Monday, November 23, 2015

November 23, 2015

Hello Family,

So this week was pretty fun. We were pretty busy at the beginning of the week getting all the orders done for the zone conferences. Our zone conferences are usually like a meeting and lunch in one of the chapels but this transfer we are doing a session in the temple as part of the conference so it is super cool. Our zone conference is on Tuesday so the whole morning we will be in the temple. I am super excited. Last Sunday was pretty good because we went over to a less active, part member´s house and gave a blessing because the member was going to have an operation on a tumor in her kidney. So that was a good experience because the trains were not working that day so we walked about 40 mins to get to the house and then give the blessing. Then today the 1st counselor of the bishopric told us that when this sister went into the hospital last Monday and the doctors couldn´t find anything so she was super relieved and so was her family. The husband and a few of the kids are not members so hopefully we will start teaching them soon. They seem very promising. Then there were a few thunderstorms this week and we got soaked again but it was fun. I finally got to use my boots again! hahaha. then we also got a new member of the offices this week: Elder Mcfarland who is from northern California. So the offices are filled with Californians which is pretty sweet.


Also last Sunday we had our stake conference and Elder Urra, who is an area seventy, came down and gave a really good talk. I don´t remember all of it but he talked about being better members and loving and things like that but there was one story that was super cool that he shared: In his mission, he and his zone put together a sort of special dinner and musical number for their stake leaders. So there were just bishops and other stake leaders there and so half way through the program in the middle of singing "a poor wayfaring man of Grief" a hobo walked into the church. The stake leaders thought that it was part of the program that he had walked into but from the look they got from the missionaries, it wasn´t. So to of the members got up and took the hobo outside of the church and closed the doors on him. Then later on when they had the dinner, there was an empty seat with a plate of food ready for someone to eat and all the other chair were filled up with the invited people. It was a pretty surprising story and the whole room just went quiet after that. It was pretty powerful.


So next week will be kind of awesome and I will tell you about it next week! Also I couldn´t write yesterday because we had like an office worker activity were we went and played football and also my comp has an ingrown toe nail so we also went to the hospital. sorry.


Have a great week.


Elder Giles

Monday, November 16, 2015

November 14th, 2015

Hi!

So this week was pretty cool. We had a lot of things to do in the offices to prepare for the next coming weeks for the zone conferences which are going to be pretty awesome. The weather was pretty crazy this week too. At the beginning of the week it was super hot and humid and then out of nowhere it rained for two days and on the second day we got super drenched because we weren´t prepared and so now my companion is a little sick and so am I combined with my allergies. But it´s alright. We are having a good time sneezing and sniffling. The weather doesn´t help at all either..... so it´s not that great of a situation. But we are working hard and visiting a few people. We went with a member to visit his less active cousin on Monday. The cousin just got out of jail like seven months ago and is really wanting to change his life. He has already changed a lot and is willing to come back to church again. They also invited us to eat dinner with them on Sunday so we hope it will taste good! hahahaha.

We also did splits with the other elders in the offices which was pretty fun. They don´t get to proselyte a lot so they were super happy to do it. They work so much and are super busy with the apartments in the mission and everything. I went with Elder Valis from Mexico and we taught the Sanchez Family. They are doing pretty well even though they didn´t go to church on Sunday but we invited them again for the stake conference tomorrow. It feels so great to teach and testify.

So my companion had a fun experience this week: The first one was on Tuesday when I had a district leader meeting and so he did splits with the companion of the other district leader in the zone and they went together. The other Elder´s name is Elder Nixon and he is new in the mission but is famous in the zone for making deep-fried alfajores (an Argentine snack). So he dips them in pan cake batter and then fries them in a pot in the apartment and so my comp and him had finished that and were cleaning up when they had an accident. Elder Nixon, some how, knocked the lighter into the pot of hot oil that they had just finished using so they had about 8 seconds to get out of the apartment when the lighter melted and exploded hot oil over all the kitchen... hahahahha. such klutzes! They weren´t hurt because they got out in time but they were a little shaken up ahahaha. After that happened they spent the next two hours cleaning up until our meeting ended. I thought it was funny!

I think the time in the offices is going pretty slowly right now but once I get used to things and everything becomes more routine, I think time will go by even faster. Also thanks for signing me up to do the next Ragnar because I am super out of shape, I think. I´ll try to be excited for it! hahaha. Also give my congratulations to the family for doing a good job!


So yeah, good week. I hope you have a good one too.

So here are a few pictures of the Casa Rosada (the pink house) which is the Argentine  equivalent of the White House in the U.S. Then the others are of a few statues in the same area and then a few blocks down is the Obelisk which apparently was a gift from France to Argentina and is super famous too. Pretty cool huh?









Tuesday, November 10, 2015

November 7th, 2015

Hey!

Things were a little stressful this week because Elder Maldonado left and so I am here with Elder Lowe to train him and be district leader. I basically had to plan and think of everything by myself so I was a little worried about how it would turn out. Usually new elders in the offices get a period of 2 transfers to get trained but I only got one so....... yeah. It´s been going good even though I forgot to do a few things but in the end everything works out! We are in the Lord´s service so one way or another if we are trying to do the right thing, everything works out. That´s cool that Hannah and Cassidy are running the Ragnar again. I guess that is helping out a lot for Cassidy in Cross Country because what Dad has said is that she is dropping her times down by minutes! That´s so great! Speaking of exercise, in the missionary Handbook it says that we have to do 30 minutes of exercise in the morning when we get up. So my comp and I have put an unofficial schedule together in that almost every other day we go out and run (Elder Lowe is also a Cross Country runner) and the other days I do upper body work outs with push ups, pull ups and weights. So I try to get in a little bit of exercise. Then the on p-days we play soccer or basketball.


This week we also had the Mission Tour with Elder Spitale who is an area seventy. The meeting was actually kind of laid back. It was Elder Spitale´s first time doing a Mission Tour so he wasn´t too sure of what to do but he gave a good message along with his wife and Pres. and Sis. Thurgood. They talked a lot about goals and baptising and getting our focus back on that and bringing people unto Christ. They also focused on finding new investigators and how that feeds into everything else we do. They also stressed again on the urgency of the work and that we should feel the spirit of urgency because our time is short as missionaries and the second coming is very close. So we just gotta go out there and Find, Teach, Baptise, Retain, and Reactivate. Speaking of that, our investigator family, the Sanchez family, went to church on Sunday! The main reason was to say goodbye to Elder Maldonado for the last time but they really liked it. The dad, mom and their 14 year old daughter showed up to Sacrament Meeting a little late and then left after the 1st class because Sister Sanchez had to go to work and then their 22 year old son showed up halfway through the last class with his girlfriend. It was great and I wasn´t expecting that. They also really enjoyed their time in church. It´s great to have sister missionaries in the ward because they took care of the girlfriend in Relief Society and we worried about the son in Elders quorum. ha ha ha ha!


One thing interesting that I noticed when I studied a little bit about the Exodus of the Israelites was that Pharaoh was given the chance to let the Israelites leave many times but every time God Hardened Pharaoh´s heart so that he wouldn´t let them go. And so the people suffered a lot but everything happened for one reason: to show the Israelites that God was their liberator. If the Pharaoh had let them go the first time, the Israelites would have said that the Pharaoh let them go. But God wanted his chosen people to recognize him as the one that always watched over them and cared for them because they were a little slow to remember those things. Just thought I´d share that with you.


We also did splits with the other office elders and we went to the capital of Buenos Aires to drop off some stuff at the area offices (office privileges) and I took pictures and everything but I forgot my camera again... :( I´ll send them next week


Have a great week!


Elder Giles

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Oct 31, 2015

This week was pretty different because we did transfers! It is actually pretty cool how everything goes down and it´s funny because we know the transfers like a week before the actual day, so the whole week everyone is asking us what´s going to happen. Sometimes it´s really hard not to say what happens so yeah... Also Elder Maldonado has been a little weird this whole week because he already knows where he´s going and everything. It´s a little crazy because he is leaving to a dangerous area as a district leader, opening up the area and training all at the same time.... I think he´s pretty excited... ha ha ha! We also did some reports and finalization's for Monday and so we are ready. I just hope that I know enough to do everything because now I have to train Elder Lowe in the ways of the offices. It is pretty exciting and I feel ready for the challenge. Also I am going to be district leader! This will be the first time in the mission so I hope it will go well.


I am happy everything is going great in California, except for not having rain. This week was super weird because it started to get warmer then one day it got super hot and super humid and then the next day it rained and cooled everything off and now it is sunny and warm again. The weather just doesn´t make up it´s mind anymore and it makes it super hard to judge what to wear everyday. At least we have air conditioning in the offices. I´m actually kind of excited for Summer. ha ha ha!


That´s so cool that Cassidy is dropping her cross country race times down by MINUTES! Tell her congratulations for me because that´s awesome. For Halloween we are doing p-day, playing soccer and then cleaning the apartment and then sleeping. Best. Halloween. Ever. ha ha ha! One good thing though is that Sister Mitchel (the senior missionary) always gives us candy from the states, so yesterday we got to eat some Halloween themed kit-Kat bars. They were so good and I miss them so much. sometimes she also gives us Reese's Peanut Butter Cups sooo that is awesome. ha ha ha! I never realized how much I miss American candy.

Elder Giles


My District, last transfer