Short and Sweet...AJ's email from 3/30/12

 this letter might be a little short this week cuz im really tired from playing soccer this morning with the zone (my team dominated by the way) and also cuz we dont have a lot more time left here today. but this week was kinda slow for us other than the fact that we found several new people to teach.

         wednesday we found a really good lady to teach. her name is claudia and it was cool listening to her tell us that she doesnt normally let people into her house from churches, but she felt the need to do it with us and she didnt know why. she is 6 months pregnant and is on bed rest cuz she has had some problems with the pregnancy so she should be easy to teach cuz she will always be in her house and will have time to read what we leave her. the only bad thing is that it will be harder for her to get to church if she cant leave the house much but we´ll work with her and im excited cuz she seems really good.

         thursday we had a special training meeting in maipu but president wasnt there which was unusual. apparently he was at some mission president training thing. so we were just there with the assistants. it was good to see friends from other zones. dont ask me what we learned though cuz i was to busy talking to elder vilar the whole time and didnt pay attention a whole lot, whoops. but the bigger thing that day was that we had one of the assistants, elder jones, come with us to our sector. i have no idea why and he didnt either, just that president asked him to come with us. so hopefully it was for something good. 

       friday we had our meeting with hno aguayo for our coordination meeting and it was cool cuz we ate completos before (its a hot dog with tomatoes, avacado, and mayo) and we were celebrating the goals that we havent made yet. it was hilarious and we just joked around basically the whole time. friday it also got really cold and rained a little. so that made me happy. but then yesterday and today were really hot again. the weather here is crazy.

        that was basically it for this week. at least the most important things. sorry that this was so short. ill make up for it next week. take care

The repentant mother...

Current comp...past comp...someone's future comp
Elder Sanches.....Elder Vilar.....Elder Mlazgar

Okay, so I underestimated my son. The last couple weeks he and I have been talking about the fact his email comes late because the pictures are attached to the email. So this week he sent his email and pictures in separate emails. I'm glad he did, because these pictures didn't come until Tuesday morning.

This almost looks like the San Tan Mountains
just south of Queen Creek.

Not sure where all these pictures were taken or who the other missionaries are. Maybe a zone mtg? Click on any picture to see an enlarged version...

A little game of chess...

Bummer...no pics again...I'll have to get on him - AJ's email from 4/9/12

        this week was a very tough week for us. i dont know why but everything, and i mean EVERYTHING, fell through on us during the week. i dont think ive had so many citas fall through in one week in my whole mission til now. it was ridiculous. but its also unfortunate. but it just means that we`ll have to get back to work and move on this week. there was one good thing from this week though. never before this week had i gotten into a house for the first time and have the whole family there to listen to us and actually pay attention and be interested. and then it happened on back to back days this week.

        Wednesday we werent having any luck. and the day before wasnt much better. we were just doing contacts basically the whole day. and we had set a cita on Tuesday with a guy to go back on Wednesday. but since nothing was working out for us, i wasnt real excited to go to his house cuz when we contacted him, he didnt seem real promising. but we went anyway cuz we had told him that we would go back. so we got there and knocked on the door, and a boy answered. it was his son. but the funny thing is that i already knew him. he is the boyfriend of a girl in a less active family that we have been teaching for the last couple months. so we had already talked with him a little before and knew a little about him. and he also knew a little about us. we told him that we had talked to his dad the day before and were there to share something with them. so he invited us in. so we got in and sat down and the whole family started coming together. the daughter stopped what she was doing on the computer, the mom stopped cooking, and the dad stopped working in his shop. it was awesome. cuz normally we get into a house and the only one who stays is the person that invited us in. so we talked a little about the basic stuff that we always share the first time. a little about the restored church, eternal life, eternal families, and baptism. and they all listened the whole time. im really excited to teach them again this week so i hope that they will be there.

          then thursday we were supposed to have a cita with one of the families that is always there, joel and veronica. but we got there and they werent there. so we called and asked where they were and veronica told us that they had gone to the hospital with their youngest son cuz he was having problems with something. but it wasnt anything serious. so we had to think of somewhere else to go. we went to our neighborhood to visit a lady that we found 2 weeks ago. but she wasnt there. so then we decided to go to the house of some old investigators to see if they had any interest. the mom answered the door and we talked to her a little, and after a little convincing, she left us in. basically we just told her that we wanted to share with them why we are here as missionaries and that it wouldnt take more than 10 minutes. so when we got in, they were taking once (which is a small meal around dinner time) together as a family. her, her husband, and her 2 daughters. so we shared that basic stuff like always and asked if we could come by another day to talk more and they kinda hesitantly agreed. but still it was really nice to have their whole family there.

          there is one thing from the week that got me a little frustrated. i dont know if its the culture or just cuz we are missionaries so people act differently. but i got really tired this week of knocking on doors where i know the people are there because i can see them or hear them or cuz their front door is open and so is the gate, but for some reason they dont answer. it happened way too much this week. i thought about how it is in the states. and im pretty sure that almost everyone would open the door at least if they are home, no  matter who it is there. just to see what they want. but here they dont. it even gets to the point sometimes where people will look out the window and look at us, and still not answer the door. i dont understand sometimes. you could at least open and tell us you dont want anything or tell us to leave, but to just leave us standing there? i dont get it. but oh well.

          the other thing from this week that is weird is the weather. its so unpredictable. tuesday and wednesday were cold. so cold that i had to wear a long sleeve shirt all day and even thought about putting my coat on towards the end of the night. then thursday friday and saturday it got really hot. like almost up into the 90s again. and then all of a sudden yesterday and today, its freezing cold again. and yesterday it sprinkled a little, the first time i have seen any amount of rain in over 6 months. everyday could be different. i know that in arizona the weather changes sometimes but as far as i remember, it was never so drastic in one week from cold to hot to cold again. but at least its cold again now so im not complaining.

          but thats basically my week. im having fun with elder sanchez although i felt bad for him a little yesterday cuz he got kinda sick. but i think he is feeling better today. i hope that you are all doing well. take care

AJ's email from 4/2/12...no pics this week

      this week was so weird. it was way different and it seemed to pass by slow but also fast at the same time. like everyday was fast but at the end of the week i thought back and thought about how long it felt. with pday on tuesday, district meeting on thursday and then conference, just a lot of different things going on. the other thing that made it longer was walking everywhere cuz we didnt have our bikes pretty much all week. but ill explain that better.

       tuesday we had our pday cuz of the change meeting that we had on monday. but it was a little shortened cuz we had already done internet so we didnt have to take the time to do that. so we only had til 4 instead of the normal 630. but it was just a normal day after that and we just went around getting to know members and presenting elder sanchez. then wednesday was more of just members really and then at night we had our meeting with our ward mission leader. he is so hilarious all the time and that meeting with 2 more missionaries was just insane. we laughed the whole time. it was rediculous.

      thursday we had the district meeting and its always fun and exciting seeing the new zone all together for the first time. we have 2 greenies in the zone. the elder is from peru and the hermana is from paraguay. whats funny is seeing how excited they are to be here and how much energy they have. i didnt really understand the whole thing with greenie power til then. its true that greenies always bring a little more to the sector they are in that normal missionaries dont really have. cuz as missionaries we kinda get into a routine but they are new so they dont know whats all going on. they just want to teach. but its good. the other thing from the zone is that we have a latin dominated zone now. 9 of the 16 are latins. when last change we had 9 of 14 missionaries that were gringo. so a lot more spanish.

      then saturday and sunday we had conference. saturday we got to the church around 1230 cuz the first session started at 1. and we were there all day til the end of priesthood session that ended at 11. it was a long day sitting in a chair but it was ok cuz you always learn so much listening to all the talks. saturday for me was the better day just cuz i got more out of it. i cant remember what my favorite talk was right now so i would have to look at my notes. but i definitely know my favorite little sayings from a couple of the talks. the first one is about the family. someone said that "family time is sacred time and should be protected and respected". with so much going on around us all the time now, we have to try harder to find time for the family, but its important to do it. and i want to apply that in my family one day when i have one. then the other thing was someone who said that its possible to be active in the church but be inactive in the gospel. and i think thats how i was a little before the mission. i went to church but i wasnt really interested. but it just takes gaining a strong testimony to change that and striving everyday to strengthen that testimony.

      with the bikes it was a struggle the whole week. last week we took a bike and then the parts that we had laying around from a couple other bikes to a bike guy in our sector so that we could try and get 2 bikes together for us. we knew that they wouldnt be as good as the ones we already had but at least it would be something. they were supposed to be done on tuesday so we went by and he told us that it would be better to come back the next day. so we went on wednesday and he had just barely started working on one. we waited an hour and he hadnt dont much so we told him that we would be back the next day. thursday we went but he hadnt been open all day cuz he went to the dentist and hadnt done anything. so we had to go back friday morning and had to wait another hour for him to finish. basically when we werent there, he didnt work at all on our bikes. so finally we got them but it wasnt very good. we have to go back this week so that he can make some more adjustments cuz there are some things wrong that we figured out while riding. but with as bad as the bikes are, im still grateful to have them. cuz i found out this week walking everywhere how hard it would be here to not have them. this sector is way too big to not have bikes. we waste a ton of time walking. and thats even with the division of the sector. we have about a third of all of el monte and its still too big to walk. 

         so thats basically everything. not real exciting this week but another one down. i hope that everyone is doing well and that you have a good week. take care