3/25/2013

Pretty good week this week. We had Zone Leader Councel this monday, then on tuesday we had the zone meeting with all the Elders which was alot of fun, then I went on Divisions 2 hours outside of our area, which was crazy because it rained the entire time, and I just got completely covered in mud, and the mud here has a lot of cement from all the construction and the poeple don´t watch what they´re doing, and they don´t take care of anything, so when you get all muddy and it dries, it´s literally like a little bit of cement, which is sucky, but it´s pretty fun. The divisions were really fun, and we were able to do a lot of good things. Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week. It´s starting to cool off quite a bit, which is really nice. Also, this morning we went with Guillermo and Viviana to finally be able to start the papers for getting married, because the place was still on strike, and actually it still is, but there is a lady that´s going to help us out. So we are planning that they´ll get married next wednesday! Finally! Haha so that´s going to be good.

Something I´ve learned this week, or rather than learned, is comprehended better, is this week I was able to understand more about The Plan of Salvation, in that, God obviously can´t look at any sin with any bit of happiness, but I did understand better, that God is going to judge us for the desires of our hearts, and how we treated other people. In Alma I was reading a lot this week. Alma chapter 40-41 which was really cool. You should read Alma 41 and I think you´ll understand a little more about what I am talking about. Just make sure to read, and pray, and wait for the Spirit to confirm to you, that what you read is true, adn that you can understand it better. It´s really cool how that works. Also, yesterday, we had a special stake conference here in Argentina, that was actually a broadcast by satellite from Buenos Aires, and 2 Elders from the 70 and Russel M. Nelson was actually there too, and they all spoke castellano (Spanish for Argentines) Which was pretty cool! Something I learned from them, that they talked about a lot, is that Salvation is Personal.... But Exaltation is with our families, and they talked about how important it is to have a wife, and family, that is willing to do their part to get to the celestial kingdom, and I really understood a lot better, about how imporatant it is to have a spouse that will pull their weight. It was cool because out of all the things Elder Russel M. Nelson, a living Apostle, could talk about, he talked about that. And it really hit me. So somethign to think about!! How important is it to pick the right spouse?!

Sounds like everyoen is doing really good, thanks for everything, and thanks for all the prayers! I love you all, have a great week!

3/19/2013

Quynn and Ben.  Reunion!

March 18,2013

	Hey mom i´m on, with some great mission news.... In the mission field now we can actually write our friends directly, or any other family members, so if you could please announce that in my blog, and on facebook or somethign I would really appreciate it!, and it´´s not against mission rules anymore or anything! So now I can write Josh and Tanner and all them which will be a huge blessing!! And when does Tean leave on the mission?!

Hey everyone!

Pretty good week! Just a little hectic, but to be honest nothing really big. That´s really cool to hear that Preston got set apart! Today we had Zone Leader Councel, and there is an Elder from spain that´s super awesome, I love him to death, and he´s really cool. That´s crazy Tean went through the temple!! I can´t believe how all this is happening! It´s weird, because I expected it all of course, but now that it´s all happening is really crazy! It´s gonna be awesome to speak spanish with everyone. I´m sure it´ll be pretty funny to see how different all our accents will be. Mine is already pretty different than Dad´s, and there are a few mexicans in our mission, and their accent is pretty funny too, so that´s gonna be fun! Thanks for the advice with the whole missionary award thing, I think we´re gonna do that because some of the Elders are just slobs. But i´m learning a lot from everything, and I´m so thankful to my Father in Heaven for the opportunity to serve, and to be here in Argentina, in this beautiful place, and to be with all of these amazing people. I´m super excited for General Conference, and I´m sure it´s going to be great just like always.

This week was really cool, because our neighbor is a lady of like 90 years old, and has hated all the missionaries until now, and we finally were able to make friends with her, and me and Elder Weight are like her best friends now haha, and she actually gives us dessert like every few days, and she greets us every single morning, and she just loves us to death! We actually gave her a Book of Mormon now too, which is pretty cool, so we´ll see what happens! She always wakes up, and says "¡Buen día vecinos!" (Good morning neighbors!) haha it´s the cutest, coolest thing ever because she´s super old. I´ll take a picture with her and send it next week. But I love you all, thanks for the prayers, keep them going, we need them!! Have a wonderful week!

March 11, 2013

March 11

This week was pretty crazy. It rained pretty much every single day, and the mud is just crazy. The crazy thing about Resistencia is that the streets don`t really have a good sewer system, so the water stays on the roads for like a whole day after it stops raining, and all the streets have just a ton of mud, so all my clothes are pretty much gray from the mud. Oh, that`s something cool about Resistencia too, the dirt is like a gray, instead of a blood red, like it was in Misiones, in my first area, so that`s something a little different.

Also, Elder Landires says Hi, and that he misses you all, and that it was great to meet you all on Skype for Christmas!

That story about the facebook thing that you guys sent me last week is so hilarious, when I told my companion he was laughing forever. But This week was really good. We had to prepare our investigators really well, because the Rain controls Argentina. Even more than the presidente. Oh, the Presidente here is actually a woman... not sure if you all knew that or not? Her name is Christina Kerchner, which is kinda weird to have a woman president for 2 years. Going from a black presidente, to a woman presidente....... what is the world coming to? Haha. But the Vallejos family, and Guillermo and Viviana are doing GREAT. Here in Argentina there are a lot of strikes, and this whole week the place where people get married here is on strike, so we haven´t been able to get them married, but we`re thinking about marrying the Vallejos and Guillermo and Viviana all together in the same day next Thursday! The Vallejos actually invited us over for lunch one day this week, and it was awesome. I love them so much! Tonight they invited us over for dinner... Which is a little different because dinner here is just little, because they eat so much for lunch, so that´s gonna be awesome, i`ll be sure to take some pictures for all of you, so that you can put a face to who you`re praying for. If you could all please pray hard for these two families, to be able to get married, and baptized, I know it would help a lot. Yesterday we had 7 people in church, which was actually really awesome, and we`re super excited for that. After church was a big surprise too, because we are just walking in the pouring rain, when all of a sudden our mission president and his wife pull up in their car to take us back to our pension!! So that was SUPER awesome. Almost no other Elder can have that experience! But also, the downside of that, is this thursday we were planning our day, we hear a clap at hte door, I open the door, and there is our Mission Presidente.... With the Assistents of the mission.... All three sitting there waiting to come see our pension, and how it was... And I can`t say it was awesome, but it was pretty good. I really can`t stand a dirty or messy pension, so luckily i`ve deep cleaned and made really nice and tidy and organized all the pensions, but it could have been a lot better. So those are the awesome thigns about Resistencia, and living just a few streets away from your Mission President! I`m not sure if you guys know a lot about him, but he`s actually the Owner or Part Owner of Energy Solutions.... Yeah the huge energry company, and the owner of the Jazz. So let`s just say he`s been on the top 100 list for worlds most wealthy people. He`s so awesome, I love him so much, and I learn so much from him every time I`m with him. YOu should look him up on Google or soemthign, I`m sure he`s got a lot of Info on the web, His name is Raymond S. Heyman.

But thank you all for everything. I`m SUPER excited for Tean`s mission call!! I actually shouted a little here in our little internet place, and everyone looked at me pretty funny, which was a good laugh for everyone. But I know he`s going to love it, and I know he`s doing the right thing!! Me and my companion both really like to run and lift weights in the morning, which has been a big blessing because we both have a lot of fun doing it, and every single morning we have been running 2.5 miles, which is actually a really cool thing for me, seeing that I never liked to run before the mission! It`s also ironic because his name is Elder Weight.... Haha. But he`s awesome, we get along really well, and we are doing really well with the Zone, and our Elders are having a lot of success, and they`re really happy with us, so this transfer is goign to be great!! I love you all, thank you so much for everything! Have a wonderful week, and be sure to look for missionary opportunities! There are people out there that need us!

 

The first four are of our pension! Where we live. We actually just cleaned it like crazy this morning!

The other is of us my MTC group, we had a mission conference with the whole mission this tuesday, and I got to see EVERYONE. Everyone came to Resistencia, and it was AWESOME.

 

March 4, 2013

March 4, 2013

 

Photo uno: Me infront of a huge tree

Photo dos: Me and Elder Pusey eating Hot Wings! We found a guy from the states that makes hot wings!! How cool!!

Photo tres: Me Elder Pusey and Elder Posadas. Elder Posadas was in my other apartment, and I love the guy to death, him and Elder Guest finished the mission this wednesday and should be home now

Photo cuatro: Me and Elder Pusey as he left the in the terminal, he got shipped off to Posadas again!

Photo cinco: Me and some elders in my district that I got a long with a ton and I love the heck out of em both, but they both got shipped off to other areas this transfer

Photo seis: We rescued a baptism in an area right next to ours, they closed the area but we took over and were able to baptize the kid!

 

 

 

Friends and Family, once again, Monday has come!

Hey Everyone!! This week was probably the craziest week of my whole mission!!

Starting off, on Tuesday we had a “Movie Night” in the church with our investigators, the Vallejos Family, and we watched the Restoration with Joseph Smith, and they absolutely loved it. We also made some homemade popcorn which they thought was awesome too, and it turned out great. But that night, we received the news of transfers, and Elder Pusey got sent to Posadas, and my new companion is Elder Weight, from Springville Utah. The news was really crazy, because Zone Leaders usually stay together for quite a bit of time, but due to visas, tons of elders didn´t arrive in the mission, and they had to close a lot of areas, because a ton of Elders finished the mission as well, so he is going to go train in Misiones, and i´m actually Zone Leader 1 now, which is really rare to only have 1 transfer as Zone Leader, and already be in charge of the whole entire zone! So please pray for me to be able to lead our zone well, and to do what we need to do. We´ve had a crazy week and we´re really excited to start working like crazy, and make some changes in the zone. On Wednesday I had to go to the Terminal where all the buses are, and since we´re in Resistencia, where basically EVERY single elder that has to go to a new area has to pass through Resistencia, so it´s pretty crazy for us, but it´s a lot of fun to see all the Elders, and to have to send them on buses, and to make all their plans and all that stuff. So Wednesday from 11 am to 8pm I was running through the terminal like crazy sending elders off, and receiving them as they came in and all that, and it was absolutely nuts! But super fun, and exciting. Also, they closed the area right next to our area because one of the elders finished his mission, and the other stayed without a companion, so we had to work there the last 2 days, and it was super crazy. Friday we go to visit one of their investigators, Ezekiel, age 9. The Elders informed us that he wasn´t very excited or ready to get baptized, even though he had gone to church like 4 weeks in a row with his dad, who is a member for a long time. So we go to the house, we are super excited with him and we give him a ton of excitement , and we invited him to be baptized the following day and he accepted!! So that day we started calling the whole ward to help us organize the baptism and all that, and it was nuts! Then on Saturday we made probably roughly 50 calls to members and the Bishop and all sorts of people, and trying to get the baptismal clothing and the people to give talks, and all sorts of craziness, but when all was said and done, he got baptized and was confirmed yesterday!!

Some cool things that i´ve done with the Zone already, is that once a week we do a conference call with all the Elders, and I invented somethign called, The Moment of Success. And each companionship has a few minutes to tell us all somethign that went really good for them, and they have a second to brag a little and to get all the other elders excited, and it´s working awesome! I love it, and all the other elders look forward to it each week, so that´s something really cool that i´ve been able to change so far. It´s so much fun. I love talking to the Elders and helping them out, and doing tons of divisions. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be a zone leader!

Also, thank you so much for the package! I got it this week, and everything is absolutely awesome! And I was not expecting it at all, so it was a really awesome surprise!! Thanks for all who contributed! Our investigators are doing great. Guillermo and Viviana are going to go to the marraige place this wednesday to get their papers ready, and The Vallejos family is SO AWESOME. They family of 4. They all came to church yesterday and loved it, and we are working a lot with them, they are also working on getting married, so please be praying for all them! We also have like 5 other people that are coming to church and progressing really well, i´ll let you know more about them next week. We are super blessed right now in our area, in our zone, and just in general, and we are working really hard to be thankful. So thank you so much for all your prayers, and for all the support. Right now in the zone we´re doing things that have never been done, and we´re seeing success that´s never been seen. So thanks for all you are all doing, please keep it up! Our area has never had so many progressing investigators, and the zone in general hasn´t either, so we are extremely blessed right now and we´re doing what we need to!! Thanks for everything. I love you all, have a great week!!