April 9, 2013

Last week was pretty busy and I also had to leave the Cyber early to go and check some stuff that was in the pension that the office was asking for, so that cut my time down by about 20 minutes, which is quite a bit. 

I did see those pictures you sent and Garrett also sent me an e-mail so I was a little short on time for that reason as well.

You may be wondering why I am writing today, but I will let you listen to the recording to find out what we did. I will say that we got in late and I wanted to use the afternoon to work instead of write.

I hope you enjoy your time in Arizona. The weather right now should be pretty similar to where I am right now. You'll get to experience summer in the Atacama desert this year when we come back.

General conference was sweet. Like my other two conferences, there was a room for English (the gringo room) - there were actually quite a few of us in there this time. There are 16 missionaries in Calama  and we had 5 elders (4 gringos and Elder Lopez who understands English perfectly) and 2 sisters there. While it's true there were a lot of talks about obedience, I also saw a lot on missionary work. This was the first time I was actually able to see the World Report completely -it is sweet. I don't know if you saw the BYU movie about the Bible - that was really cool as well.

And I will leave you with a really trunky thought... after the next general conference I will be 16 days away from coming home.

Love you guys, 

Jord

Summary of audio clip...

This is my first recording from Calama... I'll try and cover more stuff as I missed last week and only sent a very short email. First of all, in the sector this week... it was a little slower because of general conference coming up. Most of the week we were just trying to get people to come to conference. We just wanted to get a hold of, and invite all of our investigators and try and make sure they came. Conference is such a big eal we jsut try to get everyone to. Even though we only had 1 person attend, we really enjoyed it, because it's conference!

There's 1 young kid here named Sebastion who is going to get baptized on April 27th. The missionaries have been working with him. His mom is a member who is reactivating and he's 10 years old and is going to get baptized.

We found 2 really good investigators this week. They said they were going to come to conference, but they didn't. I was a little bit frustrated about that. We had another investigator who came to church. His name is Marco and he's another kid we've been working with. His mom is living with a man and they aren't married so she can't get baptized. Marco is really good, very receptive and he likes coming to church which is cool.

Not too much else happened in hte sector. We mostly focused on inviting people to conference because it's a really big thing - you're listening to the apostles and the prophet. Pretty sweet!

Conference highlights for me...

There was one talk that was really good for here in Chile because it is very common for people to live together without being married - of course that's not allowed. David Bednar gave a talk on Saturday afternoon on Chastity which was really good. It kind of put it into perspective and will help us to explain a little bit better to our investigators.

Also, I really liked the talk by Tad L Calister, from the Presidency of the Seventy. He is one my favorite speakers generally. He gave a talk about Deacons in the priesthood session and about how we can raise their vision. He said lots of cool stuff, but some of the things I wrote down were that I really liked:

• the missionaries often rise or fall to expectations
• with increased vision comes increased motivation
• the Lord does not have a problem that he can not solve... and neither will we if we seek the Lord's help
• being set apart is not a replacement for hard work and homework

Also in the priesthood session, President Uchtdorf  gave a really good talk about 4 titles we have as priesthood holders. This priesthood session was really, really good. I mean it's always good, but I found it was amazing this time.

Elder Holland gave a good talk on Sunday afternoon - he typically gives awesome talks. One quote he gave was "What was once a tiny seed of belief for me is now a tree of life." That was a good quote. I took a lot of notes, but these ones stood out.

Today for P Day we went to San Pedro. I  think I mentioned it before - it's like a little town outside of Calama, towards the mountains. It's really touristy - people go there from all around the world. Lots from Europe, lots from the States, just to see it. It would be really cool to see when we are back here. As much as Calama is not much to look at, San Pedro is pretty cool. There are lots of cool rock formations and stuff. It would be good to come here and spend a day taking in the sights and activities. The first thing we went to was the Valley of the Moon - they call it that because it's like pointed mountains or hills that are covered with salt, which makes it look really white. I didn't take too many pictures because I forgot to replace the batteries in my camera. A sister here gave me her camera to take lots of pictures. I'll see if I can get those from her to upload. There's some pretty cool stuff although the pictures don't really do it justice. It's just not quite the same as being there in person.

This week I got attacked by a drug addict. He stopped us and asked a couple of questions. I gave him a card with a picture of Christ coming to the Americas. It has people with their hands in the air and he thought it was a battle scene (because he was high) and he just started attacking us right in the street. It was crazy! I love my mission, but  this area is quite interesting.

I love you guys. I'll talk to you next week.

See ya!

Jord

April 1, 2013

First off... I completely forgot to do a recording this week.

Random nerdy comment - I miss my G15 keyboard.

That's a drag that the sink wasn't what you ordered, but at least you caught it in time.

I am really running out of time. There are things a little bit outside of my control, but I wanted to let you know that this week we had a baptism here in my sector. I pretty much walked into it, but it was still pretty cool. She was investigating the church for like 2 years. It was really weird though because her husband is a return missionary and he didn't want to do the baptism, so my companion did it for him.

We did not really do anything for Easter, but we went to church, so that was cool.

I am glad you bore your testimonies.

I am so excited to go to conference here in a big city. Try and go to, or at least watch as many sessions as you are able to .

I do have a mamita in this sector. The problem with making my own refried beans is not that I don't know how...it's that black or kidney beans simply don't exist here as far as I know... just like brown sugar.

My companion Elder Lopez is from Guatemala.

I am really sorry this is so short, but I will give you a nice big recording next week and will probably have some more time.

I love you guys,

Jord

March 25, 2013

Listen to my recording for all the information on my transfer and what has happened this week. I have decided to write this smaller and keep track of things in my Agenda to say. So, my recording is longer and I´ll have a bit more time to do some other stuff on the computer.

That is cool to hear about your provincials and that you won. I told some of the Elders here that you play soccer and they said "you mean played (past tense) right?" I said no, she plays currently. I didn't know that Provincials was just a round robin, total points. I thought it was more of a playoff style, but I guess that would be tough with only 4 teams.

I know that the bathroom isn't finished yet, but it looks really, really good.

That was pretty crazy about the pile up near Leduc. More than 60 cars - I can't imagine. 

I like how you guys made the print really big in your e-mail to make it look bigger... it was a nice touch.

Audio summary...

First of all, you are probably wanting to know if I got transferred. The answer is... yes, I did. I'm going to Calama. Calama is a city 3 hours from Antofagasta and hours from Tocopia - they form a triangle with Calama being quite far towards the mountains. It's really cold there at night and really hot during the day. So, that's fun. I'm going to be going there and finishing the training  for an elder - it's his second transfer in the mission field. His name is Elder Lopez and he's from Elder Casas' group - he thinks he might be from Peru, but he's not sure. The elder coming here is Elder Mikesell, from my group. He's one of the elders I lived with in Alto Hispiscio. He'll be Elder Casas' new companion and will finish off his training.

Interestingly, you guys were talking about having to fix your toilet. I also decided to fix my toilet in the Pension this week because it was leaking. Actually, it never stopped running so we were losing a lot of water. It was also annoying to have to turn the water on and off every time I used it. So, I just fixed it. I went out and bought the inner parts of the toilet... it would have been really easy but what happened was the 2 bolts that hold the tank onto the seat were rusted and we couldn't loosen the nut from the bolt. We ended up having to get one of those thin metal saws, slipping it in between the tank and the seat and cutting bolt in half which a big pain for us, but after we got that done it was really straight forward. The seal fit well and bolts fit fine, the tank was good and now it works perfectly.

Apparently my new Pension is really, really nice. I haven't been there yet so I don't really know, but that's what I hear. I'm looking forward to that because I've kind of drawn the short straw a couple of times while I've been here, in the whole Pension clean-up thing.

Also, when we went to El Salvador last week I bought refried beans. You probably think "Oh, big deal - refried beans" but they were really expensive. A little can of refried beans was $6-7. So it was a big purchase... those little beans, but I made bean burritos and it was fantastic! It was probably one of the greatest meals I've had here besides Poutine. That was something else! I did that about 4x and then I couldn't find gravy anymore - that made me so sad. So... I made bean burritos. That was pretty cool!

As far as work here in the sector this week we were able to find a couple people. We found 1 lady that was really, really good, but her husband is very closed minded and doesn't want anything to do with us, which is actually very common here in this little pueblo. So, we're not going to pass by there anymore... or the missionaries here won't, as I'm leaving.
We did find 1 lady that was really good last week, but we couldn't connect with her this week. They're going to have to try and pass by her house this week. Apart from that I don't really know what I'm going into. This sector has been really hard, but I've learned a ton here. I'm not sad I was here, but I'm ready to leave. I'm getting a little bored. But... I've learned so much here and it's been really good. It's interesting, the branch president's family is the only really active family in the branch. I told the branch president's wife this morning that I'm leaving and she wrote me a note that was really, really nice. There's a quote in Preach My Gospel that says you have to ask yourself if you've been a help or a hindrance where you're serving. This branch right here... I feel like I've been a really big help. Not to be proud or anything, but I feel like I've left a mark here, at least in one place. I only baptized one person in 4 months, but I feel like I did a good job. She really want us to come back, so we'll probably pass by this little tiny pueblo and you can get to know her. She's super cool.

That's what happened this week. I'm really happy I'll be in a bigger city for General Conference because I'm not sure how/if they will get it in the little pueblo, as I don't think they have a satellite dish. I feel sorry for Elder Mikesell and my kid (Elder Casas) who will be here for his first conference in the mission field. That really sucks for them, but I'm happy. Then, for the Mother's Day phone call I'll probably also be in Calama, which is pretty nice because it's a big city. So, that's what's going on with me this week. I'm leaving in about 45 minutes.

I hope you guys have a good week. I love you all... talk to you next week.
Jord

March 18, 2013

That would be dad's biggest worry about the blizzard and big snowfall - Not that there might be accidents or anything like that, but that it is going to delay golf season.

The work you're doing in the bathroom is pretty cool. I did some unplanned service this week in the street and it was even more cool. We saw this lady hitting some wooden beams on a really horribly built little shade blocker. It was put together with really bad wood and overly large screws. After we figured out what she wanted done (because we couldn't really understand anything she said - about 1 word for every 20) I spent about 5 minutes smacking on the wooden beam as hard as i could to get it in place. Pretty sweet!

That is really funny about the anniversary party. I don't even know what to say...but I did read that to the missionaries here with me.

It was ironic that you mentioned The New Asian Village because yesterday I had the hugest craving for Indian food. It actually made me feel a little depressed. Indian food and a huge filet mignon.

Grandma filled me in on all of Jana's baby details like the name and everything.

I think you've probably figured out the correct date I return home (Around Oct 22).

During the last recording I was in Chañaral and there are hills there, but Diego is flat, I don't get out of breath walking around Diego.

That is pretty much everything for this week. I answered all your other questions in the recording with my smooth and sexy voice. (Thats right - I just said sexy).

Love you guys,

Jord

Audio summary...
We're in El Salvador today - it's really cool here. The streets are really wide whereas in the rest of Chile the streets are narrow. I'm looking at a street right now that you could easily fit 6 lanes. It's like freeway width. El Salvador is interesting because it's really high in the mountains and it's desert obviously, but there's trees here and the air is really cool, really different. Calama is really high in altitude, but it's not like this.

We had a pretty good week. The problem is we were sharing with Ivo this week and talked to his mom and she said he could get baptized so we were like "sweet". Then his dad said no, so now he's not going to get baptized. I'm so annoyed. But, we found a really good lady this week. Her name is Erika. She's about 35ish. We walked to the door the first day and she said she didn't have time to listen, but to come back tomorrow. So, we went back and she just let us in even though she had guests at her house, so that was pretty cool. We had a good lesson there and she couldn't go to church this week but she said she wanted to go next week. We're pretty excited to see what happens with her. Other than that it was a pretty  normal week. We visited member and less actives and people are coming back from holidays so it's nice.

In El Salvador, which is in my District, they have a baptism coming up. It's Francesca who I talked about before. I actually met her before the vacations when the whole District met there and split off, so that's great!

There are transfers next week. I'll be able to tell you next Monday where I'm going to be and who my companion will be - if I'm leaving. President Bruce might leave me here again - it wouldn't be my favorite, but he could do it.

I don't know if there's anything else. Elder Casas and I are getting along really well. We're doing the training to get him all perfect. I really want to do a good job so we're doing all our study time and everything.

That's pretty much it. So, I'll talk to you next week. I love you guys and hope you have a good week.

Jord

March 11, 2013

This week was really short because we had a conference on Thursday and it meant that we had to travel alot. We did manage to meet up with Ivo again and now we just have to talk to his mom about baptism. I don't really know what is going to happen there, but we will see. From my point of view I don't see any downside for the mom, but sometimes people have very different views.

The bathroom looks really good and not at all what I had pictured in my mind. (We are doing some work on our main floor bathroom and sent some photos so far.) From what I understood there was going to be tiles on the roof. (No... ?? Tiles on one wall, floor to ceiling.) That being said, I really like what I see. Also, that new dimmer switch is sweet.

As your temperatures are getting warmer, we are getting colder.

The Cambios for this transfer are 2 weeks earlier - on the 25th of March. You can count 6 week periods until October and that is the day I leave. I think it is 20 something.

Elder Casas really got a lot more relaxed after the last Pday, so this whole week went really good. I think he is starting to loosen up with the people we are teaching, which I think will help him a lot because he teaches well (just lacks a little practice but that will come with time). I would find him a little cold at times, but this week was a lot better. Given that I am rarely really serious, it is bound to rub off a little bit.

That is really cool to hear about Paige leaving for her mission and her farewell talk. It should be cool to hear what is going on with that.

This week was pretty slow but the next should be more interesting.

Love you guys,

Elder McCaskill

Summary of audio clip...
This recording will probably be short as I'm on my way to the Cyber... I'm just walking right now.

As I mentioned in my email, this week we had a conference with President Bruce. It was really short, only about 2 hours. President Bruce spoke for a bit and then the Assistants spoke for a bit. I'm not really sure why they held it as it was so brief.

One good thing this week as that Ivo is back and there's more people in Diego which makes it a little easier. Ivo came to church this week so we were really happy about that. Now we just need to talk to his mom about him getting baptized.

... I'm climbing a hill... pant... pant...

El Salvador, one of the other sectors in my district - they're doing really well. They could quite possibly have 3 baptisms this  month. That would be the 1st baptisms in 13 months, so we're pretty excited about that.

This week seemed really short. We got some days taken up with travel and then it was challenging to find people to teach, so I don't have much news to share. Sorry for being so short.

Love you, talk to you next week.
Jordan

March 4, 2013

We are in Tal Tal again this week. We just finished our get together and are going to do Internet  before dinner if we have enough time. This week was kind of interesting as we never really got to work in our sector. We had more like a half week as I had to wait for Elder Casas to arrive. We started working mid-week - our first day of real work was Thursday, but we got a lot done. I was really impressed.

Elder Casas has been in the field almost 1 week - he's straight from the MTC. He's got about 2 1/2 weeks total because missionaries who aren't learning a language only spend 12 days in the MTC now. He's interesting... an interesting dude. He is really, really serious. I don't know if it's just because he's new and doesn't know me that well and doesn't really know how to get accustomed to a new companion... or any companion, but he's really serious about everything.

However... he's a good missionary. He teaches really well. He's a little bit of a know-it-all and doesn't really want to listen to me right now, but I think he'll get over that. He teaches really well and has a good knowledge of the gospel and that's really nice. He's super, super filled with faith. I can see how I've become a little jaded over time. Where I am pessimistic, he is optimistic, probably because I have had more people slam doors in my face, I suppose. But, it's really good actually. This partial week we worked really well and I'm looking forward to this cambio. I just need to get to know him a bit better, I think.

We didn't have too many in church again which is frustrating, but people are finally starting to come back this week. We had 9 people in church instead of 3 - we tripled our attendance. (It sounds good if you look at it that way!) Our branch president came back and another family. It's looking like we'll be pretty good now.

This week we're going to Copiaco for a conference. This will be my third conference in this zone - 1 per transfer. They do them often here. This transfer looks like it might be 2 weeks shorter because they have to make a change for the new missionaries coming in. They're coming in 2 weeks earlier than before. It appears they will end this transfer 2 weeks short to line them up and then back to every 6 weeks from there. At that point, I should be able to give you the exact date when I go home... if you guys want that.

That's about what's been going on. I don't know if you remember me talking about Ivo - the kid we were teaching awhile back who had been going to church with us before he left for vacation. He just returned yesterday - his sister told us. Now we should be able to continue teaching him and see if he can go to church again. That would be super, super, super cool. I just have to talk to his mom and I'm pretty sure he can get baptized. I'm pretty optimistic about that!

Otherwise we have some investigators we're teaching, and some that aren't progressing. They'll listen to us, but they aren't going to church. I mentioned the family we went to see and some guy was at their house and was yelling at us. They were a bit ashamed at the time and didn't really want to look at us, but they don't have any issues with us, so we are still going over there. We have a few things going on, but probably need to look for more contacts. That's my news for this week.

I love you guys. Talk to you later.
See you,
Jord

February 25, 2013

So we had cambios and I am....staying in Diego. I have some mixed feelings... I actually really like the sector eventhough it is a little bit hard, but I don't know how General Conference is going to work. I am pretty sure that Diego does not have a satelite feed. As far as my current companion goes, Elder Royas, he is going to Antofagasta to a sector called Angamos. I don't know who my new companion is, not even his name - that's because, just like the missionary in your ward, I will be recieving a new missionary. Yep, I´m training. I will let you know later who it is.

My transfer was really weird because for a day and a half I was about 95% sure that I was going to be training in Diego. The poor new missionary has to do all his cooking and cleaning right off and is in a little pueblo where the membership is small in the church.

We only had three people in church this week. I really had no idea what to do. Summer vacation really takes it's toll.

Besides the cambios not too much happened this week that I didn't talk about in my recording.

The sacrament meeting for the miners is going good. We have some that are really active members here and a couple less actives. The miners really want to try and get people from the mine to go so that they can get references for us, and also for other sectors. It works for us too because it gives us more time to take more people. It is also nice because there is a less active memeber that is coming back to church because of all the time he is spending with the miners.

Well, I have to go now but I uploaded the recording.

Love Jord

Summary of audio clip...
Big transfer day... missionaries leaving today or coming today. I thought I'd be leaving, but am actually staying and will be training a new missionary. I don't know who yet. Usually when you train, you go to Antofagasta to get your missionary and bring them back to your sector. They got so many missionaries this transfer that they aren't doing that - they are just sending them out. That sucks because I really wanted to go to Antofagasta and eat American food... ha, ha! I heard that they are going to hold a newbie meeting pretty soon and they will send all the trainers to Antofagasta along with them. It sounds like that's what they have planned.

Transfers from our zone - Elder Royas is going to Antofagasta, but into a different sector than I served in. I'm not sure when my companion will get here so I'll probably go to Chañaral until he arrives. Elder Farnworth is leaving, Elder Heart who is in Tal Tal and Elder Smith are leaving. The other 2 missionaries in our district are staying. I'm excited to be training because you get an extra hour in the morning for companion study time. That's really nice because getting things done in the mornings here is difficult.

Last week we did a "zone attack" in Diego, where the whole zone meets and contacts. It was good although we didn't really find anyone new. Aside from that we had 2 investigators that were coming to church, but when we went by to get one of them last week, another Chilean man was at their home. He had been drinking and started yelling at us and slammed the door in our faces - it wasn't even his house. He was very angry and seemed to have some bad feelings about the church - we're not sure of the history there. We're a bit worried about our investigators and how they will react to that influence.

It's been a pretty normal week. We did some service for a less active sister. It was not what I expected. We were told we would be painting - when we got there she wanted us to paint a mural... I was like, ok. I don't know if we're the best ones for this job. She was super cool though. I'm really glad I'll be here for another transfer. I'm hoping we can get her to come out to church again.

I cleaned the Pension and folded my clothes before the new missionary arrives. I'm going to try and be very diligent with rules and routines so he has a good example to follow. I'll even try and do my exercises each morning.

That's all for this week. I'll let you know who my new companion is. I might be able to send a short email mid-week as they let the newbies email their families to let them know they arrived safely.

Love you, see ya!

New companion update... Wednesday...

I told you that I would probably be able to write something short about the transfers mid-week while my companion writes his family. So, here it is.

My new companion is Elder Casas from Peru, the city is called Peura. I really don't know anything about him yet. I think he is just trying to take it all in right now, but I should probably have a little bit more to write next week when he gets settled in and opens up a bit.

Well, I just wanted to let you know that real quick and I'll send you something more on Monday.

Love you all,

Jord