January 14, 2013

Hey Everyone, just a quick, short letter this week, because we went to Resistencia twice, so basically we didn´t really work a whole lot in our area, but it was great, and a lot of fun to see everyone! We went to Resistencia, and we got to eat at Macdonalds for the first time in almost a year for me. Plus I got to be with all my group from the MTC for like 2 days, which was super fun. I miss them a lot, and we get along super good. Some of my very best friends in my life now, because of everything we´ve all done together, and how much we´ve all progressed and learned together. So Resistencia was really fun. The busses we travel on are really nice, when it´s long distances. I would probably say even a tiny tiny bit nicer than an airplane, which is nice. But yesterday was really fun, because we made Tacos for Esteban y Miriam, so that they could try them, and they ended up loving them. It was really fun to cook in their house with them, and to just have a fun afternoon. THe tacos turned out excellent, and made me miss some of the food we all eat regularly, but I love the Argentine food still, so no worries. I also made Peanut Butter cookies for them to try, and they weren´t super stoaked about those, just because that type of food doesn´t exist, even in the least here. They don´t even know what peanut butter is, but it was funny, and they were excited to try them. This week we´ve got 3 baptisms planned, so all the prayers we can get would help a lot. Celia, Albertina, y Raul. Raul is a kid of 9 years, and he is super excited. His family was less active but we´re reactivating them and he´s goign to get baptized. Albertina is that Brazilian lady, she´s super sick, and super awesome. It´s amazing to see how much she´s been converted to the Lord. And Celia is the same lady that was going to get baptized a few weeks ago, she´s just been having a few little things stopping her, but with lots of prayer and asking, she´s going to get baptized this week. So we´re being really blessed lately! Despite the fact that me and my companion are so different, and we don´t always see eye to eye on everything. But I expected it, because i´ve had such amazing companions the last 3 transfers, that I had to get one to teach me something that is hard for me, and to test my patience a little. But we´re working through it, and we´re doing well. But thanks for everyhting. I love you all and hope all is well. Sounds like Sawyer is tearing it up in basketball! That´s awesome, keep it up! And Tean with his papers, that´s so crazy. I still can´t believe it. But i´m super excited to hear where he´s going. And Tance is driving still kills me, I can´t believe they´re all so old and growing up. Nuts. But Sounds like all is well, i´m really proud of each of you, always work hard, and do your best, even when it´s not easy. That´s what i´m learning right now in my mission. And somethign that Mom and Dad always taught me. Oh, and yesterday was pretty cool, Esteban and Hermano Machado, my two converts were the two to bless the sacrament, so that was really cool to see them both blessing the sacrament! It´s so cool to baptize priesthood holders, so that they can bless their own families and everything. Oh and tell Emma that i´m so proud of her and that I love her, and wish I could be there, but that i´m helping other kids to be able to enjoy what she´s going to enjoy, and that I know what she is doing is the absolute BEST thing she could be doing in her life, and I´d do anything to be there to support her. If you could tell her that, i´d really appreciate it! I love you all, thanks!!!

Jan 7, 2013

Hey Everyone! This week was pretty great! I got my package, and just wanted to thank everyone for everything! It´s all absolutely awesome, and I love it! I´ve let my companion try some of the things I love, and he has liked the majority of it! Haha, not so much on the sour patch kids. They don´t really have sour candy in his country, in Ecuador. But I´ve been enjoying all of hte things like crazy, and all the little toys i´m going to give away to all the members today, so that´ll be really fun, i´ll be sure to take some pictures. We´ve also made a ton of Tacos, and cookies with the members, because nobody has any idea of what Tacos are, and they don´t have cookies here, so it´s pretty cool to see how much they all love them! We´ve got some fun family night plans too with some of the treats and things. I´ll be sure to take a lot of pictures so you can all see.

 

On monday for New Year´s Eve, we had an amazing experience with Maria y Evelyn y Ruth. They invited us over to eat with them, and they cooked some really awesome food for us. They made some chicken, with real Mexican salsa, which I haven´t had mexican salsa since I left the states, because they never eat it here, because Argentine´s hate spicy food, and they don´t want anything to do with it, but she knew me and my companion liked it, and was willing to make it for us, which was awesome. I also gave Ruth that Book of Mormon in drawings, and I gave them each a few pictures of the temple, and some CD´s of the Book of Mormon, and I was able to give them quite a bit of things, and little 5 year old Ruth was so excited, and they actually bought us some really cool gifts as well, and Ruth gave me one of her little stuffed bunny rabbits that she´s had since she was a little baby, and used it to sleep every night. It was really cool to see how thankful they were, and how they just wanted to give us everything. I really wanted to give them everything I had! I was so thankful for them. It was a really awesome experience, and it was absolutely perfect. Just how I pictured my new years being, even before the mission.

 

The last few days it has rained probably harder than i´ve ever seen in my whole life. A HUGE storm came in from Brazil, and it´s been hammering us with just buckets, and buckets of rain for the past 2 days. But yesterday, even with the rain, Albertina, our investigator from Brazil, (Maria´s cousin) came with her daughter, and they absolutely loved it. Plus, she gave us each a 2 dollar bill of Brazilian "Reales", which was really really cool of her, and she also gave us a bag of brown sugar, because here they basically don´t have brown sugar. It´s really hard to find, and really expensive when you can find it, but in Brazil they use the exact same kind as we do in the states, so i´m really excited to be able to use that. It was pretty funny too, because yesterday we went to teach them, and they actually got locked out of their house, and we had to break a little bit of the window to get in. It reminded me of that mobsters and mormons movie. It was pretty funny. We looked like robbers for a few minutes.

 

On Thursday we went to Resistencia to renew my visa, but their system was down, so we weren´t able to do it, and they let us go into the city and look around. It was awesome. It´s so nice, and huge! But the travel was pretty brutal. It was 8 hours there and back, and we had to travel at 1 am in the morning, so i´m pretty beat, but it was a really fun experience. Resistencia is huge, it´s like salt lake, but with a ton of different stores and things. Pretty cool to be able to just walk around and check out all the new technology that I haven´t seen in a year, because i´ve been in small little isolated towns my whole mission, but I love it. It was a really fun week, and this week it looks like we´ll have to travel a few more times, but i´m excited, we´ll see how it goes. Oh, I also got to see Elder Adams! And we took a picture, even though I had just woken up from the 8 hour trip. So that was fun to see him. Thanks for everything, and all the support, and all the prayers. They are helping a lot, and we´re still working really hard here, doing what we can. I´m praying for everyone, thanks again for the package, I love it! Have a wonderful week. Love Elder Allsup

12/31/2012

Photo number 1: Picture of the family Campopiano, for Christmas I gave them a Preach my Gospel because the two boys will be going on missions this next year! She is the one that washes our garments every week. Awesome family

 

Photo number 2: I gave Esteban y Miriam (my converts) that picture of the first presidency, and I laminated it and put my testimony on the back and stuff, it was a really fun night with them.

 

Photo number 3: Baptism of Guillermo (9year old special boy) and Juan (18 year old) they both got baptized this last saturday and it was an incredible night! They both had been through a lot of missionaries but never were able to get baptized, and weren´t ever ready before, but the Lord blessed us to be able to get them both baptized!

 

Photo number 4: Another photo of baptism with the Branch Presidente (Older guy) and the 1st councelor (younger guy)

 

Photo number 5: A picture of Guillermo coming out of the water. He was SO stoked!! He absolutely loved it!

 

Photo number 6: A picture of Juan coming out of the water, he was super excited too!

 

Photo number 7: A picture of us and Juan coming out of the water

I sent a few photos in the last email, I hope you all enjoy them! It was really awesome being able to skype you all and see you all, and see how you are all doing! I was able to get a hold of Gigi and Papa for a few minutes too, which was great to be able to talk to all the cousins and aunts and uncles that were there. It really helped me a lot to talk to each of you and see your faces, and how excited you all were! I thought it would make me miss you all more, but it did the opposite to know you´re all doing well, and you´re still there, and still my family! And to be able to see Josh too was great. You all seem like you´re doing well, and I hope you were able to have a wonderful Christmas! We passed it really well, and were able to enjoy a lot of food, and a lot of company from the members here. They are all wonderful, and they all say hi to each of you! I showed them all pictures of you and that made it a lot more personal, which was really cool. Last monday I was able to give a few really cool gifts out to people. The first, I gave a Preach my Gospel to one of the really active families here, called the Campopiano family. They have a boy that is going to be leaving on his mission this year, and another boy that will leave in 2 years, and the mom is really focused on helping us, so I gave them a preach my gospel to be able to prepare and to be able to read together as a family. It was really cool to see how thankful they were, and it was cool because it really wasn´t a big deal. But through the Lord´s help we were able to give them something they really cherish. After that we went to Esteban and Miriam´s house, and I gave them each a picture of some temples, and one of those Priesthood cards we bought before I left, and I gave them the picture of the First Presidency you guys sent me in my last package. I put my testimony and laminated it, and they were really excited to put it up in their little humble home. Now it´s there bright and center for all to see, so that they can remember that we have a living profet to guide us in our days. Maria y Evelyn y Ruth weren´t there last week, but tonight we arranged to eat dinner with them, and i´m going to give Ruth that Book of Mormon in drawings to her. I wrote my testimony and marked a few stories so that she can start reading and understanding, and I wrote how as a family we always read that together for years, and it really helped me to understand, and I know she´s going to love it!

This week was really special, because we were able to baptize Guillermo and Juan. Guillermo is 11 years old, and when he was 2 they told his parents that he wasn´t going to live past 5, and if he did, he was never going to walk or talk. Now Guillermo is 11 and walks, and talks, and only has a slight handicap with his words and with his speech, But he´s extremely smart, and I love him to death. He always comes up and gives me a big giant hug when he sees me, and he´s really special for me. His parents were so happy to hear that he finally wanted to get baptized, because before there have been like 3 or 4 different companionships that have tried to baptize him, but he never payed attention in the lessons, and didn´t show that he wanted to, but we were able to use a lot of patience, and he was able to answer all the questions and he was really excited to get baptized. In the baptism, after the ordinance they gave his dad a few minutes to be able to give his testimony, and he got really emocional and expressed how imporant this day was for him, because he never thought his boy would live to have this day come. He got really emocional and thanked us a lot in his testimony for having patience and being able to teach him, but really it was all our Heavenly Father that made it possible. He gave us the opportunity and we were able to pay attention to the spirit and make it happen. The mom was also really emocional when she saw him come out of the water, and Guillermo had just the brightest, most wonderful smile you can imagine on his face, gave the Branch Presidente that baptized him a big hug, and looked right at his mom and waved with this million dollar happiness grin on his face, and she began to cry and looked so happy. I am so thankful to be a part of this wonderful event! It was so awesome! I love this family so much. The family in total are like 12 people. It´s a huge family, and now they feel just like my family.

We were also able to find some really prepared people this week from other members who have gotten really excited for the Missionary work, and how much we are able to work with members. My convert Maria has a cousin named Albertina, she´s Brasilera, from Brasil, and doens´t speak extremely well Castellano, so we got her a book of mormon in Portuguese and she is progressing really well, she came to church yesterday, and she actually went to the baptism on saturday too, and loved it! She´s like 62 years old and she´s just this happy, hard working little old lady, and I already love her to death! SHe is preparing to be batpized the 19th of January! We also had another cool encounter with another really active family, the family Elizalde, the mom´s brother drinks and smokes a lot, and he´s the only brother out of like 6 that isn´t baptized, and for CHristmas he drank way too much and had to go to the hospital, and that scared him a lot, because he lives alone with his 5 year old kid, and he is 42, and it scared him that one day he wouldn´t be able to control himself and do damage to him or his kid that can´t be repaired, so he decided to start listening to us, and he came to church too, and is excited to get baptized the 19th as well. It´s amazing to see how God prepares people through the members, and how he is blessing us so much right now! We have anther member, Santiago (He´s the bigger kid in the family that I gave the Preach my Gospel to, and the one that is going to leave on his mission this year) and he invited one of his friends to church yesterday, and he came! So we went to his house yesterday, and the kid´s name is Andrés, and he told us that for the past few months he´s had this "hunger" to look for God in his life, and to find the true church. It´s just absolutely amazing how our Heavenly Father prepares people when we are doing what we should be. We´ve been trying to be so so so obedient these past few weeks, that´s it´s gotten to the point where I can literally see how the blessings come as a result of our obedience. I´m so excited for all these people, and If you could all remember them in your prayers please to be able to help them, and to keep them strong to be able to get baptized and change their lives. Thanks for everything everyone, I love you all, and hope that you all have a wonderful new years! I´ll talk to you all next year!!!! Love Elder Allsup!

HAPPPPPYYYYYY NNNEEEEEWWWWWW YEEEAAAAARRRRSSSS 2013 CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!

December 24 2012

First photo is of when we ate that amazing Brazilian lunch!!

 

Second photo is of me and my new companion Elder Landires

 

Third is of me and Elder Christensen, he went to my high school and we were good friends, he´s in my zone! ASK TEAN HE´LL KNOW WHO HE IS!! Elder Christensen remembers him!

 

Fourth Photo, i´m with Guillermo, the special kid that we´re going to baptize this weekend, he´s so awesome, and super excited

 

Fifth Photo is of the activity we did on Saturday, with the mom of Guillermo, she´s so awesome, I love that family so much! which turned out amazing the activity

 

Sixth photo, same thing, but with the dad of Guillermo

 

Seventh with other members, some converts after a few months!

 

Eighth is some members with the cookies!

 

Ninth is the same, but with my convert, Evelyn on the left

 

Tenth is of the little kids putting on the frosting

 

11th también

 

12th is Maria, Evelyn and Ruth, my converts.... SO AWESOME I love them so much. Have this photo ready when I call you!

 

13th is of Me and companion and Ruth, not sure why Ruth looks like she has a demon inside of her!

 

14th is of me and some of the little kids, they were helping me out with the cookies hahaha

 

15th is of me and lots of the women members. THe one standing up next to me is Celia, the one that is preparing to be baptized!

 

16th is of me and a Pasta Frola, that my convert Maria gave to us, that´s my favorite argentine dessert... she makes them better than any i´ve ever tried before

 

 

How´s everyone doing! I´m doing really great. This last Saturday we had our Christmas activity with the sugar cookies, like we always do at Grandma´s house, and everyone absolutely loved it!! I sent a lot of pictures, but seriously everyone had such a blast. It was awesome because during the day, we went to a member´s house to bake all the cookies, and to cut them all out and use the cookie cutters and things, and there were about 5 little kids helping me, and I´m pretty sure I was covered in about 4 pounds of flour afterwards, but it was hilarious. I just kinda let them do their own thing, and the cookies actually turned out great. They tasted good and the kids had a blast. The funny thing was, I was kinda just focused on the decorating part, but the adults started to try all the cookies that their kids were making, and almost one by one came and asked me for the recipe and how to make them, and the frosting too. So I´m thinking that this week we´re going to do another activity to show everyone how to make them and all that. It was such a great time. It was cool too because Maria, my convert basically organized the whole activity by herself. On Thursday all the women got together and made a lot of the desserts, and then they all brought them for Saturday night. There were 3 huge pizzas, and music and drinks and all sorts of awesome stuff. It was fun to see all the members interact with eachother. Plus Celia, the investigator that is going to get baptized next week went with all her kids, and her kids seemed to have a great time, especially decorating. I´m pretty sure they each decorated like 4 to give to her, and she didn´t have any more room to hold them haha.

 

But this morning I was studying a little bit about when the Savior was born, and I got onto a cool track of scriptures that I was able to find some interesting things that taught me a lot about him, and his life, and his role in our lives. I first started reading in Lucas, and then I somehow got to Ether 12:11 I think it is, where it talks about how Christ is "The more excellent Way" (Not sure if that´s the right scripture,so if i´m wrong sorry) And I was reading about how Christ literally is the most immense, and maximum gift that our Heavenly Father could ever give to us. He really is the way to reach the most eternal happiness known among all of the universe, the Gods, and eternity itself. As I began to comprehend that a little bit more, I really began to love my Savior even more, and began to recognize his influence in my own life. I hope that this Christmas we can all take a second to think about the importance. I know everyone says that every single Christmas, but it´s important. It´s not to say that the gifts, and the music, and the food aren´t important, but it really does make a difference if we can all take a second to recognize the true importance of the Savior in our lives, and what he really accomplishes for us. I love each of you so much, and i´m so thankful to my Heavenly Father for each of you, and your influences in my life. I´m really excited to talk to you, and I hope that we can all talk and have a great time tomorrow.

 

Tonight we get to be out until 11 so we are able to visit more members and be with more of them, and actually get to eat, because here in Argentina The 24 of December is celebrated as Christmas, and tomorrow isn´t really a huge deal, so everyone does all their partying and festivities today. So i´ve been able to prepare some really cool gifts for some of the families we´re really close to, and i´ll be sure to take pictures for next week. I love you all, I hope all is well, and hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!! I know I sure will!

December 17th, 2012

December 17

Wow, that´s awesome Dad, thanks for the letter, That´s really cool to hear more about your mission. Were you able to baptize a lot of people? Were you ever a leader in your mission, such as Zone Leader or District Presidente or Asistente or algo? How was the mission organized back then? I´m sure it´s changed a lot. It´s really cool to finally be señor companion and be able to see the difference that I can make personally in my area. I´ve decided to utilize a lot more the members to be able to have a better relationship between them and the investigators, so that when the investigatores get baptized they can already be aquianted and have a lot of friends. It´s been cool these last few weeks to have some of the members go look for the investigators in the morning, so that not only do we not have to do it, we can be in another place getting other people, but the members and hte investigator can talk and have a good relationship. Also i´ve chosen to start doing a lot more service for the members. In the last 3 weeks we´ve done like 10-15 hours of service, which is actually quite a bit, and i´ve never seen another missionary do so much, which I don´t say to try to brag, but I have seen a big difference in how willing the members are when we´ve done service for them, rather than just ask them for a million things, and have them give us lunch. It´s been a really cool growing experience with the youth too, as we´ve been working more with them, getting them excited for EFY and things like that, which makes me really happy to see that I can be making a difference here in the area personally, applying the talents and things our Heavenly Father has given me personally. It´sreally cool to start applying the talents God has given us, and to keep working on the things we struggle with. My new companion is from Ecuador!! His name is Elder Harry Landires, and he´s awesome! It´s really funny because he knows all the songs that we used to listen to when we were younger, like Franco Devita and Luis Miguel, and sometimes we just start singing them, which is pretty funny. It´s really cool now too that I actually know what I´m saying and I can understand it! Thanks for all your emails. They´ve really helped me a lot to be able to focus more, and to keep what matters most in my priorities. Today was really cool, I started to study something really interesting, I started to study what it takes to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in our lives, and I started searching the scriptures and all the other books and things, and it´s amazing how you can just get lost in the scriptures finding little treasures. Studying that today really made me think a lot of you Dad, and how you´re always telling me to put God First, because I started reading a lot in Mateo and in Juan and things, and they´re always talking about how important it is to put God first, and to love him with all your heart. I made a cool little checklist to keep myself inline to be able to keep the first commandment, because as I began to study, it was saying how we need to Love God, and love our neighbors and things, and then I started thinking, well how do we do that? How do we love God, or show our love, and for our neighbor, and I came across a cool chain of scriptures. I found out by keeping the commandments we love God, and it´s cool, because i´m working on a really big project right now in my studies. It´s called PURIFY ME and what i´m doing, is I started a list on "How to Purify and Sanctify Yourself in God´s Standards" and what i´m going to do, is make a huge list, of the actual, literal steps to purify and sactify yourself, but breaking it down to the very littlest that I can. For example, Step 1 would be something like 1) Have Faith

----To have faith you have to: (And here i´d put how we gain faith, and how we do the steps to actually do the steps to gain faith)

Step 2) Repent (Or something like that, i´m just putting examples)

I´m not sure if this is making sense, but it´s really cool. And i´m breaking it all down the most I can which will be really cool. I want to have a huge long list of all broken down steps of exactly how to do it. So when I finish I´ll send it to you. I´m learning so much by doing that. Thanks for always teaching me those types of things, and teachign me to always analyze what it is God wants me to get out of passages of Scriptures. I didn´t include this part in my main email, but if you can please email it to mom so she can put it into the Blog that would be great. Thanks Dad for everything. I love you so much! I´m making a lot of cool traditions too for when I get home, I´ve thought of a lot that i´m goign to start doing the year I get home, which will be cool. Like every Christmas Eve everyone cooks a meal from their mission or something. I´m really excited, it´ll be awesome. Love you dad thanks for everythign, Have a good week. Love your son Elder Allsup

 

Hello, Everyone

 

So we had transfers, and I stayed here in Santo Tomé, but got a new companion from Ecuador, his name is Elder Harry Landires!! He´s almost as tall as me, and really dark, and talks pretty different than the people here, which is pretty funny, because he´s always asking me things in spanish, and he´s always asking me how to say things or what things mean. Oh he´s only got like 6 months in the mission which is really cool too. he´s the first companion I have that has a lot less time than me, which is pretty awesome! It´s challenging, but it´s a lot of fun. It was hard to say goodbye to my other companion Elder Martinsen, because we got really close, and we got along really well, but i´m excited to work with Elder Landires, and to get to work! Yesterday was pretty cool because Hermano Machado, the guy that waited 20 years to get baptized, passed the sacrament for the first time yesterday in church! That was pretty awesome to see how emotional he got. And Yesterday Esteban y Miriam invited us over for lunch, and they cooked us this huge meal with Capibara again! Here it´s called Carpincho, i´m not sure if Capibara is the real name in english or not, maybe you can look it up, but it was so delicious, and I gave them some of those sour warheads you sent me last package, and oh it was hilarious. Their 3 year old little daughter tried it first, and her face was absolutely priceless! I´m getting really attached to these people here. I love them so much. Especially my converts. I really see them basically as my own family now, and it´s really cool i´ll be able to spend Christmas with them, so i´ll be spending Christmas with my own family basically.

 

Yesterday our other investigator Celia went to church again! She´s so awesome. It´s so cool to see how prepared she is! She has a lot of questions and things, but it´s looking really good for her to get baptized in a week or two, so we´re really excited about that. This last tuesday we cut the lawn of our Branch Presidente´s house, and that was really fun. He had an electric lawn mower, which for here is like something really big, nobody has lawn mowers, they all just use macheties and things, but it was wierd cutting the lawn with a big chord in the way. It was actually more like vaccuming really, which was cool. It was cool the difference we made in the lawn, it looks great. We are also working really hard with a family called Galvan, which is a family of like 10. They´re all members but the parents aren´t married yet, but they´ve been together for like 20 years, they got baptized before they got together, and she was basically forced into marraige by her parents, and the guy she´s married to doesn´t want a divorce yet, so things are really complicated, but we´ve been able to reactivate them, adn they have a little special child named Guillermo, and he´s so awesome. He´s not extremely special, but it´s hard for him to talk, but the little stud just LOVES some people. Every time he sees us he comes running up the hill and comes and gives us a huge hug, and he mumbles just enough to be able to hear what he´s saying, but we got permission from the family, and from presidente and as long as he can understand the commandments, he can get baptized, which is like his DREAM because he´s had to watch his whole family get baptized over the years, and he really wants to, so we´re going to see what we can do to help him out, so if you can please pray for him and for Celia, and for Juan, Juan is a friend of this Galvan family that´s been going to church the past year, but he hasn´t really wanted to get baptized, but just a few days ago he told us how much he wants to get baptized! So we´re seeing some pretty awesome blessings here right now, and could really use all your prayers to help out! Hopefully we´re looking at like 2-3 baptisms in the next 2 or 3 weeks, so we´re really excited!

 

It´s really cool to finally be señor companion and be able to see the difference that I can make personally in my area. I´ve decided to utilize a lot more the members to be able to have a better relationship between them and the investigators, so that when the investigatores get baptized they can already be aquianted and have a lot of friends. It´s been cool these last few weeks to have some of the members go look for the investigators in the morning, so that not only do we not have to do it, we can be in another place getting other people, but the members and hte investigator can talk and have a good relationship. Also i´ve chosen to start doing a lot more service for the members. In the last 3 weeks we´ve done like 10-15 hours of service, which is actually quite a bit, and i´ve never seen another missionary do so much, which I don´t say to try to brag, but I have seen a big difference in how willing the members are when we´ve done service for them, rather than just ask them for a million things, and have them give us lunch. It´s been a really cool growing experience with the youth too, as we´ve been working more with them, getting them excited for EFY and things like that, which makes me really happy to see that I can be making a difference here in the area personally, applying the talents and things our Heavenly Father has given me personally. It´sreally cool to start applying the talents God has given us, and to keep working on the things we struggle with. My new companion is from Ecuador!! His name is Elder Harry Landires, and he´s awesome! It´s really funny because he knows all the songs that we used to listen to when we were younger, like Franco Devita and Luis Miguel, and sometimes we just start singing them, which is pretty funny. It´s really cool now too that I actually know what I´m saying and I can understand it! Lots of cool changes lately, and it´s been a lot of fun. So all is well here! Apart from our pension doesn´t have air, and in the pension at night it´s about 95 ish degrees, so it´s a little hard to sleep in like a pool of sweat, but i´m being really blessed to be able to just endure it. But the heat is getting here. Wow I forgot what it was like to sweat like when I first got here in the mission. Pretty crazy. But I love you all, thanks for everything. I´ll let you know next week what time i´ll be calling home on Christmas! Hope all is well, and that all are doing what they need to be doing! I´m really excited! Love you all, have a great week. Love Elder Allsup!

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!