¡Hola Familia!
this week i received both of the paquetes (packages) that i have been waiting for! thank you! thank you! thank you! thank you! i look so studly in my glasses and when the people look at me in the street, they no longer think of me as some fetchin´ gringo. they think ´´oh my goodness, i want to learn something from him´´. yes, they have already made a huge impact here. by the way, abásalo is a small town outside of comodoro rivadavia and it is kind of like the ghetto part of the area. other than that, i also received the package from jacie and it was the best-est most awesome package ever!! i loved getting it and i loved the pictures and the scripture mastery cards! they are very useful and i am very grateful. i already received some little pictures from my mission president that i can use but i think the pictures you sent are way better. the pictures of me made me a little discouraged because i was way chubby before my mission. i think i will still show them i guess... please send me more pictures! now i only have one (now old and outdated) picture of the family and a bunch of jacie´s family, so if the rest of you guys want to be represented, you should send some pictures of yourselves (preferably with me or whatever). oh! and please start putting dates on the dear elder letters because the papers i receive do not tell me when the letters were sent.
there is one woman that we are teaching right now, Cecilia, that is accepting everything and wants to come to church. her mom was baptized years ago but has not been to church in a long time. cecilia has a son that is 8 years old (santi) that tells us all the time that he wants to be a missionary too and that family is very cool. she is waiting for an answer to her prayers about the church so the last time we talked to her, we just helped her to recognize the different ways that God answers prayers to know the truth. we are just waiting now. maxi is a stud because he came to church again this week without his family but he is very enthusiastic about the church and he is really helping his family. we set fechas with maxi´s older brother, nico, and nico´s friend, leo, for the 12th of febrero and we should be able to set a fecha with maxi for the same day or a week sooner. the family is really cool and they accept everything we have taught and they are actually reading the folletos y el libro de mormón! there are tons of inactive members that we find all the time. there are about 100 priesthood holders in our ward but only about 15 are active. we found one man, hno lepicheo, that is a chef, and he has been making us lunches about once a week. yummmm. milanesa con huevos y jamón y los mejores papas fritas que he probado en mi vida! me encanta. is there another temple in construction in Argentina? i have heard that there is another temple in cordoba but i am pretty sure there is only one temple in buenos aires. this morning i cut e´ escobar´s hair and i did an awesome job. i am coming to know i have thousands of hidden talents but i never imagined cutting hair would be one of them...
i talked to pte peterson this week because he came to the zone and we all had interviews with him. i asked him if he could send some bigger missionaries to my ward because my comp and i are the same height and we aren`t the biggest, but pte made it sound like he was thinking of transferring us both to send in new elders there. i sure hope not because things are just starting to come around!!! my last companion in the mtc, e´ page, is officially in argentina and i really want to see him again. pte peterson told me that he is in trevelín in the mountains and he wanted the pte to say hello for him. my companion and i have officially made a weekly tradition to go to Grido Helado every monday to buy 2 half kilos of ice cream and then we go to the beach to eat them. i discovered coco dulce de leche and bariloche chocolate. amazing. momma- there are sister missionaries in this mission but not too many. there are none in comodoro but i think they are all more in the northern areas. that is awesome to hear people are getting their mission calls. shouldn´t jeff alldredge be getting his mission call really soon? the missionaries here from different religions get really angry with people when they don´t want to talk with them. one jehovah´s witness was talking with a woman from our ward when we walked up and said hello but we didn´t stay because we had servicio to move a bunch of dirt for a family that is building a house. the next time we talked to that hermana, she told us that the jehovah´s witness said ´´i was just about to talk about jehovah when those mormons showed up, now, i am sorry but i can´t do it.´´ she then said ´´well if you can´t have love for mormons, you cant have love to teach anyone so you must not have the truth. please leave.´´ i was impressed with her. i love bearing testimony with them because they don´t believe jehovah is jesus so i say things like ´´and i know that the great Jehovah, the lord Jesus Christ, lives and loves everyone of us.´´ it is great to see their faces twist because there is nothing they can do to respond.
lately it has been really hot so my comp and i leave the window open at night and because there is a ton of dust and sand everywhere, we find tons of little footprints of a cat all over the pensión in the morning. in the kitchen, the trash was ripped apart and spread everywhere because the cat wanted the meat that we threw away. the trash system in argentina is a mess because everyone has these little metal baskets in front of their houses that they are supposed to put their trash. nobody does it and there are diapers flying everywhere in the wind. we dont have big garbage bags, just little plastic bags to fit in this little basket so we have ´´trash corners´´. its bad but we do pretty well to contain it and keep our place looking tidy but it is hard when those dumb cats spread it around. my comp wants to catch that cat and feed it to our starving dogs. we have two that guard our pensión and i named them Tontito and Amigo de Tontito (Dummy and Friend of Dummy). my comp likes those names a lot. here, to tell people that they are stupid is VERY strong and people get very offended. i thought that was interesting because in the US it isn´t that bad.
there are 2 main futbol teams in argentina- boca and river. these teams are very popular and people get killed here because they are fans of different teams. here in abásalo, people are mainly fans of river so when people ask me which team i am for, i say am for river. people here are not respectful at all. when they ask me how to say ´´you are a (bleepin´ bleep)´´ in english, i tell them you say ´i wish i was missionary too´´. it is really funny to hear them shouting those things at me as we walk away because they think they are cussing me out. fetchin´ chorros... so dumb. i am pretty comfortable speaking castellano and i it is a lot easier to speak with people now. i feel like i am in my element now and things are going great. i have definitely come a long way in the last 3 months and i like looking back in my journal to see the challenges i used to have. the last few weeks i have been focusing on teaching people, not lessons and it has been incredibly easier to understand people. when i open my mouth, i dont think about how to conjugate verbs or about using proper grammar, but i just talk to the people and say the things they need to hear. after those lessons, i feel great. i LOVE being a missionary and it is so much fun! thank you for the packages, they were so awesome! now i just need some pictures from mis papás, shane, annie, jamie, and mollie. there is this one old woman in my ward that asks if i have more pictures from my family every week and i am ashamed to tell her that i still dont have pictures. i regret not bringing any from home but i´m working on sending my own pictures from the mish... but it is a little difficult to whip out my camera right now. there´s a lamanita next to me that is watching me pretty close right now so the pictures will wait for next week.
¡¡Con mucho amor de su misionero favorito!!
Elder Summers
Monday, January 24, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Day 82
¡Hola Familia!
Another week of amazing-ness. i told my companion a lot this week how fast the time seemed to go. these past few weeks have just flown by!!! last monday, we never went to play more futbol, but we took a bus with another district to go to the beach. it was so awesome there but we couldnt go in... that was kind of a downer. BUT- we are planning on going again to play some futbol and eat some vaca loca (sandwich place that is incredible with eggs and milanesa, and every amazing thing imaginable). should be great. one time on the bus, it was only me and e´ escobar in the back of the bus with 3 lamanitas (we call them that sometimes because they are darker than the other people and they arent the nicest) ahead of us. we watched them very closely and they were so dumb with all of their hand signals and they would turn around a lot to watch us. we knew they wanted ´´all the money that we carried with us all the time´´. at one bus stop, as the doors starting closing again, we jumped off the bus and just ran away. it was intense but it was pretty fun too. we looked back and they all stood up on the bus to follow but there was nothing they could do. i felt like jason bourne or something. i also had some samuel the lamanite experiences as well this week. one time we were walking down this hill and this dog starting attacking me but a huge rock the size of my fist pegged the dog in the neck. we looked over and there were some punks throwing rocks at us but we just walked away and none of them hit us. the dog started pursuing us again because it was possessed or something and i heard it whelp again as we left. awesome.
there is a book that my comp is reading right now called the ´´teachings of the prophet joseph smith´´ and he tells me that i should get it in english because there was a lot of stuff in there that blew his mind and he would make loud noises when he read something awesome. i want to read really bad so i am going to ask pte peterson if i can get it in english or something but i think i could be fine reading it in castellano too... i saw a 3 legged dog and a puppy kill a cat together. that was something i will probably never see again and my comp really enjoyed watching it. that puppy was so brave.
ihadthe opportunity to give a woman a blessing of healing this week. when we talked to her, she was crying and miserable saying her heart was really hurting and the doctors dont know what is wrong with her. her eyes were very heavy and she had difficulties breathing. i asked her ´´do you have faith in Jesus Christ?´´. she said she did so i offered to give her a blessing of healing and she accepted. in ten minutes she was a completely different person and she was laughing as we left the house. she hasnt come to church though and she wont get married to her ´´partner´´ because she was married before and she doesn´t want to be married to anyone else. we had 3 investigators come to church yesterday!!!!!!! that was HUGE!!! rosa and her daughter came, rosa wants to be baptized but her ´´partner´´ is already married to a woman in peru with 2 kids and he wont get divorced to marry her. maxi also came. he is 14 and he came to church all by himself. his dad was baptized like 20 years ago but is now menos activo his family is very cool and none of them are members. yet. i taught the lesson for him all by myself because my comp went to teach a different class for sunday school and i had direct the class for investigators. i just starting talking about the espiritu santo and everything just went from there. i surprised myself with how well i was able to do it and i am glad i had the help from my father in heaven. now, maxi wants to baptized but we havent taught his family anything so far. it was so awesome. we had divisions with other elders in the area next to ours. elder perez stayed the night in my pension while my comp stayed at the other place. we worked a whole day together but the day was very strange. pte peterson asked us to complete a survey online so we went to a ciber close to e´ perez´s pension and we had a little extra time before our next cita. he wanted to play a quick prank on his comp so we snuck into their pensión and we hid all of the valuables and money and rifled through everything to look like they were robbed because they left their window open. we met up with the other elders and we all went to their place together but his comp didnt really do anything. my comp was very upset and ran to tell the family that pay rent to but we already told them what we did so they were in on it. e´ perez hid in the bathroom because he couldnt keep a straight face and i was left by myself to deal with them. he pretended to call pte peterson and then my comp wanted to say a prayer before e´ perez finally told them anything. it was great. mom- we email pte peterson every week and i sometimes get personal emails from him to see how i am doing because he knows how abásalo can be. i actually have an interview with him on wednesday because he is coming to comodoro this week and i am excited to see him again. still no glasses but my zone leaders made it sound like i got lots of stuff in la bolsa del correo this week. i hope i got my packages today... we will see. dad- i am actually doing very well with my journal writing and i have written in it every day on my mission so far. i have another journal that i write in everyday for my goals and for the things that i learn during my study time everyday. it is awesome looking back because i can remember those days perfectly when i read in my journal. wasn´t evita´s name eva duarte before she was married? we live off of a street called eva duarte and our chapel is on the corner of that street and huergo. oh- and i do at least 50 really good pushups everyday when i wake up so i can be extra buff when i go home. my comp is a beast in the mornings and he is very serious when he works out. that is not a time for jokes... i have read a lot with my study time. so far on my mission i have read the book of mormon, d&c, the pearl of great price, almost half of the old testament, our search for happiness by e´ ballard, and i am reading Jesus the Christ right now. almost done. i have learned so much and i am just ´´thirsting´´ for more knowledge. i found lots and lots of scriptures and i am working on including more from the new testament along with the BoM in the teachings. i am getting very good and my companion is really good at explaining everything. i have learned so much from him and i am grateful to have him as a friend. oh, how much would a roundtrip flight to costa rica cost? i told him i might go to his wedding if he converts his girlfriend and marries her in the temple after the mission. i am so excited for the bolsa because i can feel lots of love coming in the mail. we will see... i feel like i have made tons of progress here. in church, the people have watched me progress and tell me how much better i have become because my first week i didn´t talk very much. now i almost understand everything and i can say pretty much whatever i want. the natives tell me i am very good at conjugating the words i can use por and para a lot better than any of the gringo missionaries they have ever talked to. i take that as a compliment even though i dont consider myself a gringo. lately, i have been surprised how much these people will tell the missionaries because they are ´´men of God´´. there are lots of people here with lots of problems and it is so sad to sit and listen but we do our best to comfort them and demonstrate how the gospel will actually help them. i am grateful for this chance to be a missionary and i know that it has changed me already for the rest of my life. i love abásalo and these people (aunque hay muchísimos chorros y lamanitas) and i love to serve them. i know that the Savior lives and i see His hand in everything. thank you all for all of your support and i love you all!
¡¡¡Con una sonrisa y mucho amor!!!
Elder Summers
Another week of amazing-ness. i told my companion a lot this week how fast the time seemed to go. these past few weeks have just flown by!!! last monday, we never went to play more futbol, but we took a bus with another district to go to the beach. it was so awesome there but we couldnt go in... that was kind of a downer. BUT- we are planning on going again to play some futbol and eat some vaca loca (sandwich place that is incredible with eggs and milanesa, and every amazing thing imaginable). should be great. one time on the bus, it was only me and e´ escobar in the back of the bus with 3 lamanitas (we call them that sometimes because they are darker than the other people and they arent the nicest) ahead of us. we watched them very closely and they were so dumb with all of their hand signals and they would turn around a lot to watch us. we knew they wanted ´´all the money that we carried with us all the time´´. at one bus stop, as the doors starting closing again, we jumped off the bus and just ran away. it was intense but it was pretty fun too. we looked back and they all stood up on the bus to follow but there was nothing they could do. i felt like jason bourne or something. i also had some samuel the lamanite experiences as well this week. one time we were walking down this hill and this dog starting attacking me but a huge rock the size of my fist pegged the dog in the neck. we looked over and there were some punks throwing rocks at us but we just walked away and none of them hit us. the dog started pursuing us again because it was possessed or something and i heard it whelp again as we left. awesome.
there is a book that my comp is reading right now called the ´´teachings of the prophet joseph smith´´ and he tells me that i should get it in english because there was a lot of stuff in there that blew his mind and he would make loud noises when he read something awesome. i want to read really bad so i am going to ask pte peterson if i can get it in english or something but i think i could be fine reading it in castellano too... i saw a 3 legged dog and a puppy kill a cat together. that was something i will probably never see again and my comp really enjoyed watching it. that puppy was so brave.
ihadthe opportunity to give a woman a blessing of healing this week. when we talked to her, she was crying and miserable saying her heart was really hurting and the doctors dont know what is wrong with her. her eyes were very heavy and she had difficulties breathing. i asked her ´´do you have faith in Jesus Christ?´´. she said she did so i offered to give her a blessing of healing and she accepted. in ten minutes she was a completely different person and she was laughing as we left the house. she hasnt come to church though and she wont get married to her ´´partner´´ because she was married before and she doesn´t want to be married to anyone else. we had 3 investigators come to church yesterday!!!!!!! that was HUGE!!! rosa and her daughter came, rosa wants to be baptized but her ´´partner´´ is already married to a woman in peru with 2 kids and he wont get divorced to marry her. maxi also came. he is 14 and he came to church all by himself. his dad was baptized like 20 years ago but is now menos activo his family is very cool and none of them are members. yet. i taught the lesson for him all by myself because my comp went to teach a different class for sunday school and i had direct the class for investigators. i just starting talking about the espiritu santo and everything just went from there. i surprised myself with how well i was able to do it and i am glad i had the help from my father in heaven. now, maxi wants to baptized but we havent taught his family anything so far. it was so awesome. we had divisions with other elders in the area next to ours. elder perez stayed the night in my pension while my comp stayed at the other place. we worked a whole day together but the day was very strange. pte peterson asked us to complete a survey online so we went to a ciber close to e´ perez´s pension and we had a little extra time before our next cita. he wanted to play a quick prank on his comp so we snuck into their pensión and we hid all of the valuables and money and rifled through everything to look like they were robbed because they left their window open. we met up with the other elders and we all went to their place together but his comp didnt really do anything. my comp was very upset and ran to tell the family that pay rent to but we already told them what we did so they were in on it. e´ perez hid in the bathroom because he couldnt keep a straight face and i was left by myself to deal with them. he pretended to call pte peterson and then my comp wanted to say a prayer before e´ perez finally told them anything. it was great. mom- we email pte peterson every week and i sometimes get personal emails from him to see how i am doing because he knows how abásalo can be. i actually have an interview with him on wednesday because he is coming to comodoro this week and i am excited to see him again. still no glasses but my zone leaders made it sound like i got lots of stuff in la bolsa del correo this week. i hope i got my packages today... we will see. dad- i am actually doing very well with my journal writing and i have written in it every day on my mission so far. i have another journal that i write in everyday for my goals and for the things that i learn during my study time everyday. it is awesome looking back because i can remember those days perfectly when i read in my journal. wasn´t evita´s name eva duarte before she was married? we live off of a street called eva duarte and our chapel is on the corner of that street and huergo. oh- and i do at least 50 really good pushups everyday when i wake up so i can be extra buff when i go home. my comp is a beast in the mornings and he is very serious when he works out. that is not a time for jokes... i have read a lot with my study time. so far on my mission i have read the book of mormon, d&c, the pearl of great price, almost half of the old testament, our search for happiness by e´ ballard, and i am reading Jesus the Christ right now. almost done. i have learned so much and i am just ´´thirsting´´ for more knowledge. i found lots and lots of scriptures and i am working on including more from the new testament along with the BoM in the teachings. i am getting very good and my companion is really good at explaining everything. i have learned so much from him and i am grateful to have him as a friend. oh, how much would a roundtrip flight to costa rica cost? i told him i might go to his wedding if he converts his girlfriend and marries her in the temple after the mission. i am so excited for the bolsa because i can feel lots of love coming in the mail. we will see... i feel like i have made tons of progress here. in church, the people have watched me progress and tell me how much better i have become because my first week i didn´t talk very much. now i almost understand everything and i can say pretty much whatever i want. the natives tell me i am very good at conjugating the words i can use por and para a lot better than any of the gringo missionaries they have ever talked to. i take that as a compliment even though i dont consider myself a gringo. lately, i have been surprised how much these people will tell the missionaries because they are ´´men of God´´. there are lots of people here with lots of problems and it is so sad to sit and listen but we do our best to comfort them and demonstrate how the gospel will actually help them. i am grateful for this chance to be a missionary and i know that it has changed me already for the rest of my life. i love abásalo and these people (aunque hay muchísimos chorros y lamanitas) and i love to serve them. i know that the Savior lives and i see His hand in everything. thank you all for all of your support and i love you all!
¡¡¡Con una sonrisa y mucho amor!!!
Elder Summers
Monday, January 10, 2011
Day 75
¡Hola Familia!
this question has been burning in my mind all week. dad- did you just have people call you elder veranos? i am seriously considering it but i enjoy listening to the people struggling to pronounce my name. i get really surprised when they actually know what it means and just say e´ veranos. the ward finally split? how many people are in the ward now? i bet obispo bashaw will be awesome. this week my comp and i walked into the chapel to find out who we are going to eat with for the week and a whole bunch of windows were shattered with rocks. now we have plastic windows in our church but i kept a small piece of a window to show people that it actually happened. this week was very very very hot but everyone gave us tons and tons of juice to drink. last monday, a guy came up to confront us with his gang standing behind him. my comp was eating some candy and the guy tried to rip it from his hand but e´ escobar is a beast and they just struggled for a bit. i walked up closer and said ´´hey! cual es su problema? por favor, dejanos en paz.´´ the guy ripped his hand from my comps grip and just punched him in the face. he started laughing and ran back to his gang while my comp just sat there and just started cussing him out. i had to drag him away because he wanted to fight them. if my companion would have done anything, im sure that gang would have a gun or a knife the next time but we haven´t seen them at all this past week. my hair is doing a lot better. e´ escobar promised me that the nick above my ear has grown over and it isn´t as bad as before. i actually like my hair this short and i think i look extra studdly, in a missionary kind of way of course. thank you thank you thank you for sending me the conversions for this stuff. it helps me a lot! the bottles of soda here are very different because they are 2.25 litros and they are skinny and very long. im sure that the bottles of soda in the U.S. will freak me out when i go home because i have gotten used to these. i love how it is summer here but sometimes i kind of miss the snow! there are peach trees in some yards and they are just starting to get ripe. when we find one that just fell to the ground we don´t hesitate to eat it because they are so good! i think they are ´´damascos´´ because they are mini peaches. to answer some questions: e´ escobar is an awesome district leader and things are a little different in our district. last friday, we had divisions for a whole day and my comp went with a younger missionary while that elders comp stayed with me in abásalo for the whole day. i was with e´judd and i felt a lot better about myself because he has been in the mission for 8 months and i think that i can speak just as well, if not better than him. although one guy answered the door and i said ´´good morning! we are the missionaries of the church of jesus christ and we´´ ´´i know, i can tell because of your accent´´. my heart was broken, but im working on it. i usually mix up my intros while we are clapping doors and i have even challenged people for baptism right off the bat. it hasnt worked yet but maybe in the future... mom- i love the scripture you shared with me about alma and their burdens because i just shared that scripture with a family a few days ago that has some financial struggles. one thing i noticed about those scriptures is that they say we need to have patience and bear our desafíos with gladness. that is the problem because the lord is not going to take our challenges away immediately and that is the worst part dealing with the challenges for a long time. i have been talking to my mission president about some of the things that has been happening and he gave me some tips to avoid more problems. he made it sound like i might be here one more transfer but we are going to see... Oh! my soccer skills are ok. we haven´t played a whole lot lately because we haven´t had p-day with the other elders in a few weeks but we are going to play today and i am stoked. Elder Judd showed me some tricks i can use while we are playing. when i was with him, we decided to just walk out to this area a mile away to knock some doors because e´escobar and i have been wanting to go for awhile but never had the chance. this area is part of our ward boundaries and one member actually lives out there. they told us that there are tons of great people out there but nobody answered their doors. they did peek out through the windows and shook their fingers to tell us to go away. That is awesome that Ryan Oaks got his mission call! i saw his sister in the mtc a few times and thats cool they will be in the same mission. i really think that this transfer is going a lot faster than the last one and it sometimes feels like the weeks are just slurring together. ok! i have some pictures this week. i love you all and i am looking forward to hearing more from you guys next week!
Un abrazo y 5 besos y más abrazos
Elder Summers
these are from the day we went climbed cerro chenque. it was very windy and it took awhile to set the camera up without falling and we had to position ourselves right. trial and error... the other pictures are of me climbing the roof on new years. we all climbed it to watch the fireworks and we had a party with our orange fanta. elder gomez, elder judd, me in the center, and elder escobar is in the red. i have some more... but those will wait for other times.
this question has been burning in my mind all week. dad- did you just have people call you elder veranos? i am seriously considering it but i enjoy listening to the people struggling to pronounce my name. i get really surprised when they actually know what it means and just say e´ veranos. the ward finally split? how many people are in the ward now? i bet obispo bashaw will be awesome. this week my comp and i walked into the chapel to find out who we are going to eat with for the week and a whole bunch of windows were shattered with rocks. now we have plastic windows in our church but i kept a small piece of a window to show people that it actually happened. this week was very very very hot but everyone gave us tons and tons of juice to drink. last monday, a guy came up to confront us with his gang standing behind him. my comp was eating some candy and the guy tried to rip it from his hand but e´ escobar is a beast and they just struggled for a bit. i walked up closer and said ´´hey! cual es su problema? por favor, dejanos en paz.´´ the guy ripped his hand from my comps grip and just punched him in the face. he started laughing and ran back to his gang while my comp just sat there and just started cussing him out. i had to drag him away because he wanted to fight them. if my companion would have done anything, im sure that gang would have a gun or a knife the next time but we haven´t seen them at all this past week. my hair is doing a lot better. e´ escobar promised me that the nick above my ear has grown over and it isn´t as bad as before. i actually like my hair this short and i think i look extra studdly, in a missionary kind of way of course. thank you thank you thank you for sending me the conversions for this stuff. it helps me a lot! the bottles of soda here are very different because they are 2.25 litros and they are skinny and very long. im sure that the bottles of soda in the U.S. will freak me out when i go home because i have gotten used to these. i love how it is summer here but sometimes i kind of miss the snow! there are peach trees in some yards and they are just starting to get ripe. when we find one that just fell to the ground we don´t hesitate to eat it because they are so good! i think they are ´´damascos´´ because they are mini peaches. to answer some questions: e´ escobar is an awesome district leader and things are a little different in our district. last friday, we had divisions for a whole day and my comp went with a younger missionary while that elders comp stayed with me in abásalo for the whole day. i was with e´judd and i felt a lot better about myself because he has been in the mission for 8 months and i think that i can speak just as well, if not better than him. although one guy answered the door and i said ´´good morning! we are the missionaries of the church of jesus christ and we´´ ´´i know, i can tell because of your accent´´. my heart was broken, but im working on it. i usually mix up my intros while we are clapping doors and i have even challenged people for baptism right off the bat. it hasnt worked yet but maybe in the future... mom- i love the scripture you shared with me about alma and their burdens because i just shared that scripture with a family a few days ago that has some financial struggles. one thing i noticed about those scriptures is that they say we need to have patience and bear our desafíos with gladness. that is the problem because the lord is not going to take our challenges away immediately and that is the worst part dealing with the challenges for a long time. i have been talking to my mission president about some of the things that has been happening and he gave me some tips to avoid more problems. he made it sound like i might be here one more transfer but we are going to see... Oh! my soccer skills are ok. we haven´t played a whole lot lately because we haven´t had p-day with the other elders in a few weeks but we are going to play today and i am stoked. Elder Judd showed me some tricks i can use while we are playing. when i was with him, we decided to just walk out to this area a mile away to knock some doors because e´escobar and i have been wanting to go for awhile but never had the chance. this area is part of our ward boundaries and one member actually lives out there. they told us that there are tons of great people out there but nobody answered their doors. they did peek out through the windows and shook their fingers to tell us to go away. That is awesome that Ryan Oaks got his mission call! i saw his sister in the mtc a few times and thats cool they will be in the same mission. i really think that this transfer is going a lot faster than the last one and it sometimes feels like the weeks are just slurring together. ok! i have some pictures this week. i love you all and i am looking forward to hearing more from you guys next week!
Un abrazo y 5 besos y más abrazos
Elder Summers
these are from the day we went climbed cerro chenque. it was very windy and it took awhile to set the camera up without falling and we had to position ourselves right. trial and error... the other pictures are of me climbing the roof on new years. we all climbed it to watch the fireworks and we had a party with our orange fanta. elder gomez, elder judd, me in the center, and elder escobar is in the red. i have some more... but those will wait for other times.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Day 68
¡Hola Familia!
this week was one of the hardest that i have had so far but we are doing ok. we now have 2 new gringo missionaries, e judd and e king. e judd told me that his new pensión is way smaller than he has ever had it and i think his place is bigger than ours. he said that in junín de los andes, he basically had a 2 story house. so jealous. but they are awesome so far. we are a very young district, e king has a year, my comp and e judd both have 8 months. e gomez and e perez have 3 almost 4 months and i have 2. this week, the new word that i learned was ´sudor´. it means sweat. it was so hot this week and i asked myself everyday where the wind went because the sun just burned us. it was 40 grados this week. im not sure what the conversion to fahrenheit is but i think that is over 100 degrees. can somebody figure that out for me? that and kilos, litros would help me a lot too... new years went well and we climbed up on the roof to watch the fireworks. i made a video on my camera but it wasn´t as impressive as christmas so i think i will trash it and make a new video next year. we drank orange fanta and we all took turns praying at midnight to give thanks for the new year ahead of us. this week was very hard for me. one run in with a jehovah´s witness tore me apart because i could not talk about the bible very much and i just bore my testimony. i have been reading the bible a lot more lately and i am half way through judges... i had a lot of rocks thrown at me this week. i finally got my package!!! thank you very much for the scarf, it is incredible. thank you for all of the candies, the christmas stocking for ´elder summs´, and all of the great christmas letters inside. i really loved receiving it. this week we got a baptismal date (fecha) but then she decided she doesnt´ want to be baptized. we are working on her. i learned some very important lessons this week and i am just so grateful for them. some of these lessons include the following: if a drunk man ends up singing 2 songs to you to prove he is from mexico, he is probably from mexico, some people have stuffed elves hanging above their beds that ´´talk to them in their sleep´´, and finally don´t ever ever ever let a missionary cut your hair. i learned that last one the hard way. anyways, today is not a p day because we switched days with the first of the year but now we are going to buy a half kilo of icecream each for 14 pesos and then start a week fresh. i think that is about a pound of incredible delicious-ness for about $3.50. i love dulce de leche ice cream. oh yeah- shañe: dulce de leche is just sugar and milk to make a peanut buttery caramel dip that is incredible. i wish i could explain it better but you will just have to try it for yourself. its good with bread too. oh! and this week, i have never been tempted so much on these hot days when an investigator slaps an ice cold coke in front of me to drink but i have to tell them i cant drink it. obedience is what keeps me alive. thanks for sending the pictures, they look great. i am glad you guys had the chance to watch those awesome movies and i would love to watch tron. my companion and i are doing a lot better contacting more people and we have been doing more than any other missionary has ever done in abásalo. we are the leaders of the district with success and i think we are doing pretty well compared to the zone as well. i am doing my best to be better and i am very grateful for your prayers. i love you guys! ciao!
Con una sonrisa y mucho amor,
Elder Summers
this week was one of the hardest that i have had so far but we are doing ok. we now have 2 new gringo missionaries, e judd and e king. e judd told me that his new pensión is way smaller than he has ever had it and i think his place is bigger than ours. he said that in junín de los andes, he basically had a 2 story house. so jealous. but they are awesome so far. we are a very young district, e king has a year, my comp and e judd both have 8 months. e gomez and e perez have 3 almost 4 months and i have 2. this week, the new word that i learned was ´sudor´. it means sweat. it was so hot this week and i asked myself everyday where the wind went because the sun just burned us. it was 40 grados this week. im not sure what the conversion to fahrenheit is but i think that is over 100 degrees. can somebody figure that out for me? that and kilos, litros would help me a lot too... new years went well and we climbed up on the roof to watch the fireworks. i made a video on my camera but it wasn´t as impressive as christmas so i think i will trash it and make a new video next year. we drank orange fanta and we all took turns praying at midnight to give thanks for the new year ahead of us. this week was very hard for me. one run in with a jehovah´s witness tore me apart because i could not talk about the bible very much and i just bore my testimony. i have been reading the bible a lot more lately and i am half way through judges... i had a lot of rocks thrown at me this week. i finally got my package!!! thank you very much for the scarf, it is incredible. thank you for all of the candies, the christmas stocking for ´elder summs´, and all of the great christmas letters inside. i really loved receiving it. this week we got a baptismal date (fecha) but then she decided she doesnt´ want to be baptized. we are working on her. i learned some very important lessons this week and i am just so grateful for them. some of these lessons include the following: if a drunk man ends up singing 2 songs to you to prove he is from mexico, he is probably from mexico, some people have stuffed elves hanging above their beds that ´´talk to them in their sleep´´, and finally don´t ever ever ever let a missionary cut your hair. i learned that last one the hard way. anyways, today is not a p day because we switched days with the first of the year but now we are going to buy a half kilo of icecream each for 14 pesos and then start a week fresh. i think that is about a pound of incredible delicious-ness for about $3.50. i love dulce de leche ice cream. oh yeah- shañe: dulce de leche is just sugar and milk to make a peanut buttery caramel dip that is incredible. i wish i could explain it better but you will just have to try it for yourself. its good with bread too. oh! and this week, i have never been tempted so much on these hot days when an investigator slaps an ice cold coke in front of me to drink but i have to tell them i cant drink it. obedience is what keeps me alive. thanks for sending the pictures, they look great. i am glad you guys had the chance to watch those awesome movies and i would love to watch tron. my companion and i are doing a lot better contacting more people and we have been doing more than any other missionary has ever done in abásalo. we are the leaders of the district with success and i think we are doing pretty well compared to the zone as well. i am doing my best to be better and i am very grateful for your prayers. i love you guys! ciao!
Con una sonrisa y mucho amor,
Elder Summers
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