Monday, April 28, 2014

Campana II Here I come!





Well here I am in Campana! It is such an awesome area!!! It is a giant area haha. 

Like I said last time, I´m in a biking area. Now the bikes here in Argentina as super freaky. For some reason they are all super old and rusty but they get us from A to B. We have a super sweet ward. Our ward mission leader is a capo. We are the only Elders in our ward, so we have a lot of work to be done. 
  
There are a lot of less-actives in this ward, so our battle plan is contact our less actives and work with them and there friends and family. I´m pretty excited to get to work here. For the past year or so the work has been slow in this area, but I have the faith and diligence to get things going again. 

We had interviews with President Ayre this week. It was great to talk with him and get some advice on our area and the plans he has for us. We got together as a zone for interviews and it was cool to meet every one. It's super hard for every one to get together here in this zone. Every one lives like and hour or more apart from each other haha. 

  
Today I´m a bit rushed because in the morning I had to do some more visa papers so we spent most of our Pday in traveling back and forth to the offices. An Elder Sweeny who just left, left some things in the offices, so the Office Couple are distributing some of the things out.... and I got Peanut Butter!!! yeah That's right 6 months of looking and I finally get some good old American PB. Lets just say I´m content.

I don´t have my thing to send pics so I´m going to have to send a lot next week! 
I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week! and remember That I am praying for you.
Love,
Elder Taylor M. Chriss

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Pascua!!!


Elder Chriss, Elder Damitz, and President Ayre
I just love Easter in the mission. The message of the Atonement is so very powerful and is my chance to share it with these wonderful people. A message that our Savior died for us, that we can be clean, that we can receive forgiveness. And that one day we will live again. We are so blessed to have this knowledge. 

Here in Argentina they celebrate by gifting hollow chocolate eggs with something on the inside (a toy or another egg) its a nice little gift. But it is very focused on the Savior which is great. Although most people still don´t know the true meaning of Easter.
  
Yesterday was my B Day and I thank you all for the birthday love and messages. Normally it would be P-day on my Birthday but today was transfers so today Tuesday is P-day. I was blessed with wonderful people to be with on my birthday. Beginning Saturday I got a cake every day. Lets just say that I can´t eat more. I´m grateful for the families of my ward that help me feel wonderful on my B-day.

  
And like I said today is transfers.... and guess what.... I´m gone again!!! New area and new Comp. I´m now in the middle of Campo or Fields. My area is giant its called Campana 2. My new companion is E. Gabriaguez from Paraguay. He is super cool he has around 6 months in the mission. I´m in the farthest northern zone in the mission. I´m super far from everyone. My last zone we had 20 to 15 min walk to another area. here its like and hour walk to another part of my own area. haha it's super awesome. 
I'm ON BIKE AGAIN, whooooo! I´m very excited for that. I will let you all know more as I know more.

  
This is what I have for you all today, I love you so much. I love my Savior and all that he has done for me. Especially this Easter season, There is a super cool video by the church our called "Because of him" and in spanish "Gracias a Él" its super great I invite you all to look it up.

Love,
Elder Taylor Chriss

I would like to personally thank Bishop Godoy and his sweet wife Lilian for the wonderful love they have shown my missionary. They have fed him every Sunday he has been in their area. Elder Chriss will truly miss their love, example, and hospitality!
~Lisa
 






Goodbye Elder Damitz!

Monday, April 14, 2014

It's Coming to a Close!


Last week's Zone lunch, All-You-Can-Eat-Pizza! (Yes another food picture!)

Wow we only have one week in the transfer!!! It’s gone by so fast. 

One thing is for certain is that time makes no sense to me.... One day is super slow, others super fast, weeks take a millennium and others seem to go Sunday to Sunday skipping M,T,W,T,F,S. But the good thing all I need to worry about is work.I

It yet again was a pretty slow week. We have been passing by our entire list of members to visit them and bring back those lost sheep (Less Actives). And it has born some good leads to more investigators. 

I am in love with the people here, some of them are not too welcoming, but once you get to know them they open up and become some of your greatest friends. The food is just plain fantastic. Empanadas are the best food I have ever had. But one thing that does freak me out is that I´m starting to wear a sweater each day and it’s April.... This whole opposite side of the planet thing still confuses me but in the end what I´m saying,... It’s cold, and the winds are brutal haha.

As me and my companion are trying to walk up the street with tornado like winds coming at us It reminds me of something that they spoke quite a bit about in the conference. Helaman 5:12 ~ And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the son of god, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shats in the whilwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. 

In this scripture it talks about how if we are firm on the Rock of our Redeemer aka Christ we will not fall and WE WILL NOT FAIL. No matter how hard the storms no matter how difficult it is. We are always successful if we are doing all we can to have our savior in our lives. I´m not going to lie, these past few weeks have been super hard and it’s been difficult to go out and not have much success. But I have this new perspective in my work. That the Rock of my life is always there and always firm, all I need to do is work. This is my testimony of the week that the Savior is here with us and that no matter the trials or hardships we cannot fail with Christ. 

Les Amo y espero que pueden tener una buen semana, Lo siento no tengo fotos hoy, no hay la cosa para enviar mis fotos. Pero siempre hay la proxima semana.

Con Gran Amor
Elder Taylor Chriss

Monday, April 7, 2014

Conference!!!

Conference!!!
Conference is the best thing in the whole world. And I echo the words of many as I say that many of the talks were meant for me. I am so grateful for the blessing it was to listen to such inspired speakers. It was a pretty ruff week here in our area. Not much acceptance of the people and we are finding it difficult to find new people to teach. But this was the best timing for a General Conference ever!!! It is another testimony to me as I listen to the men and women chosen of God to lead us here on this earth. 
 
I loved the talk by Elder Bednar, it was amazing and it made me think on my loads that I have in my life and how important they are. I never looked at my burdens like that before. I have limited time in this creepy Argentine cyber cafe so I have to go. I will write a bigger email the following week.
I¨M SO SORRY but I LOVE YOU ALL
Love Elder Chriss
continued . . . 

Hey again, We went out for pizza as a zone so I left, and now afterwards we have good time to sit down and finish. As I was saying Conference was fantastic. The talk by Bednar was truly inspired and has put a lot of my burdens in order. 
Now cool thing about here in Argentina is that all of the conference is in Castillano, except one small room full of English Elders or (Yankees as the people say here.) The great thing is that I can understand the Spanish it's just that I would rather get everything out of the conference as I could. So it was a room full of Elders and a small TV. The spirit was so strong that I didn´t have any distractions, just me and Conference. 
  
One of the wonderful talks was about member missionary work. I have such a great testimony of how much members can do to help this work. The work doesn´t work without members any more. PMG (preach my gospel) is a manual for every one not only full time missionaries. My challenge to all of you that aren´t on missions is to really look for the ways to help the Lord in his work. Think about your family and how much you love them. Now think of how you want the best for them. That is how God our Heavenly Father feels for every one of us. And there are people out there that don´t know that. And we as members have the Duty to help them find out. So go out and invite those people dear to you, the people who need a little help. And then follow up. I can promise you that you can do wonderful things when you are in the service of our Heavenly Father.
  
I could talk forever on conference but I think that would get a little boring after awhile haha. Again, I love you so much and I hope you all enjoyed conference. If you missed it, it is on LDS.org YAY! It's great. 
Keep cool and I´ll talk to you next week!!
Again Love 
Elder Taylor Chriss 

Do you notice a huge amount of missionary pictures include food? Lunch at Tortugitas Mall.