Monday, August 16, 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010 "creer es poder" To believe is power!"

Hola mi familia,

All right, number one I am so sorry I did not write last week. Things got really busy in the offices, but that´s no excuse. I should have written you and I really am so sorry for it because you have always written me so much. That´s not going to happen again, I really want to talk to all of you. Let´s start by giving a quick wrap up of what happened last week.

Well, I had an experience that was pretty fun. I had a dueño (landlord) call me about 2 weeks ago and we had been negotiating back and forth about a new price and a new contract. I like doing it because it´s giving me a chance to grow and practice how to negotiate. President wanted me to bump the monthly rent down 100 pesos but the landlord was very set on what she wanted. In the end she ended up saying she would come into the offices last Thursday to talk about it. I was cutting it down almost to the last minute and didn´t prepare as thoroughly as I would have liked to but she came in on Thursday and we ended up having quite a nice chat between her and I and President. It turns out she didn´t want a contract at all because she trusts us and we said ok. We ended up being really good friends and she went off to visit her son who she was visiting for the holiday we were having here in Mendoza. I went and shredded the contract J.
I learned a lot from this experience, number 1- that trust in a person´s word is more powerful than any kind of contract. It´s nice to know that!

We also had quite the fiasco with missionary agendas. So as the situation would have it, we found ourselves as a mission completely out of agendas this week. Missionaries were calling and asking about agendas from all sides. Awesome! An opportunity to solve a problem, this was going to be fun. I had put an order for agendas earlier in the week but was informed by the confirmation e-mail that they were going to be arriving in 2-3 weeks…we needed them in two or three days…ok awesome, what else do we do. I ended up calling a neighboring mission and they emergency shipped me 70 agendas to hold us over until our agendas could get there. We needed the agendas right away to get them out to the assistants who were traveling to some Zone Conferences pretty far away this morning. Anyway so we got everything shipped out here from mission Neuquen and we thought everything was going to fine and dandy. Elder Sandford and I went out to the terminal this morning to pick up the package and forward it on a bus to the Elders in San Rafael only to find that the ticket booth and the place where you pick up packages was closed today because of a holiday today (It´s San Martin Day today, he´s pretty cool and has a lot to do with Chile and Peru I think). Anyway long story short, I ended up making some makeshift agendas in a word document and sending it to the whole mission this morning so they could have a paper to plan for the day. This was an experience of learning, I enjoyed the experience and it was a good experience to take all the twists and turns and roll with them…this leads into what I wanted to talk about next.
I have been studying faith a lot this week. Let me explain why faith in Jesus Christ is so important. I want to start off with a question. What do you do if you believe what someone says…you do what they want you to do right? You trust them. You trust that if the Lord commands you to do something, there is way to do it. 1 Nephi 3:7 look at it, it says it better than I do.

Speaking about faith a little more generally it is to believe. There is a Spanish Phrase that I like…”creer es poder” (To believe is to be able OR To believe is power) Poder means to be able to and it also means power. If you believe it, you have the power to do it. I know there were trials of faith this week that the Lord put in my path. One day I felt really sick, flu-like, but we needed to get out and work (I will tell you about the miracle that happened that day a little bit later). There was this trial with the agendas, there were so many things that happened every day, but if we believe, a situation will arise. Ultimately our only true source of faith is in Jesus Christ, that through the atonement everything will be made right, that justice and mercy will be served and we press on. My challenge is that next time you are faced with a trial instead of doubting that you can pass through it or looking for excuses around it to believe, make a plan and have faith.

That was pretty much me rambling my thoughts about faith, but it´s how I feel. I´ll end with the miracle that happened this week and let everyone go. That day I was feeling sick we left the Offices and went to the chapel where we were going to meet up with a member who was going to work with us for the afternoon (here in Argentina “afternoon” extends well into the nighttime FYI). Anyway we got to the chapel and started having a wonderful chat with this man. He shared with us that he had been having a hard time finding work lately and that he was looking for something to fill the void in his life. We had a wonderful discussion with him where the Spirit was really strong. At the end of the lesson he offered a kneeling prayer to Heavenly Father asking him for help in finding work. Not three minutes passed after that and he received a text message with someone telling him that they had work for him. We all four just stood there gawking at each other. I know that God answers prayers and that He is waiting to bless us. TRY IT!

I love you all and I will send pictures next week…I will remember my camera cord and I will take pictures I promise. Please have a good week! You´re all awesome!

Love,
Elder Hoglund

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