Hey Everyone!

Well, it's been a bit of a disappointing week.  So a little story...

We have been working with Cesar like crazy and it has unfortunately come to an end. He was supposed to get baptized this past Saturday, but he has now rejected the offer.  We come walking down the road Thursday, the day before his interview.  We sit down, and he hands me his Book of Mormon, with all the pamphlets and papers we gave him.  He said "I can't be baptized anymore."  We talked with him for almost 3 hours, explaining EVERYTHING 10x with all the love we could muster.  The problem is...He LOVES the saints, especially "Santo Espiritu" which was just a man who told the Romans to stop beating Jesus...so that makes him an ordained man called of God?

All his family is against our church, so they brought him to the Catholic church.  The priest there said "Don't listen to the Mormons anymore, and give them back that Book of Mormon."  Oh, I couldn't believe it.  I pulled out every single scripture that I knew to help out our cause.  It didn't help.  I even pulled out every condemning bible verse talking about denying the spirit (he received distinct answers from GOD about the Book of Mormon and the church being true. We even cast out evil spirits in his house).  I am so saddened by this experience, just gotta move on to people that God more than men.

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Good news for the week...We did get to see a blessing of 24 people attending last Sunday, with 2 more less active members of the church attending.  

Satan has tried to shake my testimony of this gospel, but I know this church is true and I cannot deny it.  Don't be afraid of what men can do, be afraid of what God can do.

Loves and Hugs!

Elder Pomar

Ps. Meu negao (My missionary brother/buddy) from Brazil was transferred to Córdoba yesterday :( 

However, Elder Chávez from Chile came in though! :)

Happy Tuesday!

Finally, some help is coming!  Our work with the less active members is paying off and showing its fruits as our congregation is growing.  My first Sunday here we had 15 people in attendance.  Last Sunday we had 23!  Some of the people that came back were...

an ex-patriarch (released for inactivity), a high priest (with a son that can be baptized!)

We're getting more references and we are finding golden people!  César is one of these and he has a huge family.  He wants to share the gospel with EVERYONE!  His baptism is this Saturday! :)  It will be the first baptism for a while in the ward so the people are so happy! 

Elder Bray and I are striving to be more obedient.  God has been blessing us for our repentance and change.  That's really it for this week!

Also, we had a zone conference and it was fun to be with all of the other missionaries from our area. 

Oh, a funny story...

César, who I talked about before, was raised Catholic so he has been taught to pray to saints and the Virgin Mary.  However, we know that the scriptures teach that God is a jealous God and wants us to pray directly to Him!  So, we flipped to 2 Nephi 31 which talks about prayer. 

So César asks us "who is Nephi?...A saint?" and were just like "oh kinda...he's a prophet."  So he goes "Oh, I'll pray to Nephi so he can help me move on with my back problem" and we laughed and said "NOOOOO!!"  It was so hilarious and we are always joking about it now haha. We are still working with him on prayer and that is just fine.

I know the church is true and God's promises always come through when we do our part! 

Love,

Elder Pomar :)

Hey Everyone!!

María got baptized!!  The road to baptism is definitely not the easiest, but it's really incredible when the miracle comes!  The water was freeeeeezing but thankfully it only took one try haha!  She was so happy to finally be born again through baptism.  Even before the baptism though it was a pretty great day.  We had a whopping 21 members attend the baptism and it was really incredible to have AN INVESTIGATOR IN THE CHURCH!!  César attended the baptism and he loved it!  It was the first time the branch had had a non-member attend in 3 months! We're gaining the confidence of the members and we're getting less active members to come back!  Also, before the baptism, I got a call from Villa María, the first area I served in, from some of my converts.  Kevin and Douglas are still attending strong!

Oh and a story...

It was my companion's, Elder Brays, birthday and we ate a TON.  Like, a ton.  But that's no problem as I'm a missionary haha.  Well, something gave me food poisoning.  I woke up at 2 am in the morning, jumped from my bed and ran immediately to the toilet and threw up everything!  While I was in the bathroom, I hear a thump, then a blllluuuuuuuhhhh!  Yep, Bray got sick too, but he didn't make it to the toilet. He started throwing up blood and so he went to the hospital with Elder Vasion and  I stayed because I just had an upset stomach.

Good news: We're fine now haha. Don't worry mom!

Lastly, there is one thing that I have realized that is so important and we have been taught for so long:  WE ARE EACH CHILDREN OF GOD.  There are religions that believe that we don't have souls and that the closest we can get to God is to be his friend.  I know that I'm a child of God. I hope you know you are too.  If you want to find out or want a confirmation from God, just ask Him directly through prayer.

love you all! Cuídense. Besos y abrazos (Take care, Kisses & Hugs)

Con amor,

Elder Pomar

Hey Everyone!

An interesting week and a lot of hard work.  Just hoping we can see some miracles come from our hard work.  It's a little hard to work with a branch where there is NO unity.  Every less active member that we have visited says "Oh, I was offended" and I ask them "what happened?"  The same answer every time... "las personas no me saludaban" or "the people didn't greet me"  I just think in my mind if everyone's just sitting around for people to greet them, NO ONE WILL BE GREETED!

Oh gosh, thankfully there are a lot of part member families.  Our goal is to baptize and reactivate these families. Good thing all the families that we visit are very sweet, they just lack the fire to come back to church.  Bringing the spirit into their home will definitely help with that.  

So with investigators...we've basically dropped all of them.  No one reads their "homework" that we leave them and attending church is "too much" haha.  At least elder Bray and I just learn to laugh always and not let our spirits get down.

I'm beginning to learn Portuguese with my buddy Elder Sontag.  Spanish and Portuguese are basically the same haha so I might as well just swing for the fences and give it a try!

Please just pray that the less actives we are teaching will have an open heart so we can help them return to church and also baptize their relatives who need the gospel in their lives :)

Love,

Elder Pomar :)