June 11, 2012

I notice that you waited a quite a large amount of time before telling me that you bought a Mac. I am not really surprised that one of the computers died because they are pretty old, but I would have thought it would be the Mother board or CPU in the other one. But, it's not really that big of a deal because I still plan on coming back and buying a new computer, so you can make due with your Mac for now.

I don't think I will get used to the weather here entirely, but I am noticing that I am getting more accustomed. I have had to wear a jacket a couple days. I also bought a sweater made of Alpaca wool today. I really like it and it is formal enough to wear while proselyting, so I am pretty happy about that. Also, we got 8 dollars taken off the total price of mine and Elder López's when we bought them together...yay bartering.

When we were in TGIFriday´s today I noticed that the world cup soccer was on... that's about it.

We have had a really good week watching the bishop tear it up and start off with the drive to do the work. In fact, he was out with us last Monday evening. Other than that I don't really have a whole lot to tell you this week. This has been a long transfer (number of days). A long transfer that has gone very quickly. I should be receiving my new transfer information on  Saturday night and my new companion on Monday or Tuesday (Elder Lopez is finishing his mission this week). So... my next E-mail should be with my new companion.

Strange Cultural fact of the week: Chile is one of only a few places in the world that still has a completely volunteer fire department.

Talk to you next week.

Love,

Jord

PS. Feliz día del padre Papá (Happy Father's Day Dad)

June 4, 2012

Interesting that dad is starting off road racing again. I was under the impression that he was over that because it was too expensive - I guess me not being there is giving you all sorts of money to just throw around. I hope you don't go too crazy though because when I get back I have to make up 2 years.

I would have imagined that the funeral of Martha was really quite impressive because of all that she has done in helping others. I can only imagine how much family history work that she has done and the amount of people that she has sent to the temple.

One thing that I really miss about being here in Northern Chile that is different from the MTC is that I have no access to any temple to go to. Elder López was reading a journal entry of when his mom was in the mission and she said in one letter that she was able to go to the temple 5 times in one week.

That is great that your project (mom's work) got approved. It sounds like it is quite a big deal to be over such a large time span. I know that you will do what you are required to do, but remember the words of the last general conference when it was said that we may grow in regular day to day life, but we are able to grow much faster through our challenges as long as we are able to focus our priorities on what will truly make a difference.

The only real problems that I am having with my clothing is that the back two loops on one of my pairs of pants are getting worn out by my backpack and my suit pants are fading really fast above the knees.

I told Elder López about the nice little sleep-in that Austin (Oviatt) got and Elder López had a similar thought as me, that it was nice of his parents to  just about give him a heart attack before he left on his mission. (Austin's flight was cancelled so his parent's let him sleep. Austin was a little panicked when he woke up and it was bright outside already. He caught a later flight and all was well.) But that is good that he was able to get there fine all things considered.

You can tell Ernest that I'm finding Spanish a little harder than expected as well.

That is a really good quote you sent and I think it applies even more to missionary work than to regular service. ("To the world you may be one person, but to one person, you may be the world. ~ Mark Nolan)

I forgot to put a strange cultural fact of the week last email, but here is one: When there are car crashes or major accidents the people build small shrines that look like little concrete doghouses. They burn candles in them and put images of the saints and the Virgin Mary in them. Apparently it is only here in Chile that they do that.

Y ahora Ustedes quieren saber un poco mas sobre mis investigadores y yo no escribí algo en español en un poco de tiempo, Entonces voy a escribir un poco mas ahora. Ésta semana, como las semanas anteriores, buscábamos para encontrar mas personas para enseñar pero ésta semana fue un poco diferente porque recibimos una referencia super buena. Él se llama Eduardo y es muy receptivo a nuestro mensaje. También tiene una palola (girlfriend-Chilean word) quien quiere ir al templo con Él. Estoy animado para trabajar con Él porque ya tiene experiencias cuando pueda sentir el Espíritu en su vida.

Y también ésta semana ellos se cambiaron el Obispo de nuestro barrio y estamos super animado para trabajar con él porque tiene mucho animo para hacer la obra misional y para trabajar con los miembros y que sus consejeros son capos (studs-chilean) también. ésta experiencia va a estar un buen oportunidad para aprender cosas nuevas cuando trabajamos con nuestro obispo nuevo. Estoy interesado a ver la diferencia en la participación de los miembros y si hay un cambio con ellos.

(Google Translation: And now you want to know a little more about my investigators and I did not write anything in Spanish in a little while, so I'll write a bit more now. This week as previous weeks, we wanted to find more people to teach. This week was a little different because we got a super good reference. His name is Eduardo and is very receptive to our message. He also has a Palola (girlfriend-Chilean word) who wants to go to temple with him. I am encouraged to work with him because he already has had the experience when you can feel the Spirit in your life.


This week they changed the bishop of our ward.  We are super encouraged to work with him because he gives much encouragement to do missionary work and to work with members and their leaders as well. This experience is going to be a good opportunity to learn new things as we work with our new bishop. I am interested to see the difference in the participation of members and if there is a change with them.)

Hasta una semana,

Con cariño,

Jord.

May 28, 2012

I have trouble writing a long letter when I don't get reminded of the things that happened during the week by some of the stuff in your letter.

I am of mixed feelings to hear that Martha passed away. (Long time friend of mom's family who passed away at the age of 106 years old.) I didn't really know her that well, but heard a lot about what she does and how much she has been able to do for her age, and I feel that she was ready. It is obviously a sad time when anyone close passes, but in this case I feel as though she left nothing undone in her life that she needed to do. I would go so far as to say that she pulled more out of her life than should have been possible.

I am glad to hear that all of grandma's parties went well. tt sounds like she has been enjoying her Birthday Week.

I am glad to hear my parcel is on route and you are right that it probably won't matter about the speed, especially when you consider that it will probably sit in the office for 3 weeks when it gets here. And about the stickers you put on it - if they look like they were drawn for a 5 year old you got the right ones, they are all over the place here. (We have been told that if you put religious stickers on the parcels you mail, they are more likely not to get opened and picked over.)

I would assume that the white shirt burning was a literal thing, not just figurative, but the order is this:

6 months-tie

12 months-shirt

18 months-pants

2 years-suit

I haven't and will probably not burn any of those (if any, the most likely are the pants)

(We've heard that missionaries burn a white shirt at 6 months as they get so worn and dingy.)

I am glad that you shared that story with me (missionary story by Bruce C Hafen from President Mendenhall's talk at Stake Conference). I love hearing those kinds of stories right now in the mission because they kindle a little bit of the hope of the golden investigators that you hear so much about. They are also often a good source for feeling the spirit when you read or hear them.

I don't have to keep Elder López focused, I just have to wake him up in the mornings. (Elder Lopez goes home at next transfer.) The teaching pool is coming along.

Love,

Jord

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