Oh my!! Que me esta pasando che?

June 9, 2011: Latest news on the Chilean volcanic ash and flights to and from BsAs

June 6th email:
Well this past week.... what can be said? We just taught... a lot.  We had so much help this week from the members and were able to have one of the highest amount of lessons with members that we’ve had with 14. And we had 25 lessons in total, awesome. As a district we also had 99 total lessons for taught this past week, the highest it’s ever been. I’ve learned so much from all of the Elders and sisters here; they are amazing. It’s awesome to see them grow and have success as well. Ximena did not go to church yesterday, but she was not feeling well so can’t do much about that. She still has desires to get baptized but doesn’t feel or recognize that she is totally ready, even though she is. And since she didn’t go to church yesterday she can't get baptized this Saturday, maybe Sunday but I won’t be here. So sad. Might not have a baptism my last week unless we see an awesome miracle. But we had some amazing lessons again with the rest of our investigators.  Mercedes...SHE WENT TO CHURCH AGAIN! She kind of wasn’t sure during the last lesson we had with her and it seemed like she wasn’t having that good of a day but throughout the lesson you could see her change and get happy, I love that. And her daughter, Florencia, was there as well and went to church yesterday too! It was so cool to see them.  And the members are really nice to them. That made me really happy. Yesterday at church we had amazing attendance and testimony meeting. I could feel so much love for everyone and the spirit was so strong. Our Heavenly father loves us so much! Last night we were also reading 2 Nephi 2 with Ximena and I loved reading verse 25 again.  It’s just that simple - the plan of salvation.  Adam fell so that man exists, and the REASON for why we exist is to have Joy, I thought about it in a different way last night. But what a simple yet powerful assurance that we are living so we can have JOY - that’s love if you ask me. So good week to sum it up, hard times but feeling the spirit daily and receiving revelation is indescribable. The cool thing is that it can be like that for all of us, not just missionaries. Even though we do dedicate all our time everyday, there's soo much time to be able to do it in our normal lives. 

I love you all and am so happy and so scared at the same time to see you. Remember you are all here to have joy. 

Love,

Drew  

PS - I probably won't be emailing next Monday, but if I have time I'll get on the computer.  I'll be at the mission home for half of the day and then I suppose it's to the airport, depending on what time my flight leaves.  Can't wait to see you!

Ahhhhh

So this week went pretty well, incredibly fast though!!!  Though we weren’t able to teach a whole bunch this week, we had some really spiritual lessons with people.

We also did some service.  We cut down some trees so some people could start building a house on the land.  It was funny because it brought back memories I had from back in my first area when were doing service and I broke a member’s shovel. So as I was cutting down this tree.... and just about to say TIMBER!!!  I took one more hack and, yep, to my surprise the axe handle totally broke in half!! Ha-ha!  We laughed, I felt bad, and now it’s over. I kept using the part of the axe I had left, though, so I didn’t let it get me down!

Jimena went to church yesterday.  We are going to ask her tonight if she’d like to get baptized this coming Sunday after church or on the 11th. I travel back to BsAs on the 11th but I'm not sure at what time.   If we have any baptisms that day hopefully I'm still here. We also had another older lady who went to church yesterday. Her name is Mercedes. We have been teaching her and her daughter for quite some time. Her son committed suicide a little over a year ago and it’s been really hard for her.  She doesn’t get out much and is really lonely in her house and always has told us that she wasn’t ready to go to a church, not even hers.  We had our branch missionaries with us during the lesson and they helped a lot. I really wasn’t sure what to say or what she needed but I just opened my mouth and the spirit just filled the room. She has a bird as a pet and it was noisy the whole time but when I started talking it stopped making noises for about10 minutes and you could tell the spirit was there so strongly - something I really needed. Then the member with us started bawling, shared her testimony and felt a lot of love for this lady.  She ended up going to church yesterday! Such a miracle!

Half of the week was a bit hard. I feel a lot of temptations, mostly just getting me down about working since I have such a short time here. My head has been battling back and forth. I’m going to miss the mission and I know our area and the zone here in Ushuaia is about to explode which makes me not want to leave but at the same time I'm ready for the next stage of life. I'm in 2 worlds at once and it’s really complicated and sad. But I'm trying so hard to not think about it and work hard until the end because that’s what I want to do and the Lord is helping me.

I miss and love you all. One more week to write, weird... Love you all,

Love,

Drew

Book of Mormon: An Introduction

Live Like You Believe

Snow Day

Hey everyone!

So this weekend we got an unexpected visit from the snow! Ha! It started Friday afternoon and just kept going and going.  We got trapped for about an hour waiting for the bus and we didn’t have any credit on our phone to call anyone to pick us up. So we used the time to our advantage and made a little snowman. I didn’t have my camera, though, so I don’t have any evidence! .  .  . Then we went to another bus stop and while we were waiting we started throwing snowballs and my comp threw one and then totally slipped and fell . . . Then yesterday we walked out of our house to go to lunch and my comp fell again; got up then 10 seconds later slipped and fell again . . . I think it’s so funny, though, and I haven’t fallen yet so he can’t make fun of me. 

 It was an interesting week, though. We saw Satan working really hard with pretty much all of our investigators. We taught a lot of lessons, which was awesome, but a lot of weird things happened with the people we taught last week. Some aren’t progressing and we weren’t able to find some of them for some reason, was really sad.  I saw a lot of them having sad or hard days but they wouldn’t let us in and it just hurt me knowing that we could have helped and they didn’t let us. . . .  So it was kind of a bittersweet week.  We taught and found some new people but at the same time we weren’t able to help or see a lot of the investigators we had from the last few weeks. It was a trial week but we still have a lot of desire and plans to help and baptize the people.

Hopefully I'll be here to see some of them baptized because I love all of them so much. Cristina also told us she is going on vacations to visit her family next month and doesn’t know when she’s coming back . . . So that’s about it . . . . We are still going to work as hard as we can and not let what happened this past week effect us.

Hope you all have a good week. I miss and love you all. And let me know by next week what you want me to bring you from here so I have time to go buy it.

Love,

Drew

PS - Hey mom! Glad you had an awesome week and good time in NYC.  Sounds like it was a blast; now back to reality!  No we didn’t hear about the rapture or the world ending on the 21st, here . . . 

I think it might be kind of sad when I leave but it hasn’t really sunk in yet.  I love it here and I love the people more than ever so I’m sure it’ll be hard, but I knew before I left that I’d have to go home one day so it’s ok.

It was hard week with the investigators but it was kind of out of our hands  . . .  It was just a week of trial to test our faith and patience.  We kept working hard, though, and had some good success anyways so now we just have to work even harder to find them again.  Everything will turn out all right!

Fe y Deseos....Milagros

Hello to all my family out there...and everyone else! 
 

This week was amazing! First off, one of the days this past week we had tons of help from the members and we ended up having tons of lessons with them - it was awesome! Then I had training meeting for leaders on Thursday and Friday. They were awesome and I learned so much. We didn’t get to hear everything, though, because Skype and the Internet kept cutting out. On Friday I was at the church for 11 hours!  After our meetings, I did a baptismal interview for the sister missionaries’ investigators. The interview was awesome. The lady was so prepared and it was just a spiritual experience to see how the Lord prepared her to accept the gospel.  Then afterward, another couple came in and said they wanted to get baptized as well but they weren’t married. She was going to leave him to get baptized but then he said, “No, I want to get married and baptized too.” So the sisters went back and talked with them and they said they’d wait, get married and get baptized at the same time. But the guy changes his mind a lot so they asked us to give them blessings. The guy asked me to do his and it was such a spiritual experience; the spirit was soo strong. Afterward he said he was sin palabras (speechless). The cool part - before the blessing he looked dark, sad, kind of lost. After the blessing his face was bright; he was happy and smiling.  There was a HUGE difference. Then we stayed and talked with them and with the sisters.  It was one of the most spiritual times I've had in a long time. The guy prayed for the first time and felt good, and said he knew the Book of Mormon was true and wanted to continue. So cool.   After that, I was drained in every aspect; mentally, physically - you name it.  But those experiences we’ve had were amazing and changed me a lot - or strengthened me. I have soo much more of a desire to baptize and the spirit was so strong.  I was guided by it during the rest of the appointments we had this week. Every appointment we had resulted in the person accepting a baptismal date.      Then Saturday we found a lady and her five children who were references from Belinda. The lady was going to another church but her kids didn’t want to go to that one and said they wanted to go to ours and she decided to listen to us as well.  We planned for a member to go pick them up on Sunday and 4 of them were able to go - including the mom.  We also had a lady and her daughter come (Adriana and Diana).   The husband (Andres) couldn’t go.  They are an amazing family; I love them so much.  We just have to get them married.      So we had 6 investigators at church and have 8 people with baptismal dates.  We are also going to get one for Andres and Diana. The Lord blessed us soo much. It’s incredible the miracles He gives us when we have faith and desire. The Lord really changed me a lot this week and I'm soo happy because I have such a desire to baptize before I leave.  I'm trying to work so hard.  He has come through for me in the clutch.     I love you all and hope you have an awesome week. Only a couple more until we will be seeing each other!   

     

Love,

Drew

P.S. Attachments are pics from Puerto Williams.

Also, Jimena couldn’t come to church and another investigator we had was going to attend but her little girl randomly got sick and they went to the hospital:(  But they are coming next week.