Elder Aguirre

Dear friends and family,

Well transfers have come and gone and I've stayed here in Joliet but Elder Wightman has moved onto bigger and better things. My new companion's name is Elder Aguirre, he's from Phoenix AZ and he already speaks Spanish, so that was a huge blessing!

I've set a goal to become proficient in Spanish as soon as humanly possible and so I've given up English and I've been reading, writing, studying, praying, and dreaming in Spanish. Now with Elder Aguirre, we are going to start speaking Spanish 100% of the time (unless we need to contact and English person). If my emails suffer because of this, apologies are being given now in advance.

We started out this week on bicycles and we had to finish this week in the car (see pictures below...). In less words, we had a little whoopsie and now Elder Wightman's old bike tire has a permanent smile.

Other than that, we've been implimenting this goal that our Zone has had of handing out two Books of Mormon and inviting someone to be baptized everyday and we have seen so many miracles from it. Many times we have walked around all day trying to find someone and as we walk to the car, ready to give up, we find someone at the last second. It's been a great week and we have asked almost everybody that we've seen to be baptized. That's been fun!

I'll end today with a spiritual highlight. I was reading in the scriptures this week in Alma 3:27 where it says...

       27 For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey, and this according to the        words of the spirit of prophecy; therefore let it be according to the truth. And thus endeth            the fifth year of the reign of the judges.

I don't know why, but this verse hit me big time; and I wrote down right next to it, "Whose wages do I want? Christ's." I think that it's really simple. If we obey Christ, we'll recieve the blessings that he can give us and that he already has in store for us. If we trust him, those blessings are ours. On the other hand, if we serve ourselves and do what we want to do, then the only wages we will reap will be the wages that we can provide for ourselves. On the other other hand, if we serve Satan, we can expect to recieve exactly what he has in store for us...which if I'm correct has a lot to do with "weeping and wailing and knashing of teeth..." Not what I'm looking for.

I love you all and I hope that you have a fantastic week. Thank you for your love and for your prayers. I hope that these emails are helping at least someone and I hope you all know that our Heavenly Father love each and every one of us. I know that to be true!

Elder Arkoudas

 Elder Hanks' birthday cake

 Elder Aguirre and his trophy

 Last picture of the 'Power House'

Eddie Got Baptized!!!

Dear friends and family,

So much has happened this week! One of our Zone Leaders was asked to be an assistant and so some things got changed around and we ended up in a trio with Elder Hanks--one of the English Elders here. We ended up running both areas for about half the week and got to go to two sacrament meetings. It's been a lot of work, but trios are always so much fun!

This was also the week of storms! We tried to take pictures and videos, but they just don't do it justice. One night we went to stop by to see Maria Luna (one of our investigators; see picture below) and you could see a very large wall of black clouds coming at us really quickly. It started to rain lightly and Maria started to freak out a little bit and ran inside and told us to come back later. By the time we had said goodbye, the light sprinkle had turned into a complete monsoon and we had parked about 3 blocks away. We all broke out into a sprint and by the time we got to our car, we were soaked and laughing uncontrollably. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't even get the keys to unlock the car out so we sat even longer in the monsoon. It was a crazy storm!

On Tuesday we got a call from the Elders up in Rockford and they told us that our investigator Eddy was getting baptized on Saturday. We were doing service at the Food Pantry at the time of the call and I might have shouted and leapt for joy when I heard that. Whatever...everyone there thinks we're crazy anyway.

It was so cool and so much fun to get to go up to Rockford again and it was so good to see all of those members again. The thing that impacted me the most was Eddie's wife Zaira. When I left she always looked tired and sad and I don't think I ever saw her smile; but she was smiling the whole time we were up there! Eddie changed a ton too and it was the most powerful baptismal service I have ever been to.

Just a cool story from today: we went to Steak and Shake for lunch today (the Guacamole steakburger is sooo good) and as we were sitting there eating, this man came up to us and asked if he could buy our lunch. He said, "I'm not mormon, but I know who you are and I know that you're good people." That was such a blessing to find some nice people in the world and Elder Wightman even said something like, "I didn't know that people like that lived here."

I know that this church is true and that the best way to be a missionary is just to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. By being friendly and by serving others, we represent our Savior and I'm so greatful for this time to be doing just that. The Church is so true and I love each and every one of you. Thank you for all that you do for me and have a blessed week.

Elder Arkoudas

 [Future] Elder Luis Gastelum

Illinois cornfield after the monsoon.

 Maria Luna (she's such a stinker and will never take pictures with us. But we can speak in English and she doesn't understand and so we conspired against her. This was the best one we got)

 Eddie's baptism

 After the monsoon

Bi-polar Emails

Friends and Family,

I am so bi-polar with my emails, but this week was fantastic! We decided to just start over with our area and went through all of our investigators, asking them if they would one day be baptized. We're still working with those who said yes and we had to let some of them go, but it was a nice clean start. Along with letting some go, we had some extra time to find more people, and we have started inviting people to be baptized in most cases from the very first contact. If they say yes (or maybe) we set up a return appointment; if they say no, we find someone else. It might seem a little harsh, but we have seen so many miracles by doing that.

We met this one lady Sandra in Taco Bell a couple weeks ago and she said that we could come over another time. We visited her and she is so prepared. She is coming to church this Sunday and she told us she was going to read the whole Book of Mormon.

Last night we were walking around a spanish neighborhood at around 7:45 with a goal of inviting someone to be baptized before we went home. We found this little old hispanic lady carrying 5 gallon buckets of water to water her plants and offered to help her. We ended up spending 15-20 minutes of our precious finding time to help this lady water all of her flower beds (this lady really liked flowers), which was totally fine, but both Elder Wightman and I were thinking, "Lord, thank you for this opportunity to serve, but can you please help us find someone to invite to be baptized?" As we finished watering, we gave the lady a Restoration pamphlet and her neighbor across the fence shouted over to us asking us for one too. Thank you Heavenly Father.

We went over and taught this guy Manuel. Gave him a Book of Mormon and we're going to visit him tonight also. Oh, and we invited him to be baptized and he said yes!

So all in all, it's been a complete flip from last week and looking back, it was a great learning experience. I think that sometimes we look at trials and think, "how can I ever learn something from this!?" but it always happens. We always come out a little better and a little stronger.

I know this Church is true and that Jesus is our Savior. The more we learn about Him and the more we try to follow Him, the more peace and happiness we feel. It's as simple as that.

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sincerament,

Elder Arkoudas

 Look who I found

Spanish Elders

Hope of Israel

Quieridos Amigos y Familiares,

This week has been a struggle to say the least! We've probably worked harder than I ever have before on my mission but it seemed like we went backwards in progress.

We had over 5 people on date for the 29th of July and we invited another 21 people this week but one by one, they either lost interest, or didn't keep their committments. Man, it has been a struggle this week!

Saturday we started out with the goal of inviting 10 people to be baptized and dedicated an entire day to just riding our bikes around and talking to everyone that we saw. For the first 3 or so hours, we were rejected by almost every single person. After about 3 hours we found a couple walking down the road, we talked to them, invited them to be baptized and they said no. As the day progressed, we continued talking to everyone and everyone continued to say no. We found a few people with some potential and all in all, it was a very fulfilling day but we didn't see any of the success we were hoping for (I promise that this email will get better:).

Sunday we had a lesson with our investigator Christian who was by far the most solid of the bunch, but he said that he didn't feel right about being baptized. We tried talking to him, but ultimately he said that he felt more comfortable staying with his parents in the Catholic church. As you can imagine, we were pretty distraught. We were then driving to stop by a potential investigator and I felt prompted to knock this door. We parked a little ways down the street and walked up to this house. When the man answered the door, he told us pretty frankly that they weren't interested and turned us away. I'll be honest, I was pretty upset! We were walking down the block back to our car and my mood was down in the gutters; I felt like giving up! I think both Elder Wightman and I were feeling pretty down when all of a sudden, my mouth just started singing "Hope of Israel", pretty loud and in the middle of the street. I literally have no idea where it came from but it just kept getting louder and louder until Elder Wightman joined in and we were both just belting out this hymn in the middle of this neighborhood.

All feeling of depression, failure, and negativity left in an instant and we were both smiling and beaming as we continued the rest of that night.

I have such a testimony of the power of music and more important than that, the power of God over the power of Satan. I was reading in Ether this week, chapter 6 where it talks about the brother of Jared building barges and then casting off to an unknown world, "...commending themselves unto the Lord their God." (Ether 6:4). It then goes to talk about how "...when they were encompassed about by many waters they did cry unto the Lord, and he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters." (Ether 6:7) That's how we kind of felt this week: encompassed about by many waters--maybe even with our heads under the water--but I can testify that the Lord delivers us when we put our trust in Him and when we cry unto Him; even if it's only through a hymn.

I promise a more cheerful, uplifting email next week, but I want you all to know that I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. There is nothing that brings you closer to Him than struggling, and a desire to be better. I hope you all know that I love you and that I appreciate your prayers and your support.

With Love,

Elder Arkoudas

Pic. We made PAPUSAS. Mmmm...

The Love of Christ

Hola queridos familiares y amigos,

Well funny story: about 5 hours ago I had typed up a nice email--all in Spanish--to send out for all to enjoy. I don't know what happened to that email, but I had put a lot of heart and soul into it and it is nowhere to be found. So for the sake of time, I'll stick to English.
Now that I think about it, that whole plan totally backfired because the point of that email was so that you could see just how "finely tuned" my Spanish abilities are, but now you see that I'm just too lazy to write it again. Oh well;)

As for this week, it was absolutely fantastic! And absolutely tiring. I don't think I've ever been so tired, stressed, and happy in my entire life. Weird right?

Jose Carlos and Marlene got baptized and Jose Carlos asked me to baptize him. It was such a cool experience and I am really greatful for the chance I had to do that. It was a struggle though, let me tell you!

Thursday we got a call from Marlene telling us that she was going to have to work Sunday. Ahhh! We asked her to find someone to cover her shift and to pray a lot and luckily, the next day, she called us again and told us that her manager would cover her shift so that she could be confirmed on Sunday. That was problem number 1.

Saturday rolled around and about 30 minutes before the baptism, we get another call from Marlene saying that her car tire had locked up and she couldn't drive to the chapel. Seriously Satan... But God is so much more powerful than Satan and our branch mission leader happened to be driving by Marlene at the exact moment that she was in trouble and he gave her a ride to the church. Problem number 2.

So now everyone is at the chapel (Oh, and Jose Carlos just showed up right on time, with everything he needed including a new suit and aviator sunglasses. I swear that man was temptation proof) but in all the commotion with the broken car, Marlene forgot her towel and extra underwear.

To wrap everything up into a nice little bundle, a member went and found her some stuff, we baptized them and confirmed them the next day and they are both members now and they are both very happy.

With all of this stress carrying over even into Sunday for a few other reasons, I was very overwhelmed and as we sat down to take the sacrament, instead of reading something in the scriptures about Jesus Christ or reading the sacrament hymn, I just asked, "Father, am I doing enough?" I witness that the Spirit hit me so hard with a feeling of absolute peace and comfort. It was such a spiritual uplift that helped me and took away literally every feeling of stress and inadequacy. I am so greatful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, or I guess, I'm greatful for Jesus Christ. He lifts and carries us when we just don't have anymore strength to do so and I bare witness of that. Just ask him to do it for you, he already felt what you are feeling and he's standing at the door. Just open it!

Elder Arkoudas

 I asked Sam where he got these shoes because they were not the ones we bought for him to take and he wrote back and said he thought it was funny that I noticed things like shoes and ties. Considering the email he sent his brother Noah asking about the "dryer lint" on the end of his chin, I said that I thought it was funny he noticed things like "dryer lint". He told Noah that he was "jealous and concerned" about his goatee since he was never able to grow one. Noah wrote him back and ended it 'your brother on his way to be a lumberjack" these two! I love their banter!

 Sam's first baptism that he performed.