Pictures June/July

June 25, 2012

i miss the fourth of July a lot! nothing really exciting happened this week, OH i guess there was two things. me and my comp have been really popular with the higher ups for some reason. Tuesday night we got a text message from our zone leaders that prez. monastel was going to work with us the next day!!!! AHHHH haha he came to this suburb place with us called matadero and we talked with the first branch president of nandaime...and his huge and inactive family. who said they were going to go to church and didnt BLEH. and two other lessons too...i thought he was going to rebuke us but he actually complimented us a lot and said we teach really well we are both on the same track and that my spanish is alot better than he thought! ALAS haha but i did get rebuked on one thing...i dont smile enough HAHA ME NOT SMILING crazy! but ya i get really lost in my thoughts when i am trying to figure out how to say what i want to and forget to smile. i am a sinner!!! haha, but then the next day the AP worked with us. and he gave us even less notice! it was a fun day though. but the next couple days were hard alot of our appointments were dropped and a lot of people were just not caring... sad... but! there is always this week and i cant wait! oh and get more people to write me i am really enjoying that i am able to write them.

June 18th, 2012

so my companion and i are finally starting to understand the area and how we need to work it. it still is hard because its huge but we are working very hard. its been very difficult recently with how many people are not taking the time to find out for themselves this is true. also i have been alittle under the weather too, just a sinus cold that has now just reduced to a cough and the sniffles. we have had some crazy rain here. that didnt help my health. we were across the street from an investigator and inbetween was a RIVER. haha the streets get nuts flooded here. like taxis drive through the bad parts and get pushed from one side of the road to another, but after thinking about it for a while we eventually decided that we had to teach her and just trompped right through it. haha. it was pretty fun. tomorrow in the morning were are digging like a fifteen foot hole for a toiletñ. dont ask how. i´m just going to show up and laugh when every one else does. nod alot. and try to help. my spanish has decrease this week i thingk haha. probably because i havent had the energy. but everything is supper taunis(cool)  here...i did just find out that apparently our zona is the worst in the mission...i dont really like that. its time to kick it up a knoch. oh i should decsribe the pictures, they are all from a place called san juan del sure, its super cool little toursist beach surf town. and the hike to the jesus statue was stEEeEEeEP haha never sweat so much! but ya that is my life. i would love to hear about yours! love you all buh bye!

June 11, 2012 to the Padres

Bueno PUES! hola! um this week was pretty slow. just a whole ton of walking. we are still trying to track down all the recent converts of the sisters before us and the less active members. i think these sisters before us flirted everyone into going to church because nobody wants to do anything anymore. we even lost a baptismal date! umm oh! we had an activity saturday night trying to get investigators and less actives to come and me and my comp only had one less active family come the other elders in nandaime had a little more luck but we had a little presentation answering basic questions about the church and then played games. i think the members got a new light of me because last sunday i honestly thought i was goning to die! from fasting. and wasnt a very happy camper but at the activity i was all happy and joyful, even played some musical chairs, and almost died from choking in the water melon eating compitition! it was terifying! spanish is gettting better, maybe alittle more frusturating though, becuase now i can almost understand everything but i just cant respond...and when i do have something to share i cant because my comp is so used to taking over he never gives me time to talk haha but its all good. i got a little homesick today listen to disney music but it was good, we were making papusas! they were good. but ya if anyone is sending me anything some more music would be nice, inspiration, written by member(dont forget the killers) or disney, english or spanish, the rain here has been pretty good here, yesterday mornign i looked outside at the blue skies and said...elder crisanto i think it is going to rain today and he said i was nuts... it rained the hardest since i have been here and usually it only rains at night, but it was in the middle of the day. but that was saturday not yesterday i lied. que mas....my stomach is shriking! i hate it! they give us huge plates of food where we eat and i am one of the few that hasnt gotten sick of the rice and beans within the firest week i just cant fit it all! haha i tried my first frest coconut, not a fan, some other wierd fruit the size of like a softball and a tennis ball put together, it was eh, and also the sour stuff the bizarre food guy eats on the bus. but ya i am loving it so much this is such a cool little city, and i saw a white person outside my window this morning who i cant wait to try to teach. oh here is a fun fact for ya....the guy who plays for the padres...form nicaragua, is from this city. boom roasted. it says in his profile granada i guess but thats just the state he is from here i guess his house wasnt far from mine, like six blocks. no se que mas, i love you all and oh yah! i can email anyone turns out! so send them my way and i will do my best to respond! PS the church is true HAHA

June 11, 2012 to the Priests of our home ward

Make sure someone reads this with power! haahha... to the Priests of the Ammon 14th ward...

I want to let you all know one thing I have learned in my little time out here and that is conversion. What is true conversion? My whole life I thought I was good, because I was going to church, I told people I read, didn't really too much, if at all though and the same thing prayer. I was happy that the world and I didn't seem to be bumping heads too much I could be spiritual at times too. I thought I was almost all in the right, I knew what my real flaws were that others didn't but i justified them with all my might, which really showed where my desires were in myself. I cared about making my outward appearance good enough that people didnt give me a hard time, with as little effort as possible. I was not converted. A scripture usually applied to investigators can bring light to this, in Ether 12 its  says we dont recieve a witness of faith until after the trial of our faith. Ask yourselves if you have REALLY tried your faith, and not by someone saying a school that is full of mormons have no fun and you saying ya huh! If you are not listening WAKE UP and listen to this part! The blessing of growing up in the church is this: we know exactly what we need to do to recieve a true witness. Get on our knees, and with real intent a sincere heart and faith in Jesus Christ and in his name, give up the testimony that has been borrowed, cherish and cultivated but still borrowed, and plead with our loving Father in Heaven for one of your own OR what you need to do to get that.THE BIGGEST REGRET I have is not getting that sooner, luckily I did gain a testimony for myself shortly before my mission but if I had more time after that to be feasting in the word and growing that testimony my faith would be on a whole other level by now. Never be comfortable with your relationship with the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, and Heavenly Father because that is when Satan is comfortable with it too if your testimony isn't being tried much, you need to work harder on it, that is when you know if you doing what you should be, and don't let those trials slow you down, repeat lather rinse repeat, pray, study, act.DONT WAIT FOR THAT MOMENT. MAKE IT HAPPEN; and your quality of life will improve in EVERY aspect. I promise that with all my heart. I love you all and hope that you can learn something from me like you learn from the other wicked people in the scriptures, haha. work, the world tells you that its not needed but oh is it!!!! in the sacred name of my, yours, and our Savior Reedemer and mediator Jesus Christ AMEN.

June 11, 2012 to Ashley

Living situation is on the high end of missionary living here. I have a cold shower twice a day, most missionaries only get cold buckets, but it is because we live where the sisters used to  HAHA!!! We live above a nonmember family who is very nice. We can use their kitchen but all I do is occassionally make eggs in the morn... then there is studying to be done until lunch because they have all the new missionaries on a twelve week program so that they will be ready to train others after twelve weeks. So I head out to lunch at los pollitos(the little chickens) to a giant plate of rice, beans or wierd pasta, but usually the first, and either fanta or juice. Then head off to find all the people the sisters left us to play with and the new families we have too. And return around nine, plan for the next day till about nine thirty get ready for bed and then fall asleep to the sultry sounds of bugs, bats, borrachos(drunks, and i almost threw a Book of Mormon and word of wisdom pamphlets at the other night cuz he was yelling like a banshee), or loud music, i am going to have issues with the quiet when i come home haha.

(Editor's Note: Then I asked him what the area was like)

 Like super chill, everyone just sits outside their houses in chairs and talks. haha its pretty spread out and super catholic or evangelist colorful, fun. old school...its a pretty great place very family oriented.