Week 33 - The week where D. came through!!!!

This week was actually really good!

Honestly though, we had a lot of charlas that fell through this week and there wasn't a whole lot of progress made in a lot of people, but D. came through big time this week!

D. has his baptismal date for the 23rd of this month and he's moving forward well enough, but we're still a little worried about his drinking. Luckily though, after a bit of a break he came to church again yesterday! We also gave him a blessing of health after the sacrament meeting to help him with his drinking problem and we're really hoping that he'll be able to make it. He wants to get baptized really bad but he is so deep into this drinking problem that it will be really difficult.  But I've seen a miracle before with the Word of Wisdom with M. in my last area that I know it can happen again if he really wants it.

We also had a good Multi-zone conference this week. It was really interesting honestly. I got mildly destroyed by President because he talked about "flat lining" after 6 months in the mission. The progression from when someone starts the mission to about 6 months is a time of a lot of growth, but after that the rate of growth flat lines. He said we always need to be expecting more and more of ourselves. "If you're feeling comfortable, it's time to repent." That is actually fairly true about me so I had to go home and set some goals and I'm really going to work at watching myself like a hawk to see if I'm actually improving.

We had a really cool experience earlier today also. We got to meet a man named Jorge Cocco Santangelo. He is super awesome. He is a painter for the Church that has works in BYU and a number of paintings in "Come, Follow Me" the manual also. He was born in the city where I am serving now (Concepcion del Uruguay, Argentina) and he was also the VERY FIRST member of this city. He told us his conversion story and about how he started painting for the church and some of the stuff he's done. Honestly, it was one of the cooler things that has happened to me in this area, not even going to lie. He lives in Buenos Aires now which is why we hadn't seen him before, in case you were wondering.

Other than that, the week was pretty uneventful due to the large number of dropped charlas, but we just keep pushing forward and look for the elect, no mas (that's all).

This week while I was doing my "Come, Follow Me" study, I really liked the JS-translation of Matt. 4:1 -  "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be with God."

I've also been reading Teachings of Joseph Smith the book as well that talked about this scripture:  "This is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."  John 17:3

There are many things we can do to "be with God" and as we are with Him more and we feel His presence and influence, we come to know Him better, understand Him and His will for us, and as we come to understand these things, we become more willing to be obedient and repent and thus we will gain eternal life, the greatest gift that God has to offer us. I want to invite you to find one change to make that will help you all to better "be with God."

Nos vemos!

-Elder Martin

As a little addition to this email, I asked Bryant about how he came to meet this artist yesterday and he responded:

"He just happened to be in a park as we were walking past and he called us over. His website is jorgecocco.com"

I looked him up while we were talking, and then I recalled having seen one of his works in the "Come, follow Me" manual the day before while studying.

Here is his bio I found on the Deseret Book website: