Letter from Monday Oct 30, 2006

Hey all! Thanks for all the letters! I got letters from the fam, Maxine, Diane, Hna. Orquiz, and Sam!!! Thanks all for the updates! How about Halloween fun for you all? We had a great activity on Friday. We had people dress up (we as missionaries couldn’t), we had bobbing for apples, etc. The best part was watching the kids trick or treat in the church. They all ran screaming down the hall, and each one got a little bag of candy.
We shared Matt. 27:52 as the theme scripture. The Lord really blessed us. Thanks Cori for your advice. I really needed it. Congrats to Ismael! He will be a great missionary!

We got planners before the transfer next week! That was really exciting! In fact, it is the best! Okay, so I’m still in Puerto Madryn with Hna.Evans for at least another week. Transfers are every 6 weeks, but we don’t know whether we stay or go until the day before. Transfers are next week (Thursday-more or less).

Oh, did I tell you that we traded part of our area with the Elders? We have Roca (it looks like a ghetto future.) Imagine 2001:Space Odesey without the space or the blue Danube playing in the background. It is a bunch of apartment buildings and it is a lot of fun. We have found one lady, Monica, whom we will teach again today. We also contacted a reference named Damiana. She is really cute and really stressed. Her 16-year-old son is in Buenos Aires because he has “lucimia”. I don’t know how to spell it in English. Anyway, so we are working with her.

Oh, I found another way to flush a toilet here! Some of them don’t have handles or buttons. Some of them need to have a bucket of water poured in them. Cool, huh! Oh, and Dad, we do have hot water (fortunately). I think that is all of my news for the week. Please keep me updated on yours.

Thanks all for your love and prayers on my behalf. They are always needed and appreciated. Love you all and hope to hear from you all again next week!
My love always and bunches. HUG TIME!

Letter from Monday Oct 23, 2006

Bolivians in Argentina are becoming more and more like Mexicans in California. I enjoy teaching them and they are the most caring people! Most people here work in the fish factories. They export the fish so we don’t ever eat it. Sad! “Oh well.”

Diane asked me if I had an experience that helped me recognize my testimony this week. I did. I was struggling to feel the truth of my testimony for a couple days. Then I talked with President Cook and asked him to give me a temple recommend interview. He did. I felt my testimony so strongly. I need to have interviews more often. Their like taking vitamins to stay healthy, but sometimes you take more because you know you are getting sick. I am so glad that we have great leaders here in my mission.

Stories: We are having a Halloween activity this Friday! We can’t dress up. That’s really sad because I was going to be a “shark in the night”. But we are going to make costumes for the people that come!

Miracles: We taught a lady named Teresa the first lesson last transfer. We thought she wasn’t very interested. Then, we get her as a member referral. We go to teach her and she says, “I’ve been waiting for you to come back. But I know you are busy walking all the time.” She is so cute! We are now teaching her whole family (husband, 3 kids). The members go with us to the lessons too! It’s a double miracle!

We also found Hna. Tomasini, a menos activo who wants to come back to church and work, she has it all planned out that she and her husband will get married and we will teach him so he can get baptized! She is so excited! She even wanted us to bring her our laundry and we only stopped by for 45 min! She is great!

We found Claudia. She is a great lady. She felt the Spirit really strongly in the first lesson. We will visit her again on Wednesday. She is so good!

We divided our area today! This means that we get to have more people to talk to! I’m so excited because we have finished our area in two transfers. Oh, and speaking of transfers, those are the days when emails will come on Tuesdays.

Well, that’s all I have for this week! Love all and hope to hear from you all soon! Love always and bunches!

Letter from Oct 16, 2006

Hey all! Sorry about last weeks email! I’ll be more careful with the email address things. So the quote of the week is “She’s alive! The snake’s dead!” I saw a stick on the ground that reminded me of a snake.

This week has been pretty good. I can’t think of much to tell you. We are in the process of dropping investigators and finding new ones. It’s quite interesting. Thanks all for the emails and letters. I’ll get letters tomorrow because the Elders couldn’t get to the bolsa today (the joys of holidays on Mondays in Argentina).

We have not gone back to the family of 9 investigators. They are not ready/willing to commit and we didn’t feel comfortable there the last time we visited.

Castellano is Spanish, but it’s mixed with a lot of Italian. So, it’s Spanish with a lot of different vocab words. I’m going to come home and all the Spanish speakers will be saying bad words like “recoger”. Last week I did speak a little bit of Welsh with a shopkeeper. That was cool! But the only Welsh I have found here. I guess I’ll have to keep looking for those Welsh speakers.

Carolina is a Bolivian, like most of the people we teach in our area. She and René have been living together for a while. We can’t really do anything with her until she gets married. But she has a wedding date! That’s the coolest! She lives in a little house next to her mom, Valentina, and another investigator, Maria (who is not related) is living in Valentina’s house. It is all very complicated. But I love them and they make the best bread and empanadas!

Laundry is a blast! We hang our clothes over the gas heater to dry. Actually, everything is run by gas here. Anyway, Hna. Santul has a washer and if we end up leaving our clothes long enough, she irons them for us. Mostly we don’t and go around wrinkled a little bit. We do iron for Conference with the President though. We usually don’t have time to do it everyday. Well, that’s all I can think of for this week!

Hope to hear from you all soon! Love bunches and always!

Welcome to Puerto Madryn!

Here is a picture of part of my area, I hope it turned out okay. On the left is the Ascentimientos where most of the Bolivians live and on the right is the Comercios which is a little richer, governement housing. Enjoy! Love all!

Letter from Oct 9, 2006

I don´t think they've cut the power here this week. They do that sometimes. Umm....life is good. I really needed this p-day. We had a blast, and Hno. Fierro (from Chile) was kind enough to take all 10 of us up to the beach.

We helped re-animate a recent convert family by having a mini testimony meeting! It was so cool and the Spirit was so strong! I love them! They are the only Bolivian
family currently in the ward.

I don't know what the "multi-family teaching" is so apparently we didn`t start that. We have only taught one strange guy. We hope he reads the pamphlet we left him when he isn`t drunk. But God is continually guiding us and strengthening us.




Hey all! How are all of you? I`m great! The Old Man and the Sea Museum has nothing to do with Hemmingway. It has a bunch of exhibits of animal (not all from the sea) life here in Argentina and a room that shows the different kinds of trash theyve found on the beach. We can see the ocean everyday from Bella Vista or the Ascentimientos (two small areas we work in).

Thanks all for your letters, especially Todd, Jeanne, Diane, Mom and Dad, this week and a mountain of thanks for the emails all. Please make sure that all are getting the news! Thanks for all you do! Thanks especially to Dad and Todd for your advice and stories. I will definitely need them.

Congratulations to Wade on his marriage! Wow! That`s the coolest!

Hey Sam and Lisa, where are my letters from you two? Todd, thanks for writing. I found that Sundays were great days to write/type letters because I didn´t do homework on those days and writing was one of the more uplifting activities of the day.

Happy Birthday to all who have birthdays this month! I´m so horrible and remembering who´s is when, especially when I`m not celebrating them with you all. Love you all bunches!

Okay, so the GREAT news of the week is that CAROLINA HAS A WEDDING DATE!!!!!!!!! That means that she can get baptized as soon as she is married! I´m so excited for her! The wedding isn`t until December 30th, but that doesn`t matter. She took a great step to get a civil wedding date. Yea!!!!!!!

We have met a few Welsh descendents We are (so-n-so´s) ancestors!? But it`s mostly Argentines or Bolivians here. This week I want to drop the cane on the Argentines for being so racist. But, maybe I just needed a p-day. My companion and I are doing great! We keep good care of each other. Language is coming slowly yet surely. We don´t speak Castellano all the time, but we do what we can. I´m not sure what to do about sending pictures. Well have to see what happens.

Here in Argentina we mostly walk and find. I think we’re going to start almost all over again. I’ve even almost gone through all of our areas. Well more next week! Love all bunches and muches!

Letter from Oct 2, 2006 ( I know this is late, sorry)

Hey Everyone! I´m doing great this week! The usual ups and downs of missionary work (including the hills to our different areas.) The missionary work is both hard and really cool. It´s hard to speak Spanish all the time, but it will help me so much. We always need to use the gifts and talents God has given us. Puerto Madryn is beautiful with the most beautiful skys. Oh, we also have a lot of huskeys and labs here, along with the German shepards.

Thanks all for your emails, although I would prefer letters from friends. It is more likely to get here then for me to send anything, so I will blog you all. Friendlies, how´s school, activities, significant others, work? I love to get your letters!

So the most frustrating thing about this week was not having a planner for the first week of the transfer. I have one now, though, and it´s great! Oh, and an American dollar here is 3 pesos. It wouldn´t be so bad to mail things, except that we are living on pesos and only get so much a month.

We taught a huge family and friends getting 9 new investigators. That was a cool lesson. We also found a young man named Juan. We pray that Juan will continue to want to have the Spirit and desire to be baptized and confirmed.

My favorite part of the week was, of course, General Conference! We watched it in English at 1pm and 5pm. I really am glad for the love that the brethren have for each of us. They are all so cute! I really loved Elder Oaks´s talk on the Atonement and President Hinckley´s talk about moving forward. They were all so great! I hope I find time to read the Conference Ensign when I get it! We also had so many investigators at Conference! They all loved it too! Oh! It was so cool to see their excitement and have the members of our ward talk with them! Especially Hna. Santul. She is so sweet!

After Conference, we went to work and we taught a group of teenagers in the street. Some were really interested and we could see a light in their faces. I pray they will remember what they felt and desire more.

Spring is well on its way here. I saw a tumble weed the other day and thought, “I hate to worry you, Johnny, but it´s getting hotter.” LOL! I thought it was great! Well, more next week! Love all bunches and always!

Clouds...linings...all that stuff

I was struggling for a while. But I learned by talking with the Elders in my Zone that everything will be okay. I thought of a sky I saw here. Half the sky was blue, and the other half was dark clouds. But where the two halves met, was the brightest silver lining. Before the mission, I was in the blue sky. I was happy content. But now I must be the bright silver lining, close to the dark clouds because that is Satan trying to get us down.
I wish I could explain more fully what that means to me. But I know that the brightnesss comes from the Son and His Atonement, and it is where Satan will fight the hardest to overcome the blue sky. He won´t win if we don´t let Him. He knows our potential just as God does, but God will lead us through. All good things come from God. If it´s not good, it´s not and we don´t need it.