What we are doing in Argentina

 

August 25, 2013 we held our first Visitor Center in the Chapel without the Garvins, our trainers, who have since gone home to Iowa.  Let me explain.  About 3 weeks before an event is scheduled in a certain ward or branch, we meet with the members during their Sunday block of meetings to explain what the program entails, and how they can plan for it.  It is actually directed by the Bishop or Branch President and Ward Mission Leader.  The idea is that we try to bring the Visitor Center experience to the local chapel.  We always start with a great big figure of Christ, which is made of  wood and is a duplicate of the Christus statue in the Salt Lake Visitors Center.  We play the same words of Christ you hear in all visitors centers.  Sister missionaries then teach from 18 different, beautiful posters what the message of the gospel of Christ is all about.  There are posters about Christ, the Church he organized with apostles and prophets, the apostasy, the restoration of apostles and prophets in our day, the call of the prophet Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, families, the Temple, the Plan of Salvation (including where we came from, why we are here, and what lies ahead after this life)...it is really beautiful.  The guests are then given a tour of the church and the different auxiliaries explain their functions.  Of course there are refreshments at the end and a chance to fill out reference cards.  Below you will see pictures from our first one in the Vicente Lopez Ward.  It was a great success with lots of visitors both members and non and a great spirit.

 

Our job is to bring all of the supplies and make it happen!  Members do all of the work and young missionaries do all of the teaching.  We share our testimonies and smile and be friendly, which is a real challenge for us being so shy and timid.

 

Above you will see the poster at the entrance to the chapel and some of the couples that work with us here.  These two couples are both from Idaho Falls.  Roger and Diane Brunt are on your left and Dan and Vicky Smith are on your right.  They are both doctors who volunteer to look after all of the missionaries in the same area that we have, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay.  They came to support us for our first event.  The two sister missionaries did lots of work that night!



 

 



Above is Brother Roig and his family from the Vicente Lopez Ward.  He is the President of the Sunday School and made these huge copies of the Scriptures for his display for our program.  He is really talented.  They look so real.  He gave them to us so that we could use them for future chapel visitor center events in other

 





 

The whole zone of missionaries came to work the event.  They were out in the street inviting people to come in for a visit and passing out lots of pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon for 4 hours.  It was fun to get acquainted with so many fun, good young people.

There is a family that has lived across the street from the chapel for 20 years and the Elders went over to invite them to come to the CVC event 4 different times.  Finally, the last time, they came and were really impressed.  They had no idea that the church had so much to offer for families, children, and young people. They asked lots of questions and said that they were sorry they had not become acquainted with their "neighbors" earlier.  Another family from the area said that they had tried to come and find out more about the church, but that every time they came it was all locked up and there was nobody there.  It made me think of what Elder Perry said in that recent All-Church Broadcast about opening up the chapels and getting our message out.

This morning, Sept. 1, we visited a ward north of Bs. As. called Boulogne. What humble, sweet people we found.  This is a poorer section of the city and the people were very real and not proud and haughty.  It was testimony meeting and it was great.  Mom shared her testimony and later I did the training for a CVC event that we have scheduled there later this month.  The hymns were barely recognizable and we sang one that we didn't even know was in the hymnbook.  It was great!  We really felt the spirit among these beautiful people, many of them descendants of Father Lehi.