Hermana Cory Moberly en Argentina: I Love Parana!

September 8, 2014

Hola Hola!!!

Well, I survived this week! It was really stressful and I feel like all my time gets sucked up, but it was a great week!! We were really worried that with everything going on, we wouldn't be able to do that much, but just like every other week, we saw many miracles.

Mon: We have an investigator named Brenda. Her mom and brother were baptized a few months ago, and we are focusing on her right now. She wants to be baptized, but she has a hard time getting up to come to church. We are trying really hard to help her understand the importance of going to church, but she accepted a baptismal date for the 27th! She has 19 years and is just a normal teenage girl, but we are really good friends with her and she knows why we want her to receive the blessings of the gospel, she just needs to act. But we read Ether 2-3 with her about how Heavenly Father answers our prayers, and sometimes we need to choose and act first, and then we will know what to do. So she decided to accept a baptismal date and then afterwards said she felt like it was the right thing to do (: We then had a FHE with a family in the ward. I tried to make cookies, but the dough wasn't turning out right, and when we pulled it out of the oven, it was bread!!! I don't know how it happened and I don’t think I could ever do it again, but everyone said it was so good, so I just pretended like I made it like that on purpose haha (;

Tues: This day was a little crazy. We taught Gabriel, a recent convert boy (20 years) who is awesome!! He told us he wanted to learn more about the priesthood. SO we found an ensign article and read it with him. He had a smoking problem before he was baptized, and we think he might have slipped and smoked again, but we are trying to help him. He really wants to be the best he can, and it comes with time, so we are just being patient and doing what we can. We had lunch with a less active who is starting to come back. Her name is Luciana and she is about 28 and is so awesome!!! She loves us and is starting to come back, is getting a calling, and comes out with us to visit people. So they all live up by the river, but then we had a lesson alllllll the way in the bottom of the city. So we took a colectivo down and had a lesson with another recent convert (we literally have 11 recent converts to visit and take care of). His name is Mario, and we started teaching his mom, Theresa now. We taught her the restoration and she told us she knows it is the truth. The only problem is that she just recently had surgery on her hip and is stuck in bed for 3 months. So she can’t come to church or anything. But she has the desires and we are just going to visit and teach her until she can come to church. And here comes the crazy part of the day...we had to take another colectivo to another part of the area, but it's part of the new area, and we got on the wrong bus! So for 2 hours, we were stuck and had no idea where we were, so we just had to wait. It went out of our area and it's pretty dangerous in the elders' area, so we didn’t get off the bus. Finally we got off and it was the end of the day. We were so sad and frustrated because we couldn’t do much, but the rest of the week was great!!!

Wed: All of our lessons in the morning fell through, but we felt like we should visit another recent convert who hasn't been coming to church. Her name is Dora. She is about 65 and forgets everything. But her son, Damian is awesome and I think he has some disability but he smiles and laughs all the time, and it just makes us so happy to be around him. That day when we passed by, her mother in law had just passed away, so we talked to her about the plan of salvation and she said it helped her so much. The gospel solves all problems and always gives us so much hope and peace. We also had another lesson with Elin and German. Their mom is inactive but served a mission. Elin has a baptismal date for the 20th and they aren't reading, but they came to church, so we have to help them gain testimonies.

Thurs: This day we went to Santa Fe and had a special mission conference with Elder Zeballos, from the seventy! He was so awesome and I learned so much!! He taught us about the importance of learning other languages and how we need to learn Spanish the best we can because in the future we can be of service in the church to bring the work even more forward. He then also told us that sin, lack of love, and lack of desires to serve are what keep us away from increasing our faith and completing our goals. This is what our mission needs right now. We have so much capability of doing the Lord's will, but we sometimes lack faith. And President Zanni is helping us a lot with that right now. We were going to have divisions right after that, but the colectivo wasn't going to leave until 1 in the morning so we both stayed in Parana. Hna Rasband and the other sister worked in one half of the area, and me and the other sister worked in the other. We had a lot of fun and were able to teach a few people. We contacted a lot and met a lot of people who accepted to listen more. SO it was an interesting first division, but everything worked out great and it wasn't as hard as I thought.

Fri: Not much happened today, we finished divisions and taught an inactive lady. Everyone here says they will never come back to church because someone offended them. I just bore her my testimony on the sacrament. Salvation is a personal thing, and when we choose to not go to church because of someone else, we are denying ourselves of receiving the cleansing power of the sacrament and the companionship of the Holy Ghost. She didn’t want to listen, but I know it is true. I never want to miss the blessings that we are promised if we will just sacrifice and go to church, no matter if there are people we don't like, or are hypocrites, or if we even are just too tired. It's not worth it.

Sat: Today was our talent show and so many people came!!!! We went first and sang the cup song from Pitch Perfect and even though it was in English, everyone loved it and asked us to teach it to them after. Then Hna Rasband also played the piano and now we have people who want us to teach them that too. So we got a lot of referrals and through that, we can find new investigators and teaching opportunities. One referral from another Hermana actually came and we met him. His name is Nestor and he told us he would come to church on Sunday. SO it was a big success!

Sun: Last, but not least! Sorry this is so long, I have so much to tell you though! Church was awesome! We had 3 investigators at church (Germana, Elin and Nestor)!! Nestor told us that he felt so much peace, and so we asked if later that night we could teach him a lesson. He came back to church and with Luciana, we taught him the restoration. He told us that his whole life he has been going to different churches to find the truth. He said he felt like he had finally found the truth and was so happy! We invited him to be baptized on the 27th and he accepted. He is so awesome. Heavenly Father is the best!! He just puts us in the exact places we need to be to find the people who are searching for Him. We also had lunch with a family today, and they gave us matambre a la pizza or something like that. It's like pizza, but instead of dough, they put the sauce and cheese on a big piece of steak. SO GOOD!!! I ate 4 and then she brought out the dessert....hahaha. But the food here is the best!!

I love it here and couldn't be happier. I hope you are all doing great! Happy Birthday Emily and Kenz!!!!! (: Love you all and hope you have a great week!!<3<3

Con amorrrrrrrr,

Hermana Moberly