Hey everyone so this has been the fastest transfer of my life. It really is going by like a whirlwind and before you know it a 1/4 of my mission is already past. I can add my testimony to everyone that says its the fastest two years of your life...

pics

1The sunsetting.. I know i´ve taken a ton of those but the sun going down behind the Andes, shooting the last rays through the clouds is really breathtaking....

2 The cherries are starting to be harvested. There are trees all around and of so many different fruits. If I want cherries, i pick a few on the way, or apples or peaches or pears or walnuts.... (didnt know those grew on trees...) but anyway I ended up eating a whole kilo of cherries. They were really good. I think thats almost 2 lbs. anyhoo...

But anyways thanksgiving was this week. I am sure it was great there. they have enough holidays here so I never feel homesick in that regard haha. Okay. This week on the food report, I ate something new and different. Its called pata de vaca. Which is like all the sinews and parts of the hoof and legs of cows that isn´t meat. It was not bad. Its like salt flavored jello that has been left out too long and is kinda rubbery. It wasn´t bad, but it didn´t change the fact that I had to beg in prayer that I would get through it. And I did, so that was a much appreciated tender mercy. I made a deal with myself that I would try anything that was placed in front of me here because why not? Paul became like the greeks and romans and the other gentiles, so I can become like the Argentines. Or Bolivians haha.

I went on divisions with the new elder in our neighboring area of Tupungato and he is just awesome. He already knows castillano perfectly! It helps that he´s a portaño haha. So it was way fun, we taught 15 lessons and had like 5 news. But it was really fun because we had a competition and the rules were thus: had to place a LdM (20 pts) and 1 of every folleto...(i don´t remember the word but those are the little booklets about the restoration, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, law of chastity, etc.) there are 6 of them. Each was worth 13.333333333333 points and so in total, if you placed a BoM, and all the folletos, you had a 100 pts. Well, I started getting all my easy folletos out of the way by way of just talking to people in the street. The Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and Gospel of Jesucristo are relatively easy to give away because they are some of our fundamental beliefs. The Law of Chastity was fun because a lot of elders (yes, me too) just get way red when they teach someone about it. The Word of wisdom was interesting because this guy I stopped on the street was carrying a crate full of returnable 40 oz beer bottles and smoking something... but I told him about prophets and how through a prophet we have the word of wisdom. He was like Bro I alread have a prophet. Bob Marley maaaaaan. But i saw him later reading the whole thing so I hope it did some good. Okay, now teaching someone about the law of tithing is really hard to do if its not like an established investigator and they are just lock stock and barrel ready for baptism. But we both managed to teach a little bit about commandments and how they are for our benefit and how tithing has always been a commandment. Return appointments with both of those people haha. It was a really good day and we ended up tying because we both handed out every folleto and each placed a Book of Mormon. So we ordered from the Krustyburger to celebrate a little haha. Divisions are fun and miracles always happen. It is also weird that I´m not the greenie anymore. Only as far as like titles go though. I have so much to learn and experience still.

Something I have been thinking about lately is testimony. We know its like any living organism that requires nourishment and care. If it lacks those things, it diminishes until dead. As a sidenote, I believe that any testimony can be replanted again and hearts can change. But I have been studying the words of living prophets in recent conference editions of the Liahona about testimonies and how we gain and maintain them. A common theme I have found is that there are a few requirements to the gaining and maintaining of them. First, you need a desire. God will bless us according to the righteous desires of our hearts and I promise that the desire of gaining a testimony is certainly a worthy desire. This leads to the next step; willingness to work. The Lord will most likely not do for us what we can do for ourselves (True to the Faith: prayer) and so if we take no thought but to ask Him, we probably will not recieve anything (for a testimony is a gift of God). This work involves daily scripture study, constant prayer, desire of course, obedience to the commandments and personal meditation. The next step is to be willing to do something with this gained testimony. We have to be willing to change, or to live the Gospel of Jesus more committedly. Then, if we ask God, with faith in Jesus Christ, and that we can recieve answers to our prayers, we will know by the power of the Holy Ghost anything we want, including the veracity of the First Vision of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, to name a few. And then we have to put it all into practice.

Like it says in John, we can gain a testimony of certain principles like tithing or daily prayer or keeping the sabath day holy by practicing it. I am working on improving my testimony becuase I know it will help me become a more powerful teacher, or in other words, a stronger testimony will help provide the Holy Ghost more to work with, and the message will be taken directly to the heart of those who listen. Anyway, just some thoughts.

I hope you are all happy and good. I can´t wait for Christmas! I started listening to more christmas themed mo'tab now haha. This is going to be a great Christmas. Love you all!

Elder Daybell