Miracles in May

We started the second week of May off with revelation.  We were contemplating how to reach the in-actives here and convert them and the current active members more to the Lord.  We've realized that there is way more work then we can do alone and that we can't bring members back to activity on our fellowshipping skills alone, not permanently anyways and that is what we want.  We were inspired to find an old talk by Elder Uchdoft from October 2016 general conference - Learn from Alma & Amulek.

It was the perfect talk for what we are doing here and we will be referring to it when working with leaders in each of the branches.  We had a family home evening on Monday with the Menchie family from  Branch 1 and this talk was our lesson.  Brother Menchie is on the high council assigned to the Young Men and Elder Rhoades is working with him on finding and activating the young men.  We were given a list of 151 names of young men in the entire district between the ages of 18-25 (mission age) to locate and determine whom we can help to bring back to activity.  The district has only 3 young men serving full-time missions currently and their goal is to have 15.  So there is a lot of work to do.  Most of the branches have very few active Aaronic Priesthood holders as well.  Sister Menchie is the Relief Society president in Branch 1.  They are a great family.  They have a son who is one of the 3 full-time missionaries.  He is serving in Brazil and will return in November of this year.  The lesson was received well by them.

We have hired Maria and her son, Ricardo to come to our house every other Monday and help us with cleaning.  We have to wash our own vehicle, keep our apartment clean and the garden we have out back is our responsibility to maintain.  It takes up a lot of our time on Monday just to handle those responsibilities, let alone the shopping, mailing the mission president our weekly report and doing our weekly planning.  That is part of the reason for not keeping up on the blog.  Maria is very thorough and my house was sparkling when she was done.  Our car was extremely dirty due to the wet weather and mud roads so it took quite awhile for Ricardo to get the car clean both inside and out.  This family is living without running water and electricity in just a make-shift shack in the backyard of a relative.  We are hoping this bit of work will help them earn a bit more money so they can afford to rent a place of their own.  We also hoping we can act as references for Maria as she tries to get other cleaning jobs.

We met with our in-active families this week. Javier and Denisa we have challenged to read the Book of Mormon each day this month together.  We are hoping they will feel the spirit and that Denisa will gain a testimony of the book.  We promised them an American meal if they do not miss a day during the month.  We had a great lesson with them and Javier shared with us a spiritual experience he had while reading.  Javier is an in-active member and his wife is a non-member.  We have promised him if he will come back to activity and live the gospel, we believe his wife will see the difference and then follow his lead.  That is the goal.

We also continue to work with Norma and we did another Family Home Evening with the Lucarelli's, the part-member family where the husband was a former fireman.  This time we invited them over to our house and fixed them a meal.  Our message was about service using the King Benjamin address in Mosiah. So far we've gone easy on Eduardo Lucarelli as we are wanting to build a relationship with him first.  He has met with a lot of missionaries over the years, but has not been willing to be baptized a member...yet.

We met with two inactive sisters, Alicia,the mom and Claudia, her daughter.  Alicia was more open to us than Claudia.  Claudia seems to have had some negative experiences with the members.  But they were kind enough to invite us over for a pizza lunch this week.  Alicia is a seamstress and she offered to repair a pair of pants for Elder Rhoades.  Of course she would not let us pay her, saying she wanted the blessings in heaven rather than the money.  We learned that Alicia was giving the Relief Society lesson on Sunday so we made sure to attend the second hour there to support her.  She did a great job.  She did not teach like an in-active.  We are going to need to follow up with her and get better acquainted with her story.  She has a great knowledge of the gospel and testimony.

We have started working with the Arana family in the San Martin Branch.  Brother Arana has been called into the branch presidency.  But prior to this, he was the ward mission leader and had some great ideas for a missionary activity so we wanted to support him and make that happen.  His wife, has been called as the Relief Society president and has a great missionary spirit.  They are wonderful to work with.  We have set up June 1 for a Family Home Evening in their ward.

We have also started working with the Sanchez family.  We met them at a Family Home Evening held in Branch 3.

Sister Rhoades playing the Family Home Evening game at Branch 3.  There were two teams, one with ties and one without ties.

The Sanchez family are recent converts.  They were baptized about a month ago, so just as we got here to Venado Tuerto.  Both the husband and wife were baptized and two of their four children.  The two older boys are 11 and 10.  Their daughters are younger than 8.  We heard about how the father had a very powerful spiritual experience when receiving the missionary discussions.  He had a word of wisdom problem that he didn't believe he would be able to resolve.  The elders teaching him suggested a fast to help him.  He agreed to do it but with little faith himself.  He says it really was the faith of the elders that must have worked because he really didn't believe it was possible for him to change.  But that fast worked and his ability to keep the word of wisdom changed overnight.  The mother is dynamite.  She is so converted and has high expectations for her family.  The challenge will be for her to have patience with the others as they try to keep up with her.  We are reviewing with them the missionary discussions.  They are a joy to meet with.  Next post we will need to include a photo of the family.

Our English class student, Louisa is part of a miracle that we witnessed this week on Friday night after the English class.

We have another in-active sister who happens to live 2 blocks from Louisa.  This in-active sister had carpal tunnel surgery on both hands on May 2nd.  We've been checking up on her through text messages and finally we were able to set up an appointment right after the English class to take her some canoles for a prepared meal and see how she was doing.  Since she lives close to Louisa and we were giving Louisa a ride home, we invited her to come with us to visit this sister.  Louisa agreed.  It turned out that Louisa knew the husband of Loreta (the sister who had surgery) and grew up with him, knows his whole family in fact.  So this set off a catch-up conversation between her and the husband.  Louisa is a retired social worker and so she spent some time discussing with the husband some options to help him with his disability (he has an amputated leg and uses a prothesis).  This also established a comfortable atmosphere for all.  Soon it came out in the conversation that both sisters were in-active and yet they shared with each other their past involvement in the church, including callings.  Both have many talents and skills and have been heavily involved in church service in the past.

The next thing we know, Louisa is telling Loreta she needs to be going to church because it is important to renew your covenants each Sunday and be faithful and true to your covenants.  She admitted that she is wanting to return to activity within the church and was planning on attending the coming Sunday.  Keep in mind, Louisa is an in-active sister and yet she was being the missionary!  Elder Rhoades and I just looked at each other in amazement and we were thinking the same thing -- we have found an Amulek! (refer to Elder Uchtdoft's talk - Learn from Alma and Amulek, Oct 2016)

In that talk, Elder Uchdorf talks about using the in-actives and inviting them to return and serve within the church.  This is exactly what we did that night, and Louisa was ready for it.  The Lord had been preparing her and she did a much better job than we would have done visiting Loreta that night.  She was just the right person to visit with them.  As we left the home, I gave Louisa a big hug as we walked to the car and thanked her for coming and told her she had been a big help that night!  And sure enough, she came to church on Sunday!

Saturday we got over to the Boy Scout camp and Dave was finally able to visit with some of the leaders and we watched as the kids worked on the activities for the day.  Here are some photos we took of the group.

Sign at the entrance to the Boy Scout encampment

Uniform badge

 Middle age group leaders

 The wolf pack flag.  They have both boys and girls participating in the scout program here.

The wolf group giving a wolf howl. 

 The middle aged group.  Our new convert, Zaida, is part of this group.  She is seated on the right behind the girl with the black and pink jacket wearing a grey T-shirt.

Dave talks with the oldest group of scouts.  They had just completed constructing that table for the camp site.

Spiritual Thought for the Week:  Our beloved Savior knows where you are. He knows your heart. He wants to rescue you. He will reach out to you. Just open your heart to Him. It is my hope that those who have strayed from the path of discipleship—even by only a few degrees—will contemplate the goodness and grace of God, see with their hearts, and hear the life-changing words of the Savior: “Come, follow me.”  I urge you to heed His call, for surely you will receive the harvest of heaven. The blessings of the Lord will rest upon you and your house.  --"Learn from Alma & Amulek"  President Dieter F Uchdoft  Oct 2016 Priesthood session