Jun 22nd

Dear Family,

Elder Rogel, my new companion, loves photos and cameras  and was shocked when I told him I'd only sent a handful f pictures home.

I 'm repenting right now and sending home a dozen. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Everything is going well. With Elder Rogel we've been teaching and working above the mission average , which has been a miracle because he's been fairly sick , and has been having knee and back problems, which has made us stay more time in the pench.  But we're going onward and upward!

Sad News. Panchito, our recent convert, ran away from home. He was living with his Dad, but ran away to his mom's house, and according to his aunt that is not a good environment. So if you could include him in your prayers. This week we're going to try to visit him with the young men's president.

I love you family!

You're each in my prayers!

Sincerely,

Elder Reynolds

June 8th

Dear Family,

So here is the news about transfer: I'm getting a Latin Companion. I don't know who and I don't know where, but President Lindahl emailed me and said "I'm giving you a Latin comp." I'm almost positive I'll still be in Rivadavia, which is just fine with me--there is a lot of work to do. I was hoping to baptize last week, but we didn't. Last week I was praying with my companion and I was about to pray "Please Father help us have the miracle of a baptism this Saturday." But for some reason I couldn't say it, instead I prayed, "please Father, help our eyes to be opened to the blessings that you have given us and you will give us this week." The Bible Dictionary says that prayer is the changing of our will to the will of the Lord, I guess sometimes the miracle we want isn't the miracle the Lord wants for us.

Here are a few of the Miracles I was given these last two transfers:

-Elder Ortiz. I learned a ton from Elder Ortiz, sometimes it was very, very hard--we are so different--but I learned lessons about love, patience, listening, speaking up if I disagree and taking initiative that I don't think I could have learned in any other way. The Lord does choose the cruz we're tried in, and chooses it with love and concern for us.

-A Baptism. We worked so hard to try to baptize, and all of the people that we helped the most, ended up not getting baptized, but the baptism we did get was a miracle--Panchito fell into our lap. We just met him in the house of a member, and three weeks later he was baptized. All we had to do was set up a couple of lessons. And within a month he became one of the most faithful Aaronic priesthood holders in the Branch.

-Elder Wise and Elder Smith, our pench-mates. They made life so much funner, they helped us laugh, look on the bright side, and keep plowing along.

-Ward Missionaries. We were blessed with two ward missionaries who want to work and with whom we can do visits almost every day.

-A million more daily miracles and blessings--I can't write them all.

The Lord is watching out for us, He will bless us. I'm learning to look on the bright side, to count the blessings, not the problems, to count the sunbeams, not the rainclouds. We can make our lives a lot happier by learning these concepts I am sure.

I love you all Family!

Sincerely,

June 1st

Dear Family,

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. By looking at our numbers you might think we were playing golf, 0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0. But in spite of poor numbers, we have seen miracles.

The one lesson we did have was a miracle. After a rather long and overwhelming day we had a missionary activity where we invited our Branch missionaries and our Investigator Sulma, we had also invited some non-member boys, but didn't have a lot of hope they'd show up. The branch Missionaries showed up, but Sulma didn't. In stead, the youth did come, first just one boy, than another and another, until we had 5 young men ages 12-15 learning the gospel of Jesus Christ and how to pray. It was a remarkably spiritual and fun lesson. Sometimes we can't get the boys together, or we can't find them, but that night, they were able to show up and learn. They started to get excited about learning. They are such good boys that really want to learn and grow. They'll get baptized I'm sure.

Another Blessing was church. All of the classes seemed to be directed for us, one about faith and the other about Adversity. The spirit was powerful in church, and I realized why it is such an important part of the Gospel to unite weekly to renew our covenants, to learn, and sometimes more importantly, to feel impressions of the Spirit that we couldn't feel in any other place.

Elder Ortiz and I have one more week together, at least. Transfers are the 10th, and he is pretty sure he'll be getting transferred and I'll be getting a Latin companion here in Rivadavia. We'll see.

I love you. One thought from Sunday's class on Adversity: Sometimes it seems we are meant to live lives of suffering and tribulation.We my ask, "will all my life be filled with trials?" "Will I ever just have peace?"  Yes. Someday we will rest from all our trials. But until then, know that Christ suffered everything we feel, He knows us intimately and knows how much we can handle, He will not give us more than we can bear; for some reason in His infinite wisdom, He allowed us to be tried right now, knowing that this trial or these trials would prepare us in the way we need to be prepared.

Once again, I love you, You're in my prayers. Down here in Argentina there is a little missionary praying for his family.

Have a very fun week!

Sincerely,

Elder Reynolds

May 26th

Dear Family,

Happy Birthday Jefferson, Hillary, Anna...and now Duncan. Duncan did a good job at choosing days: he was born on my companion's birthday. I know Anna would have rather had him been born for Megan's B-day, but if he's going to take his time, he might as well choose a significant day to be born. Congratulations Anna, Grant and Jeff! Good Job Anna at bringing another beautiful Nephew into the world.

So this last week went well. We finally found someone who wants to get Baptized, her name is Sulma Gonzalez, she is a single mother who has been divorced, she has had a lot of trials in her life and she really wants to get baptized, she keeps asking: "what else do I have to know to get baptized". Right now she's working on overcoming a smoking addiction, so if you would pray for her that would be great.

It's amazing to see how much the gospel can change a life. Even in just the two weeks that we've been working with her, she has changed a lot; when we first entered into her house, she was very sad and confused. She has a lot of faith in God, but she's had a lot of very bad experiences in other churches, and she became so confused how people calming to represent God could have such bad fruits. This confusion has begun to leave, like a huge Ice cube beginning to melt in the warmth of the Gospel light. She is beginning to smile more, to focus on the good parts of life; the gospel has changed her, every time we leave she asks, "when will you be coming back?" There will still be a couple of hurdles before she gets baptized, but the Lord has been blessing us, and I expect we'll see her baptized on June 6th. Yeah!

Oh yes, Sorry this email is late. Yesterday was a huge holiday here, may 26, basically the Argentine 4th of July, and all of the stores were closed, we couldn't find an Internet cafe open, so we got permission to write home today.

I love you all!

sincerely,

Elder Reynolds

May 18th

Hey Family,

The computer was abnormally slow today so I don't have very much time, but I wanted to say Hi and I love you. Thank you so much for your prayers, I've felt uplifted, encouraged and inspired over the last week especially, and I think a lot of it has to do with your prayers.

We haven't been seeing very mush success here in Rivadavia, it's been three weeks since we've had an investigator in church, and we've only taught 5 lessons last week, but I've felt peaceful as if everything will be okay, if we can just weather this storm, Elder Ortiz and I will find success.

The Mission is teaching me so much about faith. hope and patience. When you don't have numbers, you don't have investigators, you don't have baptisms, or even the hint of baptisms, all you have to hold on to is hope, we have to be patient and weather the storm with faith, and when you do, the blessings of the Lord are made manifest in our lives, and we gain more hope to face even greater challenges with greater faith and patience, until we have a "perfect brightness of hope", where we know that whatever challenge we are given, we can overcome it, that no matter how dark the tunnel is now, there is a light on the other side.

So that is what I've been learning, how to trust God, even in the mist of a baptismal wilderness. How to be happy, regardless of circumstances.

I love you all, you're in my prayers!

Sincerely,

Elder Reynolds

May 11th

Dear Family,

Since I just talked with you yesterday, I thought I'd spend a lot of my time uploading photos. So I hope you enjoy them.

I need to write down in the week the stories I want to email home, because when I get to the computer, I sometimes get a mental freeze and can't remember any good stories, when I know that something inspiring or funny must have happened during the week. I'll work on that.

Oh yes, Yesterday night we cooked a Carp. One of the members went fishing and gave us a carp. We didn't know how to cook a carp. So we put it in the oven with butter, vegetable bullion, and Salt. After about 20 minutes it was cooked, so we took it out to enjoy it; it wasn't very good. It was very fishy, and after a few bites nobody wanted any more. SO our nice, big Carp became food for the Dogs.

That was sad.

I love you! and I'll send more photos.

Love

Lucas

May 4th

Well, I've already talked with half of you this week. I was only going to be able to call 3 times from argentina in my whole mission, but I ended up calling 3 times in one week, and I'll talk with you in one week. Oh, don't worry about these calls being disobedient, because in the Missionary Manuel, where it gives the rules about calling home, says that all the rules are under the discretion of the Mission President, so when he says to call your family, you'dbe breaking the Missionary Manual not to call. So I was given the blessing of being an obedient missionary and calling home.

I love you all and will be praying for you all this week during the funeral. Say hi to all the family for me.

As far as the work here. We're teaching Fransisco, the father of Panchito, as well as a lady named Gloria and her son Luis. They don't have a Baptismal date yet, but this week we'll try to set dates with them this week. If you could pray for them, that would be awesome. I have a testimony of the power of families' prayers for missionaries, I felt their power.

I love you all, thanks for being the best family in the world.

Sincerely,

Elder Reynolds