Day 117

¡Hola Familia!
it has been another great week but the work has been really frustrating. our families are failing and we now dont have many people to teach, which is disappointing because we have two huge areas. right now we are focusing on having noches de hogar (FHE) with families in our wards and they promised that they are going to bring their non member friends that will be willing to listen to us. yay! im really excited for it. our first one will be tonight so you should pray for us.
this week, we had the opportunity to take a bus at 430 wednesday morning to get to neuquen for a conference with e´aidukaitis. he is a 70 and is from brazil. i loved his accent and his enthusiasm and the conference was very good. i have to say that he dropped the cane really hard but he dropped it with love. he told us that on his mission, he entered a church and baptized the whole congregation, then he asked us what was impeding us from inviting everyone to be baptized and was wondering why we werent finding very many people. after that conference, we took another 3 hour bus ride to zapala to start fresh. our goals to find, teach, and baptize have doubled and we are working even harder. during the conference, i felt this strong yearning for my first baptisms and i know that they will come soon.
Pablo finally finished the book of mormon and he prayed to know if it was true. he has a strong testimony of it and he knows that everything we have taught is true. now he just wants time to feel better about his situation. we gave him a blessing of strength and comfort so he can feel better and overcome his challenges because he told us that when he starts coming to church, he is never going to stop. he just feels like a hypocrite right now because he isnt 100% but i know he will feel it soon. he wont commit to a date but definitely is progressing. its coming!
our other families told us that they dont want to listen to us anymore. they felt good when we were with them but when we arent, they have family that tells lots of lies about the church. it makes me really upset because everything these people learn about our church comes from their churches. im really getting sick of these other churches here. the catholics here are only catholics because of tradition and they have no idea what they believe. the jehovahs witnesses are very hard and all they want to do is bible bash. i only have hope for the evangelicos but they only go to those churches because they dont have to do anything there. as long as they accept Christ they are done. it makes finding very hard because they tell us they dont want to change and they are very comfortable with where they are but we always make it very clear that we arent there to convince anyone, just to share a message and they can ask God if its the truth. i believe that we can have baptisms every week and i think that they are going to start very soon. we found a list of incomplete member families for our ward and branch and if you can believe it, we have stacks of papers. WOOOO!!! im pretty excited to start looking for those people instead of clapping every door. clapping can be fun but a lot of people are annoyed with me because i am from the US. apparently, because i am north american, i am corrupt and all i say is a big fat lie because all north americans have ruined the world. bah. our area books with records of past investigators are garbage and we threw away lots of the records because there was no way we could find those people again. the missionaries in the past all did a very bad job so we are working on building up our progress reports to look real pretty and be more useful.
i got my package and i was really excited to get all of those pictures but i didnt get any pictures of my mamita... thank you for all the candy. it helps calm down the kids in my ward because they are crazy. during the meetings, it is funny for me because nobody really sings the hymns but the guy conducting and he doesnt sing very loud. it doesnt help with the kids playing the hymns because they dont play perfectly but i started singing really loud for everyone and now they sing along with me. awesome. there about 30 people in each ward but the ward has tons of kids climbing everywhere and screaming. yikes. yesterday during sacrament meeting, a kid ran up to us screaming that the bathroom exploded so we went to check it out. a pipe burst and water was everywhere but i was able to shut off the water and fix the broken valve. what a stud i am, no?
my comp and i passed the sacrament too and one of the members told me that i have a bounce to my step and that i dont walk like a real missionary because my walk isnt very serious. that broke my heart. but my comp told me that he has never noticed anything and he walks next to me everyday.
i bought misself un balón this morning just to practice in the pensión and i am getting a lot better with my control. awesome. we play futbol with the members every friday at 7 until 915 and we run back to the house to be home by 930. we follow all the rules ;). have you guys googled where i live? you can probably find it on google earth, right? i live on trafúl and we walk up and down the street called 12 de julio everyday. that way you guys can see where i go. oh! i also learned how to dance salsa but i couldnt do too much because you need a girl to do it but im pretty good with my feet ;) x2. the people dont listen to salsa very much here. the majority of music that i hear in the street is cumbia or regetón (sp?). cumbia is very loud and has a rhythm like a train and then regetón is the music for people to dance very dirty. so i hear... i understand almost all of the lyrics now and i really like salsa music. it is a shame that there isnt much of it here but that is ok. i want to buy a voice recorder to record some of the stuff that i do with my comp. that would be really cool, verdad? then i can send it to you guys and listen to my voice instead of reading my emails.
e´aidukaitis also talked about having more faith to find people. we show our faith through our work. our diligence in the work is the test of our faith, and when we have enough faith we can do anything. por eso, es muy importante. i like DyC 8:10 and 1 nefi 10:19. those scriptures pretty much say what i just said but even better. i know that faith is really important in this work and it is the first principle of the gospel for a reason. we find people everyday that are perfect and golden but then they end up living in other areas of zapala. shoot. we are praying to find more investigators that SPECIFICALLY live in our area. that should help us this week. this week is going to be a huge turning point in my mission and im really excited to get started.
i know that i need to take more pictures but now i feel awkward whipping out a digital camera in front of these people because they dont have very much. there will be more pictures of us next week, i promise. this is a reminder for more pictures if they have not been sent already... thank you! i love my family muchísimo!
con una sonrisa grande y mucho amor y ánimo,
elder summers.

Day 103

Hola Familia!!!
I am very upset that you guys did not get my email last week because the computer told me that everything was ok. very upset... well that means ya´ll get a double dosage!!! yay! First off- happy valentines day!! we dont celebrate that here... and happy birthday to brandon and annie!! and i think my parents have their anniversary this week so congrats!!! and i received an awesome package from the murri family so could you guys let them know how awesome it was and how much i appreciated it? my new comp has never tasted skittles. can you believe that? apostasia... so i am in zapala now and it is incredible. i love it so much and i think that there is no comparison between comodoro and zapala. here there is no trash, a lot less dogs, everyone here is incredibly nice to us and lots of people let us into their homes! the people even stop to listen to us in the streets and sometimes have discussions with us about the church. most of the people give us their addresses and times to visit them, and that never happened in comodoro. my companion, elder suarez es un capo and i love being here with him. he is very ´´chill´´ but we still get lots done. my last companion was very stressed all the time and we always walked like someone was chasing us but now things are just normal. e´ suarez has a lot of videos from the church that we watch with the less active members and it has been awesome in the lessons. he is very good at explaining things and the lessons go very smooth.
we are in charge of half the city of zapala so we have a branch and a ward so that means that we are in church for 6 hours a day!! yahoo!! it really is pretty cool, surprisingly, and i really enjoy being in the church. i dont have to play the piano in either of the sacrament meetings because one woman there teaches and we actually had a 5 year old girl play one of the songs (simplified of course). pretty neat and she did pretty well! that means i´m off the hook for a while but i´m there if they need me. in the branch they asked me to speak for 10 minutes. yikes! i just started talking (in castellano of course) about the savior and more about the atonement and what it means to me and i ended up talking for 15 minutes with my scriptures and everything. i am now a stud in spanish. my comp does not speak a lick of english and i know that after a solid week of talking to him, i am way faster and i no longer have to translate things in my head and i can just speak. k-po. (cool). life is good! we spend the mornings either contacting down town or visiting less active members and then we spend the night knocking doors finding new families or teaching lessons. being in charge of so many people is a little intimidating because of so much we have to do but we manage. it takes about 45 minutes to walk from one side of our boundaries all the way to the other but we live in the middle of everything, about a 10 minute walk to the chapel. this area is huge but i love the people here!!!
the people tell me that i speak very well and they thought i was from uruguay because there are some whites there. they are very surprised that i have only been in the country for 3 months! here in zapala, it is pretty hot, but there is some wind too. its not as bad as comodoro but some people tell me that in the winter it gets worse than comodoro. i think they are exaggerating (sp?). there are lots of snakeys here zapala, especially in the church and there moms want me to come back to argentina after my mission and marry them. snakeys are girls that want to date missionaries, and here i already have quite a few. fa! we found 2 new complete families this week and i feel pretty good about them. i will provide more details later if things progress this week. we also have some investigators ´´de oro´´ that i know will get baptized this transfer. pablo is a really tall guy that used to play futbol for boca and now is learning about the church. when i started talking to him, he only had the first discussion about the restoration of the gospel but this week he has had us over many times and even made us lunch on saturday. he wants to learn more and his girlfriend was baptized 2 weeks ago. the other people that we are teaching are the children of less active members or the less active members ´´partners´´.
one day as we were walking, i felt so dumb because we saw one old man that had one leg and i greeted him just like i greet everyone. i asked him ´´¿como anda?´´ which literally means ´´how do you walk´´ but people say it to say ´´how are you?´´ he flipped out and just started yelling at me calling me a dumb gringo and telling me that my life is so easy and i have no right to come to his country and talk to him. it was pretty bad but i apologized and we just kept walking.
a lot of the streets arent paved completely so there are lots of rocks in the road so we sometimes play futbol with the rocks and we have to kick them in between the other guys legs while we are walking. im pretty good at it and im winning. we dont play all the time, just when there arent other people to talk to. there are a lot more trees here and i love it. here i can bring my backpack everywhere and i have no worries of someone robbing me. awesome. anything else? hmmm. i found a street called ´´maipu´´. that was awesome. there are lots of small people in maipu.... you guys know yann tierson? my companion has an mp4 with lots of his songs and we listen to his music every morning. im not sure if its the best music but it is pretty tranquilo. just piano, accordion, violin, and that kind of stuff. you should look up his music and tell me if its good. there are not many missionaries here in zapala. one companionship is hermana misioneras and another is elderes. my comp is the district leader and the rest of the missionaries in the zone are at least an hour away in junin de los andes. yes, i can see the mountains sometimes but they are very far away.
i love you all! dad- you asked for a scripture and i really like mormon 9;21. i read that a few days ago and it is about praying without a doubt. im out of time because this ciber is very expensive...
i´ll do better next week.
chao!!
Elder Summers

Day 96

Hola Familia!
I have bad news this week. Both of us are being transferred today. my companion e´ escobar is going to be a zone leader in the most beautiful part of the country (Bariloche) to replace his trainer that finished his mission today. i have been assigned to serve in Zapala and i am getting on my bus this afternoon at 4. the bus ride should last all night and then i am taking another bus in neuquen at 11;30 to get to zapala. zapala is in the province of neuquen and i have heard it is near the mountains and is very green with lots of fruit. lots of heat too but we are getting close to the fall season. e´ escobar gave me a beautiful scarf as a going away present (argentina colors blue and white) and i bought him a box of 24 grandote alfajores because those are our favorites. i got a beautiful tie for 24 pesos (like $6) and i am going to give it to my ward mission leader in the bus terminal because he is coming to say goodbye to me.
my new companion is e´ suarez (sp? no sé...) and i have heard that he only has 3 transfers left and is very very trucho. aaagh!!! but i am excited to get things goin´ in zapala! i am pretty pumped but we have 6 fechas here in abasalo and the rest of the families are soon to follow! aaagh!!! otra vez. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!! i am really disappointed that both of us are leaving and we won´t be able to see the baptisms. i took lots of pictures yesterday with the families and they promised us that they are going to be baptized this month. it was very emotional yesterday and we announced that we were leaving in our testimony meeting in church. there were a lot of sad people and i was surprised how much of an impact i have made on some people. some that i never would have expected... but they have seen how much i have grown in this area. muchos ven mi progreso pero pocos mi sacrificio. i am very grateful for e´ escobar and all of his hard work to help me. they told me yesterday that when i arrived i only had a smile and never talked to people but now i have my ´´personality´´ again. i will always remember this area and all of the people i have met. guess who is replacing me? elder campos from the ccm!!! i wrote him a little note and left it on my desk about all the cool people he should talk to and who will make him the most incredible meals. i don´t know if i have mentioned yet, but we found some less actives that are cooks and that really enjoyed us over so they made us some really good food every wednesday. wednesday quickly became my favorite day of the week. they weren´t home yesterday so i couldnt get a picture with them (flia Lepicheo)... shoot.
but my futbol skills are getting a lot better. i am very fast and i am getting more control of the ball! last week we were playing futbol with other missionaries and a whole gang of chorros came up to us wanting to play too. it was the elderes vs the chorros and after an intense game, we beat them. i was almost as good as them and they play futbol every day, all day. i should have played in high school!
we went to check on favoricio again and found out that he was killed in a car accident with his family right after i talked to him. i talked to his friends that were also there that night and they were very upset. they let us in and we bore our testimonies about the next life and left them with a prayer. they told me that after i left he said that he had no idea why he called out to me but he felt something very strong and that he really wanted to go to church because he felt something there. he kept saying my name over and over ´´elder summers´´ and when he left, he was pretty drunk. the only person that survived the crash was the 3 year old son but his lungs were crushed and i was told that he was in too bad of a condition to live much longer. it was so sad and it really made me wonder why i had that last chance to talk to him. i think that his friends, adriana and mario are going to be baptized and i am upset that i cant be here for them. i left good notes for the next elders to find them again.
we had a battle with some adventist missionaries a few days ago. they invited us into their house to eat some food and we figured nothing would escalate too bad. everything started very nice and they were very kind. they gave us some really good empanadas and then asked us why we werent christians. apparently we arent because we have church on sunday and not on the ´´real sabbath´´. we just explained why we went to church on sunday and they started getting really upset because we confounded them with their own words very easily and we were just about to leave when their pastor showed up and just destroyed us. this guy studied in college to be a pastor and he was a lot more knowledgeable then those dumb guys. we were basing everything on the law of moses and how Christ fulfilled the law but the pastor came in and said how the sabbath was a law with adam before that law existed so it is a celestial law and we had nothin´. it was a good experience though. i can handle those guys pretty well and i know that studying the scriptures everyday prepares me. i have now finished the old testament and i am almost done with the book of matthew and the book of mormon again. good stuff. i love my scriptures. i love how the jehovahs witnesses always quote the same scriptures and i have been able to tell them that they quoted them wrong and i told them what they really said. it was such an awesome moment and they can feel our power when we talk to them. i have had lots of experiences with those guys because they always attack us and tell us we are in ´´las tinieblas´´. its just fun for me now.
you guys are so lucky to have the temple so close! take advantage of it as much as you can because my ward is planning a temple trip to uruguay right now. ouch! you just had the super bowl??? wow!! i did not hear anything about it and i wasn´t ever thinking about it. that´s crazy how fast that came. were the commercials any good or were they garbage? the pizzas that we eat here are all home made with ham and cheese on it. its ok but the sauces they use kind of taste funny and they cut the pizzas into squares. but the cakes here are so awesome! yesterday, some members made us a cake because they heard we were leaving and it had dulce de leche and peach slices in it. it was so delicious. but i am so excited for my new area! we are going to take the bus back to the pensión and then we are taking a taxi to the bus terminal. my bus leaves in 4 hours from now!!! my companion is leaving for bariloche at 9;30 tonight. sorry, i cant find the right símbolo for the time on this keyboard... everything is going awesome and i am so pumped!! i am going to start sending some pictures now
I love you guys so much!!!! remember to send more fotos for me!
¡¡Con un abrazo grande!!
Elder Summers