Monday, October 28, 2013 7:42 AM
Well funny thing about the workouts.... this week from Monday to about Wednesday Thursday I felt pretty sick. My head hurt, my eyes hurt, my body felt achy and weak. It was weird because it just came out of no where. So for that week I cut out exercise in the morning to recuperate. But I want to let you know that that is the only thing I cut out of my morning routine, I made sure I ate, showered, shaved and was ready to study at 8. And then I studied. I left the pension even though I felt pretty weak some days and my head hurt bad, and I didn’t complain. I have unfortunately seen the opposite many times and I don’t want to be that way. I think sometimes I am learning more from what I see that I don’t like or what I see that I say "I will not let that be me in the future." We had a really good meeting about obedience on Thursday. And this week in my personal studies I dedicated a certain time each day to study the Christ like attribute of humility. Humility is said to be the fountain of all other attributes and I really do believe that. With respect to obedience those who are disobedient lack humility and faith. It is like Nephi always says to his brothers, that the things he says are hard to them because they lack faith and humility. The way that we can be humble is explained in Alma 32 especially verses 13 - 16. We can either humble ourselves because we have a circumstance that makes us be humble, or we can humble ourselves because of the Word of God. We are much more blessed if we humble ourselves because of our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and faith that God knows better than we do. I would suggest the same for you in your personal studies to use chapter 6 in “Preach My Gospel” and take it slow like one attribute a week. This week I will be studying specifically patience which I can definitely use. A lot of times I get upset with my trainer because he will break a rule, because he appears lazy to me, or I feel like he isn’t training me very well. But I think he really is trying and I am trying to have a more Christ like outlook and it is helping. I really don’t know his past all too well but when I try to put myself in his shoes I can understand him better, and I really do have love for my companion, he has done a lot for me and I need to let him know more. Expressions of love are so important. I think that probably one of the biggest expressions of love is listening. Like mom said don’t jump in and just start giving advice without really listening. As you clear your mind of what you are going to say and simply focus and what the person is telling you the Spirit will guide you in what you need to say. Carolyn, I have felt that way many times and still feel like it a lot. I feel like no one has the same drive as me sometimes, I feel like no one is listening to me and that sometimes my companion doesn’t have real interest in me. But I can promise you that there is one person who understands, there is one person who felt everything you have. That felt the stress of having a hard class, of having friends that are doing things they shouldn’t, the stress of trying to be strong but feeling so weak. That person is our Savior, Jesus Christ. When the hard times come put your faith in him and in time the hard times will pass and you will know and have no doubt as to who is on your side and will know of a surety that the Lord is always with you. May God bless you my family you really are great examples to me, and Heavenly Father could not have blessed me with a better family. I am so blessed.
Love,
Elder Andrew
Monday, October 21, 2013 12:13 PM
Oh man, I’m starting to get stretch marks.......... ON MY BICEPS! haha I wish, my companion very lovingly calls me "Little chubby" sometimes. I did make "La biblia de ejercicio" and has a different mini workout for each day which makes it much easier to work out because I have a plan, and to really push myself. Elder Dodge was doing it with me, but now it is pretty much just back to me exercising alone in the morning. Elder Aldana says that I am so active in the morning because I am still fresh, but I don’t think so, I wake up pretty tired usually.
Package: Mac and Cheese, Ranch, three Little flags (two de usa y una de mexico), Also please send me a few 1 dollar bills to give to investigators or converts, Microwave popcorn, Real old spice deodorant (they mostly just have spray stuff here, and I ran out), Jump rope, and please transfer like 200 or 300 dollars to my personal debit card. Is that enough? If you can’t send all that stuff or it is too expensive don’t worry about it. I finally got your first package! Too bad it is a Little late for winter clothes as it is getting pretty humid!
We got something to kill the mosquitoes. I got a haircut finally and the lady had interest in the church and said she had gone when she lived in Paraguay but she left before i got her address or anything, so we will go by another time to talk with her.
Also please send me a 4 generation pedigree chart. Sorry I’m just asking and asking. Thank you for all the help and support that you do give me.
I preparing to teach a noche de hogar (family home evening) and reading in the manual and I came across the idea to make a family holiday. Dia de los Andrews. You could just have a special night maybe do a gift Exchange on some specific date of the year. I was getting so excited, but then I remembered that I won’t be there for the first one haha. I’m glad the block party was a success keep up the good neighborly love.
Yesterday was dia de las madres aca (Mother’s Day here). Unfortunately I don’t get to call home, but I was thinking of you mom. Thank you for being so good to me and our family. It makes me very grateful when I see some of the broken or breaking families down here. I am also very grateful to have been born in the covenant, that is a privilege that not many have down here, and I am really starting to realize how much of a blessing it really is.
Rain is like poison for church attendance. It rained and once again there was hardly anyone there. Out of the 6 investigators that have baptismal dates 0 por 6 came to church. And it was 7 but here date fell through because she didn’t come. We have a lot of work to do, and Luisa was really sick that is why she didn’t come. But I don’t know if we will be able to teach her everything before the next transfer, her understanding is really very slow and we have to remind her how to pray every time and we only went by one time this week and lost control of the lesson. AY AY Ay the mission has them all, I sure do love it. I was thinking of the people my age going to school right now or starting to work and how blessed am I. I could never have this kind of experience anywhere else except serving in the Buenos Aires South Mission for my Salvador (Savior). We are working a lot and my Spanish is getting a little better.
My head hurts and I can’t really think of much else. I sure love you Andrew family, you are all super studs. Oh also I want a respuesta de todos los miembros de mi familia a esta pregunta (I want an answer from all the members of my family to this question). "Are you all praying to have missionary experiences?" Chow suerte mis queridos. (Good bye and good luck my dear ones)
Elder Andrew
Package: Mac and Cheese, Ranch, three Little flags (two de usa y una de mexico), Also please send me a few 1 dollar bills to give to investigators or converts, Microwave popcorn, Real old spice deodorant (they mostly just have spray stuff here, and I ran out), Jump rope, and please transfer like 200 or 300 dollars to my personal debit card. Is that enough? If you can’t send all that stuff or it is too expensive don’t worry about it. I finally got your first package! Too bad it is a Little late for winter clothes as it is getting pretty humid!
We got something to kill the mosquitoes. I got a haircut finally and the lady had interest in the church and said she had gone when she lived in Paraguay but she left before i got her address or anything, so we will go by another time to talk with her.
Also please send me a 4 generation pedigree chart. Sorry I’m just asking and asking. Thank you for all the help and support that you do give me.
I preparing to teach a noche de hogar (family home evening) and reading in the manual and I came across the idea to make a family holiday. Dia de los Andrews. You could just have a special night maybe do a gift Exchange on some specific date of the year. I was getting so excited, but then I remembered that I won’t be there for the first one haha. I’m glad the block party was a success keep up the good neighborly love.
Yesterday was dia de las madres aca (Mother’s Day here). Unfortunately I don’t get to call home, but I was thinking of you mom. Thank you for being so good to me and our family. It makes me very grateful when I see some of the broken or breaking families down here. I am also very grateful to have been born in the covenant, that is a privilege that not many have down here, and I am really starting to realize how much of a blessing it really is.
Rain is like poison for church attendance. It rained and once again there was hardly anyone there. Out of the 6 investigators that have baptismal dates 0 por 6 came to church. And it was 7 but here date fell through because she didn’t come. We have a lot of work to do, and Luisa was really sick that is why she didn’t come. But I don’t know if we will be able to teach her everything before the next transfer, her understanding is really very slow and we have to remind her how to pray every time and we only went by one time this week and lost control of the lesson. AY AY Ay the mission has them all, I sure do love it. I was thinking of the people my age going to school right now or starting to work and how blessed am I. I could never have this kind of experience anywhere else except serving in the Buenos Aires South Mission for my Salvador (Savior). We are working a lot and my Spanish is getting a little better.
My head hurts and I can’t really think of much else. I sure love you Andrew family, you are all super studs. Oh also I want a respuesta de todos los miembros de mi familia a esta pregunta (I want an answer from all the members of my family to this question). "Are you all praying to have missionary experiences?" Chow suerte mis queridos. (Good bye and good luck my dear ones)
Elder Andrew
October 14, 2013
Wow no longer Elders Quorum President. (Brian was released from being EQP yesterday) Well Brother Allen (new 1st Counselor) was a ward missionary so I guess you will be that next Dad and then you can take all the great advice I give you and use it haha just kidding. Thank you for fulfilling your calling, I can’t remember who said it and if it was in conference or not, but if you want your family to be blessed then you have to really magnify your calling. I certainly enjoyed the short time I got to have you as my priesthood leader. Mom made a comment on what I write, to remember my week because so much happens through out the week I will write in my to do list column in my planner what I want to write about to you guys, so it helps to have a script before. This one might be short though because today is the day of the races or algo asi (something like that) and everything is closed... Everything! I was going to cut my hair but I have to wait and so when we finally found a cyber that was open it is 5 and we only have an hour and now only about 20 minutes, which is too bad because out of all the weeks this is the one that a lot happened. I mentioned Elder Godoy and when he came back from the hospital his cast was too tight so we had to have President pick us up in the night and take us to the hospital, and then they couldn’t help him out until the next day, so we were out almost until 1 o’clock for pretty much no reason. But it was an adventure! Elder Aldana has 14 months in the mission. (I had asked how long Elder Aldana had in the mission. Not sure why he answered that question right in the middle of his Elder Godoy story. He must have been in a hurry!) Then when we went and he did get it fixed he had to stay in the pension (apartment) for a few days to recuperate, so I took the first shift of staying, which was only a half day luckily. He slept a lot and I watched a lot of “the district” and ate dulce de leche (SOOO GOOOD). It was nice to get a tiny break and to receive training from those videos, because that really is what they are. I also did some language study stuff. The next day I went out with Elder Dodge and Elder Aldana stayed in the pension. We had a really good day. I really like Elder Dodge and I had to navigate because we were in my area but Elder Aldana has never given me the map or really forced me to learn the area so we got lost a few times. Elder Dodge told me the best way to learn an area is to get lost anyway haha. I had some pictures to send but I’ll send those next time. Let me tell you about Luisa. We found her knocking doors at 8 o’clock at night and she just let us in her house, crazy. This was a week or so ago and she came to conference. Elder Dodge and I visited her and she had read and reread the leccion 3 folleto (lesson 3 pamplet) that we had given her. As we were teaching she kept making references to it and said that even though it is hard for her to remember things and understand (she is 65) she feels like God is helping her, And we definitely know that he is helping her because of her efforts. Then on Sunday she came to church by herself 30 minutes early! We were very pleasantly surprised and humbled at the Lord’s work. We have a great responsibility now to really teach her and need to teach her a lot because she has a fecha por 26 de octubre (date for October 26). Oh I got a letter back from Sis Valentino that was dated in September. How is her husband doing since his surgery? Also, I have not gotten the package. Suggestions would be, mac and cheese, pop corn in microwave bags, ranch mix (Elder Dodge had some, we made it and it was delicious) and I don’t know. I’ll keep thinking about it, but definitely the mac and cheese. (I had asked Ben what he might like in a package since his birthday is in Nov. and it will soon be Christmas as well) On that note I cooked a re pasta the other day that I thought was pretty good, I’ll send you a picture later, I was pretty proud. Also on Sunday we were going for an antiguo investigador (old investigator) and they told us that he lived a few houses down, Elder Aldana thought they were lying but I said we should check it out anyway. We found Laura and her three daughters, one whose name is Alma Peru
Love,
Elder Andrew
October 7, 2013
First for the questions from Mom. (I asked about the pictures he sent. The one with the big gorilla is in the bowling alley, actually it is in a place called COTO which is basically an argentine mix between a mall and Wal-Mart. The family if I remember correctly is la familia De Los Santos and they are a part member, part active family. The picture is from the birthday of one of their sons, they are starting to come to more church things though, not just the daughter, who is the most active. The lady and son are the Bulacios and are less actives, well soon to be actives. They are the ones that I talked about that she felt something was missing in her life. The lady that I felt we were supposed to find told us that due to something elders had said 15 years ago no one in her family wanted anything to do with the church anymore, and told us that we couldn’t teach her because her family didn’t want that. So maybe I was just supposed to learn that I need to watch what I say, the Elders said it in English thinking no one would understand but one of the granddaughters knew English. I have heard several sad stories like this. Those people just need to read the talk of Elder Uchtdorf though, I want to print that one out and give it to a few less actives that don’t want to go debido the members. On Tuesday we did an exchanges and that was fun. I went to the area of El Faro and found out that I really am in a pretty nice part of my mission haha. When I returned on Wednesday we went to talk to a family that the daughter is a recent convert, the dad doesn’t have much interest and the mother is just waiting for a marriage paper to get baptized (she already pays tithing and everything). We got there and the mom and daughter are having some major issues, mostly the daughter wants to do what she wants to do and doesn’t like that the mom is always calling her and bugging her about what she is doing and worrying about her (being a mom). Does that sound familiar? It was pretty bad though and we just sat there in silence as they fought and don’t know if we really offered much help. It shook me up pretty bad, really bad actually. The daughter doesn’t want to live there anymore and from other stuff we have seen it is obvious that she is not doing what she should be right now. I care about these people and don’t want to see their family destroyed, but all I can do is pray and hope for the best. We had a meeting for the trainers and new missionaries and that was really good and also kind of fun because I got to see my buddies from the MTC and those that I flew down with. They are all doing well and some of them have already participated in baptisms. I survived my first transfer!!!! Elder Aldana left and I’m going to be training and the new district leader! haha just kidding, not quite ready for that yet we are both staying here but Elder Juarez left today. He was a good Elder and I will miss him, but we got Elder Godoy de Uruguay I believe. He seems pretty sharp and we’ll see how things go. Cultural side note they have this stuff here call Dulce de Leche which is kind of like carmel but better, I have a big tub of the stuff and sometimes will just eat it plain. (And you wonder why I’m so fat). It is really good and I enjoy it. We had a home evening on Friday with the Ward and it was interesting that we brought as many less actives and investigators as there were active members there! That went really well though and we are starting to work a little better with the Ward. General Conference!!!!! Era re bueno, re re bueno! (It was very good, very, very good!) I missed some talks due to get there late or problems we had with the computer. The very first session I had to watch in castellano (Spanish) and it was good. Be glad that you all know English because it is way better in English, you can still get the message but a lot of the expression, voice inflection, and emotion is lost in the translation. For those I missed we will get a Liahona in English with the talks soon enough Yoo Hoo. You probably already knew I was going to mention it but look up Elder Ballard’s talk again. That was the ultimate member and missionary talk. He just dropped the cane on everybody, but in a very nice way. Elder Dodge and I were in the office watching it in English on the computer and when it started we were like "YEAH listen members” but then we were like "Oops we aren’t free of your fire" He said something to the effect of trying to do what Jesus Christ would want you to do... boom dagger to the heart haha. We had a lot of fun watching it in that little room Elder Dodge and I. We brought a new investigator Luisa to the first session on Sunday and had a short lesson with her about prophets before the session. She is 65, single and a little crazy. She said she wants to come to church all the time and says that the Lord sent us to her. She is very sweet but a little absent minded. She has a date to be baptized the 26 of October and hopefully she can reach it. The problem with her is going to be making sure that she really understands what we are teaching her, I’m sure that she will accept whatever we throw at her but we need to make sure that she really understands, so we are going to have to take things really slow in the lessons. She also believes in all the saints and when Elder Oaks was dropping the cane on no other gods before me I was like "ooh hope she takes that alright..." but I don’t even know if she realized what he said, we will see this week if all her saints are in the garbage. We are having fun and find time to laugh. I am going to try and look more on the bright side of things. Elder Scotts talk was really cool and I need to read that one like 20 times before I really think I can get the full meaning of it. I got a letter from Adam today and it was dated back in August, Whoo what has changed since then! It was nice to "hear" from him even though everything is probably already obsolete. If you could find out his missionary email for me that would be great. Probably just Adam.chappell but who knows. The name of the french man is brother cope or different spelling. Is Cheryl still coming? I think about the Glenview Ward often. May God bless you and I am glad you all have goals. The most important thing after learning what you need to improve is a plan of action Ether 12:27.
Con Mucho amor,
Elder Andrew
I can’t wear the name Benjamin right now but I am more than proud to wear the name Andrew, and more important the precious name of the Savior.
Con Mucho amor,
Elder Andrew
I can’t wear the name Benjamin right now but I am more than proud to wear the name Andrew, and more important the precious name of the Savior.
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