12/10/2012

Hey Everyone! HOLA DE SANTO TOMÉ ARGENTINA!!!

Sounds like everyone is doing well!! Sorry I haven´t sent any pictures for a little while, the computers have been a little crappy lately and I can´t figure out what´s going on. I´m not able to hook up my memory cards to the computer or my camera either. Really weird, but i´ll figure it out. I´m hoping it´s just the computer i´m using. So my mission president´s wife a few months ago had a stroke, and she´s been recovering in Buenos Aires, but this last week she was well enough to go back to the states, so my mission presidente and his wife went back to the states, and they´ll be there for a few months, but they didn´t release him, they just basically have a "substitute teacher" in right now, and his name is Presidente Digiovanni, which is pretty cool. He seems really awesome, I haven´t gotten the chance to meet him yet though. So if you could all keep Presidente and Hermana Heyman in your prayers that would be great, so that they can come back without problems.

This last week we did a family night with my converts Maria y Evelyn y Ruth, and Esteban y Miriam, which was a blast. We did a cool little game where everyone has a piece of paper, and I give them directions on what they have to draw, but they aren´t really specific, and it ends up that they have to draw a person, but nobody ever gets it right because I throw them off so much, and it´s hilarious to see what everyone draws, and then we relate it on how Prophets are so important, because even though The Bible and things have all we need, sometimes we need more specific directions. And so we read about prophets and how important they are, and it´s really fun. I´ve done it quite a few times here in Argentina with family nights. IT´s something I learned when I was still in primary like 10 years ago. We did it, and it´s always just stuck, and it´s a lot of fun. The Hermana Maria taught us how to make Pasta Frola too, which is a really good dessert that they eat here, adn it´s my favorite dessert, and it´s amazing, so now I know how to make it, and ii´m excited to make it all for you.

Last night, we also got to try Carpincho! I don´t know if you know what that is, but it´s supposedly Capibera or somethign like that in english, and it´s not really found in the states. Maybe you can look it up and see if you can find a picture, but it´s like a big otter looking thing, and it´s pretty famous here because they hunt it a lot, and i´ve ALWAYS wanted to try it, and finally last night a member invited us over to try it, and it was extremely good. I loved it. You just aren´t argentine until you´ve eaten Carpincho. So now I just need to try aligator, and i´ll basically be full Argentine! Haha but no it was really good, and I was really excited about being able to try it.

I´m planning some really cool Christmas ideas for here in this area too, which will be really fun. I´ll be sure to send a lot of pictures and things, but right now i´m planning on giving out a lot of gifts to my converts and hte members here. Like All the testimonies you all gave me last year, i´ve saved them for until now, and i´m going to translate them all and give them to the members or people that are struggling, and i´m going to film it, and theyll love it. I´m also planning on giving away a ton of the pictures and little fotos i´ve got of all the temples and of Jesus Christ and the pencils and CTR rings and all the little htings i´ve got, so that´ll be awesome, and i´ll be sure to send photos. Also we are planning to have a really cool activity where we make tons of sugar cookies with all the cookie cutters that Grandma gave to me. I´m going to make a ton of dough, and we´re going to let the members cookie cut it and decorate them with all the things she sent me. So i´m really excited about that.

This week was really successful for us. Now that i´m Senor companion i´m having to figure out my style of working, and i´ve finally found "my groove" to say it like that. This week we sent a ton of members to go look for people sunday morning to go to church, and we had a wonderful attendance. More than we´ve had in a long time. so that was really cool to be able to find my style and to see the success. We found a really cool lady named Celia, she´s got 4 kids and she´s like 25 years old without a husband and lives with her mom. We just felt like clapping her house, and she almost started crying right in the first lesson because she needed us so badly. And she went the very first sunday that we invited her, so we´re really excited about her. Please pray for her, and for Sole and Alberto, and Guillermo. Those are the people we´re teachign right now, and i´m running out of time to tell you all about them, but they´re great. I love you all, thank you so much for everything, I hope all is well. Stay strong, and enjoy this wonderful Christmas season! It´s almost 120 degrees here already, so enjoy the cold! Haha I love you all, have a wonderful week. Thanks for everything. Love Elder Allsup

Elder Quynton Allsup

12/3/2012

Hola a Todos! Como están? This week was a pretty good week. Yesterday was really cool, because Esteban got to bless the sacrament for the first time, and he did awesome! It was so cool. When he got done he looked over at me, and I just gave him a thumbs up and he had a huge smile! He´s so awesome. He invited us over to have a BBQ at his house, but the type of BBQ where they just make a huge fire, and put a grill rack with a ton of raw meat and just let it cook for like an hour over the coals, and it was so delicious. Me and my companion made empanadas of chicken today, all from scratch. We made the dough and everything, and they turned out great. Can´t wait to make them for all you guys! Me and him are thinking of starting an Argentine restaurant when we both get back. Well when I get back, he goes home in a week. But we make such good food. Seriously i´m pretty sure we could sell the food we make for some pretty good money. Especially bread. We´ve gotten really good at making bread.

This week was pretty cool, because we´ve been visiting all the less actives, and we´ve been meeting some great people. This week we visited like at least 15 less active members, and this week about 10 of them came to church. Which was a really cool miracle to know that the Lord has plans, and he really can use us, even if it´s just a little lesson of 20 minutes, and how it can change a lot of people´s week. It´s amazing to see how the Lord can use us as just little tiny tools, to really make such a difference in others´ lives. Just like he´s done with each of you in my own life. I can remember distict times with many of you, especially my family, where someone did something extremely tiny for me, and they probably didn´t even realize it was a big deal, but it changed my whole day, or my whole perspective, and it really helped. I really encourage everyone to look for those little opportunities. It really doesn´t have to be something big. My companion is a really good example of that, and he´s taught me a lot, in the sense of that. Sometimes he´ll just do cool little things, and it just changes a lot, my whole day sometimes. Sometimes he´ll wash the dishes when it´s my turn, or sometimes he´ll just make something to share, or sometimes he´ll do some other tasks that we usually take turns on. Just tiny little things, but they make a huge difference, it´s pretty interesting how different it is. So try it. Everyone. Try doing something little for a few people this week, and see how things go, it´s pretty crazy the differences you´ll see.

This last saturday I got a little sick. After lunch we got back to the pension, and all of a sudden out of nowhere I got a fever of 102, which is pretty bad when it´s already like 100 degrees outside and you don´t have air conditioning, so inside doens´t make a huge difference. It´s all gone now, but it was a little weird, just basically that day and a tiny bit yesterday were really severe, but now i´m completely fine. I think my body was just telling me to slow down a little and rest for a second. Which I think is probably good for each of us every once in a while to just take a break and rest! Take a break, make yourself something good to eat, and just rest without thinking of all the things that stress you out. Try just opening up the scriptures to any single page, and figure out what our Heavenly Father wants you to learn from that page. I´ve done that a few times this week and i´ve actually had some pretty cool little experiences with it. Dad always taught me that the Book of Mormon only has a very tiny amount of content for how much could have been put into it with all the records that the people had back then, so what all is there is of the most importance. Try reading the scriptures that way. Try to treat every single page like Mormon put it in the book for you specifically, and try to figure out why it´s there, and how it can benefit you. It´ll change your views, and you´ll have experiences like you´ve maybe never had before reading the scriptures. I love you all, and i´m so thankful for each of you, and for always supporting me. Thank you for all your prayers, i´ll need them this summer. It´s GETTING HOT! I´m already sweating like crazy, but it actually doesn´t get to me nearly as bad as last year.. Wow, that´s a little weird to say "as bad as last year". Can´t beleive i´ve already been here that long! But I love you all, stay strong, thanks for everything. ENJOY the snow! Love Elder Allsup!

11/27/2012

Hey Everyone! Sounds like everyone is doing well! Everything is going pretty good, we found some great people yesterday because it was a holiday here, and all the families are together, so that was great, and we made some really good home made italian bread. Me and my companion are cooking like crazy. Today I made no bake cookies, which were delicious! The area is doing really well. I made a really good area plan for our area, and we´ve been passing by all the less actives and other members, and we´re finding some really good people to teach! I also fixed the bottoms of my shoes this week, and it turned out pretty great. I got really lucky with the guy I took my shoes to. Sometimes they don´t do very good, but he did great, and I think they´ll last me my whole mission now because I chose some bottoms that the police here use, so that´s good.

  I also made an awesome study plan to read The New Testament, Old Testament, Jesus the Christ, The Book of Mormon, and The Doctrine and Covenants with the Pearl of Great Price, in the rest of the time I have in my mission, so that will be really fun to do. But as for all that, things are good here, the branch is doing much better, and we have about 40-45 people coming, which is about 10-20 more than when I got here, so we are seeing some really good success. I hope all is well up there! Sounds like Thanksgiving was great! Thanksgiving isn´t a holiday here, so I completely forgot about it until I saw all your pictures! Can you believe that! Forgetting about Thanksgiving, What´s wrong with me?? But I guess that just means i´m really focused, so that´s a good sign I think.

 This week I studied my patriarchal blessing a lot, and I encourage all of you that have them to pull them out every once in awhile. There are things now that I´m understanding better and better than ever before, and with the help of the scriptures we can really find the full potential of them in our lives. Thanks for all the support from everyone. My companion is from Blackfoot Idaho if you all didn´t know, and he´s goign home in like 2 weeks, which is sad because we get along really well, but it´ll be fun. I am just sick of killing my companions! (killing is a term used to refer when you have to send a missionary home for his last transfer) Because i will have done it 3 times! Nobody else in the mission has done it 3 times before! Haha so i´m pretty excited, we´ll see what The Lord has in store for me! Everyone should take a few minutes this week, sit down, and just start writing all your blessings. It´s amazing what Our Heavenly Father gives us!

 Sorry I don´t have a really cool thanksgiving email for you all, I totally forgot about it, so i´ll have a better one next week! Also, i´ll be sure to get that Advice for Missionaries list that i´m making done here soon. It´s so exciting that everyone is getting their mission calls! Not too long and we´ll be getting Tean´s! Wow, I can´t believe that. So Connor Kikel is going to Cordoba Argentina, and Preston Sharp is going to Spain?? Wow that´s crazy! Who else has their call? It´s so funny because the only other countries, literally, that people here in this part of Argentina make fun of is Cordoba and Spain, because they both have really distict accents, so that´s going to be funny when we all get back talking to eachother in our accents. Cordoba is known for "singing" when they speak ,because it´s really high pitched, and they dance with their words, and Spain is known for having a lisp when they speak, whenever they pronounce the "S" so that´s pretty funny. Plus they speak in a different form there. But i´m way excited for them! Tell their families i´m super excited and i´ll get that list out really soon! Love you All, have a great week! Love Elder Allsup

11/20/2012

Hey everyone! Hermano Machado got baptized!! Andrea had to travel to her mom, she´s really sick but we´re going to see what we can do this week. Sorry i´ve had a million things to do this week and don´t have time to write a whole lot, but here´s the story of machado:

20 years ago he entered into one of our churches, and since that day he´s been going to church almost every single week. But he still just didn´t have a strong testimony of things, and his family never supported him, because they´re all catholic, however he still went to church, and when I got to the area I felt really good about him, and we started to teach him like 3 months ago, and it still didn´t work out, so we left him, but about 2 weeks ago we stopped by to see how he was doing, and talked with his 12 year old daughter (The reason he didn´t get baptized for a long time, because she said she´d leave the house if he got baptized) and we talked to her, and thigns went great, the next day we talked to him, and he told us that he was ready. And now 20 years later here we are, the Elders that the Lord had used to help this awesome guy make a sacred covenant. The story is a little longer, but that´s the just of it, and I feel so blessed to have been apart of his conversion after such a long time. It is truly a miracle, and he´s glowing with happiness. I know this is the True gospel of Jesus Christ, and he watches over us and he has a plan. I love you all, thank you so much for everything!!

11/12/2012

1) Me and Elder Rogers! I got to see him in this Zone Conference!

2) Me and my companion Elder Martinsen with my 1 Year mark sign

3) The Ice Cream Challenge I did of 1 Kilo (2.2 LBS of Icecream)

4) Me with the Icrecream

Hey Everyone! Sounds like everthing is going great!! Tean is getting his wisdom teeth pulled? Ah that sucks. I remember mine, it wasn´t awful but it wasn´t the funnest thing i´ve ever done. That´s so exciting he´s getting his papers in. I can´t believe that! Sounds like work is going really well for him! Keep it up Tean, that´s really important and it´s going to help you a ton to save up and to start working really really hard, because here in the mission you´re going to work harder than you´ve ever worked before. Tance is getting good grades! That´s wonderful to hear! keep it up Tance, that will help you more than you can know to get a good habit of getting good grades and working hard in school. And Sawyer made the high school basketball team! Woah that´s great! You´ll have to tape all her games so I can watch them. That´s great finally one of Dad´s kids gets to play high school basketball!

 

Things are great here! I´ve been cooking a ton with my new companion and we both love to invent and cook things, which is a lot of fun! This week I completed one year! And here in our mission we have a tradition that when the Elders complete one year they have to eat a whole Kilo of icecream (2.2 Lbs of extremely rich icecream) which I thought would honestly be a breeze, and I wasn´t worried about it, and was really excited to try it. So I begin the day by starting to prepare, and didn´t eat a big lunch and went running and things to make some room, and at night we go buy the icecream and I start to eat, and to blaze through it no problem, until I get to about half way when I realize it was starting to physically hurt my stomach because it started to expand, so I just kept going, until I had like 5 bites left, and I literally couldn´t do it, but of course my companion started to just yell and telling me to just finish and kinda cheering me on and just making me do it basically, and I shoved it all but like 2 bites in, but I couldn´t do it! I ran into the bathroom and threw it up because I literally couldn´t do it with all the sugar and stuff!! I wasn´t sick or anything, and it didn´t make me sick at all or anything, but I couldn´t believe how hard it was! But it was hilarious and really fun. I´m going to do it again when I get the chance in the next week or two. I can´t just let 2.2 lbs of icecream beat me like that.

 

 But we have been working really hard. And Andrea and her family, the ones we´ve been teaching are going to get baptized this week as long as everything goes well! Also El Hermano Machado that was going to get baptized like 2 months ago, do you all remember him? Well he didn´t get baptized because his 12 year old daughter didn´t want him to before, but we talked to her, and then we went by last week, and we talked to him, and he´s going to get baptized too this week! So if everything goes according to plan, we´re going to have 4 baptisms this saturday!!! Woo Hoo!! I´m super stoked!! We also got to see the monkeys again yesterday, but extremely up close. We were about 4 feet away from them and I saw the tree just start moving like crazy, and I look over to see 5 monkeys playing together. It was so cool! So much fun to just watch them play and have fun in their own little monkey way! Me and my companion are getting along great. I love him already. We´re going to be great friends after the mission too. But we´re working really hard, it´s getting a lot hotter here, and we´re finding really good people to teach and we´re really excited.

 

 Sounds like everyone is doing great! Hope everyone is doing their prayers and reading and things, and I hope all the future missionaries are reading preach my gospel regularly. Tell everyone Hi for me and that I love them! See you all next week. Love Elder Allsup

Nov 6, 2012

Hey Everyone, I´m still here in Santo Tomé, but I got a new companion. His name is Elder Martinsen, and he´s from Idaho. We are getting along really really great. We are also having a lot of fun together, and i´m excited to be here. He´s also going to finish his mission in 5 weeks. Haha President keeps putting me with all the missionaries that are ending! I´m not sure why! But all my companions have been really good leaders here in the mission, so that´s really cool. I´ve been learning a lot and i´m excited to keep learning, and this transfer i´m Missionary 1, which is basically the one in charge, and it´s my first transfer being missionary number 1, so that´s exciting and pretty fun to be able to lead now.

 

But we´re working really hard, and sounds like everyone is doing really well! I don´t have time this week sorry, this internet shop is a little full and we got here a little late. But sounds like everyone is good, and we are still teaching Andrea and her family now! They all came to church, so we´re really excited, and we´re hoping they can get baptized this week or the next week, we´ll see. But if you could please pray for them, that would help a lot. Thanks for all hte support, next week i´ll have a better email, sorry I don´`t have time today. But I love you all, thank you all for all you do, and next week Ill try to send you the lists! Love Elder Allsup

 That´s crazy Tean is already starting his papers! And Tance is already playing again! Seems like yesterday he broke it! That´s cool you´re getting things done in the backyard. Sounds like it´ll be really nice when I get home, and when I can see it all.

 I can´t believe I´m completing 1 year in the mission this week. It seems like yesterday I was in the MTC or opening my call!! I learned a lot this week about how God blesses us. He really blesses us when we do all we can to obey him and to do what he needs us to do. It is getting really really hot here already, but surprisingly the heat isn´t getting to me like it did before. I think it´s because i´m so completely focused here. It´s like I don´t even want to sleep because I just want to go out and work. It´s almost a burden to get home at night and have to go to sleep at night. I am so focused that I don´t even know what day it is sometimes! But I´m seeing so many blessings that it´s amazing.

He is blessing me with not having anything else really matter a whole lot. I am just loving to work, which before I really enjoyed working, and leaving to go teach and things, but it´s actually like addicting now. I think it´s because i´ve really basically given all I have to work, and I know that i´m being blessed for it. I encourage each of you to really do the same. Obviously the Lord doesn´t require you in your lives to do what i´m doing, but do everything you can and he´ll bless you.

Read your scriptures. Go to church. Go to seminary AND PAY ATTENTION. Go visit the less active members in your quorums, Go and invite your non member friends to church. These things bless our lives, and the lives of so many others. I testify to each of you that God has given us these things to strengthen ourselves, and others. I gave a class yesterday in church and It was about hte personal responsibility we have, and the work. If we work hard, it doesn´t have to be a burden. If we do all we can for the Lord, it becomes fun. Thank you so much Mom and Dad for always teaching me these things. I was able to teach yesterday and help these people to understand that those thigns don´t have to be "work", and they can be fun. I love you all, and i´m so thankful for your examples! I´ll try to write more next week. Have a wonderful week, and WORK HARD!!!!!!

10/29/2012

Saturday we had the baptism of Esteban y Mirian!! It was great! I was able to confer Mirian a member yesterday too. The first one i´ve done personally here in Argentina. Yesterday was pretty crazy, the night before last I couldn´t sleep because the thunder was so loud, and the lightning lit up the whole room and was super bright, and I got up to go look outside, and didn´t realize my companion had gotten up too, and we scared the crap out of eachother. But it´s been raining like crazy, and yesterday the bishopric and us, and Esteban y Mirian were the only ones in church, which was pretty crazy to only have like 8 people. But the baptism was great and everything went smoothely.

 

 We have transfers this week so we´ll see what happens. I get a new companion no matter what, but I think i´ll stay here in Santo Tomé for at least another transfer. So that´s exciting, and i´ll let you know. Next Monday we have Zone Conference, so I´ll have to write on Tuesday, just to let you know, so you´re not waiting an email. But i´m doing really well here. It´s getting really hot, but the rain is refreshing us a little bit. But it´s been raining harder for longer than i´ve ever seen. I´ll make my list of what i´d like for my package, and i´ll send it the next week, because I hear around Christmas the packages take a lot longer. Thanks for everything! Hope all is well! Love you all, thanks for the support!