Week 14 Nogoya and Transfers

Hola Todos!

This has been an incredibly full and crazy week. To start, last Monday we had pday especial in Victoria, and we got special permission to watch a Disney movie! I felt like I was in Misión Córdoba jaja. We watched Inside Out together and made popcorn. It was pretty great. Tuesday in district meeting we bought a bunch of Grido, because we were pretty sure that at least one of us was going to leave, as we had been together as a district for 2 transfers. Gotta love Grido. Wednesday was 25 de Mayo, which is a pretty big holiday in Argentina, although I don't remember exactly what it's about. Something to do with their independence. We had a big branch activity to celebrate, a lunch where we ate a traditional food called locro. It's basically a big stew of everything: potatoes, onions, pork, other types of pig, sweet potato, corn, spices, etc. We were in the capilla all morning helping prepare the food, and then we all ate together at about 1. After that we sat around chatting for a while with the investigators and menos activos that had come, and had mazamorra and torta frita for dessert. Mazamorra is basically milk, corn, and sugar. Doesn't seem like much, but it's super good. We also had an adventure this week with our pension, as the drain in the bathroom got clogged, so everytime we took a shower or used the sink, our apartment basically flooded, but the inmobiliaria took a super long time to send someone to fix it, so we spent the week honing our flood prevention skills jaja.

Friday we recieved traslados (transfers), and I unfortunately was going to leave. I am now in Santa Fe, barrio Rural, which is the ward that attends the stake center that houses the mission office. My new companion is Elder Ramirez. He has 18 months in the mission and is from Misiones, close to Iguazu Falls. We are right in the middle of everything now. We live two blocks from the mission office in the same building as Elder Blackmon and Elder Robles (two of the asistentes), and we will share the ward with 8 other missionaries: two hermanas, two asistentes, and the four office missionaries. Basically, us and the hermanas are the working missionaries of the ward, as the other six hardly have time to proselyte. Our ward has about 80-90 active members including an Area Seventy, so it's definitely going to be a different experience from Nogoyá. I am going to miss the missionaries from our district there, as well as the members and investigators. I learned so much there, and it will definitely always be a special place for me.

This gospel is so special to me. I know that it is true, and that by living the gospel, investing our lives in it, and making sacrifices to serve the Lord, we will be blessed with greater happiness than we can find in any other place. In my life, things have never been so uncertain or foreign or challenging, but I have never been so happy or felt so much peace in my life. I have a testimony that living the gospel brings peace. I love my Savior with all of my heart.

You are all amazing! Thank you for each of your letters and pictures, I love them all!
Elder Meyers

Me and Emily (our dog that always follows us)

Pday especial...Us watching "Inside Out"

Zona Parana Sur

Me in my Columbian jersey that Elder Fajardo gave me

Us sweeping water out of the pension (story of our life this week)

District Meeting with Grido (ice cream)!

Preparing the locro (a kind of stew)

Preparing the locro (stew)

Preparing the locro

Preparing the locro

Elder Marquez

Preparing the locro

Hermana Marin and Hermana Strand...they stole my camera and took a selfie

Hermano Arrua

Celebrating 25 de Mayo!

Elder McKell, Elder Marquez, Elder Gomez, and me

Our district in Nogoya

Me and Hermano Arrua

Me and my companion Elder Marquez

The Elders in our district

Celebrating 25 de Mayo!

Our last lunch together as Elders of Nogoya

Us with the branch in Nogoya (Sadly, only half of me was in the picture)

Me and Elder Marquez with the Arrua

Our district with Hermano Arrua

Me, Hermano Arrua, Hermana Arrua, and Elder Marquez

Making tortas

Tortas

Me and Hmo Luna (un super capo)

Goodbye Nogoya!!!

Our pension in Santa Fe

My pension in Santa Fe

View from our pension in Santa Fe (we are one block away from the Union Stadium, a big futbol team here in Santa Fe, it apparently can get super loco)

Santa Fe!  Picture from our pension

Guess who I ran into? Elder Arnold!  We stopped by the pension of the office missionaries to get something this morning, and he was literally leaving on his way to the airport to go home.  Super happy that I got to see him one more time!

Me and my new companion Elder Ramirez

Week 13 Nogoya

Apologies to all those who sent me letters, I don't have quite enough time today, so I will write you next week!

This has been a very rewarding week. After praying fervently in companionship study last Sunday and dedicating ourselves to the Lord, we both also made specific sacrifices this week to show that we were willing to follow the Lord. We were able to find more people than we have found in a while this week, and taught at least one lesson almost every single day. None of them are super prepared to join the church at this point in time, but they are willing to listen, and we hope that with time their hearts will be softened through the power of the Spirit. The Lord truly works miracles, and we have seen these miracles in the doors that have opened to us this week, in a very literal sense. :)

I am coming to love the mission and everything it stands for, and more than the mission, the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel is quite literally everything to me, and in the mission we have the wonderful opportunity to live a life where the gospel is incorporated into every little thing that we do. It is the most important thing in this life, and there is nothing that we can do or find or accomplish that can replace or even begin to replicate the joy that comes from keeping the commandments of a loving Heavenly Father and striving to follow each and every day the example of His Son, Jesus Christ.

This week, I have been studying charity and kindness. It is crucial that we develop charity. As Paul teaches us 1 Corinthians 13, without charity, all other attributes profit us nothing. Because of this, we must follow the exhortation of Moroni and "pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart that [we] may be filled with this love, which he has bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ." (Moroni 7:48) Our feelings towards our fellowmen are a measure of our conversion to the gospel, and help us to understand just exactly where we are in our journey of discipleship. As Paul said, "the greatest of these is charity." (1 Cor 13:13)

I love you all, and hope you have wonderful week! Congratulations to all those who are graduating!

Elder Meyers

It's cold!

Elder Marquez cooking some Columbian food for me.  It's not super cultural, but still super good.  It's called salchipapa.  Basically, french fries with fried hot dog pieces, pieces of chicken, salsa rosada or salsa golf (basically fry sauce), cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions.  Super delicious, and I'll definitely be making it again with future companions.  

Selfie with the food

Salchipapa

Week 12 Nogoya

¿Que puedo decir? (What can I say?)

Sometimes, it's a little hard to write these letter because I just don't know what to say. You just can't express exactly the feelings that you experience in the mission. They are unique to the work of the Lord, and only through living in His work can we come to understand these feelings. I am incredibly grateful for the influence of the Holy Spirit, an incredible gift that the Lord has given to each and every one of us that have taken upon us His name in the waters of baptism. Listen to His voice, and you will find peace.

The work continues to progress, although not exactly at the pace that we might like. We are still struggling to find and to teach, but we are seeing small miracles, and are continually dedicating ourselves more and more to following the guide of the Holy Spirit. We have realized with every passing day that we cannot do this work without the Lord. Only He knows where His chosen and prepared children are waiting to hear the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and we will not find them without His help. As I said, we have seen little miracles when we have followed the Spirit. Last night, we felt impressed to go a certain way that passed by a gas station. As we went that direction, Elder Marquez said to me, I need to use the bathroom, let's go to the bathroom really quick. We went in, and as I was waiting outside, lo and behold, Martín, one of our investigators that we had all but lost contact with, comes walking out of the bathroom! I was so excited to see him! We talked to him for a while (my companion came out as well) and were able to reestablish connection with him, and to fix a problem with the number that we had for him. We were able to set a time to pass by and talk to him, and to resume teaching the lessons. It was definitely a tender mercy of the Lord.

I read two quotes this week that I wanted to share as well:

"Mindful of this, and desirous to be a lifelong learner, President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, has said, “I am still a child with lots to learn. Most folks can teach me something.”2 When he extended the call to me to be a General Authority, President Eyring taught me an important lesson. He said that when he hears someone tell a story that he has heard before or use a scripture that he is very familiar with, he asks himself, “Why is the Lord underlining that for me?” and “What have I yet to learn from that story or scripture?” If we wish to increase our spiritual stability, we will be willing to learn and will be sufficiently humble to accept guidance no matter our age and experience." Elder Dale G. Renlund, Liahona April 2016

"If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead." - Neal A. Maxwell, Response to a Call, General Conference April 1974

A couple of fun things that happened this week: We had an amazing asado with the Arrua family! Definitely a blessing of Argentina :) We also did divisiones with the zone leaders again, but in trios this time. It was a little weird contacting in a trio. Definitely prefer a normal companionship. Also, we found a house that has a grand piano!! I haven't seen a grand piano since the MTC! I told my companion that we are going to contact that house si o si this week (we were late for an appointment when we saw the house). Hopefully we can have a successful contact I can maybe possibly play a grand piano. It literally is probably the only grand piano in all of Nogoyá jaja.

Anyways, I love you all! Have a fantastic week full of the Spirit of the Lord!

Elder Meyers

Divisiones with Elder Rocha from Bolivia (Lider de Zona). First time I've worked in a trio here in the mission.  Not going to lie, it was a little bit weird.

A wonderful selfie with the beautiful half dead trees outside our apartment

We had an amazing asado with the Arrua family today!  It's been at least 3 months since I've eaten asado.  It was at least 1000 times better than our typical meal of something with rice or noodles jaja.

Me and Hermano Arrua cooking the asado

Me, Elder McKell, Elder Marquez, and Elder Gomez enjoying the asado!

Week 11 Nogoya

Hola familia y amigos!

After talking with my family yesterday, I realized that it is harder to speak in English than I thought. I only have four months in the mission, so we'll see what happens in December. Hopefully I'll still be able to communicate in English jaja.

This week was a week of contacting again. My companion and I realized that we hadn't been as diligent as we could have been in finding new investigators in the past couple of weeks and that we had spent a little too much time with less actives and trying to find then-current investigators. Going forward we have set goals to open our mouths and share the gospel in every moment, and to remember that even when we are on our way to an appointment, there are still people we can find on the way. We have found some promising new potential investigators, so hopefully there will be some more news next week on that.

As far as a spiritual thought, I realized this week that the blessings that the Lord has given us are not for us. The Lord does not bless people with lots of money so that they can be rich and have 7 cars, but so that they can bless the lives of others with the excess that the Lord has given them. The Lord doesn't bless someone with extraordinary talent playing the violin so they can be better than everyone else, but so they can uplift and inspire others. The Lord doesn't give us testimony just so we can know, but so that we can share it with others as well. I've come to realize that if we keep our blessings to ourselves, they aren't really blessings at all. But if we give what we have, we will receive even more.

Until next week! Sean fieles! (Be Faithful!)
Elder Meyers

Skyping on Mother's Day!  Everyone is SO happy!

Elder Meyers on Mother's Day!

Our Skype station in the capilla

Me washing my clothes

Elder Gonzalez (ZL) and I in divisiones with sandwiches de milanesa (super ricos)

Week 10 Nogoya

Happy 13TH Birthday to my little bro David!

Fa what a week! This was definitely an interesting week for sure. Also, it is starting to become a little more difficult for me to write in English, which is a good thing I guess. So hopefully everything makes sense gramatically.

My companion and the companion of Elder Gomez (Elder Mckell) had tramites basically all of this week. Elder Mckell had a problem with his passport and had to go to the U.S: Embassy in Buenos Aires, and Elder Marquez had to go to Santa Fe and then Rosario for tramites with his DNI (it's like your national ID in Argentina). So Elder Gomez and I were in divisiones for almost 4 days (Tuesday to Friday). We had to split time between our areas, and we went back and forth between pensions sleeping and eating. It was a grand adventure jaja. Also, the stake asked Nogoyá to make the ward choir for stake conference in the beginning of June, so they chose me to be the choir director, and I am now learning how to teach singing lessons to Argentines in castellano. It´s super fun. Hna Arrua told me when she heard that they had to do a choir for stake conference, she almost had a heart attack, and that she was going to call Presidente Perez and make sure that I'm not transferred this transfer so that I'm here for stake conference (transfers are the Monday before). She was mostly joking, but it is highly possible that I'll be here for another transfer in Nogoyá. Woot!

We are again without any real investigators. The people here are a little hard, because they've all lived their entire lives in the exact same way their whole life, and aren't really looking to change. Our two programados heard bad things about the church from a menos activo, and we lost contact with them all week. So this week we have to go find them again and help them resolve their doubts. We will also be doing a lot of contacting and finding this week, so hopefully we will have more people to teach this week. Our bright spot was that we had our very first investigator come to church yesterday! Sonia came without her spouse, and we've been teaching them both, but her spouse couldn't come, as he had some things to do. But Sonia came and it was fantastic! There is nothing better than seeing an investigator keep a commitment. It makes us as missionaries super happy. However, we are passing that couple to the hermanas, as they recently moved into their area. My companion and I joke with the hermanas that we do all the finding and they do all the teaching, since we have already passed multiple investigators to them for various reasons.

Other exciting things from the week: We have been helping the Arrua this week with cleaning their roof, as there was a bunch of old wood and iron. It was a great time, and I felt like one of the chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins, because people go on their roofs all the time in Argentina, so Hno Arrua was just chatting with his neighbors across the way who were on their roof as well. It was great fun. We also all received flu shots this week! Hna Perez told all the missionaries that they need to get flu shots, so we went to Victoria on Friday and all got vaccinated.

This week I am learning yet again how vitally important it is to be humble. Without humility, we cannot change and we cannot improve. If we have any bit of pride, that pride will always inhibit our growth because it will always tell us that we are already good enough. That is why the scriptures calll pride the great stumbling block. I believe that pride truly is our greatest enemy, as it inhibits our ability to use the Atonement. Without humility, we cannot repent, we cannot improve, we cannot progress, and we cannot be saved. Humility is key to salvation.

I love you all so much! Have a great week!
Elder Meyers

We made a huge lunch for pday today and it was super good (I realized that I send a lot of pictures of food, but that's because here in Nogoyá there is literally nothing to do for pday besides make food jaja)

Elder Gomez and I in divisiones with super rica tarta that we bought for lunch

Elder Gomez on the phone after a day in divisiones

Helping on the roof with the Arrura's.

Me and Elder Marquez

I lent a purple tie to Elder Marquez for fast Sunday