Baptisms are a comin'!

Dear friends and familly,

This week was full of miracles and I am so excited for the upcoming weeks!

We had a lesson with our investigators Benito and Margarita--it was a very good, spiritual lesson--and as we were getting up to leave, Benito looked at us and said, and I quote: "Tengo ganas de bautizarme el 30 de este mes" which means, "I really want to be baptized on the 30th of this month". My companion and I just sat there in a stupor until finally we were able to respond. One of the worst things in the world--we had to tell him that we would have to wait another week so that we would have time to teach him everything, but he still really wants to be baptized the 7th of July! He and his wife come to church every week, they participate, they both have testimonies and they are friends with all of the members. We are going to have a lesson with them tonight and try to convince Margarita to be baptized on the same day and if you could all please say a prayer for her so that she will have her heart softened we would really appreciate it!

We also have another investigator, her name is Sharon Guzman--she is 9 years old and her mom is a returning less active, and she will be baptized the 14th of July, so we should have two baptisms two weeks in a row! Hopefully our other investigator Victoria will be married soon because she wants to be baptized the 21st of July! How insanely awesome would that be to have 3 baptisms 3 weeks in a row!?

In short, I have only one request--please pray for Benito and Margarita Montes, Sharon Guzman, and Victoria Ochoa! They are all so close and and all so ready!

Love you all and hope that you have a great week! 

Elder Arkoudas

Never a Dull Moment

Dear friends and family,

I don't know what to say other than I am so grateful for this area. We have been so busy the last couple of weeks and it seems like every week just keeps getting busier and busier. 

We have three people on date to be baptized, Jose Barrientos for sometime in July, a little girl names Sharon (it's actually kind of scary how much she reminds me of my sister Mara--like seriously--she looks like her, acts like her and talks like her), and a woman named Victoria who is so ready, she just needs to get married and then she will be baptized. We are planning her baptism for the 21st of July.

I don't want this email to get too long winded, but there are two experiences that I would like to share from this week that really impacted my testimony and taught me so much.

On Saturday our ward mission leader asked us if we could help him clean the church building and so at 9am we headed over there. He asked us if we could clean the chapel and as I was grabbing the vacumes, Elder Yount said, "Hey Elder, could we just sit in here for a second?" I walked into the chapel and immediately I felt the Spirit. It was dark, with only a little natural light coming in from the windows and absolutely silent. We took our seats maybe 7 or 8 rows back and just sat there for about 10 minutes in complete silence with an overwhelming sense of peace. The words to one of my favorite hymns came to mind and so I opened the hymn book and read those words, they say:

O home belov’d, where’er I wander,
On foreign land or distant sea,
As time rolls by, my heart grows fonder
And yearns more lovingly for thee!
Tho fair be nature’s scenes around me,
And friends are ever kind and true,
Tho joyous mirth and song surround me,
My heart, my soul still yearn for you

Now don't worry, I'm not getting trunky, in fact, as we sat there in the tranquility of the chapel, the words to this hymn took on a completely different meaning: this really isn't our home. Though it is beautiful and friends are kind and true, and this is an incredible world that we have to live in, we can't let it all distract us from our heavenly home. Eventually we had to turn on the lights and the vaccumes, but I will always remember just how peacful and powerful a chapel can be.

The next day I was having a lot of trouble focusing during my personal studies. I don't know what it was, but I could just not focus on the task at hand and I was getting very frusterated. After fighting with it for 20 minutes or so, I finally found a scripture that I was able to focus on and was able to escundriñar (I'm not sure how to say that in English) and I ended up having a pretty good personal study. The scripture I read was Isaiah 55 and as we were heading out the door, I had the distinct impression to bring my Bible with me--something that I rarely do.

When we got to church, about 45 minutes before Sacrament meeting was supposed to start, Obispo (Bishop) asked if I could give the closing talk because the couple that was supposed to come weren't going to be able to make it. I said yes, and we went into the chapel and I said a prayer asking that I would be able to know what it was that I should talk about. Immediately the scripture that I had read that morning came to mind and so did a slew of ideas that tied along with it. When it came time for the talks, right after the Sacrament, there was about 40 minutes left in the meeting and so the other brother who was going to speak stood up and spoke for about 7 minutes. The Bishop turned and looked at me with kind of a "sorry" look in his eyes and so I got up to speak. I don't know how it happened because it definitly wasn't me, but for the next 25 minutes or so I was able to give a talk based out of Isaiah 55 and it actually wasn't too bad! I know that the Lord really will fill our mouths if we do our part to prepare!

I love you all and hope that you have a great week this week. Sorry there are no pictures.

Elder Arkoudas 

A Week of Continuing Miracles

Friends and family,

Today was our temple trip as a zone and for that reason I am writing on a Tuesday. I love the temple so much and I was fortunate enough to have my good friend Brother Schwartz take us there. I learned a lot from him and also from the Spirit and I am very grateful for that opportunity that we had today.

This week we had exchanges with our District Leader, Elder Fraughton, and it was a blast. In the morning we went for a run and it was raining pretty hard, so when we got to the park down the road, with the cities run-off preserve, we decided to throw all caution to the wind (and maybe the white handbook--although in my defense, we did not go swimming, we just went wading) and we slipped our shoes off and walked to the other side--a gap of only about 12 feet. It came up to the middle of our thighs so it wasn't too deep, but it just made me feel like a country-grown child again;)

This week I gained such a testimony of the power of hymns. We tried to sing a hymn in every lesson that we had and it completely changed the whole atmosphere of the lesson. One particular example was with our investigators Margarita and Benito. As we sang, the spirit filled the room and I know that they both recieved an answer to their concerns. Benito, although he didn't agree to a specific date, said that he definitley is going to be baptized and they both said that they want to continue to progress and learn. I hope that we never take music for granted and that we always show gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the many blessings he gives us.

Love you and hope that you have a great week.

Elder Arkoudas

Pic. 1: Hello children...

Pic. 2: Ok, that's actually kind of creepy because we did teach the primary kids this last week (we didn't know that we were going to do it and we just went in to help with music, but then the teacher said that the Elders were going to teach and so right there on the spot we taught a 45 minute lesson about the Holy Ghost). It was actually really spiritual--we had 10 seconds where we pretended like we were in the temple and to have 20+ kids absolutely silent for 10 seconds brought an incredible spirit!

Pic. 3: Exchanges

Pic. 4: Elder Yount

Pic. 5: Temple

Pic. 6: Adam and Yesenia went to the temple last week to do baptisms. I didn't get to go but they sent me a picture.

Pic. 7&8: Temple

Pic. 9: Last Zone Conference with the Griffins.

Pic. 10: We sang an Acapella musical number for Zone Conference. It was actually really good so we decided to make it official and start our own group.

Plan of Salvation

Friends and family,

This week was another great one! Elder Yount and I get along great and we have been trying to work our consecrated behinds off! 

This week we had a great lesson with our investigator Bernadita (she made us pupusas from El Salvador--they were so good) and it was such a testimony builder for me of the power of creating an environment where the spirit can teach. As we began to teach her the Plan of Salvation a thought popped into my mind and it struck me so strong that I wrote it down in a journal that I have been keeping of spiritual experiences. This is what I wrote down concerning the Plan of Salvation:

We need to realize that the Plan of Salvation is not like some giant game of Risk somewhere in heaven: we are not little plastic soldiers that the Lord moves around and puts us where He wants us in order to complete His plan. We are the plan! Each one of us has an individual and personal Plan of Salvation and the combination of all of those is the Plan of Salvation. The reason the Lord gave us scripture is not just to learn about the Plan, but to learn and understand what our plan is. They are a guide to help us personally and individually on our journey towards exaltation. We can pray about a decision that we should make and then turn to the scriptures as a guidebook for what the Lord would have us do.

I am so grateful for my plan of salvation and how the Lord has led and guided me and I know that each of us has been led and guided by God. I know that sometimes it seems like a stumbling block or a thorn in our sides, but really it is just another step in our eternal progression.

I love you all and hope that you have a great week this week. We made sure to take lots of pictures!

Elder Arkoudas

Pic. 1: Sahara challenge (turn the heater on full blast for 15 minutes when it is 90 degrees or hotter outside. Was it a good idea? No. Should we have done it? Probably not. Did we do it anyway? Of course!)

Pic. 2: The mish border...

Pic. 3: Slack lining!

Pic. 4: Did sombody say "Sexay"?

Pic. 5: Those were all given to us...in like 2 days. As you can tell we stay very hydrated.

Pic. 6: Saturday night we were riding bikes and it started raining so we rode home 6 miles in the rain (this was like Illinois rain). We just had to take a picture!

Pic. 7: Our investigator who made us pupusas (we also got to make one)

Pic. 8: It was hot and we were tired.