"Si Dios quiere..."‏

I never know how to start these emails.

This week was good but pretty normal. Nothing TOO exciting happened. So I'll just fill you in on the major things.

Jose Luis is still progressing towards his baptism on Sunday! He´s great and totally love learning about the gospel, but seems to have a hard time giving up his catholic beliefs, which is understandable. It's like he agrees with everything we say, but then tries to spend a majority of the lesson teaching us about catholics.. He also loves talking about love. About how love for everyone is "fundamental", which I mean, yeah. Thats great. But he talks about it ALL THE TIME. Sacrament? Love. Church is on Sunday? Love. Nephi was born of goodly parents? Love. After 15 minutes of him talking about love and catholics we´re just like "..ha.. uh huh.. anyway.." Also, there's a saying here that goes "Si Dios quiere". It's WAY Argentine, and directly transalted means "if God wants". He also says that after EVERYTHING. We´re like "so tomorrow at 3?" and he's all "if God wants" and I just look at him and I'm like.. "... God wants" hah I'm awful. 

Also, we finally met up with Jose Antonio this week. It was super awkward at first. It was like when you have a fight with someone and you see each other for the first time and that meeting decides whether or not you´re going to continue with your friendship or whatever. Not sure if that made any sense but whatever. So we brought a member who kind of just listened and talked to him better than we could. And then Jose came to church and was asked last minute to bear his testimony as a talk. So being the great person he is, he got up there last minute. He was super honest and said that he wasn't feeling anything. That he wasn't sure why he was here. And he was trying to figure it out. Then said that he realized that Satan is just tempting him and trying to prevent him because he knows that Jose will go far. That his testimony is strong. And that now he feels good. Then after that Hermana Holloway and I got to be there while Jose received the priesthood :) It was super cool. Watching someone progress through the gospel is like whatching your child grow up. I mean.. I assume. I wouldn't know.

I also got to see Hermana Vallejos the other day and she had the pleasure of telling me that my convert from Escobar, Damian, hasn't been going to church. When I asked why she told me it's because he's "trying to find the chapel in Palermo because he has a letter he wants to give you personally" Oh. No. My heart dropped. Luckily he's been trying for about 5 weeks and hasn't found it yet. I hope he never does. That's the last thing I wanted a convert to do or think or feel. 

I also got to file off dead skin off Carlito's foot yesterday and clip his toenails. The thought of doing it made me want to shrivel up and die, but I just love him so much that the actual act of doing it wasn't THAT bad. 

As for this week, thats pretty much all that happened. But I do want to take some time to share something I read in my studies this week:

I've been reading in Jesus the Christ, and honestly I love that book. There's a part in it where Christ is talking to his disciples and says to them, "The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day."

It then goes on to explain that Christ had mentioned to them many times before about how He will be delivered and killed, but here is where He mentions it in the clearest way. And then is says that His disciples failed to understand the other times He said it, and even though this was completely clear, they still failed to understand. As I was thinking about how they couldn't understand that, I read the next couple lines that stood out to me. They read: "The thought of what the Lord´s words might mean, even in its faintest outline, was terrifying to those devoted men; and their failure to comprehend was in part due to the fact that the human mind is loath to search deeply into anything it desires not to believe"

I'm not sure why, but those lines really stood out to me. They were so devoted to Christ, that they refused to allow their minds to understand even the clearest statement. But as yesterday was Easter, I thought a lot about the Resurrection. About how it was understandably "terrifying" for them to think that Christ was going to leave them. He was their Leader, Master, Loving Friend. And I'm sure it would be terrifying for anyone who knew Christ like that. And then applying it to my own life, I too would be terrified if I was told Christ was going to leave and I was going to lose the opportunity of knowing Him or having Him in my life. But we don't need to have that fear because Christ rose again on the third day. Thanks to this, we will never lose Him. And He gave each of us the opportunity to also rise again. 

I love my Savior, and I'm so thankful for the sacrifice He gave to us, and that He rose again so that we too might all rise again.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Prestwich 

1. Jose Antonio after getting the priesthood! 

2. CHORIPAN :))) (yes, there is a fly on my plaque. But I like this picture)