Hey Everybody!!!

This week was good. My new companion finally arrived and he is good. His name is Elder Dowdle and he is from Portland Oregon. Very cool. I met him for the first time on Thursday morning after I had gotten out of the shower. He rolled over (he got to the apartment with the office elders at like 12:30 the night before, so thats why he was sleeping) and saw me with just a towel on... So it was kind of an interesting first impression he got from me, based on the fact that all other trainers meet their new companions fully-clothed, in suits and inside a meeting house. But since then it has been good. We have been outside just a little bit of time to tell the truth though...We have to study for 4 hours in the morning in place of the usual 2.5 hours, and so when we get done its time to go to our lunch appointment. and then we just have the afternoon and night to work. I am not used to this haha. It has presented a little bit of a dilemma but its not too big a deal. My companion has a pretty hard time talking and understanding the people here. Case in point, on Sunday, I had to go talk with somebody and so left him at the mercy of the obispado for a couple of minutes. I came back and they were all laughing; Bishop, and the two counselors for what they had done, and my companion just because everyone else was laughing. One of the counselors told me that I should translate for him and so I asked what they had told him and they said that they had asked him to give a 15-20 minute talk the weekend after conference and that Elder Dowdle accepted. So... I guess this will be a good experience for him haha.... Elder Dowdle stopped laughing after I told him what they had asked him to do and that he had already accepted. oh bother

Well besides that, this week was great. We had a FHE with Claudia and Ramón and her really cute 5 year-old daughter Anael. It was SO fun too! I have made a goal to do a FHE every week at least once in the mission becuase the Prophets of God have told us that we should hold a Family Home Evening weekly and so I figure just because my real family is far away, I don´t have any excuse to not do a family home evening... there are plenty of families here! But anyway it was just really fun. We played a game, (which I can´t really explain very well so you just have to know that it is FUN) and then we taught a lesson and enjoyed some tasty chocolate banana bread. Good day.

Lets see. The other elders that live with us are awesome and threw me a suprise party last monday. I am 20 years old and a week. woooooow. Thats crazy. We had our interviews last night really ridiculously late. I felt bad for Presidente Avila because he had been interviewing since the morning and hadn´t eaten anything. I love that man! He really is so selfless and does everything he does for the well-being of his Elders. I hope that the presence he has is something that I can grow to have because I feel like he just radiates his discipleship. You know that he knows just by talking to him and being around him. Well I made a Mormon.org profile in the MTC and just recently finished it because I had so much time to just wait in the offices last wednesday... So check it out! and put it on my facebook if you could. Love you guys. I hope you are all doing really good and are happy and healthy. Moroni 8:25-26

Love ya.

He´u´intema peteí tongo. That is Guarani, an indian language from paraguay. I am learning a little bit here and there haha
Elder Daybell

Hey Mom, that was an awesome email you sent me. Sorry for being such a hastle haha. I do remember the short stranger thing and also the speed bumps. I think thats why I like going over the speed humps so fast now... :) I love ya mom.

Hey Family this week was crazy.
So my mini missionary arrived (more like mini-me. Elder Benegas does almost everything I do which has been pretty fun haha) on Wednesday and Elder Leany left. As well as the 2 other elders that they stored in our pensión for the last two weeks. So that was great. So what happened this week that is noteworthy....
-Cristian Perez left for his mission on Thursday and he had a huge farewell on Tuesday night that he invited us to, so after Elder Leany and I got done saying good bye to everyone (because he was leaving and he only has one more transfer left in the mission) we stopped by and said goodbye to the currently Elder Perez.
-We visited an older couple in our ward that had been on vacation to Chile for about a 2 months and when they came back the Hermano had something like a heart attack.... He is totally fine now, but we stopped by to visit them one tarde and to introduce my new companion Elder Benegas (who is from San Juan, a state of Argentina that pertains to our mission). One of the first things they told me was, ´´Wow! te has engordado un montón!´´ (You have gotten WAYYY fat). Later in the conversation, the Hermana hinted that they might have broken the word of wisdom on their trip home (which wouldn´t have suprised me, because there seems to be a little bit of confusion amongst the members on things like coffee and tea...). It was what she said next that kind of surprised me... ´´We did a little coca to help with the altitude sickness...´´..... I guess the coca plant (where we get cocaine) is used to help with altitude problems going all the way back to the Incas... But it was just the last thing I expected to hear from this matronly sister hahaha....
-We have given blessings everyday so far since Elder Benegas came. I think its pretty inspired because he has given his first blessing here and its been great practice for him and me.
-CLAUDIA GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!

It was a wonderful service and I will always remember the smile she was wearing after she came up out of the water. The Lord can do miracles with our hearts when we decide to follow Him. It was truly a wonderful day. The next day she got confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That same Sunday we had a pretty awesome day. We left with the High Priests Group Leader of the ward (who is truly a stud member. 85 ish and still leaving with the missionaries to find the lost sheep) and started looking for a few families that have apparently disappeared of the face of the earth. But a very miraculous thing that happened is that two families that we ended up talking to (looking for the others) told Elder Benegas and I that they want their whole family baptized and they have been waiting for someone to come and teach them. It was really an awesome experience because missionaries sometimes avoid working with the less active families. I feel like it was the Lord´s way of saying ´´You two elders need to help this ward. I will help you find those of my children that don´t know me yet along the way.´´

Well I am 20 years old today. I realized that this morning as I was eating my corn flakes, oat meal, yogurt and milk.....that I am no long a teenager. That is weird. Welcome to the ´´roaring 20s´´ :) I love you guys and hope you have an awesome week. Happy Birthday to Elder Abutaa this week. Love Elder Daybell

Hey Family. Well, I am SO glad you found those ties mom. and the hand workout thing. There is this guy that lives in my area with a grip like a vice. I gotta show him up the next time I see him... Speaking of my area, this transfer just ended and we recieved the transfer calls today. I am going to stay here in Villa del Parque. I was going to train but they just called me and told me ´´sike... you are going to have a mini-missionary.´´ I was way excited to train a new elder but.... Thats not in the cards this transfer. I am way excited to be with a mini-missionary though just because I have NO idea what to expect haha... We will see :) I just hope that we will be able to help a few of our investigators continue growing in the Gospel until they reach the day of there baptism. We were going to have one yesterday but Nara never showed up and later told us that she couldn´t get baptized even though we had talked to her mom and got her signature on all the right papers... Which is actually a pretty cool story, so I will tell you that one. On Saturday night, Elder Leany and I did divisions with our 2 new companions and then at about 8:30 at night we found out that Nara wasn´t able to get her mom to sign the registro bautismal and dropped it off at a members house. So we called Nara and asked her where her mom was and she told us that she was in some parque selling something but would be home at about 10 ish... But she was supposed to get baptized on Sunday, so we had to get that signature. So we picked up the registro, and then called the zone leaders and asked for permission to stay out late and get the signature. They said yes and so we started off to Nara´s house. We got there at about 8:45 and began to wait for the mom to come home. It is the second most dangerous part of our area, but like... we had to get the signature. So after the first group of teenage guys pulled out a gun and shot in our direction (just a cap gun mom...) I decided to take my watch and money and ID and put it inside my shirt. Very inconspicuously... Then at about 9:30 we were still waiting outside for the mom and these two pretty decent sized kids started walking towards us and I told Elder Leany that we should just go into the little store next door. So we did and acted like we were looking for alfajores and the two guys came and waited outside the door and started like whispering bad things to us... so we waited and then I said, okay, I am going to go and see if they are still there. You stay here and do something if they start to rob me or whatever... (we had to wait outside because if we didn´t like intercept her mom, we probably wouldn´t have gotten the signature). They had gone.... and then about an hour later we saw her mom finally and I recognized her just in time and she was totally fine with it and signed it no problem. Then we proceded to walk very swiftly home... So we had a miracle and we survived a pretty dangerous area late at night without anything more than a few scares and constant attention from the local "gangstas". And Nara ended up not getting baptized. But still a miracle no?

I have been thinking a lot about how the Lord has asked us for all that we have. All our time, talents, our whole heart, might, mind and strength. Whenever we teach the law of tithing and fast offerings, I always end up saying, we are only giving 10 percent of everything that the Lord has given us back to him, so its not that hard. So what can we really offer God? When you remember the nothingness of man, you begin to realize that there is literally nothing you can give to the Lord that is not already His. You can´t even really give your time, because time was created by God. We can´t give Him our possessions, because He does not need them. So what can we give our Lord? He gave us the wonderful gift of agency, our will, our heart. That truly is all that He asks. Without your whole heart, you are only damning yourself with every cent of tithing you give, and every second you spend as a full-time missionary, or Bishop or Nursery teacher. That sounds pretty heavy though doesn´t it? I thought so too. So I was thinking about it, I read some talks and I decided that all you need to do is ask God to have your heart and your will. Be like Christ and offer your own will to be swallowed up in the will of the Father. The Lord can do such wonders with your heart and all you have to do is ask Him to take it and change it. So we can really fulfill all of our covenants when we use our agency, the ability to choose captivity and death, or happiness and eternal life, to turn over everything to the Lord. Therein one can and forever will find the most happiness possible in this mortal probation.

No hay nadie que esté obligado a seguir al Señor Jesucristo, pero yo se con toda seguridad que al seguir a Jesucristo, vamos a recibir interminable felicidad en esta vida, y una plenitud de gozo en la vida después. Dios nos mandó a la tierra para ser probado, y para que pudiéramos mostrar nuestro amor y fe. Estamos acá para aprender y enfrentar todos los desafíos de la vida. Pero Dios nos ha dado un fuente de ayudo, o sea, el Evangelio de Jesucristo. A medida que sigamos al Señor, vamos a encontrar la perla del gran precio. Se que nuestro Padre nos ama y quiere que sepamos la verdad de todas las cosas, y por eso nos dio el don de la oración. El nos escucha, y siempre nos contestará. Les amo y espero que estén feliz. Casi tengo 20 años... que raro. Elder Daybell

Spanish translation by Grant Moulton--Missionary to Madrid Spain back in the day!

No one is obligated to follow the Lord, Jesus Christ, but I can say with full confidence that upon following Jesus Christ, we will receive great happiness in this life, and a plenitude of joy in our after life. God has sent us to earth to be tested, andso that we might show our love and faith. We are her to learn and confront the challenges of life. But God has given us a source of health, even the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we follow the Savior, we will find the pearl of great price. I know that our Father loves us and wants us to know the truth of all things, and for this reasion he gave us the gift of prayer. He listens to us and always answers us. I love you and hope that you're happy. I'm almost 20 years old....how weird. Elder Daybell.

Hey mom I am sorry about your harddrive failing. I hope that it doesn´t hurt your business at all. OKAY.. fAMILIY LETTER TIME.


Hey everybody!

This was an interesting week. A lot of stuff happened. Well, I´ll write you next week!

Love Elder Daybell.


Hahahaha Just kidding.. We did a lot of cool stuff this week. One of our investigators, Nara who is about 15 or 16 was really interested in what we were teaching and the first time she came to church in december, she went up and bore a testimony, which NEVER happens. It was way sweet. I wasn´t here yet but... I heard about it. Anyways this week we visited her at her house (we usually teach her at a store that she runs) so that we could find her parents but they weren´t there... But she was and she told us that she didn´t want to keep learning more. And we were like, uhhh.. que pasó???? and she said that she wouldn´t want to keep coming to church or learning more after Elder Leany left... This whole time she was just smitten with Elder Leany!!!! Oh man. I couldn´t stop laughing... But at the same time it was like... Nara, do you know how many hours we planned for you??? hahah... So she´s kinda out of the picture right now... (They play SO MUCH american music here its crazy... just as a sidenote). We are also working with a older lady named Aide (i-day) and she is great. She has come to church the last two weeks and is doing great. We are going to have a baptism this Saturday at 7! But she´s great. This last wednesday we went on divisions with some other elders (because elder Leany is a district leader) and I was with an elder who has 2 weeks on the mission so far, but he already has the language down because he is from Buenos Aires. But we had a lesson with Aide and I wanted to teach how to fill out a tithing slip, and then the law of chastity, which is the last thing she needs before the interview. I wanted to spend like 5 minutes on the tithing slip because we already taugh tithing and Fast offerings and she understood. But Elder Cattaneo spent like 10 minutes talking about each cattegory on the tithing slip so we never got to the law of chastity! But we are teaching her today so.. no worries. But anyways she was talking about how she couldn´t go to work that day because her knees were just killing her. And so I told her what a blessing of the sick was and she readily asked for one. Elder Cattaneo .... Ungió... I don´t remember the word... he did the first part with the oil... And then I sealed the unción. It was a great experience and at church yesterday she said that it helped a lot. Speaking of church yesterday, she came and after it was over she gave us an envelope and said it was her tithing and fast offering. Wow. It was awesome to see her faithfully living a commandment she just learned.

Thursday morning Elder Cattaneo and I were studying (until 11 because as a newbie he has to study an extra hour....) but when it was time to leave, I unlocked the door and then tried to unlock the bars in front of the door, but it just was not happening. I did everything short of break it down to try to open it but it didn´t budge. At about 1140, we prayed for a miracle and I decided to call President Rastelli (a councelor in the mission presidency who is in our ward, I spent christmas eve with him and his wive). The hermana answered, and I told her my predicament. She just laughed for a few seconds, and then said, ´´well Elder, just another thing to write in your journal. I´ll send Mario over when he gets back.´´ So about 15 minutes later he comes and tries doing everything I did, but from the outside. So he said that he was going to go make another copy of the key, and left. About 15 minutes later, he came back and opened it easily. By this time it was 1250, just in time for us to go to lunch haha... A very productive morning indeeedd.

I felt good this week about being able to maybe teach Elder Cattaneo something. We were just knocking doors after all of our appointments dropped. We saw this old woman sitting in her front doorway reading a magazine and so we went to go talk to her. She was very nice, and told us that she was a member of the church and I haven´t seen her before so I asked where she´s been. She was like oh chicos, its been 15 years since I went to your church. I´m a catholic now. And so I said... Well... Hermana, I don´t mean to bother you, but what happened? and she went on to tell us all about how she didn´t like the doctrine of the baptisms for the dead because it wasn´t in the bible. And so I told her that it actually was in the bible and showed her where (Thanks seminary!) and she said, Oh, I didn´t know that. And then I asked her if she believed in Christ and she said of course, indignantly. I told her well than you have to believe in vicarious ordenances because the atonement was a vicarious work. She then said... welll... I don´t like the spiritualism. I said what is that? and she said how people always talk about feeling the presence of loved ones in sacred places and that sort of thing. Elder Cattaneo took over, but pretty soon they were arguing pretty good and so I put my hand on his shoulder, bore a simple testimony to the sister, and asked her to remember how she felt when she was baptized and that she was always invited to return to church and feel the peace that dwells there. And we left. Something I learned immediately in the mission is that Arguing does a lot of damage and no good.

Anyway, I had a good week. hOPE yall did too. Love ya. Elder Daybell