We bring the truth, invite people to come closer to Chirst... and do cartweels.

This week we walked a lot, and taught a lot. That´s it!

Just kidding. Some really amazing things happened this week and I am learning so much.

First, I bought boots! I don´t have a picture, but boots are a must after it rains here.

My companion loves to describe games and movies to me as we walk between appointments. He´s really good at it and I feel as if I´m watching them with him. It´s really fun. He´s taught me that I don´t need to feel stressed out to know I´m working hard and doing my best.

We are teaching three or four different young mothers in Villa Angela who are searching for the truth for their families. Mother´s are almost always more open to receive the gospel, it´s miraculous! We taught one lady who is 26 with four children. We taught her about Nephi in the Book of Mormon when he obeys the commandment of God to get the Brass plates of Laban. He feels very lonely as his older brothers lack the faith or desire to obey God.  Yet Nephi knows that what ever God asks him to do, he can do it (1 Nephi 3:7). As we read with her, she was learning things for herself that my companion and I didn´t at first see. After reading, she told us that she felt peaceful and happy; that there was nothing to worry about. All the while, her children were screaming and playing behind her. Yet we all felt the Holy Ghost. It all testified to us that the Book of Mormon is true and that God loves us. The lady hugged her Book, she was so happy. She began to speak more softly to her children and we could see a change in her. She is progressing and is finding the joy of the gospel.

After the lesson, Elder Sender and I tried to do hand stands and cartweels to the delight of all of the children there. They all started trying to do it to and asked us to do it again and again! It was super funny, but we had to go. That is who we are as missionaries. We bring the truth, invite people to come closer to Chirst, and do cartweels. I love it!

We are teaching several more people that are reading the Book of Mormon and learining for themselves that it is true. Yet each of them don´t feel prepared to go to church or be baptized yet. We pray now that they will each have a change of heart and come to church.

God is real! I feel his presence and His love for His children more than ever before. He has given us our families so that we can be happy. He guides us through a living prophet today, Thomas S. Monson. When we have faith, change and repent, and go to church, we will be happy and progress.

Love you all!

Elder Cloward

More Ice cream

A train in our zone leader´s area.

A water tower in Villa Angela. This is very strange, because here, every house has it´s own basen of water on the roof to create sufficient water pressure.

A Week of Testimony

A lot of little things have happened this week that add up to a great big whole. This is how God works, through lots of small things that make a huge difference. I feel like I have changed a lot, my perspective especially.

Monday, my companion and I got ice cream at a place called Grido. This is probably going to become a tradition. Elder Sender got a kilo for his birthday. Ice cream traditions for missionaries here are really silly.

 

My ice cream, yum!

 

Elder Sender`s ice cream, yum, yum!

 

Tuesday, we were looking for new people to teach and a little dog came up and bit me. It was`t serious, but he tore my pants a little, and now I have to pass by every so often to make sure he`s still alive and doesn't have rabies. That`s a bit scary, but I think I will be okay.

 

We are continuing to teach a pre-MTC class for six young men in the branch to prepare them for their missions. They are all really amazing and most of them have callings in the the branch. It was incredible to practice teaching with many of them and see how strong their testimonies are and how much they already know. I look forward to the class again tomorrow.

 

This week, a lot of our plans have fallen through, so we have had to walk a lot. We are finding a lot of new people to teach and that is exciting! We are teaching a new family tonight that has a lot of potential.

 

We are teaching several people that have desires to be baptized, but have a lot of obstacles that are pushing against them. Mabel loves learning from us and has begun to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning to learn for herself if it is true. She has trouble going to church because of her work, but she feels that the church is right. We are also teaching a young mother who also feels that baptism is right, but is having a lot of challenges in her family. We are excited to keep working with them!

 

God lives! He loves us! He wants us to return to Him, so he gave us prophets and the scriptures to guide us. He gave us His son to die for us so that we can return to live with him. Jesus Christ lives, and because He lives, we can live together with our families forever. When we follow God, we are happy!

Have a fantastic week!

Elder Cloward

 

 

My first spagetti!

Hair Cut Before

After... woops, that was a buzz cut. I hope it grows back quick!

 

Another Step Closer

This week may have been the longest of my life. It´s really exciting to be with my new companion. He´s very different from my trainer. We both don´t have a lot of experience in our missions and we have to work together to be understood sometimes.

Yummy Argentine hamburgers with Elder Sender.

On Wednesday, we had a missionary broadcast for our area of Argentina. Elder Bednar, an Apostle of the church taught of the importance of acting in faith. All that we do should be in faith, meaning that we should first believe that God has power to help us, and then we do all that we can afterward. We read the Book of Mormon and go to church with the intention to act on what we learn. We also pray, with the intention to do what we say. For example, he told us, we pray "Heavenly Father, after this meeting, we are going to go help those who couldn`t come to church today. We only ask that you will help us not all go to the same house!" When we show God we are willing to do, or to act in faith, there are miracles. This idea completely changed our invitations during lessons. "Will you read this book and pray to know it is true? When you do know, will you act on your answer and be baptized?" This comitment is difficult, but powerful and those who are ready will accept it.

Empenadas we made! Eggs and meat.

We´ve seen many miracles and God is guiding us here. I have felt the Holy Ghost guiding me in many lessons, helping me know what to say.

 

Sunday, I got to sit next to an investigator that lives in the sister`s area during Sunday school. I helped her understand how to use the scriptures and asked her questions to help her learn and understand better. She began participating in the lesson and sharing thoughts with the class. It was so great!

 

Six wild horses on the chapel grounds Sunday. Not something you see every day in the States!

I know that I am weak. I feel really awkward sometimes as a missionary and have a lot of anxiety. I learned in my studies that anxiety is like empty hope, hope without faith. It`s "I want this now" and "I don`t know if things will be okay." However, I know that if we do all we know how to do and really want to do what is right, God will make everything okay. I am happy to serve Him and I am doing my very best!

Have a happy week!

Elder Cloward

A New Transfer

¡Hola todos!

 

Elder Takapu and me.

This week was a traveling week. Every day, we traveled somewhere. Monday we had a zone activity. We got to play ping pong with the other Elders and Sisters. It was really fun even though I lost every time. The next day, we went to Resistencia for a Multi-Zone conference where we got to hear from our mission president. We had to wake up early to go, but none of us set an alarm. Five minutes before the bus showed up, the Sisters called us and asked us where we were. Our zone leader answered the call. "Just give us five minutes," he said, and the 6 of us Elders leaped out of bed and started wrestling the door open. It was really funny! We all made it to the bus some how. I hope that doesn`t keep happening to us!

 

It´s been really rainy and windy here. Argentine flag!

I enjoyed going to the multi-zone conference and hearing from President Franco. Each zone got to teach the other zones a short lesson about a specific gospel topic. I got to share a short passage of scripture that talks about faith. To grow our faith, we must have experiences with the scriptures, with prayer, with the church, or with doing what we want to grow our faith in. As we exercise our faith in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father by keeping their commandments, our faith will grow in them as we see the blessings. That was a great experience.

 

We went back to our area for a day, but them had to go back to Resistencia to do paper work again. We ended up sitting in a building all day just waiting for the paper work, which was a bit frustrating, but we got to talk to a Colombian family about their culture and some of the food they make. That was cool.

 

Hello Dolly bars- super good dessert Elder Takapu made.

Then we had divisions and I worked with one of the Zone leaders while the other interviewed Angelica for her baptism. Her baptism was on Saturday and it was a marvelous experience. She has been investigating the church for over 20 years, and now after her baptism and confirmation, she appears so much happier! The mission leader, who just received his mission call to another location in Argentina, set up the whole baptism and we were just able to come and participate. I led the music, which was harder than I thought because we sang a song I didn't know and just had to sight read it as I sang in Spanish and led the music. That was fun.

 

A member family and me in front of the Chapel

The Savior led the perfect life as an example for us. He was baptized, even though he was perfect, to show us the way to happiness now and after this life. Baptism is essential to be able to live with God after this life, but is only the first step. After baptism, we teach all of the lessons again and invite new members of the church to prepare to go to the temple and learn more about God there.

 

My last day with my trainer. Waiting for the bus.

Monday, I got a new companion, Elder Sender! He is from Ohio, is 19, and has about 8 months in the mission. We are still in Villa Angela. I am excited to work with him and look forward to telling you all more about him. This week is going to be great!

You all are amazing!

Elder Cloward

Week 11 ( I only know because in-field training is 12 weeks)

What a week! It really felt short because I was sick for a day and a half. I learned so much and there were many small miracles.

 

Funny painting and my hat.

After we came back to the pension for lunch on Friday, I didn`t feel too good and wasn`t able to eat lunch. I slept through studies. When I woke up, I asked my companion for a preisthood blessing. During the priesthood blessing, I remembered a scripture Ether 12:6 that says something like "ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." I didn`t feel too much better after the blessing, but I felt, "if you want to see miracles, you first have to act. When we have faith, we believe in God and in His power. Then we act so that we can receive the blessings he has ready for us. We first have to know His will, because if we have faith He will bless us with a good thing, but it is not His will, we still won`t receive. I felt that it didn`t make sense that His will would be to stay in the pension, so I got up, put on my shirt, and we went out to work. It was important to me to help the people we hd planed to visit. 

However, I still felt really bad. We ended up visiting a different man, and though we didn`t teach a lesson or share scriptures, we cheared him up. That was happy. We had to go back because I was feeling terrible. I made it back to the pension and a half our later, I threw up. This is not a story of failure or an event that weakened my faith. God taught me a lot about faith in this experience. We were able to help a lot of people and even made some friends (my companion is realy funny! Story for later...) I know that God lives. He loves us and is always there for us, though it`s not often how we expect.

Yum!

We have an investigator named Angelica that is very close to baptism. We are excited for her!

Love you all!

Elder Cloward

Brownies!

A Fulfilling Week

This week was full and I have 15 minutes to write it all. Here goes!

This week, we went to Resistencia for a day to do some paper work. We woke up at 3 to make it there. The paper work only took about 10 minutes to complete, but we got to go to Subway! There aren't many restaurants like that here in Argentina and it was really good! Sadly, I lost my wallet on the bus. I didn't lose too much, but I`m going to need another one. We missed the bus back to our area by about 10 minutes and had to wait for 4 hours for the next bus. That was unfortunate. After all the time we missed traveling we had to work really hard the rest of the week. We saw many miracles when we worked hard.

We met a lady who has been investing the church for a long time, named Angelica. She told us she didn't want to get baptized. The next day we visited her. The lesson was powerful and we could all feel God´s love for her. We invited her to be baptized and she said yes! Her baptism will be in two weeks on Saturday, if all goes well. Wow!

The next day, it was really late, but we decided to visit one more investigator. She wasn't there but one of her relatives was. He was watching soccer and didn't look like he'd be interested in our message. My companion asked if we could share with him, and he said yes! He turned off the TV and we had a great lesson. We hope he will come to church in the following weeks.

The next day, Sunday, we only had the afternoon to teach. Our goal was to teach 4 lessons with investigators, but here, that is a big goal for a whole day! We went looking for some specific people but couldn't find them. We were prompted multiple times to stop and talk to specific people. We found two new families to teach and two other new people. We taught four lessons, all to new investigators who look like they will accept our message and perhaps get baptized within the next year. That was a miracle!

I know that when we do all we can, God blesses us. Not always does God give us large miracles like this week, but he loves His children and sends us to help them when they are ready to receive the message of Jesus Christ. I am happy and full!

Juan didn't get baptized yet. We haven´t seen him in a while and pray for him.

To answer questions:

• There is one branch in our city; right now with us and two sister missionaries.
• My camera is back but still broken. My pictures may be at funny angles because I can´t see what I have taken.
• We have plenty of food to eat. We bought oatmeal and milk in bulk and cook great pasta. We haven´t gotten sick and are very well.

You all are great!

Elder Cloward

A lot of oatmeal and milk. Delicious!

Rolling out the churros.

Churros ready to cook.

My companion frying the churros.

We made a kilo of Churros! They are soo good!

Mission President, Juan, and Invitations

¡Hola amigos y familia!

I am happy to write to you this week. It has been another week of progress, miracles, and happiness.

I continue to learn every day. There was one day when I shared my testimony of the Book of Mormon, how we can know that it is true if we read it and pray, asking God to know if it is true. After I shared this, the person we were teaching said, "What? I don´t understand. You used some complicated words." That made me think. The best way to teach is not to talk more, or to use complicated words. It is to share sincere powerful truths. If there isn´t more to say, I don´t need to keep talking. The Holy Ghost teaches through short sincere messages.

 

My companion has begun to teach me how to lead a companionship, plan what we are going to do the next day, and lead discussions too. It´s really hard sometimes. It is important to be bold, to look at the options, make a decision, and stick with it. As I continue to make more choices, it becomes easier to see which choices are best. I know that God helps us when we trust in Him and are willing to do what he asks. Be bold! It is better to be bold, be wrong, and then change than to be unsure and not make anything.

 

We had interviews with the mission president, President Franco, this week! He taught us some new ways to find new people to teach and we are put them in practice. We visited a big member family and encouraged each of them to think of someone they could share a Book of Mormon with. We then gave them a Book of Mormon. We are excited to hear about their experience. I invite each of you to share a Book of Mormon with a friend. This book is the greatest gift we have because it teaches us everything we need to do to be happy in this life and the next. When we come to know it is true, as it says in the introducion, we come to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God´s church on the earth.

 

 

 

As missionaries, we have a meeting with the other missionaries in our area every Tuesday. However, now we have to travel to another city to have them because the other Elders in our area have moved out. This coming Wednesday, my companion and I have to travel to Resistencia to fill out some papers for me. This means this coming week, we will be out and about. We have plans to teach with the young men of the branch here which is really exciting! There are about six young men that will be going on their missions this year or next, which is incredible since there are only about 30-40 members here at church every Sunday. They have strong testimonies.

 

These youth have a friend, Juan (17), who has been coming to church for about six months and even went to EFY (a spiritual week for the youth). He has shared his testimony and is preparing to be baptized. He is praying this week to know when he should get baptized and we are excited for him!

Until next week...

Elder Cloward

 

My companion and I. It´s actually really hot here, but we know it´s winter in the states. Preparation day is silly sometimes.

Drinking mint leaves with lemonade. It was really good with the bombilla (Argentine straw for yerba mate), but I decided to make a funny face.