Why (only) give in December?

The other day I bought a delicious sleeve of Quaker oatmeal cookies (the apple and honey kind). Zone Conference had lasted almost the entire day and when we left I had to think twice if we had actually ever eaten. I carefully examined the third one as if asking, "how is it possible that cookies can be so good?" when out of the corner of my eye I saw an old hiking backpack--the kind with metal poles as supports--on the corner of an entrance to a bank. In the split second that I had to think before looking up the thought crossed my mind, "poor guy, that´s probably all he owns". Then I looked up and saw the backpack´s owner, and without a moments hesitance I heard, "do you have two pesos?" What had before been pity somehow turned to annoyance and I casually told him I had nothing and kept walking. As we stepped into the intersection I heard him say something like, "oh come on, you have food!" I realized in the middle of the street what an awful mistake I had just made. We waited on the other corner for the lights to change and I embarrassingly walked back to face him. I gave him the sleeve of cookies and apologized and made my way back across the intersection to wait for the bus. I started asking myself, why was my first reaction to just ignore him? What would have happened if he wouldn´t have said anything back? How can I call myself a representative of Jesus Christ? I know you all might think I´m a terrible person now haha, but I think we often find ourselves in similar situations. These are my thoughts: Why give? Mosiah states it pretty clearly, "And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the begger putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish" (Mosiah 4:16). I don´t think it gets much more clear than that. It´s actually necessary if we wish to retain a remission of our sins, "For the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God--I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor...both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants" (Mosiah 4:26). Johns says, "But whoso hath this world´s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:17-18). My thoughts were practically the same. Do we profess to be followers of Jesus Christ in word, or do our deeds reflect our faith? The folly of judging Matthew says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again"(Matthew 7:1-2). Mosiah talks about it specifically about how we judge those who are less fortunate than us, "Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just-- But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth his the same hath great cause to repent..." (Mosiah 4:17-18). I think sometimes the idea given by Mosiah of "the man has brough upon himself his misery" can also be something like "the man will bring upon himself more misery if I give him what I have." Both of the judgements are pretty similar. I´ve asked myself, "why are we willing to give to a white-bearded man outside of Walmart at the sound of a bell while hesitant to help an untrimmed man under a bridge or sitting at a street corner?" I think our judgements are the only reason we would give in one situation and hold back what we have in the other. Mosiah makes a great point, "For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have?" (Mosiah 4:19). Give of your love That is what Christ´s whole message is, is it not? Like Mosiah says, we do this by administering to their temporal AND spiritual needs. I´m running out of time but I think we all can think of ways to better give of our love. Paul asks, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" (Romans 8:35). Let´s give our love to those around us lest we become the broken link in helping someone else feel the love of Christ. With all the love of a sleeve of cookies, Elder Lounsbury

Freedom Week

Hey family, this week was pretty crazy. I hope you all had a great fourth of July! We started off the day in style with some pretty great Freedom Toast, hash browns and orange juice. We had some great plans to make burgers with BBQ and fries but they had to get postponed until the next day because of some emergence exchanges we had to do soooo it wasn´t the perfect fourth of july but we spent it in the cause of justice so I figured it couldn´t have been too much more American. On the 5th we made our BBQ burgers and pretty much failed at making a fire and cooking them over a grill so we ate some pretty raw meat hahah. But we learned how to do better next time and that´s all the matters. And to finish it all off on the 7th we made banana splits that were absolutely wonderful. Other than that things have been pretty calm this week. We´ve been working with Agustin´s mom and dad (the dad is less active and the mom isn´t a member) and they both came to church this week so that´s been pretty great. They need to get married so she can´t get baptized quite yet but I´m sure it´ll happen in the future so that´s wonderful. There´s nothing quite like seeing a whole family sitting there on the pews that weren´t there before you started working with them. Teodora couldn´t come to church again because she was doing something with her granddaughter who is visiting her for a while from Africa, so we´re a little bummed about that but she already passed her baptismal interview and now pretty much just needs to go to church again. We committed her to going next week but I´m afraid she´s going to be something with her granddaughter again. She´s mentioned a couple times, "I´ll go again when my granddaughter leaves" which kinda makes me nervous because I don´t think that´s going to be anytime soon. The other two people we were working with who had baptismal dates for this week left....One of them comes back from Buenos Aires today so we can start working with her again but the other one left to a southern city and I think it´s pretty much for good...so that´s kinda annoying. The good news is we´re still working with a couple of people that know members and we´re still waiting to teach another one who we haven´t met yet. The slight problem that we have is that this one family who is just sharing like the gospel like bosses with all their friends lives kinda far away....so we have to bug the members and get them to take us there and it doesn´t always work out like we want. But, we´re getting along anyways. One of the girls from this family we´re teaching that just lives out in the middle of nowhere was committed to going to church on Saturday night. We had to call like everyone in the ward who has a car to figure out how we were going to get her there because there aren´t any busses on Sunday. Anddd after calling people for like maybe more than half an hour, we get a text in the morning that says her parents wouldn´t let her go. So that was also kind of a bummer but we´re going to start working more with getting the parents a testimony because as of now they´ve been listening and everything but I don´t think they´ve felt it as much as she has. Welp, other than that, everythings been pretty normal over here. I´m kinda getting ready to go to a new area, so hopefully in one week I´ll be telling you guys where I´m going. I hope you all have another great week! With all the love of a banana split, Elder Lounsbury

July Brings Winter

Hello earthlings!! This week was pretty delicious! We´ve been teaching mostly the same people that we were teaching last week, so almost all of the lessons we taught this week were with members, which is really helping the investigators progress. We were a little disappointed because one of our investigators that had a baptismal date for this Saturday is going to Buenos Aires for like a week....so that baptism fell through for right now. We also have an investigator who might be moving back to another city in Argentina this week (as of now she has a tentative baptismal date for this Saturday) so....we´re going to see how that goes as well. Andddd the last baptism we had scheduled for this week couldn´t make it to church this week because she had family over, so unless the bishop makes an exception we´re probably have to move it to the 14. We were a little disappointed that out of the three baptisms we could have had this week none are looking very certain, but we should at least have one before I leave this area. We were also hoping that one of the families we are teaching would come to church this week but they don´t really feel comfortable yet and they said that for now they´re working on building a house for someone in their family in the morning on Sunday, so we´re hoping to go by this week on Saturday to help them out so that they can go next week. They´re progressing pretty well but it´s hard to teach to all of their needs because some of them understand a lot faster than others. But I have high hopes they´ll get baptized in the future. The great news this week is that we found two other small families to teach. Both of them are related to one of the recent converts in our area. Before apparently one of the family members wasn´t too friendly with the missionaries but now there doesn´t seem to be a problem so we´re excited to be finding people even though we´re teaching a pretty decent amount of people. I think if we teach them with a member this week and have that member pick them up Sunday morning that we can get those two families to church pretty easily so that´ll be great. Even though I´m probably leaving the area in two more weeks it´s cool to see how better off the area is than when I first got here and to know that we´ve found a couple people who are going to get baptized in the future. Other than that, it snowed this morning! It kinda came out of nowhere, yesterday I was walking around with a short sleeve shirt and today it´s back to coats and scarfs. But even then it´s not very cold. Oh yeah, and our shower still isn´t fixed (it´s been like 2 weeks since only cold water comes out) so I think I´ll be welcoming transfers because warm-water-bucket showers some days and straight up cold showers other days are not my favorite things to do in winter. But it´s all for the experience right? Well family, I hope you all have a fantastic week, With all the love of a cold shower, Elder Lounsbury

Busy Bumble Bee

Dear family, This week was absolutely fantastic. I don´t think I´ve ever seen so much success on my mission. There have been some days where we have literally had to run from teaching appointment to teaching appointment because we have so many people to teach. It has been great. We´re teaching a ton of people that we´ve found through the members. I don´t you if you all remember that 5-5-5 plan that I told you about a awhile ago but we´ve found like six people through getting references from those families. We´ve actually only been working closely with two of the families and we´ve found that many people to teach regularly in the week so I can´t even imagine how it would be if we worked that way with all of the families. We´re teaching two old ladies that are friends of one of the families and they both came to church this week so we´re super excited. They both have a baptismal date for the 7th of July so they just need to come to church next week and they´re set. They´re great though. We´re also teaching two other people from another family that lives way out in the boonies. They live super far so we´ve been trying to get out there as much as possible by asking the members to take us but sometimes I feel like we´re asking a lot. We´re seeing a lot of success though so we have to do it. One of those people we´re teaching also came to church this week and also has a baptismal date for the 7th so hopefully if everything works out smooth we´ll have 3 baptisms that day. That family knows another family (of 5) that we´re working with who lives even more way out in the boonies. The other day we didn´t have any one to take us from the family that lives kind of out in the boonies to the family that lives way out in the boonies so we basically ran/jogged/walked three miles to get there as soon as possible because we were already late. It was pitch dark because we were way out in the country and the wind was blowing like we were in some kinda scary movie and it just felt like a boss. It was great. Basically, we´re having a blast and teaching lots of people. Hmmm, other than that there´s not a ton of new stuff going on... Welp, with all the love of a honey bee, Elder Lounsbury

Path Paver

Hey y´all! This week was pretty great. News #1 is that Agustín got baptized! It was super great seeing him finally taking that decision. I think missionaries have been working with him since he was 8 and like 6 years later he´s finally made the decision to get baptized. I honestly think his little sister helped him out a lot. She kinda took a braver inicitive and didn´t have a problem going to church and accepting a baptismal date before him etc, which I think made it easier for him. She kinda paved the path and made it easier for him to follow. I think we all rely on path pavers in our life but also at certain points when the crowds follow the world´s path we gotta make our own, and maybe we´ll make it easier for someone else to follows us heading in the right direction. Do you pave the right paths for others to follow? This week we´ve had a lot of sucess working with the members. We´re really seeing this 5-5-5 plan finally working. I think we had 10 lessons with member both this week and last week which is pretty high with what we´re used to. We have a decent amount of investigadors that are progressing and all of them have close friends or family who are members so we have really high hopes that they´re going to progress well. By the end of this transfer in like 4 weeks we could possibly have 3 or 4 more baptisms, so we´re really working hard to help all of the people we have progress even more. In the last two weeks we´ve had some pretty cool experiences with the spirit. It´s almost as if we have our own super tiny pride cycle. We start having a lot of success and then we might start praying a little less fervently or become a little more slack and then we realize our teaching has gone down the drain. This past week we´ve gotten a lot better and haven´t really seen that as much but it´s just so interesting how small things can make such a big difference in the amount of the spirit we have. And it´s so vital to have the spirit when we teach, if we don´t then we´re left to our own abilities and basically nothing good comes from that haha. It´s the first time in my mission I´ve really seen differing levels of the spirit and I think it´s something good to notice in our own lifes. Even the most basic tiny things we do will either help us feel the spirit a little bit more in our lives or they´ll make us lose just a little bit. Maybe in the moment we won´t feel a difference (although with some decisions we can) but over the long run it´ll make a difference in where we end up. In which direction are you going? The journey of a 1000 miles starts with one step, so watch your step. (I think I stole that from Elder Holland but it´s pretty good haha) Also, this week I had the opportunity to read the new for the strengh of the youth pamplet and I am absolute in love with it. It is SO golden. It´s like a Preach My Gospel but for life. If you do everything in that pamphlet you are going to be such a solid person. I think one of my favorite parts was under service. It said something like "pray daily to be guided to someone you can give a helping hand." Can you imagine if we all lived that way? That manual is so inspired. It is like the key to unlock un ending happiness is right in front of our noses. Well family, I believe that´s all I got for now. I hope you all have a spectacular week. With all the love of a freshly paved path, Elder Lounsbury

Baptism!

So the great news this week is that Valentina got baptized! Her whole family came to chruch (her inactive dad and non-member mom) so that was also pretty great. Also, her brother is getting baptized this Saturday so we're super excited. We're hoping this week we can start working a lot more with the family. They looked so great in church. We just gotta get them going like a family like that every week. Saturday was actually pretty hectic. There was a Primary activity in the morning that we tried bringing a couple of investigators too but we got there late to meet with the ward secretary who had the keys to look at the baptismal clothes and start filling up the font. It wouldn't have been too bad if that was the only thing but we found out there were no clothes for little girls and that the water didn't work in the church. So basically we were just missing the two most important things besides the actual person getting baptized. haha. We ended up getting ahold of a guy who came to fix the water and had to take a taxi over to a member's house from another ward who had some clothes we borrowed from her. Anyways, after all the chaos it turned out pretty well. There's weren't a lot of other members there (only the bishop, the primary president and her family) and I have a suspicion that it was because Brasil and Argentina were playing... haha. (Of course Argentina won, I'll have to talk a bit of trash to Elder Plant haha) The only slightly bad news is that one of our investigators didn't come to church so unless we stretch the two-church-attendance standard we won't be able to baptize next week. But we're still working with a couple people so hopefully we can have at least one more before the transfer is over and I bounce out of this area. So far things in my district are going alright. Neither one of the companionships had a very good week but they both had like half weeks because of transfers so it's understandable. I'm probably going to have to do exchanges next week so that'll be interesting. Mostly I'm thinking I just gotta get them excited and get them a couple of solid investigators because since they're washing an area they're pretty much starting from zero. We played soccer today and so I got to know them a little bit which was good. It's going to be interesting balancing getting everything done in our area so that everything goes smoothly with Agustin's baptism and at the same time work a little bit in another area to help them get started. I love seeing English translations here. Today we went to a restaurant and there was some pretty ridiculous stuff on there. I feel like they just typed it in google translate. For different sized drinks in spanish they had Chico, Mediano, Grande meaning Small Medium and Large. But the translation for "chico" was "boy" because in a different context that's also what it means...haha. So basically they had "boy" listed on their menu. Tasty. Another kinda funny one was this alcoholic drink called "Black Jack" and the translation for it (you think they'd know that was already in English) was "Jack Black" haha. Wonder if he knows he's up for sale in Argentina. Pretty cheap too. Welp family, that's about all I got for now. With all the love of Jack Black, Elder Lounsbury

French toast! BBQ sauce!

Well family, how are you all doing? Things over here and going just splendidly. We had to go to Mendoza on Tuesday and didn´t get back til Wednesday night so this week wasn´t spectacular but we did what we needed to because Agustin and Valentina came to church! We finally got Agustin to come to mutual with us, and I think it helped him feel a lot more comfortable with going to church because he already knew people there. We´ve got Valentina´s baptism lined up for this Saturday but Agustin has only been to church one time so we´re going to have his baptism next Saturday. We just gotta make sure he comes to church this Sunday and we´ll be set. He already has all of the lessons and a testimony so that´s pretty cool. We´re going to have a Family Home Evening with their family (their dad is less active and their mom isn´t a member) so we´re hoping to use the baptisms of the kids as a way to help the dad come back and also to get the mom more interested. The spirit is always super strong at baptisms so it´ll be super important that we get them there for that. We´re also making some progress with the husband of a long time member. He´s gone from like 20 to just 6 cigarettes and he´s reading the book of mormon seriously for the first time in his life. We still gotta help him stop smoking completely, go to church, and recognize he´s gotten an answer but his wife got up in testimony meeting and said that we were making progress with him with things he´s never done before in his life so that´s helped us a lot. Even though he still has some big changes to make he´s slowly been making small ones. Slow progression is better than no progression. He´s got a baptismal date for the 30th of this month so we´ve really gotta start getting him to make those changes fast. Especially with church so he can go twice before his baptismal date. Other than that this week has been pretty normal. It´s was a transfer week, so there´s been a few changes in the zone but we knew I was staying with my comp because the training program is two transfers long. The only changes that really affect us are that we´ll be getting someone new in our apartment and that my district is now going to have two more missionaries. It´s going to be a little interesting because one of the new missionaries is a little notorious for....I don´t know if I would say causing problems, but maybe something like "hard to handle". So...I guess that´s going to be a growing opportunity for me...haha. Welp, the last somewhat exciting thing I can think of is that on Sunday for lunch we made french toast and ate it with peanut butter and syrup and my taste buds about exploded. It was like uniting with a friend you haven´t seen in a long time and having it be better than what you expected because at first you wondered if it would be awkward. Kinda like that but super better. And we put the Bullseye BBQ sauce to work again with some steak we cooked this afternoon. It was a pretty similar experience to that long lost friend thing. So good. I think that´s about it for now folks, With all the love of BBQ sauce, Elder Lounsbury