"We are really so blessed to know of the Atonement of Christ"

converts from Cinco de Mayo that came to visit

May 20, 2013

Family,

We had a super packed week and it was a good one!! To start it off on Monday night my comp and I were on bikes and we got separated.  I have never been so scared in my life.  Haha It was only 10 minutes but then we found each other.  So that’s ok.

Then on Tuesday we left for the zone conference that was on Wednesday. It was an INCREDIBLE conference; it had been 10 months since the last zone/district conference I had had. And I learned so much and was super excited. I’m definitely going to be a better missionary for what I learned!! Then we got back on Thursday. On Thursday it got super cold. Like right around freezing, but then it’s like 100% humidity so that makes it a lot colder, and the buildings are only made of bricks so it enters and stays cold. But I really like the cold so I was happy.

We worked super hard on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to make up for the 2 days we lost, we found some good people and had some really good lessons with a lot of people!!! Julio should be baptized next Monday, and then Maria and Marcos the following Saturday! We are seeing a lot of progress here!! 

  We talked a lot about the atonement in the zone conference, and so we have been studying a lot about the atonement and then talking and testifying about it in every lesson. It has helped a ton. We really are so blessed to know about the Atonement of Christ. I’m so grateful for it! It is perfect, and it really testifies of the love the Lord has for every one of us! I encourage everyone to study and learn about the Atonement!! Read in Alma 7. I love that chapter when it talks about Christ suffering for all of us. It’s so powerful! 

 O I learned how to make gnocchi’s! They are super good!!!!!!!!

 Thanks for everything that you all do for me and for the prayers and help! It was great seeing and talking with you last Monday! Hope all is well! Love you! Good luck Karigan!!

 Love, Elder Eppich

Happy Mother's Day 2013

Mother's Day Skype 2013

We were able to Skype with Kraymer on Monday, May 14, 2013. He is doing soooo good and is so happy. We are so blessed to have two sons serving missions together, best Mother's Day gift ever.

"In comparison to God we are nothing, but to God we are everything"

May 6, 2013

FAMILY,

Well I am staying put here in SALADILLO with Elder SMITH!! We aren’t having changes! It is what I thought would happen! We are missing a lot of missionaries (still no Visas into Argentina) so we did not expect a lot of changes! But we are super excited for this transfer together! We are really excited to see what will happen! We have a lot of people that are really progressing and are keeping their commitments! It’s a great blessing to have all of you supporting and praying for me! I feel your help every day!! 

 I can’t believe how fast time is flying and how blessed I am to be a missionary, I probably say it every time but I am seriously so blessed and can’t believe how the Lord just keeps on blessing us!! And how he blesses all of you! The Lord really does love us! I really hope that EVERYONE realizes that! No matter what is happening in your lives, the Lord LOVES you individually! Like President Uchtdorf said, "In comparison to God we are nothing, but to God we are everything! I love that quote. It is so true!! He loves us so much and knows us!!! We are never alone and never will be alone! Rely on him!!!!!!

  Julio and his wife are doing super good! And Maria as well. She is doing better with smoking. Like 5 cigarettes is all! Then Jorge is doing great as well! Fabiana isn’t doing too good though; it breaks my heart to see people struggling. Mom maybe you could write Fabi with the help of Shayne. I think it would mean a ton to her. 

 Thank you so much for all you do! I hope all is going well! Love you all!

Love,

 Elder Eppich

Looking sharp in Saladillo

April 29, 2013

Familia,

So we had a really good week! I can’t believe how fast time is flying. But seriously. One week out here is like 1 day in the MTC, Haha I can’t believe it. Next week is transfers, don’t ask what I think will happen, I have no idea, hahaha but I could see so many possible moves that I don’t even want to guess. (Kraymer's mission is waiting for 70 missionaries that don't have Visas and are waiting stateside for them to come) So I feel like I haven’t updated you on our investigators for a while and I don’t have much time so I'll just let you know how they are all doing and call it good.

  

So we haven’t heard from Pablo in a while. Super sad about that, but I’m going to go visit him this week and then see what happens!! He is such an awesome guy I hope all turns out with him.

Abuela negra, we had dropped her because she didn’t want to baptized, but now she really misses us and came to church so we are going to see how things go now!! So I am excited about that!!!! 

 Maria and family from the little city

They are doing super good! They all smoke though! We are trying to help them stop smoking so that they can get baptized. They love the church so much so hopefully we can get them baptized really quickly!!

Julio and Maria

They are doing great and doing a lot better due to our marriage counsel sessions. Haha but seriously it is incredible because they are reading and praying every day and it has made all the difference in the world!!!

People from Paraguay

So this week we found a bunch of new investigators that are family and friends of some less actives. They have so much potential we are really excited for them because they are awesome!! We are working a lot with the less actives trying to help get them back to church!!

This week we had a ton of cool experiences! All of them are due to following the spirit! We found a super cool future priesthood holder because we followed the spirit. His name is Jorge and he is about 30 years old and came to church and absolutely loved it! Even my piano skills impressed him. Haha I’m getting a lot better believe it or not!!! Haha

Thanks everyone for all you do! I’m so glad everyone is doing so good!!! Oh yea I measured myself the other day, I am 6´3.5¨ without shoes and I weigh about 215 (sounds like the parasite is gone. ha). Have a great week!! Next week I'll try and have a better email!! Hope all is going well! Congrats Kaitlan Kort and Shayne for the big weeks! And BREE! (Kaitlan graduated from BYU and Shayne and Kortneigh blessed baby Bree)

Love, Elder Eppich

"The Lord blesses us when we do all that we can do"

April 22, 2013

Family and friends

Well I am going to apologize beforehand that the letter is super short because we got cut super short today because we had to do some stuff for the area and we had to go get a new apartment for sister missionaries that are going to be coming here in a little bit!! 

We had a super good fast week! I can’t believe how fast the time is going by and how much I am learning every day!!! It is such a huge blessing to be on a mission and I wouldn’t change it for anything!!

 This morning we had a special zone conference by cell phone (*because they are so far away from the rest of the mission)  and we shared our testimonies about the changes we have made in our lives since we got to the mission. It is so awesome to see what the Lord has done in our lives and I feel so blessed to be a part of it!!! 

 We are finding lots of good new people to teach. We are trying to find families to teach and the Lord is leading us to them every day! He really blesses us when we do all that we can do! That is true no matter who or what you do!! He will bless you when you rely on him! His way is the best way and sometimes the hard way, but even though it is the hard way we should still follow it. If we do it we will grow and our lives will gradually shape us into true Disciples of Christ!!

Nothing in this life that has importance never is easy, thanks dad for teaching me that!! Never take the easy way because it is easy, take the right way always! If we do that we will never go wrong!! The family from Saladillo Norte is progressing a lot. We are just helping the mom stop smoking, Maria, she is almost there, and then she can be baptized with the family. She introduced us to a family that is awesome that came to church with her!!! Thanks everyone for all you do I am so grateful for all of you and your prayers for me!!

Love,

Elder Eppich

"I feel so blessed to be a Missionary"

April 15, 2013

Family,

Wow, God answers prayers! So we had a kinda crazy week. We had some disappointments, with the abuela negra and Pablo. Abuela negra just said she is too old to make any changes so she doesn’t want to be baptized. It’s ok though, everything will turn out the way the Lord wants it to. Pablo has been super difficult to get a hold of, but hopefully soon we will hear from him!!

 However, the family that lives a ways out of town is doing really good, we are helping them stop smoking so that they can be baptized here really soon. I am not sure if I have told you about Julio? He is a super capo, he will be a great priesthood leader here very shortly. Elder Crowther and I had found him a while back but now he is getting really close to baptism. It is always so incredible walking to his house because we get there and lots of times he has problems with his wife and you can just feel the tension in the air, and then we just let the spirit go to work. And it really WORKS. At the end of the lesson I was trembling and just felt so warm and good, and he was like, man I love how you guys ALWAYS do that! It is such a privilege to have this ability as missionaries to carry this power and spirit with us all the time! I feel so blessed to be a missionary. Especially here in Saladillo. Even though it has been tough at times I have never received so much happiness and joy from everything, and I have learned so much!

  And since we cleaned out our teaching pool a bit this week, on Thursday we started praying for families to teach. And within 2 or 3 days we had found 5 families to start teaching!!! They all have quite a bit of interest as well! So we are super excited for them! It is just incredible how the Lord always listens to our prayers and how he always guides us and blesses us when we are humble!!

  Yesterday we had Group council. Haha the first time ever and we did a mission plan for the group. It was awesome because it really got the members really excited to go to work and help us out. We are really going to focus on bringing the lost sheep back, because they want to come back and we are just going to shower them with love so that they can’t say no. 

 La hermana Escudero got back together with her husband and he came to church, so that was so exciting for us!!!

 Everything is going super good here for us in Saladillo. Elder Smith and I are working hard and relying on the Lord and know that he will continue to bless us forever!! Love you all so much. This Gospel is True!!

Love, Elder Eppich, Sr.

 Ps I hope you all are being member missionaries!! The mission work becomes so much better when we use the members!!!! 

A Flood of the Spirit and Rain

The rains came down and the floods came up........

April 8, 2013

Familia y Amigos,

Wow what an incredible week!!! This week was full of lots of great experiences that will be with me for the rest of my life!!! Last Monday and Tuesday it rained super hard!! We received about 30 CM of rain!!! Or about a foot of rain!! It was crazy!! It rained so hard!!! It flooded a lot of the city, there were a few places where it was up to our knees! We were out on the bikes when it started to rain and it rained so hard! I couldn’t see in front of me! Then my bike started to act up, and the chain broke, Haha so I had to fix it in the pouring rain. Haha but luckily I was having fun!!! At times the rain was above the wheel of my bike! We took some sweet pictures. I’ll send them. However, all the rain resulted in like 60 deaths in the capital here in BA it was a tough time for the people of Argentina. 

   On Wednesday we had a super awesome lesson with a family called the family Funes. They are less actives and they have a son that is 9 that has not been baptized. We have been working with them a lot and they are making a ton of progress! But even more incredible is the progress the dad is making! He has the Aaronic priesthood and is making so much progress!" he came to the priesthood session with his sons and absolutely loved it!! He is going to be a great leader in the church! We really need leaders here in Saladillo!!!

  Then on Thursday I had my comps life flash before my eyes! I was on the bike we had just left the house of an investigator and I was calling Elder Nilsen to do some branch business and all the sudden I hear the investigator scream and I turn around and see that Elder Smith was sprawled out on the ground and his bike a few yards away. I said to Elder Nilsen, Oh crap my comp just died. and hung up. I hurried over to see him laughing, I think he was a little embarrassed, his bike pedal had broke and he went a flying. It was a funny experience, even more because he is ok. Then the next day he was messing around and fell again, we got another good laugh out of it! Haha 

  Then the awesome part of the week got here...... CONFERENCE!!! I absolutely loved conference!! Every talk was meant for ME! I learned a ton from everyone of the talks!! From Sister Dalton's awesome talk to pte Monson's talk. Every talk was incredible. I don’t have time to give details about every single one but in reality I LOVED conference and had all my questions answered!!! It was a great experience!!"!!! I really really liked pte Eyring from the priesthood session!! He talked about Saladillo!! Well it wasn’t really Saladillo but it was very similar! He talked about all the great potential that these areas all have and I can’t wait to see all the growth that Saladillo will one day have!!! I have really been focusing on building this area with a super strong foundation!! This week I made a group mission plan, made plans for visiting and home teaching and also group mission counsel! I know that as we keep working with these things we will truly help the area of Saladillo become strength of the church!!!! 

  I have really been thinking a lot about what being out here in Saladillo has done for me, in reality it has done a ton!!!! I have learned how to depend on the LORD and I am so grateful for him and his Atonement. I feel I have never been closer to him and would not change this opportunity for anything!! I know He lives and loves everyone of us and that he died for all of you and for me! He has once again showed his love through restoring the true church on the face of the earth to help us have eternal families!!!! It is so incredible the love the Lord has for all of us!! He is the one that gives me the motivation to keep working until his purposes have all come about, he strengthens me and comforts me daily, and because of him I am here on the mission!! I know this church is true and I know the Savior glorified the Father’s name! I love all of you and can’t wait to hear from you all!!

Love,

 Elder Eppich, Sr.