Week #78: Las verdades del Evangelio

Hola hola!! Another week flown by here in the mission. It was a great week! We were out of our area from sunday to wednesday night, doing Pday, splits, and interviews with president in another city of our zone here in Argentina! It was a great trip and had some super spiritual experiences honestly. Our interviews with President Dunford are always the highlight of the week! I always say that his ability to show and express his love for anyone is incredible!! Not too many people have that gift as great as he does. But this week we did a fair amount of just contacting (clapping doors, talking to people in the street and in parks), and on Tuesday we found some really cool people with awesome desire to just follow Jesus Christ. While we were clapping at a house (thats house you knock here in South America), a man was about to pass us on the sidewalk, and we just stopped him and started to talk a little bit and he was super nice. After talking for about 10-15 minutes, we asked if he needed anything. He told us he had always had a question about God that he asked lots of people, but he never found an answer that pleased him. His question was Why does someone sin and do wrong, even when they know what theyre doing is wrong? We were able to introduce the Book of Mormon quickly, and then we shared with him the scripture that talks about the natural man is an enemy to God. He seemed fairly satisfied with the scripture, and he told us to pass by his house another day to talk more about his question. 

Later this same day, we talk to a mom with her little daughter in a plaza, and after talking for a while my companion just asked her if there was something she always wanted to know about God or life that she had never found the answer too. It surprised me with how bold and upfront he was with the question, but it was the perfect question to get this woman to open up to us about her beliefs and doubts about God. Her doubt had to do with why theres so much evil in the world and why God lets it all happen. We explained agency and how God respects our agency even when it hurts other people. 

Both these experiences helped me realize something, that truly everyone has their doubts and questions about God and life. We live in a world with so many different beliefes, opinons, and backgrounds, that its very difficult to find the truth and know that it is from God. God has sent his young missionaries all over the world to teach His simple truths to His children so that they might find peace and comfort while in this life!  (See Romans 10:13-14). This gospel is true and is flawless! Every question has an answer, we just have to look for it(:

Braxton meeting Elder Uchtdorf & his wife at the
conference in Montevideo a couple of weeks ago! 

Some P-Day fun the last couple of weeks! 

Week #77: ELDER UCHTDORF

Yoooo everybody!! Wow this week was extra spiritual. We had a leadership conference down in Montevideo on Tuesday, then we headed right back for Montevideo on Saturday for a conference with Elder Uchtdorf! It was an extremely spiritual moment that I honestly wish everyone could've experienced. 

Elder Uchtdorf is a special witness of Jesus Christ and he carries with him a spirit that you can just feel as you hear him speak and be around him. We had the chance to shake his hand and it will be a moment I wont forget for a very long time! I've been so lucky and blessed to have heard from President Nelson, Elder Stevenson, Elder Gong, and now Elder Uchtdorf while Ive been on my mission. We are really hoping one more comes before I leave (: ...but I wanted to share a few things I learned from Elder Uchtdorf with you all.

 He talked about several things honestly. He didn't come with a written talk or anything, it was more of just a conversation he had with us concerning missionary work and the gospel. He talked about having a real deep connection with the people we teach. To truly desire to teach them the gospel, just for the love we feel for the gospel and for them. He talked a lot about having heart-to-heart conversations with them about how the gospel will bless and strengthen their lives, if they choose to follow God's commandments.

 He later talked about the ability to repent, that no sacrifice made to repent goes unoticed by God. He will accept any sacrifice we make to become more like His Son, so we can be sure that He forgives us and wont remember our sins. He helped us understand that God promised He wont remember our sins if we repent, but He never promised that WE wouldn't remember them. Often times that remembrance of a sin that we have is used as a warning sign for us. To remind us of how awful it feels to go down a path contrary to Gods. God does this because He loves us and only wants us to remember the consequences of sin. 

Elder Uchtdorf talked about several other things, but those were two of the things that I loved most. I know by the confirmation of the Spirit that I during that conference that Elder Uchtdorf is an apostle of God! He has been called by Christ himself to represent Him and be His special wittness to the world of the reality of the Gospel and our Savior. I know this church is true! I love you all and hope we can all prepare ourselves for the General Conference we are going to have in a few months!!  

Braxton with a friends daughter, Annie Christofferson, who is serving in the Montevideo Mission.  Annie 's mom told her to go find Braxton and introduce herself!;) So glad she did, because these were the only pics we got this week! ;) 

Week #77: ¡Los actos chiquitos de servicio!

Hola Hola!! What's up whats up! Man it was a good week! First week with my new companion, Elder Holder, and he is one heck of a guy. One of a kind actually!! Hahah!! The people love him here and I love him too hahah!! 

I don't have much time today actually, because we are traveling down to the capital tonight for a conference, but I wanted to write about an experience I had about an hour ago. So we just came from our Argentina area, and we just made it to a city in Uruguay, and in a few hours we will be traveling to Montevideo. While we were buying our bus tickets in Argentina, we were behind an older couple and I heard them trying to speak English to the lady behind the window. Maybe it doesn't sound too crazy to you guys, but I think thats only like the 3rd time I've heard that on my mission. The couple clearly didn't speak very much spanish and they were having a tough time with the lady, so my companion and I piped up behind them and said "do you guys speak english?"...Man I've never seen anyone so excited to see me before!! :) They couldn't believe there was someone else there that spoke english hahaha!! We were able to help them buy their tickets to Uruguay as well and then we got to talk to them for a minute. They are from Michigan and are here backpacking all over South America! They were so nice and grateful we were able to help them. The husband said he had talked to missionaries like us one time in Michigan, but clearly he didn't continue talking to them. They were curious what we were doing here and we quickly explained that we are missionaries and we're here for 2 years to talk to people about Christ. 

We didn't get a chance to talk to them very much at all, but it was an awesome experience to help some people and maybe even plant a seed for them, so that one day in the future they might hear the gospel. I like to think that one day 2 missionaries will knock on their door back in Michigan and the couple will tell them about the time two missionaries in Uruguay saved their lives!! Maybe it'll help the couple be more receptive to the missionaries, but with whatever happens, we were super happy we could help them and get to explain to them who we are! 

There are people all around us that we can help. If we take a minute out of our day to help them, we can soften hearts and change the course of their lives. It always seems like something so small and insignificant, but our acts of service always bless other peoples lives more than we will ever know! Love everyone and love those that despise you even that much more! Have a great week!

Brax was pretty excited they found a bowling alley today on Pday! 

Week 76: ¡Cambios y Causalidades!

Hola hola buena gente! How is everyone? This week was real hot, but great! My first week in a long time that we didn't have to travel, or lose time in our area, because of random stuff! We honestly saw a few miracles this week that motivated us to just keep working and not slow down, even if we are not received by many people. 

This week we received our transfer news. My companion, Elder Chalmers, will leave to Montevideo and I'll receive Elder Holder! Im super excited to be with him. He's a great guy from Gunnison Utah. This week we had two incidentes of someone that just walked up to us in the street and started asking us about the church! They both want to go to church this Sunday...and as a missionary that's equivalent to Christmas!!;) They both are awesome! We had originally planned to go a certain direction, and then we changed the plan and thats where we ran into these people. Both of them asked us about the church and if it'd be alright if they went this Sunday! We set times to meet with them this week to get to know them a little better. It will be so awesome if they made it to church this week, but I do know that it's very possible that we never see them again and lose contact with them...and that's okay honestly. I've gained a strong testimony that every person has their own path to follow. God usually guides us on this path and puts people and events in our way that prepare us all to return to His presence someday. 

We really have a Father in Heaven that loves us so much because He blesses us and gives us experiences when we don't even realize it. He's kind of sneaky like that haha!!..but we really begin to see all the blessings in our lives when we just look for them, rather than look for all the bad things. ¡Por cada causalidad, hay una CAUSA! ¡Nuestro Padre nos cuida para que podamos tomar las decisiones necesarias para regresar a su presencia! 

Week #75: Hay que aferrarse a la barra de hierro

¡Hola hola buena gente! Twas another great week here in the mission. Had to travel all the way to the capital again for a checkup on my two toes that I've had some problems with, but the doctor says I'm all good to go!  Im jthankful I don't have to deal with any of that anymore! 

This year in Come Follow Me, we are studying the Book of Mormon. This week we studied Lehi's dream about the Tree of Life. I hope everyone can make some time out of their week to study along with Come Follow Me, because it can honestly help us so much with understanding the scriptures! I won't explain the entire dream of Lehi, but I'd invite everyone to go refresh themselves and read 1st Nephi chapter 8(: 

A member in our branch here made a comment about the dream that I really liked. We all know that there's an Iron Rod in the dream, and those that cling to this rod end up at the Tree of Life. The rod can mean the Gospel of Jesus Christs and Gods commandments. As we cling to these things, we reach the blessings that God has instore for those who stay faithful until the end. A member mentioned how the material iron, is known as "Fe" on the scientific chart (I hope thats what it is called, but you know what Im talking about;) But anyway, Fe, is the spanish word for Faith. We can say that this Iron Rod that Lehi saw, is made out of faith. It requires a great deal of faith to stay true and faithful to this gospel and to not get distracted by all the people who mock and laugh at us for living the way we do, and having the beliefs we have. Faith is the first step in the Gospel and all blessings we receive are dependent on the faith we have in God the Father and His son Jesus Christ. 

Lacking faith means we risk straying away from this iron rod and falling short of the blessings of God. Faith is developed by obedience to the commandments and a pure desire to do God's will above our own. I like to share with the Uruguayos and Argentinos that faith is a belief in action, because simply believing in God is not enough (Look up Matthew 7:21). To actually believe in God, we have to do the work necessary to get to know Him. We slowly become familiar with His spirit, His promptings, and His personality and after a long while, we finally start to figure out who God really is, and our capacity to have faith increases! It is why the first thing we teach everyone as missionaries is the character of God! As we draw near unto God, He comes to us and we feel Him...but it has always been contingent on us acting first!

     "And now, behold, I say unto you, and I would that ye should remember, that God is merciful unto all who believe on His name; therefore he desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word." -Alma 32:22

The door is open for all to believe in God through our Savior Jesus Christ. I promise blessings and miracles to anyone who believes and strives to live aligned with Christ's Gospel!

Braxton's new foot fashion, while recovering from ingrown toenails! 

New Diggs for the Missionaries last week! 

Week #74: está brava la cosa

Yo everybody! Hope it was a good week for everyone. My week went well as I finally had surgery on two of my toes to take out the in grown toe nails hahaha! Surgery went fine and was quick and easy and now Im fine and working like normal again! 

I went down to the capital on Thursday to get the surgery done with another missionary (elder Parry) from my zone who was having the same thing done as well. After the surgery, we weren't able to walk much until Sunday. Elder Parry and I had a lot of time to just sit around and talk and not do much for a few days. No missionary really likes that haha...we just about went insane from boredom! But, after talking with Elder Parry for a while, I feel like I came to understand something a lot better. 

We both were getting a little frustrated with the past few weeks in the mission because we've been traveling so much and doing so many miscellaneous things, that weve lost tons of time in our areas. For those who don't know, Im serving in Argentina right now, and while thats awesome, we have to travel a lot and it takes lots of time, just because buses only go so often. So the past 2-3 weeks, we haven't had a full day to work in our own area. We got frustrated and we felt as if we were being restricted from doing Gods will because we weren't able to just focus on the people we are teaching and going out and serving people. After some complaining, I realized that it was pretty dumb of us to be saying those things because it was all completely out of our control...and in fact we still were doing Gods will. 

Sometimes we beat ourselves up over our circumstances and outside forces that mess things up, but we forget that God just wants us to do the best we can and He will take care of the rest! I think we often times complicate things that are out of our control, and it ends up just messing up things even more. We dont need to worry so much about the results of all of our actions. Instead, we should worry more about the effort and drive we are putting into becoming a better, more Christ-like person. God will give us what He sees fit, and we're not in the place to complain about it! If we do our part, we will be blessed. Whether it be in this life, or the one to come! 

Week #73: New Year, New Me

Yoooo everybody! I cannot believe that tomorrow we start the year 2020. I feel like it was yesterday and I was like 12 and I swore that when I was 20 years old I was gonna be a grown man. Well time just keeps on going, it never stops! We are here in Argentina celebrating and getting ready for the New Year. 

This past week was an eventful one. Christmas was going good...until I randomly got super sick and ended up sleeping for about 36 hours straight hahaha. Still not sure what happened, but after I got out of bed and got moving around, I was good as new. It's been extremely hot here this past week as well. Working was tough honestly, as we were literally just dripping with sweat and marching along in the streets. Lots of people yell at us from the streets telling us to drink tons of water or else we will literally just pass out and die hahah!! 

I don't have a specific experience to share with you guys from this week, but Id like to just share something Ive been learning about. I was reading in Matthew I believe it was, and I read a verse that said something like "Christ could not perform miracles unto the people for their unbelief". I felt like it was a normal basic concept that this couldn't happen because of their unbelief, but I thought about it for a minute and I started to think it was actually very interesting that the Savior of the world, the Son of God, literally was not able to perform miracles unto the people because of their lack of belief. It wasn't dependent on Him at all, rather only the people around him. Likewise, modern day priesthood holders wouldn't be able to preform a miracle among people who had no faith in the power of God. It's not dependent on the person performing the miracle/blessing, it is those who are present and watching. God will not just give the faithless an "easy way out" by seeing something as great as a miracle. He will only allow it to happen among the most faithful. It is why when Christ raised Jarius daughter from the dead, He pushed out the crowds and all the people, and only brought with Him Peter, James and John. His 3 most faithful apostles. When Christ had blocked out all the unbelief and the doubt, He raised the girl from the dead and she lived again. 

The conclusion that I came to with all of this, is that we will see blessings and miracles as Latter Day Saints if we are faithful, and those around us are faithful. Obviously we must serve and help and love those who are of little faith, but our tightest, most inner circle, must be of people who are strong in the gospel and will increase our own faith. We find people who build us up, and we build them up. We will block ourselves from potential miracles in our lives, if we are too caught up with those that don't care for the gospel or God's commandments. 

Lets all start this year by evaluating who are closest friends are, who we spend the most time with, and who has the biggest influence on our lives. We are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with. ¡Que tengamos buenos amigos para que veamos los milagros de Dios!

Week #72: CHAU URUGUAY, HOLA ARGENTINA

Yoooooo!!! Wow so much happened this week I can't believe it. First things first...we got transfers!!! I received a somewhat surprising transfer and I'm extremely excited. For those who dont know, my mission is awesome because you can potentially serve in 3 different countries while youre here. We have a brazilian city that you can serve in (and youd be forced to learn portuguese) and there is also 3 argentine cities that you can potentially serve in. Well...I cashed in and I'm getting sent to Argentina!!! It's still very close to Uruguay, just crossing the big river between the two countries, but it is a lot different. I honestly couldn't be more excited.

There are only 12 missionaries in the Argentina part of our mission, but we are going to be working our tails off to teach the argentine people!! Gonna miss Uruguay, but Ill be back soon enough!

But with every new area, there is the saying goodbye to the people that youve come to love so much and have changed your life. Thankfully, they were all happy goodbyes, but it is still sad! Ill be leaving the people who have changed me so much over these past 6 months.

I read my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon, Alma 26, and theres a verse there that I love as a missionary. I didnt baptize thousands of people like Ammon did, but I did get to teach and baptize a few, and Id say I have tasted of this same joy that Ammon teaches about in this chapter. But in verse 7, Ammon speaks about the lamanites that he had taught and baptized and says, "But behold, they are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest, and they are his; and he will raise them up at the last day."

I will continue to communicate with these people for the rest of my life, but I have done my part to teach them the doctrine of the gospel, and I now know, as Ammon knew, that they are in the Lords hands, and they are His! God has his plan for these people, just like He does for all of His children! This message is true and it was go forth unto all people! I cant wait to share it with the people of Argentina!!(:

Braxton saying goodbye to all the members and friends in Salto! 

Braxton braves an Epic rainstorm in Salto!