Parker - March 27

Hey Everyone! 

So yeah, we have been working pretty hard this past week. Elder A. is really cool, he knows a little bit of English, and we talk about books and movies a lot. Nothing too dramatic happened this week. Except that during a couple visits with this recient convert named M, she has been really down because of her family situation. A few weeks ago, we met her nephew F, who seemed like a really nice guy. He was staying at M´s house because his younger brother (who´s 19) killed a guy and now that guy´s friends and family are looking for F and his family to kill them in return. He told us that he had recently given up drugs and was really interested in changing his life. He doesn´t know how to read, but we´ve been teaching him and he´s been really good. Until a week ago, when he fell back into drugs, even stole from M to pay for them. And this isn´t the first time that this has happened, her other newphew Y did almost the exact same thing about a month before I got here. It was really hard to hear her, but then I remembered a Scripture in the Bible (Finally I´m seeing results from my painful reading of the Bible, ugh, endless verses on what to do when a cow falls in a pit), when Moses was praying to the Lord in Numbers 11, saying that this people (this Israelites) are so disobedient and hard to handle that Moses asks the Lord to kill him to end his suffering. Instead, The Lord tells Moses to gather together 70 men. This has two parts to it, first he told Moses to gather men together, meaning that we don´t have to face our problems alone, we have the Church to help us, and second, when we ask for the Lord´s help, he will return it on our heads 70 times over. It was really spiritual. Her whole countenance changed and she commited to come back to Church next week. I´d like to share my testimony with you all that God and Jesus Christ LOVE us, and whenever we need to feel this love, it is always there, because God is unchanging, he loves us today, he loved us yesterday, and he´ll love us tomorrow. 

Elder Blaylock

Brock - March 27

I´m being transferred! I´m going to the capital for the first time in like, 10 months! I´ll be in area called Jandira. Also, as was previously passed to me, but confirmed last week, is that this transfer will be a five week transfer. I feel really happy. I´ve been praying for about two weeks that I could pass through two more areas, and if I had stayed in Tatuí one more I think it would have been unlikely to pass through two more.

This week we found a really good young man. He´s seventeen, and he´s friends with one of the youth. This youth brought him to seminary, and he really liked it. We´ve taught him the first three lessons, and he´s doing really well. He´s actually marked to be baptized this weekend, during General Conference. 

Speaking of General Conference, I´m super excited for this one! I´ve just got a good feeling about this conference. I hope that each of you are preparing questions you want answered. 

It sounds like the church is really cracking down, putting the real important stuff into perpsective. The sacrament, the youth programs, prayer. It´s really great. After a certain point in the mission, I saw how much a lot of stuff in our lives (and in the church) can really distract us, or even drive us away, if we don´t understand the essentials. Stuff like "deep" doctrine, which is really just a bunch of personal opinions or theories on stuff that doesn´t matter. Or youth programs, not realizing that scouting and young women and stuff like that are to prepare us to be men and women, and to build our testimonies of Jesus Christ. Or spats with members, or callings, or anything silly like that. None of it matters, without faith, repentance, covenants made by ordinances performed by holders of the priesthood, and enduring to the end. In our multizone conference, President Farnes said something really interesting. He quoted that scripture, "Many are called, but few are chosen," but he said it a little differently. He said, "Many are made clean, or cured, but few are saved." To put this more into context, he referenced the story of the ten lepers. Ten men, blighted by leprosy, seek out the Master, that they might be made whole. Having mercy on them, he sends them on their way to the Levite priest, saying that doing thus would cure them. Having been cured, nine go on their way, rejoicing, but one turned back, to praise Christ and God. Jesus remarked:

17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?

18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.

19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

In Portuguese, instead of saying "thy faith hath made thee whole", it says "a tua fé te salvou.", or, "thy faith hath saved thee". So what was the difference? The ten were cleaned, but the one was saved. We, as members, have all been cleaned, when we were baptized. But we are saved when we are converted, when action, recognition, faith, are shown. I liked it a lot. 

I love you guys. I hope you all had a great week. I´ll be praying for you, Grandma & Grandpa. Hope you get better soon. 

Elder Blaylock

Parker - March 20

Hey Everyone! I don´t know if I  told you guys or not, but today we have transfers! I am going to be staying here, and my companion is going to northern Salta. I´m staying as junior companion, my new comp is going to be Elder A., who´s from Holland! So yeah, I´m going to be with a Dutch Elder, its going to be interesting. I haven´t met him yet cuz he´s getting in at 9:30 tonight. He´s coming from the same area that Elder L. is going to, so that´s weird. But yeah, other than that, Nothing super interesting has happened this week. Elder L. was pretty sure that he was leaving, so he made sure to say goodbye to everybody. When I hit this transfer, I felt weird, because I now have seven and a half months in the mission, which means that the sisters who are ending with me are just barely getting to the mission now. It´s a strange feeling. Time really does pass by really fast in the mission. I´m trying not to focus on it though, I´m just trying to stay diligent and obedient and try to be a good servant of the Lord. For some reason, this week I have been thinking a lot about obtaining knowledge through scripture study. I think that a lot of times when we read the scriptures, we say that we already know what this chapter is talking about, and we just read at the same level that we are used to. But the scriptures are referred to as containing the mysteries of god in them, if something is a mystery, we´re never gonna understand it until we look a little deeper and question. Not question the scriptures necessarily, but question our own understanding of them. It really is true that every time that we read  the scriptures we  get something new out of it, I am really grateful that I have this time in the mission to dedicate to studying the scriptures. I would like to invite all of you to really study the scriptures, not just get your daily reading out of the way. 

 

I love you all,

Elder Blaylock

PS Sorry about the early letter, but I´m gonna be sitting in the bus station  the whole afternoon, so we had to do it earlier

Brock - March 20

Well so this week has been interesting. The multi-zone conference that we had was really good. They talked a lot about repentance and potential. My companion went with the assistants. So I stayed with my district leader and his companion for most of the week. It was fun. Good to get out of my area for a bit, do some real work, live with four other missionaries (it simply is lonely with only two missionaries in a house). Then on Friday, we got a call from the secretaries. There was an elder that went home in January to do a surgery and had just been cleared by the missionary department. So Friday night, Elder A., from Natal, returned to the missionary field to be my companion. He´s good, mostly because he actually wants to be here. Like, to the point that he could have ended his mission with honor but chose to return and finish it out. He had about ten months when he left. 

So that was kind of my week. Not really sure what will happen with this coming transfer. Time is really starting to fly. I´m hoping that I leave so that I can have two more areas in the mission. I´m terrible at reading to face of the times, so I have no idea what could happen. Could get a pop fly into left field. Or a grounder. (baseball things and whatnot). 

Anyway, I love you guys. Glad to hear from you all, hope things are going well. 

Elder Blaylock

Super creepy child's toy that I saw this week: 

Me and my district leader:

My new companion feeding dogs:

Parker - March 13

Hey Everyone! Sounds like you guys have had a fun week. My week hasn´t been too exciting. Oh, something I forgot to mention last week was that I met a Russian Man. He is the wife of a less active member who is currently reactivating. It was weird to meet him because he`s very nice, but he doesn´t speak spanish very well, despite living here in Argentina for three years . He also speaks english just about as good as he does in spanish, so when he talks to us, he usually does it in Spanglish. We asked the zone leaders if they could get us a copy of the book of mormon in Cyrillic (the Russian alphabet), but they said it would take too much time, and reading it in spanish would help him improve his spanish. Oh well. But anyway, other than that, this week has been really rainy, and school started this week for them, so its been hard to work, because our apartment is right in front of a high school. Iit gets out just at the time where we should be leaving, that, coupled with the rain, has made it difficult to work well this week. And once again, we had a whopping zero number of investigators at sacrament meeting. Sigh. But then we had interviews with the President, where I expressed this concern, about how we have been teaching almost nothing but the Sabbath Day, and how all of our investigators say ´´Sí, seguramente voy a ir esta semana´´ (I`m definitely going this week) but come Sunday and nothing. And he asked me two very important questions. ´´Elder, ¿quién fue el mejor misionero?´´ (Who was the best missionary) ´´ Jesucristo´´ I respond ´´¿Y usted sabe cuantos bautismos tuvo él?´´ (And do you know how many baptisms he had). ´´Zero.´´ He then told me that the mission is not all about the results, what matters is that we teach with power and authority. He then explained that there is a difference between the two, and that authority is given to you by those who have it, power is earned by how you serve the people you have authority over. That completely changed my attitude, and it inspired me to try and be more obedient and try and be the best missionary I can be, no matter what the results are. I want to thank you guys for all of your support, it really means a lot to me. I love you all.

Elder Blaylock

Brock - March 13

3/13, or in other words, the day my comp decided to go home.

Yep. Once again, my companion wants to go home. Except this time he´s "decided", and no amount of talking will stop him. Some days high and some days low. I´d like it if he stayed in the mission---in another area. It´s just causing me too much of a headache. Tomorrow we have our multi-zone conference, so he´ll probably take his bags there and go home from there. I have no idea what will happen with me. 

Anyway, now that the cat´s out of the bag, how is everyone doing? Aside from dragging around my companion, we´ve actually had some good moments. The week before I forgot to mention that we had been to another English school, so that was pretty fun. We got a calendar from them. This past week right now we we´re at a different English school. That was...also fun. The students at the second one were kind of...weird. Like, looking at me weird. I don´t know. I felt uncomfortable there. 

On Sunday we baptized this little old lady named Maria. She knew two of the members in the branch for like twenty years, so she already has some friends. It all ran pretty smoothly, so that was good. 

This past week I was studying in Doctrine and Covenants, in section 136, where the Lord revealed His will regarding the journey towards Salt Lake to Brigham Young. I like verse 31.

 31 My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom.

I thought that was a pretty poignant part.

I love you guys, have a good week. 

Parker - March 6

Hey Everyone! 

We didn`t have a super interesting week. We`re mostly just searching through these lists of former investigators, trying to find new ones. We have found some people who look like they have potential. The problem is getting people to go to church though. We have like zero investigators at church every week. We literally spend the entire lesson about going to church and people say that they will, but come sunday, nothing. Sigh. Anyway, we got a new ward mission leader yesterday, he`s the son of the stake president who just got back from his mission a few weeks ago. Yeek! I don`t want that to happen to me, but he`s pretty cool, and he`ll be a great mission leader. Anyway, that`s all I have this week! Love you all, Bye!

Brock- March 6

This week was pretty good. We didn´t have a lot of success, but my companion isn´t feeling like going home anymore, so that´s good. This week has been a lot of back-and-forth rain/sun stuff. It´s been hot, hot, hot, and then the fear-inducing sound of the rain approaching. You can see it from about a mile away. True terror. Wall of water and the sound of about fifty snare drums.

Other than that we didn´t have a real landmark week. Lots of the same old same old. I finished the Book of Mormon again this week, which is always good. It´s interesting the things you notice the more times you read the scriptures. 

I was able to get my shoes fixed and put new wheels on my luggage.

It´s good to hear from everyone, glad you guys went on vacation. Hope you guys had a lot of fun. 

I love you guys, sorry I don´t have any more to write this week. 

Elder Blaylock