. Normally we would have just said "let’s walk. Well show up 10 minutes late. We don’t have money for a taxi" but we felt like we should take a taxi for some reason. So we did. We showed up to our next lesson right in time and knocked on the door....knocked again....and again....nobody. We all thought "wwwhhhaaatttt? We just wasted 25 pesos on a taxi!" (Because at the end of the month, everyone is short on money....hahah). So we decided we should pass by another investigator who lived close by. As we were walking, we passed a woman who was sitting down across the street from us with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. She looked kind of sad but she was waiting for a taxi or something out in front of her house. Just then we all had the slightest feeling that we needed to talk to her. But it was sooo small. So tiny, that the frustration of wasting money on a taxi and the desire to teach the other investigator over powered the small impression of the Spirit and we continued to walk. As we got about a block away, we all started to notice that we were walking slower, a walk that I like to describe as being weighed down by the spirit that was dragging us back to that woman. Everyone was feeling like it and elder Gonzalez stops and goes "hey. Should we go give her a folleto?" we all stopped, turned around, and started walking as fast as we could back to this woman we had seen. when we got there and introduced ourselves as missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ, she looked up at us and the first thing she says to us is "why did you come back?" we simply told her that we felt like we should and asked her how she was. She began to cry and she told us that when we passed her, she was going to call us over but didn’t have the courage to do it. She told us that she needed us to pray for her aunt. Her aunt is really sick and about to part from this life and had been asking that she go and visit her. We shared a little of the plan of salvation with her and set up a time to come back. she told us that she felt that we were sent from God and if she wasn’t there the day we set up, to come back the next day, or the next day after that, and to keep trying until we found her again. A minute later, the car she had been waiting for showed up to take her to the hospital. This all happened in about 7 minutes. 

When we got home to study in the middle of the day, the first thing we did when we walked in the house was kneel down and thank the Lord for the chance we had to get to know Paula. As we prayed, an overwhelming sense of joy came into the room and when we finished we all talked about how grateful we were for what just happened. Everything started to make sense. Why we felt we should take a taxi in the morning. Why the lesson wasn’t there. Why we felt like we should go visit an investigator that we hadn’t seen in weeks. Everything that happened, every impression and feeling, was just to lead us to her. The Lord wanted us to find Paula that day. 

I am so grateful for the Spirit. I regret not acting sooner but am so happy that God had patience with us and she was still there when we ran back. It seems like every time we begin to think we know better than to follow a little feeling, the Lord always humbles us. Words cannot express how grateful I am for this experience we had. 

I know that our Heavenly Father is aware of every one of His children. Paula needed to know of the plan of salvation. She was prepared in that moment to receive us. He paved the way for us that morning to be able to find her. There is no other way to do the Work of Salvation than through the Spirit. 

Do everything possible to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Follow every little feeling you get. Don’t second guess an impression to do good. 

Sorry I have to run! Time fly’s in the cyber! I love you all! Thanks for all you do!!

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better this week!!

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

November 18, 2014

Familia:

This week has been so awesome! To start it off, we walked from Argentina to Uruguay and Uruguay to Argentina 3 times this past week! There aren’t any buses that fit our schedule and we didn’t want to lose time in our area so we decided to just go and walk from Argentina to Uruguay and back so we would have more time in our area. We walked over 7.5 k just on the bridge. It was pretty awesome! Well it was way fun the first time. The second time it was cool, and the third time, we finished it and everyone said "never again!!" ha-ha. So basically the process is: take a bus from Concepcion to colon, get off in colon and meet up with the hermanas, take a taxi to the bridge, walk the bridge, wait for a city bus on the other side, and then walk the rest of the way to the apartment or the church. We got pretty good at it. And it saves us time and money to do it that way. Ill send some pictures!

We had such an awesome conference this past week with all the missionaries in Uruguay (both missions) and elder Christensen from the presidency of the seventy. Blew our minds! So great! Learned a ton! Then after the conference all the zones went back and we had concilio! concilio went so awesome! the zone leaders of every zone had to make graphs of what was going on in their zone and explain what they are doing and what are their plans to "lengthen our stride." I learned so much and elder sifuentes and I are really stoked about all the ideas we came away with to put in practice here in Paysandú. Paysandú is going to explode!!! We seriously have the best missionaries in the whole mission serving in this zone! I feel so blessed to have the chance to work with all of them. 

Well this week we have evidence that Janet is basically the most prepared and studly investigator the world has ever seen! we had a lesson with her this past week and when we got to her house we asked her how she was doing and everything and then she goes "Elders, how come you never told me I couldn’t drink coffee or tea?" and we just kind of looked at each other and said "wait, who told you that?" and then she explained that we sang the song "oh pueblo de sion" in church (sorry for the life of me I cant remember the name in english) and it said something like "coffee and tea we wont drink" or something similar and from that day, SHE STOPPED DRINKING COFFEE AND TEA!!! wwwhhhaaaattttttttt?! She is such a stud! So that lesson we taught her the word of wisdom and she looks at us and goes, "well I am already living it as of 3 days ago" hahaha. It was so awesome! She has a baptismal date for the 29th!! :) 

Also we have a new daily schedule in the mission!! We now wake up at 7am!! And we can be out working in the streets until 10pm!!! whoop whoop whoop!!! That is so awesome! That is going to help us out soo much! We have been loving life! We have been finding so many people later at night because everyone is home! It’s been so great! 

And there was another change, kinda broke my heart, but it came and it is going to help us a lot because there have been a lot of missionaries that have been getting hurt. In la mision uruguay montevideo oeste, we are no longer allowed to play soccer!!! aaaahhhhh!!!!! The Latinos were flippin out ha-ha. But it’s going to help us lengthen our stride and give everything unto the Lord. And it is going to help keep everyone healthy as well. 

And this pday has been so awesome! All the missionaries in Argentina came over and we explored Concepcion! We went out to these giant hands that come out of the ground around some lady. We walked up the coast of the river. Started taking pictures on the docks and apparently we weren’t allowed to be there but the police kindly invited us to leave ;) and then we all went out to eat and to ice cream. 

Well that’s all the time I have! I love you all so much! Thank you for all of your prayers and for everything you do for me! You guys are the best!!

Get out there and share your testimony with someone!

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!!

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

November 10, 2014

Familia:

This past week has been one of the most rewarding weeks I have had here in Argentina and Paysandú! Every week just gets better and better!!!

We have been soo blessed this past week and have seen so many miracles. It’s hard to write about. 

First, we found such an amazing family this past week! Carlos y Yoana and their soon to be born daughter. They were a reference from hermano sosa (ill write about him a little later). Carlos is a member but has been inactive for years. Yoana is his pareja of 4 years. Yoana is católica by custom and has a strong faith in Christ even though she doesn’t know too much about him. We taught the restoration the first visit and she was really hit to understand that God knows her and He will answer her prayers just as He answered the prayer of José Smith. At the end of the lesson, she prayed with the help of Carlos to know if what we shared with her was the truth as peace overcame the room. Two days later we returned to teach about the Book of Mormón to her and Carlos. The were so excited to tell us that they had been praying every morning and night together and started to tell us about the changes they had already been seeing in their lives. We presented the Book of Mormon and then began to teach a little bit of the plan of salvation because they lost a daughter at 27 days about 2 years ago. We shared a little from moroni 8 and about how much God loves her daughter and explained that she is with him. We testified and taught about the divine and eternal nature of the family. It was so special to be able to share it this restored truth with this family. They both expressed how happy and sure they felt to know where she is. 

We had the lesson of my mission on Saturday night!!! We went to go teach the family of the ex branch president of 10 years, their son served a mission 20 years ago, they all had callings, etc. long story short, a lot of bad things happened in the branch and there was a lot of....well just bad stuff that happened. We will leave it at that. They were an extremely strong family in the church but after everything happened, they stopped going and fell away. So it has been 10 years since the last time that had gone to church. And everyone in that house knows the scriptures extremely well and likes to show their knowledge (in a mas o menos discutiendo kind of way). We met them last week and then came back this past week to teach the Doctrine of Christ. I have never been part of such a powerful lesson. When we started, it was just the mother and son (ex missionary). We started talking about the clarity of the teachings of Christ and that he teaches us clearly because He loves us and wants us to return to live with Him. We then began to teach the Doctrine clearly and directly. And the Spirit came. It was there. Nobody could deny it. As the lesson went on, more and more people began to come in...The father...the daughter in law....her children....a girl that they are housing...everyone came in to lesson. Then we began to teach about the Sacrament from 3 nephi 18, and that was when everything changed. The son (ex missionary) began to testify that we were sent from God and that what we shared with them came directly from Him. He began to testify of the Sacrament and about the Doctrine of Christ about what he felt. It was like all of a sudden he understood. And he caught fire. It was like what we read in Alma 5:7

 "Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God. Behold, they were in the midst of darkness; nevertheless, their souls were illuminated by the light of the everlasting word." 

He literally woke up unto God. It was so incredible!! From his testimony, his family began to wake up as well. Both him and his father committed to come back to church that Sunday and for the rest of their lives to partake of the Sacrament and will soon be followed by their entire family. I wish I could explain in detail what happened so you could understand how big this really is. How much this really means. But I can’t. It was honestly a miracle. I will never forget that lesson. I will never forget how we all felt. I couldn’t even sleep on Saturday night because I was so in shock and awe and so excited for what had happened. I was just remembering the experience over and over in my head. I had to leave Saturday night for Paysandú but yesterday when I talked to elder Gonzalez he told me that they came! After 10 years of not taking the sacrament, they finally partook! They came! They were there!! They started this journey back! There have been few times in my life when I think I have felt soo happy. 

Also, Hermano Sosa came!! He had not come to church for over 10 years as well! He finally came and set up an interview with pte lescano. We have been working with hermano sosa since I have gotten here and he is understanding the Doctrine of Christ.

Janet is beginning to understand everyday more and more of the gospel. She is reading and praying every day. She is going to church every Sunday. She understands the Gospel of Christ. 

In Paysandú, i had the privilege of attending the meetings in my old ward. And yesterday, Eva, la familia zapata, and matias all came to church again for the first time. For Eva it has been years, la familia zapata, a year, and matias, several months that they had not come. But they all came back yesterday!! I have never been so happy! I was on cloud 9 all day yesterday! Everyone is beginning to come understand the Doctrine of Christ!!!! They are coming unto Him. They are waking up from this deep sleep that Alma talks about!! This is why we are here!!! This is it! These are the fruits!! The work of the Lord cannot be frustrated. aaahhh!!!

 I wish you could all feel what I am feeling right now. We have been so blessed! Soo blessed! I am so grateful for the Lord and for the love that our Heavenly Father gives to us. I am so grateful to be part of the restored church of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the knowledge we have of the Plan of Salvation. WE ARE SO BLESSED!!! I feel like sometimes we don’t really notice it. Sometimes we have to wake ourselves up! 

I got carried away and I forgot that I have no more time! I love you all so much! Thank you for all of your prayers and all of your support! 

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better this week!

SHARE YOUR TESTIMONY WITH SOMEONE EVERYDAY!!!

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

November 03, 2014

Familia:

I love the mission!! We have had another amazing week here in Concepción del Uruguay. 

This past week started off awesome! We had our capacitación de zona this past Tuesday so I traveled to Paysandú on Sunday night to start preparing with Elder Sifuentes! We had a great experience together preparing and then had a blast going out to work together in our old area! It is so cool to see how many different people they were teaching and being able to work with Elder Heckle (the oro that elder sifuentes is training) as well. We learned so much together and enjoyed working in Paysandú again! On Tuesday we had the capacitation and it went pretty well. We talked a lot about the importance of goals and how to use goals to help achieve our full potential. We also talked about how sacred the time we have in the mission is and how we can better live our purpose in every moment! We used as a basis for our capacitation the quote from President Kimball. He said, "Debemos alargar el paso y debemos hacerlo ahora mismo!" (We must lengthen our stride and we must do it now!). We related it a lot with Hoy es el Dia and how the Lord is hastening His work in this time. It was so awesome! I feel so blessed to have been able to prepare the capacitation with elder sifuentes because we got to study it a lot more in depth and we got so excited to be better and had our own experiences with setting goals and we left determined to be better. 

This week we have been blessed to have found a lot of new people to teach. People who are really really prepared! It amazes me every single time! We had kinda a cool experience this past week. We had a day this past week in the morning where we didn’t get into a single house and we were just walking around trying to contact as many people as we could but we just didn’t have any success. We went in to eat lunch and study at noon and we talked about what went on during the morning and we decided we cant get discouraged and we took up the attitude of "Uno Mas". We looked to make just one more contact in between charlas, have one more lesson, find one more person to teach, ask for one more reference, etc...Just try to push ourselves a little bit more than what we were doing. And at the end of the day, we had the best day we had in Argentina!! We had more lessons than we had before, found more people than we had before, and we felt the Spirit a lot more. Everything went so awesome!! We just took a decision to try a little bit harder to be a little bit better and set goals!!! Everything changed!! We are even more pumped to be working every day. It’s been so great! 

This past week it rained a ton as well! Like way more than I thought. I don’t have a dry pair of shoes right now ha-ha. It was actually kind of cool funny because I took off my shoes this past week and they were filled with mud ha-ha. I guess that the dirt comes in with the water in the holes in my shoes. You learn something new every day! 

Working in a trio is getting better. We are adapting more to how to teach as 3 instead of 2. It’s a whole process but we are having a blast together. 

Well i have to run! Sorry that we don’t have a ton of time! I love you all so much! Thank you for your prayers and for all you do for me! I so appreciate it! 

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little be better!!

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

October 27, 2014

Familia:

Another amazing week has flown by in the best two years of my life! I cannot get over how blessed I am to have the chance to be serving a mission! There is nothing I would rather be doing and nowhere I would rather be!! 

This week has been so great! On Monday we had the chance to work in our area and then in the afternoon travel to colon to go and work in one of the hermanas areas to help them get set up in their apartment with everything they need and then go out and find more people to teach. We had an awesome night of teaching and had the blessing to get to teach the people of colon! It was a blast!! Then all the missionaries from Argentina came in to Paysandú in the middle of the night to pass pday in Paysandú for the zone as we had changes the next day! 

CHANGES!!! Whoop whoop! Always an exciting time every 6 weeks. Elder Gonzalez and I have a new companion, Elder Minert!! He is finishing up his mission this change so we want to give him a great experience of going out strong! He is a great missionary with a lot of gospel knowledge as well as experience so we are excited to all learn together! It has been a little interesting trying to make contacts with 3 elders though. I think the people get really intimidated.....ha-ha. But we are going to start doing more divisions with the members to help work our area better and be able to teach more people. Another fun thing is that we get to live in our apartment that is just big enough for two as 3 elders!! Ha-ha. We are getting to know each other on a whole other level. Just like best friends ;)

We continue to find more and more people to teach every week and our investigators are progressing along with the menos activos that we are teaching! This past week we started teaching Maxi (the boyfriend of Janet). He is such a stud!! They have been together for 8 years but still haven’t made the decision to get married. We invited him to come and have a charla with us last week and he loved it! He is reading everyday! He is praying! And he even came to church this past week with Janet! he was participating in the classes and they both went to the ward family night after!! He has accepted the invitation to be baptized and is really excited about it! He understands extremely well and is even helping Janet see the answers to the questions she has! It was soo awesome!! They even signed up to give us lunch this month as well as the other missionaries in the ward! They are so prepared!! And are progressing so well! 

Also this past week we had a miracle! The hermana salas came to church with her kids!! :) We have been working so long with them, well these past 3 weeks we have had here in Argentina, and they have always committed to come every week but never have gotten there and this past week they came!!!!!!!! We were so pumped as we saw them come in as sacrament meeting was starting!! She has been facing some pretty big obstacles in her life that prevent her from the fullness of happiness that the gospel gives but she has started her way back!! We were so happy to see her and her family! She was so happy as she left the chapel after meetings and is excited to come back this next week! She understands the doctrine of Christ!! 

I continue to be blown away about how well our little branch functions!! We had a great activity with all the youth and a lot of members playing basketball and volleyball in a local gym. Everyone invited people to come and play! menos activos and even investigators showed up! 

Right now I am in Paysandú again with elder sifuentes. I came in last night to prepare a capacitation that we are going to do tomorrow! It’s been a blast and we are learning a ton together! It was interesting last night because I had to travel alone because there wasn’t anyone who could go with me and I got on a huge 60 person bus and there was literally no one else on there. and I kind of thought to myself, "this is kind of weird, maybe I just showed up early?" and then we started pulling out and I realized  that the entire hour and a half ride to Uruguay I was going to make by myself in this giant bus. It was cool I guess. Got to know the bus driver pretty well haha. The people in customs got a kick out if it as well. 

Well that is it for this week! I have got to go! I love you all so much! Thank you for all your prayers and for everything you do to support me! 

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better this week! 

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

October 21, 2014

Familia:

WOW!! I cannot believe that another week has ffllooowwwnnnnn by again. Spring is officially in full swing here in Argentina as the heat begins to climb with some pretty heavy humidity. We are enjoying these beautiful days and waiting for summer to get here to remind us how much we can really sweat. Ha-ha. 

Well there isn’t a whole lot to tell this week other than we are working HARD and being BLESSED!! Everyday here in Argentina we are seeing miracles. We have found a ton of people to teach this past week and have found even more less active families to work with. One great experience we had this past week was with the familia Sosa. We were looking for a reference that we had received from a member and we clapped outside their house. A man came out, looked at us, and invited us to come in. We got in and asked him who he was and if he knew the reference that we had received. Hno Sosa explained that it was his daughter that we were looking for but that she no longer lived there. So we started talking more and turns out that he was a member that hasn’t gone to church in over 8 years. He didn’t show too much interest in coming back tampoco. But we decided to teach the Doctrine of Christ. We testified (and testify) that a member of the church that understands the Doctrine of Christ, that come back to church that very sunday to partake of the sacrament will continue to do it for the rest of their lives. And that is the truth! We had such a special experience in that lesson and in the end, he committed to renew his covenants every Sunday and humbly asked the Lord to help him in fervent prayer. I wish I could describe the strength of the Spirit in that lesson but it would not do it justice. I have gained a testimony that the more direct we teach and the simpler it is, teaching directly from the scriptures, having charity for the person we are teaching, the Spirit 100% of the time testifies with power. There have been a lot of other experiences that we have had teaching this past week with the Spirit. I think this has come from the fact that we are studying a lot better and focusing more on preparing ourselves to teach instead of preparing lessons. I love it so much. 

Also this week, pte smith came up to visit Argentina. It was a good experience getting to meet with him and talk about what we can do to better help our branch and our areas.

This past Sunday was awesome because JANET came to church!! Whoop whoop!! Janet is a reference that the ptes wife gave us. She is one of her best friends and I guess that they have been working with her for a while (we met this past week) but has never gone to church. Well on Sunday, she finally came!!! Everyone was super excited and came up to her and welcomed her and gave her a really good experience. On Sunday I also gave a talk in church. It was one of those times where you see the bishop come off the stand and tap you on the shoulder to let you know that he needs another talk in 15 minutes because the hermana had to go. Ha-ha. I love being a missionary. So i got the chance to speak on Sunday and it was awesome. Being mother’s day here in Argentina, I taught about one of the most important lessons I have learned form my amazing mother, to confide totally in the Atonement. 

Today we all came into Paysandú for the talent show of the zone. It was a blast! 

So my plan today was to send home a ton of pictures because I haven’t done that in a long time but there isn’t a USB port available on this computer. So I apologize! Next week I will do it! 

Here is an awesome talk that I have been studying this past week and I would like to invite you all to do the same! http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=251

It is called "in the strength of the Lord." it talks a lot about the enabling power of the atonement, a side of the atonement that a lot of the time we don’t consider as much as we should! 

I love you all! Thank you all for your prayers and for all of your support! 

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better this week!! 

SHARE YOUR TESTIMONY!!!

UN abrazo, 

Elder Staffieri

October 13, 2014

Familia: 

This week has been so amazing!! I LOVE ARGENTINA!!! Well Concepcion del Uruguay por lo menos!! This place is the best!! Its a city of 80,000 people and there are only 4 missionaries: Elder Hansen, Elder Blair, Elder Gonzalez, y yo. The people here are sooo nice! Honestly, the nicest people ever!! The first contact we made, we got in and now we are teaching a family of 7. The first contact we made in Argentina!! This place is so ready. The missionaries before hadn’t worked in our area for over 6 months. People always tell us that they have never seen missionaries before. Its kind of like when Christopher Columbus showed up to America. I remember when we sat down in the plaza one day to study; it was like we were invisible. No teenagers were yelling stuff at us or calling us names or anything similar. It was the opposite. It is so awesome! 

My new companion is elder Gonzalez. He is such a stud!! He is from Chile. He has a year and 3 months in the mission and teaches extremely well! I have learned so much from him. We are best friends already. He is hilarious and we are always dying laughing. But is super focused a la vez. We have been working super hard together and have been enjoying every minute of serving the Lord with everything we have. Its been cool living in a house of 2 for the first time since I started my mission. Ha-ha. It’s a big difference going from a house of 8 elders in the middle of the city to a house of 2 elders in a suburb. We live in a tiny apartment and our neighbors are really close. Like almost too close. Ha-ha. Ill send some pictures next week. But they are all really nice. 

Its been really interesting being here in Argentina. Its kind of like we are all isolated from everyone else from the mission. Ha-ha. Nobody calls us out here because I don’t think they know how. And its hard to call into Uruguay and it kills all the minutes on our phones. I think we have had to put on more minutes like 7 times already. It just burns through plata. This week we have had to spend a lot of time helping the other missionaries get settled in and going to buy stuff that everyone needed. So we are really excited to hit the ground running this weekend just go to town. THERE IS SOO MUCH TO DO HERE!!! We have been talking to everyone!! From people on the street, taxi drivers, people on the bus, even the guy who works in the carniceria in the grocery store. Everyone!! And 80 percent of them accept visits. I love this place!!!

Yesterday I had one of the most inspirational experiences I have ever had I think in my entire mission during a fast and testimony meeting. We have a small branch of a little over 25 people here in Concepcion and every single one got up to bear their testimony!! Every single one!!! I thought that we were going to have a lot of time to get up and share our testimony and present ourselves and stuff but there wasn’t a gap in all the whole hour!! The members all got up and shared a pure testimony about the gospel and their desires to share it with everyone else. I don’t think I have ever felt the spirit so strong in sacrament meeting before!! I don’t have words to describe it all. Then after the meeting, the members came up to us and started giving us references. I have never seen anything like it before!! They are so excited to share the gospel. I feel like we are in a branch full of Lehi`s after he partook of the fruit in his dream!!! So awesome!! This branch is going to explode!!!

Alright, well that is all the time I have for this week. Sorry I couldn’t fill you in on too much! I love you all soo much!! Sharing the gospel is the best!! Everyone needs to go on full time missions!!!

Lets all try a little harder to be a little bit better!!!

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

October 06, 2014

Familia:

First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BRYCE!!!! WWWWHHHHHOOOOOOOOPPP WHOOP!! I am so pumped for you man! 13 years old! You are getting soo huge!! Stop growing so fast!! You can’t be taller than me when I get home!! hahah. I hope that you had the best birthday ever! I love and miss you so much! 

This week was so great!! We have seen so many miracles! Starting with Joaquin!!! We went out with the stake president this past week, Pte Damiano, to make some visits. The first stop, Joaquin. We got there, he pulled out his Book of Mormon and was so stoked to start the lesson. As we started in, we shared with us that he had started over reading, but was already in 1 Nefi 20 for the second time!!! He showed us how he was using the Guide to the Scriptures in the back to know what words meant and to be able to understand (he explained to us the significance of Israel and Mana....wwwhhhaaatttt a stud!!!), he gave us a resume of what he read and learned and what he felt. He told us that he accepted the Book of Mormon as the Word of God!!! Ah it was so awesome. We shared a message in Alma 37 with him and he totally started going off on what the liahona was and how Lehi had found it and stuff, we were blown away!!! Then we taught a little bit about the doctrine of Christ and what he needed to do to follow it, and he is going to ask his wife to marry him to start their family and to follow Christ!!! Such a stud!!! I love that family!!! Then we went over to an ex bishops house with the stake president and it went so awesome!! We talked about the Doctrine of Christ and the stake president was teaching and testifying with us! Such a great lesson and the ex bishop committed to come back to renew his covenants!!! :) LA OBRA VA BUENAZO!!!!

Conference was so great! We loved every minute of it!!! (Even the 3 hours of priesthood session because every 5 minutes we had to wait for it to load ha-ha). I wish I had my notebook so I can give you a solid breakdown on everything I loved but that will be for next week. But on Saturday night after conference, we decided to go out and visit diva, who lives super far away, and in the middle of walking out there, it started pouring rain and we were in our suits. We had another fbi / missionary moment of sprinting 10 blocks in the pouring rain in our suits. It was a blast. We got their soaked to the bone but happy as can be. We taught about finding a testimony of Joseph Smith and diva and her family shared their feelings about him. It was awesome. 

After the lesson, pte smith called us and let us know that I will be leaving Paysandú and be opening up Argentina!!! Whoop whoop!!! My new companion will be elder Gonzalez de Chile. Elder Hansen and Elder Blair are going over to open up Concepcion de Uruguay with us!! Man it’s going to be such a blast!!! There is so much work to be done over there. 

Alright, I have to run! I love you all so much! Try to receive your own personal revelation every day! 

Let’s all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!!

Un abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

September 29, 2014

Familia:

¡¡¡¡Feliz cumpleaños mama!!! ¡¡¡TE AMO!!! I hope that you are going to have the best...36th birthday ever ;) sorry that this is a day early and I cant wish you one tomorrow but I will be thinking about you and wishing you the best! CORINNE AND BRYCE: do all the dishes, clean the whole house, do all your homework, and pórtense bien! 

This week has been so awesome! But I am sooo short on time. Man how time flies when you are in the cyber! hahaha. 

On Tuesday, I think I had one of the best district meetings in my entire mission! My district leader is Elder Pabon from Columbia and he taught sssuuuccchhhhhh a great lesson on the Doctrine of Christ!! I learned soo much and came with such an excitement to do so much better during my studies! He is such a stud! Taught the entire meeting from the scriptures sharing all that he had learned and how he is applying it in his daily teaching and helping us all to do the same! Such a stud!! 

On Jueves, we went down to concilio! IT WAS SO AWESOME!!!! We learned so much about the importance of studies and especially companionship study and how to make it so much better! we also talked a ton about family history and how we are all going to start to do family history and teach it to everyone and in December, the whole mission is going to go down to Montevideo to do the temple work for our ancestors! :) wwwhhhooopp whhhoooppp!! Blessings!!! we all filled out the booklets that the church gives out about family history where we start everything and write all the memories of our parents, siblings, and grandparents, etc. I was so overcome with such a gratitude for the amazing family with whom I have been blessed! Seriously! I was so grateful for the amazing parents I have and for their examples and for the best grandparents I could ever ask for and for all the things I have learned and all the love I have for my brothers and sisters. It was so awesome! Everyone needs to start their family history if you have not already done so! It is something soo special! 

This week we have been working a lot better with members. We are fully convinced that there is no other way to do missionary work. Pte Monson has said that ahora es el momento to work together with the members and missionaries and that means that we need to do it! We are seeing miracles in our area because of it! Diva, who we have been teaching for the past change who never came to church, came this past week because we were being more diligent in bringing over different members to fellowship. And that was another thing that was so great that happened this past week! DIVA FINALLY CAME TO CHURCH!!! WHOOP WHOOP!!! It was so awesome! She loved it! And she said that she is coming to both Saturday and Sunday sessions of general conference and she is going to bring her family too!! :) Aaaahh!!! Blessings!!! I love the mission! 

Other miracle that happened in the mission is that the church attendance from this past week was 5149!!!! That is unheard of for the mission! The wards and branches are getting stronger and stronger! There is real growth!! The church is being strengthened here in Uruguay!!!! The members are starting to catch fire! I can testify that I know that today is the day that the Lord is hastening His work!!! You can feel it all around!!! Its incredible!!! We are so blessed to be part of it! 

And also, pte smith told us that we might be headed over to Argentina to open it up!!! Whoop whoop! That would be so incredible! But we will know for sure by next week! 

And GENERAL CONFERENCE HAS ARRIVED!!!! YYYEESSSSS!!!! We are soooo excited!!! I cant believe that this is already my 4th conference of the mission! I hope that everyone is making plans to be in every session of conference! Its going to change your life! :) lleetttsssss gget it! 

A testimony I have gained this past week that I want to share with you is about working with the members. The purpose of this dispensation is the Work of Salvation!! This is the last time that the Lord is hastening his work! Its here! Can you feel it?!! I feel it every day and the members here in Uruguay are now starting to feel it! The members here in the Uruguay Montevideo west mission left to work with the missionaries 1190 hours this past week and as a mission, everything is looking up! there are more people coming to church for the first time, there are more people coming back to church to renew their covenants after years of inactivity, there are more people progressing towards eternal happiness!!! It’s so electric!! I have never felt anything like this before!! And it’s all because the members are going out to work with the missionaries!! I know that there is no other way to do the work! I invite you all to follow the direction of the prophet, just give it a try, and go out with the full time missionaries in your ward. Just go up and ask them what day you can go out with them! You will see miracles!!! 

Well that’s all I have time for this past week! I love you all so much! Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!!!

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better this week!!!

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri

September 22, 2014

Familia: 

This week has been soo awesome!! So much is happening!! It is so great to be on the front lines as the Lord is hastening His work! We are seeing it more and more every single day! 

Well the big news is that the Mission Uruguay Montevideo West has officially been expanded into Argentina!!! We took in two cities from the Rosario Mission. We took in Colon y Concepción de Uruguay. They are two strong branches! The city of Concepción has 80,000 people living there and only 2 elders!! So there is a lot of work to do in that city. We are so pumped to get the chance to go out there and work! In two weeks, our missionaries will be over there. This past week we went into Argentina 3 days. We went twice with Pte Smith to make some visits and talk to leaders, and then this Sunday with the stake presidency of Paysandú because they invited us to accompany them! Wow! We have seen such great things in Argentina already! We taught a family in Colon (flia castro) with Pte Smith and the branch president, Pte. Godoy, and they all committed to come back to church for the rest of their lives, accept callings, pay full tithing, and prepare to seal themselves in the temple in one year! Aaaahh!! It was so great! We are in contact with Pte Godoy and he tells us that they are attending even the meetings during the week not just Sundays!! :) There is so much potential in Argentina and we are so excited to have the chance to see the progress as these cities will be part of Paysandú! 

This past week we also had interviews with Pte Smith. They went great and we learned so much as usual. Elder Sifuentes and I had the chance to lead the study the Doctrine of Christ with the whole zone during interviews. We all learned so much and practiced how to teach it more effectively. 

Fun experience of the week. We got dropped off on the ruta in our suits like an hour and a little more away form Paysandú and had to walk back a few hours to our area because no buses passed. hahaha. We had a blast. We took some pictures and same some hymns as we walked. Then de repente, we walked passed these two gauchos (guayan cowboys) and they start yelling at us! We stopped and walked over to them and they were like "you guys aren’t from here huh?" we responded no and then he goes "well are you hungry? Want some asado?" hahaha. We gratefully accepted! So there we were on the side of the ruta in the middle of no where eating steak with two barefoot cowboys on a Thursday afternoon. Haha. We had a great talk over lunch and we will be visiting them here in the near future when we find the time to go way out there. 

We found some really great people to teach this past week. We were walking one day and then we just looked at each other and talked about how we needed to break our "routine" and branch out more. We took the next street we normally don’t walk down and contact the first house we see. A lady comes out and we talk to her for like 30 seconds in front of her house, and she invites us in!  We had a great lesson and set up to come back the next day. Well she wasn’t there because she went to the doctor but her 19 year old son was and he invited us to come and share the message with him! He loved it! I think this was one of those lessons when it just hit me of how grateful I am for the restoration of the gospel! We saw how happy it made him and how excited he got to pray. At the end of the lesson, HE ASKED US IF HE COULD PRAY DE RODILLAS!!! That never happens!!!! Aaaahh!! His name is Luis! He will be a future priesthood holder and missionary ;) 

Spiritual though of the week: 

Dyc 82:10 dice: I, the Lord, am bound when you do what i say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.

I have learned this past week that the blessing is really in the promise! We don’t know when we will receive the Lords blessings, today, tomorrow, next month, next year, or even in the next life. but its really not that important! We have the Lords promise!! The promise comes immediately. 

Other cool study I had this week. How many times does the word "tomorrow" appear in the book of mormon? Once! Who uses it? Satan! Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die (I think that’s how it goes in english) 2 nefi 28:7 . The Lord never talks about tomorrow! NEVER!! He always speaks of HOY!!! TODAY!!! Today is so important. What are we doing with today? Are we being obedient? Are we serving? Sharing the gospel? Living up to our full potential? Magnifying our priesthood? The only day we really know we have is today! There is no guarantee that we will have tomorrow! Satan always wants us to think that we have more time but the reality is we don’t! If we think we will just be better tomorrow and not do anything today, Satan has won and we have lost! Alma 34:31-34! We talked a lot this week with our investigators and menos activos and even miembros activos about the importantce of today! It has helped me so much to improve and give even more of myself. What are you doing to do today? What more can we do? This study was so small but it marked my mission!

Okay this was all the time I have for today! I love you all so much! Thank you for all of your prayers! They are truly felt out here! 

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better! 

UN abrazo grande, 

Elder Staffieri