Week 7~Merry Christmas~Traveling to Argentina

December 20, 2013~I got a new flight plan today!  We'll see what happens on this one.  I leave SLC on Sunday December 22 and land in Dallas, then I leave Dallas and get to Buenos Aires at 8:30AM onMonday December 23rd.  So that's the plan!  I will get to talk to you all two days later on Christmas, hopefully!  Elder Howe left this morning which was super sad.  We were planning on not saying goodbye until we got to Argentina, so that was a bummer,  but now me and Elder Hansen are comps for a couple of days which is awesome!  He is a stud.  So yeah, that's the plan, hopefully it doesn't snow again!  I'll be in touch!

December 25, 2013~It turns out that my comp and I had to stay at the Mission home yesterday while everyone else left because our mission is really far away and there were no buses.  So we are getting on a bus for about 7 hours at 11:45 here which is 9:45 in the morning your time.  I don't know if I will get to call you when I get to Feliciano, but I can call you here before I leave.  Merry Christmas!! Love you all!

I have to leave in 30 minutes to go to the bus so we are going to have to do it later.  We will get to La Paz around 6:00 my time, but we have a place to use skype there.  So I should hopefully be able to get on for about an hour around 4-4:30 your time!  So be ready for that.  Love you all! Hope you have an awesome day.  By the way, my companion is a total stud.  He is awesome! 
Sorry I am late! The bus was late!  I am ready now so try and call back as soon as you can because we don't have tons of time.

I love you all!  Sorry the skyping didn't really work out as planned.  It was great to see everyone.  I am doing great so no worries!  Life is good.  Have a great Christmas and I will be in touch soon! 

Let it Snow~Back to MTC

Thursday~ I just wanted to let you guys know that I haven't left yet....We ended up coming back to the4 MtC after about 8 hours in the airport so that was pretty apt!  I have honestly no idea when we will be leaving, could be tomorrow, could be in a week and a half.  Since Christmas time is a very busy flying time and  all of Utah is trying to leave and can't we could be here a while.  Elder howe somehow got a flight for tomorrow morning, but the rest of us are just chilling with pretty much no information.  I will be sure to keep you all updated.  I apologize for not letting you know sooner, but the good news is that if I leave before Christmas I will get to talk to you a bunch!  Talk to you soon!  Friday~I got a new flight plan today! We´ll see what happens on this one.. But I leave Salt Lake on Sunday December 22 and land in Dallas  then I leave Dallas and Get to Buenos Aires . So that's the plan!  Elder Howe left this morning which was super sad. We were planning on not saying goodbye until we got to argentina so that was a bummer, but now me and Elder Hansen are comps for a couple days which is awesome! He's a stud. So yeah that's the plan, hopefully it doesn't snow again! I'll be in touch! 

Saturday~Yep it looks like things might work out, the only bummer is that it has been snowing alllll day today so we will see what happens! Elder Howe and I were best buds, We are going to the same mission! He just got on a flight before Elder Hansen and I so we might see him there when we get down there, but if not I will probably see him at zone conferences or something.  Elder Hansen and I don't really have a classroom or teachers so we basically just join other districts or help the teachers teach their districts ( since we are such experts these days) haha.. Just kidding, we know nothing still. But we spend a lot of time with one of our favorite teachers, Hermano Avila. We also study a good bit and do some emailing since we can. 

Week 6~Last week at the MTC

Not a whole lot has happened since I last wrote home. We are basically just studying and hearing stories from our teachers about the mish and getting really excited to go. Sunday was our last Sunday here so our district sang a sweet little musical number which was awesome. We sang Joseph Smith's First prayer to the tune of Come Thou Fount.. Come Thou Fount is like my favorite song since I have been in the MTC. We listen to it every time we study haha. So yeah singing that was awesome, the Spirit was really strong. We took a bunch of pictures on Sunday also and had our departing devotional with the Branch President (Shallenberger) which was sweet. We talked about what we should do on the day we travel and what we should have and all that stuff and he told us stories about his mission and gave us lots of advice. The more stories we hear from everyone, the more we realize how dang hard the field is going to be. But also we realize how awesome and rewarding it will be.  

 

Two of our buddies Elders Creighton and Orton left on monday though, which was sad. They were in the other district that came in on the same day as us so we were super tight. I had a really cool experience saying goodbye to Elder Creighton, he really thanked me for everything that I did as a leader and told me that I was probably the person that impacted him most here in the MTC. I don't really know what I did to do that, but it was really nice. Hes awesome. 

We also had in-field orientation last friday for the whole day. Which was basically a giant review of everything we have learned in the MTC. It might have been the longest day ever but it was good. The sweet part was that it was on Main campus and I knew one of my best buddies from my BYU hall had gotten there last week so I was looking for him in the cafeteria and I found him! Chris Pratt, he is going to Brazil. We talked for a couple minutes and then out of nowhere another one of our buddies from our freshman hall showed up too! Mac Wright is going to Dallas, and I had no idea he was there. So we had a sweet little BYU reunion right there in the MTC. I don't know why but it made me super happy. I think just seeing familiar faces is really nice. So that was a highlight. 

Today our main teacher, Hermano Wiest, brought all of his pictures from argentina and showed us those and told us a bunch of stories so that made me even more excited and a little nervous. I have never really tried to picture what Argentina was like until these past couple of days and it's more third-world than I realized I think. My teacher told me there's jungle in my mission? I had no idea haha. So i'm kind of nervous just because I have no idea what to expect, but I am also super excited.

Tomorrow is our last day here, most of it will be packing and getting ready. Probably a couple hours of crying as well.. Just kidding. 

Elder Filikitonga! Yes he's from Tonga

 

Week 5~Visa arrived!

Well I don't think I really have a ton to talk about this week, there's only so much that can happen in the MTC when all you do is study and eat and sleep haha. But it has been another great week! It has been kind of crazy because my original date to leave was November 14th or this saturday, but up until yesterday I hadn't received any word on if or when I would actually leave for Argentina and I was convinced that I would be going stateside for a while because I only submitted my visa stuff like a week before coming in. So yeah pretty much everyone else had their paperwork and travel plans already except for Elder Hansen and I.. So everyone made guesses of where we were going to get reassigned to in the states and we had a little chart on the board with our guesses, but then yesterday morning we got a message saying we needed to go to the travel office and they gave us OUR FLIGHT PLANS. I was so dang excited. Possibly more excited than when I got my mission call.. maybe. I don't know.. Because now it's actually real. I'm pretty sure I did like five really aggressive fist pumps. So yeah.. you know I was excited. That was definitely the highlight of the week. 

We got to hear from another Apostle this past tuesday (Quentin L. Cook) which is always such a special opportunity because their testimonies are so powerful and you just know that they truly know Jesus Christ. I love how they always close their testimony by saying, " I bear solemn witness of Jesus Christ" or something along those lines. It's a lot different to me from saying I know Jesus Christ lives or I have a testimony of Jesus Christ. They are saying that they know him. They lead this church under the direction of our Savior and it's so clear when you listen to them speak and you feel the Spirit that they bring. I love how happy they are. They are not caught up in the problems and concerns of the world because they have an eternal perspective and they know that this life is so small in the grand scheme of things.. Not to belittle the importance of this life. I am going on too long, but I think that is something that has really changed in me as I have been here in the MTC. The more I have gained this understanding, the more I desire to do good and serve others.

I know I have a long way to go and a lot to learn. I also know that I need to be humbled. But better than being compelled to be humble is to humble ourselves, so I am striving to do that. In return I know that Heavenly Father will guide and direct me in all things. 

Sorry I got super preachy, but I guess that's my fall back when I don't have any funny stories. It has been like zero degrees all week here and the weather in argentina is getting as high as 100 degrees so in one day we could be potentially changing 100 degrees in weather, so that will be interesting. I am so excited to go! Life is super good. I am happier than I have ever been.

Elder Herzog

Please tell the Marzarella family thank you so much for the sweet Christmas package they sent me. That was super unexpected and very kind of them. I plan on sending them a letter to say thanks, but just wanted them to know about that. 

Kenna has also sent me some awesome stuff in the mail! She sent me these cute little turkey cookies for thanksgiving and then for Christmas she sent me a super awesome blanket and some cookies! She made little like elder name tag cookies,they're sweet. She has been awesome. 

So yes I am definitely feeling the love and am receiving way more than I deserve or ever expected. So thank you.

They were called "los chicos perdidos" 

The lost boys haha 

Week Four~

Snow Day!
















Elder Orton & Elder Gonzalez

Elder Brazil

Missionaries serve those in need~

PROVO — Elder Austin Evans used to work at a pizza place, checking the clock constantly to see how much time had passed.

On Thanksgiving Day, thousands of miles away from his family amid people he's just barely getting to know, Evans said he had no idea how long he'd spent packing lentils into a bag to turn into a stranger's lunch or dinner.

"When you start serving the Lord, you don't think about time," he said. "When you are serving others, serving God, the time just goes by."

Just 19, Evans and about 1,800 young men and women just like him at the Missionary Training Center learned first hand the lesson of faith, charity and giving on Thanksgiving Day by packing up lentils, rice and other hearty ingredients into 350,000 individual meals that will make their way to the Utah Food Bank.

Lon Nally, president of the MTC, said outside of natural disasters, the holiday efforts at the MTC represented The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' largest humanitarian endeavor undertaken.

"It's an incredible thing," he said, as the first "shift" of 900 missionaries assembled the meals.

The "casseroles in a bag" will be distributed through the Utah Food Bank's BackPack Program in which packages of nutritious, non-perishable food are provided to Utah schools and then sent home on the weekend to feed disadvantaged families.

Thousands of LDS missionaries assemble 350,000 meals Thursday, Nov. 28, 2013 in the Missionary Training Center in Provo Utah. (Photo: Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

Lest the idea of lentils leaves one wondering about taste, Rick Foster said the blend of high fiber, high protein lentils, rice and dried vegetables is a nutritious and tasty meal he tested on his own family.

"They loved them," he said.

Foster, who is manager of the church's North American Humanitarian Services, said the Thanksgiving Day service project for the training center's missionaries represents an effort by the church to build "giving" around community.

"We're encouraging them to serve within their community, to identify needs and come together with community partners to meet those needs," he said.

For Sister Jennifer Bement— destined for England — the time spent packing the meals provided an opportunity to help someone else and forget about any homesickness she might be feeling.

"We are meeting new people, we are forgetting about ourselves and just going to work," she said. "And on Thanksgiving when we might be a little homesick, that has been really nice to just forget about ourselves and get into the work and start helping other people."

Read more at http://www.ksl.com/?nid=1284&sid=27822133#AKsGoCDm2j6wj0c7.99

Week Three~

Buenos Dias!

So it's wednesday which is a day earlier than I usually write because tomorrow is Thanksgiving so my zone gets kind of hosed since it is on our p-day.. So they told us just to do our laundry and email sometime when we can fit it in so I wanted you guys to have an email from me for thanksgiving, but I also figured people would wait to email me until Thursday so we are doing half of our email time today and half on Friday.

We are going to be super busy tomorrow, especially me and Elder Howe because we got assigned to be zone leaders this past week and all the zone leaders are in charge of the big service project that we are doing tomorrow. So in the morning we have a devotional from one of the Apostles which I believe will be Russell M. Nelson so that will be awesome! And then me and Elder Howe and all the Zone leaders have a bunch of training meetings and setting up meetings for the service project. We are going to be leading assembly lines that are putting together bags of dehydrated soup for hungry kids in the community.. Like hungry hungry.. not just like they get hungry for lunch hungry.. Apparently there is a big need in Utah and a lot of kids are going hungry so we will be putting together 350,000 meals which is pretty incredible. It's going to be a huge project, but it will be a lot of fun and we get to be involved in leading that which is exciting. We are working with some organization that helps members of the community provide for their own community rather than creating food and sending it elsewhere. But it should be a good way to spend Thanksgiving!

So yeah as I mentioned, me and Elder Howe got assigned to be Zone Leaders.. really not a super big deal, but it is a good opportunity to lead the zone and be an example to all of the other missionaries. We are definitely held to a higher standard and the standards are already high so it's tough, but i'm glad that I have that to push me to be the best I can be. We are even busier than we were before and we are taking it seriously even though it's really not a huge change.

The two districts that were older than us both left this past weekend so that was sad. They were all super awesome.. It's amazing how fast we all become best friends in here, I know I have probably said that before, but it's really true. So yeah our zone is pretty small now, but it's good! 

We got a new Hermana in our zone that joined us this week which is kinda weird cause we're already halfway into it, but apparently she was here for the whole six weeks earlier in the year and then got sick and had to go home so now shes back. It's kinda awkward cause she thtinks shes better than all of us cause she has been here before.. If only she knew how amazing we were.. Last night I ran into a person I knew from the outside world for the first time. It was a kid named Isaach Catchatoorian, he is from NC and was in my efy group from a couple years ago which is super random but it was awesome to see a familiar face and catch up with him..

 Alright here come the highlights/stories from the week:

Elder Creighton (I sent a goofy picture of him home first week I believe) Chugged a whole can of cheez-wiz just by itself cause I told him too hahaha it was awesome/disgusting. He almost threw up at one point but he powered through so I gave him a dollar. 

I got chastized by some random guy for tie trading. Every missionary does this.. We were having a tie trade with the older districts before they left and I had literally been zone leader for like four hours and then this guy comes up to me and says,"is tie trading unbecoming of a missionary?" and I honestly had no idea what unbecoming meant so I stood there like a goober and didn't say anything and then he said,"you should probably go have a talk with your branch president about that" and I was like okay.

Honestly I had no idea that was a rule cause it's not written anywhere or ever told to us so i dont know how we were supposed to know, but i actually felt super guilty about it cause I had just been called as zone leader and I was already breaking rules. Everyone told me not to worry about it, but i felt pretty bad. And then I realized that it was pretty funny that I was at a point in my life where breaking a silly rule like that, of which I had no knowledge of, made me feel that guilty.. So I feel good about the point that I am at, and I am really not worried about my obedience. So don't worry either haha, I am doing my best!!

What else? Hmm my pant's leg ripped which was sweet. I put them on one day and all the sudden my right leg was like half a foot longer than the left because it turns out that Joseph A. Bank didn't even hem them! They hemmed one side and I guess they took a vacation that week or something cause they didn't even hem the other side! So let the record show that I don't support that franchise anymore.. but no sweat, one of the sisters labored over my pants for like 5 hours and fixed them which was super sweet of her.. (perks of being a zone leader) haha just kidding.. I know I have said zone leader like 19 times in this letter and I probably sound like a tool, but I am really not I promise..

I lost four pounds this week! so I am back down to like 170 which is good. It doesnt make any sense though cause I ate super healthy in weeks 1 and 2 and gained 10 pounds and then in week three I gave up and ate whatever I wanted and lost 4 pounds. So I guess the lesson to be learned here is that if you eat cheese dip every night for a week you will lose four pounds..

I had a lesson with this teacher (Hermano Avila) and he taught us about Patriarchal Blessings and our divine potential and all this super awesome stuff and it seriously changed my life. Patriarchal blessings are amazing and such an incredible gift we have. If we study it and live righteously, all of those blessings and more are ours. I plan to study my blessing more and more and I encourage you to do that too!

Me and Elder Howe have been on fire lately with our teaching. We have really learned how to ask questions and connect with the people we teach and because of that we have been able to have such a strong Spirit in our lessons. We had to teach one of our teachers in front of an audience of 8 other missionaries which was kind of scary, but we totally nailed it and she told them that we were examples of how they should teach. She was the same teacher that totally humbled me a week or two ago and it's so cool how we were able to be humbled, learn and grow, and then become great examples of teaching in her eyes. So yeah I guess we are getting a little cocky, but we know that it is not our own strength. The Spirit does all of the teaching, and I really do believe that.

The hardest part of my mission you ask?? Getting two shots last week. It was the worst! Turns out I was missing two immunizations so yeah. We basically just sat in these chairs and watched people get their shots and then they'd call us up and we get our shots done in front of everyone, it was weird. I had everyone cheering me on because I made it known that I hated shots so everyone was watching me and I told the lady that I was kind of a girl about shots so afterwards she gave me a pink camo bandaid for being so tough.. Now everyone is scared of me on campus.

Alright sorry my emails are always so freakin long, I figure you like to hear the stories, but if I need to chill out just let me know.. I'll get back on here on friday for a little while to see your emails, but this is my big email for the week.

Happy Thanksgiving!!