May 26, 2014

Hello Family and Friends!

Sounds like most everyone is out traveling this week. I hope you are all enjoying it, and having a great time. Stay safe! 

I am having a great time here in Argentina, I will say I am a little jealous of the warm weather over there. It has gotten a little colder down here. Only about 45-50 degrees, but with the humidity it gets a bit chilly. The only thing is that there is no way to escape it, cause most of the houses don't have insulation, our pench is just cement so it is normally the same temperature as it is outside. But after so long without the cold, I am enjoying it. 

This week has been really good, we got to have interviews with the president of the mission. It was good to talk to him, and get to hear some of his advice for me. Mission presidents are truly inspired. We will be getting a new mission president the first of July. It should be interesting how things change, or the new ideas the new president will bring. 

A really interesting thing happened this week, we knocked a house, and the lady opened the door, and criticized us for clapping to hard. But I smiled, and told her who we where, and asked her how we could bless her. She started crying, and almost hysterically saying that it was no use, that she had cancer and that she was going to die, and that she had everything prepared to die. She was hysterical, It broke my heart. I wanted so much to help her. But now matter what we said she wouldn't accept it. We bore our testimonies, shared scriptures, talked about Gods love, his plan for us, but she wouldn't accept any of it. She told us to leave, and shut the door. It was so hard to walk away. I felt so bad for this woman. We had everything the lord could give her, but she wouldn't accept it. It was so hard to walk away from that door. 

This experience made me think of all the times we have been going through a hard time, and we pray, we cry, we plead that the Lord help us, and when He shows us the way, we don't accept because we don't believe it could be possible, or because we doubt Him. Or maybe we don't have the faith to see He is helping us. I know the Lord is there for us, Always. I know He loves us. We are the ones that leave Him, not him leaving us. 

This week has been a week that reminded me a lot of charity. The pure love of Christ. The world is difficult, and the first thing that satan tries to do is attack the family, the home. But I know that if we have charity. If we put others before ourselves, sacrifice, and sometimes even humble ourselves enough to say sorry. Satan cant hurt us. But we need to have that charity and love of Christ with us. Moroni 7:45-48

I love you all. I pray for you. Keep smiling, and showing your love for others.

Love,

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Blog Letter 5/19/2014

Hello family!! 

This week has been a great week. We have done a lot of work and I have had a great week.  Since last week I was a little sick and stayed in bed for one of the days, we couldn't get as much work as I would have liked done. But, we definitely made up for it this week. We worked hard and we have found a lot of really wonderful families that we are going to go back and visit. 

I knew it was going to be a good week from the very beggining. After getting home from being in Rosario I told my companion that the week was going to go by really fast. I was right, the week went by really fast. We did not get to program anyone to be baptized which was a bummer, but I have a lot of faith that we are going to be able to do it this week. 

This Sunday we had ward council right before church. In ward council I found out that I was going to be giving a talk in Sacrament Meeting. I didn't know that but with a little bit of time I prepared a talk. I had a couple of scriptures that I wanted to share and put down a couple of the thoughts that I had. Well with that I gave my talk and talked for a good 10-15 minutes. I used the scriptures and didn't look at the notes I had once. It just goes to show how the mission prepares us as missionaries and how the best thing we can do is rely on the spirit. He will guide us and give us the word we need in the moment. 

All in all, this week has been wonderful. I am doing great. I hope you are all having a great week, I will talk to you all in a week. 

Love,

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Blog Letter 5/12/2014

¡Bienvenidos a todos que lean esta carta!

This blog letter might be kinda short, just because I don't know what else to put after talking to you guys yesterday. 

I would like to tell you all that I love you so much and that I am so grateful for each and every one of you. I hope that you are all happy. I enjoyed talking to you guys, it was nice to see your shining faces. 

This week has been a great week, we have had some good lessons, and we got to do a lot of fun things. I had to go to Rosario and do some paper work. It was a lot of waiting and not a whole lot of paperwork, but that is just bureaucracy. I did talk to a guy that was from Jamaica and that was pretty cool. He spoke broken English and broken Spanish so combined together it was pretty fun. He did have the cool Jamaican accent.  

Other than that I have just been fighting a cold, and trying to conquer the beast that is this cold. I am certain that all colds we get are given by Satan, but that is just my humble opinion. 

I love you all. I hope you all enjoyed your week. Have a great week and stay safe. My prayers are with all of you!!

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Letter 5/5/2014

¡Buenos Días! 

Well another week has passed here in Villa Gobernador Galvez. A week full of new experiences and a week full of learning. 

Let's see...where to begin. Let's begin with May 1st. May 1st  is The Workers Day. It is a rather big holiday here. One of the traditions of this day is Locro. It is a kind of soup that they cook here. But it takes 4 hours to cook. It is made up of corn, water, meat, Cow tail (skinned), pigs foot, cabbage, lettuce, ham, cow stomach, cow intestine, mixed with a lot of seasoning, and maybe some of other stuff that I wasnt told, or capable of identifying. I know what you are all thinking, that sounds really gross, but actually it is really really good.

My companion and I were walking around contacting some people before going to lunch. Our lunch had told us that they couldn't give us any Locro since it wasn't done cooking, so they were going to give us something else. We were a little bummed that we weren't going to get Locro, but as we were contacting we contacted two guys that were cooking Locro. They invited us in and well... we got two big bowls of Locro each. It was really, really tasty, but I still think that cow intestine, and cow stomach is just too chewy. After that we went to our planned lunch, but the problem was we were already full. We ate anyways. It turns out in 2 hours time we ate 4 plates of food. Four very full plates of food. 

With May First being a holiday we had a ward activity and had the entire ward in the Capilla. We played games and shared a spiritual thought about missionary work, it was a very successful activity. 

To end this letter I would just like to tell you all I am doing great. And that even during hard times, we can still be happy. My companion and I had every lesson fail us this last Tuesday, and on top of that it poured rain. It just down poured on us. But we continued working, we sang songs, told jokes, contacted people, and had a good time. Due to the contacts we have new investigators. All because of our attitude of pressing forward with joy in our hearts and working. 

My invitation to anyone reading this letter is that if you are struggling, or maybe a little down hearted, keep your head up. Count your blessings. But keep moving forward with a smile. It will get better, and you will be blessed for your faith. 

Love,

Elder Mason Paul