Familia:
Work in our area is going really good! We have been seeing a
lot of progress in our ward with sacrament attendance rising and converts that
are reactivating and old members coming back to church after years of not coming.
One of the miracles we have seen over the past few weeks is a man named Jorge.
Do you remember Maria? The older lady we took out to dinner on Christmas Eve and then did service with her on Christmas. Well her husband magically showed up one day. It caught us all kind of by surprise. Elder Trucolo and I were walking by and he called us over and introduced himself as Jorge. He had long dirty hair and a big beard and was smoking. To be honest, we have had better first impressions of people ahaha. But he invited us right in and we began to teach him with his wife. We found out that he has the sacerdocio del melquisedec and was endowed in the temple and now he was completely inactive and going a completely different direction. As we are teaching him, we have seen him start to transform himself into the priesthood holder and husband he once was. Little by little, the smoking and drinking have come to a stop. The beard has come off, the hair has been cut back. Old habits have been replaced with scripture study and prayer with his faithful wife. And he has returned to church. The night before last Sunday he told us that he couldn’t even sleep because he was so excited to go to church the next day and that they left like an hour before the needed to leave to that they would be sure to get there on time. He has started the whole repentance process and has committed to return to the temple to seal himself to his spouse in a year. It has been such a blessing to be a witness to the power and effect of the atonement in the life of this family. He has set weekly goals to get better and is committed to change. What a blessing the gospel is to the families. It doesn’t get better than this! Being a missionary is awesome!
Do you remember Maria? The older lady we took out to dinner on Christmas Eve and then did service with her on Christmas. Well her husband magically showed up one day. It caught us all kind of by surprise. Elder Trucolo and I were walking by and he called us over and introduced himself as Jorge. He had long dirty hair and a big beard and was smoking. To be honest, we have had better first impressions of people ahaha. But he invited us right in and we began to teach him with his wife. We found out that he has the sacerdocio del melquisedec and was endowed in the temple and now he was completely inactive and going a completely different direction. As we are teaching him, we have seen him start to transform himself into the priesthood holder and husband he once was. Little by little, the smoking and drinking have come to a stop. The beard has come off, the hair has been cut back. Old habits have been replaced with scripture study and prayer with his faithful wife. And he has returned to church. The night before last Sunday he told us that he couldn’t even sleep because he was so excited to go to church the next day and that they left like an hour before the needed to leave to that they would be sure to get there on time. He has started the whole repentance process and has committed to return to the temple to seal himself to his spouse in a year. It has been such a blessing to be a witness to the power and effect of the atonement in the life of this family. He has set weekly goals to get better and is committed to change. What a blessing the gospel is to the families. It doesn’t get better than this! Being a missionary is awesome!
This past week I had the privilege to do divisions with the
zone leaders from Colonia and from Tacuarembó. I got to work with Elder
Huntsman and Elder Rampton. We had a blast learning from one another and just
working as hard as we could in our area. I learned so much from them. I was so
impressed with the way Elder Huntsman prays. That is something that I really
want to improve. I admired that way that he really conversed with God and how
he was so sincere with Him. I have been studying a lot about praying with faith
and the fruits of such prayers and they are all over in the scriptures. Its soo
incredible the power of a sincere prayer made with faith. So that is something
that i will be working on for the rest of my mission and life.
This week we also had the chance to do something I hadn’t
done here in Uruguay yet which was go and get food for people at the bishops
store house. I didn’t know you had to work there and do service before
pulling out your order....so that was actually really cool. I loved it. We got
to work bagging oatmeal. We worked with a few ladies from salto and one from
oeste. They were a riot. They were all talking about the experiences of their
lives and sharing testimonies. It was a really special experience to work with
all of them.
This week we also had a great experience with working with
members. We went out to work with an entire family to go make visits! It was so
awesome!! We show up to go and pick up a sister to go and work with us and then
her son comes out all dressed up and then out comes her daughter as well and the
next thing we know we are all in the streets teaching everyone, The sister took
us to some of her friends we hadn’t known and the whole family was teaching
with us! It was sooo awesome!! Definitely one of the experiences that I won’t
forget in my mission!
Well this coming week is going to be awesome! Every day just
seems to get better and better! I hope it is the same for you! I love you all
so much! Thanks for everything you do to support the missionaries in your area
and for everything you do to support me out here in Uruguay!
Let’s all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!
Let’s all try a little bit harder to be a little bit better!
un abrazo,
Elder Staffieri
Elder Staffieri
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