Listening to the Spirit...

Hey Everyone,

            This week has been good. The new guy I’m training is Elder Austin Harris he is from Denver, Colorado. He had his own landscaping company before the mission so he already knows a ton about finances. He is doing a great job! I am still in the same pension and will be until I’m transferred out to the field. I will send a picture that we took while we were out working in the area. I am glad you got the debit card sent off fine also thank you for sending that package! I can´t wait to get it! That is too bad that the Trailblazer is having problems, but I am glad that my car is still running well!  I can´t wait to see it again! 

            G. , I am not sure how things are with him, but we are still trying to help him to get baptized. So, something that happened, that was cool this week while we were out tracting was that we went down this little passageway and contacted a house, this old Evangelical lady came out of her house and she said she wasn´t interested in our message at all. She pointed across the street to a beat-up house that had big words on it. It apparently, was a church. She said that we wouldn´t find anyone in that passage that was interested in our message because they were all evangelicals there. So we started to leave the passage. We got to the main street and I just stopped in my tracks and I just had this feeling like, no that lady isn´t right. There is someone in there that will listen. I looked back and I pointed at the house at the end of the passageway and I said to my companion that is the house, I feel like there is someone who will listen there, so we walked back into the passageway. We walked up to the house and a 16-year-old kid came out and he was actually pretty interested so he sat with us and we had a lesson. It was really cool to feel the spirit and act upon it! We have another lesson planned with him for tomorrow! 

            Well, anyway I don´t really know what else to say other than everything is going well and I can´t wait to get back out in campo!  I love and miss you all!!!!!

Chau!

Elder Nate Pendleton

P.S. Here are some photos from this week...

My New Companion Elder Austin Harris and I...

A taco party we had...

Don´t worry, I didn´t even get close to this horse in this picture. I know it would have kicked me from here to West Jordan if I snuck up on it for real, Hahaha!

Me out tracting...

Garbage burning day...

Photography, a life lesson and "road rally racing", jk...

Mom, that is cool that you will be serving with the youth now. The youth are definitely the most fun. That is cool that you also got to go to the Jordan River Temple Open House.  

I had an interview with President this week and I thought he was going to tell me who the new guy is that I will be training to fill my job as the financial secretary after I leave the office, but he didn´t. I will find out who it is tomorrow.  This whole week I have been really happy, I really feel the effects of my fast and your fast and the prayers that I receive from all of you. My interview with President helped me, he told me how he has so much confidence in me and he also helped me to realize that I   have done a great job in the office.  Also, Elder Nipko has been fun to have in the office this week. He showed me all of his photography stuff and all that he has done with that. He seriously went on so many adventures in the mountains and hung out with so many interesting people and made money doing it. He had such a cool job before he came out on his mission and I seriously want to do what he does as a side hobby when I get back home off of my mission. He has been teaching me how to edit photos and stuff. He is an amazing photographer. One thing I realized while I was editing photos this week was that the reason people are successful is because they have confidence in their work. I have always focused too much on who was better than me when all that matters is that if you have fun doing something and if it was your personal best, then that is enough. My pictures are obviously not professional quality, but I realized that if I look at the good things that I do, and if I am happy with my work I will have the ability to push my talents farther and farther each day, until I can become successful. Not just with photography, but with missionary work, yo-yoing, school, skiing, autocross racing, Haha! Whatever it is, I just have to go out and do it, make it happen! It doesn´t matter if I am the best, I have to just be happy with who I am. When I get back I will have no fears to go and do any adventure or take on any project just as long as it is something that interests me, I can be successful. That was just kind of a thought that I had this week.

Yeah, Mom, driving the chicken back and forth to our General Conference watch party was fun. The muddy streets made it kind of like a road rally race with a lot of people on motorcycles as obstacles, Haha! Don´t worry I was driving slow! Haha! We cooked the chicken with lemon pepper and the Hermanas in the mission made mashed potatoes for us. Yeah, the stick shift practice is preparing me for autocross SCCA! Haha.   Elder R. had his appendix taken out and he is recovering well. Yeah, the area of Estanislao is super cool. The town is so small you can barely see it on Google Maps. It is literally native Argentines that speak their own language there, yet there are so many that are faithful members of the church there. A couple of months ago they walked like 27 miles to cross the border between Argentina and Paraguay and then they traveled illegally to the temple that is in Asuncion Paraguay to be able to take out their endowments. They technically are not citizens of either country so they can’t cross the borders legally. They faced many hardships on their journey, but eventually, they made it to the temple. It was a cool story. I heard that they might put their story into the Liahona magazine also. I hope things go well with my investigator G. too. I have been trying to get my souvenir shopping out of the way because I don´t know what kind of things I will be able to buy in my next area, so I bought an Argentina jersey but it is a fake one. It only cost me 13 dollars, haha! 

Well, I love you all and miss you!

Chau,

Elder Nate Pendleton

Some of my edited photos...

  An Argentina soccer jersey I bought myself...

General Conference, Zone Conferences, Changes coming...

Hey Everyone,

         General Conference was great! It was a little different than normal, but I am excited about all the new changes. Everyone in the room went crazy when they announced that a temple was going to be built in Salta, Argentina, Haha! It is too bad that it is not going to be finished being built while I am in still in the mission. My favorite talks at Conference were by Elder Godoy,  Elder Holland, and Russell M. Nelson when he gave his longer talk. There is a lot happening to prepare the saints for harder times. They talked a lot about service and personal revelation in this conference. President Nelson talked about receiving revelation to be able to separate our selves from the world. It makes you really think that being a member of the church isn´t just a hobby, it is the most important thing in the whole world and we need to not let worldly things get in the way of our personal salvation.

         Yeah, when they said that all the quorum presidencies were being released and that it was going to be one big Elders Quorum I was like, well my Dad just barely got called to one of those positions in the High Priest Group Leadership, so he is being released. He said in his last letter to me that it was one of the shortest callings he’s ever had. Haha! I like the idea of “ministering” instead of Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching! That bumper sticker that Elder Holland saw was funny that said; “If I honk, you’ve been home taught!” Hahaha. We need to try not to be quite that way!   

         The zone conferences here were good, they were a lot less busy than normal, but it was really fun to be with all of the other missionaries. President Patania spoke about how we need to work faster and better because the number of missionaries is going way down and the areas we serve in are getting bigger and bigger. The mission is losing missionaries like crazy! Back in the day there were like 250 missionaries and now there are 136 and it is estimated that in July there will only be around 116 missionaries.  

          I have an idea of who will be my replacement but it is not set in stone yet. If it is who I think it is, it is going to be fun! To me, it doesn´t matter who it is, I am just really excited to get the new guy in here to train. I will train the new elder taking my spot in the office for like a month and then I will be sent out! I am super excited to get back out there in the field. I am pretty nervous for where I will go next!

         G. is good. We had a lesson last night. He wants to be baptized but he is afraid to commit he wants to wait longer and we are trying to help him to not wait so long, but I think he will eventually get baptized. He is ready. He watched General Conference and he felt the spirit and he said that he feels bad when he doesn´t read the scriptures, so he understands that what he is doing is good and that it is helping him. I can´t wait to see if he gets baptized while I am here, but if it is later I am still counting it as a baptism, Haha. He is super awesome!

         Yeah, we ate chicken and mashed potatoes for General Conference and it was really good. We didn’t have the dinner at the Mission President’s house. We cooked it in the zone leaders pension and I drove the truck back and forth taking all the chicken to the church. It was fun to drive again! I am getting pretty good at shifting a manual now. The trip to the zoo was going to be today, but it was canceled because of sick missionaries that the Mission President needs to take care of. There are a lot of missionaries that have gone home from being sick and we are kinda close with some others. The mission is slowly getting smaller. It is a hard mission.  

         Anyway, I am excited to get some souvenirs from some elders that are serving in Estanislao del Campo. That is my dream area. I want to go serve there so bad. That is where they found a tribe of people that had been following everything in the church and reading the Book of Mormon and saving up tithing and when the missionaries finally found them they ended up baptizing like one hundred people and now every Sunday like 140 people go to church there, which is bigger than any other place in the whole mission. I am in the stake house in the large city of Resistencia and only 70 people come to our ward, here. The people that live way out there don´t even have a church building, it is just a roof overhead. It is a place called El Potrillo and it is really far away, but the elders in Estanislao get to go there every week. The native people there harvest the Palo Santo wood and make things out of it. The Elders have to use a translator to talk to the people there. It is so cool. I really want to go!!!! It is beautiful where it is too!

          So this week has been good. I have read the scriptures more this week and I also wrote in my journal everyday. I am excited to go back to being a full-time missionary for a while. I have liked being the financial secretary and I have learned a lot, but I am also here to feel the spirit and to be a missionary and going back out into the field, I am going to take advantage of every moment of that. I want you to know that I have done cool stuff in the office and I wouldn’t have chosen to do anything else if I was given the choice to do it again, I would.

         This week we went to Corrientes to give out some more of the washing machines and dryers, that we’d purchased. That road trip there is where I took most of the pictures of the bridge that I am sending to you.

          Love you and miss you. I pray for all of you everyday!

Chau!

Elder Nate Pendleton

Watchin' General Conference....

  Lunch...

Pictures of the Bridge from Resistencia to Corrientes...

 

Juggling in the middle of traffic !?!?!?

Flag of Argentina...