Day 223

¡Hola Familia!
I´m down to my last week with my companion, elder suarez, and we are doing great. today is my comps last pday of his mission so we took a bus to san martin and arrived at 6am. it was really dark and nothing was open so we went down to the lake and we skipped rocks for a while until cenizas (ashes) started falling from the sky and a police officer told us we had to go inside. apparently the puyehue volcano erupted in chile and there was tons of ash. we took some pictures of the ash and it looks like a blanket of snow. we took another bus to get back to zapala because we heard it was going to get a lot worse and the high ways were going to close and we didn´t want to get stuck in san martin. we got back about an hour ago and now we are pretty tired but i guess it was a little adventure that we won´t forget. we are getting some ash here too and it is like fake snow. my mission president wrote us saying that we should buy sufficient food for 3 days if it gets worse outside and we won´t be able to go outside. it´s always good to stay prepared :)
this week went well but i don´t feel like anybody is progressing and we lost a few more investigators. it´s so frustrating because i wanted these last weeks with my companion to be very successful but we haven´t seen to much happening. we did see some little things everyday throughout the week so i guess some things will eventually add up but i wish that things would speed up a bit! fa! we had a ´´noche de cine´´ on saturday night (movie night) in the gym of the church with the big screen, and i made tons of popcorn (with the stove!) but only a few investigators showed up. we watched the joseph smith : the prophet of the restauracion movie and it was awesome. i really enjoy that movie and it gives you a greater appreciation for the prophet. it was an activity for the 3 wards in our district and we gave invitations to all of our investigators and people in the street too. we were a bit disappointed with the turn out but we enjoyed the popcorn. i also learned how to make ñoquis, and i love them! it takes a while to make everything with the meat salsa but it is definitely worth it. i think cooking will be a hobby of mine when i get back because i really enjoy it and people love the food that i make :).
we spent lots of time looking at doors again, and we had some trouble finding again, even though we reconfirmed our citas the night before when we call them. we are trying lots of new things to find new people so i guess we just need to be a little more patient but stay diligent all week. i think i am ready to be senior companion because i pretty much am already. before the lessons, elder suarez puts his hand on my shoulder and says ´´eres jefe, ¿dale? vamos.´´ now its kind of a joke between us but it has been really fun and i have really enjoyed this time i´ve had in this area. here in zapala, i feel like i have grown a ton and i love this area. one huge thing that i have learned here is that i should never be fixed on teaching one thing no matter what, but i should be flexible with the things that we teach and listen to things that the investigator really needs to hear. before in comodoro, we always had a fixed plan to teach and we entered the house and just taught the things that we planned. it´s always good to have a really good plan, and we make very detailed plans every week for every one of our investigators, but sometimes we feel like we need to go a different direction. elder suarez has been teaching me a lot and he has been a great example for me. i think that i am really going to miss him a lot when he goes home.
my scripture for the week is mormon 9:31
31Condemn me not because of mine aimperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.
i have a greater appreciation of the book of mormon and there are so many things that we can learn from it everytime that we read it. tomorrow, i will finish reading the whole thing again, and it has been coming alive for me. i think about my own imperfections and things that i can do everyday to overcome them and be more like the people described in the book of mormon, but i think that even they felt inadequate sometimes and we can learn from their faith and diligence. i love being able to share stories with our investigators to show how much the book is actually worth, how it can be applied to everyone of us and to learn more of christ. it was written for that purpose. i have been thinking a lot about our work here, and we can learn so much every week when we analize what went well or what we should improve. there have been some things that i read that gave me revelation for our area and i believe that things are coming along. we weren´t able to meet the standard this week but we are getting closer!
a few days ago, we went to meet with a less active family but it was dark and we weren´t sure which was their house because in the barrio quinientos, all of the houses are very similar. one man in the army answered the door and invited us inside. we thought he was related to the family that we were going to visit... he said he was very interested in learning about the church but he didn´t have much freetime because of his crazy schedule. his name is angel and it was perfect timing finding him. we talked with him for about an hour and then found the other family two doors down but they forgot that we were going to come by and we caught them returning to their house. another ´´milagro´´ of the week!
the package you are sending sounds awesome and i am excited to receive it! thank you for taking the time to send me some ´´extra love´´! you guys are awesome and i love hearing about the things you are doing every week. it will be interesting to see how things are going to change next monday but it gives me another boost of ánimo hearing from you every monday :) i love you guys a lot and i am looking forward to hearing from you next week too!
con mucho amor y ánimo,
elder summers