Monday, January 24, 2010

First thing first, my new address for letters and such is;
Entre Ríos 435
Resistencia
Chaco
Código Postal 3500
Well this week has definitly been a challenge, but ive been grateful for the growth ive experienced, i can communitcate pretty good with my companion which has been pretty suprising, i have only had one or two times this week when i have had a problem communticating with him. Ha he is definitly an interesting Elder, he suprised me when we got on the bus last week for the first time to go to our area he stood up and preached to the whole bus, it was very suprising, but i kind of laughed because as he preached to the bus he showed no emotion, haha, so everytime we get on the bus he does that, if the driver will allow it haha. I like having him as a companion, he is a good example of how we need to talk to everyone and teach to every person we can find, our teaching pool increased greatly this week, it was pretty cool, it is amazing how many members live in my area, all are inactive but we cant go an hour without finding a member, he really forces me to teach and to talk to people so i like that because im coming out of my comfort zone a little more. We have a baptism this weekend(one of the sisters), one set for next weekend(the old guy without a shirt) and we have the other sister planned for the next week, if she will ever be home for the baptismal interview, and then we found another awesome family, the Gomez family, and they had missionaries last year and but they stopped for family matters, well we are teaching them now and they are golden, they have expressed that they want to get baptised so thats five more so our work here is exploding! My companion has a huge problem with not being able to follow a schedule at all, when its time to leave he is just starting to get ready so we are always like an hour late into our area, and when i try to tell him earlier that we have to go he doesnt really listen so im working on that. Other than that he is a pretty good example for me, and i know what it is that i need to learn from him so thats been a blessing. As we have talked with the investigators most of them think that i have been here for 6 or 7 months because of my spanish, so i defintily know that i have been blessed with the gift of tongues, its wierd that they will be visiting with me and i will answer back in english alot because it i understand so easily what they are saying, ive really been blessed with that, but i still have so long to go before i can be able to really express how i feel so i am working hard on that.
This week the weather has been crazy, tuesday it rained it rained so hard that we werent able to make it out of the apartment, the streets were literally rivers and i cant even describe the amount of water that fell from the sky! Then the clouds disappeared and they havent returned this whole week, it has definitly been the hottest weekend yet, really hard to stay motivated while im out working, but we have got a plan so that we are always teaching during the hottest parts of the day and that we can tract and find new people when its cooler.
Emotionally im feeling a little better, ive studied so much about the atonement and adversity and burdens this week, ive read all of the general conferece talks over the past year and a half and ive read every article on Christ that we have in our apartment, which is alot haha, im starting to scratch the surface on what the atonement can do for me and the comfort i can recieve. Its been really good, and im starting to notice that the lord is kind of forcing me to rely on him, im figuring out that he is making me into the missionary i need to be in order to be successful and gather his lost children here in Argentina. But man this is hard, if i let myself think about tomorrow, yesterday, or anyother time than now i feel such an overwhelming sense of despair, i dont know why, so ive worked as hard as i can this week to control my mind, which has been crazy tough. This is definitly the steepest uphill battle ive ever fought. Im not too excited for the future, but as i have prayed and fasted i have felt a sense of peace for the future and i know that satan is very clever and he doesnt need me to commit major sins or anything like that to keep me from being a successful missionary, so im just trying as hard as i can to endure, to bare with patience my burdens, to refrain from complaining and focus on the love of God and know that he has my best interests in mind. Thank you so much for all of the emails for support, i defintily have been blessed with the best family that is possible, all week i couldnt wait to read my emails and to find help from the ones i love the most, i miss you all so much, more than words can explain. I hope time flies right now so i can get back to you, but then again i secretly hope that in the future i dont want time to fly, because that will mean that i love my mission. But i really do love you all so much and everyday i cant stop thinking about all of my family. I love you all!

January 18, 2010 -- Nate Needs our Prayers

Hey fam! Well this week has definitly been a rollercoaster, its had its ups and downs, it started off really great and i tried really hard to dig in and forget about myself, and we got alot more potential investigators and i am excited to see how that turns out, the heat kept away until about friday and then it just exploded and it was really, really, hot, but it was really cool, because i was on exchanges with another elder and every single one of our appointments fell through so we were walking in a new area that has absolutly no shade and the sun was just killing us but i barely felt it, it was a cool experience, then saturday it rained so hard! the river swelled and there was a swimming competition in the water and a huge cargo ship got caught in the swell and flipped over and killed one person and alot more disappeared and they dont know what happened, or at least thats what i was told idk really know what happened, but it rained harder than ever before and i forgot to buy a umbrella so i was soaked head to toe, everything i had was pretty much soaked haha, kind of sucked. Then sunday was the hottest day yet and all of our appointments fell through and it was too hot for people to come out and talk to us so noone answered their doors or anything and that was pretty miserable haha, but i constantly tried to focus on why i was doing it and i used that experience to try and show my devotion to god for what i was doing. So that has been the physical challenge for the week.
My companion and i had some hardships, he has lost all patience with me and it was really stressful for me, i am trying my absolute hardest but i guess he just lost it, so this week he would only talk to me when we had to plan and that was really hard for me, i pretty much felt useless at times haha, so the companionship was pretty ruff, then after our last lesson sunday night as we were walking home he told me that we arent going to be together any more and that night he was called and he got sent to resistencia to work in the office, two weeks before our transfer ended, so today i recieved a new companion, Elder Soclle, he is from Peru and doesnt speak any English, so that is just a little tough, not to bad, but he seems really nice, i dont know anything about him so we will see how it goes this week.
Our investigators are coming along well, i have a baptism this saturday, the guy that never wears a shirt, so i am excited for that. We should have two more baptisms next week( the two sisters) and then if all goes well i should have a family baptised in less than a month so i am excited about that as well, i have found out that the time when i am most happy on my mission is when i participate in the lessons and when i get to give my testimony so i really want to try and do better at that because ive been pretty bad at that lately. We have alot of investigators lately and we will see if they start to progress next time we visit so right now, if everything goes well, i have a potential of 17 or so baptisms, which would be cool but i dont know how it will turn out. I want to find out how my companion works and see how he does things.
Well emotionally i feel like a wreck haha, i dont have alot of hope right now and i really feel down in the dumps, im trying my best, i really am, but this is such a hard thing for me, the hardest thing for me, haha so if you guys could keep praying and asking for help i would really appreciate that. I really feel alone and stuff and its hard to be happy lately, having a new companion that i cant really communticate well with seems very depressing, but who knows, all i know is that god knows whats best for me and that he loves me more than i know, and that in time everything will turn out for the best, right now im just kind of in survive mode i think, im being as obedient as i can and working as hard as i can but i dont feel any satifaction, i had an interview with the mission president on saturday morning and that was a little of a comfort, i know that as time goes on that ill want to be here, i just need to be patient and work hard and pray as much as i can, but its hard to wait, but i know that i will grow so much from this experience, haha its just that sometimes i dont want to go through the pain in order to gain the growth. Anyways if you guys have any suggestions i really need them, i feel like i have alot of weaknesses and i dont know why i cant enjoy my mission like everyone else seems to.
Anyways, sorry for that, im just in need of help, it seems like life is so good at home! Congrats steph on the scholarship! Take it, thanks for the advice dad, maybe that will be the help i need, because i really really need it. Anyways i miss you guys alot, i have had two awesome lessons this week, and in those lessons ive pulled out the picture of us at yosemite and testifed why im here and why i left my family that i loved and thats when my tesitmony has been the strongest is during this time, sorry for showing my weaknesses family, but i have noone else to go to but you and our Heavenly Father, and its good to recieve answers from both. I love you all more than i can ever explain, i think about you all constantly, i love you. Good luck with everything this week and i am so grateful for your prayers! I Love You

January 11, 2010 --

Hey fam! This week was a good week! I was perfectly healthy and lifes been pretty good! Monday night was by far the worst night! Just in my apartment alone it was 100 degrees exactly and so outside in the sun it was alot worse! haha but cool thing was that it wasnt that bad and i havent been effected by the heat as much, and i really have no room to complain compared to andy! haha all my side effects are that my clothes are continually soaked and i smell like crap but it wont killme haha! No the heat is no longer my worry at all, ive moved on past physical worries, the lord helped me with that. But now im just having a tuff time getting lost in the work, as time goes on it gets better so i have been praying and praying and praying for patience, hope and faith. It is hard for me to love my mission, and i really want to love it just like Andy and Judd are! So im trying my best! It sounds like they are having such an awesome time! They are my heros and i really want to be just like them, if i can become just part of the example they are i will be 1000x better than i am now! So this week it rained all week! And the temperature dropped to a freezing 79 degrees! haha funny huh? its funny how that is freezing to me! But its been a really big help to me to get my priorites in hand and to not blame the heat for my feelings, this week we had a tuff we with our progressing investigators, but huge success with three new investigators! The brother and sister combo disappeared and we havent been able to talk with them this week. The two sisters, one jumped on a bus tuesday night and we happened to be on the same bus, she was heading to a friends and that was the last time we have seen her, she has a little 9 month old baby that she totes around with her. And the other sister, well... she hasnt smoked in three weeks and friday we went to visit with her and she was smoking, just because there was an extra one, so we tried to help her but my companion said something that probably was a little to harsh, saying that we cant help her now if she doesnt want to choose to be baptised and follow the commandments, i dont think he realizes the power of an addiction and how hard it is to quit, anyways she got up and left and we havent been able to talk with her since, but we have had a huge success with the no shirt guy, we talked with him everyday and all he is waiting for is his birthcertificate than he can get married, so hopefully this week. Our new investigators, an old couple named Halle who defintily have been prepared for us, we didnt even say one word after clapping his house and he let us in because he wanted to talk with us, so we conversed and he is very intellegent which is really rare here haha, almost everyone here is really close minded, more than you could imagine! So we talked with them and they really seem like a really good potential baptism. The other is a girl named Laura, she lost a two year old son two months back to cancer, we taught her the plan of salvation and she believed all of it was true after the lesson, quite a cool change, but her husband is mad at god so he wont let her come to church and we cant teach there while hes home so we will see how that goes. And we have 5 other people who really want to get baptised but the mother of the family was offended by the ealier missonaires so we cant visit there so we have to work with other members to find out when and where we can visit without the mother, the father wants to but he cant with her around, so we will see. It was sprinkling rain sunday moring and our ward which usually has 100 to 120 people was reduced by half! by less rain than Utah gets haha, it was quite rediculous after reading about andys ward and the weather haha. I am understanding almost all of the spanish or at least what they are trying to get across so im not that worried about the language, just working on loving it, so im being patient and trying really hard, oh saturday night we made PANCAKES with a investigator and a ward family! haha they were pretty good, we didnt have syrup but we have this stuff called dulce de leche which is like carmel choclate kind of stuff and that was really good on the pancakes. So this week in argentine culture... im going to talk about food! haha the food here is really bland and there are only about 6 types of meals, so we have the same thing alot and all of the time! But the bread here is better than anywhere else haha, they have a lot of good types of bread and most of it is fried haha, and alot of salt. Argentines cant take spicy at all, pepper is way to spicy for them! haha so they dont have much flavor, oh and most of the time there is only usually one or two cups and so everyone shares from the same cup, it was pretty funny when we went to a ward party there was like 80 people and like 11 cups so everyone was sharing, really wierd haha. Thats about all i can think of, only having a certain time to write really makes it hard to think under all of this pressure haha! Steph sounds like life is rocking! College is by far better than high school! i loved the classes in college, you actually kind of want to go to the classes cuz they are way fun and stuff! Good luck with the play i am quite sad that i didnt get to see you take the stage! haha start driving your car already! you always used to complain about the truck haha, dad the only other roads around are ruta 12 and ruta 213 so good luck, its really bad how they do the roads here haha, i love you all so much, please pray for me haha, i need all of the help i can get to love the mission, idk what im doing wrong, im trying my hardest but idk so just help me! hahah i love you all so much! Oh and today for pday a member here who is from arizona,(he served his mission here then moved back here) he took us to the only chinese restaurant in our mission and holy crap it was soo good! We pigged out to a tasty price of $20 american dollars for all three of us! Argenitna is so cheap haha, well i love you all and i have to go!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Hello Family! I loved your emails! Well to start off about an hour after i wrote you i started to have extremly painful pains in my stomach and i couldn´t sleep monday night, and it only got worse as we had zone conference on tuesday and i couldnt even stand up, it was so painful and i couldn´t pay any attention to what the President was saying, i couldnd´t even move, the zone conference was in the middle of the city and getting back to my apartment that evening was almost impossible, haha its funny how right as i am becoming just a little bit comfortable that i have something else happen, gods way of building up my character i think, anyways i was in extreme pain and i couldn´t go out and work until wednesday night which still was way painful but i hate being in the apartment, this week was a tuff one with our investigators, the brother sister combo was never home and the sisters we could never visit because their mom wasnt home and we got to visit with the 72 year old man twice, still has never worn a shirt haha, thursday night we had a pretty good pork roast with a member and it was a good experience, because their house is so humble and you can tell it took everything he had to make us the pork roast, it was a good experience, after we went to the stake house near the river in the city and had a party with other missionaries in our zone, we ate crapes with meat and some kind of sauce thing that was a little interesting, its like having pancakes with hamburger on top with a crazy sauce haha, then we exchanged gifts with the hermanas, because there are the exact amount of hermanas as there are elders, and i got a tie haha, we played games until 11 and then we had to go, the city was totally deserted for new years eve, completely deserted, not a car or bus or taxi in sight, so we walked to the bus stop which is like fifteen mins from the stake house in the city, and we waited and waited and waited and not a single car, taxi, or bus passed by, and its usually packed! then all of the sudden it sounded like a war was going on! fireworks totally covered the city! argentine fireworks really suck at looking pretty but they are alot louder than american! it was crazy and we could barely hear each other for a while, then a taxi finally came by around 12 15 and we got back to the apartment, it was quite the adventure. Saturday afternoon we ate at a members house right before we started are fast and it was like thanksgiving all over again, haha actually thats how every meal is, its rude to only eat one plate and their plates are massive!! Its crazy, so i had to eat two plates and i could barely stuff the last fork full down, then i thought i was done but then they brought out half a watermelon for me to eat, and i have never eaten such a big watermelon! then after i managed to eat that they made us a huge smoothie thing and i about exploded haha, church was good, none of our investigators showed up at the beginning and my companion told me i was bad luck and since ive been here none of our investigators have shown up, it was very nice of him to say that lol, anyways about have way through the sisters ended up coming so i was happy about that, but they told us they dont really want to get baptised so now we have to work on that, yesterday was good, there is this less active family who we have taught for the past few weeks who are 7th day advents, and their pastor came over and tried to bible bash with us, but we wouldn´t fight and we just bore testimony and he got madder and madder because we wouldn´t fight back and he had nothing to attack us with, it was an interesting experience and one that i learned as a huge testimony builder on how true our church is, that we dont need to prove things with our knowledge of the bible but just with a pure simple testimony. To answer stephs questions, alot of people have cell phones but the technology here is way far behind so their phones are like the ones like 8 or 10 years ago. My companion... i learn from him. im starting to grow on the place, there are days that i love it and there are days that i dont so im starting to convert to the mission, if not for the heat i would be in love with it so i am glad for the challenge and the growth im recieveing, im trying hard to ignore the heat and its pretty tuff but im working on it! I love all of you guys so much and i always look forward to mondays when i can talk to you guys! oh ya dad i have a debit card from the church and i can withdraw 700 pesos every two weeks or something like that so thats how i get my money. I love hearing from you guys it makes my week so much easier and gives me a drive to work hard and to become better so i can make you guys proud. oh and i cant get the pics to send so idk what we can do to get you guys picturess, i just wasted 20 mins trying to get them to attach... so anyways sorry i love you all so much and i miss you! To anyone that wants to write me letters, here is my address
Av. Rivadavia 323
Resistencia, Chaco 3500
Argentina
I love you all