Hey! I love you all so much! I only get to say that once a week, but I hope you remember that. Ryan's joining me out here in 8 days! Welcome to the best club you'll ever be a part of, bro!
This week was a whole lot better than last week. We tried some new things to try and find investigators. Mom, you'd be proud of us, we set up an incredibly attractive stand in the park that would be worthy of your epic Scrapbook Expo. (And by that I mean this little tiny bedside table with a bunch of pamphlets, copies of the Book of Mormon, and pictures of Christ taped to the sides. But for two 20 year old foreigners in a po-dunk Argentine neighborhood it was pretty impressive.) Since nearby all the people were selling World Cup merchandise, people naturally thought we were selling as well, but then we would begin to talk about the Restoration and how this message was free of charge, and available to everyone.
Consuelo, who we met while doing this, gave us her address and told us to pass by. When we did so, we met her husband Alejandro who turns out to be a less active member with a lot of good memories about the Church and is interested in returning. Consuelo has never been to the Church, but has two young nieces who were recently baptized. Guess where they live. Utah. She excitedly talked about them and showed us a bunch of pictures on Facebook. One entry on Facebook showed where they moved to. Okay now guess where that was. I'll let you guess for real this time. Okay ready? Highland. No, I'm not kidding. I was flipping out. The family is really humble, and interested in the Church. We have an appointment with them soon, and I'm beyond excited to talk to them. They readily accepted the Book of Mormon and the beat up pamphlet of the Family: A Proclamation to the World that we gave them, and display them on their living room shelf. Haha! Capos.
I had a really interesting experience in my personal study this morning. I'm reading through the Book of Mormon, marking every time Jesus Christ personally speaks. Some times it gets tricky, especially in the ending of 3 Nephi, because Christ quotes Malachi, saying that His Father is speaking, but Malachi says that it's Jehovah speaking. I was a little confused, and though fundamentally it doesn't matter, as the words of One are the words of Both, I decided to pray to understand it. By doing so, I was reminded of how many times Christ says that the Father commanded Him to say something. I then thought of some of the scriptures in the Pearl of Great Price that talk about how fallen man cannot be in the presence of the Father. I felt the Spirit confirm to me that Jesus Chrsit was chosen to be our Advocate with the Father, just as the prophets have always said. Jesus Christ acts as a perfectly unified messenger of the Father, who then talks to a prophet, who talks to mankind. In this way, we as mankind are still able to talk directly to our Heavenly Father, even though we are separated from Him, in addition to feeling the influence of the Holy Ghost.
I don't know if that made any sense, but it was a great experience realizing why sometimes in the scriptures, the difference between the identity of God as the Father, and God as Jesus Christ is hard to tell. It blew my mind how wise Heavenly Father is in selecting from the beginning a Savior, and Divine Advocate for mankind, and how central Jesus Christ is in yet another point of the Gospel.
I love you all, thanks for all that you're doing. ¡Hurra por Israel!
-Elder Goff
P.S. Pictures:
1. This is the nicest lunch I've ever had cooked by missionaries. Milanesas Caseras!
2. This sweet old couple has a tiny apartment filled with Coca-cola merchandise. They insisted on giving me this glass with Polar Bears running a relay race.
3. This stuff is Locro, some traditional Argentine food we ate for Dia de la Bandera. It wasn't too special, but the lady who made it is the kindest little old lady I've ever met, so it had an incredible aftertaste.
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