Rafael Castillo- Week #16

Hey Family!!!

First off, I got your packages on Wednesday the 8th because District meeting was moved to Wednesday, so it took a little over a week. The other elders all send their thanks for the treats you sent them. By far the highlight was the orange hot chocolate, it was so good. Suggestion, the kool-aid is cool, but a couple of the packets broke on the trip and the powder crystallized and got sticky, and so everything in one of the boxes was all sticky and nasty, but its all good, still appreciated. If you feel like sending another package...haha...i have some requests. A new better camera. Mine is decent, but it always takes blurry pictures, and i might have some baptisms coming up, and I want nice pictures of it. 2. Can you send a little calendar that I can hang up. Elder Shields has a sweet mini calendar of the temples, and i have found that a calendar is useful in trying to plan meetings and stuff like that, whatever, if you can find just a small calendar to hang up. That’s it for now. Thanks!

Ok so Elder Russell M. Nelson was BOSS!!!! I got to shake his hand, and his wife's, and Elder Shayne Bowen of the seventy, who is our area president. They all addressed us, and it all was awesome. Elder Nelson just did a question and answer session, and turned it into this huge boss lesson. Someone asked about marriage or something, and he was like, "Let me refer you to the Conference Talk I gave 8 days ago..." It was pretty funny. He was saying how only covenants with the Lord are honored on the other side of the veil, and people who don't make those covenants and think they will be with their husbands and wives on the other side, "are in for a bit of a shock"...get married in the temple kids...Anyway a few little questions like that were asked and finally he stopped the session and said this, "Ok, enough with those questions. I perceive that someone here has been fasting and praying for two days now that I would answer the question they have. Would you please stand and ask, don't be shy, I'd love to help you answer it." There was dead silence, and like a shockwave of the Spirit went through the room. In my mind I thought, HE JUST RECEIVED STRAIGHT REVELATION THAT SOMEONE IS FASTING FOR HIM TO ANSWER THEIR QUESTION!!! Nobody moved...he just stood up there with hands folded and waited. It was one of the most definitive moments in my life; I don't think I will ever forget it. The Spirit was so strong, finally in the front of the chapel a sweet sister missionary stood up. Elder Nelson smiles, "Ah, there you are." HOLY SMOKES!!!!!! I'm telling you, I don't know how to describe how I was feeling in that room. I was with an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the joy I felt was indescribable...spell check that for me...The hermana's question was that she loves her mission more than anything else, and has no other desire but to serve the short time that is asked of her, but she was born like 30 minutes away in the South mission, and got called to the West mission. So she asked, "The Lord knows I live 30 minutes away, so why did he send me here?" Elder Nelson, "Now that is unusual. But I tell you, The Lord uses the unusual to accomplish the impossible! You are here to do something that would be absolutely impossible for anybody else but you, and that is why you are here." He promised that it is the same way for all of us, and to cast away any doubts we have about our calls, because through us the Lord will accomplish the impossible. It was amazing! He went through the scriptures and used examples, with the climax of the lesson being Christ of course, and how the impossible was used to bring the Son of God into the world. He was like, "We all know it is impossible for a virgin to have a child, but through the miracle of Mary's conception, the most important part of the Plan of God commenced." It was just a great day.

So we have been working our tails off trying to find investigators to get baptized this transfer, but we haven't found anyone, and I was thinking, oh my gosh nobody here wants to listen to us. Elder Shields, who I get along great with, said this has been his hardest area so far, because no one lets us in to teach it seems, yet we are still meeting the mission standard of at least 10 new investigators a week. Anyway, Sunday night we got into the house of this old lady, Cecilia, 86 years old...I am telling you she is the Argentine version of Auntie Anne. Mannerisms, looks, the way she talks (except in a foreign language), all of it. I was loving it, it was kind of funny. I told Elder Shields when we left we are going to baptize that old lady!

But the great story of the week. The Lord is really directing His work, even if His missionaries, especially me, are hard-headed morons. So like in Week one of the transfer we contacted this lady in the street who said she got baptized in Paraguay and now lives here with her family, and she gave us her address and we gave her the address to the chapel. Haven’t seen her since, and we forgot to pass by. This past week a lady from Castillo 2 stops us in the street and gives us a reference saying she has some family who wants to hear from us, so we pass by last night to this address in the most dangerous part of our area in the muddy muck at like 8 at night, not usually the smartest thing to do, and we even considered forgetting about it and leaving, but we decided we were close anyway might as well go. So we show up, and it is the lady we contacted 2 weeks ago, and she has 3 sons 18, 15, and 11 who all want to get baptized, and she really wants them to too. Ceres, Juan, and Luis respectively. So we gave them the date of the 8th of November, and they all accepted. Please pray for them to stay strong, I don't want to get too excited, but they seem excited for it. Ceres, the 18 yr old, wants to be a preacher, but I told him, Forget Preacher, you can be a Missionary like us, preaching the word of God for two years nonstop! He said these exact words, "You can count on me." Woo!!!! I hope they stay strong. So that is interesting that the Lord had to send us hints to pass by there twice because we completely ignored the first one, because we were completely focused in our own work, and not the Lord's. ¡Entonces, seguimos asi con tres fechas!

Thanks for everything, everyone. Love you!

Love, Sean

PS. Argentinean daylights savings time is this weekend so we lose an hour