May 21, 2012

It's about time you replaced that tree in the front yard. It was really pitiful looking and depressing. I would love to do something better with the back yard when I get back home. There is lots of wasted space at this point and we are not doing much back there. Also, I won't be bothered by eating around bugs when I get back, so we'll be able to eat outside more in the summer.

I really don't have much to say this week because we are still looking for people to teach at this point. This week we found 3 people, two of which lived in other sectors, so we had to just pass the reference to the other sector.

That would be great if Grandma and Doreen go to Hawaii. She should enjoy going there and she has waited long enough I think. From what Elder Parker and Elder Wells said (both have lived in Hawaii), the weather in Hawaii is pretty much perfect all the time, so it sounds like you can't really go wrong. 

We did have zone conference that is every 3 months in Antofagasta this week and I got to see Elder Christenson from the MTC, who is now serving in Tocopilla and was Elder Lopez's companion two transfers ago. We always get along really well, so that was nice to see him.

I am also going to do a strange cultural fact of the week whenever I learn something new:

In Chile, it is rude to ask people what they are cooking or to lift the lid on a pot, even in your own house.

I feel bad I don't really have anything else to write, but I will talk to you next week.

Also, I don't really want to write more because this keyboard is terrible.

Love 

Jord

May 14, 2012

I´m going to keep this short because I really have nothing to say after talking over Skype yesterday. 

About our investigators, we have one lady who is really prepared to be baptized, but she never comes to church when she promises. So, we really need to get her to just go to church this week no matter what. She has been prepared to recieve the gospel by experiences throughout her life, but she has trouble committing to go to church.

We have two other potentials. One will take a lot of work if he actually decides to investigate the church and another one that is really hard to get teaching opportunities with because he is military and is always out of the city on assignment during the week.

Right now we are really in the finding phase to get people to teach. We have a lack of people right now.

I will try and get all the pictures captioned right now because I have some time.

I really loved talking to you yesterday and I look forward to the next one in 7 months.

love

Jord

May 7, 2012

Life this week was a little crazy. We had a baptism in the ward that we had to be at, and also had our own baptism for three people on Saturday - none had been interviewed, so we were running around alot.  Then Saturday night we received the transfers for today - Elder Valle is leaving for Arica so we were running around to all the houses of the members and people he knows.

So first things first. Elder Valle is going to Arica tonight and he is going to be a zone leader there. I will be staying here with Elder Lopez (different Lopez, from Utah) who is coming to be my companion. I will be killing Elder Lopez (I will be his last companion) because he only has one transfer left and I will be Senior Companion for this transfer. 

We had three baptisms this week. It was the mother and sister of one of the recent converts in the ward. I have been significantly more impressed with them in this last week and I think that they will do well. 

The other baptism was a blessing. We recieved a referral on Monday, contacted him Tuesday and taught him Tues, Wed and Thurs, interviewed him Friday, baptized him Saturday, and confirmed him Sunday. All this happened since my last email. That is what can happen when someone passes you a reference of someone who has been to church 4 times on their own.

As far as the lessons with Dayssi and Efrain go we will not be going anymore because of the transfers. We will be passing the reference to the new Elders there and I hope they will continue to go.

As far as the message from President Bruce goes, it was about a drop in enthusiasm in the work that we received about a week ago. His response was basically just "your problem is internal, fix it" and was exactly what I needed.

I got the workout and yes, I think I have gained weight, but I am planning on fixing that because I don't like it, although I don't have a scale.

Love Jord

April 30, 2012

After all that happened this week, I am going to start with the good. We had the wedding this week and it went really good. Everything was on time and the decorations looked really good. Me and Elder Valle were there and we sat at the table of the family, which I thought was really strange, but Elder Valle felt was really normal.  It was a civil marriage and it all felt impersonal, and she talked about some books they can buy to help their marriage and some weird stuff. Apparently there is a really limited number of people who can do marriages here which is something different. Bishops or ministers can't even officiate a marriage.

The Baptism of Ismeal went really clean and was good. But now we get to the bad part... this week was super stressful for us because Daysi and her brother didn't get baptized. There are three children in that house all with the same mother and different fathers and Daysi´s real father called and put a whole lot of weird stuff in her head.  It put a lot of doubts into her mind and we really don't know what is going to happen with her right now, but we were there everyday last week for like an hour and a half or more and couldn't do anything, so I really don't know.

Things with Elder Valle are good, but I was feeling a little down. It came across in my letter to the president and he sent me a reply that kind of put everything into perspective for me. I kind of came to the conclusion that I need to change something about what I am doing in order to change what we are doing together.

I am really not getting better at soccer. My absolute distaste for it is overpowering any little bit of desire I have to play, so I'm just not playing. I did play Basketball today which was nicer.

Also, it doesn't feel like 6 months (Jordan reaches this milestone next week).

I really want to start working out, but I really need to have an actual workout that I can follow or I just get lazy. If you can try and find me a workout that is six days and focuses more on upper body, that would be helpful. If you can, it would be best to send it in text form for me so that I can print it off easily.

Love

Jord