Monday, September 26 2011

Hellloooooo! As grampa would say. So this week was super fast, it suprised me how fast it passed, this has definitley been the week that i have dug in and gave it my all, i wouldnt let myself think of home, yet i thought only in my investigators, and it flew by! Theres the key haha, and we had tons of success, we are finding tons of people who seem to be quite willing, weve excelled all our goals, and the families are progressing. The Navarros daughters came to church, the parents couldnt because they were sick, but other than that they are all progressing and will surely get baptised. We had a baptism this week but it fell through, she was super confused with the interview and then she thought no one would come to the baptism, we filled the font and cooked the cake and the members were starting to show up and still she hadnt come, so i called her and she said that she didnt want to get baptised because she was the only one... wierd excuses, we were very straight with her, super bold and so she commited to get baptised between sessions at conference, so thats going to be sweet.
We have done a couple family home evenings every week and last week as we were singing the closing song the family started changing the words and started chanting, all 10 of them, ¨Elder cannot go! Elder cannot go!¨ Or something like that would comeout in english. If it didnt get hotter i would be tempted to want to stay, thank goodness i hate heat! But ive made some good friends here. I have no idea how life is at home, it feels like so long ago when i think of home i dont know if im capable of living that kind of life, super wierd eh.
I did splits with the Asistants, they want to make sure i dont die trunky, yet the asistant started the mission one transfer after me so we are way good friends, so it was a fun day, so much fun to teach with someone who has tons of experiance, there is so much power.
So i cannot even wait for conference! Im super excited, i love conference so much!!!
So family, i feel like its time to start looking for a few souvenires, wow i dont know how to spell that word, soveniers, suvenirs, gifts from another country... Anyways, i am wanting to know if there is anything special that you want, so let me know, that way in the last two pdays i can go hunting!
Well i love you all!

Hey Hey! Ha so youve liked my last few emails, ya ive been quite freaked out this week because its been so good, im afraid that something bad is going to happen to make me suffer like before, something definately has changed. One month left! It hit me thursday, i went to my last zone conference, we got to listen to Elder Foster, the 70, it was pretty good, not much deep doctrine like lasttime, more like capacitation, which was cool, one month to put it into practice, he practically talked about our job as a missionary is not only to baptise but to edify the church in the area we serve, so i felt alot better, he said something like a missionary at the end of his mission will not measure his success by the amount of baptisms but of the legacy he left in the areas he served. Pretty cool eh.I gave my final testimony to the 98 other missionaries that were there, if front of the 3rd of the mission. What a blast, to bare my testimony to every single one of my friends, i saw so many there, it was absolutely one of my favorite moments of my life, brothers in arms. I spent the day with many old friends from the mission, it has felt so long the mission, yet has flown by so fast, so many things have happened in my life since then!
This week was ok, i messed up alot in alot of descions i had to make, which brought very little success, but i learned and hope to never make such stupid decisions, but oh well, i learn from every event. We had some awesome lessons this week with Rokie and Betty! Oh man if all goes well they are definately going to get baptised, im super excited to see how it goes, they are praying, reading and have promised to go to church as a family, and they are always trying to get the whole family to listen to us at the same time, every time im there with them i feel like this is the family god had prepared for me! Super sweet, Navarro is their last name for future reference. Then the Casais family, the mom was the first lady i interviewed the day i got here 4 months ago, and since we inherited that area it is now our responsibility to help the rest of the family of 7 to get baptised, they are super cool, the dad knows its true, but he has a doubt that i cant understand yet, hes scared to make the change or something, i know he doubts jose smith and he doesnt like the fast and testimony meetings, but i dont like those here either, everyone says the exact same thing, but there is something thats holding him back, but they all listen and hes breaking down bit by bit, i sure hope to be able to make the change! Betty is going to get baptised this weekend, she had a smoking problem, i asked her to show me her brand of cigs to see what they are like, she showed me and i sacked them out of her hands and put them in my pocket, since then she hasnt smoked. and is super excited for her baptism! Super cool stuff! Romina is being a baby, she loves reading the book of mormon but doesnt want to commit, shes so cool yet frustrates me! Yet we will try to help her.
So i woke up 4 30 in the morning saturday morning to what i thought was a nuclear explosion, first i saw a huge flash of light, then the BOOM! almost shattered the windows, everything was rocking, sounded like someone shot a gun next to my ears, and we heard the roar for the next 30 seconds, the biggest lightning bolt, or thunder that ive ever seen or heard, SUPER COOL! I sure love the lightning storms here, dont even feel lke sleeping.So im sending a couple pics, the big church thing is a momument to where the catholics believed the virgin appeared to talk with them, super crazy, so i showed them who holds the real keys! Another is my pday activity that i did with Elder Brown, there is an american war veteren that lives here in corrientes, we went to his house and hung out with him for a while, super cool! Another of my zone here in Corrientes, the coolest bunch out of them all!
LOVES YA!

Monday, September 12 2011

Hey family!! Hows it all going? Im doing quite well, this is definitly going to be my favorite time in my mish, these past two weeks have rocked, and even though im so excited for home, im enjoying my time here, loving it! I have a major activity every week until my death here so i have something to keep me busy, and they expanded my area, the other Elders in this branch left, so i have to open one more area along with the other area i already had, so President is giving me alot more responsibility! So ive been super exhausted, and they added one more companionship to my district so i have had no time to sit down and relax, which is awesome. I love preaching, teaching, and suffering, because it wont last much longer haha.
We have worked our butts off this week trying to get everything into place, we need to find a new apartment, reorganize all of our work, and try to find all of the investigators of the other elders, and focus on ours, find new people, the list is infinite! But im loving it, the only thing that is a pain is that its getting a little hotter everyday, but im getting a little taste of summer before i go back and freeze to death, i wonder how that will be...
So we have a super cool family that we found, they had never listened to the missionaries but they have recieved a book of mormon from old neighbors, during the whole lesson i truly felt that god told me that i have the possibitly that this family can get baptised, that they are prepared, so that was super cool, now it all depends on me. Ive only visited them twice but man ill do anything to get them baptised, the oldest daughter, 28, is the ring leader, she gets her whole family there to listen, so i sure hope that all goes well, Rockie and Betty are the parents names so please pray for them!! Romina is having a tuff time, her kids are crazier than ever! She just wont come to church, but we will get her there!! Betty is an investigator from the other elders, shes getting baptised next week, so i get to baptise at least once in September haha, shes super cool, she gets Nephi mixed up with Joseph Smith, its quite funny. And we have a few other part member families that i inherited, that i have taught a few times since ive been here, and im excited to help complete the families, since that was my goal here in Corrientes, im glad Heavenly Father has given me the oprotunity to inherit this other area, now i can do it again!!
The Nordahls are coming back! Super cool! That is like the week i finish the mission, what a crazy week that will be eh! Ya i was pretty trunky yesterday with 9/11, time flies by.
Well not much new, next week will have plenty of info im sure! so LOVES YA ALL!!

Monday, September 5 2011

Hey Familia!! Como Estan todos? Man this week was an alright week, ive learned a whole lot this week. So first off i was only in my area for two days, the rest of the time i did splits with other Elders. So in my area there is no progress, noone came to church and we dropped eveyone but Romina, and we found a couple that has a chance to get baptised but we will see, they arent that literate and cant understand that much but im sure if we are simple that it will work out.So first off, the Hermanas in my district have had a super hard time, like us, bringing people to church, so the asistants had us do splits with them, My comp and i went with one sister one day, and the zone leaders with the other, then the next day we switched. These were the splits that i learned the most, and i will never forget, so amazing. So both days we drew the short straw, we didnt have any set meetings with any investigators so we ended up looking for people from 11 in the morning to 9 at night.At first i was like crap this is going to stink, but then man i fell in love with the work, we talked with every single person that came into our sights, and we werent light about any of it, we were super bold letting everyone know. It was super fun, and with a sister missonary we were super focused and our lessons that we had were some of the best ive ever taught, in fact every single person we talked to couldnt deny the fact that it was true, but had to decide if they were going to follow the truth or not. And since the sisters work in downtown Corrientes we got to work in the city, super fun. At night when we got to the apartment i was too excited to sleep, i wanted to get back out and work, and there was a feeling that i had never felt up until this moment, and i can say i felt very much like Ammon, now i understand why they would serve a 14 year mission a little better. For the first time in my mission i wouldnt have been too upset if they asked me to serve again. I liked it alot.I learned so much from the Sisters, so cool. When i got back to my area, i was quite sad, i loved those two days, but now i get to go put the same things in practice here in my area. So thats the plan and we will see how it turns out. Im super grateful, we went with the intentions of teaching the sisters and they taught us. A super success.
About other things, so Saturday we ate lunch with my converts, then right after we went down to the river to take a few pictures in a boat thats beached, super cool, so we took pictures and hung out there for 10 mins, then we felt the need to leave, everyone felt it. So we started leaving, but we couldnt go back the way we came because its a cliff, so we had to go around, so we helped everyone get off the boat, the kids got off first then we helped the mom and others, well the two kids ran towards another beached boat, which has a pathway behind it to get back up, and they saw a bunch of druggies coming down the path, so they booked it into the forest to hide, then the two girls warned us and we with the moma and two babies hid beneath the second boat,well my comp didnt understand what was happening so he didnt move that fast, and i was too nervous to tell him, anyways the druggies saw him, and they broke a bunch of branches and blocked the pathway so we couldnt escape, we hid beneath the boat for like 4 mins before they made eye contact with my comp through one of the portholes, but luckily they also found one of the girls at the same time, they knew that she knew who they were and if they did anything to us that she would report them, so they let us go, they didnt know that the family was with us.man it was quite nerve racking hehe, but we were super blessed, so you dont need to worry. And we got some cool pics out of it. I felt like i was in some kind of movie.
Anyways, so maybe in a few weeks ill have another baptism, Romina is progressing quite well, by our conviction she knows its true and she will pray and know for herself. And we will find some more people so im excited. But i cant believe i only have 6 weeks left, it flies by so quick, so im pretty sure that im not going to let this time go to waste.
Thats quite funny bout steph, but im glad that shes ok. The twins are always crazy, and im excited to get back to participate in the crazyness. Anyways, thanks for the candy and for the spice packets im super excited to use them!
Anyways, love ya all so much!!