Trinidad Week 5 (10/27/09

(yes, that's right--no letter last week...This week's letter trimmed as much was family stuff)

Hey Fam!

How you all doing? I need to make it kinda quick, but just know I love you all!

Awesome to hear you talked with Elder Cundick. He's such a cool guy! Good to hear that his GF is headed on a mission... it will teach that guy some patience! LOL out loud... just kidding. :D

Area is doing good. We've found some pretty awesome people. Although we are getting close to changes (next week, so you won't get an email until Wednesday!), I don't think we're going to get changed. The President is really hinting towards keeping companions together longer, so I am really not thinking he'll kick one of us out after having been here only one change. If anyone goes, it will be Elder Wally, Elder Belleau's companion. :( As far as the package... I think I have dropped enough hints since my last package. Winger's sauce, inspirational music CDs, a new car, etc.

Saludos to the OLD Aunt Rebecca! I saw her birthday on my calendar this week and thought "man that's old. Half a century!!" hehe but I still love her. Show her a picture if she doesn't remember who I am. :P

Everything is cruising here. We are going to some American Schools here in T-dad. We've talked to 6th, 8th, and 10th graders, and we're going back to teach more. It is so much fun. But Elder Belleau (the oldest one here mission-wise) is having problems speaking English.

Hope everything else is going well! You guys are the coolest!

Trinidad Week 3 (10/12/09)

Hey fam!

Good to hear about dad's scuba experience... although I thought that due to his ear he couldn't scuba?? lol but I hope Tina had a good one. Happy birthday weenie!

Interesting that the Hawks are headed to Switzerland... but I'm sure they'll have fun. Good to hear Robert made it all the way. :D Just waiting to hear about matt and scott's calls... I'm still way excited for Scotty!

Here are some photos. Eugenia and her fam. The baptism went pretty well. Just a really daring piano player, but it went well. Elder Wally baptised her. Then the next day, yours truly confirmed her. It was actually a really spiritual experience. I was scared out of my mind, but when it was time to actually do it, the Spirit took over. I guess that back in my sub-conscious, I speak Spanish really well. :D So... yeah. We're still looking for some people to get baptized in this change... we've put a goal of six baptisms and I think we can do it. We just have a bunch of people that are waiting to be found, this area is great.

Comp doing ok (Elder Fajardo, fyi dad.) He's still struggling a bit, but I'm working him and keeping him distracted. :D He's learning patience, as are we. But we are flying and had a great week. We have set goals for every week of the change, and we feel they were guided by the Spirit. We have set a goal to say a morning prayer together every morning this week to help our relationship and get us the Spirit to start off the day. The President has really been focusing on that, and we are doing our part to be worthy of and listen to his promptings. So that's going to help us out in this week, and we're going to have some miracles. Not many other people to tell you about, we are just getting ready to find some oros this week.

We're also going to go talk to some English schools here - I did an intercambio in San Ramon when I was in Florida, and we went to an English school and just talked with the students... they asked us questions and we answered and vice versa. We're going to try it here and hope we get some good references. But we always go when the offices are closed... and today is some sort of holiday, and tomorrow we will be in Durazno for the Zone Conferences.

Oh... mission changes. Zone Conferences are now just our zone alone (not with other zones) and afterwards we have the interviews instead of on a separate day. We are allowed to listen to any music, as long as it is inspirational. So if you guys want to send me some music, I'd love it. No TOTO though... :(

That's the week... love you all!

Trinidad Week 2 (10/05/09)

That's Elder Wally and I. Yay for Winger's sauce. We're down to about half the bottle. It won't last another five week. *cough cough*

photographer - me taking an apparently hard photo. Yes, that's my new camera. Yes, it's the same. I really like it.

fab four - Wally, Belleau, me, and Fajardo. We share the city.

besos - Elder Belleau and me. MySpace photo. :D

Hey Fam!

Sad to hear it is raining there... it is POURING here! It is pretty bad... we're all wet. We were planning on heading to Durazno for a district activity (playing soccer on the river's beach) but it got postponed. Here in T-dad it is really wet. Good thing we can stay inside today (p-day!) Haha loved the story about Emily's butt being stuck. I'm glad she's learning how to talk and stuff. Hard to miss it, but I'm sure you guys are having fun with it.

Sad to hear about the Flores family. Let me know where they end up, I'll make sure missionaries get there. But UY is awesome, they're just missing out on fast food.

Sorry to hear about mom's Risk impediment, although it does sound like a pretty involved game. Corry always wanted to get that version, I just didn't want to spend the money. LOL are you guys taking care of the games I left behind?

Well all in all the house move went well. We are finally sleeping on mattresses. We were sleeping on the floor, but we got mattresses after a couple of days, along with a new big fridge and a dresser. Still waiting on beds, whiteboards, and tables. So we do our planning in our room sitting on our mattresses, and study in the front room without tables. We would buy the stuff and get reimbursed, but they dropped our monthly pay by $60 (we are now getting about $150) and yeah. So we're stretching our money to get food and pay bills (we didn't get a phone bill for the last two months, so we have to figure that out.)

We got the baptism of Eugenia approved for this Saturday (the 10th). It's Tina's b-day present. lol (oh, sorry for not sending a birthday note to Sarah Jane! I hope she doesn't hate me...) But we are all ready to go... the bishop still needs an interview with her dad. He came to the Sunday AM session of conference just to talk with the Bishop, but the bish didn't come. So... yeah. We'll see what happens, but it is very likely that I will be baptising her (she asked that I do it if her dad can't.) She's way excited. After she had said her Joseph Smith prayer, I asked her if the church was true, and she said that it is. I asked her if she was sure... "100%" was her answer. It was a great moment and it was a spirit-filled lesson. We need to teach all the big commandments (chastity, word of wisdom, etc) this week, but she's 12 so she probably doesn't have any problems with any of that and the lessons should fly. We're all excited for her.

This week we had to go to Deo, and then we had conference, so it honestly wasn't a great week number wise. But we had a few members' friends come to the conference, so we have some good plans this week to find some new people and get more baptisms this change. Let's just hope it isn't raining tomorrow, yeah?

Ward mission leader is still frustrating us. He's doing his best, so we just kinda have to take it where it hurts. But he's a good help and we're glad we have a LDM that really wants to work. And he has to help us get lunch every week. Yay.

Well, love you all!