First Baptisms!!

Querido Familia y Amigos,

Well this week I am doing fabulous!!! Except for this morning... in our Pension we have a sink and shower and everything, but the heat is so crazy so sometimes it wont be hot and other times it will be the hottest thing known to mankind... Haha. So this morning I was just going to wash my hands and I turned the water on hot and it totally burned my hand, like pretty bad... SO that wasn´t fun but its fine, its not that bad I just exaggeratted haha, but not fun.

SO we had interviews with President Lindahl this week, and he is back and healthy which is a great blessing!! They were great, he has such a love for all of us missionaries. The interviews are interesting because he just likes us to talk about everything, but you can see how much he cares that way. He asked me how I was doing and I said I was doing great and he was so happy to hear that. He asked me what I wanted next transfer and I thought it was a test or something so I had no idea what to say. I ended up saying a change would be nice, so he wrote that down haha. He also asked me if my companion was ready to be Zone Leader and I told him I thought he was. It was a hard question because when you are someones comp you see all of their imperfections, but he has a talent of teaching and taking over leadership positions. I think that he is one of those people that when he is asked to lead, that is when he excels more. He isn´t the most ´´personable´´ person, but he is a good Elder. Anyways the interview went great and President made some amazing promises to me. He is a deeply spiritual man who has a unwavering testimony. I have a feeling that I will be moving this transfer because of what I said, but I really don´t know. I have grown to love the people here in ´´Rodeo de la Cruz´´ (name of the city), and I will be sad to leave but who really knows. We find out Dec 6th and will leave the 8th depending on what happens.

OOOHH while I was at the offices I got your package!!! Thanks so much Momma it got here safe and sound without being rifled through that was a blessing :) I loved all the things in there and I needed those bleach pens, my mom sure knows me... haha. Also the pictures were great and all the yummy treats, thank you so much I loved it!!!! This last Saturday all the Elders in our Zone sang at a primary function for those who were going to enter young mens or young womens. We sang, ´´Yo trato de ser como Cristo,´´ Llamados a servir, Quiero ser un misionero ya, and some others! It was great and at the end we went up to one of the kids, gave them a paper with our testimony and one of the missionary planners that we use so they could see what it is like. It was great :)

SO thanksgiving was uneventful haha, but to celebrate my companion and I bought Lomos sandwhiches which were really really good!! Its like a steak sandwhich sort or except supposedly Lomos is the best part of the beef or something. It was a small little celebration but nice. I eat these little things called tortitas a lot, its like a small little biscut and there are a lot of types, but its simple cheap and tastes good. They have Panderias everywhere that selll them, or a bakery.

SOOO we finally had our first baptisms on Sunday after church!!! :) I had the opportunity to baptize Rocio a ten year old girl with a really hard life. It was a sweet experience for me, and it will be always remembered as the first person I had the opportunity to come closer to Christ. My companion baptized her brother or ´´cousin´´ so that was great. We have worked a lot with this family and they are coming back to church and feeling the SPirit again in their lives. That is the joy of the mission. Someone wrote a fourth verse that i had never heard until this week to the famous hymn, ´´Because I Have Been Given Much´´ the fourth verse goes like this:

Because of thy life´s mission Lord, I too must serve,
And leave the comfort of my home to teach thy word
I´ll find the sheep who´ve gone astray, and those who´ve never known the way
I´ll make thy work my work today

I really loved that. As I have now passed three fast months on my mission I have come to understand more the divine call of a missionary and the Heavenly comission by the Savior to bring the sheep back into the truth path of the Lord. The last couple days I have felt the SPirit so strong and have had special experiences which continue to give me the unyielding testimony in this Gospel. I am not a blind follower, but have personal evidence for the faith I am excercising everyday (Heb 11:1). Im so astounded at the hope the Gospel bares and gives me everyday I live it right, and try to magnify my calling. I know the Gospel is true, that Jesus is the Christ, even the Great Jehovah, and that God our Father,that Man of Holiness is the literal Father of our Spirits and we are his offspring (Acts 17:29). I am grateful we have a personal God, one who can hear, speak, eat and drink (Deut 4:28). I love you all and I am doing phenominal!!

Love,
Elder Passantino

El Capo

Familia y amigos!

Well I think I should explain the subject line first, (El Capo). It basically means stud here in Argentina and the Elders say it all the time about good Elders, we say, 创Que Capo创 it's pretty funny. This week/today we went to the zoo in Mendoza! Lets just say it was a lot different than the Zoos in the states. I didn't see one worker in the whole big park, only at the beginning where you pay... And the cages for the animals were big enough that you could go in and reach your hand in and feed them. So many people at the park were feeding the monkeys and stuff it was crazy. I don't think the maintenance there was very good becuase as we were watching the monkeys a bunch found a way out of this huge fence/cage and stole some things right out of this guys backpack next to us!... We were like what in the world!!!! They all started going crazy and then just started jumping through all the trees in the oark wherever they wanted, and there wasn't a worker in site. It was actually pretty fun, but a little crazy. Its a big zoo that overlooks the city of Mendoza, because it is on a hill and its really pretty. We went with lots of the Elders in our Zone so it was a lot of fun. I have made some really good friends already with lots of the Elders so my funny personality has started to come out here finally in Argentina haha!!

This week I went on my first splits or 创divisiones创 with an Elder named Elder Mamani. He is from Buenos Aires also, but his family is Bolivian. We went on them because he is companions with the District Leader and the DL needed to come to our area and do the baptisimal interviews. SO I stayed the night in a city called San Jose with Elder Mamani and the Zone Leaders! It was a lot of fun and a good change for a day. The zone leaders are awesome too and very spiritual and loving. They are from Buenos Aires and Paraguay! So I have had a lot of opportunity to practice and continually refine my Spanish!!! I am feeling much better with everything in the language, (dont get me wrong It's still incredibly hard, and I still don't understand a lot) But I can really feel my improvement a lot more. I got to help Elder Mamani write his sort of 创farewell创 letter from the mission with his life goals, and what he felt he has accomplished in his mission. It has to be written in English so it was interesting trying to decipher what he was writing in English and correcting it. We all had a good time together, and at the end he awarded me with my first tie in the Mission that is a special tie with the Argentine colors from Buenos Aires!! I was very grateful and it was just awesome of him!

This last Saturday a counselor in the Bishopric talked to me and asked me to give a fifteen minute talk(in Spanish obviously) the next day at church. Now Saturday was already a very busy day for us, and I was a little nervous, but I had faith that it would all work out. It did :) I prepared the talk on one of the missionary lessons called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a little shaky, not going to lie, but I felt like I said the words that needed to be said, and that everyone could understand what I was saying. I was very grateful for my Heavenly Father and the mercy he shed on me to help me out with that!!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ really is so simple. It is Faith in Jesus Christ, Repentence, Baptism for the Remission of sins, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and ENDURING TO THE END! Basically our purpose as missionaries is to invite people to live that, and reap the blessings of following the example the Lord put forth. I think the reason that we don't receive more and more revelation sometimes is because we haven磘 mastered the basics. That's why we are constantly learning the first principles over and over again, because they are vitally important. When we understand and apply those pricipals we are able to comprehend the greater and deeper doctrines of the Kingdom of God. When we exercise our faith in the little things, the Lord sees it fit to reveal greater things. We can learn more through mastering and putting to practice the basic principles, rather than reaching beyond the limits of our current understanding. When the basics become our basics the complexity and greater grandeur of the Gospel takes root in our souls inter the enlarging of our understanding of the greater things. How grateful I am for the simplicity that becomes the depth of eternity through diligent obedience to the basics. I don't
think I explained that very well, but there is a much better explanation by Hyrum Smith about the first principles of the Gospel in P.M.G. that you should look up!! ANyways I am beginning to find myself more and more in the service of my fellow men, and I am starting to understand greater things through the Spirit. The mission is amazing, hard though it may be, it molds the boy out of the man of God. I磎 so grateful to be a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ at such a young age! I am so happy and grateful!

We have our first three baptisms this week and I am so excited :) :) They are either Saturday or Sunday, but keep these amazing people in your prayers, Rosio, Luciano, and Ornela! I love you all keep smiling through the hard times, and know that the Gospel is true!

Love,
Elder Passantino