Hey Everyone!!!
Life is going by just fine. Time is just moving right along as we get into the holiday season! I always get a little trunky this time of year because of all of the family gatherings...wish I could be there but I´m doing a great work out here. So yesterday we had transfers. That meant that me and my comp had to travel 5 hours to get to the city. We travel in a micro, which is a double-decker travel bus. The ride is always long but it gives me time to think about things and also for naps every now and then. That´s why I didn´t write you yesterday. After Transfer meeting got over and me and my new companion, Elder Sabey, hopped on the first micro to 9 de Julio. Let´s just say we got home at 1:30 am. To tell you a little bit about Elder Sabey, he is from Littleton, Colorado. He is the youngest in his family and right now his parents are serving as mission presidents in Ghana, Africa. He has one more transfer than me in the mission and he just barely came out of the offices to be the new branch president. He is very cool, clean and organized, and an all-around good person. All I can say is...FINALLY!!! We are going to work very well together. He already has some very good ideas for the branch and how we are going to carry out our callings. Let´s just say I´m very content with transfers.
As for Thanksgiving...doesn´t exist here. Go figure! One of the best holidays of all time and Argentina doesn´t have it. However, luckily for me there are two older missionary-couples in my zone that are going to cook us a turkey lunch next Tuesday when we have our District meeting. Better late than never I say. I will be enjoying it that´s for sure!
Well, I hate to admit it by my time here in the mission is coming closer to an end. I only have, get this, 6 transfers left including this one, and 8 months is all that I have to finish. It is going by quite fast, especially with all the responsibility of the branch in our hands. Before you know it I´ll be home in August. Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and don´t eat too much turkey!!!
Chau,
Elder Page
November 24, 2009
November 16, 2009
November 16, 2009
Hey Everyone!!!
Life doesn´t ever slow down, huh?
It sounds like life never changes back home. Mission life is the same, hard but very rewarding. So Elder Gómez and I have been teaching quite a few people. We have an older couple that aren´t married but like church. I don´t think they are going to get baptized. The whole law of chastity thing really kills us out here. People just don´t understand the importance of getting married. We also have a 15 year old girl named Silvina. She is the niece to a recent convert but changes her mind a lot. She was supposed to get baptized last Saturday and it didn´t happen. We have another youth, Julian, who is 14. His dad is a member but the parents are separated and the mom doesn´t want anything to do with the church. Sadly, he´s living with her so we have to do some convincing for that baptism to happen. There is an older lady named Raquel who is very receptive to our messages but didn´t come to church last week. We need to verify on her. Also, an old investigator named Jorge always comes to church but doesn´t feel ready enough to get baptized. We teach him the lessons once a week and hopefully one day he´ll ask us to be baptized. And last, but not least, a lady named Cecilia. She´s probably the best but the hardest to find. She´s very busy and works a lot but we found her doing service at a school. She has 2 kids, and one of them can get baptized. She told us she was going to church last week but she didn´t show up thanks to all the rain that poured in the morning. There are several other people we are teaching but that would take up way too much time to tell. Long story short, we are teaching a lot but no baptisms.
My companion Elder Gómez is from New Jersey. His parents immigrated from El Salvador. He speaks English and Spanish fluently. He´s a cool guy but very lazy. That´s the only downside. He just wastes way too much time and has no idea of time or money management. That hurts us sometimes when we have lessons and when we show up "late" to the church. Late for me is 8:30 a.m. (church starts at 9 a.m.) but he likes to show up 10 minutes before meetings start and get everything ready then. It doesn´t give us a good image either but he doesn´t seem to care. However, he is leaving this transfer and I will get a new companion in a week. I already know who it is because of the importance of his assignment as Branch President. His name is Elder Sabey and he is just coming out of the offices. He just has one transfer more than me so we are pretty equal on time. I believe he is from Colorado if I´m not mistaken. I´m excited to work with him! The area is the same. Our good "friend" and ex-counselor told everyone not to come to church anymore and has continued to spread rumors and lies. Let´s just say we´ve had some low assistences lately and not many people like us. Oh well, it´s a shame that the situation has gotten out of hand but hopefully we´ll be able to fix it. Other than that things are fine. I´m trying to stay excited and happy but it´s hard. I just keep on working and working and hope things come out all right.
Thanks to Mom for the package, I just got it last week!! The Reeses are all gone and some of the peanut butter. I haven´t cooked up the smores yet but I´m getting around to it. Have a wonderful week!!
Later,
Elder Page
Life doesn´t ever slow down, huh?
It sounds like life never changes back home. Mission life is the same, hard but very rewarding. So Elder Gómez and I have been teaching quite a few people. We have an older couple that aren´t married but like church. I don´t think they are going to get baptized. The whole law of chastity thing really kills us out here. People just don´t understand the importance of getting married. We also have a 15 year old girl named Silvina. She is the niece to a recent convert but changes her mind a lot. She was supposed to get baptized last Saturday and it didn´t happen. We have another youth, Julian, who is 14. His dad is a member but the parents are separated and the mom doesn´t want anything to do with the church. Sadly, he´s living with her so we have to do some convincing for that baptism to happen. There is an older lady named Raquel who is very receptive to our messages but didn´t come to church last week. We need to verify on her. Also, an old investigator named Jorge always comes to church but doesn´t feel ready enough to get baptized. We teach him the lessons once a week and hopefully one day he´ll ask us to be baptized. And last, but not least, a lady named Cecilia. She´s probably the best but the hardest to find. She´s very busy and works a lot but we found her doing service at a school. She has 2 kids, and one of them can get baptized. She told us she was going to church last week but she didn´t show up thanks to all the rain that poured in the morning. There are several other people we are teaching but that would take up way too much time to tell. Long story short, we are teaching a lot but no baptisms.
My companion Elder Gómez is from New Jersey. His parents immigrated from El Salvador. He speaks English and Spanish fluently. He´s a cool guy but very lazy. That´s the only downside. He just wastes way too much time and has no idea of time or money management. That hurts us sometimes when we have lessons and when we show up "late" to the church. Late for me is 8:30 a.m. (church starts at 9 a.m.) but he likes to show up 10 minutes before meetings start and get everything ready then. It doesn´t give us a good image either but he doesn´t seem to care. However, he is leaving this transfer and I will get a new companion in a week. I already know who it is because of the importance of his assignment as Branch President. His name is Elder Sabey and he is just coming out of the offices. He just has one transfer more than me so we are pretty equal on time. I believe he is from Colorado if I´m not mistaken. I´m excited to work with him! The area is the same. Our good "friend" and ex-counselor told everyone not to come to church anymore and has continued to spread rumors and lies. Let´s just say we´ve had some low assistences lately and not many people like us. Oh well, it´s a shame that the situation has gotten out of hand but hopefully we´ll be able to fix it. Other than that things are fine. I´m trying to stay excited and happy but it´s hard. I just keep on working and working and hope things come out all right.
Thanks to Mom for the package, I just got it last week!! The Reeses are all gone and some of the peanut butter. I haven´t cooked up the smores yet but I´m getting around to it. Have a wonderful week!!
Later,
Elder Page
November 11, 2009
November 9, 2009
Hey Everyone!!
Just like most of you, life is busy but nothing really significant happened this week. Things just continue to go on as always in our little branch of ours. On Sunday, the speakers didn´t take enough time and I was ask by the President (aka my comp) to talk for 15 minutes on whatever I wanted. The thing is we both knew I was going to talk because I looked at him, and him at me, and gave me the nod. Surprisingly, I can now just get up in sacrament meeting and give a decent talk without any preparation...in Spanish. I certainly do feel good about myself for that. Today for P-Day we went and played golf with two other elders. It was quite interesting. We only played two rounds because everyone lost their golf balls and one elder even broke a club! How about that? The very exciting news for me is that on Wednesday I have interviews with President Benton and next week Elder Bednar is coming to talk to our mission!!! It´s going to be a question-answer type of meeting. So , if you had the chance to ask an apostle anything, what would it be? I personally need to start thinking about some questions that I can ask because I rarely even have questions or doubts about the mission or life. Go figure...
Life just goes by as always. I now almost have three months in 9 de Julio and surely I´ll have three months more. I think the best word to describe those next three months might be long-suffering. I like to think of this place as my own personal Zion´s Camp even though I probably won´t suffer like those faithful men who served with Joseph Smith.
Well, I´m sorry I don´t have too much to say. Keep it real and keep living the gospel.
Later,
Elder Page
Just like most of you, life is busy but nothing really significant happened this week. Things just continue to go on as always in our little branch of ours. On Sunday, the speakers didn´t take enough time and I was ask by the President (aka my comp) to talk for 15 minutes on whatever I wanted. The thing is we both knew I was going to talk because I looked at him, and him at me, and gave me the nod. Surprisingly, I can now just get up in sacrament meeting and give a decent talk without any preparation...in Spanish. I certainly do feel good about myself for that. Today for P-Day we went and played golf with two other elders. It was quite interesting. We only played two rounds because everyone lost their golf balls and one elder even broke a club! How about that? The very exciting news for me is that on Wednesday I have interviews with President Benton and next week Elder Bednar is coming to talk to our mission!!! It´s going to be a question-answer type of meeting. So , if you had the chance to ask an apostle anything, what would it be? I personally need to start thinking about some questions that I can ask because I rarely even have questions or doubts about the mission or life. Go figure...
Life just goes by as always. I now almost have three months in 9 de Julio and surely I´ll have three months more. I think the best word to describe those next three months might be long-suffering. I like to think of this place as my own personal Zion´s Camp even though I probably won´t suffer like those faithful men who served with Joseph Smith.
Well, I´m sorry I don´t have too much to say. Keep it real and keep living the gospel.
Later,
Elder Page
November 2, 2009
November 2, 2009
Hey Everyone!!!
How are you all? This week for me was kind of tough but I do have some pretty cool stories! So our 2nd counselor officially got released. He is still talking bad about us missionaries which is a shame. It sad to see something like that happen. Things are really busy here. First off on Friday there was a huge storm that passed through here. There were many houses that had the roofs torn off and several homeless people after the storm. It gave us the opportunity to do service and donate needed items in behalf of the church. Everybody here exaggerated how bad the storm was. They made it sound like a tornado had passed through or something but it was still bad. Also, on Tuesday night, coming back from Buenos Aires, we were involved in a crash. The travel bus we were in was cut off by a car, in which the car hit the front bumper of the bus. After that, the driver had to slam on his brakes to avoid a stopped trailer in the road and we slid off into the embankment and into a ditch. The bus almost tipped over on its side but luckily it did not. It was quite an interesting experience I tell you what. My companion was pretty scared but I just sat there bored as ever. I personally thought it would have been cooler had the bus tipped completely over. But hey, we can´t have everything we want, can we. But don´t worry, I am just fine and nothing happened to me or anybody in the bus. It just gave some of the people quite a scare.
This week one of our investigators showed up to church for the first time solo! We took out a baptismal date with him that same day for the 21 of November. His name is Juan Carlos and is a good man. I am very excited for him and it´s great to see the work move forward here.
I hope Halloween was fun. It doesn´t exist here. I just had a boring Saturday night in the apartment dreaming of treat-or-treating. Oh well...
So, that´s the news from me. I hope everything is just going fine and that you all don´t miss me too much!!
Later,
Elder Page
How are you all? This week for me was kind of tough but I do have some pretty cool stories! So our 2nd counselor officially got released. He is still talking bad about us missionaries which is a shame. It sad to see something like that happen. Things are really busy here. First off on Friday there was a huge storm that passed through here. There were many houses that had the roofs torn off and several homeless people after the storm. It gave us the opportunity to do service and donate needed items in behalf of the church. Everybody here exaggerated how bad the storm was. They made it sound like a tornado had passed through or something but it was still bad. Also, on Tuesday night, coming back from Buenos Aires, we were involved in a crash. The travel bus we were in was cut off by a car, in which the car hit the front bumper of the bus. After that, the driver had to slam on his brakes to avoid a stopped trailer in the road and we slid off into the embankment and into a ditch. The bus almost tipped over on its side but luckily it did not. It was quite an interesting experience I tell you what. My companion was pretty scared but I just sat there bored as ever. I personally thought it would have been cooler had the bus tipped completely over. But hey, we can´t have everything we want, can we. But don´t worry, I am just fine and nothing happened to me or anybody in the bus. It just gave some of the people quite a scare.
This week one of our investigators showed up to church for the first time solo! We took out a baptismal date with him that same day for the 21 of November. His name is Juan Carlos and is a good man. I am very excited for him and it´s great to see the work move forward here.
I hope Halloween was fun. It doesn´t exist here. I just had a boring Saturday night in the apartment dreaming of treat-or-treating. Oh well...
So, that´s the news from me. I hope everything is just going fine and that you all don´t miss me too much!!
Later,
Elder Page
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