A day of tears... mostly of joy, but also of loss.

Sorry, another quick one. I don’t ever have time on the first p-day of every transfer. What with all the traveling and meetings I don’t get to e-mailing until I need to be out to work... and I need to do my zone leader duties before writing you guys... sorry.

This week was great. There were a lot of things that happened and I can’t talk about all of them... some highlights:

We had 3 new people in church this week. And sacrament meeting was great! It started out with the confirmation of Karina who got baptized on Saturday (I’ll explain the baptisms later). I was asked to do it and it was wonderful. I said it wrong though. I did the whole blessing and she was crying and I wanted to cry and it was very tender... but then my companion told me that I only confirmed her a member of The Church of Jesus Christ... not The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So we went into a room after the meeting and I did it right, but I was inspired to tell her things that I hadn’t told her, personal things... it is interesting how the Lord works.

After the confirmation we took the sacrament, Oscar (my last baptism) blessed it. It was wonderful to see this pure man bless the sacrament. Then my companion gave his testimony because he was leaving... Elders who finish the mission have so much power in their words. Then the bishop’s wife gave a talk and then I did. I testified of unity and Zion. I used a personal experience about a service I was once able to do and how it blessed me and others. As I got close to the end of the story I started to feel tears coming on... I hate crying. But as my voice trembled and I looked up to see who would witness me cry, I saw that most of the people were already crying. All of the 3 new investigators were absorbed in my words and had teary eyes. I finished my talk and sat down. I looked at my companion because he was suppose to play the piano and I was to direct. He was just gaping at me. Later he told me how he had felt and we both knew that that message that I was able to give was exactly what the ward needed to hear. It was a perfect day and all the investigators promised to come back.

Really quick, there was only one baptism on Saturday because of a lot of things that happened. But basically we just had to change the date and they will all be baptized soon.

Elder Chatwin is gone... for that I am really sad. His last day (yesterday) was really sad. I don’t want to go home. I don’t think I’ll be able to go through what he did. The people in this ward love us so much and have grown with us so much. The truth is that Sunday was a day of tears... mostly of joy, but also of loss. I will really miss Elder Chatwin. He is one of the best missionaries that I’ve known. I really respect him and will continue missing him for awhile.

I’m now with Elder Lucas, a great Elder from Paraguay... I’ll let you all know more about him when I can.

Love,
Elder Steinkuhler

PS I need to know what you all want from Argentina.