Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Day 272


¡Hola Familia!
no hay una grabación esta semana pero capaz la próxima. ¡este es el principio de un traslado nuevo!
i have received a new assignment. i have been called to serve as the new district leader here in zapala. things are going awesome and i am going to stay here with my companion, elder ruano. elder taylor is going to rawson and is going to be opening a new area. he is a really awesome missionary and i am grateful for the chance that i had to be with him this last transfer. elder payllalef is going home to neuquen and we are going to miss those guys a lot. i am really excited to start as district leader but i can feel the extra responsibility already. it´s going to go well and i have been watching my companions serve as leaders since the beginning.
the pictures looked awesome. the kitchen is looking great and dad received quite the battle scar. you are going to have to come up with a cooler story though :) there were 3 baptisms on saturday. i didn´t get to baptize the woman from barrio centro, but i did direct one of the baptisms and played the piano for the other 2. it went very well and it would have been better if we planned a bit better and had the baptisms all at one time but the schedules were a little difficult. elder ruano and i are going to have another baptism on saturday but we found out that the girl actually has 8 years and not 9. oh well. i guess we still have to plan the baptism but it won´t be difficult and now pte lopez is just going to do the interview. hna sosa is leaving the district to serve in esquel in the mountains (cerca de Bariloche), and we are receiving a new hermana to be the companion of hna gonzalez. i am sending a foto de my old district with my zonies, elder pedersen and magnone (from left to right). next to me is hna cruz, gonzalez, sosa is the pink, loo is on the ground. my comp is on the far left, elder ruano, hno payllalef, then elder taylor. that was kind of a scattered description but, oh well... i´m excited to pick up our new hermana in a few hours!
now i have to go because things are getting a little chaotic with time but i promise next week i will write more! i love you guys a lot.
i read 2 nefi 11 4-6 and i loved reading how nefi felt. i feel the same way and i am pumped to lead an awesome district in Zapala!
elder summers

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Day 265

¡hola familia!
another week in the books! last week we climbed el cerro michacheo but it was a bad day to climb... lots of wind and sand in the air. but we took some pretty good pictures. it has been getting a lot colder outside with a lot more snow but my gloves, and handwarmers are keeping me going :). it´s awesome to hear you guys had another good week.
our puppies are big enough to start leaving their house so we were able to name them. sandy, charmander, godzilla, nemo, elder black, and rambo.
elder ruano had his birthday and it was his first with snow on the ground. (because he ´can´t get any in california in the middle of july). i was grateful to have two other missionaries to help me plan a surprise birthday party at night. we ate chocolate cake and ice cream while playing hearts. it was a success. bueno, i said some more stuff on the recording this morning talking about the activity we had on saturday and some of the people we found. i don´t have much more time, but i love you guys and i´m looking forward to next week!!
con mucho amor y ánimo!
elder summers

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Day 258

¡hola familia!
i hope you were able to hear my voice recording! if it works i think it would be cooler to just send those. we will see and maybe you can hear the excitement in my voice every week instead of reading my thoughts for the week. maybe both! yahoo!
i have some pictures of me and brian and then with my comp elder ruano (the little one behind) and hno payllalef the mini misionero. the other picture is of me and elder taylor. we are all in the hall of the house next to the heater because the morning can be a little brutal... but i am loving my hot chocolate! sometimes i drink malta too and i have come to love it all. life is good here in zapala.
today we are planning on climbing el cerro michacheo again and we are going to have a picnic on top, just the four of us. it should be really fun and i´m excited. it will be my third time so i should be able to stay here in zapala (according to legend) and marry myself with a beautiful argentine woman (which wouldn´t be too bad either). just kidding. i´m not thinking about that stuff. :)
jamie- congratulations! i´m excited to meet little jack. amelia looked beautiful in her blessing pictures too and i´m looking forward to meeting all of my new sobrinos. it will be so interesting in one year!
this week, not a whole lot happened but we did find 12 new people. some have a lot of potential to be members of the church and we are excited to teach them. we have been praying to find the people that are prepared to be baptized and we can see a lot more progress. this week was the third week in a row that nobody came to our english class and i´m thinking we are going to stop teaching but then more people promise they are going to come the next saturday. they just don´t fulfill. it´s for them but they don´t want to come... sad.
but we did find great people just clapping doors. i didn´t think of that but actually i have to take off my gloves to clap my hands. fetch. sometimes i play rock paper scissors with my companion to see who takes off the gloves for the contact but for some reason i always lose with him. it´s like he knows... he is getting a lot better speaking and he´s not as timid. i love watching how he is progressing and i´m feeling really good about where we are. i think this week was huge for us because we are getting a lot better as a companionship. the first few weeks were kind of awkward because he isn´t the most social guy but now we are getting along just fine. last week i did sing the national anthem and it was really fun and elder taylor made some awesome pizzas for us. i am learning all sorts of awesome stuff here! i´m happy :)
i played the piano yesterday in church and a lot of people heard me play for the first time and they are wondering why i haven´t been playing this whole time. i have almost 6 months in zapala but there is always a young girl playing in sacrament meeting and i never asked to take her place because her teacher sits right next to her. i´m thinking that they will probably ask me to play again next week and i´m looking forward to it. i really love the piano!
i haven´t been teaching because on saturday some women get together in the chapel to practice and there is not a good time to teach anymore. fa. today is the birthday of a boy in the rama that turned 9 and still hasn´t been baptized. that means that he officially becomes an investigator and we have been teaching him. things are going well but the hardest part for us now is getting them to the church on sunday... AAAAGH! but it´s ok. they say that they try but they can´t wake up in the morning to come. sad but we are running to their houses to wake them up. the bolsa just arrived and i recieved some letters. !que kpo! i love getting love on paper and in emails too. bueno! i love you all and i hope you have a great week! next week will be more detailed, i promise!
con mucho amor y animo
elder summers

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Day 251

¡Hola Familia!
my three favorite things to hear in argentina- ´´pasen, chicos. pasen´´, ´´coman sin verguenza´´, and ´´elder summers got a package´´. i was so excited and i love everything in it! the gloves are great and they fit very well. i´m excited to use them in the cold weather with my hand warmers because it gets really cold every night. i´m going to have to send lots of pictures next week because i keep forgetting my camera. one picture is of me and elder ruano bundled up to face the bitter arctic winds, and we look like mormon ninjas. the piano book will be great for teaching and i´m looking forward to using it. i´m sharing the candy and the peanut butter! i still can´t believe there was peanut butter! it is so delicious and there isn´t a lot that can compare to it. i think i might give some of it away because there are a lot of people that really want to try it for the first time. it was cool looking through the ensign because there were some things marked in it and i liked imagining you guys reading those talks before me. i am so excited to read more and i have already started studying it. i am one happy missionary :).
the week has been a little tough because we lost 11 investigators/ families and it´s been kind of rough for me. i don´t like knocking doors, and people don´t like opening them when its almost 0 degrees celsius, but we have to keep searching. we got kind of frustrated so we walked out to the tomas outside of zapala and found one elderly couple that have lived in the country their whole lives. i realized that i was able to understand every word that they said even though they mumbled a little and it made me think of how much i have grown here in argentina. a year ago i couldn´t have imagined that i would be here speaking castellano fluently. actually i had my mission call a year ago.... fetch! time really does go by fast.
we printed a huge map of our area and with pins we marked the houses of all the members (active and less active), our investigators, a lot of our old investigators, and the houses of the leaders in our branch. all color coated of course, and we are pretty proud of it. it should help the future missionaries a bit. we are planning a huge missionary activity for the 16th of july for the 3 unidades in our capilla. we are very excited because we are hoping to find a lot of new people that want to know more about the church and we are going to have games and music. we are hoping for a big turnout.
we didn´t find very much but we did have a bigger attendance at church because we were able to focus on the menos activos. we had about 80 people in church and we usually have around 40. i know that we are doing a good job but i want to start baptizing. i talked to my zone leaders about it and they said that difficult times usually come right before the baptisms so we should just keep working hard.
i also figured out that i might be able to send a voice recording next week because my mp4 that e´ suarez left me can record my voice. i´m going to try it next week so we will see. e´ taylor sends a voice recording every week to his family so i think that is pretty cool, especially since his family sends theirs too. isn´t technology amazing?
i have been thinking a lot about the challenges that i have had on the mission and i see my new companion going through the same things and it has made me really appreciate where i am. i love the scripture in 2 corinthians 12:9-10

9 And he said unto me, My agrace is sufficient for thee: for my bstrength is made perfect in cweakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may drest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in ainfirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in bpersecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am cweak, then am I dstrong.

i still do have a lot of weaknesses but it makes me very appreciative for the help of the savior when i can see my progression every day. i get kind of frustrated when my companion doesn´t want to accept my help when i just had the same weaknesses but i guess that is a personal decision for him to make and not mine.
i´m glad to hear the blessing went well yesterday and you´re having fun in nebraska! this independence day, elder taylor is going to make tons of pizzas and we are going to play some table games like UNO!! yahoo! i love it. i might have to sing the star spangled banner with my big josh groban voice once or twice. but we will see :) ¡bueno, disfruten el dia y estoy animado para escuchar como ésta próxima semana será! i love you guys and thank you for the awesome package!
elder summers