Today Good Things Are Happening. Today I know God Loves Me.

Back to the basics.

I think it was President Uchtdorf in conference that shared the story about Vince Lombardi coaching. He would show his players the pigskin and say "this is a football. You throw it, kick it, and get it into the end zone to get points." Then he would show them the gridlines and say "this is the field, it`s 100 yards rectangular etc." I`m translating from what I heard in Spanish. But the point was true excellence comes not in mastering isolated complex aspects of concepts. Excellence is true mastery of the basics. I think the Karate kid does a good job of illustrating that too.

Sounds like the cougars went back to the basics, and it paid off.

For those of you who don`t know what`s going on in the mission field right now, there are a lot of changes with the 8 lessons. These aren`t given to us to replace Preach my Gospel. Preach my Gospel is divinely inspired and contains all the principles we need to become the successful servants the Lord wants us to be. The problem is it`s easy to get caught up in isolated aspects of Preach my Gospel, where true excellence in missionary work only comes after mastering the basics. Thus we have received 8 simplified lessons that teach us our priorities. Like the Doctrine of Christ and our missionary purpose. The role of the Spirit in conversion. Revelation through prayer, the Book of Mormon, and Church attendance. As servants of the Lord, we must have the basics down.

I saw that as an answer to my many prayers of how I could help my investigators better progress. I saw a big change in the way I taught this week as opposed to last week. The biggest change came from a focus on baptism. Nearly all of my lessons last week related to baptism in some way or another. I saw big changes in people as they considered making a covenant with God. It`s just a better way to teach. Why keep people in the dark where you can let them know your goals up front.

I had some personally uplifting experiences this week. Luis unfortunately has in a lot of ways dropped off the map. He works a lot more now, and the smoking hasn`t gotten better. It`s unfortunate. Additionally Veronica didn`t make it to church yesterday. She was going to get baptized next week, but postponed again to the 23rd. Unfortunately, if everything turns out the way I'm thinking it will I`ll be leaving here on the next transfer date, the 20th. I know that the important thing is Veronica getting baptized, but it`s a baptism I really do want to see... I have faith that everything just has a way of working out the way it`s supposed to. And if I`m transferred out of here before I can see Veronica baptized it will be for a reason.

7 months is a long time to be in an area.

This has been an introspective week for me. As I`m probably leaving here in the next week. I won`t be emailing you until the 20th as the transfer has been placed in the middle of the week for various reasons. So you`ll know my fate the next time I write to you. It`s bizarre to think about living somewhere else in the mission. I know this area better than I know my neighborhood back at home. I have every street within 30 blocks memorized. I`ve had a lot of time to think about it.

After so much time here, it`s led me to think about what I’ve contributed. What my legacy in Adroguè will be. Truth be told, I’m not sure. I went through a little rough spot where I wasn`t sure exactly what I`d done here, or if I had done enough to help the area and my companion. There were two experiences this week that really stood out to me and helped me with that.

The other day we had intercambios with the zone leaders. I was with Elder Hall from California. I had been walking down a street the day prior with Elder Martindale in a bit of a hurry, and upon seeing the houses said to him "we need to come back and clap here some other time." (In Argentina, doorbells are rare, and every house has a gate around it. It`s very impolite to jump the gate. You stand out front and clap your hands then the people come out. Thus we say "clap houses" instead of "knock houses.") I made plans to do that with our intercambio. The following day Elder Hall and I went by and met some rejections, until we arrived at a humbler looking home. We clapped and the woman came out, introducing herself as Norma. After a short door approach we asked if we could come in and say a prayer with her and share a message. Elder Hall added that it would only be about 10 minutes. With some persuasion she let us in.

Norma informed us that she had been too many churches. She had listened to missionaries years ago, but didn`t remember that much. At the present time she was studying the bible with the Jehovah’s witnesses. We started to explain, and Norma had many fantastic questions. Such good questions that our 10 minutes turned into over an hour. She was especially impressed by the first vision, that someone could see God, and that he was a real personage. We told her that she could pray and know it was true. She was really surprised when we told her she could pray, as her current bible study group taught her that she had to know a certain amount of study to offer prayers. We explained that God loves all His children and wants to hear their thoughts and feelings. She began to cry as we talked and said something that filled me with joy.

"This has been the most wonderful 10 minutes in a long time," she wept and laughed. "It`s been a hard couple of weeks, but today, today good things are happening. Today I know that God loves me."

She offered a beautiful prayer about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and the spirit filled the room. It was one of my favorite finding appointments of my mission.

The other day we went to Diego and Yesica, the couple that came to general conference. It was just Yesica there and we had a good charla. She had read a lot in the Book of Mormon, about to the end of 2 Nephi. It was impressive, and we challenged her to solidify that knowledge she already had with prayer. She told us that she didn`t feel like she had to ask God, she just felt it was true. We encouraged her anyway to kneel down and receive the spiritual witness. As we finished up, she stopped to thank us. Telling us she had been meaning to tell us how grateful she was that we had found her family. That her marriage was better and she felt the spirit when we came. She thanked us for all the blessings she had received in the past months, and it made me turn around and thank God. I love to see gratitude in the investigators. It gives me motivation for the bad days. When we`re out in the street getting rejected, when people are slamming the doors or refusing to listen. It`s all worth it to find the one. "Thank you for what you do. I`m happier now than I was before."

May the words of Norma forever echo in the rainy days of my soul. "Today good things are happening. Today I know God loves me."

I love you all, and thank you