Monday, March 29 2010

FIRST THING FIRST!!! HA-HA-HA HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPH!!!!!! There is an awesome present somewhere in argentina, or in the sky, or somewhere near america right now for you, also for abbey, and for dad, and you will know which this is yours, and abbeys, and dads, haha no need to say what it is, but i thought you would like it, i didnt have any money for collin mom or hannah but you will get your presents someday soon haha. Well this week was just as difficult but every week it is getting a little easier, ive read my patriarchal blessing every morning this week and every day i learn more and more, yes its good that i miss you guys but man it sure would be easier to serve a mission if i wasnt homesick haha, but dont worry i have definitly felt your prayers and even though its tuff i am learning to live with it more and more, in one or two months im sure ill be fine. Oh man i forgot that we had a dog! All of the dogs here are wierd, creepy and always dying, so its hard to imagine a good dog right now haha, and also carpet, i had to think for a minute what is carpet! haha wow im excited to see the house, haha i know the day i get back that its going to be so crazy different, im going to feel like a millionare haha, we are so blessed, and i know why also, i found it in my blessing! So thats been a huge help also, once i found my purpose its easier to work towards it, but i wish i was there to help, um, i dont remember the word, redo? the bathroom, i loved doing the other bathroom! My spanish has improved alot, my grammer is really good, i dont have to correct myself alot, and im speaking alot clearer, i used to think that spanish was just mumbling haha, the only thing im really lacking is pronunciaion and vocab, i have a very little word pool, i speak like a 6 year old haha. But its all good.
The weather here this week has been hot during the days and perfect during the night, so its not too bad, im used to always sweating and stuff, ive learned patience and endurance with the weather and i can wait another 18 months for my perfect weather haha.
Investigators this week... The gomez family was an inch from baptism! This week i had planned an amazing lesson on the importance of eternal families and the shortness of this life, or some thing like that, and it was so amazing that the Dad was pretty stunned, he ususally talks alot but he couldnt talk that much, it was great, then the next time we went to their house the dad was still at work so we were talking to the erst of the family and we chalenged them to baptism, the mom said yes and the others didnt have an opinion yet but they need to get married before, and thats not going to happen so we cant baptise them, we talked with Omar, the dad, but he is really stubbon and prideful, really prideful. Patience, haha, we are teaching a sweet guy named Rodian or something like that, he is a drug officer so hes always out on the river catching smugglers, its pretty cool but really dangeous, he had to move from buenos aries to posadas because the drug lords were after him, he said that in his neighborhood that people pay the homeless to kill people for 2 pesos, or .30 cents. He said there was alot of death, pretty stecky, but his sister is a member and he wants to get baptised so were going to baptise him in three weeks! The zerate family doesnt want anything to do with us so we left them, not much success this week, but were trying.
I am going to send pictures of all of the service i have done this week, the one when im on the roof we had to decontruct a house and it was so hot that in the end i was literally soaked head to toe, like i had fallen in a pool with my clothes on, and i burned my hands because the roofs are metal and the sun just cooks everything, the other is a service where we yet again laid cement, so awesome haha. So i need to recieve pictures from home also, if im going to send pictures i want some pictures back! haha, i miss you all like crazy! Thank you for the email grandpa and grandma, i do love trying to figure out what word your trying to spell haha, just kidding thank you for all of the love and support! I love you family and ill write you again next week, oh and i only get to watch sunday conference, so im going to want all of the talks later, well i love you and anything you want to know ill answer next week!

Monday, March 22 2010

Hello my family! First of all that sounds so cool about stephs random bingham prom dance, sounds like one of the best ones yet, Haha lanaya got engaged, not suprised! She always said she would haha, and jacob dimick got married! how cool! Ya the weather here is great today, 76 degrees with a crazy wild storm, a nice helper, the thunder and lighting here beats out utah 10 to 1 dad, the houses shake with each one, i couldnt sleep half the night haha, Dad tommys going down to las vegas also so maybe you can give him a call one day and hook up, or something haha.
So at the start of this week we didnt have any hope for any of our investigators, but during the week we were really suprised with the gomez family! They are all reading the book of mormon indiviually and as a family and all but the dad attended church! It was really amazing, the zerate family who we had no hope for, we passed by them and we were recivied with excitement, so we have alot of hope for them also! We found a family who almost baptised but for one reason or another didn,t but they want to go to church again so yet again heavenly father is showing us that there is always hope and he is preparing people to have the gospel shared with, we spent alot of time this week contacting in the streets and im getting better at talking to people, im really trying hard to focus on improving my teaching skills, like always this week has been really tuff, but im trying my hardest to forget my self, but homesickness is such a killer, the hardest thing ive ever had to conquer, like dad wrote in his email i felt like i was at the point of breaking two or three times, one that literally brought me to my knees, i dont know why my mission is so tuff haha, but im trying my best, ive definitly put my trust in god this week, and ive felt his love more this week than ever before, its painfully tuff, but i have a firm hope for the future, i feel it in my heart, my heavenly father is always with me, this is a time of learning for me, ive learned how to endure, and i can take alot of punches, Patience haha, im really trusting in dads promise and i hope to find the love of my mission, every week im a inch closer haha, slowly but surely, i love you all so much and i miss you more than words can write, im sorry about grandma, Argentina mail stinks, the only mail is Entre Ríos 435 - Resistencia - Chaco- Código Postal 3500, so keep trying i guess, or email is better, i always have time to read! Im going to visit iguazu falls in two weeks so that will be fun! Well i love you all and ill talk to you next week!

Monday, March 15 2010

Haha ya its crazy another week! And another transfer, which i am staying in my same area so we will see how it all goes, i get to learn more patience from my companion haha, its all for the best. This week has been interesting, tuesday was one of my most successful days in the mission we encountered alot of new investigators and we did alot of contacting, and i practiced simplifying my contacts with people, then wednesday morning i found out i was staying here and my companion and i laid cement for a part member family, which was alot of fun but really hot, which we continued the next morning, then friday morning we cleared out a backyard for a member so they can plant a garden, so we have done alot of service this week, which i have enjoyed, i really became acustomed to the heat and it hasnt been bad at all this week, but like always the hard part of the week is homesickness, which is such a struggle haha, i have a feeling ill always be homesick but i just need to work, and hopefully it will go away one day, so this week we have pretty much lost all of our investigators, one we baptised, Juan who is 14, so that was good, during the baptism the power went out so we had to wait for it to come back on, the baptism was kind of sad, since we had no support from the ward, none of the bishopbric or mission leaders came and it was only the missionaires and two kids that were playing ping pong at the church. But he was happy and thats all that matters. But the rest of our investigators we havent had any success, none are progressing and so were starting to drop more and more, this week we will spend all of our time in the streets looking for more new investigators, not much else has happened this week, it passed by pretty quickly and it wasnt that good of a week so its suprising how fast time flies, steph college is so much better, just perservere and enjoy what time you have left of that place, collin, havent heard from you in a while kid, kick butt in the meet, waste them all haha, abbey and hannah enjoy your honkin` play haha, i love you all and i enjoy hearing from you guys. Here are some pictures for you guys, of my apartment, my baptisms, and other stuff, we will see if it all works haha!

Monday, March 8 2010

Hey Family! Well this week, like all weeks flew by! And like all weeks its had its ups and downs, i never thought that home would be a weakness if you understand me, its really hard to work when i miss my family so much! But dont worry im being taken care of! My Zone loves me and they are helping me in all of my challenges, but even more than they the Lord has been with me so much this week! I am learning the calling of a missionary is more of a privelage than ever before!
Well this week Ramon the shirtless found himself some nice white pants and a nice clean white shirt and he got it all wet in the baptismal font! Which means hes now baptised! Man it was an awesome experience, but before this my companion and i needed to get it all set up, which was a wreck! haha the baptismal font was filled from the previous elders baptism and the pump wasnt working and the font was really dirty, but somehow in a half hour we got it all cleaned and filled up, and luckily, or more like miraculously we had just enough water for the baptism, because the water cuts out here and we can go without water for hours or days! And alot of other things were going wrong but minutes before the baptism everything fell perfectly into place and we had a very awesome baptism, haha when he was in the font he was really scared of the water and the bishop had to force him under, but it really was a spiritual experience and you can see the change in his eyes.
We have another baptism this saturday and so im exicited to see this next one, this week we have two families we are working really hard with, the Montero family, which is a grandma, and through her we are teaching all of her daughters and sons so we have alot of potential baptisms, two of which i am sure will be baptised, but when is the real question. And the other family is the Gomez family, and the mom knows the gospel is true and the daughter is in love with the young womens program and she is reading and praying and believes its true, but the dad is so stubburn haha, he even told us he is rebelious and that when he wants to he will change, we know his weakness is his children so hopefully through patience and perserverance he will come about, oh and one other couple, the Sanders, they had a fight this weekend so we only ended up teaching the girl but she really loved what we taught her and you can see the change that the spirit brings to people.
Yesterday was stake conference and we came with a member who lived in arizona and loved his mission here so much that he moved back here, so its always fun to visit with him about things we had back in the states, like pegs on bikes and all you can drink fountain drinks at taco bell and stuff. But anyways the conference at the stake center was packed! And all of the missonaries in the stake, all 32 of us were lined up on the wall, 16 on one and 16 on the other, and we stood for two hours, but what a spiritual experiance! Since we were standing everyone could see us and almost every talk ended up talking about missionary work, our president was there and he talked about our sacrifice and everything that missionaries do in a comical way, but it really hit me how important and how special my calling is, that as i stood on the side looking at all of my "comrades", my companions, that we were really the warriors of the stake, to me haha, that through us we bring the lost into the protection of the fold, and as i looked into the fold i could see the recent converts of mine, and of the other elders and the happiness they had, and the love i had for them, and i realized that i had been sinning for the past two months with wanting this time here to go by so fast so i can return home, and for the first time i think i really understood what a calling is, and the trust that Jesus Christ has in me, today we had a bbq for three of my friends who are leaving for home, and we had a testimony meeting with them, and they shared their experiences and testimonies, and i can tell you that the spirit is extremely strong when someone is giving a final testimony so to speak, that ive never felt so unworthy to be in such great company as the heros who i get to work side by side, and i realized how much i need to work at being the best i can be! Anyways i got to go but know that i love you all and i miss you so much! Know im going to give it my all this week and i love you so much!! Keep up the good life and ill talk to you after my battle with satan this week!

Monday, March 1 2010 - Pray for the Chilean Missionaries

first im sorry i cant send pics!! maybe the new site will be able to. Well this week is a sad one right now, three missionaries died in one mission in chile, via dela rosa i think, and 13 are missing, and its in the mission that was farthest from the epicenter, my district leader is from conception chile and the only news they have from there is that the church is completley destroyed, and his house is across the street, so hes been trying to call his family but noone is answering, and the mission president doesnt has been trying to contact the conception mission but to no success. So we are a little nervous, but trust in the lord.
On a brighter note, this weeks weather has been freezing! A whopping 65 degrees during the night!! and about 81 to 85 during the day!! Haha cool no! its definitly been great physically, i started to work out really hard because ive gained a few pounds... maybe just a little more than a few haha, but its all good! Yesterday there was a huge fire! My area is the farthest from the city, right on the country line and the whole countryside was on fire!! The whole countryside! It was crazy, ive been pretty tired this week, working hard, trying to forget about home alot haha, its hard to work when homesick, but its so easy to forget yourself when you work, ive learned alot of patience this week and its paying off, i love to learn from my trials!! When all of the missionaries get together it always comes up how much longer we have, and most only have a year, 7 or 8 transfers, and i always say i have like 26 or so, which is like 4 years haha, everyone laughs and then i realized that we shouldnt worry about time haha.
Our investigators are lazy this week, the gomez family is progressing though! The dad is still a pain in the butt, he never really had a father growing up and had noone to tell him what to do so when we come in and ask him to come to church and keep the commandments and read the book of mormon he is a little rebelious, a big baby haha, but were working with him, hes starting to change a little, i found his weakness is his children so ive been getting them to come to church and to mutual and stuff like that, and he will slowly change. Ramon got married and we are going to have his baptism friday! He is always reading the book of mormon which is sweet and he is definitly excited to be baptised, his whole family is catholic and hes willing to be discharged from his family to be a member. I also have another baptism friday, a young 14 year old named juan, he is loving the gospel and is loving all of the free books he gets from us haha. But the rest of our investigators arent doing so hot, one family named angel silva, the kids are a mess! haha they threw ice cream all over me so for the rest of the day it looked like i had been massacred with ice cream! Smelled awful, its such a disgusting flavor of ice cream, im gagging just thinking about it! haha, none of our other investigators are progressing so we are starting to drop them for a month or so to see if they really want to progress. So we are finding new investigators and we found a less active family who has alot of family members that are not members but are willing to listen, and its always best when they have known members for a while so we are starting to work with them! And we encountered a couple who the man in just like uncle dave, such a wierdo! ;) no haha he is really funny and energetic and wants to learn about our gospel, mostly so he can find out how to steal the solid gold angel on top of the temple haha, they are progressing rapidly for just encountering them so hopefully we have a chance! My companion isnt the best at obedience but im trying my hardest to help him, its a little tough but patience will win out, i feel like we can have so much more success if he is just willing to keep all of the little rules, and we will be able to work so much more effiencintly and powerfully! Funny story, i encountered a man on saturday morning in the city, because all of the missionaries got together to revive old members, and a man approached me and started to speak english, so i tried my hardest to talk to him in english but freak it was hard! I couldnt do it very well and only half of my words came out english, but he said that our religion was by far the best and that he really wants to join but believes that christ drank wine so he doesnt want to come to church, but the point of the story is that i can speak english very well and my spanish sucks also so i dont know what im going to do hahahaha.
Haha i about died crying when hannah wanted a castrator for christmas, sounds like life at home is going perfect, to start my list of things for my first package, i want to have ingredients to make homemade syrup so i can make more than you can send, if that make sense, and the rest nutter butters!! haha and those packs of 5 hot wheels cars, i want two of those so i can give cars to kids, because their toy cars here stink, all are plastic, and i want a book called missionary pal, you can buy it at deseret book i think, it has a bunch of refrences for different topics, perfect for missionaries! Well its march! time flew by hahah, im really starting to love it here and the days that are really hard im learing patience and im always feeling the love of the lord! Its hard to be here but im learning to love it, and starting to feel the time flying by! I love you all so much and i absolutley loved the email from lindsay! haha if everyone could send an email like that i would have a hayday!! i miss all of you so much! see you all next week!

Monday, February 22 2010 -- Hard Work Helps Homesickness

Wow im so jealous of the trip to yellowstone!!! ah thats so crazy awesome! Ya it will definitly be worth it when i get back haha, well this week has been good, very busy. To answer dads questions, Ramon is the old 72 year old man, and the Zarate family turned out to be flakers, they arent interested, they dont believe man can see god, and they wont give us the time to explain. haha and pretending to be an aussie is pretty sweet, haha it doesnt cause problems. This week we have worked really hard with the inactives in our area to try and bring them back to church, there is no point to the baptisms if we cant keep them in the church so the bishop has asked us to work with 5 families in the area, and we had a little success, one of the five familes came to church and we are now teaching the brother of the family, but the others wont come to church but are more than willing to let us come visit them, so thats good.
Our work with our progressing investigators was really slow this week, not much progress, except with the gomez family! The mother and daughter came to church yesterday, so it shows that our hard work is working out, but the father isnt giving in, and if we cant get the father then we cant have the family... so thats been tuff! Juan, who is 14, needs permission to be baptized and his grandma wont give it to him because he is disrespectful and he is not taking what we teach him seriously so we are going to try and work with him and teach him the importance of this gospel. Ramon is supposedly going to be married this friday, i hope so, hes been taught everything since november and so right now its just reviews and pass bys and service, which is nice but im ready for him to be dunked haha, there are some promising investigators that we have, we couldnt find the construction worker this week but we talked with his daughter who is interested so that should be a helper to him, and we are teaching a guy who played soccer for yugoslavia and mexico and he knows alot of languages haha, it was really sweet to talk with him, hes very mature which is very difficult to find here haha, everything else is about the same with all of our other investigators, but i love teaching them. Interesting fact that i should have already known but i found out the hard way yesterday, this weekend has been tuff, saturday night was a day to just perservere, we walked for 4 or 5 hours without teaching anyone! and it was hot hot hot, and there was no wind so it was a beating on me haha, and i have felt soooo homesick this week, but while i was working yesterday i was talking with a inactive and i was explaining that we have to do things we dont want because she is having a hard time wanted to come to church, we always have to search for the kindgom of god first and sometimes its things we dont want to do, and i shared how i didnt want to come on a mission but that its what heavenly father wanted and i was willing to trust him and now im here, and i explained how hard it was to leave my family and everything, and after she said she would come back and then she said, with a testimony like yours your homesickness will pass, and then i as i was working i realized that its the cure to homesickness, to continually work! So thats what i do when i get homesick! I work haha, sorry if you cant understand what im saying, its getting hard to speak english and i have to think pretty hard to remember words and stuff, well i have to go, i miss you so much and im just trying to work and be patient, i hope to become like taylor haha! how cool it will be when i want to stay here! Well i love you and i know that this gospel is the only way to happiness! Goodbye until next week my family!

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!