¡Hola Familia!
this transfer is almost over! pretty soon i will be on my fifth because this week is the last week of the transfer. i´m pretty sure that i´m not going anywhere, and elder suarez isn´t either. i have a picture of myself modeling the hat that he made. oh yeah.
ITS GETTING COLDER!!! i think the people want to scare me because they say that may and june are the coldest months of the year. it´s not that bad but the wind can blow really hard and it´s freezing. the weather here is very strange for me because the sun is shining and sometimes i feel very warm until the wind starts blowing again. here the people drink mate. it´s kind of like a tea because they put a green herb called yerba into a small cup then put sugar and hot water and drink it through a special metal straw that doesn´t allow the yerba through. the members can drink it, but the missionaries can´t. the cup is very small so one person drinks it, refills it again and passes it to someone else. whenever the people drink it, they sit and gossip and use lots of time talking, so the missionaries can´t participate. the people prepare hot milk with melted chocolate for us and it makes me sick. i don´t like hot milk for some reason and it makes me gag just thinking about it... for that reason i enjoy my hot chocolate packets so much more in the morning! it´s freezing in the mornings and i started wearing my thermals to bed.
i made my companion french toast and it was great!! my comp ate all the jam so we ate it normally without anything. it still turned out and i think that i will make more very soon but with some jam.
this week didn´t turn out as i had hoped. we had few lessons because almost everyone failed our citas, and we ended up outside for a long time. we didn´t have the piano lesson because they didn´t show up, and we only had one person in the english class so we just talked about her concerns with the grammar. lots of our investigators ´´broke up with us´´ this week and it was a bit depressing. now we only have a few good investigators but they aren´t progressing as well as we hoped. they are progressing though!! little by little.
Pascua (Easter) was pretty great though. the only easter candy that we had was from my package (thank you!) because nobody believes in the easter bunny. we celebrated on friday and we went to marcelo´s house to eat tons of empanadas. my favorite food now is a tuna and mazorella cheese empanada. ¡me encantan las empanadas con toda mi estómago y alma! son magníficos. i cant wait to cook for you guys. i have learned how to make tons of stuff here and i have 18 more months to perfect my argentine cooking!! its making me hungry just thinking about it.
right now we are thinking that brian´s baptism might not happen on the 30th because the parents want ´´more time to think about it´´. so frustrating! on wednesday, i am going to celebrate my 6 month mark on the mission. i am going to burn the tie that i destroyed in the washer machine about a month ago. one of our good friends in the branch said that she could wash our ties for us for free and now my ties have a nice orange-y scent that i really like. speaking of that friend! she went to the temple for the first time on friday and got back on sunday. dad was wondering about the temple trips, and natalia told us that she car pooled with some members in a different ward for 21 hours to the temple in santiago, chile which i think is a little closer than the temple in buenos aires. i was so jealous of her and i wish i could go to the temple too.
this week, my mission president called the branch president and the bishop of our ward and told them that he wants to put two more missionaries in zapala so elder suarez and i will only be in charge of one area. we started searching for a new pensión for these missionaries to live and all of them are occupied. we found one small place for $1000 pesos but we want to keep looking. i think our place is better and we only pay $700 every month. ah! i have more to say but now im pressed for time sorry. i love you guys and i hope you all will have an awesome week. thanks for the love!
i will send pictures of my adventure to cerro michacheo (sp?) my last pday!
con mucho amor y animo,
elder summers
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Day 174
¡hola familia!
things are going well here in the branch and the ward. we are starting to get more support from the members and we are feeling better about our investigators. we finally met with both of brians parents at the same time and it was very interesting. his mom didn´t want him to be baptized because she is uncomfortable about the church, but his dad thinks it would be a great idea if brian was baptized. the dad is atheist but he has noticed a huge change in his son and noticed that brian is a lot more responsible in school, at home. he wakes up everyday at 5 to attend seminary and his dad told us that he has never seen so much dedication and thinks that the iglesia will help him a lot. the dad talked to his wife more than we did to ease her worries and we are looking to april 30 for his baptism. we still need to confirm on that day because the parents said that they still needed to think about it.
the flia antipan has some other problems, and sometimes we can´t meet with them because we show up at really bad times. one of them is usually so upset that they don´t want us to come in and i don´t think we can get too far with them right now. sad. but this week, we found 9 more people and we are looking forward to meeting with them again. with some people, i could just feel like they were ready and they needed us to share with them. the hardest part is getting the second lesson because they are always busy and it´s difficult to get that second cita. the work is going well. some of our investigators actually got married on friday, and we think that now they will feel more worthy and willing to come to church. pablo is a punk. he is only attending the other ward for his girl, and he is getting frustrating for us. we will see this week how it will go with him.
it´s been getting a lot colder... thank you for sending the hot chocolate! it´s amazing. this week i busted out the scarf again and we are rocking it. it´s not too bad here but the wind is freezing. i read one quote by albert camus that says ´´in the depth of winter, we find within ourselves an invincible summer´´. when the wind gets really bad, i quote that with my comp and we move along. there aren´t any people in the street on the cold days, but we think the cold temperature helps us into houses. my comp is getting a little worried right now because he only has 8 weeks left and it is starting to hit him. he doesn´t want to go home and we are staying focused to avoid the home-sickness.
my english class was awesome on saturday. we had 2 more in the class and some promises of bringing more friends. awesome. in all, we had 5 people. we worked on conjugating verbs in english and translating short sentences. i also taught them how to pray in english and i wrote some phrases on the chalk board with some extra words to say what they are thankful for, or the things they would like to ask for. it went very well and they all participated a lot. on wednesday, i am going to start teaching piano and i am a little nervous because i have never taught before and i don´t know where to start. i guess i will start with the notes and the different timing and rests. that´s pretty basic so it should go well. the only thing about the music here, is the notes aren´t abc, they are do re mi, and i don´t know all of that very well. i try to remember the song from ´´´the sound of music´´ but i can´t remember it all. we will see. on wednesday is mollie´s birthday too!! ¡¡feliz cumpleaños!!
this week, elder suarez and i discovered piñones and they are so good. they only grow here in patagonia and they are like corn peanuts. you peel the purple husks like corn and the peanuts inside have a corn-ish texture. it´s awesome with salt and it tastes pretty good. we also found a phantom dog (perro fantasmo) and it scared the crap out of me. it is very tall and skinny with long black hair. it creeps around and has a loud shrill bark. eh... im going to get a picture with it this week because we talk about it a lot when we hear things crawling around on the roof at night. creepy.
i think that this next transfer we will lose the branch and only work in the ward because the office called us and asked us if we knew where they could rent another pensión in the area. we heard that we might get 2 more sister missionaries in our district and it should be interesting to see what happens in 2 weeks. your game nights sound awesome! we have game nights too after our family home evenings. we usually play chancho where you have to cheat to win, and i am the best. to read and receive my emails every week, i go to a ciber close to San Martin on echeluz. it also has an ice cream store called don h heladeria so you might be able to look it up if you want to. i buy some ice cream after i write if i have to wait a little longer for my comp to finish. i think i will get some today too... today for pday, we are going with the hermanas to climb this hill outside of zapala because the view is supposed to be really cool. this area is pretty flat... but the mountains on the horizon look beautiful right now because the snow finally came!!
i read a talk from pte eyring a few days ago, and he said that we are supposed to feel overwhelmed with our callings because we can gain more dependence on the Savior. we will never have less work to do because our heavenly father wants us to stretch our limits and do things that we never thought possible before. he also shared a scripture- DyC 84:88 (one of the prophet´s favorite scriptures) that says the Lord will always be there to help us when we are on His errand. entonces, as a missionary, i need to put more trust and confidence in my father in heaven to accomplish the things that He wants from me, and find the people that are ready to receive us.
im excited for my first pascua in argentina, and we are searching for more opportunities to share our testimonies about the Savior. I had the chance to speak in church yesterday, and to bless and pass the sacrament too! we can remember the Savior every sunday during that very important meeting but we also can remember him in every moment of our lives. i know that He lives, and i know that an eternal life with our families is possible thanks to His sacrifice and resurrection. i am grateful for His example and i love Him. i hope to show my love for Him through my service in Zapala and i am very grateful for this opportunity.
i love you guys a lot and i hope this week is even better than last week for you.
¡¡con mucho amor y ánimo!!
elder summers
things are going well here in the branch and the ward. we are starting to get more support from the members and we are feeling better about our investigators. we finally met with both of brians parents at the same time and it was very interesting. his mom didn´t want him to be baptized because she is uncomfortable about the church, but his dad thinks it would be a great idea if brian was baptized. the dad is atheist but he has noticed a huge change in his son and noticed that brian is a lot more responsible in school, at home. he wakes up everyday at 5 to attend seminary and his dad told us that he has never seen so much dedication and thinks that the iglesia will help him a lot. the dad talked to his wife more than we did to ease her worries and we are looking to april 30 for his baptism. we still need to confirm on that day because the parents said that they still needed to think about it.
the flia antipan has some other problems, and sometimes we can´t meet with them because we show up at really bad times. one of them is usually so upset that they don´t want us to come in and i don´t think we can get too far with them right now. sad. but this week, we found 9 more people and we are looking forward to meeting with them again. with some people, i could just feel like they were ready and they needed us to share with them. the hardest part is getting the second lesson because they are always busy and it´s difficult to get that second cita. the work is going well. some of our investigators actually got married on friday, and we think that now they will feel more worthy and willing to come to church. pablo is a punk. he is only attending the other ward for his girl, and he is getting frustrating for us. we will see this week how it will go with him.
it´s been getting a lot colder... thank you for sending the hot chocolate! it´s amazing. this week i busted out the scarf again and we are rocking it. it´s not too bad here but the wind is freezing. i read one quote by albert camus that says ´´in the depth of winter, we find within ourselves an invincible summer´´. when the wind gets really bad, i quote that with my comp and we move along. there aren´t any people in the street on the cold days, but we think the cold temperature helps us into houses. my comp is getting a little worried right now because he only has 8 weeks left and it is starting to hit him. he doesn´t want to go home and we are staying focused to avoid the home-sickness.
my english class was awesome on saturday. we had 2 more in the class and some promises of bringing more friends. awesome. in all, we had 5 people. we worked on conjugating verbs in english and translating short sentences. i also taught them how to pray in english and i wrote some phrases on the chalk board with some extra words to say what they are thankful for, or the things they would like to ask for. it went very well and they all participated a lot. on wednesday, i am going to start teaching piano and i am a little nervous because i have never taught before and i don´t know where to start. i guess i will start with the notes and the different timing and rests. that´s pretty basic so it should go well. the only thing about the music here, is the notes aren´t abc, they are do re mi, and i don´t know all of that very well. i try to remember the song from ´´´the sound of music´´ but i can´t remember it all. we will see. on wednesday is mollie´s birthday too!! ¡¡feliz cumpleaños!!
this week, elder suarez and i discovered piñones and they are so good. they only grow here in patagonia and they are like corn peanuts. you peel the purple husks like corn and the peanuts inside have a corn-ish texture. it´s awesome with salt and it tastes pretty good. we also found a phantom dog (perro fantasmo) and it scared the crap out of me. it is very tall and skinny with long black hair. it creeps around and has a loud shrill bark. eh... im going to get a picture with it this week because we talk about it a lot when we hear things crawling around on the roof at night. creepy.
i think that this next transfer we will lose the branch and only work in the ward because the office called us and asked us if we knew where they could rent another pensión in the area. we heard that we might get 2 more sister missionaries in our district and it should be interesting to see what happens in 2 weeks. your game nights sound awesome! we have game nights too after our family home evenings. we usually play chancho where you have to cheat to win, and i am the best. to read and receive my emails every week, i go to a ciber close to San Martin on echeluz. it also has an ice cream store called don h heladeria so you might be able to look it up if you want to. i buy some ice cream after i write if i have to wait a little longer for my comp to finish. i think i will get some today too... today for pday, we are going with the hermanas to climb this hill outside of zapala because the view is supposed to be really cool. this area is pretty flat... but the mountains on the horizon look beautiful right now because the snow finally came!!
i read a talk from pte eyring a few days ago, and he said that we are supposed to feel overwhelmed with our callings because we can gain more dependence on the Savior. we will never have less work to do because our heavenly father wants us to stretch our limits and do things that we never thought possible before. he also shared a scripture- DyC 84:88 (one of the prophet´s favorite scriptures) that says the Lord will always be there to help us when we are on His errand. entonces, as a missionary, i need to put more trust and confidence in my father in heaven to accomplish the things that He wants from me, and find the people that are ready to receive us.
im excited for my first pascua in argentina, and we are searching for more opportunities to share our testimonies about the Savior. I had the chance to speak in church yesterday, and to bless and pass the sacrament too! we can remember the Savior every sunday during that very important meeting but we also can remember him in every moment of our lives. i know that He lives, and i know that an eternal life with our families is possible thanks to His sacrifice and resurrection. i am grateful for His example and i love Him. i hope to show my love for Him through my service in Zapala and i am very grateful for this opportunity.
i love you guys a lot and i hope this week is even better than last week for you.
¡¡con mucho amor y ánimo!!
elder summers
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Day 152
¡hola familia!
we found 14 new people to teach this week and i really feel like we can accomplish our goal of 10 baptisms this month. sadly, i don´t think pablo can be one of those people because now he doesn´t want to be baptized and we are thinking that he is only going to church to see his girlfriend in the other ward. i think we might have to drop him, but we are going to be really frank with him in our next charla. brian is doing awesome though. we are getting a lot of support from our ward to fellowship his family but his mom is a little stickler. he really wants to be baptized so it is a little difficult. he´s very smart and it is very interesting to hear his opinion of things. we are praying to be able to baptize him very soon. we have taught him everything and we are starting to teach him stuff that we usually teach recent converts. i´m feeling really good about how things are going right now and we are working hard. i really believe that we can baptize lots of people. like my good friend, henry ford, said ´´si cree que puede o no puede, tiene la razón´´ and i´ve been thinking about those baptisms all day everyday. it seems to me like the days are like weeks and the weeks are like days. that is what all the missionaries say but it really seemed like that this week. very fast. i have estudiantes in my english class!!! a mother, nancy, and her two daughters, noelia and milagros, are very interested in english and the piano so i am happy to teach. i really enjoy teaching! its fun for me.
we found one family late one night walking behind in the lotes where people are building their houses, and the parents were very interested. they are very young with two kids. the dad is 23 and works in the army so he told us we can only come by around 8 at night when he is around and we are ok with that. they live very close to us and they are awesome during the lessons. they are preparing to be baptized on the 30th so please pray for the familia antipan! they didn´t come to church yesterday so we are going to see if everything is ok tonight but we are really hoping they can come through.
we also found out this week that some of our investigators are actually related! jose is a guy that loves the color yellow. his house is yellow, his car, his shirts, everything. we are teaching his awesome family and we found out that he is the uncle of mariana, a woman down the road that is about to have a baby anyday now. it would be so cool if we can baptize all of them the same day! ¡que kpo sería!
i finally finished all of the scriptures!!! yes!! i felt so awesome when i finished and i have gained a huge appreciation for the scriptures after reading every verse. now my new goal is to finish reading the Book of Mormon again before the end of the transfer in 3 weeks. easy. we started playing futbol again and i really love it. there´s a reason that it is the most popular sport in the world. we played on friday and i felt so dumb because i was showing off my skills and 2 defenders came after me. i was faking to go one direction but the other guy planted his foot and i fell really hard on my codo. fa! it hurt a lot but now it´s ok and i don´t have a bruise anymore. it was a warning that i should be humble...
good news! elder suarez told me that when i talk in my sleep, i now speak in spanish!!! jajaja! that´s so awesome! i´m feeling really good about my spanish, but i´m still working on it. my companion tells me that i speak very well but i don´t have the argentine accent quite yet. i´m working on it, and i´m getting better with the rhythm.
I finally got my easter package and i´m so grateful! thank you! thank you! thank you!! it is so awesome and i really appreciate it. i love easter candy and i´m excited to use the hot chocolate packets. the cadbury eggs, the skittles, my peep... wow! i´m soooo excited! thank you! it´s amazing how an awesome package can make me feel so good! when my zone leader pulled out the box from the bolsa, i saw the little picture of Jesus on the front and i thought ´´hey! that´s from my momma!´´ the year has gone by so fast, verdad? i can´t believe kingston has one year! crazy. momma- thanks for sending how to make french toast. i bought the eggs and bread this morning and i am excited to make it. maple syrup is a little difficult to find so i will probably use some kind of fruit jam. lots of people make fruit jam because when they have peach trees or something, there´s nothing else to do when the fruit falls and bruises, but make jam out of it. i love peach and frutilla jam. es muy rica.
papá- i´m really excited to read that talk too. i think i should write a talk now from all of the things i have been studying. my study time in the morning is by far my most favorite part of the day, and i love studying the scriptures.
my thought of the week comes from buddha. he says ´´todo de que somos es el resulto de que pensamos´´. all that we are is the result of what we think. right now i am focusing a lot on baptism and i want to help everyone that we can to have a lasting conversion and the faith to make covenants in the temple. i really feel like we are making lots of progress in zapala and i believe zapala will have a lot more faithful members real soon. that´s the goal and i´m excited to meet our goal this month! it´s going awesome here, and we are very excited to get to work this week. family- thank you for all of your support and i love you a lot!!!
con mucho amor y ánimo
elder summers
we found 14 new people to teach this week and i really feel like we can accomplish our goal of 10 baptisms this month. sadly, i don´t think pablo can be one of those people because now he doesn´t want to be baptized and we are thinking that he is only going to church to see his girlfriend in the other ward. i think we might have to drop him, but we are going to be really frank with him in our next charla. brian is doing awesome though. we are getting a lot of support from our ward to fellowship his family but his mom is a little stickler. he really wants to be baptized so it is a little difficult. he´s very smart and it is very interesting to hear his opinion of things. we are praying to be able to baptize him very soon. we have taught him everything and we are starting to teach him stuff that we usually teach recent converts. i´m feeling really good about how things are going right now and we are working hard. i really believe that we can baptize lots of people. like my good friend, henry ford, said ´´si cree que puede o no puede, tiene la razón´´ and i´ve been thinking about those baptisms all day everyday. it seems to me like the days are like weeks and the weeks are like days. that is what all the missionaries say but it really seemed like that this week. very fast. i have estudiantes in my english class!!! a mother, nancy, and her two daughters, noelia and milagros, are very interested in english and the piano so i am happy to teach. i really enjoy teaching! its fun for me.
we found one family late one night walking behind in the lotes where people are building their houses, and the parents were very interested. they are very young with two kids. the dad is 23 and works in the army so he told us we can only come by around 8 at night when he is around and we are ok with that. they live very close to us and they are awesome during the lessons. they are preparing to be baptized on the 30th so please pray for the familia antipan! they didn´t come to church yesterday so we are going to see if everything is ok tonight but we are really hoping they can come through.
we also found out this week that some of our investigators are actually related! jose is a guy that loves the color yellow. his house is yellow, his car, his shirts, everything. we are teaching his awesome family and we found out that he is the uncle of mariana, a woman down the road that is about to have a baby anyday now. it would be so cool if we can baptize all of them the same day! ¡que kpo sería!
i finally finished all of the scriptures!!! yes!! i felt so awesome when i finished and i have gained a huge appreciation for the scriptures after reading every verse. now my new goal is to finish reading the Book of Mormon again before the end of the transfer in 3 weeks. easy. we started playing futbol again and i really love it. there´s a reason that it is the most popular sport in the world. we played on friday and i felt so dumb because i was showing off my skills and 2 defenders came after me. i was faking to go one direction but the other guy planted his foot and i fell really hard on my codo. fa! it hurt a lot but now it´s ok and i don´t have a bruise anymore. it was a warning that i should be humble...
good news! elder suarez told me that when i talk in my sleep, i now speak in spanish!!! jajaja! that´s so awesome! i´m feeling really good about my spanish, but i´m still working on it. my companion tells me that i speak very well but i don´t have the argentine accent quite yet. i´m working on it, and i´m getting better with the rhythm.
I finally got my easter package and i´m so grateful! thank you! thank you! thank you!! it is so awesome and i really appreciate it. i love easter candy and i´m excited to use the hot chocolate packets. the cadbury eggs, the skittles, my peep... wow! i´m soooo excited! thank you! it´s amazing how an awesome package can make me feel so good! when my zone leader pulled out the box from the bolsa, i saw the little picture of Jesus on the front and i thought ´´hey! that´s from my momma!´´ the year has gone by so fast, verdad? i can´t believe kingston has one year! crazy. momma- thanks for sending how to make french toast. i bought the eggs and bread this morning and i am excited to make it. maple syrup is a little difficult to find so i will probably use some kind of fruit jam. lots of people make fruit jam because when they have peach trees or something, there´s nothing else to do when the fruit falls and bruises, but make jam out of it. i love peach and frutilla jam. es muy rica.
papá- i´m really excited to read that talk too. i think i should write a talk now from all of the things i have been studying. my study time in the morning is by far my most favorite part of the day, and i love studying the scriptures.
my thought of the week comes from buddha. he says ´´todo de que somos es el resulto de que pensamos´´. all that we are is the result of what we think. right now i am focusing a lot on baptism and i want to help everyone that we can to have a lasting conversion and the faith to make covenants in the temple. i really feel like we are making lots of progress in zapala and i believe zapala will have a lot more faithful members real soon. that´s the goal and i´m excited to meet our goal this month! it´s going awesome here, and we are very excited to get to work this week. family- thank you for all of your support and i love you a lot!!!
con mucho amor y ánimo
elder summers
Day 145
¡hola familia!
it has been another great week with its ups and downs. on tuesday, i got really sick because i ate some bad yogurt... but later that night we went to visit marcelo because he is an enfermero, and so is his mom and sister, so i got some pretty good medical advice and they gave me lots of stuff to clear my stomach and keep me from vomiting. i had a blessing of health too so i was able to recover pretty fast. i learned not to buy any more bags of liquid yogur... anyways, now that im done with the negative stuff, i will update on all the good!! oh! and to answer a question- inglés means english in spanish.
conference was great! i missed elder perry´s talk because i was fiddling with the tvs trying to get it in english but i was unsuccessful. there were probably about 40 people saturday morning and they all wore normal saturday clothes. everyone wore saturday clothes for both of the sessions. it was a little frustrating watching it in castellano because i could hear the people speaking english but the spanish translation dubbed in louder. i could hear some things that were translated differently and i really wished i could have listened to it in english but i still got the same message that you guys did. i did not watch the priesthood session and i was a little disappointed that i missed it. it started at 9 and ended at 11 so my mission president told us we couldn´t watch it and nobody in my building recorded it for us. i missed elder hales and elder anderson too. did they speak during the priesthood session? nobody can tell me what they talked about during the priesthood session and it made me wonder if they even listened. they probably shouldnt have the session so late here in argentina... can you send me the english conference ensign when it comes out? i don´t think i can get it here... one of my favorite talks was by elder scott because he speaks spanish too and he recorded his own talk. in his talk, i actually heard the emotion in his voice and i really enjoyed it. the other talks were translated by people that spoke very fast to keep up with the speakers so it was awesome to listen to elder scott and maybe i will receive more letters from girls after listening to his discurso! jajaja. elder holland was pretty awesome too because i actually heard his voice over the translator sometimes.
i really missed you guys listening to conference and i definitely prefer watching conference at home on the couch with all the yummy goodies and french toast but i still enjoyed watching conference igual. how do i make french toast? that would be awesome to make some day... that would have been really fun watching it with you guys this year... i really wanted to eat lots of goodies but the only thing i had were lifesavers and i ended up giving them away to the kids.
pablo came to the conference with his girlfriend and he really enjoyed it. we actually put the fecha with him for april 16 and he is pretty set for that day. very determined to be baptized right now. brian also came to the conference. he is 15 and after the conference, we found him with a bunch of girls surrounding him exchanging numbers. que kpo.
quick question. is there such a thing in the united states called ´´eyeballing´´? its when people drink alcohol through their eyes. i saw someone doing it here and they said it was VERY popular in the US and he wanted to try it. how strange... another thing. the people get weirded out with me if i put my bread on my plate with my food and they tell me that it is yankee thing to do. i never thought of it as a big deal but one hermana during lunch kind of yelled at me. putting water in a cup after drinking juice was also unacceptable for them so i am learning, i guess...
it was awesome getting pictures of your trip to the aquarium and the zoo! that would have been fun! i guess there is a zoo here but i think it is in neuquen or in roca. there is also a science museum here in zapala that is free to enter but it is chiquitito (very small) and i think that we will enter some pday that we have. there really is not much to do here in zapala but it is very tranquilo. you guys will have to bring me to the zoo when i get back because they should have finished that extra part on the zoo by 2012. the movies that you talked about, were they worth it enough to be on my future movies list? dad asked me what i have done for fun lately and the only thing i can think of right now is the noches de hogar that we have with members sometimes. we haven´t gone to play futbol in a long time and our english class was a dud again last week. nobody showed up but we are going to give it one more week before giving up. in the noches de hogar we play some really fun games with the members and sometimes they have friends come. they play scattergories here but i am terrible at it because i can´t think of the words in spanish but i have tons of words in english and they tell me they don´t count... scattergories is called tuti fruti here and i´m not sure why. another game that we play is called chancho and it is so addicting. i think chancho means ´´tramp´´ because in the game you can cheat to get your cards and its really fun. my comp is really good at it and he ends up cheating more than most. i lost a ton at the beginning but now i´m pretty good. the game is a lot like spoons but one person is the announcer and tells everyone to put cards in the middle, or pass cards to the side, throw your cards in the air, do pretty much what ever and when you have all of your cards, you put your hand in the middle and say chancho. the last person to put their hand in the middle gets a letter, and the first person to have the word ´´chancho´´ loses. there are lots of ways to cheat and that´s when it gets interesting and more fun. we will have to play when i get back because its really fun to play after noches de hogar.
the mission work is going well right now, we haven´t found many new people to teach but at least we are finding. im pretty excited for pablos baptism in 2 weeks and i think brian will come pretty soon. his mom is still having problems but we are praying hard and we feel like she is going to change her mind and let him be baptized. brian has an older sister that is a member with her husband and we are thinking that maybe she can help us. i had an interview with president peterson and he told me that i should have my mind set on baptizing every week because he knows that i can do it. elder suarez and i are developing a plan to baptize every week and our goal of baptisms in april is 10 people. we can do it! i´m feeling pretty good about what we are doing here and we are enjoying the work.
mamita- i am receiving your letters. i really enjoy receiving them and i promise you will be receiving my letters very soon! family- thank you for all of your support and love. i am very grateful for the time you take to send me letters every week and they lift me up for another week. i love you guys a lot!!
con una sonrisa grande,
elder summers
it has been another great week with its ups and downs. on tuesday, i got really sick because i ate some bad yogurt... but later that night we went to visit marcelo because he is an enfermero, and so is his mom and sister, so i got some pretty good medical advice and they gave me lots of stuff to clear my stomach and keep me from vomiting. i had a blessing of health too so i was able to recover pretty fast. i learned not to buy any more bags of liquid yogur... anyways, now that im done with the negative stuff, i will update on all the good!! oh! and to answer a question- inglés means english in spanish.
conference was great! i missed elder perry´s talk because i was fiddling with the tvs trying to get it in english but i was unsuccessful. there were probably about 40 people saturday morning and they all wore normal saturday clothes. everyone wore saturday clothes for both of the sessions. it was a little frustrating watching it in castellano because i could hear the people speaking english but the spanish translation dubbed in louder. i could hear some things that were translated differently and i really wished i could have listened to it in english but i still got the same message that you guys did. i did not watch the priesthood session and i was a little disappointed that i missed it. it started at 9 and ended at 11 so my mission president told us we couldn´t watch it and nobody in my building recorded it for us. i missed elder hales and elder anderson too. did they speak during the priesthood session? nobody can tell me what they talked about during the priesthood session and it made me wonder if they even listened. they probably shouldnt have the session so late here in argentina... can you send me the english conference ensign when it comes out? i don´t think i can get it here... one of my favorite talks was by elder scott because he speaks spanish too and he recorded his own talk. in his talk, i actually heard the emotion in his voice and i really enjoyed it. the other talks were translated by people that spoke very fast to keep up with the speakers so it was awesome to listen to elder scott and maybe i will receive more letters from girls after listening to his discurso! jajaja. elder holland was pretty awesome too because i actually heard his voice over the translator sometimes.
i really missed you guys listening to conference and i definitely prefer watching conference at home on the couch with all the yummy goodies and french toast but i still enjoyed watching conference igual. how do i make french toast? that would be awesome to make some day... that would have been really fun watching it with you guys this year... i really wanted to eat lots of goodies but the only thing i had were lifesavers and i ended up giving them away to the kids.
pablo came to the conference with his girlfriend and he really enjoyed it. we actually put the fecha with him for april 16 and he is pretty set for that day. very determined to be baptized right now. brian also came to the conference. he is 15 and after the conference, we found him with a bunch of girls surrounding him exchanging numbers. que kpo.
quick question. is there such a thing in the united states called ´´eyeballing´´? its when people drink alcohol through their eyes. i saw someone doing it here and they said it was VERY popular in the US and he wanted to try it. how strange... another thing. the people get weirded out with me if i put my bread on my plate with my food and they tell me that it is yankee thing to do. i never thought of it as a big deal but one hermana during lunch kind of yelled at me. putting water in a cup after drinking juice was also unacceptable for them so i am learning, i guess...
it was awesome getting pictures of your trip to the aquarium and the zoo! that would have been fun! i guess there is a zoo here but i think it is in neuquen or in roca. there is also a science museum here in zapala that is free to enter but it is chiquitito (very small) and i think that we will enter some pday that we have. there really is not much to do here in zapala but it is very tranquilo. you guys will have to bring me to the zoo when i get back because they should have finished that extra part on the zoo by 2012. the movies that you talked about, were they worth it enough to be on my future movies list? dad asked me what i have done for fun lately and the only thing i can think of right now is the noches de hogar that we have with members sometimes. we haven´t gone to play futbol in a long time and our english class was a dud again last week. nobody showed up but we are going to give it one more week before giving up. in the noches de hogar we play some really fun games with the members and sometimes they have friends come. they play scattergories here but i am terrible at it because i can´t think of the words in spanish but i have tons of words in english and they tell me they don´t count... scattergories is called tuti fruti here and i´m not sure why. another game that we play is called chancho and it is so addicting. i think chancho means ´´tramp´´ because in the game you can cheat to get your cards and its really fun. my comp is really good at it and he ends up cheating more than most. i lost a ton at the beginning but now i´m pretty good. the game is a lot like spoons but one person is the announcer and tells everyone to put cards in the middle, or pass cards to the side, throw your cards in the air, do pretty much what ever and when you have all of your cards, you put your hand in the middle and say chancho. the last person to put their hand in the middle gets a letter, and the first person to have the word ´´chancho´´ loses. there are lots of ways to cheat and that´s when it gets interesting and more fun. we will have to play when i get back because its really fun to play after noches de hogar.
the mission work is going well right now, we haven´t found many new people to teach but at least we are finding. im pretty excited for pablos baptism in 2 weeks and i think brian will come pretty soon. his mom is still having problems but we are praying hard and we feel like she is going to change her mind and let him be baptized. brian has an older sister that is a member with her husband and we are thinking that maybe she can help us. i had an interview with president peterson and he told me that i should have my mind set on baptizing every week because he knows that i can do it. elder suarez and i are developing a plan to baptize every week and our goal of baptisms in april is 10 people. we can do it! i´m feeling pretty good about what we are doing here and we are enjoying the work.
mamita- i am receiving your letters. i really enjoy receiving them and i promise you will be receiving my letters very soon! family- thank you for all of your support and love. i am very grateful for the time you take to send me letters every week and they lift me up for another week. i love you guys a lot!!
con una sonrisa grande,
elder summers
Day 138
¡Hola Familia!
another week goes by so fast! yesterday, i did not celebrate my 5 month mark because elder suarez told me that it was gay and that i should only celebrate every 6 months because those are the huge achievements. poo. oh well because i will at least celebrate my 6 months mark this next month and i can burn one of my ties. i experimented with my yellow tie about 5 weeks ago to see if it would live in the washer. it didn´t live so i figure i will burn that tie. i found a place to wash my ties and pants and things so that should be a lot better anyways. at the beginning of my mission i didn´t like the idea of burning my clothes every six months but the idea is more appealing to me now. when i have 6 months, elder suarez and i are going to make ourselves an asado and then we are going to burn my tie. fun stuff. this week, i learned the true meaning of che and the word is more appealing to me. people don´t understand what it means and think it is just ´´dude´´ or ´´guy´´ but it actually is derived from ´´mapuche´´, the natives that still live here in patagonia. it literally means people of the land so che = people.
we started teaching inglés here in zapala. we spent a lot of time at night to make really cool ads that we could be proud of and then we posted them all over zapala to invite people to the church, but nobody came this saturday... next saturday, we know that we are going to have lots of people because tons of people have told us that they are bringing friends so we should have a good turn out this week. i´m pretty excited to start teaching again and it should be really fun. plus, i´m patagonia´s favorite english teacher so they should enjoy it too. i think that i started growing my wisdom teeth this week. dang. but it isn´t a huge distraction and it doesn´t hurt when i smile anymore so i think i will be fine with my little tooth. it´s just a sharp object ripping through flesh and only babies have tough times with new teeth so i should be fine.
yesterday, we had a 70 come to our chapel for a ward meeting and we were invited to participate. i don´t think that elder avila is a 70 70, just a 70, and i thought he was going to drop the cane on us or something but he dropped it on the ward and told us that we needed more support from them. now they are really excited about missionary work and they are excited to help us out. we are thrilled! before, we couldn´t get anything from them, not even references, and now they have a different attitude to help us. the prophet started a program about the 15 families and now we are going to implement that plan with the ward. lucky for us, elder suarez and i now have 30 less active families to teach and invite to church because we have the branch as well. no estoy seguro si es un castigo o una bendicion para tener muchísimo pero el Señor sabe que podemos hacerlo. with elder avila, the ward finally developed a home/ visiting teaching program to care for every family that we have in the ward and i believe that we are going to have a lot more members in church pretty soon.
a few days ago we were invited to attend a catholic church meeting last night and we went because we usually can´t enter houses on sunday nights and we wanted to show this family that we were willing to ´´cumplir´´ with our ´´compromisos´´ (sorry, can´t think of the english words right now...) it was very interesting last night and it was pretty different. the family we went for didn´t even show up and we were a little ticked! the people stood and kneeled a lot and my head felt fuzzy from standing and sitting so often. there were a lot of beautiful women there, and when the pastor man asked us to get to know our neighbors, it seemed like all of them ran to our little corner and started to kiss us saying ´´paz contigo´´. as we left, elder suarez told me that we are going to attend next week too but i don´t think that will happen...
kasey got his mission call? that is so cool and i´m so happy for him!! can i get his address? i would like to write to him. and i need addresses from my family as well because i wrote some letters but i´m not sure where to send them. so family and friends (if you´re reading), if you would like an awesome personalized letter, send me your address or write me a written letter! thank you.
things are going great here in zapala! pablo has attended 2 weeks in a row and we want to set the date for his baptism for this saturday but he tells us that he will set the date when he is ready. we´re thinking that he needs a little more extra help but he´s doing awesome. we need a little more time with brian´s mother too because she still isn´t ok with his baptism and the baptism of his little sister that has 12 years. we are teaching both of them regularly but the mom doesn´t want a part of it so we are hoping that her kids examples can change her mind. the mom has noticed that her children don´t fight anymore and that they are trying harder around the house so we will see if that help`s. we have found a lot of new investigators this week and we are hoping to baptize really soon. we now have 18 investigators in the branch and the ward together so we have lots of work when you add the menos activos tambien. one sister, veronica, that we are teaching can´t be baptized because her husband in roca won´t sign the divorce papers and she is now living with another man that is a menos activo. she has been very faithful for the last 5 years but can´t be baptized. now she is thinking that the menos activo is cheating on her because he is acting very shady and put a password on his text messages and has love letters and chocolate wrappers. if she moves away from that guy, she can be baptized but it would be really hard for her because she has 2 young children and she would have to work. it´s tough.
i´ve been thinking a lot about the family and the importance of having a father that is a worthy priesthood holder, and leader. i have seen lots of families where the father is not worthy to baptize his child or give a blessing, or i have seen families with fathers that are lazy and don´t care about their families. it is very disappointing and it makes me upset to see families break up because of dumb things the fathers do. dad- i am very grateful for your example and strength. i have a greater appreciation for all the little things you have done at home and i know that they all add up to strengthen the family. i´m very grateful for all of your help and that you have always been worthy to help us as a priesthood holder. here on the mission, it is so sad to see families struggle without that influence and it really makes me appreciate you and your example so much more. many times this week i have asked myself, ´´how much easier would it be if that man would have stayed strong for his family?´´. the father plays a critical role in the family and he can make or break it.
this week, i don´t have a scripture. sorry. but this morning i read ´´the transforming power of faith and character´´ by elder scott and i really enjoyed it. one thing that it says- ´´we become what we want to be by constantly being what we want to become each day.´´ that made me think a lot about myself and how i´m using my time here on the mission. i want to be a lot better and i really am trying hard for myself and for all the great people that i have the opportunity to serve. the discurso says a lot of really great things about developing ourselves through our obedience and building character through our faithfulness. i really enjoyed reading it this morning and i suggest that you guys should read it too. it is from october 2010. we are inviting everyone to listen to conference this saturday and i am so excited!! i hope i can listen to it in english but if i can´t it won´t be too bad. we can´t listen to the priesthood session because it is too late for us (4 hours ahead) but i might be able to listen to it sunday morning. *cross my fingers and pray really hard* at least i will get it printed soon, right? we will see.
well, family, thank you for all of your support. it really means a lot to me and i am really grateful for your love on paper. please don´t forget to send your love and i won´t forget to return it. please send me addresses!! please be patient with me because the argentine mail system is not the best and i have already sent some in february. i think that i will have to pay a little extra to get them to arrive...
i´m so grateful to be here in zapala and i´m so grateful to be a missionary. it´s been a lot harder lately for us to see all the problems but our Father in heaven has a plan for everyone, right? elder suarez and i are doing great and we are enthusiastic to see the progress that we have seen and the outcome of our work! the mission has been going very fast and i can´t believe 5 months has already passed. i´m trying to treasure every moment :).
¡con una sonrisa grande y mucho amor y ánimo!
elder summers
another week goes by so fast! yesterday, i did not celebrate my 5 month mark because elder suarez told me that it was gay and that i should only celebrate every 6 months because those are the huge achievements. poo. oh well because i will at least celebrate my 6 months mark this next month and i can burn one of my ties. i experimented with my yellow tie about 5 weeks ago to see if it would live in the washer. it didn´t live so i figure i will burn that tie. i found a place to wash my ties and pants and things so that should be a lot better anyways. at the beginning of my mission i didn´t like the idea of burning my clothes every six months but the idea is more appealing to me now. when i have 6 months, elder suarez and i are going to make ourselves an asado and then we are going to burn my tie. fun stuff. this week, i learned the true meaning of che and the word is more appealing to me. people don´t understand what it means and think it is just ´´dude´´ or ´´guy´´ but it actually is derived from ´´mapuche´´, the natives that still live here in patagonia. it literally means people of the land so che = people.
we started teaching inglés here in zapala. we spent a lot of time at night to make really cool ads that we could be proud of and then we posted them all over zapala to invite people to the church, but nobody came this saturday... next saturday, we know that we are going to have lots of people because tons of people have told us that they are bringing friends so we should have a good turn out this week. i´m pretty excited to start teaching again and it should be really fun. plus, i´m patagonia´s favorite english teacher so they should enjoy it too. i think that i started growing my wisdom teeth this week. dang. but it isn´t a huge distraction and it doesn´t hurt when i smile anymore so i think i will be fine with my little tooth. it´s just a sharp object ripping through flesh and only babies have tough times with new teeth so i should be fine.
yesterday, we had a 70 come to our chapel for a ward meeting and we were invited to participate. i don´t think that elder avila is a 70 70, just a 70, and i thought he was going to drop the cane on us or something but he dropped it on the ward and told us that we needed more support from them. now they are really excited about missionary work and they are excited to help us out. we are thrilled! before, we couldn´t get anything from them, not even references, and now they have a different attitude to help us. the prophet started a program about the 15 families and now we are going to implement that plan with the ward. lucky for us, elder suarez and i now have 30 less active families to teach and invite to church because we have the branch as well. no estoy seguro si es un castigo o una bendicion para tener muchísimo pero el Señor sabe que podemos hacerlo. with elder avila, the ward finally developed a home/ visiting teaching program to care for every family that we have in the ward and i believe that we are going to have a lot more members in church pretty soon.
a few days ago we were invited to attend a catholic church meeting last night and we went because we usually can´t enter houses on sunday nights and we wanted to show this family that we were willing to ´´cumplir´´ with our ´´compromisos´´ (sorry, can´t think of the english words right now...) it was very interesting last night and it was pretty different. the family we went for didn´t even show up and we were a little ticked! the people stood and kneeled a lot and my head felt fuzzy from standing and sitting so often. there were a lot of beautiful women there, and when the pastor man asked us to get to know our neighbors, it seemed like all of them ran to our little corner and started to kiss us saying ´´paz contigo´´. as we left, elder suarez told me that we are going to attend next week too but i don´t think that will happen...
kasey got his mission call? that is so cool and i´m so happy for him!! can i get his address? i would like to write to him. and i need addresses from my family as well because i wrote some letters but i´m not sure where to send them. so family and friends (if you´re reading), if you would like an awesome personalized letter, send me your address or write me a written letter! thank you.
things are going great here in zapala! pablo has attended 2 weeks in a row and we want to set the date for his baptism for this saturday but he tells us that he will set the date when he is ready. we´re thinking that he needs a little more extra help but he´s doing awesome. we need a little more time with brian´s mother too because she still isn´t ok with his baptism and the baptism of his little sister that has 12 years. we are teaching both of them regularly but the mom doesn´t want a part of it so we are hoping that her kids examples can change her mind. the mom has noticed that her children don´t fight anymore and that they are trying harder around the house so we will see if that help`s. we have found a lot of new investigators this week and we are hoping to baptize really soon. we now have 18 investigators in the branch and the ward together so we have lots of work when you add the menos activos tambien. one sister, veronica, that we are teaching can´t be baptized because her husband in roca won´t sign the divorce papers and she is now living with another man that is a menos activo. she has been very faithful for the last 5 years but can´t be baptized. now she is thinking that the menos activo is cheating on her because he is acting very shady and put a password on his text messages and has love letters and chocolate wrappers. if she moves away from that guy, she can be baptized but it would be really hard for her because she has 2 young children and she would have to work. it´s tough.
i´ve been thinking a lot about the family and the importance of having a father that is a worthy priesthood holder, and leader. i have seen lots of families where the father is not worthy to baptize his child or give a blessing, or i have seen families with fathers that are lazy and don´t care about their families. it is very disappointing and it makes me upset to see families break up because of dumb things the fathers do. dad- i am very grateful for your example and strength. i have a greater appreciation for all the little things you have done at home and i know that they all add up to strengthen the family. i´m very grateful for all of your help and that you have always been worthy to help us as a priesthood holder. here on the mission, it is so sad to see families struggle without that influence and it really makes me appreciate you and your example so much more. many times this week i have asked myself, ´´how much easier would it be if that man would have stayed strong for his family?´´. the father plays a critical role in the family and he can make or break it.
this week, i don´t have a scripture. sorry. but this morning i read ´´the transforming power of faith and character´´ by elder scott and i really enjoyed it. one thing that it says- ´´we become what we want to be by constantly being what we want to become each day.´´ that made me think a lot about myself and how i´m using my time here on the mission. i want to be a lot better and i really am trying hard for myself and for all the great people that i have the opportunity to serve. the discurso says a lot of really great things about developing ourselves through our obedience and building character through our faithfulness. i really enjoyed reading it this morning and i suggest that you guys should read it too. it is from october 2010. we are inviting everyone to listen to conference this saturday and i am so excited!! i hope i can listen to it in english but if i can´t it won´t be too bad. we can´t listen to the priesthood session because it is too late for us (4 hours ahead) but i might be able to listen to it sunday morning. *cross my fingers and pray really hard* at least i will get it printed soon, right? we will see.
well, family, thank you for all of your support. it really means a lot to me and i am really grateful for your love on paper. please don´t forget to send your love and i won´t forget to return it. please send me addresses!! please be patient with me because the argentine mail system is not the best and i have already sent some in february. i think that i will have to pay a little extra to get them to arrive...
i´m so grateful to be here in zapala and i´m so grateful to be a missionary. it´s been a lot harder lately for us to see all the problems but our Father in heaven has a plan for everyone, right? elder suarez and i are doing great and we are enthusiastic to see the progress that we have seen and the outcome of our work! the mission has been going very fast and i can´t believe 5 months has already passed. i´m trying to treasure every moment :).
¡con una sonrisa grande y mucho amor y ánimo!
elder summers
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)