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...

Souvenirs, collecting money, training someone soon, and the Zoo...

         Well, this week has gone fast! Lots of work for me for the end of the month. I got to be with a lot of missionaries this week.  We are also planning Zone Conferences for Corrientes and also for here in Resistencia. 

         The ward culture night that you went to mom and dad, looked fun. Those things that Brother Oaks has, are exactly the same kinds of souvenirs that are sold here. Those mate cups are made out of something called Palo Santo or "Holy Stick". It is a very hard wood that smells really good. I bought one this week so now I have two of them!. The thermos that he also had with the leather covering is very common here. The cool leather scripture cases he had are also found here. Paraguay where he went on his mission, is so close to this mission that it is almost basically the same as being here! That is cool that he has all of those things.        

         I can´t wait to be out in campo again, there is this place in the mission called the “Plains of Hell”. It is so hot there that it can reach up to 130 degrees or even more! It is really cool to serve in a place so diverse and so full of stuff that it will be fun to laugh about when I get back home. I just want to be out there, again! I need some crazy experiences! There are some people on the mission that just live a regular mission life and then there are some that have crazy things happen to them and it makes for fun stories to tell. Those are the kind of things I miss from being out in the field!  

          Mom, Elder Slade made the video that you saw that was posted. He puts together all of the videos like that, he did a really good job on this one!

          I have a collection of money from here that I am going to bring home after my mission. The bigger bills are hard to collect because it is a lot of money, obviously, but being the financial secretary I have collected some smaller bills that are in perfect never been used condition. I have plenty of coins I've collected too! Way too many, Haha

         I don´t know who I will be training yet to fill my financial secretary job yet, maybe I’ll find out this Monday. I also was told that I would be starting to train a week earlier, so now I start training the 16th or 17^th, or something like that.

          Next week President is taking us to the zoo in Sáenz Peña, just the office Elders and him. It will be fun! I can't wait!

          If there is something I have learned in the mission it is that you have to pray a lot, and reading the scriptures is less about just knowing things about history, but it is how we can find and feel the spirit and it also helps us to think clearly when making choices.

         Anyway, here are a few pics of some things I got this week at the plaza where they sell goods. So, I got a Mate cup made out of the Holy Stick, wood. Haha. It is an amazing wood. The dude engraved Resistencia on it right in front of me. He did it so fast and well. He had some cool wood boxes made out of local woods. I also bought these two key chains made out of cow’s ribs that have Armadillos and Palo Borracho trees engraved on them. I also got this Gaucho Knife made out of Armadillo or as it is said here in Argentina, Tatú. I know dad would like a Gaucho knife I am going to try and find a good one for him. I am glad that you had a good birthday, Dad!  

         So funny story, so Argentine people don’t take very good care of their cars. We were in front of the pension and this lady gets in her car and in her attempt to leave her parking spot, she backs up into the car behind her and just bumps it, I thought okay it was just an accident, then she doesn´t have enough space to leave quite yet, in the front of her, so she hits it again! I was just like, no that is not alright!!! Then later in the week, we see this piece of crap Renault car try and parallel park and in doing so, he bumps a brand new Volkswagen behind him. They all just nudge their way in, here in Argentina. Haha! I would never own a nice car if I lived here! It would last only maybe three seconds, Haha.

         G. is doing well he is just hard to teach when he lives in Corrientes but he is so close to baptism. My goal is to get him baptized before I leave the office. I have got to kick things into gear and push him a little more to make commitments.

        Anyway, that was my week. I love you and miss you all! Thanks for your love and support!

Chau,

Elder Nate Pendleton

Mate cup...

Gaucho Knife...

 Keychains...

  Zone Conference this week...