AJ's email from 1/23/2011

alright this week was kinda a slower week overall. although time seems to be moving by very fast again seeing as how we are already half way through this change and it feels like yesterday that i got to el monte. but im happy that time is going by fast. elder vilar and i are getting along great now. we have become really good friends this last week and a half or so. and its the first time that i feel like i have a companion that will be a good friend outside the mission too. cuz i could be friends with some of my other comps too but its just not the same.

      but anyway first i want to start with a question. does anyone know a lincoln turley from mesa? cuz apparently he served here in el monte about 2 years ago. and everyone here says that i look a lot like him and that i remind everyone of him. just wondering.

      thursday something happened that was really cool. but first i have to explain something. every sunday after sacrament meeting, we have something thats called the minuto misional, where we take 5 min as missionaries and give out a book of mormon to someone in the ward so that they go out and give it to someone else.and then the next week they have to bear their testimony about how it went during the week. and last sunday we gave the book of mormon to maria, the investigator that is basically a member without the baptism. so then thursday we had a lesson with her. and told us something that surprised me a lot. apparently 2 days before we gave her the book of mormon, she had a dream. and in her dream she gave a book of mormon to  someone that she knows.and so all that she was missing was the book to be able to actually do it. so sunday when we gave her the book of mormon, she was shocked and didnt know what to think. but she did know already who she has to give it to. it shows a little of how god works sometimes.

        friday we went to a members house to spend an hour with them. their name is the familia oteiza. but apparently, its not the first time that i had seen them. i found out my first week here that this family is also family with denisse, the girl that got baptized my first week in chile over in melipilla. and i found that out cuz they had a program from the baptism and so i asked where they got it and they told me they are family. and then when we went to their house, i found out that one of their daughters lives in santiago, in the ward avenida matta. and so i was just thinking wow what a coincidence. i know pretty much this whole family now without even realizing it and in 3 different sectors. but that kind of thing could only happen in our mission cuz its so small. no where else in the world do you get to know people from the same family in 3 sectors.

       last night i got kinda sick. i had a pretty bad head cold and didnt want to move at all after 7. so we went to this member family´s house. and i have to say that elder vilar and i are like 2 sons in this family. we are in their house just about every other day for one reason or another. and we can do just about whatever we want there. its really nice. and it was nice last night when i was sick cuz the mom basically treated me like her son and took care of me. she gave me some medicine and made us some food. its definitely nice to have a family like that in the sector.

       but anyway i hope that everyone is doing good and has a good week. take care

AJ's email 1/16/2012

AJ on his new bike heading up El Colon

alright im gonna tell you about the pictures first today. one is of me on my bike on a road called el colon. the next is a girl we are teaching with her family. her name is fernanda and she is 11 and very sweet. the other little girl that is in my lap is named monse and she is 4 and one of the cutest little girls 

AJ and 4-yr-old girl in El Monte

i have seen, although she normally looks a lot better than she does in that picture. the next is of my sun burn that i got from when we went out to chiñigue 
on saturday. and then the last 3 are the views from paico alto, another road in our sector that is absolutely tough on bike cuz its 2 miles up hill but the view is amazing.
       but anyway to start i have to say 2 things that i forgot to mention last week. the first is that i found a food last week that i am allergic to...melon. one day last week we ate a type of melon with one of our investigators and within 15 min i was completely without a voice. i couldnt say anything. and it was weird cuz i could breathe perfectly, i just couldnt say anything and it stayed like that for about 3 hours. then this week we ate watermelon with another investigator and while i was eating it, my lips got swollen and hurt a little but then about half an hour 

Sunburn from ride to Chiñigue

after we stopped eating, i was ok again. so from now on im gonna have to tell people that i cant eat any type of melon cuz i dont want to have a reaction like that again. the other thing i forgot to say last week is how much i 

AJ in Chiñigue

had forgotten how bad the fleas are in the campo. they started eating me alive from the first day that i got here. and there was a point early this week that i counted and had more than 75 bites. so after that we went out and bought spray and i went home and sprayed all over my bed and carpet and its made a huge difference. i still get a bite or 2 every night but its not nearly as bad as before. but its just one bad thing about the campo. i dont know how some people live out here and deal with that all the time.

AJ and new district leader E. Ciccio

       tuesday i did divisions for the first time with my new district leader, elder ciccio. he is from italy and is pretty cool. he knows italian fluently, speaks spanish well cuz thats what he always spoke with his parents, and then he can speak english well for not being gringo, but he is still practicing that a lot. but i had a pretty good day with him. and then we stayed up til 1 in the morning talking while he finished working on his scripture covers that he is making. he is pretty artistic. but at one point he spoke italian for me and it was pretty cool cuz it is so similiar to spanish and i could understand about 60 percent of what he said. and it made me really interested in learning italian when i get back along with continuing to study spanish.
      wednesday was also a good day for me cuz i got a surprise from president king. he sent me a new bike that i was hoping for cuz the one that i had before was a piece of junk. cuz the good bike before got stolen and i had been using the bike we are supposed to use for whoever comes with us. and so this whole week i have been racing elder vilar any chance that i get cuz now i can actually beat him.
      the other highlights from this week were that we set a fecha with an investigator named victor who wants to 

E. Vilar knocking a door.

Should we knock THAT door...what door?

get married the second week of february and then would get baptized after. the only bad thing about that is that we might be getting another set of missionaries in our ward next change, the week before his baptism. and they are most likely going to be hermanas so they would get the city part of the sector where all of the success is right now and we would get sent out to the campo with all the inactive members. but we ll see what happens. and im almost positive that hermana missionaries are coming cuz they started fixing everything in our house this week. or in other words getting it ready for hermanas. (Can I just interrupt here and say from a Missionary Mom's point of view...WHAT?..if its good enough for the Elders, then its good enough for the Hermanas. And if its not good enough for the Hermanas, well then...).and then the last thing was our trip to chiñigue on saturday morning. and i say trip because it was one. it takes 45 min on bike from our pension to that part of the sector. but its really pretty out there. the only problem is that as missionaries we cant waste that kind of time going out to do nothing, which is basically what happened cuz we have no one there and there arent many people to contact. so we probably wont be going there very often. but it was a fun time.
         well i hope that you are all doing good and have a good week. take care

View from Paico Alto...2 miles uphill.

More heading up hill....

Another view from Paico Alto.

AJ's email from 1/9/2012

Goodbye and Adios to Sosa

so ill just start with where im at and who my companion is cuz im sure that will be the most important information from this week. im in............the zone talagante in the sector el monte. its the third biggest sector in our mission. and im with elder vilar from valencia, spain. its been such a long week but at the same time has gone by so fast. we are on bikes here in el monte and its made me more sore than ever. thursday especially was a long day. we had to go to a path called paico alto, which is a 45 min bike ride up hill from our house. needless to say the next day i was very sore. i dont think my legs have felt that shaky and worn out since one time coach gibson made us run 6 ten in ones back to back, just to give you an idea how hard it was. but our sector is so big that it takes about an hour and a half on bike to get from one end to the other.

AJ and new companion

       but anyway tuesday we had the change meeting. i will honestly say that that meeting is one of the most nerve wrecking parts of the mission. having to sit there watching the slide show and each zone go by, waiting to hear your name and see your picture to finally know where you are going and who you are with. its terrible. it makes me feel glad that ive only had to do it once now so far in the mission. but finally i saw my name with el monte and i wasnt sure how to feel cuz talagante is the only zone with bikes in the mission. and with it being summer, that doesnt always make a good combination. but the good thing is that its not nearly as hot as it is in the middle of the city. although it still feels hot during the day cuz the sun beats on us, its get down into the low 60s at night so its really cool waking up in the morning and going home at night.

        thursday night i met our best investigators, maria and her daughters maria jose who is 13 and nachita who is 5. maria is basically a member without being baptized. she goes to church every week, knows the lessons almost better than us, reads the scriptures every day. but she cant get baptized yet cuz she isnt married. but she said that she will be getting married hopefully by the end of february. so that will be a baptism.....if im in her sector next change. (president king has said that 2 more missionaries will be coming to el monte next change and so i dont know which part ill be in.

      wednesday we had our coordination meeting with our ward mission leader. its really weird cuz we have a ward mission leader who actually works and knows what he is doing. its the first time since ive been here that ive had that. and its only the second time since ive been in chile that ive seen a ward mission leader that works in all the wards that i know.

       thursday is when we went out to paico alto. we had to leave at 8 to be able to get there, teach and then get home in time. and so we got there, had a 45 min lesson and then went home. and we got home close to 1030. and i honestly felt like i wouldnt make it home cuz my legs were dead. i had no energy left (cuz earlier that day we went out to another street a long way away) but i felt so bad for the family we went to teach. they are all members but very inactive. the dad at one point was branch president but now is an alcoholic. they are sealed in the temple but have lots of martial problems. the 16 year old daughter is pregnant. its just crazy. but it makes me wonder how does a family that is so far into the church fall so far away. its crazy.

Birthday Girls :)

One of the "ladies" in his new ward...huh?

     then saturday we spent basically all day preparing a baptism for a girl in the ward who just turned 8. we had to fill the font, clean the building, and have it all ready by 730. but it was good. and after that we went to a birthday party of 2 ladies in our ward. (which is the pictures that i included) the mom is hermana aida and her daughter cynthia. their birthday is the same day. and it was fun hanging out with them after the baptism.

     sunday didnt feel like my first day at church at all. cuz we had been in the church 3 time earlier in the week and had taught 16 lessons to members, which is a lot. (the most i have ever had before was 11) so i already knew more than half the ward. but it was really fun. this is a really good ward and has a lot of potential. there has been over 40 baptisms here in the last 3 years which is a lot for our mission. so im excited to work. and we have 8 people who can possibly get baptized in the next 2 months if they get married (which is ok here cuz they actually want to get married unlike the last sector) so it´ll be fun.

      anyway i hope that you are all doing good. have a good week.

A Whole New Year...beginning with a change! AJ's email 1/2/12

Christmas Eve

To be honest, it feels like its been forever for me since i talked to my family on the phone. we just had so much happen this week that  it made time go by so slow, but also extremely fast at the same time. really the biggest news from this week is that i have changes. but we´ll get to that

WOW! Cleaned up this Christmas!!

       on tuesday we did divisions and so i went to carlos valdovinos with elder carcamo. but i didnt end up being with him the whole day really cuz we did divisions and i went with a guy who had gotten back from his mission a week earlier. his name is leo vergara and it was really awesome being with him. although the weird part was that neither of us knew much about the sector and so we kinda just walked around thinking of stuff to do and people that he knew before the mission that we could visit.and it actually turned out to be good cuz we found several houses to get in to. but i learned so much from being with him. we talked a ton and i could tell that he was a pretty good missionary just from his attitude about the work to the way he treated the people. he was always so nice to everyone and was always willing to help. but we talked a lot about what it takes to be a good missionary and to have success and what happens when missionaries do stuff they shouldnt and all that stuff. it was good for me.

A really good lesson.

     then on thursday we had a really good lesson with sergio and luis. they are amazing and understand everything so well. and we havent even taught them a lot yet. but they had a lot of questions about the book of mormon and everything about that. and they learn fast and understand everything and so it was almost fun teaching them. and i wish that i could be here to see them get baptized but it is what it is and im just excited that i got to help them and get to know them a little. and i know that they will do good and will get baptized soon.

     friday we did divisions again and this time elder leavitt came to my sector. and it was such a bad day. cuz with everyone getting ready for parties the next day (and the fact that a lot of people started drinking early) we didnt get into any house til 8 at night. and it was really hot that day so need less to say, it was pretty tough. but we still made the best of out it like always and it was fun.

Sayin' ADIOS and movin' on.

Someone's sad...sayin' goodbye.

Sayin' ADIOS and movin' on.

Looking for Fireworks...don't lean too far...sheesh!

      then saturday started the real party. cuz i already basically knew that i had changes so i started saying bye to people on saturday. and the biggest one was really ainhoa. we went to her house and talked for a long time and hung out for a while while they were getting ready for the night. but when it was time to say bye, she started crying and told me that she didnt want me to go and how she isnt going to be friends with the new elder cuz it wont be the same. and it is kinda tough leaving and not knowing whats gonna happen cuz im the one who started teaching her so ive seen her come a long way. but i know she´ll be fine. then we went back to the apartment and just waited for midnight. cuz we wanted to order pizza but every place had already closed so we just had to wait. but we went up to the top floor of our building and watched the fireworks. and it was cool cuz we could see them in like 4 different places that were shooting off. so we didnt just watch one show. and also that night we got the call telling us that i have changes for sure. although i wont know where im going or who im with til tuesday cuz thats when president announces everything. so you will all just have to wait til next week to find out where i go.

There's the fireworks...ringing in the new year in Chile.

     then the next day at church, we were dead tired cuz we had gone to bed at 130. and the bishop asked us to prepare talks just in case the other people didnt show up. and it worried me when we had less than half the attendance that we normally do. but apparently the bishop asked the right people to talk cuz all 3 showed up. and then after we were ready to sleep but we couldnt cuz we had to go say bye to more people. but it was a pretty good day in the end, although also sad at the same time knowing that i might not ever see these people ever again.

     but it was a pretty good week. i hope that you all enjoyed your new years and that everyone starts the year off good. sorry i didnt include pictures but ive already passed my memory card off to a friend to put the pictures and videos on facebook for the last time. seeing as how now i wont be able to use him anymore since im being changed. so you´ll have to go to facebook to see the pictures. but i hope that everyone has a good week. take care.

In the ZONE...at the Santiago West Christmas Party.