Week #14

Hola Familia!

I am glad to read and see that Kody enjoyed his birthday! Especially the pocket knife! It still shocks me that he is 8 years old! And in Cub Scouts! That is going to be awesome, and he looks super fly in his uniform! Also it brings me great comfort to hear that Fallon is doing well. Im sure it isnt easy and its going to take some time to really realize that it is actually happening.

Hermana C. is doing really good. She is a really happy person which brings smiles to my face! This week was an interesting week. Interesting as in different. I had three service projects to do this week! First I helped clean a members yard and burn all the trash and stuff. Also she wanted to us to cut down this lemon tree. No problem the trunk was thinner than my thigh so I didnt think it would be too big of a problem. Well of course I was wrong! It took FOREVER. We only had Machetes so I was hacking at this thing for an hour straight! After that we were able to use man power and just snap it.

Next day it was pouring rain! Like Ive never seen in my life! All morning. It stopped about 2 PM. Well this family in our ward asked us if we could help them fix their sand pit for volley ball. So that consited of us digging and placing pallets so we could try to make it level! That wasnt too bad. The worst part about this project is that we got called while we were proselyting! So Imagine me digging and sweating in my mission clothes! It was pretty awesome!

Last Service project, was on saturday so I had a days rest from the other one! We offered to cut Hermana C.'s grass around her house and she graciously accepted. Luckily this one I had the chance to change my clothes! Well this grass was only getting cut one way... with my machete Moroni! This grass was pretty tall too! It came up to my knee! So we spent from 9-12PM cutting this stuff! Boy do I have blisters on my fingers! They are awesome! All in all I loved serving this week! It was fun! And definietly a chance to take out some frustration I have felt ahah! But sometimes the best way I feel I can serve people right now is with my hands, especially since I dont speak fluent spanish! So I really enjoyed it :)

Also this week we have been focussing on one of our Investigators. Her name is Cat. and she has one daughter and her name is Nat. Nat. is 17. This situation is interesting. Cat. has been coming to church for 5 weeks in a row. She has expressed to us openly that she knows that the church is true and the book of Mormon. But Nat. is a different story. Her biggest dilema is that she doenst believe in the Restoration. Yesterday we had a really good lesson. About baptism and we invited them to be baptized on march 8 Cat. agreed and Nat. is going to think about it. The biggest thing with Nat. is I think she is scared of judgement from her friends! She wants to believe but she wont read or pray. So we left it up to her. But Cat. is for sure going to be baptized and she is super excited! She calls Elder S. and I Angels sent from god in her prayers. She really loves us and I can see how grateful she is for us!

This week went by pretty fast! I feel that I have worked hard! Also this week I feel that I am really getting able to express myself in Spanish! Its been frustrating these past few weeks to only talk like a robot! But now Im starting to be able to be a little bit of me! Not too much because thats too goofy! But a little :) it felt good! Thanks to you guys and your prayers! I am so grateful for them! Well I will be writing more next week! I love you guys and I pray for you constantly! Thank you for your love and support!

Love,

Elder Milton

Week #13

Hola Familia!

Let me first begin by saying: HAPPY BIRTHDAY KODY! or ¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS! 8 years old! That is crazy! I hope you enjoy your party :) and also my letter is on its way!

Holy moly...that is really scary with Fallon. It makes me sad that she has been diagnosed with Diabetes but at least it is something that can be somewhat treated. Please give her my love and also as always she will be in my prayers!

These pictures are awesome! Its good to know that Kody is getting good because I am looking forward to picking up a baseball and a football again! He will be the perfect guy to play catch with! 

As I mentioned in my previous letter about the baptism of Hermana C. It was incredibly spiritual! She was baptized by her son Ch. and it couldnt have been anymore special:) Before though, on Friday Elder S. and I had to clean the font. And it was filthy! I discovered some bugs that have not been seen by man before! Just kidding! But it really was so gross. We spent about 2 hours scrubbing and cleaning the font, and after we found out that the pump to the drain wasnt working. So we emptied it by hand with buckets! All you that know me should know that this made me very angry. Well actually no! I actually smiled the whole time! I just thought how worth it this special baptism would be! And it was :) Our service began with Elder S. and I singing when I am Baptized in Spanish, English, and then Portugese! I dont know how I did it but it sounded good! 

The classes of Portugese started this week so I guess I had a little help! The service itself was amazing. I took tons of pictures that I will be sending soon! After the service we had the opportunity to hear Hermana C. and Ch. testimonies. Hermana C. was really good, she is extremely humble and grateful for everything that the Lord has given her. Ch. testimony was really special. He talked about that he has had a lot of dreams about him going to the temple with his mom, and now she has taken the first step to going! He then said it was because of the help of Elder S. and Elder Milton who guided her to the way. I was surprised to hear this! Not because I understood what he was saying but because somehow Elder Milton who speaks really poor spanish somehow helped this Hermana. I dont know how but the Lord has allowed me touch this Hermanas life and I am so grateful to see this miracle happen :) it has really motivated me to work even harder! 

Please keep that Pepsi Label safe for me! Haha my last one...no but really I am glad you guys finally got my letter! That took forever! As you see I havent gotten any mail :( But i feel like it is waiting in the office for me! I think next week I am going to the office so I am holding my breath! Sorry I dont have any funny stories this week, this week was a long one! Thank you guys for checking on me supporting me! I love you all and I will be writing next week! :)

Love

Elder Milton

Week #12 - Letter Home Dated January 14, 2014

Hola Familia!

Let me first apologize for not calling you guys like I said in my last letter.  :(  I was going to in the airport like I mentioned in my last letter.  However, President Openshaw advised us not to do so.  So I decided for whatever reason, I had the obligation to follow.  At the airport, it was way hard to see people calling their relatives and so.  But I stayed strong!  So I am sorry!

Next item of business  :)  Sorry it has taken me so long to hand write you guys also!  The mail system is really weird.  I an only send and receive mail through the office.  And I don't go to the office too often.  I live about 30 minutes away so we try to wait until we have to go to the office.  So  as you probably have guessed, we had to go to the office!  So I am taking this opportunity to write you  :)

So, I am going to start off by informing  you that I am progressing in the Spanish language!  At first, I was way lost!  The people in Paraguay are known for speaking Spanish really fast!  And, to make things worse, it's mixed with Guanani!  So many people that I teach try to teach me words and sayings in Guanani.  It is a strange language, to say the least.  haha.  And, its really weird spelling.  For example, "SY" is mom, but it is pronounced "SUH" with a hard H at the end.  Family is "OGAYGUA"  I'm not really too worried about Guanani right now.  Haha.  I'm trying to focus on Spanish right now.  Also, my companion wants to teach me a little Portuguese.  I think that would be pretty cool!  Portuguese is very similar to Spanish.  But the pronounciation of some words is completely different.  So this Monday I'm going to pick up a Book of Mormon in Portuguese!  So that will be pretty exciting!

Since I pretty much update you guys every week about all the major events every week, I think I will just describe my day.  Today was a good day.  Every Tuesday, we have a District Meeting.  So we had to cut our morning studies a little short.  Whenever we need to get somewhere far away or really fast, we take these buses called "COLLECTIROS".  They have different routes around Paraguay, so you have to memorize where certain ones travel and wait on the specific road.  You can just stick your arm out and signal these guys ANYWHERE on their route and they will pick you up.  These driers are CRAZY!  I haven't seen one speed limit sign since being here.  The only thing that controls traffic are speed bumps.  And, the Collectiros hardly slow down for them!  Today, the collectiro was extra full.  Probably because of people going to work or school.  So I was hanging outside of the collectiro for dear life as we traveled to our District Meeting.

The District Meeting was good.  My district leader's name is Elder C. and he is from Argentina.  He's a pretty crazy but funny guy.  But he has patience with me and my Spanish, so he doesn't make fun of me too much!

After our District Meeting, we returned to our house and finished our studies. Also, we had planned a busy day.  The day before Elder S. and I went through our area book and we found 53 less actives we needed to visit.  So for the area we decided to proselyte today we had 20 or so names of people we wanted to find.  Problem is, nobody has street addresses!  We could narrow them down to a certain area, but that's the best as we could do.  So we had to ask around to find out if these people were still around!  It wasn't too bad.  We figured out about 10 of the names we had written down.  Other than that, our day wasn't too interesting.  I am so tired! Haha!  But at least it's time to sleep!

Well, hopefully this letter gets to you in a quick manner.  It should since I am sending it through the pouch.  But I will be emailing you guys, of course, with my stories.  Thank you for your support.  I love you guys and I pray for you everyday!  I love you and I hopefully will be writing again soon!

Love,
Elder Milton

P.S.
Our mission has a pretty unique rule!  We can't drink any cola products!  So I am sending my last Pepsi label from Argentina!  Haha!  I can have it in 2 years!  :)

This is a picture of the label from MJ's last Pepsi he had while in Argentina

MJ's Farewell Talk

If the previous link did not work for you, click on the video below.  (Thanks JamieJo!)

Mission Farewell Talk - November 10, 2013

I am hoping this works for all of you.

Below is a link to an audio file for MJ's Mission Farewell talk.  It was a fantastic talk and I know any of you who were unable to make it to the farewell will enjoy hearing it.

Click on the link to download it.  If for some reason it does not work, email me and I will send you the audio file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1iNSj8GwCE2SnpzU2Rhd05uSlk/edit?usp=sharing

Week #12

Hola Familia!

That is some really cool information about the temple! I really enjoyed the pictures you sent me also! Its good to see everyone is doing good! Also happy Annverseray to Mom and Mike! Time sure does fly by! It seems like yesterday was the first day Mike came out to California to meet us! Crazy crazy!

Kelly is going to New York! That is crazy crazy! But I am so proud of her and I am extremely excited for her! She is going to be an amazing missionary! I know it :)

It is good to hear that everyone enjoys these letters! I definitely look back at them and have a pretty good laugh at myself! This week was a interesting week. This week we recieved a notification from our landlord that he would like the house back in the beginning of March if at all possible. So Elder S. and I did quite a bit of House Searching. Which was really fun! We walked aroud for like 4 hours one day and havent found a single house for rent in our area! So we came up short on that part. Also we have recieved word from our mission president that our area is going to get another set of missionaries. All of my roommates are hoping that they are hermanas! Because hermanas really help with church attendence! And for our area it is severely needed. We have about 300 non actives in Elder S. and Is area alone. There is a lot of work to do so either way we are excited for the new companionship! Also today we found out our exchanges....and I am staying and still training under Elder S.! I am actually really glad. I have grown to really like this guy! Hes a great example and he helps me a ton with spanish! So I am going to take advantage of the time I have with him!

So Tuesday was a day. Mid morning we found out that we would be having divisions...and I would be staying here! Meaning that I would plan the day, figure out who to visit, and what to do. I wasnt nervous about any of that stuff! I was nervous about if I knew HOW to get anywhere...or WHERE these people lived! You know me and how bad I am with directions! The Guy that would be spending the day with me his name is Elder E., luckily he is from California so he knew English! So that was a huge blessing right there! But when he came to my house he saw how nervous i was and told me the first time he was left in charge, he got lost for 3 hours walking around! And he accidentaly left his area into 3 different areas! So he told me it couldnt be worse than that....well that didnt really help me! That made me 10 times as nervous! Well before we left for the day i took a minute to ask the Lord for guidance in my day. Well to sum up our day we had 5 really good lessons! 3 with inactives and 2 with new investigators we contacted! It was actually a really good day. And i was extremely grateful to not get lost! So the Lord is watching out for me...thank you guys for all your prayers :)

So theres this guy in our ward and his name is E.. We vistit him pretty often because his family are not members so we try to include them in our lessons! Well this week they offered to have us over for dinner which rarely rarely happens even with members so Elder S. and I were extremely excited! Well come to find out they invited us over because they wanted to teach me how to cook some Paraguyan meals! They said I needed to learn how to cook for Kelly when I get home. I laughed pretty hard at this because I told E. about Kelly one day because he asked. And I guess he told his Mom and his dad about it so they were really set on teaching me how to cook these meals! So I learned how to cook Tortilla Paraguayan style, which is like fry bread, and also this stuff called geesal? I dont know how to spell it! Its in Guanani i think! Well the geesal is steak with peppers onions tomatoes and rice! It was pretty good and simple! The meal turned out really good! And I got to help make it! It was actually a good thing to learn!

The best part of the week was Hermana C. expressed her desire to be baptized! She has been an investigator for 9 YEARS. Shes had some problems holding her back from baptism and she finally decided to resolve them. This has been amazing to see. She expressed to us that she doesnt care what other people think, and that she knows that this is right. She wants to set an example for her children. She bore her testimony to us and started crying. It was extremely touching. The baptism will be taking place this Saturday and i couldnt be more happy for her! I will tell you all about it and take a lot of pictures!

I sent a letter today! And also with it a letter for Kody for his baptism! So look for it! Well this week has been an interesting one but it ended really good! I am staying and I get to witness a very special baptism on saturday! Thank you guys for your prayers! I truly felt them this week! As always you are all in my prayers and I love you very much! I will be writing you next week! So enjoy your week and until next time :)

Love.

Elder Milton

Week #11

¡Hola Familia!

Okay okay okay...let me just say that I predicted the Seahawks and the Broncos to the Super Bowl from the beginning. Okay thats good enough justice for me! What a poor showing!

 

I am also really glad to hear that Kody is okay! That sounds really funny but of course It couldve turned out bad! Please enjoy the Gilbert temple :) people here admire how many temples we have been blessed with in the United States! Theres one in Paraguay which kind of makes sense because Paraguay is small but Argentina also only has one currently! Thats crazy Argentina is huge! So just something to be grateful for :)

 

This week has been interesting to say it plainly haha. I will just start from the beginning...On mondays part of our P Day is set apart to shop for groceries! Well for some reason my companions didnt have any money to go shopping this week which was fine because it was the last week of January so we were going to the bank anyways to get our money for February! I was just perplexed because i still had enough money to buy groceries for two weeks and Elder S., Elder O., and Elder M. all were out of money. It was just sad haha. Well we go to the bank and guess what all of them didnt have sufficient funds haha. Well i laughed at first but then we called the Elder who is in the office in charge of the money handling for the mission. He told us he figured everything out but the money wouldnt be our accounts until 11PM. Well i couldnt just let these guys starve so I rationed money out so they could at least buy one meals worth of food on monday. The problem with the money is that we would have to waste time to withdraw it on tuesday because our time to buy stuff is on Monday. So i was a little disappointed about that. Well Tuesday comes around and we head to the bank and we still have insufficient funds haha. We call the office and tell them, and they just say that we need to try again tomorrow. Okay now there are 3 very hungry elders in my house and they are going crazy haha. Wednesday comes, but this time we decide to pray that the money will be there so we could purchase our stuff and stop wasting time. We get there and Elder S. goes first. He decides to check his balance first and he doesnt have a penny haha. Well he was about to give up but i just had a feeling that he should just try to withdraw the money and see what happens. Well he tried to withdraw and lo and behold he got his monthly money! haha Elder O. and Elder M. also recieved their monthly allowance so everyone was saved!

 

Thursday was a really good day! We had a zone conference and also interviews with the president! My interview with the president was really good. The first thing he says to me is that My companion Elder S. told him my spanish was really improving. So President Mc. gave me the choice to have my interview in Spanish or English. Why not Spanish? haha well it actually turned out really good! I feel that i understood about 80 percent of what he said. My speaking however was alright. But I love talking to the President i get along really well with him! So everything went really well. Also on Thursday i had my weekly english class. I taught them days of the week and months of the year and pronouns. They are so excited to learn english haha. I just hope i can teach it good! English is really complicated!

 

Saturday was a funny day. Before I tell this story I just want to say that I have never seen my companion laugh so hard. Well we have a regular lunch appointment with this family on saturdays. This saturday was a little special though because she asked if we could cut one of her plants down. Of course im not going to refuse a chance to use moroni(my machete) So we get there and this plant is like a a vine that has grown and wrapped itself around a fence post. Really easy like five cuts and done. Well i take one cut and after I see this wasp slash hornet thing on steroids so I hesitate. Well i dared elder s. to try to cut it in half with his machete. So he tries it and as soon as he misses it the whole swarm comes out of this plant. before i could realize what was going on one of them landed on my hand and stung me! Oh my word it hurt so bad! I dropped my Machete and started running around screaming and yelling and jumping like fairy! Man it had to look really hilarious! well Hermana came and put an onion on it to reduce the swelling? Ive never heard of this but it worked haha! After lunch I was too scared to go near the bush again so Hermana took Moroni out of my hands and started to go over to the bush. I was like Dont do it hermana! But she took one swing and a hornet bolted out of the bush and stung her on her lip. She was freaking out. Honestly it was kind of sad...but even more hilarious haha! Well eventually the bush vine thing was cut down but not by doing. I will never forget how hard my companion laughed. It made my day and all the pain go away!

 

Well I hope this letter finds everyone in good spirits! I cant belive Kody is getting baptized! Hes so old! I will definitely write him a letter :) also i havent recieved the package :( but i did get the christmas card! I love it! Its hanging on my wall so thank you :) Well I love you all and i hope you have a good week :) Thank you for your love and support!

 

Love,

Elder Milton