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.

Happy Easter

Elder Eppich in Saladillo Argentina

April 1, 2013

Family,

Wow we had a super crazy week!!! On Monday we had a super spiritual lesson with one of our investigators and his wife, it was super good!

Then on Tuesday the craziness started happening. We had to travel to capital for the transfer meeting and we get in normal without any problems and then the next morning we go to the transfers and there was a TON of changes! It is crazy. I realized I don’t know too many people that are in the mission because I have been off in the middle of nowhere. Haha But I am the oldest one in campo now. There is no one that is even close. I don’t think President plans on ever taking me out of here, Haha but we will see! But then we try to get going home on Wednesday but because of the Holy Week and the Argentine pope there was no way to get home at all! Luckily we found a trip that left Thursday morning at about 8 but it was super late and we didn’t leave until 11 and then it took us about 4 hours to get out to Saladillo. As soon as we get to Saladillo we had to travel to 25 de mayo so that I could do a baptismal interview for an investigator over there! So Elder Nilsen and I go and I do the interview, and there was a problem with the guy so I had to call President Carter and he told me a few things I needed to find out from the guy. I was super nervous about the information, I had no idea how to find it out, but I just went and started talking and within 20 seconds I had all the information I needed and President Carter said, alright he is good to go. Haha then it really hit me how the spirit directed me word for word in that short experience, I didn’t even realize the words I was saying. Just a powerful testimony that the Lord always tells us what we need to say, when we need to say it! Super cool experience for me even though it doesn’t sound too cool.

  Then Friday we get back to Saladillo and we got to work!!! We worked super hard Friday and Saturday and the Lord blessed us on Sunday! We saw 6 investigators at church and we had 19 people in total! It was super awesome!! The Lord really blessed us a lot!!!

  Things are going really well out here in Saladillo. We are working super hard and the Lord is blessing us! I have really learned out here how to put everyone else’s needs in front of mine and as I have done that I have really gained an appreciation for the Savior and his Atonement for us! I am so grateful for this Easter time of year!! I hope we all remember what it means, it means that we can all return and live with our families forever! This Gospel is perfect! I know it! I hope you are all as stoked as I am to watch conference!!! Love you all!

Love, Elder Eppich

Elder Eppich and Elder Smith