10-15-2012

Buen día!!

Como estan todos?? Espero que bien! It has been a pretty decent week! Things
are still a little frustrating not having people in church and not having
people who are progressing well towards baptism, however we did have someone in
church yesterday!! Wooohoooo!!! His name is Oscar, and we feel like he is
really prepared.  We found him a couple
months ago in the house of a former investigator and we wrote down his address
but never passed by.  We decided to go
find it a couple of weeks ago and we found him and set an appointment and then
he wasn´t home when we passed by. 
Randomly the other night we found him walking around wasted in the
street... he was really excited to see us and apparently his sister-in-law
kicked him out of the house so he has
been wandering around and sleeping in the houses of random friends and neighbors.  We set an 

apointment to teach him in a park and he needs a lot of help... he participated in the

war of the malvinas here in Argentina and since then has been drinking a lot because 

it messed him up so much.  He is such a sweet and sincere man and really wants to change. 

 We couldn´t find him again after that day so we figured he probably wouldn´t show up at

church... and then turns out he just showed up!! The funny thing is that he
came late and there are 2 wards that meet at our building, so he walked into 

the other ward´s sacrament meeting and attended all the of meetings of the ward

 instead of our branch.  We didn´t even know he was there until the end!  Haha.

Anyway... we are going to go search for him today and start setting appointments
and really teaching him.  Everyone in the branch really wants to help him out.

 This week we have also been focusing a lot in Cesar.  He still hasn´t come to church but we know it
is just a big obstacle that once he gets over it he will be fine.  He is seriously SO awesome!!He is progressing
really well and is really sincere and does his part.  Last week we left him Alma 32 to read and we
came back and he had read the whole chapter and copied the whole chapter in his
notebook!  He has a lot to get past but
he wants to do it, and last night he accepted a baptismal date.  He has been involved in anything and
everything... he grew up as a for real high-class chorro (thief) and for that
reason he has gone to prison so many times (I asked him yesterday how many
times he´s gone to prison and he couldn´t count.. hahah).  He also had a big problem with fighting and
hurting people with knives... but the REALLY good news is that he´s never
killed anyone!! The he said he´s never had any desire to do anything like
that.  The other good news is that since
the last time he went to prison he hasn´t been robbing, and really all he does
is smoke marijuana and drink with his friends..
although he says that those really aren´t addictions and he never craves it or
anything.  His big addiction that he
needs to get past is smoking cigarettes, but he´ll be able to get past it.  This week he shared 

with us a story about when a family went out of town and he entered into their house to rob
them.  He piled together all of their stuff... their tv, stereo, etc. in a bag and was about to leave, but couldn´t. He lifted up the bag, and he couldn´t move forward. 
He looked around and said he felt weird, and he set the bag down.  He lifted it up again and 

tried to leave, and something was just stopping him and he couldn´t leave.  He felt really

guilty and realized that these people probably worked really hard to be able to buy the things that they
owned, and it was completely unfair that he was just taking it all out of their
hands like that.  He opened the bag, and put everything back in it´s place and left without stealing anything.  He tells us a lot and has shared a lot of similar stories with us, and we can see that he really does want to do what´s right... he really does feel guilty and he really just struggles to do what´s
right.  We are going to be working really close with him to help him change his life around, and

 we´re all really excited.  Plus he is giving us great referrals of all his friends who also need

 to change their lives haha.  We are finding out that they are all actually
very sincere people, and are usually more honest with us than most of the
people we teach which is pretty sad haha. 
Anyway... we are excited to see his progress!!

I had an interesting experience last night. Cesar lives right in front of an
evangelical church.  They are really
popular here and at any given moment you can hear them from the street
screaming and shouting really loud inside their churches.  They often ´heal´ people and the pastor
screams and yells into a microphone over and over and over again the same
things to ´cast out devils´.  It is so
incredibly sad... there is absolutely no possible way to feel the spirit there.
While we taught Cesar about baptism and saw that light go on inside of him as
he pondered and responded quietly to what we were teaching him, I could hear
the church behind me.  I noticed the
great contrast in the loud screaming and shouting, and the quiet conversion
that was taking place in Cesar.  I know
without a doubt that this is the Lord´s church, and that that is how the spirit
works... through small and
simple things.  It´s those tiny but
constant moments that cause a real lasting conversion, and I am so grateful for that.
I hope you all have a fabulous week!!

 --Hermanita Hunt