15th Week Out, Jardin America Week 9, "Completed a read of the Doctrine and Covenants."

Hi everyone,

So.. I heard about Arnie Peterson. I hope everything is alright with the Peterson family. If someone could tell Andrew Peterson to write to me I`d love to talk to him.. Poor guy..

But, about my week...

I finished the Doctrine and Covenants today. That was a lot. Like in every way possible. I LOVED IT!  I love reading! I can`t tell you guys enough, I wish the Book of Mormon was longer. Or the Doctrine and Covenants. I`m going to move over to the Bible after the Pearl of Great Price.  If anyone has any good books, feel free to hand it over to my parents and they`ll send it to me and I`ll read all of it.

Super great week, we had another baptism. Her name is Elizabeth, she is 17 her Dad died about 7 months ago, and her mom basically left the house and randomly comes back. But I guess everything is fine now because she goes to visit her mom. Elizabeth reads in EVERY SINGLE DOCTRINAL BOOK WE HAVE in the church. She loves the deep deep doctrine. Which kinda freaked me out at first because first of all I don`t have any answers for what she wanted, my companion had to help with that. And she also could have gotten into something she thought was weird and could have stopped having us teach her.

BUT she got baptized and now she wants to be a missionary! So we are talking to her about missionary work and the Temple. She is going to come to our District meeting tomorrow. The funny thing is that we have the smallest District in all of my mission. It`s just me and my companion and two other sister missionaries. I think she will love it though!

Anyways! How is everyone!? I`ve passed my "100th day" int he mission mark. If anyone wanted to celebrate for me! Haha! That's a bit over 8 million seconds.  I am doing awesome, still just getting the language down and stuff. Missionarying and all that greatness.

OH ok so actually today we just found that someone or some people had thrown 2 stones into our church building and broke a window. So we called the president of the branch we have out here and he called the police. So they`re all working on that!

Thank you...everyone that reads my emails!

Impressions of Jardìn Amèrica:

• Out here they LOVE the LED lights. They put them on all of the trucks and motorcycles. Every car I see just about has the entire thing lit up by some LED`s. It`s pretty cool. Mostly green and blue I`ve seen.

14th Week Out, Jardin America Week 8, "Changed Apartments and 16 People at Church"

HEY Y`ALL!

Can I just say; I dislike this keyboard I am using, sorry if there are spelling errors! Ha!

So! I`m just locking in now on my mission. It`s kind of like a car, I`m all buckled in and I know where I`m going. I`m just picking up speed. Elder Eddenfield says it`s going to go by so fast! I keep telling him no.

We had a goal of getting 40 people in the church this last week. WE ALMOST GOT IT! We were just missing about 24 people. Yea we had 16 in the capilla! That`s including me and my companion! I don`t know what happened but were going to find out this week where the leak is! We have one investigator who apparently may be the best investigator I have ever found. According to my companion.

She is 17 and her name is Elizabeth. We just found here one day trying to teach her sister but she was not at her house that day. She just walked up and was like "¿¡Què hacen ustedes!?" Which means What do you guys do!? 

And then she came to church every single Sunday for the past 6 weeks. And she studies every day in the Book of Mormon. She apparently got a Doctrine and Covenants somehow. A gospel doctrine booklet. She has a freaking FAITH IN CHRIST book too which she hasn`t started reading! Which I actually hope she doesn`t start reading it yet. She has too much deep doctrine already.  She seems to be doing fine with it all which is amazing. We have already gotten her baptismal interview all done and she now wants to go and be amisionera for the church!

Basically, my companion said that she is a "Golden Investigator" She wants my old companion Elder Evans to baptize her, and me to confirm her into the church and give here the Holy Ghost! I`M SO NERVOUS! I barely can speak this language. And I have to give her a blessing! I`ve done it once already with that first family we baptized but I still get nervous! Haha!

We got a new apartment today! Literally we just showed up and the guy was like yea! NO contract, just move in, whenever you want! Today if you can! So we got the office Elders to bring their truck down and we moved everything today! I`m SUPER TIRED! And I`ve never seen a more filthy fridge in my life. The bottom of it had things from the unseen world!

I`m writing so much! Sorry!

If anyone has seen Paul, Mark or Blake! I HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR EMAILS YOUNG MEN! PLEASE FEEL FREE TO TELL THEM TO EMAIL ME! THANK YOU!!!!! 

Ha! Love you guys! I hope every day just gets better and better for all of you!

A great desert over here...its like a chocolate covered oreo double stuffed!

13th Week Out, Jardin America Week 7, "The Joy of a Good Companion...Alma 27:16-17"

OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS GOLLY GOSH!

BEST WEEK OF MY LIFE...I KID YOU NOT RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW!

My new companion is Elder Eddenfield. We are probably the exact same person. Except he has one more month left on his mission. I LOVE EVERYTHING THAT HE IS! I can`t even express the happiness I feel! WAIT OK! So there is a verse in Alma (27:16-17) when Ammon is like coming back from converting Lamanites! He sees Alma the younger and it then begins to describe how Ammon fell to the floor and experienced joy beyond like the comprehension of man. THAT`S HOW I FEEL! We just wreak havoc on everyone! Every single day! Elder Eddenfield lives in Sacramento, CA, really close to San Francisco. He is the GREATEST SINGER ON THIS PLANETA! What the heck.

We have been inviting everyone to church! Only 3 came though! Haha! Well, including the members. But they`re always there, so yea. I love every day. EVERY SINGLE day my goodness. We`re starting an English class now. We will see how that goes this Wednesday.

Nothing really new this week I guess. yea.

I`m starting to get used to the mish. Everything is becoming a routine, but with Elder Eddenfield I can see what type of missionary I want to be. I am totally leading lessons now. (Yea I`m awesome)

THERE WAS THIS GUY! OH MY GOODNESS! Ok when I was on my way to Posadas with Elder Eddenfield. We were sitting at the bus stop, and there was this guy across the street who was standing in the middle of the grass just talking to himself. He literally just stayed there the whole time. It was like15:00 since we saw him. We went to a baptism of some of Elder Eddenfield`s investigators, and we came home super late like 23:50 late. AND THAT MAN WAS STILL STANDING THERE! The next day we were walking to another appointment AND HE WAS STILL STANDING. AND TALKING! What the goodness. So we went over and I tried to give him a Book of Mormon. He didn`t want it. OH well...

I MISS YOU ALL! Thank you for reading! HAVE THE BEST WEEK OF YOUR LIFE EVERYONE!

Interesting about the Posadas Mission:

There are 3 languages in my mission. Castellano, Portuguese, and Guaddani. I don`t know how to spell the last one, BUT HOLY GOODNESS IT IS SO WEIRD!

Ok....so the fan wiped out my food prep here!

Great Paperweight...cow hoofs.

12th Week Out, Week 6 Jardin America, "¿¡Què en el mundo!? New Mission Companion Elder Eddenfield (Prior AP)"

Hey!

So I`m just missionarying it up out here like crazy now! I have finished my first transfer!! AND GUESS WHAT!

My companion Elder Evans and I were at a Stake Conference. We finished the conference and then President LaPierre was like, hey I need to talk to you Elders. Then it was like BOOM ELDER EVANS YOU ARE NOW ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT. And just like that it happened. I`m actually not with my new companion yet. He will be joining me in Jardìn Amèrica on Wednesday. His name is Elder Eddenfield.

He is probably the most legit missionary on this planet. HE`S SO ENTHUSIASTIC. Like when you think of someone like that you can really just see sarcasm all day long with that person. But not with Elder Eddenfield. He is always super excited and just wants to win at missionary work. He is on his VERY LAST transfer. And I have the privilege of taking that last month with him. He can speak Castellano fluently and also Portuguese. 

He`s from California, I think from Anaheim? I`ll find out more about him, but really all I do know is that he was the previous Assistant to the President. And he`s spending his last 30-ish days with me.

I am continuing to learn Castellano, I can actually hold a conversation-ish with a person. I`d say I`m at a 45% point by now. I can speak pretty well, the hard part is understanding them! Which is the most important part for me... Ha!

So I guess something weird I can share is when we were walking around an area contacting. There were these kids climbing around on these bricks. And one of them began to pee on his friend...I don`t know... yea..

But ANYWAYS! I love it here! It`s SO HARD! I could give you the run down but, that`s too much to write!

I know that Jesus Christ is up in heaven right now, and he is fervently watching us! These are the last days and Israel is gathering! I am so grateful I have been given a portion of his vineyard to work in. I know he will guide me and bring me to the places I need to be!

Thanks to everyone who reads my emails. Hope you have a wonderful week!

Impressions of Jardìn Amèrica:

There are a lot of Evangelicanos here. I don`t know what that is in English. It`s the church where when people feel the spirit they get up and start screaming or "fainting" because they have been overpowered by the spirit. We had a lesson with one of our investigators named Elizabeth. We took her to a member`s house and had a lesson with her. The member had her mom there at the time. She was of the Evangelica church.

Something that really caught my attention was when we asked her how she feels when she feels the spirit. She said that she could feel it only when she went to her Evangelica church in Buenos Aires. And she could never feel it when she wasn't in Buenos Aires.But when she was there with us she said that she could feel it when we were talking! :)

Elder Eddenfield - recent AP coming to join me for his last 30 days in Jardin America

Another great food...I forget the name at the moment.

Elder Dallen Eddenfield, from Sacramento, CA

Look at these cool scripture covers!  All handmade, I have got to check into this for sure...!