Okay, I have to admit first off that I feel really weird because I just started my last transfer. On Wednesday I’ll know if I’m going to spend it here or if I go to another area, but I find it unlikely that I’d get moved. I’m now oficially one of the oldest missionaries in the mission.

Today we’re going to have a lot of fun. We’re going to play soccer as a zone and then throw knives at the Teddy Bear that Elder Francis’ girlfriend sent him a while ago. It should be great. And you thought that missionaries lost our violent male tendancies.

This week was really rewarding. The fast with the Morel family was incredibly successful. After a couple hours Brother Morel got a phone call saying that his son was in jail in a nearby town. I think that it really opened his eyes about the power of the gospel. He’s set for the baptism on Saturday. Please keep praying for us.

Elogia is also progressing really fast. She started inviting all of her friends and family to church. She wants to start showing church movies in her house to try and attract people to come with her on Sundays. She’s a really funny old lady, but it’s amazing how fast she’s changing. On sunday in Relief society she asked about how we pay tithing. That’s so strange, but it shows that she wants to start living everything.

Church went really well on Sunday. We had a record attendance of almost 80 people in sacrament meeting. 5 of them were investigators. It was especially rewarding because a family that we were about to have to drop came for the first time in a month, and I think that that’s a really good sign for them.

The other great thing was that Paolo, our 21-year-old convert, blessed the sacrament. It was a huge step for him because he’s really shy. We’ve started talking to him about the possibility of serving a mission. It’d be so good for him.

Plus, Claudia, another convert, came home from vacations and showed us that she’d visited the LDS churches in the cities she was visiting. She’s changed a lot too since her baptism in December. I’m incredibly proud of her.

I’m doing really good, even though it hurts to say “next month” when the people ask me when I finish my mission. I’m thinking that if I get sent to a new area I’m going to lie to my companion just so that he doesn’t bug me and tell him that I have 2 transfers left.

I’m getting sadder and sadder about leaving the mission, but I’m also getting happier and happier about seeing you guys.

Love you all,
Elder Rasband

This week, I had a lot of things that, earlier on in my mission, would have distracted my focus and made it hard to be successful. Predictably, when we kept working hard after every one of those experiences, something amazing happened. It’s helping me to see that our trials come to test our faith, but that if we keep on course, the Lord will bless us immensely.

We started teaching a woman named Eilen. She is a young woman with two little kids. Her boyfriend is from another church, and he really doesn’t like it when we come around. When we knocked her door on Wednesday (I think) she said “Hi do you guys want to come in and sit down?” It was a little startling to be honest, but we accepted and went on in.

Eilen told us that about a year ago she’d been crying and praying to know which “path God had in mind for her.” A couple of days later the missionaries showed up. She really liked what they shared, but her boyfriend told her that he would kick her out of the house if she kept receiving the lessons. Reluctantly, she told the missionaries not to come back. Together, we decided that it would be best if we could come back when her boyfriend was at home to try and talk together and reach an understanding.

When we showed up yesterday to talk with the family, her boyfriend didn’t want to talk to us very much. He said that he was busy working on something out back. Then he startled us by saying “I just want you guys to respect my religion and I’ll respect yours.” We asked if that meant he was okay with us teaching his girlfriend, and he said yes.

During the lesson, it seems that he changed his mind, because he came back to the window and said that he wanted to “talk” to us when we finished. By his tone it was fairly obvious that it wasn’t going to be a friendly conversation. We finished the lesson, and asked Eilen to offer the prayer to close. She said that she didn’t want to because she was nervous about her boyfriend. I felt so bad for her. We felt inspired to teach her that when someone is nervous is when they most need to pray. She agreed and after the prayer was over went to go call her boyfriend. Miraculously, his anger had passed and he declined his opportunity to talk with us. It’s amazing how the Lord answers our prayers.

Happy New Year's!

When I was thinking about what to set as my resolutions, I kept going back to the Conference talk by D. Todd Christofferson about a consecrated life and what he said about time. My biggest Resolution is to plan every day this year, even after I finish with my mission. That way, I make full use of the resources that God has given me.

My other goal is to apply what I’ve learned on the mission to my living/studying habits. I’m too old to stay up late at night, and to dedicate hours a day to leisure activities. I want to get up early and go to bed late, and get perfect, or nearly perfect grades. That’s all though

This Sunday, I had a very weird experience. I blessed a baby in Sacrament meeting. He is the son of an investigator named Alejandra. She’s really excited about the gospel, and her husband came to church, which was really cool because he got to see the blessing. I couldn’t think of a better way to start off. We still haven’t had a lesson with him, but hopefully that experience will have prepared him to receive the gospel.

This week we had transfers, and Elder Hyde went to Resistencia. Elder Francis, from Arizona came to our branch. He comes straight from the mission office, which means that he’s really excited to be working with us. He’s a good friend of mine, so I was really excited when he got here.

Other than that there’s not a whole lot of news. This week we have the Baptism of a Kid named Paolo. This is take two, because the first time he left us with the font full and everything. I feel a lot better about this time though. He’s really cool and I think that He’s going to be a very good priesthood holder. He’s also 21 years old, so if we’re lucky he’ll decide to serve a mission. One of the best feelings that a missionary can have is when a convert goes and serves a mission himself. If she does her papers as soon as possible, I have one that’s planning on leaving this summer. The only thing that could be better is having a family get sealed in the temple.

12.13.2010

I think that this has been one of the most jam-packed weeks in my whole mission. We had a ton of things that got in the way of doing the actual missionary work, but we still managed to do everything that we needed, and the Lord blessed us for our efforts with a really important success.

On Monday we went to Iguaçu Falls, the big waterfall in Indiana Jones, which was really stressful because President del Castillo wasn’t really excited about the idea. He wanted to be sure that everyone went out to work on time after p-day. It turned out to be really inspired though, because we contacted a huge family that a member had given us as a reference and five of them ended up coming to church on Sunday. It was a real miracle because we'd been really worried about how we were going to get a good number of investigators to show up. In the end, it turned out really well.

This week we were blessed to baptize Claudia, a single mom with two kids. Her children are going to get baptized next week. Claudia is really special because she’s had a lot of things happen in her life that helped to prepare her for the Gospel, but she doesn’t wear her problems out on her sleeve. She’s very focused in what she wants and has had to make some life-changes to get to this point. I'm really happy for her. She's also done very well at making friends with the ward members, which is going to help her to stay active in the church.

Elder Taylor and I are really excited for the rest of this month. I’ve been waiting a long time to be able to have the kind of success that we’re having in our area right now. I feel like this is by far the best time that I’ve ever had in my life. It’s so wonderful.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into something that a Senior Missionary taught us in a Zone Conference a little while ago. He said that lots of people don’t accomplish what they want in life because they don’t have plans. That’s pretty much commonly known in the church. What he went on to say, however, was very interesting. He explained that if we are going to have success, we need to know why we’re here. He suggested making a life’s mission statement. Our Heavenly Father has one: “For this is my work and my glory...” A big part of why he’s so successful is that He’s completely dedicated to one thing, and all of His resources go towards that. The Elder that gave the lecture said that we should base our life’s mission statement on our patriarchal blessing.

I really liked the idea and have been trying to put together my mission statement. It’s a little bit elusive, because there’s a lot of information to consider, and because there is a certain practical limit to how much one can say. Every time that I start writing I end up with a whole paragraph of information. I must say, that it is a really useful meditative exercise. Every time that I find myself thinking about my purpose, I notice certain behaviors that I should eliminate. I highly recommend it.

I have a Christmas-related assignment for you guys. You should take a copy of the Book of Mormon or two, each one of you, put your testimony in it, mark a favorite passage, and commit to give it for Christmas to one of the people that matter to you. If you do, you will be able to see the people that you love in the celestial kingdom.

I’m glad to hear that you guys are doing so well. I miss you all a lot.

Love, Elder Rasband