April 6, 2015 The Package and General Conference

Hey

So I don’t have much time again! Im so sorry. Next week I promise, today was just a strange day and I’m tired and didn’t have that much energy! So much stuff to do!

Anyways! I had a great week this week! We are just working real hard! It’s really strange, all week I think of stuff that I can tell you and I get here and I just completely forget. I’m going to start writing them down so that I don’t forget! Anyways. This was a really crazy week! On Tuesday we didn’t have any meetings. On Wednesday we had weekly planning. On Thursday we had interviews with President. Friday we had zone meeting. Sat and Sunday we had conference! And so all week we were just traveling! It was crazy! So on Thursday they brought me my package! I was so excited haha! They had put the box under the bench and so I thought that they didn’t bring it but I found it! I ripped it open and started giving stuff away! So far I think I have shared everything but the hot sauce and I only gave away 5 Ghirardelli chocolate. 3 to 3 sisters and 2 to my comp. Those are harder to give away! I brought a bunch of stuff to conference and just started taking everything out there. Its nice to share haha! I also got the package from Tara so thank you Tara it was a lot of fun stuff. And thanks mom for opening up Tara package before sending...... Well conference was great and there was a lot of cool experiences. An investigator named Alejandro from Ecuador came with us! We will see if we can baptize him! Well I’m outta time! Love you Chau!

Subway between General Conference 

New Companion Elder Hansen 

 Homemade Pancakes.  Thanks for teaching me how to make Pancakes Mom

 Plate full of Pancakes....Nice serving platter

 Elder Hansen enjoying Pancakes

Elder Hansen 

Investigator at General Conference...We'll see if we will baptize hime 

Still at Subway 

Zone at General Conference 

 Zone at General Conference

Elder Hansen and Elder Olsen 

Elder Santos (he was one of Connor's comp now is ZL) and another Elder 

 Elder Olsen and ?

 Connor LOVES BBQ sauce and he finally found some in the Capital.  He loves making homemade french fries, too

 He bought a Boca Soccer Jersey.  They are the best soccer team in Argentina

 I ate patacon which is a Colombian dish.

March 31, 2015 Bday Present delivered by Elder Moss

Great Story....This boy LOVES his MOM!

So I work at the local High School and I am lucky enough to be able to come home every day during my lunch.  Well, on Tues, March 31, 2015, the day after my 50th birthday, my husband and I were eating lunch and the doorbell rang.  My husband answers it and it was a couple that I didn't recognize.  I walked to the door and my husband invited them in.  The young man introduces himself as Jake Moss and he was a missionary that served in the same mission with Connor.  Then he said it's your birthday, right.  And I relied, Well yesterday was.  He then said he had just returned home from his mission on Thurs and that he had a birthday present for me from Connor.  I didn't believe him at first.  I looked at the lady that was standing next to him and she nodded to confirm what he was saying was true.  He handed me the gift and I immediately recognized the name on the bag.  It was a small white, plastic bag and it had the "Havanna" cookie logo on it.  (Connor loves Havanna cookies and talked a lot about them so I researched them out so that's how I knew about the Logo).  I took out the contents of the bag and yes, there was a box of Havanna Cookies, (2 shortbread cookies with dulce de leche in the middle dipped in chocolate.  Connor likes the White Chocolate ones of course).  There was also 2 pictures, one of him with a note to me for my birthday and a picture of a poster that he made and sent to use.  On the back of the other picture was a note to his 2 youngest brothers wishing them both a happy birthday, also as their birthdays are the 21st and 26th.  Of course the tears began to flow as did everyone else.  I looked at the women and she stuck our her hand and said, I am Sharon Moss, Jake's mother.  WOW.  They had just been out running errands and decided to stop by then.  What a tender mercy! I am home only for about 40mins and they just happened to catch me when I had just gotten home. We talked a little bit about the mission and a couple of experiences.  I told him that Connor got transferred to the Capital and that he was really happy about that.  Elder Moss said that connor's last area was really challenging and this transfer would be good for him.  They never were companions, but they served a lot together.  He lives on the Gilbert/Queen Creek border, he went to Perry High, and they knew a lot of the same people.  We talked about the Jones twins and how great that was that they got to met up in Argentina and then fly home together.  We took a picture and they went on their way.  He had already given his homecoming or we would have for sure gone to that.  What a small world it is in the church and we are blessed in so many ways!!!

March 30, 2015 Connor LOVES the Capital

Well im getting this off kind of late.

So far i am loving my area! The members are great and they take care of the missionaries. Out of the people that i have met so far! Here there are a lot of people from Peru! And i love their food so i am in HEAVEN!!! =D I really enjoy being in the city! There are a ton of people everywhere. The other day we were contacting people and i asked a kid something that i ask to a lot of people. Would you like to hear a message about Jesus Christ, and he said yes. I was so shocked! Haha! And then we set an appointment and he wasn’t there = ( oh well. haha! I really enjoy being here, there isn’t mud everywhere, there aren’t gross dogs everywhere, there aren’t drunk guys asking for dollars everywhere. It’s just a good feeling being around building and businesses. Some people don’t like it but i do! The traffic does suck but luckily we don’t have to travel that much!! Well we don’t have any investigators right now but we are searching! We had some possibilities but we haven’t been able to find them

I really like it here because the people are always doing stuff, they are studying, and they are working. Where in my other areas, there were a lot of people really lazy!! There was no hope, no feeling to life!

Well im sure on Thursday ill get my camera. So ill be taking a lot of pictures. And next week ill tell you about the apartment... got to move... again!!! Haha! Love you all and have a great week!

March 24, 2015 Transferred to the Capital. Villa Crespo with Elder Hansen

Hey yall

Well another transfer day has come and gone!

I have been transferred to an area called Villa Crespo. It is in the big city right in the middle of everything! It is exactly what i was asking for so i hope i will be able to take advantage while i am here! My comp is Elder Jacob Hansen from Saratoga Springs in Utah. He was been in the mission field 3 months, just got out of his training. But he seems like a great kid and speaks really good Spanish. So far we have gotten along and he has just said that we don’t want to have any problems and that we will have a great transfer so im really excited to work with him! So far we have gotten along!

Well in the last week it went by really fast. I can’t even believe the transfer is already over. Well we did a lot of good things in the last week. But the things i remember most were on Wednesday was the birthday of a couple members and so we made a couple cakes. My comp made a lemon pie and he made a cake out of crepes. By putting down a crepe, then peaches and Dulce de Leche, then a crepe and cream, and layer upon layer. And then covered it all in Chocolate. Haha! It was really good. and i actually  ate the lemon pie (i say that because i don’t really like pie). But i tried it. You should be proud. And then i made brownies because that’s what the member asked for. I just made the brownies in the house of a member... but our oven wasn’t working and so my comp made his own oven using pans on the stove and stuff. Not exactly sure how he did it but it worked. Also we found a new investigator named Elias. he lives in a different ward but we wants to stay there in our ward and so we passed the reference on and let him try out where he should go and he didn’t like it and so the elders now have someone progressing in our ward he is a great man who is very deep. He likes thinking about things deeply and just trying to have a good conversation that makes we walk away edified. And not just random talking.

On Saturday there was a ward baptism, a little girl that we taught a couple of times and i got to be the witness in the baptism so that was cool. And they invited us to eat after wards=D and then on Sunday we had an asado with the Monson family and with a couple less actives that we are trying to help reactivate! And the Monson family recently had their first granddaughter born and so we got to meet the little baby! So beautiful, born on Monday, so a week ago! Then yesterday we had a stake activity at the house of the stake president. He has a really big yard with a pool. We played soccer and there was mate and the missionaries ate choripan. And we got the new shirts we paid for (oh i also went and bought a new pair of shorts to wear to the activity. like 10 bucks) and we got to meet a couple of people from the stake! It was a lot of fun and it was hard because it was far away, 2 hours traveling. So we didn’t have time to work. But i did get my ties cleaned so that’s good. A Hermana offered to wash my ties. Oh and the best part about the activity is that we played volleyball. And the Bishop and his wife love volleyball. And so they got out the ball and we started playing! So much fun! We played against Elder Jones that went to Gilbert High. And so we had a little rivalry going on haha! But in the end we won (i don’t care what they say. haha) I love you all and mom thanks for the package i hope that i get it soon and that i can start taking pictures! Love you and have a great week1!!

Asado at the Monson's after the baptism

 Zone T-shirts

 So we were in SLC with our family for Spring Break and we were walking around Temple Square and all of a sudden we get a snapchat from Connor.  Oh my goodness.  I was totally surprised!  Come to find out he was showing Jose Luis how to use Snapchat so he sent us a couple.  Connor was obsessed with Snapchat before he left on his mission and I knew that that would be one thing he would really miss.  I'm totally surprised that it too him 21 months to finally send us a Snapchat.  It was fun to get them, but then we snapped one more and said goodbye and he was gone.  I sure do love this boy!!!

March 16, 2015 He really got Robbed this time

Hello People of the world

Well the weeks are just going by faster and faster! This week we had the goal of 20 lessons with a member present. And so we were working really hard with the members and trying to find someone to take to church and to have it come from the members. Because that is where the real success lies. And so we worked really hard. The zone leaders had given us ideas of doing random contacts in the street but we don’t work that way. They just wanted to see our numbers, but we want solid results from the numbers! But we worked hard with the leaders to know who needs our help and at the end of the week we ended up with 21 lessons!!! Whooo! And we had an investigator in church. He was a friend of a member, but he doesn’t live in our area. We taught him what we could and now we got to send the referral so that he can get baptized where he should! But it was a great experience to see the members working and inviting their friends. On Saturday we will have a baptism but another 8 year old girl from the ward. And then on Monday we are going to have a missionary activity. It’s going to be in the house of the stake pres. and he has a nice house. And it’ll be like a water activity with water balloon volleyball and a pool and stuff, it will be great!

News from this week. And i start by saying i am fine and i still have everything. On Friday we almost got robbed. It was a day that i randomly had taken out my hard drive and we were getting ready to go home but we were walking to one last house. It was like 730 at night and this guy got close to us and said something. I didn’t hear him but we didn’t stop walking. And he said give me your money and cell phone. And i was just playing dumb, saying i couldn’t hear him and that i couldn’t understand him haha! And then i ended up pushing him into a trash collector (seeing that he didn’t have any weapons) and i just kept walking. And then he got a hold of my comps bag, (that only has his scriptures) but it just broke the bag. We didn’t lose anything. And then we got inside the house of a member and got home safely, haha! It was a fun experience!

Well I was planning on writing more but really nothing happened this week! I bought cards and we played a little and then there is the snap chat thing, haha! Well. I am getting to the point where im just ready to get home! I love the mission and everything but its just time to reach the end. Im missing America! Haha! But im trying to take advantage of the time that i have left in Argentina and thinking of the things that i want to take with me to remember this beautiful land and these beautiful people! I love you so much and im so grateful for everything you do for me!! =D I already told him but im going to put a shout out to Mitchell! He turns 18 on Saturday! I can’t believe he'll be 18! Where does the time go! Love you all! UN beso!

March 9, 2015 He got Robbed......by a CAT

Hello

Well I feel bad because these last couple weeks I’ve been really bad about writing the Letter and so I’m doing it now early so I get it off good.

So things have been going pretty good here in the Cabaña! We have been working really hard! Just looking for people to teach. So Daniela who went to church last week, we passed by with her and we tried talking to her about Baptism. But she has a lot of problems with her husband. They are separated, and he is into drugs and alcohol and all that stuff and she just isn’t focused on the spirit or about being baptized. She wants him to return and that they get baptized together. And she said she kind of wants to wait like 10 years to get baptized. Haha! Crazy. So we had to drop her and to move on and look for more people.

On Wednesday we had a zone meeting. That was cool. Here they are talking a lot about being multidimensional. Which means like talking to all kinds of people. And to not just end with the one people we talk to. For example, we go to a member and ask for a referral (1st dimension) then we go to the referral (2nd dimension) there we invite everyone in the house to listen (3rd dimension), then we ask more referrals (4th) and then we keep asking and looking. Haha! It’s kind of goofy but that is what they are teaching us now. But yeah. And then we talked about making a zone shirt. They are going to make a tee shirt for everyone. It’ll be 90 pesos. And it’ll have everyone’s names on it and everything. Which would be kind of cool. Oh and one of the reasons why we have to get it is because on the 23 there is going to be a stake missionary activity. It’s going to be in the house of the stake president. I imagine it’s big. There is going to be a swimming pool. And volleyball. And a bunch of other games. And the missionaries are in charge of all the games. The catch is that to be able to get in, the members have to take a nonmember. And then everyone will get a bracelet depending on the ward they live in so the missionaries will know where they are from and get the referral. Haha! Good idea no? And so they first told us that we could go in normal clothes. Nice shorts or jeans and a t-shirt. (But it can’t be like sport clothing something nice). And then they started talking about the zone shirt and that we had to buy it. And now they are saying that if we don’t buy the zone shirt then we will have to go in proselyting clothes which sucks. And just gives me a reason to not buy the shirt. Haha! But oh well. I don’t really care all that much.

After the zone meeting we did divisions. I was with a kid from Chile. He has been in the mission for 5 months, and he is still like really excited and all that stuff. First we went to lunch. I ate milanesa. But it wasn’t chicken. It was eggplant. (Its very popular here) it actually wasn’t that bad, but luckily the Hermana put spicy in it, so that helped. And then we had to go to the apartment to put his stuff away. Now we have gotten used to the new place. Its not that great but oh well we are there and we are going to stay. The worst part is the trip. It takes like 30 minutes to get there. Everyday we have to be in the bus stop like at 830 to be able to get home on time. We waste a lot of time traveling. But oh well. When we finally got back to the area, we went to the house of a less active kid. We thought he was the only member in his family but we found out that his mom also is member. But she told us that basically she only got baptized because she was going with her son. Now she doesn’t want anything to do with the church. And while we were there a friend came and we were there talking and he starts with all kinds of questions. Why can’t you drink coffee and tea? If God exists, why does he let people die? If God is all powerful, why doesn’t he just make us do good things and avoid the bad things? How do i know that you guys aren’t lying if the other churches can lie too? All kinds of stuff like that. And so we were there answering the questions. And In the mission her we hear that stuff all the times. It’s gotten pretty annoying and usually i don’t answer all the questions in depth. Because it all leads to reading the book of Mormon and praying it’s true. If the book of Mormon is true, then the church is true, and if the church is true then what we teach is true. And so on. But the other missionary from Chile got all excited and was answering all the questions and they were like kind of fighting and all that stuff. And after he was like so happy! We killed him! Totally destroyed him haha! I was like Yeah....! But it was fun! Now like i said that i didn’t know that the mom was a member, well she and he son have different last names. And we had planned to go visit her latter on. When we got there i noticed that it was the same lady and that we had already talked to her, i laughed. Haha!

Then on Thursday morning i decided to clean the wall because i had kicked it and it left a mark. I got a bowl and put water and soap in it. And i had the cell phone in my shirt pocket and when i leaned over to grab the bowl, and the phone fell into the water. And so all day we didn’t have a phone. We just left it in rice! Luckily it’s working now!

So funny story this week! One night we had made chorizo. I made two and i only are one. Well here it’s really hot so we sleep with the windows open. And i left the chorizo out on the table. Well in the morning we woke up and the chorizo was gone. I asked my comp if he ate it and he said no. and a bag of bread we had was all destroyed. We figured a cat got in and ate it.

Well another night i was getting ready for bed and i hear a bottle fall to the floor. And then i hear a couple other things fall and i hear FUERA! Which means get out! So the cat came in again and scared my comp and he tried to hit it! Haha! Then i went over and we turned on the lights outside and i saw the cat just waiting there. And i saw its bright yellow eyes! Haha! Now my comp wants to set up a trap and catch it or something! Haha!

Well there’s your letter! Haha! I have been using my comp Camera. At the beginning of the transfer i just used my camera and then he said that he needed to start send pictures to his family so he started taking out his camera more and i use that. That’s why i had pictures to send! But i can’t wait to get the camera and stuff!

If you can i want a Hackysack, but i want a Foot bag. Ill send a picture of what i want kind of.

Licorice Red vines

If you want to send CTR jewelry, they can’t get any church like rings, necklaces or anything like that. And then i can sell them to members. If not its cool. Doesn’t matter

And then surprise me! I can’t think of anything else that i am in desperate need of!

Thank you for everything! I love you and im so happy to be here and to take advantage of the time that i have left!

March 2, 2015 Wings & Chinese

Hey mom! Sorry! Im really late! Just sending my love! I am doing well! We are working hard! Basically the pictures tell you better our week than I can! We had an investigator in the church! It was awesome! We are going to try to baptize her in the weeks that our coming! That’s really cool about the missionary fast! I really like that idea and im so happy that you are having success with convert baptisms!!! And yes send the camera with the Damitz! They are awesome! And other things if you want haha! =D next week I promise I will write better! And Tara goes home next transfer. In May! Haha

We went and made Chicken wings with a member. His name is Jose Luis! He is really awesome! He always invites us to his house and gives us food and everything! He had a stroke also. He lives alone and he is kind of sick and so he is really bored a lot! We introduced him to Netflix and he loves it haha!

We pushed really hard to have an activity and we ended up just doing one and we ended up buying the chorizo ourselves and everything. But it’s okay. It was a lot of fun and a lot of youth went. They played Futbol and we made choripan. It was a great activity and a lot of those youth went to church the next day that usually don’t go!

And this is Nanci she is really awesome! She always invites us over to make us food! Haha!

This is Nanci. We made crapes in her house! My comp made crapes with ham and cheese! They were really good actually! Just so you know I wasn’t drinking mate! Haha! But i always make mate. Haha!

Today we went to China Town! I bought sweet and sour chicken! Haha! It was really good to eat Chinese food again! Haha! =D  The restaurant was dragon Porteño! Hahaha! We didn’t know where to eat and I said I liked the name so we went there! Haha! It was good. Not Yokos but oh well! Haha!