~Mlazgar Missionary Moments~: AJ's email from 2/27/12

The sign he is holding says "1 año"

alright, im officially half way done with the mission. in fact, in exactly one year from today, ill be getting home from chile. so weird to think. a year is a long time. but this next year is gonna fly by.

so we started our new ward plan this week so that more members come out with us. each week is assigned to a part of the ward like i think that i explained last week. so this week was assigned to the young men and young women. and it turned out to work very well. we had 10 youth come out with us during the week and had a very successful week. so its making me even more excited for whats to come.

tuesday we started with the young women. we had one of the leaders, hna. consuelo, with 2 girls, javiera and amy that came out. they are both 12. but we didnt have any plans all day really til about 8 that night. so we started by going to a house of a girl that lives across the street from hna consuelo cuz the girl is inactive. and when we got there, we figured out that its a house that we had gone to by ourselves before but it didnt work out well. but with consuelo, she let us in to talk a little. so i was impressed. and then what was even better is that when we got in, her boyfriend was there and isnt a member. so thats an instant way to find new people to teach. then after that we went to a few other houses of people that they knew, inactives and non members. and it was a lot better than trying to get into places alone cuz its a lot harder doing it that way.

wednesday we went out with pablo, a 15 year old. we went to maria, our investigator that is like a member. its been kinda tough for her lately with her pareja not wanting to get married and her wanting so bad to get baptized. so we talked a lot about that with her. and she is just gonna have to be patient. i dont understand latin america sometimes and how people can be so against getting married. i understand how some dont want to cuz they are to young or cuz they are just starting together. but this couple has been together for a while now and she has told him that she doesnt want to be with anyone else. and there are others that i know here that have been together 20 years, have 3 kids, lived together all that time and still dont want to get married. how can it be so difficult and what do they think will change for the worse? at least its not this bad in the states....thank you america. but she just thanked us for always being there to talk to her cuz its a big help having someone to give her advice spiritually as well as physically. im glad that we can be that person for her. ive always liked helping people through problems.

Hma Aida and her daughter with AJ

thursday was really good, but also a disaster depending on how you look at it. at church on sunday we had planned to go out with debora, the young womens president, and victoria and belen that are 16. and so that was ok. cuz the houses are small so its tougher to get in with more people but we are still alright with 5. then the night before, victoria told us that alison wanted to come out with us too. so we said alright thats fine. then on the way to the place that we were gonna meet at, we ran into debora walking there. and she was walking with her daughter, darinka, that was also gonna come out with us. so now we are thinking great what are we gonna do now. then we get to the place, and belen had brought one of her friends. so then we are there, thinking what in the world are we gonna do cuz there is no way that we are getting into a single house with all these people. so finally we decided to just go out and see if we could, and to be honest im kinda glad that no one answered the door so that we didnt have to see the peoples faces with 8 people wanting to come in. but it must have been a funny sight. 2 mormon missionaries walking around with a lady and 5 16 year old girls. must have been funny. the good thing was that the friend that belen brought, paulina, isnt a member. so hopefully we can start teaching her soon and get her baptized. cuz i dont know how many 16 year old girls would go out for 2 hours visiting people with the missionaries unless they liked the church a little. so we´ll see about that.

friday was a little bit of a slow day. and it kinda sucked cuz no one came to the english class that we had this week. that was a little disappointing. but thats what happens when you are trying to establish something and make it work. hopefully we will have more people next week. so during that time i just went and practiced playing piano. im getting alright now if i do say so myself.

the only other thing that i want to mention from this week was something that happened on saturday. cuz we have a home teaching assignment to help the elders quorem since there are more people to visit than they have to visit them. so we went to one of the families. and they live in a little community of about 5 houses. but they have a gate and everything to the community. but next to that there is a farm with a ditch next to it to water everything. and that day the ditch overflowed and made it impossible for us to get to the phone to let them know that we were there. so we had to find big rocks to put to walk on and get to the gate and the phone. it was so funny cuz elder vilar did it fine going in, but getting back to dry land was tougher and he fell in. then they came and opened the gate. and to get through the flood we had to be on our bikes going super slow. but it was really fun. (NO PICTURE OF ELDER VILAR IN THE DITCH? DARN!)

but anyway that was my week. the weather here is starting to get cooler now. i had to wear a sweater at night one day this week cuz it was so cold. but there were other days this week that felt hotter than ever. its weird. but take care

THE OFFICIAL ONE YEAR BURNING OF THE SHIRT...