September 30, 2013

I got everything safe and sound from Elder Morgan. He is so happy to be here and I am so happy that he is here. IT really is incredibly different to be in the mission that we are actually supposed to be in. The SLC mission was fun, but here is where I feel like I am making a difference and learning.

I don´t have a lot of time. we got cut short a lot today, but I wanted to thank you for the letter that I got with the pictures from holly and violet. It was simple but what I needed. I am doing great! And I really love it here...most of the timem but like you said, the hard times will come and they will not be fun. But we can learn from them! I am going to try my hardest to learn each and every day from the hard things. And enjoy the good things. I love you and miss you! I will write more next week :) 

Oh and Irma and Isabel are great, and old. haha but great. and The family is struggling...we found out some other underlying stuff that has made it a little bit harder.... :/ but I am not giving up. I just wanna say thanks to you and dad for being such good parents and examples because it really is easy to mess up and be a bad example, but as far as I have seen, you have been nothing but good examples to me :) Love ya both! Have a good week! And if you can write more on sunday andsend the letters a little earlier that would be great because we usually do e-mails in the morning and we are 3 hours ahead. ENJOY CONFERENCE! AND TAKE NOTES ON THE IPAD TO SEND TO ME. I wanna know what you think, and I will be watching it in spanish so it won´t be as powerful to me :/ love ya! 

Elder Hazlett

September 23, 2013

It is pretty incredible how fast the weeks go by in the mission. I feel like yesterday was the day I read your last e-mail. I don´t know whether or not I like it that the time goes by so fast...? As always I am so excited to see everyone again, but at the same time I love it here and the opportunities that I am having.

This week it was a little harder to stay excited because it was raining almost everyday and almost all day. I don´t mind the rain but it makes it a lot harder to work. Not only is it freezing and wet and windy, but the people (instead of inviting us in for a break from the cold) tell us to come by another day when the whether is better...? I am always confused when that happens haha but it was good nonetheless. We had a baptism for Isabel. She is the funnies old lady ever. She lives in her house with 25 or so other members of her family and they are all her kids, grandkids, or great grandkids. She loves when the missionaries visit because her family doesn´t really talk much with her. They are all busy doing other things so when we stop by to visit, she lights up. She always has a different kind of juice and cookies for us to try and if it is cold, she always has some hot chocolate or something. She is just great. 

Her baptism however, was at 8 in the morning on sunday before church and the font takes 4 hours to fill.....you can do the math. We were at the church at 3:30 to start filling the font. Then we came back to our apartment to sleep a little bit more but I couldn´t sleep because my mind was racing with all sorts of thoughts. It wasn´t all bad though. The baptism ended up being awesome and super simple. 

Also, this week we have been working a ton with a family that reminds me a lot of you guys. They have a 9 year old son that is a lot like eli in the fact that he has a really strong spirit and is always questioning things. The last lesson we gave was on the restoration and the importance of prophets. He basically taught it all to us. (Their family is less active so we are reteaching them) He used the example of a satellite and the cell phone and how we can´t see the other person but because we have a satellite (prophet) we can recieve the message. IT was pretty great. Another reason I love visiting with their family is because the mom and dad remind me so much of you guys. She has the same books that you like (the mind healing ones) but in spanish haha and he is just super humble and wants to help everyone like dad. The only difference is that she had a bad experience in the church and it made her inactive for the past 5 years or so. Right now we are working hard with them because Diego (9 year old) wants to get baptized but the bishop wants the family to be active first. The past few weeks they have gone to church (except for the mom) and Diego has a date set for the 19th of october. The other day in our lesson I shared 1 nephi 1. I think I told you that story already, but really we are trying to work really hard with her. I know that if she can get going than she will be such an influence for all of the people. 

Here is where I need your help. You sent me an e-mail a while back talking about all the "Mind over Matter" stuff and how it really goes against faith or something like that. I don´t remember very well. But She reminds me a lot of you and I felt like you could help me out with something that might help her? She was sick for a while and got blessings and stuff but none of them worked and it was getting worse and worse, so then she went to like all sorts of crazy places to try and find a cure because it was a rare sickness. She ended up finding like a witchdoctor type thing that "healed" her but really it was just the end of the sickness. So now she doesn´t really have a testimony in the priesthood and she thinks that the witchdocotr healed her. It sounds crazy, but she really isn´t crazy at all so I don´t know. haha

This story is all told by her husband while she wasn´t there so it is hard because we haven´t been able to talk to her about it. it is a really touchy subject. I told Faustino (her husband) that the best thing he can do right now is be a strong example. Exercise his priesthood power in every possible moment and pray hard and with her, and search the scriptures for help and strength, and have faith that she WILL come around and she will. He is such a good guy so I have no doubt that it will happen.

Anyway, yeah that is basically the majority of what I am working with right now. It is also awesome because they always cook a meal for us when we come and it is AMAZING haha.

Oh, another family that we are teaching that is less active and have 2 kids that want to be baptized is the Campos family. They are awesome as well but have had some TOUGH trials in the last few weeks. Their dad had cancer and past away just 2 weeks ago, and this last saturday was his birthday so they were having a party and someone knocked on the door and told them that the top of their house was on fire...they lost basically half of their house and a lot of pictures and stuff. We passed by to visit them (unaware that anything had happened) and if they wouldn´t have told me, I wouldn´t have known because they were so happy! IT was a testimony builder to me that the Plan of Salvation brings happiness, This Gospel Brings happiness, and that the Family is the only way to have the most happiness in the hard times! 

There is a lot more to say but I don´t have much time. I love you guys, I miss you tons, and I am excited to share those happy moments again when I get home! Have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Hazlett :)

September 16, 2013

This week has been pretty amazing. I´ll be honest, last monday I thought that it was going to be a terrible week. That I was gonna have a new companion and have to lead the area that I didn´t know very well, and that I would ahve spent the whole week feeling a little bummed. Because I had that feeing, I decided that I was going to pray extra hard to have faith that whatever happened would be what the Lord had in store for me. Tuesday night we received the phone call from the Zone Leaders with the Transfer information. Not only was I staying in my area, but my companion was made District Leader over a new district. That was something that was both a little bit stressful, but awesome at the same time. It gave us an excuse to work even harder to be examples for the other missionaries in our district. We were able to lose oursleves in the work throughout the week and focus on the blessings and miracles that we had each day and it was incredible. 

Our district ended up being the top district in the whole mission as far as success for the week. I know that we were blessed for our diligence and obedience and Also to help my companion with his new calling. 

We had our ward confrence this weeked as well, so we spent a lot of time visiting less active members and inviting them to come to ward confrence. It was an amazing experience and a testimony builder because missionaries definitely have the help and guidance of the lord when they are working diligently and are in tune with the spirit. We visited a couple families who had been invited previously by members and were thinking about going, but weren´t sure. We than continued to do our job which is invite others to come unto christ, and that is exactly what they chose to do. We shared thoughts and bore testimony about the importance of Christ in our lives and I know that they felt the spirit. This time that I have and all missionaries have (if used appropriately) will be the best experience that we will ever have in our lives as far as Serving the Lord. We are able to focus all of our efforts each day in helping our fellow man, brothers and sisters, accept and receive the blessings of the Gospel. I know the power that God used to organize the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in the Earth today to help us. To help us to help others. And to help others help themselves by strengthening their testimonies. 

One story that I want to tell you is from last night. Our last visit. We visited a family that is super awesome. The mom is a lifelong member and the dad is a convert but has been a member for a long time. Their family is super awwesome but they have been inactive for a while. Their son is 9 years old and wnats to be baptized but their family needs to come back to church first. So we went and had dinner with them last night and during dinner we were talking about the ward conference and how we missed them there. (ya know, the chessy missionary lines that are used with less actives) but really I was listening and searching for what exactly it was that they needed to get back to church. As we were talking, she kept saying that she didn´t really have desires to go back but she would see what happens. But what she really kept talking about was how her son Diego has a strong spirit, a different spirit than most nine year olds. I was thinking of Eli in that moment. Then she was saying how he is gonna be a great kid when he grows up. Every mother is proud of her chirldren obviously and wants the best for them, but really I could see as well that he has an incredible spirit. In that moment, I knew exactly what scripture I was going to share. 1 Nephi 1. "I nephi, having been born of goodly parents...and being favored in the sight of god" (or something like that? I was speaking spanish haha) I bore testimony that Diego does have a strong spirit and has a lot of great things to do, and that Diego also has been born of goodly parents, but that almost all of the things that Nephi learned how to do, Prayer, Faith, Working HArd, were all things that he was taught by his parents and their example. I shared a person experience of how MY Mom (you) and my Dad are the biggest examples in my life. How if my parents really wantred me to do something, or learn something. The best way to teach them that was by example. I kind of dropped the cane on them and was a little bit intense, but being bold was what they needed. 

I am so glad to have parents that are examples to me and help me to be the best person! I couldn´t ask for better parents :)

Love you guys so much!

Elder Hazlett

September 9, 2013

Every street that we walk, every door that we knock, and every person we talk to all have 2 things in common. Their Love of God, and their Love of Futbol. I have spent a lot of time over the last 2 months that I have been here in Argentina contemplating what it is that keeps motivates these people. What is the thing that they love the most in this life. 

They are almost all Baptized Catholic and believe that God is our Father in Heaven. That Jesus is the Christ. And that through Faith in them we will be saved, but what I have come to find is that the majority of the people have forgotten that Faith has two parts. Both Faith and Works are the things that are going to save us. 

Too often we get distracted by the "Futbols" of the world and that distracts us from the things that we need to be doing. I am not in any way saying that Futbol is a bad thing, but what I am saying is that in order to be the best Futbol player in the World, we cannot be of the world. 

I find myself using this analogy in almost every lesson when we are teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ because the first Principle of the Gospel is Faith. "If you have faith that you are going to be the greatest futbol player Argentina has ever seen, is that faith going to make you the greatest?" The answer is NO. That faith, if it is put into action, will then carry you into greatness. However, that requires of us just a few things. We have to always have the Goal in mind to achieve the best, or to inherit the Kingdom of God, and then we are going to be filled with the desire to work and to practice and to grow!

There are so many awesome and amazing blessings in this life that we have and should take advantage of because they are here to help us. But one thing we have to do as well is thank God for those things, and show him that we care and that we really want to acheive the Goal.

It has been an incredible learning experience here on the mission and I am so Glad for the opportunities that I have been given.

~Elder Hazlett

September 2, 2013

My Birthday Week!

My companion Elder Ticino and I have been working this week to find as many new people to teach as possible and it has been great! We have knocked on probably 1000 doors during our time together so far and it  been great. We haven´t had a ton of success with that but we have had enough success to teach a lot! I am loving it down here and learning to love the people and the food more and more everyday! We just had a baptism last weekend (the 24th) and it was amazing! I love this family! We have another baptism schduled for this weeked also and I am so excited! It is with the family that I celebrated my birthday with!

                                              Here are a couple pictures from this week. 

                  

                                                      The baptism from last weekend

                         My birthday party. We had empanadas and a fruitcake that was amazing!

                                                    The Sunset view from our apartment.