Trinidad Week 1 (09/28/09)

Hey fam!

Rough week to start off the change... Got up to Trinidad at like 9:30 Wednesday night, then we had to run a bunch of errands the next day to get the house partly furnished for 4 missionaries (house keys, kitchen stuff) and then we ran out of money. Meeting with the Ward Mission Leader... or the ward missionary leader. He's a detective in the police department here. More stories about him throughout the email. The next day we got to know our investigator (technically we have others but we don't know them/they don't want to know us), and she's the bomb. Her name is Eugenia, and she was living in Florida (I actually think I had met her there on an intercambio) with her mom. But now she's here with her dad and her stepmom, and she's flying. She wants to get baptized, but the bishop (also police) wants us to reactivate the dad first so that he can baptize her. But he's working in Pando and won't be here for another two weeks, then he'll have to have an interview with the bishop and then we'll have to wait longer... but nah. We feel that she needs to get baptized the 24th of October (next week is conference, then fast sunday, then stake conference, then her baptism. the bishop doesn't think we should do a baptismal service when people are fasting. /sigh) and we can't wait any longer after that. She has never prayed about Joseph Smith though, so we made her pray about him and to see if our church has the authority to baptize her (as opposed to her next door neighbor, for example). When she came to church sunday, she said that she prayed and felt good and really wanted to read. So she read for like an hour, then stopped because her TV show was on. :P Later on in the day, we had PEC (*snore*). Saturday there was a HUGE rock concert here, so there was like nobody home and we could hear rock music all throughout the city. We had lunch with the stake patriarch, and we invited their inactive daughter and granddaughter to come to church. It went well.

Sunday we went to church after lunch (at 3 o'clock!). The other elders had to walk like 7 kilometers (do the math, I'm too lazy) out on the highway to get to lunch because Elder Wally's chain broke on his bike. Church went well, we went with Eugenia and her mom. And the granddaughter of the patriarch came for all the meetings, and their daughter came for sacrament meeting. It was way awesome. Then afterwards, the ward missionary leader had a one hour meeting with us to tell us that we shouldn't walk 7 km to get to lunch, that we should call him to give us a ride.

Area's awesome... just doing a lot of contacts trying to find people to teach. I love the "interior" here (interior = not montevideo) because the people are so chill. Apparently, there's a guy that teaches his kids out of the gospel principles book that isn't a member, we're going to go find him today and baptize him al toque.

Thanks for the pic, mom! Love the U tie... really worried about the Y hat hanging on the bannister! Tina's all grown up... and lovin' dad's new frames! lol I have that same tie that Brother Faber has. Yay Tienda Inglesa. :) (Mom Note: You can see the photo in the previous post)

Well, handing the comp to my comp. (heh) Friday we're headed down to 'Deo (if we get money) to keep working on his root canal. w00t.

Well, love you all!

P.S. I found a Robert Hawk here - Elder Wally. He's Elder Belleau's comp. He's pretty wacky... but at least he's ready for the apparently quick approaching zombie invasion. lol (Said in all love and friendship for Elder Hawk!)

Meeting with another of Steven's companions!

Yesterday we met Steven's trainer, Elder Faber. Elder Faber lives in West Jordan and was Steven's first companion. Steven loved Elder Faber and he taught Steven so much about being a good missionary. It was great to meet him. The poor guy had been home for just one day when he had to speak in Church. He kept forgetting the English words for things. That's how I hope Steven comes home--having immersed himself so deeply into the culture and language that English becomes his second language.

Change Day! 09/23/09

Hey fam!

Quick email today... things are rather complicated here. Change day today. I thought I'd be staying with Elder Ferman... as mom said maybe I haven't learned everything I neaded to learn, or maybe I was proud enough to think that he hadn't learned everything he needed to learn from me, but we ended up getting changed. I'm headed to the city of Trinidad, in the department of Flores, but it is part of the Durazno stake. It was pretty hard to say goodbye to the families in Libia, but I'm excited to get to Trinidad. My companion, Elder Fajardo (see photo) and I will be opening the area, there is a ward there and today they are splitting the ward into two areas (two sets of missionaries) and my comp and I will be taking one of the areas. Neither of us has even seen Trinidad, so we're pretty hosed here. We're trying to work out tickets and luggage and mattresses and everything, it is really a mess. And I am the senior comp, and I think the district leader. We aren't really sure because nobody told anybody that I was going to be district leader, but as they were handing out the training packets to the new district leaders, there was a folder with my name on it. So we aren't really sure if I am going to be one or not. We'll work it out.

I'll be living in the same house as Elder Belleau (he was in the MTC with me and also in Las Piedras my first couple of changes). We're really excited - even though I don't know where the house is. :P My new comp is Colombiano, he was born in 33 (mission-wise). Vamos arriba. Pray for us!

Not much other news than that. I'll send a better email Monday, but right now I have to go with my comp to get a molar taken out. We'll get to our area tonight at like 10:00.

Quick news - our ward mission leader's wife (of Libia) had a baby Sunday. His name is Matías.

Love you all! Glad to hear that Corry is really progressing, and that you named the dog Sir Duke (as I begin singing Stevie Wonder).

Libia Week 5 change 2 (9/14/09)

Hey fam!

Sorry about the lack of email last week... it got complicated again. But it is good to hear from you both - twice! What a pleasant surprise! Thanks for the pic of Elder Cundick! He is such a capo! We had another musical fireside this last friday. Elder Erickson sang and I played and sang a bit. Unfortunately, we are without pics/movies/sound bytes (elder ferman was too busy flirting to press the record button on my camera). But it went really well... President Da Silva and his wife came and addressed the congregation - it was really spiritual and there were plenty of tears. :D Things are going pretty well here in Libia, we're just working to get references from the members to find some quality investigators. I hope to have better

news for you next week in regards to our investigators progress. Reysa did introduce us to another friend... we're going to find her this week. And a guy named Gabriel has been taking his 9-year-old next door neighbor to church, and he loves it, so we'll be talking to his parents this week too.

We have Zone Conference on Wednesday with Elder Bowen (Area President, 70), it should be awesome. Pulling out a bit more money to buy a bible (that just came out).

Still waiting for a picture of the poodle (I'm so ashamed dad...) (MOM NOTE: Dad swore we would never own a dog...the house of girls changed his mind...)

(I'd love to tell you who is in the photo, but Steven didn't tell us! I think the guy on the far left is his companion, Elder Furman.)

Elder Cundick Homecoming

Today the family went to Elder Cundick's homecoming. Elder Cundick was a favorite companion of Steven's. You may remember his from the BYU shirt burning, or the U platter they found in Uruguay, the piano-playing companion...Steven wanted us to go to his homecoming and meet him, so we were happy to do so.

He told us that Steven was "such a great missionary" and he loved being his companion. It was nice to hear from the "other side" of the companionship and know that it was just as good from his side of things.

Here's a photo of us with Elder Cundick.

Libia Week 2 change 2 (8/31/09)

Hey fam!

Sorry about not getting a letter out last week. It was a way complicated P-Day.

Big news from last week... emergency change. Elder Casco went to Maldonado Centro (look up Punta del Este - that's where he is) and Elder Fermàn is now with me here in Libia. I knew that staying together with Elder Casco was too good to be true... But me and Elder Ferman were in the MTC together as well, so we know each other.

That's so awesome to hear about Zach! (MOM NOTE: Zachary Diamond is going to Budapest Hungary on his mission) Way wierd though... I thought he was still like 14 years old! lol and Kimm is married? whoa...

Investigator update! Jonathan doesn't want to get married until he finds a job and a house, but doesn't really have the willpower to look for a job nor a house. So we're idling with him. Laura is a new investigator... she's a friend of Reysa Castro and went to our ward birthday party, then to church the next day. She's flying, but she got sick (i think she passed it on to me) and is in bed rest for a few days, hampering our teaching. We'll be giving her a blessing today. Manuel went to a baptism saturday up in Belloni. Didn't come to church though. We'll see what happens with him, we're thinking either miracle or death. Romina hasn't progressed at all. She has a Lucas 14 coming her way. Iris and Mabel are really hard to find, but they are learning well but don't want to wake up to come to church because Iris usually goes out dancing Saturday night. Angel (a less active member who is Mr. Webb's twin here in Guay - it is so weird! I'll send you a pic... he does the chin stroke and the faces and everything) wants his non-member wife and son to take the lessons. He promised to come to church but didn't. We'll see what happens with him. Those are the big investigators, there are others that are in idle mode.

I got a letter from Carolyn (thanks!) and it looks like Brian Graham is in the West mission (aka the other mission here in Guay that isn't as cool as my mission)! How cool is that?

Still waiting for the package... we have interviews on Friday so I should have it then. Also still waiting for a word on the pics getting up on the FTP. I looked around a little today and didn't see anything.

FYI: campo = field (like country), campamento = camp, equipo = team, partido = game (like a game of baseball), cancha = field (like baseball field). I think that's the critical vocab.

Pictures coming next week... going for the camera today!