November 29, 2010 - Craig

Hey family! Thanks for all of the emails! I love hearing fromyou guys! Thios past week was pretty good. we have this investigator named randy and he is this blackj guy. He has corn rows and tatoos ha . He has eye problems sowe said we would get him a magnifying glass to see ha so we brought one and right when we openede the door i had it in my hand and he said in a way southern accent, iz dat magnifyin glass fo me??! Ha it was so funny he was so happy and loves us. He wants to get baptized but he has to come to church first. So i have short time so i will just tell you what really impressed on me this weekend. In elders quorom we read a talk from president uchdorf -what matters most. it was interesting he said do the simple things in the gospel. Reading pondering praying everyday and going to church and fasmily home evenings. Something hyrum smith said once was to this affect- As you teach the first principles of the gospel over and over again it will amaze you what you learn. Its true as we do the simple things in the gospel like reading and praying everyday we are qualfying for the holy ghost and concentraing our thoughts on jesus christ. The promise in the sacrement prayer is very real. As we do our part by remebering him and being obedient we will have the spirit always! I love you all so much thanks for all the support!!!!!!!!! Love Elder Bills

Kevan

My area and mission are BEAUTIFUL!!!!

November 29, 2010 - Kevan

Hello Family!

Wow, what a crazy weekend! We had some incredible miracles! We baptized 4 people this last weekend. The other missionaries in our ward who serve in Santa Lucia baptized 8. So we had a huge Blanco Baptism! It was amazing and the people especially the bishop was sosososo excited! I felt the Spirit so strong there. One bad thing that happened is that we had 3 other people who were going to get baptized as well but did not show up!!!! Our area is so far away from the chapel and there few buses on saturday and so we could not get hold of her. Sadly they couldnt go because the mom was working. But she is still doing amazing and this saturday she will be getting baptized with hopefully her 2 kids. We have a few other people that we want to see if they´ll get baptized. So it will be a pretty good way to end the mission, with baptisms!!! The people who got baptized are Gustavo Bravo (25), Nancy, Nikolaus, and Florencia Pelayes. It was amazing! THese people are so happy and I love them tons! I hope the best for them. The Pelayes family was baptized by there son who was baptized 3 months ago. They are so happy to have the Gospel and it is amazing to see the unity that they have with this knowledge of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Last night we got to go to visit my converts in Retiro; Americo Gonzalez and Dolinda, Mariana and David Pelayes. It was amazing! We walked in and I gave a huge hug to Americo and he was just Crying! These people are so amazing. Now in January they are going to THE TEMPLE!!!!! YES!!!!! Also if you remember Gisela is getting sealed in January too!!! YES! I cant even explain how good i feel. I read Alma 29 this morning and many of those verses explain how i feel much better than i can. We ate some Chori Pan and pizza with them and just talked. They are great. Mariana bore her testimony to mat the end and she was just crying. Some of the things that they said make me feel like they were talking about someone else. I was thinking, What? I did that for you? I know that we can all make little or big differences in everybodies life. I think the important thing is that we can be so close to Heavenly Father and be so intune with the Spirit so we are instruments in HIS hands. He will truly put us where we need to be and use us to perform this great and special work among His Children. God understands. He knows. We just need to trust and follow Him. His plan is so perfect and so simple when we think and expirement with it.

We had a great expirence with the power of God and the Priesthood on Tuesday. I can tell you all later about it though.

I bought some stuff for you all today. I hope you like it. I have only spent about 300 pesos. President invited me to go to Acongagua this week so one of these days i will go down and buy some good stuff for everyone.

I love you all so much family! I think this might be the last letter I will write before i see everyone. It is so wierd and i feel really strange. I am grateful that we have baptisms this weekend so we will keep working hard si o si. But it is still strange to say that we´ll be seeing eachother next week! I think it will be a hard change. ha, i wanted to bad to have the gift of conversation and better conversational skills given to me on the mission. I really feel like God has blessed me with that. But... it spanish. ha, I am not sure how well i can carry on a convo. in english. It might me a little akword. Just have patience with me. ha

Have a great week family! And stay safe! I love you all tons!

See you next week!

Love Elder Kevan Bills

P.S. Our zone won the mission Cup and broke the recored for most baptisms in one month! YES!

November 22, 2010 - Craig

Hey Family! How is everything going?? I cant beleive that it is already thanksgiving week! Crazy. Next week i will be out for 10 months. Its hard to believe. I have loved every single second of it. I truly can tell you that i am so grateful for my mission. I love it so much. I love our Savior like i cant describe and I know this is the ONly true and living church in the world. I never understood the true happiness the gospel brings but now i know and I will never turn from it. This past week we had zone conference. It was great i learned so much! We have been working and praying hard to find those who are ready to recieve us and who are truly ready for baptism. We have been teaching this guy oscar and his wife.and last thursday we taught them and put them with dates for the 18th of December. The spirit was strong. We watched the Restoration and testified of it. I asked her what she felt while watching the movie and she said i know its real. I know god called him! So the spirit was there and we invited them to be baptized and they accepted. Then sunday came and they didnt come to church. I was really bummed yesterday. Its hard to see people not keep commitments. We will just have to be patient and do all we can to help them prepare for baptism. The lord has his way and his time for everything and everyone. I think that as i truly humble myself i will realize more how to deal with these peoples very needs. At any rate the work is going pretty well. I have been studying about the atonement pretty much every single day for about 3 weeks and it has been so awesome to understand more about our Savior and his selfless sacrifice for us. I am so grateful for him and what he did for us. It has been such a blessing to come closer to JesusChrist and understand how to apply the atonement in my life more. My favorite talk in conference was by elder patrick kearon. IN his talk he said we must give up our weapons of rebellion. We must cease fighting against god and instead give our whole hearts to him. Holding nothing back. THEN he can heal us. Then he can cleanse us. I love that! The lord suffered and died for us. He did the most important thing in world history all we have to do is give our whole hearts to Heavenly Father and come unto christ humble and submissive. He is always waiting with arms wide open to recieve us. I love you all so much. Thanks for all the support. Have a great thanksgiving! Love Elder Bills

Kevan

This week wwill be amazing. I think it will go by really fast beause we will be working very hard to get the interviews and the baptisms of these people. Some of these people are like the scriptures say and are hard of heart. But some are turly looking for the truth and need exactly what God does have for them. He Love them so much and i am so happy that I can be helping these people recieve these things right now in there lives.

Mom and Dad, thanks for much for helping me in everything this whole mission. I love you both so much and am so grateful. I love you and have a great week.

Me in a cave where they make champain and also in the middle of a plaza.

November 22, 2010 - Kevan

Hey family! How is everything going? It sounds like everything is great and pretty cold there in Utah. Here it was raining all night but other than that it is just soso HOT!

This week was fantastic. Church was amazing!

We changed the hours and we have church in the morning now. My comp. and i got to the house and we were the first ones there. The next people were a big suprise... the bishop of the main ward in Santa Lucia and the stake president. They were so happy and said that everyone had been talking about our area and they needed to come and see what was going on. Pressure.... ha ha. so no one else showed up for about 10 minutes. But eventually they all came! YES! We had an assistance of about 27 people! THey was no room to sit. We had 8 investigators there and the rest were inactives and 3 actives! Wow! We were so happy. The bishop and president spoke and it was perfect. I loved seeing the faces of our investigators after. THey just looked so peaceful and content. THey were excited as well. They left and were smiling and it was just perfect. We have 7 of them getting baptized this saturday. It will be an amazing day. Our goal for this month is 12 and with these people we will reach 10. So we will see what type of miracles God will give us this week. Hopefully we can reach the goal.

I love this last area. It is hard and tiring but i love it. I feel like we and the members are like true pioneers working in this place, establishing the church and letting all know about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing like it. It reminds me a little of Justo Daract. A tiny area with no distractions. A sacred place to focus a work!

Last night probably the strangest thing that has happened to me on my mission happened. I feel like it is the devil working against us now. We were waiting at the bus stop to go back home and we were contacting people that walked pàssed us. I started walking with some people and stopped and turned around becuase they would not even recognize that i was there. But before i turned around i saw a catholic priest running out of his church with his big robe on yelling a me! ha, i walked to my comp and asked if he was yelling at us and he was. So we turned around and he signaled us tocome over. We went and just wanted to be loving to him. This guy was rude though. I am glad my comp couldnt understand too much because this guy was saying some real inaapropiate things. But we testified saying that we are representatives of Jesus Christ here inviting people to come to Him. I asked him that if he was a man of God what his purpose was. And why he was so angry. But he just got more angry. So we left. It was strange. But so it was with the early pioneers and the persecution that they recieved while following Christ.

We had an amazing lesson with Nancy. I did not know what to teach. Then the Lord told us. Revelation is so real. We taught her exactly what she needed to stop smoking. Suprisingly it issomething i never would have taught for that problem, the law of chastity. but the Lord truly knows His children and know what we need. Since that day Nancy has not smoked a single cigarrete and is doing amazing! Her and her children will get baptized this saturday! Miracles are happening in 9 de Julio.

I love this Gospel. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that have so much patience with us. I love them and knbow that they live.

This is the truth. I love you all so much family! HAve a wonderful week!

And HAPPY THANKSGIVING! I forgot it was here because they do not even have it here in ARgentina. We´ll think of something to do!

I love you all and enjoy the week!

Love, Elder Kevan Bills

Kevan