Monday, February 15 2010 -- The Definition of Blessings

Wow... All i can say is that someone has alot more faith than i have, whoever prayed for me to help my mission i thank you! This week has definitly been the greatest week of the mission. The weather has been a steady 95 degrees during the day and 80 during the night! Which is perfect! I dont remember sweating until last night haha! The weather has been amazing and the sunsets absolutley rediciulous! They are so beautiful! I think a key thing that helped this week was that my companion had to leave to Resistencia so I spent Tuesday with the Zone leaders, and we rocked the day up, it was so fun to teach, because they assigned me parts to teach which i like because then i feel comfortable not having to interupt the other missionaries, and i am totally comfortable with the language because i realized for the first time that i havent spoken english in three or so weeks! Haha crazy! Im forgetting words and stuff haha, and while i was with the zone leaders we did alot of contacts and i really found excitement in trying to figure out what part of the gospel will spark their interest, ive started to make everything a game right now, to make it more enjoyable! I realized that i do not like being in my apartment but out trying to find new investigators and strengthening the progessing ones. One quick story, everyone here calls me a Yankee, which i think is really cool but they use it just like the britans used to use the word, as a disgrace, but i think its an honor to be called a yankee just like the revolutionaries! One time i was contacting and this guy exploded on me because i am American and he was saying a bunch of awful stuff about our country, but i just stood their smiling and listened to him, because it was interesting, but my zone leader who is from Buenos Ares demanded that he apologized, in a very nice way. Anyways i found interesting that i wasnt offended by it but that my other companions that werent from America were. This week we have found two new families that are golden, one is a reference from Ramon, they are named Zarate, and they have 6 little girls and have a huge interest in the book of mormon, they have been prepared, i just hope that they have been prepared fast enough that i will be able to baptize them, they are the only family in the neighborhood who also has air conditioning haha(random fact) and the other new investigator is a man who is 44 years old and his job is to build lds churches throughout Argentina, so hes had contact with the church which will help alot and the spirit is working on him, but he was injured on his last job so he has to stay at home, which made it possible for us to find him and we will be able to teach him whenever we want for a few weeks which definitly is a blessing, his name is Ignacio and he is defintly one of my favorite investigators yet, and the only who read the book of mormon the first time we challenged him! But he didnt come to church which was a bummer. Ramon didnt get married because the judges here are really lazy and take holidays practically every week so we dont know when he will be baptized... But we have Juan, the 14 year old, he will be baptized in two saturdays which will be awesome! I have absolutley loved this week, and it flew by!
Oh one story i thought was funny for mom is that everyone knows the Engall Family, they are like the perfect family for everyone here, i thought that was really funny, the Engall family is so cool to the people here and i just laugh everytime the men want to be just like Charles Engall, its so awesome! Oh we had a dinner with the Gomez family, and that was really fun! We had empanadas as usual haha, the food is always the same no matter where you go. But i found out the reason why they are not going to church, or the reason why the family isnt, the mom knows its true, you can see it in her eyes when she talks, but she is afraid of her husband because he doesnt know yet, and hes not focused on what the truth is, he has really deep roots in catholicism and its really hard to teach him the gospel, he is always talking, its stressful to know that i bear really strong tesitmony of families and really good questions to him and the spirit is really strong and then he wants nothing to do with it! He says he wants his family forever and we have shown him the path, but he has a doubt that i do not know, anyways patience and studying and prayer will help, and in time we will deroot his doubt!
My companion and i are doing well, i am definitly practicing patience though, alot of the pet peeves ive had in my life he has haha, its quite hilarious all of the things that bug me, but i never let it show. Once or twice i let it get to me but other than that we work really good together, he has a problem with obedience but we are working on it, he has seen that through disobedince he can still have baptisms and its hard to help him see that obedience is the key to everything.

Well that is defintily scary for steph! Gosh she has had a tough few months physically, ive never gone through anything like she has, she has definitly had a few rough spots in life that ive never had to experince, which makes her so much better than i ever could be, she is always so positive and i definitly look up to her, i cant even imagine what i would do if i went through everything she has gone through, i love her and miss her so much, a long with everyone else in my family! Tommy was telling me how he was playing basketball with collin and tommy couldnt even stand because collin plays just as horrible as i do, that we are exactly the same, that made me miss my brother alot and i really look up to him, there isnt a cooler kid in my eyes. Thank you so much for your influence dad, ive realized this week that i only have two years to enjoy Argentina, and after that ill be back home. Im really starting to enjoy my mission, and i continually strive to loose myself in the work, if for nothing else the time to fly by, but i know that when i have lost myself i wont want to leave, i love you dad, and my mom, i love you so much and i miss my pancakes! haha you did so much for me that i cant even start to pay you back! Well i love you all and have such a good week!

Monday, February 8 -- The Definition of Hot

MY FAMILY! I cant believe it is already monday! Its crazy, this week has flown by! Well the weekdays fly by, the weekends drag here, i dont know why but they are soo slow! So my first week in febuary here on a mission, i thought that January was hot, but this week has definitly made me wish for the heat of January and when i first got here haha. My thermometer in my apartment read 100.8 degrees! haha and outside was a killer! haha and what was worse is that i had parasites thursday friday and saturday! so i spent alot of time in my apartment slowly dying from the parasites and from being cooked in my oven! haha wow talk about the hottest week yet, but i have had many escapes this week from the heat, mostly the wind has helped alot, even though the wind is really really hot, when im soaked from head to toe its pretty refreshing haha, and my garments are such a gift! haha its amazing how where the garment covers is freezing and where its not is hot! partly because dry lux rocks! haha but i think the other part is because of god. Saturday night, as i looked at the country side next to my area it was totally engulfed in brown smoke, i asked why and my companion said because of the heat, it was aweful looking, really intimidating, and really hard to breath haha. But its amazing how much that your body can adjust to the heat, it is usually 92 or 95 degrees in my apartment when i go to sleep and i dont really sweat that much, its hot but only a little uncomfortable, even though i still want air conditioning haha.
Our investigators... The girl who i baptised in the picture im forwarding isnt going to stay a member for long... We found her smoking again and she doesnt really have a strong testimony, so ive decided im not going to baptise her sister right now, maybe when i know that shes ready. The old man without the shirt (ramon) had his birthday yesterday and when we went to go wish him a happy birthday he was totally drunk, so their goes our baptism for this weekend... But do not lose hope family! For we have another baptism for the 27th of Febuary, a 14 year old kid who is in love with the church, and has alot of friends in the church to help him, his name is Juan and hes a cool kid (oh a little side note, its really funny here, but there is only like 10 names for guys here, Juan, Angel, Ramon, Alejandro, Jose, Miguel, David and one or two other names, so when we are contacting its really easy to remember names or to guess because there is hardly any names!) The gomez family is starting to progress, the mother knows its true, it was really cool to help her realize, but the dad is scared of the truth and has to anaylze it out alot, so we are working on that, but once we get him we have a whole family of 6 for baptism which will be sweet, the Silva family is shaky, not sure what we need to do, visit them more often and give service is the best way i think, but the mother has a brother that we ran into and he has potential to become a member, he has alot of faith and knows that we can help him with his problems. One of the families i have been working with since i got here, an inactive family who started to come to church and ive worked really hard with them, well their family just broke and the wife wants a divorce and its all bad, pretty depressing.
This morning it rained, if you remember the rain as we came out of Navoo, and how much rain that was, well that was nothing compared to this! My companion and i went downtown to eat at a chinese buffet with the zone and while we were in the bus the street had at least two feet of water and the wheels of the bus could barely hit the ground! haha it was crazy! then while we were walking to the meeting place we had to cross this street which was a river, up to our knees! My umbrella couldn´t hold the amount of water that was coming down! so amazing! Then we had to run 13 blocks to the restaruant! haha talk about being wet! It has been a blessing though because its going to be cold tonight and i can sleep in peace! Well I love you all so much! I have two pics im sending, one of my baptism and one of my zone! They have helped me so much! I would definitly not be were i am without them! Oh and i just found out that at the end of this transfer i will have been out on my mission 6 months! 1/4 of my mission already haha, but its going to be a very long transfer in this heat!! haha but im ready for it, thanks dad for the scriptures! Those from d and c 100 helped me alot! Oh and i recived the letters from robin and grandpa cow! so whatever way is fine! Snail mail or email! I lvoe you all so much! pray for me will ya ;)

February 1, 2010 --

My family! This week has been really tough, the hottest yet, and the most exhausting, but as i look back on it now i kind of liked it, haha which is a change, wednesday morning it rained so hard that we couldn´t leave the members house we were eating with, it was crazy, and then it just got hotter and hotter each day, haha which didnt bug me until friday, when inside my apartment was 97 degrees, which about killed me! Haha but it got hotter and sunday was about to the point that i couldn´t focus at all, neither could anyone haha, but at least i was teaching all afternoon and not out contacting, i probably would have died, haha oh and we havent had water since saturday afternoon so showering has been out of the question and all we have had to drink is the ice in our freezer, when were at our apartment, so its been pretty crazy, so hopefully our water is back tonight, its been tuff but as i look back i survived so its not that bad, i woke up today and my apartment was 91 degrees! at 6 in the morning haha, its usually 85, which is quite chilly for me right now if you can imagine! haha but its been worth the pain, i had a baptism this past weekend, i baptised one of the sisters, Yessica( or Jessica in english), it was pretty fun! it was a very small baptism, my companion and i, the two other elders in my ward, two litte investigators, and the best family in our ward who we asked to make us a cake and come welcome her, her family couldnt come and she had to leave one of her kids at home, we set the appointment for 7 pm saturday and at 7 45 she wasnt there, i was worried that she backed out but ten mins later she showed up and we had a very good baptism, i enjoyed it alot.
This week we have three promising families that want to be baptised, the gomez family is almost there, they need a few more lessons and need to attend church more and they will be ready, then there is another family, Silvia, who is very, very poor and they dont have a dad, we met them by visiting with a group of ladies in the street and one said she had a sick kid, so we went and gave him a blessing and he was better the next day, we talked and they are really excited to come to church, all are really wanting to hear the gospel, none can read so we are teaching them how to read and pray right now, they are prepared to hear us, and then a young couple, Vincinte, they found it a miracle that we decided to stop by their house and teach them, the husband was especially excited, they just had a kid and i feel like they will be ready in time, hopefully in this transfer. Ramon, the old man who is 72 and doesnt wear a shirt, will be married on febuary 12 and we get to be the witnesses and then the 13 he will be baptised! so im really excited for that! The sister of yessica, yisel, is asking for permission from the judge to be baptised because she is on probation for trying to sneak back into argentina because she forgot her papers here, her friend lives in paraguay which is like twenty mins from my apartment. So she might be baptised this weekend or the next, im pretty excited about that, my companion is very loving with the people here, very opposite of my trainer, and its amazing to see the difference of talking to everyone, we have encountered huge amounts of inactives in our area and people who have family who are members, which are the best people to teach because the spirit has or is working on them, the work here is progressing and i love teaching now, not only because we are out of the sun but because its so cool to see how interesting the gospel is to people who have never heard it, and i just love teaching people about the book of mormon! its crazy funny to see peoples faces when you say you have another book just like the bible, they wont believe and its really fun to testify of the book of mormon, most wont accept but there are a few who find it interesting and i love that, i love telling people about temples and about my testimony of temples, im so grateful for me calling before my mission! This week i have been addicted to the gospel of John, i love reading about christ, i used to never like the bible because everyone uses it and i always thought it wasnt as true as the book of mormon but i have realized that it is true, that it testifies of Jesus Christ, and i love reading about Jesus! It helps me so much. My companion has a mp3 player and there are alot of songs about Joseph Smith and Hyrum and ther was a song about their martyrdom, and it hit me really, really hard, and that day as we were dragging our feet under the killer sun and trying to catch our breath, because its really hard to breathe in this heat, idk why, i couldnt stop thinking about how i cant let Joseph and Hyrum die in vain, i kept seeing them in the final moments of their lives in the movie and it really helped me, that even though i was pushed to my limits that i wasnt going to give in to the heat and give in to despair and let Joseph Smith and hyrum die in vain, so that is my moto for this week and its helped me so far.
Man it sounds like such an awesome week for me at home!! Man i have so many friends and family who i know love me, and i cant express in words how much all of you mean to me, seriously, i dont deserve any of them and thats why im so lucky and im so glad that i have who i have, in time i will write everyone but im just getting used to the life as a missionary and ive gone from liking hours to liking parts of the day, and i know that soon i will love days and then weeks, and then months and then all of the sudden ill be home, time is starting to move, i feel like ive started in high gear so i dont have that much acceleraiton but im moving, there are days when all im living on is patience and faith, and prayer prayer prayer, i cant wait for the day when i can be like judd and andy and stop focusing on myself and trying to repair and build me, and start to repair and build my investigators, its starting and i am excited for the first time for the future, Febuary is supposedly the hottest month of the year and im starting to believe it, but i do not have fear, only the desire to endure and to start to thrive in the mission, its funny that ill be talking with someone and ill start speaking in english because i am so used to the language, Steph i miss you and it sounds like your life is great! Dont look forward to anything but only live in the moment! Live every second steph, your gonna miss this part of your life just like every part of your life in the future haha, work hard and live by the spirit!
Josh i cant think of someone who i want to be just like! I cant believe that time has flown since we last worked out, time is draggin right now but when i look back it flew! Your my hero, ill always be Rugerburget 2.0, ill never be as good as the original, know that i look up to you literally and spiritually and emotionally, i cant ask for a better friend to uplift me,
Amanda! Ill write you also, so give me a few weeks, life sounds great! Live up the cold because there is none here and i miss it so! haha i would love to have your job! Maybe ill try for that when i get back! I love you and your love for me, we had a lot of fun times Amanduh, the prom dance with the handicaps was awesome!
Grandpa and Grandma Cow! I cant stop thinking this week about the ranch, and building those cheesy log boats and the canal and the three wheelers, but most of all i just miss relaxing in the house with my grandparents and grandpas cheesy jokes and stories and grandmas endless love for me! I have been thinking about how much i cant wait to go back to the ranch and spend time with my grandpa and grandma cow! I love you so much, thank you for all of your love and support, i look up to you soo much!
Mom, idk about a evelope with padding, ill ask this week and see if it will work! I lvoe you and your support for me! Im trying hard to forget how delicous your food is because is hard to eat here sometimes because it cant compare!
Dad, you dont know how much i look up to you and your inspiration, i look forward every week to read what i can do better, i know you are recieving revelation specifically for me, more that i can recieve for myself, you are so in tune with the spirit, as shown by your vision of me in Argentina, i really cant wait to spend time with my dad when i get home, but ill have to wait and in the mean time try to become just a little bit like my dad! I love you
Collin, work hard, study hard, live your life, take every advantage possible to learn cool skills like tiling, welding, buildng things, yard work and all of that stuff, these are things that i wished i would have taken advantage of, of course you are much more handy than i ever wil be, i know that you will be far better of a swimmer, friend, and brother than i ever will be, collin i miss hanging out with you, more that you know, even though you only write a sentance to me a haha, take advantage of every situation, be what i couldnt be, the church is a great place to make yourself better, collin i feel like i lost alot of my life doing stupid things, dont be like that, you can and will be so much more than i could ever be, for that your my hero collin, more than i can explain.
Abbey and Hannah, my sisters, i cant explain how much i miss you guys, it kills me to know that hannah will be so different when i get back! I love my little sister and miss doing the little things with her, i talk about how you always want to know the color of apple i like, which is green, and i dont know why you ask haha, abbey your detailed letters are fantastic, i love your enthusiasm and your upbeatness, your going to go far in life and be someone great, if i can be anything like you i cant even imagine what i would become!
I love you all so much and ill talk to you again next week!

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