Letter 01/28/14

Well Hello!!

Hello everyone! I am doing wonderful here in Villa Gobernador Galvez. We had our baptism this Sunday. It was really awesome. We did get a little nervous when everyone showed up, and about 15 minutes AFTER the baptism was supposed to start our investigator showed up. :) But it turned out good, and they brought cake, so we forgave them. I mean, she had cake, how could we not? 

So I realized that I forgot to explain last week that I went to the Monument in Rosario Argentina. That was really fun. The monument is HUGE!! Just about 70 meters tall. ( I will let you do the math) Right by the monument is the Río Paraná. It is the longest river second only to the Amazon River. It was really cool to go there. I also bought a new tie in the Peotanal. Its a HUGE shopping center. Yes, the tie IS gorgeous. 

As for traslados well...I will be...staying here in Galvez, I will also be staying with Elder Barker. That doesn't happen very often that you stay with a companion for more then 2 transfers. But hey, I am always doing things out of the ordinary. I am really happy to be staying in this area. We are planning on seeing a lot of success. Malena (the girl we baptized) has a grandma that has never come to church, but was really happy to see Malena get baptized, well we are going to start teaching her. She has a lot of interest, and she wants to be baptized, she calls me Clinton, Due to the fact that I look like Bill Clinton. I am doing really good. I love it here. 

I hope you all have a great week. I hope that the lord blesses you, and that you see his hand in your lives. He is real, he lives, and he is very aware of us. 

Love,

Elder Mason Paul Reid

John 1:1-4

 

 

 

Letter 01/20/2014

Hola Familia

I hope you are all doing wonderful!! Me and my companion have had another good week, and are wondering where we will be going next week. Transfers are next Tuesday, so Tuesday is when I will be able to respond to your emails. I am hoping that I stay another transfer at least in this area, but I will go where the Lord wants me to go. We also have interviews with the president coming up this Wednesday, so I am excited for that as well.

Are you guys are freezing to death, I am living in the heat. We hit 92 degrees inside our pench right before going to bed, but it's alright, the Lord blesses us, and helps us with all our problems, and that includes with the heat. 

So the most of you are familiar with the story of Samuel the Lamanite, but for those of you who are not, let me give you a quick rundown. Samuel is a prohet, he was called to go preach to the people about repentance, and to come to Christ (a missionary). The people got really upset and decided to kill him, using rocks, slings, and arrows. Well, he was standing on the top of the wall, and they couldn't hit him, all the arrows and rocks they threw could not touch him, because he had the spirit of the Lord with him. He was called to serve.

So, now that I have told you that story let me tell you why. Well me and my companion were walking down the street when 4-5 kids decided to start throwing rocks, and try to hit us with their sling shots. I am a missionary and have a badge, or I would have personally made them eat every single one of the rocks they threw. But I resisted the urge to personally punish the pibes, and the Lord blessed us. We heard the rocks go by and they where really close. We kept walking, and we never got touched by a single rock. Coincidence? Nah, they were too close just to be bad aim. But I attribute it to the Lord. Just a little mini miracle for ya. 

So on the 11th we had a baptism of 3, they are all doing great, and are loving the life of being a member. This coming Sunday we will also be having another baptism, she is 9 almost 10 years old, her mom is a member (we helped her to become active). But now her daughter will be baptized. She has passed her interview already.

All in all a great week. I am very happy, and doing great. I love you all. Thank you for the emails, and for all you guys do.

Love,
Elder Mason Paul Reid

Letter 01/13/2014

This week has been a wonderful week. I hope your guys´ week was as wonderful as mine, because mine was pretty wonderful!! Our three baptisms happened. It was a little crazy, but it all turned out. We even had 45 people there in support of them. It feels so so good to be part of the conversion. Even though our part is small. There are HUGE blessings that we recieve. Me and my companion decided to make this week the best week we have ever had, we wanted to have more lessons, more contacts, more investigators in church then our last 10 weeks, and well....we accomplished it. We worked our butts off, and put our trust in the Lord. And the Lord gave us the blessings, and helped us out so much. Even though we worked so hard, the most of the work was completed by the Lord. A family we have been visiting with for a long time showed up to sacrament, and the Hermano is trying to quit smoking. It is so wonderful. I am so grateful for everything.

 

After the baptism we made french toast for the entire family. Complete with Maple Syrup. It was fun to watch them eat it. They thought it was really good. I taught a couple of them how to cook it. There was about 13 family members, and us two missonarys, we had four pans all cooking french toast. It was a really fun time. Especially with it being right after the baptism, the spirit was strong, and the family was really united. They have a couple of family members that aren't members, but the whole experience really caught their interest.

 

This week has been wonderful. I have seen the blessings that come from really giving something your all. I know this church is true. I know that the Lord is aware of us, waiting to bless us, and waiting to help us accomplish whatever we put our minds to. We just need to do our part, and be worthy to accept the blessings. 

I hope you are all doing wonderful. I can't attach photos of the baptism this week. But I will do it next week I promise.

Love,

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Alma 23:6-8

Letter 01/06/2014

¡Buenas Días! 

How are you doing family? I am doing wonderful. It seems like just a couple of days ago I was talking to you...probably because last P-day was Wednesday and now it is Monday. I hope everything is going great, and I hope that it's not TOOO cold, but a little bit of cold isn't too bad right?

As for us, we are doing great. Our investigators passed there baptism questions. One of them needs to have an interview with the president of the mission, but after talking with the zone leader, and the president we are about 90 percent certain we will be seeing him baptized as well. It's so amazing. To see the three get baptized will be a wonderful experience. We are so so excited. We have a full schedule for this week already planned out. We are trying to make this week our best week of the last two transfers, so I will let you know how that goes!!

This time of year there is a lot of talk about New Years Resolutions, I was never a big fan of the whole New Years resolution, but this year is different for me. I wanted to make some goals to accomplish, and I wanted to accomplish them. So, I spent a little bit of time studying what I wanted to improve and what I wanted to become. I set my goals for the next 6 months. I know a few scout leaders that will be particularly happy to know that my long term goals are supported by short term goals and what I will do in order to accomplish them. It feels good to set these personal goals. I have high hopes for this next six months of the mission. 

But this week has been great, we are doing great, and the Lord is blessing us daily. I love you all.

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Joshua 1:9

Letter 1/1/2014

¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año!

I hope you are all doing wonderful. I am doing great over here on this side of the rock. It has been a wonderful week. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I got to spend skyping the family. It was wonderful. 

The last two weeks have been really good. We had a kid of 8 year old get baptized. Technically it doesn't count as a mission baptism because he was 8 years old. But we taught him everything. And reactivated his family as well. So we where very very happy to see him get baptized. We got to stand in the circle as he received the Holy Ghost. It was really amazing. 

This week we have three people  who will be interviewed to be baptized on the 11th. The first two are a family that got married to be baptized, and the other one is a big friend of the family. They are so awesome. The family is amazing. The parents got baptized in august, and the rest of the family is on the way to be baptized. We have been working with hem a lot, but it is looking really good. They are always asking us to come over. We ended up celebrating Christmas eve with them. They really are so loving. 

One of the highlights of this week is definitely the lesson we had with the R's, the R's are a family that we have had as investigators for a long time. They are really loving, and really open to listen, and hear us. But they are what we call. Eternals, or amigos. They are people that are willing to accept and listen to you. But they don't really progress. So we have been stumped on what to do. We didn't want to drop them because they had been dropped before, and it wasn't the right thing to do to help them. So we looked around the ward for a little while to find some members that could accompany us. We found them in the S family, yes the same family that I mentioned earlier. The parents. They had similar situations, similar problems. So we brought them with us. At the beginning it was a little awkward, but we began the lesson, started to talk, and kinda let the members bear their testimonies, and share their stories, well I will tell you what. It was SO powerful. I loved it. You could feel the spirit, and the family opened up like never before, We then where able to share doctrine, and teach them, using the members. It was really really amazing. And just another testament to how powerful members, you guys reading this blog are. Your testimonies, and experiences can help out the missionaries so much. 

So our companionship has a lot to look forward that is coming up. I am so happy to be here, and to be serving in this mission. You guys are amazing. I hope everything is going wonderful. I love you!!

 

Love,

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Mosiah 28:3