Monday, March 28 2011

Hola Familia!! Como esta! Well first things first, i didnt go anywhere, i stayed here in Formosa, with my comp and everything. At first i was a little down, i wanted to move up and become zone leader, i wanted to get to know a new area and i wanted to start over because i havent seen any progress here and i felt really discouraged, but then i started to pray alot and i just slept on it, in the morning i was super sick so i didnt have a chance to think about what happened haha, but as time went on im excited that Heavenly Father gave me the chance to overcome my problems instead of running from them, but this is going to be a super hard challenge, but one that is necesary, i must come off conquerer. Mom ive been trying to think positively all the time, and its working with all of the little things, slowly im changing, but when something big happens im still out of control, so ive been struggling with that, im finding it super hard to find my strengths my mind goes blank and i only see what i need to improve. I dont know why but thats been a great struggle, and im trying to find the answer. Anyways, not much has happened this week, a bunch of my mission friends went home, that was crazy, it passed by super fast, i still remember watching general conference with Elder Hogge 6 months ago and now he just got home, time sure does fly by, i feel like i dont have enough time to improve, it passes by so quick. Im really excited for this weeks general conference, i sure hope i can at least watch a few, we will see how it goes! Well i dont know what else to say, nothing new, we had to drop almost all our investigators and start over again, quite a challenging time this past month, i can barely bring people to church, yet alone find some investigators. But i cant give up, but i sure do need help. Anyways i found some of those shoes, but steph all of the shoes that you want here are super ghetto, foam bottoms, 4 dollars but they are not that stylish, but if you want ill get them for ya, but idk if you want me to send them home or what, so let me know. Congrats dj nuffer, hes in my same region haha, thats sweet, hes going to sweat alot so tell him to prepare himself, one of my mtc teachers went there and all of his pictures was him sweating haha. But hes going to have a ton of success! I did not recognize whos house all of the pictures were in until i saw the pictures in the back ground of baby andy and judd and then i recognized in the other picture the map, WOW KIM AND GENE!! Thats super awesome! I cant wait to see how its like, which makes me remember that our house also has recieved a few rooms remodled right? man im not going to even recognize my life after, tyler and max have grown so much! Thats crazy!! I sure do miss everyone. In my package i just want a bunch of candy, those pictures of christ that i had, one maple extract, a rootbeer extract, some refried beans, steak seasoning, more steak seasoning, and whatever suprise you can come up with, oh and also a few efy cds, that would be awesome! Well please continue to pray for me, to pick myself off the ground and get back into the work, i feel less effecient here in Formosa than in Reconquista and Posadas and i dont like that feeling. Well i love ya family, next time i write will be in April!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPH!! FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS STEFANIA! Love ya all!

Monday, March 21 2011

HELLO FAMILIA!! Hows life!! This week was super tuff but i loved it!! I learned alot as usual! Im learning how to gain the ability to concentrate when im studying and im able to ponder and focus, its great. Ive always had a loose mind, it goes where ever it wants, but now im learning how to control it! Haha so now im quite content that ill be able to become even smarter and wiser! The weather here is great, some days its cold, like 75 degrees and other days its 100 but im used to it, so it doesnt matter. Whats hard is when i dont have investigators that want to progress, its been hard because i feel like i work so hard yet, like ive had in the past, i dont have sucess, im not looking for 10 families that progress super easy or anything like that, but i want to be able to teach people that want to act, who want to come closer to chirst, or at least find people who want to listen, i dont know why it got so hard all of the sudden but now its quite difficult to find people, alot different than when i got here. We are really only teaching one family, but only the dad and the oldest daughter are interested.I feel like my area is degrading a little but i have hope, i know that if im doing everything right that this is just a time of growth, and that ill be blessed with people who want to learn, i just hope that ive found everyone who god wanted me to find, this week is transfers, there is a 50/50 chance that ill leave, i kind of want to leave so i can start all over, but then again this is my favorite zone and there is going to be alot of changes in the ward, zone and mission so whatever happens im ok with it. The mission office elders say that they are going to divide my mission in two missions in june, the Resistencia Mission and the Posadas Mission. But its not confirmed, buts its a possibility.I dont even know if they have called a new mission president for us yet! Ya about Japan, we walked into a investigators house and we saw what was happening, so ya ive heard all about it, its a great way to talk with people, everyone is scared so we use that to get them to repent, to start to act, it works with the less actives haha. But ya its super sad, i always wanted to visit Japan, now would be a good excuse to go visit, a service trip! Great job Collin! Your the first of the kids to break a bone haha!! AND STEPH! CONGRATS!! Ms. President haha. Haha ya time is flying by, in two weeks im going to need to start my ¨six months to sexy¨ to get back into shape and stuff haha. Its going to be sad because im going to miss my little beer belly hehe. So whats up with Libia and the States, the argentines are mad at me for what we are doing... I have no clue whats happening.And i have one question, did the new eragon book come out? Anyways, i cant believe Jason Buck is coming home, tell him he will need to write me and let me know how his mission was and stuff, i miss the kid! thanks dad for writing, that was a great story about Dave Lyman, his a cool guy, i miss him haha, tell him hello! and grandpa also, thanks for writing, i laugh everytime! Thanks Kieth Low, and no, i never slept in your class, just meditating... And Dj Nuffer, let me know where you are going man!! Your the bomb!

Monday, March 14 2011

OLA FAMILIA!! Hows everything going? My life has actually been quite great this week, i did divisiones with one of my great friends in the mish, for the first time in my life i asked for a priesthood blessing and i really felt the effects of that blessing. I have studied self esteem so much this week that i feel like im back to normal, and maybe even better. This week has been tuff as usual but now i find it more enjoying. And were starting to have a little more sucess here, i still have alot to do but we are working on it, this week ive focused, like andy, on converts and less actives, and they are growing stronger, and they are starting to understand a little more, ive enjoyed alot of my time here this week, ive grown closer to almost everyone ive talked to haha. Its great, this week we had 6 baptisms in my ward, and of the 6 i found 3 of them, so even though i didnt get to teach them every single lesson it was super pleasing to me to see the people that i had found reach the waters of baptism, a very spiritual saturday. My understanding of the gospel is increasing alot and i feel like im starting to reach the level of conversion that i have wanted, ive always had a problem studying and now i feel like i can meditate a little more, i realized that i always saw the scriptures as a story and not as a book that can complete its promises, but now as i start to understand every word has and will be completed, its so cool, and now i can put it even more into practice and i have found more joy in the work, i love studying the gospel, makes me teach more simply and helps me to put it into practice. Ive learned alot this week, but i have so much more to learn, i dont have much time left, oh man sometimes i feel like its alot but as i see my progess i dont have much time to learn and apply what i want to be, because i know that after the mission i will have alot of things to distract me and it will be even harder to learn things that are quite easy here to attain. Anyways i dont know if im making sense, my head hurts so much, weve been in a capacitation all day, we havent had pday so everythings all scrambled up in my head! Happy Birthday to Grandma!! Wow only 50 years old ;) still maintaining the figure haha. Thats a cool story about Grant, thats something that ive tried to put in practice this week, its funny how god works, nothing is coincidence. Wow Chris Nestman came home!! Time just ceases to exist on the mission it seems. Oh i did not know that Sister Goats speaks spanish!! That blew my mind, i need to get to know my ward a little better, Thanks Ma and Pa Platt for the letter, your the best Ma and Pa (dont tell my parents). Grandpa and grandma cow, i laugh every time i read your letters, dont let the computer control you guys haha, your the greatest! I love you all!! Good luck steph on your student gov!

Monday, February 28 2010

Hey family, wow time sure flies by! Well the coolest thing that happened this week is that it rained every night, and it rained continually from tuesday night until thursday morning, so it was super fun to walk around in knee high water, luckily we have boots in the apartment because my shoe covers dont help when the water is above the ankles haha, there were so many houses that were flooded and it was interesting to work this week, because all of the ditches are filled with crap we had to be super careful to watch where we were walking, the water in the streets was all contaminated with dead dogs and animals, the smell was great this week, leeches were everywhere. It was an awesome adventure walking around in water, there was so mud, because there was not a single dry spot i felt like i was working in waterworld! Anyways other than the rain the weather has been perfect this week! The air has been fresh and its been great, i didnt sweat much at all!

But as ive come to realize the weather has been the least of my problems, this week has been super hard in the work, a few of my recent converts truly hate me and have stopped coming to church, because i helped the mom get ready to go to the temple to do baptisms for the dead and anyways, the bishop screwed everything up so when she got here she didnt have a recommend and anyways she had to wait outside for a few hours, well aparently its my fault and shes stopped coming to church, she has really torn me down and its been a hard week with her and her family, on top of that the people have been really tearing me down, usually it would have never affected me but really the only person that i have felt is on my side is my comp, so emmotionally a super hard week, the work is almost at a stall, i dont know what has happened but i cant find anyone, i havent even been able to sit down with the people this week, we have no progressing investigators, and we have to start from 0. We had a baptism this week, but it didnt go down that well, in reality she got baptised but that night disappeared, and she didnt get confirmed. So ive felt like crap this week, and i was just looking forward to p day to start all over again. Im really hoping that this week will be better, im really going to do my part to do so, its been one of these weeks that i just want to sleep and forget haha. But hopefully all will turn around.

The only good thing this week is that i saw that god used me as an instrument in his hands to help a couple to get baptised next week, she lives in another area and she wanted to get baptised but didnt know how to tell her mom, who is a pastor in her church, that she was going to be mormon, well her mom lives in our area, and i felt the need to pass by her, i didnt know who she was at the moment but it was a decent lesson, it didnt seem like she was going to progress, but we left after. And she went to her daughters house and told her daughter that she was learning from the mormons and it was exactly what the daughter needed to hear to tell her, so thanks that we passed by the couple can get baptised, so god does work in mysterious ways, what seemed like a failure to us from our point of vision what a huge sucess to the other missionaries, so thats what i learned this week.

Well im glad that all is good at home, interesting that luna had to go, sorry dad. Mom thanks for the help, thats going to be super hard to do but im going to try, i feel overwhelmed. well i love ya all, see ya next week.

Monday, February 21 2011

HEY FAMILY!! So luckily it was a temple weekend, when our ward once every three months goes to Paraguay to visit the temple. So while they were there i had a sister buy me my scriptures, they were 3 dollars for both! Hardback also, i love the church, super cheap haha! This week has been an awesome week, well, ive never felt so hot in my mission as i did this week but other than that we have had alot of success! As you can see in our pictures we had our 4 baptisms, 3 little girls that have almost finished the book of mormon and already have set goals to go on missions! Oh man they are so awesome, they come to church alone and they are part of the ward! So cool!!Then the 24 year old girl, Elisa! SO COOl, right after her baptism she was teaching some investigators about the church and how cool baptism is and stuff, shes already a better missionary than i am!! HAHA We had a bunch of problems with finding baptismal clothes and a whole lot of problems but we overcame them and it turned out awesome! We have a super lazy bishop and thats the hardest part, our ward is falling apart here, we used to have like 10 elders and now our ward is down to two, i dont know whats happening, its sad for me but we are trying our hardest. We have a baptism planned for this week and three more for the week after that! Its so cool that god blesses us even when we arent the best.
Anyways, ive been really down on myself lately because its really hard for me to be obedient, it never was hard in Posadas and in Reconquista maybe once or twice, but here its been quite the challenge.I really think God is trying to see if im willing to dedicate my all, and thats been the hardest part. I have desires to be obedient and to be diligent but the heat and fatigue have been hard to overcome. I have prayed alot this week on what Heavenly Father wants me to improve on, and for one of the first times in my mission an answer came super clear to my head, that i need to improve my obediance, diligence and my prayers. So i put the goal to improve on these, well the coolest thing happened this weekend, we had zone conference and it was focused on OBEDIANCE! DILIGENCE! AND HOW TO IMPROVE OUR PRAYERS, wow i felt that god really wants me to learn these things, so i am super grateful that i learned what i needed to learn and now i just need to put it into practice, the hardest part haha.Sounds like life is so awesome at home, i just realized i have 5 tranfers left in the mission, im freaking out that im almost sure i have just three more weeks here in formosa, so i am frantically looking for a family just like that family that i found in posadas, that from the moment we found them to their baptism was three weeks, so i got alot of work to do this week, so please be praying for me, to be more obedient, diligent and that we find this family, and ill let you know how it goes next week!
I SO MISS THE FOOD IN THE STATES so im pretty sure when its all said and done im gonna be fat from al the rootbeer ill be drinking haha, jason buck is almost home!? man time flies, and whats up with CHRIS NESTMAN? didnt he come home also? It seems like a few months ago i talked with Laura Ramsey, man thats crazy. Well thanks for the pics and ill see you guys next week!! LOVE YA

Monday, February 14 2011

Hey Family!! Like Andy, the weather here is super wierd, it was quite cold this past week, like 75 degrees, i actually had goosebumps haha, i never thought i would freeze to death at 75 degrees haha, but i felt like it. Well this week has been super hard, first with the cold weather, it was brought by a huge storm, which started monday night and continued during the night, the rain was so loud it was hard to sleep, but its so relaxing to listen, well while i was listening my comp woke up to use the bathroom and to our horror, when he went to take a step our horror, our apartment was flooded, destroyed alot of stuff, my scriptures are past recovery, i went to pick them up and it was so wet that it just ripped in half... so i have no weapons now to fight satan... haha so fun, anyways i didnt sleep at all that night, then i have felt super homesick this week, for that reason i dont like good weather, because it makes me want to be home, but when i suffer i dont think about it.So its been hard to overcome homesickness this week, but i kept working, but the work is falling, no matter how hard we try to work it seems we cant decide the outcome of our work, Aldo and Yanina are a lost cause, he ran from us this week more than once, and he doesnt want to get rid of his doubts. We wasted all saturday trying to help them. I have learned alot this week, and now i know how to help people more easily and hopefully for the better, i had a baptism this week and i have 4 more this weekend, then 3 more next week. But only if they can feel the conversion, and thats been hard this past week. But we are working on it, its been a tuff week because we put so much on Aldo and Yanina when in the end they are just falling farther and farther away. But we are going to give them one last chance. But we are not going to focus so much on them, we are going to let them decide. One of our investigators tried to kill her husband because he was cheating on her and we got there just in time. She had thrown gasoline on him and tried to light him on fire but it seemed like the gas was too old, so she pulled out a knife and was going to go after him right when we got there, it was crazy!The house was destroyed because they had fought for quite some time it seemed, crazy... My comp is so awesome, hes one of my greatest friends here, we mess around a whole bunch, the mission gets fun and when we are super down we can always find a way to laugh, he and i talk to each other like gollum and do a bunch of stuff like that. Im glad that hes my comp, we just had transfers and im staying here with him. Today we played soccer and wow, it seems that i am capable of doing a little more than running up and down the field, im actually super proud that i can play a sport, ive never felt capable of playing anything but now i feel super great, i think ill play in intermurals when i get home. Anyways, grats collin for kicking butt in state! Next year your going to have to get even better!! I miss working out in general, one hour of soccer kills me and cutting grass with a matchete is a killer, i need to get back into shape haha. Oh ya ive seen spam a lot, in Desert Theater in murray. Thats a great play, dont get down on yourself steph, its the attitude thats going to take the prize!! Well im off for another week of work, hopefully this ones a little bit more effective, productive and overall satisfying. I love you all! OVER AND OUT!

Monday, February 7 2011

Whoa!! Congrats Collin!! I cant imagine how great you are going to be year after year! 3rd as a freshmen is super awesome!! Crazy, i recognize a few of the kids in the pics haha, it seems like so much time has passed, so much time! Thanks alot for the recipes, ill put them to good use in the next 9 months. Haha cool dance thing with abbey and great testimony steph, look she didnt need to serve a mission to learn these things, thats why girls dont need to serve missions haha. They can learn without it. OH man Thomas Peterson came over!! Dude i always had the intention of writing him on the mission but i never had his address, give him my email so that i can write him a few times, we had such an awesome time together before he left, i MISS THE STUD!! (Tell him to date my sister so that we can be brothers in law one day haha!)( DO IT STEPH!) Well this week has been a super hard one, the baptism of aldo and yanina fell through... He knows its true, he receieved his answer a month ago, but now he has all of these challenges and problems that usually come when someone is getting to know the gospel and he feels that god is being unfair, now he wants to feel the same way as before just to feel it again, even though he knows hes recieved his answer, hes starting to get back into drinking, going to the same bad places as before and is only praying. Stressful, the family jaquimin, let me tell you that the 3 little girls thought that they had to read the whole book of mormon, in one day they almost got through all of the intro and 1 nefi!!! And they remember the whole story, they came to church alone and all, Rene the old guy, rents a room in their house, we came to find out that him and the mom live drunk, because we passed by one time when they didnt have any money to buy drinks, and they were sober, totally different people, pretty crazy. Maria is ignoring us, or hiding. Our only hope is Elisa and Gonzalo, they have come to church and will be baptised the 19th, i could have had alot of baptisms this month but it seem that we filtered out those that arent willing to follow the commandments, but we wont give up quite yet, ALdo and Yanina commited to being baptised this weekend... We will do our all to help them! But it seems hes falling. We didnt find anyone great this week, it was a hard week to work, im used to the heat, everyone complains but if this is the hottest month im going to great, its nothing like last year... But they say we are far from over haha, but i just think i dont have that much time so its not that bad. My last super summer, i hear its cold in the states, how awesome! I dont care what anyone says i would love some freezing weather, my friend and i sat inside one of those huge freezers today for a while to escape the heat, pretty fun, we played alot of basketball today, i suck even worse than before, ugh, haha. Anyways, this weeks been tuff but as usual nothing new, still homesick as usual but ive really found desires to overcome this stuff, i havent been able to but i really have so much to learn still, im nothing what i want to be, and so ive decided that i have alot to do in the time that i have. Anyways family, i love you all alot, im happy that great things are happening at home! Ill write more next week, hopefully good news, oh man im stressed, exhausted and exhausted. Did i mention stressed, nothing seems to be well but usually something good happens after moments of problems so im hopeing to learn from this. Love ya!