ANOTHER WEEK FLIES BY!

Hola a todos...


This week flew by so fast that I didn´t even notice it until it was over.  This week was really busy trying to balance all of my new district leader responsabilities on top of the usual missionary schedule.  There was a really great leadership meeting in the mission home but sadly the temple is under mantainence cleaning and we had no time to visit it either so it wasn´t that bad. In this leadership meeting that was all day yesterday... we really learned how we need to focus 100% on our objective to baptize... or in other words, we need to invite EVERYONE to be baptized, our investigators, the people we sit next to on the bus, and even the people that just walk past us in the streets, even if we are just going to buy groceries.  I felt the spirit so strongly in this meeting and I am super excited to put to practice all that we learned.

Today I was in charge of my first District meeting and it went really well.  I had to explain what I learned in the leadership meeting and help the missionaries in my district to know and feel what they needed to be more diligent in inviting all they meet to be baptized.

We are really excited and a little nervous because it´s hard enough to talk with the people here that we don´t know or worse have talked to already and have already been rejected by them and even harder to break our comfort zone and just invite them to be baptized but just in two hours last night of applying this new challenge, we were amazed how many people said that ¨Sí¨when we invited them to be baptized in the first contact that we have with them. It´s helped me break my own barriers and fears to cry repentence unto my brothers and sisters here in Uruguay.

It´s good to hear that mom´s surgery went well and that she is on the way to a steady recovery.  I love you all so much and hope that you are continuing to do scripture study and prayers together although you have busier schedules or a lot of pain, I´m sure you already are, but we need to remember to never stop, especially in the difficult times, that´s when we need the blessings the most.

Thanks for the letters and package from the primary and youth, I just received them today.  These things make a missionary a happy missionary and they always seem to arrive right after a hard time.... This week was a tough one because we were so excited to baptize Americo this week, but he went super downhill in these last week. He got into a big fight with his older sister which he was living next door to(and he hadn´t been taking his medication like he needs to) and got really mad and over reacted to the point of hitting his sister in the face with a shovel and got in trouble with the police, and got off with a last warning. Then he didn´t come to church again. We don´t have many hopes for him in the near future now. But we are positive that we will find someone in this week to accept a baptismal date especially when we are going to be inviting every single person that we meet to be baptized.

Thank you once again and I love you all.

Don´t forget to smile!

Love,
Elder Gardner