Day 131

¡Hola Familia!
¿Cómo andan? mama- i was very impressed with your castellano. how did you learn? i don´t like ´´che´´ and its not very common but i encourage you to keep learning! when i step off the plane in two years i am going to have lots of problems speaking english so you could help me a lot. a few days ago we had divisions with the zonies and one of my zone leaders asked me to pray in english. after the prayer he told me that i pray like a four year old child because i used a lot of spanglish and it was a little slow. it was funny though. writing in english is way better.
transfers today!!!! 21 missionaries are going home honorably today and we are losing many from my zone. i´m glad to say that i have another 6 weeks with elder suarez and things are looking bright for this next month. i can see our first baptism coming very soon! my companion has lots of connections with the mission office and we obtain lots of juicy information from the elders there, in neuquen, so lots of missionaries call us. a few days ago, elder suarez told one missionary that i knew in comodoro (un kpo elder leyton) that we was leaving comodoro in this transfer but he didn´t really know anything. elder leyton said goodbye to everyone, packed his bags, and the members were giving him a barbeque when his zone leaders called him and said he was going to stay another 6 weeks. he was a little upset with my companion for a while but i think things will be ok now. it was really funny to get a phone call from him though...but usually in the nights, we have conference calls with other zones and we talk about the stuff we are doing in our areas. its pretty fun but i don´t think its the best thing to be doing.
the weather this week has been a lot better and it has been really hot again. i think i prefer the cold but the sunny days are nice. i don´t think it will get too cold this winter but we are going to see. pablo is still alive!!! he was just in neuquen but he never answered his flippin´ phone. aaagh! but its ok though because he finally made the decision to start coming to church. he attended a different ward this week and our zonies told us that he was there and he had a nice big smile the whole time. smells like wet baptismal clothes! yay! with brian, we met with his parents and his 12 year old sister is listening to us too. the mom is against it and doesn´t want brian to be baptized for another few years but we had a nice discussion with her and we are hoping to baptize him a lot sooner than that. brian comes to church every week and is sister is attending too. our other fecha is for april 2 with a woman named alicia and i just hope everything goes well. i´m so excited for the general conference too! we have our sessions a little later and i think that i will be able to watch it in english with one of my zone leaders, elder rozier from california. we are the only gringo mormons in all of zapala! today we went to pick up elder rozier at 4 in the morning because his companion just finished the mission and we are going to stay together until the other zone leader comes tomorrow afternoon. i don´t mind having three of us and today is going to be awesome.
elder rozier helped us clean our little apartment and it was really intense because we haven´t cleaned it very good in a while but now it is nice and fresh. everything is in order and we feel like new missionaries! im getting kind of hungry now so im thinkin´ this email will be a little shorter this week... here everything is going well but the finding is a little slow. the members aren´t very dependable and its hard to get them to come for lessons, or bring friends for the family home evening lessons. we ask for references every time we are with them but they never have anybody so we are going to work on animating the members for missionary work. maybe the baptism of pablo will spark the ward missionary flame! this is my fourth transfer on the mission and i´m so excited for it. i will have 6 months on the mission and i will have watched my first general conference in argentina. i think i will buy a bunch of facturas for the event. facturas are like mini donuts with cream, 12 for 10 pesos en la anónima but i think i might be able to find cheaper in one of the kioscos in the street. have i mentioned the siestas here in argentina? nobody is outside around 2-4 o´clock and people get ticked if you interrupt their naptime. i heard people get killed for that in spain but maybe that´s just a rumor. thankfully, i don´t think we will get killed here so we are going to keep contacting throughout the naptime but we don´t find anything in that time. in comodoro, elder escobar and i went to the pension for the hour of study that we are allowed to have after lunch, but elder suarez is not the best reader and he doesn´t like to study very much. speaking of studying, i finally finished the new testament and i have about 150 pages left in the old testament. it has been an awesome experience reading all of the scriptures and it has helped me to gain a greater appreciation for them, and for the church. there´s nothing in the scriptures that contradict anything that we believe and i´m glad for the opportunity to defend the church with the scriptures. i love when people use scriptures to try and prove that we are wrong because i have almost always been able to show them why we are correct. i have only been left confounded 2 times, and that was with an adventista pastor (that studies in the university for years) and with a jehovah´s witness (that sits and studies the bible all day, every day) because they presented new stuff that i have never thought of before. being on the mission has helped me grow a lot in my understanding of the gospel and to grow a lot personally as well and i hope to continue progressing everyday. it has been a wonderful opportunity and i have a strong testimony of the truth of this gospel. i´ve had a few trials the last few months but i´ve slowly been overcoming them and i feel so much better here in argentina. by the way, my walk is not strange! i have a swagger, no más. the package in the box will be fine. i haven´t seen anybody have to pay anything for their packages in boxes and it will arrive ok. packages are always welcome here :D
thanks for all the support and i love you guys a lot!
con una sonrisa gigante y optimista,
elder summers