Sunday, August 16, 2015

8/10/15 Elder Bednar is coming!

Everett still hasn't come? What? Does he want to beat Weston in weight or something?

Sounds like a fun family reunion, that's a nice truck Uncle Lane's got!  It that looks like a good time. Mafia until 4:30 am?  Wow, I guess that would explain the migraine!

For lunch we get a plate full of rice, a piece of chicken or some other meat but usually chicken, a little bit of avocado salad, and some potatoes or beans, plus some kind of juice or herbal drink that they refer to as agua (water), it also comes with soup but I'd say you could also translate it as broth because it's pure liquid. I usually order it without soup since I get overly full from the rice anyway.  It is less than 2 dollars, closer to $1.50 so it's pretty cheap. Food here is really cheap like you can get a banana from a street vendor for 20 centimos which would be about 6 cents haha There are also pick up trucks full of bananas that go around with loud speakers yelling out that they're selling bananas which is weird because I haven't even seen any banana palms around here so I don't know where they get the bananas to sell haha

They said the change in the order of meetings was to get better sacrament meeting attendance but i don't know how well that will work out. 

I'd shout it off the rooftops (the good word) but I think the roofs would break since they're mostly made out of bamboo sheets haha

The baptism fell through.

Yeah, my comp and I get along well. We found a really nice family that are very excited about learning more about the gospel but they have the problem of not actually being married... we were hoping to helping them to change that but we were made aware that that won't work out because the lady's mother has two different official identifications.... so now neither of her names come up in the computers so basically she doesn't officially exist!  So... they can't get married until that is resolved...

We were eating on Sunday at a member's house and while they were cooking she brought us packets of an off-brand version of Ritz crackers... the name of them made my companion laugh so hard!  Here's a picture of them.


To his dad:
Here the missionaries are pretty much the only ones that talk in ward council and we are told to go in the order of converts, less actives, then investigators.

No, I the package you sent has not arrived yet but the ZLs would have to get it from the mission offices first.

I hope Cody does pathways.

Did Weston really behave for 12 hours in the car or was that sarcasm?

We just found out that Elder Bednar is going to be coming soon!! The whole mission will be able to go the training he's doing!  Our MP is telling us we have to be extremely disciplined when he comes and he also told us that Elder Bednar likes to do Q&A  so we should be thinking about what questions we can ask him related to the work we are currently doing. I am really excited to hear him speak!

8/3/15 A Child of God

Chaufa is like brown rice with lots of oil and small pieces of chicken, egg, carrots and other little vegetables. The chicken is normal grilled chicken.

We don't have a pentionist here, we just eat at little restaurants which are like 5 soles for lunch (a little less than 2 dollars). 

If they don't name him Finnigan, I call it. haha

This Sunday the district made some changes; in the branch  presidency, elders quorum and the relief society and so forth. Our converts finally got callings! l_____ as second councilor in the relief society and E____ as second councilor in the young women's presidency. Also the branch now has the schedule reversed with priesthood first, Sunday school next, and sacrament meeting last.

We were visiting some less actives the other day and one of the sons, A_____, a 7 year old, started pointing at me and saying "you scare me" "go away" "you look like a new year's doll, they should burn you" (referencing the fact that they burn scarecrow dolls at New Years)  I really didn't know what to say, I was just like, "sorry!"  hahaha

We were teaching the Articles of Faith with E____ and she started asking questions about the creation so we decided to have a small lesson to help her to understand the second paragraph of the family proclamation with the end purpose as found in Doctrine and Covenants 132.  When she fully understood that she is not a creation of God, but his child she started tearing up and said I don't have anymore questions - I understand now!  Then yesterday we got to Article 10 and she started asking about the second coming and temples so now we'll be explaining that!

Our branch mission leader fell of a motorcycle and broke his collarbone so we drew on his cast haha 

To his dad:
How long are your ward council meetings and how often do you have them? Here in South America Northwest Elder Uceda asked us to start having ward council meetings every week, so President Archibald always talks about how the only good reason for having ward council every week is if we baptize every week and he talks about the plans that we have to have for baptizing every week. 

7/27/15 Reading The Book of Mormon as a Mission

You counted right, it is transfers but I am staying and my companion is too. Our district leader is being transferred but no one else in the district.

Orange chicken sounds pretty good right now haha, that's one thing they don't have here.  They have like two types of Chinese food which is called chaufa.

I am not sure where the name Everette comes from but Finnigan is super sweet I will definitely call him Finn haha (if I remember right I think "Finn, King of Finland" was on our family history way back on dad's patriarchal line haha)

Yes he went to church but he had to go for something after sacrament meeting. In the afternoon we taught him and then brought him to the elders quorum's birthday which a bunch of the branch was at (shown in the pictures) it was a good opportunity to fellowship him and he had a good time. His foot is fine I think it wasn't actually a nail so much as a pin or something.

Also as a mission we are reading The Book of Mormon in language study (the Latinos in English and the gringos in Spanish  with the plan to finish within 6 months) and are currently in the Isaiah chapters. 

les amo. nos vemos

This picture is from the birthday party.