Storms & Conferences

We're at the crappy cyber this week so I won't be able to send pictures today.  Next week we'll go to the good one and I'll send some.

Last Monday night a big story came through Villa Angela and it was seriously like F5 quality.  The storm completely flooded our apartment and we stayed up until 3 trying to salvage all of our stuff and get the inch of water out of our pench.  Oh, and to top it off - whenever it thunders here the city kills the power.  So we did all of this with that little flashlight that Ty gave me.  That little thing is seriously a life saver.  But hey, we're alive and all is well.

On Tuesday we went to work and right as we stepped outside our gate we noticed that every single road in Villa Angela was under water.  So we went for a swim all day and got rejected all day.  We waded in water up to our knees for the first half mile or so before we finally got to some dry groud.  We seriously tried all day to find people all day but everyone would just say, "Oh, it's too wet today. or Maybe another day."  By 8:00 we were pretty frustrated.  We were tired, wet, cold and not having any success.  So we sat down and had one of those "Why is this so hard" conversations.  Then we remembered that we needed to pay our electric bill so we ran down to the place and they said that we had to wait until tomorrow.  It was just our luck that day, we even got rejected by the electric company!  So we decided to just sit on the curb and just say hi to people for a minute.  A few people passed by and this this one boy said hi to us.  We said what's up and didn't think too much of it.  About a minute later he came running back and sat and talked with us for a few minutes.  He told us how he wanted to learn about the church and that he wanted to change his life.  It was awesome!  I guess blessings do come after a little patience . . .

Wednesday wasn't my favorite day of the week.  I'd rather walk in a foot of water than mud.  The day after is always a strictly mud day since most of the water has been dried up.  So we walked in mud all day - actually we slipped and waddled in mud all day!  We also had a few lessons and it was a lot of fun!  We didn't have much choice, so we just made it fun!

Thursday we got up at 4 and jumped on a bus to Saenz Pena.  We had a multi zone conference and it was awesome!  President Heyman is a boss!  He talked to us about a lot of things I've been thinking about lately.  Such as "What would Jesus do? Say? Think?"  I know it's a quote from Transformers . . . but if we stop and think about the literal meaning of the quote, it's very profound.  How would Jesus teach people about the Restoration of the Gospel?

Friday was our last day to work for the week, so we got to work!  We spent a lot of time visiting the best people in Villa Angela!  We saw the Monzon family and talked with them about prayer - they're just the best. 

Saturday we took off for Seanz Pena for the District Conference.  We got there early so Humphries and I walked over to ChangoMas! (It's pretty much the Argentina version of Walmart.)  We bought some food and I got some peanut butter!  I was a little disappointed because it tastes nothing like the stuff we get in the states.  haha!

That night at the conference, President spoke on 3 things:
1.  Attending the temple and how important that is.
2.  How strengthening our testimony of the Book of Mormon will strengthen us.
3.  He then quoted President Hinkley and asked "What's the difference between the temple and the chapel?"  The Answer:  One dedicatory prayer.  Think about that.

He later told a story about two Elders from his mission that had 8 people lined up to be baptized!  So the Sunday before they fasted that the Lord would help them make this a spiritual experience for the people that were going to be baptized.  They did that and spent all day on Friday cleaning the font and that night realized that they didn't have enough baptismal clothes for 8 people!  So they spent all morning on Saturday running around to the other chapels trying to find clothes for all of them.  Then about an hour before the baptism they remembered that they had forgotten to fill the font!!!  They were the only ones with keys to chapel so they busted back to start filling it so they wouldn't have to delay the baptisms too much but when they opened the doors the font was already full.  President Heyman testified that this is the Lord's work, and He wants it done."

Sunday was just a good day.  We got a chance to sit down with President and have an interview.  We chatted for a few minutes and he told me some very insightful things about my role in this mission and our purpose as missionaries. 

I hope that Dad can share with his missionaries that the people who are baptized will have a chance to make it to the Kingdom of God.  But the people who have never been baptized by the CORRECT authority DON'T have a chance. 

President talked again at the conference and so did his wife.  It was very spiritual because a year ago today, Sister Heyman was just learning to walk again.  And I think that my life as a missionary an be hard sometimes?

That's about it for the week!  We spent a lot of time on busses and with the other Elders.  President Heyman is a good guy.

Have a good week!
I love you all!
La paz sea el viaje!!!!

Elder Harris