"A beautiful experience"

Written August 26.

 

We had a great baptism this last weekend. What makes it better is that is isn`t just a baptism... it`s a woman who is excited to go with her husband and daughters to the temple in a year to be sealed for time and all eternity. When she told us that she wanted to go to the temple with her family I couldn`t hold back the tears from falling... it hit me very hard that I was really doing it... I was helping someone progress towards making sacred covenants in the temple of the Lord. That has been a very powerful feeling that I have carried with me throughout the week and it has given me an extra pep in my step. 

Her baptism was a beautiful experience for their family and it was so nice to see how happy they were. Her husband recently came back to the church a few months ago and prepared himself to be ready to baptize her. 

It is great being a part of this work.. there is no where else I´d rather be right now. I feel like I have been really blessed lately with a better vision of time. I am realizing more and more that two years is really nothing compared to the time we have on this earth... and then compare the time we have on the earth to eternity... it is making it all go by very quickly and I feel myself trying to pick up the pace so I can take full advantage of this opportunity. I have been sick this week and have spent some nights awake all night with sickness... but when the day comes around I just think of how little time I have on my mission and say to myself, "I have the rest of my life to be sick, right now I got to go." Working with sacrifice definitely brings blessings.

I am happy and I am praying for all of you back home,

Elder Cordell Rainock

"It's been quite the experience teaching that family"

Last week I said I would write something from the week before so here
is one thing:
One night we had a zonda (very strong winds that come from the north)
and it was extremely loud. I could not sleep and it kept everyone in
our house awake all night. I have never heard winds so loud in my life
before and it last for hours and hours.. nature is amazing sometimes.

Now for this week:

It snowed last p-day. We ended up going out to a home of a member who
lives in the other branch to play in the snow and eat lunch. We made a
snow man, had a snowball fight, and just relaxed a bit. It was a good
time.

About two months ago a man in our ward came to church who we had never
seen before. It turned out he had been sealed in the temple with his
family when he was 15 and soon after that went inactive in the church.
When he came to church two months ago it was his first time in over 10
years. He had a dream about partaking of the sacrament and woke up the
next morning with a strong desire to go to church and partake of the
sacrament. He has come every sunday since that day and his desire just
kept growing stronger and stronger. Turns out his wife was not a
member and she was actually kind of angry when he went back to church.
We went by their house a couple of weeks ago to see how he was doing
and to get to know his wife a bit better. We ended up gaining her
confidence very quickly and she will be getting baptized on
saturday... she progressed very quickly and she is more converted than
any of the people I have baptized on my mission so far.. it`s been
quite the experience teaching that family and I have felt the Spirit
just pouring out into the room sometimes as testimonies were shared. I
am definitely looking forward to saturday.

I had an interview with President Ávila yesterday and it was amazing.
Very personal and inspired. He is a great example to me and he is one
of the people I strive to be like. Pure, humble, happy, and faithful.
That`s how I would describe him.

Anyways, hope all is well, prayers are being sent home to all of you.
Also, a shout out to anyone in the Mechanicsville ward who is reading
this! What a blessing it is to have 6 missionaries now serving in your
ward. The work is hastening and it is time for everyone to take it to
the next level and start making steps of faith. I will be praying for
all of you and hope to see some major growth in a year and a half.
Also.. don`t forget to feed them. We are poor :)

Love,

Elder Rainock

"Working hard and having a really good time together"

Just to start off... I will not be writing next monday because we have interviews with the mission president so our P-day was moved to tuesday for next week.

This week I hit my 3 month mark in Argentina and my 6 month mark on my mission!! For some reason the weeks go by so fast but the months go by slow. Every P-day I feel like I just had P-day two days ago... at the same time I feel like I have been here longer than 3 months... it`s a weird feeling. Maybe it`s because I have had such rapid growth here that I can`t imagine learning all that I have in just 3 months.  

I forgot to bring my journal to the ciber so I am having a hard time remembering what happened this week... 

Elder Quadros and I are doing great here. We are working hard and having a really good time together. He and I have a similar sense of humor so it´s easy to stay light hearted even during the rougher hours of the day. He is also really good at speaking Spanish with a "gringo" accent and it is really funny to listen to. 

I am very comfortable with my spanish at the moment but I am still working hard to improve it every day. Also, I am learning a lot from Elder Quadros about teaching... I like his style of teaching so I am trying to take note of what he does as best I can. 

This week I learned some very important things about striving to be more virtuous in zone meeting and I have put them to the test... The difference it makes is unbelievable. I feel the Spirit testifying through me more often and I wouldn`t trade those moments for any unvirtuous thoughts or actions. 

Things are great here but I am having trouble remembering specific events from this week so I`ll be sure to include something cool from this week in my next email. 

Love you all and I am praying for you,

- Elder Rainock

"Some great things"

Written August 5.

Hey everyone! Elder Quadros and I are doing great. He came in here with a lot of fire and so we are both excited and working hard. We have already seen some great things go down in the last few days. 

In just 5 days my spanish has progressed rapidly. We talk spanish all the time in the streets and in the house so I am forming sentences a lot quicker and not having to translate it in my head first when spoken to. That`s a pretty awesome feeling! It also allows me to listen more intently to our investigators so I can know their needs better. 

Not much time to write today but I thought I`d write a quick story. 

Saturday night Elder Quadros and I were walking to bring some investigators to a tour of the church. We passed a guy that Elder Egbert and I had talked to on the streets about a month ago. I gave him a nod and a smile but kept on walking because we were running late and I wouldn`t have really considered him a stand out when we first talked to him. 

About a minute later a felt very strongly to stop, turn around, and talk to him. I tried to ignore it for a few seconds because we were already running late but I couldn`t resist the feeling. I stopped and told Elder Quadros that we needed to talk to the guy we had just passed. Elder Quadros is awesome and didn`t question it at all. So we turned around and ran him and his wife down. As we ran them down his name and everything came to me.. he was surprised that I remembered... I was too. We planned a tour with them for later on that night. 

It turns out his wife was baptized when she was a 9 or 10 and hasn`t been to church since. Also, he has already read the Book of Mormon and has a testimony of its truthfulness. He agreed to be baptized in a few weeks. 

Anyways, more to come your way next week. Hope all is well!

Love, 

Elder Rainock

"I hope he is ready"

Written July 29.

Well... we got transfer calls last night. It was pretty interesting. For the last two transfers I have been living in the same house as Elder Egbert and the zone leaders and we grew pretty close. One of the zone leaders, Elder McBride, got called to be the assistant to the president on Friday so when we got transfer calls he talked to us. 

Elder Egbert is off to be a zone leader in Mendoza (heart of the city). He is pretty "young" in the mission to get called as a zone leader with just 14 1/2 months under his belt. He definitely deserves it; he works really hard. I will miss him but he was an awesome trainer and we had some great times together. 

I will be staying here in Tupungato and will have a Brazilian companion named Elder Quadros. There are only 5 Brazilians in the whole Mendoza mission (of about 180 people) and I will be living with 2 of them. The other one is one of the zone leaders I have lived with the past two transfers who will be staying here as well. So we´ll have two gringos and two Brazileros in our house. 

At the beginning of the week it was very cold and our water pipes froze during the night for about 3 nights in a row. Those mornings we heated water up in pots on the stove, poured it into buckets mixed with cooler water (so it wouldn`t scold us), got in the shower (one at a time... just to be clear :] ) and poured the water on ourselves using the pitcher thing that goes on the blender... good times. We have since figured out that if we leave the water dripping a bit all night then it doesn`t freeze in the pipes. 

I am super excited to be staying here in Tup-Town. Elder Quadros and I will definitely be working hard and baptizing this next transfer so I hope he is ready. We have a lot of great people that we are teaching right now and things are really coming alive for the branch. The family that has been going through all of the trials lately is starting to make a big come back. In-active family members are starting to come back to church and things are looking up for them. I am so blessed to be a part of this. 

Thank you for all of your prayers. I am able to feel of the love and support coming from back home. I am growing so much spiritually and I can`t believe it! I thought my testimony of the restored gospel was immovable before my mission.. now I don`t know what to call it but it`s gotten stronger. 

I`ll be excited to update you guys on my first week with my new companion next monday. Unitl then my prayers are with you.

-Elder Rainock

"An Unstoppable Force"

This week we baptized a child of some less active members. Missionaries have been trying to baptize the boy for a while but we finally broke through. The baptism of this boy was especially satisfying because we got the family coming back to church as well. They have such strong testimonies but just lost sight of coming to church. It was a grand and emotional experience for everyone. 

This week we got some snow! It´s about time because it´s been cold enough for a while now! It´s pretty fun getting out in the snow and working. The people here are awesome. Even if they don´t want to listen to us or talk to us they still appreciate us and admire what we do. They people here see us walking around all day long, keeping positive attitudes, and helping those in need and they just love it. 

We had a training this week with the mission president (President Ávila) on tours that we will be doing of the churches here in our mission. It´s a pretty cool concept. Most people here have grown up passing by the chapel on a daily basis but have never entered it. The building here really stands out and people wonder what it inside but don´t have the courage to walk in on sunday. So we have started "tours" of the church. It is more of a spiritual experience than one of information because we want people to feel of the peace that is so present in the buildings. 

An update on the language... Good news!! I am speaking well and feel good about it again!! It is progressing rapidly and I saw a major upswing this week. My accent is coming along as well but right now it might me a bit Bolivian. I can´t imagine Argentina without Bolivians but apparently this is the only area in the mission like this.. haha. The rest of Argentina has mostly European descent but that´s just weird for me to think about. Right now when I see a white person walking around I assume first that he is a tourist and then I realize that it´s just a normal Argentenian. 

Well that´s my update this week. I am happy and I feel as if my testimony is an unstoppable force right now. I know the Christ lives and guides this church and have never known it with more certainty than I do now. Hope everyone is doing well. 

My prayers and love,

Elder Rainock

"A pretty intense story from yesterday"

I don´t have tons to say this week but I do have a pretty intense story from yesterday...

Sacrament meeting had just started (right after I had just been asked to give a talk again) when our district president (leader over a number of local church branches) came and grabbed us and told us to follow him. We followed him walking quickly out of the church building and then we just started sprinting down the street... he told us as we were running that his wife had just called them and they had been in an accident. We ran a few blocks and turned a corner to see an overturned vehicle... the vehicle of a married couple serving a mission here. We ran up and saw them (the married couple) and the district president´s daughter, son-in-law, grandchild, and wife sitting on the side of the road. The missionary couple had picked these members up to take them to church since their car wasn´t working and they got hit going through an intersection. Their vehicle did a half turn and stayed upside down.

They all had bumps and bruises and I´m pretty sure that they all suffered concussions. None of them were in the right state of mind... it was very scary. Just to add to the craziness, this is the same family that lost their child in a tragic accident a few weeks ago... they are going through a very hard time right now. Right now they are all home and trying to recover. They are in everyones´ prayers here.

The missionary work here was good this week and my spanish is coming along but I still haven´t made it over this language wall as far as speaking goes. I´ll have more to write next week but know that I am doing well and time is flying for me. My testimony of the gospel has become a part of who I am; not just something I believe. I´d be lost without the knowledge I have of the Lord and the plan He has for us. The Gospel gives me purpose and I am fulfilling that purpose more than I have in my life ever before.

Love you all,

Elder Rainock