Elder Kevin McFarland: Intercambio with Elder Pribyl and the Big Pizza

As we were walking to cyber in Monte Grande, for some reason there's just like an old Argentine fighter jet chillin in the middle of a round about...ha-ha, pretty sick.

Hola! Hola!

So this week started out kind of rough. We weren’t seeing a lot of success and results from our work, but we finished the week with lots of blessings! We had interviews this week and it was great as always being able to talk to President Thurgood. Turns out it wasn’t my last interview. Normally we switch off every other transfer between interviews and zone conferences, but next transfer President Thurgood is going to have interviews again and then in June before he leaves he’s going to end with zone conferences. So I won’t have another zone conference :( but I’ll have another interview! Elder Bravo and I reviewed the agendas and the area books at the interviews, the same thing Elder Almeida and I did.

After we finished we did intercambios with the Assistants and I stayed in 9 de Abril with Elder Pribyl. It was a super awesome and edifying intercambio. We left in the afternoon, heading late to a lesson we had set with an old investigator we had found a couple days before. As we were walking, Elder Pribyl felt impressed to talk to a family that was sitting on the sidewalk outside their home. So we contacted them and asked if we could share a short message and they said yes so Elder Pribyl sat right down on the sidewalk and began teaching. It was awesome ha-ha. So we sat down on the sidewalk, started talking to them, said a prayer and taught the restoration. It was a man, Jose, who’s probably in his late 20s or early 30s with his wife and his mom. They were super receptive and accepted a baptismal invitation for April 23. Dora, the mom, committed to come to church and we offered to walk with her.

On Sunday, we first went to look for another investigator and then when we passed by Dora’s house to get her, her daughter-in-law said she had already left for church. When we got to church, she was outside!! So we took her in with us and she stayed for all three hours. Then in the afternoon, we went back to their house to teach them. They hadn’t read the Book of Mormon so we read the introduction and talked a little about it and they had some pretty good questions. Jose asked about the Holy Ghost and what or who it is. Dora asked why only the men hold the priesthood. Also, we had to clarify with Jose that Jehovah is Jesus Christ, not God the Father. The whole time, as we responded to their questions, they were super receptive and would say “oh, now I get it or now I understand¨ and then we would repeat what they had learned and understood from our answers. Elder Bravo and I were both kind of nervous as we responded. Personally, in a lesson, that was a first time someone’s asked me why only men hold the priesthood. Also, I was worried about clarifying that Jehovah is Jesus Christ because I was worried Jose would get offended. But they were super open. Jose said he’s really open to learn and he believes there’s one true church and wants to find. He wants to know but doesn’t know how he`ll know and ask us how he’ll know. We also taught them about having a family prayer since they just pray individually, faa.

Elder Pribyl and I were super pumped to find them and again yesterday Elder Bravo and I were super excited after the lesson seeing how prepared and receptive they have been. I think about what would have happened if Elder Pribyl hadn’t opened his mouth in that moment? Or what if we had said to ourselves that we were heading late to a lesson that had been planned and had just contacted them and left them with a pass along card? At the very least, in the short term, this family would not have been introduced to the restored gospel and wouldn’t now be on a path leading them to receive the saving ordinance of baptism. Sometimes in life we have our plans, and we should have our plans because having plans and goals is an act of faith and helps us have direction. But, we must also be humble enough to submit ourselves to His will and His plans so that when directed, we will be willing to deviate from our original plans or goals that we have set in order to achieve and carry out His will. His will and His plans are not only always better than own, but they are perfect. I’m grateful Elder Pribyl had the faith to trust in the promptings of the Spirit, to talk to this family and then to teach them in the moment, because if not we would not have found them.

So the intercambio with Elder Pribyl was great. He’s a great missionary and will be a great Assistant. Another highlight of the week is that besides having Dora come to church, we had another investigator, Dani, come to church. His son is a member and it’s been like three years since Dani has gone to church. About two weeks ago, a member told us about a convert he had baptized when he had served here but then went inactive. So this week we contacted this man, Juan Carlos, and he came to church too and has an interview with the Bishop on Wednesday!! faa.

It’s been an awesome week! Today we have our District activity and this week we have consejo de liderazgo (leadership council) with all the Zone Leaders.