I'm officially the most jealous man ON THE PLANET! I can't believe you guys got to meet the Prophet! He seems like such an incredible man, I would have loved to be there. But I know where God needs me to be in this moment, so here I am.
This week was SWEET! I think I already told you guys about the first flight to BA last week, so I'll tell you a bit about Ushuaia. The conference went really well, probably the second best out of the 4 we gave. Now we have to wait and see if our new plan gives positive results, but to start of, the week before last week (since we still don't have the numbers from last week) was our best week since November 2017, so the plan showed promise.
After the conference, we ended us staying in Ushuaia an extra day, because President had miscalculated the time it would take to do all the interviews, and asked for a flight on Thursday instead of Wednesday. It was fine though, because we took advantage of the moment, and did some divisions with some elders that were struggling. The division went really well! Elder Ekblad found 2 future investigators with one of the companions, and the other companion and I taught a great lesson to an investigator that wasn't progressing as much as they wanted. Not only were we able to leave a great compromismo (commitment), but we also were able to help her Catholic sister participate in the lesson, and also accept the invitation to read the Book of Mormon. We taught the lesson inside one of the humblest homes that I've been inside of in my mission. It reminded me a lot of Tolhuin. I'll definitely be able to relate to you guys, Mom and Dad, when you talk about the people from your missions who lived in houses that were smaller that our kitchen. The house I was inside didn't even have walls, that had just built a little frame, and stapled plastic tarp to it. The Spirit was strong inside that tiny home, and I actually gave some of the most direct testimonies that I've given in my mission during that lesson. It made me want to get back into the field!
On Thursday, we took the return flight to Buenos Aires. We met a girl named Agustina, who was sitting next to me, who was studying to be a lawyer in Rosario. She and I talked the whole flight almost, and we were able to share a pamphlet of the Restoration with her before parting ways.
Upon arriving in Buenos Aires, Hermano Romano, who has pretty much become our personal taxi driver in Buenos Aires, and also one of the coolest old guys I've ever met, took us to the most anticipated location of the trip: EL TEMPLO! You have no idea that joy and happiness I felt inside that building! To remember my covenants and the promise I've been given was awesome! The best part for me though was to be able to do the work for one of my Puerto Rican ancestor, Joaquin Gil de la Madrid Padilla. I have a great hope that he accepts the work that was done for him. It felt very appropriate to me that the first time I go through a 100% Spanish temple trip, that I do it in the place of my latino ancestry. Overall, it was a great, great experience. A really nice part as well was to come to know how the rest of the church outside the United States and Mexico feels about going to the temple when they don't have one around the block. It had been around 20 months since I had even seen a temple, but it made me appreciate the experience that much more.
As we were driving through Buenos Aires, el Hermano Romano told me that 16 million people live there. I then remembered that there are 16 million members of the church. I looked around me, seeing all the people, and felt pretty dang good about how the church is growing! Elder Ekblad said "That's a lot of menos activos!", which is probably true, but then, when we got home, we looked up the population of Buenos Aires, and it said that only 2.6 million people live in the city, while there are 16 million living in the province, which includes several other big cities like La Plata, Mar del Plata, Bahia Blanca, etc. There are 5 missions in Buenos Aires, all of which have like 6 times more people than we do. I felt even better about the church now!
Two more experiences: When we got home, we had a handful of office chores to do. However, on Saturday, we found a two hour sliver to work, and we got out. I had been feeling all day that we should head towards the beach, because people would be walking around in the neighborhoods that are close, and we could contact them. However, my mind was telling me: 1. nobody wants nobody to bother them while they're at the beach aaaand 2. there are probably some people at the beach that are dressed in ways that we don't want to see. However, the feeling bothered me all day, so when we got out to work, we started descending down to the beach. As we were walking through the little neighborhood that's next to the beach, contacting people as we went, I saw the door of a woman who had told me that she would come to church, but never did. We knocked, I heard her inside, but she didn't answer the door. Oh well! However, 2 blocks down, there lived a lady who had a 12 year old son with whom I had made a friendship. We had knocked her door lots of times, and she had never come out. We decided to knock anyways, and lo and behold, she was home! She told us that her son was with his father, and that she thought it would be good to teach her son, when we said "Daiana, it's nice and all that you want Tomi to come to church, but you need this message as well, so we'd like to invite YOU to come to church with us tomorrow. We'll come pick you up in the morning!" SHE AGREED! The assistants had never, ever in my memory had a church attendance in this mission, because were always out of town, so when we were knocking her door Sunday morning, I can't lie, I was a bit nervous that she was gonna sleep on us. But no, she answered, and accompanied us to Sacrament Meeting, even though she had worked all night long, and had gotten home at 8:30 that morning! The biggest miracle though, was that half the ward, including the Relief Society President and the bishop's wife know her because they were childhood friends that lived on the same block!
Can I just take a moment and testify to all you that I know that the Lord is at the helm of this work. I know that he uses imperfect means to bring to pass his perfect work. I feel very blessed that the Lord sees how hard it is for us to find time to get out into the field, and for that reason, almost always that we find a time and use it wisely, I've seen miracles!
The last experience/testimony Id like to give is my testimony of the Book of Mormon. This week, before I was sure that we were going to go to the Temple, I had a nice reading experience with 2 Nefi 2, putting my name where it says "my son" and putting "you" when it talks about the children of men. It was awesome! It helped me to appreciate more the great atoning sacrifice that Jesus Christ did for me! I love the Book of Mormon, and I know that as President Monson said in his last testimony, if we read it every day, we will be able to conquer fear and doubt, conquer temptation, have the guide of the Spirit in our lives, and have help from on high.
FAMILY: I love you guys! Tell Sofia to write me, its been a while! MOM! I'm glad you liked Hermana Nelsons talk. I'm sure there are many ways that you can improve, but I think you're an exemplary woman! I LOVE YOU! Love you guys! - Elder Jimenez
PS sorry for all the spelling errors, these computers are in Spanish, so they tell me that my whole email is spelled wrong! XD
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