Wednesday, September 27, 2017

New investigators, hot weather and pig heads for lunch...

Hey, Everyone,

     We (my companion and I) didn´t get transferred this week, everything is staying the same. Elder Afane and Elder Pedernera two Elders I have worked with before just got moved to the office this week. The weather is really hot here and we sweat a lot!
The weather here is in the 100s already and they say it hits 50 degrees Celsius  (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in January! 

 We have found a few new investigators, we will see if they progress. I am really glad about what A said about me, and what Elder Ashby´s mom said too! (I sent Nate some kind words from these two great women that they had shared with me about him.
Its always good to hear good things other people say about you, right?)

            [I asked Nate about the toucans he saw at an investigators house, were they nice or were they mean and what theyd do if he got too close to them, and he said Those toucans would probably kill me! Haha! They were making really loud noises at me! Haha! I have a healthy fear of Fruit Loops, now! Haha! Just kidding!

  He (Nate) said that he had some investigators that were going to go on vacation to a place called Pirane and so I (Nates mom) looked it up on Wikipedia because I was curious about where that was and what the place was like. This is what I shared with him in my letter to him;

 So those people that you were going to teach, were going on vacation to Pirane, huh? Did you know that I looked it up and on Wikipedia, and it says that the Guaraní name for Pirane is translated as "rotting fish,"? It originated from the sight of parched lagoons during an especially severe drought? Well, hopefully, you guys can share the "Living Water" with them and end that drought! Haha!]
  

            (Back to Nates letter)

Tell President Grappendorf I said, Hi!

             To be honest, this week was tough with teaching because we don´t have a ton of investigators but we have worked very hard this week and we are determined to get a baptism this transfer! This area shouldn´t be so hard to get a baptism in, but it is. We found some new investigators and one of them has accepted to be baptized! Things are looking up! Our area is just more in the city than a lot of the other areas in the mission.

            Also, this week it was funny, we visited this dude and we chatted about the gospel while munching a perfectly cooked pig face! Hahahaha! He just had a pig head on his plate and he cut us off a slice. To be honest, it was nasty, but we ate it anyway, Haha.

            [ I wanted to share with you what Nates companion had to say about this experience in his letter home to his family. By the way, Elder Ashby is such an awesome writer, he makes you feel like you are right there experiencing it yourself]

 He wrote;  We were contacting a menos activo (less active), and walked up to his house to go talk to him. He and his little Columbian friend who sells furniture from a cart were sitting out front of the house talking, enjoying a nice meal and the slightly colder day. But we started to talk to them, and asked if we could share a scripture, they both accepted, and then M, the menos activo, offered us some of his food. I hadn´t noticed until that moment that they were eating a pig head.

            Now, this was not your average Hawaiian roast pig. Oh no! They just had the head., and it was still complete! I´m talking still-had-the-yellow-teeth-and-course-hair-and-tongue-in-it complete! Now, naturally, it would be rude to not accept such a kind gesture, so both of us accepted. Elder Pendleton got a small piece of greasy meat, and I was handed a much larger piece, complete with part of the ear, a furry piece of skin, some flesh, a healthy dosage of thick fat, and what I think was part of the ear canal, but to be honest I´m not completely sure. Elder Pendleton ate the meat off his piece, then he super covertly threw the rest of it into the nearby bushes when nobody was looking. I, on the other hand, had no handy-dandy bushes. So I just took two nice large bites of the most edible bits, struggling to tear the meat off a rock hard furry piece of leather, and then covertly held the rest in my hand. As we sat down, I swung my backpack off my back, and put it down in front of me on the ground, whilst, at the same time, dropping what was left of the meat on the ground behind my backpack and slightly under my chair, so that neither of the people we were talking to could see it. I may or may not have been playing the Mission Impossible theme song in my head as I did it. Tom Cruise, eat your heart out. I then spent most of the rest of the lesson trying to devise a way to hide it when I finally stood up and had to put my backpack back on. I had finally decided that I was going to stand up, and in the same movement, scoot my right foot back and put it on top of the meat to hide it, then as I would turn to leave, I would spin on that same food to dig the meat into the dirt, successfully obscuring it and saving the day once again. I had it all planned. Then his dog just snuck under my seat and ate it. I am 100 percent sure that dog received a revelation from God, and I thanked him for it afterwards!

             
            Say Hi to Zane, Miranda and Max for me!  I love that max loves cars! We are going to be such good buddies after my mission! I can´t believe Grandma has a turbo on her car, now! I want to drive it!!!!     

  Anyway, love and miss you all!


Chau!
Elder Nate Pendelton

Out Tracting...



Argentina Sunset...


 The Camelot Disco Pub. Step right up and enjoy 11th century grog and ale while dancing to all your favorite 70´s disco hits! Groovy! ~ Elder Garrett Ashby

 (Shared from Elder Ashby's email)

Car pictures, drawn on P-Day...

Argentina neighborhood... (shared from Elder Ashby's email)

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Moroni, More Mangos and Empanadas...

  Hey, Everyone,

     The people that we carried the groceries for last week are going to listen to our message, they are awesome. They are going on vacation this next week to Pirane, so we can´t start teaching them until the 7th of October. We had to drop a lot of investigators this week, so we are looking for more people to teach, right now. It is so hard to do that but we need to find people who are truly willing to listen and keep their commitments.

      We got to watch the Restoration movie this week with A, and it was good. I testified so strong at the end of it, the spirit was there for sure! We will have to see what happens with that, I need to write about that experience in my journal. We are also trying to work better with the members right now, we have family home evenings with them, but we need to have more.

      I have been reading in Alma this week, in the Book of Mormon and one thing I liked was that it said, that if all men were like Moroni, then the devil would have no power against men here on earth. I thought that was really cool!

     The trees down here are covered in mangos. It is more than just a bumper crop of mangos, it is like a trillion tons of mangos. Not even joking!
Yeah, next week is transfer week so we will see what happens. I will probably stay here, but there is a chance I will leave. I like this area but I have been here for quite a while now.

     Elder Ashby is great, and to be honest I am jealous of how fast he learns. It takes me so long to learn something and he just loves to learn about everything! I wish I had that ability. He already speaks almost as well as I do and he gave a great talk in church yesterday. He is not shy like I am at all. He is going to be a great missionary!

     We made empanadas this week and they were super good!!! That is sweet that Cowley got called to Guatemala on his mission!!! I will be able to speak Spanish with him when he gets back! That is also great that the Hill family went down to Houston to help flood victims. I hope I answered all of your questions, not much really happened this week. We did find a really good investigator named E, and she is going to progress probably.  

 Anyway, Love you all !!!!

Chau,

Elder Nate Pendleton

My companion and I in our baptismal clothes at an Open House at the church...

 Empanadas we made this week...

 Cool Toucans...


  Fun times unplugging the toilet!

Smallest van I've ever seen!

 My Companion, Elder Ashby...

Me...

 Ward activity this week...




Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Baby pigs and mangos, service opens doors...

Hey, Everyone,

     We are actually teaching those people that we served last week, now! They are pretty awesome. We will see what happens with them!

      So, we had a stroke of bad luck on Saturday and we think M might not want to talk to us anymore, but we aren´t sure why. : (
We went by his house in the morning to take him to church, Sunday, but he wasn´t there. G, a new investigator, told us she would come to church on Sunday on Saturday night, but she didnt show up either. Juan also didn´t come, and A did not come either. So, I don´t know what to do with all of them anymore. We might have to start dropping some people we are teaching because they arent keeping their commitments to attend church, but we will see. Anyway, I have just been a little down because I just can´t seem to get a baptism, but whatever, I will just keep trying!

      Yeah, my companion is great! My companion loves trucks and he knows a lot about fixing cars. He won the Weber State Auto Competition against all the other schools in the state! I am learning a lot from him, Haha!
 I am doing my best with trying to be a good example to him. I am a little self-critical but my companion says I am doing fine as his trainer, there is always something to work on! We had a zone activity where we all went and worked in one area to find as many people to share the gospel with as possible. It was really successful! I didn´t have to do much as a district leader this week, it was just a pretty normal week. The member with the alcohol problem that I gave a blessing to last week is a little better.

     So, this week has been interesting, we talked to this crazy dude that said the Holy Ghost told him to kill his family, but that it didn´t tell him to kill us because we were servants of the Lord. Scary. Right? He just kept talking and talking, and it was really hard to understand him, but anyway he was just a little crazy. Then this lady asked us about the Golden Tablets of Moses that Joseph Smith found. Haha. We were like that is actually the Book of Mormon, Hahahaha! There is so much misinformation out there about our beliefs.

     We also saw toucans this week, the big birds with the huge beaks!!! We are going to try to get pictures of them the next time we go to that ladies house!!! M showed us his baby pigs! Chanchitos!!! Haha! They were pretty awesome, Haha!  The mangos are also starting to grow on all the trees here and there are going to be millions of them, there are mango trees at every house, and there are a million mangos hanging on each one!!! I can´t wait!
I will never go hungry while contacting, Haha! Anyway, that is pretty much it for this week. We are just going to keep trying our best to get baptisms!


 Love you,
 Chau, Chau!

Elder Nate Pendleton

( From Nates Mom...)
Id like to share a story I found in Nates companions group email about an experience they had this week in the mission field, that I thought was so worth sharing. I hope Elder Ashby won't mind me sharing it here on Nates blog.

 Elder Ashby writes:

       We were walking home the other night after visiting an investigator way out in Lote 4, and a man on the street stopped us. He was kind of in a bad way, and I´m pretty sure he was either drunk or high on something. He didn´t say a whole lot, but he stopped us and said basically ´Hey. I know you guys are servants of God, and I see you guys walking around all the time helping people and preaching the word of God. I know that there are angels with you, and I was wondering if you could say a prayer for me right now because I am having a hard time in my life right now. Elder Pendleton and I were kind of surprised, but we agreed, and we all just stood in the middle of the street while busses and motos and cars screamed by and people walked around us, and said a prayer out loud for this guy right on the sidewalk. After we finished, he thanked us, shook our hands, and then walked off.

     It really amazes me how nearly everybody here, even if they don´t want to listen or believe what we are teaching, they still believe that we have power. We have had a lot of really nice folks stop us and tell us that they don´t want to listen to our message because they´re some religion or another, but they always say they respect what we are doing and the sacrifice we are making and how they know we are people of God. 


Me on a bridge over a zanja... 


A muddy road in Argentina...


Our investigator M...



M's pigs..

.


My new sun hat, the LDS missionaries here are required to wear one during the summer,
that's how they can tell you are a missionary from our church, Haha!


Singing practice for our missionary choir performance, my District...





Me playing with my food... (shared from Elder Ashby's group email.)