January 03,2015

Familia:

This week has been so awesome! Life just keeps getting better and better! We had an awesome new years eve. We took the table and chairs up on our roof, made a pizza, bought some drinks, and just sat there watching the whole night sky light up. We are basically the highest point in Montevideo, so all of the fireworks were blowing up right at eye level. It has to be the best New Years Eve ever! It was so awesome just to be with the elders in our house. We are such good buddies. I am so excited for this coming year! Especially to be a missionary! Some amazing things are going to be happening in the mission that is going to change the entire culture of missionary work! I feel so blessed to be a part of it!

This past week we had concilio with the leaders of the mission. It was the biggest concilio that the mission has ever had. We discussed what key indicators we are going to report to the mission and how they are going to help us achieve the two indicators that we will report to the church. The only two we will be reporting to salt lake are: 1. Baptisms. and 2. Church Attendance. It is going to help us really focus on baptizing, reactivating, and retaining. The mission is going to change so much this coming year and real growth of the church is going to EXPLODE down here!! This is seriously the best mission in the entire world!!

Also in concilio, we talked about using the informe of recent converts and members who have recently reactivated. It’s an informe with goals for the first month, in the first 6 months, the first year, and after a year. It’s such a great tool that has come as direction from the prophet and quorum of the twelve. Elder Huerta and I have been working so much with this informe the past two weeks and we have seen awesome results. The members get so excited when they receive the direction on what it is that they should do. This informe strengthens them and gives them specific goals to one day arrive at the temple to be sealed as a family!

Also, this week we have been working a lot with getting the members involved in family history! We have been sharing a lot the book called "my family” and have been helping everyone get started on their family history and to set the goal to take names to the temple. It’s also been a great tool to find people to teach. I never knew how much people loved to find out stuff about their ancestors. There is something so special when you start working to find out more about where you came from! It’s been so amazing!

The lessons we have had this week have been so incredible. We are seeing so much progress with one family in specific. Their names are Ana, Margot, and Blanca. Ana is 30, Margot 50, and Blanca 70. We are teaching more people every time we go to their house! The last time we found the boyfriend of Ana! It’s been great. Anyways, we first found Ana through the iniciative of "He is the Gift" about 3 weeks ago. We shared it with her and her mom and they agreed to another visit to come back and teach about the restoration of the gospel. The next week we got there, we started sharing about the restoration and they all kind of rejected the fact that it  happened and were really skeptical of it. Blanca got all upset and started trying to bible bash with us but we just kept calm and testified. We testified of the book of Mormon and that we were going to present the book of Mormon as evidence of the restoration the next time we visited them. The next visit, we brought them the book of Mormon and presented it to them with 2 Nephi 25:26 and then in moroni 10:3-5 and left them something to read. When we came back again, Ana had read everything we had left her and had also studied the bible passages that went with the chapter in the book of Mormon. She loved it! She still hasn’t received that testimony of the book of Mormon yet but she is working on it as well as Margot. The other day we were teaching in Alma 32 about the seed and the word of God. And all of a sudden, Blanca comes in, sits down, and starts to listen. Towards the end, she asks us for a book of Mormon and for something to read. The last time we went there, Blanca (the most skeptical at the beginning) was so excited about what she had learned. This whole family started to study the book of Mormon together and are beginning to gain their testimony as a family!! And there are so many more people in that house that we need to keep finding as well! It’s been such a powerful experience, teaching this family from the book of Mormon and seeing their testimonies grow. Tonight we have planned to go through the whole plan of salvation with them just from the scriptures! We are so excited!!

I am about out of time for this week. I love you all so much and hope you had the best new years and have put goals that bring you closer to Christ in 2015.

Lets all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better this week and THIS NEW YEAR!!!

UN abrazo gigante,

Elder Staffieri