¡Hola familia!
i now have 10 months in the mission!!! that´s pretty much a year already! or almost a year... hahaha. there was an earthquake in colorado? crazy. did you feel it? i did see something about that couple that served here but i didn´t know them. they were replaced by the johnsons in august i think, before i got here. they wanted a list of my companions? well, i was with elder escobar, elder suarez, elder taylor, and now i´m with elder ruano. elder escobar has about a year and a half, elder suarez went home a few months ago, and elder taylor is going home in october.
i was promised that you would take lots of pictures when all of the family is together for the baby blessings but i was never promised that they would be sent to me to see them. please send them. i would love to see them. the week went pretty well and i´m excited to finish up this transfer this last week. i find out who goes and who stays on saturday night (the 3 of septiembre) and i might be leaving on the 5th. we will see. the hermanas in my district think that i will be leaving but i´m not sure. they had me write in their notebooks to say goodbye and how awesome they are but we will see if i have another 6 weeks in zapala. i was thinking this morning that it would be very strange to leave zapala and i don´t really want to go anywhere else... i guess that i´m used to the area now (after 7 months). fa. the mission is not doing well with baptisms right now so the zone leaders are really pressuring us to do a lot more than we are already doing. in the district meeting, i talked about that with all of the hermanas and my comp and we decided that we just needed to talk about the investigators that we already have, and as a district we came up with some really good ideas to help them progress better that we haven´t thought of before. it was a really good meeting, i think. on wednesday, we had an activity in the church. a movie night!! we watched finding faith in christ and the short video of the restauracion. it went very well but we didn´t have as many investigators there that we thought we would have. oh well. i am hoping to get some baptisms this saturday but i don´t feel like it will happen because it is really difficult to find the investigators right now... but we were able to find a few new families. should be great this week.
on friday, i had 4 baptismal interviews with the members of a family that the zone leaders found a long time. i was there when they first found them a few months ago and they weren´t that interested in the church, so it was cool to hear their testimonies in their interviews with me. on saturday, we had another activity for the youth called ´´mtc for a day´´, and we were the mtc teachers and we assigned them companions and taught them how to do contacts in the street and share the gospel with friends. it went very well. after that, we went to a reference that the hermanas gave us, a testigo de jehovah that tried to convince us that we were wrong and that we should rethink where we are. he said that the church wasn´t logical and that i needed to start using my head. i really wanted to leave but he kept talking and wouldn´t give my bible back. the thing that bothered me the most was that in the two hours we were there, elder ruano didn´t say a word. afterwards i told him, ´´hey! you have to help me! all you need to do is bare your testimony with me. if i do it alone there is no power and i really need you to support me.´´ he told me that i can do everything by myself and that i don´t need him to do anything. that really hurt me and made me a little upset with him. he doesn´t realize his potential yet and i think he is starting to give up. i´m talking with my mission president and praying hard for him. i don´t think that i can be carrying him on my back for another transfer but if i need to, i will do it. i´m pressing him hard to do his part so we will see how he does this last week.
pero bueno.
i talked in church too yesterday!! that´s awesome. i talked about john 21 when jesus asked pedro, ¿me amas?. i talked about ways that we can show the savior that yes, we do love him, and how we can leave everything behind and follow him like pedro was asked to do. it went very well and i felt really good about it. well, that was my week. i hope everything goes well this week too, it will be lots of fun! i think someone should print out a card board print out of me so i can participate too. maybe that would be a little extreme but i think it would be awesome. i love you guys!
con mucho amor y ánimo
elder summers
Monday, August 29, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Day 300
¡Hola Familia!
i can´t believe that we are almost done with august! time is going really fast. the transfer ends in 2 weeks. we are starting week 5 right now and there are 6 weeks in a transfer. things are going very well.
Jamie- ¡¡HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! you just need to imagine that i am there singing happy birthday with everybody else! and eating your cake.
speaking of cake. yesterday was día de niño here in argentina so the family that we ate with made a huge cake (4 layers with dulce de leche, chocolate, some peach jam stuff, and lots of orange sprinkles). my companion liked it so they gave us half of the cake that filled a big tupper dish. fetch. i don´t think my comp can eat all of it and i won´t be able to help much. i kind of felt like that fat kid from matilda trying to eat all of that chocolate cake by himself.
i think today is a holiday too because the streets are empty and all of the stores are closed... i just found out that it is día de san martín. i´m not sure who it is but apparently he died on the 22nd of agosto. should be interesting today because nobody likes us on holidays. they just want to sleep all day and i don´t understand how they can do it. a lot of people stay up until 4 in the morning just watching tv and they get up and eat lunch at 5 in the afternoon. for me, that doesn´t sound like a very fun way to celebrate a holiday.
we found another great family with a lot of faith. the wife was reading the book of mormon but she said that she wasn´t able to pray because there was something in the house that was keeping her from doing it. apparently they were having lots of problems and it was scaring all of them. their priest of their church came but couldn´t help them. we blessed the house and invited them to come to church but they didn´t show up. milton (the dad) said that he didn´t want to ´´play with God, going to different churches´´. we just need to explain a little more.
a lot of people think that zapala is cursed because they have lots of ´´evil dreams´´ and bad experiences in their houses. we have had to bless lots of houses here and it is really sad to hear people tell us about the things that have been going on but they never asked for help before. everything is going ok though, but they won´t come to church afterwards!! fetch.
my comp is doing well too. sometimes i feel like our relationship is like marlin and dory from finding nemo. i seem to be the more serious one while he is... well, dory. i always need to be paying attention to him and make sure he isn´t doing dumb stuff. he really wants to use facebook right now so i need to keep checking on him... or sometimes while we are studying, he just gets up and walks away. when i look for him he is just lying on his bed. he told me the other day ´´Go away, i´m studying.´´ ´´yeah? what are you studying right now?´´ ´´nephi´s dream, of course!´ that made me laugh but now i´m getting worried about him. we had 10 weeks together and i´m worrying about what kind of missionary he is going to be when i leave. i hope his next companion will have more patience than me to treat him good and keep him on his feet (sometimes literally). his brother just sent him his mp3 player and he did not listen to the best music before. i think i need to help him delete that music and put some motab.
there are a lot of missionaries but few elders of israel. is my comp going to be an elder? my relationship with him is getting kind of complicated but i want the best for him.
we are planning some awesome activities for our investigators. we are going to have a movie night in the stake center (with the big screen) on wednesday. on saturday, we will have an activity called ´´mtc for a day´´ for the youth for a few hours. we are going to help prepare them as missionaries and talk about how we can best help our friends. it will be great. my scripture for the week!
Joshua 1:9
Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the aLord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
i know that we have Him with us all the time and we can rely on Him in everything. i love my Savior and i want to fulfill my part for Him because he already did His and is always there for me. i´m doing my best, searching for those that are ready and i read a scripture in Alma about how the Lord prepared people by the spirit so they were more susceptible to the teachings of the missionaries. i know that those people exist, but we just need to find them.
i love you, family! i hope everything goes well for you this week. ¡Hasta luego!
con mucho amor y ánimo,
elder summers
i can´t believe that we are almost done with august! time is going really fast. the transfer ends in 2 weeks. we are starting week 5 right now and there are 6 weeks in a transfer. things are going very well.
Jamie- ¡¡HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! you just need to imagine that i am there singing happy birthday with everybody else! and eating your cake.
speaking of cake. yesterday was día de niño here in argentina so the family that we ate with made a huge cake (4 layers with dulce de leche, chocolate, some peach jam stuff, and lots of orange sprinkles). my companion liked it so they gave us half of the cake that filled a big tupper dish. fetch. i don´t think my comp can eat all of it and i won´t be able to help much. i kind of felt like that fat kid from matilda trying to eat all of that chocolate cake by himself.
i think today is a holiday too because the streets are empty and all of the stores are closed... i just found out that it is día de san martín. i´m not sure who it is but apparently he died on the 22nd of agosto. should be interesting today because nobody likes us on holidays. they just want to sleep all day and i don´t understand how they can do it. a lot of people stay up until 4 in the morning just watching tv and they get up and eat lunch at 5 in the afternoon. for me, that doesn´t sound like a very fun way to celebrate a holiday.
we found another great family with a lot of faith. the wife was reading the book of mormon but she said that she wasn´t able to pray because there was something in the house that was keeping her from doing it. apparently they were having lots of problems and it was scaring all of them. their priest of their church came but couldn´t help them. we blessed the house and invited them to come to church but they didn´t show up. milton (the dad) said that he didn´t want to ´´play with God, going to different churches´´. we just need to explain a little more.
a lot of people think that zapala is cursed because they have lots of ´´evil dreams´´ and bad experiences in their houses. we have had to bless lots of houses here and it is really sad to hear people tell us about the things that have been going on but they never asked for help before. everything is going ok though, but they won´t come to church afterwards!! fetch.
my comp is doing well too. sometimes i feel like our relationship is like marlin and dory from finding nemo. i seem to be the more serious one while he is... well, dory. i always need to be paying attention to him and make sure he isn´t doing dumb stuff. he really wants to use facebook right now so i need to keep checking on him... or sometimes while we are studying, he just gets up and walks away. when i look for him he is just lying on his bed. he told me the other day ´´Go away, i´m studying.´´ ´´yeah? what are you studying right now?´´ ´´nephi´s dream, of course!´ that made me laugh but now i´m getting worried about him. we had 10 weeks together and i´m worrying about what kind of missionary he is going to be when i leave. i hope his next companion will have more patience than me to treat him good and keep him on his feet (sometimes literally). his brother just sent him his mp3 player and he did not listen to the best music before. i think i need to help him delete that music and put some motab.
there are a lot of missionaries but few elders of israel. is my comp going to be an elder? my relationship with him is getting kind of complicated but i want the best for him.
we are planning some awesome activities for our investigators. we are going to have a movie night in the stake center (with the big screen) on wednesday. on saturday, we will have an activity called ´´mtc for a day´´ for the youth for a few hours. we are going to help prepare them as missionaries and talk about how we can best help our friends. it will be great. my scripture for the week!
Joshua 1:9
Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the aLord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
i know that we have Him with us all the time and we can rely on Him in everything. i love my Savior and i want to fulfill my part for Him because he already did His and is always there for me. i´m doing my best, searching for those that are ready and i read a scripture in Alma about how the Lord prepared people by the spirit so they were more susceptible to the teachings of the missionaries. i know that those people exist, but we just need to find them.
i love you, family! i hope everything goes well for you this week. ¡Hasta luego!
con mucho amor y ánimo,
elder summers
Monday, August 15, 2011
Day 293
¡¡hola familia!!
i think this week was the only week that i only received letters from my parents... oh well. i guess it´s fair to say that my parents love me the most but i don´t want my awesome family to get out of the habit of writing a quick happy note! (at least, ¡por favor!). things are going very well, as usual, and the weather has been improving a lot. still lots of wind, but the sun is getting warmer. i´m pretty sure that we are getting closer to springtime :) . finally got our heater fixed. working well.
to answer questions- all of the missionaries here walk, except the assistants to the president sometimes drive a car. i guess there would be problems with people stealing our bikes all the time but here in zapala would be pretty easy going with a bike. i think i could probably ride across my area in 5 minutes, all of Zapala in 20. it´s a very small town but it´s great. i really love being here and i´m not looking forward to leaving... the last transfer, i was talking to my branch president about staying and he said that it´s only going to get harder to leave the longer i stay and i agree with him.
i think that i would be able to skype for christmas! that would be so awesome and lots of fun too. i don´t know if a computer ciber would be open on christmas but i´m sure we would be able to. sure, why not? i think my only pedido in a package would be another stain stick for my white shirts. that thing is great. cocoa packets would be great as well. i might be in another area when it arrives so i don´t know if it would be cold or not. i could be in the mountains, in the neuquen province still, far south with tons of wind, or close to the ocean somewhere.
i´m starting to get sick... i think i´m going to spend my pday napping during the siesta because i don´t feel like running somewhere today. we got everything that we needed done. we got haircuts, we bought enough food for the week, cleaned the pension, delivered letters to my district, and now we are writing to our families. it has been a good day so far.
this week i gained a testimony of our daily study time. i decided to be more flexible with my study and just do whatever i felt like i needed to and now i am actually using the things i am studying a lot more during the day. it´s been very interesting how i felt inspired to read a certain talk, or study a certain principle and find myself using that information later the same day. i know that we are being guided in the work and i´m grateful to know that we are never alone.
my scriptures for the week.
1 Thessalonians 3
12 And the Lord make you to increase and aabound in blove one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:
13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the acoming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his bsaints.
these are the things that really stood out to me this week because i have been thinking a lot about our responsiblilites that we have in this life. love has stood out a lot in my studies this week, maybe that means i need to improve a bit... but everything i read talked about how we can purify ourselves through our love for others and the love that we have for our Heavenly Father. i know that He lives, and i know that He is counting on us to really try and be the best that we can. we can´t let little distractions get in the way. usually the reasons that we have to get frustrated are pretty lame anyways... pero bueno. that is my pensamiento para la semana. i love you all, i´m going to eat lunch now. have a great week!
con mucho amor y animo
elder summers
i think this week was the only week that i only received letters from my parents... oh well. i guess it´s fair to say that my parents love me the most but i don´t want my awesome family to get out of the habit of writing a quick happy note! (at least, ¡por favor!). things are going very well, as usual, and the weather has been improving a lot. still lots of wind, but the sun is getting warmer. i´m pretty sure that we are getting closer to springtime :) . finally got our heater fixed. working well.
to answer questions- all of the missionaries here walk, except the assistants to the president sometimes drive a car. i guess there would be problems with people stealing our bikes all the time but here in zapala would be pretty easy going with a bike. i think i could probably ride across my area in 5 minutes, all of Zapala in 20. it´s a very small town but it´s great. i really love being here and i´m not looking forward to leaving... the last transfer, i was talking to my branch president about staying and he said that it´s only going to get harder to leave the longer i stay and i agree with him.
i think that i would be able to skype for christmas! that would be so awesome and lots of fun too. i don´t know if a computer ciber would be open on christmas but i´m sure we would be able to. sure, why not? i think my only pedido in a package would be another stain stick for my white shirts. that thing is great. cocoa packets would be great as well. i might be in another area when it arrives so i don´t know if it would be cold or not. i could be in the mountains, in the neuquen province still, far south with tons of wind, or close to the ocean somewhere.
i´m starting to get sick... i think i´m going to spend my pday napping during the siesta because i don´t feel like running somewhere today. we got everything that we needed done. we got haircuts, we bought enough food for the week, cleaned the pension, delivered letters to my district, and now we are writing to our families. it has been a good day so far.
this week i gained a testimony of our daily study time. i decided to be more flexible with my study and just do whatever i felt like i needed to and now i am actually using the things i am studying a lot more during the day. it´s been very interesting how i felt inspired to read a certain talk, or study a certain principle and find myself using that information later the same day. i know that we are being guided in the work and i´m grateful to know that we are never alone.
my scriptures for the week.
1 Thessalonians 3
12 And the Lord make you to increase and aabound in blove one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:
13 To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the acoming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his bsaints.
these are the things that really stood out to me this week because i have been thinking a lot about our responsiblilites that we have in this life. love has stood out a lot in my studies this week, maybe that means i need to improve a bit... but everything i read talked about how we can purify ourselves through our love for others and the love that we have for our Heavenly Father. i know that He lives, and i know that He is counting on us to really try and be the best that we can. we can´t let little distractions get in the way. usually the reasons that we have to get frustrated are pretty lame anyways... pero bueno. that is my pensamiento para la semana. i love you all, i´m going to eat lunch now. have a great week!
con mucho amor y animo
elder summers
Friday, August 12, 2011
Day 286
¡¡hola familia!!
this week was VERY cold. the snow was very wet and it only got the streets wet and muddy. that with the cold wind made this week a little difficult to trudge through town but we made it ok. nobody answered their doors, we couldn´t find anyone, and some of the families were seperated because of dumb arguments that they had and it doesn´t look like they can resolve them for some time. it was a little depressing this week and i don´t understand why we had so many problems... but i found an awesome scripture in 2 corinthians 4. the whole chapter is pretty great but the last two verses really stood out to me.
17 For our light aaffliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and beternal cweight of glory;
18 While we look not at the things which are aseen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not bseen are ceternal.
i will never forget this week that we had but i know that all of the challenges that we have, big or small, are for our eternal progression, and we aren´t able to get any better without them. it was humbling to start the mission in a foreign place, and i thought the challenges would get easier after 6 months, but then you just get others... i know that my padre celestial wants me and my companion to grow a lot here in zapala, and it has been a great experience overall.
we had an awesome zone conference this week and it was centered on the atonement and how everything that we teach should include something about it. it was a great conference and it made me think a lot about what we will be doing better to use it more. with all of the things that we can teach, i guess we lose that focus on savior sometimes, and it was a great reminder for me. e´ ruano and i have been doing a good job about teaching about Christ but i know there are some more things that we can improve in. the conference was very uplifting and i performed a musical number with two other elders. we sang and i played the piano too. pte peterson told us that e´ ruano needs a haircut and that it wouldn´t be a bad idea if i wanted one too, so we went to get one today but it wasn´t open... later today i guess. in our zone there are about 25 missionaries and the others came from san martín, junín, plaza huincul, and cutral co. all of those areas make up the zapala stake.
our branch is part of a stake, and we attend church every week in our stake center about 5 minutes from the house. it is great having it so close! the requirements to make our branch a ward is to have more members paying tithing. i think we are lacking 2 more tithe payers and we are reactivating lots of people. this week was bad finding people, but we visited a lot of less active members and the attendance at church was the highest it has been all year. (almost 90 people!! :) ) we sure do have lots of work to do in the branch and we are working on helping part member families become more unified in the church. baptisms are coming...
as district leader, one of my new responsibilities is to interview the people before they are baptized to see if they have a testimony and are worthy. i had my first interview on saturday but he didn´t pass... he didn´t really believe that the church was THE church of Jesus Christ, and said that baptism just sounding like something ´´lindo´´ (beautiful). i said that he probably needs some more time to prepare...
all of my puppies officially disappeared. i think the chimangos ate the last two. have you ever heard of chimangos? they are awesome hawks that live in the patagonia. really cool. there are tons outside of our house and they pretty much eat everything. oh well. last week, i bought a harmonica! it was about 6 dollars and it is a pretty nice one so i figured it would be awesome. and it is. i attached a sample of my skills :) . well, family, i love you guys. enjoy this next week, and i look forward to hearing from you again!
con muchísimo amor y ánimo,
elder summers
this week was VERY cold. the snow was very wet and it only got the streets wet and muddy. that with the cold wind made this week a little difficult to trudge through town but we made it ok. nobody answered their doors, we couldn´t find anyone, and some of the families were seperated because of dumb arguments that they had and it doesn´t look like they can resolve them for some time. it was a little depressing this week and i don´t understand why we had so many problems... but i found an awesome scripture in 2 corinthians 4. the whole chapter is pretty great but the last two verses really stood out to me.
17 For our light aaffliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and beternal cweight of glory;
18 While we look not at the things which are aseen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not bseen are ceternal.
i will never forget this week that we had but i know that all of the challenges that we have, big or small, are for our eternal progression, and we aren´t able to get any better without them. it was humbling to start the mission in a foreign place, and i thought the challenges would get easier after 6 months, but then you just get others... i know that my padre celestial wants me and my companion to grow a lot here in zapala, and it has been a great experience overall.
we had an awesome zone conference this week and it was centered on the atonement and how everything that we teach should include something about it. it was a great conference and it made me think a lot about what we will be doing better to use it more. with all of the things that we can teach, i guess we lose that focus on savior sometimes, and it was a great reminder for me. e´ ruano and i have been doing a good job about teaching about Christ but i know there are some more things that we can improve in. the conference was very uplifting and i performed a musical number with two other elders. we sang and i played the piano too. pte peterson told us that e´ ruano needs a haircut and that it wouldn´t be a bad idea if i wanted one too, so we went to get one today but it wasn´t open... later today i guess. in our zone there are about 25 missionaries and the others came from san martín, junín, plaza huincul, and cutral co. all of those areas make up the zapala stake.
our branch is part of a stake, and we attend church every week in our stake center about 5 minutes from the house. it is great having it so close! the requirements to make our branch a ward is to have more members paying tithing. i think we are lacking 2 more tithe payers and we are reactivating lots of people. this week was bad finding people, but we visited a lot of less active members and the attendance at church was the highest it has been all year. (almost 90 people!! :) ) we sure do have lots of work to do in the branch and we are working on helping part member families become more unified in the church. baptisms are coming...
as district leader, one of my new responsibilities is to interview the people before they are baptized to see if they have a testimony and are worthy. i had my first interview on saturday but he didn´t pass... he didn´t really believe that the church was THE church of Jesus Christ, and said that baptism just sounding like something ´´lindo´´ (beautiful). i said that he probably needs some more time to prepare...
all of my puppies officially disappeared. i think the chimangos ate the last two. have you ever heard of chimangos? they are awesome hawks that live in the patagonia. really cool. there are tons outside of our house and they pretty much eat everything. oh well. last week, i bought a harmonica! it was about 6 dollars and it is a pretty nice one so i figured it would be awesome. and it is. i attached a sample of my skills :) . well, family, i love you guys. enjoy this next week, and i look forward to hearing from you again!
con muchísimo amor y ánimo,
elder summers
Monday, August 1, 2011
Day 279
¡hola familia!
i now officially have 9 months on my mission. ¡que kpo! things are going well. we had a bunch of snow this week and it got pretty cold but now things are going well. we actually had a few snow ball fights with the kids in the street and it was awesome but i have to admit the snow made me think a lot about the snow at home. it´s strange getting snow at the end of july but it was great. the sun here is strong so it melted the snow pretty fast but then the cold wind froze it to make everything ice over. we ended up ´´ice skating´´ to each house. elder ruano didn´t want to try it but i was having lots of fun. but now there is a lot of mud because the streets are all dirt roads in my area.
being the new district leader has been really awesome too and i directed my first district meeting on friday. i felt like it went very well and we talked a lot about how to show the value of the book of mormon by applying it to their investigator in some way in every visit. if they can get a testimony of the book of mormon, everything else comes easily, and my comp and i have been focusing on that a lot lately.
this week was pretty successful and we have 14 fechas but nobody came to church... triste. we are working really hard but getting them in the chapel (y la pila) is the hardest part. we went on divisions with the zone leaders this week and i learned a few new things to apply in my area. they have one investigator that is mostly deaf so they are learning sign language with him and when i went to visit him i learned a whole bunch of really cool stuff. i was able to have a conversation and talk to him in sign language and i was really surprised how fast i was able to learn. it was really cool and now i can teach about the restoration in spanish sign language! ¡que kpo! we had a baptism on saturday for leila parra but we found out that she only has 8 years... fetch. oh well :). it went great and i was able to direct the baptism while presidente belvedere performed the ordenanza. i really enjoy being a part of baptisms and i hope i will have a lot more!!
losing elder taylor meant that we gained a few more investigators that those guys were teaching. they are doing awesome and we are preparing them to be baptized as well. we also found the familia antipan again and they are living in the same house that we helped the flia sepulveda move out of a few months ago. i think i wrote about the flia antipan disappearing one day... well now we found them again! they were having some marriage problems because alejandro drinks a lot, but we taught about the palabra de sabiduría and gave him a blessing of strength to overcome his addiction and now he´s doing a lot better. we also taught about prayer, and how we know if we are prepared for baptism. they are getting closer!
we also found a woman and her family that used to come to church about 5-10 years ago. her children were baptized in the church but she wasn´t. her daughters said that they stopped going because they found something in the book of mormon that said we worshiped devils and not God. i told them that was a load and that there is nothing in there that says it but she swears it was written in the last few white pages in the very back and that the ´´new copies´´ don´t have it anymore. sounds very strange to me. but we want to teach the mom how to read because she never learned and i think it would be easy to teach in spanish. all the words are pronounced exactly like it´s written so we will talk about the alfabeto and the sounds that each letter makes. she only knows a few vowels.
my puppies died a few days ago. two of them, godzilla and sandy. now we have 4 and i am planning on gifting another one because it starts crying in the morning and doesn´t stop. that´s my sad news for the week.
i was going to record something to send today but my comp didn´t want to talk on it with me so i didn´t do it. i just wanted to involve him but i guess he isn´t into that kind of thing... oh! we are also teaching the familia aroca and we started reading the book of mormon with them. they seemed pretty excited to start reading on their own and we assured them that we will come by any time to read with them or answer questions whenever they wanted. they just need to call :)
well, familia, i really love the mission. i was thinking the other day that my life has changed a lot so far and i can´t imagine going back to the ´´normal life´´. we are having a lot of fun while getting a lot done. this week, mosiah 8:18 stood out to me.
18 Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings.
i was thinking a lot about how i can apply that scripture throughout the day, and i think a huge part of it is listening to the spirit to know when and how to act in every situation. for me, i wonder if a sudden thought or feeling really comes from the spirit or not, and that´s the hardest part for me, but i´m practicing... a lot. ¡hoy, escribí un montón! ¡ahí está!
bueno. i love you guys and i love hearing from you! it´s another ánimo pickup for me and i´m always grateful to get amor en papel :) i´m going to get better at writing hand written stuff too, les prometo.
¡con mucho amor y ánimo!
elder summers
i now officially have 9 months on my mission. ¡que kpo! things are going well. we had a bunch of snow this week and it got pretty cold but now things are going well. we actually had a few snow ball fights with the kids in the street and it was awesome but i have to admit the snow made me think a lot about the snow at home. it´s strange getting snow at the end of july but it was great. the sun here is strong so it melted the snow pretty fast but then the cold wind froze it to make everything ice over. we ended up ´´ice skating´´ to each house. elder ruano didn´t want to try it but i was having lots of fun. but now there is a lot of mud because the streets are all dirt roads in my area.
being the new district leader has been really awesome too and i directed my first district meeting on friday. i felt like it went very well and we talked a lot about how to show the value of the book of mormon by applying it to their investigator in some way in every visit. if they can get a testimony of the book of mormon, everything else comes easily, and my comp and i have been focusing on that a lot lately.
this week was pretty successful and we have 14 fechas but nobody came to church... triste. we are working really hard but getting them in the chapel (y la pila) is the hardest part. we went on divisions with the zone leaders this week and i learned a few new things to apply in my area. they have one investigator that is mostly deaf so they are learning sign language with him and when i went to visit him i learned a whole bunch of really cool stuff. i was able to have a conversation and talk to him in sign language and i was really surprised how fast i was able to learn. it was really cool and now i can teach about the restoration in spanish sign language! ¡que kpo! we had a baptism on saturday for leila parra but we found out that she only has 8 years... fetch. oh well :). it went great and i was able to direct the baptism while presidente belvedere performed the ordenanza. i really enjoy being a part of baptisms and i hope i will have a lot more!!
losing elder taylor meant that we gained a few more investigators that those guys were teaching. they are doing awesome and we are preparing them to be baptized as well. we also found the familia antipan again and they are living in the same house that we helped the flia sepulveda move out of a few months ago. i think i wrote about the flia antipan disappearing one day... well now we found them again! they were having some marriage problems because alejandro drinks a lot, but we taught about the palabra de sabiduría and gave him a blessing of strength to overcome his addiction and now he´s doing a lot better. we also taught about prayer, and how we know if we are prepared for baptism. they are getting closer!
we also found a woman and her family that used to come to church about 5-10 years ago. her children were baptized in the church but she wasn´t. her daughters said that they stopped going because they found something in the book of mormon that said we worshiped devils and not God. i told them that was a load and that there is nothing in there that says it but she swears it was written in the last few white pages in the very back and that the ´´new copies´´ don´t have it anymore. sounds very strange to me. but we want to teach the mom how to read because she never learned and i think it would be easy to teach in spanish. all the words are pronounced exactly like it´s written so we will talk about the alfabeto and the sounds that each letter makes. she only knows a few vowels.
my puppies died a few days ago. two of them, godzilla and sandy. now we have 4 and i am planning on gifting another one because it starts crying in the morning and doesn´t stop. that´s my sad news for the week.
i was going to record something to send today but my comp didn´t want to talk on it with me so i didn´t do it. i just wanted to involve him but i guess he isn´t into that kind of thing... oh! we are also teaching the familia aroca and we started reading the book of mormon with them. they seemed pretty excited to start reading on their own and we assured them that we will come by any time to read with them or answer questions whenever they wanted. they just need to call :)
well, familia, i really love the mission. i was thinking the other day that my life has changed a lot so far and i can´t imagine going back to the ´´normal life´´. we are having a lot of fun while getting a lot done. this week, mosiah 8:18 stood out to me.
18 Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings.
i was thinking a lot about how i can apply that scripture throughout the day, and i think a huge part of it is listening to the spirit to know when and how to act in every situation. for me, i wonder if a sudden thought or feeling really comes from the spirit or not, and that´s the hardest part for me, but i´m practicing... a lot. ¡hoy, escribí un montón! ¡ahí está!
bueno. i love you guys and i love hearing from you! it´s another ánimo pickup for me and i´m always grateful to get amor en papel :) i´m going to get better at writing hand written stuff too, les prometo.
¡con mucho amor y ánimo!
elder summers
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