We Will Glory in the Lord

Sharing the Love in Arroyito

Valentine's Day Wedding in Arroyito

Wowzers!  This week was jam packed with experiences and I will try my best to cover it in this short period of time-

On Tuesday we had a district meeting and we set the goal to have 6 baptisms within the 4 of us in this transfer. We prayed together and felt like this is possible and that God can help us achieve this goal. In the entire year of 2016, there were only 2 convert baptisms in Arroyito, but we are truly witnessing a great change in the ward and in our investigators! 

This week if all goes well we will have two baptisms! With many changes setting the day and the time and invitation craziness, we are back on good terms and will have the baptisms this Friday!! The two baptisms are 2 young women. One is the daughter of Viky and Roberto- her name is Lucia (13 years old)!! We started teaching her a bit over a week ago and she has been coming to church with her parents. Well she has just loved young women's and has participated in many activities and is excited to take this important step in her life! And in this whole process, Viky has been supporting her so much and coming to church with her even when Roberto had to work! And Viky and Roberto have talked about marriage and are planning to get married in April and Viky will get baptized after! The change that I have seen in their family over my time here in Arroyito brings me to tears! I love them so much! 

The second young woman is Fiorela (14 years old). She is the daughter of a less active member (who is not in our ward records).  It was a miracle on how I met them. It happened in the beginning of January and I was walking a busy street with hna de wet, a street where normally people reject our cards or they take our them and race walk on their way without a second glance. As I was in the middle of a conversation with hna de wet, I felt prompted to give this family a card, but at this point we had already passed them, luckily only a few seconds. So I gave them a card and told them that we are missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and begin the routine of explaining the card and how they can enter in the website.. well Hna Marilyn (Fiorela's mom) says yes, I know who you are. She told us about how she joined the church when she was also a young woman. She lived in the US for about 10 years, but it had been a while since she had attended church. She gave us her address and told us that she would like her daughter to get to know young women but that they would be super busy moving in the next few weeks and to visit in about three weeks. So we passed by weeks later and had a hard time contacting them. We caught them one day and Fiorela agreed to come to church with us. Since then, she has come to church 3 times and this week as we have been teaching her, Marilyn has shared her story and helped us in teaching. She said that she used to go out with the sister missionaries back in the states. She knows that the church is true and she is realizing even more so now that she wants her daughter to have this foundation in her life!!! 

So we will have the baptisms this Friday and we still have to teach the two of them a fair amount before their baptisms and interviews and such so it will be another packed week, and we found out Saturday that we will have divisions this week as well, for 5 days, starting today until Friday afternoon! Hna Moore will be leaving to another area and Hermana Billin will be joining me here! The timing of everything has got me a bit scared and President is trying this new division thing out on us but we are praying everything will work out as planned!!! 

We are seeing countless miracles every day. Like when an old investigator and young woman, randomly texts us Sunday morning asking if we can walk with her to church. Or when we were finally about to teach and set a baptismal date with an investigator who is incredible but always working, or when a sister in the church showed me her instagram and her adorable pics (gotta love IG it's been too long!!), or when we have an excuse to visit Sheila now because she needs help with english, and of course we share the gospel as well. It was a good week. And we we had another great Sunday yesterday with 5 investigators in church! 

God is so good!! I echo the words of Ammon and I know that God is the man behind all these miracles that we are seeing. 16 Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.

The Young Women of Arroyito

Alma 26:16

Our New District

Have a wonderful week! 

Hermana Mathis