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

AJ's email from 3/26/2012

     well this week had several things that have been different. ill just start with the coolest. we had 2 earthquakes over the last 3 days. saturday morning i woke up at 4 in the morning because of the first one. and with us having our bedroom on the second floor of our house and then i sleep on the top bunk, lets just say that my bed was moving around a lot. but it was pretty cool cuz it was a side to side movement. but that one was a 5.3. then sunday night we were in the house of hermana aida when there was another earthquake. at first it started out slow so we just stayed still but then it kept getting stronger and stronger and it felt weird so we had to leave the house to be sure. it felt a lot different than any other earthquake that ive felt. it was more like a swirling movement. afterward we found out that in the epicenter it was a 7.2 and here in the santiago area it was a 5.8. but they told us that thats how it felt 2 years ago when they had the huge one but this wasnt as strong. so thats why we had to leave the house just in case it got worse. but i enjoyed it the whole time and elder vilar and i were joking around the whole time. it was fun although lots of people got scared.

      tuesday we had our interviews with president king. and i think it was the best that i felt in an interview with him since ive been here. we talked about a lot of things, especially with the changes in el monte. so basically i already knew was what going on. the only thing that he didnt tell me is who my new companion is. but what he decided to do in the end is put elders here. and so he split elder vilar and i up, one in each sector, with a new companion. and before telling me who was going to which sector, he asked me what i thought. and so i told him that elder vilar and i had talked about that before and that we thought it would be better that i stayed in the city part of el monte and that elder vilar goes to lo chacon in the campo part. and then he told me thats how he felt it should be too and that he was glad that we were all on the same page. then at the end i explained the whole situation with javiera and that we wanted to get her baptized as soon as possible and that it would be the easiest way to take care of everything. and so president approved for elder mcbride to come interview her so that she could get baptized this week. so then wednesday he came and interviewed her and everything turned out well. after that the only thing left for us to figure out with the baptism was what she was going to wear. the only tunic that the ward has is for someone 8 years old. so we had to look for one. we asked our ward mission leader if he knew where we could find one and he told us that there are several in the closet of the church but that we had to find our own way to get into it cuz they had lost the keys several months ago. so thursday night we went with one of the members to the church to break into the closet. and it was so funny cuz basically we had to break the door off to get in. but the whole time we just said whats better, that we have to pay for a new door or not have a baptism. eventually we got it open and got one of the tunics out for sunday.

       then sunday we had the baptism after church was over. it went really well for putting it all together in about 5 days. it showed me too how good of a branch this is here. the people are all pretty good and i feel lucky that so far into my mission ive always been in good wards. but everything turned out good. i had to lead the music for the hymnns so that was my part. after getting baptized, javiera gave her testimony and during it, she started to cry a little. it was kinda touching to see.

       the other thing that happened this week is that we had to get the new pension ready for elder vilar in lo chacon. we werent ever able to find a place to live big enough for all 4 us of so we have to split up. so friday we went with the elders from the office to see where its at and to see how the pension is. we found out when we got there that the new pension is the smallest in the entire mission. it has 2 rooms of about 10´ by 15´, one to sleep in and the other to study. and then they have a small kitchen and the bathroom is in a corner of one of the rooms. its so small and im actually glad that im staying in the old pension cuz i dont know if i could handle being in that small house. but im definitely gonna make fun of elder vilar and his companion.

E. Mlazgar and E. Sanchez

      so changes were a little different this change. normally the change meeting happens on tuesday but this time president did it monday. so i already have my new companion. his name is elder sanchez and he is from cinaloa, mexico. its already been a cool day laughing with him and elder vilar cuz we have all been together basically all day. and elder sanchez and elder vilar were in the same group in the mtc so they already know each other and so we are gonna have a lot of fun together in the branch. the only thing is elder vilar´s comp is very strict and doesnt really know how to have fun. so we´ll just have to work on that. but i know im gonna enjoy my time with elder sanchez.

       that everything from this week. just ready to start a new change and start out with a new comp. hopefully we´ll have as much success as i was having with vilar, and more would be better. but i hope that everyone has a good week. take care

AJ's email 3/19/2012

 alright first things first, there is a surprise from this week, a huge one. and that is...we might be having a baptism this week. its a crazy story. so wednesday night we didnt have much to do. and we got a little hungry so we decided to go by a lady that works in front of the only store in el monte selling montinos (basically just hot dogs wrapped in bread, sometimes they have cheese in them too) she is a less active member that contacted us a couple weeks ago and wants to come back to church and so we are helping her remember a lot of stuff cuz its been a long time since she has come to church. and then she has a daughter that we are teaching. but all that has nothing to do with the baptism, just the fact that we were hungry. so we bought the montinos and thought of somewhere to go to eat them. and i remembered that seminary started here this week and so the church is going to be open every night. so we went to the church to eat. while we were there, the ward secretary was there doing some work with the ward records. so elder vilar asked him whats going on and if there is anything new like we always do, but this time he said yes. apparently he was going through the records and noticed that a girl named javiera that just turned 12 and entered into young womens, doesnt actually exist in the church system as being baptized. and so they sent a request to salt lake asking for her record. salt lake answered on wednesday saying that she was never baptized. so he showed that to us and asked what needs to be done. so then this whole week has been us talking with the assistants of the mission to see how fast we  can baptize her. cuz without presidents permission, she would have to go to church 3 straight weeks and get taught all the lessons like any other investigator. but tomorrow we have our interviews with president king and so we are going to ask his permission to baptize her this week. cuz she doesnt need us to teach her anything, she has been going to church for the last 12 years and already knows the answers to the baptismal interview questions. hopefully everything works out. and after all the work that we have done here, it would be a gift from heaven to have a baptism now the last week of the change.

Yikes...I need to shave! 

         thats the biggest news from this week. saturday we did service in the morning with the ward. we had to cut the trees so that they arent so big, but i dont know why, we just did it. and at the same time we had to scrape the layer of plastic off of the field. i dont know how to describe it much better than that. its just like some plastic stuff they put on top of the concrete so that its not so slippery and so that the paint stays. but we did that so that they can come and redo it and then paint new lines on there. it was a lot of fun hanging out with them and laughing the whole time. and then at the end we had a bbq. so anytime we can have fun and eat, its a good time.

         thursday we had a good lesson with joel and veronica. they are really starting to open up a lot more to us. really the whole family is. we are good friends with the 4 kids too. but this week was good because of what veronica told us. before she has always said that she doesnt want to go to church yet cuz she wants to put their life in order first and get everything straightened out that needs to be done. but this week, she told us that her and joel were talking about it. and she asked him if he´d like to go to church and he said something like sure why not. so i was glad to see that they are progressing pretty well. hopefully they will come to church this week. we are gonna do everything we can to get them there.

          thats just about everything from this week. well really there is a little more but im so tired from playing soccer this morning that i dont feel like writing it all cuz its a lot of the same stuff. but this week should be really interesting with everything going on with javiera and figuring out the whole situation. i hope that everyone is doing well. take care

AJ email 3/12/2012

another good week in the mission, and also another one that passed by way fast. i honestly dont know where the time is starting to go. but it was a little different than normal from some things that we had to do this week. also this week was the week for the elders quorem to come out with us. and that was alright although like with everything else, they dont have as much enthusiasm to do anything as the youth or the relief society.

        wednesday was a good day. we had hermano soto come out with us to a couple of citas that we had. he is a man that really sets an example for a lot of other people in my opinion. him and his family are a part of our home teaching assignment that we have. and everytime we are around him, elder vilar and i end up walking away saying "that man is just pure love". he is kinda sick with something but i dont know what, but it seems like everytime we are with him, he is more worried about us and how we are doing and says that it doesnt matter how he is cuz he´ll be fine. he is always smiling and is just amazing. its showed me a little of how i want to be with others also. so on sunday when we asked who was gonna come out with us this week, he was the first one to offer to come. and then when i asked what time he is available, he just said whenever we want and for as long as we need him. and thats better than just about anyone here. cuz normally people offer an hour or 2 but an entire day on bike when its hot outside, it just shows that he is willing to serve in whatever way he can. but he came with us to our new investigator veronica. she seems to be really good. she asked us a question at the beginning about how do we know that our priesthood holders really have that authority. and so it was perfect cuz it lead us straight into the restoration. and then at the end she accepted an invitation to be baptized, although a little hesitantly.

           thursday morning we got a call from elder mcbride and got a surprise. he told us that the next morning elder vilar had to go into santiago the next day to do some stuff for his visa cuz the last time he did it, something went wrong and so they had to fix something. and so that night we had to be in talagante to do divisions with elder mcbride and elder west cuz elder west had to do his stuff too. so thursday night they went to maipu and i stayed with elder mcbride. but the weird part is that the next day, all of the leaders had a meeting in santiago with presdent king. so at 830 in the morning, all the leaders from the zone got together to go and so i had to switch comps again. so for half the day on friday i was with elder merino from peru. and im not gonna lie it was pretty funny walking around with him cuz he is tiny. he is a little shorter than my shoulder level. and then around 4 elder vilar got back and we went back to our sector to work. but it was weird having 3 different companions in the same day and also being in 3 different pensions.

         saturday we had a noche de hogar with ursula (my convert from melipilla) and her family. it was really good cuz there were about 15 people there in total and about half arent members. and i had to give the little lesson which of course i didnt plan for. but its ok cuz being missionaries, we always have something that we can talk about and make it decent. so i decided to talk about the family and how important it is. cuz with so many non members, i knew that they might think that i was only gonna talk about the church and try and convince them and all that. cuz thats all anyone thinks that we do. so i wanted it to be interesting for them while still trying to inculde something as missionaries. and i figured families would be best. and it turned out really well. at the end it turned out being like a big family council for them to work some things out and i think that we gained their confidence a lot more. and it was fun for me cuz i got to hang out with all of them again and it reminded me of my first few months in melipilla.

         then yesterday we went out with the branch president all day to visit some people. and that was really good cuz its the first time in my mission that the branch president has done that. but we went out to visit some less active members and then he went with us to one of our citas that turned out to be really good cuz he helped us a lot.          

         so it was a pretty good week. the pictures that i put with this are of our pension just so that you know. its kinda small but it works for just us 2. and its not bad. i hope that everyone is doing well. take care

AJ's email from last week ...03/05/12

this week was absolutely miserable. not for anything that happened really during the week or anything like that but because of the weather. of course the week after i say that the weather is starting to get better, we have the hottest week of the whole summer. it was terrible. everyday this week, it was between 90 and 94 degrees...inside our house. so regardless of how hot it was outside, when you have no where to go to try and cool down even a little, its miserable. but apparently its going to cool back down starting tomorrow and then hopefully it will only get better going into fall. im ready for it to be cold again. ive never really liked the heat.

      tuesday we had divisions so i was with elder mcbride here in el monte. it was weird talking english for a whole day again cuz i havent done that for over 2 months now. and it made me realize that more often i feel more comfortable speaking spanish than i do english. there is still a lot i have to learn about spanish (lots of words) and sometimes my mind goes a little blank about what im trying to say, but i have to think more to talk in english than spanish now. but i had a good time with him. we had a pretty good day with several good lessons. but my favorite was a house blessing that we did with a woman named marilen. we found her knocking doors and she was very interested from the start. she asked us what makes our church different from all the rest and she had several questions that were perfect for us to answer cuz they were things that we wanted to teach anyway. and then at the end as we were walking out, she told us that we surpassed her thoughts and that she wants to learn more. so im hoping for the best with her. the only problem is that she works turns and so her schedule is dificult and it changes from week to week. so as long as we can find time to teach her, it should work out.

     thursday we found out just how small our sector can be sometimes. we took one of the members out with us to go to a cita with joel and veronica. and when we got there, we found out that they already knew each other. dont ask me how but they had seen each other around and had talked a couple times. but they dont live close to each other. and it always helps having one of the members with us cuz they help us answer questions sometimes and help the people see normal people like them that have the same experiences.

     then friday was a really good day. it was a little weird a one point though. we went to a house of an inactive member that just moved here from maipu. and he came by the church one time and asked if we could come by. and he talked to me in english but not very well. i had a very hard time understanding what he was saying. and then he wanted me to talk to him in english but he didnt understand me. so i just got tired of trying so i started talking to him in spanish and then he answered in english. it was weird. then he showed us that he can play the accordian (however you spell that) then at the end, he asked me to say the prayer, but in english. and i havent said a prayer in english out loud in over a year now. it was hard and i had to pause after every 2 or 3 words to think about what i wanted to say next. then after that we had an activity in the church. it was by the primary and it was like a little disney movie night. several of the organizations performed a part of a disney movie and it was fun to watch. the relief society did alice in wonderland. the older primary kids did alvin and the chipmunks. the middle primary kids did lion king. the younger ones did snow white and the seven dwarfs. and then us with the youth and their leaders did shrek. and i was the wolf. so i had to dress up in a night gown with a hat. elder vilar was puss in boots. it was pretty funny though.

       saturday we went to a meeting of the jehovas witnesses so that we could set an appointment with one of the leaders there. that was interesting, seeing everyone looking at us as we walked up to the building and then went in. but it was good cuz its a good guy that we want to teach. him and his family have lived in washington before, in seattle. so they speak english pretty well and like speaking it. but they are here in chile cuz a lot of their family is here and to share their church with others. so i can respect that. but im still hoping that we might be able to change their minds a little.

          then sunday made me really happy. we went out to see the parents of ursula who live in el monte (ursula is one of the people that got baptized in melipilla just after i left and i was pretty close to her family) and i was so happy when we got there and their whole family was there. i never got to say bye to them before cuz of the special changes and so to see them again was amazing. but they have changed after the last 8 months. the 5 boys are all so much bigger and her and her husband are working in different places now. but it was nice to talk to them for a little and then we planned a noche de hogar with everyone on saturday

         with the pictures this week, most of them are from the activity on friday. and then one is of whats called a chorrillana here. its what we eat every monday after playing soccer and its big enough to fill both elder vilar and i both. but today it was especially huge so i had to take a picture. but its so good and its something that i plan on making when i come back. cuz its just my kind of food. french fries with meat and onions on top and then 2 eggs on top of that. its delicious. but anyway i hope that everyone is doing good. chao

 

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...

Please tell me they are trying to warm their buns...
...another motherly eye roll!!

Boys and fire...what can I say?

AJ email 02/20/2012...Hitting the year mark on THURSDAY!!

The very distinguished Talagante Zone.
Yes, that is AJ on the left...on his companion's back...cute.

alright another week down. and im officially hitting my year mark this week. i cant believe that ive been gone for so long now. its crazy. but im hoping to do something special thursday night cuz thats the day that i really hit a year and we will have our normal noche de hogar with hna aida and cynthia. so we will do something to celebrate a little.

        tuesday morning we went to see our investigator victor and see how he was doing after his car accident. and when i first saw him and then he told us the story, the first thing that i thought was that he is lucky that he didnt die. he has 28 stitches in his knee and his spine is swollen a little. and his brother is a lot worse. if victor wasnt such a big guy (about 6´ 250 lbs) i think the accident would have caused a lot more damage. what he told us is that him and his brother were on a motorcycle on a narrow street going to talagante. and they went into a big turn. and with big trees on both sides of the roads here, its hard to see around. and a car coming the other way drifted a little to far onto their side and they hit the side of the car and went flying. so he could have been hurt a lot worse. but then thursday we went to see him again and he was already doing a lot better. he looked better and could move around a little in his bed. but he still wont be able to walk on his own for a little while longer. the good thing about him being in bed so much now though is that its given him more time to read the book of mormon and think about what he needs to do to get baptized. and now he wants to do it more than ever. so thats a good thing.

       tuesday was kinda a weird day cuz of valentines day. we went to a members house during the day and "celebrated" a little with them. we ate a cake and talked a lot and it was fun. and then to finish the night we went to hna aida´s house. and hna aida gave elder vilar and i a little gift. and it was funny for me cuz elder vilar and i always joke around with her saying that we are going to hug her and other little stuff. so what she gave me was a little paper that said that i can have all the hugs that i want...in one year. so it would be really cool for me to be able to come back here after the mission. id really like to if i can.

      thursday we had a pretty good day. we taught several lessons and it was the first day in a little while where i felt like we were able to get into our scheduled appointments all day. but the best was the noche de hogar at the end of the night. cuz i had to give the lesson. and so i decided to give it on virtue. and i realized that i can be a lot better teacher than i think sometimes. and im thankful to have that ability cuz i know that there are a lot of other people who dont and can get pretty confusing while teaching. also thursday we had district meeting so i found out who is new in the zone. and our new district leader is elder mcbride who is from thatcher. so now we have 3 in our zone from arizona. me, elder mcbride, and elder parker who is from tucson. and its pretty cool to talk to each other about arizona stuff and feel at home a little lol

       friday we had lumch with hna aida. and she had one of her nephews over who lives in, go figure, apache junction. its crazy how small the world can get sometimes. but he has been living in the states for almost 15 years now. so it was really cool talking to him and to catch up a little on whats going on in arizona. he is visiting chile with some friends i guess. it was weird talking to him though. cuz his english isnt perfect, but his spanish is way different too. elder vilar and i were almost laughing at his spanish accent sometimes. cuz he is from chile, his wife is from argentina, and he has lived in arizona half his life. so his accent is a mix between chilean, argentinean, and mexican. it was really weird.

     then later that night there was a "stake dance" for the youth of the stake. and since we have the english class that night, we were in the church just before it started and then stayed for a little of the beginning while kids were showing up. what surprised me though is how different things can be between here and the states. normally stake dances are for kids between 14 and 18. but on friday night there were kids between 11 and 20. not exactly something that you can get away with in arizona. and the other thing was that with the whole stake there, there were only about 30 kids. im pretty sure that a lot more kids go to dances in arizona. at least it was that way the last time i went about 3 years ago

       saturday was pretty funny, cuz we got to hear from an evangelical "apostle". they had set a stage thing in one of the neighborhoods in our sector. and so then when we passed by them, we stopped and listened a little and it was really funny. im not gonna make fun of their church cuz you dont do that. but lets just say that they have a different way of doing things. at night we had a meeting with the ward leaders in the church. and just before that we met with the ward mission leader and he got pretty upset cuz he realized how little the ward has been helping us the last few weeks. cuz we dont have very many good investigators right now compared to how it should be. and so then in the meeting with the other leaders, he told them what needs to change and gave them a plan to do it. so now we are going to have the ward coming out with us a lot more often to see the difficulties that we are having so that they will give us more references. so im excited for that. hopefully it will help us have a little more success.

Are all 19-21 year olds this dignified?? ...I wonder!

        the only other thing that was cool from this week was yesterday before church started. every week before church starts elder vilar and i stand out front and shake peoples hands as they come in. and for the last 2 weeks as we have stood there, we have been able to see our breath. and thats definitely a first for me in the SUMMER. ive never been able to see my breath during the summer so its been cool. the pictures this week are from last weeks district meeting. that was our zone last change in our last week together. but anyway i hope that everyone is doing good. take care

Playing Catch Up...3 for 1 Deal!!

So sorry for those of you who follow AJ primarily on this blog. All I can say is busy, busy, busy. Anyway here are his email from 1/30/12, 2/06/12 and 2/13/12. Don't forget to scroll down to the pictures in the previous post.


JANUARY 30, 2012
this week was really up and down. we had 2 days where we basically didnt do anything because of meetings, and then 2 days where we did a ton of stuff. and because it got really hot towards the end of the week again, it made it miserable around 5 everyday but then around 9 it was so cold that i wanted to put a sweatshirt on. weird the weather here.

      tuesday we ran into something that i thought was really funny. we were riding our bikes through the middle of the sector going to an appointment, and when we got to one of the plaza areas where lots of people get together, there was a church congregation in the middle with a megaphone preaching there. so we went there and stopped and listened a little and it was hilarious. as soon as we stopped, the guy that was talking saw us and started saying stuff like "we dont come here preaching to you in white shirts and ties" (cuz they were in normal clothes) and other stuff like that. and the other people had flags that they were waving around and saying amen every now and then. then after the guy got done talking, he was walking around a little and so elder vilar called him over to talk a little. and elder vilar asked him why they have the flags and his answer was "i dont know. apparently it has some biblical meaning to it or something like that but i wouldnt know, i dont read the bible. i just come here and tell people things that ive heard before that i like". and when he said that i couldnt help but laugh. then elder vilar told him that we come wearing white shirts and ties to show some respect towards christ and he said something about that he wasnt talking about us, he was talking about others. it was rediculous.

       thursday we had a zone conference. and ours was in melipilla, in the same building that i started the mission in. and being there really brought back a ton of memories from being in that ward. thinking about all the people that i know there and all the good times and experiences that i had. it was weird being there though for missionary reasons and not on sunday or during a church activity. and it also made me realize something, that our church buildings are SO much bigger than the ones that we have here. cuz i remember thinking when i first got to chile that that building was kinda small and i felt like it should be bigger. but when we went there on thursday and i walked in, the first thing that came to my mind was "wow this building is HUGE!" so i cant even imagine what im gonna think when i get back from the mission and go to church that first sunday. i might go crazy. something else though that was weird for me was that i realized how fast the mission goes. cuz when i got to chile and lived with elder young in melipilla, he had just a little more than a year in the mission. and on thursday he gave his going home testimony that all the missionaries give the last zone conference before they go home. and he goes in march. thats crazy. i cant believe im almost to the year mark.

       friday was one of those busy days that we had this week. but the best part of the day was the fact that i started an english class at the church for anyone who wants to learn english. it was a little bit of a struggle getting started cuz ive never taught english before to anyone for any reason. so to start teaching a class to a bunch of latin people by myself will definitely be interesting. but it should be fun. and we are hoping that after a little while we can possibly get some non members to come and that will give us more people to teach.

     then sunday was basically a resting day. (go figure, in spanish its called the day of rest and its the first time during the mission that ive actually been able to rest) but it was cuz we had a big meeting with the whole stake and the ward council from each ward. and president king came and talked about some stuff to try and make everything better. because really its a district, not a stake. so president king has control over everything. but the district is making a push right now to become a stake in march. so the meeting was so that everyone learns more and the branches are better. but we left our house around 5 after sleeping some and then got back around 830 and went over to a members house cuz we didnt have any other plans. so it was a good day.

       with the pictures, there are a couple from our table during lunch at the zone conference. one with elder young. another with elder christensen who was in the office when i first got to chile and we have a pretty good relationship cuz we spent a whole day together one time while elder keogh was doing his visa stuff. 2 others are from one of the nights when we went to the house of hermana aida and cynthia (members in our ward). we have a family home evening with them every week and we are trying to work on the husband of hermana aida a little cuz he isnt a member. another is when we went to their house to do service. one is our drawing of the creation which is the lesson we taught this sunday for gospel principles. and the last is when elder vilar and i were playing jenga in the pension one day.

       anyway that was my week this week. i hope that everyone is doing well. take care

 FEBRUARY 6, 2012

hey everyone how is it going? good i hope. alright one quick thing that i forgot to mention from last week that president told us during the zone conference. basically he made an announcement that we all need to get our emergency bags ready because here in chile, we never known when we could have something big happen with all the earthquakes that there are here. and then he gave us a little statistic. since the year started, or in other words, the first of january, there have been over 350 earthquakes. over 30 of which have been able to be felt. and thats a lot more than normal. and with all that activity, its predicted that towards the end of february we could have a very big earthquake in the north of chile, on the same level as the one that they had here 2 years ago that was one of the strongest earthquakes in history. basically president just told us, get ready lol.

        this week was also kinda slow for us, also. i dont know whats up these last 2 weeks but it seems like with it being summer, everyone is gone. all the people we are teaching either went to the beach or are working overtime for the summer. so we havent had a lot to do. but what we started to do this week is work more with the members and ask them for names of people we could visit. and all the names they give us right now are just inactive members. i guess thats what happens when you have a list of 1100 members and only have about 100 coming to church. and really its fine for me if thats all i do in this sector is visit less active members. but still it kinda sucks.

        thursday we were in our house around 3 after we had lunch when an alarm sounded from the firehouse meaning that there was a fire close. and for the last couple weeks that has been something normal cuz there are lots of fires here during the summer because it doesnt rain at all and there is wind everyday. but with this fire it was bigger and much closer than normal. it was only about a mile away from our house and so from the second floor, we could see all the smoke and we had about 10 firetrucks go by our house. then the whole day there were ashes falling and it made it hard to breathe. and at night when i went to bed, i had to clean my bed cuz i had ashes all over my bed. pretty sure thats not great for my health but oh well.

        friday we had a family home evening but with the whole primary in the church. we were there to support the primary presidency more than for missionary purposes, although we did have a lady there that wasnt a member (that lady teaches english in northern chile too so it was cool talking to her) but it was a lot of fun. these 2 girls did a little dance thing, some of the parents shared scriptures, elder vilar did a ¨magic trick¨ with a boy in our retention, and there were a few other things. then after that, we had the english class. and im not gonna lie, with the lady there who teaches english, i was kinda nervous. dont ask me why i would be nervous teaching english if i speak it and pretty much everyone else there doesnt know much but i was. weird.

        then saturday morning we did some service for a lady in the ward that is redoing her house a little cuz she had termites. so we were there all morning with a couple guys from the ward. and it was a lot of fun. we took out a metal thing that she had outside that wasnt doing anything anyway so i dont know why she had it. and then we built a new support thing for her wall before they spray one more time.

       something crazy that just happened, and also the reason that this is getting to you a little later than normal, is that i was sitting there typing this email to send, when the power went out in the place that i was at. and then when the power came back, i couldnt turn on the computer for some reason. and then by that time, we had an appointment with someone in 10 min, so we had to go. so i wasnt able to finish. but now im at the house of a member using his computer so that i can finish this email. 

          today for pday we had a zone activity with the zone of melipilla. we played soccer on a full size field and it was fun playing on a field bigger than a basketball court. to be able to fully run for once. and to make it all better, we won 10-8. i had 3 goals and 2 assists and we controlled the entire game basically, even though they still scored 8 goals. but thats besides the point. the only thing that i thought was a little sad is that i was one of the best players on the field. and i think its sad cuz supposedly all latins do is play soccer. it made me realize that they all like to play baby so that they dont have to move much. but when they get on a big field, they get a little lazier.          

       anyway that was my week. the pictures here are a couple from the family home evening, a couple from service on saturday, and then a couple from soccer today. i hope that you all have a good week. take care

 FEBRUARY 13, 2012

well changes came and went this week. it seems so weird to me that the whole change has already gone by cuz it still feels like just yesterday that i got to el monte. but the good thing is that elder vilar and i are staying together another change here and so i am looking forward to another fun 6 weeks with him. especially cuz we had a pretty good week this week.

       wednesday this week we did divisions again. this time i was in cordillera with elder west from idaho. he is only in his second change but he impressed me with how well he can already speak spanish. it seems like missionaries are arriving being able to speak better and better every change. but we had a long day cuz everything fell through like it normally does on divisions. so we just walked around most of the day talking and doing some contacts. the worst part of that though is that im not used to walking anymore from the bikes so my legs hurt at the end of the day. and it made me think about how bad it will be when i leave el monte cuz that we be after 4 or 6 months of riding bikes. itll be like how i felt at the start of the mission lol but oh well

        thursday we spent like half the day with hna aida cuz we went over to her house to do service in the morning, then we had lunch with her, and then at night we had our normal noche de hogar with them that we always have now. but it was a really fun day. and something that is good is that we are starting to talk with her husband a little more. hna aida told us that we are the first missionaries in 12 years to get him to say something more than hola to us. so even though we might not be teaching him yet and be getting him ready to get baptized, im glad to know that we are having a little affect on him and that even if we dont ever get to teach him, maybe someday he will change his mind because of us and will listen to the missionaries and get baptized.

       then friday was another long day. in the morning we had to do our profound cleaning of the house. i hate cleaning so much. some things never change lol but i do always like how things look after cleaning and moving everything around a little. it just feels better. there was one thing worth mentioning though, and thats what is in the picture that i sent. we found that spider in the bath tub about halfway through cleaning. i asked a couple people here and they said that that spider is the famous rincon spider here. its super fast and is extremely poisionous. apparently it can kill someone in a couple days or something like that if they dont get a bite taken care of quickly. but its the first time that ive seen one so big. all the others that ive seen before were just little tiny ones so when this one showed up, it was crazy. but it was funny cuz after taking the picture, we used the ruler to try and cut its legs off and it was funny watching it race around in circles trying to get away. but i ended up cutting it in half with one of my attempts at cutting a leg off. so we just washed it down the drain. we are definitely gonna be on the look for others now though over the next couple days. after all that though, we didnt have much to do though cuz we took a youth out with us and everything fell through. so we basically spent the day setting appointments for other days.

       saturday we got a little scare from one of our investigators, victor. we called him during the day to see if he would be home at night to visit him, but someone else answered his phoneand told us that he had gotten in a car crash and was in the hospital but was doing alright. so we were really worried about him the rest of the day. finally sunday night we got a hold of him and he was doing a lot better but was still a little sore. but im glad that he didnt get seriously hurt.

       also saturday we helped a less active family move out of their house cuz they had some problems with the person that owns the house. so we spent a couple hours there. and we had a lot of fun with them and joked around a lot which i think was good for them cuz they dont get out a lot and they have been having a lot of hard times lately and needed to be happy for a little. and thats what elder vilar and i are best at, making people laugh and have fun. and it was also good cuz the daughter promised us that once their family gets out of this situation, that she will come to church. so hopefully that happens.

      sunday for us was just a day to look for names of less active people that the ward gave us. they gave us a list of the first 25 men on the ward list and asked us to figure out who is active, who isnt, and who doesnt live there anymore. basically we are just doing a cleaning of the ward list which kinda sucks cuz id rather do better stuff with our time but at least we can help a little. and maybe we can find some people to teach from passing by so many families that arent all full member families.

      the reason i liked this week so much was cuz we found several new people that we are gonna start teaching that either are pretty interested or can get baptized quickly with a little work. an example from yesterday is a girl that we talked to while we were looking for those names. it was a house that was on our list and the girl said that the person didnt live there and neither does she. but she wants us to come by her house sometime to talk cuz her and her pareja are really interested in coming to our church sometime. cuz she has a neighbor that got baptized in august named nicole that always invites her to come but they havent come yet cuz of a problem that they are having with a different member. but if she gets married i could see her getting baptized really quickly and that would be awesome. it showed me 2 things though. how important it is for members to mention things about the church to their friends and invite them to things. and it also showed me how important it is that we always show a good example to other people cuz you never know how you could affect the progress of someone else around you. but there are several other people like her that we found this week so im excited for it.

        anyway i hope that you all have a good week. take care

Playing Catch-up...pictures, pictures, pictures

Here are the pictures from AJ's last 3 email. Sorry, no cute captions or integration into the email this time. 

Okay, can't resist...my first thought was "WHAT?!" Then I settled into "Boys will be boys"
...followed by a motherly eye-roll.