There must needs be opposition in all things.

Dear everyone,

Some may not know this, but the immediate fruits of the missionaries' work for the week can be seen on Sundays by the amount of people that they have invited to church who show up.  This is the immediate measurable fuit of their work.  A missionary will never truly know the impact that he or she has on the people that he or she talks with every day.  The real fruits of a missionary's work are much, much more than just the one Sunday after the week.  

But for us, when anybody shows up to church who we invited, whether it be an investigator, a recent convert, or a less-active member, it is a win for us.  This is why it is so important that members work with missionaries in felllow-shipping those whom the missionaries are teaching.  We promise blessings up and down, but people still have difficulty waking up in time to make it to any meeting on Sunday.  

This past Sunday, all we had was one recent convert show up to church.  We must have invited hundreds of people, maybe committing twenty of them to come to church (when I say "commiting," I mean that we asked them if they would come the following Sunday and they said "yes").  And the immediate fruits of our labor?  One recent convert.  Not even Honorio!  It was frustrating.  But we also worked probably the hardest we have ever worked in one week before.  We did everything by the Spirit and honestly, I have no regrets.  But, just because someone completes the will of the Lord does not mean that he or she never gets frustrated.  We must rejoice in the work that we have done.  

After all, what do you think Abindadi felt like?  He preached for years and was burned at the stake before he could even see the one convert that he had.  But Abinadi converted Alma.  And Alma converted thousands. I am not saying that I talked to somebody this week that will one day baptize a nation of people, (but my fingers are crossed that it happened anyway), but I do know that I did everything I could have done.  And at the end of the week, I was still frustrated.  A missionary's frustration can be comforted, though!  Never fear!  Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, all things can be made whole and perfect.  Even me, despite what everyone thinks!!  

I think that as a missionary, I get to learn about the necessity of every basic principle of the gospel--principles like agency or the Atonement.  I also get to testify of these things every day.  I love it more than any other work I have ever participated in.  This life is not easy.  Missionary work is work for those who are willing to give themselves to the Lord.  Through giving myself to the Lord, I have become more happy than I could have ever imagined.  It is such a blessing.  Yeah, it's difficult, but I testify that it is the best there is.  Everybody should serve a mission!  (If that's what God wants, anyway.)

We have still been working with Honorio, who is beginning to have doubts about marriage.  We expected this to happen.  What-- did you think conversion was easy?  There's somebody out there named Satan and he wants to make you miserable!  He'll do anything he can to get you to make the choices that will make you miserable!  So we, Elder Sevilla and I, are working against the forces of the devil so that we can help Honorio either make the choice to separate or get married.  Because living the commandments will bring him great happiness.  But he is gaining a testimony of the Restoration (and I kid you not when I say that there is nothing that brings greater joy to than being a part of someone's conversion process--even if you don't get to see the end results) and such a testimony will fortify him against the armies of the adversary.  

This week wasn't slow, but we did a lot of door-knocking and were faced with mostly rejection (such is the life of a missionary; rejection has never been something that has bothered me), but we have started teaching a family and they seem really interested!  The Tabeira family.  Y'know something about these Urugayans?  There is a fad of getting divorced, then building a house right next to the existing house and the ex-spouses live next to each other.  I don't know how they make it work, but somehow, TONS of them do it.  Either way, the Tabeira family is one of these cases.  We are teaching the mother and her several children, one of which just had a baby this week.  Hooray!  Felicitaciones!  We'll see how well they progress this week.  There's not much more to report, so I'll leave you all with my witness that the church that I represent is the true church of Jesus Christ.  I must now go and serve the beloved children of God.

LOVE,

Elder Plautz

The picture is me with Oscar Baez.  He is my hero.

I Speak Spanish!

Dear everyone,

 

This week was one of miracles.  I hope you never get tired of hearing that word because I never get tired of saying it.  I love this work!  I LOVE IT!  Okay, okay, but now we're gonna get to what the best part of this week was.  Remember Honorio, right?  Well, when we met him, he wasn't too fond of the idea of getting married.  This was because his previous two divorces had kind of embittered him toward the sanction.  After learning about this gospel, he wanted to get baptized.  But to do so, he had to get married.  Why?  Because living with his Señora and not being married is against God's commandments.  

So after a few meetings, last week he told us that he was planning to get married!  That was a miracle in and of itself.  But Elder Sevilla and I know all too well that the Lord does not want Honorio to wait four whole months to get married, living with Ana.  Elder Sevilla and I also knew that we would just have once chance, one opportunity to try to help him come to the conclusion to get married sooner.  We must have spent four entire companionship studies just practicing and role-playing, letinng the Spirit guide us and help us plan for what we would say to Honorio.  After all, we didn't want Honorio to think that all we wanted was to get him baptized and push him into something to quickly.  That's not the truth, either.  What we want is for him to receive all the blessings that God can offer him.  So we went into the meeting, still not knowing exactly what we would say, but had some scriptures prepared and knew that Heavenly Father would direct us.  We had faith.  It was sufficient. 

 

The meeting went spectactularly.  There is a certain way the ideal meeting goes while a missionary is teaching.  It involves the Holy Ghost working in both the teaching process, inspiring the missionaries with the words to say, and the learning process, inspiring the investigators with the words to say and also testifying that what the missionaries are saying is true.  This meeting went so perfectly, that it was almost like something out of a story.  Every question that we asked, every word that we said, was inspired by the Spirit.  And every reply that Honorio gave was amazing.  He was so humble, so willing to accept the will of the Lord.  

"Honorio," I said, "the Lord loves you because you are His son.  You are literally His son.  That is why he sent us, the missionaries, to your door.  He knew that you would be ready to receive His Restored Gospel now.  In order to receive all of the blessings that God can offer you in this life and the next, and in order to live with God again, you must be baptized.  In order to be baptized, you must get married.  You have plans for July, but the we have been praying.  

The Lord has let us know that He wants you in his church as soon as possible so he can use your abilities and talents to build up his kingdom.  So we have an invitation for you:  if you will pray and ask God if He wants you to make plans to get married so you can be baptized as soon as possible." 

Without much hesitation, Honorio said "I think we can plan for April."  WHAT.  THAT IS THE BEST NEWS I HAVE EVER HEARD.  So now we are planning for his baptism in April.  He talked to Ana and she wants to get married sooner, too.  This amazing miracle...  wow... after that lesson, you wouldn't even be able to begin--to begin--to describe how amazing we felt.  We were so grateful, so amazingly grateful and happy we were.  I thank the Lord profusely that I am His missionary.

 

We have been teaching other people, but the work is still difficult in San Carlos.  Finding people who will progress and commit to follow all of the commandments is not an easy task.  But we are working so hard.  We are exactly obedient.  I know that we are doing our part and fulfilling the will of God.  

That's the job of a missionary: to fulfill the will of God; submit his will to that of the Lord's and pur all trust in Him.  That is what I am doing.  I know without a doubt that this is God's true church.  That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church of God Restored by His own hand through the prophet Josepth Smith.  The Book of Mormón is evidence of this.  Anybody who reads it and asks God if it is true with the heart willing to submit himself or herself to the will of God will receive an answer and this answer will bring them inexplicable joy.  What a blessing this is, to be a missionary.

 

Anouncement:  I can now send emails and receive emails from anyone.  But just to make sure, send the emails to my email address daniel.plautz@myldsmail.net and to the mission email urumontemission@gmail.net so they can print it out and I can have a hard copy, too.  Thank you all for your prayers.  I love you all and I love this work.  It is the most important work, there is.  I must now go and serve the beloved children of God.

 

LOVE,

Elder Plautz

 

P.S.  I have more pictures!

 

The first is from today; the Elders in my zone and I played soccer (this was the first time I had played soccer since the CCM, and I was abominable) and we were all together!  So we took a picture.  

The second is me eating Azado, a Uruguayo way of preparing a part of the cow.  It is the hardest thing EVER to eat because the meat is infused with fat.  Please don't judge me for eating fat. 

The third is me in the CCM with Elder Rydalch, being fly.  Elder Rydalch was the other district leader in the CCM with the other district of North Americans.

 

We're not just talking little miracles, here. It's time to bring out the big guns.

Dear everyone,

Wow.  Just wow.  I have to brag about the only ward missionary in my ward.  His name is Oscar Baez.  He was baptized a year ago and is almost eighty years old.  He has a thick Uruguayo accent and his eyebrows are like wings.  I love him so much.  He goes out with us frequently and is such a huge help.  He also knows EVERYONE in San Carlos.  He has lived here forever!  San Carlos is a smallish town.  But it's not your small-town everybody-knows-eachother kind of deal.  Nobody knows anybody.  Except Oscar Baez.  Walking through San Carlos with him is like walking through Punxatawney with Phil Conners (like the groundhog Phil).  This is no joke, but it makes me laugh because he just waves to everybody and talks to them for a sec, then relays a story to us about crazy things he did in the past with them.  He is like the crazy uncle.  We have taught people who were investigating the church, then at the end of the lesson, asked them if it would be okay if we brough a member the next time.  Then we ask them if they know Oscar Baez.  OH!  Of course they do? Why did I even bother with the question?

I said that we dropped Honorio Soriano last week.  This was because we would continually set up meetings with him and he would continually not be at home.  We would set meetings hours beforehand and when we would show up to his house, he would be nowhere to be found.  It happened several times.  So we dropped him.  But it was wisdom in the Lord that we would be walking on the road a block a way from his house one evening and he waved to us from across the street and asked if we had time to meet.  Uh... yeah!  So we met with him again and he seems to be progressing all of a sudden.  Does he know Oscar Baez?  Why do you even ask?  What is the matter with you?  Did you not hear me before?  Everybody knows Oscar Baez!  Honorio has known him for thirty-some years!  They go way back!  So Honorio, who is not married to the woman he lives with, and who also used to hate the idea of getting married (because he has been divorced twice) told us that he and his Señora Ana are planning to get married!  You just got miracled.  They are planning for July... which kind of made my heart sink... but we are going to try to help him understand the doctrine a little bit more so he feels more urgency to get baptized.  But he has a testimony of the Book of Mormón!

Change the subject!  We now bring ourselves to a lady named Crescencia.  Over eighty years old, she was baptized decades ago, and for decades has barely come to church.  A week ago, while walking on the road, was approached by four men and robbed, then beaten down to the ground.  That is not my idea of a Saturday evening.  Not even close.  But it happened to her and for four days she began struggling with the idea that there was even a God.  On Wednesday, she pled with the Lord for some sort of idea or sign that He was still there.  She prayed for an angel to save her.  Well who would show up other than OSCAR BAEZ!  (If you were expecting missionaries, then you were wrong.)  

Oscar was just sitting in his house (probably memorizing the most recent Census) and felt the need to get up and walk outside for no apparent reason.  But hey, that's what he felt.  He couldn't argue with it.  He then felt the impression to go and visit a little old lady named Crescencia.  She was sitting on the side of the road, crying her eyes out, giving one last plea to the Lord, asking for an angel, and the angel came in the form a ward missionary.  Oscar took a little bit of time to console her and promised that he would come back with the missionaries.  This was a day that we were meeting Honorio with Oscar.  After our meeting with Honorio, Oscar didn't really tell us anything, he just sort of led us across town to Crescencia's house.  What a miracle!  Crescencia told us that there were two great miracles she had witnessed in her life:  the first was that she had a son after the doctors told her that she couldn't have any more children.  The second was that the missionaries were sitting in her living room, talking to her.

Why would I rather be anywere else than on my mission?  It wouldn't make sense.  I am so pumped.  We had three investigators at church yesterday!  THREE!  That's three more than we have ever had!  Aleluya!  This week is going to be even more amazing.  I can just feel it.  If there is one thing I know, it is that obedience brings forth miracles.  I must now go and serve the beloved children of God.

LOVE,

Elder Plautz

P.S. Remember, everyone!  Email me at urumontemission@gmail.com!  It's faster and cheaper than DearElder and regular mail!

Another week of mission-life!

Dear everyone!

 

It was another one of those weeks where we lost almost all of our investigators (including Honorio Soriano and his Señora Ana).  It's tough letting go of some of them, but we are praying that the Lord sends us to those people who are ready for this gospel.  It was also one of those weeks where we received a TON of new investigators, too!!  I saw many miracles.  I am forced to no longer believe in coincidence, too.  Some of the randomly picked houses are people that are really in need of our help.  So many people are on the verge of losing hope or have really great questions with no one to answer.  Ask the missionaries!!  That's what we're here for!!  We have started teaching a ton of people with a lot of potential.  I just hope they actually progess.  

This was the sixth week that we haven't seen a single investigator at church.  It was tough yesterday.  Elder Sevilla and I have had to really think about what we can do differently to help the work move forward.  We have been doing so much already, but if there is anything we have to fix, we are trying to fix it for this month.  I keep praying for success.  I know that success is measured within and simply doing the will of the Lord is enough.  But come on!  I'm here to invite people come unto Christ by helping them recieve the Restored Gospel!

 

Let me convey to you all my feelings about dogs.  They are wonderful creatures...mostly.  There are billions of them in Uruguay (and there were in Argentina, too)!  Elder Sevilla and I took one day to count how many dogs we had seen.  We saw 226 of them.  226 different dogs in one day, just while walking.  105 of them were all found within ONE HOUR of each other!  This is not even funny any more!  While standing in one spot in front of a house, I saw thirteen of them (all barking--try contacting people in that knd of noise; it's not easy) all at once.  One day this week, Elder Sevilla and I were standing in the shade of a house while looking at a list of members we could visit within the vicinity and a dog started barking from inside.  The man who lived there opened the door because he thought we were there for them, and in a matter of seconds later, I felt a terrible sharp pain in my leg.  The dog bit me!  I was just standing there minding my own business and the dog ran up to me, bit me, and then ran away!  It wasn't even fair!!  Luckily, it didn't penetrate my pants, and I was only bleeding a little bit.  So I worked the pain off and after three hours, I felt fine.  These dogs are insane.  Some of them are blood-thirsty.  Watch out.

 

The weather here is insane.  One moment it will be furiously raining and five minutes later it will be sunny and dry.  And then a few moments later it will be windy enough to pick up a whole buch of nannys all applying for the same job.  Like in Mary Poppins, if you didn't get the reference.  But without the things that clean themselves up.  We're really working hard right now and giving everything.  I am forgetting myself and losing myself in this work.  It is the most gratifying work I have ever been a part of.  I must now go and serve the beloved children of God!!

 

LOVE,

Elder Plautz

A Day Late and a Peso Short!

Dear Everyone!

 

What my companion Elder Sevilla had forgotten to tell me was that since changes are this week, our P-Day is switched to Tuesdays.  Although it doesn't make sense in my had, no matter how many times he has explained to me the reasoning for this (it could be the Spanish), this will happen every six weeks.  But because the schedule has changed for all MTC missionaries, this past change was only five weeks long instead of six.  Only this one, though.  All of the new guys came in today and tomorrow, we're going to Montevideo so Elder Sevilla can go to his leadership meeting and I can meet more of these missionaries!!  It's gonna be excellent!  AHH, but after this change, Elder Sevilla is going home!!  I don't even wnt to talk about it.  I love him so much.  He is my father.

 

This week was so incredible!  I must admit that I have not yet "lost myself" in the work, as it were.  But I am getting there.  I love every day and I come home exhausted and fulfilled.  We work so hard.  We walk so much.  We are getting rained on a lot.  But the work is moving forward!  We met with the Wilson family again this week, after three weeks of not seeing them.  (Appointments always fall through; it's imporant not to get discouraged by this, though, but not always easy.)  They both accepted baptism!  But they're not married.  We're going to have to uncover that stone as they progress, which I am really hoping that they will.  We also have been meeting with a man named Honorio Soriano.  He is super nice and used to be a Bible teacher.  After several meetings with him, he told us that he has had a testimony of the Book of Mormon for a long time because he had met with missionaries several years before.  What!?  That was a shocker for me.  But he is also--wait for it--not married to the woman he lives with!  We really have our work cut out for us.  Our most promising investigators are the ones who aren't married to the people they are living with.  The woman he lives with is named Ana and although she says she believes in God, because she lost her five-year-old child last year, it is obivious that she has lost a lot of hope.  We taught her the Plan of Salvation and got almost no reaction out of her.  We're gonna try our best!  We are teaching plenty of other people, but the adversary is really working hard in San Carlos.  We do this thing where we have amazing first-lessons and then we return and the people don't want anything.  It's super difficult.  But the Lord keeps leading us to people that need us.  Whether or not they choose to follow His commandments is not my choice.  I am simply a vessel for the Spirit and an inviter.

 

These weeks pass by so quickly and I can't believe that I have already been out for one change.  And, woah, I am a missionary.  Like, for realsies.  I truly love this work.  It is so important.  I hope that everyone is looking for opportunities to INVITE their friends to do things like come to church, church activities, or meeting with the missionaries. I don't want to hear any of this "I'm sharing the Gospel by being a good example" and nothing else.  That's a cop-out to missionary work.  Alas, I must leave.  I love you all and thank you for your prayers on my behalf.  I actually sent pictures today.  One of which was right after we were severely rained upon and we were standing outside.  I must now go and serve the beloved children of God.

 

LOVE,

Elder Plautz

Just coming home after walking 3 miles in the pouring rain!

Great Companions!

Planning time...but who took the photo?

A Week full of Miracles!

Dear everyone,

This week was truly one of the most magnificent of my life.  I witnessed so many miracles!!  One of which, I will delve into:  We clapped a house and a lady came out an immediately began to yell at us.  We asked her if she believed in God and she told us that there was no way she could.  She was so angry!  Normally, for those who mock us or yell at us, Elder Sevilla and I just say goodbye.  But we stayed and just began to testify of the Plan of Salvation.  It was crazy that the idea had just popped into both of our heads, but we did it nonetheless.  She wouldn't have any of it.  All we could do was leave her with a pamplet of the Plan of Salvation, which she ripped out of my hand in a fit of rage, and we went on our way.  

That night we contacted a family on the street who seem really interested in hearing our message, so we wrote down their address and made an appointment for later.  Well, I hate to break it to you, but we get a lot of non-existant addresses.  This address existed, but it wasn't their house.  As we arrived to the house four days later, we realized that it was the house of the lady who had yelled at us for five minutes straight.  So we clapped it again.  She saw us through the doorway and said "just a second!"  She got ready, came outside, pamphlet in hand and everything about her countenance was completely different.  She smiled and sat down with us as she explained why she was so upset.  It was because on top of many other misfortunes, she had lost a child.  But upon reading the pamphlet, something felt different.  She told us that she had been to many churches in her life, but had never found one in which she felt comfortable.  She was now willing to listen and wow, it was such a good lesson.  Her name is Cristina.  We have began teaching her and I have really high hopes.  This was just one of the several miracles I witnessed this past week.  I can't express how different my relationship is with the Spirit of God now that I am set apart as a missionary.  What a blessing this is to be out here.  I love it so much.

After our lesson with Cristina, it began to rain.  Not like one of those, hey-it's-raining rains.  One of those HOLY-COW-WE-HAVE-TO-SWIM-HOME rains.  Elder Sevilla and I were laughing all the way home as the rain came from any and all directions.  We were soaked from head to toe.  Goodness gracious, that was quite a trip.  It was about six kilometers back home.  (Yeah, they use that system out here...)  I don't know how much that is in miles, but it felt like a lot, nonetheless!

I gave my first talk in church yesterday!  But I had time to prepare it, so it wasn't one of those talks.  Those impromptu talks.  It was on missionary work and an invitation to the members to participate more in member-missionary work.  I felt like it was a really good talk and I realized that I still love to speak in front of large crowds, even if it's in Spanish!  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!  I must now go and serve the beloved children of God!

LOVE,
Elder Plautz

Trying to find the few who are chosen out of the many who are called.

Dear everyone,

First of all, every computer lab, it seemed, in San Carlos was closed today.  The one we normally went to: closed.  Our backup: closed.  Our backup backup: closed!  WHAT IS THIS!?  Really, the only reason I am able to write today is because we got together as a zone to practice Singing for a Stake-wide activity later this month.  So here I email from Maldonando, Uruguay, and for some reason, this keyboard is tripping me up.  They aren't too different, but they're different enough to frustrate me when I have so little time to email and not enough fingers or brainpower to accomplish this task!  Alas, I will try!

It was a really up and down week. The middle of it was really low for Elder Sevilla and me when in a matter of two days, every single one of our investigators with baptismal dates decided to stop listening.  All of them.  It was so difficult.  By the end of that second day, I just didn't know what to do.  I could feel nothing but sadness.  Not because of me or my companion, but because I realized that we meet so many people with so much potential, but they ultimately have the choice in the matter.  And sometimes (in this case, every time) the choice they make is to turn their back on the truth.  I don't feel harsh saying that because this is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is the Lord's church and I am here to do His work.  And when people decide that they don't want to continue, it hurts.  But the next day, after I woke up and still didn't feel any better about having lost all of the people we were teaching, we went to a district meeting and I learned just how amazing of a teacher and leader Elder Sevilla is.  He taught a simple lesson on faith that totally changed who I am as a missionary.  I doubled my efforts and my faith and we got back in the game and lo and behold, we found a ton of new people to teach.  Please pray for success.  Elder Sevilla and I don't waste a second.  That is to say, we don't waste a second unless my companion is incapacitated!  Yeah, on Saturday, he lost his ability to walk because of so rather unexsplainable, yet excruciating pain in an area that we won't discuss any futher.  It sufficeth me to say that he was in a great deal of pain and we could work almost all of Saturday and Sunday.  But I think he's fine now.

Elder Sevilla and I have been brainstorming about how we can get the members to be interactive with the missionary work and came up with an activity where we're going to --wait for it-- SING!  Let me say something that I have just learned from experience:  trying to find a Latinos that can sing is like Simon Cowell tyring to find ANYBODY to sing.  It just really doesn't happen that much.  But out of some tender mercy from the Lord, not only does my companion sing, but he sings well!  So we have made an arrangement to a hymn and voila!  We're going to sing it to members family by family and while we're singing, the Spirit is going to prompt them with names of people that we can visit.  I'm super excited to implement this.

I apologize about how short my letter is today, but we're on a time crunch because of the unfortunate events that happened this morning.  I pray that it doesn't happen again next week.  The reason it might is because Uruguay in February is immersed in Carnvials and parties in the nighttime street.  Every day, ther is a bongo drumline that marches down the street and it is LOUD.  And there are people dancing everywhere and sometimes it can be difficult to fall asleep.  But since I am a missionary, sleeping isn't that hard because we're always working.  I love you all and keep you in my prayers.  Remember that God is real and that He is our Heavenly Father.  Too many people out here aren't familiar with the name "Jesus Christ."  Don't take that for granted.  I must now go and serve the beloved children of God.

LOVE,

Elder Plautz