Sebastian's Baptism and big scary spiders!

"...The baptism (that's right...baptism!) was awesome!!! Everyone we talk to says they have never seen anything like it. There are always stories of miracle investigators, but I didn't think I wold actually get to be part of teaching one! He asked elder brooks to baptize him, so I got to watch and be a witness. It was interesting to see him as he cam out of the water, very emotional, but I could also see his tattoos through his shirt. He didn't go into great detail about his life before he met us, but we pretty much know that he was not involved with the greatest crowd and did some stupid stuff. He has an 18 month old daughter, and my theory is that when she was born, he looked at his life and realized he was a mess. He started studying with various religions, including the testigos (JW). Then his friend, who was baptized last january, introduced him to the church, but specifically to us. After a completely random/divinely arranged meeting in the street, he started learning about the gospel. I think I mentioned I wasn't present for his first lesson due to divisions, but we saw him pretty much every day last week, and will continue to do frequent visits until his confirmation on Sunday (for which he is very excited). He is without a doubt the most prepared person I have ever met. Teaching him isn't really teaching. All we do is tell him about a doctrine, then he just runs with it an instantly understands why things are a certain way. Honestly, he already knows all the answers, we just give him a little push every once in a while. Thus far, his biggest doubt was the use of a certain word, and only because he didn't understand what it meant. I just can't say enough about it! I am very grateful for the opportunity tI had to be part of his conversion process. He bore his testimony at the baptisms, and after expressing gratitude to everyone who came (which was a lot! Including his father and brother) he said, I know that this church is true, and nothing else matters! It was so perfect.  .....I mentioned his tattoos earlier because of a story elder brooks told me about another convert. He literally had satan tattooed on his back and arm, but was baptized. Such is the forgiveness of God, that he will let even a man with satan on his back enter into the waters of baptism and be eligible to receive eternal life!" 

"...I almost had a minor panic attack the other day...we were eating lunch at a members home and I randomly glanced up to the ceiling to see a very large spider. Then I saw another, then another, then another...in all, there were about 8-10 very large spiders hanging out a few feet above our heads... scariest moment of my mission. Then if thats not enough, last night as I was laying in bed after lights out, I thought I saw something moving on the wall next to my head. There was just enough light coming in from the neighbors to see another very large spider cruisin down the wall towards me. I freaked out...Elder brooks made fun of me. I decided that I pretty much don't like anything that crawls, including scorpions." 

This was Elder Rau's caption for the above picture: "How we deal with spiders ... we have not yet resorted to flame, but I'm not too far off..."

A great story from this week....

"We had district meeting on Tuesday. While my comp and another DL were preparing the meeting, I was doing comp study with another elder. While we were studying, (at the church) a member dropped in and introduced his friend, Sebastian, to my comp and the other elder. He showed mild interest. Wednesday morning, as we were walking down a street that has never yielded a successful contact, we saw a guy feeding a hourse...Edler Brooks said he looked like legolas... so as we prepared to contact him, he turned to us and said hola hermanos! It was Sebastian! He walked with us all the way to his friend's house and talked to Elder Brooks (I couldn't hear what was going on) and gave him his whole story. Just a few months ago he was involved in all sorts of junk including drugs, but had a big spiritual experience and cleaned up and decided to search for the true church of Christ!!!!!! We set up an appointment for Thursday afternoon.

We had divisions on Thursday/Friday, so I was in another area and a Zone leader was here and he went with E Brooks to see him. Apparently, it was the most amazing lesson ever and he is now set to be baptized on the 9th after church (because he needs to attend church twice before baptism)!!! He is the most golden person ever! I finally got to sit down with him on Saturday morning. He is reading more than what we assign him and already has a testimony of everything we have asked him to pray about. The lessons are actually really hectic for me because he can't just sit and listen, he has so many questions and is so excited about everything that he justs keeps talking the whole time. To make this long story a little shorter, I'll just say he showed up early to the baptism (an 8 year old baptism the elders took charge of) to tell us he couldn't make it, but met a few members. He came to church (all 3 hours) and made friends with another member who will likely baptize him. He came to our fireside that night where we watched the testaments and he was crying at the end. Also, he is 22 and had the attention of some single sisters i the ward..haha! Honestly, everything is so perfect, I can't even believe it. He has friends and the members are doing such a good job of taking care of him. We hardly spoke to him at the fireside. We will more than likely see him every day this week. He is having some family problems, but they in no way are affecting his choice to be baptized.

He will be baptized about two weeks after our initial contact. He is completely opposite from Daniel. Daniel was talking his time and wanted to know everything before his baptism, but Sebastian is ready now and wants it so bad. All the elders in the city are way jealous and tell us that they have never seen anything like it." 

Rain!

Here is a story from Elder Rau's letter from last week....

"I think I mentioned last time that it has been raining quite a lot...that statement is still true. Of course, we got caught in the worst of it, haha. We were out just after the siesta and were about 8-10 blocks from the church when the sprinkling got a little more intense and the wind picked up. Before we knew it, we were running to find shelter. The good news is that there is a kiosco every 50 feet here, so we took shelter under a little awning. Eventually the wind shifted and we were forced to run to another. By this time we were completely soaked, so we pretty much just waited for it to let up just a little bit, then started to walk to the church. You wouldn't believe how much water was moving down the street! It was seriously a river. Little kids were trying to fight the current in the gutter, and I actually thought one of them was going to eat it, and the possibility of him drowning actually existed!"

Daniel's Baptism!

Here is part of Elder Rau's letter from today:

"Daniel got baptized on saturday and everything went according to plan! The baptism was awesome and his confirmation on Sunday was equally cool. However, the week leading up to the baptism did not go as planned. We went out to his house last Saturday and had an amazing lesson. Tuesday was a little different. He was feeling a little conflicted and confused about how he was feeling. He thought that he needed more time. We explained that he was probably just feeling a little nervous and it was perfectly normal. He was also having trouble sleeping and wasn't sure that he was ready. This is where the spirit took over. This was the most powerful and spiritually guided lesson of my mission thus far. The promptings were so clear and made so much sense. I was learning as I was speaking to him. My spanish wasn't perfect, but it improved significantly. We explained that maybe this was just a trial of his faith. Maybe the Lord was testing him to see if it really was a desire of his heart. We also shared some personal experiences that related to how he was feeling. At the end of the lesson, he still wasn't feeling awesome, and this feeling continued until his interview on Thursday. It was an hour long. One of our zone leaders, Elder Kibler, did an awesome job in the interview, because he felt better still afterwards. He still wasn't sleeping well.....Saturday morning we called him and he was on board, 100% and ready to go. The baptism went forward and was almost perfect. the only thing that was wrong was our starting time. We started ten minutes late...not bad huh? Elder Brooks (who is still my companion...and will be until about november 12th) said it was the smoothest baptism he has ever seen. I was privileged to be the one to baptize him. There is so much power i that ordinance. I felt the spirit so strongly as I raised my arm to the square and called him by name, then performed the ordinance in the name of the Father, the So and the Holy Ghost. I still can't really describe my emotions, but it was an experience that I will never forget." 

Elder Rau cleaning dead cockroaches out of the font

Elders Brooks and Rau with Daniel

A picture of their church building

Letters to Home

Part of a letter from Elder Rau on 9/30

Daniel is doing really well. We had to re-commit him to baptism. This has happened before, obviously because he has been investigating for over a year, but instead of saying I will try, he said, I want to!!!! This came after an awesome lesson in which we were able to explain very thoroughly what it means to have a testimony and all of that good stuff. He finally has the desire to make his covenant and he will be able to make it on the 11th of this month. We have been watching some of the segments from special witnesses of Christ, and he enjoys them and I think will be able to watch most of conference this coming week. We get it live feed here, which means we are going to be home late on Saturday night. Even better, the elders get to watch it in ENGLISH!!!

We have some big news with one of our menos activo families! They came to Church!!!!!!! Its been almost a year and a half since the last time they came. He is such a stud, spiritually. Every time we go over to see them (we eat with them every other Sunday) he bears his testimony and talks about his mission. I guess they just had a lot of bad experiences with the members and their feelings got hurt so bad that they just didn't want to go to church anymore because they got offended every time. Now they realize that the people don't make the church true!! We are really excited for them. 

The work continues and is still true! Miracles happen every day and I know that the lord is mindful of his children here. He is preparing them and us so that we can meet and we can help them return to him. I'm so grateful for my testimony and the chance that I have to share it. I konw that Moroni's promise works, and that it can work for anyone!

Part of a letter from Elder Rau on 10/6 

So general conference was pretty much amazing! We got to watch all five sessions even though priesthood got over at 11 and we were only allowed to go to sunday afternoon if we had an investigator present (we were waiting for about 10 but Daniel is the only one that came). We definitely learned a lot about how we can improve the quality of our work here. President Monson's talk about finding joy in the journey was especially important for me. I also really enjoyed the entire session of Saturday afternoon. Elder Worthlin and Elder Corbridg's talks were really awesome, and Elder Holland was also very powerful. I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but the words of the prophets have taken on a lot more importance while I have been on my mission so far. Maybe I didn't study them enough before the mission, but right now I love listening to and learning from living prophets. 

Last weeks letter

I forgot to do a post last week so here it is! 

A lovely picture of Elder Rau with his shower in the background. :)

Elder Rau sitting on (but not using he was sure to specify) the toilet while doing the dishes. In case anyone is wondering, I think the reason he hasn't sent any pictures of the people over there is that he's not allowed to bring his camera when they go out teaching. 

Here's some of his letter:

"...As far as an average day here...We get up at 6:30, have comp prayer, then personal prayer. Then we plug in the shower and wait for it to heat up... Elder brooks showers first and I pretty much eat breakfast then get down to personal study. By the time we are both showered and studied and everything, its about 9:00-9:15. We then plan and head out. We have a lot of investigators and so we do everything we can to see as many as we can, but we do a lot of walking so we can only do so much. They usually are not home, and our backups usually fall through, (so we are working on setting solid appointments) and so we just knock doors until our next scheduled thing. Lunch is at 12:30 to 1:30, then we do language study and comp study because its in the middle of the siesta. We leave the pencion at around 4, then do the same thing (knock and go to appointments) until about 9."

"This week we had zone conference, and it was awesome! I got to see Elder Redmon from my mtc group, but no one else. We had a good time swapping stories and stuff and got some really good counsel from the president and assistants and zone leaders. Unfortunately, it was all in Spanish, so I didn't get as much out of it as there was to get, but I still think I did pretty well. the language is still coming along very well. I understand almost everything, but just don't have the confidence to try and talk back. I think I figured out how the gift of tongues works. I have found that my initial thoughts about how a phrase should work are usually right, but I disregard them and over think it. So, basically, I believe that a lot of first impressions are from the spirit, and if I can figure out how to really listen and use them, I will not only be able to speak the language better, but also be way more sensitive to the general promptings of the spirit."

Milenesa

I found this picture of Milenesa - Elder Nate's favorite Argentine food so far. I also found a recipe on recipezaar.com at http://www.recipezaar.com/78573 I think I'm going to try it. From the little research I did, I think there are several different forms of milenesa - using different meats (pork, chicken and beef) and different toppings. Wouldn't it be so fun to get the recipe from the sister that is feeding Nate every wednesday? Maybe I'll ask him to get it for me... :)