I love this work!

¡Hola!

Thank you for all of your prayers and all that you do to participate in missionary work. I really felt God supporting my companion and me in this large area we have.

 We have three families in Avellaneda now that are really progressing. I believe I already talked about Lilia and Julio, who have been waiting for about a year to get a divorce so they can get married. They are getting super close, and we will probably know tomorrow how much longer it will take. Milagro, who I already mentioned, is part of the Gomez family. She has four younger siblings, all of whom have names that start with "m." She is still excited to get baptized! This week we went to teach them about tithing. We normally can only visit them once a week, so we expected progress to be slow. However, as we began to teach how God only requires us to give Him back only one tenth of what we receive, María, Milagro´s mom said something that surprised me. She said, "I would give all that I receive to God because He has blessed me so much." She told us "ever since you started coming to teach us, the family is closer, work is better, and the children don´t fight as much as they used to." It made me so happy to hear her share her strong testimony with us and it made me realize what a small part I have as a missionary in teaching God´s children. He does nearly all of the teaching, and it is our responsibility as missionaries and members to help them focus on Him and what He has to say. We invited her to be baptized with her children and they said yes.

Lentil flour... interesting. We found a health food store here. There was garbanzo bean flour as well and a bunch of other things we didn´t understand.

A similar experience happened with another family we are teaching in Avellaneda. We found Valeria a little over three months as we were traveling to Las Toscas on the bus. She seemed really interested in what we do and we wrote down her address to go and visit her just before we got of the bus. Now, several months later, they have a regular habit of praying as a family every day. She and Luciano have a young four year old daughter, Lourdes. This week, we were teaching Luciano the ten commandments. We were trying to finish teaching the lesson because we had to catch the bus back and we had already spent several times visiting them teaching them some of the commandments. But then, he started to tell us of some of the great blessing he had received in his life. We listened as he shared his testimony of God and of the church. He has come to church once before, and he told us he knows it is true and wants all of his family to come and see. We weren´t teaching about that, but the Spirit testified to him that the church is true. He knows because he is trying what we are teaching and knows it is good. That makes me so happy!

Eating torta frita (fried tortilla) with Agustin.

I know that this is God´s work. Our part in his work is hard, but rewarding. It is marvelous and miraculous. God loves us. He wants us to be happy. As we seek Him, we find joy. Our trials and difficulties remain, but they are made easier and they don´t matter as much. I love this work!

¡Hasta luego!

Elder Cloward