A family of blondes?!?!

Right now our main investigators are Hermalinda, Carlos, Diego (all have baptismal date), and Cynthia. We go to their houses almost every day if not every other day. And yes, we are always searching for new people to teach! :)

I think we could list the similarities between the U.S. and Argentina and that would be faster, haha but Argentina is really different. Most people ride motos acá and lots of people walk everywhere. The roads are made of dirt with dogs and other animals all around. On the side of every road are ditches called sanja or sewer is I´m pretty sure the translation where all the plumbing for the houses go, and yes it stinks (but not as bad as I thought it would). 

The weather here is great. It is the ´´cold´´ time of year, but the weather is perfect. The members say that I’m crazy because I don´t have a jacket on, haha but it is really nice outside. The summers get really hot and we have to wear sombreros. 

Washing by hand is a pain and we are basically washing every day, but the plunger washer makes it a lot easier and I´m glad I don´t have to do it totally by hand. I don´t think anyone else has one down here. My comp hasn´t seen one in his year and a half on the mission. There are pictures if dropbox will work, it is going realllly slow...

Yes, I can print the letters.

No calling in the ward, we have one of the bigger wards here in Circunvalación. But the members are great. We stop by one named Barbara a lot and she feeds us every time, haha 

I had to buy new rechargeable batteries for my camera because I found out the airport took mine :( but there was a recharger left in the apartment by the last missionary who didn´t want it so that is good.

All the members here love to see pictures of our family and when they look at our pictures they always think that mom is my sister, haha every time. They also say that we are all blonds, all of us, haha I try to tell my companion that you guys have brown hair but he won´t have it he says we are all blonde. 

What are some good remedies for being sleepy a lot? I don´t know why but I have been sleepy since I have been here and drinking more has helped which is what Hermana Heyman said to do but I still am tired at times... just wondering if you knew anything that would help.

I will probably be here in Circunvalación for 4 transfers. I will be here with my current comp for 2 because he is my trainer and then I will most likely be a trainer for someone here after that because of the large group of missionaries coming in. 

So I also found out that President is loaded, haha my companion said that he is on Forbes 100 and is the only Mormon on it. He is always staying at these crazy fancy five star hotels around here, haha He is a really good lawyer. 

For food here we have eaten things like Milanese (kind of like chicken fried steak), Fideos (pasta with chicken), bore bore (soup with corn, chicken and bean like things), empanadas, fried tortillas (nothing like a tortilla), pizza, and because we are lucky asada every Sunday!

My companion has also been giving me some of his Argentine candy that is really good. He gets a package full every month because he is from Buenos Aires. My favorites are Mantecol (which is a peanut butter like candy bar kind of resembles peanut butter play dough) and Alfavor (the delicious cookies Rob talked about filled with dulce de leche). 

I love you guys and will write more if I have time. I am going to try to get dropbox to work, but I love you guys so much!

Packs of stray dogs on every street.

We are in the city of Formosa. Our area is Circunvalación II (Spelled something like that). For here it is considered a city, but nothing here is the same, jeje most of the roads are dirt. Our apartment is in the back of a member´s home that lives here and it is not very nice, jeje pero it´s all good I knew that everything was going to be different here. I forgot my memory cards to send pictures so I will do that next week with the apartment and everything. It is crazy how many dogs are roaming the streets here. There are probably 20 on each street. The baptisms here are bastante more. There are 150 each month in the mission while in my last mission we were shooting for the lofty goal of 235 for the first half of the year. 

My new companion is great, his name is Elder Santoro. He is from Buenos Aires. He speaks mostly Spanish but good English as well, but we mostly just speak in Spanish anyway. (one annoying this is that president makes all the persons arriving to the mission do training weather they had done it before or not which means another hour of companionship study basically watching the district every day, yuck) I understand the people for the most part but it is really different here. The people use different words than in the states and they speak really fast. When they are speaking slower I understand just about all of what they say but the words that are specific to this country/zone. 

For meals here we usually have a small breakfast. Then for lunch we go to member´s homes where we eat huge meals. We have had mostesa twice which is like chicken fried steak and that is with things like eggs, potatoes, French fries. We have had Asado which is really good meat that has been bbqed essentially. I think that has been all our lunches so far and for dinner we buy stuff at the store which is really close and make things like pizza. 

I haven´t seen any cool animals yet because I live in the city but I have seen more dogs and cats than I ever have in my life and a couple horses and chickens in the streets. 

Laundry we do by hand in the shower/bathroom (which is inside the house! I had heard they are usually outside the house).

Pdays are now Monday and the cyber (place to email) doesn´t open until 5 our time 1 your time. 

No machete

LOVE the camera!!

Staying in this mission if I don´t get moved to missiones in the next transfer

Can you send me some magic tricks for the kids and primary object lessons?

I love you guy’s sooo much and unfortunately am out of time so I will email you guys next week!

Home sweet Argentina!

Elder Santoro, Elder Pickle the Mission President and his wife

My Final Week in the U.S. (At least for a few years)

So far I have not got my camera :( pero I will be getting it soon! Either today or in a few days. I don't know if the APs have gotten it already and given it to my zone leaders so I will find out today, but I have been texting them and they know about it so they will get it before I leave!

So you know we were actually at the Clawson's for Skype and  it was sister Clawson that is making me chicken scaloppini, ha-ha But she can read English! So it will be perfect!

I should be able to get all of that stuff  at Walmart but will it be a problem with the price? I don't want to spend too much... you can text the sister and have her tell me your answers or something. I have 5 pairs of pants so should I get another? What kind of meat seasoning? And do I really need that much deodorant to go there, or can I buy it there? (Have to meet the weight limit too, ha-ha) oh and we shop right after this so if you could respond quickly that would be best, thanks!

What do you want me to do with my camera that I have right now? Send it home? or what? ha-ha

For my last week in Temecula I don't really have anything special planned. We will be cutting my hair today... jeje We probably will go out to eat or something and  members might do some stuff for us, like Sister Clawson making my favorite dish. Oh, and the pictures I emailed you were with the Vidal Family, so that is them and the Clawson’s are who we skyped with since the Hermanas stole the Vidal family.

Elder Fe meant that they both grew up in part member families where no one went to church but them. They are either non-members or inactive. While on my mission I have realized how big a blessing it is to have all my family not only members but active members and I am so grateful for it.

I don't have any travel plans yet... I texted Elder Curtis and he told me to relax and get back to work...

More minutes sounds good, jeje I am soo excited to talk to you guys again! It went far too fast and I couldn't believe the time passed so quickly. It was the best day so far! I just am sad that it will be many months before the next one, oh well... 

Oh, I am sending the scriptures that Emily and Nathan gave me home for now because I love them and want to keep them in good condition. I have the set from the MTC that I use for tracting/teaching because things happen such as little kids and rain and I don't have enough room for both sets. So put those somewhere safe for me when I get home! They are still in new condition!

I love you guy’s soo much and can't wait to talk to you Monday!!

I will miss you Temecula!

 

Yo Hablo Spanglish!!

We get to talk on Sunday! I am so freaking excited! We will get to skype, there are plenty of families who have to ability for three of us to do it! We are going to be going to the Vidal family's home and they said we can have as long as we want to skype but I don't know how long Elder Herrera will let us stay. He is very much like Grandpa when he thinks it is time to go, it is time to go. But in the Vidal home we should have at least 1 hr. I love you all too much and miss all of you!

 

Physical therapy went good; the doctor gave me these exercises that strengthen the inner muscle of the quads. Apparently as a swimmer you don't develop those muscles. He told me I have really weak ones and the outer muscle is pulling my knee cap to the side causing the pain. Also my outer leg muscle is tight pulling the knee cap even more. So he gave me stretches for that. I think that guy knew more than the doctor because that was different from what the doctor had said and it has been working so far!

I did get my St. Patrick’s Day package and I haven't got my camera yet, but I should be getting it on Thursday. The problem is I don't know how the system works with the mail sent to the wrong address but the AP's have to do something and I don't know exactly and I don't see them because they are in Vista but I will be seeing them this Thursday for Zone Conference. We will be getting mail and the package should be there!

Right now our investigators are starting to add up. We are starting to have a decent pool of them despite losing many to family problems. We have one youth by the name of M with a baptismal date for the 1st of next month. He actually went to church for the first time last week and bore his testimony! It was awesome! I couldn't believe he had that kind of courage! Then afterward he was trying to get me to go out on dates with people giving me suggestions on people in the branch that I should date, jaja My Spanish is good enough to say really whatever I want. If I can't say it exactly how I want I can say it a different way or describe what I want. It was funny I was looking at some stuff from the MTC and my Spanish was horrible then. I couldn't believe some of the mistakes that I was making. Plus just my word book says a lot. When I first came out I had something like three pages of words in it with maybe 5 learned now I almost have the whole thing filled with 3/4 of the words learned.

We have interviews with president every transfer, but mine wasn't exciting. Since I'm a visa waiter he invited me in had me pray asked 2-3 questions like how everything is going. Then said we wouldn't be in a trio for the whole time (when Murrieta was still planning on opening early) and closed with a prayer. I think it was shorter than the really short one when I first got here. My companions were in there like a half hour each...

Well, to be truthful I am getting really sick of  the jokes from one of my companions. This transfer he has started this thing where he takes my stuff. It has gotten really old. Also the last couple nights he has been putting cups of water on my bed and I keep waking up to it and haven't slept well, but only two more weeks with them. So whatever.

I love hearing about everything from home! Anything and everything you write I love to hear! I still haven't heard what Harmony is having! I would like to know that! I do really miss the food. While the food here is good, I miss our food, we had lots of really good dinners and I miss the variety. I miss everything about home. It is funny how right now I would love to even be doing chores anything just to be at home, specifically with you guys! I do miss time to just relax and be there with you guys, we never have a moments to rest, it is always on the go here.

I would love pictures of all of you guys. I would love to get new pictures at times! The pictures of Nate in polo were great the other week! I haven't checked it this week quite yet.

Thanks for the long letter last week, it was awesome! Also that is soo awesome that Ambri wants to get baptized! Sounds like you guys have been having a lot of fun with polo, new designs, and polo shirts! I want to see some pictures of baby Bennett too! Oh, and could you send the info on the original Apostles, that sounded really interesting. Also if you have any other object lessons, specifically one for lessons in preach my gospel that would be awesome! It was funny to hear that Foster is really stressed about the baby and Jack won't admit he has a brother, ha-ha.

I also heard from a missionary that in another mission some Argentina visas came and some didn't. The people were at 4 months of waiting and 3/5 got their visas... I'm just under 3 mez of waiting.

My favorite part of the day is when we have lessons and next favorite is personal study. Unless of course it is Martes then I love email time!!! My least favorite part is tracting specifically at night. It gets old fast, no one wants to listen and at night people get angry.

I can't think of any embarrassing Spanish moments right now, I'll have to think about it and get them next time if I can think of some!

I love you guy’s soo much and I can't wait to talk to you guys this Sunday!!!! It will be the best day so far!!! I love you all soo much!

Oh, and the Zone Leaders were saying that we will have a short phone call Sunday morning right before we Skype to make sure everything is set up or something like that.

Oh, and by the way, Good job Emily on your ACT score! I never was good at that test, but I'm glad you can get a good score on it! But is concussed a real word? It sounds made up, jaja, but what do I know half the time I spit out Spanish and the other half English.

Good job Nathan with your Spanish! I can tell you are getting better! Also it sounds like you are becoming quite the goalie!

To answer grandma's question, I do think in Spanish at times, not always but it usually depends on what I was speaking last. Sometimes it ends up being Spanglish. Oh, I guess that makes me think of a pretty funny Spanish thing. I was talking in Spanish and then all of the sudden I said an English word but said it with a Spanish accent, I guess I thought if I said it the way they do they would understand :P I realized a little after and changed it to Spanish.

Also the story about Foster was really cute! Tell him that I miss him too and want to see him! Without him I don't know how to do all the new styles! I miss all the funny things he would say! Make sure to tell him I miss him too! I miss all my young cousins! I miss Sunday going down stairs playing with Asher, Gavin, Foster and Jack Jack! I miss Devin and Ally! Don't let them forget me!!!

Well, I guess I have to go, so hasta Domingo! I love you guys! Les amo!

Voy a hablar en espanol hasta mis companeros dicen que nececito ir. no puedo esperar por domingo pero necesito! Tambien estoy nervioso que no voy a recibir mi visa! Quiero a ir muchisimo pero no se si voy a ir! Es dificil para acceptar entoces estoy tratando a acceptarlo ahora. Tambien quiero que cosas pasa, porque casi nada esta pasando. No tememos no bautismos en todo de los dos translados que tenemos aqui! En otro zonas tienen bastante bautismos cada translado. En todos otros zonas el obra espanol es el mas rapido pero aqui en Temecula es muerte. Presidente esta pensando en cambiando los borderes de la zona o poniendo un otro companerismo aqui. No se que voy a pasar pero ojala la obra va a aumentar aqui mas rapido. Yo se que en el tiempo que estaba aqui ha crecido muchisimo. Tambien neustro numeros estan bastante largos de los misioneros antes. pues necesito ir pero Les amo muchisimo!!!

"Preaching, love and peace with other well dressed guys." -Everclean

 

As far as my knee, I'm not sure because I haven't been running so it hasn't had a reason to hurt, but I am going to a session of therapy tomorrow and will let you know how that goes and what is going on.

For the newsletter I would say that every member needs to be a missionary! It is crucial for the work to progress! Read Mormon 9:21 it is a recipe on how to have miracles! I challenge every member to read that scripture and then to accept the challenge to have a miracle happen in their lives right then! To pray to know who they can help to receive the gospel. Then sit there for a moment and think of names and then start saying the names and have someone write them down (this is what PMG and the apostles have told us to do) Then think of specific goals for each person on your list to help them come closer to Christ. It could be things such as have dinner with them and the missionaries. Or maybe serve them, or maybe to share your testimony with them, or invite them to have lessons with the missionaries. Also each member should be familiar with the ward mission plan and how they can help to achieve that plan because EVERY member is needed to achieve it!

As far as losing a companion I have no idea... President told us in our interviews that we weren't going to be in a trio the whole time because one of us was going to Murrietta but we don't know when it is opening... so it could be anytime but we haven't heard anything so far so we don't know anything yet.

The best parts of being a missionary are the opportunities that I have to go and share the gospel. It is so amazing to see what kind of a difference it can make in people's lives! You see miracles happen all the time as you pray for them and seek out opportunities to serve those around you and do your best to spread the gospel with all you come in contact with! It is also really cool to get to know people, I have met so many people that I never would have met if I didn't come on my mission. It has also changed the way I see people as a whole. Everyone has their own story and everyone out there is just trying to live life like we are. They may be lost and confused and only need a friend or someone to help guide them in their lives. It is crazy how we will talk to people from gang presidents to hobos, to hard workers, to lazy people, to really rude people (a lot of the time). The worst part about being a missionary is that I don't get to see you guys. That is by far the worst part. Elder Fe will always talk about how he would give all his money to go play baseball and when I hear that and think of water polo I miss it but it isn't what I want, I would give everything to go see you guys. The best would just to go on vacation and spend time with you.

I have been emailing my friends but not a ton, I usually email one every week. Me and Nate, Steven, and Elder Wallentine have been emailing. It is so great to hear from them! I have really missed Nate and hadn't heard from him in months and it is awesome to be able to email him. I was also really happy to hear from Steven because I didn't have his address or anything!

Well things are going pretty good here! We have been getting a lot of new investigators and a few are looking like baptisms! We are struggling with G who we thought was a for sure baptism because his wife is very anti-Mormon and didn't say anything until church this last Sunday, so we are working with him to see what we can do. We have other investigators though who have good promise to be baptized in the near future and we are working hard to make it happen! So it would be awesome if you guys could maybe pray that his wife will not be so hard hearted and allow him to go to church and be baptized.

My clothes are doing well! My shoes are awesome! They still look brand new after I polish them! I did have to buy some things like blanket and pillow because I have no Idea how long I will be here and I can't just borrow forever. So I had to spend some money recently and still have to pay for the therapy (which they said will be something like $20) so hopefully that isn't a problem.

As for Skype I think we will be able to! We just have to find members who have three devices with Skype capabilities because there are three of us, ha-ha but we are in the rich area so that shouldn't be too much of a problem I don't think! As far as time limit I'm not 100% sure but I think we get an hour.

Oh, so I got a lot of letters from 1-2 months ago like your postcard from Vegas. So the problem is that you have been sending them to the wrong address it is 451 NOT 415. I don't know if I told you wrong, but send all letters and packages to 451. Did you send the camera to 415? if so that is probably why it is taking so long, but I should have it next week even if so because they were averaging about a month with the wrong address.

When I get my visa... ha-ha I don't know. It is hard for me to say. It is interesting because here in Temecula the Spanish work is very slow. The area was dead when we got here and we have been slowly turning it around. I think what will happen is I won't too much miss the tracting and things like that that have filled most my days here but will miss the people. There are a lot of awesome members and our investigators who actually are progressing, ha-ha

These guys will listen to us all day.

I was wondering if you could burn some CDs for me because I don't know how much longer I'll be here. (It does sound like 3 months is the average right now, two different families who live here said their sons waited three months to go) but I can listen to lots of music here and I was wondering if you could burn a CD of Reliant K's Forget and Not Slow Down along with two songs from the albums MmHmm and Five Score and Seven Years Ago called Forgiven and Be My Escape you can find the music on my hard drive. Also maybe like a CD of everclean and maybe some MAE songs. Those all are things that we can listen to!

I usually end up copying and pasting what I wrote to President into your letter, ha-ha like the one about G, that was pretty much all of what I wrote to President this week.

I don't have enough time to share my testimony in here so I will mail it to you!

I love you guys so very much and can't wait until Mother's Day; it is much too far away!!

"Chicken Surgery" Don't try this at home!

I found out... nothing much about my knee. We waited for 1.5 hours to go in then another 45min for the doctor to come in and say well... I think it is an overuse injury. So after that he said that I should go to therapy and that should fix it. I told Sister Cook this and am waiting for her to tell me what to do. If I go to therapy they told me that it would be a $20 copay, and I paid a $20 copay to go in, hopefully not too expensive! But I think that I will probably be going to a therapy session next Wednesday is what it sounds like.

I didn't see a package today but we didn't pass the zone leaders car either. Also I don't know if I'll get it this week because for some reason we got some letters yesterday night and I got a letter from grandpa but no package... so I don't know if that means that we aren't getting any more mail this week or what! But I really want my package I have been waiting for the camera all week!!!

Pues... good, and not so good... We have been having investigators drop like flies. It has all been because their families don’t want them to meet with us anymore, so it is out of our control. We have however been having miracles happen, like we have a husband of a family who is considered a dry mormon (goes to church, activities, everything but baptized) that is thinking about a baptismal date when he hasn't in 8 years! And with G he can't get baptized this Saturday because he didn't go to church. He texted us Monday and said he wants to move his date back 2-3 weeks... so we are meeting with him today and going to talk about it.

In the mornings we go to this tennis court thing that is at our apartment and my companions run around the edge of it (or at least they are supposed to) while I do exercises in the middle. A lot of times what ends up happening is we end up playing with Elder Herrera's soccer ball.

As for my favorite family to eat with it is probably the Vidals. They are hilarious, plus where they are from makes it even better. So they are originally from Chile and then moved to Australia because the dad served his mission there so they also have a lot of Australian stuff. It is funny because they talk with an Australian accent and then they will start speaking Spanish and that is in a Chilean accent. They also have a son who was on a mission but has been home due to being really sick because of the food he ate in Mexico (menudo and mole) and he is really cool. He just left back out to Colorado this Monday though! But it was cool, one day when we went over for dinner the dad gave us some cool Australian stuff because he says he has too much, ha-ha that was the night we were playing the didgeridoo (or however you spell it) I will probably send the boomerang he gave me home when I send the other stuff that I don't think I will have room to take to Argentina. Plus the food they give us is really good!

Some funny things that happened lately... well just a couple of days ago Elder Herrera was walking around "shooting" people with his birdie finger. I guess in Colombia they call that the pistol, idk, ha-ha but we kept telling him that he couldn't do that here but he was insisting that it was ok because that is the corazon finger. I think he finally gets that he shouldn’t do it but I think he likes to do things like that because he can play the innocent card and get away with it. Oh, and better yet was a couple days ago (pictures of this) we got a chicken for dinner. Elder Herrera decided he was going to cut it and began cutting the whole thing in half (rotisserie chicken). I told him that wasn't how you did it but he wouldn't listen and proceeded anyway. By the end it looked disgusting and I took a piece of the breast and ate that but had lost my appetite because of his "chicken surgery" as he called it. You will have to look at the pictures of him as he ate the entire rest of the chicken (me and Elder Fe didn't eat much because of how gross it looked with the inside hanging out and all over the rest). He ate basically the whole chicken by himself making a huge mess and was covered in grease. Look at the pictures and you will see ha-ha but after that he was making weird faces and saying that his stomach hurt, ha-ha we couldn't stop laughing at the weird faces he was pulling. Then Elder Fe went into a laughing fit for 10+ min and I recorded a part of it that will be on dropbox. That was funny, although very messy.

We get to go to the San Diego temple every other transfer i.e. this one. So at some point this transfer we will get to go and I hope I do because it is such a crazy cool temple! Have you seen it? It didn't have a budget when it was being built and I can only imagine what it would look like on the inside!

Como es mi espanol? no se, jeje Digame! Ojala es bien! Estoy practicando todos los dias y aprendiendo mucho cada dia. Puedo endender que personas dicir casi todo el tiempo pero hay personas quein son muy dificil a entender. Ellos habla bajo o con un fuerte accento. Pero por lo mas puedo entender todo. Yo se por seguro es bastante major de cuando sali el ccm. No hay un comparacion a eso teimpo. Hablamos en espanol todos los dias casi todo el tiempo porque elder Herrera no le gusta a hablar ingles y no trataria a hacerlo.

I don't have a calling in the branch. We did bear our testimonies the first fast Sunday, but that was it. Elder Herrera had to teach one of the gospel principles lessons but besides that nothing specifically for the ward. But doing it wouldn't be very hard; we do everything in Spanish all day anyway, ha-ha

I was able to print the newsletter, thanks, it was great!

Oh, and thanks, I will buy more dryer sheets then, ha-ha

I love you guy’s soo very much and miss you! I can't wait to hear from you more next week!

Signs like this don't worry us :)

"This guy has taffy? I love taffy!" -Gus

So with my knee it is fine. It only hurts if I run. So with it getting better... I was told in a mission training thing that we are supposed to not talk about injuries with parents unless instructed by the mission president or after it is gone so that parents don't worry. They don't want parents to worry or call the mission about it. I found that out after I had told you about my knee so I just stopped talking about it. It kind of has gotten better though, it isn't the same thing i don't think. I think before it was jumpers knee that I had because Elder Fe said that Jumpers knee is a buildup of calcium in your knee and before it felt like a rock and grinding pain. Now it is more like a pressure and like my knee wants to split. But I am not running anymore Sister Cook told me to stop running until we get this taken care of. We are trying to coordinate a doctor’s appointment but it is like a five way balancing act. I have to find out what Doctor to go to and find one that takes my insurance (which they never know!) then I have to make sure that is ok with Sister Cook and then we are doing all this while still doing missionary stuff all day, ha-ha so it is a little complicated to figure out. No, I haven't been to any doctor yet, but I don't think it is jumpers knee anymore (although I think it was before if that makes sense).

Yes, we did get the package last week, and everyone loved it! Especially during weekly planning (3 hours long) where most of the taffy was eaten. We have gotten in some water gun fights that have been fun (But Elder Fe broke mine in the last one!). They loved the letters Emily sent them. Elder Herrera I think understood it, he didn't say too much about it besides, "Por mi? Que loco, Man!" ha-ha. Elder Fe said that Emily quotes movies too much and that she quoted 7 different movies or something and he didn't understand why, ha-ha.

 With investigators I can't remember if I told you guys about G, I think so, but I don't remember, ha-ha but He has been progressing really well and has a baptismal date for the 27th. I think that he will get baptized, he has a huge desire to and has been asking us things like to have a book of Mormon before we got him one, or about Mormon.org, or really good and thoughtful questions during lessons, or if his kids can come to his baptism, ha-ha Claro! He always is texting us/calling us for something! S we just got back ahold of he has been with his nephew this whole week but he still has interest. We are trying to reset his baptismal date for May 4th today.

 As far as Argentina I am way excited but I can't let myself think about it. I have no idea when/if I will be going so I just don't think about it. They aren't going to tell me anything until they have my visa so I don't want to be distracted by worrying about it ha-ha. But it will be awesome when I do go. Tell Cody not to worry, ha-ha $32 is plenty, ha-ha I usually have an egg sandwich every morning (because I don't like cereal). For lunch I eat things like hamburgers, deli sandwiches, pb&js, tuna, canned chicken sandwiches, leftovers from meals with members, etc. If you don't waste all you money on snacks and fast food you can buy a ton of real food that will keep you full. Just be sure to but cheaper thinks that are more filling not expensive things that aren't. Lots of people buy the instant foods that you microwave and those cost more. I like the real food anyway and you get more for less money. You have an hour every breakfast and lunch. Also you get fed dinners by member as long as you set up appointments (Which in English work you should have meals every night) Here in our branch we only have like 5 members we go to and we get dinner usually 6 nights each week. Plus he could practice now, only have $32 to spend and buy his own breakfasts and lunches! Just shop smart!

 This week we had interviews with the mission president and he told us that we aren't going to be a threesome the whole transfer. He told us that one of us is leaving to Murrietta when it opens around week four (two more weeks). We aren't sure who it will be I could see either Elder Herrera or Elder Fe for different reasons. It will be weird because I have been in a threesome for my entire mission so far! ha-ha

 Well, I hope all goes well and the problem with my knee will be figured out soon! Talk to you next week! Love you soo much!!!

He asked us for a BoM (imagine that!)

Beautiful Temecula!!!

For the ward newsletter.... I would like to say thanks to all my leaders from over the years who have taught me so much! Como Dad, Todd, Cody, Bro McGowan, Aaron, Jo, Eric, Jacob, Dan etc don't have time to think too deeply, but try to include all of them. It is extremely important for our ward to work with the local missionaries! The biggest thing that you can do to help them is to honestly ponder on who you could give as references to the missionaries! I know that it is difficult but the amount of baptisms that come from member referrals is on average 1 in 4 while through other means was something to the effect of 1 in 100. If the ward thinks of anyone who they could invite to dinners with the missionaries or even could just use their help with service or something it really helps the work progress!

As far as the guy we taught last week in his garage, we haven't been able to go back and visit him yet :( but we are trying to set up a time with him. His son was either in the hospital or algo asi I can't remember exactly and he works a ton. But right now we have another investigator who I might have forgot to mention before who is progressing really well! His name is G. G was the first person to go on mormon.org and then talk to us about it. He then asked us for a BoM (imagine that!) He has been reading the BoM and this last week he came to Conference and was asking a lot of questions about it. He came for the first session on Sunday and said he had to leave an hour in. He loved it so much that he ended up staying an hour and a half but his wife needed him back so he reluctantly left with as it turns out President Monson being the last speaker. We were sad that he had to miss that but he told us that he really liked the messages from conference and has been texting us all the time! It is so awesome to have an investigator like this!

Before I continue any more I have to share something awesome that happened! You will be very surprised, I was, ha-ha but this last Sunday between sessions of conference there were two baptisms. It was some investigators of the Hermanas in our area. These investigators didn't have any family in the church so we were asked to do the baptisms! Elder Fe and Elder Herrera both baptized the mom who had back problems and I baptized the son named Oscar who is 10. It was so cool! I didn't think that I would have any baptisms soon, especially not one I had never taught! It gets a little crazier too, ha-ha so that morning I realized I have never said the baptism prayer in Spanish so I had to learn it fast but that wasn't a big deal, but what was crazy was President came to the baptism! I guess he comes to baptisms here and there, ha-ha. So President came to the first baptism I had ever done and I ended up going first for some reason, ha-ha I was really nervous but it went well!! It was such an amazing experience!

As far as weird food I haven't really eaten anything besides the pigs ear I mentioned... yet, ha-ha. Although the other day Elder Fe lied to me. We were over at Hno Arena's house having dinner. He is older and sometimes I have a hard time understanding him. Right before we started eating he said something about menudo (that is cow stomach and we aren't allowed to eat it because it makes us really sick). So when we sit down Elder Fe said don't eat the meat. So my plate had a bunch of meat on it and so I was piling the meat up in a corner and trying to cover it with rice to not make it too obvious. Then when we left Elder Fe told me that the meat wasn't menudo but beef and he had been eating the meat when I wasn't looking. So there was that, ha-ha. We usually eat things like pollo, frijoles, tortillas, arroz, taquitos, etc. Also a soup pasole that has bean things and chicken that is also pretty good. There are a few families that will make more American foods too, ha-ha. We usually end up eating with about three families multiple times each week and the others every now and then.

I didn't know the missionaries who got their visas last week, did they get to the MTC at the same time as me? The only news I have heard was this week was that I got a letter in my email entitled visa and when I opened it, it said we haven't received your visa yet but we'll let your mission president know when we do..... I was rather angry with that letter, ha-ha.

Transfers are today and I am still staying here in Temecula with the same companions. We have heard rumors that we might get two new missionaries in our apartment this transfer (We really hope not!!!) One thing that makes me wonder about the progress of Visas though is that Hermana Ruiz (one of the two companions of Hermana Jones who is also going to Argentina) is being transferred and Hermana Jones and Escalante are going to remain with only those two. This means that if she were to get her visa there would have to be some changing done instead of just leaving. That makes me wonder if they are expecting that we won't receive our visas this transfer.. pero no se

Conference was awesome!!! I loved the talks by President Monson, President Uchtdorf, Elder Cook.... All of them, ha-ha. We are supposed to listen to conference in our native language, and I am glad I probably wouldn't have been able to understand it in Spanish after all they seem to use larger words in conference, ha-ha. I think that my favorite talk from this one was the one about peace by Elder Cook!

In drop box there is pictures of our Easter egg hunt (Elder Herrera's first one!) Also there is a picture of when we went to the pizza factory (this was the rest of the Easter funds) and Elder Fe thanked you in the prayer right before we ate! Thanks so much for the Easter stuff! It was a lot of fun!  

Elder Herrera's first Easter egg hunt :)

I haven't got the package yet, but I will probably get it right after emailing right now, that is when we get mail/packages each week!

I love you guys soo much and miss you!!

 

Praying in the garage... what an amazing experience!

Printing letters works great as long as you don't mind that I have to pay 15C a sheet to print! It is a lot faster it takes about two weeks to get letters through the regular mail because of the system that they have for mail.

What was it that Elder Feinauer said? He never told me! but I will let them know you sent treats, ha-ha. As far as the Easter stuff, last week I bought some Easter themed doughnuts that we ate and some plastic eggs and candy for them that we will be hiding today (we didn't have time because of district activity last week and it will be great Elder Herrera has never done it before). Since we didn't have much time to decide what to do last week we will probably use the rest of the money for either a lunch or some candy, I will talk to them about it today after email and will let you know!

Transfers are something like April 9th that is next Tuesday right? Ha-ha I don't want to waste time looking. but I most likely won't get transferred and the only one in our companionship who might get transferred is Elder Herrera because he has been in the area a long time but Elder Feinauer said that he probably will stay since I am still here because President Cook told him that both him and Elder Herrera will be training after I leave so he thinks he will be training in Temecula and Elder Herrera will train somewhere else.

I don't know where I will be watching conference for sure but I think it will be at the stake center. None of the missionary’s apartments should have TVs, although I think one of the English Elders brought one into theirs but I'm not sure. Either way we will have to be dressed for it, we have to dress for studies each morning so I'm sure we will for conference.

A typical day here in Temecula? Well, we get up at 6:30 and run until 7:00. We get back and shower, change, and eat until 8:00. Then we have an hour of personal study, then two hours of companionship study, then an hour of language study. We then have an hour for lunch. After that we go out for the rest of the day and teach. Depending on if we have appointments planned and investigators to visit determines what we do. Usually we will have one or two planned appointments each day and write more potential appointments for every hour. We also have two backup appointments planned for each hour. We usually also have an hour or two of tracting/contacting each day. When we go to appointments they more often than not fall through and so we go to our backup ones. This means we spend a lot of time traveling from place to place to see if people will let us in. When we do get in we teach them, ha-ha. For tracting we pick an apartment complex or street and go knock doors. It is usually not super helpful because a lot of people just don't open the door (you can see them look through the peep hole because the light goes dark), then those who do most of them say I’m (pick a religion) and don't want to hear your message so we finesse our way into trying to convince them to let us come back and get their phone number and leave ours. Then there will be the people who will just see you and say something like I don't have time for this and slam the door in your face. Then there is the very rare ones who set a date for you to come back (usually it's I have work every single day and no break). Then there is the VERY rare one who let you come in and teach them then and there, I think there have been two this transfer, ha-ha. Once you do get to go in and teach things are so much better. You actually get to talk to them and help them to progress. The problem is that while I've been here of the people that we have taught more than one lesson to are eternigators (people who have been meeting with the missionaries for years) except for like one or two.

S is one investigator that was new when I got there and he has been progressing but he doesn't like to make commitments. The other problem is that he doesn't have a job right now so he isn't committing any time to reading the LdM and hardly any to setting lessons with us. We are going to try to visit him this week; he wasn't there for church this time... Another progressing investigator that we have is A that I think is a new investigator. He is only like 13 or 14 so he is more interested in basketball than religion, ha-ha but we are working with him and hope to set a baptismal date this week. We have been working with J but he isn't keeping any commitments so we might be dropping him but I'm not sure. Just yesterday, however, we were tracting before dinner and came across a man in his garage. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and told him we would give him a copy to read if he promised to read and pray about it. He said he would read it but he didn't know how to pray. So we taught him how to pray and gave him an example. We then had him give a prayer. It was an amazing experience! His simple prayer of no more than a couple sentences was one of the most powerful I have ever heard. It brought all of us to tears. We are so excited to go back and teach him more! He actually asked us if we could come back and talk to him more! It is great! So hopefully he will be our new golden investigator! We also met with a guy named J this week. He is struggling with an addiction and he actually sought us out. We have met him two times this week and have come up with a plan with him to help him quit his addiction. I know that as long as he does he will be baptized! He is a great guy and has the desire to change and I know that Heavenly Father will help him! I wish that he could be our investigator but since he is English speaking we will be passing him off to the Zone Leaders because he is going to the singles ward. Oh well, at least he will still be able to learn the gospel and progress.

On Pdays we don't really have that much time. We are supposed to write letters, email, shop, clean the house, clean the car, etc. Then we sometimes have district activities where the whole district gets together and plays games like chair soccer, signs, wall ball, basketball. So we haven't really had much time to do anything like sightseeing. The other problem with that is there isn't much sightseeing to do. The only tourist place within our area is old town. Elder Feinauer wants to go there so we might do that this week. We also couldn't go to the beach even if we had it in our area because the mission rule is "Where the sand begins, your mission ends"

We drive a Honda, I don't know what model, ha-ha I'll have to check and tell you next time and yes please do still send my driving record because I have no idea how long I'll be here and I might have to drive before I leave.

Estoy muy agradecido por todo que hacen para mi. Uds son el major familia en el mundo. Espero que no fue necesario que sali mi familia para servir mi mission pero, asi es. Estoy muy agradicido por la vida que tengo y la opertunidad para servir mi mission. Estoy aprendiendo muchisimo aqui. No es un manera simijante que puedo aprender como mucho en este corto tiempo. He aprendido muchisimo de la importancia de el evangelio. Yo se este evangelio bendice las familias y he vido los cambios que hace en familias. Miro las familias quien no tiene el evangelio y solo quiero compartirlo con ellos. Este me recuerda de la escritura en Mosia 28:3 donde dice que los hijos de Mosia fueron convertido al el evangelio y quirian a compartir su mensaje a todo el mundo por que ellos no puede pensar en el tristeza si alguien no recibia el evangelio. Les amo muchisimo!!!

I love you guys so much and miss you; I can't wait for next Tuesday!!!