Week #86

Hola Familia!

I´m sorry for not sending pictures again. I have a lot (don´t worry mom) but I forgot the little card reader in the house. I´ll try to send a lot next week. We had some incredible experiences this past week. We had some zone conferences this week so we´ve been on the road a lot. We were in Mar del Plata twice, Olavarría, and Tandil. I want to share an experience that impacted me a lot, and then something from the zone conference that I´ve learned this week.

First off, while Elder Paleka and I were in Mar del Plata, we couldn´t help but go visit some people from Pompeya. Pompeya was my first area and Elder Paleka served there after I did. I don´t know if any of you remember Cejas. He was the old man that was always in the pictures with me and Martín, sometimes he took us to restaurants. Anyways, I seriously love that man and so Elder Paleka and I went to his house first to visit him-- but he wasn´t home. We went to a member and we asked him about Cejas. He told us that Cejas had passed away on December 13, 2015 from a heart attack or a stroke. I was pretty surprised and a little sad that I wasn´t able to see him again. Through all the feelings and thoughts that ran through my mind, I couldn´t help to be extremely happy. That might not be the feeling that I was expecting, but I couldn´t help feeling peace and happiness. Cejas had a lot of physical problems that truly held him back from progressing and when I heard that he is now in the Spirit World, I began to think of all the ways he can spiritually progress now. I prayed that night talking to my Heavenly Father and I felt a lot of inner peace. I can´t wait to be able to do his temple work for him one day. This moment strengthened my testimony of the perfectness of God´s plan.

The other thing I learned from these zone conferences is the importance of REPENTANCE in the process of the conversion of somebody. The subject of retencion has and will always be a difficult thing in the Church. What we can do as missionaries is improve the way that we teach and commit repentance to everyone. The process to conversion is a long and slow process. After all, we are all eternal beings, and true repentance is an eternal process. President Cifuentes does an excellent job at explaining to us this process. He read with us Alma 32 to us and he taught us this story in a way that made perfect live sense to us as missionaries in Bahía Blanca. This process of true repentance was taught by Alma even before the years of Jesus Christ on the earth. It´s incredible to truly understand what the prophets have taught us in the Book of Mormon. Every time I hear the discussion about Alma 32, the Spirit teaches me something different that improves my individual quest of true repentance.

Thanks for all the love and support. I´m extremely happy to be a missionary and I´m so honored to wear this badge every moment of my life.

Love, Elder Bosco II