Called to Serve: Temple Trip

Our District at the Cordoba Argentina Temple

Hey fam,

I didn’t get transferred, I get to finish training my son Elder Lakey here in Carlos Paz. It was a pretty good week, ended up in bed sick for 2 days, but other than that it went really well. We found a couple of new people who are interested in learning a bit more, so we will be visiting them throughout the week.

Tuesday we had the opportunity to go to the temple as a district, the 2 sisters and us 2 elders. It was a really neat experience. The session was supposed to start at 9 and we showed up at about 8:57, but we made it, and it was great. I really felt quite a bit of comfort, at a time where it was definitely needed. It is a smaller temple, only 1 endowment room, but it is really, really beautiful inside.

It was also a week of goodbyes for one of the sisters here, as she finished up her mission. Sister Carrasco from Peru has been here ever since I got here, it will be weird not having her in the area. There were quite a few "Family home evenings" which were excuses for almost the whole ward to get together and eat and say bye. Sister Dennis from Utah is the new missionary in my district, which means that all 4 of us are from the good ole US of A. It will be tempting to have all the meetings in English, but I won’t do it.

The ward is doing well, this week we have stake conference coming up, but you can already feel the changes in the ward, just with the way that the bishop and the new counselors are. It is going to be fun. Something that I studied this morning was Abraham 3:22-23. What stuck out to me was that "God saw these souls, that they were good. And he stood in the midst of them and said, these I will make..." (rough translation from Spanish) What sticks out is that I get the feeling that when God saw the souls, that they were good, He did a lot more than just watch them, but was an active and involved Father who helped them, who "stood in the midst of them" and "made them" his rulers. God is not a passive Father, but a Father who takes part in the lives and development of His children. That is something that really stuck out and inspired me this week.

I love the family theme for the year, it has the approval of Elder Mangum. Sounds like everybody is excited for school, we will see how long that lasts!

Love you all,

Elder Mangum

Some other pictures from the last couple of weeks -