tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78549745076697295202024-02-20T23:54:32.458-08:00Elder Doug GardnerLetters from the Argentina Buenos Aires North MissionDoughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18248844453205871251noreply@blogger.comBlogger119125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-46977715754317638412012-07-07T12:20:00.002-07:002012-07-07T12:25:01.849-07:00El Fin (mission week 106)<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: left;">
Is this for real? Every minute that goes by is one minute closer till I no longer have this amazing privilege of carrying Christ´s name on my shirt. I would count how many minutes are left, but I´m too busy doing other things. Like baptizing!<br />
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This week was probably my best week in the mission. On Sunday after church the sister and cousin of Melisa were baptized. They both asked me to baptize them which was a nice experience. I really love that family so much and it made me so happy to be a part of it. The brother that was baptized two months ago received the priesthood and was called to the young men presidency as well on Sunday. He was one of the witnesses of the baptism. The two girls were both so happy and smiling afterwards. Especially the younger one. She is probably one of the shyest people I have ever met, but we showed her some family pictures the other day and she finally started talking to us. She´s actually really funny. The cousin, Daiana, is also awesome. Her dad is a member but doesn´t go to church and her mom goes to another christian church. But Daiana decided to be baptized and even though she had to do it without much support from the parents she didn´t hesitate for second. She even brought a friend to church to see the baptism.<br />
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We have also been working with an inactive family named Barbieri. One brother was kind of active and the rest hadn´t gone to church in years, including one 9 year old unbaptized son. The children have been going to church for a month or two now but the mom never did (the dad doesn´t live with them). We kept on trying to get the kid baptized but they said that they wanted to have a party and a huge cake that would cost 2000 pesos and take two months to make. Baptism is more important than party but they didn´t want to accept that concept. The mom finally went to sacrament meeting two weeks ago (but not the classes) and things changed. We went to eat lunch with them after she went to church and randomly she said, ¨We are going to do Leandro´s baptism next Thursday.¨ We were like, ¨Dale!¨ So the mom went to church again last Sunday and had an interview with the branch president. On Thursday the son was baptized! His older brother started his mission papers and was the one who did the baptism. There were lots of members and others there to support the family so it was great.<br />
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That´s about all the exciting news. We are working hard so that all three of them are confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ tomorrow. And while we are at it we might just baptize some one else too. Go big or go home. O wait.......<br />
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The offices are going good. I don´t know how ready Elder Lowry feels for me to leave, but all birds have to leave the nest some time. He´ll get the hang of it soon enough. Nothing too exciting is coming to me at the moment to write about.<br />
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I love missionary work. I love Argentina. I have learned so much and have enjoyed so much the past two years. I can´t believe it is all coming to an end. It really hasn´t hit in yet. Once it does I´ll probably cry or something; but that´s just because I have allergies. I´ve met so many awesome people, had so many fun companions that have taught me so much. I´ve seen people grow closer to God and gain testimonies of the reality of Jesus Christ. The church is true. This is God´s kingdom on earth. The gospel can change lives. People can be born again and become new creatures. That what it is all about. And as I´ve been helping others in their rebirth process I can feel that I too have been born again. It took two years for me to really get it, but those are two years I would never trade for anything. Ever. La Gran Misión Buenos Aires Norte, te extrañaré.<br />
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Over and out.<br />
Hasta la vista,<br />
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Elder Gardner<br />
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All in white.<br />
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</div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-89216657869396254472012-06-30T10:42:00.001-07:002012-06-30T10:43:11.989-07:00Los Lowrys (mission week 105)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, it´s been one of those weeks. Lots of things going on, little time to think. Transfers are always crazy. Even more so when you are actually part of the farewell fireside and the departing missionary lunch. Things that I have helped with for the last six months but I never thought I would actually participate in them. It feels unreal. One of the missionaries that left said, ¨It´s kind of like death. Everyone knows they will die some day, but no one actually believes they will. It´s the same with ending the mission.¨ That´s exactly how I feel. I know that it is time, but I don´t really believe it. There is still so much to do, so many people to help. And I love it so much. I was sitting there on Sunday during sacrament meeting while Melisa was being confirmed and I just couldn´t stop thinking about how glad I was that I´m not leaving yet. I would hate to miss the baptisms of these people that we have been working with. Tomorrow Melisa´s sister and cousin are getting baptized after church. So we are pretty excited for them.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Monday was the departing lunch at President´s house. The conversation was geared toward going home sort of things, like the first food we will eat when we get home (in-n-out for the win!). And President taught a lot about marriage. He pretty much just took all the doctrine we have been teaching for the last two years and tied it all into marriage. Then everyone I started the mission with got in a bus and left for the airport; except for Elder Beck. His parents drove up in a car and I saw them meet for the first time in two years. Let´s just say that it was hard to keep thinking about mission things after all that. But, I´m here still and the work must go on, so I kept on working.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On Tuesday all the new missionaries came. ¨All¨ the missionaries being two latin missionaries and the Lowrys. We have not received a single American missionary in two transfers. There are 28 of them that we are waiting for that are currently serving in the states. This whole visa mess is killing us. We had to close five areas because we just don´t have enough missionaries right now. But once all these 28 get there visa we will have to open another 10 areas. So, things are getting interesting around here. We keep praying that the politics of the countries won´t get in the way of the spreading of the word of God.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On Wednesday the fun began. With Elder and Sister Lowry in the country and ready to work we got started teaching them the ropes. It´s been interesting. I didn´t realize how much easier it was for me having already been in the offices for three months and in the mission for a year and a half before I took over the finances. I have to take time to explain a lot of things to Elder Lowry that I take for granted. Like, how many zones there are, how the rents are paid, why we do things the way we do, etc. It´s been a slower process than I was expecting, but Elder Lowry is doing a good job getting up to speed. He asks question after question until he understands exactly what is going on. Kind of like the way Dad would do it. We´ve already made several changes to the procedures as we realized I was only doing what I was taught to do and there is a better way to do things. I like change, especially when it is for the better, so it has been a good experience. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On Thursday we went over to the mission home to talk to the zone leaders about zone money, and we stuck around for lunch afterwards (tacos!). And then on Friday we went over again because our zone broke the baptismal record for the second month in a row! We are doing pretty well here. Four out of the last five days I ate lunch at the mission home. And it sure was tasty. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, that´s about all the news I have for today. We have been working hard in the area and are excited for the baptism tomorrow. Now we just need to find more people! Have a great week everyone.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Nos vemos,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Gardner</span></div>
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</div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-34042819270080652142012-06-23T10:15:00.000-07:002012-06-25T16:16:05.193-07:00Dos Años<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Today is June 23, 2012. Two years ago today my parents and Nate and Katie dropped me off early in the morning at the airport. I flew by myself to Salt Lake City where Becca picked me up and took me to the MTC. I said my last goodbyes to the family there and walked into the next phase of my life. They gave me a plaque with the name ¨Elder Gardner¨ on it. I dropped my suitcases off in the dorm room then they took me to my classroom. The teacher said something in Spanish and I just stared blankly at him. My new companion gave me a big huge which I didn´t know how to respond to. Our teachers tried to teach us how to pray in Spanish. They were probably wondering how they were going to help these 19 year old boys become men. I went to bed that night nervous, unsure of what I was doing or why, but firm in my decision to do it. Little did I know all that would come in the next two years.<br /><br />June 23, 2011. One year ago today I was in Loma Hermosa with my first latin companion. For the first time I couldn´t speak english to anyone. And boy did I miss it. I was struggling to figure out why I had been placed in that area with that companion at that time. I wasn´t sure who I was or what I was made of. I knew what God expected of me but I couldn´t push myself to do it. In the morning we went to the dentist where he continued to drill away at my two front teeth. That night we went to an investigator´s house and challanged him to be baptized in three days. He accepted. I went to bed with a prayer asking God to help me give up my desires and to only want to do His will.<br /><br />June 23, 2012. Today I woke up with one thought on my mind: how to help Cintia to get baptized tonight. Yes I was excited to write my family, but all of that had become an afterthought. My first and foremost desire was to help a child of God enter the waters of baptism. My companions and I discussed our plans in English, but with so much Spanish grammar and words thrown in it wouldn´t be understandable to an American. We arrived at the offices and gave the usual big hugs to each of the elders there. Some one says, ¨elder,¨ and my head instantly turns. They say, ¨Doug¨ and I don´t even notice. I will go to bed tonight exhausted, as always, but thanking my God for the opportunity He has given me these last two years. Oh how I wish I could stay here for another two years! La gran mision Buenos Aires Norte, te extrañaré.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-2026647808635104262012-06-23T10:10:00.000-07:002012-06-25T16:16:29.003-07:00Awesome (office week 25)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, these last two weeks have been awesome! Let me try to tell you why in a consice but also entertaining way:<br /><br />We´ll start with a story of a lesson we had with Eusebia (or however you spell that). She is the grandmother of Miguel who got baptized a month or so ago. She has gone to church a ton in Peru and has gone a few times here, but she never got baptized. We finally realized that she still doesn´t understand the doctrine very well. While Elder Chase and I were there she said that she has already been baptized as a baby in the catholic church so she doesn´t need to be baptized. We started reading in Moroni 8 were it talks about the abomination of baptizing babies. She thought it was interesting but then started to question the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. For the first time she admitted she has never read it, but she does sometimes open the Bible up randomly and read a verse. So I handed her the Book of Mormon and told her to do it right then. She prayed for about thirty seconds then opened the book and handed it to me since she didn´t have her glasses. When I saw where she opened it to I couldn´t believe my eyes. It was open to Moroni 8, the exact same verse we had already read: ¨Little children cannot repent; wherefore, it is awful wickedness to deny the pure mercies of God unto them, for they are all alive in him because of his mercy.¨ We asked her what God was trying to tell her and she finally admitted that she needs to be baptized again, but in the catholic church! Yeah, she doesn´t understand the doctrine. We explained priesthood authority again but we have pretty much just given up with her. But we keep on baptizing her grandchildren:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Melisa, Miguel´s sister, has been reading a ton in the Book of Mormon and we were pushing hard for her baptism on Sunday. She finally opened up enough to tell us that one big obstacle was that she felt that by being baptized she would be leaving her dad alone. The dad isn´t a member and doesn´t really talk to anyone else in the family except for Melisa. So she didn´t want to ¨join¨ with the rest of the family by being baptized and leave the dad alone. We talked a lot about faith and hope with her but she still wasn´t too sure. On Saturday we took Elder Pabon, one of the APs, to do the baptismal interview. She passed the interview and decided to take the step of faith by being baptized on Sunday. Sunday was stake conference and the area president was there to give a talk. It was a really good conference but afterwards when we talked to Melisa she had changed her mind about being baptized. We all went into a classroom and prayed and talked about it, but she still said no. Especially with it being Father´s Day she didn´t want to leave the dad at home alone waiting for them to get back. After talking and trying to help her to make the decision to be baptized we decided to do it the next Saturday. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We then went into the cultural hall were the area president was taking pictures with the families being baptized in other wards. As Miguel was trying to get into a random picture with another family from another ward, Melisa came up and said, ¨I want to get baptized right now.¨ So she got changed into the white dress and was baptized! It was an awesome baptism. Seven other people from the stake were baptized and the spirit was strong. We were so happy that Melisa had made that decision, and she was all smiles afterwards.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sunday turned into an even better day when we went to the house of Cristina, who was baptized a few weeks ago. After talking to her we asked her who she was going to introduce us to so we could teach them. She took us to a house in the back of her property where there lives a family that Cristina rents to. We talked to the 18 year old daughter named Daniela. She is really smart. It´s nice to teach smart people, sometimes I get frustrated when people don´t understand what I think are simple concepts. But she understood everything really well and had some good questions. We invited her to be baptized July 8 and she accepted. When we went back the next day she had read 2 Nefi 31 and then started from the beginning and read 1 Nefi 1 up till 1 Nefi 10. Wow! Awesome. And Cristina bore a really good testimony. My favorite part was when she said, ¨I got baptized in three weeks. It took me so long because I had to stop smoking. Otherwise it would have been sooner.¨ Three weeks is a pretty long time after all... :)<br /><br />So, Sunday was pretty awesome. But also awesome was Saturday. The children of the parents that I found and baptized in Loma Hermosa got baptized! Since Saturday is my p-day I was able to go to it. It was really cool. That was the first time I´ve seen some one I baptized baptize some one else; so it was really special. And they asked me to baptize the daughter, which was cool. I really love them and it made me feel a lot better about my work in Loma Hermosa. One of the members I helped to reactivate is now the primary president. And another couple that I taught there got married yesterday and will be baptized today. I love helping people on the path to salvation. Even if I don´t always get to be there for the baptism.<br /><br />On Tuesday we had a BBQ at President´s house with the zone because we broke the zone record for baptisms last month. It was a good BBQ. And it looks like this month we will baptize more than last month and get to go again. Sweet. We have been busy with transfers the last few days. Transfers are on Monday. Tomorrow is the farewell fireside for the leaving missionaries, which I will speak at even though I´m not really leaving (shhh, don´t tell anyone).<br /><br />Well, this is already a really long letter. Thanks for enduring to the end of the letter! Hope it was worthwhile.<br /><br />With amor,<br />Elder Gardner</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Flia Jacquet, from Loma Hermosa. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Us with Melisa.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Melisa and the whole family.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-38571588061777994892012-06-20T10:00:00.000-07:002012-06-25T16:11:16.868-07:00BIRTHDAY<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My birthday started off like any other day. We woke up, showered, studied, then headed over to the offices. It was also flag day in Argentina, which is widely celebrated so all the businesses were closed. Around 11:30 our first lunch arrived, ñoquis and a chocolate cake. Ñoquis are pastas made out of potatoes and are delicious and very filling. So we ate that then had to wait an hour or so to eat the cake since we were full. Around 1 arrived our second lunch, locro. We just put it in the fridge since we were too full.<br /><br />Then a couple of families we are teaching called to wish me a happy birthday; that was nice of them. Sister Castañeda came back after lunch with some banana bread and Elder Castañeda came back after inspecting some apartments with more locro (it´s a traditional Argentine food for national holidays). Then around 5:30 Sister Gulbrandsen called and said not to leave since they were on their way to the offices. She came over with President and a pan of brownies and a awesome candle. So cool. And so nice of them to take time out of their busy day for me.<br /><br />Then we went out to teach the gospel. We passed by a member family who was going to accompany us to a lesson and they invited us in. They had baked a cake for my birthday. Sweet. After the lesson with an awesome investigator named Daneila (more on her later) we went to a lesson with the peruvian family we have been teaching and one by one baptizing all of them. They had made us tacos, delicious, and the best cake I have ever eaten in Argentina. As we were about the girl who got baptized on Sunday pulled a cheesecake out of the fridge and gave to us to take home. Wow. Miguel (who got baptized a month ago) gave us a ride to the church, then ten minutes later he came back with the family with some chocolate treats, a 2 liter soda, and tortilla chips. Let´s just say we were REALLY full at the end of the day. And our stomachs hurt the next day from all of the treats. But it was totally worth it. Definitely one of the best birthdays I´ve ever had.<br /><br />Thanks for all of your birthday wishes! I´ll write another letter in a minute.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My last moments as a 20 year old.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">President and Sister Gulbrandsen brought over brownies. How nice of them :)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A family we are teaching (and several of which have been baptized) made us tacos for my birthday.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And they made us a cake!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-67696589310682057652012-06-16T10:46:00.000-07:002012-06-16T22:46:30.388-07:00Elder Gardner es super capo!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hi Sister Gardner,</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is elder chase. Elder Gardner wanted me to write a quick letter for him letting you know that he woudn´t be able to write you today. He didn´t get back in time from the baptism today in his old area and now had to go out and do a baptismal interview for another companionship. But he sends lots of love and is doing great! He will write next saturday.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Chase</span></div>
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</div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-86968328895723552332012-06-09T16:50:00.000-07:002012-06-12T16:53:32.468-07:00Halo! (office week 23)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hola todos! ¿Como están? Espero que todos estén felices.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This week was pretty good. I´m not sure what to say this week. Things continue as normal. Everything going by really fast, trying to keep on top of everything that´s going on. When I´m not busy running to President´s house to get his signature on a check and then going to the bank before it closes, or balancing the books and doing other paperwork, or counting how many DVDs we have in the mail room, etc. I´m busy looking into all the expenses of the mission and trying to figure out how to fit in the budget. We´ve been making some changes and saving money. Hopefully I can keep it going.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Some good stories: One of the nights as we were heading home, we got a phone call at 10:30. It was one of the APs who said something along the lines of, ¨we are in the middle of no where with a flat tire, what do we do?¨ The car has ¨magic¨ tires that don´t pop so there isn´t a spare tire there at all. Well, they were on a street in the middle of nowhere and hit a metal bar and destroyed the tire. I gave them some numbers to call and went to bed. Around midnight they called and asked a number of a taxi place. Then around three thirty we got a phone call from the alarm agency that watches the church. They told us that someone entered the building. It was a night with lots of disturbances, but at least we got some sleep, unlike the APs. They ended up having to call and wait for a tow truck to come pick them up and take them back. The next day we got a new magic tire and are good to go. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We´ve been having lots of lessons with Melisa to help her make the decision to be baptized. She is awesome. She has been reading a lot in the Book of Mormon and praying. She believes it is all true but is afraid of making the step of baptism. We´ve had some pretty spiritual lessons with her, talking about the gospel and praying with her to know if it´s true. The spirit is always strong and she said she can tell her faith is growing. We are hoping to have her baptismal service next Sunday after stake conference.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, sorry it´s kind of a short, not too exciting letter. I got distracted a few times during it. Have a great week! Invite someone to church.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Con Amor,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Gardner</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When we got the car they said the car doesn´t have a spar tire because the tires are special Volkswagen tires that never pop. They were right, it didn´t pop. It exploded.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Chase and I did service for a family. We moved all those bricks in the background up some stairs. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The stairs we had to climb. Fortunately they didn´t break.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-67669491383034829042012-06-02T20:54:00.001-07:002012-06-02T20:54:22.996-07:00Baptize! (office week 22)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What is going on!?! How is already June! That is so crazy! I have no idea what happened to the last six months. Ever since I got here to the offices it has all just been a blur. Things are always busy and there are always new things going on so time just starts to lose it´s meaning. So, time to make the most of it and go work as hard as possible.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cristina, the lady we helped stop smoking last week, was baptized last Saturday. It was one of those baptisms that is just a miracle that the person was ready and willing to be baptized. I feel like I didn´t do a thing, we just invited her to be baptized and stop smoking then she did it. She asked me to baptize her so I did. As we got in the water I was thinking, ¨she has long hair, I don´t want to do this baptism twice.¨ So after the prayer I made sure to push her down far into the water so that all her hair got wet. It worked; after she got out of the water one of the first things she said was, ¨¡Que fuerza que tenés!¨ I guess my daily pushups have been helping...</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As for other exciting news, we had a really awesome lesson with the sister of Miguel (the man who got baptized recently). She is really shy and doesn´t like to go to the classes during church for that reason. But she told us that she has read up until Mosiah 5 in the Book of Mormon. That´s really far! One time she was reading and she felt really good so she decided to cook dinner for her dad (something she never did before). When her dad got home he was so surprised and so happy that he bought her a cell phone. So, she got a testimony of the Book of Mormon and now we have a way to communicate with her. Sounds like a win - win to me. She is still a little reluctant, but we are trying to help her feel comfortable in church. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now the offices... Things have been pretty calm. Without the Schoenys I´ve been in charge of getting the materials that missionaries order to them during conferences. It´s been fun, doing different things and keeping me busy. I have a lot less free time this transfer than I have had the other times. I like it better that way.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One fun story: yesterday we had to go to capital to do some paperwork and pick up some cell phones. As we got there we realized there was a protest going on in front of McDonald´s (no surprise, there is always a protest going on in capital). But that meant traffic was terrible. Fortunately, we were going the other direction so it did´t affect us too much; but we could tell that the trip back was going to be</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> a nightmare. None of us three wanted to drive in that mess. So, naturally, we played nose goes. My reflexes not being the same they </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">used to be, I was the last one to touch my nose and was therefor compelled to accept the challenge of the drive back. I feel like I did a good job. My leg was kind of tired from pushing the clutch in so much, but we made it back without any scratches. For some reason there are a lot of streets without any lanes painted on them. At first that really bugged me since I didn´t know where to drive. Then when we got to a street with lanes I realized that they only gave me a false sense of security. All the other cars would drive half way between the lanes anyway. I had never seen five cars next to eachother on a three lane road until now. Got to love it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Things are going great here. I love the mission, trying to keep busy and do all I can with the time I have left.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Love,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Gardner</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Just one of those pictures every missionary has to have.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yeah, I´m in a tree. </span></div>
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<br /></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-64791255526018575292012-05-26T09:00:00.000-07:002012-05-28T21:43:05.741-07:00Conferences (office week 21)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, this was a week full of conferences. Tuesday and Wednesday we had leadership training for all of the zone and district leaders and trainers. We don´t actively participate in the meeting, but it is in the church where the offices are, so we help out. In his continuing efforts to lower spending, President decided to change what we eat for lunch at the conference. We helped put tomatoes (gross) and mayonnaise and lettuce on ham and cheese sandwiches. We also were in charge of buying the bananas. People always look at you funny when you walk out of a store with a hundred bananas in your basket... The sandwiches were about half as expensive as the traditional empanadas we used to order. So President was really happy about that.<br /><br />Then on Friday, yesterday, we had a zone conference. We are part of the zone so we did participate in this one. Honestly, it was probably the best zone conference I´ve ever been to. I think I feel that way after every conference I go to, but this time it was just awesome. President started the conference reading Alma 7:11-13 (probably my favorite scripture in the Book of Mormon) and talking a lot about the atonement. We spent the whole first half on the conference just talking about the ¨why¨ of the gospel. Why baptism is important. How it is that we can be cleansed from sins and how that feels. Why we want people to feel that way. We didn´t talk much about what we do, but why we do it. And I think that is the most important. Honestly, there are times when I´ve wanted to baptize just to fulfill a goal or beat a record. But that´s not why I am here. I am here because Christ died for our sins, He suffered to feel our pains to know how to comfort us, and He invites us to repent and be forgiven of our sins. I am here because I want people to come unto Christ and be clean, through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.<br /><br />Speaking of which, the lady we have been teaching (Cristina), was on vacation for the past week. Last Sunday she came to church for the third time, so we decided to teach her about the word of wisdom. She smokes so we knew it would be a problem. We went over Sunday night and taught her that God has commanded us not to smoke. She said that during church she felt that she needed to stop smoking, so we invited her to stop smoking. She accepted but when I then asked her to give me her cigarettes she started making up excuses and saying she didn´t have any. We knew she was lying so we kept pushing her to give us the smokes. She kept on resisting until Elder Chase invited her to say a pray right then to ask God for help to give up smoking. After the prayer we asked again and she finally pulled the box out of her purse and gave me her cigarettes. Literally about thirty seconds later the phone rang and a friend of hers called asking her to buy a box of smokes and go over to her house to smoke and talk. Cristina was like, ¨no thanks, I don´t smoke any more.¨ and hung up. Legit!<br /><br />So, she was on vacation all week but we were calling her cell phone every day to make sure she wasn´t smoking and that she was reading. Everything was good, so yesterday when we could finally see her again we went with the zone leader to her house to do the baptismal interview. We haven´t been able to teach her very much, but she has a lot of faith and is absolutely sure that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. She passed the interview and today will be baptized at six o´clock.<br /><br />Those are the most exciting things going on right now. We are super busy as always in the offices, but it is fun. I remember someone asked me during the mother´s day phone call if I liked the normal mission life or the offices better. I decided this week that I like the office life better. I do love teaching the gospel and baptizing, but in the offices we still get to do that and we also do other random things that help the work go forward. I feel like I can help more as I help other missionaries succeed in their work as I take care of the office work. But I don´t want to work in an office for a real job. That would be boring.<br /><br />Que Dios les bendiga,<br />Les amo,<br />Elder Gardner</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-7058339183598406572012-05-19T16:47:00.000-07:002012-05-19T16:47:39.857-07:00Bautismo de diez (office week 20)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, I could say that this was a pretty good week, but that´s not saying enough. It all started on Sunday:<br /><br />Sunday morning Elder Kelly, my MTC comp and current AP, came to our apartment (we live a block away) looking for one of us to accompany him to look for a man to bring to church. So I volunteered and we got in a remis and headed out to find this man. We knew he was working at a car wash close to a train station, so we went to that train station and asked around for car washes. After trying a few we finally found the right one. We talked to the man, but he didn´t want to go because he was working and would lose the day of work. So we talked to the boss and told him that the man had been baptized a few weeks ago and that he had to be confirmed today. The boss didn´t put up any fight, he said he can go and then come back afterwards. So we got the man and headed back to the church. Fortunately the remis driver drove really fast, since we only had 15 minutes to get there. We got there just in time and the man got confirmed member of the church of Jesus Christ.<br /><br />Our church services were good, then the came the best part: Our branch had ten baptisms. Yep, that´s right, 10 people were baptized on Sunday. It was the most awesome baptism I´ve ever been to. So many people were there dressed in white. It took about 20 minutes just to do the actual baptisms. And all of the members stayed to see it so the church was full during it. Nine of the people who were baptized were people that the other missionaries in the ward had found and taught. Miguel, the man we found a few weeks ago that has been going to church, was baptized along with them. He was so happy and excited. Miguel has changed so much from when we first met him. He is now happy and talkative and joking when before he would just be silent the whole time. The gospel has brought about the change of heart in his life.<br /><br />Other exciting news: The Schoenys left! I am now officially the only one in charge of the finances. And Elder Nielsen left the offices. So I am also the office missionary with the most time in the offices. And two of the APs, Elder Kelly and Elder Bruce, are now traveling asistants. So they are never here in the offices, they are always out working with elders in the mission. Elder Beck and Elder Pabon (the new AP) are the office asistants. So I also have more experience in the offices than them two. Fortunately in my time here I have been able to learn a little about each person´s job. I try to help them out whenever I can. But new things always come up.<br /><br />President had a meeting with the financial people in the area offices and came back determined to reduce our spending and stay within our budgets (which we hadn´t been doing very well). So he has been asking me to look through a lot of data and make lots of reports for him. It´s a lot of numbers but it´s been pretty fun. I enjoy the challenge of trying to figure it all out and hope that within these next few weeks I can find a way to make a significant contribution and help save some of the Lord´s money. I guess it´s good training for when I have to do it with my own money.<br /><br />We had to drive to capital twice this week to get new cell phones that had been lost/stolen. Sadly, it didn´t work either time (that´s Argentina for you). But I did drive there and back. My first time driving in capital. And I did it with a stick shift. I´m pretty much a stick driving mage by now.<br /><br />We had all the craziness of transfers like normal. People leaving, new missionaries coming, cell phones being lost, etc. That´s pretty much all become second nature to me now. It´s weird to think that the missionaries I came here with and I are the oldest missionaries in the mission. We´ve been here longer than anyone else. Yet I still feel like I don´t really know what I´m doing. I have so much more to learn. I´ve learned and grown a lot, but there is still so much more room to grow but not enough time to do it. I guess that is why we have all of eternity to figure it out. I for one am going take that long...<br /><br />I guess I will despedir myself (I don´t know how to say that in english) with some of the scriptures I highlighted this week:<br /><br /><u>Jacob 4:7</u> ¨Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.¨<br /><br /><u>2 Nephi 33:3</u> ¨For I pray continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that he will hear my cry.¨<br /><br /><u>2 Nephi 25:20</u> ¨There is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus Christ, of which I have spoken, whereby man can be saved.¨<br /><br />Love you all,<br /><br />Elder Gardner</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here are the results of last week´s dedication to you mom!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9S2WSBgVS_F64_LrCjlVTHjtqLA8pRvdsdmoGUpVWz2icLJPgEDOtWLf-kDwOrklAYKWhYvJcw2p0UYT2MDvddcVqX909_hRJAM2_ByUF60JSUEae_Fplhj24jCLzqqia2tTxhA0ofQzP/s1600/baptism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9S2WSBgVS_F64_LrCjlVTHjtqLA8pRvdsdmoGUpVWz2icLJPgEDOtWLf-kDwOrklAYKWhYvJcw2p0UYT2MDvddcVqX909_hRJAM2_ByUF60JSUEae_Fplhj24jCLzqqia2tTxhA0ofQzP/s320/baptism.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That looks like some awesome meat. It was at that international food market. Sadly I didn´t have time to eat it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipB1dk3ry4InfbOqCNAGCmF3gr42BOH24XWNgGnD39iEe8fSlLgURutJINYAR0KR0sOGChfhCo0wYtdZyKvcx4423azYCVrfJjNtftss9tyqp7MYk1vCf0VnGyaUnurvV0L8Xf28H-0ZQT/s1600/DSC08764.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipB1dk3ry4InfbOqCNAGCmF3gr42BOH24XWNgGnD39iEe8fSlLgURutJINYAR0KR0sOGChfhCo0wYtdZyKvcx4423azYCVrfJjNtftss9tyqp7MYk1vCf0VnGyaUnurvV0L8Xf28H-0ZQT/s320/DSC08764.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Woodbridge! Let´s go Warriors.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLIOXOo-UwMr4BbEX03hIV3LoBLOkI2kfYr9ZFZB0OJ4BUo0czRtmyx4JD6ESO-DTSLJ5TzkuJHotW1ggGtn58WbW1hS2TsT3Ly-YY1BAuFkVH2_Gu0mxY8iZwBQQDeDMln_DOeAK5BdF/s1600/DSC08769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLIOXOo-UwMr4BbEX03hIV3LoBLOkI2kfYr9ZFZB0OJ4BUo0czRtmyx4JD6ESO-DTSLJ5TzkuJHotW1ggGtn58WbW1hS2TsT3Ly-YY1BAuFkVH2_Gu0mxY8iZwBQQDeDMln_DOeAK5BdF/s320/DSC08769.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Us with Miguel.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB5ic-5pPTRKfJfctVRHmp09W3PCKsnlUH1jWpkQ46s4lpE8BS3n7TG0pHWeg3AG8AVJFQaU5yVx92lINiiUkXdJlKS9wRzan5-gSN7uQOmvaXzoue4pohme1iMq3F3-s9qTqV5zoAPgLx/s1600/DSC08794.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB5ic-5pPTRKfJfctVRHmp09W3PCKsnlUH1jWpkQ46s4lpE8BS3n7TG0pHWeg3AG8AVJFQaU5yVx92lINiiUkXdJlKS9wRzan5-gSN7uQOmvaXzoue4pohme1iMq3F3-s9qTqV5zoAPgLx/s320/DSC08794.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The clothes waiting to dry.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">All of them dressed in white!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We went to a planetarium today for p-day. Yes, I was the driving force behind that. It was fun.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-81463244338869748002012-05-12T08:22:00.003-07:002012-05-12T08:22:52.552-07:00Book of Mormon (office week 19)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>Introduction</u>: ¨I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.¨</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>1 Nephi 1:20</u> ¨The tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom He hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>1 Nephi 4:2</u> ¨Therefore let us go up; let us be strong like unto Moses.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>1 Nephi 11:22</u> ¨Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>1 Nephi 17:3</u> ¨And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God He doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby the can accomplish the thing which He has commanded them.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>1 Nephi 18:16</u> ¨I did look unto my God, and I did praise Him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>1 Nephi 19:23</u> ¨I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning.¨ </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>1 Nephi 21:15-16</u> ¨I will not forget thee, O house of Israel. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of My hands; thy walls are continually before Me.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>2 Nephi 1:21</u> ¨Arise from the dust, my sons, and be men.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><u>2 Nephi 4:17-34</u> ¨O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities... And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted. My God hath been my support; He hath led me through mine afflictions.. Why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.... O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2 Nephi 10: 23 ¨Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">2 Nephi 2:30 ¨I have chosen the good part, according to the words of the prophet. And I have none other object save it be the everlasting welfare of yoursouls.¨</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Happy Mothers Day! I love you mom!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Love you all,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Gardner</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Moroni 8:3 ¨I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of fatih on his name to the end.¨</span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-47711239839031744982012-05-05T10:00:00.000-07:002012-05-09T21:51:16.601-07:00Cinco de Mayo (Office week 18)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Es una buena oportunidad para comer tacos y escuchar musica mexicana. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Can you believe it is already May? Where did all the time go? The month started off smoothly; I haven´t had to make too many changes to the finances yet. I just hope things keep running this smoothly. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On Wednesday we had a special conference with half of the mission. It was a good meeting. President started off by talking very seriously and very strictly about obedience. It seems the mission is starting to have some obedience problems and president put a stop to them. He talked a lot about the temple and the temple that they are renovating in Buenos Aires. They announced the dedication date: September 9. I´ll be long gone. But President told us that always before a temple is dedicated there is an outpouring of temptations and bad things from Satan. So we need to be even more obedient and even more dedicated as we fight and help Buenos Aires get ready to receive the temple. It was a really good and really inspirational talk.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After the obedience talk down, Sister Gulbrandsen announced the Book of Mormon read-a-thon we will be doing. The whole mission received a new Book of Mormon and we will finish reading it before the end of June. While we read we mark any reference to the Savior, any reference to the gospel of Christ (faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end), and any other scripture that builds our testimony. It comes out to nine pages a day, which is just enough so that we have to be focused and use time wisely to find time to read, but not so much that we can´t do it with our already busy schedule. I´ve been reading and pondering upon the greatest of this sacred book. The Book of Mormon truly is a book inspired of God. By reading it and following it´s teachings we can come closer to God than with any other book. I invite everyone to read or reread the Book of Mormon, for it will truly strengthen your understanding and love for our Savior Jesus the Christ.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Our Peruvian friend Miguel keeps going strong. He went to church on Sunday and a ward activity on Thursday. He has been a little bit hesitant to be baptized next Saturday, he thinks it is to soon; but we have been helping him realize that once a person has a testimony of the church and the Book of Mormon there is no reason to wait. If it´s true we need to act upon it, even though we aren´t perfect. If we make a mistake later God will still forgive us. Baptism is not the end but the beginning of the road to heaven. A road that we all stray from at times, but we can always get back on the road through repentance. But without baptism no matter how many times one repents he can not enter into the path. We must enter by the door, and the door is baptism. (see 2 Nephi 31)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Have you all seen the Bible videos on <a href="http://lds.org/">lds.org</a>? They are interesting... a lot different than the normal videos the church does. At first I didn´t like them but now they are growing on me. Especially the last couple ones. The newest one of Christ being baptized is awesome. If you haven´t seen you should go watch them. <a href="http://www.lds.org/bible-videos">http://www.lds.org/bible-videos</a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, we just ate some tacos and played some ping pong for cinco de mayo. I got to the championship game of the ping pong tournament then lost. O well. There is always next week. I still have yet to win one of our office ping pong tournaments (and we do one almost every p-day). </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That´s about all the good stories I have for today. I hope everyone has a great week!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Que les vaya bien,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Gardner</span></div>
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</div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-23099461775180923962012-04-28T09:00:00.000-07:002012-05-09T21:53:42.582-07:00Level 8 (office week 17)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I am now officially a level 8 stick driving master. Nyquil is awesome. Rubber band in the eye. Doctor trips. End of month financial stress. Lost cell phones. Flashes. Those are just a few sentences or words that describe the many activities of the last week.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Let´s see how many stories I can tell:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The end of the month is the worst. I get to call all the zone leaders and find out their balances of the zone money. Then I get to put the money on the cards; you can´t do it before the 25 or you breach the limit of money you can deposit per month. But you got to do it before the 27 or it won´t get on the cards on time. That pretty much gives you a span of one day to put on the zone money, the rent money, the support money, deduct money from pedidos (things the missionaries ordered), etc. That as it is takes a lot of time and is pretty hard; put it´s even worse when you have a cold. And then when you get hit in the eye by a rubber band it just makes things terrible. But, no excuses, I´m fine and I got it all done. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I went to the doctor again with Elder Hill for his knee. The end decision was that he is going home to get surgery. That´s too bad. I´ll miss him. Elder Hill is probably one of the best missionaries I´ve met. I´m really glad he has been in terrible pain the past month just so that I could meet him and spend time with him. (Yes I wrote that just in case he reads my blog after he gets home - but really, he is a capo)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As for the important work, aka teaching the gospel, things have been going good. There is a Peruvian family we are teaching and they have a thirty year old son that never seemed to have too much interest in the church. We never really focused on him that much during our lessons, but on Sunday he showed up at church! He liked it but every time we passed by the house during the week no one was home. On Thursday there was a ward activity and he showed up by himself! I was so surprised. We took him aside for a minute and read a little in the Book of Mormon then invited him to be baptized on May 11th. He accepted very easily. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Peruvians really are the best. Yesterday we went to this same family again around 8:30 at night. We reminded them that we have to be home at 9 and the mom was like, ¨Then when do you eat dinner?¨ I told her we usually don´t eat dinner or sometimes we have a little snack. So she said, ¨well, can I give you dinner right now?¨ I asked her how fast she could make it and she said, ¨How fast can you eat?¨ Bueno, dale. She then went over to the kitchen and stuck some chicken and rice in the microwave and in five minutes we had two huge plates full of rice, chicken, onions, and spices. Never say no to food.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, there are always more things going on, but I can´t think of anything fun to tell right now. And we are going to go and have a fun time for Elder Hill´s last p-day. So I hope every one has a great week and I´ll write again next Saturday.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Love,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Gardner</span></div>
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</div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-66807510080255580572012-04-21T07:53:00.003-07:002012-04-22T05:18:28.487-07:00Money (office week 16)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You know, it´s always bad when you run out of money. Well, I didn´t really run out of money, just out of cash. The Argentine economy isn´t very advanced in terms of electronic payments. If you pay with a credit card they charge you more, in order to make electronic transfers to banks you have to have a ton of paperwork, etc. So we end up paying for a lot of things with cash. Which is hard because there is a limit to how much money I´m allowed to have in cash in the offices at any given moment. And when we start getting low I have to get a check approved by the mission president, print the check, then have him sign it; a process that can take several days depending on President´s schedule. At the end of last week I only had about a thousand pesos in the safe; not enough to pay for any of the many things we do here. But thankfully President came over for an office meeting on Monday and we got a check signed and cashed. I learned an important lesson about being prepared.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Also during our office meeting on Monday President changed the process a little for getting new apartments and told us we needed to get another five or so within a few weeks. So Elder Chase has been crazy busy. I guess I should help him out more. I pretty much just explained how to do the whole process, showed him the ropes for a week or so, then left him to do it by himself. That´s what happened to me and I figured it out, so I figured he could do it too. But now there are about seven apartments we are in the process of getting, which is a lot. And that also means I have to have a ton of cash on hand because each time we sign a new contract we have to pay a good sum of money. Just another week in the offices. Lots of problem solving skills and finding solutions in unique situations. It´s fun.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As for teaching the gospel, things are going good. We had an appointment with the sister of some members. The sister recently came from Peru and was feeling discouraged being in a new country and having no friends. The sister didn´t want to come out of the room to talk to us, but we talked to the sisters and had them pray for revelation to know how to help their sister. The sister totally started crying during the prayer and it was really touching. We decided to each write a little note and hide it in the house for the sister to find. When we later talked to one of the members she said that her sister had started crying as she found and read each note. And since then she has seemed a lot happier and a lot more interested in the church and the gospel. (Except for the fact that she thinks we shouldn´t be allowed to dance, but that´s ok. She´ll understand soon enough).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That´s about all the stories I have for today. Now we are going to go to capital and each lunch with the Schoeny´s and the whole office crew before they leave in a few weeks. Hope everyone has a great day!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Love,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Elder Gardner</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is like Barnes and Nobles extreme style. Or should I say, Buenos Aires style. I guess it used to be a theatre that they made into a book store. I would sure love to sit and read a few books there!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjx7wlpRXRNOSZnllkrKuFw1TQQiICXTL0XeIr2Ya1OhHbM5eN4S7Dgn_dvU6oCyYbbeWwoNSPbgwQMr9osAQB_uDY9HIMsMzo9Npnf-OyBWj9KV_rRTDZ0lMPQJIBMkLrdCQWeO3HurEe/s1600/DSC08693.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjx7wlpRXRNOSZnllkrKuFw1TQQiICXTL0XeIr2Ya1OhHbM5eN4S7Dgn_dvU6oCyYbbeWwoNSPbgwQMr9osAQB_uDY9HIMsMzo9Npnf-OyBWj9KV_rRTDZ0lMPQJIBMkLrdCQWeO3HurEe/s320/DSC08693.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-26903159982424047122012-04-14T20:28:00.001-07:002012-04-14T20:43:41.926-07:00Tranquilo (office week 15)<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Well, this week was really tranquilo. That means calm or something like that. With Elder Chase taking care of all of my responsibilities as housing coordinator it is nice and relaxing. Financial secretary has a lot less stress. Pretty much I just move all the money around. I honestly can´t even think of any fun office stories to tell. O yeah, I have one good one. Elder Castañeda is from Mexico, so on Thursday he told us to bring in some tortilla chips the next day. We did and he brought some homemade salsa! It was delicious and spicy. It almost killed me at first since it´s been so long since I ate spicy stuff here. But after a few bites I was back into my groove. In about ten minutes we had devoured the entire bowl he made. Awesome!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">As for the teaching part, last Sunday we had a ton of people show up to church. And all of them were Peruvian. I don´t know what is it about Peru, but the people who are from there are just awesome. They make great food and they love to go to church. Best combination ever. But the rest of this week hasn´t been too exciting, we had a lot of appointments fall through on us. But we are still going strong and looking forward to a great turnout at church tomorrow. Having five missionaries in the companionship does make it a lot easier to teach more people...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">That´s all the real stories I have for now. We are headed off to do fun p-day things. I´ll send some pictures to make up for this being kind of a lame letter.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Sinceramente,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Elder Gardner</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">I´m not sure if that was a zombie or a ghost or a dinosaur, but it was scary.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ZZGajDo2lRUQGjR1_qJt_KFx38HcWpscR2L_KMSBEDf56-FQ2HvVnZqGEzkQSClZHxcRbHFABJ0sHAcavJzF8-taOPAWMUHVeUiso_X9eEZs9VL4mH4GLuJvLjo2bMQYpPt1ulgC0ntT/s1600/DSC08570.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ZZGajDo2lRUQGjR1_qJt_KFx38HcWpscR2L_KMSBEDf56-FQ2HvVnZqGEzkQSClZHxcRbHFABJ0sHAcavJzF8-taOPAWMUHVeUiso_X9eEZs9VL4mH4GLuJvLjo2bMQYpPt1ulgC0ntT/s320/DSC08570.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731466737390282466" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Those are our stars in the bedroom. It is awesome at night.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBrGeZKGt2nERm0J4IjiqxGZPBcqrxOKSy80mtmH8qsRl_C854SWR9MkYyWsSvdejoTeRcozmmJuOnhlR5vmDeorwP7wAjCWBfr5B7_ZIOPVA0jmZpp-swO1VQmJ22rb4ijsBu8MFh8vcw/s1600/DSC08585.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBrGeZKGt2nERm0J4IjiqxGZPBcqrxOKSy80mtmH8qsRl_C854SWR9MkYyWsSvdejoTeRcozmmJuOnhlR5vmDeorwP7wAjCWBfr5B7_ZIOPVA0jmZpp-swO1VQmJ22rb4ijsBu8MFh8vcw/s320/DSC08585.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731466500683045426" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">My tutor, Elder Schoeny, enjoys the break while I work hard at finances.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgglAeq539-fo0inY1ESEK402HnzXPgj9WcUCOWbpXY8d6_CgY2-nPfVCmatwZygGDPUS95uyzdyNRu7U09nd1-ivQLyRjkv5IfLNwgsXwHpGdeik88yZgw79eZBOWO3a9VL4SowWBGsiGr/s1600/DSC08592.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgglAeq539-fo0inY1ESEK402HnzXPgj9WcUCOWbpXY8d6_CgY2-nPfVCmatwZygGDPUS95uyzdyNRu7U09nd1-ivQLyRjkv5IfLNwgsXwHpGdeik88yZgw79eZBOWO3a9VL4SowWBGsiGr/s320/DSC08592.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731466495936292450" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">This is the office gang.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4g4eyKdZlkr-DfqbU8yKgMEggy4ogCfoxeqYTmwshedlE3bMEbnHc5Izw_gcq4mwgi3a1IaCpO3g_G6usQHj9H11_BTT7jKrITe9ZhVPhK2-ki6ZIEHHuwIxZBd4bJL-poyQZCFfuZO3n/s1600/DSCF4862.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4g4eyKdZlkr-DfqbU8yKgMEggy4ogCfoxeqYTmwshedlE3bMEbnHc5Izw_gcq4mwgi3a1IaCpO3g_G6usQHj9H11_BTT7jKrITe9ZhVPhK2-ki6ZIEHHuwIxZBd4bJL-poyQZCFfuZO3n/s320/DSCF4862.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731466481118344786" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJt8XVWE8u2462NPIrozZQIdS82fonY1gtyoqkUKODU8Mc6utgJAWZHIB15-9RzLICyxfw-lkH00TY5FtMhwjVyPgUv6OczKH7rSCZ8YBjY-0oTB6BD3P5mnIhtkv4DQqGeUTTIwrQlt7/s1600/DSCF4882.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJt8XVWE8u2462NPIrozZQIdS82fonY1gtyoqkUKODU8Mc6utgJAWZHIB15-9RzLICyxfw-lkH00TY5FtMhwjVyPgUv6OczKH7rSCZ8YBjY-0oTB6BD3P5mnIhtkv4DQqGeUTTIwrQlt7/s320/DSCF4882.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731466471333779074" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSlhldYf_bn_0mPwOwE9j5eXoUBSDClz_S6EMhrz0QVtpSL2mEfkD5p60zMdRM6xuZt5pHthJAsn2hEJeTE3g-uqgxhn6k6bv8zXRFYAgwCydLrBCgu34BZ-zQ3UU5PJJjz-eYocTshNNT/s1600/DSCF4885.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSlhldYf_bn_0mPwOwE9j5eXoUBSDClz_S6EMhrz0QVtpSL2mEfkD5p60zMdRM6xuZt5pHthJAsn2hEJeTE3g-uqgxhn6k6bv8zXRFYAgwCydLrBCgu34BZ-zQ3UU5PJJjz-eYocTshNNT/s320/DSCF4885.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731466467136116258" /></a><br /></span><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';font-size:medium;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">I dedicate this one to all of my pancake loving, choir singing fans out there.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwL8YUhn0xzwLBpcRA7sH7oBldIZ0jiqepKQCUtDJkRNTEcKctjhWPHPnr2MRkaMlM2bqdCkBiwU0hTilEE3Q' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-29978483653693356112012-04-07T08:50:00.000-07:002012-04-07T08:51:30.558-07:00Craziness (offices week 14)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Well, this week was CRAZY! Let me tell a few stories:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">First off, we have two more offices elders now. Elder Daniel, who is going to replacing Elder Nielsen as secretary, and Elder Chase, who is going to replace me as housing coordinator. We add them two to Elder Nielsen, Me, and Elder Hill and we get five elders working in the offices, plus the three APs and the Schoenys and the Castañedas makes it a lot of people in the offices during the day.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">So, Monday was transfers. And always during transfers we have people stay with us; people who are going south, who are going home, who are waiting for companions, etc. So when we left to go teach we dropped off three missionaries who where finishing their mission at a recent converts house to teach her friends and I went walking with Elder Chase. We had a sweet miracle: we were walking and some guy said, ¨Hola elderes.¨ We stopped and were like, ¨do you know us?¨ He said he is a member that lives in New York but is visiting his family for a few weeks. So we asked if we could meet the family. He let us in and we walked into a room with about 8 people in it; all of them from Peru. After talking a little we learned that half of them are members, they got baptized in Peru 15 years ago but since they moved here shortly afterwards they haven´t gone to church. So we invited them all to church, gave them some Book of Mormons and set an appointment for a few days later.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Monday night we had ten people sleeping in our apartment. There wasn´t enough room so Elder Chase and I went to go sleep in another apartment. A girl´s apartment. Don´t freak out! The girls had already left. We lost two sister missionaries and didn´t receive any, so the apartment was empty and we went to go sleep there. It was kind of weird. There was pink paper on the walls, hair in the shower, it smelled girly, etc. We didn´t think very far ahead so we didn´t have towels or anything; fortunately we found a light blue towel that looked really girly. It smelled clean so we used it. I love being in the offices. We do what ever we have to do to keep the mission running.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Tuesday Elder Nielsen and Elder Daniel went to the mission home to help with the new missionaries that came in. I stayed in the offices and started teaching Elder Chase the ropes. He is going to do a great job. The APs started getting sick so Elder Hill stayed with one of them in their apartment while the others went to the airport to pick up the newbys. Tuesday night I went with Elder Daniel and met the aunt of a recent convert that lives in a villa. The aunt was nice and there were about ten little kids running around ranging from 15 to 5 years old. A bunch of people live there and all the little kids got really excited when we talked about primary and they all want to go now. So we found another family that should go to church tomorrow.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Wednesday all of the APs were throwing up, so Elder Nielsen and Elder Daniel went to the airport to pick up new missionaries (I was pretty disappointed I didn´t get to go, but o well). I forgot to mention that on Monday night we got an email telling us that three missionaries we weren´t expecting to come got their visas and would be coming on Wednesday. That would have been nice to know BEFORE transfers... So these three kids flew in. Elder Chase and I went to the mission home so I could give them their credit cards. We showed up just in time to eat tacos! I miss mexican food....</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Thursday we had district meeting: our district leader, his comp, two comps of sister missionaries, five office elders, and three APs. 14 missionaries. That´s a big district! Friday we had an awesome mission conference for easter. It was really spiritual and really good. The only problem was I was in charge of making sure the skype worked so I didn´t get to listen as much as I would have liked. Then in the evening I stayed in the offices with Elder Hill because he was throwing up. Hopefully I don´t get the bug everyone is passing around!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span></span><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Honestly, it´s been a crazy week. But a good one too. I´ve never had so many people just randomly talk to me as I´m walking on the street. Seriously, everyday someone said, ¨Hi elders¨ to us and when we stopped to talk they were inactive members we didn´t know or something. It was pretty crazy. Wednesday night it was raining really hard and we were standing on the corner waiting for a bus. Some guy stops and is like, ¨Elders get in. I´ll take you back.¨ He had big stud earrings in and tatooes so we were a little hesistant, but he told us he was a member so we got in. He ended up beig the brother of our ward mission leader who is a tatooe artist. Needless to say, he is inactive. It was really nice of him though.<br /><br />So, that´s probably enough stories for today. I hope everyone is doing great. We are going to keep working hard this week and praying for miracles. I hope everyone loved conference; it was awesome. If you didn´t see it, go to <a href="http://lds.org/">lds.org</a> and watch it right now!<br /><br />Love you all,<br />cuidensen,<br />Elder Gardner</span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-47922160688541163612012-03-31T08:14:00.000-07:002012-03-31T08:15:12.545-07:00Conference (offices week 13)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Well, I don´t have a whole bunch of time since we are busy with General Conference and everything. But here are a few good stories:</span></span><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">I went with the senior missionary, Elder Castañeda, to go pick up some mattresses at his house. It´s just a few blocks away and he drove there. It scared me watching him drive, he hit the curb a couple times while turning, so on the way back I drove. It was my first time ever driving a stick shift, but it only took me a few tries to get it moving (apparently it is easier to start the car in first instead of third). The next day I went driving with Elder Nielsen just to practice and now I kind of have the hang of it; not enough to go driving through capital, but enough for around town. To bad driving through capital is just what I had to do...</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Elder Hill got his results back from his MRI on Friday (yesterday). So we called the church doctor and he said he wanted to see them. So we had to go on a trip to capital. But Elder Nielsen had to be at President´s house to help with transfers, so it was left to me to get Elder Hill safely to the doctor in capital and back. That´s pretty intense for someone who just learned how to drive the day before. So, we just took a taxi. Sorry if you thought I was going to have a cooler story than that; but I didn´t want to get in an accident. The doctor didn´t really say much, he just told us to get in contact with the doctor that did the original surgery in the states.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">That´s all I can think of right now. Things are going good. Transfers are on Monday so we are busy. We found some cool people to teach this week and now are trying to get them to come to conference. So, I got to go to work. Talk to you next week. Make sure you watch conference!</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Love,</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Elder Gardner</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-49021385684154572582012-03-24T09:47:00.000-07:002012-03-26T21:48:34.229-07:00Offices week 12<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Well, I couldn´t think of a creative title for this email. That pretty much explains the whole week. I lost my agenda the other day (I think I left it in a housing agency place) and I honestly can´t remember what happened during the whole week. It´s hard working without an agenda. I feel lost and like I don´t know what is going on (I feel like that a lot anyway in the offices). I´m hoping that on Monday I can go back and find it.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">So, this week I have been handling both the finances and the housing issues. Fortunately, there wasn´t anything too complicated. I don´t really know much about the finance job yet, I just give money to people when they ask me for it. But only if they have a receipt! The most exciting adventure was when an elder had his credit card eaten by an ATM machine. I don´t really know how to handle that situation, but I took the money off the card. I was also amazed how fast all my money ran out. There is a limit to how much cash we can have on hand in the offices, and Elder Schoeny filled it up to the limit before he left. We had some unexpected spending (like fixing the mirror on the car) and by Wednesday I was worried I wouldn´t make it to the end of the week before Elder Schoeny came back. But in the end I still had money left over and on Monday we´ll get a check cashed to get some more.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Other exciting office adventures include: going to a lady´s house who was really mad since the missionaries didn´t take good care of her apartment; Elder Castañeda is really good at taking care of situations like that. Going to the hospital at 11:30 at night to get an MRI for Elder Hill. Kind of sort of firing a guy that has worked for the mission for ten years fixing the apartments. Killing a mosquito by kicking it out of the air. Having a video conference from President Gulbrandsen´s iPad with the cell phone department. Spending hours checking baptismal names to figure out why the church records have a different number than our records. Well, those are just some of the fun things we do here. Too many stories to tell them all.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">So, we also focused a lot this week in finding people to teach. We have been passing by members and trying to talk to their friends and or family. We have had some good success. The two girls we baptized a few weeks ago took us to all of their neighbors introducing us to them. The 13 year old girl was funny; she was like. I´m not a missionary yet, you guys go talk to them! But she came with us anyway. We found a couple awesome families that want to go to church. Hopefully things will keep progressing with them.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Well, for now that is all. We are about to have a ping pong tournament. Got to go win!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Hasta luego,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Elder Gardner</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /></span></span><div style="font-size: medium; "></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; "><br /></span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-64131455843821265092012-03-17T21:06:00.005-07:002012-03-17T21:23:57.732-07:00Bautizar (offices week 11)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">So, lots of things happened this week. Let´s start with the best part:</span></span><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Rocío and Valeria got baptized! It was pretty awesome. They showed up on Saturday and were baptized by an hermano from the ward. It was a really good baptism and afterwards Rocío was all smiles and said she felt really happy. I love seeing people be baptized! Everyone dressed in white and clean from all of their sins, determined to follow Christ more fully in their lives. It`s the best! And then on Sunday they were confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Legit.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">That`s been the most exciting thing as far as teaching the gospel is going. Now we are busy looking for new people to teach. But things in the offices have been crazy. Here`s why:</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Last friday we got an email from church headquarters in Salt Lake telling us that missionaries wating for their visas had gotten their visas and would be arriving on Tuesday. So we had to hurry and find places to put them and organize everything for their arrival. President decided to put them in trios with other missionaries instead of trying to move people around to put them all in two person companionships, so it didn`t end up being too hard to get it all worked out. Four arrived on Tuesday; and Monday night we got another email saying that another six missionaries were coming on Friday.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">So on Tuesday we went to the mission home to help with the new missionaries. I gave them their credit cards and explained how the money works to them. Then we ate lunch and talked and trained them for a while. It was really fun and a lot different feel from when new missionaries usually come in. Usually they are really lost and confused because it`s their first day, but this time they had already been working in the states for a few weeks and weren`t as shell shocked. </span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Wednesday and Thursday were full of learning of how to be a financial secretary. The Schoenys are heading down to Tierra del Fuego this week to spend time with family and go sight seeing. So while he is gone I am in charge of all the money. This will be a good test to see if I can handle it or not. I learned a lot in a crash course of a few days. Basically it`s just a lot of book keeping and not losing track of things. Hopefully I can do it.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">We also have another elder with us in the offices now. His name is Elder Hill. He is here because he has a bad knee and to help us out with the Schoenys gone. It`s a lot of fun with him here. Unfortanetly his spanish isn`t good enough yet to be able to take over my job. President is having a hard time thinking of a missionary to replace me...</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Fun story. While we were picking up Elder Hill we were loading all of his luggage into the car and some guy came up on a bike and started yelling, ¨This is an assault. Get against the wall.¨ He pushed Elder Nielsen against the wall and I decided to follow suit without being pushed. He started asking for money/cell phones and I was trying to think of how to get away without giving him the three cell phones I happened to have in my pocket (Elder Nielsen was more worried about the car keys). I thought it was kind of weird it was one guy trying to rob five elders, but when I looked at him I noticed his hand behind his back which usually means they are hiding a gun (or at least bluffing that they have one). Before I could fully proccess everything and formulate a plan he started laughing and said he was a member of the church that came to say goodbye. Man, I totally fell for it, he looked really mean. Elder Nielsen and I had really high heart beats for a minute afterwards. I`ve been robbed enough times on the mission, I`d rather not have it happen again; especially not when we have so much stuff to steal.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">On Friday I decided to stay in the offices and work instead of going to be with the new missionaries. But that plan changed when we learned that a missionary was sick and headed to the emergency room. So I hopped in a taxi with Elder and Sister Castañeda and headed to the hospital. Fortunately, it didn`t turn out to be too serious. He got some pills and we headed back to the offices, one more disaster avoided.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">So, that`s all the good stories I have for this week. Hope everyone enjoyed them. I sent some pictures of p-days. Last week we went to a cementary in capital that is famous and today we went to the Boca stadium. It was fun. Hope everyone has a great week and I`ll talk to you next time!</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Love,</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Elder Gardner</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Let´s just say the car got in a fight with a gate and lost.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE-fhNT8PKdaPITUtkIHJjmVBZ7UC5EuZGaBeBO5Kok__iQ5DgcHY96jRM-uqYB3al8M2aHVXHrBaayDxmwLNaCOXl-EY1yJbkrmxqB27oJSg3KkSG6Ohft77RUNsK09-RLQ5PaK8I6g4P/s1600/DSC08409.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE-fhNT8PKdaPITUtkIHJjmVBZ7UC5EuZGaBeBO5Kok__iQ5DgcHY96jRM-uqYB3al8M2aHVXHrBaayDxmwLNaCOXl-EY1yJbkrmxqB27oJSg3KkSG6Ohft77RUNsK09-RLQ5PaK8I6g4P/s320/DSC08409.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085572241406626" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">That´s the tomb of some famous guy in some famous cementary. Creeeeeeepy.</span></span></div><div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTeFlcvJ8uhykGhJ65LK5IO5A23PO8CR8dXs0mqwLWmMSjyriu4vZ98-wbjDCLJJ9Us9UBx4pQluXOeHQ7i1ED91hu2CudHnFY6cq31EivGv8z7rMtYxF6fkAABQDUmIJUbKTwyq0ZWpe/s320/DSC08423.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721086294217446658" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Buses.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji5EFTwOdkSFCM5TqzLioiAyJ6E_MpfcaVg4RDpmVnd8TH0iaforW27aV7Svlsvm3KV9AVh89hXTjrw_RGt7vpT8cfAMrMEt7vbPK3PCuOp2r7T39NGVhYknpZwvw-62g6KtIFbOy05zvE/s1600/DSC08435.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji5EFTwOdkSFCM5TqzLioiAyJ6E_MpfcaVg4RDpmVnd8TH0iaforW27aV7Svlsvm3KV9AVh89hXTjrw_RGt7vpT8cfAMrMEt7vbPK3PCuOp2r7T39NGVhYknpZwvw-62g6KtIFbOy05zvE/s320/DSC08435.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085557227014338" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">A cow. Need I say more...</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11vGMstpEoIfDnTEE4AkhWZ6Gt09tTKedIKI9AxOl9xDN_iQlWR1H55Eqql0Q1m6eJEjCMxWWnRTOxFmSFkhCC6ekiVJUWK_-p7BNBc4PZOpCJ6XOGLr5X-ez6s1lzdHk5baFjKYrRCI-/s1600/DSC08444.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi11vGMstpEoIfDnTEE4AkhWZ6Gt09tTKedIKI9AxOl9xDN_iQlWR1H55Eqql0Q1m6eJEjCMxWWnRTOxFmSFkhCC6ekiVJUWK_-p7BNBc4PZOpCJ6XOGLr5X-ez6s1lzdHk5baFjKYrRCI-/s320/DSC08444.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085550165467042" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Baptism of Valeria and Rocío. March 10, 2012</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2dekBtGgslLIe45IesFXBllrcmU-63JSRBXUdBvZqQ-Wll_JtM-aYd-jtYhsDXDSYLeS0DWS05jeOfi68GS6X9tX-12A8Uh7I5yRsmY0dMOjtuShNIJJm8uDmPE9BYF2LNRQjayyUZf2/s1600/DSC08449.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2dekBtGgslLIe45IesFXBllrcmU-63JSRBXUdBvZqQ-Wll_JtM-aYd-jtYhsDXDSYLeS0DWS05jeOfi68GS6X9tX-12A8Uh7I5yRsmY0dMOjtuShNIJJm8uDmPE9BYF2LNRQjayyUZf2/s320/DSC08449.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085545919977234" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYP3Huet58GtilFuGd5J28NiWkX1WEVWk4Fsy2OqWRKw9ZrUPSsEYHSUfJbJz6MuKpS1tQv2uxVRsfthFicjiUwd-K_UMP5fAVFxYaK2IA0QJNpr7o-TvCc-jsoHx_F-MZ2rNvC55DgmLZ/s1600/DSC08450.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYP3Huet58GtilFuGd5J28NiWkX1WEVWk4Fsy2OqWRKw9ZrUPSsEYHSUfJbJz6MuKpS1tQv2uxVRsfthFicjiUwd-K_UMP5fAVFxYaK2IA0QJNpr7o-TvCc-jsoHx_F-MZ2rNvC55DgmLZ/s320/DSC08450.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085158215136290" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">That´s the villa 31. I took this picture as we drove past on the freeway.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjekZ8eTN9eAqPrDris-xU-UpnDryjr8T3lX8097P5yghaq3OsNTG_GvWBZVsCaJueySkZVZdR6-QcQDu2zxE4zX2EpNXCWyGvRAZOyQ_5NmSQ0E5yADa-5k-TDaDJi71Npyk2E6FAZbjbG/s1600/DSC08464.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjekZ8eTN9eAqPrDris-xU-UpnDryjr8T3lX8097P5yghaq3OsNTG_GvWBZVsCaJueySkZVZdR6-QcQDu2zxE4zX2EpNXCWyGvRAZOyQ_5NmSQ0E5yADa-5k-TDaDJi71Npyk2E6FAZbjbG/s320/DSC08464.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085153498464418" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Eva Peron.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhviRjDlSvSb2qX4eRR3BJECkd9iNdEwb5AJpoiysfqgVm0aAy6CzKaeEru6TFFPu5YqtPUs16gO19c0KqZGEnhx4of7VJaJTLZTvRtUF3IEPrVtOlVK5ohRkmqPnwH1_ActK_TvycxLYhx/s1600/DSC08482.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhviRjDlSvSb2qX4eRR3BJECkd9iNdEwb5AJpoiysfqgVm0aAy6CzKaeEru6TFFPu5YqtPUs16gO19c0KqZGEnhx4of7VJaJTLZTvRtUF3IEPrVtOlVK5ohRkmqPnwH1_ActK_TvycxLYhx/s320/DSC08482.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085144905381010" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Caminito. The birth place of Argentine tango.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI17_cPSOdzNfSCO6edGP087Kb1qNQ1p0wcfJbDF_81bpkEZeVnb-TSsbtealFaR5liRH_Xefx0bpV_x7Rl7uIBUieG-L6YRuRD69XR6tSOeBcemW1OfSY7ueWK95FIc8GOi5MX8Qhpoi0/s1600/DSC08493.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI17_cPSOdzNfSCO6edGP087Kb1qNQ1p0wcfJbDF_81bpkEZeVnb-TSsbtealFaR5liRH_Xefx0bpV_x7Rl7uIBUieG-L6YRuRD69XR6tSOeBcemW1OfSY7ueWK95FIc8GOi5MX8Qhpoi0/s320/DSC08493.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085141898029314" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Inside the Boca Stadium. Let´s go Palermo.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQWFFTAWaT7ny3XC2DD1B4NAaoMNIPzg75SqagldMm8-EXg7PDQIQo2unBqLvj2jD5_FckaX3by9LhQPExU68YtKxBTcS_RZbcDFJqPCcVqyn6HigwrdTf5H9lnvoWm9M0ltudp7VcNNV/s1600/DSC08495.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQWFFTAWaT7ny3XC2DD1B4NAaoMNIPzg75SqagldMm8-EXg7PDQIQo2unBqLvj2jD5_FckaX3by9LhQPExU68YtKxBTcS_RZbcDFJqPCcVqyn6HigwrdTf5H9lnvoWm9M0ltudp7VcNNV/s320/DSC08495.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5721085132712548242" /></a></span><br /></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-25051925320728516502012-03-17T13:03:00.000-07:002012-03-17T22:38:15.652-07:00Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-6509048434611906832012-03-10T13:21:00.001-08:002012-03-16T13:22:59.142-07:00Doug's letter<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">5:48 a.m. We are going to go sight seeing somewhere and we´ll be back. Talk to you later. Love ya.</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:100%;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">12:49 p.m. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">So, I had no time today to write. It was a good week, the two girl are being baptized tonight in about an hour. That´s about all I have time to say. Love you lots!</span></span></div></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-33872538322925654902012-03-03T11:02:00.003-08:002012-03-17T21:05:44.048-07:00Intense (offices week 9)<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Hello everybody! This week was intense. Let me try to explain it all.</span></span><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">It all started last Friday. We were planning in the night time and started with a prayer as always. While I was praying I felt that we needed to invite a girl named Rocío to come to see a baptism the next day and then invite her to be baptized on Sunday. So we called her and invited her to the baptism. On Saturday she showed up a little late and got to the batpism just in time for the closing hymn. But afterwards we were talking to her and said, ¨you know, there is going to be another baptism tomorrow.¨ She was like, ¨Really! Who is getting baptized?¨ We replied, ¨You.¨ She got a really surprised, but happy look on her face and was like, ¨REALLY!¨ She said it made her really happy. So we grabbed some people, sat down, and taught her the commandments. Fortunately her super awesome neighboor friend had already taught her everything. </span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">After we taught her everything we had one of the zone leaders do the baptismal interview. Everything was going great until the zone leader left the interview and asked me to lend him my cell phone so he could call the mission president. One of the questions in the baptismal interview is about serious sins someone might have commited. If the person has done any of these sins they have to talk to the mission president so that he can help them repent fully. Seeing as how she is a thirteen year old girl we didn`t think there would be a problem and didn`t ask her the question before the interview. Well, there was a problem. When the zone leader told us what had happened my companion and I couldn`t believe it. She`s thirteen for crying out loud! It`s probably better I don`t say what the problem was.</span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">So, we couldn`t get hold of president since he was on a plane heading down south. The zone leader told Rocío she would have to wait to be baptized. She seemed a little discouraged, but not too much. Then as we were talking with the zone leader Rocío kind of dissapeared (we were at the church with members around still). We found her outside on the steps looking sad. When we tried to talk to her she just started bawling and saying things like, ¨I never want to come back here again!¨ Man, I didn`t know what to do. My first instinct was look around for a woman who could be a shoulder to cry on and understand her in a womanly way. I`m a man so I know I don`t understand and I`m a missionary so I can`t even put my arm around her! Fortunately there was a super awesome woman nearby who heard her crying and came over immediately. She listened and tried to calm her down as Rocío told all of the terrible things that have happened to her. I didn`t understand a lot of what Rocío said since she was crying really hard, but I was sitting there thinking, ¨If half of what I think she just said really happened, she has every right to be crying.¨ I was praying really hard that the female member there would know what to say to help her. God seems to have answered my prayer because the member lady talked to her and by the end Rocío was smiling and happy again; ready to come back to church the next day. </span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">That night I prayed really hard for God to comfort that poor girl, that He would help her see that only by coming to church and drawing closer to God would she be able to erase all the horrible things in her past. I was so happy the next day to see her in church, talking and laughing with the other girls her age. We went by the house again on Tuesday and her granddad wasn`t very happy. Apparently there had been a family fight and Rocío started crying again. But her awesome neighboor friend helped her out and we talked to her and she felt better again. I think she mainly just doesn`t have any females in her house to be able to talk to and understand her. </span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Thursday there was a ward activity that she came to, so we had President come over to talk to Rocío. She was really really nervous when we told her, but after she met him she calmed down. President is way too nice and loving to be nervous around. She passed the interview with president and after a little more persuasion decided to be baptized next Saturday! I`m super happy about that. Out of all the people I`ve taught, she deserves to be baptized. </span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">So, that`s enough stories for one week. There were probably fun things that happened in the offices (like going to the bank to cash a check) but I don`t remember what they are. Hope everyone has a great week. Talk to you next time!</span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Hasta Luego,</span></div><div style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Elder Gardner</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">P-day at the zoo</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQsFk9nfJIq2HBiJRmWsfgo1WAGH1xACMo5ZanidwXSs7H2JA-7q_I3pmwrchnxm9jUiRzjXlEUJzZY_sr58NobWLDQbGFWQ5ab388T_sQTRdfv-78E7FHYsC-JUMj32vEfgft0TJXG_iI/s1600/DSC00585.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQsFk9nfJIq2HBiJRmWsfgo1WAGH1xACMo5ZanidwXSs7H2JA-7q_I3pmwrchnxm9jUiRzjXlEUJzZY_sr58NobWLDQbGFWQ5ab388T_sQTRdfv-78E7FHYsC-JUMj32vEfgft0TJXG_iI/s320/DSC00585.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716119902570020754" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrDXEhwgWaTXNltEE33VbWEx1Zn_dJC_ZKlXklGFN-5gUcQgaSjGt73l5trB4ptHcv_1Ej4QgriNV2lxSjunSAjiVjwPnCXqpbp1k0D7ZlSBB-mhvI22WKBIkLTnx2YPdNnGbXq9hKeQrX/s1600/DSC08382.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrDXEhwgWaTXNltEE33VbWEx1Zn_dJC_ZKlXklGFN-5gUcQgaSjGt73l5trB4ptHcv_1Ej4QgriNV2lxSjunSAjiVjwPnCXqpbp1k0D7ZlSBB-mhvI22WKBIkLTnx2YPdNnGbXq9hKeQrX/s320/DSC08382.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716119894836061026" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGXPXxOdHvaU9hEE7aWMNaMAk8hyZeQSu0gO_YfGVQ_CSJd4B7AhOhzKI7jYZZGSiHjrBjMnqXdPX0G5g7Qy-pxzKZ61ZbUQIhXopaIPdz_CABDjtcLDCiZtCKYEE0Hd5Di5O4JYYhci3/s1600/DSC08387.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGXPXxOdHvaU9hEE7aWMNaMAk8hyZeQSu0gO_YfGVQ_CSJd4B7AhOhzKI7jYZZGSiHjrBjMnqXdPX0G5g7Qy-pxzKZ61ZbUQIhXopaIPdz_CABDjtcLDCiZtCKYEE0Hd5Di5O4JYYhci3/s320/DSC08387.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716119887378569410" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0m0ousZtnQ_hti_QuWzR4Izd8SDLDIZuLo9JiYVqegGxiQZ5RPk1MqGUJ6ddZZ3zmUp0OpygeXjdYXcAH69NUHNbKlZk6yBgzHeEXut4kttRhnbBTAChRuOhR4_wWNAEW1J40O6gIdMF0/s1600/DSC08399.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0m0ousZtnQ_hti_QuWzR4Izd8SDLDIZuLo9JiYVqegGxiQZ5RPk1MqGUJ6ddZZ3zmUp0OpygeXjdYXcAH69NUHNbKlZk6yBgzHeEXut4kttRhnbBTAChRuOhR4_wWNAEW1J40O6gIdMF0/s320/DSC08399.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716119884643895650" /></a></span><br /></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-39963632900938788692012-02-25T14:22:00.002-08:002012-02-25T14:30:44.552-08:00Fiesta (office week 8)<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">There is always a party in the offices. Especially the week of transfers. Quick overview:</span></span><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">It all starts Sunday nights. At six o´clock the farewell fireside for the missionaries going home starts. The housing coordinator is in charge of the technology for said fireside. I get to set up everything to be able to show two video clips and make sure all the sound works. Well, I tested it all out before the meeting and there was no problem. So the meeting started and half way through came the time to show the first video. I pushed play and for some reason there were subtitles (the mission president had specifically told me not to put subtitles; and when I tested it before hand there weren´t any). Then, when I tried to turn the volume up I got some major feedback. The microphone wasn´t plugged in when I was testing it earlier. While I was trying to figure out how to turn off the mic, president came over and had me unplug everything and plug in his own speakers. That fixed the problem until I tried to show the other video clip a few minutes later. For some reason Windows Media Player froze and I couldn´t get the video to pause or go full screen or anything, but it kept playing (that´s what I get for using a PC!). So President made an announcement over the microphone, ¨fortunately I´m a scout and I´m always prepared.¨ He busted out his iPad and had me plug that in. That worked just fine. I felt like a failure, but afterwards President told me not to worry about it; there are always technical problems. ¨Always plan that everything will fail.¨ </span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">With that experience out of the way we went to the offices to work on transfers. Elder Nielsen made all of his phone calls, I updated the phone lists, the asistents did their thing, etc. At two o´clock we finally left to go get some sleep just to wake up at seven. We headed back to the offices to wait for everyone to get there. All the elders that are changing companions come to the offices to find their companions and then leave again. It is a crazy mess. I play church videos the whole time hoping people will sit down and watch them, but everyone just wants to talk to their friends (can´t blame them). There are a ton of taxis outside waiting for the elders to take them back home. Lots of missionaries taking the opportunity to talk to me to ask for things. Cell phones to change out, mattresses to change from one apartment to another, etc. Around three everyone had finally left and we were able to eat lunch.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">There were six elders who were waiting for flights to either go down south or go to another mission; so four of them stayed with us in the offices. We have two bunk beds and two people slept on the floor. At four in the morning three of them left in taxis to the airport. The other one stayed with me in the offices the next day while everyone else was at the mission home with the new elders that just got here. It was a holiday so nothing was open and I didn´t have much to do except go through a box of electronics. Sadly, none of the 12 american elders that were going to come have visas, so we only got 7 latin missionaries. The americans should be here within a month.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">On wednesday things were pretty calm. Thursday we had a zone conference and one of the APs left to go down south and another one came. O yeah, I forgot; there are two new APs with us. Both of them arrived in the mission the same time as Elder Kelly and I. Their names are Elder Bruce and Elder Beck (Elder Beck was one of my roommates in the MTC). They are both really cool and it´s lots of fun with them here.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Friday (yesterday) Elder Nielsen and I went on a road trip to the hospital. He had an eye accident a while ago and we just went for a check-up. Everything is great with his eye, and it was fun to see all the fancy machines they have at the hospital. It´s one of the best in all of Argentina. Today, p-day, we went bowling and then went to get some ice-cream cones. Bowling and ice cream, two of my favorite things.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">As for preaching the gospel: we finally were able to figure out why this little girl doesn´t want to get baptized. She wants to, she was just afraid of telling her grandmom. So we made some plans for her to tell her grandmom, and she should be baptized this Sunday. We also have been teaching this 13 year old girl with a hard life. She has been going to all the youth activities and really enjoys it. So things are going pretty good there too. </span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Well, that´s about all the stories I have for this week. As always, life is crazy and I don´t know what is going on. But I´ve learned that is the way things normally are. God takes care of the rest of it. We just have to do the best we can.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Hope everyone has a great week! </span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Love you lots,</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Elder Gardner</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">That´s what are apartment looked like the night after transfers.</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdoBU__lchPx9IzeEv7Uw6KHlwsswIche20R8TGiNmg4oiFUzm8JXJb4GQggcPHh1d0l7gQN7KSCxQyCrWoHuUO6-un-BXeq6TNVdtKFX-CopGfp9KvhtLkplwWJ4ZEBsMsBQXakD1dFu/s1600/DSC08333.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWdoBU__lchPx9IzeEv7Uw6KHlwsswIche20R8TGiNmg4oiFUzm8JXJb4GQggcPHh1d0l7gQN7KSCxQyCrWoHuUO6-un-BXeq6TNVdtKFX-CopGfp9KvhtLkplwWJ4ZEBsMsBQXakD1dFu/s320/DSC08333.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713203242349857890" /></a><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">That´s right. I won. Two strikes at the end to break the hundred.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaowAgJk4OS8kMpUdG3AwqXecaIoXn5VSp170kZqBiKSu1kBVtxc5UkG3xhrfulD658acAvP3PUihls_xjpcl_ZG5Ns5ryD3eG4FMmS48mNAs7yW-CryWQ3GEDmEWKVH-Fe9tzIRGcXxYg/s1600/DSC08345.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaowAgJk4OS8kMpUdG3AwqXecaIoXn5VSp170kZqBiKSu1kBVtxc5UkG3xhrfulD658acAvP3PUihls_xjpcl_ZG5Ns5ryD3eG4FMmS48mNAs7yW-CryWQ3GEDmEWKVH-Fe9tzIRGcXxYg/s320/DSC08345.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713203233209775858" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Left to right: Elder Bruce, Elder Beck, Elder Nielsen, Me, and Elder Kelly</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8muCiZsZgbh0T8g2BTGZTsnDVMof0Jr230haLJ8kS8lkAyq94B-RhgCwl6-l5zfGp03gquywmysz0nNY_6yNDfRFza158F9IZe5F4uFTV4p_-H0pIA2NFsmSgrHD0MX32KQVnQLvX8IJP/s1600/DSC08349.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8muCiZsZgbh0T8g2BTGZTsnDVMof0Jr230haLJ8kS8lkAyq94B-RhgCwl6-l5zfGp03gquywmysz0nNY_6yNDfRFza158F9IZe5F4uFTV4p_-H0pIA2NFsmSgrHD0MX32KQVnQLvX8IJP/s320/DSC08349.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713203229159006850" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">That´s a huge ice-cream cone. Way expensive but way worth it.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLzG501dm4Bd6xtL9a87xffh1Hx8RgEyjS5JU0hQiEKWXGbR_OUThSNGG1Jv-tQGByUK0rErYAmVT-ey7C9Q7RwX2tdCKG0eekpm4mBMvt7t-87dJPmTN4ZbEjwJUVmsAasaxwRKLGFdNa/s1600/DSC08351.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLzG501dm4Bd6xtL9a87xffh1Hx8RgEyjS5JU0hQiEKWXGbR_OUThSNGG1Jv-tQGByUK0rErYAmVT-ey7C9Q7RwX2tdCKG0eekpm4mBMvt7t-87dJPmTN4ZbEjwJUVmsAasaxwRKLGFdNa/s320/DSC08351.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713203220724224690" /></a><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">We call it office ping pong.</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDA6hu1NBsC6rg3DHHLz3C8XQGSSyQYS1m19vNNP_llzs8ij6__MErbyFcuh6stPZGFPR6CFAuG_5DyB0_yIhMm8J4e_-y1Xfov32IfA0sFOswp1wVzGlP_wqj9j4DdnjSyFIZKPeDWtyx/s1600/DSC08355.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDA6hu1NBsC6rg3DHHLz3C8XQGSSyQYS1m19vNNP_llzs8ij6__MErbyFcuh6stPZGFPR6CFAuG_5DyB0_yIhMm8J4e_-y1Xfov32IfA0sFOswp1wVzGlP_wqj9j4DdnjSyFIZKPeDWtyx/s320/DSC08355.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713203218864250146" /></a></span><br /></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-73071749181614579992012-02-18T10:23:00.000-08:002012-02-19T10:24:23.181-08:00The storm (offices week 7)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">The mission president´s wife always calls the week of tranfers ¨the storm.¨ It started out a really boring week, actually. I had nothing to do during the day while I was in the office. That was just the calm before the storm. I´ll start with the spiritual stuff this time: </span></span><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Sunday was awesome! We broke my personal record for the most investiagors in church. The best part is that the members brought them all to church. The family with this little girl that is awesome came to church. The mom who isn´t a member even came in a skirt! Kind of funny since the dad who is a member came in a t-shirt and jeans. At least he came. They really liked it. A member also brought a neighbor to church. The neighboor is a thirteen year old girl named Rocio.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">After church on Sunday we went to visit Rocio. She told us that she has gone to our church before with cousins in another city. She also told us her mom got baptized, but had since passed away. Her life has been really hard, so we talked a lot about God and how He loves us, even though bad things happen. She said at church for the first time in her life she really felt peaceful. But when my companion told her he had a gift for her she said, ¨No, I don´t like gifts.¨ Then when he showed her the Book of Mormon she was like, ¨I´m not going to touch that.¨ Apparently the missionaries gave her mom ´gifts´ and the Book of Mormon and then she died shortly after. It was intense, but she ended up accepting our present and even read a little bit before we left. At the end of the lesson we taught her to pray and even though she didn´t want to, we helped her pray to our Heavenly Father. It was an awesome lesson. She is a girl that really needs the gospel in her life.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">It was hard the rest of the week since we still have this elder with the hurt back with us. So to be able to go out to work we either have to have the car or need a member to do divisions. I called every male member of the ward probably three times throughout the week, but a lot of them are on vacation so it was hard to get them to help us. A few times we just had to pay for a taxi. It´s worth the sacrifice to be able to preach the word of God. But that´s all the good spiritual experiences for this week, now on to the office adventures. </span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">On Tuesday I went with Elder Castañeda to go deal with a piano. Apparently over a year ago there was an apartment with a piano in it. The missionaries left to work one day and left the window open. It rained and the piano got wet and ruined. So the mission paid some guy to fix it. A year went by and the guy hadn´t fixed it yet so a month or so ago Elder Castañeda went to see how things were going. A week ago he called again and talked to the wife of the guy who was supposed to fix it. The piano fixer man had just passed away a day earlier. So we went to talk to the wife, picked up all the pieces of the piano (the pieces are fixed it just has to be put together) and dropped them off at the owner of the piano´s house. We also took the opportunity to give the wife a Book of Mormon. It was a pretty delicate situation, but Elder Castañeda is an experienced business man and handled it really well.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">On Thursday I went with Elder Castañeda to go inspect some apartments and install smoke dectores in the walls. While I was there I fixed one of the fans for them. Then on Friday we had to drive to an area to drop of the injured back elder to be with another elder that is sick and can´t leave the house. We drove back and went straight to President´s house to help with transfers. That was an interesting experience. President opened the transfer board on the wall with all the pictures of the elders. He had already made a lot of changes and let us look for a few minutes just to see what all the changes were. He then started at one end and went through talking about every area and every elder explaining why he felt the change was necessary and asking for feedback. It was interesting to see what he was looking for; he analized each areas potential to baptize, each elders personality and history in the mission and potential to baptize. He was clearly inspired of God as he was deciding what to do with 180 missionaries so that the mission baptizes more and so that every missionary is placed in a area to help him grow personally. Mission presidents are awesome. Especially mine.</span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><br /></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">Well, that´s all the exicting stories. Except for one pretty important announcement I need to make. The senior couple that works in the offices is leaving in three months. The senior couple that is going to replace them doesn´t get here for four months. So there will be a month where regular missionaries will have to take over their jobs. President informed me that I will be taking over the husband´s job as financial secretary. So I will be in charge of all of the money of the entire mission. Kind of intense, right? But, the new senior couple doesn´t get here until the day I am supposed to leave. So President asked me to extend my mission and stay a couple extra weeks to be able to train the new senior couple on how to run the finances. Now, instead of coming home the end of June I will be coming home the middle of July. I hope that doesn´t ruin anyone´s hopes to see me; you´ll just have to wait two weeks more.</span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7854974507669729520.post-33905279130845783832012-02-11T12:54:00.000-08:002012-02-15T17:39:30.856-08:00Flashes (offices week 6)<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">Well, this has been an interesting week. There are always things going on...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">So Sunday was alright. Most of the people we are teaching didn´t show up to church, but during sacrament meeting (we have it after the classes here) two 25 year old women showed up and sat in the back row next to me. After the meeting I talked to them and it turned that they had been invited by one of the members. He is a taxi driver and on the way to the hospital he showed them the church and invited them, so they came. We got their address and set an appointment for later that day. Turns out that they don´t live in our area, they live in the APs ward, but that´s ok. The APs went and had a really good lesson.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">Sunday night I was in charge of calling all of the zone leaders to get the numbers of the weeks since Elder Kelly and Elder Nielsen were busy calling people about a flash. So Monday morning some elders came here to meet their new companions then leave. Tuesday night we had to set up another flash. I don´t know why they happened (it´s not my place to know), but I learned that it really throws a wrench in the missionary work when they happen. Just things like paying rent get messed up because we had to take money of off the elders accounts and put them on the other elders account. It was kind of complicated, but it worked out in the end. Things always keep going forward, no matter what.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">Also, on Thursday an elder flew up here from the south. He apparently had scoliosis before the mission but it never developed into anything so the doctors told him not to put it on his mission papers. Well, a couple months into the mission and his back starting hurting really bad. He talked to President and asked if he could go get it checked out by a specialist. Two days later he was hit by a car while crossing the street. Luckily he didn´t break anything from the accident, but it made his bad back even worse. So he flew up here and is spending a little bit with us. On Friday we went to the church doctor and he gave him some drugs. Basically, unless these drugs create a miracle and things get better really fast, he will be going home to get surgery or whatever he needs and probably won´t be coming back. At least not to Argentina, hopefully he will be able to finish the mission state side.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">Other than that things have been pretty calm. I got to drive this week because President went down south and left us his car to be able to drive. It is a really nice car. Today in the morning I was driving and there was a bus next to me that apparently wanted to get into my lane and didn´t care that I was already there. Fortunately all it did was nick my side-view mirror, and it didn´t leave any marks. So still no accidents. It´s alright though since President´s car is already really beat up. It has a big scratch on the side from when a motorcycle ran into it and it has duct tape on the bumper from when it was rear ended a week or two ago. The fun adventures in Buenos Aires.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">Well, that´s all the fun stories I can think of. We are still preaching the gospel in the night times. It´s going well. This week will be crazy because it is the week before transfers. So much stuff to do... You´ll hear about it next week. Hope everyone has a great week and invites someone to church tomorrow.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">Adios,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;">Elder Gardner</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span><div style="font-size: medium; "></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Helvetica;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div>Debbiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04892960263913048299noreply@blogger.com0