Quote of the week:

"The Lord doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called"


Monday, March 11, 2013

Week 84, Venado Tuerto, Argentina








Alrighty, so this week was pretty good! Last Tuesday we had zone conference in Pergamino, a city about 2 hours away, so we had to wake up at 3:00am to make the bus by 4:30am. We got to the conference and we were able to enjoy the talks by the assitants and President. One of the assistants gave a great workshop on teaching people instead of teaching lessons. He said that people are like a combination lock. We must find out how to open them up. We must pray for, study for, and love the people we teach. We had a cool experience on Saturday with this. During the week we had gone by a couple that we're teaching. They weren't really progressing and I was starting to think if we should keep visiting them or not. She asked us about praying to saints and she explained that she was Catholic and had always prayed to saints. She said, "If I get baptized, it's like I wont be Catholic then." We both felt that they needed to understand the Restoration of the gospel one more time. We had to leave for another appointment so we set another appointment with them for another time. So, we prayed, studied, and showed up. We read from the 10 commandments that God gave to Moses that we shouldn't worship anything else besides God and she seemed to understand. But she wasn't totally convinced but of course she wasn't, after 30 years of doing something, we were the first people to tell her it's not okay. I kind of forget how the topic came up but we introduced the restoration again. This time, they understood. The spirit was able to testify through us that what we were saying was true. They finally got it. They understood how God shows his love by calling prophets. They understood how Christs church fell like a piece of glass because the people rejected it. They understood that with that fall, God took his authority from the earth for a time until we were ready again to recieve it. They understood that many churches started looking for the truth but couldn't find it without a prophet from God. THEN, they understood how God restored his church by calling a prophet in our time. I don't remember the words we shared. At the end we shared our testimonies and invited them to get baptized. They said they are going to read and pray and if God answers them they'll get baptized. 

I love this work. I love teaching. I love being a missionary (even though it's sooo stressful). I love these people and I love all of you!

Elder Hjelmstad



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