362 to go...

¡hola familia!
this week cumplí one year on the mission! (how do you say that? i got one year? i turned one year? fetch.) anyways, i didn´t burn anything to celebrate and i didn´t do anything big because it was the end of the month and i ran out of money. today i got more and i think i will buy myself some helado (ice cream).
my visa expires in two weeks so i had to travel to trelew wednesday and thursday morning to get it renewed. it was fun because we had divisions and i went with elder roper to trelew. he needs to do his too. turns out it is a pretty complicated process but we finished everything we had to do in trelew. we went to the bank to pay some fees and get some stamps and then went to another building to pay for more stamps and for another document. thursday we went just to pick up everything and i ended up teaching some people in the waiting room about the church and it was really fun. i think we still have to pay about 600 pesos and sign a few more papers in rawson but i guess it should go smoothly. at least i´m in argentina and nobody pays attention if i´m here illegally but it is still good to get it taken care of.
on friday we had a zone conference in trelew (i go to trelew too much...) and it went great. one of the best conferences that i have been to. we talked about how to study better with investigators in mind, how to plan better, and how to ask for references from members. we practiced a lot and it was a good day. the elders in my zone are pretty fun to hang out with too. i attached the picture of our zone. where´s elder summers? one thing that i really liked was that after the testimony meeting, pte peterson gave us all our own book of mormons to study and asked us to read the whole thing before the end of the year. it has been a really long time since i have seen a book of mormon in english and it is a lot smaller than the spanish version. i thought that he was giving us new spanish versions before i noticed it was in english. i really like it and i enjoy reading it everyday.
hey! i got my birthday package and tons of birthday cards! i am so happy and i loved everything! the shirt looks good on me and i will take some pictures with it playing futbol. thank you! all the candy is amazing too. i shared it with my companion but he doesn´t like the root beer candies. more for me! we played futbol on saturday with some investigators and i rocked it. i´m getting a lot better with my control and i love playing.
this week i really liked alma 29:9
9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do anot bglory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.
that was a really cool scripture for me to read. i enjoy teaching a lot and we found some good people this week. it was wierd how so many peopled failed us but we ended up doing a little more contacting and had some good lessons. we were teaching one family and their 14 year old daughter daniela was very prepared for us. she said that she feels like she needs something else in her life and is searching for peace. she accepted to be baptized on the 12th of november. our area is progressing more and more every week and we are getting more excited.
thanks for thinking of me and sending me letters every week! it´s keeping the ánimo up and recharging my battery for another great week. i love you all and i´m looking forward to hearing from you next week!
con mucho ánimo y amor,
elder summers

Day 362

¡hola familia!
yes- flia is short for familia. sorry for not explaining that earlier but i guess i wasn´t thinking about it. we had another good week of interesting adventures! i am happy here in rawson and my companion and i are working really hard. elder roper, our new district leader is really cool too. he has 14 months on the mission and our whole district, the 4 of us, are rocking it here.
it´s funny with elder roper because we have all the same stuff and yesterday we wore the same tie to church! we both went to missionary mall! jajaja
on saturday, we had a baptism for a woman that´s about 45 years old and our ward mission leader, hermano chemin, was able to baptize her because she is related to him. elder colombres found her a long time ago and the other missionaries have been teaching her but it was really cool and i played the piano for the meeting. my comp made bread of mandarin oranges and bread of banana.
we finally found families that we have been trying to find for weeks! we were so happy and we had noches de hogar with them. more people in the church on sunday! it was a really good meeting and we even had some investigators there that enjoyed it a lot. yesterday were the elections for argentina so we couldn´t do much all day because everyone is obligated to vote or they get a fine.
my companion has been getting really sick this week because of allergies. he couldn´t sleep at night because he couldn´t stop sneezing. it got really bad and i gave him a blessing. hermano chemin brought us to a farmacia at midnight to get him some medicine! he started sneezing blood but he is still alive and well.
we got into marina´s house to teach her and it was the most disgusting place i have ever been. it smelled really bad and it was so cluttered and filthy that i have no idea how she could live like that. we put the fecha with her but now i am afraid to go back to her house. she doesn´t have any friends and nobody can enter her house because ´´black magic´´ is keeping them from entering. but i don´t think so. there is half eaten food, rotten on the table that you can´t remove. when we left the house, my throat was stinging when i breathed and people told me that my clothes smelled really bad. we went back to the apartment so i could soak my clothes in soap and then i took a shower. we haven´t gone back since... but i know we have to help her. the woman is very large and never leaves the house because she doesn´t have work. she told us that she wants to hire someone to clean but she has nothing else better to do... and i don´t think she should let anybody have to deal with that mess.
we also found this guy, gabriel, and we were able to teach him real quick. he was pretty cool but a little feminine. he said that he was living with his ´´companion´´ so elder colombres told him that we were ´´companions´´ too. the guy got really excited and acted really wierd with us. the way he shook my hand creeped me out a lot. we went to his house again to teach him but we found some other guy and he was definitely gay so i don´t want to go back there anymore.
the family dorrey is doing awesome though. it is hard to find the husband but we manage to teach them and they are feeling very good about things. did not come to church but they are progressing!
that´s so cool that the ward had those baptisms! do those guys have a lot of friends in the church or were they friends of the missionaries? a lot of people here get baptized and then fall away because the members aren´t the warmest but we are working with that. we are trying hard to get members to the lessons with us but it gets complicated.
i still haven´t recieved any package but i´m sure it will come pretty soon. you know what would be cool? if you sent me a calendar for 2012 with the birthdays and important dates of everyone. i wanted to ask for addresses this week too because i want to be better getting more letters out. the thing is that i am poor and it costs me 10 pesos every letter that i send in the post office. it´s the end of the month and we are running low on money so in november i can start getting stuff out. this thursday i am going to have 1 year on my mission! very fast! i still don´t know what i will do to celebrate but maybe i will burn that shirt i wore at marina´s house. i´m tempted because i don´t want to wear it anymore but i think it´s ok now. it doesn´t smell anymore and i need all of my shirts. speaking of my clothes, i am ok with everything. all of my shirts, pants, and everything is still alive and i think i can last the 2 years without having to buy new things. sure, there are some holes but i have fixed them. nada grave.
my scripture for the week is DyC 78:17-18
17 Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are alittle children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you;
18 And ye cannot abear all things now; nevertheless, be of good bcheer, for I will clead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the driches of eeternity are yours.
i have been reflecting a lot about God and who He really is. i am so thankful for all of the blessings that i have in my life and they make all of the bad things seem so small. when i read these scriptures, they make me think about Him leading us along holding our hands. i know that He loves us a lot and is ready to bless us when we stay obedient and firm in the gospel. i love this work, and i´m grateful to be here. thank you for all of your support and i´m looking forward to talking to you again for Christmas!!!
I love you all and i hope this week is better than the last!
elder summers

Day 356

¡hola familia!
this week, i am proud to announce that i have not been reassigned to a new area and i have been given the opportunity to stay in rawson at least 6 more weeks with the same companion!!! the only change is elder taylor because he finished his mission and got on his bus for neuquen. poor guy has to travel a lot the next 3-4 days but i don´t feel bad for him because i will have to do the same next year. he told me that he is going to write me when he gets home and i´m sure i will miss him. elder suarez wrote to me today too. he is an awesome guy and i´m going to keep contact with him too.
our next district leader to take elder taylor´s place is named elder roper and i´m pretty sure i met him in comodoro. i think he has a month or two more than me on the mission but i´m not sure if it is the same elder that i´m thinking of. if it is the same, i am excited to see him again because he was really awesome.
this week went very well and we had 2 ward activities. the first on monday was a success and we had 62 people attend. it was great because when i started here, nobody came to the activities! we didn´t have a lot of investigators (only 2) but we did have quite a few that are less active. we played futbol, had a ping pong tournament, ate facturas and tortas fritas, our ward mission leader taught us an awesome game that i am definitely going to use again, and the youth performed. the other activity was for mother´s day because (only in argentina) their mother´s day is in october. i have no idea why because i think the rest of the world celebrates in may. even chile... the ward had a presentation about mother´s, we had a talent show, and everything was ´´de diez´´!
this week went very well and we ended up finding lots of people. the flia dorrey is awesome. i don´t remember if i mentioned them already, but praz is a gendarme (it´s a type of policeman that walk in the street, like a crowd control or something) and he is very excited to learn. we gave him a book of mormon and he told us he will read it for sure. he put it in his backpack and brought it with him to work, and his wife read the pamphlet we left about the plan of salvation. they both like the things they are reading and feel really good about it. they are friends of the bishop and we are going to plan a noche de hogar but the bishop is usually out of town. when we told the bishop about their progress, he told us he felt goosebumbs. i feel like we are gaining his trust again because the other missionaries before us were huge problems (with girlfriends and everything). crazy.
then we found pedro, and marina, and gustavo. they all live in different areas but we found them just because we prayed and asked where to go and we were impressed to go to certain streets and knock doors. i love the words of nefi in 2 nefi 4
35 Yea, I know that God will give aliberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I bask cnot amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the drock of my erighteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen.
i personally saw this scripture happen while working here in rawson and i am finding a lot more worth in my prayers. i´m treasuring the opportunity to speak with my loving Heavenly Father. i´m loving life and i can see how God is helping us a lot.
the mission president is changing some things for the week. now we have all of our meetings in the morning, including our weekly planning session on thursday. i don´t know if i like that because during the siesta, we can´t do very much when everyone is sleeping, but i know that it is for the better and we can do a lot more if we just plan our time better.
hopefully i will have more details on how these people are progressing next week because we only met with each of them once, but i´m telling you they were golden! i´m really excited about what we are doing and this week is going to go great! i know that as we look for unplanned opportunities to find, God will put those people that are prepared in our path, and this week we are going to find many people!
i love being here and there is nowhere else that i would like to be. i know that i´m here for a reason and i´m just so excited! i love you guys and i know this week will go incredible for you as well! hasta luego!
elder summers

Day 349

¡hola familia!
hey! things this week went pretty well and i had a great birthday! we didn´t do a whole lot to celebrate because it has been raining all weekend but my companion made me a cake, and then the familia Gonzalez brought me a cherry cake with peaches and dulce de leche inside. it was delicious. the other elders in rawson- elder taylor and castillo came over to our pensión last night to sleep over and celebrate with me. it was really fun but my companion was upset with one of the other elders so he didn´t participate... that was kind of a downer last night but i still had fun for my birthday.
where are you guys planning on going with those passports? are flights to argentina really expensive? :) i have one more year but i guess we will see! so it´s getting really cold in colorado? we are getting lots of rain and mud but that´s about it. now it is 13 degrees (celsius) so i am getting happier. it´s getting warmer because summer(s) is just around the corner! jajaja.
we did talk with susana about conference and she really enjoyed it. she said that it was very special but she won´t be baptized because she doesn´t ´´have time to read and pray´´ but she does have time to come to church...? i don´t understand that but then again she is always filling in her time with little things for her friends and she doesn´t want to make the time for the more important things. frustrating. but we did find a new family this week named the flia dorrey. they are friends of the bishop and his wife (they are both really young families) and they hang out a lot. we want to get a family home evening with them together but the bishop is out of town right now and the father of the flia dorrey has a difficult schedule. the best time to find him is between 6 and 7 in the afternoon but even that hour isn´t set. that is the hardest part for me here! it´s really hard for us to find people because they are never home.
this is the last week of the transfer so we are going to find out this saturday if there will be changes.
can you believe that i have a month in rawson already! that is crazy.
the 15 family plan is for each ward council to come up with 15 families for the missionaries to visit and teach. the missionaries come up with an informe (report?) saying what those families need to come back to church and the members take over in fellowshipping them. we are doing ok with that plan but it is hard finding those families for some reason. we made contact with almost all of them but it is really hard to find them again because something always seem to come up. more perseverance i guess.
it is mother´s day this sunday here in argentina! in centro, on almost all of the windows they say ´´i love you mommy´´ or ´´happy mother´s day´´ (in spanish of course) but it makes me feel kind of trunky.
at 4 today, we have an activity with our ward that we planned for people to bring their friends. we are going to play futbol, have a ping pong tournament, the youth is going to perform a musical act, and we are going to turn it into a family home evening for the ward. i really hope lots of people come (mejor con amigos) and i´m pretty excited. i think that a lot of members are going to come because our ward mission leader got up to give his testimony in church and he boldly invited everyone to come and enjoy the activity with us. he is really cool and calls us his sons. he has facebook too so i am going to keep in contact with him for sure.
i also gave my testimony yesterday and i felt really good all day afterwards. i think there is a lot of power in a testimony and i know it´s very important to share it as much as we can.
we had the opportunity to bring the sacrament to a recent convert because she had to work in the morning. it was very special because it was very personal for her and it made me reflect on how we should be taking the sacrament every week.
watching people take the sacrament sometimes makes me cringe because there are some people that don´t remember the significance and it annoys me. if they take the sacrament it´s just something for them to do and they don´t remember that it´s something very sacred and personal for them. i guess that´s why i enjoyed blessing the sacrament for dalia so much yesterday because i felt the spirit very strong and we sang a hymn afterward.
i finished the book of mormon again this week and i know that it is the word of God. i know it.
my scripture for the day is d&c 12:8
8 And no one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love, having faith, hope, and charity, being temperate in all things, whatsoever shall be entrusted to his care.
there it is. i really like this scripture and i am praying every day to have more of these things because without them, i can´t meet my goals.
i love you guys a lot and i am praying for you. i hope this week is even better than the last and i´m looking forward to next monday already! don´t forget to write!
elder summers

Day 342

hola familia!
wasn´t conference great? i was able to watch every sessiona but i had some problems hearing pte. eyring on sunday morning because the satellite wasn´t working very well... but we went to trelew to watch all of it in english. the priesthood session we watched in rawson in spanish because we got special permission from pte peterson! our ward mission leader told us that he was going to be the only one in the building to watch it so we asked pte peterson if we could watch it with him and he said it was ok. i really enjoyed conference and i was surprised how many of the general authorities spoke directly to me as a missionary. it was a very special conference for me and it answered a lot of the questions that i had. i especially liked the talks from pte uchtdorf on saturday, pte monson, and elder cornish. the prophet had a lot of energy this weekend and i loved listening to his messages. it will be great to get the conference in the ensign!!!
we had an investigator come to conference in rawson but we weren´t there. her name is susana and is a woman that has been talking to the missionaries for a few years. the other day we went to her house and sanded two of her tables and then invited her to come to conference. some of her friends that are members in trelew already invited her so she was planning on attending in trelew with them but i don´t know why she came to the session in rawson. she got emotional listening to one of the talks because she felt the spirit and we are going to talk to her about it.
we officially dropped manuel because he told us not to come back, he doesn´t want to listen to us anymore and then told us to shoo. que mala onda.
but this week wasn´t too bad. it is really hard because we don´t have many investigators and the people we are finding hear stuff from their ´´friends´´ and decide the church isn´t for them. we only have 6 investigators. i don´t know what it is but the people in the south are really cold and finding those people that are ready is pretty difficult. we knock a LOT of doors and the members say that all of their friends are already in the church and it´s hard for them to get new friends... my companion asks me why i even bother asking the members for references because they never give them to us. i talked to president peterson and he said that we are going to have to receive our own revelation to find those people that are prepared. elder colombres and i are planning on teaching english in the church on saturdays and we are also planning an activity for the 10th, next monday for the youth to bring their friends. we are getting more excited. the conference yesterday was also a boost for us in our ánimo.
pte. peterson is also stressing the 15 family plan that the prophet made. we are searching for those people that the ward council gave us but it has been difficult finding them too. we did make contact with some and we already got a few of those families to come back to church.
this week, i ate puchero and i really liked it. it is just the meat off of a cow´s ´´forearm´´. the food here really isn´t that strange for me and i actually love all of it. food has always been difficult for me to understand because everyone has a different name for one thing and i get mixed up. i´m sure there are tons of names for puchero that i have never heard of but i thought it was interesting. it was perfect with mustard :).
my companion has been having a hard time sleeping lately and he says that i talk a lot in my sleep. 1/3 english, 1/3 spanish, and 1/3 nonsense. it is funny to hear the crazy things that i say and i know he isn´t making it up because some of the things i remember dreaming and i can´t believe i said the things outloud.
right now i am in trelew and we went to play some pool and air hockey with a district of missionaries here. i stay undefeated and i loved playing. it´s just too bad we don´t have foosball. it doesn´t make sense since everybody loves futbol!!! oh well... i think i need to do better taking pictures because we have awesome pdays. we are planning on going to see the penguins next monday but there are no buses to take us and we aren´t sure if some members can take us or not.
this week is full of birthdays! ¡feliz cumple! ¡que kpo! no puedo creer que voy a cumplir 20... pero estoy animado! it has been one really awesome year and i will never forget the days i spent as a 19 year old missionary in argentina, the best place for me. i really liked listening in general conference when elder waddell talked about how my mission here at this time was specifically set for my personal, eternal progression. everyone i meet, all of my companions, my mission presidents, and all of my challenges are exactly what i need in the moment that i need them. that gave me a new perspective to the work that i have been doing and gave me a new deternimation to ´´look up, step up, and cheer up those in need´´.
my scripture for the week is DyC 5:24
24 Behold, I say unto him, he exalts himself and does not ahumble himself sufficiently before me; but if he will bbow down before me, and humble himself in mighty cprayer and faith, in the dsincerity of his heart, then will I grant unto him a eview of the things which he desires to see.
it really stood out to me this week and i started working harder on my personal prayers. i guess that is why i really liked the talk from elder cornish when he talked about the personal relationship that we should maintain with our Heavenly Father through prayer. he also said that prayer was the passport to peace and i have personally felt that here with the challenges i have had.
i really enjoyed the talk from pte uchtdorf because i know that we are not invisible to God and He is always there. He has comforted me many times and i am learning to put more of my trust in my Heavenly Father. i also liked the story from pte monson when he put a lot of trust in announcing the first speaker that wasn´t even in attendance... he really is an amazing man and i know he is a prophet of God. I am very grateful for this opportunity to be here and the chance to listen to conference gave me an extra boost. thank you for all of your support, birthday wishes, and love this week. i won´t be letting you down and i will be working extra hard my last year here in argentina. i love my Savior and i love serving Him. i really love you guys too! I hope that this week goes great for you all, and i can´t wait to hear from you next week!
con mucho amor y ánimo,
elder summers