Blog Letter 12/15/2014

FELIZ NAVIDAD!!

Well hello everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far! I saw a way that a missionary emailed his family and I kinda liked it, so I am going to try it. Let me know what you think.

Monday:

Last monday after going to the Ciber and talking to you guys, Elder R and I with two other sisters walked to the Giant Mate, we went into the giant mate store which is a souvenir store but it was SUPER expensive. So we went to the store to the side of the Giant Mate, and we got some souvenirs, I love going into some of the random corner stores here.

Tuesday:

Like all Tuesdays we had regular district meeting. After regular district meeting we went and taught some lessons in the tarde. We ended the night teaching our investigator D with some members inside the church it was a great lesson. 

Wednesday:

We taught a less active member who is really sick, and has a speech impetiment, we gave him a blessing. B passed her Baptism Interview which is awesome! And we taught a kid some english that had to take his final exam, he knew about as much English as I know German...So I am not sure if he is going to pass... R our recent convert is doing awesome. She has never read the scriptures before, but now she is reading 1 chapter of the Book of Mormon, The bible, and Gospel Principles every day. 

Thursday:

We taught that same kid English, he actually retained the first lesson pretty well. Maybe, just maybe he will pass. We went looking for a lady that we needed to find in order for a person to get baptized in La Paz. We had to go into a Villa, and right as we passed this one are, and talked to a lady we turned around and passed the same spot less then 4 minutes later and it was surrounded with Police with shotguns, and people were fighting...that was cool. 

Friday: 

B GOT BAPTIZED!!! It was a great baptism! A lot of people came and we had a great time. It went out without a hitch! (which has never happened). Elder Reidhead baptized her. It was a great baptism!

Saturday:

We helped a guy push his car to try and start it, as we were practically running, and pushing this car kinda down hill we got close to an intersection, we stopped pushing, but the guy decided not to stop, and ended up T-boning another car...But they got it all figured out. We also taught D, and S, they are two recent converts, that are kinda struggling, So if anyone has any marriage advice it will be welcomed. We also did service in the morning.

Sunday:

We had our stake conference with Pres. Zanni. It was a really good meeting. I felt the spirit really strong. Also D will be baptized this 20th of December she passed her interview!  We taught some good lessons that night. 

All in all this last week has been a good week! I hope you are all doing great!

Love,

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Blog Letter 12/8/2014

Hello Family and Friends!

This week has been a great week. We have had a lot of laughs, and a lot of good times. It feels good to be a missionary. 

We have had a lot of success and a lot of miracles have happened. 

We should have a baptism next week, then the week after that. We are hoping to have more baptisms in January. We are finding a lot of people, and seeing the lords hands go before us. 

This week I went on divisions with Elder G, he is from ecuador, he is a good guy, it was fun to be with him and learn a little bit about Ecuador, he actually lived on the Galapagos Islands. He made me want to take a trip to Ecuador. 

I also went on divisions with Elder C he is from Guatemala. He speaks a different Language that is an ancient tribal language. It was interesting to hear him speak it. I went to Victoria with Elder C. Victoria is a small pueblito about 2 hours in colectivo from Paraná. Its a really nice Tranquilo place. 

One part of the Mission I didnt expect is how much I am able to learn and interact with different cultures. I have met and talked with people from Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Columbia, Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, and more. I have learned so much about other cultures. Its really been awesome!

We did Service for an hermana that had a pool that you had to put together. It was quite a big pool. and it took a long time to put together. It was super hot outside, and the Irony is that we as missionaries couldnt even get in the water. But I have learned to really enjoy serving other people. 

Now me and Elder R are going to go and try to find a Giant Mate. It supposed to be bigger then a human. It should be fun. I will be sure to take photos. :)

I love you guys so much!!

Elder Mason Paul Reid

Blog Letter 11/24/2014

¡Buenas!

This week has been WONDERFUL! We have had a great week this week! I have a lot I would like to share with you guys, but very little time to do it! First of I would like to share a quote that is really popular but I feel like I need to share it.

There are two kinds of people in this world, those who act, and those who get acted upon. 

This week we visited a lot of people, and as a missionary its wonderfu to be able to see the fruit of your labor, and this week we saw it, many of the people we visited came to church, the church was full, and it was amazing to see! I was really really happy. But on top of that we have some even better news. 

D is an investigator of ours, she is also an active and faithful Jehovas Witness we had been teaching her a lot, and we weren't seeing a lot of progress, and the doctrine of her church and ours are very distinct on very important subjects. We always tried to teach her without letting it turn into bible bashing. We finally decided that what she needed was something out of our power to give her, on the 18th of October we fasted for her. With a lot of faith that she would get an answer. After fasting it seemed like nothing had changed, we continued to visit her, but we did it less frequently, and we felt a little bummed she had not recieved an answer, or that God had not answered our fast. 

Well as always The Lord never faileth. Deuternomy 31:6. But I had forgotten that his ways are not our ways, nor his times our times. Isaiah 55:8. 

This last week D went to the Buenos Aires temple with a member, she obvisouly could not go in, but she could be in the gardens, well while she was their she met up with a member who had lost her temple recommend and couldn't go in, after talking to the member, and being on the temple ground she felt the spirit and has decided to be baptized. MIRACLES!! The Lord ALWAYS answers the prayers of his servants! 

I invite you all to visit a website that the church is putting in. I believe it began this week. Look up christmas.mormon.org. Its a huge giant move the church is doing, including buying advertisement in New York, and also on Youtube. Its a big thing, our mission president has talked to us about it. We will be putting it in practice this next little while. Dont ever forget that 

"HE (Christ) IS THE GIFT. SHARE THE GIFT!!"

I love you all so much! You are all amazing people! Dont ever forget who you are, and that God loves you!

Elder Mason Paul Reid