Letter #16 January 13, 2014

HOLA EVERYONE!!!

I hope everyone has had a great week and is doing well!! We are working hard in San Vicente and taking the Gospel to what has to be one of the farthest corners of the earth ha ha.  We had a pretty good week but I am still trying to get adjusted to the whole balancing a branch and doing the whole tracting thing.  It has been hard to find the balance but either way we are working hard.  This is the 2nd week in a row that we have had to email from Obera because internet in the jungle oddly enough is a joke!!! We have one family that we have been working with and trying to get them ready for baptism.  Ramona has 4 daughters and all 4 of them have baptismal dates for the 8th of February.  The only thing is that they live about 2 kilometers outside of San Vicente so we have to wake up at around 5 every Sunday morning, get ready and then walk to their house to bring them to church.  And then when we finally get to the building we have to get everyone inside and start the meeting.  

We have had a lot of adventures this week including getting lost in the middle of the freaking jungle!!! 

On Saturday we decided to go to a less active family´s house and try and get them to church the next day.  We have a really crappy map of the area and just a general idea of where they live!!  So we set off to take an hour walk to their house.  We had been walking for probably 2 miles when we stopped to ask a man if he was familiar with where this family lived and he said not really but that the road to our left would get us there.  So we believed him.  We started walking up this super steep hill in about 5 inches of fresh mud following the last 2 days of rain.  It seemed liked we had been walking forever when we finally made it to the top we saw shacks to our left and shacks to our right with little naked children running around in the mud and the occasional group of teenage guys trying to "mad dog" us.  We continued to walk for another 30 minutes around corner after corner and flicking a crap load of mud off my boots.  We finally ended up in a clearing with a few shacks around us on top of a mountain.  We were completely lost and it was getting dark.  I looked at Elder Izurieta and said "Dude, we gotta pray."  We said a prayer and just sat and waited to know where to go.  At like the same time we both pointed the same direction!! It was seriously a spiritual experience!!  We continued to walk and after about a mile of walking we found the family!! It was such a cool experience to know and feel that even when 2 guys are in the middle of the jungle, Heavenly Father knows them and their needs.

This week we were on LDS.org and found the new youth theme song for 2014.  It is entitled "Come unto Christ" and if any of you haven't seen it yet you should go watch it!!  I have watched it a solid 20 times and it is always easy to feel the Spirit when I listen to it! There is one line in particular that really touches my heart every time I hear it,  It goes... "So let him in, and he will take away your pain.  When you feel his love you will never be the same." When we truly let Christ into our lives and we have a sincere desire to follow him and help others do the same, then we truly feel the true love of Jesus Christ. It really is true that when we feel that love, we are changed forever.  I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be able to share this message with the people of Argentina and I would urge each of you to do the same.  We have been blessed to know of our Saviors love and it is something we need to share!

I Love you all with all my heart.  Have a great week.

Elder Ollerton