Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your e-mails!!! That's amazing that Jennifer already took her driver's test and has her license! You have to tell her it's not a real license until she can drive the Tercel :) . It's pretty crazy driving here from time to time. This gives a whole new meaning to defensive driving. It's really funny because I notice when I drive here I have the thoughts pass through my head as when I used to drive in Carbon Canyon. It's just crazy trying to watch everywhere at once and with people passing on every side I feel like everyone's in a race. Elder Miles drives most of the time which is fine by me because I don't want to be responsible for any damage to the car. It was kind of funny because another Elder, Elder Lampricht, hit a pole when he was parking the car and he's not allowed to drive anymore. I'm just going to be really careful. It reminds me of Uruguay and how Aunt China was a crazy driver :) . I had actually heard about BYU from Lisa but I hadn't heard about Ohio State. In my last interview with President Lindahl I mentioned how BYU was doing well and he pulled up the BYU stats on his computer because he was a little curious too. Projects in the offices have been pretty nice but we're going to have transfers this Tuesday/Wednesday which means I have to work with that. We're also at the end of the month which means I have to finish the Baptism forms before the deadlines so the mission can count our baptisms in the Area records. Things are just crazy. We also have an elder in the offices, Elder Morgan, who had surgery so he's been living with us and recooperating a bit. He and his companion, Elder Whiteford, are really funny. They talk to us about their area, Uspallata, which is so far out that it doesn't have a stake or district. It technically belongs to the mission. They've had days where they walk for hours in the middle of nowhere to get to an investigators house and then hours and maybe run into a few contacts on the way but there really aren't many people there. They've made up games based on cars that go by like if they see a Chile license plate that's a couple points and then if there's a Venezuela license plate they win the game. They remind me a lot of Julie's sense of humor. Elder Morgan's still here but Elder Whiteford is with Elder Lampricht in Uspallata right now. The Elders are actually going to be replaced by Elder and Hermana Arce, couples missionaries. He's going to be the branch president and he's going to fix up the branch a little because all the members were arguing. Changes in the offices just keep coming too. For example the assistants are basically being stripped of their "perks" like for example they've already lost their car and now they won't be coming into the offices anymore. They might also lose their area and become traveling assistants like the other traveling assistants we have now who go all over the mission and do divisions with other missionary pairs. The assistants used to advise President on Zone Conferences and other decisions but today President told us that Elder Miles, the Mission Secretary, and I will be his counselors in that respect. He said he thought I was like his other secretary which really made me feel helpful to him. You can tell this is hard work for President Lindahl and he said something really interesting today. He said, "I don't want to be the Mission's administrator I want to be the Mission's Minister." He wants to give us more responsibility in the offices so that he can focus more on working in the field with the missionaries and helping them improve their labors. He really loves the missionaries and you can tell he wants the best for them. He's hiring a new mission health specialist so that during any hour of the day or night if someone has a health problem, President can send someone who actually knows what they're doing instead of Elder Pederson, his old Secretary who would just have to call an ambulance. He's also building up a collection of all the best hospitals so he can know where to send the missionaries so they're well taken care of. Also during P-day today, President Lindahl drove Elder Morgan and I to the supermarket since, as he said, "Elder Morgan shouldn't be walking so far until he gets better." He even stayed there with us until we were done shopping so he could drive us back home (I do feel a little bad that even though he only bought deodorant he got stuck in a much slower line and got out about the same time we did). Hermana Lindahl has also given us sweets like brownies, banana bread, and cookies in the offices every so often. She actually had a batch of cookies for someone else that didn't turn out how she wanted them too and we were like "We'll be glad to take them off of your hands" :) . I thought they were great :) . Well I'm out of time but I can't wait to hear from you again soon. I love you all!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Storm before the Storm
Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for the e-mails this week!!! I really love reading the letters and don't ever worry about them being too long because I can print out the e-mails now and I won't have to use up my internet time to read the letters. So usually there's a calm before the storm but now there's a storm before the storm. This week has been pretty much crunch time because President is going to start organizing transfers on Monday and today's P-day and tomorrow's Sunday. Basically President asked if I didn't mind taking part of P-day out (moving that time to Monday) so we could finish his board that has all the missionaries on it. I'll send a document with my card on it so you can see what we're working on. We left the offices yesterday at 8:15PM working on finishing the backs of the cards where we have to write in all of the previous areas. We would have left even later but the bishop invited us over for dinner instead of lunch so we went to his house. We called President Lindahl and he let us stay over there past when we're supposed to be in the house because President really has a lot of confidence in the bishop of our ward. This wasn't even half of the crazyness. I had to print out a card for every one of our 161 missionaries and about half-way into the project we ran out of toner. It was pretty bad too because Elder Fuentes said that the last time they tried to buy this particular type of toner that no one had it. I was pretty much panicking at this point but fortunately we found some toner in a cabinet in another Elder's offices but we couldn't find Black toner which was exactly what the computer said we were missing. The plot keeps thickening: the computer said we were missing black but the printer had some weird error code that I didn't notice at first. When we finally figured out the code it turns out we needed Magenta toner. So now at this point the computer's a liar or the printer's a liar. In any case we actually had some magenta toner (which was the biggest break we got yesterday) so I put it in and there wasn't any more problems. So we got all the cards out while another Elder was cutting them into cards from the cardstock paper (we actually went to about 8 different stores, each the size of small countries (including Wal-Mart by the way) and no one had cardstock paper until we found a paper store and I was seriously about to give the guy a hug for finding it). After printing out the cards we started writing all the areas on the back like the old cards had. Halfway into that I had a revelation and I remembered "Oh dear, we haven't even done the cards for the Hermanas yet." I basically ran back to the computer and started formatting the cards for the Hermanas. The computer was popping out with some pretty weird errors and I was pretty much ready to explode at this point. FINALLY we finished those cards which haven't all been cut yet actually. I ended yesterday with a pretty big headache but I just felt great for all we had accomplished. Even though we still have to do next week's newsletter still (President Lindahl's coming in at 4 to finish that with us) I feel a ton better. Ok, one more problem we ran into but much earlier yesterday. When Elder Maxfield made the cards for the Missionaries on the computer he did some pretty weird formatting stuff and basically made it impossible to print from the document we had (I had to reset the computer at least a bazillion times as well as the printer so it didn't continue printing out 160 sheets of the cards we DIDN'T want (there's actually a bit of a mystery because the cards of all the Elders showed up on the black and white printer and no one knows why)). I had to make the document again so the cards printed correctly (and not with a blank sheet on just half of every page for no aparent reason). Ok, so needless to say yesterday was pretty crazy. I have some pretty crazy days to look forward to too because before the end of the month I have to write the month's Mission History and I also have to call Elders and get a hold of about 20-30 Baptism Documents that are in all parts of the mission. I also have to prepare binders for all of the Elders and Hermanas that are coming in at the transfers and then I have to update the cards for all the Elders and Hermanas that are being transferred. It would seem like at this point I would be on the floor crying but I like to use the Baseball analogy. When have the most exciting Baseball games (or any games for that matter) been? When the home team's up to bat in the bottom-of-the-9th inning, down by like 3 points, bases loaded, two strikes and the batter's sweating bullets. This would be considered a pretty stressful point, don't you think? How great does that feel when that batter just knocks the ball right out of the park? On one hand it seems like I have a ton of things to do, but when I finish these major projects I feel like I've just knocked the ball right out of the park and it reminds me of Cross-Country. At no point of a three mile race am I enjoying myself. I'd be tired, thirsty, hot and ready to just fall down because my body doesn't want to take another step. But then I just have to pick up speed and sprint the last hundred meters with everything I've got. At no point was I enjoying the race until I passed the finish line and broke my personal record. No matter how painful the race was, at the end of the race I'm reminded how much it was all worth it. Here in the offices we're not braking personal records but we are breaking "impossible" challenges. It's really amazing and I'm really looking forward to future projects here in the offices. I love you all and thank you so much for the letters!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
Goals of the Mission
Thank you all so much for the e-mails this week!!! I really love reading the letters and don't ever worry about them being too long because I can print out the e-mails now and I won't have to use up my internet time to read the letters. So usually there's a calm before the storm but now there's a storm before the storm. This week has been pretty much crunch time because President is going to start organizing transfers on Monday and today's P-day and tomorrow's Sunday. Basically President asked if I didn't mind taking part of P-day out (moving that time to Monday) so we could finish his board that has all the missionaries on it. I'll send a document with my card on it so you can see what we're working on. We left the offices yesterday at 8:15PM working on finishing the backs of the cards where we have to write in all of the previous areas. We would have left even later but the bishop invited us over for dinner instead of lunch so we went to his house. We called President Lindahl and he let us stay over there past when we're supposed to be in the house because President really has a lot of confidence in the bishop of our ward. This wasn't even half of the crazyness. I had to print out a card for every one of our 161 missionaries and about half-way into the project we ran out of toner. It was pretty bad too because Elder Fuentes said that the last time they tried to buy this particular type of toner that no one had it. I was pretty much panicking at this point but fortunately we found some toner in a cabinet in another Elder's offices but we couldn't find Black toner which was exactly what the computer said we were missing. The plot keeps thickening: the computer said we were missing black but the printer had some weird error code that I didn't notice at first. When we finally figured out the code it turns out we needed Magenta toner. So now at this point the computer's a liar or the printer's a liar. In any case we actually had some magenta toner (which was the biggest break we got yesterday) so I put it in and there wasn't any more problems. So we got all the cards out while another Elder was cutting them into cards from the cardstock paper (we actually went to about 8 different stores, each the size of small countries (including Wal-Mart by the way) and no one had cardstock paper until we found a paper store and I was seriously about to give the guy a hug for finding it). After printing out the cards we started writing all the areas on the back like the old cards had. Halfway into that I had a revelation and I remembered "Oh dear, we haven't even done the cards for the Hermanas yet." I basically ran back to the computer and started formatting the cards for the Hermanas. The computer was popping out with some pretty weird errors and I was pretty much ready to explode at this point. FINALLY we finished those cards which haven't all been cut yet actually. I ended yesterday with a pretty big headache but I just felt great for all we had accomplished. Even though we still have to do next week's newsletter still (President Lindahl's coming in at 4 to finish that with us) I feel a ton better. Ok, one more problem we ran into but much earlier yesterday. When Elder Maxfield made the cards for the Missionaries on the computer he did some pretty weird formatting stuff and basically made it impossible to print from the document we had (I had to reset the computer at least a bazillion times as well as the printer so it didn't continue printing out 160 sheets of the cards we DIDN'T want (there's actually a bit of a mystery because the cards of all the Elders showed up on the black and white printer and no one knows why)). I had to make the document again so the cards printed correctly (and not with a blank sheet on just half of every page for no aparent reason). Ok, so needless to say yesterday was pretty crazy. I have some pretty crazy days to look forward to too because before the end of the month I have to write the month's Mission History and I also have to call Elders and get a hold of about 20-30 Baptism Documents that are in all parts of the mission. I also have to prepare binders for all of the Elders and Hermanas that are coming in at the transfers and then I have to update the cards for all the Elders and Hermanas that are being transferred. It would seem like at this point I would be on the floor crying but I like to use the Baseball analogy. When have the most exciting Baseball games (or any games for that matter) been? When the home team's up to bat in the bottom-of-the-9th inning, down by like 3 points, bases loaded, two strikes and the batter's sweating bullets. This would be considered a pretty stressful point, don't you think? How great does that feel when that batter just knocks the ball right out of the park? On one hand it seems like I have a ton of things to do, but when I finish these major projects I feel like I've just knocked the ball right out of the park and it reminds me of Cross-Country. At no point of a three mile race am I enjoying myself. I'd be tired, thirsty, hot and ready to just fall down because my body doesn't want to take another step. But then I just have to pick up speed and sprint the last hundred meters with everything I've got. At no point was I enjoying the race until I passed the finish line and broke my personal record. No matter how painful the race was, at the end of the race I'm reminded how much it was all worth it. Here in the offices we're not braking personal records but we are breaking "impossible" challenges. It's really amazing and I'm really looking forward to future projects here in the offices. I love you all and thank you so much for the letters!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
Lawrence said he formatted this chart. It says, "The Vision of the Mendoza Mission". The first section has a few numbers pertaining to baptisms, amount of discussions and investigators who have attended sacrament meetings. Here is what's listed at the bottom:
Goals of the Mission
1. Open your mouth (I think this is more of an expression meaning "contact" or "talk to someone") 10 times each day before lunch, each missionary
2. 15 discussions with a member with or without an investigator
3. Have 2 new investigators in the chapel each week
4. Have 2 new baptism commitments each week
5. 15 baptisms per companionship per week
2. 15 discussions with a member with or without an investigator
3. Have 2 new investigators in the chapel each week
4. Have 2 new baptism commitments each week
5. 15 baptisms per companionship per week
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Loving the Office
Elder Audukaitis with the office staff (all bazillion of us at the time). Now there's only 6 but we'll be down to 5 in a little while.Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your love and support!!! I had a little more time because the computer didn't crash and I can use all of my hour this time. I even got to send some pictures! This has been a pretty crazy week to tell the truth, but more like crazy awesome. Last Monday was really crazy because I had to do all of my office duties (and Monday is like mission game day) but I didn't have Elder Maxfield to show me what to do. Fortunately I managed to get everything done in time and I sent off the mission numbers to Salt Lake with plenty of time to spare. I also got a little crash course in Photoshop as I needed to format over 160 photos of missionaries to but on President's whiteboard so he can see all the missionaries, where they are, and where they've been. It's going to be a pretty big project but so far so good. The project we just barely finished yesterday was the first mission newsletter that'll probably get sent out every week so all the missionaries can get a weekly update on what's going on as opposed to one newsletter every six weeks during zone conferences. I had to format everything so that the letter read well and made sure everything went well when it was transferred to e-mail. It'll probably get sent out this Monday so all the missionaries will have it on their P-Day. President's pretty excited to get the mission moving after the visit from Elder Audukaitis (or however you spell it). Just before, President Lindahl was in Buenos Aires with Elder Scott getting trained a little bit. He brought back an excellent quote from Elder Scott which basically says "To achieve things that have never been achieved, you have to do things that have never been done." The siesta time after lunch we usually had will now be replaced with working with the members (the ones who are awake at least :) ). At this point while I'm in the offices it doesn't affect me as much because we leave at 4:00 PM which is after when the Siesta time would have been. We work all morning, eat when we can, and then get back to work. I love it though because I feel like I'm in my element getting to contribute to the mission field in ways I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Something exciting is always going on and being able to see President so often is just awesome because he's so animated and ready to get the mission moving. Then after working hard in the office, we're really blessed in the mission field as well. We find amazing investigators like Juan Carlos and his wife Andrea. Juan Carlos is a little deaf and a little sick right now but he kept saying he wanted to go to church even though his wife told him no. We also found a Peruvian family who owns a kiosco. We visited with Rosa and left her a pamphlet about the Restoration and asked her to pray about it. When we went back she said she couldn't sleep all night because she was thinking about it and says she knows it's true. We left her another pamphlet to share with her sister and family and when we go back we're going to see how it went. We just need to focus now on getting her to go to church. Well, I'm out of time but I love you all and thank you again!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. I can now get my mail whenever it comes and it seems to only take 4-5 days from the US to get here.
Thank you so much for your love and support!!! I had a little more time because the computer didn't crash and I can use all of my hour this time. I even got to send some pictures! This has been a pretty crazy week to tell the truth, but more like crazy awesome. Last Monday was really crazy because I had to do all of my office duties (and Monday is like mission game day) but I didn't have Elder Maxfield to show me what to do. Fortunately I managed to get everything done in time and I sent off the mission numbers to Salt Lake with plenty of time to spare. I also got a little crash course in Photoshop as I needed to format over 160 photos of missionaries to but on President's whiteboard so he can see all the missionaries, where they are, and where they've been. It's going to be a pretty big project but so far so good. The project we just barely finished yesterday was the first mission newsletter that'll probably get sent out every week so all the missionaries can get a weekly update on what's going on as opposed to one newsletter every six weeks during zone conferences. I had to format everything so that the letter read well and made sure everything went well when it was transferred to e-mail. It'll probably get sent out this Monday so all the missionaries will have it on their P-Day. President's pretty excited to get the mission moving after the visit from Elder Audukaitis (or however you spell it). Just before, President Lindahl was in Buenos Aires with Elder Scott getting trained a little bit. He brought back an excellent quote from Elder Scott which basically says "To achieve things that have never been achieved, you have to do things that have never been done." The siesta time after lunch we usually had will now be replaced with working with the members (the ones who are awake at least :) ). At this point while I'm in the offices it doesn't affect me as much because we leave at 4:00 PM which is after when the Siesta time would have been. We work all morning, eat when we can, and then get back to work. I love it though because I feel like I'm in my element getting to contribute to the mission field in ways I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Something exciting is always going on and being able to see President so often is just awesome because he's so animated and ready to get the mission moving. Then after working hard in the office, we're really blessed in the mission field as well. We find amazing investigators like Juan Carlos and his wife Andrea. Juan Carlos is a little deaf and a little sick right now but he kept saying he wanted to go to church even though his wife told him no. We also found a Peruvian family who owns a kiosco. We visited with Rosa and left her a pamphlet about the Restoration and asked her to pray about it. When we went back she said she couldn't sleep all night because she was thinking about it and says she knows it's true. We left her another pamphlet to share with her sister and family and when we go back we're going to see how it went. We just need to focus now on getting her to go to church. Well, I'm out of time but I love you all and thank you again!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. I can now get my mail whenever it comes and it seems to only take 4-5 days from the US to get here.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Oops
I was just looking at Lawrence's last letter, baffled by its content, and when I scrolled a little bit, I realized that Lawrence was trying to hide the surprise. There was a nice long letter after a nice big space. He had to press "Enter" 50 times (I counted) to make that space. So, my mistake. Here is the rest of the letter that follows after a lot of white space. If you haven't read the post before this one, go read that first.
I'M IN THE OFFICES!!! :) Yeah, so President Lindahl called me last Wednesday and said "Elder Williams, I'm changing your assignment." I'm now the Historian/IT for the Argentina Mendoza Mission! My companion now, Elder Maxfield, is (or was) training me but he had to leave because he's training a new elder fresh off the plane. So basically I had 4 days of training to figure out what I need to do but fortunately I have a document that tells me everything I need to take care of (it's about 13 pages). I now help make a document called "Aguas de Cuyo" which is like the newsletter of the mission that we receive every zone conference. Now that Elder Maxfield is gone in San Ignacio where I was, Elder Miles is now my companion (the Secretary to the President). Also last conference (which was last Thursday) we had Elder Aidukaitis of the Seventy and of the Area presidency. It was pretty amazing and he even told us some of his mission stories. We learned how to be much bolder since we're working for the salvation of people's souls and not selling a used car. I also got the letter in the mail from Mom with the recipies and the letter from the Campbells. It's really crazy using a computer again for things other than Internet. I was really happy when a couple elders in the offices asked for computer help and I was able to fix the problems they had. I was talking to President Lindahl about how grateful I am that I can use what I know about computers to further the Mission Field. I also got moved into the world's most amazing apartment which is the office elders' apartment. It's three stories tall, has two bathrooms, a huge kitchen, living room, patio on the third floor, garage, and, well, I'm just spoiled. As some of the elders say, this isn't the "real" mission. Elder Duarte, Elder González's old companion, got transferred to a house that didn't have hot water, no heater, freezing cold, and in the middle of nowhere. I ended up going to the ginormous Libertad which rivals Wal-mart in size. If I'm not careful I might be sent out into the "campo" misional the next time I'm transferred. Oh, yet another perk, I get to drive! We have three mission cars and one of them is about to be replaced by a new car which is fairly nice. What I am really sad about though is all the people I had to leave in San Ignacio. I'll send a picture of the Nievas family who always took care of us and gave us lunch every Tuesday (and even sent us "deliveries" at night with food). Patricia is all set for her baptisimal date on the 20th of September and we got so close to getting her husband Erman to commit as well to the 20th. He did tell us though "You know what? I will be baptized, but I just don't feel ready yet." Well I got to go but I love you all and I hope my new Saturday P-Days don't cause any problems. Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
I'M IN THE OFFICES!!! :) Yeah, so President Lindahl called me last Wednesday and said "Elder Williams, I'm changing your assignment." I'm now the Historian/IT for the Argentina Mendoza Mission! My companion now, Elder Maxfield, is (or was) training me but he had to leave because he's training a new elder fresh off the plane. So basically I had 4 days of training to figure out what I need to do but fortunately I have a document that tells me everything I need to take care of (it's about 13 pages). I now help make a document called "Aguas de Cuyo" which is like the newsletter of the mission that we receive every zone conference. Now that Elder Maxfield is gone in San Ignacio where I was, Elder Miles is now my companion (the Secretary to the President). Also last conference (which was last Thursday) we had Elder Aidukaitis of the Seventy and of the Area presidency. It was pretty amazing and he even told us some of his mission stories. We learned how to be much bolder since we're working for the salvation of people's souls and not selling a used car. I also got the letter in the mail from Mom with the recipies and the letter from the Campbells. It's really crazy using a computer again for things other than Internet. I was really happy when a couple elders in the offices asked for computer help and I was able to fix the problems they had. I was talking to President Lindahl about how grateful I am that I can use what I know about computers to further the Mission Field. I also got moved into the world's most amazing apartment which is the office elders' apartment. It's three stories tall, has two bathrooms, a huge kitchen, living room, patio on the third floor, garage, and, well, I'm just spoiled. As some of the elders say, this isn't the "real" mission. Elder Duarte, Elder González's old companion, got transferred to a house that didn't have hot water, no heater, freezing cold, and in the middle of nowhere. I ended up going to the ginormous Libertad which rivals Wal-mart in size. If I'm not careful I might be sent out into the "campo" misional the next time I'm transferred. Oh, yet another perk, I get to drive! We have three mission cars and one of them is about to be replaced by a new car which is fairly nice. What I am really sad about though is all the people I had to leave in San Ignacio. I'll send a picture of the Nievas family who always took care of us and gave us lunch every Tuesday (and even sent us "deliveries" at night with food). Patricia is all set for her baptisimal date on the 20th of September and we got so close to getting her husband Erman to commit as well to the 20th. He did tell us though "You know what? I will be baptized, but I just don't feel ready yet." Well I got to go but I love you all and I hope my new Saturday P-Days don't cause any problems. Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
As Short as it Gets
No, I'm not talking about his new companion*, I'm talking about Lawrence's last letter. It almost seems like it was unfinished, since he didn't sign it, and that's pretty out of character for him. I hope everything's ok! I guess we can just hope for more explanation next week. Here it is!
Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for your e-mails and pictures! I'm so sorry I didn't get a chance to write everyone on Monday and I hope no one got worried or anything. P-day got changed to Saturday because the office Elders have their P-days on Saturdays....
See? I told you it was short! At least we got a picture of his new companion. And, it seems that he is now an office elder, which means he'll be working closely with the mission president. I hope we get more details next time!
*Sorry about the short joke. I have no idea how tall Lawrence's new companion is. This was my attempt at being funny, and it appears it was unsuccessful . I apologize. It will never happen again. ;)
Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for your e-mails and pictures! I'm so sorry I didn't get a chance to write everyone on Monday and I hope no one got worried or anything. P-day got changed to Saturday because the office Elders have their P-days on Saturdays....
Old-New
Elder González and Elder Maxfield
Elder González and Elder Maxfield
See? I told you it was short! At least we got a picture of his new companion. And, it seems that he is now an office elder, which means he'll be working closely with the mission president. I hope we get more details next time!
*Sorry about the short joke. I have no idea how tall Lawrence's new companion is. This was my attempt at being funny, and it appears it was unsuccessful . I apologize. It will never happen again. ;)
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