Preach the Gospel

Hello. I hope you all had a splendid week in whichever part of the world you may be. This week my companions and I had the pleasure of carrying out the baptism of Josselyn, sister of Ada and Lilliana from last week. Josselyn was super excited and showed a lot of faith as there was a problem right before the baptism was about to happen. It was great to see Josselyns desire to follow the Savior, even through trying times. I'm so grateful for the love heavenly father has shown to me throughout my mission, and especially in this time of my life. As missionaries, nothing we do matters if we don't rely on the saviors help and on the holy ghost. We are merely instruments and hands in this great work. I leave you all with precious words of the beloved prophet of the restoration, joseph smith..."After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel."

with love, Hermana Argueta

Out of Hiding!

                 

  Hello friends. another long hiatus of blogging on my part. I hope you all are enjoying March so far. This week we set baptismal dates for Arabely and Juan Carlos. They are family members of an ex missionary in our ward. They love love love church and are so excited for their baptism this Saturday. They were fascinated by the word of wisdom and really felt it was inspired of our Father in Heaven. So Juan Carlos told us he drank coffee because his grandma gave it to him daily for breakfast. We told him not to worry because we had a cure and solution for this. The next day we brought him MORCAF, a non cafeinated drink made of cereals and corn. He was so excited that he told us he immediately ran to his grandma when he came home and asked her to make it for him. He said he likes it and is very willing to stop drinking coffee from now on. We are really trying to work hard with the members. The most challenging part that keeps our investigators from progressing is church attendance. For some reason here the people are just so darn scared of going to church. I think they think we have cults or weird ceremonies inside the building or something, I really dont know. We always have at least some investigator in church so that is good. The ward is awesome here. We just started a cool new competition to encourage and excite the members to participate in missionary work with us. We are giving points to each organization whenever they come contacting with us or have family home evenings or bring their friends to church. We have a calendar where they can sign up and everyone was so excited that they ran to the calendar after we announced it and the calendar is now practically full! I know that if anyone has a testimony of the gospel then they know that sharing the gospel is important in Heavenly Fathers plan, but sometimes we just need to wake up and just do it... TODAY, not later!!! Now is the time and everyone can share the gospel in their own way. I've realized that creativity is so important. The gospel can be shared in so many ways and we can help apply it to others families and lives if we try to think of fun and unique ways to share it. WE are the Lords hands in this great work and he really is depending on us. I encourage all of you to share the gospel with at least one person and invite someone to church. You never know what the Lord has in store for them... and for you. Don't just follow the gospel... live it... everyday.

With Love,

Hermana Argueta

FELIZ NAVIDAD

 

 

 

 

Con Amor,

 Hermana Argueta

The True Meaning of Christmas

 

    
          Wow, one week til' Christmas! This year I will be looking forward to tamales, fireworks, and christmas songs in spanish to celebrate the holidays. This week Hermana Jimenez contacted a lot of the members to introduce us to their neighbors and friends. President wants us to work with the members more than just contact random people, but we did a little of both. It actually is fun contacting in Mulua because everyone is super friendly and everyone talks to you. It seems to be even more happy and bright during the holiday season. Well the good thing about Mulua is that there arent as many people who light fireworks compared to Mazate. Today we had our annual Christmas activity with the whole mission and Mission President and his family. The mission Presidents wife even made cookies for each missionary! One of the blessings of this last Christmas in the mission is that I really am focusing and pondering on the true meaning of Christmas and life. We all really do have a purpose and it is so simple... To return again to be with our families. We have our whole life to really demonstrate to Heavenly Father if we want to recieve the blessing of eternal life through the way we react to our daily challenges and trials. But in the end, everything is simple... Jesus Christ loves us. Does he know we love him? Happy holidays and Feliz Navidad from Guatemala.

Hermana Argueta

FIRE!

           

 

              Hey everyone! This month is going by so fast! So I have a new comp... Hermana Jimenez from the Dominican Republic! Shes awesome. So on Tuesday night a member in our wards house burned and she lost everything! She was just sealed in the temple with her family too and said the only things that didnt burn in the fire were her book of mormon and her temple recommend. Hortensia has so much faith and she is really strong. We went to visit her and she was surrounded by people fron relief society and right when she saw me she just hugged me and started crying really hard. We sang a hymn with her and read dc 121 verse 7. Later, I went to see the house and all that was left were burnt walls. I didnt even recognize the house at all. the ward is awesome though and everyone is helping out so much. So this week we had a neat experience. We were walking down this place called las 3 marias to look for cindy and erickson since they told us they had moved. Well, apparently we passed their house because we heard HERMANAS!! and we turned around and it was jennifer, a nonmember and sister in law of erickson. so we went in and they were painting. We told them we wanted to help but they wouldnt let us because they didnt want us to get paint on our clothes. so we told them we would come back tomorrow. so on thursday we painted the inside of the house and talked with them. Then we set up a family home evening for Sunday night with the 2 couples that live there. only the wives are nonmembers. we had a fun family home evening and made each couple a poster of the stages of the gospel of jesus christ and wanted together forever with them. we talked about families and about the things they need to do to be able to have an eternal family one day. they said the family home evening was fun and we are going back on Wednesday to teach them some more. There's so much work to be done in Mulua! I know we are bound to find more people to teach this week. I hope you all have a nice week and are getting ready for christmas!


Hermana Argueta

Yury

Happy December! Can you all believe we're almost leaving 2012? Wow, I've never felt any other year go by faster than this one. Well, this week was successful :) Hermana Gilland and I were able to baptize a family. Yurys baptism was a miracle and definitely one of the most special moments for my comp and I. Yury, 23, is a timid young mother of two who has been having trouble connecting with her inactive husband. She finally decided to make this covenent because she wants her family to change for the better and she wants to set a good example for them. I know it wont be easy for Yury, but I know the Lord will bless her so much for taking this step of faith. This week is changes and Hermana Gilland is returning to our amazing country of USA! She is excited but at the same time sad to leave Guatemala, where so many love her! Im sad to be getting a new comp because this change was so fun with Hermana Gilland, but thats the mission for you and life goes on. This week they put up the giant town christmas tree and had the lighting ceremony on Friday night, so everyone is getting excited for the holidays. I hope you are all beginning to feel the Christmas spirit of peace and joy. Love to all.

Hermana Argueta

Abel and Andersson

 

 

 

            Hello to everyone out there. I'm glad to say that this week was successful and rewarding. After our attempt at diligence, Hermana Gilland and I were able to help carry out the baptismal service for Abel and Andersson on Saturday. This baptismal service was definitely one of the most special ones of my mission. Abel is 17 years old and has been going to church every Sunday by himself for 4 months now and even went to the youth camping trip last week. He never got baptized because his mom didn't want to give him permission. Other hermana missionaries and church leaders had previously tried to talk to Abel's mom about why he wanted to get baptized and how it was a special commandment. Well, everyone just left the whole circumstance alone, but Hermana Gilland and I felt that we should at least try talking to his mom. We thought of a plan and quickly told Abel so we could put it to action. We filled out Abel's registro completely and then had Abel write his testimony on a piece of paper. The mom is supposedly evangelica and cranky and at first she didnt want to let us in. We were persistent on her letting us in and told her we would only be there a few minutes. Finally, not knowing what to say or what other excuse to use, she let us in. We talked to her about the importance of baptism,how much Abel has changed as well as his desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ, and gave her the testimony. She just thought for a few seconds and said, ¨. well, if he really wants to then thats fine. We were so happy but Abel was definitely happier! The Lord truly will always come through ONLY when we have true and humble FAITH in him. If we were to doubt that his mom would give him permission, we would of never tried to talk to her. I know that faith results in miracles and that's probably why I talk about it so much. I hope you all can have a little more faith in Jesus Christ than you did last week. I'm hopeful to keep finding more exciting experiences this week in the mission field of Guatemala. Have a great day!

Hermana Argueta